A/N: Finally! I've been looking forward to this chapter. The section all in italics is a dream sequence. It's based on an early part of the movie. Dialogue is as close to the English version as I could keep it, though I mostly made up the actions of the characters and I played with the order of events slightly. You'll know where I start changing things up a bit. :D It's a little short, but it's a good one, I think. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN SPIRITED AWAY. I think Miyazaki would have a problem with that.

Chapter Nine: Changes

I made it to my bedroom before it really got bad. I coughed for the entire afternoon, great honking coughs that left me frantic for oxygen. When my lungs didn't have any air left to expel, I would dry heave. David was so worried that he actually called Mom and Dad home early. I didn't have enough air to tell him not to.

Mom came home and came straight upstairs. She strode through the door and felt my forehead. Her wedding ring was like a band of ice.

"You're burning up!" she said with surprise. I could only roll my eyes and shiver harder under my comforter. Mom sat down, making the mattress groan. "Where's your brother?"

"Right here," David piped up from the window. He'd been fiddling with my telescope and waiting for me to need something.

"Get Val some aspirin," Mom ordered, and David dashed out of the room. "And don't run in the house! Especially with your socks on!"

I tried to smile, but started coughing instead. Mom watched me, her brow creased with concern. "You were fine this morning. What happened?"

"Visited…a friend!" I gasped when I was done coughing. "He's…sick… too!" And I was back to coughing.

Mom shook her head. "I don't know if I should be mad for getting yourself sick or if I should be happy you've stopped the anti-social-teen-act."

"I was never anti-social! I just like my privacy!" I said—or at least, I tried to say. All that came out was another explosion of honking.

Mom rose from the bed and grabbed another box of tissues—the lotion kind, I was grateful to see—from my dresser and tossed them on the comforter in front of me. "Keep it covered, will you? The rest of us don't need this. It looks nasty."

I grimaced and gave her a thumbs up while I coughed some more.

Dad couldn't get away early, so it was Mom and David who tended to me while I laid in bed, alternately wishing I could die and being grateful that I was this sick at home and not halfway across the world. I managed to rasp out some instructions to David between fits, and he disappeared for half an hour to make and deliver some Campbell's soup to Mr. Smith's house. I fervently hoped it was edible—my brother was not the best cook—but it was the best I could do for Joe, seeing as I was in absolutely no condition to make it myself.

Mom forced some saltines and water into my stomach when she could, along with two aspirin. I flat refused to take NyQuil.

"I'll fall asleep," I rasped quickly. I had discovered that the faster and softer I spoke, the more I could say before my lungs tried to escape my chest again.

"That's the point," Mom said, exasperated with my recalcitrance. She continued to hold out the pills on her palm. The turquoise liquid inside them shimmered in the soft light from the lamp on my nightstand.

I shook my head. The motion felt funny with my ears stuffed up like they were. "I don't want to dream. Not yet." I didn't see what effect my words had on her—I started coughing too hard to look up. When I did, both the pills and Mom were gone.

Dad got home a little after eight. He, too, trooped up the stairs and checked on me. He apologized for being late, and I restrained the automatic answer—"Work more important than your only daughter, Dad?"—because it would serve neither of us for me to be sarcastic tonight. Instead, I nodded my acceptance and quietly asked if David was around.

Dad thought about it. "Yeah, I remember I saw him downstairs fooling with the hot water heater in the kitchen. Do you want him up here?"

I nodded again. I was coughing too hard to answer.

Dad started edging towards the door. He was always uncomfortable around the sick. "I'll, ah—I'll go get him."

"Thanks," I whispered, but he was already out of the room. I could hear him calling for David as he trotted down the stairs. The door to his office shut. I wouldn't be seeing him again tonight.

I stared at the stars on my ceiling, tracing the constellations with my eyes. I had just moved on to Orion when David clattered into my room with a breakfast tray. A mug of hot chocolate rattled on a saucer, spilling over the rim and dripping down the side. He'd found a rose from somewhere and put it in a vase. I smiled when I saw the effort he'd gone to to make my sick tray cheery. It was just like him.

"Thanks, little br—HONK!" My chest chose that moment to continue its battle to breathe. David set the tray on the dresser and sat next to me, keeping a small and cool hand on the back of my neck while I shook and trembled with the force of my coughing. I looked through the sweaty hair that had fallen in front of my face at my brother. He was frowning, very unlike him.

"Joe sounded like that when I saw him," he said.

