There was no sign of the storm the next morning. The green grass glittered with prism-like droplets that shone scattered rainbow lights when the sunlight hit it. It was really a shame that the cherry blossoms had taken such a beating; they were mostly on the ground now. Birdsong filled the air and the wind had a fresh, clean scent. The air was still chilly to the touch, though the sun would warm one's skin if they sat still long enough. A tree had blown over in one section of the house and the roof would have to be repaired, but no one was hurt, which was good. Akito told the staff where to move the inhabitants while sipping some hot, fragrant tea. The smell of brewing coffee filled the hospital area, overtaking the smell of antiseptics and bleach for the time being. Akito made a face.

"How can you drink that stuff?" he asked Hatori. It would always be a mystery as to how something that smelled so good tasted so awful to him.

"Some days it's a necessity," he admitted, stirring a lavish amount of sugar into the small cup. He glanced at the object in Akito's lap.

"Isn't that Melody's computer?"

"Yes. She left it here."

He could sense disapproval radiating from Hatori, though the doctor said nothing.

"Don't look at me that way. If she didn't want me using it, she'd keep a better eye on her things."

Hatori shrugged. He took readings from the monitors he'd put on Akito last night, took his temperature, and looked in his eyes and ears. He was just finishing up the mini-checkup when the door slowly opened. Melody appeared, still looking half-asleep.

"Good morning, Melody!" Hatori greeted her.

"Hey. Anybody see my laptop? I think it ran away last night—oh…"

She realized it was in Akito's lap. The realization and the squirm of discomfort gave him a mean sort of pleasure.

"I wouldn't leave this laying around," Akito said warningly, "you're off to a pretty bad start."

"What do you mean?" she asked, genuinely puzzled.

"You really do live in your own little world, don't you? What if you'd left this in a public place? And do I really need to tell you what a bad idea it is to be writing about all of us?"

His voice had begun to rise in anger. She winced.

"I've spent my entire short, pathetic, sick illusion of a life trying to keep all this stuff a secret," he snapped, "and in one day—one stupid mistake like that could undo everything!"

He'd grabbed her by the front of the shirt. Their faces were a mere two inches apart. Hatori, he could see, was in the background trying to figure out whether or not he should interfere. Akito shot him a warning look.

"No password protection, no encryption of any kind, nothing! I don't know how you found out so much about us in the first place, but it's got to be strange enough that you don't need to write it down to remember it!"

He thrust the computer back into her arms with more force than necessary and heard the pained grunt as the air was knocked out of her lungs.

"I erased that file," he warned, "but I won't be nice about it next time."

Melody stared at him, her eyes huge.

"It was with you the entire time…how was that putting you in danger? Besides, I only forgot it because I was tired because I helped you. I think I deserve a break for that."

"You'll get a break, all right! Arm, leg, ribs, all of the above."

People were starting to mass outside the door, pushing and shoving to try and hear what was going on. They were always glad when Akito got a new punching bag because it meant they would all be spared for a while.

"I acknowledge that I've made a mistake," Melody said calmly, "but that is no reason to threaten me."

The calmer she stayed, the more irritated Akito became.

"All right," Hatori said, stepping between them, "Akito, you've made your point, and it's a very good one. You've just gotten better, however, and I'd really rather you not waste your strength. As for you, Melody, why don't we get started on those tests?"

She gave him a grateful look. Akito's gaze was burning a hole in the back of Hatori's neck, but he didn't say anything else.

"I'll just take Akito's IV out first," he said, "and I'll meet you in the other room."

She left, glad to be out of the furious Sohma head's volatile presence. She'd seen that temper before, but having it directed at her was another experience altogether.

"You shouldn't interfere," Akito warned the young doctor, "it's going to get you into more trouble than she's worth."

He cringed as Hatori took the needle out.

"She did something for you that I haven't yet been able to," Hatori warned him, "she quite possibly saved your life last night—twice. I have no way of knowing how high your temperature was, whether this was a routine attack or if you'd developed an infection of some kind. The power was out—I couldn't run any tests on you. I'd think twice about being cruel to her."

"She should think twice about who she intrudes on and gets involved with," Akito responded, annoyed.

