Author's notes: Sorry that this wrap-up failed to go up when originally scheduled, but four weeks isn't too bad of a wait, right? What with multiple visits from relatives and the usual load of work stuff, this was really the fastest I could get it done, even with most of it being written during fiery bursts of inspiration. Hope you find it satisfying...

- Epilogue: Do I Have to Tell the Story of a Thousand Rainy Days Since We First Met? -

I don't remember falling asleep. I don't remember arriving at our destination either, though. It was like a big sledgehammer of white light came and painlessly slammed into my head, and the next thing I knew, we were back in the mansion where this whole mess started.

"Hey, Kyon. You okay?" Sugiyama prodded

Oh, great. Haruhi must have taught him to use that stupid name.

The kid slider was standing over me, looking at my prone figure with roughly the same level of concern a truck driver might show to a fresh roadkill. "Sorry. That last jump can be pretty rough. I don't know if there's any way of making it easier."

I didn't really give much of a damn about that. All I cared about was A, I was back in my own universe, B, I was no longer a ghost, and C, Haruhi was okay. The feeling of the mansion's floor beneath me assured me of B, and gave me good hope for A. For C, I got up and took a look around.

"Where's Haruhi?" I demanded.

He didn't say anything at first, just pointed upward, giving me the fright of my life. Then he said what any sane person would have said right off the bat: "She didn't get hit nearly as hard as you. I think she ended up in the room you guys were in when you left this dimension."

"If she's fine," I said, "...then why isn't she here with you?" I couldn't see Haruhi sitting and waiting while someone else looked for a missing brigade member.

"Uh..."

I heard sharp, smart footsteps to my right, and turned to see the long-legged, high-heels clad figure of the elder Miss Asahina. It had been a while. But her smile was still enough to assure me that everything was alright.

"I put Miss Suzumiya to sleep," she told me. "It's better that she thinks of this whole incident as a dream."

"It's good to see you, Miss Asahina," I said, scrambling to my feet.

"You too, Kyon." Her smile curved with amusement. "But don't you ever get bored of this particular evening?"

I frowned. "What do you mean? What evening?"

"This is the Tanabata when you and Miss Suzumiya drew symbols in the quad."

Of course.

No, really, of course. We were four years in the past when we jumped from that alternate dimension, and sliders aren't time travelers, so naturally we'd still be four years in the past when we arrived back in our own dimension. Koizumi said slider travel tends to end at major branch points, and what could be a more major branch point than that Tanabata? I'm beginning to suspect that one evening is like the crossroads of all existence.

"Come with me," she said. "I need to take you and Miss Suzumiya back to your own time."

"What about me?" Sugiyama spoke up.

Miss Asahina turned and looked at him. "Are you displaced from your own time, too?"

"Uh..."

"No, he is not," I supplied. The twerp was obviously just hoping to get a ride with the extraordinarily sexy adult Miss Asahina. If he was anything like me, his hormones probably got shocked into new life the moment he laid eyes on her.

She smiled at him. "Then you can just slide back to the dimension you came from, can't you?"

"Well, yeah, but... C'mon, I got them both home like they wanted. Don't I at least get a time travel trip in return?"

"Hmm... I'm afraid that isn't allowed." She put a hand on her hip and gave him an appraising look. "Would you settle for a kiss as your reward instead?"

"Um..."

The kid looked like maybe his hormones hadn't matured that far yet. Not that that was keeping me from clenching my fists in jealous fury. I reminded myself that I had already gotten my own shot at a kiss from Miss Asahina, the younger one that is, and I let it pass me by because of the mere fact that Haruhi exists.

"Oh, I see." She clasped her hands and bashfully looked away. "You don't like me."

"No, you seem, um, very nice, it's just..."

"Then this is the best repayment I can give you." She bent forward, loosening the hold her shirt had on her bosom in the process, and bestowed on him a very warm and lingering kiss on the cheek.

So long as Haruhi exists you can't be kissing other girls anyway. So long as Haruhi exists you can't be kissing other girls anyway. So long as Haruhi exists you can't be kissing other girls anyway.

Sugiyama looked to be in a state of semi-shock, probably less from the experience itself than the fact that it had happened. Miss Asahina turned to me. "Sit down and close your eyes. I'll take you back first, then Miss Suzumiya and Shamisen."

Miss Asahina took us to a few hours after our encounter with Kuyoh Suoh. We didn't want to run into Mishima and company again, after all.

We would have to deal with them somehow, of course. If nothing else, they had Sasaki in their clutches. I didn't think they would harm her, but just the same...

My phone beeped.

I took it out and saw I had a text from Sasaki. It said: "Hope the alternate universe wasn't too bad. Call me when you get this."

The text was timestamped just now, but that's probably just because my phone couldn't receive it until I was back in the same universe. She could have sent the text moments after Sugiyama exiled us.

"You should call her," Miss Asahina said, without even looking at the text. "But first, you need to take Miss Suzumiya home and put her to bed."

It took me a moment to process what Miss Asahina was asking. "...You want me to carry Haruhi back to her house, break in, and tuck her into her bed?"

"You don't need to worry about breaking in. Her parents aren't home, and I can unlock the front door for you."

I sighed. "That's better, but I still have no intention of carrying Haruhi through the streets." For starters, since she was unconscious, I saw no way of doing that except princess style, and I'd already avoided carrying Haruhi in that manner once recently. Second, carrying an unconscious girl through the streets at night was practically begging for attention from the police.

Before I could come up with a way to phrase that delicately for Miss Asahina, I heard someone call my name, and Koizumi came through the door, wielding a flashlight.

"There you are!" There was an unfamiliar note of relief in his voice. "You have no idea what we have been through getting here. Is Miss Suzumiya all right? What happened to her?"

