A/N: Hi everyone! Since Friday is Xmas Eve and I'll be pretty busy this week, here is next week's update. No stinger for this chapter, but you still get a little bit of Naru POV, so forgive me. There is only so much that can be given away so fast. Sorry if I get the german wrong in this chapter, it's important that Mai and Naru know a little bit (details to come), but since I don't, I have to rely on the internet. At it's core, this chapter remains true to WTLE, just more fleshed out. The two cases after will be originals though, so slap an alert on it if you prefer to wait until new content comes out. That said, I'm very happy with the extra details being added, as I think it will be a richer story for the effort.

Trigger Warnings: No real changes from the original story line at this point for prior readers. For new readers, this chapter does touch on stalking/harassment.

As always, not my sandbox just my castle.

Case One: Hospital Hijinx-Part Two

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are stronger at the broken places." - Ernest Hemingway

Mai stared down drowsily at the cup of tea in her hand, then blinked, straightening quickly. Looking around, she recognized the Tea Shop where she had worked part time during the time SPR had been on hiatus.

The last thing she remembered was lugging their gear into base after the walk through of the abandoned hospital. Too many of the rooms had been deemed potentially unsound, so after setting up as many cameras and thermometers as they safely could, they'd grabbed their sleeping bags from Monk's car and built a rough campsite outside the front of the hospital.

She must be asleep then.

After Naru had left with Gene's remains, Mai had never been able to make contact with Gene again. She wasn't sure if it had been a matter of proximity to his body or the tangle of ensuing emotions that had interfered.

Or perhaps Gene had simply moved on, though it hurt to think that he hadn't even waited to say goodbye.

Whatever the reason, Mai had quickly found herself floundering around the astral plane, sucked into the wavelengths of whatever wandering spirit happened to be close to her when she fell asleep. Without Gene there to ground and guide her, her escalating powers had gone haywire.

She'd barely managed to remain in school. Acquiring a new part time job had been…difficult. Her high school friends had begun to distance themselves from her.

And those were just the problems she'd faced when she was awake. Her dreams had turned into a nightly marathon of pain and horror. She'd gotten a rather cruel crash course in the darker side of humanity as her powers had made her the unwilling viewer of more than one tragedy as the ghosts around her re-lived their deaths.

Sleeping had become impossible, and the constant onslaught of pain and suffering had made her feel isolated, alone and more than a little crazy.

Ultimately, it had gotten worse before it got better, but those days were so dark that she still had trouble even thinking about them, much less talking about them. Even most of her SPR family had no real idea of how bad everything had gotten, and honestly, that was how she preferred it. Some doors should stay locked, even in her own mind.

Finally, in desperation she'd reached out to Masako who'd finally helped her contact Madoka. Though every medium was different, she had also gotten her hands on some books, and eventually some techniques, that seemed to help.

She began keeping a dream journal, to better reflect on what she saw, heard or felt in her dreams. Her old house key was no longer just her lucky charm, it had become her "anchor" whenever she traveled in her dreams.

With practice ( a LOT of practice), she was able to consciously shape her astral plane into the form of the Tea Shop, with its comfortable, worn-in furniture, and the ever present scent of tea to make her feel safe. Her key hung on a chain around her neck, and simply by clasping it in her hand, she could return from her astral wanderings to the Tea Shop.

And she managed to shut the door on those dark, chaotic months when she'd been a victim of her own abilities.

But...something wasn't right. Looking around her, a deep unease crept through her. This was her tea shop, her astral plane. Nothing happened in this place that she didn't will into being. No one could come in. That was the entire point of the Tea Shop.

It kept everything and everyone else out.

So why was there a mug of some dark liquid across the counter from her?

Who was she waiting for?

Or...were they already here?

Feeling her breathing quicken, she slowly reached out her hand, drawing the mug closer to her.

It was cold to the touch, but the viscous liquid inside was warm, steaming almost.

A coppery scent reached her nostrils and she gagged in surprise at the suddenly overwhelming stench of blood.

Shivers racked her spine, and her stomach dropped to her toes. What was happening?

An amused chuckle reached her ears, but her instincts screamed at her that nothing about this was funny.

And she began to get mad.