He watched Hatori go into the back room where the girl was waiting and ground his teeth together. What was with everyone suddenly wanting to protect these girls? They were outsiders! He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off the headache that threatened to come. It was still midmorning—he didn't want the day wrecked by a stress headache. After last night's fever episode, he decided a bath and a change of clothes was in order. It was still too cold to do any bathing outside, so he settled for the one indoors. There was probably more privacy in here anyway. While the tub was filling, he stripped off the robes from yesterday and tossed them in the basket. He chose a sky blue one today for the outer one and a plain white one for the inner one. Laying those aside, he sank neck-deep into the water. Just as he was getting in, he caught sight of his own emaciated frame. He was quite tall, but so slender—there hardly seemed to be any flesh at all stretched over the bone. Akito didn't often pay much attention to his appearance, but once in a while, he'd notice. His worst fear was of appearing weak, of dropping his role as the god of the household. This skeletal frame of his certainly did make him look weak…he sighed, running a hand through his unkempt black hair. It was sticking out wildly in all directions, making him look like an anime character from some show he used to watch as a kid. Once in the tub, he scrubbed with much more force and vigor than usual; perhaps his eagerness came from a desire to intimidate that girl. Perhaps it was to show them all that they could not be rid of him so easily and that he still had everything under his control. Feeling better after his lengthy soak, he was surprised to find that his appetite had returned with a vengeance. One of the maids had left behind a breakfast tray for him while he'd been in the tub. He had to force himself not to inhale it all at once. As usual, it was mostly plain, unseasoned food just to be on the safe side. Afterward, he had gone to sit in the sunshine, grateful that the incessant rain was gone.

He was watching a yellow butterfly flit around in the grass when Hatori appeared, knocking to announce his presence before entering. He was the only one who could come and go as much as he wanted.

"I found some rather interesting things out about Melody," he said.

Akito's navy eyes continued to track the butterfly.

"What's interesting? That she actually has a brain?" he asked.

Hatori sighed.

"Look."

He held a copy of an X-ray up to the sun. Akito peered closely at the sketchy-looking image just to humor him; he hated being reminded of hospitals or anything to do with them. The hospital wing of this place had been built shortly after he'd been born just so that he didn't have to leave home to be treated. The others, of course, had benefited as well.

"What are these things?" he asked, pointing. Aside from the spinal column and ribs that were typical on a human X-ray, there were some extra bones coming out of the spine.

"That's where the interesting part comes in," Hatori told him, "if I didn't know any better, I'd say they were wings."

"Wings? She does have a dove form," Akito said dismissively.

"And so does Kureno," Hatori said, "but he doesn't retain the wing-bones when he's human—it's only in his sparrow form. These bones don't look like vestigial bird bones—they look like they were tailored for her body."

"So she has 'wings'," Akito scoffed, "big deal."

"There's more," Hatori said, "she craves sweets and caffeine—namely coffee—constantly. She came here with a little extra weight and probably weighed more yesterday than she does now. It appears that she metabolizes fatty tissue very rapidly when she heals someone. A rough estimate of her weight yesterday would have been around two hundred pounds or so—she only weighs one-ninety-two today. She has a blood type that I can't even name—it doesn't match A, B, O, or AB. And that bluish tint in her hair is natural, just as Hatsuharu's hair is black and white and Kyo's is orange."

"We have a household full of freaks," Akito muttered, "one more's not likely to make a difference unless she's stupid enough to leave her computer out again."

He looked up at Hatori, handing him the X-ray back.

"Oh, no…you don't really believe that stuff about her not being human, do you?"

Hatori shifted uncomfortably.

"Akito, sometimes there are things that just can't be explained. There's a good possibility that she's one of them."

Akito shook his head, smirking.

"So, what do you want me to think she is? Some kind of alien? Or the way she talks about this 'Father' of hers, an angel?"

An uncomfortable silence fell where even the birds didn't fill it by singing.

"All I'm saying is that we should consider the possibility that there may be more…differences…" Hatori said, "…than we've accounted for in the human race. The Sohmas may not be alone."

With that to think about, he left Akito there, staring after him with a mixture of amusement and disbelief.

