((Thank you for reading and reviewing! Very much appreciated! And now onto chapter 12!))

The next thing I remember, I was waking up in my bed. My curtains were drawn so I couldn't tell if it was still night or if it was morning. I sat up. Rubbed my eyes. And then it all came rushing back to me. Ayame's confessions. His cries of pain.

I bolted out of bed and ran into the hallway, where I encountered Shigure. "Shigure! Shigure! Is Ayame okay? Is he alive?"

"Ayame is alive, Tohru," Shigure assured in his soothing voice. "He's not in the best shape he's ever been in, but he's okay. We managed to get the boys off him before they could do any permanent damage. I'm not sure the same can be said about what Ayame did to you though."

I swallowed and decided to ignore that last statement. "Is he...is he in the hospital?"

"No. After you fainted, and we broke up the fight, he went home," said Shigure.

"Did anyone go with him to make sure he was okay?"

The former dog looked down. His eyes were conflicted, then firm. "No. No one chose to accompany him."

I knew instantly what this meant. He was being shunned by his entire family. Even his best friends. I knew that they were all doing this for me. To support me. I was grateful. But yet my heart, as if it wasn't already broken, seemed to break again. I wondered how many more times it could fragment like this without disappearing completely.

"Shigure...please don't abandon Ayame. What he did was horrible. I know, I know it better than anyone, but he...he's already lost me. He can't lose you and Hatori too."

"He has Mine," Shigure stated coldly.

"He needs his family."

Shigure sighed and walked down the staircase. I followed. "Ayame took advantage of you," he reminded me. "How can I stand by a man like that? Even if he is my family? Even if he is my best friend?"

"I'm not saying you should support what's he's done. But Mom always used to say that just because someone has done something bad, that doesn't mean that the person is bad," I offered.

We reached the bottom of the stairs and walked into the kitchen, where I sat down at the table. Glad we weren't in the dining room, still fresh with memories. Shigure seemed to be contemplating my words as he put on a pot of tea. "That's a good point, Tohru..."

I folded my hands across my lap. I sat in silence for a while as he prepared the tea but then I spoke again. "Shigure?"

"Yes?"

"Um...what time is it? Is it still night? Where are all the others?"

"It's around 11:00. Night, yes. Yuki was fuming for hours after the dinner ended. Full of restless energy, he was, but he finally went to bed about a half hour ago. Kyo tried to skulk off into the night, but fearing he might go to finish the job, we made him stay here. He's in his room."

"We?"

"Hatori and I. Hatori decided to stay the night, to make sure you were okay after you fainted," Shigure explained, smiling softly.

I smiled back. "Thank you. Thank you both. I really do appreciate it." Then a thought occurred to me. 'I really fainted. Oh, my god, is my baby okay? No, no, I'm not even sure that I'm carrying a baby! I only had sex once, and I'm only three days late. Don't get ahead of yourself, Tohru!' But as long as Hatori was still here..."Um, Shigure?"

"Yes, Tohru?" Shigure poured two mugs of tea, sat down, and handed me one.

"Where is Hatori now? I was wondering if...well, I was wondering if I could talk to him for a bit. Unless he's sleeping, of course! I wouldn't want to wake him!"

"He went to bed a little while ago, but if it's something important-"

I flushed terribly and waved my hands in front of myself, panicking. "No, no! Not at all! I just...I'm still feeling a little woozy after fainting, and I just thought, well, I don't know, really it's nothing! I'll just talk to him tomorrow morning. Really, I should be getting to sleep too, it's getting late, and um, yeah! Thanks for the tea, Shigure!"

The former dog blinked widely at me as I downed my entire mug of tea and dashed off to put it in the dishwasher before running back upstairs to my room, where I attempted to fall asleep. My stomach twisted and turned, my thoughts did the same. I was very thankful when, though they seemed like they may never show up, a few rays of sunlight finally danced through my window the next morning.

Making my way downstairs, I caught Hatori just as he was walking out the front door. "H-hatori! Wait!" He turned around and blushed lightly, I realized that I was still in my nightgown and returned the blush. "Oh, sorry, I...! Well, um, I just was wondering if I could go with you today. To your office."

He looked confused for a moment but then nodded understandingly. "I checked you fully last night, Tohru. You may not remember now, but only seconds after you fainted, you regained consciousness. You seemed dazed, and Shigure and I helped you to your room, where I examined you before you quickly fell asleep. Your fainting spell was clearly due to the stress of the situation, and almost certainly the stress of everything you have been dealing with privately lately. Very understandably so," he said, looking down briefly, appearing heartbroken himself before looking back into my eyes. "But you have no underlying physical problems to be concerned about. My recommendation is to get plenty of rest and try to relax. I can fax you some meditation exercises you may want to try."

