She's sixteen when Ikuto comes back to Japan with his father, her Charas not yet gone but from the way they look at her with wistful eyes, she knows it will be soon. She no longer lives in the house she spent elementary and her first two years of middle school in, her own parents having moved the family for work one city over.

This time, she keeps in contact with her classmates. She takes the train to hang out with her friends on the weekends, and occasionally she still cleanses an X-Egg or two. Her second middle school developed its own version of the Guardians, under her guidance, and while they work well together, they aren't hers.

She takes up martial arts and kendo, Ran thriving on the physical activity and Miki loving the mental clarity and inspiration for art she got from the sports. Su outdoes herself with creating meals to balance taste with the nutrients Amu needs to keep up with her activities. And Dia… Dia watches and smiles, and late at night, when the other Charas are asleep, talks Amu through possible futures for hours.

Now in high school, she chats with Rikka on weekly video calls, marveling at how much the young girl has grown up, into a fine Joker. Hikaru and his Shugo Chara have grown, too, the boy's emotions finally on the right track.

Sometimes Kukai gives her rides between towns for the weekly Guardians (they still call themselves that, despite having graduated years ago) meet up on his motorcycle. Like the older brother she never had, he's still full of brilliant smiles and gentle teasing.

Nagihiko (she's long since accepted the duality of her best friend's existence and gender-fluidity) is still full of the same gentle words and mischievous giggles. Rima, their girlfriend, has grown taller but no less lovely, openly kinder now that she no longer has need of her emotional walls.

Yaya has grown into the role of an older sister quite well, Tsubasa hanging on to her every action and word. Along with Kairi, they've held down the fort at Seiyo in the town Amu will forever think of as home.

Tadase has become a promising young leader, one of her closest friends. He's accepted that her heart belongs to Ikuto, it always has, and is the one who urges her the most to make a move.

Utau visits from time to time, work picking up as her popularity is restored among recording labels.

And Ikuto…

He tags along when Utau visits, sometimes drops by on his own. He watches movies and stays for dinner, smiles at Ami and cuddles with Amu as she works on homework. Yoru has long since returned to Ikuto's heart, and Amu sees the loneliness in his eyes. Amu's mother does too, keeping her home open to the boy who had been in so much need so many years ago. Her trust in Amu has been restored for years, but Amu will never forget the disappointment in her eyes that day.

That may be the reason she doesn't run after him the day he leaves with a look on his face that Amu fears. She doesn't dash off to the airport, and she regrets it like nothing else when Utau calls her, in tears, and says he's gone.

He doesn't come back.

A year passes with no word, and at seventeen, she's had enough of waiting. She calls Tsukasa, still superintendent of Seiyo Elementary. He vaguely hints he knows where her stupid cat is, but he hesitates to tell her anything. It takes her a week and finally a visit in person to get the man to reveal that Ikuto's been struggling for a while.

Amu is no longer as naive as the child she used to be.

Not since a classmate in her high school, one she used to take aside and comfort when home life got too tough, killed herself and brought Amu face-to-face with what it meant to lose the war of depression and mental health conditions.

Looking back, it should have been obvious that he had needed help. Not only with all the family problems, but being used by Easter, being brainwashed and forced under mind-control. How he'd been isolated for years, hating himself for things that truly were not his fault.

She has to bring him home.

The morning after she had made her decision and made arrangements with Tsukasa, her Charas are gone.

There is a note, golden glitter no doubt from Dia, with the name of a city in France. The last piece of guidance she would receive from her would-be-selves. She cries, but finishes packing, and meets her family downstairs.

Her father is, predictably, against it, but her mother only exhales slowly, and then nods in acceptance.

"I can't say I like it," she says, "but you're old enough to make this choice. I'll take care of the school paperwork. Make sure you call at least four times a week, and let us know the second you find him, okay?"

Amu promises to do so, and cries nearly as much as Ami when they pull together in a family hug. But she squares her shoulders, dries her tears, and leaves. She takes the train to the airport, meets with Tsukasa and waits while he works magic with all his connections, and within a couple of hours is on her way to the small city in France Dia had led her to.