I raised an eyebrow. "You saw him? He was in bed when I went ov—!"

He waited until I was done to answer. "Yeah, he answered the door."

"WHAT!" My scream brought on the worst attack yet. I could feel the bed bouncing beneath me. "What the hell is he doing out of bed!"

David said nothing, obviously too terrified to say anything to trigger another fit. His eyes got very wide, though, like a terrified horse's. I decided not to make him any more frightened of my condition than he already was.

But I couldn't quite let our neighbor's neglect go without one final comment. "Thank God Mr. Smith has no children," I muttered into my tissue. "He'd have been arrested for child abuse years ago."

David giggled, his fear for me subsiding. If I was well enough to joke, I wasn't going to die any time soon.

"So what's on the tray?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Oh!" David jumped up and ran to get the tray. He carefully walked over—still managing to spill—and set it down next to him on the bed. "Hot chocolate. The good stuff."

I groaned and coughed. "Couldn't you have waited to make the good stuff until I could actually taste it?"

David laughed and looked away. "Eh, turns out that's the only stuff in the kitchen." He held the mug between his palms, letting the mug warm his hands, and then gave it to me. "Here. Drink up."

I clutched the mug and drank it quickly before I could cough again, but the coughing was inevitable. I smiled when it was over, and David grinned. "You're welcome," he said in response to my silent thanks.

I motioned to the vase on the tray as I blew my nose. The rose was beautiful, so deep a red that it was nearly black. It was in full bloom, so I knew that I would only have a few days to enjoy it. Hopefully it would last long enough that I'd be able to smell it when I was feeling better.

"Oh, yeah, the rose! Joe told me to take it from the garden out back." David smirked and raised his brows. "Anything I should know about?"

My death glare was all the answer I could give at that moment, but it was apparently clear enough. He raised his hands defensively. "Hey, just asking! I mean, it was odd…" he trailed off and shook his head. "I noticed how much you were admiring them last lesson, but I didn't think Joe had."

I devoutly hoped the flush I could feel blooming on my cheeks could be mistaken for my fever. "He just noticed because I wasn't blocking your punches 'cause I was looking at them," I muttered. "Doesn't mean anything."

"Oh, I dunno, big sis, I think it means something. He was coughing a ton, and he still made sure to ask how you were doing and stayed out long enough to watch me cut the flower. I think that means a lot of somethings, actually. I think Mom and Dad would think so, too. Should I ask them?"

"Ask and you die."

"Touchy! Too touchy, I think." David continued talking but I couldn't hear him that well. My eyelids drooped like they had weights on them. The last thing I heard—or thought I heard—was David's soft whisper, "…it's working. 'Night, Val."

The last thing I saw was the rose. A dark petal fell from its listless head, and I fell with it into slumber.

"You have to hold your breath while we cross the bridge," Haku whispered softly into my ear. I shivered, but whether it was because he was so close or because I was so scared, I couldn't tell. The spirits walked—or rather glided—past the little wooden gate where we stood as if Haku and I were invisible. I could hear the groveling voices of the frogs on the other side of the bridge and whimpered. My real-self was aware enough to remind me of all the things those frogs could do to me if they caught me.

"Even the tiniest breath will break the spell, and then everyone will see you," he continued. He opened the gate and I quickly jogged up the remaining steps to join him. He didn't look at me, but he let me clutch his arm tightly. I felt the tendons in his arm stand out as he clenched his fist with the effort of his spell. I suddenly realized why he refused to look at me—he'd give me away if he did.

We walked with the other spirits, Haku always careful to give me enough room so that I wouldn't bump into anyone or anything. Sometimes a spirit would leave the crowd to enter one of the shops that lined the streets, Japanese calligraphy declaring them to be restaurants and souvenir shops. Why in the world spirits would want souvenirs, I couldn't guess, but that wasn't my concern.

A spirit wandered a little too close to my side, and I pressed closer to Haku. "I'm scared," I whimpered, and my voice sounded as small as a frightened child's.

He didn't stop walking, but his free arm came up and—so swiftly I almost didn't catch it—brushed my left cheek. His hand didn't pause, but moved up to tuck a loose hair behind his ear, still maintaining the illusion that he was alone. I stared at him, shocked. He'd never touched me so…intimately before.

But what's so intimate about a reassuring touch! my real self screamed in my head. You said you were scared! He's just trying to make sure you don't go bolting off and ruining everything! He'll probably get fired for letting you in if he's found out, so of course he's calming you down.