"Oh, well, thank you. Thank you, I appreciate that, but I was actually worried about...well..." How could I say this to him? God knows I didn't want anyone in the family to know, especially when I wasn't even sure myself, but I had to tell someone, and that someone had to be Hatori. I looked around in the foyer before walking out to the front steps. Hatori followed and shut the door behind him.

I took a deep breath. "I, um...even before I fainted, my stomach has been hurting really bad lately, and I've been feeling nauseous. I even threw up during dinner last night when I went to the bathroom," I told him. I stared intently into his eyes until recognition finally entered them.

"Oh," he uttered, looking away. "Oh..."

"Y-yes, so...um...do you think I could...?"

He didn't look back at me but he nodded once and swallowed heavily. "Let's go. I'll call Shigure and tell him that I took you out to breakfast."

I nodded gratefully, stepped back into the house to grab my coat, and then followed him to his car, getting in the passenger seat. At first, we said nothing at all, though after a while of silence, he put the radio on. The song instantly struck me as familiar. I listened to the lyrics, trying to remember why I knew it.

'Oh, I've been afraid of changing 'cause I built my life around you. But times makes you bolder. Children get older. I'm getting older too.'

I then remembered. Ayame and I had been in the car once, before we even started dating. I had had to go across town for a college entrance exam prep class I was taking. Ayame had been over visiting Yuki when I first mentioned it to the family, and he was the first to volunteer to drive me even though it looked like he and the rat were actually making some conversation, pouring over his old high school yearbooks again.

This surprised me; why would he want to interrupt his time of brotherly bonding just to take me to my class? Of course I protested, telling him that I didn't want to impose and that I could catch a bus, but we ended up in his car together and this very song came on.

He knew the lyrics by heart. I caught him singing along with it, though more to himself than me. 'Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life?'

I had looked over at him curiously. He looked so deeply entrenched with the song, almost sorrowful, but beautifully so, before he caught me looking and smiled softly. "Oh, what are we listening to this claptrap for? So depressing, isn't it? No, no, what we need is something fun!" he then decided, changing the radio station.

The upbeat song playing was already in the middle but that didn't stop Ayame from jumping right in. "They say our love won't pay the rent! Before it's earned, our money's all been spent! Oh, come on, Tohru, you know this one! It's a classic! Sing along with me!"

I blushed and giggled, shaking my head. "I-I don't really have a good singing voice like you do, Ayame-san!"

"My voice is exquisite, yes, but you don't need to match me, you just need to have some fun with it!" he persisted, taking a hand off the steering wheel and balling it into a microphone fist for me. He smiled expectantly at me, raising both eyebrows. "Pretty please?"

"A-and when I'm sad, you're a clown," I began singing in my quietest voice, giggling in embarrassment all the while. "And if I get scared, you're always around." I couldn't hold out the long note and covered my face in my hands, laughing, but I recovered in time to finish my part: "S-so let them say your hair's too long! I don't care, with you I can't go wrong."

Ayame grinned brightly and continued, "Then put your little hand in mine! There ain't no hill or mountain we can't climb! All right, together now!"

We finished out the chorus together. "Babe! I got you, babe! I got you, babe." His eyes probably should have been on the road, but they were locked with mine as we sang and laughed, and I realized I couldn't take my eyes off him either.

Even after the song ended, it seemed like we were staring at each other like we had never really seen each other before. Or maybe like we had seen each other before, but never in the right way. It was like everything magically became clear, like something profound changed between us in just a few minutes, something that had been lying dormant all along but decided on this very moment to surface. I had never experienced anything like it. It made me feel so...alive.

"Tohru?" Suddenly Hatori's voice broke my memory.

I shook myself out of my trance and looked back at him. The happiness I had felt as I got lost in better times vanished. Everything looked grey and lifeless again. "Yes, Hatori?"

"We're here," he announced. I looked ahead at the Main House, which appeared darker and gloomier than ever before, and that's saying a lot. I slid out of the car and let out a deep breath, bordering on a depressed sigh, as I followed Hatori up the front porch and into the house.

"Is Akito here?" I asked quietly as we walked through the living room. No sign of her. Everything seemed deserted. The only glimpse of life that remained was a half-filled teacup on the small wooden table across from the couch.

"She's here, yes, but as far as I know, ever since she found out about the curse breaking, she has taken to her bed and stayed there," Hatori answered.

A twinge of guilt in my stomach. Had I ruined Akito's life? Had I destroyed her only source of happiness? I supposed it was a small price to pay for the happiness of all the other Sohmas but it was still a price. I imagined her now. Lying in bed. Feeling hopeless, completely alone in the world. All because of me.

