NOTE: I'm sorry for the long hiatus (you may need to review the lead-up to this chapter). If you're still with me, THANK YOU, really! If you're new to the story, disclaimers and such are at the top of the first chapter. Hope you all enjoy.

I changed this. Just a small thing, but it makes a difference in the next chapter.

Thanks to David for everything.
--

Chapter Eleven

I won't wake up
even if the world falls to ruins

Buffy awoke.

"Oh yeah, I really need this," she mumbled, rubbing at her eyes as she sat up in bed, looking around for any sign of life besides herself. Finding that even the barest hints of the candle and book Hatsuharu had been utilizing were gone, she sat up, ignoring the slight pounding in the back of her skull that accompanied the movement. Her hands gripped the sheets as she placed her feet on the floor, tightening on the thin cotton briefly before release. She was on her feet and out the door in seconds, seeing no reason to stay in the barren, empty chamber that enclosed her in paralyzing sleep without provocation.

She just wanted to be awake.

The hallway was wholly unfamiliar. Instead of the plain gateway with white-washed walls periodically spotted with mahogany doors, everything was black, colorless without a spot of light amongst the dark. Oddly, the void did nothing to hinder Buffy's ability of sight, and she peered through the black to see faint gray rectangular sections situated in places where the doors would have normally been.

Buffy, thinking all the while that things were rather curious, turned to look beside her, finding one of the openings.

Hmm, well, I either go through the door into another dreamful house of horrors, or stand here and waste away. I guess this choice is easy, Buffy thought, turning and making her way through the gray into a brilliantly lit room of white.

"No fair, you got to be the princess last time! I want to be the princess!"

It's sad that I'm used to scenes like this, Buffy thought with an internal sigh, watching the ghostly visages before her frolic in an invisible scenery. There were three of them, all children, two girls and a boy who was standing off to the side, looking pensive in the flashes of clarity Buffy was granted before the distortion began flickering through him again. The girls were murkier, fuzzy like electronic noise. One of them appeared to have long, brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, and the other wore her black hair short, cut in a bob around her face.

The boy's hair was orange.

"Satoshi!"

What?

The simple spoken word startled Buffy. She recognized Kyou's voice, but without the layers of cynicism and dry detachment coursing through its tone, it almost seemed to come from a different person. She looked around for any sign of Kyou but found no one except the three ghosts in the room.

"Satoshi, tell her to let me be the princess!"

Satoshi turned to them, scowling. "Leave me out of this. I don't care which one of you is the princess."

The brown-haired girl sounded disappointed. "But Satoshi..."

Satoshi walked over swiftly and knelt next to the girls, who were sitting on their folded knees on the ground. "Play Rock-Paper-Scissors for it, okay? It doesn't matter. Whichever one of you isn't the princess gets to be the queen. It's practically the same thing."

"But I want to be married to you," the black-haired girl whined.

Buffy caught the look of surprise and apprehension on Satoshi's face before it was quickly replaced with annoyance. "It's just a game, okay? Figure this out or I'm not going to play at all."

The brown-haired girl smiled. "I'll be the queen. I wouldn't want to be married to my brother."

Satoshi shrugged. "Whatever. It's just pretend."

"Yay! My love!" The black-haired girl sprung to her feet and wrapped her arms around Satoshi, who looked over the small girl's shoulder at his sister for help.

His sister smiled.

I love you, Satoshi.

This is not a phase.

Kyou had spoken again.

The three flickered more rapidly in and out of existence until they disappeared.

Sensing it was time to move on, Buffy turned and exited the room the way she had entered, only to find herself in another room instead of the dark hallway she had expected.

This room was light yellow everywhere, empty but instilled with a vague sense of habitance. Buffy walked further into the room until she was stopped by an invisible wall.

The room thundered with Kyou's angry voice.

These are mine.

Don't touch them.

Stay away from me.

Get out of here.

DON'T LOOK AT ME!

"Do you want to go to the store with me, Kyou?" Tohru's voice rang out as her image phased into existence several feet away from Buffy, beyond the impenetrable wall. She was smiling, a simple apron tied around her waist and looped around her neck, hair pulled out of her face by a blue bandanna. She was staring off into the distance at something Buffy had yet to picture, the light weight of her question scarcely leaving a strain upon her face.

