Since my last update a lot of things have happened. A lot. I've got virtually no time, my mental health is rapidly digressing, my relationship ended rather abruptly and my ex is now screwing a freshman (UGH). Homework levels have drastically increased and I got cast in this horror sort of play, so my days just sort of melt together in a string of classes, homework, and rehearsals with little to no time to socialize and even less to write.

Anyway, life isn't really going that great right now. So forgive me what is sure to be a substantial absence from this site for a while and take this chapter as my apology. I will return eventually… it just might take a while before things die down enough for me to get back to writing consistently.

So here you are; chapter five. Per the usual disclaimer, I own no claim to Ouran or its characters.


The girl was remarkably quiet, Tamaki observed as she followed him and Miss Jonochi through the halls of the Lobelia Mental Institution. It wasn't her lack of speech that bothered him; it was her silence. Her footfalls made practically no noise at all, barely whispers against the tiled floor, in sharp contrast with the click-clack of Miss Jonochi's heels. You can hear most people breathing if you're listening for it, a steady rhythm of inhales and exhales, but hers were entirely inaudible. She may as well have been a ghost.

It had taken less than 24 hours to be registered as a foster home. Miss Jonochi had pulled an impressive amount of strings among the legal community who handled the cases of wards of the state, and not two hours after she had left his office he had received a phone call from her saying his application had been accepted and someone would be by his house in a few hours to give it a proper inspection to ensure it was a suitable environment for any wards he might take into his care. An inspection had been conducted and the house found suitable, and just like that, he was registered as a foster parent. It seemed strange to think about.

He'd received a very official message from Miss Jonochi the previous evening giving him the name (or lack thereof) and age (approximated) of a girl in need of a foster home, and a request to be at Lobelia the next afternoon. Jane Doe, age eighteen. Requires attentive care concerning mental and physical issues. The description had slightly angered him. Physical issues, of course. Repeated abuse. Days on end spent locked in confined spaces. Malnutrition. The poor girl had been through hell. But what got to him was the mental issues aspect of the description. She hadn't asked to be brainwashed and forced into submission. He suspected she rarely ever got to speak, where she'd been. He also suspected she was very intelligent, and merely had been deprived of any and all methods to expand that intelligence.

Well, now she was his responsibility. It had all unfolded remarkably fast, like a dream. Tamaki half-expected to wake up any minute.

He had submitted his request for time off of work that morning, and since he was very well connected at the hospital and his family had a very close personal relationship with the CEO and owner, was granted eight months leave starting that afternoon.

Which had brought him to his present situation, walking the halls of Lobelia slowly so the nameless girl could follow him and Miss Jonochi on her weak and unsteady legs.

His second meeting with the girl had gone incredibly well, considering the circumstances. He had anticipated it would take a couple hours of apologies and coaxing and promises before she could even tolerate being within a few feet of him, and he had been appalled when, as soon as he'd told her he wanted to take her outside, she had lost any hostility and only sought out a few reassurances that he was telling her the truth. And then, to his surprise, she'd fallen apart.

Tamaki had experience with girls. While never having been in a serious romantic relationship, he'd indulged in several inconsequential flings throughout his high school years and a couple in college before his course loads got to be too much to spend time on girls and dating. He knew girls and how they liked to be comforted. Embraces and kisses on the forehead and promises that everything was going to be all right. He'd gotten many a girl through emotional issues.

But this girl was nothing like them. This girl had unraveled wholly and honestly, with her soul bared to him because she had nothing she could hide. Her issues were out in the open. She had been raped, used, locked up, starved, and abused in what Tamaki could only assume were unimaginable ways both mentally and physically for years. All she wanted was a safe place where she wouldn't be hurt anymore, and she could go outside and see the world again. What she wanted was a home.

Tamaki had never considered what a powerful concept that was. Home. It was a place to belong, to be safe, to be cared about and loved. Home was a refuge, a sanctuary, a place you could be free and open about yourself. He had always taken his home for granted. But in the face of this girl, who had maybe never had such a blessing, he realized what an incredible thing it was. A home was a much different thing from a house. Well, his house was about to become hers as well, and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to make it her home.