'But wait a minute,' I thought. 'Who is she to be pitied? She, who raped Ayame for years, and started this whole sickening cycle to begin with.' I felt conflicted, torn between compassion and resentment. Then my mom's words echoed in my mind again: "Just because someone does something bad doesn't mean they're a bad person."

"Hatori? Can I ask you something?" I began, following him into his office. He nodded as he pulled out some type of needle from his desk drawer and put something on it, some type of liquid, I guess to sterilize it. "You've known Ayame longer and better than anyone. Do you think he is a bad person, or do you think he just does bad things sometimes?"

The former dragon hesitated. "I don't believe that Ayame is, at his core, a bad person. I'm not sure if he is a good one either, however. He is...a very interesting person. That much is clear to anyone that meets him. And probably the reason you fell for him. He's charming, he's witty, he's confident to the point of making everyone around him believe that he may very well be a real king. But Tohru, he's broken a lot of hearts. A lot of hearts before yours."

"I didn't know that..."

"I'm not saying he...did to them what he did to you. I cannot honestly tell you if he did or not. I never would have guessed that he was capable of such a thing at all, but last night, I was proven wrong. So I may not know Ayame better than anyone, as you think I do. I really never would have thought..." He trailed off and gestured for me to sit on his examining table, which I did. As he pressed a cold cotton ball to my arm, he continued, "Anyway, as you know, Ayame was extremely popular in high school. He played around with all the boys in our class, and all the girls from the school across ours."

"The boys?" I blushed. Yet another thing I didn't know about my own boyfriend. Well, ex-boyfriend. What surprised me more though was: "Wait, how was he able to play around with the girls? With the curse still unbroken?"

"Well, the thing was, Ayame didn't care," said Hatori as he found a vein in my forearm and inserted the needle. I winced, closed my eyes, bit my lip, but tried to focus on his words instead of the pain. "He wasn't supposed to pursue romantic entanglements with girls. Akito strictly forbid it. But he went behind her back, and messed around with people. Carelessly led them on; I don't know how many times I heard him say 'I love you' to someone that he barely knew, and he never stayed with anyone more than a week. If he did transform in front of any of them-"

Then he stopped. I opened my eyes again to see the needle still doing its work, and a look of guilt cross Hatori's face. I tilted my head, but then I understood. "If he transformed in front of them...he'd ask you to erase their memories?"

"...At the time, I was more annoyed at the inconvenience than the immortality of the practice. I'm not proud of it, but that's how we all were. We were teenage boys. The problem seems to be that Ayame never grew out of that selfishness, no matter how much he claims to be trying." Hatori then withdrew the needle and took my vial of blood to the corner of his office. He seemed to be writing notes about it, and I stayed put on the table.

"Are you ever going to speak to him again?" I asked after a few minutes of silence.

Hatori continued writing. "I'm not entirely sure. The line that he has crossed this time...I don't know how he can come back from this."

"Akito raped Ayame for years when they were teenagers," I suddenly heard myself say.

Finally Hatori snapped his head back toward me, the eye that wasn't covered by his bangs appeared terror-stricken. "What?"

"She told me herself," I confirmed.

"Akito...and Ayame?" he repeated, now staring at the wall. "I...I never knew. I was his best friend, and I took care of Akito for years, and I...how did I not know about this? He always acted so happy, so carefree. Why did he never tell me?"

"I don't know, and it probably wasn't my place to tell you either, but I just wanted you to understand that...well...I'm not saying it excuses Ayame's behavior. But it's almost like...if we shun him, if we hate him, we're just continuing the cycle of cruelty. What good will it really do?"

I watched Hatori and could easily tell that his head was spinning. Probably connecting dots that he could never connect before. Asking questions that he had never even thought of before. I watched him for what felt like a long time before he noticed I was still in the room. "Oh. Tohru...you can go now if you'd like. I have to take this upstairs to my lab," he picked up the vial of blood. "And I will call you when I have the results. It could be as quick as ten minutes, or as long as 48 hours."

"Okay...t-thank you, Hatori. I really appre-"

"Do you need a ride home?"

I shook my head, descending from the table. "No, I'm fine. Really. There is a stop I want to make before I head back."

That stop was Akito's bedroom. I knocked on the door and was surprised to hear her voice, groggy and strained, beckon me to enter after only one try. I stepped inside and saw her curled up in a fetal position under her covers. "So one of my beloved Zodiacs has deigned to visit me. Has your wonderful celebration, at long last, come to an end? Did you all sit around the dinner table and share tears of happiness now that you are freed from my terrible, terrible grip on you?" she asked, her voice full of bitterness. Then she turned to face me. Her eyes became fire, her fists little balls under her chin. "Oh. It's you."

"Akito, I..."

"What do you think you're doing here? You, who almost certainly broke the curse?"

