No, I do not own Gakuen Alice.

If my heart was a house you'd be home.
-If My Heart Was a House, Owl City

"Well, don't just stand there," I squeaked. "Do something!"

"You're the one that stepped on it," she pointed out dryly. "Which means you don't get to demand anything from me. Just don't move."

She didn't have to tell me that – my blood had turned to ice and my limbs had frozen into place. Cold sweat formed on the back of my neck, and my breath hitched in my throat. Dread seized my heart as I watched her walk carefully around me, her face as composed as always.

"What happens if I stay standing here?" I whispered in a panic. "Hotaru, what if it has a timer?"

"It doesn't," she said factually. "It's triggered by you stepping off of it."

"How do you know?"

She cast me a glance over her shoulder, and I nodded in understanding. Hotaru knew everything, and that was something that wasn't to be questioned. But she didn't seem to know what she was doing now, as she stood, facing the counters with a calculating look on her face.

"What are you doing?" I demanded.

"How much do you weigh?"

"What?"

"Are you really that stupid?"

On the verge of hyperventilating now, I had to close my eyes and calm myself before answering, "Last I checked, one hundred and ten pounds."

She'd gone behind me now, and I didn't dare turn around and see what she was doing. Instead, I listened with my eyes closed to her rifling around for something, picking things up and then setting them back down.

My entire life flashed behind my eyes at that moment. My childhood, the part I didn't remember and also the part I did remember. My life now, with Natsume and Koko and Hotaru and Ruka and Yuu and all of these people who were important to me. All of these people that I wasn't quite ready to let go of just yet.

I supposed I had just experienced my life flashing before my eyes, but not in a bad way. Because the flare of determination that I'd felt so often was back, and it melted the ice in my veins and brought my heart back to life again.

I had to trust that Hotaru knew what she was doing. And she always did.

"I suggest you keep your mouth shut about this to Ruka," she said from behind me. "His knickers are in a tight enough knot as it is."

Maybe it was because I'd never thought I'd hear Hotaru say the word 'knickers', or maybe it was because she was right and I could already picture Ruka's expression, but I choked out a laugh.

"Ah. Here we are." I heard her move something heavy, and then she appeared in front of me, holding a large bucket of something that had a lid on it. Her violet eyes were cool, her expression neutral. "I'm going to put this between your legs, and then I expect you to help yourself and step off."

I nodded, but the sweat had begun to drip profusely down my arms, neck, back, even my legs.

She slid the bucket across the ground until it was sitting on the large tile between my legs. Eyes closed in anticipation of the ground blowing up beneath my feet, I stepped onto solid ground, one foot at a time.

Nothing happened.

Satisfied, Hotaru grabbed the USB from my hand and put it securely in her pocket. "Let's go. Ruka will be here."

My legs were trembling as we climbed carefully back up the stairs, dodging the trip wire, but not as much because of what had just happened as because of what was going to happen. In Hotaru's pocket, she held Yuu's, Ruka's, and Natsume's futures, therefore holding hers, mine, and Youichi's as well.

The little three legged dog was hiding behind a table in the living room, but when we came out of the door and Hotaru closed it and relocked it behind us, he came hobbling over with his little tail wagging.

I crouched down and stroked his head. "Bet I know what happened to your leg, huh?"

His ears cocked, and the next minute the front door was bursting open. I started to freak out, assuming that the owner of the house was home, but Hotaru walked calmly out of the hallway and into the doorway, and I saw as Ruka leapt at her and wrapped her in his arms.

"Thank God you're all right. You've got a lot of explaining to do, Hotaru Imai, if you ever expect me to buy you anything ever again."

She snorted. "I have so much dirt on you, I don't need to explain anything to you to get you to buy me things."

He frowned and pulled away. "Where's Mikan?"

I walked around the corner, the dog in my arms. "Right here. Let's get out of here."

Hotaru cast me a glance over her shoulder. "Leave the dog, idiot."

"I will. He's just really cute and I want to say goodbye first." I kissed the end of the dog's nose and set him on the ground, even though I wanted to tuck him under my arm and make a break for it. "See you later, puppy."

Ruka didn't even wait until we were out of the house before jumping down our throats.

"Do either of you have any sense at all? What did you think you were doing? Persona had that place booby trapped the moment his business got going. There are bombs in there. Did you know that?"