This was her place, damn it.

She forced herself to look up, stilling the tremors, focusing on her indignation rather than terror. Being mad was always preferable to fear.

"Get out." She said forcefully to the man sitting at the counter directly in front of her.

"You are not invited!" She added for good measure. But dear kami-sami, how did he get here in the first place?

Cold, clinical eyes stared back at her and she forced her hands to clench on the counter, locking her legs to stop herself from backing away. This was her place, and she refused to relinquish the hard-won haven.

''Das interessiert mich." The man (spirit? Demon?) murmured, reaching out a pale, claw-like hand towards her, caressing a lock of her hair.

Despite herself, she reared back.

"You've trained your astral body to remain here when you sleep..." The man murmured. She shuddered again, pressing her lips together to stall the angry tears that wanted to escape. Her heart hammered in her chest and her pulse thundered in her ears.

A sudden banging on the door made them both turn, the spirit in interest and her in shock.

Who the hell was banging on the door of her astral plane? None of this should be possible...

"Well, someone wants in." The man smiled, and it was worse than anything else because it was so damn... empty.

He was an empty thing, a gaping hole-

Mai sat up suddenly with a gasp, fighting the confines of her sleeping bag for a moment before she took a few deep breaths, centering herself.

She looked around the campsite. The fire burned low, but dawn had already started to break between the trees. Mist drifted softly from the ground.

Yasu was snoring softly to one side of her, glasses folded neatly beside him, but Masako's sleeping bag beyond him was empty. On her other side, Bou-San's bag was also empty, but she could see his silhouette, laying on the hood of his car facing the campsite. She knew he'd never wander too far when Ayako was sleeping nearby, her hair the same dark crimson as the slumbering embers of the campfire. Across from her, John slept restlessly, as if he, too, was plagued by unpleasant dreams.

Slipping into her tennis shoes (she'd learned by now to wear appropriate footwear to these things), she approached Bou-san softly.

"One of those dreams?" He asked softly.

She shrugged halfheartedly. The dream was a confused jumble, emotions tripping over themselves, disparate observations fighting in her mind's twilight. Only the sense of something being terribly wrong remained. She shivered a little, wrapping her arms around herself. Behind them, the hospital loomed like a hungry beast.

"Lin and Naru are still in the base." He supplied without her having to ask. He looked tired, and she doubted he'd even tried to rest. It was possible this might have been his first time being near Ayako in days, if not weeks. Sometimes Mai thought they were like the sun and moon, chasing each other endlessly, but seldom sharing the same sky at the same time.

They were a mess, all of them, and she wondered for the hundredth time if this was a mistake.

"And Masako?" She whispered, not wanting to wake the sleepers.

The monk nodded over his shoulder, where there was an old clearing some distance from the hospital. She could see Masako, a dark silhouette with the rising sun as her backdrop as she practiced her Katas.

She smiled a little at Bou-San before walking towards Masako. She watched for a moment before settling on the ground on the edge of the clearing.

Normally she'd fill in her journal before anything else, but it wasn't quite light enough to write yet. And besides, the dream continued to drift away from her like the mist around her dissipated in the sunlight.

She considered joining the other girl, but decided against it, though the movements were familiar enough to her.

She personally preferred yoga, but Masako had needed something more physical in the weeks after her attack. She'd needed something to make her feel strong again and Mai, unwilling to let her friend deal with everything by herself had dutifully tagged along.

They'd gone together for several months after Masako had been released from the hospital. Mai was nowhere near as good as Masako, however, and she never practiced sparring. Mai had more than enough demons of her own in her mind. She didn't need to go to a Dojo if she wanted a battle. Most nights she fought wars in her dreams.

She had gone mostly to support her friend, who had still been nervous about going places alone.

She felt more than heard Naru come up behind her. He stood over her while she leaned back on her hands, watching her graceful friend make the martial arts movements look like dance moves. He stood surprisingly close, she could feel the heat of him at her back. If she leaned back just a little bit more, she'd practically be leaning against his legs.

But that was something she'd have been all too eager to do as a teenager.

And then she'd have gotten her feelings stomped on when Naru would have promptly stepped away.

Silly little girl.

