"Deepest River"

Chapter 4

Amidst the blackness, she heard water swishing. It was gentle, it was slow, taking all the time it had in the world, tickling the boat with no greater intention than to sway its passengers back and forth, as if rocking them to sleep. She opened her eyes and saw things with a layer of blur over them. She focused them onto the yellow crescent moon above them which attracted other pairs of eyes below itself. If they weren't passengers on a cold sea's night, she would have enjoyed a picturesque idea such as this.

Haruhi's right hand immediately flew up to squeeze her nose as the urge to sneeze came up again. She would not let her nose betray her again; it would wake Kyouya up for sure, and after it took him such a long time to fall asleep too…

She turned her head slightly as to not disturb him. His face wore a tired and resting expression, which surprised her a bit. She did not suppose anyone like him would have slept as gingerly, probably simply because he was so hard and rigid most of the time, and did not let his guard down. Without glasses, he gave her an image of Tamaki, but slightly different. Trickery had he always played on his face, and she had believed it. She did not expect this sort of grace.

Finally, the rich and the normal shared something in common. She would not use the word "poor" because she wasn't, only lacking in the amount students at Ouran would have speculated her to have. No matter what one did, or however rich they could be, they could not buy one natural, good night's sleep from anyone or anywhere.

It took her a moment, ever since waking up, but her cheeks spiced up as the white on her cheeks turned into a pink blush. She had not noticed, or merely was distracted otherwise, but a weight was on her shoulder the whole time. Kyouya had his trimmed fine hand around her shoulder, and was bringing her firmly into himself, leaving her no choice but to lean up again him with her whole body. She looked around and nobody else expect for married and couples who were in each other's arms. She blushed again. People were probably getting the wrong idea about him and her.

Her mind wandered a bit, just to escape the last thought, but the cold wind came again to remind her of reality. Sure, the crew was paddling their little excuse of a dinghy on the great ocean, but that was no explanation on why it was so deadly cold that night, and she was more glad than ever that she took a washroom break before the breakdown of the plane.

But they were alive.

She leaned in towards him and lowered her eyes just a little. For all the danger she knew they were in, she felt safe. His jacket did feel nice, so then, what did she feel uneasy for? Looking around through half-closed eyes, would they still be able to get to Paris? Definitely not on time, surely…

Surely they'd never get to the harbour for a long time, and even then, which harbour exactly? She felt certain that the crew on board weren't sure themselves of exactly where they were; uncertainness reigned over the atmosphere as an utmost layer of indifference to most people. Compasses were always the tools of rescue in the stories she heard, guiding, while the hand around them neither trembled with fear, nor stained them with sweat, but unfortunately, some stupid junior on his first flight with the pilot had forgotten to fetch the dearly needed compass, letting their arrows point north in the water.

Yes, this was certainly not her day. Back at Ouran, everything always seemed to be against her, whether it was having no say in what she wanted to do, being practically owned by the Host Club, or just being teased by the twins, having an off day then did not seem out of the ordinary. It was—something that just went along with her daily routines. She remembered once Hikaru and Kaoru kept pestering her to spend her spring break with them, at another exotic resort on the other hemisphere, saying she should stop being a bookworm and enjoy the "golden years of teenage-hood" and they would not take no for an answer. Oh, how they tried to convince her, bribing her, asking her father, taking her notebook and saying that if she didn't go they'd burn her homework, and even getting Hunny and Mori-sempai to help them. Sure they had put up a fair argument, but that only attracted Tamaki to the fight. It became the fight for Haruhi's vacation, and strangely--here she blinked—she had agreed to Australia for a week, with Tamaki, but it was only after Hunny's often reasonable input into a conversation that made her change her mind about going on vacation. Where Hunny was now…she could not say, but a few months ago in the newspaper made her worry so, and where Hunny was, Mori was surely present.

She told herself to calm down. Suddenly, breaking the mood suitable for an afternoon rendez-vous at a French country café were it not for the wet state of her clothes, a hand on board cried out.

"Ship sighted! On our left in the far distance!" With this, Haruhi saw that those awake around her spun their necks full of hope at delight at the sudden feeling of being saved, as if the sight of the faint light ahead of them was all it took to return them to their comforts of feather coverings and memory foam. She thought it unlikely they would be saved with speed, but atleast it was something. She saw it too, it was not a star, not another plane, but the quaint lights belonged to those of a freight ship, one of old designs perhaps? She turned to wake Kyouya up to the new event, but to her surprise, he was already eyeing the ship with a hard, intense look. Something else was obviously bothering him enough for him not to be overjoyed at the first sight and hint of a change of clothes.

Ever since seeing Kyouya long ago in that "commoner's shopping center," as they had called it, helping out the old lady from buying a fake item, she had always had an opinion on his eye. Although the lady turned out to be the owner of some company or rather, but still, it was a turn for him, being the good guy. Intense as it seems to be under his gaze, it could spot things from a mile away. She decided to find out what was wrong.