I glanced at Hotaru, caught her narrowed eyes, and forced myself to laugh. "Bombs? You don't say! Well, I assure you, we had no incidents with any bombs."

He glared at me, and I stopped laughing. "As much as your good humour is endearing, Mikan, it's not exactly suitable for this situation. What the hell do you think you were doing? Answer me that!"

Hotaru reached into her pocket and pulled out the USB. "This contains important information that Persona doesn't want out. What do you think we plan to do with it?"

He grabbed her arm, forcing her to stop and therefore forcing me to stop. "Oh, no. You're not blackmailing Persona."

She jerked her arm free. "Watch us."

"How do you even know there's anything on that that's worth the effort?"

"Reo," I answered. "Don't ask how. But Natsume also made it very clear that it was true when he said that if Persona ever finds out that I know, he'll probably kill me. So it's really juicy stuff, meaning that it's enough to stop this. We need to get to Natsume and Persona right now."

Before Ruka could reply, the screeching of tires announced someone's arrival and we all turned in time to see a black car ripping down the street towards us. The front passenger window was rolled down, and someone – I couldn't see who – was holding a gun at us.

Ruka threw his arms over both of our shoulders and forced us to dive behind the car Hotaru and I had arrived in as two bullets lodged in the side of it. "Get in the car. I'll meet you at the garage. Make sure you lose them."

The intruding car had reached the end of the street and was heading back, giving Hotaru and I enough time to climb through the passenger door into our seats, and for Ruka to run to his own car, which was parked behind ours.

"Stay down," Hotaru ordered, bringing the engine to life and putting the car in gear.

I obeyed, but despite being low in my seat, I could still see the happenings outside through Hotaru's window. The car with the two men had stopped in front of the house, and while the driver was now hanging out the window with his own gun, and the man from the passenger seat was getting out and coming around the side of the vehicle.

Hotaru ducked as a bullet shattered her window, sailed past us, and shattered mine. I sat, mouth agape, showered with glass, until Hotaru slammed her foot on the gas and snapped me out of it.

"They just shot a bullet into our car!" I exclaimed.

"Thanks for stating the obvious," Hotaru muttered, manoeuvring around a corner. "You can sit up now. They don't have a chance of catching us."

I brushed shards of glass off of my arm, wincing when sharp edges cut my skin. Abandoning that idea, I sufficed for being covered in it and didn't bother brushing it off. Maybe Ruka had a ShopVac we could use.

Hotaru sighed through her teeth. "Why do I punish myself with your presence when you're so stupid?" she asked herself, catching sight of the blood forming from the fresh cuts on my arms.

I ignored her. "Someone tipped them off," I stated, and then a horrifying idea struck me. "What if it was Yuu? What if he's been a bad guy all along? He's the one you asked where the meth house was, right?"

She closed her eyes briefly, like she was fighting a headache that I was the cause of, and then opened them in time to swing around another corner. "Yuu is not a bad guy. He couldn't be bad if he tried. It's more likely that there was a sensor on that tile you stepped on. So it's your fault."

"Oh. Sorry." But I couldn't be too sorry, because we'd gotten what we'd gone for, and now we had proof that Persona ripped off his buyers, and therefore a solid reason that Persona had to listen to us.

Ruka was already at the car garage when we arrived. He looked pale, but when he saw us both, color came back to his cheeks. He ran over to the drivers' side door as soon as Hotaru had stopped, and planted a big kiss on her mouth.

"This is why I told you not to get windows on your car," he said when he pulled away, plucking a piece of glass off her shoulder. "Lord, when I saw that bullet break the glass, I thought for sure…" His eyes flickered to me, and his relief was evident. "I'm so glad you're both okay."

"Me, too," I decided. "But we're not here to chat about this, we're here for you to tell us how the hell to get to where Natsume and Persona are."

"First of all, we're going to clean you two up."

He really did have a ShopVac, and although Hotaru protested and said she could do it herself, Ruka wouldn't let her and vacuumed the glass off of us himself. I didn't stand willingly, either, tapping my feet impatiently and reaching for the vacuum a few times because Ruka was going too slow.

"This is your best friend!" I exclaimed at one point. "We don't have all freaking day!"

