Disclaimer: I own nothing but the general plot and OCs

Agh, why is it so difficult to get Subaru/Sona and Kakashi to a happy point! I felt like I had to cram them together like two positive magnets. They just didn't want to go. My frustration may have come through in a bit of a rant.

I know there's a lot going on between those two, but I didn't want to leave Gai behind. I never intended to make him a godfather, but he became one and now Subaru/Sona loves him, which I never intended to happen either, and I couldn't just leave him out of all this entirely.

By the way, for those of you who haven't ever watched Austin Powers, you should. It's sort of a piss take of James Bond. It may not be everyone's sense of humour, but it'll give a lot of you giggles. But you can probably find clips on YouTube to get a good enough idea in the mean time.

I haven't edited this, so read at your own risk.

English speaking = blablablafuckbla Japanese speaking = blablabla-sanbla

Thanks to all those awesome reviewers, and anyone who faved and followed! Let me know what works or doesn't for you, and any prompts for scenes you want to see going forward.

Chapter 18 - Can I Say My Shit? I Got Lots Of Shit To Say

Contrary to my expectations, once DFB had begun to speak to me again, I was not inundated with questions, or interrogated, or grilled. The ball was firmly in his court, but he seemed unhurried in doing anything about that. I could never be sure if he was applying tactics he knew to assess me, or let the pressure build to ensure I told the truth when he did ask, or... what. For all that I had been adept at psychological warfare in a domestic setting in my old life, I didn't kid myself that I stood a chance against someone like DFB. Especially now he knew there was an adult mind behind my deceptively young face.

Things seemed to remain at an impasse between us, in which DFB made food, and helped me with all the things I physically couldn't do, and we were painfully polite to each other. He still chivvied me out on walks that tested my body, and I helped him with the small amounts of housework that I could. But everything thing was stilted and distant between us.

He was still the same DFB to me, and it was difficult to keep reminding myself that he wasn't acting like an awkward knobhead, but was trying to wrap his head around having a huge part of his life reveal itself to be nothing like he thought it had been or would be. My whole world had changed a year and a bit ago, and look how well I had dealt with that.

I figured I could give DFB the time he needed, rather than impatiently pushing for resolution filled conversations, so that things could be easy and comfortable again for me.

At my request, I began to spend more time at Gai's apartment over the next two weeks, to escape the stifling atmosphere at home. The man, as always, welcomed me with overwhelming enthusiasm. He nearly always brought a smile to my face, the magnitude of his vibrancy, intensity and care free attitude lifted my spirits when I was around him. It hadn't been so apparent in the character portrayal of him in my old world, but Gai was incredibly funny. I saw, with delight, that Gai knew he was ridiculous and he owned it. He managed to simultaneously be utterly serious about who he was, and completely send himself up.

He was weird and wonderful, and I didn't understand why he got so many creeped out reactions from people. If there was someone who had perfected the art of going through life like it was their own internal joke, it was Gai. He was relentlessly colourful like nothing else I had ever come across, and I could see how he had broken down the barriers of someone like DFB.

My only complaint was his noise levels when he got excited. He tried to tone it down for me when I was around, but he mostly failed. Not that I would tell him that, or he would run off on one of his absurd 'penance challenges'. My visits with Gai during this time were strongly bittersweet for me. I enjoyed myself, undoubtedly, but in the back of my mind I was always aware of the incomplete issue of DFB. It drove me nuts, to have a negative relationship with someone I loved so much, and not jump on it in an attempt to turn it around. Being with Gai felt like running away from the problem, which served as a continuous itch I forced myself not to scratch.

With the disrepair that my relationship with DFB had fallen into, I didn't dare tell Gai the truth too. Not at the same time. If Gai decided he needed space from me, or was disappointed in me, or anything along those lines, my last platform of stability would crumble. It was only when I found myself making that choice that I realised how much I relied on them both for my mental health. If something happened to them both I was screwed, but I couldn't bring myself to consider branching out and making more connections at this point. Not when it would require more people in on my secret, not with DFB emotionally absent.

Gai clearly knew something was up between DFB and I, but he didn't push to know, which I was grateful for. He was a reprieve for me to recharge, before I went back to standing mournfully on the edge of the gulf that existed between DFB and I. He stopped me from feeling depressed again, and alleviated the anxiety that I breathed continuously. He reminded me of a more energetic, intense, taijutsu Master, non sexually active version of Austin Powers. If such a thing could be imagined. It was still too much for me all the time, and I found myself blanking a good section of what he did and said, so that I could reserve my energy around him enough that I could spend more time with him, but he never minded that and I loved him for it.

