Chapter 2

For a second, Ayame and Hatori stood shocked, staring at the girl now lying on the floor. Ayame looked like he had seen a ghost. "Kyomi… I wonder…" he whispered to himself. Hatori was already on the floor at her side looking her over for any signs of injury or anything to explain the cause of her collapse.

"Ayame, do you know who this is?"

Ayame looked startled at his lifelong friend before saying, "She works with me part time at the shop. She handles the more American styles and any requests for crafted home goods. She's never called me Aya before though."

Hatori was barely listening as he took her pulse and blood pressure which were both high. "Do you know of any medical conditions that might have caused this?"

"Nothing that I know of. I just know she's a mother and very busy. She never complains to me. Mine hasn't said anything about it either."

"Help me get her to your couch in the back and then call Shigure and tell him we won't be able to make it today." Hatori said distractedly.

No one has called me Hati since elementary school. I wonder… but she's been gone for so long… there's no way it could be.

Once Ayame made the call, he came back to the back room to see Hatori sitting across from the sofa studying the woman's face like he was trying to dig into her mind.

"She called you Hati." He began slowly. "Has anyone called you that since…?"

"No." Hatori said shortly. "No one has."

Ayame sat down in the neighboring chair and stared at her with Hatori.

"I've always wondered if her mother was telling the truth. We could never find the accident that supposedly killed her. And your father was furious when he found out we were investigating. Said to 'leave that woman to her grief'. It never set well with me."

Hatori silently nodded in agreement with his friend. He had had the same thoughts and had been shocked at the vehemence of his father's anger when he discovered them at the newspaper office that day.

Mine came in the room with tray of tea and set in in front of the contemplative men. They thanked her quietly and Hatori asked for some water for Kyomi when she wakes up. "I've been playing with Luc and keeping him occupied until Kyomi is feeling better so don't worry about that." Right as Mine returned, Kyomi shifted slightly and pulled her hand up to cover her eyes. Mine put the glass down quickly and rushed to the side of the sofa. "Kyomi? Are you all right? What happened?" Ayame and Hatori were right behind her and gently moved Mine out of the way so the doctor could take a look. Hatori checked her vitals again which were slightly lower than they had been which made the doctor feel a little more at ease. Kyomi finally opened her eyes and looked at the two men staring down at her and she quickly tried to sit up before she was pushed back down gently by both men.

"Kyomi, how do you feel?" Hatori asked continuing to monitor her vitals.

"A little dizzy, and my head is still pounding." She said quietly.

"I am Hatori Sohma, Ayame's family doctor. Do you have any medical conditions that would cause you to faint?" And call me by a name only a deceased childhood friend used when we haven't even met? He thought.

"Nothing I can think of, Hati." She said rubbing her temples. "Could I possibly get something for this headache?"

Hatori looked stunned for a minute and then asked for some pain medication. Wide-eyed, Ayame stared at Hatori for a second then all but ran out the door to find Mine. While he was gone, Hatori asked a few more medical questions about allergies, illness and so on with no satisfactory explanation as to what had happened.

Kyomi, irritated with the onslaught of questions with her pounding head said with a little heat behind her words, "The only thing that happened was I finally remembered the first eleven years of my life after losing it all sixteen years ago."

Hatori rocked back on his feet where he was crouched down stunned. "Kyomi? What is your family name?"

She looked at him oddly for a minute. "If you're asking what it is now, it's McLeod."

Hatori felt his heart sink at her words before she continued. "Although before I was married, it was Burke. Are you really Hatori?" She asked with a small catch in her voice.

Hatori couldn't move. He couldn't believe what she had just said.

His mind flashed back to his childhood playing with Ayame, Shigure and the girl who always seemed alone with a book before they all became friends. Everyone at school thought she was odd with her red tinted brunette hair, and Irish father and last name. Her father had died around the same time as Hatori's mother. When Shigure had found this out, he found her as soon as he could and brought her into their group. Those five years together held some of his best memories. Until the summer break their first year of middle school when it all ended. They didn't attend the same school since the closest schools to the estate were boys only and girls only, but since the two schools were right next door they always walked to and from school together. The friends all had different plans that summer and weren't spending it together like they normally did. They had noticed their first day back that she wasn't at their meeting place to walk to school, and she never showed up to walk back even though they waited as long as they could. They went directly to her house and found it empty. Shocked and afraid for their friend, they ran to Hatori's house next door to the clinic. They had arrived just as a car was pulling away and Hatori's father at the door. They couldn't believe what he had told them.

Hatori came back to the present as Ayame came back into the room with the pain medication. Hatori helped Kyomi slowly sit up and take the medicine and drink the water. As he did, Hatori took a silent appraisal of the woman in front of him. Her age looks right. She looks a little like her mother, and that red hair does look exactly the same as I remember it. Maybe she's just someone trying to take advantage of the Sohma na…

"Are you Kyomi Burke?" Ayame bluntly asked, jolting Hatori out of his thoughts.

Kyomi looked at the two men in front of her, her expression of pain slowly softening into a smile. "That was my name before I was married. I imagine it's hard to believe that I would come back after all this time, but you must believe I never wanted to leave. It's because I literally had no memory of my life before middle school. That's why I never came back. The last thing I remember was my memory being erased and then waking up at the adoption agency."

Ayame stared at Kyomi before blurting out. "BUT HOW DID YOU COME BACK FROM THE DEAD?"

