A/N: I know I promised Kurama/Lupin action this chapter, but this idea hit me last night and I am but a slave to the muse! And believe me, you'll love the next chap.

I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho!

Downfall

What Lupin does know, for all her dubious eighteen years and her C averages, is that it's hard – so hard – to stop loving someone.

And maybe that's why she can't muster the courage to call Ryu, her only brother, her twin, her other half. For a whole mess of reasons, all revolving around this one glitch in her design. She knows she loves her brother, and that loving him is right, and that he loves her too, possibly more than anything else (because wasn't that the reason he was rotting in prison) – but she knows part of her loves their father, too.

Lupin pulls the lollipop from her mouth and gives it a thorough lick, leaning back on the seat of the car she was supposed to be fixing. She wants so badly to hate him, their father, just like Ryu does. She has seen the burning man Ryu can become at the mere mention of him, a wild creature, storming and raging like the sea in a storm, threatening to suck her in, drown her, suffocate her, and screaming, always screaming.

Look at what he does to you.

You're suffering, Lupin, always suffering.

Look at you.

What father does this to his child?

Lupin picks up the screwdriver sitting on her knees and rubs it clean with the cloth thrown over her shoulder. The stick of her lollipop juts out from her mouth like a pretend cigarette, waiting to be lit.

But, he was her father. How could she not want to be something in his eyes? She loves him, if only the memory of the kind man he used to be, and she won't simply say no to that.

You're always suffering.

"Not true," Lupin mumbles to the screw driver, hanging an arm lazily out the car window.

But to see the look in Ryu's eyes when she saw him, after all this time, him sentenced to life and her, not learning anything from it. He would know she was no better than before, and that father still held purchase in her eyes. And what would he say or do then?

Maybe he would reject her, just like he did father, and their mother before that. And that's possibly what scares Lupin most.

Someone knocks on the garage door and Lupin jerks in surprise, knocking her forehead against the roof in the process whilst she curses and fumbles for the door latch. The garage is darker than usual since Lupin had neglected to turn on the lights, and so she is forced to make her way haphazardly through the garage before reaching the door. With a small grin of triumph, Lupin swings it open to find a middle-aged woman standing on the other side, smiling kindly.

"Hi," Lupin says breathlessly, hurriedly kicking off the bucket her foot sat in. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, I was wondering," the kind woman smiles, hands folded neatly in front of her. "My car won't start, and it's sitting in the garage at home. Does your establishment by any chance make house calls?"

"It's not a problem," Lupin shrugs and avoids the smiling. Pleasantries try her patience. "I can come by tomorrow, if you're okay with that."

The woman looks surprised for half a second – Lupin gets that reaction a lot. Despite her best efforts, people always mistook her for the scholarly-type, not the mechanic-type – before the woman nods. "That would be perfect, thank you."

"It's my job," Lupin replies, ducking her head against the pleased expression on the woman's face. Her cheeks are flushing and she's not sure why. "I'm fairly familiar with the city, if you give me an address I can be there early tomorrow morning, ma'am."

"Minamino," the woman supplies happily. "You can call me Mrs. Minamino."

A/N: I bet you can guess what happens next. Another meeting!!

TBC.