As I spent more time in his apartment, I noticed little signs crop up of my influence in his life, and it warmed me. The flow chart and diagram covered in images of red roses in bloom he had made, to explain a woman's menstrual cycle to me with great passion lay propped up against the wall, and always brought a grin to my face as I remembered having to draw the line when he tried to present it alongside interpretative dance, in case I pissed myself with laughter. The framed or pinned photos of DFB and I, Gai and I, DFB and Gai, or all three of us were liberally scattered through the place, depicting various significant moments between us, all carefully free of dust. Various clothes of mine were tucked away here or there, and the occasional book that had been used to teach me to read.

Gai's place was my second home, and he always knew what to say or do to make me feel better, even if I gave no indication of what was bothering me. To be honest, most of the time, all he had to do was grin and wiggle his truly ludicrously large eyebrows and I generally cracked up- seriously though, it was one thing to see those depicted in neat lines in an anime, and another thing entirely to be confronted by the real life version. I couldn't bring myself to touch them, but sometimes I just stared in wonder. I had a theory that he wore his insane outfit because it was the only thing that would distract people from eyebrows large enough to have their own gravitational pull.

I would usually help Gai train in some tiny fashion, or be placed somewhere safe and out of the way to watch. During Gai's breaks he would spend time with me, which often left me absolutely gasping for breath as his down time was my version of extreme exercise.

I was generally so shattered by the end of each day, that I barely even registered the night that DFB came back to sleep in the bed, thanks to the fact that he was always up before me and down after me.

As the first week after we had agreed to talk came to a close and the second week ticked by, my impatience rose. He was still barely speaking to me or acknowledging me when he didn't have to, and I felt like I was being punished.

I was in two minds about everything, and it only got worse as the feeling of being on the receiving end of a prolonged punishment increased. I was frustrated that DFB could end the stalemate between us at any time but chose not to, but I rationalised that I had given him the option of starting talks between us to intentionally give him the power of that choice.

I felt that if it made him feel better to punish me for lying to him out of omission, and hurting him so deeply by allowing his perception of me to be false all the while knowing I would force him to change it at some point, then it was deserved- especially considering how much it had affected him. But a part of me strongly felt that I was being punished for more than that. I felt blamed for not being the 20 month old child he wanted, like I had purposefully denied him that. Like I had had any control over being reborn at all. I felt blamed for becoming depressed. I felt blamed for trying to commit suicide.

I logically understood why he might be angry at my previous suicide attempt, and year long depression, when he had been the one most responsible for cleaning up the fall out of those things, but I felt unjustly punished too. I hadn't meant to become depressed. It wasn't something I just decided to do because I liked being difficult, or was bored, or wanted attention. I didn't try to commit suicide to be contrary, to purposefully hurt DFB, or anything along those lines. I tried to kill myself because I was in a really bad place, and at the time I genuinely didn't want to live anymore.

On one hand I understood that I had allowed myself to become depressed by not even trying to reach out to DFB, and taking no responsibility over our relationship at first. On the other hand, I didn't get there by myself, and had spent a significant portion of my time sliding into depression as a completely helpless baby, unable to even try to communicate, during which DFB didn't bother trying either.

Part of me was convinced that DFB was the injured party here- he was the one who's world had been damaged, the hurt one, the one who I should be empathetic to and give time. Another part felt like he was just punishing me long after he was no longer angry as a complacent, petty way of making me hurt too, and that I was the injured party first. I had had my death taken from me, and been forced back into life in a strange world surrounded by strange people, which I had found completely traumatising. I felt like he wasn't showing me the same empathy I was showing him, in him taking personally the melt down I had essentially had in the year following something I had found so horrifying.

Half my thoughts whispered to me that this wasn't about me, this was about him and his loss and his suffering, let him work through it how he needed to. The other half whispered that it wasn't about him and how he chose to personalise my depression, my suicide attempt, my desperate attempt to protect myself by not telling the person I completely relied upon to survive something that could alienate him completely.

I was being selfish, I thought in self recrimination. He was being selfish, I thought in resentment and anger. We needed to talk this out or nothing would ever be solved, I knew. What if he was purposefully abusing the troubles we were going through to mete out what he thought was my just desserts, I bitterly wondered. What if he was still hurting, and needed time, I scolded. We needed to talk, I desperately tried to communicate with him without saying anything to pressure him. But it was up to him, and unless I changed my mind about leaving the choice up to him, I was stuck in this loop of stressful thoughts and feelings until he decided otherwise, I angrily acknowledged.

I had done this to myself. He was doing this to me. And round and round I went.

At the end of the second week, when I had almost resigned myself to living in a perpetual state of too polite, too distant, too much unsaid, DFB spoke up.

I had been dropped off by Gai slightly earlier than usual, and tiredly plodded my way past DFB reading on the sofa, to change into something more comfortable.

"Sona?"

His tone was filled with the weight of anticipation, and I knew in that moment exactly what he wanted.