And being faced with the girl, who Tamaki did not know and yet felt an incredible bond with regardless, as she fell apart, had been too much to bear. He did not want to give her a one-armed hug and a kiss on the forehead. He did not want to give her reassurances he was not certain were true. He only wanted to protect her and stop her tears, for forever. So he'd held her for what had seemed like an eternity as she shook and sobbed in his arms. Held her until she stopped and for a few minutes more. Just to be certain she knew he cared, and he was sure she did, because after a several minutes as her tears slowed, she'd awkwardly wrapped her arms around him and held him right back. She didn't have the strength to squeeze him tightly to her, but she seemed to be using all the power she did have, and it was one of the most amazing things Tamaki had felt in years, to know he was responsible for the first semblance of affection this girl had gotten in years.

Because the girl was so quiet as they walked down the halls that Tamaki was completely blindsided when he felt a small tug on the back of his shirt, and was so astonished by it he stopped short. The girl ran into him with a soft cry, not of pain, but a startled noise that was enough to make Tamaki's chest twist briefly with guilt. He turned around to look at her. She was staring up at him with those wide green eyes of hers, clutching the fabric of his shirt in those small, thin fingers of hers. "Hey, little one," he smiled. Her expression didn't change. "What's the matter?"

She didn't reply. She just stared at him, as though amazed by his very existence.

"I think she likes you," Miss Jonochi observed, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "She certainly hasn't tried this with any of her caretakers here."

Tamaki gently pried the girl's fingers away from his shirt, shocked by how strong her grip was in spite of her general weakness, and held her hand in his so their fingers intertwined instead, absentmindedly rubbing small circles in her palm with his thumb. "It's all right," he said. The girl's gaze went to their hands, fingers locked, as though she was astonished two hands could exist together like that. Tamaki looked to Miss Jonochi. "Have there been any breakthroughs in her case? Like her name, for instance? A definite age?" he asked.

"Not so far. The police have been looking into it," Miss Jonochi explained. "She doesn't appear to have any dental records, and there were no hits on her fingerprints, though that was a long shot anyway. She may as well not have existed before they found her in that wretched house. All anyone can do is sift through missing persons reports and weed out the most likely candidates."

"And… has she said anything?" Tamaki asked, glancing down at the girl, who had begun to trace their interlocked fingers with her other hand, as though she were trying to memorize every facet of their formation.

"Barely anything at all. Certainly not anything that would give us a clue as to who she is," Miss Jonochi sighed. "I'm beginning to think this one may go unsolved. It makes me sick, thinking someone might get away with what they did to her."

Tamaki sighed and gently pulled the girl along after him as he continued the trek down the hallway. "Don't I know it."

They arrived at the front desk of Lobelia's, where Miss Jonochi stopped them and demanded the girl's release papers and personal items from the woman stationed there. Tamaki let her take care of all the legalities of the matter; it wasn't his area of expertise, and he was sure it would just confuse him. Besides, he was far more interested in the girl. When they had stopped she had grabbed for his other hand and clumsily wrapped her fingers in his, recreating the way their other hands were. She appeared delighted at her accurate reconstruction, not quite beaming, but smiling a small smile and practically radiating an aura of satisfaction. She was so beautiful, Tamaki thought. Even after years of abuse and rape and torture, she was so beautiful. Even more so now that she had some color to her, no doubt an effect of the nutrition she'd received in the institution (though Tamaki still condemned Lobelia's methods).

As fascinated as the girl was by the concept of holding hands, her attention was seized entirely by something else once her possessions were brought out to her – or, more accurately, possession in the singular. A possession Tamaki recognized.

"Mine!" the girl squealed when she saw the stuffed horse, startling Tamaki when she yanked her hands out of his and snatched the toy from the orderly who had retrieved it from the back room. Her eyes were sparkling now as she squeezed the stuffed animal to her chest, and something told Tamaki she was going to be reluctant to ever release it again.

The orderly smiled at her. "Poor thing," she said fondly. "It took quite a while to get that from her when she first arrived. She's very attached to it." She turned to leave and glanced at Tamaki. "Good luck," she waved, and then she was gone.

It was then that the full extent of what had happened upon the girl's arrival at Lobelia hit him, with what felt like the impact of a bullet. He turned to the woman behind the desk. "They took that from her?" he demanded, fury bubbling in his chest.

"It wasn't an approved item for new patients," the woman said calmly, unfazed by his outburst. "The institute deemed it unsuitable. She would create a dependence on the toy rather than seek human comfort."

