Hello! Another chapter… to a long fanfic. Some of you might have noticed that I changed the rating from K+ to T, just because I'm a bit worried about what might happen in the future for this fanfic, so I just changed it to be safe. This is a longer chapter, so I'm definitely happy. As always please read and review!

Chapter Four

Yukia, over the next two months, continued his long road to recovery. He still had to be in the wheelchair because his legs were pretty much useless. He spent his days in his room, watching and semi helping Pinoko decorate it to his liking. After the first week he had spent living there, Pinoko had taken out all the furniture and set to work on painting it. They painted it blue, and Yukia wanted white fluffy clouds, and then he also wanted a dragon, so he painted this creepy bug eyed dragon on his wall. When he had finished it, him and Pinoko just laughed at it for a while and then ignored it, deciding that it would be an alright edition to the walls. Once the room was finished, they replaced some of the furniture (exchanged the cot for an actual bed) and added a few more items to it: a desk with a chair, a dresser, a bookshelf, and then a nice shaggy rug.

"Do you like your new room?" Pinoko had asked him once they finished.

"I love it!" he said, giggling, and Pinoko smiled.

This was the first time she had seen Yukia smile. He was quite a solemn, polite child, one that was good at following orders, and didn't talk back. It took him a while to get him to start talking, but once he did, he emerged from his shell of shyness and could blabber on for about half an hour before he thought others lost interest and then stopped.

It was after these two months that he spent mainly bonding with Pinoko that she went up to her husband and pulled him aside for a small talk. Yukia was outside in the main room watching television—some show that Pinoko had introduced him to—and wasn't really paying attention.

"I think that you should bond with Yukia," she told Black Jack quietly.

"Uh… okay. Why?"

"Because he's your son; he's been here for two months, and you haven't talked to him." Pinoko arched a brow.

"I've talked to him."

"Hardly." Pinoko pulled him out silently into the hallway and pointed to Yukia, who was sitting in an armchair, intently watching the show.

"Look at him!" she whisper-shouted. "He looks just like you!"

"Pinoko…" he glanced over at her, smiling slightly. "He's not ours."

"I know!" she said with a happy sigh.

Then she glared at her husband. "But would it kill ya to interact with the kid?"

He sighed and nodded, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. "No, it wouldn't. Okay, we'll do something."

So on the weekend, Black Jack set aside a day for which he would go and spend some time with Yukia. Pinoko had insisted that she was going to need them "out of the house for cleaning," so he went into Yukia's room and asked him what he wanted to do.

Yukia, who was sitting on his bed, had swung his legs a little bit and then answered quietly, "I want to go swimming."

He looked up. "Is that okay?"

"Yeah, sure. I mean, we live on a beach front and all. Why don't you put on your swimsuit and pack a bag of toys or something?"

"…Okay," Yukia responded, and then Black Jack nodded curtly and exited the room.

Pinoko was standing in the kitchen, and she looked over excitedly at him once he entered.

"He says that he wants to go swimming, so that's what we're going to do. Do I even own a pair of swim trunks?"

"Yeah. In the bottom drawer of the dresser that's full of things that we never use. It's got a t shirt in there too."

"Alright, then I'm going to change."

After ten minutes they were finally all ready to go and so they started off on the long walk back down the driveway, away from the cliff. There was a beach that was kind of private, and that you could only access by carefully navigating your way down a staircase of rock. Black Jack figured that if he put Yukia on his shoulders, he could avoid any possibly messy accidents. The kid's life had been full of them.

Just a while ago, after his conversation with Pinoko, Black Jack had actually pulled up the file that he had on Yukia, and had read it. In it, it had stated that Yukia's only surviving family had been his aunt and uncle. He was a child born out of wedlock, and his father had abandoned his mother once he found out that she was pregnant. He was never seen from again. And then after that, his mother, Fuyumi, had died in a car accident when he was two months old. Yukia's childhood had been riddled with incidences of dehydration and being severely underweight. He was only four years old.

Yukia glanced over his shoulder and blinked. "Papa? What's wrong?"

Black Jack's eyebrows rose. "What did you call me?"

"P…papa?" he asked nervously, his voice dropping to a whisper barely audible.

Black Jack was truly surprised, but he tried not to show it. He smiled at the kid and said, "Come on then, let's go swimming."

"Um…" Yukia stretched out his hand towards his. "Mama holds my hand for safety."

Black Jack held his hand gently as they walked along. He could briefly recall, with flashes of memories running through his mind, when he had walked along the beach with his mother, and had been this happy. If he dug back really deep into his mind, he could remember one day when he had spent time with his father, and his father had held his hand as well. But it was only that one day that he had in his memory. Nothing else, really.

He's a really cute kid, Black Jack thought. He's nice, quiet, and doesn't get in the way of work. Pinoko and I are lucky to have him.

They finished their walk down to the rocky stairs and made their way down. Yukia pulled off his shirt and reached into his little bag to find an action figure he had brought along. He saw the other thing that was hidden away in the bag, and quickly shied away. He glanced over at his father nervously. How would he react if he knew? He wasn't going to steal it, after all—he had just wanted to look at it; it was cool.