Kyomi's back hit the back of the sofa with that outburst, "WHAT? I never died! What are you talking about? And stop yelling!"

"You're the one who's yelling now." Hatori quipped.

"Hati, what is this idiot talking about? Obviously, I'm not dead!"

"We were told by the family that you were in an accident and you had died on impact."

Now it was Kyomi's turn to look stunned. Tears slowly built in her eyes. "Why would they tell such an awful story? Why would your father do that to you?"

"Now, the real question is, are you really Kyomi?" Hatori steeled himself for the outburst that was sure to come. Kyomi's face got red and then it slowly faded. As she opened her mouth to speak, Ayame shouted, "Of course its Kyomi! Who else could it be?"

"Wait Aya, considering all I knew before I left, it makes sense that Hati would need to make sure. Secrecy is important especially with certain topics."

Hatori moved to sit back in his chair now that Kyomi was sitting upright under her own power. He proceeded to grill her with several general questions pertaining to their past before he asked the most important questions.

"What did you do the first time you found out about my true self?"

She grinned and laughed at herself a bit, before answering, "I threw you into the pond."

Ayame asked the next question. "What about me?"

This time Kyomi laughed outright, "I ran away because I thought you were a real snake. It's your fault for not telling me what animal you were. Shigure wasn't hard for me to accept because dogs didn't scare me. Snakes and bugs creep me out though so when this beautiful silvery white snake started slithering up my arm and around my shoulders I freaked out." She laughed the whole time she was speaking until she was holding her sides and tears started to build. She finally started to calm down when Ayame stood up and threw his arms around her and promptly disappeared in a cloud of smoke. She felt that very same snake repeat history and slither around her shoulders and nudge her cheek mixing their tears.

Hatori sat back in his chair and shook his head at his friends with a soft smile on his face. "You must have come a long way to get back home."

Kyomi looked at Hatori with a sad smile that made him curious as to just how accurate his statement was, "You have no idea."

Ayame suddenly slithered off her shoulders and behind a screen just in time for him to turn back to his human self. "I have to call Shigure!" He said as he ran off into another room.

Kyomi and Hatori sat with their thoughts for a moment trying to process everything that had just happened. Kyomi suddenly asked, "What happened to my mother?"

At that sobering thought, Hatori told her, "She remarried after you were gone into the Sohma family. She even had a son. When we were in high school, she had an accident. She didn't make it. I'm sorry."

Tears came to Kyomi's eyes yet again as she realized she had not had a chance to tell her mother goodbye. Hatori handed a handkerchief over to her. "This has to be difficult to process. If you want to go home…"

"No!" Kyomi interrupted forcefully. "I just found you all again, I'm not ready to leave just yet. Besides, I would like to see Shi if I can."

Hatori nodded and continued to watch her while she was lost in thought. When she laughed it felt like no time had passed at all, but I can definitely see the passage of time. I guess we all have grown up a little since then.

Kyomi shook herself out of her thoughts and asked, "Did you say I have a brother?"

Hatori nodded, "We think your mother named him with you in mind. His name is Kyo. He's possessed by the cat spirit and is now a second year in high school. He's actually living with Shigure."

Kyomi's eyebrows went up at that information. "SHI has a high schooler living with him? What kind of world did I come back to?"

Hatori chuckled, "He actually has Kyo, Yuki, Ayame's little brother, and another girl Tohru living with him."

Kyomi's jaw dropped. "AYAME has a little brother? And there's a young girl living with him? Were they really that desperate that they chose to live with him?"

If there was any doubt left in Hatori's mind as to her identity, it flew out the window with those questions as he laughed harder than he had in some time.

"Are you disparaging my good name? I'm completely offended you would think so little of me to think those blessed children would consider me such a last resort." Hatori and Kyomi turned around to see Shigure standing in the door looking comically crestfallen.

"If you are really Kyomi, where have you been all this time?"

Ayame came in after him and sat down next to Kyomi while Shigure took the chair next to Hatori.

Kyomi looked at Shigure with a smile that held such memories. "I was sent to the states to be adopted. I was taken in by a wonderful family too." She left it at that for now not wanting to dwell on too much sadness.

Shigure saw in her face there was more to the story that he would have to pull out later but left it for now. "I see you got married at least! Where is the lucky man?"

He immediately regretted asking when tears sprang to her eyes and a sad smile came to her face. "I was very happily married yes, to a wonderful man who loved our son and I dearly."

Hatori and Shigure looked simultaneously shocked and sadness as they knew where she was going with the statement. She had already told Ayame this part of her story before, so he wasn't surprised but still saddened at what had happened. "That's actually how I came to be in Japan. He was in the US Army and was stationed in Osaka. Our son was a newborn when he got sent on a mission to South Korea. He never came home." She finished in a whisper as a tear fell. "But I have Luc who has kept me going through it all." She wiped her tears away and smiled.

"You have grown up, haven't you?" Shigure asked in his quiet way.

Kyomi leveled a look at him, "It has been over fifteen years you know. I would hope you have grown up at least a little yourself, puppy." A glint came to her eye as she called him her old pet name.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that." Hatori said as Shigure stood up and threw his arms around her much like Ayame had done not too long before and disappeared into a cloud of smoke. A black dog took his place and began attacking her face with puppy kisses just like he had done when they were children.

Fifteen years can change many things, but some things will always stay the same.