I shrugged. "She got sent to an alternate universe with me, was stuck in a form where no one could see or hear her for a whole day, found out that aliens, espers, time travelers, and sliders are real, learned about her powers, went back in time three years, got betrayed by most of her friends, and returned to this universe. And Miss Asahina put her to sleep. I think that's about it."

He stared at me. "Is that a joke?"

"I'm afraid not, Koizumi," Miss Asahina said, tossing her hair back over her graceful shoulders. "She seems to be taking it all as a dream, but we need to get her home before she wakes up."

"And before you ask, I'm not carrying her," I threw in.

He smiled. "That is no problem. I can get her down to the car myself."

Somehow, I hadn't expected this. As I watched in building fury, Koizumi very gallantly knelt down before Haruhi's prone figure, slipped one arm beneath her knees and one arm beneath her shoulders, and picked her up. It was a flawlessly chivalric move. He even managed to support the back of her head by crooking his forearm under it.

"You needn't give me that look. Someone has to carry her, and you already exercised the right of first refusal." He headed downstairs without waiting to see if I would argue the point.

He was right. Damn it, he was right. But didn't the Agency have any female agents who could do it? Someone strong and matronly?

"I'll see you again sometime, Kyon," Miss Asahina said, smiling.

I smiled right back. "Thank you very much for helping us out, Miss Asahina. But how did you know we would be there?"

She laid a finger on her lips and winked. "Classified information."

I insisted on accompanying Koizumi on his errand of dropping off Haruhi. Arakawa was driving. Koizumi and I sat in the back, propping Haruhi up between us in the middle seat, while Shamisen took my lap. At the very first stop sign, Haruhi's head slumped over onto my shoulder, and her drool started to pool on my uniform.

I didn't let it bother me. In fact, it cheered me up a bit, as perverse as that may sound. Just being able to have physical contact with Haruhi again, to have her warmth pressed against me, felt as good as a cup of hot cocoa after a trudge through tundra. It was also satisfying to have her choose my shoulder over Koizumi's, even if it was unconsciously and probably by pure chance.

"I guess I should thank you for coming to our rescue," I said. "A bit late, but it's the effort that counts."

"You are welcome. But you may wish to put a hold on your relief until we have found Goro Mishima and his slider friend, to ensure this does not happen again."

For a second I wondered how he knew about the slider, but then I realized that was a fairly obvious deduction from my mention of being sent to an alternate universe. "I think I have a lead on where they are. Hold on."

I called Sasaki's number. She answered on the first ring.

"Hey, old friend," she said. "Glad you made it back safe."

I wasted no time. "Where are you, Sasaki? Mishima hasn't hurt you, has he?"

"Of course not."

"We've got a car and we're coming for you. Tell me where you are."

"Not until you calm down."

"I'm not calming down until I know you're safe. Now tell me where you are, dammit."

"That's sweet, but I've always been safe. You and Suzumiya were the only ones in any danger, and that's over now."

"Sasaki, just because Mishima says he's in love with you doesn't mean he won't hurt you. Where are you?"

"Fine. I'm in my bedroom, okay? Goro dropped me off hours ago."

"Dropped you... off?" I tried to process that. Okay, I guess since Mishima's plan didn't actually involve killing Haruhi, he had no way of transferring her powers to Sasaki, making her of no practical value to him. It still seemed weird that he dropped her off like they'd been on any normal date.

"Listen, Kyon. We all led you astray, and not just about sending you to an alternate universe instead of killing you. You weren't the only ones being fooled, either. Goro, Takahiro Sugiyama, the adult Miss Asahina, and me were all working together."

"What are you talking about? Are you saying that Koizumi was right – that this whole thing was just a way of getting us to stop Other-Haruhi from destroying her world?"

"No, that's just the reason Sugiyama sent you to that particular universe, not the reason we sent you to an alternate universe to begin with. That part was all Sugiyama's doing, by the way. He didn't tell me and Goro which universe he sent you to until afterwards. We wouldn't have agreed to putting you in danger like that. Sugiyama felt bad about it too, but that universe is special to him. He couldn't just let it be destroyed."

I wasn't liking the sound of this. "Fine. He could have asked, but honestly, Haruhi was happy to save that world. I'm more wondering why the hell Mishima wanted to send us to another universe if he didn't even know it needed saving."

"Please don't be mad. The only one who was really against you and Miss Suzumiya was Kuyoh Suoh. She wanted to kill Miss Suzumiya, and she made me and Goro help her. She's so powerful, there's no way we could have fought her. The only thing we could do was trick her into thinking she'd succeeded. Once we did that, she naturally let us go, so we could alert Goro's contact with the Data Integration Thought Entity. They saw to it that Kuyoh Suoh is taken out of the picture for now. So there's no final battle for you to take part in this time." She actually sounded apologetic about that. "Anyway, that's what was going on. I wanted to warn you and Miss Suzumiya of what we were going to do, but Goro said you wouldn't be able to act convincingly if you knew."

"There's that. There's also the fact that I wouldn't believe him."

She sighed. "This is why Goro thought I should be the one to tell you about this instead of him."

"You don't honestly believe that story, do you? I thought you were smarter than that, Sasaki. You do remember that Haruhi can't be killed in normal space, don't you?"

"Of course. Would you believe that Kuyoh Suoh thought we were in one of my closed spaces?"

"This isn't a joke."

"I'm not joking. It would be an impossible mistake for a human to make, but Suoh's perceptions aren't well-keyed to our reality. If they were, Nagato's people wouldn't have so much trouble communicating with them. You remember how she dated Taniguchi all that time because she thought he was you, don't you? It's similar to that. Goro and his friends figured out that by filling the mansion with a faintly colored gas, Suoh would think she was in my closed space."

