Author's Note: Last chapter. Sorry this one took so long to finish. I don't know if I will ever try to 'expand/re-imagine' another episode like this again, but who knows...;)

I do not own City Hunter or any of its characters.

Thank you to everyone who read/followed/favorited/reviewed this. It is always appreciated. :D

Eve: Thank you for the review as always. :) And thank you for the comment about the time I put into my chapters. I really do spend a lot of time thinking about how I want to write each chapter of all of my fics and how I want these stories to play out, so it's always gratifying when someone comments on that...And yes, as much as I really liked this episode, I was always wanting to find ways to fill in those gaps, so it was fun doing so...And what would City Hunter be without at least a few moments of Ryo's trademark lechery. ;) Anyway, I hope you enjoy this final chapter and how I decided to end this story as opposed to how it leaves off in the anime...

Chapter Ten

One week later, Kaori Makimura was back in the kitchen at the apartment building, making breakfast for both her and Ryo and their guests. It was somewhat of a struggle for her to remain focused on the task at hand due to her mind persistently wandering back to the events of the past few days.

After Ryo had collapsed in her room, Kaori had begged for a chance to speak to the doctors in charge of treating them. After requesting that they examine her again, and after getting a reluctant admittance from them that she could probably leave the hospital within a day or so, Kaori had insisted that she be allowed to stay in Ryo's room until he was ready to return home to finish recovering.

"That idiot won't listen to most people," she told them. "If you try to make him stay in bed, he'll just keep trying to find ways to get around it. And if you send nurses in to take care of him, he'll just keeping harassing them until they lose their patience and run screaming from him. The only way you're going to be able to get him to behave is if I'm there to keep an eye on him."

A part of Kaori had been worried about what would happen if the doctors chose to refuse her request, but thankfully, they gave in to her demands, mostly out of exasperation with how Ryo kept aggressively flirting with all the nurses.

They moved another bed into Kaori's room for Ryo, and then there was the anxious wait for Kaori while they tended to Ryo. Miki and Saeko tried to keep her spirits up, but despite Kaori's insistence that she was fine; there was a noticeable tension in the room as they waited for word on Ryo's condition. Fortunately, about two hours later, the doctors brought a still unconscious Ryo back into the room and had him placed into the bed. Kaori shuddered at how pale and motionless Ryo was with slight movement in his chest and a soft snore being the only things that indicated that he was merely sleeping instead of being in a far more critical condition.

"We repaired his stitches and put fresh bandages on his wound," the doctor informed them. "Sadly, we ended up needing to give him a little more blood since he had bled out some and we didn't want to risk anything in his weakened condition. We also gave him a mild sedative so he will stay asleep for a while longer. It's imperative that he spend at least a couple days resting as much as possible so he can recover from the shock and strain he's put his body through."

"We understand," Saeko had responded. "And we will do our best to make sure he does what he is supposed to this time."

Kaori had nodded along with her, but had not said much else for the rest of the day. Instead, she sat down next to Ryo's bed and spent most of the time watching Ryo slumber. She couldn't remember ever seeing him in a state like this, and it frightened her far more than the persistent gaps in her recent memory did.

'Ryo's work is so dangerous,' she pondered. 'This kind of thing…things like this…could happen at any time. So why didn't I think about it more before now?'

Kaori reached over and held Ryo's hand again. Even though she had asked herself that question, she knew that she already had the answer: because up until now, she had often comforted herself with the idea that Ryo was invincible. Believing in something like that made it easier to brush aside any hesitation she might have over bringing him dangerous jobs to work on. It alleviated the fears she would often have when he confronted their or their clients' enemies, especially when they tried to kill Ryo. It made it so she did not have to face the reality that Ryo frequently put his life on the line, not only for their clients, but often for her.

Kaori knew that it would be simple to continue to live in that kind of stubborn obliviousness, to continue to refuse to open her eyes to the life Ryo lived and the danger he faced constantly. To take any other course of action would mean admitting to herself that she could lose Ryo just like she had lost her brother, and it would mean that she would be forced to make a decision: to continue to place most of the burden of their work onto Ryo or find a way to take at least some of that burden onto herself.

A muffled snore from the bed drew Kaori out of her thoughts, and she watched as Ryo continued to try to bury his face against his pillow even as he remained on his back. He started to roll over to his side, but Kaori immediately got up and placed her hands onto his shoulders, pressing him gently against the mattress.