"Screw that!" Tamaki exploded, balling his hands into fists so his fingernails dug into his palms. "She was terrified, and alone, and you took away the only thing that brought her any happiness at all?!"

"It was not an approved item—"

"Shut up!" Tamaki shouted at her, hating how calm she was about the situation. "How did you help her, anyway? How did anybody in this godforsaken place help her? By holding her down and sticking needles into her while she cried? By locking her up alone when she refused to be touched? By inflicting yet more terror on her when she was already afraid, because she didn't understand why any of it was happening? Did that help her?"

The woman said nothing, showed no emotion. It made Tamaki even angrier.

"Dr. Suoh," Miss Jonochi said dangerously. "Get a hold of yourself."

Tamaki glared at her, angry for a moment that she wasn't on his side, before realizing he'd made somewhat of a spectacle of himself. People lingering in the halls, more orderlies in yellow scrubs and even the odd patient, were staring at him. But worse than that was the way the girl was looking at him, as though he was frightening her. The bottom half of her face was buried in the fake fur of her stuffed horse, and her eyes remained on him. Those brilliant green eyes were wide with uncertainty. He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth and slowly released the tension in his hands. "Are we nearly finished here?" he asked coldly.

Miss Jonochi scrawled her name on the bottom of a page and turned away from the desk. "Now we are," she said briskly, passing Tamaki without another word as she headed for the doors that would lead to Lobelia's lobby, and then outside. "Come along then, you two. Let's get the girl settled in her new home, shall we?"

Seeing the girl's first step into the outside world was an almost spiritual experience. Tamaki couldn't remember the last time he had felt so light and awestricken, or if he had ever felt quite the way he did watching the girl as she stopped short, staring at the sky and the trees and the grass outside of Lobelia with her eyes sparkling.

It wasn't long until she was crying again, merely standing there staring at the world that had been denied to her for so many years. Tamaki rushed forward immediately to gather her in his arms again to comfort her, but stopped in his tracks when she made a frightening noise, a gurgling kind of choking sound. For a moment he didn't know if she was rejecting the outside world and going into some sort of shock, but after a few more strangled noises escaped her it was as though she identified the sound she was attempting to make, and the horrible croaks transformed into peals of laughter. And to Tamaki, it was one of the most incredible sounds he'd ever heard.

She never once dropped her stuffed horse as she stripped off her flimsy hospital shoes and stumbled into the grass, her unsteady steps reminding once Tamaki of how weak she was. She laughed as she crouched down, pulling blades of grass up in one hand and watching them fall back to the ground when she released them. She sat down, running her hands through the lawn of the hospital and sighing her contentment. Tamaki couldn't keep from smiling as he approached her, sitting down on the grass next to her. She grinned and yanked another fistful of the green blades up, holding them out to him. "Grass," she said, and Tamaki had never imagined that word could hold such joy.

"It's nice, isn't it?" he said, indulging her and holding out his hands. She sprinkled the grass into his upturned palms and giggled when he made a show of letting it fall back to the ground in patterns. She pulled up another handful and dropped it onto his head. Tamaki shook the grass out of his hair, laughing a bit himself.

"Pretty," the girl said, pointing at a tree planted across the street, its branches thick with leaves. Then her face scrunched up, as though she was trying very hard to think of something. After a few moments she mumbled unsurely, "Tree." She looked expectantly to Tamaki. "Yes?"

He was a little taken aback in general. She couldn't even remember what a tree was off the top of her head. If he ever got his hands on the men who had done this to her…

He nodded. "That's right. I have quite a lot of them at my house in my garden. Lots of pretty trees and flowers."

"Flowers?" the girl perked up, and her face twisted again in concentration. However, she must have eventually given up on remembering, because she asked him, "What's flowers?"

Tamaki opened his mouth to reply, and then shut it. He didn't know how to explain flowers. After struggling for words he didn't have for a few moments, he admitted defeat and merely said, "They're very pretty, too. I have lots at home. Would you like to see them?"

The girl seemed reluctant to leave her patch of grass, but eventually she sighed and nodded, and allowed Tamaki to help her back to her feet, as one of her arms was still preoccupied with clutching her horse to her chest. Miss Jonochi, who had been watching the pair as the girl rediscovered grass, gestured towards the parking lot. "I have my own vehicle, obviously. I'll follow you to your house." She turned her attention to the girl and her voice became a little softer. "Would you like to ride with Dr. Suoh or me?" she asked.

