Saya and Yuki sat on the couch in the living room, while Kai, Lewis, and Lewis' new protégé, Joel, sat around the kitchen table.

"Does it strike anyone else as odd that he just happened to show up less than five minutes before the corpse corps?" Kai asked skeptically.

"Yeah, that occurred to me," Lewis said with a nod.

"Don't you think he's probably a spy or something?"

"If there's one thing I know, it's spying, and he doesn't really strike me as one."

"Why do you say that?"

"If the US military had sent him, they probably would have taught him enough about chiropterans to know not to walk right up to Yuki while she was wounded and clearly in a killing frenzy."

"He's too stupid to be a spy," young Joel added.

"Yeah but think about it, first he happens to see Yuki break her arm, now this – either there's more to him than meets the eye or he really knows how to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You really think we should trust him?"

"I didn't say that, but the fact is, it really doesn't matter if he was a spy or not, he's a Chevalier now, when he wakes up, he'll have the uncontrollable compulsion to follow Yuki around and do whatever she says – he wont be a threat."

"But we need to keep in mind that a Chevalier's loyalty isn't absolute."

"Yeah, our provisional agent in Honolulu proves that well enough," Joel chimed in, keeping with his tenancy to state the obvious.

Lewis ignored him. "Well, I've done a preliminary background check on him, just a web search – Full name Frederic Gardener, day job at a music shop in Naha, 20 years old, born in Okinawa, only child of Atsuko Miyahara and Lieutenant Ronald Gardener, they split up years ago, he went back to the states and she died in 2029."

"Hmm," young Joel put his hand to his chin. "Mother's dead and father's in the states – perfect, that saves us from having to explain all this to his family."

"A bit too perfect if you ask me," Kai muttered.

"So, he's going to follow me forever?"

"Yeah, that's kind of how Chevaliers work."

Yuki was silent.

"Yuki?"

She gave an uncomfortable smile. "It's just that – I like him, I guess I even have a bit of a crush on him, but the truth is, I barely know him and now it's like – it's like he's my husband."

Saya shook her head. "It doesn't have to be like that."

"But I thought you and Haji-"

"Yuki, it was like more than a hundred years before we actually – um, started to have that kind of a relationship."

Yuki was silent for a moment. "But if you two weren't together-together, what were you doing all that time?"

Saya was silent.

"Saya?"

"I – I cant tell you right now," she said softly.

"Why not?"

Saya was silent again.

"Saya! Why wont you tell me anything about what happened before I lost my memories! I know you know! Why won't you tell me about my past! Tell me, dammit!" Yuki whined.

"Yuki!" Saya shouted so as to be heard over her sister's ranting. Yuki turned to her and Saya's voice softened. "Yuki, the truth is -"

Saya hesitated.

"What?"

"The truth is - we really don't know about your past, we found you wandering around in France, we aren't really sure how you got there, or what happened to you before that, but we do know that you are - "

Saya hesitated again.

"The same as I am."

Yuki took a moment to digest this conveniently abridged form of the truth. "I guess I kind of knew there was no car crash, I just kind of wanted to believe it, you know." She paused. "We're not really sisters are we?"

Saya put her hand over her shoulder. "We're family."

Yuki hugged her affectionately as she often did.

A few seconds passed before they returned to their previous subject.

"Freddie will want to be around you and help you out, but I don't think he'll necessarily want to – you know."

"Hmm."

Saya giggled. "If I didn't know better, I would say you were disappointed to hear that!"

"Well I told you I had a crush on him!"

The two girls giggled, until they both caught the sound of someone walking down the stairs. Yuki hopped up and bounded over to Julia, now standing in the hallway between the living room and the kitchen, simultaneously addressing the two parties.

"He's awake."

"Already? It's only been a few hours, Riku was out for days."

"Yeah, but if I remember correctly, Haji was only unconscious for a few minutes."

"Where is Haji anyway?"

"He's outside keeping watch, in case the corpse corps come back."

"Well," said Julia, "he is awake, and I think you can guess who he is asking to see."

Everyone turned and looked at Yuki.

The group assembled in the guest bedroom where Freddie had been placed. Yuki was the last one to enter.

"Yuki!" Freddie exclaimed as he sat up so quickly that he bumped his head on the IV rack hanging over him. He rubbed the top of his head. "Um, I forgot what I was going to say."

The room was silent.

"Oh yeah, hey, what happened anyway? I came over to your house and, these army guys with swords were fighting your sister, you were fighting them too, your eyes were all weird and blue, I mean, they're always blue, but they were like – I don't know, made me think of "Dune" though. You got hurt and – that's all I remember. What happened?"