They got in the water and Yukia paddled around a little bit, and Black Jack floated around as well. Yukia came up to him then and started talking.

"You know how big sharks can get?" he asked him. "Huge!" he spread his hands far apart to demonstrate.

"You won't likely find them so close to shore, though," Black Jack told him. "So if you're worried, you don't have to be."

"I hope not," Yukia said, and then dove underneath the water.

He came up five minutes later and then paddled around for a little while until he talked to him again.

"Hey, do you like being a doctor?"

"Yeah," Black Jack responded with a grin. "I make a lot of money off of it."

"Oh. Can… can I be a doctor like you?"

"Sure, why not? As long as you don't goof off in school, I don't see what could hold you back."

"…Can I be a better doctor than you?"

Black Jack laughed and splashed him a little bit. "Ha! I'd live to see the day."

Yukia giggled and splashed him back, and then the two of them engaged in a playful little fight.

Pinoko watched them from a distance. She stood outside, hanging up the clothes on the clothesline, and smiled when she saw them playing.

"Looks like they're getting along," she mumbled between the clothespins in her mouth.

She hung up a shirt, and then glanced over her shoulder. She narrowed her eyes and saw in the distance, a car speeding up the driveway. It kicked up what was practically a dust storm, swirling all around.

She stiffly stood there, and glanced over towards the beach. Black Jack must not have heard it, because he was still playing with Yukia. The car was fast approaching. Pinoko turned on her heel and rushed back inside the house. She drew the curtains and locked the door and crouched beneath a window.

She heard a vicious, urgent pounding on the door and then screamed when she heard the lock being broken. A man kicked open the door and two more flowed in, carrying the body of an injured man. They all appeared to be armed with pistols, and probably more.

"Where's the doctor!" a man bellowed, glaring at her.

Pinoko, trembling, returned the furious glare. "He's not here right now."

"Well tell us where he is!" another ganged up on her, aiming his pistol at her forehead. "And do the op for free; otherwise, I'll shoot your brains out."

Pinoko then started to scream.

"BLACK JACK! BLACK JACK!"

The gunshot that followed echoed out, and brought Black Jack to attention immediately.

"Pinoko!" he shouted.

He picked up Yukia and took him out of the water. There was a crevice in the cliff wall, where Yukia could easily fit in and hide.

"Yukia, stay in here." He said, gently pushing Yukia inside the crevice.

Black Jack pulled his shirt on over his head and Yukia stared, his heart thumping wildly in fear.

"Papa—"

"Yukia, stay there!" Black Jack shouted over his shoulder heatedly. "If you hear another gunshot, then I want you to run for it."

Black Jack rushed up the stairs and then sprinted back to the house as fast as he could. He saw the black car—a foreign muscle car, definitely, black and sleek, sitting outside of their house. Black Jack came into the house and threw open the door, where he was immediately seized by two men and thrown back against the wall roughly. Pinoko, who was tied up in the corner and gagged; her eyes flashed. A man laid in front of their sofa, slowly bleeding out from a gunshot wound.

"Make sure that little wretch is tied up," one man instructed. From the look of him, it was obvious that Pinoko had not gone down without a fight. His shoulder looked damaged, and he had a large bite mark on his hand that had drawn some blood.

"Got it," another answered, his black eyes, glancing over at her.

Black Jack wrestled himself free from his captors furiously.

"Hey! Unhand her immediately!"

He stomped over and was undisturbed as he removed the gag and untied her wrists.

"Can I please sign up for some self defense classes?" she begged, glancing back at him.

"Let's talk later, okay?" he asked her, removing the rope.

A pistol then was aimed at his head.

"I don't remember you saying you could touch the girl, did I?"

Black Jack's eyes glanced behind him, where he saw one the fatter men standing there over him, a smug smile on his face.

"You're being stupid. She's my assistant. I need her."

Yukia sat crouched inside the crevice, trembling violently. He hoped that he hadn't been abandoned… Papa wouldn't have done that, would he?...

He then heard another gunshot and he jumped, and released a short yell. His worried eyes trailed up to the house. He quickly grabbed his bag, and shoved his action figure inside of it. He struggled up the steps, but managed to get back onto higher ground.

And of course, when you tell small children to avoid danger, they are going to run right towards it: like Yukia did. He remained silent though at least, and ran along the right side of the cliff to keep out of sight.

He crouched down beneath one of the windows that had a bullet blown threw it, as evident by the spider web of cracks.

"Hey!" a voice growled thunderously. "I warned you!"

Yukia clasped both hands over his mouth to avoid making any sound.

"Ronny, what the hell are you doing! You're wasting bullets!"

"Well they weren't hit!"

Then Yukia heard the voices of his parents. His father's concerned voice asking her if she was okay, and her quick, anxious response that she was okay, and that they should just do the op.

"Mama… Papa!" Yukia whispered fearfully.

Maybe that thing in his bag would help him now…? But he couldn't take on the bad guys. He was just a little thing. His eyes trailed up and over to the car.

Oh yes. That would work perfectly.