Melody smiled softly as she watched the children playing in the garden. Carrying her pouch of trusty Sharpie pens and a brand new sketchbook, she began to scope out a spot for drawing. She was glad that breakfast was over—it had been very silent and uncomfortable. Trying to get the others to talk to her had been a chore. She couldn't understand what it was about these people—normally, she got along with others easily. She still sensed a lot of darkness hovering around this place and wondered if it was that. Settling against the trunk of a tree, she took a deep drink out of the coffee cup she carried. It was loaded with enough sugar to make any normal person diabetic. She set the cup aside and began to sketch. At first, it was just neutral things like flowers and birds. The longer she sat there, the more dynamic things became. She sketched children, running and laughing among the flowers. They were all faceless, always having their heads turned and their features obscured. She was more interested in capturing their movements than their faces. Vibrant silhouettes of colors outlined them, something that her unusual way of seeing the world granted her. In the human world, her condition was known as "synesthesia"—a literal crossing of the senses. People's personalities had colors and she could pick up on them within a few minutes of talking to them and learning their mannerisms. Hatori's, for instance, was drawn in closer to his body. It was a blending of red and orange, mixing two different personality types into one. He was a passionate man, having once loved Kana so much. He was also very cautious and protective. That was where the orange came from. As for Akito, he appeared to her as a dark purple. He did not like people getting close and there was a lot of darkness in his spirit, which was why his "aura" as she called it, lacked a glow. The children were an amazing array of colors, all with brighter glows than the adults. It was probably because they had not yet learned the cruelties that this world could bring.

A shadow crossed the page of her book and she glanced up. In the shade, she could scarcely see any blue in Akito's eyes. They looked black from this angle, which made him seem more sinister. He examined the sketch on the page wordlessly, glancing back and forth to compare what she'd drawn to what was.

"What's with all the outlines?" he asked, thinking it made the children look like they were aliens or something.

"Well, I always associate people with colors," she said, "I can usually tell what they're going to look like within a few minutes of meeting them."

Kisa, he noticed, was outlined with a vibrant orange. Momiji was outlined with a sunny yellow, but a silvery color around the outside. Hiro was a bright red. Another child was pink and yet another one was green and yet another was blue. He noticed that the rest of the colors were somewhat muted, probably to make these "auras" easier to see. He didn't really understand her system, but he chose not to ask. She added a few more strokes and the picture was done—at least to her. She stood and brushed the grass off of her jeans. The children, by now, had noticed Akito's presence, and were starting to try and slip off to another part of the garden. It didn't escape his notice and he smirked.

That's right, you little brats, run!

"You know, I'd love to draw you sometime," Melody commented, "you have such fair skin and dark hair…and that deep blue in your eyes; Father really did make you beautiful. I wish I could have been there to see his inspiration."

As she was talking, her fingers had slid just under his chin. He swatted her hand away. She continued what she was saying as if she didn't really notice it. One of the many koi ponds captured her attention and she suddenly seemed as if she were miles away. As she drifted towards it, the mean satisfaction he felt dissolved, replaced by puzzlement. Akito watched her go, an odd feeling making his stomach squirm. Had she really just called him beautiful?

One of the downsides of having the "god curse" was that Akito remembered everything from his birth, even some things that had taken place before. While his father had been excited and loved him, it was his mother that had been his greatest tribulation. She had told him from the very beginning how much she couldn't stand him and how he had been a mistake. She did not tell him how handsome he was becoming or anything that normal mothers said. The Sohma girls did not want anything to do with him because they were all afraid of him. As far as what he thought of himself, well…at five feet, four inches, he was a little on the short side. His growth had been stunted by the sickness. His frame was always very skeletal, which was why he kept it covered up with the voluminous robes and long sleeves and layers—he didn't want anyone to think he was weak and he knew he was too thin. He only weighed about ninety-five pounds, maybe less. Feeling oddly naked, he wandered back inside. The only thing that was really showing was a sliver of chest and it was because his narrow frame wasn't quite wide enough to hold the robes up. He'd have to get Ayame to take these things in—again—as soon as possible.

I need to find out what she's up to, he thought irritably, I need to figure out what her game is and get her out of here before she becomes a problem. That Tohru Honda is bad enough.

He turned back around to look. The children were all crowding Melody to look at her book and she was laughing and enjoying their company. A sinking feeling tugged at his belly.

You lost another popularity contest…it's just as I told you, isn't it?

The dark, velvety voice of his mother, Ren, was always what he heard when those negative feelings came up. Though the woman had been sent away a couple of years back (and Akito himself had been the one to throw her out), he still heard her voice in his head. Nothing he did was ever good enough. Though he'd been too sick to attend school regularly, he still studied hard when he was younger and graduated early. That hadn't been good enough and neither was the fact that he'd been at the top of his class. A particularly sensitive sore spot, one that always seemed to be weeping emotional pus inside and never healing, was how open she was about hating him. Akito himself was not yet aware of it, but he kept a tight hold on all his other family members because he'd honestly come to believe they didn't want him around either. It was easier to force them to accept him the way he was than risk getting hurt.