"What's wrong Kyouya?" She saw him squinting with all his might without his glasses.

"Isn't that a—" here he stopped and squinted harder, "—German ship?"

Haruhi's eyes widened. How could she not notice the obvious black red and yellow? Murmurs of fear fluttered throughout their craft as others also realized that it was not help on the way.

"No..." she heard a woman cry out softly with no voice. Haruhi felt almost as let down by this turn of events, but she did not express her disappointment out loud. She felt that this whole fiasco had not affected her as much as the people surrounding her.

Beside her, Kyouya swore quietly, clearly not caring if he offended anyone else. "We'll have trouble now. They'll either take us back to Germany as hostages for making deals with Japan, or they'll shoot us."

"What?" she said. It wasn't really a question, but she had moral doubts about anybody that could kill another human being. How could one pull the trigger? Even if you came to regret it later, sympathy and compassion had nothing in themselves to save those you shot. When she was little, it had never occurred to her, while watching police shows, that the men who fell on the ground, were so-called, dead. She had not understood what it meant for a body stop moving.

"I doubt they'll end out lives just yet though…hostages will be the easy way out when they're negotiating for oil. However, it's very unlikely that their freight ship is traveling in the atlantic all alone without any protection…"

After this she heard nothing. She watched the grey mass of ship approach them with an air of foreboding silence. It was a huge ship with much empty bulk and space, all for carrying supplies she supposed, with a single flag erected on the topmost deck. She was almost surprised not to see smoke stacks poking out from the roofs of the ship, thinking that it would be old-fashioned for some reason. Perhaps it was the similarities between now and that of World War II. And she, a young women stranded in the middle of the ocean.

The ship came so close to them until it felt like its mass would overtake their small lifeboat, each one full of over eighty passengers. She felt others around her hold their breaths as a slim rope ladder was unfurled from the top, three men with brown hair colours slid quickly down. They all eyed the men with caution, contempt at the guns slung on their back. With their expressions and clothing, it was quite clear they were military men. They dared not to make any sound.

However, before the soldiers said anything, they heard a distinct low hum from overhead, with increasing force. Her head turned up instinctively. It was an airplane. Well, not exactly an airplane for passengers bustling with flight attendants, but one filled with bombs and bullets. A plane capable of killing, accompanying and overseeing their supply ship safely back to home. The hunk of flying technology landed near them, bringing up sprays of seawater onto their faces.

Nobody knew an ounce of German, and it appeared that none of the young soldiers knew Japanese either, but one of them knew English. Commanding in accented English, they were told to file up in line and board plane and ship. Both were destined to end up in Germany, so it was decided that males, being the dominant number, would board the ship, while the female and children would board the plane. The plane would land inland, after the ship docked.

The soldiers pointed their guns in case of resistance, as there was usually some kind of futile rebellion in their presence, for this was war, but the Haruhi saw no one make a sound. Perhaps the rich were afraid that these men, so foreign with their green and brown coloured eyes, would hurt them for the jewelry they were wearing? Or that diamond encrusted watch?

She and Kyouya glanced at each other silently from opposite sides of the boat, waiting their turn to board. He saw her worried look, tensing up her brows, and shook his head with closed eyes. Even he was staying quiet, but it was not an expression of defeat and obedience from him. She felt that if him, with all his better side of judgment, chose not to complain, then she would be wise to stay quiet, even though she desperately did not want to be separated from the only source of friendship she knew of on the ocean.

She could feel her the edge of her eyes begin to swell. He smiled warmly and reached out his hand just before she entered the steps onto the plane. She took it and received a firm squeeze.

The night was still as quiet as it was before, but a riot was starting in the atmosphere. Haruhi let go of his hands and entered the plane without looking back, taking each step as if her whole life's focus were upon her feet. He saw her head enter the shadows of the plane and did not say anything. After all, she didn't say goodbye either, so why should he? They knew they would see each other again, and they were not alone.

His hair was blown back as the engine of the plane fired away, sending her into the sky, while he watched as any mortal would from the ground, keeping up with the ship's sway as it was readying to depart itself. He tightened his grip on the rusted handlebars on deck. They weren't separated, they were just farther apart.

R&R….as always!

Author Notes: First AN on this fanfic….okay. Sorry for the delay, I won't lie to you guys, rather than the usual update I became a tad bit lazy…, but I was in a jam earlier on (confusion!), h/w too, and stomach virus was evil, but anyways, to make up for lost time, I've been writing rather madly, typing and typing away, and now here I amo, a great big thanks to all my readers, could not have done it without your support. Keep the reviews coming…! And I shall try to stay healthy…haha….yeah….I'll drink milk or something…