A/N: I have to admit, I have like a serious little girl crush on Nezumi. He's cool, but passionate. He's into classical literature. He's like, an actor, all Victorian England style, where the women are all played by cute-faced boys.

He's too cute. I want to snuggle with him on his sofa, and listen to him read "Paradise Lost", or something equally cool and obscure. Alas...

The tree has entered my hands,
The sap has ascended my arms,
The tree has grown in my breast -
Downward,
The branches grow out of me, like arms.

-Ezra Pound, A Girl.

Shion awakes to the shrill sound of his alarm. It flashes 5:30 AM.

Thud... thud... thud...

Is that... knocking? Shion is filled with a deep sense of dread.

Who's knocking so insistently this early in the morning?

He gets out of bed and dressed quickly, running down the hallwall while he pulls a sweater over his head.

He remembers the night before, and finds himself once more rendered incapable of movement. His mind races uncontrollably, but his feet remain firmly planted.

What if it's the Security Bureau? Should he try to run? Could he explain himself somehow?

"This is the Security Bureau. Dr. Shion Tanaki, please open the door."

The voice comes loud and clear even through the door.

Shion somehow finds the will to move. Maybe if he explains, they'll understand.

My oath. As a doctor, I had to help him. When I saw those eyes, that looked like they'd never laughed, I just didn't want him to suffer any more hardships.

He unlocks the door. He hasn't had a chance to open the door when it's flung open by the officer.

"You're Dr. Shion Tanaki," the officer asks.

"Yes."

"You're under arrest for failing to report a suspicious person you saw last night. Several witnesses saw him enter your facility last night. That was a severe error in good judgement."

"Yes, officer."

"Would you like to come peacefully to the Bureau and explain your actions?" It is not a question.

"Yes, officer."

Shion feels himself being flattened under the weight of the situation.

They are taking him to the Security Bureau. His luck is probably looking a lot worse than losing his medical license.

The first officer handcuffs Shion while the second one briefly pats him down and checks Shion's pockets.

Satisfied, they lead him into the discrete vehicle.

Am I going to end up in the Correctional Facility?

Shion trembles with indecision.

What do I do? I don't want to go to prison-

He looks out the passenger window with confusion. "I thought we were going to the Security Bureau."

"We were, but then our colleagues found this recording. Do you want to know where this is from?"

Shion hears a sick pleasure in the officer's voice.

"From the stock room, in the clinic. It seems like you had good reason to oppose the security cameras, but lucky for us, the diet approved auditory surveillance in all public facilities last month."

A wave of nausea rolls over Shion. They heard Nezumi threaten to kill. It was incredibly Bad Judgement not to call the Bureau.

Bad enough for the Correctional Facility?

The officers speak with the border guard at the West Gate. After a few moments, the guard returns and he waves them through. The gate opens and the car speeds through the checkpoint.

"Getting close, now." The officer laughs.

The car lurches to a stop suddenly.

"Goddamn it, what the hell's wrong with this thing?"

"You watch the prisoner. I'll take a look."

The officer gets out of the car and disappears behind the hood of the car.

The passenger-side door is thrown open and the second officer jerks out of the car.

A second later Shion's door opens and Nezumi is unlocking his handcuffs.

"We're going to make a run for it. Be ready."

Nezumi's head has already disappeared outside the car.

"How-"

"Questions later. Escaping is more important."

She stumbles out of the vehicle. Nezumi is stowing the bodies of the officers under the car.

Are they... dead?

"That will buy us a few minutes, maybe. Let's go before anyone notices they're missing."

Before Shion can say anything more, Nezumi breaks into a sprint.

"Let's go!"

Shion hears the radio in the car beep, then a transmission-

"Officer Takai, are you approaching the facility yet?"

Shion runs after Nezumi. He was right-escape first.

Questions later.

Shion thinks he's going to throw up. His body shakes, and each breath stabs red-hot stakes of pain into his lungs.

"Not much of an athlete, are you," Nezumi asks.

"No... not much," Shion manages between gulps of air.

Thankfully, the air Nezumi's little hole in the ground was blessedly cool and a cross-breeze was coming from somewhere.

Nezumi disappears down a winding tunnel. Shion can't see where it leads to.

Maybe Nezumi's little hole in the ground is bigger than he thought.

Here, in what looks to be the den, Shion sees books.

Antique books with yellowing pages litter the floor, forming labyrinthine walls through the room. Hundreds. No - thousands.

Shion sees shelves behind the wall of books, but most of the collection seems to be contained on the floor. The sight is awe-inspiring. Shion had never seen so many books - real, actual, paper-bound books - in one place. The government had long ago, digitized most of their educational material, and most of the public libraries were digital now, too.

He spots the little nose of a little mouse twitching around the corner of one of the book's spines on the closest shelf.

The mouse peeks around the corner, then leaps onto a pile of books and races towards Shion.

It jumps neatly from the closest pile right onto Shion's shoulder.

Cheep-cheep.

Nezumi reappears in the tunnel with a pitcher of water and two beaten cups.

