"I'm following your lead," Yasuhara muttered as he took a seat next to Oliver.

"What?" Oliver asked, not looking away from his screen.

"I'm following your lead," Yasuhara repeated.

"I heard you the first time, I was hoping you would expand upon your statement."

"I bought Masako some chocolate."

"I did no such thing, so how have you followed my lead?"

"You were going to buy Mai something, weren't you?" Yasuhara asked, frowning. "Did you not get her anything in the end?"

"No."

"You should."

"No, I should not."

Yasuhara's frown deepened.

"Why not? She's been a bit down from what Masako has said."

"She has developed a romantic attraction to me that I really do not want to encourage."

"Ah. That is unfortunate."

"Yes," Oliver agreed. "It is."

"She can stay at ours for a bit if that would make it easier."

"No, we've discussed it—"

"Wait," Yasuhara interrupted, "You discussed her having a crush on you? How on earth do you have that sort of conversation? Was she crying?"

Oliver chose not to dignify this with a response and so continued with his work. It had been a few days since the incident with Mai climbing up the tree and Oliver had noticed that Mai had definitely been quieter since then. If he was true to himself, he would also have to admit he had heard her crying at night.

Once or twice, he had thought about comforting her. He had never got beyond taking her a cup of tea in his mental plan to comfort Mai. He knew she would want physical comfort too, but that would be unwise.

So Oliver had not acted, leaving Mai to cry herself to sleep.

"I'm home," Oliver called.

"Food is almost ready," Mai called back from the kitchen. "Could you just grab the plates down for me?"

Oliver dumped his jacket and retrieve the plates for Mai so she could serve up their meals. Once they were seated at the table, Oliver asked about Mai's day.

"Masako wanted to go to the multifaith building but I didn't fancy it," Mai mumbled.

"So what did you do?"

"I went to the park."

Oliver frowned, but waited for her to expand. Mai pushed the food around her plate with her chopsticks before she went on.

"I saw a woman there," she said. "She must have been a bit older than us and… She had a baby. For all the talk of getting people in the parenthood stuff, there are barely any babies about. I wondered if it was just this area but you said your friend Madoka had been put on it so there should be some. But this woman was the first person I've seen with a real baby. So I talked to her…"

"Hmm?" Oliver prompted, finding it easier to listen than contribute.

"She said she lost her first child in a miscarriage, but the second survived. She had her kid in the middle of the night, at home with no medical assistance…"

"Really?"

"Yeah, she didn't want to answer that many questions about what should have happened." Mai looked away. "But her baby was gorgeous. Happiest thing I've seen in a long time. He had these little hands and liked playing with my hair and…" She smiled and sighed before turning back to her food.

"Babies tend to have little hands," Oliver muttered dryly, in an attempt at humour.

"I know that!" Mai huffed, pouting. "It was just nice…"

"Are you feeling broody?"

"So what if I am? The baby was cute! It's not abnormal to feel that way."

"I'm still not having sex with you."

"I wasn't asking you to!"

Mai stood up and stormed out of the room.

Oliver sighed. He supposed that he should have known that attempting humour on a delicate subject would be a bad idea.

"Mai, come back."

Mai did not come back. Oliver sighed again and finished eating. His thoughts turned to the radio as it was the only sound in the room. The music had just died away for the hourly news broadcast.

"Good evening, tonight I bring you news of the wonderful successes of the multifaith buildings opened all over the country!"

Oliver rolled his eyes. Then he startled. The rest of the news fell on deaf ears.

"All over the country…"

He jumped up, food forgotten and returned to his room. Oliver paced, thrilled with his discovery and yet unsure how to proceed now.

"All over the country…"

Oliver sat, annoyed with his own impatience.

He needed to get his name on the radio. That way it would be broadcasted all over the country. If Gene heard it… Then Gene would know he was alive. It was a start.

After work the following day Oliver did not go straight home. He took the long route back. One that took him almost an hour longer than it should have done. Oliver was struggling.

And he did not like it one bit.