"No Ryo," she whispered. "If you do that, you could tear at your wound again. Please…just lie still."

Kaori saw his eyes move back and forth under his eyelids, and for a moment she thought he was going to open them. But then his head flopped back against the pillow, and he relaxed back down into the bed, his movements stopping. Kaori continued to hold him in place for another moment. She wasn't entirely sure why she was doing it, and she soon started to blush at how she was caressing his shoulders. Still, there was something about this physical contact that was comforting to her. Eventually though, she let go and drew his blanket up closer to his shoulders. She then sat back down and let out a long sigh.

"Even asleep, you're going to be trouble, aren't you?" she asked him. She then smiled and shook her head. Her eyelids felt heavy. She wanted to sleep, but she also did not want to leave his side again. For the briefest of moments, she wished she could lie beside him to sleep, but she then put a hand back over her face.

'Moron, what on earth are you thinking? You know what would happen if you did something like that,' she told herself. 'That mokkori idiot would be all over you as soon as you fell asleep. He can't help himself.'

'Still….'

Kaori reached over and brushed some stray locks away from his forehead. She had often thought that Ryo had the look of a child when he was asleep, and this time was no different. She wondered how that was possible given the way he was able to terrify most of the criminal world with just a glance and the way he relentlessly pursued one perverted desire after another when he was awake. Despite all of that, Kaori could not deny that there was a certain innocence to Ryo that was clearly visible on his face while he dreamed…at least until he started to giggle and grope at his pillows while in the middle of one of his less chaste dreams.

Kaori moved her chair close to the bed. She thought back to before the Black Army appeared in their lives and to the argument they had had before she had walked out of his apartment with the intention of walking out of his life. Looking back at it now, she was confident that she would have returned before too long to work things out with Ryo and soon realized that she was never truly serious about walking away from him. She did wonder now, however, if Ryo had thought that she had been serious about leaving.

"He's only as strong as he lets himself be."

Kaori blinked and let out another sigh. At the time, she had not been entirely sure where that statement had come from, but it had felt completely natural and correct to say. The more she thought about it though the more she realized the truth behind her own words. Ever since she had become his partner, she had seen brief flickers of his vulnerability and moments when his strength seemed to crumble slightly, usually when he received some kind of reminder of how separate he was from the rest of the world. It was those times, however, when Kaori also felt a strong measure of frustration with him.

"Idiot, how many times do I have to tell you that I'm not ever going to stop being your partner before you actually listen to me?" she asked him. "Why do you keep acting as if one day I'll just disappear forever and leave you alone? Why can't you stop being such a moron and pay attention to the stuff I try to tell you for a change?"

Ryo began to stir again, his hands moving out from under his blanket as they were looking for something to hold onto. Kaori decided to calm him by placing both of her hands over one of his. She smiled as her fingers ran back and forth over the back of his hand, and he grew still again.

"But I suppose this is just part of my work as your partner," she added, her voice soft. "I will just have to keep at it until you finally learn something…but don't think for a moment that this means that I'll stop using my hammers when needed."

Kaori smiled even more at her words before letting out a yawn. She was growing wearier with each moment. She looked back at her own bed for a few seconds, but then shook her head. Part of the reason she did not want to go back to sleep was because, when she didn't have dreams full of fragmented memories, she experienced half-formed nightmares, nightmares of being manipulated and controlled by the Black Army. Sitting here with Ryo gave her some relief from the anxious feelings those nightmares produced, and she did not want to let go of that comfort.

Kaori gulped and tightened her grip on Ryo's hand. She only saw one way to truly rest. It also happened to be the one thing she was the most nervous about in this situation.

'Ryo, I swear, if you grab at me even once, I will make sure to pull out the largest hammer you have ever seen,' she said to herself silently.

Kaori's face turned scarlet as she got up from the chair and carefully laid down beside Ryo on the bed, making sure to keep a couple of inches between them. She continued to hold onto his hand while curling up onto her side. At first, she wondered if she could really be comfortable in this position. Soon, however, she felt herself relax, her eyes drifting closed.

"Good night, Ryo," she whispered. Kaori thought for a second that he was squeezing her hand in response, but as she fell asleep, she reasoned that he was simply continuing to be restless as he slept.

The next couple of days had a very routine feel to Kaori, despite the fact that both she and Ryo were in the hospital.