"That makes no sense. To get into your closed space, you need an esper, and Kuyoh Suoh knows that."

"Right. We told her Sugiyama was an esper. Otherwise she wouldn't have let us bring him along."

"Then..." I struggled. "Okay. I'll admit that what you're saying is possible. But do you really think it makes more sense than Goro Mishima, Takahiro Sugiyama, and Kuyoh Suoh working together to kick Haruhi and me out of this world?"

"Kyon, if they wanted you permanently exiled, you wouldn't have been able to get back at all. They would have warned their counterparts and friends in that dimension exactly when and where you were going to pop up, and they would have made sure that you could never reach a slider."

I had to admit that I had had thoughts along those lines myself. "Fine, I can admit that you've got me there. But that still doesn't mean they had our good in mind when they turned Haruhi and me into ghosts trapped in another world."

"Can I point something out to you, Kyon?"

I got the sense that it was going to be something I wasn't going to like. "...I guess so."

"You seem awfully determined to believe the worst of Goro Mishima. And so far as I know, he's never done you any wrong. Has he?"

"Well..." I thought back, to our first meeting during that love letter business, and over the camping incident with the alien abduction. "...Not that I can prove."

"Not that you have any evidence of whatsoever, in fact? Am I guessing right?"

"Not exactly. At face value, he's tried to kill me at least twice, along with a bunch of other not nice stuff. He always comes up with a story to explain it away."

"But you assume that whatever you saw at face value is the truth? That doesn't sound like you, Kyon. You always seem willing to listen."

"Not when Haruhi is being targeted," I shot back.

"Oh." She sounded pleased. "So that was it. For a minute you had me worried that this was about Goro being my boyfriend. But you're just being protective of your girlfriend."

"I don't mean like that," I said, wishing I could add that Haruhi isn't my girlfriend without Koizumi overhearing and making a big deal of it. "Haruhi is like a nuclear arsenal. If you let someone fool around with her, you're liable to blow up the whole world."

"I don't see how we had a choice. Do you?" I had no answer for her. Honestly, I wasn't sure what she was asking. Thankfully, Sasaki was seemingly sensitive to that, because she elaborated: "So long as Suzumiya was in our universe, Kuyoh Suoh would have been able to detect her. And you know she's not a good liar, Kyon. When she told me she would kill me if I didn't help her, she meant it."

"Alright, I'm sure what you're saying is true from your perspective. But Mishima's perspective is the one I'm doubting."

We pulled up to Haruhi's house. Koizumi turned to me. "I gather that Miss Sasaki is not giving you a lead on Mishima's whereabouts?"

I shook my head at him, "Sorry," and returned my full attention to Sasaki. Or tried to. Koizumi taking Haruhi off of my shoulder and carrying her out of the car was a little distracting, alright?

"Kyon, listen. I get that you're worried about Haruhi, and I get that you don't want to put her fate in someone else's hands. But Goro Mishima is my boyfriend, and I trust him. I trust him with my life."

Shudder.

"I might even grow to love him. It's a slim chance, but it's a chance. Even if you don't like him, even if you can't trust him, can you at least hold back from assuming the worst about him all the time? For my sake?"

Terrific. Just terrific. I can always trust Sasaki to throw the difficult questions at me. I climbed out of the car and went after Koizumi. Shamisen scampered off my lap as I got up and followed after. "Alright, fine. I'll credit Mishima for saving Haruhi's life, just because he says he did. What about Sugiyama?"

"Why, you want to add a slider to your brigade?"

"I want to make sure he doesn't pull that trick on us a second time." Arakawa tried the front door and opened it for Koizumi to carry Haruhi in. I guess Miss Asahina went ahead and unlocked it for us.

"Well, he's gone. He went back to his own dimension. Before he left, Mishima asked how he could contact him again. Sugiyama just said, 'You can't.' I get the sense that he doesn't like to stay around any place where he might get caught."

Damn. Well, if he's a coward, I guess we don't have much to fear from him. It's strange, though. I've only met him for a few minutes, but he didn't strike me as a coward exactly.

"Anyway, I'm sorry about the whole mess with being stuck in another dimension. I know it wasn't easy, even if I can't really appreciate how rough it was. It's ridiculous, isn't it, how many people believe in true empathy."

"Don't worry about it," I assured her. "We came out in one piece. Listen, I've gotta go now; we're at Haruhi's place and I don't want to wake anyone."

"Got it. I'll see you later then, my dear friend. Oh, and be careful. Kuyoh Suoh is out of the way, but she was never one to act on her own. I'm sure she must have been following someone else's instructions, like she was with Fujiwara."

"Thanks, I'll watch my back. Bye." I hung up. I didn't mean to be so short with her, but from the sound of it Koizumi was already upstairs, and even if it would be absurd to think he would try anything in this situation, I didn't like the idea of Koizumi alone with Haruhi in her bedroom one bit. I would just have to apologize to Sasaki later.

I sprinted upstairs and found Koizumi nudging open the door to her bedroom. He looked at me with some concern. "You really are being even more protective of Miss Suzumiya than usual. What exactly happened to her in that alternate universe?"

"I already told you that."

"Yes, but that doesn't tell me -"

"If you don't understand what being trapped in a form where no one can see or hear you and having most of your supposed friends betray you does to someone like Haruhi, then you don't know her at all," I snapped.

He glared back at me steadily. "I understand perfectly, but that does not make me any less desirous of hearing the full story. While you are closer to Miss Suzumiya than anyone, do not presume that you hold a monopoly on understanding her, or caring for her."

The emergence of Koizumi's true feelings from behind the phony smile actually calmed me somewhat. "Sorry," I said. "I'll give you the full story later. Right now I just want to get out of here."

"Of course."