"I did break the curse, and I wanted to apologize to you but-"

"So you did," she confirmed. Letting out a cold, high-pitched laugh of hatred. "And I'm sure they were all just ecstatic! Their precious little savior, Tohru Honda. The one they all hoped and dreamed would come to their rescue."

I looked to my feet. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ruin your happiness."

"Happiness? Oh, please. I have never been happy. Not before the curse was broken, not now, and not ever." She sat up in her bed, almost looking like she was ready to fight me, but she stayed there. "So go ahead and apologize. Rightfully so. But not for ruining my happiness. Just for taking away the only people that I have ever loved."

"Loved?" I looked up, frowning. "Is that what you call it then? Is that where Ayame learned what 'love' meant?"

Akito blinked, obviously taken aback. "What are you talking about?"

"I need answers from you, Akito. I need to know why. I need to why you did the things you did. I need to know if anything, anything at all, could have changed you."

She paused, then finally got out of bed and approached me. Smirking. "Oh, I understand what you're referring to. Why I did it? Well, why the hell not? I wanted something from Ayame, and there was no good reason not to take it. I am, or was, his God, and he was my servant. That was his birthright, that was his responsibility. He was a rebellious child, and I needed to show him who was truly in charge. It's that simple. There is no deeper meaning than that."

She gained on me until I was pressed against her door. "And as for whether anything could have changed me? No. People are who they are, Tohru. There are good people and bad people in this world. There is no in between, and believing otherwise is the mark of a naive, foolish child. So then...did our pathetic little snake take advantage of our pathetic little flower? And now you wonder if you can change him? Please. Women have been trying to change men for centuries, and vice versa. They think they see some good in them, some shred of 'love', which by the way is never real and is just something writers came up with to sell fairytales, and so they spend their whole lives chasing an illusion. Getting beaten down more and more with each passing day. But these idiots cling onto this ridiculous fantasy that people can change, when they really can't. I watched my father go through it, trying to change my mother. And now I'll get to watch you go through it? Well, I'm sure it will be entertaining, but even miracle-worker Tohru Honda won't be able to accomplish what she sets out to do this time. You can mark my words. Ayame is a selfish, manipulative, narcissistic snake. You may have broken the curse, and he may not transform anymore, but in his heart, he will always be a snake."

I finally had heard enough. I darted out of the room, out of the Main House, and down the street. I sobbed into my hands, not even sure where I was going. It was when I had arrived at the graveyard that my phone rang in my coat pocket. I stopped in my tracks and answered, my voice cracked. "H-hello?"

"Tohru? It's Hatori. I have your results."

My heart pounded. I felt like I could faint again but no, I had to hold it together. I had to be strong. "S-so, am I...?"

"...Yes. You're pregnant," the former dragon announced quietly, sadly. I dropped to my knees slowly, the phone still against my ear. My eyes focusing inexplicably on a patch of dirt near a headstone in front of me. "Tohru? Are you there?"

"Yes."

"...You do have options," he continued, swallowing hard. "Of course you can keep the baby. Though I haven't told anyone about this yet, as per your request, I have been thinking about it and have come to the conclusion that many of the Sohmas would be willing to help you. Essentially, we could raise the child as a family. Excluding Ayame, of course, who never even has to know, if you don't want him to. You could continue going to school, I know how much it means to you to be able to graduate. You could even go to college and secure a comfortable job, and when you feel financially independent, you could take on the role of primary care-giver. Until then, Shigure stays home most days, and we could-"

Hatori continued to speak but suddenly I couldn't hear the words. Or couldn't process them at least. There was a baby growing inside me. At that very moment. My baby. A part of me, developing into an entirely new person. But also a part of him. I could avoid him all I wanted, I could vow to never see him again, but I couldn't stop this part of him from growing inside me, from taking over my body.

Or could I?

"Tohru? Are you still with me?"

"Yes. I'm sorry, I just. Please, go on."

"Well, that is one option," he continued. "You could also have the baby and give it up for adoption."

"I-is there a third option?" I knew there was. I hated myself for asking but I had to hear him say it. I had to hear him give me permission to think about it as a viable choice.

He hesitated. "Yes. I am qualified to perform abortions. You are only two weeks into your pregnancy. You have until your twelfth week to decide if that is the route you would like to go. As your doctor, it is not my place to give my personal opinion on the matter. What I will tell you, Tohru, is that I will be behind you no matter what you choose. I will support you, and I will help you safely do what you feel needs to be done. If you do decide to abort, no one in the family has to know. It will be as if this whole nightmare never even happened."

As if this whole nightmare never even happened. Besides my memory of me and Ayame singing together in the car, it was the only thought that brought me any kind of happiness all day.

((What do you guys think Tohru should do? I already know what she is going to choose, but I'm curious to hear what you guys think.))