Because Naru didn't like people touching him unnecessarily, and she wasn't falling down that rabbit rabbit hole again anyway.

"You're going to get dusty sitting in the dirt like that." He commented after a moment.

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever." She didn't bother to look up at him. She could picture his smirk in her mind as easily as she could picture any of his other expressions (not that he often used most of them). Four years was a lifetime, and yet, just a breath. She was so different now, but he still made her feel like the ignorant, awkward freshman she had been when they met.

The silence stretched between them. His closeness was starting to make her a little self-conscious.

"She'll be done in about ten more minutes, I think." She said finally, just to break the tension. She rolled her shoulders, using it as an excuse to sit up straight and put a little distance between them. A tiny voice in her mind pointed out that if she had to work so hard to avoid him, that meant he still held power over her, but she did her best to ignore it.

There was no help for it, anyway.

Naru said nothing for a moment, and then,

"What did I miss?" His voice was hushed, and yet each word landed with diamond precision, like rocks in still water. The ripples of his question flowed outward, battering against her composure like storm surge.

'Everything', she thought, swallowing a cynical chuckle. So much had happened.

Everything was broken. Every member of their team, excluding perhaps Lin and Naru himself.

But right now, it was obvious he was referring to Masako. Even in the stillness of the clearing, a quiet rage simmered in the smooth movements of Masako's routine. She looked like an avenging angel as the sun broke the horizon, and Mai was forced to look away.

Mai bit her lip, uncomfortable discussing her friend's private problems with a man who'd practically become a stranger to them. Masako should get to decide what to tell him, if anything.

"Sometimes bad things just happen." She whispered. He should know that better than anyone.

"Mai." He said her name like it was a warning and she sighed, rubbing her forehead tiredly. She pushed to her feet as silently as she could, trying not to break Masako's concentration. Walking around him, she began back to camp. She'd only managed a few steps however when his hand caught her wrist. She probably could have broken his grasp but she was honestly so startled that he'd touched her voluntarily once again that she stopped without thinking.

She searched his eyes, trying to understand. Was he doing this on purpose, trying to get his way knowing the feelings she had held for him four years ago? Or had he always been this forward, and she was simply misremembering things from before? What was his game this time?

The Naru before had been a boy of kindness wrapped in conceit, concealed by a hundred omissions, and sometimes outright lies.

She couldn't afford to let him confuse her.

"You really should ask her." She said finally, biting her lip again as she slowly shook her head "no".

His indigo eyes granted her no mercy, however. "Part of your job description this time around was to help me rebuild this team. I can't properly use their talents if I don't know whenever I'm about to inadvertently step on an emotional landmine."

Her eyes widened. Since when did Naru give a damn about people's emotions? She opened her mouth, to argue, to question, but really, what could she say?

"Close your mouth, Mai. It makes you look even stupider." He said calmly, and she flushed, fisting her free hand at her side.

"And that's the Naru we know and love.." She said drolly, eyes flashing. Good to know some things hadn't changed. She pulled her arm away and he let her, but her wrist still burned where he'd held her.

"Mai, what is going on with Masako?" Naru demanded, his voice colder than the sudden chill in the air. She glared back, feeling the impotent rage and fear that she'd felt that night months ago wash over her again, and she shook her head wordlessly.

He must have seen something in her eyes. What, she couldn't have said, but he stilled. Visibly forcing down his own irritation, he closed his eyes, obviously marshaling his patience. Then he said something that shocked her to her core.

"Please."

Wrapping her arms around herself, she sighed again. She closed her eyes, reluctantly bringing up the memories of that horrible night. She began to speak, not bothering to open her eyes.

"You heard about the serial killer she was helping the Tokyo police with last year?" Mai asked finally, seeing the familiar horror movie begin to unreel in her mind.

Mai felt, rather than saw him nod. Mai swallowed, her mouth suddenly bone dry.

"Well, what the press didn't find out about was that after the third victim she had helped the police locate, the killer switched his focus...to her". Mai opened her eyes, staring straight ahead, still lost in her memories.

"What happened?" Naru asked calmly, as if they weren't discussing the stalking and attempted murder of one of her best friends.

We lost her….

