Author's notes: Hey, just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has been reading, and especially to those who have left reviews - TheWisterian, fencer29, EagleWings21, SomeOldBloke, and Guest Reviewer. It's great to know that you're all following along, and gives me extra motivation not to screw it up. Apologies that my review reply failed to acknowledge you, Guest Reviewer; your review hadn't popped up yet when I started typing my reply. Glad that you liked the therapy session; it was a fun change of pace writing it.

And now, back to Haruhi...

- Chapter 2: Born Again? -

"I'm thinking of converting to Christianity."

Haruhi said this, like she said so many things, completely out of the blue. I hadn't even been seated at my desk five seconds and I already had to deal with the absurd prospect of Haruhi finding religion.

And yes, it is an absurd prospect. Anyone who knew Haruhi Suzumiya would consider the very idea of her worshiping anyone or anything other than herself laughable.

Not that I was laughing. Because no matter how absurd the thing she said, Haruhi was always dead serious. "Dare I ask why?" I sighed.

"Well, for starters, Mr. Jesus was a pretty amazing person, right? He could have just stayed up in heaven and enjoyed living in paradise, but instead he came down to Earth in a lowly human body, gathered together an awesome group of friends, and went all around the world looking for adventure and using his magical powers to help people!"

You almost make it sound like the Twelve Apostles were an ancient incarnation of the SOS Brigade. Not a comparison that I like, thank you very much. I also highly suspect it would give any Christian who heard it conniptions.

"And he was nice to everyone, even people that were supposedly enemies or accursed or sinful. Anybody was welcome to join his group, so long as they gave up everything they had to do good and help people. I bet he would have allowed demons and aliens to join him, if they wanted. Maybe some of his followers were demons and angels in disguise, and the people writing about them didn't realize it!"

I massaged my temples to avert the developing stress headache. This was no way to start a Wednesday. "That's all well and good, but what makes you think the guy even existed in the first place?"

She tsked. "Kyon, that's a silly question. Jesus is about as well-covered in the historical record as any other significant person from that era. The only reason certain people are eager to argue that he didn't exist is because they want a way out of the dilemma of having to either accept Christianity as true or argue that someone who dedicated his entire life to helping people also lied that he was God."

"Well, I don't know anything about that," I admitted. Ancient history is among the many subjects which I don't study in my free time. "But I assume there's no historical record that he actually worked miracles or anything like that, right?"

Not that I think that miracles themselves are completely out of the question. If Miss Asahina is right, and there were supernatural beings before Haruhi came along, then Jesus could easily have been a rogue humanoid interface.

"Well, of course not," Haruhi said. "If everyone agreed that the divine basis for a religion is real, there wouldn't be other religions at all. The point is to find the one that you think is most true."

And you're going with the guy who got nailed to a piece of wood.

"I told you, Jesus is just for starters. Christian beliefs about the afterlife are the best around, too. Reincarnation is such a boring concept – I mean, living in the same world over and over, dealing with the same people over and over? The universe just can't move forward if you do things that way! But with Christianity, when you die, you move on to a whole new world no matter what. Not only that, but you get the thrill of landing in one of two possible destinations: On the one side, everlasting peace and happiness with Jesus and the saints for company, and on the other side, eternal torment and damnation! You have to make your decisions carefully, because if you choose wrong, you lose everything!"

"I guess that is pretty intense, when you think about it. But don't you think it's a little too convenient?" I half-expected her to ignore me and keep rambling on, but she actually let me continue. "I mean, heaven is the best that anyone could wish for, pretty much by definition. It's the perfect life, with the perfect people, and it lasts forever. And throwing in hell just seems like an obvious way to encourage people to follow their religion's rules. The whole thing is kind of a natural fantasy for people who are afraid of dying."

I still hadn't turned around to face Haruhi, but after a moment I heard a heavy sigh from her. "Yeah... That's been bothering me about it, too." All of the enthusiasm and passion was now gone from her voice, like I'd thrown a switch. "It wouldn't make much sense for death to work exactly how we want it to."