What he also didn't realize was that it was still hurting him.

"Shut up," he snapped at the voice.

That's it, isn't it? Your three cousins, the cat, the rat, and the dog…the three you like the least…they were all lured away from you for a pretty little girl. And now, there's another pretty little girl and you're going to lose everyone else to her as well. Hatori already likes her. The children like her. They'll all want to go with her and you'll end up all alone.

He clamped his hands over his ears, but it was a futile gesture. At times like this, he could swear he saw Ren out of the corner of his eye, could feel her dark, intimidating presence. Akito trembled.

"Are you all right?" One of the maids asked.

"Leave me alone," he growled. She walked away very quickly. Akito's expression darkened as he watched Melody before storming off. He needed to get away from her where there were no reminders.

Hatori had stepped outside for some fresh air when he noticed Melody. It was almost lunchtime, so most of the children had gone inside to wash up. She was kneeling over one of the koi ponds, the tips of her fingers in the water. The koi were fighting each other over a scrap of bread. There were several hundreds of other little fish there as well, about the length of her pinky finger and about the same width as well. They came in swirling, writhing masses, nibbling anything that fell in the water out of curiosity. Melody was giggling as if she'd never seen anything funnier in her life.

"I see you've found the ponds," he remarked, unable to prevent the smile. Kana had also loved coming out here to feed the fish.

"They act like they'll never see food again!" she giggled.

"They shouldn't be worried. The children come and drop things into the water when they think we aren't looking," Hatori said.

She raised up to look at him.

"So…I saw Akito talking to you earlier," Hatori finally said, getting to the point, "what did he want?"

"He just wanted to see my drawings," Melody answered, "and then I told him I wanted to draw him and he got this weird look on his face. But he didn't seem to want to talk about it so I came over here. He went back inside."

"There are some things I should warn you about," Hatori said, kneeling next to her, "I never got a chance to tell you yesterday. I love Akito like my own son, but in loving him that much, I can see his flaws far too clearly for my own liking and I don't want you to get hurt."

"He weighs less than half that I do," Melody half-teased, "I can take him if necessary."

"That's not what I mean," Hatori sighed, though he smiled a little at her terrible joke, "he has a terrible temper and often acts without thinking in regard to himself or others. He can be both physically and mentally abusive at times, especially to younger, innocent minds like yourself. If you really want to stay here, you should know what you're getting into."

"What's the worst that could happen?"

Hatori pushed aside his bangs.

"Well, this was one of those things."

There was something she noticed. The pupil wasn't reactive to light. In fact, it was a little bit milked over. Scar tissue crossed the lid in jagged lines. They had faded over time, of course.

Melody stared hard at the injury. It was hard for Hatori to just sit there, but he did. He let her look, unaccustomed to showing people his scars as he was. She placed her hand over the side of his face and he closed his eyes. The hand gently covered the blind eye and he felt something happen. Her palm seemed to grow warmer. Though there was no visible light, he saw it in his mind's eye, radiating out from her. He heard music in his ears and saw flashes of color going by. The weariness in his body from staying up so late last night seemed to lift, leaving his limbs light and energetic.

After a moment, she released her hold on him.

"Can you see?"

He blinked, then closed his good eye. Some of the vision was restored—he could make out some light and shadows, but it remained foggy.

"A little," he said honestly.

Melody frowned.

"How long ago did this happen?"

"Almost a year," he answered.

"That must be why. I can only heal new injuries or illnesses. In Akito's case, his is chronic. I can't seem to cure him because of that and because the illness is as much spiritual in nature as physical."

She sighed.

"I knew a man that could bring people all the way back from the dead," she said, looking down at her small hands, "his best friend…he passed away due to some kind of illness. The body had been buried. Everyone was upset when he came and they even asked him why he didn't come sooner. He cried with them to show that he understood, that their suffering didn't go unnoticed. He cried because he loved them and nobody ever wants to see someone they love suffer. Then, he went out there, dug him up, and breathed his breath into him. And then his best friend stood up and was well again."

"There are others like you?"

"A bunch of us. Most people wouldn't be able to tell, though. A lot of them never notice us when they pass us. It's only when something big like this happens that they choose to see it. Even then, sometimes it's never enough."

She smoothed his bangs back down.

"So, Akito is an occupational hazard. Is there anything else I should know about?"

She followed him back into the office. Spreading the files out on the table, he told her each one of their unique conditions. Kyo tended to get sick when it rained. Yuki had asthma. Isuzu frequently came in for treatment of ulcers, and Ayame tended to not do well with cold weather.