He crossed the room and lay Haruhi down in her bed. Then he hesitated.

"You better put some covers on her," I suggested. It was September again, not December like it was in the alternate universe, but September was cold enough in this town.

"I have a bigger problem on my mind." He pointed. "She's still in her uniform."

...Of course. Absent-minded as Haruhi could be, she probably didn't go to bed without changing out of her uniform. Waking up like that would be a fairly noticeable clue that she wasn't just dreaming.

For a moment, there arose in my imagination the very inappropriate image of Haruhi in a simple cotton nightgown, sitting on the edge of her bed, one hand very fetchingly clasped to the neckline. A perfectly innocent, yet enticing angel.

I shook off the image. "Well, there's nothing we can do about that. Unless you want to wake up Miss Asahina and bring her all the way over here just to get Haruhi changed?"

"In point of fact, I think she would appreciate the summons," Koizumi smiled. "It would be a rare opportunity for her to turn the tables and treat Miss Suzumiya as her own dress-up doll. But I am doubtful that whatever sleep medication the elder Miss Asahina has Miss Suzumiya on will last long enough to accomplish that. We'll just have to hope that she does not question her state of dress too thoroughly." He walked out the door.

"Covers," I reminded him.

"I thought I'd leave the task of tucking Miss Suzumiya in to you."

"So you can amuse yourself by watching? That's not happening."

"You can wait until after I've left. You'll have complete privacy, I assure you."

"That's making it about a hundred times worse."

"Why, do you think I'll assume you've taken advantage of her?" He chuckled. "Miss Suzumiya can be left in no more trustworthy hands than yours."

With that, he walked off. I was of half a mind to hurry after him before I was left in the same highly compromising position I found myself in last May: alone with a sleeping Haruhi in her bedroom. It was as though the fates that so love tormenting me were running out of ideas, and rather than cut me a break, had decided to go into repeats of their greatest hits.

But I noticed Haruhi was already starting to shiver. I wasn't watching her; her trembling made the bedsheets rustle, and I heard it. And obviously I couldn't leave her like that. She'd wake up, and then I'd be in trouble.

With a sigh, I went over to the bed and very gingerly pulled the covers out from under Haruhi. She shifted a bit, but didn't seem to be actually stirring. I moved her left arm from the awkward angle where Koizumi had left it and laid it across her stomach, and brushed the stray flecks of hair out of her face. Then I pulled the covers over her up to her chin.

I was hit with the same temptation I had the night before: to bend down and kiss her on the forehead. This time I resisted. Initially because this time I could be assured that she would wake up and be very displeased. But now I could also see that even if I wouldn't get caught, it had been wrong then, and it would be wrong now. If I were ever going to kiss Haruhi again, it would have to be with her fully aware and fully accepting. Not a stolen kiss while she sleeps. She would have to know.

Satisfied that Haruhi was sufficiently warm and comfortable, I hurried out of there and out of the house. Koizumi was waiting for me in the car. I took my seat beside him in silence. Shamisen took his place on my lap.

I'll give Koizumi credit for this if I never give him credit for another thing: He didn't ask what I'd done in the two minutes he left me alone. He just nodded, and we drove off, to drop me off at my house.

After a few minutes of silence, Koizumi said, "I apologize for whatever ordeal you and Miss Suzumiya have just come through. I assure you, we came to your aid as quickly as we could."

"It's not your fault," I said. "Mishima wouldn't have tried this if he weren't sure he could do it before you even had a chance to stop him."

"It is our fault that he had such an opening to begin with. I am forced to face the fact that he has been consistently one step ahead of us ever since he went rogue. It is time we found an advantage against him."

I wondered. If Mishima really did have a romantic attachment to Sasaki... No, I couldn't tell that to Koizumi. The Agency would undoubtedly find out that Sasaki was Mishima's girlfriend on his own, but I wouldn't contribute to Sasaki becoming a pawn in their spy games.

"At least we've managed to suppress the situation with Miss Suzumiya. Of course, your role in that was the key one; had you not been with her, I have little doubt that her powers would have acted out enough to do catastrophic damage to whatever dimension you found yourself in, and ultimately to this one. Now that we have her safely home, though, she should be willing to accept the whole incident as a dream, just as she did with her aborted attempt to destroy the world."

"Well, you can forget about that," I told him. "Tomorrow, I'm going to tell Haruhi that it was all real."

He chuckled. "You can't be serious. Why would you subject Miss Suzumiya to that?"

"Contrary to the way she acts most of the time, Haruhi isn't a child. She doesn't need to be protected from every unpleasant truth."

"But you indicated that she found out about the reality of aliens, espers, time travelers, and sliders, and about her powers."

"Right. And it didn't cause the apocalypse in the entire time we were in that universe," I pointed out.

It took Koizumi a moment to respond to that one. "But her powers should not even work in a dimension occupied by another Haruhi Suzumiya."

"Well, they did. And they did nothing but good." I have to admit, it was pretty satisfying to throw it in Koizumi's face that he'd been wrong. But my sympathetic nature made it impossible not to show some compassion for him. "A year ago, you probably had the right idea. Haruhi was totally irresponsible back then. She'd destroy the world just because she was bored with it. But she's different now. She only uses her powers to help people. I'll give you that she's still a little reckless with it sometimes," - that little love quake she brought out when we were trying to fix up the Computer Research Society President with Emiri Kimidori sprang to mind - "...but basically, she's proven that she can control it. It's time we made her responsible for controlling it."

"I knew this was coming," he sighed. "You've made plain to me that you've been heading in this direction for a while. But consider for a moment the circumstances. I don't know what happened to you and Miss Suzumiya in that alternate dimension, but it seems reasonable to assume that you spent most of your time struggling for your survival and escape. Miss Suzumiya may have exercised her power responsibly under life-or-death adversity, but do you think she will necessarily do the same in day-to-day life?"

