Finally getting around to posting this bad boy, after quite a bit of squirming, thinking, angsting, adding, planning, and fixing. You'll have to forgive any odd anomalies there might be here; my beta is a bit busy with real people problems, and she hasn't seen this version of the chapter.

Raine: Awfully bold to post with no outside editing.

Not really. I've done that for most of my career here.

Raine: Mhm. And how has that worked out for you?

I'm still around, aren't I?

Raine: And I mourn that fact every day.

Regal didn't remember much, at least not clearly, after the distant sensation of his shoulder hitting the floor. There was a distinctly cold feeling in his arm when the pressure against it suddenly lifted, and he recalled reaching out one hand and having soft cloth fold under his fingertips, but for the most part it was a painful haze. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't even have said how much time had passed; his mind had retreated too far back behind physical preservation. Eventually, he had no choice but to let himself slip away entirely to the sound of some unintelligible, familiar voices, and one final, blurry glimpse of a face that looked remarkably like Sheena's.

When feeling and lucidity alike began to come creeping back, the first thing he felt was comfortable warmth. He was lying on something soft, and an apparently restful slumber was easing to an end. Contentedly, he released a long, quiet breath and let his eyes open. Wooden beams supported a sloped roof overhead, much more homey and attractive than the last room he remembered seeing. Various wall-hangings and pieces of modest, wooden furniture told him all he needed to know about where he was: Mizuho.

He dragged a hand to his mouth to cover a yawn out of habit, but as he stirred and started to sit up, a twinge went through his side, making him cringe and effectively banishing the last of his grogginess. He rubbed at the spot that was still a little tender, despite no longer being an open wound. At least his entire body wasn't stinging anymore—that part, he did remember.

"You're gonna have to lie low for a while, Nami. Until we round up the rest of your pals, you'll have a target the size of Meltokio painted right on your back."

"You say that like 'lying low' isn't exactly what I've been doing for the past Martel-knows how many years, boss—em…chief."

Regal turned his head toward the low, good-natured conversation taking place nearby. Sheena was kneeling in the center of the room, facing their undercover benefactor. Dusk—ah, Nami?—had a ceramic mug of tea cupped in her hands, wearing an ensemble much more befitting a native of the hidden village. There were even two ornate pins stuck in her hair, which she had pulled back into a bun. She wouldn't have looked out of place at all if not for the very slight shift in her posture. All those missing years had softened her cultural habits, but they hadn't broken her of them. He was glad.

"Yeah, yeah." Sheena shook her head with a smile. "Man, I missed you." Lifting her own mug, she started to take a sip. Her eyes happened to wander his way, though, and she sat a little straighter. "Heyhey! Look who's up."

Regal drew one knee toward his body and nodded in greeting as the other young lady twisted to look at him. "Good—…morning?" he guessed, a little cautiously.

"Evening, big guy. You've been down and out for quite a while." Sheena set her tea down and leaned back with palms flat on the floor behind her. "Looked like you were having a nice nap, though. We could've all used a break after that mess."

"A break and a stiff drink," her companion snorted into her tea. "Geez, I thought I was going to have to explain to Altamira why their bright-eyed President never came back." She lifted her head, though, and smiled lopsidedly. "You'd have made a lousy agent, m'lord."

Sheena chuckled. "Oh! You two haven't really been introduced yet. Regal, this is Nanami Yoshida, Mizuho's own little leak."

Nanami pulled a face. "That sounds horrible."

With a faint smile of amusement, Regal shook his head. "An honor, Miss—'

"Nanami. …I'm trying to get used to hearing it again." She linked her hands behind her head and stretched. "I keep thinking my cover's been blown every time someone says my name—or I miss it completely and don't even know they're talking to me until they—"

"Lob a sandal at you?" Sheena interjected slyly.

The girl grimaced and rubbed the back of her head. "Yeah, thanks for that, by the way," she laughed.

The chief shrugged innocently, then glanced at Regal, who was just playing the part of a bemused spectator. The silliness in her expression softened. "Seriously, though. Everyone's been through a lot. After Raine got you mostly patched up, we thought we'd let you sleep."

He blinked. Of course—he was healed. The duke looked down at the soft village clothes he was wearing in place of the tattered rags he'd had before and touched one hand to his chest, conspicuously devoid of any painful gashes. She was the only one in their little party who could have done that. "Raine…" One more beat, and his gaze snapped up.