I turned around and saw that Haruhi was staring out the window, looking pensive. No, it was worse than that. She looked melancholy again.

There was nothing I could do about it, though. In the first place, there never was anything I could do about it when Haruhi was in one of her melancholy moods. When that happened, it was like she withdrew into her own little world where nothing and no one could touch her – not because she didn't want to be touched, but because she didn't believe that anyone could touch her closely enough to help her. The worst part was, she was probably right; I've known Haruhi for well over a year now, during which I've come to know her at a level that I'm generally uncomfortable discussing with other people, and I can't claim to be even close to fully understanding what goes on in that head of hers.

In the second place, what could I say that could possibly help this particular situation? Offer a different religion to convert to? I don't buy into any of them, and Haruhi could never really be religious anyway. If I hadn't talked her down from going Christian, she would have just fallen from grace on her own eventually. Once it sunk in that if she wanted to go to heaven she would have to follow a bunch of rules that someone else made up, like going to church every week and not stealing, she would drop Christianity as soon as she could think up a good excuse, if not sooner.

Well, okay, I guess Haruhi hasn't stolen anything for a good long while now. And if she can show up for school for eight hours every weekday without fail, maybe showing up for church for one hour a week would be no big deal to her. The point is, Haruhi hates rules that she didn't make up, and the whole deal with loving your enemies and working for peace on Earth wasn't something she was going to go along with.

And in the third place, Mr. Okabe had just walked in, so even if I did have something I could say, it would have been cut off after a few seconds. Anyway, it didn't matter. When Haruhi got like this, you had to let her work it out by herself.

We had a math test that day. I was doing pretty well on it, admittedly thanks largely to my tutoring sessions, when a certain someone started talking.

"By the way, I'm going to visit my Aunt Kanae this weekend. You're coming with me, of course."

If I hadn't known Haruhi for so long, it probably would have taken me a few moments just to process that. As it was, my response was almost immediate. "What makes you think that?"

"I promised I'd introduce you to her, remember?"

"You didn't promise, you just – uh, actually no, I don't think you've ever mentioned her." I forgot for a second that when Haruhi said she'd introduce me to her Aunt Kanae, we were in an alternate universe and had both been turned into ghosts. After we got out and restored our physical substance Haruhi decided it had all been a dream, and naturally I had no plans to disillusion her on that score. Most definitely not right in the middle of class, at any rate.

"Sure I promised. You even said you'd hold me to it. So that means you have to come and meet her."

"I'm really not remembering any of this..."

"Whatever. It happened, so we're going."

"Did it ever occur to you that I might have other plans for this weekend?" Like, say, watching a random channel on my television and getting my party's equipment upgraded enough to defeat the next boss.

"Well, cancel them. This is much more important."

"How can you know that when I haven't even told you what my plans are!"

"Excuse me." The voice of Mr. Okabe cut right through our bickering like the villain of a slasher film cutting his way through a teen's bedroom door. "Would you two like to share what you're discussing with the rest of the class?"

I blushed, ashamed at how carried away I'd allowed myself to get. "No, sir." This reaction earned a chorus of giggles from my classmates.

"Then I suggest you save the discussion for when you're not in class. Does that make sense?"

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Okabe gave a nod, and walked back to his desk. Haruhi had shut up once he intervened, so this allowed me to get back to my test.

Actually, you could say Mr. Okabe let me off very lightly. Haruhi and I might have been cheating on the test. Maybe he put more trust in me than I would have thought.

After class, I approached Mr. Okabe and bowed. "I'm sorry for the disruption earlier, Mr. Okabe."

He nodded. "Don't let it happen again. I also suggest that you stop trying to protect Miss Suzumiya."

"I don't know what you mean, sir."

"You were still working on your test when your little chat occurred. Miss Suzumiya was finished with hers. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out who started the talking. Yet you're the only one apologizing."

Come on. He had to know Haruhi better than that by now. "If there's one thing you can count on Haruhi for, an apology isn't it. But at least one of us should."

