A/N: Thanks for all the suggestions and feedback! i'll try and write as much as i can!!

Chapter 6
The crowds starts to gather around someone; I push through some people again to see what the commotion is all about. A young lady had collapse on the floor and a young child is crying and shaking her.

"Mum! Mum! Mum!!" Mum? So young? I shake my head and push forward to see why she collapsed. Someone turns her over and I see her face. My world stops. Everything stops. I don't breathe, I don't hear, I don't feel. All I know is that she is the very person I have been looking for all these years. And suddenly my world is brought back to life and everything feels so new, so raw. The colours brighter the sounds louder.

"GET HER OUT OF HERE!" I roughly push away the people in front of me and I run next to her. I scoop her up, her weight in my arms feel so reassuring. There's nothing wrong with her. She just isn't used to this feeling yet. The repulsive, constricting presence of an evil sprit. Running clear from the block I set her down on the pavement, her son runs up to me tears staining his cheek.

"Where are you taking my mum?" He wipes his eyes and nose with the sleeve of his shirt.

"No where, just – she needs space and some breathing area." I look at her and trace her face in my mind. She looks almost the same, but I can't help but notice that she's gone painfully thin. I look up at her son and ask him gently,

"What is your mother's name?" He's stopped crying and only little sniffs comes out once in awhile. He looks up with wide eyes rimmed red from all the crying but those eyes – they could have mirrored my own. I am taken aback, this child I've never seen before he looks so much like me.

"My mum…?" He blinks once and his forehead contracts tightly, "Tan-Taniyama Mai!" He says triumphantly.

Mai.

It really is her…

"Will she be OK?" He asks me worriedly. He really cares for his mother… I smile to try and calm him down.

"She will be fine, she just needed some place away from where she was. She'll be OK." Keep saying that and you might just convince yourself. He sits next to his mother and hugs her, brushing away her long hair. He turns away from me and bends over his mother. I sit down next to her on the pavement to think.

She left seven years ago, and this child can't be over seven or six years of age… But that would mean she was pregnant then?! I must not be thinking properly… I glance at her again; she's grown out her hair too… How changed is she now? My heart aches for her and her son. I blink in surprise. My heart… I haven't felt anything there for too long.

I hear soft sobbing coming from her son,

"Hey now, she'll be fine." I say gently, if not for the sake of Mai it'll be for the sake of this child.

"No she isn't!" She isn't? I didn't ask … She isn't… She never was fine to start with. I pass him my handkerchief and he takes it shyly from me.

"Wipe up those tears, I promise you that she'll be fine." He looks at me again, trusting me with everything. Why are children so trusting? His eyes widen and he says,

"I know you! You were in my dream! You told me to tell my mum about you!" Dream? What dream? Like Mai. My eyes widen in astonishment.

"What did 'I' say in your dream?"

"You told me something about those floaty things… They were called will-o-wisps or something… You told me, you should know. Then you told me to tell mum about you and when I woke up I told her and she got worse." He gives me an accusing glare and goes back to his mother ignoring me completely.

Mai starts to stir and her son starts to shake her,

"Mum! Mum!" I keep some distance between us to let her get some space.

"Kenji… I'm alright… Don't cry OK? Mum's OK." I hear her voice again after so long I have to make myself stand still as to not rush to her demanding to hear about everything. I turn my head and I see her gently wiping her son's tears away. She's such a kind, gentle person I knew she would be a great mum… Her son roughly pushes her hand away and says almost angrily,

"No, you are not OK mum." He throws himself onto her and starts crying all over again. He wraps his arms around her neck and hugs her so tightly it looked as if he was never going to let go.

"Shuu, shuuu… It's OK, cry all you want Kenji…" She placates him, holding onto him tightly.

"No, you cry mum. I can't just cry for you." He says sadly, she hugs him even tighter and cries heart-wrenching cries into his small shoulders.

"Kenji… I'm so sorry for being such a terrible mum. But I love you so much." Something stabs my heart. I grimace and put up with it.

"I love you too, you aren't a terrible mum. You're the best one in the whole world." She cries harder. I can't stop myself, I find myself walking up to her and placing my hand on her shoulder to get her attention. She stops crying and her hands fall limp. She looks at me with a blank expression; her eyes flat but my memories say other wise.

Her eyes widen, her pupils contract and I see her pale even more.

"Na.. ru…" She says my name, so softly but I hear it. It seems to echo on in my head. Her eyelids flutter and she falls limp again, I catch her before she can drop to the ground but her son isn't making anything easier for me.

