Another chapter, woo and yay! I feel like I've been more on a roll lately - let's hope I can keep on it. Sorry if there are any typos in this one - I decided to stay up late to finish this, so I'll go over it again tomorrow and fix any mistakes.

If you're one who likes to listen to music while reading, to put you into a certain mood, then when you get to the part after the line break, I would recommend listening to "Love & Loss" by Mattia Cupelli. I think it really sets the mood for this one.

Also, thank you to those who have left feedback. I really can't say enough how much I appreciate it.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this one. :3

Chihiro's thoughts were in a complete and utter tizzy. What had just happened? Had she really opened herself up and lain herself bare like that? Some part of her was in a panic and was desperately wishing she could take it all back. Was everything going to change now? Were Nate, Lidner, and their cohorts now going to gather behind closed doors and discuss what she and Lidner had talked about? Were they going to pat each other on the back for a job well done and keep an eye on her for further "improvements" in her attitude and behavior? The same part of her that was in a panic was quite busy pacing back and forth, ranting and raving about how there was no way in hell they were going to get to her, no way they were going to use this against her, no way they were going to subdue and groom her like some ignorant little obedient child who would sit down with them for family supper and card games and whatever domestic crap they had in mind.

But the natural progression of her conversation with Lidner had taken her to someplace she never would have dreamed of going with anyone, much less with this woman who considered herself her father's caretaker - and hers as well, apparently. At that thought, that panicked little voice inside of her began going on a lengthy diatribe about how she didn't need anyone's help in any form and how they could take it all and stuff it into whichever of their orifices were not currently crammed with their own bullshit.

There was some other part of her that was trying to speak more rationally to her, explaining that this could not have gone on forever, at some point something would have given and it most likely would have been her anyway, seeing as she was already broken, and was it so bad to let someone see that, and why did this part of her sound so much like her brother?

And then that panicked voice was back to exclaiming that none of them had any right to any of that, none of them were privy to her most intimate thoughts and feelings, and if any of them thought they could siphon this information out of her and use it to pin her down somehow, they had another thing coming to them. This "other thing" would most likely come in the form of that stupid, beautiful new violin being bashed to smithereens, but not before being used as a battering ram against Nate's stupid fortress of stupid cards, wiping that stupid, smug look off his stupid face.

What smug look? the other voice contended. True, now that Chihiro thought about it, she had never seen her strange, ghost-like father appear to be the least bit smug. In fact, now that she was being forced to describe it to herself, she had only seen him appear to be vacant. The most emotion she had ever seen from him was emotion she herself had evoked on her first night in their new, so-called home, when she she knocked down his sprawling metropolis of cards. That had been the very satisfying look of shock, and Chihiro was the one who had been smug in that instance.

Still, he had deserved it, came the other voice again, which had shifted from panic to bitter anger at some point, Chihiro passively realized. He had deserved it because he had dared to try and put her into a box - his box. It was the same feeling she had whenever she was confronted with a decision involving a bully. Her first and foremost response was always to strike back - strike fast, strike hard, strike where it would hurt the most, and gods be damned of the consequences. She was quite proficient at picking out the little insecurities that the bullies, without even realizing it, gave away during their time together in the classroom. She equally proficient at fashioning these insecurities into fiendish weapons and using them to flay her opponents, gutting them with their own nuances.

But now that was precisely how she felt - gutted. She felt like a tiny little kitten, hissing out its fury and extending its miniature, needle-like claws, ready to deal a blow to the giant hands that dared to mess with her, but all the same deemed defenseless by these condescending and supposedly superior beings. How exactly was she supposed to feel about this, about the tables being turned on her and having even her tiny kitten claws taken away? How exactly was she supposed to feel, knowing that everything Lidner had said made sense, while at the same time feeling outraged by the sheer simple truth of it all?

She couldn't help but think that this would all be so much easier to handle, so much easier for her to figure out, if only she could play the violin right then. Just the physical motions themselves would be enough to bring everything into a sharper focus, simmer down all of her conflicting thoughts and emotions and straighten them out so that they all coexisted and made sense, so that everything blended together into one, long, harmonious ensemble.

If she had had more time to think about it, in all honesty, she might have broken down and at least tuned the instrument, do something - anything - to soothe her internal maelstrom, but after what felt like only minutes after the departure of Lidner, her brother was reappearing on the scene, carrying with him not only the Rubik's cube from earlier (now partially solved, she noted) but a panicked look of his own. Chihiro had only seconds to realize that it had only been a few minutes since Lidner had left before her twin was approaching her, his eyes blinking at her in both worry and confusion.