She finally met his eyes, forcing the words out. "The police decided to set a trap using her as bait. She agreed, even though we begged her not to. I'd had a bad feeling about it, and I... was right. The killer turned out to be one of the city coroners, and he slipped right through their cordon. No one even looked twice at a city official. He took her, Naru. Right out from under us. He just...took her. And we couldn't figure out where he'd taken her to. If I hadn't managed to astral travel to her and find out where she was, we wouldn't have reached the morgue in time."

She had a difficult relationship with police on a good day, and this hadn't been that. Watching them panic as they realized what had happened had ripped open something in her she'd hoped had healed long ago.

"I see." Naru said quietly.

"No, you don't," Mai snapped, getting upset despite her best intentions. These were hard memories for her to face. She'd felt so helpless to help her friend. And it had been such a horrific echo of what had happened the first time Masako had been taken from them, in that god awful mansion years ago. Mai had felt every minute ticking away, the seconds fluttering in her chest like frightened birds crying "too late, too late."

"He wasn't just a killer, Naru." Mai searched for the words to relay her horror of that time. " He was a stalker. He hunted her for weeks before he took her. More than that, he haunted her. He'd send flowers to her on set, or text her pictures he had somehow managed to take of her changing clothes. He'd call her house a dozen times a night, always from different numbers. He wrote her letters, calling her "Hime" or his "Little Doll". He knew things about her, things he shouldn't have been able to know. She spent weeks terrified, constantly on edge, constantly looking over her shoulder, and then he took her. When we found her, he'd dressed her up in this horrible kimono he'd stitched together from old, bloody lab coats-" She trailed off suddenly, swallowing a gasp, the fragments of last night's dream suddenly rising in her mind.

Lab coats.

Where had she just seen someone in a lab coat?

Noll's eyes locked onto Mai's as her words trailed off, so suddenly he thought perhaps she'd been possessed. She was seeing something, something he couldn't, but it didn't seem like a vision.

Though, after all this time, he couldn't be exactly sure what it looked like when she had a vision.

Waking visions hadn't been common for her as a teen, though at least once he knew she'd shared one with Masako while still awake.

Regardless, the expression on her face was distressed. He normally wouldn't interrupt a vision, but he wasn't sure it wasn't actually a flashback. She'd been visibly upset talking about Masako's abduction.

"Mai?" He said her name in a soft, firm voice. There was no response, however. In fact, he got the feeling that wherever she mentally was, she was actually drifting further away from him…

"Can you hear me, Mai?" This time he accompanied the question with a gentle grasp on her arm, in case she fell like she had yesterday in the hospital atrium.

She closed her eyes in response, lips tracing silent words and he decided it would be better to sit her down. He was about to call over Lin when her eyes flew open.

''Das interessiert mich." She said it firmly, sure of the words.

Surprised, he tilted his head at her. Though he only had a rudimentary grasp of german, her accent had sounded quite good to his ear. Gene had been a perfect medium, able to speak in whatever language was natural to the spirit he was channeling.

However, he was quite sure that Mai didn't normally channel spirits. Her abilities lay elsewhere.

"Sprechen sie deutsch?" He asked, studying her intently. He watched her blink, as if his words had awoken her. She looked startled, and a little alarmed.

"Enough to know he was a doctor.." Her wide eyes flew to him.

"Yes Mai, coroners are doctors". Naru said, closing his eyes in frustration. Had this just been a part of her remembering what had happened to Masako? She had always been open to the emotions of those around her, living or dead, almost dangerously so, but this still seemed extreme.

"No, not Masako's stalker. The man from the Tea Shop." She said impatiently, shaking her head.

"You are making less sense than usual, Mai." Naru scowled at her, still holding her arm. He began to usher her towards their camp. Their rising voices had drawn Masako, but Mai directed her words at him.

"My dream, Naru. The man in my dream. He was in my astral plain. And he was wearing a doctor's lab coat."

Mai smiled gratefully at Bou-San as he handed her a cup of tea. The morning light hadn't chased the chill from her. She wasn't sure it was possible in this place, not after the events of last night.

"To be clear, your astral plane is a Tea Shop?" Naru said, the barest hint of disbelief in his voice.

