A/N: I'm back.

I'm so, so sorry that I disappeared for four years. I made some poor choices and stopped doing all the creative things that I loved, but I have recently snapped out of it and I'm trying hard to do things again. Loads of people have written me emails and sent me messages asking if I'm okay, and I promise that I am. Nothing particularly bad happened, I just kinda shuffled my priorities around and got everything all back-ass-wards. Thanks so much for the patience and the love, you guys.

The next morning, Ike found himself sitting in a café called The Wolves' Pack, sitting in awkward silence as the barista's eyes burned holes into the side of his head. Skrimir had insisted on getting their order, an offer to which Ike had protested loudly ("I'm not incapable, dammit, I can stand in line and get my own coffee!") and eventually been silenced. The café itself was massive, with high ceilings and what looked to be a stage in a far corner, though truth be told it looked as though the building was far more suited to be a bar than a café. Skrimir was off to the side, having a loud but indecipherable conversation with a tall, purple-haired girl (Tolea? Ike couldn't quite remember what Skrimir had shouted upon seeing her, but the name seemed at least familiar) with matching ears and a tail.

"What are you doing here?"

Ike jumped as his espresso was slammed down on the table in front of him.

"Now listen," hissed the barista, garnet eyes flashing. "It's enough that you barge into the room while I'm preparing for a concert, but following me to my workplace is unacceptable. Take your damn espresso and leave."

Ike blinked. "Excuse me?" He retrieved his (slightly squashed) cup from the table and moved it out of harm's way. "How was I supposed to know where you work? I've lived in this city for a week."

"You're here, aren't you?"

"I'm not stalking you either!" Ike glanced down at the nametag as his brain failed to recall the other boy's name. "Soren. I'm here with a friend."

"Now you see here—"

Whatever Soren had been about to say was lost in a jumble of curse words as Skrimir shoved him out of the way, unceremoniously dropping a stack of plates onto their table. The mage gave Skrimir a long, cold stare and stormed off, muttering under his breath.

"You can't trust a mage to be polite in this day and age," Skrimir chuckled. "I ought to complain."

"Don't bother," Ike replied. "He didn't do any damage." He raised his coffee to his lips and took a tentative sip, wincing as the flavour hit his tongue. Skrimir raised an eyebrow.

"He did something to it, didn't he?" the lion asked, standing. "I'll have him fired."

"No, no!" Ike cleared his throat. "It's just…different from what Mist makes at home."

(if by "different", Ike had meant something akin to "laced with what seemed to be tobasco sauce, parsley, and a hint of grape jelly")

Skrimir inhaled as he returned to his seat, wrinkling his nose. "It smells like something crawled into your cup and died."

"It's espresso. It's supposed to smell strong."

There was a long pause.

"So—"

"I—"

Their eyes met and they laughed. Skrimir's knee touched his and Ike didn't pull away. He motioned for Skrimir to start, taking another small sip of his potion.

"I…may have reacted badly, yesterday," Skrimir began tensely. "I'm not about to abandon my pack, and you aren't about to abandon yours, either." He paused. "Not to their faces, at least."

"I understand."

"But I suppose that beorc don't have the same instinct to stay with the group, either."

"Mm."

"And you're all so different when it comes to understanding one another."

"True."

"So I guess what I'm saying is—"

"You think I'm an idiot, but you won't hate me for it," Ike finished.

Skrimir's ears drooped a bit as he relaxed, and he grinned. "Yes, exactly." He examined the plates in front of them briefly, picking up a croissant in one hand and six strips of bacon in the other. "Aren't you going to eat?"

Ike raised an eyebrow as Skrimir began shovelling down food, catching a grape as it threatened to roll off the table. "I thought we were here for coffee and maybe a small snack, not a six-course meal."

Skrimir gave him a look that indicated he didn't have the faintest clue what Ike meant.

-}(*){-

Leanne made a point of sitting next to him in chemistry rather than across from him, despite Tormod's protests ("how will I nap if I can't hide behind your wings?! You create the perfect blind spot!"). Her wing was touching his side just slightly, and Ike didn't bother asking her to move. Tormod noticed and made a face.

"Suuure, sit beside Mr. New Guy, see if I care," he huffed. Leanne giggled, and he stuck out his tongue. "It's all an act, Ike. First she sits beside you, then she asks to copy your notes, and next thing you know you've done half her assignment, and for what?"

Leanne leaned across the table and gave him a long, hard look. "For 'most lovely tea ever tasted' and 'amazing cookies' I make, if I remember correct."

Tormod turned a deep red at that. "I guess."

Leanne nodded and returned to her seat. "Good. I check my answers with yours now, yes?"

Tormod groaned. "Girl, why you gotta do this to me? Check with Ike."

