Ginoza tossed his jacket onto the couch as they entered the apartment and wasted no time in rolling the sleeves on his white button down, loosening his tie and undoing the top button in the process. He began clattering through kitchenware, humming some indistinguishable tune as he set out a skillet and then rummaged through the refrigerator for ingredients.

Quietly, Tsubame sat at the counter across from the stove, studying his mannerisms. Unconvinced of his sudden contentedness, she watched for the facade to break.

"How does oyakodon sound to you?" He set some chicken and eggs out on the counter. She smiled and nodded before crossing her arms on the counter and resting her head atop them. "I could teach you to cook, if you'd be interested."

"That'd be nice," she replied shyly. "Kami knows I'm terrible at it."

"I was wondering if the stutter would go away," he smiled to himself, keeping his eyes on his work at the counter.

"You just had me worried," she admitted. "Are you okay? What did Chief Kasei want, anyhow?"

"Nothing important," he lied. She smirked.

"There it is again," she pointed. "You're lying to me."

"I am n… How did you..?" He huffed, defeated. "How do you know?"

"When you lie your left eyebrow twitches. Especially when your eyes are downcast."

He chuckled.

"What's so funny?"

"When you lie you wring your wrist in your hand behind your back."

"I do that when I'm nervous," she objected.

"You're nervous when you lie."

There was no arguing that. He smiled to himself as he went about preparing dinner. Setting the timer on the rice cooker, he tossed the hand towel he'd been carrying over his shoulder and leaned casually on the countertop across from her, catching his chin on a loose fist.

"I guess no more secrets, huh?"

"Guess so," she challenged, raising an eyebrow. "Just tell me, was it bad?"

"She was less than convinced by the report I submitted, but I assured her she had nothing to worry about; that I told her everything I know." He shrugged. "She didn't kill me on the spot, so I assume she believes enough of my story to let me be."

"Didn't kill you on the spot?! Was that within the realm of possibility?"

His mind's eye flashed to the parking garage under the Tower, a paddy wagon parked with its door down, Kogami standing at the entrance to it, pinned down by the business end of his own Dominator, somehow forced into Eliminator mode by a touch from Chief Kasei's spidery hand. He shook his head.

"I'm not really sure," he admitted. That was undoubtedly the day Kasei had been alluding to as he exited her office. He was supposed to eliminate the target on her order. He was supposed to kill his best friend. His best friend who'd somehow returned to Tokyo after fleeing the SYBIL system for nearly two years. He didn't even realize he'd started to hyperventilate. A cool hand on his face dragged him out of the dark, false reality into which he'd begun to plunge. He often had nightmares of that instant, only instead of getting to walk away, Kogami always ended up in tiny pieces on the concrete.

Tsubame wiped the tear that had spilled from the corner of his eye as he caught his breath, most of his weight resting heavily on the counter.

"Sorry," he gasped.

"You don't need to apologize for a panic attack," she soothed, brushing his hair out of his eyes. "What set it off?"

He explained his vision, the recollection of a horrific memory, but altered just enough to kill him from the inside out. Tsubame listened, wide-eyed as he described how the gun had shifted modes for no apparent reason other than Chief Kasei's will. They agreed that perhaps somehow a glitch in the weapon had been triggered by the contact of another hand.

"Just static electricity," Tsubame nodded.

"Yeah." He'd re-run the night in his head so many times that he was sure there's no way that was the answer. In spite of the elusive truth, that's the only thing that made sense. They both jumped at the buzzing timer on the rice cooker, which elicited laughter as they prepared their bowls. Opting for the couch instead of the countertop, they lounged in the living room as they ate, silently enjoying each other's company.

Gino set his empty bowl down. He hadn't realized how hungry he was.

"Did you just remember you didn't eat lunch?" Tsubame snickered behind her chopsticks.

"Oh right, I guess I didn't," he shrugged. A worried look crossed her face.

"Weren't you the one who insisted on me eating lunch on my first day?"

