Here's Chapter 17
I hope you Enjoy :)

Tsubasa lit his cigarette in eight months. Misaki used to harp on him for smoking, but he'd always believed something would get him before smoking did.

Something got her, instead.

Someone.

It was dusk, the sky muted and purplish against the darkening landscape of trees as he walked up the path from the river and across the over grown lawn of Anju house. The mosquitoes were out. One buzzed around his head. He heard crickets chirping in the tall grass, boats puttering down on the river. He had his Smith & Wesson strapped to his right ankle and one of his Brownings tucked in a belt holster under his shirt. No damn overalls tonight.

He didn't plan on killing anyone, but that didn't mean he wasn't prepared.

There were rumors on the river that Anju house trust was considering selling off some of the acreage lots to country-western music stars, to raise money for visitors' center. But even understated development would change the isolated, rural character of Northern Woods; make it harder to visualize the kind of lives the Anjus had led there since civil war. The rumors weren't true, but if they were, Tsubasa figured Mikan Sakura would have fit. Yet locals also said she couldn't stay steeped in the Anju house the way she had been for many years. She had to leave its future to other people, people who were more objective, who didn't have such a personal involvement.

Himemiya and Shizune Anju had died within two years of each other more than a decade ago. They'd lived to see the boy they'd raised move into the Kyoto governor's mansion, but not the Palace. People said they'd had mixed feelings about Narumi – that was what the sisters had always called him – entering politics, even leaving Northern Woods.

Tsubasa ducked past twin dogwoods in the front yard and headed up the back road that led to a down-on-its-luck fishing camp. After a hundred feet the pavement turned to gravel. He could hear his running shoes crunching, but stealth wasn't an issue, not tonight. He didn't care who the hell saw him, who heard him.

It was an old fashioned camp with a row of a half-dozen, one room cabins with shed roof and no frills. Reo Mouri struck Tsubasa as a frills type. But maybe he was saving himself for when he hit it big with his book. Maybe he'd do damn near anything, including sleep on a moldy horsehair mattress, to get what dirt he could on the Prime Minister.

Narumi hadn't lived in Northern Woods in years. He and his wife had a place in Kyoto. Nothing huge. A Victorian they'd fixed up. The Anju house wouldn't be open to the public for another couple years, at least. By then, maybe someone would have torched the fishing camp up the road. Each cabin had its own rushed lawn chair and ancient charcoal grill. The smell of smoke and trout hung in the air, fishy, not anything Tsubasa would want to eat.

He stopped at the main office and asked a woman with a long, greasy gray braid which cabin Reo Mouri had rented. . She didn't hesitate. "Last one on the left."

Tsubasa passed three empty cabins before he reached the last one on the left. A light was on. The front door was open. He could see Reo sitting at a table in the front window. Tsubasa threw down his cigarette, stamped it out and kicked in the screen door.

He grabbed a stunned Reo up his chair, twisted his right arm around to the small of his back and shoved him face first into the refrigerator. "Who the fuck are you?"

"All right. Calm down." Reo's voice squeaked, but he still had the southern accent, which meant it was probably for real. "We can talk."

Tsubasa patted him down. No weapons, but the guy was fit as hell. "Sit. Move any way I don't like, you lose teeth. Come at me, you're in the hospital. Try to hurt me, you're dead."

"Heavens, man. You're some gardener."

Bravado. Reo gave himself a little shake, as if to loosen himself up, and sat back at the table. It was rickety, covered with a cigarette-burned yellow vinyl cloth.

Tsubasa reached over the stack of papers on the table and lifted out a picture of a silver-head man. A mug shot, pulled off the Internet.

Shiki Masachika.

Tsubasa shoved the picture at Reo. "Who's this?"

"You know already, don't you?"

Shiki was an international fugitive, a rich idiot who supposed to be in prison for tax evasion by now. Three weeks after Misaki's murder, Tsubasa had followed Yuka Sakura to a Paris café where she'd run into Shiki. Accidentally, on purpose – Tsubasa didn't know which. She and Shiki had coffee. Talked. Heatedly. Then went in separate directions. Before her death, Misaki had met with Yuka. It was one of the pieces Tsubasa had. He knew it fit into his puzzle – he just wasn't sure where.