Oh, she realized, he must be perplexed by her overall calm demeanor. He must have been expecting her to be pacing back and forth furiously (like the voice in her head had been doing only moments before) or to otherwise be locked in the bathroom again. She really did regret having done that, but she was mature enough to realize that perhaps at least some good had come of it - she had forged some sort of camaraderie with one of the adults and she had gotten a new violin out of it... not that she was the least bit interested in cooperating with them or playing the new instrument, mind you.

Soichiro's worry was written all over his face. She did not want him to worry over her like this anymore, so she took the inclination out of his hands and answered him before he could even work up the courage to ask.

"I'm all right," she said evenly, wondering if everything really was all right. No, of course not everything was all right - aside from the messed-up situation she was currently in, her mother was still dead, her murderer was still at large, and Lidner had provided no clues as to the progress of her case. But, as the agent had said, it was not her place to discuss it at "that" time, not that it was not her place to discuss it at any time - so that meant that it was something that could be discussed at a later time.

And speaking of which, now was not the time for her mind to be gluing itself onto such things, not when her brother was still clearly unconvinced of her being "all right" - his lips were still pressed together in bemusement and his eyes continued to reflect concern. Her eyes, to remedy this, shifted away from his and made a pointed look at the puzzle cube he was still clutching tightly.

"Did you do that by yourself?" she asked, nodding her head at the cube for emphasis. She already knew the answer, but she needed to hear him talk - to get her mind off of everything.

Soichiro blinked at her, coming partially out of his worried stupor, and glanced at the cube in question. His face turned a slight shade of pink, but he still did not appear to be convinced of her calm. He could read her so well, and she really was okay with that coming from him, but she could read him just as well and she hated to have him worry so much. She wished she knew how to take it away, but trying to get her brother to stop worrying all the time was like trying to keep her mouth shut whenever one of the school bullies was going off on her.

At any rate, once he realized that she did not want to talk about what had happened during his absence and that she therefore must be okay, Soichiro walked over and sat awkwardly in the chair across from her at the table where they usually did their homework. He placed the cube on the table along with a piece of paper that had a bunch of English letters written on it.

"I didn't do it by myself, no," he finally answered, having accepted that he would get an explanation later - and he would, Chihiro conveyed with a quick, apologetic look into his copper-brown eyes, which he accepted and which resulted in his relaxing significantly. "Dad showed me how to do it," he said with a little smile, "He said you use these algorithms to solve it."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. But-.. We don't have to talk about that right now."

"No, go ahead."

"We can play a game or do something else instead."

"..If you want to."

"What do you want to do?" Soichiro said, shrugging a moment later when Chihiro quirked an eyebrow at him. He wanted to work more on the puzzle cube - it was clear to Chihiro that before rushing back to check on her, he had been enjoying his time with Nate - but he was not about to do it in front of her and risk upsetting her. Trying to push him any further would only succeed in more shrugged shoulders and awkward, furtive glances at her, which was not what she wanted at the moment for either of them.

Chihiro conceded, "Let's play a game then."

"Okay."

He had relaxed a little more, but underneath that he was still worked up - perhaps as much as Chihiro herself was worked up - and wanted to do something that would take both their minds off of things - off of Lidner and Nate, in particular. So she agreed to play whichever game he chose, until Gevanni arrived with their dinner, and then some more after dinner, all the way through to bed time. There was one particular adventure-type game they liked to play together, and they made quite a bit of progress through the game's extensive map before they decided to turn in together.

After light's out, as the pair lay with their backs pressed together, Chihiro felt that little panicked, angry voice come back, whispering to her in the darkness that come morning, everything would be back to the way it was before. She knew without a doubt that some part of her - a large part of her - wanted everything to go back to before she had Lidner had talked. She wasn't exactly sure why, just that everything seemed much simpler that way - a lot simpler than trying to navigate all these confusing thoughts that had resulted, anyway.

All of this kept her awake for much longer than it normally took for her to fall asleep. But eventually she did begin to drift off, the last skittering remnants off her thoughts fleetingly realizing that her brother, who always fell asleep first, was still wide awake.

The next day at school was mercifully uneventful for the most part. She and Soichiro were both quieter than usual, which was quite a feat considering both of them hardly said anything to anyone outside of each other, save to answer their teacher's questions when called on during class. One might have thought that they were upset with each other, but then none of their peers seemed to notice or care how they were feeling about anything, much less towards each other, unless it was to get an adverse (or favorable, depending on who was looking at it) reaction from them by poking fun. This was all fine and dandy with Chihiro, and her brother had also at some point accepted (preferred, even) this negligence from their classmates. It meant, at least, that they were being left alone for the time being. Aside from all that, their somber mood was really the result of the ceaseless thoughts from the day before running around in both of their heads, but both somehow instinctively knew that that would soon been reconciled.