It's hard, finding a place to live and a job she can do, in a country where she only knows a few words, but somehow she does it. She rents a tiny old apartment above a stationary shop, works at a bakery across the street. The language comes quickly to her, with lessons from a friend of Tsukasa who lives a few blocks away. She reconnects with Lulu, gladly accepts the girl's help in everything she offers. She does her schooling online at night, and during the day when she's not working she searches.

She Skypes with her friends while she works on finishing her diploma, and they adjust to the time difference with grace. She doesn't tell them why she's done this, but from the way they look at her through the camera, she thinks they know.

It takes five months and a metric ton of frustration, but she finds him. He's in an alleyway, much like the time she found him beat up after protecting some women from thugs, only this time his wounds aren't physical. He's drunk, passed out against the dirty wall, and he looks starved. She somehow manages to drag him back to her small apartment, him and his scuffed violin case.

He wakes past nightfall, while she's working on a chemistry problem, dazed and disoriented. When he sees her, he cries, trying to hide his dirty face behind equally dirty hands, shame in his voice as he begs her to look away. She doesn't, and instead pulls him into an embrace.

He panics as he remembers his violin, only sitting back down when she points to it, leaning against the wall. His voice is slurred, but she can make out several phrases.

"Please give it back. It's all I have. It's all I have left."

When he calms down, she directs him to the shower, and makes the quickest trip to the store she has ever managed to buy him some clothes. She's back and making him a meal by the time he steps out to dry off, new clothes folded on the bathroom counter. He's still teary, and has a hangover, but he eats and hydrates without protest and lets Amu help him to bed.

After he falls asleep again, Amu retreats to the kitchenette and cries herself, because she has never seen a man so broken before. She calls her mother to let her know, but says she won't be coming back just yet. Her mother knows. Somehow, she knows.

"Take as long as you both need, darling," she says gently. "Help him as best you can, but remember… he might need a professional too."

Amu watches him like a hawk for the next week. Thanks to Miki and Su's experiments with fashion, Amu knows how to get accurate measurements, and buys him some day clothes while he's still asleep. He doesn't say much, only holds her hand whenever he can, and keeps to himself at the bakery where she works. He listens and accepts without protest when she tells him bluntly that she can't bear the thought of him disappearing again, so he's to stay with her wherever she goes.

At night, he sometimes sobs in his sleep, begging for 'them' to stop, to get the tuning fork away from him. He cries out, apologies mixed with pleading. His nightmares can't be stopped with Amu's gentle touch or soft murmurs of comfort, but they do calm him somewhat. They've taken to sharing the bed, and to Amu's delight, his lips curl up the slightest bit when she teases him about finally being invited to show up beneath the covers.

It takes nearly a month for him to start speaking regularly. When he does, he asks about back home. She tells him everything she knows, and then some, staying by his side as he processes how life has passed him by. He has no idea how long he's been wandering, and the news shocks him. He's terribly fragile and he hates it, but Amu makes it clear that he's allowed to be.

It takes a failed doctor's visit to discover he's now terrified of people in white coats and sterile environments. They trigger memories of what was essentially torture, and reveal the extent of the trauma he's suffered. She's wary of finding a therapist if only for the reason that so much of Ikuto's pain is centered around Shugo Charas, which aren't exactly common knowledge, but Tsukasa steps in again to recommend one that has experience with them, like himself.

She makes sure to tell Ikuto everything about what she's doing. She doesn't want him to feel trapped or forced like he did back then. He's unsure, but when she takes his hands and asks him to try it, she'll even be there if he wants, he agrees to at least give it a shot.

Amu feels as if she's taken on both the role of mother and spouse.

She makes appointments, stays on top of household duties and chores, ensures her charge is eating right and being properly taken care of. It's hard, and some days she wants to collapse in tears and scream for hours, but she doesn't. She doesn't, because she knows she wants him to get better, so he won't be living in pain like he is now.

It's hard for him, too; he's a private person by nature, and opening up to a stranger isn't easy in any way. Saying what happened to him out loud sometimes causes him to curl up and away, regressing to a child-like state as his mind tries to pull him out of reality. Amu always reaches out to gently bring him back. His progress is slow, but present, and as one month becomes two, then three, he's able to speak about what Easter has done to him.

The therapist, Marcia Devacour, is patient and experienced. She's able to teach him a vast number of coping skills and guides him through the processing of all the events that led him here. She also directs them to a specialist who can help Ikuto get medication to take the edge off his frequent panic attacks.

