A/N: Hello, my lovely readers! I apologize for the wait, but as I said on a different story post, I've been struggling with a rather nasty flu virus. But I'm all better now, and eager to continue the story! Thanks again to all of my amazing reveiwers/readers. You guys humble me with your attention. I love you all! The poll on my profile is closed now; watch for the results in the following chapter.

I do not own Ouran High School Host Club; it belongs to Bisco Hatori.

And It All Comes Tumbling Down

"Haruhi?" he said again, with a great deal more concern this time. "Boys? What's going on?" Ranka took a step forward. "Is something wrong?"

For a moment, no one moved. Frozen on the spot, their facial expressions ranging from shock, to dread, and everything in between, they looked like actors caught in one of the horrible soap operas Ranka loved so much.

Then, self-preservation kicked in, and Haruhi gave the hands holding her up a hard slap. She stumbled out of the arms surrounding her, and thanked whatever deity was listening that the pain in her stomach had lessened enough for her to stand. Her attempt at bravado would have been ruined completely if she'd pushed the boys away, only to fall face-first onto the floor.

Still, her smile shook a little, and she hoped that her father wouldn't notice the way she braced a shoulder against the wall.

"Everything's fine, Dad," she said. "Just a little Host Club drama." Haruhi shot a single, burning glare at the six boys standing behind her, letting them know without words that her easy tone in no way meant they were forgiven. "They were just leaving, anyway."

Ranka wasn't an idiot. Underneath the feminine, fluttering persona he projected, Haruhi's father possessed a rather sharp mind, and eyes that saw far more than he typically let on. And right now, not only did he indeed notice the fact that his daughter was sagged against the wall for support, his narrowed eyes also took in her sweat-dampened face, which was still waxy white and creased with pain, and the protective hand she had braced against her stomach.

Without a word, Ranka shut the door behind him. His bright eyes, burning with an intelligence that he didn't often let others see, traveled past his daughter's shaky smile and landed on one of the boys standing behind her.

"Kyoya."

He said it softly, and almost without inflection. It wasn't a greeting, but a one-worded demand for information. And Kyoya just inclined his head and took a step forward.

"Of course," he replied.

"Hey," Haruhi objected, reaching out to snag Kyoya's sleeve as he moved past her. "What are you doing? Didn't I tell you all to get out?"

"Be quiet, Haruhi."

The simple command froze Haruhi in place. She could count on less than four fingers the number of times her father had used such a harsh and serious tone with her. Her hand aborted its movement mid-reach, and fell limply to her side.

"You've been wandering around this house like a ghost ever since you got home from school," Ranka continued. "I may act silly sometimes, but I have eyes, Haruhi. Your face is pale, and you've lost so much weight. You hardly eat, and every bite you do choke down you chase with a roll of antacids." Ranka's eyes softened, became sad. "I was trying to wait, to let you talk to me in your own time. But obviously, that isn't going to happen. So I'll get the answers from someone who trusts me enough to give them."

It hurt worse than a simple slap would have, and Haruhi could tell by the muffled gasps behind her that she wasn't the only one feeling the force of the verbal blow.

"Perhaps we should sit down," Kyoya suggested into the stunned and awkward silence that followed.

"Of course," Ranka said, tearing his eyes away from his daughter's staggered face. "Please, follow me."

Ranka led him to the living room. After a moment's pause, the rest of the group followed. Hikaru and Kaoru tried to catch Haruhi's wrists, intending to give her a little comfort and take away some of the hurt in those big brown eyes. But she shook their hands away.

The atmosphere inside the living room was tense. Everyone was on edge and sitting as stiff as mannequins. The only two people not staring straight at Haruhi were Kyoya and Ranka. And the only thing the object of everyone's attention was showing was the top of her shaggy brown head and the two hands she had fisted in her lap.

"Now," Ranka said. "Please explain."

"Certainly," Kyoya replied. "Haruhi's symptoms became apparent to us as well the night that we gathered at the coffee shop. She complained of a hunger-related stomach ache early in the evening, but then was unable to finish her food once it was brought. Shortly after eating, a sharp pain in her stomach forced her to retire from the table, and adjourn to the restroom, where it is my belief that she ingested several antacids. Upon returning to the table, she excused herself from our company and made her way home. After calling my physician, and confirming Haruhi's symptoms myself, I reached the conclusion that your daughter is suffering from a stomach ulcer."