Things remained this way all the way up until the end of the day, when Chihiro had to use the restroom before walking home with her brother. Michiko and a few of her friends apparently decided that standing around outside of the bathroom stall and giggling while Chihiro relieved herself was a creative use of their time, which was really pathetic on their part, Chihiro thought. Michiko kept asking about how her violin lessons were going and Chihiro miraculously bit her tongue, although she almost asked Michiko, in return, if she had figured out who her real father was yet. She instead quietly made her way around the group of chuckling cretins, washed her hands, and met her brother out in the hallway. The other girls took this as a victory, for they continued to make jokes at her expense, which brought her blood to a simmer. She truthfully wasn't sure if she felt proud of herself for ignoring them, or disappointed in herself for letting them get away with their taunts, but her brother gave her an encouraging little smile once she exited the restroom. He must have heard their sneering voices from within, but true to his nature, he said nothing about it and together they made their way out into the cool, late-January air. After feeling the heat of rage bubbling under her skin, the cold air felt nice.

While some things like a few parked cars and bushes were still blanketed in virgin, white snow, most everything else had turned into that gray, slushy gunk that always followed a heavy snowfall, filth that washed off from the cars and other street vehicles as they passed along the wet avenues. The twins walked along quietly, listening to the sloshing noises of cars, trucks, and buses running through this gunk. Chihiro thought of how Lidner had said that she used to play in the slush as a kid. She stepped in some herself, watched as it flew out in all directions, and realized that she should probably go ahead and use this time to fill her brother in on what her talk with Lidner had been about. And to see if she could get some things clarified for herself.

"Hey," she said, breaking the silence with a billowing puff of thin, wispy water vapors that escaped her parted lips and quickly dissipated.

"Hey," Soichiro said in return, exhaling a little cloud of his own.

"You want to know what Lidner said to me yesterday?"

"Sure," he replied conversationally, but really that was his way of saying that, although he was interested, she did not have to continue if she did not truly want to.

But she did. "She said that I've misunderstood Nate and his intentions. That he doesn't really mean to keep us locked up and that he doesn't mean any of this to be rude. That he does want to get to know us, but that he doesn't know how to."

"Yeah?"

Chihiro wished he would say more, because this was awkward as all hell for her, but he seemed to be more intent on listening to her at the moment.

"But I don't know if I really believe her or not. All of this-..." She kicked a small pile of snow and sighed. "Why do you trust him?"

"Me?" he asked in return, in a way that said that he knew what Chihiro was referring to, but that he wanted a confirmation before committing to an answer. He was always second-guessing himself and Chihiro wished he would be a bit more confident, but then she understood it. Besides, it wasn't like she was feeling exactly confident herself at the moment - or much at all, anymore - so she obliged him, as always.

"Yes. Why do you like him? Why do you trust him?"

Soichiro shrugged, his eyes settling their walk instead of on her. "I don't know," he muttered.

"You do know, though," she prodded gently. His eyes moved back to hers and he shrugged again. "Please tell me." But Soichiro pressed his lips together and glanced away again. He was obviously afraid of upsetting her. "I promise I won't get upset. I honestly want to know your thoughts. Contrary to what you might believe, I can't actually read your mind," she said with a small, light-hearted smile.

"I think you just did," he said with a little smile of his own.

"I might have."

"I don't know. If you could actually read my mind, would you tell me?"

"I'd tell you anything."

"Then..." he faltered, and Chihiro all at once realized what he was needing to gather the courage to ask and there was nothing she could do to stop him, "Then... why did you lock yourself in the bathroom the other day?"

Chihiro opened her mouth to answer, and then realized that she had no answer ready to give and quickly shut it.

"You really scared me, you know. I thought that you were in there hurting yourself," he said quietly, but without any trace of anger or accusation in his voice. Despite this, Chihiro felt her cheeks flush in both embarrassment and guilt. Not only had she hurt herself (albeit on accident), she had hurt her brother - more than she had realized. How could she have allowed her own internal pain to blind her to the pain of the person who was the most important in the world to her?

Her silence seemed to beckon him to continue, "And there was nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing I could do to help you. You stayed in there all night and wouldn't answer me, and I guess I-.. I felt so helpless. I have never felt so helpless before, except for when.. when Grandma was sick. There was nothing I could do to help her; nothing... And you-.. I couldn't help you either, and you were just on the other side of a door... and... I don't even know if any of that makes any sense, Chihiro, and I'm sorry."