She looked... happy.

"What? Why do I have to go? Is this a trick?" Kyou's annoyed voice demanded loudly, emanating from the place Buffy's eyes couldn't penetrate.

"No, Kyou, I just thought you might like to get out of the house for awhile," Tohru responded cheerfully, Kyou's sour proclamations doing nothing to damper her mood. "Shigure asked me to go into town and get him some more drawing pencils."

"What!" It hadn't seemed possible, but Kyou's voice became more agitated. "Dammit, you tell that bastard to stop ordering you around like some kind of maid, okay? He can get his own damn pencils if he wants them so much!"

"I'm going to the store anyway to get groceries," Tohru replied with smile, her eyes never wavering from the distant place. "He asked politely if I'd make another stop. I don't mind, really."

She could be so stupid.

Tohru paused, but Kyou didn't say anything. "Do you want to come with me?"

"FINE!" Kyou shouted, sounding like he had just been talked into submission for hours rather than in a few seconds. "Let me put my jacket on. I'll meet you outside."

"Okay. Thanks, Kyou." Tohru untied the apron and lifted it over her head, folding it neatly and setting it aside, where it disappeared to Buffy's eyes. The girl walked away, fading as she went.

Another image came into view from where Kyou's voice had yelled. Tohru was walking, smile on her face identical to the one before, though it lifted and opened when she laughed. "You look so funny."

But she was always there.

"What?" Kyou demanded, still hidden from view.

"You must really think it's cold out here to wear such a heavy coat," Tohru said. Buffy noticed that the girl was wearing only a thin parka in addition to her earlier clothes but seemed unaffected by the "cold". Buffy herself felt nothing of hot or cold.

Just numb.

"It's freezing," Kyou said angrily. "How can you walk around in that?"

"I feel fine," Tohru said brightly, walking in place in Buffy's vision so that Kyou remained hidden behind her in the void. "Thanks again for coming with me. I might have a lot of things to carry."

"Don't mention it," Kyou said with a sigh, sounding defeated. "I didn't mean to sound upset."

Tohru l ughed again. "Kyou, I'm used to it. You don't live with someone for such a long time without learning almost everything about them."

She didn't know.

I loved her.

"Sure, whatever," Kyou muttered.

Tohru stopped and looked over her shoulder. "I hope it stays like this."

Kyou sounded surprised and annoyed. "What?"

"You know, after we finish high school. I hope we stay together somehow, like we promised."

And I never wanted to break that.

The next words Kyou spoke were laced with hidden sorrow and meaning. "I'm sure we will. Don't worry about it."

The images faded as they had before, leaving the room empty. Buffy took this as her cue to move along and did so, out of the yellow room into the next, surrounded by muted blue walls. In the center of the room was a young Kyou, seated in a simple wooden chair, staring down at the floor.

Mommy.

It was hard for Buffy to reconcile the echoing Kyou voice with the word it spoke. Kyou seemed like the last person in the world who would ever have referred to his mother in such a fashion, if at all. He acted so cold and closed, Buffy found it hard to believe he had ever been different.

Tears glistened in the child Kyou's eyes, dripping down his cheeks as he stared down at his hand, bracelet almost slipping off his tiny wrist.

It was me, wasn't it?

Buffy walked slowly forward, feeling an ache in her heart for the small child so obviously in pain in front of her. Not surprisingly, she ran into another invisible wall and silently cursed its presence, resting her hand against it as she watched Kyou's tears turn into reluctant sobs.

I know you wanted me to be normal.

"Mommy," young Kyou murmured through his tears, rubbing at his eyes furiously with his fists. "Are you really gone?"

"Kyou," Buffy said quietly, letting her hand slip down the barrier until it fell limply back to her side, forgotten. Her eyes couldn't seem to leave the little boy's pained face.

I know you never loved me.

Young Kyou rose to his feet, sniffling a few times as he moved unsteadily towards the far end of the room. He vanished from Buffy's gaze without another word, leaving the blue room barren except for the chair.

But why did you have to hate me?

Feeling heavier than she had when she had entered, Buffy exited into the next room, wondering when it was going to end. She felt like she was walking through a maze of memories, every step taking her further into the recesses of a vivid past. She didn't pretend to know if everything she was seeing was real or imagined as part of a crazy dream, but she couldn't begin to understand how her mind would make such a thing up.