Then what he had heard—what she had said, right after the attack… He hadn't imagined it. She was back.

"Where is she now?" he asked, perhaps sounding a little more eager than was prudent, but he wanted to see her. Regal even rose to his feet in anticipation. But the two girls shared somewhat wary glances, and he narrowed his eyes. "…What is it? Where is she?"

"She's okay, Regal, chill out. I mean, she's not hurt. She and Genis spent most of this morning together, but she slipped off a while ago. She's shaken up, y'know?" Sheena pushed forward again and rested her hands on her thighs. "The kid said she was pretty clear about wanting to be alone. I think we ought to give her a little space for a while. She's not going to leave the village."

A frown creased his brow, and he recognized the feeling of disappointment mingling with concern, but after a hesitation, he nodded. It took another several seconds before he figured out what to do with himself; finally, the restless man lowered himself back to the mat and crossed his legs. Certainly, it had been quite the ordeal… He would let her catch her breath. Pushing her had never ended particularly well in Altamira. "…Of course."

"Buck up, big guy. You two have plenty of time for that long talk you're dying to have."

He averted his eyes for an instant. "Anyway," he pressed. "What about Fang? What happened?"

"Fang," Nami replied softly, "is out of commission. We've got him in an…undisclosed location for now. No worries—he's not a problem anymore. Not to anyone but himself, anyhow." She shifted onto her backside and hugged her knees to her chest. "He's a fruity one."

"I gathered that," was Regal's slightly bitter agreement. "What was his agenda?"

She drew a deep breath. "There were countless layers to it. The main thing was his campaign into Sylvarant; the Circle planned to sink its teeth into the forming infrastructure of the declining world's –er, country's—government and become a sort of puppetmaster. Having an entire nation acting out your will is a pretty spiffy way to get things done."

"No doubt. But what about Raine? What did she have to do with any of that?"

Nami lifted her chin from her knees to look across the room at the side wall. "…She didn't. Not really. Oh, he rationalized it and made up connections, but there was only one actual reason she was there. Fang needed a substitute for someone he lost a long time ago. Lady Raine, unfortunately for her, was a perfect stand-in."

Regal glanced toward Sheena, still not quite following. She nodded gently. "Remember that uprising in Flanoir we talked about? That all started with the murder of one of the Circle's agents."

"Mist," murmured Nanami. "Silver Mist—Natalia."

"She was everything to Fang, but while on a mission in the north, she was killed by another agent."

"He snapped. The Circle's entire presence in that region was threatened with exposure as he hunted down Mist's killer. Other agents in the area flocked to the city to protect their leader and the integrity of the organization. They got Fang out and back to base, but thirteen men and women were apprehended and charged by the Royal Forces. Each and every one of them took his or her own life before they saw the first dawn of their captivity. The traitor was put down, but it took Fang a long time to recover from that." She closed her eyes. "He lost fifteen of his people, including the person dearest to him. He was never the same."

"And Raine…"

"Yeah. Mist was a half-elf, too, and Lady Raine looks a lot like her. She even has a lot of similar traits, though she's plenty different. Fang just never quite saw those differences. He clung to her and told himself it was for the good of everyone, just to soothe the pain that had never gone away."

Regal shook his head. It was a ghastly situation, all the way around…but it didn't excuse him in the least for toying with an innocent woman. "What a waste," he murmured.

"It was. I've never forgotten who I was or what I was there for, but I spent years with those people. In a lot of ways, they were my family—they as agents and as an organization were enemy, but they as people became important to me." Nami tapped her thumbs together. After a moment, she sighed, and Sheena clapped a hand to her shoulder. "But, Mizuho is the family I'd choose, every time."

"I'm glad you could finally come home, as well," he offered with a gracious nod that she met with that same smile and a shrug of one shoulder. "So what happens now?"

Again, the two young women shared a glance—though this one held a bit of a smirk on Nami's part, in among the lingering anxiety. "Well…hopefully, as we speak, phase two is going off without a hitch."

He blinked. "Phase two?"

Nami puffed out her cheeks. "We called in some…reinforcements," she purred.

Sheena flushed slightly and pursed her lips, pushing ahead. "Ignore her. We're going to need to gather the remaining Circle agents as soon as possible; there's someone in Palmacosta who might be able to help us with that. We needed to grab him before word of the coup got back to the rest of the order—yanno, assuming everything went well on our end."

