Prompt: Dawn
Other characters: None.
Other pairings: None.
Notes: Wow, I have nothing to say o_o
Dedication: Thank you all sooo much for the prompts you gave me, but I ended up going with 'dawn,' which is why this chapter is dedicated to Bloodyravenheart13 :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Gakuen Alice or any of its characters.

It wasn't often that Mikan awoke with the sun.

Even she could hardly believe it when her lashes fluttered open, only to find purple shadows still ghosting over the walls and a silence she had never experienced before past the open window.

Groaning lightly, she turned on her back and blindly reached out a hand to feel for Natsume, only to touch nothing but empty bedsheets. Cracking one eye open, she curiously looked over to his side of the mattress. Indeed, he was no longer in bed, even at this ungodly hour.

It took willpower to force herself out of bed, and she almost dove right back under the blanket when the cold nipped at her skin. Tying her robe over herself securely, she shuffled out of the bedroom in her bedroom slippers, suppressing a yawn behind her hand and rubbing at the water that pooled at the ends of her eyes. She could still have used some more sleep, but the mystery of Natsume's whereabouts had her curious.

She found him in the living room, perched on the balcony with his legs half folded and his arms wrapped around his knees. He failed to notice her presence, and she watched him watch the sunset forlornly for a beat longer before making her way over.

"You got up pretty early." Her voice was muddled with sleep, one of the few times it was soft and silent.

Natsume didn't look over as she sat across from him, but she was content just watching the orange light bounce over his cheekbones and glint in his serious gaze. It almost took her breath away, how beautiful he was.

"Couldn't sleep," he finally muttered.

Mikan started. "Have you been sitting here the whole night?" The two had gone to bed together last night, but she had decidedly been the first of the two of them to fall asleep. She hadn't so much as felt him slip out.

"Needed to think," he grunted, unhooking one of his hands to run it through his messy hair. His tongue darted out to lick his lips just once, and she took that as a sign to mean he was anxious about something.

"Care to share?" she asked cautiously, inclining her head to the side.

"It's just–" He paused, sighed, gazed out broodingly at the skyline once more, and then finally turned to face her. She almost flinched at the intensity in his eyes. "I spent almost my entire life trying to run away from that goddamned Academy, and now that we're out... I'm just waiting to wake up from this."

Mikan graced him with one of the saddest smiles he had ever seen, and before he could reach out to comfort her, she had crawled in between his legs and buried her face in his chest. He was silent as her hands slowly crept their way up his shoulders, running against his jawline before digging themselves into his hair and bluntly stroking his scalp. She might have felt his shiver, for when she looked into his face, it was to push herself up and lightly press her lips to his.

It was less than a second later that she pulled away, her voice hazy as she mumbled, "This is real, Natsume. This is you and me, in our new apartment far, far away from the Academy, and I promise you that no one is going to take that away."

"You don't know that," he muttered back. "I honestly expect someone to come break down our door any second–"

"This was our first night here," she quietly pointed out. "Of course you're going to feel that way, Natsume, when we've barely just started our new life. But you don't have to have anything to do with that Academy anymore if you don't want to."

"Says who?" he breathed.

"Says me." Her lips twitched up into a slight smile. "I'll protect you."

He scoffed and turned his head away – or would have, had she not reached out her hands to cup his cheeks. Stroking circles on his skin with her thumbs, she gently kissed him again, this time taking just a little longer to press up against his lips until she felt him relax under her once more.

"You don't play fair," Natsume mumbled around her mouth, and she broke off the kiss in a fit of giggles. He couldn't help but to smirk in return. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"From you," she laughed, her hands dropping down to his shoulders this time. When the light mood passed from their sudden silence, her smile turned a little sad once again. "How long have you been worrying like this, Natsume?" she asked softly.

"...Only recently," he assured her, his voice just as quiet.

"I think we need to talk about this." When he opened his mouth to spur her off, she continued firmly, "I know you don't like to share, Natsume. God knows how many fights we've had about that. But this is important! What if you spend the rest of your life never feeling safe?"

He noticed the way her lower lip trembled when she said it, and it was possibly what had him sighing in defeat. "All right, all right."

"Trust everyone at the Academy, Natsume," she insisted, her forehead wrinkling with the words. "We spent our last few years there in almost perfect peace, and any missons any of us went on, we chose to do. You know our friends would never let us get hurt, and they would never give anyone our address. And if anyone does manage to find us, we have a plan, remember?"

"And if the plan doesn't work–"

"It will work," she said confidently, squaring her shoulders to appear bigger and bolder. They'd devised it so carefully and practiced it too many times for it not to work. She knew that and Natsume knew that, so she was well aware there was something else bothering him that he'd simply avoided.

He laid his hand atop hers, absentmindedly stroking the back of her palms, before he finally sighed.

"I just...I can't let you get hurt." The words came out as almost a plead, and he stared up at her with helpless eyes.

"And I can't let you get hurt." She smiled. "See? Now we've each got someone protecting us, so we'll definitely always be safe."

He said nothing, but returned her smile with a small one of his own, so she knew he was all right. At the very least, the silence they lapsed into was comfortable, no longer so tense from the conversation or as morose as when she'd first found him thinking by the balcony. They both gazed out at the skyline together, where the sun had yet to rise above the horizon, and relaxed in each other's company.

"Come on," Mikan finally said into the quiet, pulling herself back up and tugging him along with her. "The bed is practically calling my name, and you've been awake all night, so we're both going back to sleep."

He let her lead him back to their bedroom, hand in hand.

A/N: I gave this one a slightly quieter feel :) And these past few drabbles have all been about Natsume being a sweetheart of a boyfriend, but I thought it was time to show that Mikan is just as much his support as he is hers.

Also, as you can probably tell by the slight change in the summary, I've finally decided that I'm going to make all of these drabbles take place after the ending :) After all, the reason I started writing these in the first place was to deal with my feelings over the end of the manga.