Kaori would drop by Miki and Umibozu's place in the back rooms of the Cat's Eye café and use their kitchen to make meals for her and Ryo to share. In between meals and periods when Ryo slept, Kaori visited with their friends. When Ryo was awake, she would make sure to keep him in line whenever a nurse was forced to check up on him. Once in a while, the doctors would question if it was prudent of Kaori to continue to use hammers on Ryo while he was recovering, but protests from the nurses and their own apprehension over becoming the new target of Kaori's anger were enough to silence their concerns.

A day or two after Ryo woke up again; Kaori took on a new responsibility with Umibozu and Miki in overseeing the repairs to the apartment building.

Upon seeing the damage the first time, Kaori actually felt her eyes fill with tears. She had learned from Reika that she had been the one to place a bomb that caused all of this and the guilt over what she had done gnawed at Kaori for days after that. Umibozu had been the one to help her work through her gloom when he informed her that Ryo had somehow made arrangements to have the building repaired.

"Don't ask me how he was able to get the money or the manpower to do this," Umibozu had told her. "And I doubt that he would explain it to you either if you were to ask him. But he apparently called in some favors and told these people that you, I, and Miki would be supervising the work on the building. So, perhaps it would be best for you to focus your energy on getting the place back to normal rather than dwelling on things that can't be changed anyway."

Kaori took Umibozu's words to heart and spent whatever time she could spare from the hospital taking care of Ryo into straightening the apartments back into something livable.

Kaori finished her preparations and began to cook the food. She had put so much into keeping an eye on Ryo and working on the cleanup at the apartments, she had had little time to reflect on much of anything. It wasn't until it was time for Ryo to go home.

After four more days at the hospital, the doctors were finally willing to release Ryo with the strong recommendation that he spend at least another week, if not two, recovering in bed. Kaori made sure to listen as closely as she could to their instructions for her to monitor Ryo and tend to his leg while simultaneously preventing Ryo from making suggestions to one of the nurses about how he could be persuaded to spend another week in bed. After a needed hammer strike and a brief meeting with Saeko to ensure that no complications from this hospital stay would arise, Kaori ended up driving Ryo back to the apartment building.

As Kaori pulled up to their home, she noticed how Ryo stared at the building and at the top couple of floors in particular which were still in the process of being repaired. Her hands gripped the steering wheel, but she made sure to smile and even laugh a little in embarrassment.

"I…I know it looks bad, but don't worry," she told him. "They've taken care of the area above your bedroom and most of your floor. It's mainly the top floor and sections of the roof that still need work. It will all be back to the way it was before in just a few more days."

"Ah," Ryo nodded. Kaori pulled the car into the garage and fidgeted for a moment more before getting out and helping Ryo out of the car. The two of them took the elevator up to Ryo's floor, and Kaori couldn't help but be pleased at Ryo's evident surprise at how intact and neat everything looked as they walked in.

"See, I told you that everything would be fine," Kaori laughed again. She watched Ryo hobble into the front room area with his crutches and silently take in the sight in front of him. He stood in the middle of the room for a full minute before walking toward the stairs leading to his bedroom.

"Ah Ryo, you don't have to stay in bed here if you don't want to," Kaori said. "I could make you a place on the couch and you could relax there and watch TV or…."

"No, I actually am kind of tired," Ryo said with a faint smile. "I think I'll take a nap."

Before Kaori could say another word, Ryo carefully navigated the stairs up to his bedroom and limped into his room silently, closing the door behind him. Kaori hung her head and laughed again.

'I'm being stupid,' she told herself. 'After everything Ryo's been through…and after all the stuff I probably did while I thought I was Sarah…it's no surprise that Ryo wants to spend time to himself, away from me. I mean, look at what I did to his home….'

Kaori sighed, her shoulders slumping. She marveled at how she actually longed for things to go back to normal when just a few days ago she had been longing for things to change.

'I suppose I got my change after all. What is it they say about being careful about what you wish for….?'

Kaori let out another long sigh before straightening her shoulders and looking back up. She didn't see many options, so she decided to go with the one that always seemed best to her: to work. She grabbed her apron out of the closet and put it on.

'It's not untidy in here, but it probably isn't as clean as it usually is,' she thought. 'So I might as well take care of that.'

Kaori then spent the next three hours cleaning the apartment thoroughly. Once she was done, she then took a trip to the grocery store to buy some food. When she got home, she noted that Ryo was still in his room.