The girl didn't seem to understand the question, but she shrank back at the word "doctor," gripping Tamaki's shirt and from Miss Jonochi behind him. "No doctors," she whimpered, and Tamaki got the horrible sense that the waterworks were coming. "No more," the girl pleaded, and Tamaki turned to find his suspicions justified – the girl's eyes were sparkling with anxious tears.

He knelt down in front of her immediately. "No more," he agreed softly. "Not today." Ignoring the fact that he himself was a doctor but resigned the moment he agreed to take her into his care to not go into that mode around her, he wasn't going to promise her she would never need to see another doctor; she most definitely would. But he could promise her today.

"No?" she sniffled, rubbing at her eyes.

"I promise," Tamaki smiled, gently rubbing the girl's arms. "None of that. We're going to my house, remember? Home."

"Home," she repeated, nodding sluggishly and biting down on her bottom lip.

Tamaki sighed. This was going to be a challenge. On an impulse he brushed her tangled hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ears before pulling her into a loose embrace. "There you go. No more tears, sweetheart, alright? It's all going to be okay."

She didn't reject the hug, but she didn't partake in it either. She merely stood there with one arm hanging limply at her side and the other still clutching her stuffed horse. Tamaki released her after a few seconds and began to rub her shoulders again. "Do you want to ride in the car with Miss Jonochi or with me?" he asked her.

"Go with Tamaki," she whispered, grabbing for his hand. He gave it to her willingly and she allowed herself to be led through the parking lot to his car. Miss Jonochi's was parked next to his, and she unlocked it as Tamaki opened the passenger door of his Nissan and watched the girl crawl awkwardly into it, sitting in the passenger seat and curling herself into a ball with her face buried in her stuffed horse. "Here, sweetheart," Tamaki said, tugging the seatbelt out and crossing it over her small body, maneuvering it so it went across her waist and chest properly before he clicked it into place.

Tamaki shut the door and glanced at Miss Jonochi. "How am I doing so far?"

She pulled open her car door and got inside. "I've got no criticisms for you thus far," she said simply, pulling the door shut after her. A smile twitched at the corner of Tamaki's lips and he shook his head, crossing to the car's driver's side and getting in. "You ready for this?" he asked the girl, smiling at her as he started the engine. She didn't answer. Her focus was on the window, waiting for him to drive so she could watch the world fly by in a mesmerizing blur of color.

It wasn't until they were stopped at a red light that it occurred to Tamaki that the girl remained nameless. He had no idea what to call her any more than the first time he'd seen her, trembling and terrified in the examination room. "You know," he said into the silence that had settled between them. "I still don't know what to call you. I know your name isn't Jane Doe, so I don't like using it."

The girl pulled her gaze off the window and turned her head towards him. "Name," she repeated, her lips drawn in a tight line.

"Yes. What's your name, sweetheart? Do you remember?" Tamaki asked. The light turned green and he pressed down on the acceleration a little too hard. The car jerked slightly before falling into a smoother acceleration.

Her unblinking stare was just starting to unnerve him when she finally spoke again. "No. Don't remember."

It was the answer he had been expecting, but it still hit him like a punch to the stomach. "Okay, then." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, wondering… "What did… what did they call you?" he asked quietly. "The people who… who kept you in that house?"

She didn't hesitate in replying, a terrible list that made Tamaki's stomach twist. "Bitch. Cunt. Slut. Tramp—"

"Stop," Tamaki said sharply, and she ceased immediately, looking hurt. Tamaki could have groaned out of frustration, had he not thought it would upset her further. "I'm sorry. I'm not mad," he said, much more softly. "Those aren't names, though, alright? Those are terrible things to call another person. They shouldn't have called you any of those."

She didn't say another word. She turned back to the window and tightened her grasp on her stuffed horse, and Tamaki heard her let out a long sigh. He listened tersely to her breaths, afraid she might start crying again, but they remained steady.

The rest of the journey was endured in silence, and the entire time Tamaki pondered on the extent of what he had gotten himself into this time.


So, that's chapter five. I hope you found it satisfactory. And I hope even more that you all will review. They encourage me so much to keep writing.

Thanks for reading. Cantica, out.