That thought had already crossed my mind. "I'm not just considering what she did in the alternate dimension. Have you given any thought as to why there have been no outbreaks of sickness at North High since Haruhi started going there?"

"A minor coincidence."

"How about the fact that her aunt Kanae went into remission around the time the SOS Brigade finished our movie? In the universe we just came from, the SOS Brigade never finished the movie, and Haruhi's aunt died of cancer. Have you looked into the frequency of natural disasters and compared it to Haruhi's mood at the time?"

"That's fine so long as her mood is stable. If it changes..."

"Then we break even. I haven't seen one instance lately where Haruhi used her powers out of sadness or anger. If her mood is good, she makes good things happen. If her mood is bad, she doesn't do anything."

He raised an eyebrow. "You're sure of that generalization?"

"I'm sure."

Like heck I was. What I was saying scared me. You could predict a lot of things, but you could never predict Haruhi.

But I felt in my heart that I had to tell Haruhi the truth at some point, and I was never going to be more certain that it was safe to tell her than I was now. All the signs indicated that Haruhi had become more stable and more capable than she'd ever been. Every thing I'd witnessed told me that she could handle this. If she couldn't, then we'd deal with it as best as we could. At least the secrets would be over.

"And how do you feel..." Koizumi pressed, "...about exposing my secrets, Miss Nagato's secrets, and Miss Asahina's secrets?"

"Haruhi won't feel any different about any of you. I'm more sure of that than I am that she can handle her powers."

"It is our respective missions that I am more concerned about."

"Of course it is." I turned my gaze out the window. "Stupid of me to think for even a split second that you care more about Haruhi's feelings towards you than your jobs."

"You are certainly very sensitive this evening. I said that I am more concerned, not that I care more. How can you expect us to keep the more destructive manifestations of Miss Suzumiya's power under control if she is aware that we are trying to control them?"

"You'll just have to learn how to work with her instead of behind her back." The car pulled up to my house. "Thanks for the ride."

"You should sleep on this decision."

"I will. But I can tell you right now that it won't change my mind." I picked up Shamisen and got out of the car, shutting the door behind me.

Koizumi leaned across the seat and rolled down the window. "Don't you think that Misses Nagato and Asahina should have a say in this?"

"I'll tell them. But the one we haven't been allowing to have a say in this is Haruhi."

"You are always the first to question her decisions."

"That doesn't mean she shouldn't be allowed to make them. That's why we have democracy."

He sighed. "May I say one more thing?"

I waited.

"Has it occurred to you that your urge to tell Miss Suzumiya the truth may be motivated less by belief that it will do no harm than by your feelings for her? Again, I do not know what you experienced in the alternate dimension, but I do know that you and Miss Suzumiya went through it with only each other, and I know that you ended up there while you were deceiving Miss Suzumiya. You have, perhaps, begun to think, 'If I had told her the truth, this never would have happened.' Perhaps telling her the truth about the supernatural is your way of compensating for not telling her the truth about how you feel?"

"Go to hell," is what I wanted to say to him. Not just because what he was suggesting was wrong, but because so much of it was right. The guilt I felt about what happened to Haruhi had been considerably relieved by the discovery that she was alive, but it hadn't gone away, and if I was to be perfectly honest, I didn't think it ever would. A second time, it had fallen on me to protect her, and a second time, I had failed and someone else had saved her. The worst part of it was knowing that there might be a third time, and the third time she might not be saved.

Then there were my feelings for her. I couldn't deny them to myself, but I couldn't let her know. I wasn't ready for what would follow from that. And I still wasn't sure that that wasn't the reason why I set up that meeting with Sasaki. No, maybe I was sure that it was the reason.

I couldn't do much of anything about my inability to protect Haruhi. But maybe if I was a bit more honest with her, if I learned to stop pushing her away when she got too close for comfort, I would hurt her a lot less.

I didn't think that was the only reason I wanted to tell Haruhi about her powers. But I didn't have a good comeback ready for Koizumi. So I just gave him a dark look and went inside.

Shamisen hopped down onto the floor and scampered over to his food dish. I took the hint and opened up the cupboard.

"Well, Shami, today you saved the alternate Koizumi's life and were the key to Haruhi and me getting home," I remarked as I sifted through the cans. "That deserves a hero's feast if nothing else. How does chicken in gravy sound? Or dried sardines?"

"Either one would make me happy. If you mean to imply that both are available, I am more in the mood for chicken."

I stopped. My hands still in the cupboard, I turned to look at Shamisen. "Did I imagine that?"

"Imagine what?" Shamisen inquired.

I struggled to get my jaw moving again. "I thought you could only talk again because we were in that alternate dimension."

"I don't know where you may have gotten that idea. It certainly wasn't from me. I made it quite clear to you that I have not the slightest notion of how I again acquired the ability to talk."

"Good grief." I put a hand over my face. "As if I didn't have enough headaches right now."

"I beg your pardon, but could you put your airing of grievances aside for the moment and hurry up with my meal? It has been a long day, and I am very hungry."

I got an abbreviated night's sleep and slumped up the hill towards North High, a thousand questions rattling my mind.

Other-Koizumi said something about the voyage to another dimension triggering Shami's ability to talk, I think. If so, it made perfect sense that he would still be talking after we got back. But what if there was another explanation? Suppose Haruhi, having heard Shamisen talking in the alternate universe, now believed he could talk – and because she believed it, he did? If that were so, maybe telling her about aliens, espers, and time travelers wasn't as safe as I thought.