Ike raised his hands defensively. "You both keep me out of this." Then he grinned. "Besides, I didn't even bother doing my homework last night."

Leanne punched him lightly. "You must work to understand. I work and I check with…Mister Smart Guy who sit here. You just lazy, and you not even check your email last night. What you do instead of work, hmm?"

Ike's mind flashed to the previous night—to Mist's accepting of Boyd's date offer, to the ninth consecutive attempt at a particularly difficult boss fight, and to the shade of blue that currently occupied his toenails. Before he had drawn breath to say, "nothing much," Leanne burst out giggling. That was a bit strange.

"Blue?" she gasped, clutching her stomach. "Why blue?" A moment later she was laughing even harder. "Match your hair?"

He didn't have a chance to ask how she knew that, though; their teacher was entering the room and Leanne's giggles died down, and suddenly Ike was scrambling to finish his homework before he needed to hand it in.

-}(*){-

When he got to his locker after the last bell rang, Mia was waiting for him. He bit his lip when he noticed that she was wearing the same clothes for the third day in a row, with the exception of what he knew was one of Rolf's t-shirts, but said nothing. She was smiling, which he supposed was the important part.

"So do you plan on following me around when I don't drive you to school in the morning?" he teased. "Because I'm sure my dad could arrange for some kind of restraining order."

Mia's mouth twisted. "You're funny. Here I am, about to ask a favour, and you go and say something like that."

Her tone wasn't nearly as light as he had expected, and Ike frowned. "I'm teasing. What do you need?"

"I need to borrow two hundred gold," she muttered, so quickly that Ike nearly missed it.

"Two hundred?" he hissed. "For what?"

Mia didn't look at him. "My mom found out where I'm staying. I don't know how. But I don't want to go home yet, either. I can't go to Gatrie's because they're already letting Shinon live with them, and I can't stay with Rhys because I'm so disorganised he'd have an aneurism cleaning up after me every few hours. I need a hotel room for a few days but she's called the bank and closed down my account so I can't pay for anything myself and—"

She flinched when Ike squeezed her shoulders. "Did it ever occur to you that my apartment is big enough?"

"I've seen your apartment. It's big, but you've just moved in and you're still unpacking. I couldn't."

"Idiot." He leaned in until his forehead was touching hers. "The couch is comfortable. As long as you don't mind my midnight snacks and Mist's early mornings, you're welcome to stay."

"I couldn't—"

"Then pay us back by helping us unpack." Ike didn't wait for a reply and hefted her onto one shoulder. "I'm not going to make you handle things on your own."

"You just don't want to lend out your money."

"That is completely true." Partially true; had Mia truly been out on the street he'd have given it over without a second thought, but what was the sense in wasting money when he had a perfectly good sofa? Briefly he considered the social implications of having a girl he'd just met sleeping in his home, but he shrugged the thought away.

-}(*){-

"Absolutely not."

Ike flinched and didn't meet his father's eyes. "She's got nowhere else to go. Her mother's not right in the head, it isn't—"

"It's not my job to raise someone else's child." Greil's hand fell to Ike's shoulder. "She can stay the night on a weekend, perhaps. But I am not her guardian and if her mother chooses to call the authorities and say we've kidnapped her, that puts me into a very precarious position. I run a law firm, Ike. I can't be held accountable." He paused for a moment. "However, it isn't illegal for her to leave home, provided she supports herself. In general, a person over the age of sixteen that can provide for themselves is safe from government intervention."

"So what's the problem, then?" Ike scrubbed his fingers through his hair in frustration. "If she pays rent or something then why is there a problem?"

Greil paused to consider. "If she paid the same amount of rent that an actual tenant would, including her own food and utilities, I'd allow it. But we don't have a room for her. I'm not going to put a guest on the couch."

"I'll stay on the couch—"

"No."

"I'll stay in Mist's—"

"No."

"What if Mia stays in my—"

"Absolutely not."

"She's my friend, I can't just leave her. She won't stay with Oscar anymore, and none of our other friends have room for her. There aren't any hotels nearby for her to stay in and I don't think that she'll find any apartments that she can afford."

There was a long silence. "I can't take her in, Ike. If she's found staying here her mother will find some way to get her back regardless of what the law says. She would need to find her own place to live, where she has her own room and can fully support herself."

"There's nothing you can do? You're a lawyer, there must be something."

"The best I can do is put her up for the night tonight and refer her to Titania in the morning. I work as a business lawyer, Ike. I haven't worked in family for years. Titania is in family law and if Mia truly wants to seek emancipation from her parents, Titania is the one to help her do it."

Ike sighed. "Only one night?"