"Yes?" I asked, with a measured voice.

"I have some questions I'd like to ask you, if you feel up to it." It was that by now familiar, horribly polite tone he used that set me off.

"So you're talking to me now are you?" The words blurted out of my mouth, filled with bitter resentment before I could stop them. It was only when I felt them linger almost visibly in the air, that I acknowledged to myself how much watching DFB make no move or effort to close the chasm that existed between us, had been hurting me. It felt like he no longer gave a damn about me, about our family, now that he knew my mental age. It felt like my affection was expendable- like I was expendable. It felt like his love came with conditions that were impossible to fill, unless I had chosen to live a lie, and include him in it without ever telling him.

He looked momentarily taken aback, before he smoothed out his features. We made eye contact for a few seconds, me waiting for him to say something- anything, and him waiting for I didn't fucking know what. When he didn't speak, I burst. I had spent the last few weeks desperately trying to be fair to him and what he needed, balancing out both of our opinions and our desires and our feelings equally, so that I wasn't selfish but didn't neglect myself. That only worked for so long, if the other person wasn't doing the same. In the face of more silence from him, I gave up trying to be perfectly understanding and fair to us both, when apparently he wasn't bothered about even attempting to do something similar for me. Since he was more than happy being an inconsiderate self-wallowing asshole, I figured I could give my own feelings some priority in this conversation. To put it bluntly; I ranted at him.

Everything that had been spinning round in my mind for the last week spilled out in a messy pile of Japanese and English. I didn't raise my voice- I hated shouting, and neither my last voice nor this one was particularly built for angry volumes. But the anger and wounded emotions clearly underscored each of my words. I may have spoken with a reasonable level of clarity and conciseness, but the message behind what I was saying ensured it couldn't be described as anything but ranting. And as my ranting picked up pace and passion, by god did DFB get dumped into the deep end of an introduction to the way English swearwords could be littered throughout a sentence. He remained silent throughout it all, just taking everything I had to throw at him with a calm face, never once looking away from me.

"I get it, alright? I fucking get it," I slowed, feeling my protracted rant wind down, "I lied to you, and I screwed around with your emotions, and I completely fucked up. I fucked up so bad, and you were the one who it affected. I'm so sorry about that, you don't even know. The last thing I ever, ever want is to cause you any pain. I didn't mean to, and after I realised what I was doing, telling you the truth was the only thing that I thought of and the first thing I did.

"But I'm not a fucking a robot, I can't just keep bloody waiting for you to show me an ounce of compassion or humanity again. I want this family to stick together until we've sorted this shit out between us, but if you're going to go out of your way to make that more fucking difficult than it needs be, then I have to think of my own health. My mind still isn't the strongest place right now, and I'm not sacrificing it at the fucking alter of your own goddam grudge keeping abilities. I love you DFB, but I'm not some sort of emotionally battered submissive girl, who'll put up with your shit and put up with it and not say anything. If that's your conditions to us fixing things then I'll have to say fuck you very much, and ask Gai if he'll take me in, or go to the orphanage.

"I just... this is my second go at life, you know? It's not something you could easily understand unless you went through it yourself, so I don't blame you if you don't get it, but... I want to live this life well. For me. And for you if you'd let me. And for Gai. I've lost so much already. I don't want to get to the end of this one and realise I fucked it all up again. I don't want to keep quiet when I don't have to. I don't want to live my life trying to please other people, or get the approval of strangers that I don't know and don't give a shit about.

"I got to the end of my last one, and I realised that that was it. That was all I had, and all life was. It was like I'd been waiting for something to happen, to push me out of the door into the life I really wanted to be living, to meet that person and have that conversation that really clicked for me, to do those things I'd always one day wanted to do, to be that person I wanted to be one day. I kept waiting for one day, not realising that we don't get one day. We only ever get now. And now. And now. I'm not fucking waiting to get to my next death and realising I'd bloody well done it all over again... so would you... would you just fucking say something, you bastard?"

There was a pause, during which my heart was in my throat, and I ruthlessly suppressed any embarrassment that tried to make itself known for me having just poured my heart out. And then DFB raised his hand, rubbing the back of his head with a small sheepish smile.

"Perhaps I should start off by saying that after our talk a couple of weeks ago, I thought I might benefit from asking a professional about the way to go about discussing your jump from the balcony without, hm, triggering anything, before I approached a conversation with you."

I went blank at the unexpected information. "Oh. How long ago..."

"The first day Gai came over to stay with you, a couple of days after we spoke."

It felt like my emotions were oscillating too quickly for me to keep track of them as I listened to DFB. So I pushed them aside for now.

"Then how come you waited so long to ask me anything?"

He had the grace to look mildly embarrassed, and gave an awkward laugh, "it turns out Dr. Mukai had more to discuss with me on the subject than I thought."