He scratched his head and grinned sheepishly, to which she flung a grain of rice in his direction. She finished her food and grabbed both bowls before Ginoza could protest. She found herself having to beat him to do chores around the apartment. Between the three of them who normally lived there, there wasn't ever much of a mess, but she felt the need to pull her own weight regardless. She hummed while she did the dishes, opting to wash them manually like Ginoza tended to do. He retrieved the bottle she'd woken up next to from his room and flopped back onto the couch. When she joined him, she sat on the opposite end of the same sofa, one leg hanging off and the other tucked under her, to look at him.

"I'm sorry if this morning put you off," he flinched, hoping she'd not changed her mind about staying with him again. It'd be nice to have someone around to ward off the panic attacks in the middle of the night.

"No, it didn't. Not really. How did I end up in there anyway?"

"When you're asleep you are difficult to wake. I didn't want to invade your privacy by not asking permission to enter your room, so I brought you to mine. I hope that was okay. Looking back at it now, perhaps it was stupid."

She shook her head.

"I don't think so. Thanks for being so considerate. That was… sweet of you…" she half-smiled and dropped her head, finding a loose thread on her pants to divert her eyes away from the gaze that tended to sweep her up in a wave of bluish jade.

"I meant what I said," he began, hesitantly. "It sounds naive; childish, even. But I have never fallen so hard for someone in my life. I'm at a loss with it, so I figure maybe we can figure it out together." He set the bottle on the coffee table, shimmering liquid swishing softly as it settled within its container.

"I believe you," she whispered, shrugging. "It makes me feel warm and fuzzy and terrified out of my mind at the same time. We both know that this won't be easy." She glanced up at him through her bangs in time to see the stunned look cross his face. It won't be easy… as in she wants to try it? The tiniest of blushes answered his unspoken question.

"So then it's mutual?"

She nodded, but nervously chewed on her lip and wrung her hands, eyes darting to the window. He sighed a quick breath of relief before sitting forward to take her hands.

"No pressure, Tsubame. I don't want you to worry about it."

The swirling conflict on her face stilled, and she took a deep breath. Despite her reservations, she was having a hard time subduing the screaming in her head repeating "just kiss him" in her own voice. In a fleeting moment of confidence, or perhaps lunacy, she lifted his human hand to her mouth and repeated his gesture from that morning, reveling in the off-guard mouth drop she received in return.

"Not a day goes by that you don't leave me completely stunned," he said as she dropped his hand. "You're more resilient than you think you are." She smiled at that. He had more confidence in her than anyone ever had.

"Well I hope that never changes," she smiled.

Neither of them feeling particularly tired, they retreated aimlessly back to Ginoza's bedroom where he flipped through the digital library of movies they could watch on the holo-wall. When he couldn't find a single title without some sort of romance/sex side plot, he gave up and played an album from his father's old playlist instead. Surprisingly, Tsubame seemed to know it.

"I didn't realize you listened to jazz," he noted, taking a careful seat on his bed away from her. "Not many people do. It's pretty old school, particularly this album."

"I was really into history as well as biology in school," she explained. "I like old things. There's just something grounding about learning about the past. Did you know it originated in the United States of America? It's a shame the Americans couldn't push their culture through the biotechnical age. Despite their bad rap for being completely consumed by themselves, some of the arts they developed were quite interesting."

"I'm pretty okay with Americans not being around anymore," Gino shrugged. "Weren't they the ones who initiated the first attacks in World War III?"

"Most history e-books and documentaries are divided on that. A lot of the bombing started at the same time across continents. By the time the dust settled, most Western governments were in shambles. Japan as a nation remained neutral. Since the island itself doesn't boast too terribly much for natural resources, none of the major players prioritized our alliance with them. We put up our defenses and let them sort it out," she shrugged.

"Sort it out they did," Ginoza huffed. "That was nearly a hundred years ago."

"Ninety," she corrected.

