A/N Ok shorter than usual but I've been sick. Thank you to EVERYONE who has reviewed, I got back to as many of you as I could.

Longing.

Meeka shuddered in the cool night air. She had been on watch duty for three hours now. That ordinarily would not be a problem but it was the company that bothered her. She checked the window before her was secure and moved on. A despicable little toad, still high on the success he had had over the mating season, had been ordered onto this shift with her. He now bore three claw marks across his cheek for one too many licentious comments. Now they were both intent on spending the rest of the shift avoiding each other, which suited Meeka just fine.

Meeka paused at the next window and glanced outside. It was very early in the morning and the moon was setting. Dawn was only an hour or two away. With no chores to be performed for her mistress for the moment, Meeka had tried to make herself useful where she could. Rin had pounced on her offer of help and this was her seventh night watch in a row. The wood spirit did not mind; she liked to be busy. She checked the window and moved on.

"Poor master Haku," she thought. After the first few days of Chihiro's absence he had seemed fine, a little lethargic perhaps but nothing serious. On the eleventh day he had taken to his bed, too weak to stay awake for any length of time. Zeniba had been fussing over him like an old mother hen, bemoaning his stubbornness that he had not discussed the options with her first. Meeka remembered the argument the two of them had had before the dragon put himself in a trance.

"Haku, this is INSANE! I can't even imagine the amount of your own resources you are putting into this to keep her there. You should have at least sought advice first."

Haku had draped himself over a chair in his sitting room and glared at the witch.

"You forget yourself Zeniba; I've not asked for your company or your advice. Do your job while I'm otherwise engaged and all will be well."

"Humph!" said the witch, by way of retaliation. "This is foolish; you know the possible threat you face and yet you have allowed yourself to be manipulated. You are weakened when you should be conserving your strength. Many souls here depend on the protection you can give them. Who are you to bargain with their security so easily?"

Haku's eyes flashed with anger.

"My mind, body, soul and protection belong to one person alone. I owe them to no one else," he hissed. Then he raised himself from the chair slightly. "What would you have me do, Zeniba? Keep her here? Watch her worry herself away, not knowing if her mother lived or died? I saw her pain and felt it as if it were my own. I sent her and I stand by that decision." He slumped back with an exhausted sigh.

"She would have never have agreed to go if she had known the seriousness of the situation," snapped the witch.

"True," he replied thoughtfully, too tired to be angry anymore at the witch's impertinence. "And that is why I chose not to tell her. I'll deal with her inevitable resentment when she returns. She is content for now, if a little homesick." A slow smile crept over his lips. "And lonely… she is not sleeping well…" He trailed off, his gaze far away. "I wish I could have gone with her," he whispered.

"Well, you could not," growled the witch. Meeka had never seen Zeniba so angry. However, unlike her sister, Zeniba's anger was cold. Somehow it was worse than her sister's fiery rage. "You have gambled with the safety this bathhouse to satisfy the whims of your mate. I hope for your sake you are ready for the consequences."

"I am," he replied calmly looking at her once more.

"But is Chihiro?" asked the witch slyly. The room's temperature dipped by about two degrees and a few glasses shattered in the cabinets. Haku's chill gaze nearly reduced Meeka to a pleading heap on the floor and it was not even directed at her. The emerald eyes were ice cold and very, very angry.

"I do not have to justify myself to you, crone," he said quietly. "Now I suggest you leave me alone for a while before I say or do something we both regret."

Zeniba had stormed out, slamming the door behind her. Haku had closed his eyes. Meeka had shaken herself and sprung into life; she busied herself with cleaning up broken glass. Haku appeared to be asleep but after a few minutes he sighed Chihiro's name. When he finally opened his eyes they seemed so sad that Meeka felt her own heart ache in sympathy for him.

"I only ever wanted what was best for her," he whispered.

"I know that, Master Haku," said Meeka shyly. "And mistress Chihiro knows it to." He nodded at her words but still looked troubled. "She will be back soon, master," whispered Meeka. "I know it must be hard for you but…" The green eyes turned to her and Meeka quite forgot what she had been saying. Haku had smiled at her and Meeka was very glad that her fur covered her blush.

"I have no doubt that she will be back soon Meeka; the question is what will she be returning to?"

The day after that Haku had taken to his bed. Meeka was scared for him and wished Mistress Chihiro would return with all speed. Her mate needed her by his side. She supposed this was the disadvantage of being life mates. They literally could not live without one another. Meeka sighed and wondered how her mistress was coping with the separation. At least she was not having to suffer the massive drain of power Haku was, as well as being a world away from her mate. However, in some ways the human was stronger than her mate, tougher on the inside somehow and more level headed. Meeka was sure she was alright.