But those thoughts didn't stop my stomach from feeling like Haku had released a thousand little birds into my stomach with that simple touch.

Haku didn't give me any more time to think about it because he whispered hurriedly (as if he was trying to cover up his sudden lapse in decorum), "Now just stay calm."

And we were at the edge of the bridge. Haku nodded curtly to the greeters. "I'm back from my mission."

I wondered briefly what he could be talking about as the head frog nodded. "Ah, welcome! Welcome back, Master Haku!"

"Master?" I murmured, and I snickered a little, my fear forgotten by the frog's whiney sucking-up.

He ignored me. "Now take a deep breath," he instructed. "Hold it."

I was still in a somewhat playful mood, despite Haku's insistence on seriousness. I literally held my breath, dramatically plugging my nose with my whole fist and scrunched my face up with the effort of keeping it there. I glanced up at Haku. It may have been my imagination, but I could've sworn he was smiling slightly.

The welcome chorus grew louder as we crossed the bridge, and so did my labored heart beats. Whether the spell was eating up more oxygen than I usually needed or if I was just being a baby, I was running out of air, and quickly. I made a muffled noise of distress.

"Hang on. Almost there," he reassured me.

I was seeing little black dots around the edges of my vision when a little frog wearing a blue robe yelled, "Master Haku!" He jumped up at the edge of the bridge and squawked, "Where've you been?"

I wasn't expecting him to jump so high! I gasped in surprise, and realized my mistake as soon as I felt blessed air flow into my lungs. I quickly gulped in my breath and held my mouth closed again, but it was too late.

"Wha…? A human!" The frog jumped up again and wrapped his tongue around my neck in a hot, slimy, tight embrace.

"No!" Haku dug the nails of his right hand into the frog's tongue, his left fist clenching tighter than ever. I don't know if the frog even felt it, for all the good it did. I hadn't taken much air in with my last breath, and I was quickly losing the fight to stay conscious as the tongue tightened and choked.

I saw Haku's face twist in anguish and horror as he saw that it was no use. I could've told him that it was no good to try to free me. I had known something would go wrong, as usual. His eyes were black in the low light, and I could see myself reflected in them perfectly. Then I felt my neck snap with the pressure of the frog's tongue, and everything went black.

My eyes snapped open and I gasped for air, my fingers feeling for the bone splinters that I was sure had gone through the skin. My fingers hit flesh instead, and I screamed, smacking whoever it was and forcing them back. My scream turned into a cough, and I coughed and hacked and spat for what seemed like ages.

David stared at me from the foot of the bed. By the moonlight through the window, I could see his wide, frightened eyes and my palm print fading on his cheek.

"Oh, shit." I breathed in and out, slowly, trying to calm myself. "What are you doing here, David?"

"You're sick," he said defensively. "And I… I wanted to make sure nothing bad happened."

"Nothing worse than usual. But why the worry tonight?"

"No real reason." David got up to leave. "G'night."

I watched him walk to the door. He paused, and turned back to me. I couldn't see his expression: he'd walked out of the moonlight. "Val?"

"Yeah?"

"Fight it."

I stared at him, confused. "Fight what?"

He shrugged self-consciously. "That's what you screamed right before you woke up. 'Fight it'."

"Oh. Thanks." I looked at the comforter and didn't look up again until I heard the door close behind him. My eyes were drawn to the rose David had moved to the window sill. It looked like a black shadow framed in the glass pane. Two smaller puddles of black pooled beneath the vase, petals that had fallen since I'd been asleep.

'Fight it.' Those had been Haku's final anguished scream before I'd woken. Why had he said that? Such a passionate plea was wholey out of character for him.And why had I yelled it here?

But more disturbing was what I remembered seeing in Haku's eyes. I hadn't seen myself, with newly-dyed purple highlights and dark bags under my eyes. I'd seen a young girl with wide, doe-brown eyes. Her hair was brown like mine, but shorter, and it framed a face still plump with baby fat. The reflection, while not mine, seemed familiar, and I wondered where I'd seen it. Something told me it was important.

Suddenly, I remembered, and I felt the blood drain from my face with my discovery. A panicked scream built itself up in my throat, ripping and tearing at the raw flesh to escape, but with the willpower built up over the last seven years of nightmares I fought it back. The panic remained, forcing my mind to relive that moment in my dream over and over until I thought it would be branded on the backs of my eyelids for the rest of my life.

For it hadn't been my face that had been reflected in Haku's eyes. In my dream, it was Chihiro's face I'd been wearing.