"From time to time, you might see Ritsu as well," Hatori said, "though he doesn't really like coming here. The others give him a hard time because…well…"

He tried to figure out a way to put it delicately.

"He likes dressing like a woman."

He waited for the burst of laughter that usually came from anyone who found out about it, but Melody didn't laugh.

"His file says he suffers from anxiety," she said thoughtfully, "is that why?"

"I suppose so. It's not really clear to me which came first: the dressing like a woman or the anxiety attacks, but there seems to be a vicious cycle going on. Akito was quite hard on him as well as Yuki."

Melody scanned the rest of the files.

"Goodness…I thought it was going to be mostly Akito that needed my help," she admitted, "you've really got your hands full, don't you?"

"And that doesn't even include the ones who don't have the curse," he said.

"Well, I'll do the best I can," she told him, "where should I start?"

There were numerous small chores to be done. In order for Hatori to focus on all the "doctoring stuff", she took on all the more mundane things like cleaning, organizing, and filling out charts and paperwork. Sometimes someone would come in with something minor that she was able to fix without any difficulty. The drawback was that her ability to heal seemed to have its limitations: she could help stave off symptoms of an infectious illness, but the person's body actually had to do the work. Inflammation wasn't a problem, but their immune system would have to take over. The longer something had been going on, the harder it was for her to fix it. She couldn't do anything about old injuries other than stop them from hurting for a while. And if the illness was mental, the person would still have to work through whatever was causing it. Things like brain chemistry were easily corrected, but often there were behavioral issues that had be fixed as well and she wasn't really a counselor. By midday, she was starting to get a little tired. She'd managed to help one of the pregnant women with her morning sickness (Hatori had given the woman something to keep it from returning while Melody helped with the initial symptoms), a girl with a sprained ankle, and an older man who'd been suffering from arthritic pains. Each time she healed someone, it took a little more out of her. She drank several cups of coffee in quick succession and ate about twice as much as everyone else at lunchtime. Then, she started to feel better. Hatori noticed her paleness and asked, "Are you up to staying or do you need to stop for now?"

Melody shook her head.

"I'm just getting warmed up," she said. She had to bite her lip to keep from saying she'd only been wearing flesh for the last twenty-four hours and it took some getting used to. He wouldn't understand, at least not yet.

"All right," he said reluctantly. Ordinarily, office work wasn't that challenging, but he'd seen first-hand what the healing did to her. She finished her lunch and cleared all the dishes away before getting going again. While the computers here weren't connected to any outside networks (Akito wouldn't allow it, for fear someone would be able to get into the records), they ran on their own network. Melody put in all the new notes on each person's digital files. She smiled as she did that; she never tired of the peck-peck-peckity-peck that the keys made. She could type faster than a lot of the others that had worked here.

Hatori went back to filling out orders for prescriptions. He had to do that himself and make sure they were all signed—there were over a hundred people living in this one small area and about half of them had chronic illnesses. He also wanted to make sure he had some reserve supplies on hand so that no one ever ran out. The silence was companionable, at least. Neither one felt the need to keep a steady conversation going for now.

Poor Ritsu, Melody thought as she typed in all the notes for his file, he seems to have had a very tough life.

Letter by letter, she began to piece together a snapshot of the Sohmas. They were a very secretive bunch and Akito had almost made them paranoid. She noticed a few things that seemed to be related to their transformations. Many of them had chronic illnesses due to stress. She skimmed the older records that had been scanned in to save time and noticed that the spike in illnesses had come shortly before Akito's birth.

"Hatori," she said, turning around in her chair, "did anything unusual happen before Akito was born?"

Surprised that she'd caught on that quick, he slowly turned to face her.

"Yes, actually. Akito's mother wasn't what you'd call a happy person," he said, "when she became pregnant with Akito, she was furious. The distress the pregnancy caused her was often taken out on the others—especially the elders."

Melody's expression was one of sympathy.

"That must have been hard."

"It was. I was only a child then, but I knew something was wrong. I could feel it."

They heard someone come in, so the conversation died instantly. It was someone that Melody didn't yet recognize, but she could tell this wasn't one of the "cursed ones". In a way, though, she mused, they were all cursed for now. It wasn't a very comforting thought and it hung over her head like a dark cloud. That day's chores passed by in a blur as she turned it over in her mind…this was so much bigger than she thought it would be.

Where do I begin, Father?