Phew! Well, it's been a while, eh? This chapter was fun to write, probably because I beginning to become a big-time Haruhi/Hikaru shipper. Whoot! Haha, anyway, I'm not really sure how I feel about some of the parts in this chapter, and some of it is in French, so I reckon you'd better open up Babblefish or something.

OR I might be kind enough too...

FRENCH VOCABULARY

Combien? - How much?

Je parie que vous ne comprenez pas ce que je dis maintenant. - I bet you don' t understand what I say now.

Je ne suis pas stupide. - I am not stupid.

Touché - Acknowloging a hit.

Parlez-vous français? - Do you speak French?

Mon ami - my friend

Alors avez-vous besoin de moi? - Then do you need me?

Je ne sais pas. - I do not know.

See, aren't I just super? Anywho, I'm not going to number them or anything because numbers just cluttered it up...Anywho. I hope you enjoy this chapter! I reckon it's foreshadowing? Or is it fleshing out what she is losing?

Hmm, who knows?

Enjoy!

"The red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
O, the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.
But I send you a cream-white rosebud
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips."

- John Boyle O'Reilly "A White Rose"

Only the White Roses Wilt

Chapter 4
Terminal Illness

The airport was stuffy with congested fliers streaming to one airport terminal or another like a horde of ants. Haruhi tried not to shrink into herself as she stood in the middle of it all, a sole duffle bag slung over her shoulder. She didn't think she'd be gone long, and she was never one to pack much.

"You're too practical!" her Dad had moaned after he had insisted on her carrying a suitcase at least, and she had sharply declined. "Just like your mother…"

"Mom wouldn't be going halfway across the world looking for a stupid idiot," she muttered to herself darkly, checking her plane ticket for the terminal number. Terminal 7. The signs pointed to the left, and so she went.

It was slightly odd that she went by herself, but she didn't want the whole Host Club trailing in her wake. That was the last thing she needed. They didn't need to be as involved as her. It shouldn't have affected them as much as it had, and she wanted to protect them from whatever Tamaki would tell her. They didn't need to see him.

Then again, neither did she.

"Seven, seven, seven…" she chanted in a sutra, determined to keep her Sempai out of her mind. "Seven!"

The terminal was crowded with sleepy people, nose-deep in newspapers, magazines, laptops, and Blackberries. She heaved her duffle bag higher on her shoulder, summoned up her courage, and plopped into a seat beside a graying man in a bright orange polyester suit.

See, this isn't so bad, she thought to herself, relieved. Now all you have to do is get on the plane…

Haruhi wasn't scared of heights, per se, but she had never flown before, and first-flight jitters were crawling up her arms like little ants. She hated being scared of anything -- but especially of the unknown.

Just calm down. She took a deep breath, and then pulled out her Calculus book from her duffle bag. There was always homework to do at Ouran, and she always wanted to stay a week ahead of everyone else. Just incase the Host Club interfered. But then the thought occurred to her -- There is no Host Club anymore…

It was like a sharp crystal bell. It finally clicked.

There is no more Host Club.

Slowly, she began to close her book, but then stopped herself. She looked down to the masses of numbers, dashes, and division signs, and took out a pencil and paper, and set to work. Just because there wasn't a Host Club didn't mean life wouldn't interfere, and the running numbers humming in her head kept herself in check.

Why am I so hormonal today?

"Problem 19 is wrong."

Haruhi gave a start and shot her head up to meet dark eyes under a dark sweep of silky hair. "…Kyoya?"

"As is problem 22. Distracted?" He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He stood beside her as if it was the simplest thing in the world, and didn't bother to address how he got there. "Or are you afraid to fly alone?"

"Well -- I --"

"I told you she'd be here!" came Hikaru's cry from the stream of people. He pushed through with a triumphant smile, but then his smile dropped when he saw her face. "What's wrong?"

Haruhi's eyebrow twitched. "Why the hell are all of you here?"

"Haru-chan!" Honey bounded up behind the youngest redhead twin, hugging his pale pink bunny with a hundred-watt smile. "Whaddya think we'd do? Let you go alone?"

"I was hoping…" she muttered to herself.

Honey pouted. "Haru-chan!" he sniffled. "You'd go all alone with out us? Into big Paris?"

"You don't even speak French," Kyoya agreed levely.

"Some," she argued indignantly.

"Combien?" asked Hikaru, his arms crossed over his chest. She didn't like his tone of voice. Is he being condescending? "Je parie que vous ne comprenez pas ce que je dis maintenant."

"Je ne suis pas stupide," Haruhi seethed between clenched teeth, and the younger redhead blinked in surprise.