Mai shrugged uncomfortably. She still found it difficult to discuss her abilities.

"Not always. I still travel and have dreams about other places, and spirits. But I needed a...home base of sorts. Somewhere I could center myself when I don't want to travel, or see the memories of nearby spirits. Otherwise I wake up more tired than before I went to sleep." It was the kindest way to describe her nightly struggles.

Naru looked at her then, really looked at her, in a way that was almost…calculating. Like he was reading between the lines, all the words she'd never say out loud.

How scary it was without Gene, how exhausted and hopeless it made her. How sad and depressing it was to watch death over and over and over again.

How lonely it was to see what no one else around her could.

"Madoka helped me practice controlling my reality on the astral plane. That's just the form it ended up taking when I mastered the centering technique. My astral 'base' is the Tea Shop and my good luck key acts as my anchor. By clasping my anchor, I can always return to the tea shop."

"The Shop where I came to see you when I first returned to Japan?" Naru asked musingly.

He seemed to be having a little trouble keeping up with her. She supposed it was hard to understand from the outside. It made perfect sense to her, because, well, it was her mind.

"The same." She agreed. "But nothing like this has ever happened before. The Tea Shop exists to protect me from wandering spirits. If I want to explore the dream, I have to go out the door. Otherwise, nothing and no one should be able to come inside. Doors are kinda my specialty at this point. But this man, this...doctor, was just sitting there as easy as can be..."

Mai trailed off lowly, the horror of her statement starting to truly sink in. She wrapped her arms around herself again.

The Spirit had somehow managed to control her astral plane. Just how strong was he? How could he even grasp how to do something like that?

"He was controlling my dream." She whispered, closing her eyes to steel herself. She wanted to run, to steal the car keys and drive away from this place as quickly as possible. And that made her mad.

She was unbearably sick of being scared.

"What about G- your spirit guide?" Naru corrected himself quickly.

Her eyes flew to his. In the weeks he'd been back, he'd never brought up Gene, and she hadn't either.

No one other than Naru, Masako, Yasu and Madoka even knew that Gene's spirit had been acting as her spirit guide years ago. The others only knew her guide was no longer with her.

"He's...been gone for a long time, Naru. I sorta figured everything else out on my own". She mumbled quietly, dropping her eyes. This was not a conversation she wanted to have, now or ever.

Not with him.

The horror of the Doctor controlling her dream brought back unpleasant memories of those dark weeks after Naru had first left. If the doctor's spirit wasn't unusually strong, it meant her own control was failing, and she wasn't sure which option was worse.

All around them their teammates were making a show of looking everywhere but at them. They might not have known the specifics, but they could tell it was a touchy subject.

"I see." Naru said stonily, and she barely managed to avoid flinching. His voice had an edge she could cut herself on if she wasn't careful.

But why did he sound like he was mad at her? Didn't he already know all of this from Gene?

Perhaps Gene had truly moved on...

Naru turned back to their teammates, suddenly all business. "Masako, what did you sense yesterday?"

Masako closed her eyes, schooling her own thoughts. "There are a multitude of low level spirits in this building, but I don't think they're the ones causing the problems. They feel listless and tired, faded almost. But this other thing, the thing that rushed us in the entryway when we first arrived. That must be Mai's Doctor. It's too restless, too fast for me to get a good sense of him, but he's certainly strong enough to cause trouble with the demolition. It's strange, he feels...hollow, somehow."

"Empty. Almost…hungry." Mai whispered and Yasu squeezed her shoulder in silent encouragement. She looked up at him where he stood beside her, giving in to his silent offer of comfort. She leaned to the side, letting her weight rest against his leg. His warmth helped chaise away the last of her chill and she was unbearably glad that he had agreed to come back to SPR with her.

She could feel Naru watching her again, but she couldn't quite meet his eyes.

Masako nodded. "I would agree with empty. Calculating, almost. Clinical". Her words were careful and precise, and Mai wondered just what her professionalism was costing her on the inside, where no one could see.

"It appears to be studying us." Lin's deep voice carried easily from where he stood on the porch.

The team looked over at him warily as he continued speaking. "I believe he's curious. That's why it seems empty to you, Mai. It's watching us in order to learn."