Megumi managed to contain herself until they were both in the car, then she let loose. "What the hell was that about?" she hissed.

Kaoru glanced over at her. He knew it was a rather offensive cliché, and he would never say so, but he couldn't help thinking it: She was cute when she was angry. Her cheeks bloomed with color, and her eyes snapped. "What was what about?" he replied, feigning innocence.

"Don't pretend to be oblivious," she said. "Why would you make that comment about me and Laney getting along? And what the hell business is it of yours anyway?" When he didn't replay immediately, she got even angrier. "Don't ignore me!"

"I'm not ignoring you," he said easily. "I'm thinking about which question to answer first. Do you have a preference?"

"Oh," Megumi said, deflating a bit.

"Actually, I'll take the second. We're friends, right?"

"I guess," Megumi said grudgingly.

Kaoru clapped one hand over his heart. "So mean!"

"Okay, we're friends. Maybe not close friends, but friends. Happy?"

"Wow. You give Haruhi a run for her money in terms of being blunt, you know that?"

"Kaoru. Stay on point, please."

Kaoru glanced over at her again, gauging her mood. She gets angry pretty easily, but it blows over quickly. She's probably calm enough to actually listen to me rather than just react. "So we're friends. And I already told you that Laney and I have become good friends. And you both seem lonely, so I thought maybe you two could be friends."

"We both seem lonely?" Megumi said icily.

Kaoru winced, but kept his eyes on the road. "It wasn't meant as an insult. I just thought you two would hit it off." Megumi didn't reply. Well, shit. This is over before it even started, he thought, not bothering to clarify to himself what it was. I mean, I thought we were having a moment earlier tonight on the patio, but obviously I just blew it.

Finally, Megumi looked over at him. "You're right," she said quietly. "I've let myself drift from my school friends. And I do like Laney. I think there is the potential there for a real friendship, rather than just the camaraderie of former classmates. So I guess I should thank you for that."

Kaoru relaxed, relieved at Megumi's sudden thaw. But she wasn't finished. "What I still don't understand is why you said it must be a weight off Ootori's mind."

Kaoru shrugged. "Both of them have mentioned being worried about the other to me. Now they'll have to talk about it to each other."

"Do you ever stop and think, or do words just come out of your mouth?" Megumi asked tartly.

Kaoru's hands tightened on the wheel. He didn't answer at first, concentrating instead on merging onto the freeway. After making his way over to the fast lane, he answered her. "I've actually been sitting on this for about a week and a half. Tonight seemed like a good time to bring it up and force them into a conversation. Even you must have picked up how strained things were between the two of them at the beginning of the evening."

Megumi sighed. "Kaoru, I don't doubt you meant well, but this is their marriage. How can you think it's appropriate for you to be sticking your oar in?"

"Kyoya and Laney got into a really terrible argument a few years ago, right before they got engaged. They broke up for a few days, and Kyoya was devastated. I mean, just wrecked," Kaoru said quietly. "He's one of my best friends. Probably my closest friend, outside of Hikaru. I don't want to see him have to go through that ever again."

Out of the corner of his eye, Kaoru saw Megumi's face soften. "I think you need to have a little more faith in your friends," she said gently.

"It's not that I don't have faith in them. It's just … ." He shrugged again, unable to fully articulate his thoughts.

"I could tell last week that you were worried about your brother, too. The people in your life are very lucky to have someone who cares so deeply about them. It must hurt you to see them in pain."

Kaoru was surprised. I thought for sure she'd tell me to butt out, that I can't fix things, that Hika and Kyoya are adults and responsible for their own lives. Like I don't know that! But it doesn't stop me from wanting to fix everything for the people I love. He looked over at her. Sweet was not a word he'd particularly associated with Megumi; she'd struck him more as fierce and passionate. But the words she'd just said were like a salve applied to nerves he hadn't even known were raw.

"You don't know how nice it is to feel like someone else understands that," he sighed. "Everyone usually just tells me to keep out of it."

"Well, you should, you know," Megumi said crisply, effectively popping that bubble. "You can't fix other people, and it's not fair to put that kind of pressure on yourself." Kaoru stiffened, but Megumi went on, her voice turning gentle again. "I think maybe just being there for them when they need someone to talk to might be enough, Kaoru. You're very good at that, I can tell."

"So are you, Megumi," he said. "So are you."

XxXxXxX

"Fucking Kaoru," Kyoya grumbled as the couple collapsed on their living room couch.

"Fucking Kaoru," Laney agreed, then sighed. "I really had other plans for tonight rather than hashing this out."

"We could table it until tomorrow," Kyoya suggested. He tucked a lock of hair behind Laney's ear, allowing his fingers to trail down her neck.

She closed her eyes, smiling at his caress, but then shook her head. "You know I can't."

Kyoya sighed. "You want to go first?"

"Baby, you cannot keep working at this pace. It's not even that I want to spend more time with you, although of course I do. But you just can't keep it up, from a purely physical perspective. This isn't sustainable over the long term. If Kaoru hadn't brought it up tonight, I would have said something in the next week or so. I'm starting to get really worried about you."

"Is this Mrs. Ootori or Doctor Ootori talking to me?"

"Mrs. Ootori says I did not move away from my family and halfway around the world to watch you work yourself into an early grave. No man ever lay on his deathbed and said I wish I'd spent more time at work and less time with the people who mattered to me most. I know you think you can handle anything, but you were downright nasty at the beginning of the evening. You're usually much more careful to keep up appearances in front of people you don't know that well. The stress is obviously starting to get to you." Laney took a breath.