"What did you do to her?!" Her son shakes my arm and while trying to clear his eyes from tears tries to look angry with me as well. If I were watching this as an outsider I would have laughed. But I know that this is no laughing matter. I gently set her down again and dig out my phone to call Lin.

"Lin, where are you?"

"I have Yasahara with me. Where are you?"

"I'm a block away. Don't ask. Just get here with the car. Leave Yasahara with the equipment, he knows what to do and to do it quickly. I trust you've gotten the police to stall?"

"Yes. I'll be there now." Within a minute the car pulls up and Lin opens the passenger door from the inside.

"We have a problem Lin." I say grimly. I stand aside and I watch his eyes widen in shock then horror.

"MAI!" he jumps out of the car and is next to her. "Naru!" He looks at me questioningly – almost accusing me. "What happened?!"

"She got too over whelmed by the sense of the sprit. I trust you felt it too."

"How could any one not? Even Yasahara felt it." Her son forcefully pulls on Lin's sleeve to get his attention.

"Don't hurt my mum!" when he looks down onto the child his eyes widen. I don't even have to ask him why. I know it myself.

"Naru…"

"I know Lin. Just get her back to SPR. We need to let her recover. And I need to talk to her." Lin bends down to pick her up but her son holds on tight to his sleeve.

"Don't take my mum away!" He says tearfully.

"Mum?!" Lin asks me giving me a perplexed look.

"Don't ask Lin. I'll explain later." I bend down to her son and tell him,

"We need to get your mum some place where she can rest, you can come with us too or if you'd like we can bring you home if there is someone there." He shakes his head vigorously.

"There's no one there. It's only mum and me. I'm going with her."

"Lin get her in the back," I turn back to her son. "What is you name?"

"Kenji." Kenji.

"Kenji, why don't you sit with your mum at the back?" He gives me a guarded look, which suggests that he doesn't trust me with his mother at all.

"Alright." He says grudgingly. Lin gently sets Mai on the back seat and Kenji climbs in. I get into the front seat next to Lin,

"Tell Yasahara that if the police arrives, tell him that he is under the 5th division under Sergeant Sai. It'll slide."

---

"Naru, I hope you are going to explain to me about Mai. And now would be much more preferable." I watch Kenji playing at the coffee table with some paper that Lin had given him when we came in.

"I really have no idea myself Lin. I just found her lying on the ground outside the house her shopping was everywhere and people were just standing there doing absolutely NOTHING. They didn't even bother to move away." I pour myself some water from the tap and drink it down in three gulps.

"Is he really Mai's son?" Lin asks me in an undertone.

"Who else could he be?" I ask Lin, rinsing my cup in some running water. "How is she?"

"I just checked, she's still out. I don't think she'll come to until tomorrow, if she still doesn't we might have to call in a doctor." I rub my temples to rid of the worry and stress.

"I'll be in my office. I'll stay with her if she doesn't come to. Look after Kenji will you? Just keep him occupied and if he's hungry take him out to eat, just tell me before you go." I watch him as he folds paper planes and throws them. He stops for a moment and looks up straight at me as if he knew I was looking at him.

"Mum won't be alright because you're here." He says plainly, no malice or anger just the truth. I swallow a lump in my throat and close my office door behind me. Inside the curtains are closed to keep the light out so that it won't disturb Mai as she rests. I open the curtains slightly to look out the window, the sky is turning dark and streaks of orange and reds are all over the sky. I open a curtain to let in the soft dusk light filter in, as I turn around I hear her turning in her rest, she starts to move. I can see her form trying to sit up.

"Don't move. I expect you'll still be in shock." I say firmly, she slowly sinks back down.

"Where's my son?" She asks quietly.

"He is being looked after by Lin." I reply. She starts to get up again and I say more sharply than I had intended,

"Didn't I tell you to stay still?"

"You can't order me around Naru." She says defiantly. She is so different now…

"You just fainted in the middle of a street." I emphasise the 'fainted' part, just in case she didn't catch it.

"Judging from the sky I'd say it was a long time ago." She says miserably.

"You're different Mai..." I move away from the window and take a seat across from her. She turns her head away, her hair now forming a curtain.

"Why did you leave?" I ask leaning forward.

"Because that was an option I thought was the best at the time." Best option? BEST? She wasn't thinking.

"Why didn't – why didn't you tell me about your problem?"

"MY PROBLEM?! KENJI IS MY PROBLEM NOW? Don't you DARE speak that way about my son." Enraged she jumps up from the couch and screams at me, I can see that she is still recovering as she wavers a little. She drops heavily back onto the couch and holds her head in her hands.