There had to be some way to get his name on the radio. Oliver had been listening to the damn thing all day while at work, every time the news began he paused in his actions and turned his attention to the voice emanating from the speaker.

But all of the news stories were… Well, not real news stories.

And it was infuriating.

Knowing that walking around aimlessly was doing him no good, Oliver returned to the flat.

"Where have you been?" Mai shrieked. "You should have been here an hour ago and you weren't here and I have seriously been freak—"

Mai bounced on the edge of her toes, hands in fists and arms jerking as if she was only just containing herself.

"My apologies."

"Your apologies?" Mai repeated, incredulously. "Is that all you have to say for yourself? I was worried about you!"

Her pent up frustration finally burst forth. She pounded her fists against his chest until he caught her wrists and prevented her from continuing. Mai blinked and looked down at her own hands, then jumped backwards and looked away.

"Your food is in the kitchen, I'm going to bed."

"Mai, please—"

But she was already gone.

Oliver sighed and walked through to the kitchen. He collected his now cold food and ate it. An acknowledgement that Mai's cooking was infinitely better than his own floated through his mind. Oliver stood and took his empty plate to the kitchen to wash up, but before he got more than two steps, a sight caught his attention out of the window.

A frown danced across his face. He deposited the plate back on the table and walked to the window. Peering out, he cursed his weakening eyesight. How long had it been since he had lost his glasses? He could not remember.

Oliver's mouth fell open.

"Mai?" he called, his eyes not moving from his target. Mai did not respond. "Mai?" he tried again, louder. She still did not respond. Figuring that she was just ignoring him, he called, "I'm just popping out, don't wait up."

Oliver pulled on his shoes and jacket as fast as he could, pocketed his keys and darted out of the front door. By the time he had made it down from the flat to street level his mark was out of sight. He started in the direction the figure had been heading.

It would likely sound crazy if Oliver had attempted to explain it to someone else, but he could recognise people by their gait. He knew that walk. Hope filling his very being, Oliver broke into a run, turning right at the end of the road and spotting the figure.

He opened his mouth with the intention of shouting out, but Oliver was out of breath from running. Why did his mark not realise?

No one else was out at this time of night. The only sounds were those of birds and Oliver's thumping footsteps.

"Ge—" Oliver panted. "Wait—"

Oliver crashed into his victim with far more force than intended. They crashed to the floor.

"What the hell! Get off!"

Oliver freed himself, stood up and brushed himself off.

"Well if you had waited when I called for you then I would not have been required to—"

"And a polite tap on the arm would have sufficed!"

"And had the momentum not carried me forwards—"

"Noll, shut up!"

Gene laughed and pulled his brother into an embrace. Oliver rolled his eyes, but did not reject the contact.

"How did you get here? Where have you been?" Oliver demanded.

"Train of course, not entirely legally but it got me here so…"

"What?"

"I've been travelling around looking for you of course!"

Gene's grin infected Oliver, happiness bubbled up inside his chest and he found himself smiling.

"How did you find me?"

"Well you just found me," Gene said, laughing. "I've just been wandering around towns looking for you. When sure that you weren't there, I moved on."

"How did you avoid the system?"

"I didn't," Gene muttered, his grin fading. "Do you have somewhere safe we can go?"

"I… Yes, but we'll have to be quiet about it."

Oliver bit his lip, thinking hard.

"What is the problem?"

"How much do you know about the way things work?"

"Enough," Gene replied.

"So you know about assigned partners?"

"Don't tell me they sent you a girl!"

Gene laughed, his bitter look gone. Oliver scowled in response, making Gene laugh harder.

"She can't see you or know about you. I am not putting her in danger. Sheltering you is tantamount to treason." Oliver's frown deepened. "Since she turned up my efforts to plan an escape from this place have been slowed. But I was going to wait until Madoka and I had located Lin first…"

"Madoka? Lin?"

"Acquaintances."

Gene rolled his eyes.

"Good to know you haven't changed." Gene grabbed his brother and pulled him into another embrace. "I've missed you, Noll."

