AN: Wow, twice in one day, but it is really helping me to stay concentrated on just one story right now so thank you for your support and your patience with my other stories.

Trigger Warning: Self-Harm

Chapter Ten : Isabella

Julie took a step into the fashionable house that Kuon and Kyoko had bought together. It was a nice place and it definitely showed the wonderful life that they had planned to have together but that was part of its sadness now. She opened the door to see that some of the plants were wilting on the entry way and there was a general shakiness to the place.

She grabbed to Kuu's hand feeling that they weren't alone in there. "Kuon, honey?" Julie called out before seeing the man looking at her as if he were a ghost. Kuon's body was completely pale, he was shaking as the lack of sleep and a healthy diet was evident, and he was shaking.

"H—hi, she's sleeping, I got her to sleep," Kuon said quickly as he ran a hand through his completely disheveled hair. "I gave her a bath and I got her her favorite toy and the bla-blanket and she's sleeping. I got her to sleep," he said as if he were about to fall over, his hand shaking against the wall as he looked at them.

"Honey, you need to sit down," Julie said as she rushed towards her son and tried to wrap her arms around him but he took a few frightened steps backwards.

"I ju-just…it's good to see you," he said as he looked between the two of them with wide eyes, "I mean th-thank you so much for coming," he tried to say with a Ren Tsuruga expression. "Isabella needs somebody here so…so you can take care, go and take care of her now, you can just take her away from me. She'll be safe away from me."

"Kuon, what are you talking about?" Kuu asked as he approached his terrified son. He reached out to take Kuon's shoulder before seeing the way he was looking at him.

"Dad, she's gone. She's gone and it's just as - I killed her, I told her to go and do that drama because I thought…I thought that the director was good, we'd worked with him on Dark Moon, it was a good story, she had a character she liked. She might have done something different if I – her friend tried to persuade her not to do it but I wanted her to round out her acting career and I lost her. I killed her, Dad. You know that Rick was only out there because I lost control. He was supposed to be on a date with Tina – If I hadn't lost it or if Rick hadn't have come then they would have killed me and I was stupid enough, I was foolish enough to think that I deserved to get close to somebody," Kuon told them as he started shaking even more.

Julie looked at her son as she desperately wanted to hold him. Kuu looked down before seeing that Kuon was holding his wrist behind his back. He eyed him suspiciously whilst Julie looked at his expression and saw how deep the grief and pain of loss was within him.

"Let me see your wrist," Kuu said as Julie looked at him before turning back to Kuon who looked shocked as well. How was his father able to notice that? Kuon shook his head but as Kuu continued to stare at him, Kuon reached forward and Julie saw the damage he had done to his wrist.

"I just wanted to feel again….if my blood draws out then maybe she'll come back," he whispered and Julie looked down sadly. She didn't want her son to go back to how things were, he had taken so many steps away from that incident. Kyoko wouldn't have wanted him to go backwards in his recovery.

….

….

Kyoko smiled happily as she sat with the phone to her ear. She had originally planned to go shopping with Kanae but once she knew that Isabella was coming over to Japan she had wanted to move the date with Moko to after she had seen Isabella. However, Kanae had some work that would keep her busy until the evening and so Kyoko would be able to take Isabella out for lunch with Kuon. She was excited to see the young girl but nervous at the same time.

"I'll see you tonight, Moko," she smiled, "I love you," she giggled, "I'm allowed to love my friends," she said before putting the phone down and looked over at her husband who was wearing a cute long sleeve, high collar shirt and relaxed jeans. "So, what do I need to know about -"

"You don't need to worry about that, Isabella is a good person to get along with and you two are very alike," Kuon tried to reassure her but Kyoko kept looking at him and then looking down nervously. She was currently wearing a white blouse and pink shirt with the same pink coat on and with Princess Rosa around her neck after Kuon had given it to her the previous night.

"Kuon, just tell me one thing?" she asked and Kuon smiled.