Yuki drew in a deep breath, but Saya spoke before she could. "You were badly hurt, and Yuki saved your life with her blood," said Saya, believing that it would be easier on Yuki if he didn't know that she was the one who killed him.

"You mean that special blood? How's that work?"

"You drank it."

Freddie's frowned briefly. "Well I guess I can't complain, I'm alive aren't I? So…" He let out a brief chuckle. "Am I a vampire now or something?" he said, apparently joking.

He didn't get the laughs he expected. His lighthearted smile faded as he glanced at the stony faces around him.

"Holy crap," he stammered. "That's it isn't it. That's what a chiro-whatcha-call-it really is, isn't it?" he spent several seconds in silent thought, before letting out a shallow, heartless laugh. "Always figured vampires were real."

"Why is that?" asked Joel.

"I figure that myths always have a basis in reality. What's a dragon if not a dinosaur?" Freddie paused and thoughtfully stared off into space for several seconds. "I can still go out in the sun right?"

Yuki nodded.

"He's taking this rather well, isn't he?" Saya whispered to Kai, who responded with a hmph.

Yuki sighed. "We have a lot to talk about."

Yuki had stayed behind to talk to Freddie, while the other's left the room. Saya and Kai had gone downstairs to talk, and Lewis had ordered Joel to carry some of Julia's equipment out to her car, while Lewis stayed behind to talk to her.

"You look like something's bothering you."

"Yes… The incident at the MET showed that a Queen's blood looses its potency after she gives birth, right?"

"Yeah."

"I would have thought that would also mean she looses her ability to make Chevaliers." She paused. "I wish I could do more testing, but most of my equipment is on the R.S. II."

Lewis turned to her. "Well, is he a Chevalier or not?"

"He's definitely a Chevalier."

"Well, then there you have it. Julia, there's no need to over analyze things. The boy is a Chevalier now, end of story."

"Yes," said Julia, her tone conveying much less certainty than her answer.

Their relationship seemed complicated, part brother/sister part father/daughter, and at one time, it might have been part something else as well. In Saya's mind, it was simple enough – he was just Kai. If there was ever a non-platonic element to her feelings for him, the months she had spent believing him to be her adoptive father had killed it dead. As for Kai, he had had thirty years to get over her, and any romantic feelings for her seemed so distantly in the past, that he had convinced himself that they never even existed.

Saya sat at the kitchen table, Kai walked in with a cold beer in his hand.
"Hmm, I guess I should offer you one of these too. You're way past drinking age."

"I've never really liked beer."

Kai narrowed his eyes in thought and walked back in to the kitchen, only to return a few moments later with a glass of red liquid.

"This ought to suit you a bit better."

"Oh, um, well I already had a transfusion today."

"It's wine, stupid," Kai said as he placed the cup in front of her.

"Oh…" she looked at the glass.

"C'mon Saya, you were raised in France, I'm sure you and wine get along nicely."

He was right. She smiled slightly as her mind wandered into ancient memories, sitting at the long table with Joel as a child, a little glass of watered-down wine in her hand. She almost laughed as she recalled how Haji used to tease her for being able to hold her liquor better than he could, despite him being at least twice her size. Haji was no lightweight, but Saya could down a whole bottle with no ill effect, if she was thirsty enough. She wasn't human, after all.

Kai began to speak as she took a sip.

"So, there's a new plan."

Saya made eye contact, to confirm that she was listening.

"The military knows we live here, so we can't stay in this house. George is going to go stay with his grandpa, I figure he'll be pretty safe with old-man Jahana and his yakuza around. The rest of us, I think we'd better just go to Hawaii, help out the twins, and hopefully end this corpse corps shit once and for all."

"What about Yuki?"

"We're coming with you, of course!" exclaimed the blue eyed Queen as she emerged from behind the door jam with her Chevalier.

Kai shrugged. "You two are going to have to stay out of the way though."

"Like hell we are, we're going to fight too," cried Yuki.

"Those things need to be taken down!" Freddie exclaimed, copying his Queen's vehement tone.

Kai glared at the Chevalier. "Look, I realize that you're going to insist on following Yuki around and Yuki has to come with us, but there's no way either of you're getting anywhere near a battle."

"But Saya fights! So can I!" Yuki whined.

"Neither of you have any weapons training!"

"Hah!" Freddie burst out. "I'm one of the top archers in the prefecture, and Yuki's damn near better than I am, and getting better every day!"

"Look, I don't know if anyone has explained the rules to you yet, but bullets don't work on chiropterans, what the hell chance does an arrow have!"

The room went silent.

Yuki suddenly broke the silence. "What if we put Saya's blood on the point? It's deadly to them right?"