Floating cities, colored rooms, haunting images, what is this? The episode that made Twilight Zone jump the shark?

The next room was a bright, angry red. The color pounded at Buffy's retinas, forcing her to squint against its intensity until her eyes adjusted accordingly. Immediately, the room darkened to a deep maroon, closer to blood, as rain began to fall everywhere around her. Like before, the phantom rain never touched her, splashing against the floor as an illusion.

I never liked that weather.

Buffy peered through the dark and saw Tohru, looking down and broken. Unfamiliar.

"You frighten me," she whispered before dissipating.

Why couldn't you be different?

Another being flashed to life, a tall woman with long hair and a blank face made up of shadows. "There now, Kyou, lift up your sleeve for Mommy. Oh, Kyou, don't be like that. Be a good boy, okay?"

The woman leaned closer to Buffy, though obviously not seeing her and instead whatever she was supposed to be looking at. "See, Kyou? I love you, very, very much. But you have to show me your bracelet when I ask you to, okay? Can you do that for Mommy?"

I already showed you!

"Vile, disgusting thing," a cool voice drawled, replacing the w man in an instant. Buffy recognized Akito, though dressed differently in a kimono tied at the waist. He held a fan in his left hand as he looked forward calmly. "I didn't think it was possible, but you've actually gotten uglier with age."

Akito smiled. "You smell worse, too. Less like rotting corpses and more like, well, death itself."

Don't you see? I'm alive!

"If you beat him, you'll be free," Akito said with a smirk, waving his fan beside his face so that his long hair moved with the breeze. "That sounds fair, doesn't it? The cat and the rat are fated enemies, with the rat being the victor. If you can change that, you can change your destiny."

Akito morphed into Yuki, the strange sight causing Buffy to take a step back. Her head was reeling from the violent splaying of images in the room. "Back for more, are you? You never learn, cat. One day, you'll have to accept the fact that you aren't as good as me."

You don't know anything!

Yuki smiled, the gesture frosty upon his lips. "Okay, if you must insist, then I'm not going to refuse. Let's get this farce over with."

Shigure appeared beside Yuki, looking tired and fed up. "Listen to me, Kyou. We're going to do everything we can to find Tohru. You know this. But screaming and thrashing about isn't going to make her suddenly appear out of thin air for you. All it's going to do is make things worse. For you, and for everyone around you."

Yuki rolled his eyes as he nodded his agreement. "Exactly. So can it, cat."

Where is she?

How could she leave me?

I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE!

Feeling a smidgen of fear at the angry proclamations bounding off the walls around her, Buffy turned and went through the door without waiting for the ghostly images in the red room to cease their play. Even as Buffy crossed the threshold into the next room, she had a feeling it was to be the last.

End of the line.

Everything was black, dark like the hallway had been except for a single spotlight illuminating the center of the room and the boy standing beneath it. He didn't look up and see her until she had entered the light, standing a few feet away from him.

"You again," Kyou said, looking every bit the same as he had in her earlier dream. Though she wasn't certain which Kyou she was speaking to (though this one's face was unblemished as the latter Kyou's had been), she felt some sense of relief that she was finally being acknowledged. It was hard to watch painful things and not be able to do anything to stop them. "What are you doing here?"

"Beats me," Buffy said with a helpless shrug. "I guess I must have fallen asleep again, which is possible suckage if they have trouble waking me up like before."

"Huh?" Kyou asked.

"Dreaming," Buffy said with a shrug. "At least I hope so. If not, reality's tripping on acid."

"So did you see everything?" Kyou asked.

"Hmm? Whaddya mean?"

"The rooms. Everything," Kyou said vaguely. "I've been waiting for you."

Buffy furrowed her brow. "But... just a second ago, you asked me why I was here. Now you're saying you know what I've been experiencing?"

"I know what you've seen," Kyou said. "I just don't know why you're here with me."

"Well, if I knew I'd tell you," Buffy said in her most helpful manner. "So what's the deal with the rooms, then, Mr. Knows-Everything?"

"Did you see me?" Kyou asked.

