Here's me… back again. If you're reading this, I like you a lot.

Okay, just some thank you's…

White Alchemist Taya: You are gorgeous and I love you, and yes I'm a New Yorker so gorgeous and tremendous and luscious are used frequently in my daily life. But seriously, yay you!

Amara Corbin: Um… go you, amazingly. Thank you so much for all your nice reviews, especially because I'm reading Beyond the Darkness (which you need to update btw) and I think you're REALLY talented

Mystrivin: Hi again! I don't have MSN messenger, so sorry, but I think our system works pretty well now :) Thank you for all your constructive criticism, and I know that you have enough stuff for a flame, but I'm really glad you're such a great person to be really nice about it and TYYY!

And a reply to Starskysea: Um… no… why?

Please enjoy

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There's Beauty in the Breakdown

Mahiru was chewing on her lip, still uncertain about what to do, she turned again, ready to scream for Haru-san again when Hatori-sama burst through the door of the room, spotted her, and dashed to her side, turned the boy over and checked his pulse.

"He… he's alive" Mahiru offered timidly, aware suddenly that she should have done something. "He was whimpering a little while ago."

Hatori-sama gave her a small, strained smile, then picked the young boy in his arms and stood. Mahiru saw that, in fact, this boy was a man, of about twenty. She thought he was younger simply because he was so thin that he had squeezed himself into a tiny ball. She looked at the young man piteously. The fever-smelling room must be his. His wasted arm, so devoid looking of any kind of strength, looked like it would never be able to holy up the wizened hand attached to it. Hatori-san brought the boy into the room, but then seemed to reconsider in the cold. He carried the boy out into the warmer hallway and up a grand staircase to a room a little bit like what Mahiru had planned for the first room, except that it was filled almost to the brim with medical equipment. She followed them through the house, wringing her hands, always on the verge of apologizing for not doing anything when she found him. When Hatori put the man down, she wandered hesitantly into the room, completely ignored except when a group of nurses brushed past her, slowly shoving her farther back until she was in the hallway again.

"Mahiru-san!" she turned to find Haru-san taking the stairs two at a time, running up to meet her.

"I'm so sorry!" she cried, grabbing the front of his shirt "I felt a draft, and I went in to the room to close the shoji doors… and then I saw him and I put my coat over him but I didn't do anything else and I should've because OMIGOSH WHAT IF HE DIES!"

Haru sighed and hugged the girl clinging to him to his chest and closed his eyes. It felt so good to do that. Just hug a girl, some random girl with no relation to him, crying, and he could comfort her. He held her firmly until her sobbing slowed. He then sat down on the floor in the middle of the hallway, and pulled her down with him.

"That's Akito-sama. He's the Head of our family."

"But… he can't be more than twenty!"

"He's not. He'll be twenty in a few months. But that's how it works. We're all possessed by the vengeful spirits of the Zodiac, and he's, well, he's God. The God that calls the banquet in the beginning of the story. Following?"

Mahiru nodded, and then shook her head "God… just to you? Or to everyone else too? Like when I pray, does the prayer go to him?"

Haru-san smiled "No. Just to the Jyuunishi. To everyone else he's just an over-glorified feverish young man. But to us, he's everything." He looked down at the floor. "He does, well, horrible things to us. Tries to keep us here, he wants us to just be here and adore him, spending all of our time with him, seeing no one but him." He met Mahiru's eyes.

She looked aghast "That's horrible! He… I don't understand."

"The reason he's so sick is because of us. That's what the God of Jyuunishi does. He supplies the power that it takes for us to transform; he's the one who keeps us bonded. Of course, since he's really just human, he has to supply this from his, I guess it would be his life force. For us to be alive, he needs to be dying." At this he wrenched his eyes away from the girl sitting across from him, hanging on his every word "And he is. We've never had a God live past about 27. And now because some of us live on the "Outside," away from this Estate, it's harder for Akito-sama to keep our bond strong, and takes more energy." He sighed and drew little swirls on the wood floor "But we can't hate him. I don't know why. Sometimes I think he wants to make us hate him, but we can't. Even when he locked up Yuki, he's the Rat, in solitary confinement and beat him, no one could hate him. Yuki doesn't even hate him. I'm sure he wants to, but you just can't. Maybe because he's God. Maybe because we pity him. Maybe because we're grateful for our lives. But no matter what, in spite of everything, we love him." Haru looked up at Mahiru "I guess that sounds really screwed up."

"Oh, no. He's your family, right? You can never truly hate family."

Haru-san chuckled slightly and the tension was broken "You should have seen your face when the Nurse Brigade broke in. They live here in shifts. It's a full time job taking care of him. But when you got pushed out of the room" Haru-san stopped to laugh.

"Hey, I don't think it was quite that funny." Mahiru pouted at him, and then stood. "I should probably go home. It was really nice meeting you, even if I did lose my job." She began to walk, and then turned around "Hey, Haru-san? Am I supposed to stay here? I mean, now that I learned about the curse? Or… yeah, what now? I know about the curse, so do I just leave?"

"I don't know, Akito-sama is the one who makes those decisions."