"She knows Japanese but sometimes she refuses to talk in it so she thinks just she and I can understand the words. She loves to dance to different types of music, especially Disney songs. She loves princesses and her Barbie collection but she also loves exploring and is the keeper on her youth soccer team. She's really smart and asks a lot of questions and will make you find out the answer if she thinks you don't know it. She loves make up and dressing up but isn't afraid to get dirty. She loves to cook and she definitely inherited my father's stomach more than mine," he laughed as he thought about the little girl.

"You don't need to know much about her, she's a good girl, she just wants someone to love her," Kuon told his wife as he pulled her close to his chest. "Are you ready to go and see her?" he asked and Kyoko nodded with a smile.

"I'm just hoping that she'll like me," she said and Kuon laughed softly.

"She'll love you."

…..

…..

Lory looked at the little girl as she sat as politely as her mother always had when she had been working as an actress. He saw Kuu pacing around and then looked between them with a laugh. "Are you scared, Bella?" Lory asked and Kuu looked up, turning his attention back to his adorable granddaughter.

"I'm a little nervous," Bella said slowly as she spoke in Japanese trying to get the words right, "Is my Japanese speaking okay?" she asked and Lory gave her a thumbs up.

"Isabella's the best at so many things for her age," Kuu said as he walked over to the two of them. "Not only is she in the top percentile in terms of her intelligence, she excels on the sport field as well, her observational skills are top notch, she's beautiful which you can see for yourself, creative, wise, noble -"

"Just like your son?" Lory grinned at his old friend.

"Of course, having exceptional children is just another thing that Kuon got passed to him through me. I am his father after all and so my genes flow through him to Isabella making her one of the best children in California if not the world," Kuu bragged about the seven-year-old.

"Daddy's the best at everything," Isabella grinned with pride in her eyes, "Boss, don't you know that?" she asked with a grin.

Lory smiled at the loving family before hearing his phone ring, he went over to pick it up. "They're here," he said as Isabella shifted. She knew that everyone was telling her that she was going to meet somebody very important who her father would be accompanying but nobody had told her who. Kuu looked to Lory as he continued pacing, he was excited to see Kyoko as well and it wasn't just about the family getting reunited, he had really missed that girl and had been devastated when she had passed away.

After only a few moments, there was a knock on the door and Lory smiled as Kuon opened it with a weak smile though everyone could tell how much happier he was with her back with him. Kyoko entered the room before dropping into a bow and Kuon put a hand on her back as she stood up with tears in her eyes.

"Father," she gasped as she looked at Kuu and he tried to hold back some tears upon seeing her again.

"[Daddy]!" Bella yelled as she saw her father and then ran over to him, leaping into his arms. Kuon hugged her close to him as she hung onto him tightly. "[I'm so glad to see you, I missed you so much!]" she said quickly as she kissed his cheek and Kuon brought her close to him and then took a few steps backward from where he was kneeling.

"[Bella, I have some important news for you and I wanted to introduce you to somebody very very important to both of us,]" he said as he turned her gently so that she was looking at Kyoko who was trying to hold back the tears at seeing the tiny little girl.

Bella looked nervously at her mother before turning to Kuon, "[What? She looks just like - She's -]"

"[Bella, this is your mother,]" he told her as Bella looked at her stunned before her face was covered by tears and she ran up to Kyoko, wrapping her arms around her and pushing her head into Kyoko's chest as the former actress knelt opposite her and held her so close to her.

"[Mommy, I'm - I wanted – I]" Bella struggled before she paused and took a step back, "I'm sorr-rry," she said quickly, "Ja-Japanese, I should be-"

"[We can talk in whatever language you feel happiest with,]" Kyoko tried to soothe her daughter as she grinned at her with her eyes sparkling as she took in the small blond girl. She was so beautiful. She had Kuon's genes for that, or at least that's how Kyoko reasoned it. "[And you haven't done anything to be sorry about. I'm so happy that I get to meet you,]" Kyoko said as she looked at the little girl wanting nothing more than to take care of her and love her as she had when she had been a tiny baby.

"Don't you think she's processing this rather well?" Kuu asked Lory as he sighed.

"I'm not surprised though, this is the way that Kyoko deals with these things," Lory said as Isabella looked towards her father wanting him to explain what was going on between them.