"Has it occurred to you that maybe she thinks she doesn't have to apologize so long as you serve as her go-between? Why didn't you bring her with you so that she would have to at least listen to you apologize?"

"She wouldn't have agreed to do that."

"You didn't ask."

Yeah, I guess I could have done that. The worst that could have happened is her giving me that half-lidded glare. "She's got a lot on her mind right now."

"So you admit that you are protecting her, then."

I wasn't sure what to say here. Haruhi didn't need protecting (not in that sense anyway; there was the occasional homicidal alien and villainous time traveler to deal with), and I certainly wasn't the one to protect her if she did. Hell, I was always the one to argue that she needed to face the harsh realities of life. But at the same time, I didn't want to say outright that I wasn't protecting her.

"I just don't expect very much from her," I said at last.

He looked at me for a moment, then just nodded. I got the sense that he didn't agree with me, but didn't see any way he could convince me otherwise, given how well I knew Haruhi by this point.

Or maybe he figured that something was going on between me and Haruhi and we needed to work it out between ourselves. I don't know. I have a hard time just figuring out what Nagato is thinking these days, so don't expect me to read my teachers' minds.

After knocking on the door to the SOS Brigade clubroom, and getting the all clear, I stepped inside to find only Koizumi and Nagato there, the former with the chess board waiting. This threw me off a bit. I had lost track of Haruhi after class, but she was out of the classroom before me, so it just didn't seem possible for me to have beaten her here. Miss Asahina's absence was even stranger. Although she'd been getting much gentler treatment than she endured when the club started, she still was very careful to get to the clubroom and changed promptly to avoid incurring the wrath of Suzumiya. Unless of course she had permission to go to another engagement, and I hadn't heard of any such thing occurring.

There was no use worrying about it; they could have been simply waylaid by friends. I sat down across from Koizumi and moved out my king's pawn. "So, has Haruhi been making closed space?"

He raised his eyelids as he pushed out a pawn of his own. "You're serious. You have reason to believe she would create closed space?"

"So she isn't, then." I took out a knight. "It's just that she seemed awfully down today."

"Hmm." He advanced another pawn. "Did you let her know you are concerned for her?"

"It's not like that. I just want to know what we're getting into with Haruhi, that's all."

"I don't think that has ever been all, with Miss Suzumiya or with anyone else. You have always been more concerned with the people involved than the global threat. Your mood didn't change at all when I said there had been no closed space."

"That's because closed space isn't the only trouble Haruhi can cause."

Actually, I was concerned for Haruhi. But I didn't see any way that I could say that without Koizumi reading it the wrong way. I was concerned, but I didn't think her being melancholy was actually a problem, at least not in the big picture. Sadness and even melancholy are a part of every life, and it didn't even matter what you did or whether or not anything bad happened to you, so even if it was a pain in the ass, you had no choice but to live with it. And I believed, without a scrap of doubt, that so long as the people she cared about stuck by her, Haruhi would be happy again before too long. Besides, while I much preferred to see Haruhi smiling and having fun with her friends, I have to admit that I found Haruhi rather cute when she was glum. If there's anything I can do to make it so that she's melancholy less often, anything at all, I'll do it, but I think I would miss it if she was never like that again.

"That's true," Koizumi said. "But as I've told you before, our observations have shown that Miss Suzumiya's powers are strongest when she is in a good mood, and essentially dormant when she is depressed."

"Yeah... but she can also cause plenty of trouble without her powers. Do you have any idea what she's up to right now?"

"None. You are the one who has homeroom with her."

Oh right, and that makes me Haruhi's keeper. Even though you're the one who shares headspace with her.

The conversation was cut short by a very polite knock at the door. "Uh, um... I-I'm coming in, okay?"

Ah, the angelic voice of Miss Asahina. After the strangeness of Haruhi's attempted conversion that morning, it was a relief to know that at least she would be here in the clubroom as normal.

Then Miss Asahina opened the door, and I saw she had already changed (or more likely, been changed by Haruhi) into costume. A costume that I had never seen her wear before that day.

A nun's habit.