Dejected, but still determined to do what she could, Kaori put the groceries away and prepared dinner. Once it was close to done, Kaori realized that she had no choice but to break the silence that had formed between them ever since she brought Ryo home. She crept up the stairs and toward the door to his bedroom with cautious hesitant steps. She then stared at the door to his room for almost a minute before tapping it with her knuckles.

"Ryo?" she said as she cracked the door open. "Are you awake? Dinner's is just about ready."

She was about to say more when a loud snore interrupted her. She blinked hard and walked closer to the bed to see Ryo sprawled out on his back, fast asleep. She leaned closer and opened her mouth to try to wake him when she was suddenly struck by how deeply he was slumbering. She blinked hard as that thought sank in.

'Even sedated, he didn't sleep like this. Come to think of it, most of the time he was at the hospital, he looked like he could wake up at any time whenever he did try to rest. It's…it's almost as if he couldn't relax…until now that is….'

Rationally, Kaori was able to guess part of the reason why that was. As mentioned by some of their more astute clients, Ryo's home was actually more secure in location and construction than most places in Shinjuku and had been modified for extra security. Although it wasn't always at the front of her mind, it did sometimes occur to Kaori that his home was probably one of the few places where Ryo could completely relax with some measure of assurance of his own safety. In most other places, Ryo had to be on guard of all the possible ways and means that one of his enemies could get to him.

'Was he really just tired after all?' she mused. 'Just tired of having to be vigilant in such a public place like that and of not having a chance to really relax? And being wounded, he probably has to be extra cautious….'

A lopsided smile appeared on Kaori's face. Despite the fact that she was working in the professional underground herself now and spent so much time by his side, she continued to wonder just how Ryo was able to live the way he did while still seeming to act spontaneous and carefree. She then remembered the reason why she had come up to his room, and she leaned down to shake him by the shoulder.

"Come on, Ryo, wake up," she said. "Dinner's done and it's time to eat. Hey!"

Kaori shook him a little harder, and Ryo finally stopped snoring and began to stir. He turned his face toward her, and Kaori was stunned at the serene look he had in his eyes once he opened them. He inhaled deeply through his nose.

"Kaori…is that oden?" he asked her.

"Yes," she nodded, turning her head away slightly. "It looked like it was going to be rather cold tonight, and I thought you might be hungry from your trip back home and all."

She dared a glance back down at him and was surprised again by the warm smile on his face. Kaori felt her face growing hot.

"What's with that smile?" she stammered. Kaori then noted a very slight tick in Ryo's expression before his smile turned into a wide grin brimming with lechery.

"I just remembered that I accidently made a date with that cute nurse, Rei-chan on the same day I had set something up with Riko-chan," he giggled. "And I'm wondering if there is any way if I could get them both to…."

Ryo immediately stopped talking, however, when a giant steel hammer appeared in Kaori's hands.

"Ryo," she said, a little too sweetly. "Do you really want to know what will happen if you finish that sentence?"

"Not, not really," he laughed, a giant bead of sweat falling off his brow. "Wow, I am hungry. I think I'll go ahead and eat that oden now and just hope that it won't turn my stomach too much this time."

"Ryo," Kaori growled at him. Ryo whimpered and scrambled out of bed, grabbed his crutches, and scampered out of the bedroom.

'If only he was that speedy and tenacious while working on our cases,' she sighed as she followed him back out toward the front room area.

The meal finished, Kaori began to put food onto some plates and placed them on the table for Rumi and Kazuya to eat before taking a tray of it up to Ryo's room for him to eat while still recuperating in bed. After she finished giving it to him, she joined Rumi and Kazuya for a brief meal before going back into the kitchen to prepare some tea. While she was there, she reflected on how happy Rumi seemed to be with her lover.

'To go through such an elaborate farce and face so much danger just to be with the one she loves,' she smiled to herself. 'I wonder if Kazuya realizes just how much she loves him.'

Kaori watched the tea kettle as she thought about her own chaotic life. She knew that it would be easy to attribute all of the reasons why she stuck with it and enjoyed it to her work and to the satisfaction she felt at being able to help people, but she also knew that if she did, she would be lying to herself. She was painfully aware that many of those reasons had to do with the man who was currently resting in his room. It was then that she wondered if Ryo was aware of how she felt about him. As soon as she thought it though, her face turned bright red and she shook her head.