Chihiro sighed and sat back in her chair. Her mother was almost looking normal again, apart from a slight discoloration of her lips. She had been awake yesterday but not lucid, babbling that Akio had to remember to change Chihiro's nappy and test the temperature of the milk before he gave it to her. If Chihiro had not been so worried she would have laughed. She had been there two weeks and she had decided that as soon as her mother was up and about she would be back over the border as fast as her legs would carry her. She missed the spirit world and she missed her friends, and despite copious amounts of both coffee and chocolate she missed him bitterly.

She kept telling herself that it had only been two weeks, but it seemed as though it was two years; the days dragged by, and the nights ticked away sluggishly. She kept opening her mind to try to speak to him, only to remember that the powers they shared could not cross dimensions. Instead she felt a yawning grey nothing, like a television that was not tuned into a channel. It frightened her; she had grown used to the silent communications between them and to find no answer time after time only served to remind her how lonely she was. Maddeningly, she could still feel a faint awareness of him, but he was as out of reach to her as the moon was.

She sat back in her chair and sighed, cradling a cup of tea in her hands. It was 3am and her turn to watch Yuuko. She had a book of suduko puzzles and a racy novel she had found under her bed that she was sure Linca had lent her when they were at university. She had lost interest in both however. The puzzles made her head hurt and the novel… Well the novel was very badly written which annoyed her, but it also reminded her of everything she could not have.

"TWO WEEKS!" her body screamed at her. Two weeks without being held, without being told how much she was loved or appreciated. Two weeks without feeling his soft lips caress her neck or his sharp teeth nip her ear lobe playfully. Two weeks without hearing his teasing chuckle or his warning growl or feeling his warm breath on her skin. Two weeks without having her hair stroked or shoulders rubbed. Two weeks without his smell, not just the masculine musky smell that all males had but his own smell of mountain mists and clouds heavy with rain.

"Two weeks without sex," she muttered to herself. A year ago she would have never have thought that she would ever complain about such a thing. Then again if Linca was here she would probably say something like "Those who don't miss it are not doing it right." Chihiro's rational self pointed out that she had made it through puberty and beyond without being so needy. But then again she did not know what she had been missing either. She closed her eyes and crossed her legs trying to ease her discomfort. It did not help.

She felt like she wanted to crawl out of her own skin, like she was some skittish mare who needed her master to run a firm hand over her back and flanks so she would calm. Oh she wanted him here with her. Shamelessly abandoning all inner propriety she indulged herself with yet another daydream.

He would just walk into her bedroom, without a word of explanation of how or why he was there. He would drag her from her bed and kiss her fiercely. He would not have it all his own way however, oh no. She would loop her foot behind his and sweep his legs out from underneath him sending them both tumbling to the floor. She would start tearing at his clothes, desperate to see flesh. There would be surprise in his emerald eyes but desire also. He'd stroke her hair and kiss her softly telling her there was no need to rush he was not going anywhere. But she was beyond being calmed she needed him right at that moment or she was going to go insane. Once she had his clothes off, she would….

"Chihiro?" croaked a voice. Chihiro sat bolt upright and nearly spilled her tea. She looked guiltily into the confused eyes of her mother and felt a blush start to creep up her neck.

"Stop it!" she told herself. "It's not as if she could see what you were thinking."

"You're awake!" cried Chihiro with false brightness.

"I think so," said her mother. "I've had a lot of strange dreams, this could just be another one…"She looked up at her daughter and frowned. "Now I know this is a dream; you can't be here." Chihiro smiled and told her mother how she had come to the human world and about the potion and her illness. It took Yuuko a while to take it all in and she kept stopping Chihiro to get her daughter to repeat things. At last she said, "Haku will be alright won't he?"

"I'm sure he will be fine," smiled Chihiro. "He will be weak but he would not have sent me if he did not think he could do it."

"You're wrong," whispered her mother gravely. "I know how smitten that boy is, he would have sent you anyway."

Cold fingers of fear stroked over Chihiro's heart. Her mother could not be right? Could she? Haku could be irrational on occasion but not about something as important as this surely? Yuuko struggled to sit up and Chihiro helped her.

"Yuck! I feel as weak as your dragon must be right now, poor fool that he is," Yuuko complained. Chihiro got her to drink a glass of water and thought that if she could get some soup into her mother she would go and get her father. Akio would be ecstatic to see his wife so improved. Chihiro disappeared and returned with a mug of instant miso.

"Drink," she ordered. Her mother pulled a face at the mug but started to sip at it.

"You will be wanting to return as soon as you can I take it?" asked Yuuko.

"I'll stay a few more days just to see you back up and about. But yes I need to get back," replied Chihiro.