Haruhi's hands tightened so hard that her knuckles went white.

"Stomach aches," she muttered defiantly. "All of this fuss over stomach aches. Ridiculous."

Kyoya's glasses flashed as he aimed a deceptively easy smile in Haruhi's direction.

"While I find your penchant for denial amusing under different circumstances, your health is one area where it cannot be tolerated," he said.

Haruhi's head snapped up, and confusion crowded around the anger in her eyes.

"What? Denial? What different circumstances?"

"Ranka, are you aware that your daughter obtained special permission from the dean of her university to exceed the maximum credit load?" Kyoya asked breezily, blowing right past Haruhi's baffled inquires. "Or that the majority of the classes she's taking are typically reserved for students in their senior year of college? Or that her internship with the law firm forces her to work as many hours as a full-time, paid employee? Or that she took a part-time tutoring job to help pay for school expenses?"

A look of co-mingled horror and guilt crossed Haruhi's face at Kyoya's final question. Ranka's eyes, already widened from the amount of information he'd received, popped to the size of dinner plates, and then narrowed.

"Pay?" he snarled dangerously.

There was a collective gasp of fear from the remaining male members of the Host Club as Ranka whirled on his daughter. The man's face, typically so pretty and deliberately feminine, had transformed into a truly demonic visage. The fire curling out of his ears, as well as the steam shooting from his nose, had Hunni burying his frightened face into Mori's side.

"Takashi, normal people shouldn't have fangs!" he wailed.

"No kidding," Hikaru and Kaoru agreed, clinging to each other and speaking through chattering teeth.

"Har-u-hi," Ranka hissed, separating each syllable deliberately. "You told me that the scholarships covered your tuition!"

Haruhi's resistance to her father's scary face was little better than the boys, even after all the years she'd spent confronting it.

"They do!" she stammered weakly. "But there's still housing, and books, and the meal plan that all freshman are required to have."

Ranka was on his feet and fuming before Haruhi even finished speaking.

"And of course you couldn't come to me! No, you've got to do everything yourself, and give yourself a nice little hole in the stomach because of it! Your adoring father WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS!" Ranka reached down and clamped his hands on Haruhi's shoulders. "I've had enough of this. You are officially grounded, young lady! For the rest of your natural life! Once we get back from the hospital, you are going to your room, and you won't be leaving it again until you're at least fifty! Maybe at that age you'll finally be old enough for some sense to penetrate that thick skull of yours!"

After their ears absorbed the volume at which it had been delivered, the Host Club leapt to their feet as well, apparently to give Ranka a well-earned standing ovation. But Haruhi didn't shout right back, like they all expected. In fact, when she spoke, her voice barely rose above a whisper.

"Dad," she said, the quaver in her voice brought everyone up short. "I can't go. You know I…I can't."

Everyone blinked, confused and unnerved by Haruhi's sudden shift in behavior. She'd displayed a range of emotions during this ordeal, the majority of which were different flavors of anger and exasperation. But not once had her shields come completely down, never had they even cracked, until now.

Ranka made a soft sound of understanding. The hands on his daughter's shoulders relaxed, became soft sources of comfort instead of restraints.

"Oh, Haruhi," he murmured. "Still? After all this time?"

Haruhi ducked her head and hid her eyes.

"I don't get it," Kaoru said softly. "What just happened?"

Kyoya got to his feet as well, observing the scene before him with folded arms.

"Hospitals," he said. "Haruhi's mother was ill, and passed away in one."

The information zapped everyone like a lightning bolt.

"But she was never afraid before!" Hikaru said. "She was fine during the physical exams at school."

"He said hospitals, not doctors," Tamaki corrected quietly, his lavender eyes soft and sad. "A hospital is the place that Haruhi's mother never came home from."

"Your friends didn't know that you were afraid of thunderstorms at first, either," Ranka said to Haruhi, but gently now. "Just like I didn't know how much stress was piled on your shoulders up at school, or how sick you were making yourself because of it." He dropped down on the sofa next to his daughter, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Why won't you let anyone in, Haruhi? Even me; I can't get close to you."

Just a little, just enough, Haruhi leaned into her father's side.

"You're close, Dad," she said softly.

"But not your friends?" Ranka continued, with tender persistence. "You haven't made the effort to see them in so long, Haruhi. Whenever you come home from school, I ask you how they are, and you always say fine, or that you aren't sure. I know that they're important to you, no matter how much you've complained about them in the past. So, why won't you let them be there for you?"