'What am I thinking? What I feel for Ryo is not anything like what Rumi feels for Kazuya…it's not the same at all. Ryo's my partner. That's all.'

'Isn't it?'

The whistle of the kettle interrupted Kaori's thoughts and she began to pour the water into the cups. Every time Kaori thought she had a true sense of her feelings about Ryo, those feelings seemed to morph and shift into something else, something more elusive and perhaps more intense than Kaori wanted to believe. She suspected that a good portion of that was fear of what would happen if she admitted to and allowed herself to become fully aware those feelings, but most of the time she was able to brush that idea aside. To do anything else would be too difficult in the face of Ryo's indifference to her as a woman.

She served the tea to Rumi and Kazuya and smiled as Rumi thanked her and Ryo for helping her father understand their relationship. Kaori had been a little surprised by her words, but she smirked to herself at how much Ryo was truly a romantic at heart no matter how much he tried to deny it.

"Kaori-san, don't you remember anything from when you thought you were Sarah?" Rumi then asked her.

The truth that she never wanted to remember anything from that time and that she wished it was all just a bad dream was at the tip of Kaori's tongue, but she chose to continue to smile instead of reveal any of that to Rumi.

"No, not really," she laughed. She then turned and felt her heart ache for a moment before something else, one other faint, but persistent memory made its way into her mind: a memory of a kiss, a kiss from a man who told her that he needed her in order for his life to have any meaning.

A kiss she was almost certain came from Ryo.

Kaori put a hand to her lips. If she concentrated, she could swear that she could still feel his lips on hers, a feeling that was far more than a tactile sensation. It was something far deeper, far more passionate than that.

'Was it a dream? Or was it….?'

Kaori smiled to herself. She had a feeling that she knew the answer, but she was also certain that she would never share it with anyone else.

After denying again that she remembered anything, Kaori was distracted by the sound of cars pulling up to the apartment building. She dashed over to the window to see Miki, Umibozu and Saeko getting out of their cars and looking up at her. Miki and Saeko each had a bouquet of flowers in their hands, and Kaori smiled even more at the sight, touched by the continued concern they showed for both her and Ryo.

Kaori decided that it was time for Ryo to get up and socialize instead of rest, and she went to his room to look for him, but was startled to find him missing. Soon, Umibozu, Miki and Saeko joined her inside and started to look for him, all of them wondering what could make Ryo want to leave in light of his injury.

A thought suddenly occurred to Kaori, and she immediately stomped outside with everyone, including Rumi and Kazuya, following her. Sure enough, Ryo was hobbling along the sidewalk with his crutches, trying to flirt with random women on the street.

'Looks like that moron needs yet another lesson,' Kaori told herself as another hammer appeared in her hands. 'It's a good thing I have plenty of hammers because I think I'm going to need to use all of them more than once before he finally learns something.'

Kaori brought the hammer down, smashing Ryo into the sidewalk. He screeched as she did so, and Kaori felt a brief surge of satisfaction that she had managed yet again to stop his usual perverted antics. For a moment, she was tempted to continue to fume, but her anger quickly dissipated as he watched him crawl from under the hammer and wobble back onto his feet.

"Come on," she said, pulling him by the arm. "I've got the couch set up for you. You're going back to resting until the doctor says you're ready to work again."

"Hey, hey careful," Ryo pouted as he stumbled from her pulling him along. "You know, I can't walk that fast with these crutches."

"You seemed to be able to get around just fine a moment ago," Kaori replied. "Now move. If you want, you can watch some TV."

"I'd rather watch a mokkori video," Ryo grumbled to himself.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, nothing," Ryo gulped, waving a hand at her. "I was just thinking about how TV sounds good right now."

Kaori smirked at him, and that smirk only grew when Ryo shifted from his awkward gait to a more careful pace with him moving his arm to hold hers for support. She let her fingers gently brush the back of his hand, she saw him blink in surprise out of the corner of her eye. Kaori then saw him smile and turn his attention to the path in front of him, and she smiled in return.

'You see, it's not so hard,' she told him silently. 'It's not hard at all to let yourself feel, is it?'

Kaori sprinted ahead of him to open the door for him before wrapping her arm around his again. Neither of them would acknowledge it, but both of them were aware that they were holding hands on the trip up to Ryo's floor.

And neither of them was in any hurry to let go any time soon.