Miss Asahina's betrayal was nagging at me too. In our confrontation with Fujiwara, the elder Miss Asahina proved she was willing to give up her brother rather than tamper with the space-time continuum. But what about the younger Miss Asahina? Had something that happened in this reality changed her way of thinking, or was it something that would happen later in life? In simpler terms, was the younger Miss Asahina still willing to betray the SOS Brigade if it meant being reunited with her lost brother?

Then, inconsequential as it seemed compared to those issues, there was my standing with Haruhi. I wasn't ready for a romantic relationship with her, but I didn't want any more scenes like the one we had in the mansion where this all started, either. How could I get back to that nice happy middle ground we had going?

I was also now remembering that tonight was the night the SOS Brigade was planning to investigate the extra step on the staircase and what Haruta, Inokuchi, Yamamoto, and Nozawa were doing in North High in the dead of night, and I still had no plan for keeping Haruhi from finding out there really was an extra step. I guess Koizumi must have cooked something up, or he wouldn't have argued with me to not tell Haruhi the whole truth.

Either way, it didn't matter to me. I was going to tell Haruhi everything before night, so what did it matter?

When I arrived at class, Haruhi wasn't there. I briefly worried that she might have been disturbed enough by her "dream" to skip class, but after collapsing into my own seat, I realized firsthand that it was more likely she had simply slept in. My sleep-deprived body slumped forward, my desk suddenly seeming like the most comforting pillow to be found.

I probably napped for a minute or two, because there was a slight jolt when I became aware of someone poking my face. I opened my eyes to find Haruhi with her index finger pushed into my cheek.

"What are you doing?" I asked, more curious than annoyed.

"I had a really intense dream last night." She wasn't at all embarrassed at being caught. In fact, she kept prodding me for a few more seconds. "You and I both got sent to this other world where we were ghosts. We got back to our own world at the end, I think. I was only back for a second, and then I think Mikuru was there, and then I woke up. I just wanted to make sure that I could touch you again."

Well, I could be grateful that she chose to test that out in this way and not by slamming my head on the back of her desk or yanking me by my tie. And honestly, if I hadn't had the pleasure of Haruhi's head resting on my shoulder during last night's car ride, I would probably have had some touching to get out of my system, too.

Haruhi flopped down at her desk, stretched her arms, and yawned like she was trying to suck up all the air in the room.

I commented, "Well, you look all primed and ready to go for tonight's adventure."

"Nngh. You don't look so good yourself. Anyway, I'll grab a nap during lunch break or something and I'll be ready to go. Don't worry about it."

If only there were a test today, you'd be all set.

"I'm still trying to sort out when exactly the dream started." She frowned. "We went to the other world from this spooky mansion. Obviously that was part of the dream. But we went there after meeting up with Sasaki and her boyfriend on the way to your place – that seems real enough. I guess it must have been part of the dream, though, since we went right to the mansion without me ever going anywhere near my bedroom." She looked at me. "Right? You were there, so you can tell me whether or not it really happened."

Seriously? She's going to give me this right on a silver platter? All I have to do is say "It was just part of the dream", and my whole misguided scheme of having us bump into Sasaki and her boyfriend gets erased from my record? Is this a trap? No, it can't be, because how would she know whether or not it was a dream? Or at least, how could she be sure it was real without letting go of her insistence that everything that happened in the mansion onward was a dream?

I'm in the clear.

Except I wasn't. "No," I sighed. "I really did set you up to meet Sasaki and Mishima."

If I was going to tell Haruhi the whole thing was real, obviously I couldn't claim that that part was a dream. And even if I decided not to tell her everything, I needed to break this habit of lying to Haruhi just to save my own ass.

"I see." She looked away from me. "While we were in the other world, you made this really great apology for doing that. But I guess that was just part of the dream."

"Whatever it was I said in that other world," I said, "...I'd be happy to repeat it to you now."

She looked at me. Clearly a bit surprised.

I was surprised myself. But I pressed on: "If you're willing to give me a second chance, I'd still like you to come over my house. For real this time."

"...Sure. I can come over this evening."

"Wait, what about the SOS Brigade's plans for tonight?"

"Oh yeah," she said, crossing her arms over her desk and resting her chin upon them, "...forget about tonight's adventure. I'm canceling it."

"Okay," I said, though I was a little surprised. "Next week, then?"

"No, I mean I'm canceling it entirely. I mean, it's a silly idea, isn't it, that an extra stair could appear on a staircase, and anyone who steps on it gets an ingrown toenail?"

Well, excuse us. You seemed to like it just fine when we presented it to you.

"I don't mean the idea of the stair itself is silly. I mean the idea that it could actually be real. Well, not just that, either. It's the idea of it turning out to be real after we all came up with it. That would mean either we just happened to guess that that exact supernatural phenomenon exists, by pure luck, or by coming up with the idea we made it come true. Either one is pretty absurd, don't you think?"

I wasn't sure what to say. This was quite the anticlimactic resolution to the whole crisis. "I guess."

"Right. So forget it."

She sure seemed eager to drop the idea. I wanted to press her further, but I wasn't sure how, and class was about to start. I left the mystery for later.

We had a substitute teacher for math, so Haruhi grabbed her nap while he droned on about stuff that our regular teacher would cover on Monday anyway. I was tempted to take a nap myself, but I have a bit more respect for classroom decorum than Haruhi does. Besides, if I ended up struggling with this material, she would give me an ear-lashing for sleeping through this class. Haruhi is nothing if not hypocritical.

At lunch time she charged off, apparently revitalized by her nap. It was good to see her right back to normal after the ordeal she went through in the alternate universe. But what if that was just because she believed the whole thing was a dream? By telling her it was real, would I just be opening her up to unwanted trauma?

No, that was Koizumi's way of thinking infecting me. If I could deal with all the ugly things that had happened to us in that alternate universe, then so could Haruhi.