"Is there any truth to bits of Western countries surviving all of that?"

"Who knows? If they did they certainly haven't been able to return to their former prowess. I feel like they would've reached out to re-establish trade deals with Japan if they had."

Ginoza nodded, taking a swig of amber liquid and setting the bottle on the nightstand.

"Sad really," she sighed. "If Japan was able to build such a safe and stable system, surely others could've benefitted from it. Imagine how impossible terrorism would have been if SYBIL judged the entire world."

Kogami still seemed to find a way, he thought. The more he thought about it, the leftover anxiety from their encounter flared threateningly in his chest. He shook his head and took another pull from the bottle, a liquid calm seeping into him, taming his nerves. He knew he probably shouldn't feel that relieved just from drinking, but then again, he was his father's son. He chuckled.

"What's so funny?" Tsubame asked, trying to peek around him to see his face. He hadn't noticed her shift toward him.

"It's nothing to laugh at, actually," he smiled, closing his eyes. "Just thinking about how I'd never touched the stuff before my dad died." He swished the half-swig remaining to explain. "Now I can barely sleep without it."

She casually placed her hand on his shoulder, squeezing it gently in comfort.

"There are worse things. Maybe we can find another way to help you sleep." She reached across him for the bottle, unknowingly charging his senses with the wonderful smell of her hair. He scrunched his face, pained, as she took the bottle from his hand and brought it to her nose. He peeked when she coughed.

"Yeah, you definitely won't like that straight. Nobody really should," he chuckled.

"How can you drink that? It burns my nose just to smell it!"

"Practice," he admitted, almost pathetically. She handed it back to him and he set it on the nightstand, twisting the cap back onto it. Behind him, Tsubame crawled over to the far side of Ginoza's bed and scooted under the blankets, taking the long pillow from beneath the shorter ones and wedging it down the middle of the bed.

"There," she smiled, satisfied with herself. He nodded his acceptance of this and turned the lights off with his wristband. As he stretched down into his side of the bed, the corner of an object jabbed him in the side.

"What the… Huh. How'd that get here?" He relaxed into the mattress and held the picture frame at armslength, his frown morphing into a warm smile. Tsubame snuggled into the body pillow and peeked back up at the photo she'd noticed earlier that day, the same endearing tingle spreading across her face.

"That's an adorable picture," she murmured, barely audible above the soft jazz that filled the air.

"Before his demotion," he explained. His eyes lingered on the unwrinkled, keen-eyed man he'd known to be his father all those years ago. Tomomi Masaoka. Head detective at the Ministry of Welfare, Public Safety Bureau, Division One. Recovered alcoholic. Invested father. My greatest hero. It had been too long, he realized, since he'd seen his father in that light. The loss of the Masaoka honor and a blurring of his own future had shattered all of his childhood perspectives of the world. He glanced over at where he knew his father's jacket hung in the dark. Tomomi Masaoka. Hound One Enforcer at the Ministry of Welfare, Public Safety Bureau, Division One. Relapsed alcoholic. Estranged father. And somehow, still my greatest hero. A tear slid down the side of his face as he set the photo face up on the bedside table, and he was thankful Tsubame didn't seem to notice it. It occurred to him, not for the first time since they'd discussed his father together, that she probably feels similarly indebted to his father.

He peeked a glance over at her. Her hair swept messily around her face which perched atop the pillow that separated them. He could tell she fought the sleep that was steadily overcoming her. With a chuckle, he rolled onto his side to face her.

"Goodnight Tsubame," he whispered.

"Just Mae," she muttered, half-asleep. "My family always called me Mae."

He placed his hand next to hers on the pillow and was genuinely surprised when she shifted hers on top and pressed her fingers into the spaces between his. But he certainly didn't complain as his organs did flips inside his body.

"Mae," he smiled, squeezing her fingers gently. Her breathing evened and sleep found its way to both of them easily. For the first time since he'd been in a medically induced coma, there were no nightmares.