Haruhi's shoulders hunched, a half-shrug.

"I can answer that," Tamaki said, taking a step forward. "It's my fault, isn't it, Haruhi?"

The boys surrounding Tamaki jerked back, confusion clear on their faces. Haruhi's head snapped up as well. But Tamaki's serene expression never faltered.

"I promised. That day in Okinawa, when I first found out that you're afraid of thunderstorms. I coaxed you out of the wardrobe, and I held you, and I promised that I'd always be there for you. And again, when you were sick, I held your hand and I told you that I'd never go away." Tamaki's eyes were drenched with some secret sadness, some sense of failure that he'd been hiding. "And then, after all that, I left you, didn't I? I broke my promise."

The earnest pain in Tamaki's voice disturbed Haruhi deeply.

"Sempai?"

"Please don't call me that," Tamaki whispered. "I haven't been your sempai for years. And for even longer than that, I've wanted to be something more to you than your elder class fellow."

Haruhi's breath caught, almost painfully, in her throat. Tamaki's hair had fallen over his face; she couldn't see his eyes anymore. So she searched for clues in the faces around her instead.

No one looked surprised. Other emotions abounded, but that one was nowhere to be found. The earth was all but rocking beneath Haruhi's feet, but apparently it was still stationary for everyone else.

He said he wanted to be more to her. Did that mean…did he want…

Dazed, Haruhi locked on to Kyoya's completely unfazed features. Was this what he had meant earlier about denial?

"Tamaki," she said, the name rolling awkwardly off her tongue without the attached honorary.

Tamaki's spine stiffened as if his name had been a lash across his shoulders, and then he looked up. His purple eyes were wide, and the feelings in them were too numerous to name. Fear, wonder, guilt, hope; they all were crowded there.

Haruhi's next words were interrupted by the sudden sound of running feet, and Kaoru's voice, calling his brother's name. The living room door slapped against the wall as it was shoved open, and the front door suffered the same fate a moment later.

"What?" Haruhi sputtered. "What just happened? What was that?"

"That was inevitability," Kyoya said, shoving up his glasses with a weary sigh. He turned his gaze to his best friend. "Tamaki."

Tamaki nodded.

"Right. I'll go after him." He stopped to look at Haruhi. "I'm sorry, Haruhi. I'll…be back. And I'll bring him with me."

And then the Host Club King was gone, again before Haruhi could utter a word.

"I don't get it!" she all but wailed. "What is going on?"

Hunni hugged his arms around himself, wishing he had Usa-chan to hold instead.

"Tama-chan finally admitted his feelings," he explained. "And now Hika-chan has to declare his too."

Hunni's words pierced Haruhi's mind, tumbling over and over. Her brown eyes widened, and her lips trembled apart. Him too? He'd been feeling this the entire time?

A thousand moments played before Haruhi's mind, moments that she had missed before, but seemed so obvious now.

How could she have missed it? Was she really so blind, to both of them? How could she have hurt them like this, for years, without realizing the damage she'd been causing?

"Hikaru," she whispered.

And something in her seized. A bolt of pain, shaper than what she'd become accustomed to, twisted her stomach mercilessly in its clawed fingers. Something scrabbled up her throat, and after a surprised cough, small bubbles of blood popped on Haruhi's lips and spattered across her hands.

"Oh," she murmured.

All at once, everyone was moving. Ranka had her off the couch and cradled in his arms in record time. Hunni ran for her shoes, while Mori dialed the hospital, and Kaoru hailed his driver.

Kyoya stayed by her side, speaking to her father in even tones.

"It's all right. It's just a side effect, brought about by advanced stress. It isn't serious, not yet, but we need to get her to a hospital, right away."

Cool fingers seized her wrist, settling against her pulse, and cool gray eyes locked on to hers.

"It appears you have a choice to make, Haruhi," he said quietly. "But I'm afraid it will have to wait until we save you first."

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

A/N: Not to worry, everyone! I'd never kill our heroine so easily! Vomiting blood is one of the side effects of ulcers. It's serious, but trust me when I say that this is not a story about death, but about life and the lessons it brings. What happens now that Tamaki and Hikaru have finally owned up to their feelings? And how will Haruhi react, now that she knows? Stay tuned to find out. Happy reading!