"Which it did, except for your dashing heroics," piped in the former spy over the mug she had lifted again. Regal wasn't entirely certain, but she seemed a little…too high-spirited. As though she were trying to convince herself she didn't miss her old colleagues at all. The undercover life was far from easy, it seemed.

"Right. So we set up a joint raid of sorts, and if it all pans out, we should hear something soon." Sheena pulled a familiar face of exasperation that made him tilt his head slightly with traces of a suspicion in his eyes. "That is, as long as he doesn't find someone else to chase along the way."

Nami snorted into her tea and started trying to hide her sniggering. He looked between the two and leaned back on his hands. "So…who is this other benefactor?"

With a shake of her head, Sheena sighed and then offered him a smile. "You'll see soon enough. For now, we should just focus on our end of the bargain."

The conversation continued from there. Their resident double-agent explained some of the Circle's inner workings and quirks, as well as providing information about the other members' movements and missions, such as she knew them. But it was really the business of the two women; at some point, he was shooed from the room and ordered to find something to eat. The less he knew, Sheena assured him, the better off he'd be. He wasn't so sure he didn't agree.

He took some of their advice and did find some breakfast, or dinner, or whatever one wanted to call it, and he found a spot outside to eat it. In all honesty, he was hoping to see Raine drift back. At some point, Sheena even pointed him toward a house in which she had arranged to let the outsiders stay, and he hung around nearby, keeping watch. Genis was there when he arrived, doing his homework. But the evening wore on; Genis retreated to bed after a quiet word of thanks that the Duke returned humbly; night fell and established itself. And still she didn't turn up.

Perhaps it was just in light of her disappearance from the island, but he didn't like this. It left him itchy to think of her alone in the aftermath of everything, particularly so late. She had had the entire day to hide in her solitude, he reasoned; now, he felt compelled to intrude.

Regal went wandering quietly through the sleeping village. It was such a lovely, peaceful region. For a while, only the crickets and the bright, full moon kept him company—until he came upon an out-of-the-way little garden with a single silent visitor sitting in the midst of the flowers, back straight and eyes cast out, unblinking, toward nothing in particular. There she was.

"Raine," he hailed softly, even gently, coming to a halt just a few feet from where she sat.

She didn't start. The only indication that she had even heard him was the slow flutter of her eyelashes. After a beat, he saw her shoulders rise in a deep breath. "You're up," she observed in a cool, detached voice. It was that night in his bedroom all over again.

"I was looking for you."

"I don't want to talk, Regal."

"Perhaps." Regal started forward again, slowly, until he could crouch right next to her. "But if you give it a try, you may find out otherwise."

There was a quiet sniff, and he finally saw her close her eyes and sag a little. She lifted a hand to rub her face. "…That's exactly why I don't want to." Raine turned her head just slightly away.

He was quiet as he followed her gaze to the dark village. At length, he offered a slow nod. "And that may be precisely why you need to," he suggested.

"I'm perfectly fine."

"That's why you're out here by yourself in the middle of the night, I'm sure." They had been here once before. She had come to him that time, but there was no other difference. She was upset, but she didn't want to be. He wasn't the only one she was trying to convince. Regal sighed quietly and started to lower himself the rest of the way to the dirt. Before he could catch it, he hissed a little at the pain in his side. Right—there was still that.

Raine looked at him. "…You're still in pain."

He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. It was rather minor and something he could take care of himself, later. "We've all been through worse," he assured her.

"I'm sorry. I thought I'd taken care of it. Here." She drew her legs in and shifted onto her knees, facing him but not looking at him. When she stretched out a hand toward him, he caught her wrist in a loose grasp.

"Raine, it can wait—"

"No. It can't."

Regal blinked, caught by her tone. She had moved close enough to him that, with her head bowed as it was toward her work, he could only see her hair. The clipped, businesslike manner was hardly a surprise from this particular woman, but he was a little better trained in its intricacies now. There was a tiny, wavering note lining her words, and it quieted him. "…All right," he conceded softly. He let go, and after a few seconds' hesitation, her hand crossed the remaining distance, until her palm was flat against his side.

For a time, he sat obediently, just watching her breathe. Her hand was warm with mana; he couldn't help but appreciate how nice it was to see her using her healing arts again. But he waited. He didn't make a move, didn't say a word. He waited patiently for whatever it was that she wanted to say but couldn't without the context of occupation. When the silence was broken, it was by two faint, unassuming words:

"Thank you."

He was careful not to even shift his weight or try to see her face, though that didn't mean he wasn't still very much looking at her. "For what?"