I let his words tick over my mind, thoughtfully. My eyebrows creased in suspicion.

"Did you... go for advice, and end up getting therapy?"

He waved his hand in front of his face, wearing his unconvincing eye smile and reassuring expression, "maa maa, Dr. Mukai isn't a licensed therapist, Sona. She just... wanted to talk to me about some things, and... lead me toward reaching some conclusions myself, rather than telling them to me."

"Riiight. And what were some of these conclusions that took you two weeks to come to?"

He shrugged, a blatantly false care free smile on his face, "mostly a different version of the same things you just told me. You've come a long way toward recognising and understanding yourself, Sona. I'm impressed."

I blushed and shrugged, forcing a small scowl onto my face, "I had a lot of time to think things through, is all."

DFB's smile gentled into something smaller, and more genuine, "yeah, I apologise for making you wait for so long, without saying anything. I didn't think about how much you would have been worrying."

I couldn't prevent the small twitch of my lips as I imagined the absolute hell it must have been for Dr. Mukai to make a reluctant DFB open up about his emotions to her, enough to actually listen to what she was telling him. I bet DFB was uncomfortable about it all from beginning to end. I hadn't given much thought to why I hadn't been taken to see her for my bi weekly check ups, assuming it was a case of DFB not caring as much.

I had never particularly been interested in talking to her myself, but watching the way she handled DFB each week was always fun. The woman was a consummate professional, and had a straight talking blunt way of cutting through all his psychological game bullshit, to the heart of the matter. I had mad respect for that woman, as did DFB, and if I didn't know better, I would think he had a crush on her.

As it was I was glad he didn't, and had been far too focussed on being a single parent to think about dating. Additionally, I was fairly sure she wasn't interested in men. Although, I wasn't certain if that was something she wanted other people to know or not, so I hadn't said anything.

"You're such an emotionally incompetent idiot," I commented with an exasperated smile, fond feelings shining through my words. "Next time just tell me. I hate relationship drama of any kind. It's so annoying. Just... talk to me. Even if you don't understand it yourself, if you talk to me- or anyone- out loud, it can really help straighten the complicated shit out in your head."

He chuckled and once more rubbed the back of his head, "I can see that now. So you don't have to go and stay with Gai, and definitely not the orphanage."

"Are you sure? I'm quite enjoying being called a beautiful blossom everyday."

"Maa maa, if all it takes are complements to win you over, I can beat Gai any day."

I snorted lightly, before eyeing him more seriously, "so, what is it that you want to talk about with me, then? Is it.. stuff about the last year?"

He shrugged nonchalantly, "we can get to that. I know you, but I also don't know you. I want to get to know grown up you better. Last time we got over a rough patch, it wasn't so bad- bits of it were nice. Fun. I like to see you happy, and going straight into those sorts of things won't do that. I want to hear about your last life, and what went into making you Sona."

I laughed briefly at him, "You're so annoying, with your unspoken subtext all over the place, whenever you speak." Forgiveness, apologies, care, love, hope, amends, curiosity, acceptance.

"So are we good, now?" I asked him, not too bothered about if the answer was yes or no, when I knew now, that it would eventually get to 'yes' regardless.

He smiled down at me, a small thing that was no less bright in it's fondness, "we're getting there."

He leaned forward, and to my surprise, wrapped his hands around the torso and lifted me into the air. He placed me beside him, and lay his hand on my head, before running his fingers through the thick hair.

"So," he casually commented, "there were quite a few words you mentioned that I think it's time I knew the meaning to. Lets start with 'fuck' shall we?"

Alright, I reckon we'll be getting a Gai pov in the next chapter or two. I'm looking forward to it, but slightly dreading it because it's so difficult to write an up close interaction with Gai, capturing his ridiculousness but also making it realistic enough that someone might actually do that.

but then there's another part of me that's just like 'people are fucking weird dude, you could write anything and guarantee someone out there is like that.'

So maybe this wasn't quite the full all the way hug it out ending people were looking for, but it'll take a little more time and be a constantly evolving relationship. I didn't really want Kakashi and Sonaru to hash it all out about her suicide attempt and depression in depth, so I just threw therapy at Kakashi and let Sonaru say her shit. I'm trying to decide how to go about letting the readers know about fairly large chunks of Subaru's past, as she tells Kakashi. Do I have her tell it in chunks? Do I string it out through the story?

Idk, how interested are you guys in her past? Which things that she's mentioned or relationships do you want to hear about first? I gave a list of people she had, which she can talk about in chapter 16 (I think) and they all have their stories with her, there was a list of offers of topics from her in 17, and she's thrown references to other shit throughout. Let me know, and I'll make it happen. Pretty much anything she's mentioned about her old life has a bigger story or multiple bigger stories to it.