"Doctor Ootori says you need a minimum of six hours of sleep every night, no exceptions. And regular meals. You can't start the day off with three cups of coffee and not eat anything until two or three in the afternoon. Kyoya, you know your blood pressure is on the low side even when you're taking decent care of yourself—which you have not been lately. You lost almost ten pounds during the year you were flying back and forth between DC and Tokyo, and you haven't gained any of that weight back since we moved. The way you've been going, you're going to pass out in the middle of your office one of these days." Her voice softened. "Baby, I know you have your sights set on reaching the top, but you are never going to get there if you collapse in the harness. I'm not asking you to stop working hard. I just want you to work a little smarter, please."

"I'm reasonably certain that is the first time anyone has accused me of not working smart," Kyoya said. "I'll be better about eating regularly. I can have my assistant bring in lunch every day, rather than just when I remember to ask her to do so." He thought for a minute. "Five hours of sleep?"

"Minimum," Laney conceded. "And when I say every night, I mean every night. It is physiologically impossible to bank sleep, so I don't want to hear anymore about how you'll sleep in on the weekends."

He grinned and pulled her into his arms. "Now you're just trying to turn me into a morning person. Not going to happen."

Laney relaxed against her husband's chest. "I could offer some incentives," she said suggestively, raising her head for a kiss. He complied willingly, but she pulled away after only a minute. "Your turn."

Kyoya sighed, tightening his arms around Laney. "I didn't want to bring it up, because I didn't want you to think that I thought you were having trouble adjusting here. Which I don't, by the way. But I love you, so yes, I worry about whether or not you're happy here. I know moving back to Tokyo was a joint decision, but I can't help wondering whether I've asked you to give up everything you love just to be with me."

Laney let her head rest against Kyoya. "Well, I'd be lying if I said everything has been easy for the last few months. But I knew when I married you that we'd be moving back here someday. I'm not so naïve as to have thought that this was going to be a seamless transition. And I didn't move here solely for you, you know. I was actually just telling Megumi this afternoon that even if we hadn't been together, I'm not at all sure I still wouldn't have wound up here. The research Dr. Inouye is doing is exactly what I've wanted to do for the last two years. And you know that. We've talked about that."

"I do. Rationally, I know all that. But I just … Are you happy, love?"

Laney straightened up so she could look her husband in the eye. "Baby," she said tenderly. "yes. I miss my family, and I want you to work a little bit less, and I really wish I had a few more friends of my own here rather than just piggybacking on to yours, as wonderful as they are. But yes. I'm happy. All that stuff is temporary. You and I are making a life together here, and there is nowhere, absolutely nowhere else on earth I would rather be than right here with you." She kissed him.

Kyoya tangled his hands in his wife's hair, his lips blazing a path from her mouth down her throat to her collarbone. For a moment she was supple and boneless in his arms, making small, inarticulate sounds of pleasure. But then she pushed herself away again. Kyoya sighed in frustration. "What?"

"Kaoru," she said.

"Cut him some slack, Laney. He's balancing a lot right now."

"I know he is, but our marriage is not one of the things he should be balancing. You know I love that boy, but I did not appreciate having my hand forced tonight. He can't do this."

"I know." Kyoya ran his hands through his hair. "I'll talk to him. I've been meaning to have a conversation with him anyway."

Laney sighed. "He's been so unhappy lately. I know he's worried about his brother, but I don't understand why he's so consumed by this. Hikaru's a big boy; he can make his own choices and deal with the consequences."

Kyoya shifted. "You have no idea how small their world used to be, love. For years and years, the only people they thought they could rely on were each other. You know their mother pretended she couldn't tell them apart until they were almost 17?"

Laney took a sharp breath. "That is … beyond fucked up, Kyoya."

"Tell me about it. She thought it was funny." He shrugged. "If you ask the twins, they'll swear up and down that it was exactly the kind of joke they love, but I doubt even they know how they actually feel about it."

"Wow." Laney sat up, leaning her head back against the couch. "Wow. So many pieces of that puzzle just fell into place."

Kyoya chuckled darkly. "Sometimes it's kind of nice to remember I'm not the only one with a deeply dysfunctional family."

Laney smiled and stroked his cheek, then subsided into thought. "What do you think we interrupted between those two when we went back outside tonight?" she asked her husband.

"I have no idea. They clearly like each other, and are obviously attracted to one another, but I have my doubts as to whether Kaoru can get out of his own head long enough to do anything about it right now." He stretched, then asked, "What do you think of her?"

"Megumi? Oh, I like her. I like her a lot. She's exactly the type of person Kaoru needs in his life—not as volatile as Hikaru or Jen, but still not willing to put up with any of his bullshit." Laney grinned. "She's a bit prickly, to be sure, but I think underneath that she's intensely loyal and empathetic."

Kyoya groaned. "You're not going to play matchmaker on me, are you?"

She laughed. "No, sweet boy. I'm not Tamaki. But I am looking forward to spending more time with her, and if something develops between those two, I think it could wind up being a very good thing." She stretched, then looked at Kyoya from under lowered lashes. "You know what else is a good thing? Showers. Long, hot, wet showers."

"Now that's an intriguing notion," Kyoya said. Quick as lightning, he reached out and tugged his wife down, rolling on top of her. "But I don't think I can wait that long."

Laney smiled, the slow, dreamy smile Kyoya loved best. "You know what? Me neither."

Author Note: Thanks to mutemuia and GlassytheRosePen for the kind reviews. :)