He starts playing his violin again, the notes sad but still as beautiful as ever. When the bakery Amu works at hears him, the owner offers to hire him to draw in customers. Ikuto accepts, and over time the music gets livelier.

Amu's hard-pressed to keep everyone back in Japan updated on his progress, but somehow she manages. Utau plans a visit for the upcoming Christmas holiday, and for the first time since Amu found him, he's actively looking forward to something.

He's gotten used to being close again, physically affectionate and on the rare occasion playful. She cherishes those moments, because they are earned only through his hard efforts at recovery.

He cries when Utau bursts in through the front door, three days before Christmas, to yank him into a hug that lasts for nearly an hour. Amu leaves the siblings on the couch and gives them some privacy to catch up while she makes dinner. It hits her, then, just how much she herself has grown up. She's eighteen, now, a foreigner that has begun to call this little apartment in France home because it's where she lives with the person she loves most.

When he's passed out on the couch, still so emotionally drained after all these months, Utau ghosts her way into the kitchen where she wraps her arms around her pink-haired friend from behind.

"Thank you," she whispers into Amu's hair, "for taking care of him." And if they both cried a little, no one else needed to know.

The singer stays until New Years, gifting her brother with a tiny tuxedo kitten for Christmas. Named Shadow, she becomes Ikuto's constant companion, and is a massive help in his recovery. When she sleeps curled in a ball on his chest at night, he rarely has nightmares.

Eight months after being found by Amu, Ikuto is doing much better. He feels in control of himself again, has started teaching beginner violinists as a side-job, and smiles freely. He still has flashbacks－is struggling still in figuring out how to handle his PTSD－but he's walking forwards with his own two feet.

Amu knows that he will likely struggle for the rest of his life, because what he went through is something that can't be undone, but she desperately hopes she will always be able to stay by his side to support him when he needs it. She keeps meaning to bring up her feelings, but often backs out at the last moment. She's unsure if it's something she should do, when the situation is often so delicate.

He makes the decision for her, really. Comes home from the studio he teaches at and rounds the doorway to their tiny kitchen that doesn't quite fit them both and sweeps her into a hug. She returns it, noting with pride that he's doing well today, and is promptly shocked into silence when he kisses her full on the mouth.

It's brief but so sweet, and he pulls away to gauge her reaction. He's nervous, she can see it in the way his eyebrows twitch like they want to furrow. Her lips slowly pull into a smile, and she grabs his shirt to pull him down for another kiss.

Six months into their relationship, Amu realizes that they are made for each other. They fit like puzzle pieces, have for years, and she loves every moment of it. She tells him this, and he laughs, smirking as he reminds her that he's known this since they were children. Well, since she was a child. The age difference doesn't matter now, not the way it did back then.

It's been a year and a half since she came to France, and she's surprised to find herself reluctant to leave when Ikuto says he's ready to go back. She's come to love this apartment, with it's too-small kitchen and one bedroom, where they snuggle while they watch movies on the couch that takes up pretty much the whole living room.

It's become a home, with him, but she knows they can make that happen anywhere if they're together.

Marcia helps them find a therapist in Japan, close to the apartment they are going to rent, and a doctor who can keep prescribing Ikuto's medicine. He doesn't need it daily, not anymore, but he feels better having it on hand for when he needs it.

They don't have all that much to pack; clothes, the bedspread, their small dishware set, Amu's laptop and school supplies, and Ikuto's violin and music sheets. All the photos they've taken together are on their phones, and they haven't really been into collecting nick-knacks. Anything else they need they can get new in Japan, including supplies for the cat.

Even still, once their stuff has been shipped to their new place in Japan, they both linger in the doorway. Shadow is on her leash, curled up in Ikuto's arms, and she meows as if impatient. Ikuto chuckles, hooks his hand in Amu's belt loops, and tugs her back against him.

The door is closed, keys returned to the landlord, and they take a taxi to the airport.

When they finally arrive, every single one of their friends and family is there to greet them, and Amu's breath catches as her boyfriend smiles the brightest he has in years, Shadow balancing on his shoulder with a squeaking meow.

He wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her close, and their eyes meet. It's then she realizes that they are home.