"Again, I have to ask, huh?" Buffy folded her arms across her chest, twisting her lips in a grimace. "Look, if want to know things, you have to be specific, because I can't read your mind."

"I didn't want anyone to know those things," Kyou said. "Not even Tohru. She can't know everything. Because then she might hate me, too."

Buffy lowered her eyes to stare at the plain floor. "I can't imagine Tohru hating anyone, Kyou."

"I killed her, you know?"

Buffy's eyes shot back up, wide with surprise. "What?"

"She saw me and, it killed her," Kyou said softly. "I hoped she'd never see, but she did. She did."

"Saw what?" Buffy asked. "I'm sorry, but I'm still on a completely different page. Maybe different book, different planet. What are you saying?"

Kyou met her gaze steadily. "Look again."

Kyou moved to stand at her side, and images appeared behind where he had been standing outside the spotlight in the black. Tohru was hunched over, hand covering her face, eyes wide between spread fingers. She closed them and leaned forward, falling onto her knees and shaking, wrapping her arms around herself. After trembling for a few moments, she went still, stood, and began to walk mechanically forward, into the blackness.

"What is this?" Buffy demanded.

"She saw me," Kyou replied steadily. "I killed her."

Buffy placed her hands on the sides of her head, rubbing at her pounding temples. She glanced sideways at Kyou. "Okay, pardon me for stating the obvious, but she's not dead."

Kyou shook his head, watching Tohru with melancholic eyes. "She is. I killed her."

Buffy turned back to look at Tohru, shuffling her way through the black, hair hanging wetly over her back and nearer to her face. She certainly isn't looking her best, Buffy conceded silently.

Kyou voice was almost too quiet to be heard, but Buffy picked up his words. "I'll kill you, too."

Buffy forced a chuckle, turning again to look at Kyou. "Sorry, I don't think so. I've heard the same words spoken from much bigger, scarier things than a normal guy."

Kyou met her gaze, face emotionless save for grim certainty that he had spoken the truth.

"To kill this girl, you have to love her."

"You can't stay here," Kyou said after a long moment of silence. "You have to keep going."

"Going? Where?" Buffy asked. "Who are you, anyway? What is this?"

"It won't matter in the end," Kyou said with a shrug. By the very fact of his uncharacteristic stoicism, Buffy was wagering that the Kyou next to her wasn't either of the Kyous she had met in her dream. He might have been a nonentity sent for the sole purpose of confusing her further. And doing a pretty good job of it, she thought.

"So where do I go?" she asked, relenting.

Kyou reached out and placed his hand on her cheek, closing his eyes.

Palm warm, fingers cold.

"Home."

Buffy awoke again.

Buffy was about to start clawing her hair out and cursing when she realized she wasn't alone in the room. Standing near the foot of the bed was a man she recognized from before, when she had met the first of the Soumas. It was the doctor, Hatori Souma.

"Don't move," Hatori told her quietly, meeting her cloudy gaze with steady green eyes. He moved stiffly to her side, leaning down and placing a cool hand against her forehead. "You're running a high fever, and you shouldn't put any more strain on yourself than necessary."

"But--" Buffy furrowed her brow in confusion, blinking up at the man as he straightened, turning and moving away from the bed to a desk near the door. His large hands began to shuffle through the papers scattered on top of it, his profile sharp and solemn. "But how did that happen?"

In the pause before his answer, Buffy took a moment to let out a held breath of apprehension. Everything was as normal as possible, she figured. She wasn't back in her home dimension, but she was awake, and Hatori was there as Hatsuharu had promised. She was no longer trapped in dream worlds that took her sanity and bent it into twisted mirrors reflecting nothing but confusion and hopelessness. Though the weight of still existing in a strange situation beyond her control was inside of her, she received small comfort from the fact that her nightmares were over. Any reality had to be better than staying lost in dreams.

Hatori pulled the chair out from under the desk and sat down, posture immaculate as he swiveled to look at her. His dark hair tumbled over his left eye, a staple Buffy vaguely recalled from her earlier encounters with him. The only thing missing was the cigarette between his lips that had never before been absent. I must be really bad off if he's put away his smokes. "This is most likely going to be hard for you to hear," he said calmly. "Do you think you can handle this?"