Another long pause. "I will see what I can do. I am not about to compromise my job and our family life over something that is technically—technically, Ike—not yet a legal issue. I've got the word of teenagers to go off of and nothing more. I will talk to Titania in the morning and see what we can do."

"But—"

"It's about to turn into zero nights, Ike."

Ike huffed. "I'm sorry."

Greil's lips twisted into a half-smirk. "You're standing up for a friend, and that is admirable. But you need to learn when to keep quiet, too. If you aren't careful you'll wind up causing problems for those around you, even if you have the best intentions." He paused. "Did you get an ear pierced?"

"…yes."

"When?"

"Yesterday."

Greil's eyes hardened. "Does this have something to do with the gang war that's half-started at your school?"

"Gang war?" Not that it wasn't technically true. Technically. "It's not a gang war, it's just people disagreeing. In large quantities. Frequently."

"With their fists!" Mia chimed in from the hallway. Tentatively, she poked her head into the kitchen. "I'm not gonna lie, I was eavesdropping for that last bit while I was in the bathroom." She didn't quite look Greil in the eye, Ike noticed. "Thank you for letting me stay here tonight."

"Only for tonight," Greil reminded her. "I'll have a phone number for you in the morning, though, so I suppose there's that."

She nodded. "I appreciate it. I…" (Ike briefly wondered why girls felt the need to chew their lip when they couldn't find the right words.) "It's not that I don't love my parents. But I don't like it there. I don't like being punished for having friends. I don't like suddenly having no money because I didn't make a pass correctly during a rugby game. I don't like being followed around the neighborhood like some six-year-old trick-or-treater on All-Hallow's Eve. I've never given her any reason not to trust me but those stupid hallucinations make her think I'm some sort of candidate for that stupid teen-pregnancy show. And—"

"Getting worked up about it won't help," Greil pointed out. "But a cup of tea might."

"Tea?"

"Tea. I've got plenty of work to do tonight and it won't get done if you're both so agitated."

She whirled around to look at Ike, complete disbelief written on her face. He shrugged and gave her the biggest smile he could manage.

"Tea helps a lot of things."

-}(*){-

It turned out that a cup of tea (and Mist's instant microwave brownie recipe) helped after all. As she scraped the last remnants of cake from her cup, Ike rumpled her hair and hauled her out of her seat.

"Come on, then. I've got a game to play and it'll be no fun if I don't have help."

"I won't be any help anyway." She reached up and tentatively brushed his hair aside. "Why did you get this?"

Ike didn't meet her gaze. "I don't know. I felt like it."

Mia's jaw set. "I don't believe that for an instant. You're in the same class as that Tormod kid and I know that he jumps on every chance he gets."

"I don't know wh—"

"Bullshit. You're wearing silver and if by now you don't know what that means then you're an idiot."

"It doesn't mean anything!" But even as he said it he knew that she didn't believe him. "I—it's...it seems so stupid and I don't want any part of it. But I don't want all of you to hate me, either." He bit his lip (ah, this was why girls did it). "So for now I guess I'm going to play stupid."

Mia sighed. "I'll vouch for you as best I can, then. I don't like it much either, but what choice do I have? All of my friends are involved and I couldn't just abandon them. They'd—" she smiled as she realised that she had the same problem that Ike did. "—they'd probably hate me."

"So we'll do what we have to, then." Ike sighed and wrapped and arm around her shoulders. "And hope for the best, I suppose."

"Mm." For a moment she was silent, and if he hadn't happened to look down he might have missed the shade of red that her ears were turning. "I...I don't suppose you'd like to see a movie sometime."

It was his turn to blush. "I've, um...I've met someone."

Mia shook her head frantically, a crooked smile on her face. "Oh! No, no, not like that! Just...as thanks, I guess, since you've been so nice to me."

"Oh." He chuckled sheepishly. "Sorry. I...I guess that would be fine, then."

"M'kay."

Uncomfortable silence again. Ike wasn't sure whether he should remove his arm from her shoulders or not, but even as he wondered she leaned into him.

"So who'd you meet?" she asked. "Someone I know?"

Ike didn't answer for a moment. When he did he tried to be careful with his words. "A friend I met through one of my father's business acquaintances. We sort of hit it off the first time we met."

"She makes you happy?"

"I'm happy."

Mia's face finally relaxed as she gave him the first real smile he'd seen that day. "That's good, then! And that means that I'll have a new friend, too, once you introduce us."

"Maybe." He needed to change the subject, fast. "Are we gonna play that game or what? I'm not clever enough to get through this area myself."

She laughed. "You need a woman's touch, do you?"

"I do. But I can't find a woman anywhere, so you'll have to do instead."

Later on, he would remind himself that he deserved the bruise that she gave him.