"Touche," he murmured, surprised, then jumped right back on the wagon by saying "But you still need us whether or not you can speak French or not--"

"Does Tamaki-kun know you know French?" Honey asked softly.

Haruhi dipped her head down and refused to look at them. "It never came into conversation. And what's it his business anyway?" She murmured, and felt guilty. Well, almost.

"Parlez-vous français?" Tamaki asked, falling in step with Haruhi to her forth block English. Haruhi was catching up on the reading she hadn't had time to do between Calculus and the Host Club sucking up her time, and she rather didn't like Shakespeare or his sonnets. All he ever seemed to write about was love.

"Parlez-vous français?" he repeated.

"No," she replied firmly in English.

"English instead?" Tamaki asked, almost horrified.

"It's more practical."

"It's not elegant, mon ami!" he stole the book out of her hands and hid it behind his back. She stopped dead, and glared at him with a hand outstretched. He ignored both her glare and her hand. "French is the language of love! Of beauty and beautiful people!"

"It's trash," she replied deadpan.

Tamaki's mouth dropped open.

Haruhi popped his chin and he shut it again. "I don't need it, Sempai, and things I don't need I don't care about."

She snatched her book out from behind him, tucked it safely under her arm, and carried on to her English class. But she heard, even when he whispered it in French, his mumbled words,

"Alors avez-vous besoin de moi?"

And she carried on without a single word.

"Je ne sais pas," she finally whispered to herself, and rose her eyes to meet Hikaru's. "I need to go alone, Hikaru."

There was an angry fire behind the twin's eyes, but he pursed his lips and forgot to breathe instead. He plunked down next to her in the chair moodily, and Haruhi knew he wasn't going to budge. Why was he always acting so childish? Not so much un-like Tamaki either.

"I need to do this alone," she repeated stonily.

Kyoya fixed his glasses. "I will arrange our refunds."

"No," Hikaru snapped. "I'm going with you."

"No, you're not," she replied levelly.

"I'm not letting you go across the world alone!"

"I'm not helpless! I can do it all myself!"

"Oh?" he scoffed.

Haruhi gripped her pencil tightly, and resisted the urge to drive it into his eyeball. "What, you don't trust me?"

Kaoru quickly gobbled for words before his twin could speak. "No! Of course not! It's just--"

"We don't trust anyone else, remember?" his twin snapped sharply, his eyes darkening to coal.

Haruhi set her jaw. "Well get over it."

Before she could move, he grabbed her by her shoulders, and she couldn't meet his eyes. "Haruhi…" he said softly, and she lost the tenseness in her muscles. His hands she felt so small against the world, and a tremor of fear ran through his bones. He wasn't stupid. He knew that she could fend for herself. But there was something raw that had bubbled up out of some inner chasm inside of her that coated her with a sheen of melancholy that he couldn't rub off. He knew that no matter how much he joked or laughed or pranked her, she wouldn't laugh. Not really, anyway.

And he knew he didn't have the cure.

He wanted to tell her how sorry he was, and how he wanted her to smile again, and laugh, and forget about the man named Suoh Tamaki. He wanted to kiss away the tears hidden in her chocolate eyes and love every last inch of melancholy away. He wanted to be her cure, however sappy that sounded, but he wasn't the right dosage, or the right medication.

The plane ticket in her hand was the prescription, and the pill waited somewhere in the rural outside of Paris.

"I'll be here, then," he told her softly, and she nodded without meeting his eyes. Then he stood, quietly, and took Kaoru's hand in his, and the Host Club meandered away without Haruhi Fujioka.

For the first time in her life, she was glad.

A world without the Host Club.

"Flight 452 now boarding to Paris, France," rang the flight attendant's nasally voice.

The brunette gathered her duffle bag and tossed it over her shoulder. She went to the door and showed the attendant her ticket. A race of a chill ran up the back of her spine when the attendant checked it, and with one more step she couldn't turn back--wouldn't turn back.

It's still an option. Just turn around. Go home. Forget about the stupid bastard.

Her head betrayed her, and she looked over her shoulder.

And there was Hikaru, standing to watch her leave, a stance to his shoulders that was foreign and natural. There was a pang in her gut, and for an insane second she had the notion to forget the silly plane, rush back to the redhead with his lips pursed into a tight-lined frown, rub the strange from his shoulders, and forget she ever knew why it looked so natural.

Stop thinking about it!

Fear filled every pore. No, she didn't feel that way. She knew she didn't. All of a sudden, all she wanted to do was hurry down the walkway into her seat where she didn't have to see him, and where she didn't have to remind herself that she, too, was stupid.

Stupid, stupid stupid!

So stupid for boarding that plane to Paris without realizing something good had happened behind her.

So what has she really left behind? Who knows?

Revue, s'il vous plaît?