He was sorry? Why on earth was he, of all people, sorry? Chihiro herself was the one who should be sorry. Was he really going to take on her personal failure as his own? There was no way she could allow that.

"No, Soichiro, I'm sorry. I'm the one who locked you out. I'm so sorry that I scared you like that. It was stupid of me," she said softly, shivering from more than just the cold. She tightened her scarf - the purple one her mother had crocheted and given to her the Christmas before she died - against the feeling, though it did little to alleviate it.

"It's okay," he said, as an auto-response to being repeatedly made to feel like everything was his fault and that he therefore had no right to be upset with anyone. And here she, his own sister, had added onto that.

"It's not," she said in return, earning a timid gaze from him. She let out a sigh and felt her entire body sag, like she was going to sink into the ground and melt - disappear - along with the snow. Maybe that would have been better for everybody. "I don't really know what I was thinking... It's hard to explain. I guess I was so afraid that Nate could read my mind, that I-..."

"But Miss Lidner was the one who came in that day."

"Right, but Nate was the one who sent her," she explained. Soichiro thought about it for a moment and then nodded in understanding. "And that's what pissed me off so much... Well, at first I was pissed off, and then I got scared, and then I was pissed off again... It all just kind of went around and around in my head until I couldn't make sense of anything anymore. It was like-.. being put inside a blender and then someone turned it on. Do you know how frustrating that is?"

"Of course I do," he murmured, in a way that almost made it seem as though he were pouting, but Chihiro recognized it as defeat - desolation, even, "I feel that way all the time. Well, maybe not the pissed off part... but I do feel so angry about things sometimes. It's just that-.. most of the time I feel scared."

"Scared of what?"

"I don't know. Everything."

Chihiro let out a small, humorless puff of air. "Yeah? Me too." Soichiro blinked at her in surprise. "I mean, I don't know about you, but sometimes it feels like the whole world is against us."

Her brother nodded in silent, solemn understanding. Unintentionally, their talk had cleared the air between them and brought their conversation full circle. But Chihiro wasn't able to relax, yet. There was still the unanswered question of why her brother liked and trusted their oddball of a father.

"I don't think Dad is that bad, though," he said suddenly, almost as if he was now the one who supposedly possessed mind-reading abilities.

Chihiro couldn't help but grimace in response to his statement, "Why do you call him that?"

Soichiro blinked. "He is our dad."

"What about Matsuda?"

"Well, I mean.. Matsuda is our dad, too, but.. I don't know, it's complicated," he said. Chihiro remained quiet to give him a chance to explain himself further. "I'm already used to calling him 'Matsuda'. And with Dad, calling him 'Nate' or 'Near' doesn't sound right to me. And just calling him 'sir' feels too awkward..."

"But he's not been the least bit Dad-like to us this whole time."

"He's been okay to me," he said with a shrug, fiddling a little with the end of his own scarf, the same as Chihiro's except for his was a cheerful orange color. "I mean, he is a bit quiet and a bit blunt, and sometimes it's hard to tell when he's talking to you or if he's listening to you because he doesn't always look at you, but-.. I don't think he means anything by it, either. I just don't feel like he's that bad."

"But what about what Mom told us? About how it was better for all us that we stayed out of each other's lives? Don't you think she made that decision for a reason?" Even as she spoke those words, she felt a sour churning in her stomach. She had once blamed her mother for her predicaments at school, after all, and she had lain awake many nights over the last few months wishing she could take it all back.

"I don't know, Chihiro. I mean, you said that Lidner said that even you misunderstood him. I-I didn't mean that in a mean way-..."

"I know."

"...-I just mean that. Well-... what if Mom was... Do you ever wonder if she was wrong?"

"No," she said, a little more shortly than she had intended, not that she could have helped it. It was bad enough that she had been questioning her own mother here and there as of late, but to hear it from her brother, too? Somehow it just felt like a huge insult.

Soichiro must have sensed this, for he hastily doubled back, "Well, maybe not wrong, but what if she-.. misunderstood something, too?"

"What do you mean?"

"You once told me that Dad was paranoid. But why would he be? What is he afraid of?"

"People. That's why he keeps himself locked up and has all the security and the bodyguards to run all his errands."

"But if he is afraid of people and keeps himself locked up, then how did he and Mom meet?"