Besides, good stuff happened in that universe, too. Haruhi found out that all the supernatural stuff she wanted to believe in was real, and that an alien, an esper, and a time traveler were right in the club that she'd founded. If anything could make her happy, that would.

I took my lunch box and wandered out into the quad. This was as good a time as any to tell her.

Couldn't spot her anywhere. Maybe she was still in the cafeteria. I sat down under a tree and opened my lunch box.

"Hey," a voice greeted me. I looked up to see Takahiro Sugiyama sitting down beside me.

For an instant I felt panic. Then it occurred to me that Sugiyama would never try to shunt Haruhi or me off to another dimension right in view of a dozen or so other students. Not unless he wanted to spend the rest of his life in a secret government installation, anyway. "What do you want?" I demanded.

He blinked his heavy eyelids. "Hey man, I'm on your side. Didn't Sasaki explain everything to you?"

"She explained what you and Mishima told her," I retorted. "Part of which was that you had gone back to your own dimension."

"Come on, think of it from my perspective. You're a slider. You've got an extraordinary power that any number of people would love to either use for their own ends or eliminate as a threat to them. And unlike your super-spy friends in the SOS Brigade, you don't have a powerful organization to protect you. Wouldn't you be inclined to mislead people about where you are as much as possible?"

"You're expecting me to believe that between aliens, espers, time travelers, and sliders, sliders alone have no organization?"

"Think about it. An organization can only operate, communicate, and gather members because they have only one dimension to work in. Background checks don't do you any good when they only apply to one version of the person you're considering, and you have no way of telling it's the same version that you're dealing with." He sagged wearily, his gut pushing out further over his waist. "Sliders can't trust other sliders, even more than they can't trust non-sliders."

"Even if that's true, you obviously have a hook-up to Goro Mishima's organization."

"Mishima? No way. He seems like a nice guy, but he's way too powerful for me to put myself in his hands. I only got in touch with him because Kuyoh Suoh was using him in her plan to kill Haruhi Suzumiya."

"And how did you know about that?"

He didn't even bat an eye at my insinuation. "The hard way. I'm from an alternate universe where Kuyoh Suoh succeeded."

"I take it Koizumi was wrong about Haruhi's death being the end of the world, since you lived through it."

"I wouldn't say that. The world didn't vanish the instant she died, but that doesn't mean it won't soon end because of her death. It certainly wasn't a pretty picture when I left."

Enough of this. "Even pretending I believe everything you're saying, why are you telling me all this? What's the point?"

"Well, for one thing, I thought you might say 'thank you' at some point. Suzumiya would have been killed if I hadn't done something. Don't you care?"

"I would if I didn't suspect you of being in cahoots with Kuyoh Suoh."

"What would I have to gain? If I just wanted to slide you and Suzumiya into another dimension, I could have just walked up to you by myself and done it. You never would have seen it coming."

He had a point. But something about the guy still rubbed me the wrong way.

"Anyway, I'm telling you all this for the same reason Mikuru Asahina, Yuki Nagato, and Itsuki Koizumi told you everything about who they are. You're the closest person to Haruhi Suzumiya. I want you to know about the kind of danger she's in, and I want you to be willing to come to me for help."

"Then why didn't you tell me this a year ago, like the others did?"

"Until now, it hasn't been necessary for me to show myself to you. And like I said, I don't like other people to know where I am if I can avoid it."

I tapped the sleeve of his blazer. "Have you been going to North High all this time?"

"Yeah. I like to keep an eye on Miss Suzumiya."

I frowned. "Don't tell me you have a thing for her."

"No way," he chuckled. "She's good-looking, but she's way too intense for me."

Haruhi is way too intense for anyone.

"But she did promise me a ride on a UFO once," he said wistfully. "And even if she picked you for the SOS Brigade instead of me, I've got a good feeling she's going to keep that promise someday."

That day's SOS Brigade meeting was strikingly uneventful. Haruhi announced the cancellation of the nighttime staircase investigation, and declared she would instead work on some costume design with Miss Asahina. That damn movie sequel again. Nagato was allowed to go enjoy herself with the Computer Club. That left Koizumi all the excuse he needed to get out the chessboard.

"If I may say so, there is a fairly obvious explanation for why Miss Suzumiya has canceled the nighttime investigation," he said.

I'm not going to like this. Why can't I just close my ears and not hear it?

"When she was in the alternate world with you, she got a taste of a world where the supernatural is real. And she did not like it. She fears that if she investigates that staircase, she may find proof that the supernatural is real in this world, too." His tone became uncharacteristically solemn. "Better, in her mind, for it to all be a dream."

That couldn't be. Damn it, that couldn't be.

Yes, there were times when dealing with the supernatural was total hell. It could be disturbing, scary, and even traumatic. But overall, it was fun. It was a level of fun that I wouldn't trade away, not for all the difficult stuff that went with it. Haruhi had to feel the same way. If she didn't...

Damn it, she was the one who brought me into this whole crazy society of aliens and espers and alternate dimensions! She couldn't just leave me alone in it now!

I don't want to be alone in it anymore. For a while it was fun to just share it with Nagato, Koizumi, and Miss Asahina. It was fun to have it be a secret from Haruhi. But now... now I want to share it all with Haruhi. I don't want any more of her standing on one side of the curtain and me standing on the other.I want us to be in these crazy messes together.

I heard thunder.

"Oh, wow!" Haruhi exclaimed as she looked out the window at the sheets pouring down. "There was nothing about this in the weather forecast! Do all of you have rides?"

Naturally, Koizumi did. Miss Asahina was able to grab a lift with Tsuruya. We went to the Computer Club and found that Nagato had her own umbrella. I wondered if she'd really brought it or just reconfigured data to make it appear out of thin air a minute ago.

