Author's Notes: This story will treat each year as a standard 12-month year in lieu of the 4-month HM year. Since HM seasons are evenly divided, this story's seasons will span 3 months each. Characters will be kept true to their natures as depicted by the game.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Natsume or the Harvest Moon series. This story and any images/characters associated with it are not for commercial use.

***Chapter 2***

Upon waking, Mivi realized the sun was already going down.

"Crap!" she uttered aloud, ripping back the sheets and stomping toward the door to put her boots on. She hadn't meant to sleep for six hours.

She marched out the door and put her fingers to her lips, about to whistle, when she noticed she didn't see any of her animals outside. She panicked for a moment before remembering that Neil had probably already put her animals away for the evening.

Oh, I really don't want to deal with him right now…

But she had a responsibility to check on all of them anyway, in case Neil had any questions for her.

Sucking in a breath to placate her nerves, she walked over to the nearest barn and peeked inside. She heard soft murmuring and discovered Neil was brushing and talking to one of her cows.

"That's a good girl, feels nice, huh?" The cow uninterestedly continued chewing grass from the manger. "You've had such a long, hard day of sunbathing and eating juicy grass, haven't you?" Neil smiled at his own joke. "Yeah, it sure is tough being a cow…and I bet…you miss your mom, huh?" His smile faltered a little. "But don't worry; she still loves you. She just misses your daddy a lot, ya know?" He stopped brushing for a moment. "I—I miss him, too…"

Mivi clutched at her heart. She was touched by Neil's sentiment, but mostly she was reliving memories of her late husband. Tears billowed their way out of her eyes yet again, and she had to turn and walk away. She decided upon the eastern barn as her place of retreat. Rounding the corner, she saw the blank spot where Rod's cart used to be and stopped still, sobs catching in her chest. At that moment, a slender, black dog came trotting around to where she stood, and she immediately bent down to cry into his fur.

"Oh, Jet," she sobbed, "why did he have to go? He was such a good man." The dog whined sympathetically. "He was so sweet, and so good to me…I just can't believe he's gone."

She cried a little more until she felt like she could stand again, and she brushed herself off before walking into the barn. A few of the sheep and alpacas bleated a soft welcome. She couldn't help but smile at them.

Glancing at their empty mangers, she knew Neil must not have gotten to this barn yet, so she filled them and occasionally giggled at the teasing nips she received at her pockets.

"Sorry, loves, I don't have any treats tonight."

BoPoof, her biggest llama, made a loud "bleh" sound at her as though to scold her, and she busted out laughing in spite of herself. She had forgotten how much she loved her silly animals. Maybe Neil was right about her needing to keep them.

Just then, the door clicked open, and said person walked in, pausing when he noticed Mivi.

"Oh, I thought you weren't gonna be here."

Mivi resisted the urge to roll her eyes at how horribly he tended to phrase things sometimes. "Well, work is work, you know. It doesn't stop just because I want it to."

"True."

He sauntered over to one of the sheep and began brushing. Mivi noticed he wasn't going as slowly and smoothly as he was with the cow. She walked over to the same sheep with her own brush, figuring she could encourage him to be a little gentler if he had her own pace to compare himself to.

"What are you doing? I'm already working on this one."

"I know, but if we work together, it'll go faster."

"…So why don't you work on a different one?"

"Well if we work on the same one instead of separating them all out, it just works better, you know?" She realized how ridiculous she sounded, but she knew that invading Neil's personal space was a good way to get him to talk.

"Fine. Whatever," he grunted.

The pair finished that sheep quickly and moved on to the next one. This time, Neil subconsciously slowed down his brushing in time with Mivi's. His eyes darted to her frequently, and she pretended not to notice. She was so close to getting what she wanted, but she had to play it cool.

"Listen…Mivi?"

"Yeah?" she asked, not looking at him.

"Look…I'm…sorry…about earlier…"

"Oh." She acted surprised. "Well thank you, Neil."

"It's just…I wanna get the pet shop going really soon since it's spring, and I've been trying to figure out how to manage all of this…"

"Well…is it too much for you?"

"What? No, no, it's not that! I mean, it is stressful, because it's business, but I want to do it…for him, ya know? I just wanna make sure I do it right."

"Rod…was a good friend to you, wasn't he?" Neil looked at her slowly and nearly squirmed, as if he realized he shouldn't be talking about such things. "It's okay to talk about him…I think I'm all cried out for the day," Mivi smiled bleakly.

"Uh…well yeah, sure, we were friends. We both like animals…liked…shit…" Neil face-palmed.

"I'm sorry to pry. I know it must be difficult to know what to say to me, his widow…but really it's okay. I have to face this, and one way to do that is to talk about him."

"Well, um…hey, look, ya know, if taking care of this many animals is too much for you, I can take some of them off your hands…if you need me to…"

Mivi sighed in slight frustration and conceded to his change of subject. "No, that won't be necessary. As it turns out, I love these guys too much to part with them, and I think they'll help me heal."

"O-kay, well good, then."

The two of them worked in silence the rest of the evening as they finished brushing the animals. Mivi then helped Neil load up his cart with the dogs and cats she'd been keeping for the pet shop and sent him off. That was officially the last of Rod's things to go. Despite that, Mivi felt a small weight had been lifted off herself. Perhaps it was because Neil had apologized, and perhaps it was because she would be on her own from then on. But somehow, she felt that now her healing would truly begin as she moved on with her life.

***End of Chapter 2***

Author's Notes: It was difficult to write this scene, because I didn't want Neil to appear too open and easy to talk to. After all, he's a complex character, so I want to make sure I respect the appropriate amount of time and dialogue it would take to break through to him. But anyway, stay tuned; the next chapter focuses on Spring Harmony Day! How will the town's bachelors treat our widow?