"I ask the question." He told Reo.

"When we're done here, I'm calling the police."

"Fine with me. Your interest in this guy?"

"Journalistic. I think there's a connection between him and Minister Anju."

Tsubasa sneered at the guy in disgust. "You really are a bottom feeder."

Reo rubbed the elbow that Tsubasa had jerked. "Why are you picking on me? I've done nothing. Are you upset over the agents who were crawling through the Sakura house today? I was going to stop by and talk Mikan into sharing her prune cake, but when I saw them, I thought better of it." He made a face. "I'm not proud of myself, I have to say. A better friend would have made sure she was all right."

Tsubasa had made himself scarce when the agents were at the house, but only after he'd figured out what was wrong – Mikan had received a threatening note. He could picture it, the letter with the Tokyo post mark. He'd pulled it out of the mailbox himself and set it on the table.

He should have opened it.

Mikan hadn't come to him for help – why should she? He was the mild-mannered, songwriting good ol' boy.

The agents hadn't talked to him. They hadn't talked to Reo.

Not yet, anyway.

Tsubasa glanced at Reo's handsome face. "Doesn't Mikan know this guy?"

"I don't know. I'm trying to find out, but its – " He paused, choosing his words. "It's a sensitive subject. He and her mother…" He drifted off.

"You think they're having an affair? You really are scum."

"He's a lonely man. Shiki lives in Switzerland surrounded by bodyguards – he's afraid federal agents will drop out of nowhere and kidnap him back to Japan to stand trial. His mother died over the winter. He couldn't come back for her funeral." Reo stretched out his legs, folded his hands on his stomach as if he had nothing to fear. "I don't believe Mr. Shiki things through, do you? He'd fit in around here."

"You've been sniffing around Shiki and the Sakuras for this book of yours?"

"I made a whirlwind trip to Europe in April. A tax-deductible research trip. Ruka 'Nogi' Sakura was in Paris visiting his parents. He snubbed me. Mikan hadn't arrived yet." Reo spoke matter –of-factly, as if this sort of thing was par for the course in his line of work. "I decided to try my luck again here in Northern Woods. I was here briefly last fall, trying to decide whether or not I even wanted to take on this project, Now, Mr. Ando, I believe I've answered all the questions I'm going to. Whatever angles I'm pursuing are my business. I'm a legitimate journalist."

"Bullshit. What are you, political hack looking for dirt on the Prime Minister?" Tsubasa didn't wait for an answer. "A bounty hunter? Is there a reward for reeling in Shiki Masachika?"

Reo glanced up at him. "What's your interest to Mr. Shiki?"

"None. I read the papers."

"I've told you what I know. You have no reason to behave this way, barge in here, threaten me – "

"I haven't threatened you. I've just scared the hell out of you." Tsubasa gave him a cold grin. "There's a difference, you know."

"Please, leave, Mr. Ando. Don't make me call the police."

Tsubasa was tempted to toss the place, but he doubted he'd find anything that would lead him anywhere but down more blind alley and to dead ends. Whether Reo Mouri was a legitimate journalist, a bottom feeding journalist or something else entirely, he had his own agenda in Northern Woods. He wanted Tsubasa to find the picture. Reo expected one of them to confront him at some point. Mikan Sakura more. Natsume Hyuuga. He was prepared. Stir the pot a little by having Reo's pictures at the ready. See how people reacted. It was a tactic Tsubasa understood.

Reo fingered one of the cigarette burns on the table cloth. "I won't call the police this time. I understand you're protective of our brunette-haired Dr. Sakura. Who wouldn't be? I've been trying to soften her up so she'll talk to me, but I have to say, I've come under her spell myself." His affection for Mikan seemed genuine. "She's a lovely woman, inside and out."

"She got a marshal with her. I'd mind my p's and q's if I were you."

Tsubasa took the picture of Shiki with him and almost ripped the damn door of its hinges on his way out.