"Does Tsuruya have room in her limousine for me and Haruhi?" I asked.

Looking over my shoulder, Miss Asahina giggled. "I think you've missed the point."

Turning around, I saw Haruhi brandishing a school umbrella, oblivious to our conversation.

I didn't know what this "point" was that I'd missed, but clearly Haruhi assumed that I was going to hold the umbrella for her, as I'd done once before. Not as cozy as a ride in Miss Tsuruya's limousine, but it was better than getting wet.

Haruhi clung to my arm as we walked home. I couldn't blame her (the rain was coming down thick enough that she had to stick close to avoid getting soaked) and I certainly wasn't complaining.

"I hope this lets up soon," Haruhi said. "I don't want to have to walk back to my house through this."

"Wouldn't that be easier? You'll have the umbrella to yourself at that point."

"So? Walking through the rain by yourself is lonely."

There was a pause.

It was time. "Um, Haruhi... about that dream you had..."

"Yeah?"

I rethought my strategy. "Was it pretty awful?"

"Yeah. Well... not all of it. The worst part was when I thought you were killed. That was a real nightmare." She glared at me. "You can't go almost dying like that in the real world, you hear me?"

"I'll try not to."

"Not good enough! You can't let it happen!"

I sure hope I have some say in the matter.

"On top of that, in the other world that we went to, you and me were both complete jerks. Especially you. You were even mean to Yuki, and you made out with Ryoko Asakura. It was totally disgusting."

Agreed, so can you not talk about it anymore? Seriously, I have to remember to ask Nagato to thank Asakura for trying to kill me. As horrific as that was, it was so much better than her second choice.

"But there was a lot of cool stuff in it, too. You remember when you told me that Yuki is an alien, Mikuru a time traveler, and Koizumi an esper? Well, they were like that for real in my dream. And we went into my personal dream world and argued with the other me for the fate of the entire world. There was a slider, too. And Shami could talk!"

"Everything you've ever wished for, basically?"

"I guess so. Being a ghost was pretty cool after a while, too. There are all kinds of tricks you could pull." She frowned. "But... I'm glad it was a dream. Even though all this awesome stuff happened in it... it's like, the timing was off, you know?"

"The... timing?"

"Yeah. It's like..." She furrowed her brow for a moment, and then the light of illumination came. "It's like Christmas. All the decorations are out, songs of the season are playing on the radio, the pile of presents under the tree is growing, and you're starting to guess at what you're going to get... and then with Christmas Day still a whole week away, some mean person comes along and unwraps all your presents all at once, right in front of you. You know what I mean? You want the presents, but you wanted to wait for the time to be just perfect, when it feels like you earned them."

Earned them?

She scowled at me. "I didn't say it was a perfect metaphor. Look, if I find out that aliens, espers, time travelers, and sliders are real, I want it to be because all of the hard work you, me, Koizumi, Mikuru, and Yuki put into the SOS Brigade paid off and we finally discovered them in a totally cathartic moment of ultimate triumph! Not because some evil person popped out of nowhere and threw us into a world where we could see all the supernatural stuff going on without even trying."

I was silent for a moment, mulling that over. "...I see what you're saying."

All at once, I understood everything.

I understood why, when I told Haruhi the truth about Nagato, Miss Asahina, and Koizumi, her response was that it couldn't be that easy. I understood why she wouldn't even consider the possibility that Nagoshi was telling the truth when he told her he was an alien. I understood why she was so willing to believe Koizumi's absurd hypnosis explanation for our snowy mountain adventure.

Koizumi was right that she was too level-headed to just believe that aliens, espers, and time travelers are real without proof, but it wasn't just that. She wanted to believe they exist – but not just yet. She wanted to find out about them at the right moment, the perfect moment when all her dreams would come true.

If she ever found out they exist before then, well, as far as Haruhi was concerned, that just didn't count.

All of which added up to one thing: I couldn't tell her.

If I told her, she probably wouldn't be willing to believe me anyway. And if she did believe me, then I'd just be ruining it for her. Unwrapping all her Christmas presents in front of her a week before Christmas Day.

"You're letting me get wet," Haruhi grumbled.

"Sorry," I muttered, and tilted the umbrella a half-centimeter towards her. Rain immediately started splattering my shirt sleeve on the opposite side.

It was some pretty sick irony. All this time I thought I'd been getting the better of Haruhi in this one thing, knowing about all the supernatural beings that surrounded her and were focused on her when Haruhi herself didn't have a clue. When the truth was, I was the one who was clueless. This was the way Haruhi wanted it. She was happy letting us deceive her in this one thing, so long as she got to see the truth in the end.

And now that I'd finally decided to be a true friend, to let her in one the secret, I knew that I couldn't. I would have to bear the secret, not for the sake of the world anymore, but for Haruhi's sake.

And that, I guess, was alright with me. Because I did really want to see the smile on her face when she finally found out that truth in that one perfect, anticipated moment.

"Hey," Haruhi said. "There's your house. We made it this time."

"Don't be snide. I apologized, didn't I?"

"Who's being snide? I'm glad we're here."

I didn't know how much longer I'd have to hold out for that moment. But it had damn well better be worth the wait.

END

Author's notes: Thanks for reading, and thanks for all the favorites and reviews! Unfortunately, with time being so tight for me right now I'm not sure when I can get up more Haruhi fiction after this. I'm hoping to get up either the aforementioned ghost-spying tale or a new installment of "Addenda to Parallel Sidestory I" sometime this August, but since I haven't even fleshed out the plot on either of those yet, there are no guarantees. Meanwhile, I'm dying to start writing some of my ideas for Haruhi's college days. So there are still a few ideas left in the pipeline; I'm just not sure when I'll be able to make them come to life.