Similarly, Raine was still. Her eyes were as glued to his side as her barely-glowing hand, as far as he could tell. "Putting an end to 'Flare.'"

Regal drew his gaze to that hand. "You remember, then."

To his surprise, he felt her fingers twitch. "…I do."

"I was…." He considered his words carefully, looking for a statement that might be safer, less presumptuous, than what he wanted to say. In the end, however, and perhaps against the laws of discretion, he plowed ahead. "I was afraid you might not—at least not fully." Was it wrong to be glad that she did? he wondered vaguely.

Raine gave her head a gentle shake. "Some of it is still a little fuzzy….but yes. I remember." He could actually hear the mirthless, almost angry smile in her next words. "I remember more than I would like to."

From the corner of his eye, he watched her free hand curl against her leg. With the sting in his side mostly faded, he finally turned to face her, interrupting the spell by closing his fingers gently around hers. "What do you mean?"

A shudder went through her posture before it stiffened. He couldn't see her expression well, because she had yet to look directly at him, but he was reminded rather strongly of what several members of their old group had called her Teacher Mode. Or, according to her brother, the "wall tactic." "Nothing," she replied characteristically, shaking her head again. There was a chink in it, though, and he couldn't quite decide if it was because her mask was unsound, or because he had already seen what was behind it. Either way, against his better judgment, he cut off her quiet retreat.

"…Raine." He leaned slightly to one side and released her hand to lift his toward her face. With his fingertips against the far side of her jaw, he coaxed her head to turn, at long last, toward him. She stubbornly avoided meeting his gaze for a second longer, but when he finally found her eyes and studied them as best he could, they looked…haunted. Carefully, he came a little closer and lowered his voice. "I know you better than that."

She was quiet. Her mouth opened after a pause, but no words passed her lips. She looked lost, floundering. A quick glance downward caught the subtle fidgeting she was doing with one hand. He wanted to take it, but he looked back at her face.

"You do want to talk," he prodded gently. "And I want to help you. So please." She had started to open up—there was more she wanted to say than a simple "thank you." Before he could check this gesture, too, he brushed aside a bit of her hair. He had missed her.

Raine closed her eyes. He suspected that it was, at least in part, a defense mechanism of sorts; a possibly subconscious attempt to cling to pieces of her façade. She turned away again, yet she remained beside him even as she shifted back into a sitting position. Her renewed silence was frustrating, he had to admit, but a bigger part of his mind recognized the difficulty this particular woman had in confiding. She did remember what had happened between them, and that did complicate matters for her, he was certain. However, she also remembered a great deal more—about herself.

"I can't sleep."

For the second time, she came forward on her own with just a simple, almost tentative statement. Regal was almost startled after the long pause, though it was the words she barely spoke that creased his brow. "You have quite a bit on your mind, I imagine. It will undoubtedly take some time to process through it."

"No," she replied at once. "That's the problem—I'm not thinking. I'm feeling."

Raine was watching a few leaves dance in a breeze he could barely feel, propped up by one hand while the other sat, a little rigid, in her lap. He tilted his head toward one side. "There's nothing wrong with that."

"Yes, there is." Her fingernails scraped the dirt as her hand curled slightly toward a fist. "You don't understand—I can't think. I want to. I want to 'process through' this and get it out of the way once and for all, but I can't. My mind isn't shaping this into something logical and factual like it usually does. I'm not settling into practicality and establishing distance so I can be objective. I'm not…too distracted to sleep, Regal; I'm afraid to sleep."

His frown deepened. "Raine… I promise you that nothing can or will happen to you here."

But she shook her head. "It isn't the future I'm worried about." Raine apparently only then noticed the ever-tightening fist. She lifted her hand from the ground and flexed it before touching it briefly, restlessly, to the bridge of her nose.

He tried to lean forward to see her face, but she turned it just enough to cast her expression into shadow. She was struggling. The composure she desperately wanted was slipping. This was why she had told him she didn't want to talk. However, it was also why he knew he was correct: she needed to.

Moving carefully, he rose enough to slip around and crouch directly in front of her. Tension shot up her spine like a spring, and he could hear the quick breath she took, but he moved a little closer. Though she averted her gaze and pursed her lips, he reached out to cup her jaw in both hands. "Raine, look at me." She did so reluctantly after a few seconds, and he examined her features. "What are you talking about?"