"Calm down Mai."

"Now you tell me to calm down. I've been a single mother since Kenji was born. Don't you tell me what to do." She massages her forehead with the tips of her fingers.

"Where have you been?" I ask concerned.

"No where. Just trying to support my son and myself."

"Do you know who his father is?" Seven years ago... Was she with anyone? I struggle to remember but i come up with nothing.

"Yes." She says bluntly avoiding me.

"Does he know?" She looks me straight into the eye, giving me a hard look.

"Can you really not tell? If his father did it wouldn't make any difference." And how do you know that? He must be a real bastard not to care. I look down onto the carpet and I hear her stand up.

"I'm going. I have to make dinner – if not I'll have to buy take home food. And I do have a child to take care of." I look up and she's walking to the door. I go ahead of her and block her off.

"Why wouldn't it make a difference?" I ask; there has to be a reason why she thinks Kenji's father wouldn't care.

"Because I know. Naru, I'm different. I've changed I'm not seventeen any more. Don't do something you don't know." She says determinedly.

"Mai. Stop that. I know you're different so I'm trying to find a way to communicate with you." I search her eyes for something – anything. But she is hiding them so well. A sharp twist in my gut. This isn't the Mai I knew. The Mai I knew would never be able to hide her feelings at all. Why didn't she come to ask for help?

She looks back at me with cold unflinching eyes and says icily,

"My son is my top priority at the moment, I have no time for you or other people. Good bye."

"Not until I say so." She wants to do it her way; we'll do it her way.

"Do you know how long I spent thinking about you? How long I agonised over the reason why you left? You didn't even say why. You just left with a note stuck to my office door and your keys with it." Her eyes takes on a glassy sheen and she tries to blink it way but it doesn't work and her voice comes out broken.

"Not as long as I did. Never as long as I did." Tears choking her. "Every morning of every day, every night of every day. I see you and I feel so much pain. You have no idea how much. It was only the thought of Kenji that kept me going. I ran on a little food everyday. Not because I couldn't afford it but because I just couldn't eat. I physically couldn't eat Naru. They almost took Kenji away from me. Do you know how much that hurt? Then when I just slowly got some kind of normalcy back into my life you turn up. I don't need this. Kenji doesn't need this. We're fine on our own." My heart twists even more and it is the most painful feeling I've ever known.

"When?" I ask barely controlling the twisting feeling.

"When what!?" She cries out in obvious pain.

"When did you find out? About Kenji." I force myself to add on the last part.

"Two weeks." She starts to cry but the tears just flow out with no sound. Such is her pain that she can't even make a noise.

Two Weeks. I close my eyes. Two weeks before she left, I was completely totally smashed out of my mind. It was ten in the night and no one was in the office, I was really pissed off and really frustrated and decided to drink it off. The only one time I did something so stupid. Why did I do that?

Oh yes, I remember now. Mai was going out with some drop kick and she told me she wouldn't be attending work that day because she was going to see that guy. We had a really bad case then too and I needed all the help I could get and she had to drop out. And Masako wouldn't stop badgering me. After Lin left I pulled out some alcohol and started to drink, I finished about three quarters of the bottle when Mai showed up. I don't even remember why she came. I can only remember up to the point where Mai literally hauls me through my front door. Then I can't remember anything else.

I thought that was all a wonderful dream; in the morning it was like I woke up in heaven. She was sleeping so soundly in my arms and it felt so good. She was so warm and soft in my arms, I drifted back to sleep and I woke up late for work that day. She avoided me the whole day, then she called in sick for five days following that.

I don't need her to tell me what happened when I totally blacked out.

Kenji. His face appears in my mind, his hair is almost the exact shade as mine, but his eyes… He looks exactly like me. Why didn't I – because you didn't think it was possible.

"He's mine isn't he?" Her tears keep flowing.

"WHO ELSE NARU?!?! You tell me. WHO ELSE?" She screams making her voice go coarse. How could I have been so stupid and careless? "Of course he's yours. One look and anyone can tell. Why do you have to make this more painful than it is?" She cries like I've never seen anyone cry before, I never even knew it was possible to have that much pain. Expressed in so many tears. Mum won't be better because you're here. Never in my life have I felt so angry with myself. So angry and so ashamed.

I pull her into my arms and hug her tightly willing her to cry everything out. It's my turn to carry the pain. I burry my head in her shoulder and for once in a long time I cry.

A/N: How was that? it's a little longer but it talks about Naru's POV... hope you liked that! please review too!

Another thing, do you want a chapter about when Naru became totally smashed? and exactly why he decided to get smashed?