Kai groaned and instantly began to dump on the idea. "That wont work because - " he stopped mid sentence. He actually couldn't think of a reason. Some years ago, some trials (no one liked the word experiment) had been performed in which bullets were coated with a sample of Saya's blood, but they soon discovered that they did not cause crystallization, Julia quickly deduced that the intense heat from the firing of the gun had caused the enzymes in the blood to break down. Thus the idea of blood-coated projectiles was abandoned.

But no one had though of using arrows, after all why would they? It's generally thought of as a hobby, not a deadly weapon.

Kai involuntarily raised his eyebrows as he made a realization. Arrows don't get hot. If the blood was fresh, there was no reason why it wouldn't work.

"Damn, that is a good idea," he muttered. "But you still aren't gonna see battle."

Freddie stepped forward and looked Kai squarely in the eye. "Look, I know you don't know me, and you sure as hell don't trust me, but the fact is, I have seen how nasty those corpse corps things are, and they hurt Yuki – I don't like the idea of a world with those things in it – I cant just pretend I didn't see it, especially since they are trying to hurt someone I care about – I have to do something."

Kai groaned again, unable to deny that he had felt the exact same way when he had first gotten involved in the battle against chiropterans. Somehow, Freddie had known exactly the right buttons to push.

"Damn it."

Freddie sensed that he had won the argument and turned to Yuki. "C'mon, it's late. You should get to bed," he said as he escorted her upstairs.

Kai sat and sulked silently for a minute or two before turning to Saya.

"How's the wine?"

"Really good actually, you just had this lying around?"

"Solomon sends us a bottle every Christmas. Mao keeps saying that we need to save it for a fancy dinner party or something – like that's ever gonna happen."

By the time Saya got around to her nightly shower, everyone else in the house was asleep.

As soon as the warm water hit her skin, her mind instantly began to wander into unpleasantly stressful thoughts.

I wonder if Yuki is really ready for this, it's only been a few weeks since she found out what a chiropteran is, and now she has a Chevalier of her own.

Will Yuki ever remember who she was? What will happen if she realizes that she's my mother? What will she do when she finds out about Diva?

Just as she began the surprisingly time consuming task of combing the conditioner through her knee-length hair, she sensed movement beyond the shower curtain.

Yuki often just barged into the bathroom to get a hairbrush or something while Saya was in the shower, but she at least usually had the decency to announce her presence and beg her pardon.

As Saya went back to combing, an odd thought occurred to her. She hadn't heard the door open, but she knew someone was there.

"Yuki?"

No answer.

Now she was getting creeped out. She peeked out from behind the shower curtain.

She caught sight of a very familiar form.

Oddly, that only made her heart race even more.

Nevertheless, she sighed with relief.

"Haji, what are you doing here?" she asked, the shower curtain covering all but her face.

"I didn't get a chance to talk to you earlier, and I know you have a habit of thinking too much when bathing."

"And how would you know that?"

"I know you pretty well, Saya," he said, his voice soft and frank as ever, but this time with a slight note of lighthearted teasing to it.

She smiled slightly.

"You have been worrying about Yuki."

She sighed. "How did you guess?"

"You were talking to yourself."

She blushed in embarrassment. She did have a habit of doing that in the shower.

"You were also dwelling on Diva."

Her mind returned to her thoughts from before. A tear slid involuntarily from her eye.

"She'll never forgive me - I killed my own sister – her daughter." she wept softly.

To Haji, there was only one thing to do in this situation.

Before she knew it, he was holding her tightly, standing, fully clothed in the shower with her.

She quietly cried against him, for the moment, not seeming to notice the odd situation. She wasn't sure how long it went on, by the time she had fully had her cry out, his suit was sopping wet.

She slowly looked up at him and before she had a chance to feel awkward, she felt herself falling into his gaze.

The warm water beat down on her shoulders as their lips found each other. It wasn't long before his hands began to wander and something, having nothing to do with his hands, mysteriously poked her, as if to remind her what all this was likely to lead to.

But it was Haji that pulled away. It wasn't that a kiss from a naked Saya was not often on his mind. He simply wasn't adequately confident that he would be able to control himself if things got much more intense, not so much because of his chiropteran side, it was his human side he was worried about. He felt that it wasn't her responsibility to stop him.

But more was at stake than just her virginity, he knew that a lapse of self control here might mean continuing to spend most of his eternity waiting for her to wake up.

He tenderly kissed her forehead and disappeared.

She simply stood there for several seconds, bewildered by what had just happened before she peeked out of the curtain, fully intending to apologize for his wet clothes if nothing else.

No one was there.

Well, I don't think that chapter turned out that great. I promise, it'll get more interesting soon.

Please review!