He could feel a muscle in her cheek twitch. "Losing my memories was bad enough," she replied at length, her voice low and rough. "...Having them restored was almost worse."

"I don't..."

"In a matter of hours, I relived in vivid, rapid succession ten years of fear, anger, and pain that I never wanted to experience again. Because of him, memories that I had placed behind me and managed to accept became as real and present as this conversation. I close my eyes, and I can hear my newborn brother sobbing as our mother turned her back and walked away; I can feel every stone and piece of trash we had thrown at us as we travelled Sylvarant; I can taste the bitterness of the claim that we were elves. It doesn't feel like years ago, but moments. There is no logic here, and there is no objectivity. I had to walk back through memories I didn't even know I had. Still, I should be able to make sense of this. I should be able to sort it all back into its proper place, but I can't."

Regal felt his gut churn a little. He hadn't been surprised that she would be left feeling unsettled and confused, but he hadn't considered all, it appeared, of the consequences of her return. And yet, what she was saying didn't feel right; she was placing a great deal of pressure on herself to be all right when she wasn't and didn't have to be. Perhaps it was the only way she knew to cope. "...Raine..."

Raine pulled back and out of his hold. "I don't know what to do."

He tucked some of her hair away despite her flinch. "So don't do anything," he suggested softly.

The chuckle she offered was short and harsh as she rubbed the back of her hand against eyes that he was certain were stinging with fatigue. "I can't do that, either."

Shaking his head, he lowered himself onto his knees and sat back on his calves. "You can. You're simply afraid to. Sometimes...we have to allow things to happen to us and not insist on controlling them—or even understanding them."

"I had no choice," she replied faintly. "I have never had a choice. Not now, not when Flare was created, not when we were abandoned, or when the world kept rejecting us… I had finally moved on—now I can't even find myself in the jumbled mess of her feigned existence and my undeniable past. I feel as though if I lie down, I'll snap entirely." She dug her nails into her other arm. "I'm not her. But I still feel like her. I feel betrayed and confused, but I'm not her. I don't trust so…blindly." She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. "I just need to think again. I am...so tired of feeling."

Regal felt his mouth twist into a small grimace as he watched her. She needed so desperately to rest... He saw the ever so slight quiver only in the ends of her hair. She felt unsafe, and she felt lost. The dreams that haunted her, this time, were waking nightmares. Anyone would be scared, but because she now remembered every rhyme and reason for the walls she had spent half of her life building, she was even more scared that she might be vulnerable.

That she might have more in common with Flare than she thought.

A familiar impulse prompted him to sit back down flat on the ground and brush away a bit of dirt from his lap. It had worked once before, after all, and he was absolutely convinced that Flare and Raine were not mutually exclusive. They both just needed to know they were safe. So, he touched her arm and from there slid his fingers across her back. "Come here," he murmured. By the time she had lifted her head and opened her eyes wide in surprise, he had pulled her into his arms and settled her against him. One hand cradled the back of her head while the other trailed up and down her arm.

"I was with you every day in Altamira," he told her softly, speaking close to her crown. "You were just as much you then as now. Flare is you, Raine—the side of you that wants to believe in someone and something. Fang changed your name and your surface perceptions…but he did not and could not change who you are. As for the rest of it…"

He rested his mouth against her head, traces of a smile on his lips as he repeated the promise he had made that first night. "I'm not going anywhere, Raine." Regal closed his eyes, somehow not surprised at all that he could remember, word for word, everything he had told her. "It will take time, but I will not abandon you. I know you're frightened, and I know you're confused, but I am here, and here I will stay. Trust me," he whispered into her hair.

Silence fell, and he found himself listening. Waiting for…something. He had played his hand, despite his original intention to tread a bit more carefully—respectfully. He knew the case could be made for his taking advantage of her fragility, but nothing could have been further from the truth. He kept rubbing her arm, breathing in her scent. Finally, under his hand, he felt a little of the tension evaporate. She took a handful of his shirt, almost tentatively at first, and then more tightly.

Relief and warmth flushed through him as that question, at least, was silently answered; he hadn't lost her upon her return. He threaded his fingers through her hair and held her closer, his smile only widening.

"It's going to be alright."

Awww. True love conquers all!

Raine: Eugh.

I'm starting to think that's just your way of masking the inner squee.

Raine: Which is just further evidence of your deranged mind.

Someone's in denial again!

Raine: Don't make me murder you before this story is over.

Aw! You do want to see the end!

Raine: That is not what I meant!