A/N: Wow. I'm really sorry, you guys. I update like a sloth right after a nap (real slow-like) sorry if this chapter seems like a bunch of dribble-drabble fluffiness, but I was feeling some major guilt about all the emails saying people were reading my silly, little fanfic. Please review! No flames (At least not big ones. I'll accept candles)

A/N P.S: If there's a lot of dialogue at once I might just put the speaker's name in parentheses by what they said. ^_^

Haruhi blinked a a few times, trying to get her eyes to adjust to this new room with less light. It smelled like Victoria's Secret and Claire's had a baby.

"Hello?" she called into the seemingly empty room. She took one step forward and almost landed face first over a clothing rack. Haruhi picked up the items she knocked over and placed them back in there spots. Swimsuits, she thought. Why couldn't it have been sweaters or something?

"You must be Haruhi" said a pair of female voices. Haruhi jumped at the sudden noise and turned around. Standing before her were two girls with long dark hair and the same pretty face. They were a couple inches taller than her and wearing maid's uniforms.

"Y-yes, that's me." she stuttered. "What do you want?"

"The young masters ordered us to find you a swimsuit." said the one on the left.

" 'A cute one' As they put it.", said the one on the right. Her sister seemed a little more excited about the project.

Haruhi thought fast. "Um… that won't be necessary. The Hitachiins found somebody else to dress up." she inched closer towards the door. "Why don't I go get her, while you two wait here?"

"She's lying." said the bored twin.

The hyper twin took Haruhi's arm in her own. "What's your favorite color, Haruhi? That'll help us narrow down our choices a bit."

Haruhi slumped her shoulders and sighed in defeat. "I like blue, if you really want to know."

"Any favorite animals or symbols?" What kind of question was that?

"Uh-ducks, I guess."

Great, Haruhi thought as she tried to navigate her way back to the pool. Twenty minutes of my life wasted, and I'm going to get yelled at for the stupid bruises. She was still a little shaken up from the way the twin maids had reacted. The hyper one screamed, and the bored one gave her a look that showed she was hunting to kill. They'd lectured her for ten of her twenty wasted minutes and interrogated her for five more. When they saw that all they were doing to the poor girl was scaring her half to death, they agreed to let her go.

Now Haruhi was stuck walking alone in a frilly blue and white swimsuit with no shoes. Why'd I leave my flip flops in my bag? she asked herself. Because you hoped you wouldn't need them, stupid. Answered a voice that sounded dangerously close to Snow's. She had been doing that a lot lately. Imagining what her friends would say, or how they would react to the kind of stuff that was going on in her new life. It made her feel a little less lonely. Crazy, but not lonely.

As Haruhi walked, she started to recognize her surroundings a bit more. She took a few more steps and peaked around a wall. Damn, she thought. She'd made it all the way back without thinking of some kind of cover story for the guys. She was about to reveal her hiding place when something blue caught her eye. A large stack of conveniently placed beach towels were sitting on a chair near her wall. She grabbed one and wrapped it around her like a large shawl. If she didn't move her legs certain ways and remained seated, it would cover her bruises quite nicely. Haruhi let out a shaky breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and made her way towards her friends.

"Hikaru! Kouru! What have you done with my darling daughter?" Tamaki was screeching at the twins, as usual. "I demand you tell me this instance!"

The twins resurfaced from the pool and rested their arms on the edge. "We didn't do anything, Boss, calm down." said Hikaru, rolling his eyes.

"She needed a bathing suit, so we had our maids find her a cute one. Weren't you there when we had this conversation? Both times we had this conversation?" Kouru chuckled as Tamaki turned a shade of tomato red, then as he followed his sempai's eyes, he went a couple shades darker. Haruhi had changed into her swimsuit and was making her way back, but the way she had that colossal towel draped around her shoulders like that, it looked like a towel was all she had on. Hikaru went back under the water with a splash an Mori suddenly got very interested in the waterslide on the other side of the room. Haruhi could see his ears slowly transitioning from a light tan color so a familiar deep crimson.

Only Hunny and Kyouya seemed unphased by Haruhi's attire. "I thought you were gonna change, Haru-chan?" asked Hunny as he finished off the last of her brownies.

Now it was Haruhi's turn to blush. She looked down at her towel and wrapped it tighter around her arms. "I-I did, Hunny sempai. I'm just a little cold, I guess." her voice faltered a bit and she looked at the ground. She avoided Kyouya's eyes as she made her way to her seat. As she pulled out her iPod from her bag, her towel slipped a bit, revealing a the large purple bruise she had received the night before. She picked it back up fast enough that Hunny didn't notice, and the other boys were too busy blushing to care. Haruhi stole a glance at Kyouya. He was looking at her with that creepy glare on his glasses again.

"Why don't you show us a few of your cheerleader moves, Haruhi?" he asked innocently. "I'm sure you must be dying cooped up in that heavy beach towel."

Tamaki seemed to have recovered a little from his shock. "Yeah, we'd love to see some."

Hikaru swam back up to his place beside his brother. "Yeah, show us which bathing suit you picked."