"[How are you here?]" Isabella asked as she tried to wipe away her tears with her arm but Kyoko kissed the top of her head and took out her own handkerchief to help her with her tears.

Kuon watched Kyoko open her mouth and then struggle to come up with the right words to say, "[You remember when we watched Snow White together, Bella]" he said slowly and Isabella nodded. "[Well Snow White was in a coffin made of glass until the prince's kiss, well that's what happened with Mommy as well or something very close,]" he said and Bella took a deep breath in as that thought went through her mind.

"[I get it,]" Bella smiled, "[She got frozen by a curse but you saved her, Daddy]" she reasoned and Kuon gave her a thumbs up and a nod. Kyoko laughed at the interaction before letting her hand go through Isabella's hair again.

After a moment, Isabella grinned and went to her backpack, "[Daddy told me lots of stories about you,]" she told her mother before showing her a bound picture book.

"[You can thank my mother for the illustrations,]" Kuon laughed as Kyoko's smile further increased as she looked through the book. "[She made about twenty of these books for Bella.]"

Kyoko smiled as she looked at the cover and then the pictures inside. The story was of a stubborn prince who was experiencing his first cold and he just wanted to do the work that he needed to do as prince of the kingdom and he insisted he couldn't rest so the fairy princess Kyoko had to step in to help him until he got better including making the prince drink energy revitalizing drinks that tasted bad but helped.

"[Grandma did the pictures,]" Isabella tried to explain, "[but Daddy told me the story. Daddy tells me lots of stories,]" she announced as Kyoko tried to keep her sobs of joy in.

"Thank you," she whispered in Japanese before Isabella hugged her again.

…..

…

Julie held Isabella close to her as she gave her the bottle despite how the small baby was trying to get over to her father and screaming for her mother who wasn't going to be coming back. Julie sat down with her granddaughter as she tried to keep her sobs from overpowering her.

"Come on, Izzy," she said as she hugged her tight, "You sit over here with Grandma. Daddy will be okay, Grandpa's taking good care of him," she said though she didn't want the little girl to see the wound to which Kuu was treating.

Once he had it all bandaged, Kuu sighed and looked at his son. "Listen to me carefully, we can do this as quietly as possible," he said as he tried to make eye contact with Kuon, "Do you need to be taken to the hospital or was this a one-off?" he asked and Kuon opened his mouth.

"I'm fine," he whispered and Kuu put a hand to his forehead and sighed.

"Kuon, you have to think here. You're a huge celebrity here but you have to be careful, if people think you're not handling it, they might try to stop you from being a father. They might think you're unfit to take care of Bella, is that what you want?" Kuu asked in a very direct manner trying to speak realistically with his son about what was right.

"I want Kyoko," Kuon whispered, "I wish I could just switch places with her, Dad."

"But you can't," Kuu said as Julie looked at him uncomfortably, "I'm sorry, you can't. If you go to seek help right now then we have a defense but if the media wants to spin an article around this then there's a chance you could be seen as an unfit parent and -"

Kuon looked down and took a few deep breaths, he wrapped his arms around himself. "I need help," he whispered as tears filled his eyes and Julie reached out for him but Kuu took a few deep breaths. "Kotonami-san's saying that I'm the reason she's dead, she's right, I'm the one who -"

"You didn't kill anybody!" Julie said as she struggled to maintain her composure and Kuon shook harder as he broke down further. "You didn't hurt her. You're not responsible for this," she tried to tell him but the words didn't seem to sink into him.

"We'll figure this out with Lory, everything at the most confidential but -" Kuu put a hand on Kuon's shoulders. "You have to think about what's important. You have to think about staying alive…for her."

"She's the only reason I can…" Kuon whispered as he struggled not to think of himself as the world's most useless parent. Isbaella needed her mother, not him, but the last thing he wanted was for her to get taken away. He had to get help for her sake.

End of Chapter Ten

Thank you for reading

Thank you, reviewers of Chapter Nine

Ashenvale: - gasp – but I had to keep it T rated 😉

Ktoll9: and I think that he had class whilst doing it, thank you 😊

Mani: Thank you 😊

Nu2: I'm glad you like it and I hope I didn't disappoint