An uneasy feeling took root in Buffy's stomach, the beginnings of a full-fledged panic. Hatori's solemnity combined with his almost-cryptic ambiguity gave Buffy a second of pause before she foraged ahead, discarding her inner turmoil in favor of a quick shot to the finish. "Remember me? Slayer, takes the several, several million blows from the dark side come to vanquish the light? I think I can handle a little piece of news regarding my health."

"As a matter of fact, I don't," Hatori replied simply. "I don't know a single thing you told me just now. We honestly don't know where you came from."

Buffy blinked. "Wait, what? I know you don't... what are you talking about? Explain this to me like I'm a two-year-old, because that's kinda how I'm feeling right now."

Not batting an eye at her strangely worded request, Hatori nodded slightly. "You're on the property of the Souma family. It's about one o'clock on the afternoon. Hours ago, on his way to school, Hatsuharu found you lying unconscious next to the main entrance gates. He brought you to me for medical attention. I'm a doctor, my name is Hatori Souma. I put you in bed and ran simple diagnostic procedures, but with the exception of your high temperature, I didn't find anything physically wrong with you."

Crap.

Buffy's relief proved to be fleeting, as everything she had felt upon waking and before seeing Hatori near her came crashing back against her, causing her heart to beat at a frantic pace in her chest, lightening her head and making her vision swim in and out of clarity. She struggled to sit up, and when Hatori stood and made his way to her, pressing his hand upon her shoulders to force her back into bed, she writhed against his insistence. "Stop it, I have to get out of here," she said furiously, prying at his hands roughly. "This is wrong. This is wrong!"

"Calm down before you hurt yourself," Hatori ordered in a cool voice. "We know as little as you do right now. We need you to get better before we can begin to sort everything out."

"Sort what? There's nothing of the sorting kind here, okay? You're supposed to know me! You're supposed to be figuring out why I was sleeping for so many days straight, not who I am or where I came from!" Buffy shoved with all her strength, pushing Hatori back several steps and making room for herself on the cold ground. When she realized she was wearing nothing more than a simple shift dress that barely covered the tops of her thighs, she let out a small yelp and grabbed the sheets behind her, wrapping them around herself. "Where did you put my clothes?"

"You didn't come here with any clothes. The dress you're wearing now belongs to one of the other Soumas who lives here, and it was the most readily available article of clothing I could find. Given the circumstances, it didn't seem as important as making sure you were okay," Hatori said, reaching out of taking hold of Buffy's free arm, the one that wasn't tightly clenching sheets. "You shouldn't be up and about until we get your fever down. That's my recommendation as your doctor."

"You aren't my doctor. My doctor's fifty and bathes in Old Spice. You're just some foreign stranger that's trying to put me back in bed so I can sleep for another hundred years. Enough is enough! I can't just lie there anymore doing nothing. I have to go home," Buffy said, moving away from the towering presence above her. She refused to meet the eyes she felt boring into her, staring instead at the crisp white cotton shirt covering the broad chest in front of her. She was doing her best to ignore the fact that he had told her (not in so many words) that he had seen her absolutely naked.

Hatori released her, stepping back. "I may not be your doctor, but I'm concerned about your welfare. If you are that reluctant to sleep, I could give you a medication to keep you awake. The important thing is not sleep but you taking it easy to give your body time to heal."

"It isn't my body that's the problem," Buffy muttered, sitting down on the edge of the bed and leaning forward. Her blond hair hung in thick waves next to her cheeks, strangely clean for her current state. "My problem is everything besides that. I... I just want to be home. I'm sick of all this dimension-hopping and waking up not knowing where I am."

"Dimension-hopping?" Hatori echoed questioningly. "I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that."

"Me neither," Buffy said with a shrug. "I think it's just something to say when strange stuff keeps happening. All I know is this isn't home. It's a lot more Japanese than home."

"You aren't from...?"

"I'm from California, the U.S. of A.," Buffy replied succinctly. "This Japanese you hear coming from my mouth? Not real. It's just another part of the weirdness my life has somehow become. I mean, it was also weird before, but this just kinda takes the 'weird' cake and swallows it whole, you know?"

Hatori stared at her with his visible eye, appearing surprised. "You can understand me, but you don't speak Japanese?"