They both turned to the sound of Hatori opening the door to Akito's room, still talking to one of the nurses. "Yes, thank you Noriko, that dosage is fine, we don't want it to be too strong for him to handle." He closed the door and turned to face the two teenagers. He looked tired, but relieved, and turned his attention to Mahiru "Akito is refusing serious treatment until he has a talk with you, Mahiru-chan."

Mahiru blushed, pleased that he liked her well enough to call her 'chan' in the space of one day. But then her blush faded and she looked quizzical "Why does he want to talk to me?"

"I don't know, but that's all we could get out of him. Try to keep your conversation short, and lean close, he can't talk very well, and I don't want him to have to strain himself repeating things." 'Cigarette time again' Hatori thought to himself, letting a flustered Mahiru into the room. The nurses still bustled around, constantly checking charts, readouts, reflexes, and comfort. The God lay propped up on pillows in a bed, covered in blankets that twisted around his thin legs. Tubes were stuck into his reedy wrists, and an oxygen mask covered his nose and mouth. A little case enclosed one of his fingers, it's tail of a wire connecting the young man to a machine beeping slowly, but steadily.

"Can he even talk?" Mahiru whispered to Hatori, who was slowly pushing her forward.

"He can do anything when he puts his mind to it." Hatori replied grimly, insistently pushing her to the bedside, and then nodding his encouragement as he swept the nurses out of the room. "Quickly." He reminded her as he exited the room and shut the door behind him.

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Mahiru gulped. She was terrified. The only things in the room were her, the ailing God, and that annoying beeping noise. "Uhm… Aki—I mean Sohma-sama?" He didn't move. 'Omigosh, what if he dies right now while I'm sitting here! That would suck. No, but he's not dead. He's still alive. The beeping is his heartbeat.' She tentatively raised one of her hands and placed it on one of his, gently, afraid she might break it. "Sohma-sama!" she said, louder this time, and right into his ear. It seemed to take him a century open his eyes. Mahiru gasped 'wow. His eyes are completely gorgeous!' she looked at them closer, and then seeing that they were extremely glazed, she thought she'd better hurry the meeting up. "You wanted to speak to me?" she spoke slowly and loudly. Suddenly his hand twitched under hers, causing her to jump. His eyes were still staring straight at the ceiling. She could see his jaw working under the oxygen mask, which she quickly pulled down under his chin, freeing his mouth "Sorry, I didn't quite get that." She leaned her head closer to him, making sure she could still see his mouth, so if she couldn't hear him, maybe she would be able to grasp his meaning from the way his mouth moved.

"You…" he said in a slight, wavering voice. That seemed all he could manage before he was gasping for air. Mahiru quickly replaced the oxygen mask, and he calmed, his eyes closing. She removed it again "You… stay." She put the mask back on him.

"Stay where? In here? You need treatment Sohma-sama."

She returned the mask to his chin, letting him speak once again. "No… stay in house. Move in…here."

"Wha…What!" Mahiru stood and backed slowly towards the door. At that moment, Hatori walked on, looking at the stunned expression on the girl's face, he turned, sighing to the God.

"We've only just met her Akito, don't scare her off." Hatori put the mask back on him, but not before catching the beginnings of a smirk on Akito's face. He turned back to the frightened teenager "What did he say to you, Mahiru-chan?" he asked her.

"He… he said that I should move in. Here." Mahiru shook her head. "But he couldn't have meant that, could he? I mean, he's sick, he doesn't know what he's saying."

"Akito's word is law, at least to us. Will you move in?" Hatori pointedly didn't look at the girl, checking all the tubes on the young man's body.

"Um, well, I mean, uh, I mean I guess that's okay…" Mahiru waited for reality to catch up with her "Um, I can't pay very high rent…"

Hatori turned to her, smiling "I'm afraid that's not possible. If you moved in here, you would have all the benefits of one of the Sohma family. You would not pay rent, or for school tuition and you would receive an allowance every month to spend how you will."

She gaped at him "NO! I couldn't possibly do that!"

"It's what Akito wants. Do you want to go against God?"

Mahiru let a huge grin light up her face "Well, I guess not. My mother always told me 'when someone offers you free money, go with it, as long as you keep your dignity.' I guess this counts. I mean, I'm not prostituting or anything." Her grin widened even more "I guess I'll move in. And go back to school. I'm gonna go home and pack. I'll be back in… well… I have absolutely nothing! So I'll be back in less than an hour." Mahiru bowed and ducked quickly from the room.

Haru called his farewell to her as she ran down the stairs. "Haa-san, what the hell is going on?"

"Well, apparently, we have a new member of the household."

"And you're just going to allow that! What does Akito want her for! What if he hurts her? Why didn't you say something?"

Hatori met the glare of the Ox with matching menace "Because if I acted scared or concerned, so would she. Akito won't be able to do her any harm while he's stuck up here in bed. While he's incapacitated we'll introduce her to the rest of the Zodiac and make her feel welcomed and then when he makes her feel horrible or hurts her later she'll run to you and me, and not the authorities." He whispered with his voice full of urgency.

"Oh. You have this all thought out, don'tcha." Haru replied quietly. Hatori just smiled and ushered the nurses back in.

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And OMG I'm going to Ozzfest, which btw took over Warped's venue so ARG but Yay! Look for me; I'll be the one in black :)

And now you must review!