"He's taken a liking to you."

Shion takes a cup and Nezumi fills it wordlessly from the pitcher. The two men drink.

Shion doesn't think he's ever been so grateful for the sweet, clean taste of water.

"How did you know I was being taken by the Security Bureau," Shion finally asks.

"I had a feeling that might happen."

"So you were watching me?"

"Don't flatter yourself, I wouldn't go that far on a hunch. One of these little guys stayed behind and followed you."

The mouse on Shion's shoulder jumps into Nezumi's outstretched hand and scampers up to the crook of Nezumi's neck.

"He also would have told me if you'd tried to leave too quickly."

"But why? Won't this cause you a lot of trouble?"

"You mean with the Bureau? No. 6 doesn't concern themselves with the outside. They probably won't spend much time nosing around in West Block."

"I'd say it's worth the risk to have a doctor to rely on." Nezumi's expression grows dark. "I can rely on you, right?"

Shion is aware that Nezumi is waiting for a response, but Shion is once again filled with the feeling that he's in a bad situation.

This man said he would kill me.

Nezumi is on him before Shion even recognizes that he is moving. Shion's back is against the thresh floor, immobilized by the knife at his throat.

"Dr. Shion, listen to me very closely. This might not be the Correctional Facility, but it's not the Promised Land, either. You can live here, and I can help you."

"But I can kill you, too. So I need to know if you can be reliable? You understand?"

Once again, Nezumi's face is a mask to him.

Can I be reliable...? No, I don't understand what you mean at all, Nezumi.

"Sometimes people around here forget who their friends are. Start telling people things that are supposed to be kept secret."

"But you're smart, I can rely on you to remember that I'm your friend, right?"

Shion nods. He still isn't quite sure what Nezumi means, but the knife is starting to make him nervous-Nezumi wants him to agree, right?

I'll agree to anything, but don't kill me. Please.

Nezumi takes the knife from Shion's neck and places it back in its sheath.

"Good. You still don't understand, but you'll remember. That's good enough. Can't expect a good citizen of No. 6 to really understand things like 'life or death'."

"But you'll learn," Nezumi finishes flatly.

"Nezumi, you sure do have a lot of old books."

Shion is amazed by Nezumi's library. Volumes upon volumes of Shakespeare, Yeats, Alighieri, Homer, and classical poets Shion had never even heard of before. The pages were yellowed and moldy, their covers battered and torn.

"You should take better care of them."

"Books don't need to be taken care of like humans. They're doing just fine where they are. Besides, I know exactly where everything is, so don't go messing it up."

"What's on the top of this pile then," Shion asks incredulously.

"Hamlet."

Shion breaks out into raucous laughter. After this morning, he feels like he shouldn't be able to laugh, but even such a small thing is able to make him laugh after all that.

"Nope. It's Macbeth."

Nezumi breaks off a piece of bread and hands it to Shion with a bowl of soup.

"This is probably a poor supper for your sophisticated tastes, but this is a gourmet meal in West Block."

Shion rips a piece of bread and dips it in the stew. Nezumi is right - the meat is stringy and there are only a few pieces of vegetable.

However, at the end of their meal, Shion feels the same warm contentment he always does after supper.

Nezumi is gazing at Shion, like he's trying to figure out a difficult puzzle.

"What?"

"Maybe the citizens of No. 6 are tougher than I give them credit for. Or has it just not hit you yet?"

"Has what not hit me yet?"

Nezumi lets out an exasperated sigh.

"You've lost everything. Your career. Your house. Your friends and family. You'll never see any of them again."

Shion thinks about it briefly. He never had any particular attachment to his home. It was a nice house, but it had always felt rather empty. His mother had passed last year. His only friend - Safu - had taken an elite job in Chronos, and he saw her only a few times a year.

Shion feels like he never really had anything to lose. It had been a comfortable life, but it had been without...

Without what?

Shion ponders on this part longer.

I had everything I could ever need. Maybe there were somethings he would have liked to have, but...

"I guess I can't explain it fully, but I don't really feel a sense of loss. I don't have any family left in No. 6 and my practice was probably going to go bankrupt in the next two years. Or so the Bureau of Public Health kept trying to convince me. So I should just let the Bureau take financial control..."

"Things were starting to get that bad, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"Even small businesses like a family clinic..." Nezumi explains. "The government couldn't stand to not have control over it, or you. I'm surprised you were still alive to treat me. Standing behind your beliefs. That's one thing they won't accept."

The words hung in air lime a noose.

That's one thing they won't accept...

Standing behind your beliefs.

Shion feels sick to his stomach. Is that really how it is in No. 6?

Of course it is, I saw it all along. Hiding behind the glare of the streetlights and the pledge of allegiance.

"Shion, No. 6 is insect, a parasite, that sucks whatever it wants from its people and leaves them to die when it's through."

Shion starts to weep softly. Not because of what he lost that morning, but because he never realized he spent his whole life living in a bug net.

And because, just this morning, he'd finally flown free of it.