"Bingo. Yeah, it's just part of the neat little dimensional distortion package. I'm thinking and talking in English, but everyone seems to be able to understand what I'm saying." Buffy lifted her shoulders, her face heating up with a flush. "Ugh. It's so hot in here..."

The doctor in Hatori came back, changing his demeanor from surprise to stoic professionalism. "Lay down. I'll get you a caffeine pill so that you won't fall asleep, if you want one, that is."

Buffy followed his orders, giving a short nod. "No more sleep, please. I'm sick of waking up in weird places and not knowing a thing about where I am. I figure if I can stay awake, I can get back to where I'm supposed to be."

"America?" Hatori asked over his shoulder on his way out of the office.

"Yeah," Buffy said quietly. "With my family."

Hatori said nothing, exiting the office to get her medication.

Buffy sighed as she pressed the side of her head against the soft pillow. "Why is this happening?" she murmured, sliding her hand up to her face, digging her fingers into her eyes and watching bright lights swim in the blackness before her. "Why does everything keep making less sense?"

She was too worried about her situation to think about Tohru at all. The girl would flash briefly in her mind, but drifted away when far more intense emotions flared up, causing all of Buffy's attention to focus on the confusion, the annoyance, or the melancholy.

I'm never going to find my way back, am I?

Are the guys thinking about me, looking for me? Do they even know I was taken into another world, or do they think I ran away again?

God, I miss them.

How did I get here?

Where is here?

Oh my God.

It's alive.

During her introspection, Buffy had glanced around the room, rolling onto her back to get a full view of her surroundings, when her eyes fell upon the window at her back and the scenery beyond.

Green.

Life.

Buffy sat up, ignoring the protesting creak of her joints at the monotonous action. Her fully widened eyes were locked on the swaying branches of the tree outside the window, bright sunlight glinting off the rubbery leaves and dazzling her with its unfamiliar intensity. Compared to the dull sun of the dead world, it was brilliance, otherworldly sunlight heralding a return of life to Earth.

Hatori came back to find the girl still staring, chest rising and falling heavily as her eyes drank in the sight, unwilling to waver for fear that the world would grow cold and decay while her gaze drifted elsewhere. He spoke to get her attention, holding a pill in one hand and a glass of water in the other. "I have the caffeine pill you requested," he said. "Is something the matter?"

Buffy turned to him, her eyes misty from swelling emotions and bright light. "Am I home?" she asked quietly, staring into his eye earnestly, unaware of the state of herself except the part that saw the man in the center of the room. She was still basking in the glow of an afternoon sun whose rays were unobstructed by clouds and shining with full intensity over everything.

"You aren't in California," Hatori replied, "so I don't think you are, no. What makes you ask that?"

"I just thought... never mind," Buffy said, her cheeks reddening further with embarrassment that was hopefully covered by her feverish flush. "So let's have at that water already."

Hatori handed her the pill and glass, watching as she placed it in her mouth and drowned it with several swallows of water. Buffy handed him the glass when it was empty and sighed, leaning back against the pillow. "So I'm just supposed to sit here until my fever goes away?"

"I think that would be best," Hatori said. "I'll be in and out of the office, but right now I have to check on Akito. He's... not well."

Buffy knew that telling Hatori she had already met all of the Soumas (albeit, different versions of them) would open up a large can of worms that would take a lot of explaining to close, and she didn't feel in the mood to undertake such a venture. She honestly wanted nothing more than to go outside and feel the sun on her face. Even if this world was an illusion, the product of another hallucinatory dream, she wanted to experience the bright sunlight of her life at least one time before she was dragged back to the post-apocalyptic world of death.

The world where Tohru was.

"Okay," Buffy said, keeping her thoughts to herself and nodding at Hatori. "Go do your things. I'll be here."

"Good," Hatori said, shutting the door behind him as he left the office with her empty glass.

Buffy moved the instant he was gone, pushing the sheets away from herself and heading for the window, kneeling on the bed and fiddling with the simple catch keeping it closed. She slid it open and relished her first few breaths of sunshine-soaked air. The breeze was sweet with the scent of cherry blossoms, but to Buffy's nose, it just smelled vividly alive. She closed her eyes for a brief moment against the bright light but smiled, continuing to breathe slowly through her nose. She'd never felt so appreciative of the world before.