Sometimes he wasn't direct. This time, he was.

For lot of good it did him.

On his way out of the camp, he threw his pack of cigarettes to a wiry old guy with a lit cigarette hanging off his lower lip. "Quitting?" The old man coughed. "Good luck to you, fella. I've quit every New Year's for the past thirty years."

Tsubasa kept walking, getting himself back under control. One muscle – one cell – at a time.

Misaki…

Reo Mouri could be a reporter unraveling the same story Tsubasa was, finding pieces and shreds that kept eluding him. He just had to be patient, to think things through. As evidence by his behavior tonight, he thought, neither was his style.

Dinner was a chicken-and-vegetable casserole Mikan dug out of the freezer and prune cake, which reminded Natsume of Rei's applesauce spice cake, for dessert. But Mikan didn't eat a bite, just stared at her plate, then bolted from the table and ran down the hall and out the front door.

Post-trauma stress. The past few days had just gut punched her.

Natsume knew the feeling. His mind would drift off. And he'd see Ruka jerk up with the impact of the bullet. He'd feel the pain in his arm and his heart would race. His training helped, his experience and knowledge of the mind and body's normal reaction to a trauma.

He gave Mikan a minute, and then followed her down to the dock.

The evening air was cool and the breeze smelled, tasted, of the river. Mikan was sitting at the end of the dock, her shoes at her side, her feet dangling in the water.

The last re rays of the dying sunset hit her hair, making it look golden, almost fiery.

Natsume walked onto the old wood dock. She splashed water with her feet. "Not worried about snakes biting your toes?" he asked.

She shook her head, not looking around at him.

He'd never done WITSEC work. He didn't think he could stand the emotions of witness who had to take on new identities because of what they knew. Some of the witnesses were unsavory characters themselves. But they were human beings. Their families, who also had to give up their lives they knew, were human beings. It was what Natsume always tried to remember as a professional law enforcement officer – that regardless of what they'd done, what punishment they were due for their actions, the people he dealt with were human beings. He'd had that conversation with Sister Amanatsu a dozen times. He'd have served him again yesterday about Kuonji if Mikan hadn't followed him. Sister Amanatsu would served him strong coffee and had him sit for while, talk to him about young man who was now dead, whom she believed with all her heart and soul – which was saying something – hadn't shot anyone in Central Park.

Not that Kuonji wasn't incapable of being used, bribed, set up and discarded. Just that he hadn't shot anyone.

Natsume sighed. He shouldn't have kissed Mikan earlier He should have resisted. They both had too much on their minds.

"Mikan…"

"I held up on the plane to Tokyo." Her voice was quiet, steady her accent hardly detectable. "I held up in the hospital. I held up more or less in Central Park when I recognized the man from the museum. Even when I got that note – I didn't go completely to pieces."

"You don't."

"I almost did last fall when my sister got herself into a mess. It's different when it's people you care about who are hurting, when it's not just the job."

She kicked her feet up out of the water and stared at her toes. Painted pretty lavender. "Is being here just 'the job' for you?"

He felt awkward, out of his element, but she had a way of cutting to the heart of matter, a directness he seldom encountered in the women he dated. "No, actually, I'm probably the last person who should be here, seeing how I was with our brother when he was shot."

"You were shot, too."

"Barely."

"Barely counts." She glanced up at him again, the fading light catching the shine of tears on her cheeks, in her eyes. "It was an awful day for you, too. More so than for me."

"It's no competition."

He kicked his running shoes and pulled off his sock. He rolled up his pant legs and sat next to her. "Cold water?"

She manage a smile. "Not by Hokkaido standards."

Indeed, the coppery river was refreshing, not nearly as cold as a midsummer Hokkaido stream. "We're lucky the water ever gets this warm at home."

"I've never been to White Mountains." Strands of hair had caught in her tears and matted to her cheeks, but she didn't seem to notice. "I understand they're beautiful. Or aren't they beautiful to you because of your parents?"