Now it was Chihiro's turn to shrug, because in her mind, how her parents met was inconsequential. It didn't matter that she had once asked herself these same questions. What mattered was that her mother had made the decision to keep her father out of their lives, and that (aside from her own personal misgivings) was all the information she needed to not want anything to do with him. But her brother was actually waiting for an answer, so she said, "Who knows? The only thing I can come up with is that they met through Grandpa or Uncle Light. I mean, they were detectives and worked with the NPA - like Matsuda - and Nate is also a detective. I don't think that's a coincidence."

"I think he must have really loved Mom, if he was afraid of people but was close to her. And Mom must have really loved him, too, because... Mom always seemed kind of afraid of people, too."

"Okay," Chihiro said, forced to follow his reasoning even with her reluctance hanging over her. But what she didn't follow was: "What does this have to do with Mom being wrong?"

"If being paranoid means being afraid of trusting anyone, then.. I think maybe there was something he didn't trust Mom with, because he didn't know he could. He hurt her, but I don't think he meant to."

"How could you possibly come to that conclusion?"

"I don't know, it's kind of like-.. the same reason Morimoto hurts us. You said his father gets drunk and beats him up at home. Maybe he's mean to us because.. that's all he knows."

"That doesn't excuse him. We get bullied at school, but you don't see us going around bullying others."

Soichiro pressed his lips tightly together again, alerting Chihiro to the fact that he was again afraid of saying something that would upset her. "What?" she prompted.

"You do, though. You knocked down all of Dad's cards."

"Because he was being a creep and a control freak."

"But don't you think that further proves my point? I don't think he means to be that way, it's just the way he is. You've seen it in all his behaviors and have even said yourself that he's too 'weird' to be acting."

Chihiro started to give an outraged retort and then stopped when she realized that he was right again. And Lidner had pretty much said the same thing. How many times could she face being wrong at all, much less in such a short period of time?

"So, because of all that, you've decided to excuse everything he's done?"

Soichiro shrugged again, his trademark gesture for not wanting to accidentally offend anyone - herself in this instance. "I-I just wanted to try to understand it - understand him-.. that's all."

She sighed, "All right, I get it. So you think that he and Mom had a disagreement about something he didn't trust her with, and it hurt her enough so that she broke things off with him? You really think that?"

Soichiro was quiet again, thinking over his answer, and then nodded.

"And you really think that she was wrong to keep him out of our lives?"

"No... I honestly don't know. All I do know is that we are here now. And Dad doesn't seem bad at all to me."

Chihiro sighed again. She really wasn't liking the sound of any of this. A large part of her was urging her to denounce all of it, argue every point into the ground and leave no room for any more doubt in either her mind or her brother's mind. And what of what Matsuda thought? During their brief conversation with him over the phone, it was clear that he both knew Nate and disliked him. Could it really be mere jealousy - knowing how Matsuda had felt about her mother - or was there something more to it? If Matsuda and Nate were both detectives, and knew each other, had they worked on a case together before? Could it be that Matsuda - who was just about the most expressive person Chihiro knew - was put off by Nate's eerie and rigid behavior as well?

In addition to that, there was that talk she had had with Lidner just the day before. Apparently she and her brother shared similar opinions where it came to Nate and his eccentricities. Chihiro may still be a bit skeptical of Lidner, but she had no reason to truly doubt her brother, especially since he was always the more empathetic of the two of them. He could be a bit naive and trusting at times - too trusting - but she also knew that his heart was always in the right place.

But still, she had so many doubts, more than she knew what to do with, and it felt like she was being pulled apart by them...

Regardless of all of that, it still didn't mean that she was going to forgive Nate or give him any sort of chance. She was under no obligation to do so, save for the fact that her hands were again nagging at her to pick up her new instrument and give it a play or two once they got back. But still, giving in and playing would be admitting defeat to him, and she wasn't sure if she was ready or not to do that yet. She still had a lot to consider, and the present talk had unfortunately done nothing but add onto her doubts.

She glanced back over at her brother and noticed that he was looking supremely uncomfortable again, perhaps even more uncomfortable than she herself must have appeared. She needed some time to think, and he clearly needed the same. More importantly, they had reached the bus stop, where they would be standing among other people awaiting the arrival of said bus to take them the rest of the way home.

"You know, after we get done with our homework, if you still need help with that cube..." she said with a long-suffering sigh, as their bus rolled to a stop before them, "...then I guess I won't mind if you want to go and ask Nate about it."

Chihiro did not miss the curious little look Soichiro gave her in addition to the smile that graced his lips. But he thankfully said nothing as they both stepped on, ready to get home and out of the cold.