The dead world and those on it became a distant memory in the face of the world teeming with life before her.

This is the real world.

This is where I belong.

The air must have made her drowsy. All of a sudden, it was a challenge to keep her eyes open.

Buffy swallowed thickly when the sleepiness hit her like a sledgehammer. An odd taste remained in her mouth, familiar somehow, an aftertaste from the medicine she'd swallowed. "That pill," she muttered. "What the f--"

She was out.

Hatori opened the door and poked his head inside, eyes sliding over the still form on the bed.

The drug had worked like a charm. The girl was asleep.

Hatori shut the door quietly and made his way to the couch, sitting down and taking a cigarette out of his front shirt pocket along with his lighter. He lit the end swiftly and brought the stick to his lips, inhaling deep and slow. The smoke filled his lungs and seemed to relax him, not that he was too bent out of shape to begin with. The day, with the exception of the strange girl in the next room, was just like any other.

Hatori leaned back and closed his eyes, placing the lighter on the table next to the couch. He wasn't sure exactly what he was going to do with the girl. She appeared to be delirious from her relatively high fever, talking about things like dimension-hopping like they were real and commonplace. He thought if perhaps he lowered her fever, her insane ramblings would dissipate into sensical words, but the girl seemed bound and determined to do everything but sleep.

Which was another odd thing.

Why did she think I was supposed to know her?

He wasn't sorry he had lied to her about the medication. Sometimes, sick people had trouble objectively doing what was best in the interest of their health.

The girl looked to be one of those.

Hatori's quiet musings were interrupted by the loud crack of the front door being harshly opened. He sat up and opened his eyes to see Kyou, backlit by the sun's fiery embers, breathing hard and looking upset.

"Kyou," Hatori started. "You're not--"

"I know I'm not allowed on the main Souma property!" Kyou shouted in response, stepping inside the small room and shutting the door angrily behind him. "I don't have time for these stupid rules, okay? I don't give a fucking damn, not right now. I've got to--"

Kyou stopped, and Hatori stood, looking down at the perturbed boy. "Yes?" he asked finally. He let Kyou's infraction on the family rules slide, not caring much that they had been broken. Akito was the one who demanded firm and direct adherence; the others were somewhat less concerned. Hatori figured if Kyou was upset enough to ignore the rules, he was there for a good reason.

"Did you need something?" Hatori prompted while Kyou stood, looking lost and angry.

"I don't... look, there was this... ugh, this is the dumbest thing ever!" Kyou raged, tightening his hands into fists and looking around as though for something to hit with them. "I don't even know why I thought this would be a good idea! What the hell was I thinking?"

Hatori sighed, sitting back down on the couch and watching Kyou wander aimlessly around the room. "I don't know," he responded coolly. He hoped the girl in the next room was out cold so that Kyou's loud vocal ranting wouldn't wake her up. "Did you need to tell me something?"

"It was this dream," Kyou muttered, staring at the floor solemnly for a moment before raising his head, fire returning to his face in an explosion of discontent. "And don't give me that damn look, okay? I know dreams are stupid and dumb, and I know they don't mean a damn thing!"

"If you think that, why are you here to tell me about a dream?" Hatori asked reasonably.

"Because!" Kyou retorted sharply.

Hatori had the odd feeling he had stepped back into his youth as he watched Kyou's failed, immature attempts at serious communication.Everything about the way the orange-haired boy was acting was off, and it didn't look like he knew how to fix it and do things right, either. Instead of calmly assessing the situation, he was getting angrier and taking it out on whomever happened to be nearby, even though that person was the one whose help he sought.

Not bothering to share his insights with Kyou, Hatori spoke instead, steadily, "Why don't you tell me what the dream was about and why it affected you so much?"

"It didn't affect me!" Kyou exclaimed, glaring at Hatori from across the room. "Did I ever say that it did? Did I say I cared at all?"

"It's implied by the fact that you're here," Hatori said.

"Argh! What the hell? I thought you wouldn't be a jerk about this!" Kyou said, shaking his head. "Why the hell else would I even be here?"

"I don't know exactly why you're here, Kyou. I'm guessing you want to tell me about a dream you had," Hatori said. "So please, take a seat and talk."