The natural directness again. Natsume shook his head. "No, they're still beautiful. And still dangerous. It can be hard to predict conditions these days. Eighteen years ago – there was no way my parents could have known they'd fall and get struck in freezing rain."

"So it wasn't their fault – not that faults matters to a child."

"It was an accident. It was traumatic, but they weren't murdered. They didn't have any enemies."

"Is that why you become an agent? Because you could make sense of going after fugitives?"

He smiled at her. "I become an Agent because they gave me a job."

She took an audible breath. I'm sorry. I'm being too intense –"

"My parents led the lives they wanted to lead. They didn't mean to leave my sister and me orphans. It just happened. My uncle did a good job raising us. We had happy childhoods. We'll always feel the loss and wonder what might have been, but it worked out okay." He let his feet drop deeper into the murky water. Unlike Mikan, he thought about snakes. "A part of you must be ticked off at Ruka for getting shot."

She jerked around at him. "How could you say such thing? That is absurd. It's not as if he got shot just to upset me."

"But he has a dangerous profession. He wants the tough assignments. He's known for it. That's why he's in Tokyo." Natsume didn't let her off the hook. "You've only been home for a week –"

"I'm not angry with my brother for putting me in this position."

She jumped up, splashing him with water. She scooped up her shoes and stomped off the dock, leaving wet footprints behind her and walking barefooted through the grass.

Natsume lifted his feet out of the water. He should have had a second piece of prune cake and let her have her cry. He'd never been good at any kind of debriefing.

She spun around at him. It was almost dark now; her slim figure a silhouette against the background of her home. "Anyway, you think Ruka was shot because he's Sakura, not because he's an agent."

"Maybe both. And it doesn't matter what I think."

"That's right," she snapped, "it doesn't"

Her emotions were raw, and she was on edge. Don't let things fester, Rei used to tell him and his sister as a kids. You need to cry, cry. You need to throw something, throw something. Just don't hurt anyone.

Natsume seldom cried, and he'd never throw anything.

He pulled his feet out of the water, stuffed his socks into his shoes and followed Mikan onto the cool grass. "When I was a kid," he said, "I'd see my sister crying for my parents, and I'd want to fix it. I held back my own grief and anger because I didn't want to upset them." He sighed, wincing at his lame words. "Christ, this is stupid. I'm sorry. I never could do a damn thing to make Aoi feel better, either."

"You don't have to make them feel better." There was no sting in her words. "Some things no one can fix. You just have to go through them. I'll get through this mess. So will you." Her sudden smile took him by surprise, lit up her eyes. "More prune cake?"

"I won't make myself sick?"

"No one's ever made themselves sick on Granny Sakura's Prune cake."

She practically ran up to the house.

Natsume watched her in amazement, and then warned himself to be careful. To go slow, to remember his own raw state. But as he followed her in the house, all he could think was the feel of her mouth on his, her soft skin under his hands, her body pressed up against him.

Fortunately, Reo Mouri was at the back door.

Hi, Everyone :), Its great to be back..

I'm very thankful to everyone who patiently waited for this update and for those who are still reading/supporting this fanfic.

So What do you think? Any comments? or Violent reaction? (Just in-case you have...)

Please Review so I'll know what you think about this chapter.. all of your opinion(s) are welcome :)

I also wanted to say Thank You to those who read (that includes my ghost/silent readers), reviewed, followed, and added LDWAL in their favorites list... :))

Sneak Peek of the next Chapter:

She grabbed her apron, realize her hands were shaking.

Natsume grabbed slipped behind her and took the apron from her hands, setting it on the counter, then catching her fingers into his and pulling her toward him. "If I'm complicating your life..."

"You are. But I don't mind." She smiled, relishing the feel of his hands in hers. "I can't be doing a whole lot for your life."

"More than you know. I thought your brother was dead the other day. I'd never met you. I'd never seen you cry. If I'd imagined you here when he called you, I don't know if I'd have made it through that day."

"You would have. You did your job."

"I'm not doing it now." he scooped one hand up her bare arm. "I'm breaking all the rules."

Till the next chapter ;)
XOXO
~Claire-chan143