"Okay, Mikan," he replied with, remaining entirely calm and even appearing to fight a smile. "I get that you're anxious to be Natsume's knight in shining armour, but-"

I snorted. "Just because he'll hate it."

"But patience is a virtue," he finished. "Come on. I'll show you the map of the route they were going to take."

He led us into the office in the garage, and rifled around on the cluttered desk until he pulled out a large map that was already marked with black marker. "Reo and Natsume used it first," he explained as he unrolled it before our eyes.

According to the map, the race was over a hundred kilometres, from a start point about an hour drive (at the speed limit) away from where we were now, and a finishing point that was close to the border. The course itself handled many tight twists and sharp turns, but none of that was what concerned me.

What concerned me was the prize. A hefty amount of drugs from a supplier with a rap sheet that Persona could sell for twice as much as he paid for them – paid with cash, that's not even including the effort Natsume would have to go through to win.

Natsume was not a drug dealer. And I would not let him start.

"They'll have started by the time we get there, so we'll have to go straight to the end point," Ruka said, tapping the end dot on the map. "Persona probably won't be right there, because the American who's doing the deal, Roberto, he'll want to give the drugs to the winner in exchange for the cash. And then Natsume will likely rendezvous with Persona. But before we do anything, I need to know what you guys have on him, to make sure it will work."

Hotaru narrowed her eyes. "Do I hear you doubting me?" She reached into her pocket and pulled out the USB along her cell phone that was mostly made up of screen. She plugged the USB into the side of the screen. When a picture appeared, she tapped the screen, fast forwarding it slowly, and then handed it to Ruka.

I studied Ruka while he watched, observed as his eyes grew wide when he saw what Reo had told me. When he'd seen enough, he shoved the device back at Hotaru, who was smirking smugly.

"Okay, that'll work," he decided. "Hotaru, I'm going to let you go coordinate the GPS in my car. I break it every time, I swear. I'm just going to go over some things with Mikan and we'll be right out."

Since Hotaru wasn't one to do anything people asked her to, I didn't expect her to listen. But I suppose it was because Ruka had already admitted he was useless that she eyed us both like she knew something I didn't, and then disappeared out of the office.

"Mikan," Ruka said sincerely.

I turned to look at him, surprised to see his face ashen and his eyes sunken, but the ghost of a reassuring smile gracing his lips. Almost scared to ask, I said, "Yes?"

"I think, as Natsume's best friend, it's my job to warn you that he's going to be beyond pissed when you show up," he said soberly. "He's been telling me that he thought you were up to something, but I didn't believe him. I told him not to dump Youichi on you, but he insisted. And now he knows that you did do something, and I can tell you from years of knowing him that he's going to be right pissed off with you."

I nodded in agreement. "Yes, he will. Not that he has much of a reason to be."

"But Mikan, he does."

"No, he doesn't, Ruka. I've been doing things my own way for as long as I can remember, because I had to. I can't have anybody trying to take that away from me. It's like second nature. I don't care how much it pisses him off, if it's something I want to do, like saving his sorry ass, then I'm going to do it."

Something clattered outside of the office, and we both heard Hotaru's quiet curse of frustration.

"No, Mikan. Listen to me. He's got every reason in the world to not want to see you there. And since it's more than clear to both me and Koko that you have no idea, I think it's time you knew."

I swallowed thickly, expecting the worst.

"You're innocent," he began. "You're naïve. You don't see all the darkness in life. You don't see all the darkness in his life, because to you, it doesn't exist as darkness. It exists as part of him. You make him feel safe. You remind him of home." He took a breath, released it slowly, taking in my watering eyes and trembling lips. "That's why he's in love with you. And he's afraid to lose you."

A/N: So I'm really rattled with myself because these last few chapters have been sooo short, and the next one definitely is going to be as well, but I hope that the last few will be much longer. I'll do my best! And I'm going to start trying that Natsume POV for the chapter after the next one, so if it doesn't appear, you'll know I just didn't know how to write it! :P

I'm beyond tired right now, but I promised I'd get a chapter by Saturday and it's 11:59 right now. Still Saturday :) But for a lot of you I'm sure it is not Saturday :( I apologize for that!

I'd also like to thank SeraphMia for adding me to their community (I'm sorry, this is a very late thank you!) I do appreciate it! :)

Tell me what you think! Love you, love you, love you all!

xo.