"I understand," said Yuuko sadly. "The sooner you get back the less of a burden you are to your dragon. I also understand that you don't want to stay here; this is no longer your home." Yuuko sighed sipped her soup and smiled. "You're so much like your grandmother; sometimes I think it's her staring out at me from your eyes, not my daughter." Yuuko shook her head. "Silly of me I know; you are very different people. She was a very devote woman and old fashioned. You're wilder and more headstrong than she ever was. That's why we raised you with no faith. My mother was so devoted to her religion I felt stifled by it. I never thought to ask her why she was so devoted to it until she was dying."

Chihiro listened intently to her mother. She knew Yuuko had lost her mother in her early twenties. It had been one of the things that had worried Chihiro so; history had a habit of repeating itself.

"I always knew my mother was a little different," continued Yuuko. "There was always a far away look in her eye, as if she was longing for something, like her soul belonged in another place. It was not until she was dying that she told me something that she had cherished all her life. At the age of 11 my mother went to the spirit world."

Chihiro gasped; all preconceptions she had about the stoic, strict grandmother that she had never met crumbled. "My mother's family lived in a small farming village in the mountains." Yuuko said. "After a hard day in the harvest season they would all eat their evening meal outside on the edge of the rice paddies. My mother wondered away one evening into the woodland. She knew the woods well but that evening something was different; the woods became unfamiliar to her and she was lost. After wondering for hours she sat down by a huge tree and started to cry. Suddenly, a tiny pink piglet trotted up to her. It gave her a questioning look and asked her why she was crying. When she had got over the shock of having a pig talk to her, my mother told the pig she was lost. The pig sniffed her and then snorted as if she smelled bad. Then it said something that had puzzled my mother for years.

"The problem with your family is you don't know which world to live in. Don't wonder too far from home on the solstices or equinoxes again. Making the jump between worlds is all too easy for the likes of you." Then it trotted away telling her to follow. Soon she was back in woods she knew. She turned to thank the pig but it had vanished. What she saw was a line where her woods ended and the strange dark woods of another world began. She said it was scary but beautiful and she nearly stepped back over that line. But she remembered what the pig said and ran home. She never told anyone what she had seen but she told me on her death bed that she believed our family was protected by powerful spirits. She also said not a day went by when she did not wish she had stepped back over that line. She thought that the spirit world may have stolen a part of her soul." Yuuko drank some more soup and shook her head. "I thought it was all nonsense, but you don't tell a dying woman such things. I never saw any of these spirits that were supposed to protect us but as my mother was forever pointing out, I had no gift for such things. I think it must have skipped me and instead my daughter was blessed with it."

She put down her mug; Chihiro was pleased to see she had drunk most of it.

"I still have not forgiven myself for not believing you Chihiro. With a mother like mine you would have thought that I would have at least been more tolerant, but…"

"It's alright, Mum," Chihiro soothed. "It's all forgotten." Yuuko was quiet and then she shivered. Chihiro was ready with another blanket but Yuuko waved her away.

"I'm not cold really, I was just thinking about something." Chihiro waited for her mother to fill the silence, not wanting to press her. She had already been more candid that Chihiro could ever remember her being. Maybe it was something to do with the amount of dreams Yuuko said she had had.

"You see that plant on the windowsill?" asked her mother suddenly. Chihiro turned to look. There on the sill was what she had assumed was another of her mother's weird hybrids. It was an orchid of sorts with fleshy red leaves that seemed to have a sticky fluid on them. Out of the leaves grew a thick red flower spike, on which were the most exquisite, if a little garish blood red flowers. Yuuko rummaged in her night stand and produced a rubber glove and a small plastic bag.

"Put this glove on and pick off two or three of those flowers and put them in this bag. Don't touch them whatever you do."

Chihiro was confused but she did as her mother asked. Once she had bagged and sealed the flowers she returned to the bed. "Put them in your pocket and take them with you," said Yuuko.

"Why?" asked Chihiro, frowning.

"Because when the local stray cat tried to chew on one of those flowers it was dead within a minute. I had to bring the plant in; it's too dangerous to keep outside. I'm not sure what happened to it when I brought those cuttings over from the bathhouse gardens but it was the only one that grew and it's deadly poisonous. The rest, like your dragon said, all died, but this one for some reason likes it here." She grinned at Chihiro, her cracked lips splitting a little as she did so. "I'm in line for a national horticultural award I'll have you know! I could command any price for that plant but I was thinking of donating it to the Tokyo botanical gardens where it can be looked after properly, with a few cuttings for myself of course."

Chihiro frowned at her mother. "So why give poison to me?"

"I'm not sure," shrugged her mother. "I just have this nagging feeling that you will need it." Chihiro nodded and slipped the deadly package into her pocket. Who was she to question her mothers gut feelings?

"I've given it a name, it's been recorded too," said her mother quietly.

"Oh?" asked Chihiro.

"I've called it the Dragon's Blood Orchid."

Chihiro gulped.

"Go home soon daughter; I may not know much about your world but I know it needs you more than we do."