"Yes," Oliver agreed, unable to reply. "Come on."

Together, they walked back to the apartment block. When they reached Oliver's floor, Gene was instructed to remain by the stairs. He nodded and waited where he could see Oliver striding down the corridor.

Oliver knocked on Yasuhara's door first.

"Oliver?" Yasuhara answered a minute later. "What's up?"

"I need your help."

"Of course, anything,"

"I'm going to send Mai around in a few minutes, I want you to keep her busy for half an hour or so at the very least, is that possible?"

Yasuhara frowned, but nodded.

"What's going on?"

Oliver indicated with his head down the corridor to where Gene stood.

"You found him..." Yasuhara said, mouth dropping open.

"Or rather he found me, but I need to get him in and settled without Mai seeing. She can't be put in danger because of this."

"And I can?"

"You're not stupid enough to say anything by accident," Oliver muttered, "Mai is not practised in these matters."

"Fair point. Okay send her over."

Yasuhara retreated inside and shut the door, Oliver explained the plan to Gene and then returned home, leaving Gene in the stairwell.

Oliver took a deep breath as he closed the front door behind him and then called out for Mai.

"You're back," she muttered from the lounge.

"Yes, I bumped into Yasuhara, he wants to talk to you,"

"Huh?"

"He'd like you to go around this evening."

Mai frowned up at Oliver and then sighed.

"Eugh, I'll go tomorrow," she groaned.

Oliver clenched his teeth.

"He sounded very keen to see you this evening."

"Then he'll be even more keen tomorrow."

"Mai, I already told him you'd go, it would be rude not to," Oliver insisted.

"Stitch me up why don't you," Mai grumbled. "Fine I'll go."

She put down the book she had been reading after bookmarking her page.

"That book is not in Japanese," Oliver commented, taking note of the title.

"No, but I like the pictures," Mai muttered in response. "Better than doing nothing."

Oliver did not speak as Mai put on her shoes and trudged out of the door. He waited a minute or two and listened for the sound of Yasuhara letting her in.

Once sure Mai would be out of sight, Oliver stuck his head out of the front door and hissed, "Gene!"

Gene darted down the corridor and Oliver let him in. Once the door was firmly shut behind them, Oliver led Gene through the flat to his room.

"She's cute," Gene said as he flopped on Oliver's bed.

"What?"

"That girl, she's cute."

"You looked?"

"Of course I looked! You care about this girl! You can't expect me not to look," Gene muttered.

"I do not ca—"

"Yes you do," Gene said, rolling his eyes.

Oliver did not bother to contradict his twin.

"You said you did not avoid the system, and yet you are not on it," Oliver prompted.

"How do you know that?"

"I worked my way up to a position high enough to be able to search for you."

Gene smiled at his brother's methods.

"I was caught up at the very beginning, when this society was just on it's feet," Gene said. "But when the whole assigning partners thing came up… I didn't like it. I spoke up too much I guess because they sent me to a work camp. That's how they are maintaining the high level of food output. Away from these towns they have camps of the people who object farming. If they don't comply they starve."

"And you escaped?"

"Yes. I've seen a few since and the security has increased," Gene muttered, "But I was lucky. I escaped and have lived on the run, so to speak, ever since."

"So the work camps are real," Oliver said. "There have been rumours. I work as something like a police officer at the moment and a few protesters have mentioned such things."

"They're real alright and they are horrible. Remember when we did the holocaust in school? It's like that but without the gassing."

Oliver absorbed this information, but did not speak for a few moments.

"I should show you around. Though you won't be allowed to leave this room for a while."

Oliver gave Gene a tour of the flat, which took three minutes and then located a bucket for his own use.

"Sorry, there is not a lot else I can do. If Mai is out during the day then you can go ahead and use the main bathroom, but she has no regular schedule as far as I can tell," Oliver told his twin.

"That's fine. It'll be nice to sleep in a bed for a while."

Gene smiled at his twin, finally reunited.

Author's note: Well this snuck up on me! Enjoy and please review :)