"You know, I don't believe in any of this dream reading shit, right? I wouldn't be here if this wasn't bothering me. I can't--" Kyou shook his head again, roughly, his hair tumbling into his face and blocking him from Hatori's sight. "I can't forget her," he mumbled, barely audible.

"Forget who?" Hatori asked, treading carefully. He didn't want Kyou to explode again, though it seemed inevitable with how shortly wired the boy was.

"What? N-nobody! Nothing. It wasn't anything, okay? It was just..." Kyou let out his held breath in a gigantic sigh, slumping against the far wall. "Shit. She said Tohru was..."

Hatori sat straighter at the mention of the missing girl. He had been trying to keep her out of his mind for the most part, because it was hard to focus on anything else when Tohru was there, mysteriously absent. He still felt guilty knowing he had been the last one to see her, the one who had left her alone. Maybe if he hadn't...

"Tohru was what?" Hatori asked mechanically, blinking as he stared at the wall next to Kyou.

Cloudy.

"Buffy," Kyou said, raising his head. "The girl's name was Buffy. Where the hell did my mind come up with that one?"

Hatori resisted the urge to stand and walk over to Kyou, shaking him to bring his focus back to Tohru. "You mentioned Tohru," he said firmly. "What about her?"

"That's just it!" Kyou exclaimed. "Buffy was there, and she started saying that she knew Tohru! She said that she and Tohru were stuck in this... this dead world. She said Tohru fell into a pool of water and woke up there, in that--" He met Hatori's wide gaze. "This is bullshit. This, it's got to be crap!"

"I found her by the entrance. She was just lying there, unconscious, next to a pool of water."

"I'm sick of all this dimension-hopping and waking up not knowing where I am."

"Why aren't you agreeing that this is bullshit? Come on, I'm waiting for you to agree with me that my dream was meaningless and stupid!" Kyou said, agitation rising swiftly. "Why aren't you saying anything?"

Hatori shook his head. "I'm not sure what to say, Kyou. I'm still not clear on what you're trying to say. Why don't you start at the beginning of the dream?"

"I can't remember the whole thing!" Kyou exclaimed. "All I remember is Buffy. She was... blonde... weird... acted like she knew me from somewhere, and then she told me that Tohru was... with her in another place with other Soumas."

"Other Soumas?" Hatori asked, feeling swept up in Kyou's odd fantasy despite himself. "What do you mean?"

Kyou shrugged. "I don't remember. But she said she knew me, but it was some other me. Some other Kyou was with her in that place. And Tohru... damn it! This dream just won't leave my head! I know it's not possible that Tohru fell into a pool into another world, but I can't shake the feeling that it's the truth!"

Hatori's thoughts drifted to the girl in the next room who had been found near a pool of water just that morning by Hatsuharu. There's no way she's involved in any of this, he thought. My God, it's just a dream. How can I be seriously considering any of this?

Kyou appeared to be struggling with the same issue. His skin was still flushed from his raging emotions, fists still straining with exertion. "And it can't be the truth! I know there's some strange shit in this world, I mean, we turn into fucking animals when we're hugged, but people don't just vanish! Tohru didn't just vanish!"

"Tohru is gone, Kyou, and we don't know where she is," Hatori said woodenly, continuing to stare blankly at the wall behind Kyou. "It's only natural that you dream about her and what might have happened to her. The unconscious mind can come up with fanciful scenarios that wouldn't even come into your consideration normally."

"It has to be more than that! That girl, everything she said, it's inside my head! It's screwing everything up, and I can't even think about anything else! I just... I just want her to--!"

Kyou's tirade was cut off by the sound of an opening door. The girl who was supposed to be sleeping for six more hours stepped into the room, sheets wrapped around her body in a makeshift dress. Angry light was glinting like the forethought of an inferno as she rested her eyes upon the seated doctor. "Guess what!" she said brightly, an undercurrent of deathly calm lacing the edge of her tone, "Slayers? Don't. Sedate. Well."

Kyou made a surprised noise from his position, eyes lock d on the girl in the doorway. His hands relaxed by his sides, his posture lifting into a full stand. His face was wiped of his many emotions, staying blank for a few seconds before comprehension dawned and drew his features into a knowing smile.

He snorted. "Well, fuck me."