"It must be pretty revealing if you insist on staying covered up like that. What did our maids make you wear?" Tamaki got a far off look on his face when Hikaru said this. He was grinning for a bit, then he looked around nervously before turning another dark shade of red.

"Um, I'm just a little cold is all." Haruhi gave a feeble cough into her fist. "I think I might be coming down with something. Cheering wouldn't be the best thing for me right now."

Kyouya adjusted his glasses. "Nonsense. Besides, if you have a fever, the best way to check is by feeling your stomach."

"I don't really think I'm that sick."

"But, you said you were sick. Now you're not?" Hikaru's tone was suspicious.

"Don't be childish, Haruhi just take off the towel." Before Haruhi could respond, three things happened at once: Mori maneuvered his way around the other hosts and stood in front of her chair; Tamaki removed her laptop from her grasp; The twins leapt from the pool and stole Haruhi's towel from behind.

The boys stood in shock, as Haruhi stood and snatched her towel from the twins. She wrapped it back around her shoulders and turned away from them, bracing herself for their yelling. Don't cry. Don't cry. she repeated in her head. If you don't cry, their yelling won't hurt as much.

Tamaki was the first to break the awful silence. "Haruhi-what-why are you- can you please explain why you have so many bruises?" Tamaki stood in front of her, arms crossed angrily, blocking her path. The rest of the host club followed her lead with Hikaru and Kouru on her right, Kyouya and Hunny on the right side of Tamaki, and Mori standing a next to her. He was close enough, that if she wanted to hide, she could just inch behind him.

"Haruhi, why on Earth do you have so many bruises?" (Kyouya)

"Yeah!" chorused the remaining three.

Hunny folded his little arms. "Who did this to you, Haru-chan?" all traces of sweetness had disappeared from his voice.

Haruhi fidgeted with the edge of her towel for so long, that Hikaru and Kouru snatched it away again. She started fidgetting with the skirt of her little blue swimsuit.

"Today, Haruhi." (Kyouya)

She cleared her throat. "U-um what do you guys want to know?"

"How'd you get those bruises?" (Kouru)

She mumbled something inaudible.

"A little louder, if you don't mind." (Tamaki)

" I said, 'my dad.', OK! Are you happy now?" the group returned to the eerie silence they'd had before.

"Why haven't you told us?" Hikaru's words sounded very tense, as if he had trouble getting them through his clenched teeth. His hands were balled into fists and his eyes were locked to the ground beneath his feet.

"Haruhi, this is dangerous! You can't live in a house with somebody who beats you." (Kouru)

"If you'd told somebody they could've helped you." Hunny grasped her hand in his. Despite his cute appearance, his hand was firm around hers. "If you's told us, we could've helped you."

"Haruhi, I don't care if that man is you-"

"You guys don't get it!" she yelled, cutting Tamaki off. "It doesn't matter what you guys say, that won't change the fact that he is my dad. I love him and you guys are willing to rip away the only family I have left when you don't even know the situation."

"Haruhi-of course we know the situation! He's beating you and tha-"

"That's not all you need to know, sempai." Kyouya took a step back, not used to people telling him what he knew. "Did you know that he ony hits me when he's drunk? Did you know that he started taking AA meetings two weeks ago?"

The boys remained silent.

Haruhi's voice dropped to just above a whisper. "Did you know that when he's sober, he's the sweetest, funniest, most caring guy I know? He's only doing this because my mom's gone. He-he can't help it." Damn it! she thought angrily. Don't cry now. Please don't cry now.

Tamaki's expression softened a bit. He placed a hand delicately on her shoulder. "Haruhi, I know you'd like to think that and I'd really love to help, but I simply can't allow you to live in such a harmful environment."

"Haruhi, be aware that I will notify my family's private police force about this. They will come and get your father."(Kyouya)

"But then I'll have to live in an orphanage. I have no other relatives here." I could always go back to America. she thought with a smile creeping it's way towards her lips. But… her urge to smile died as quickly as it had come. What would she do without the Host Club? They'd given her new strength. She finally found a plce where there wasn't any pressure to keep up her social status. She hadn't asked for popularity, but once you get it, you don't want to let it go. She glanced up at Mori. It seemed he was thinking about the possibility of her returning to America as well. His hands were baled into fists and he turned away from the group, feircly rubbing his eyes for a few seconds. Look at him. she thought. That did it. She couldn't leave Japan if it meant leaving Mori too. And if she stayed in Japan, she would have to find a way to stay with her dad.

Haruhi stood up straight, looking her bespectacled sempai in the eyes. "Kyouya, if you call the police on my dad-" she looked around at the rest of the people standing before her. "if any of you call the police on my dad-I'll have nowhere to go, but America. I have plenty of aunts form my mom's side living there. Give my dad a chance. Let him go to his meetings-it'll be alright, I swear. If he keeps drinking by the time Christmas comes around, I'll call the police myself."

Kyouya's glasses glare disappeared and Haruhi could see his steely gray eyes. He extended his hand. "Fine. Until Christmas, but if I see so much as another scratch on you, he's as good as dead to me."

Haruhi shook his hand and wiped away her tears. "Whatever, sempai. It'll be alright."