AN: A little, sad one-shot for Clow/Yuko. I haven't actually read up to the current part of the manga, so if the tiny spoiler is inaccurate, let me know.
It really began in the days when the Love Laws were made. The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how.
And how much. (Arundhati Roy, "The God of Small Things")
The first night they are together, his mouth on her throat, her black hair spilled across silken pillows, Clow says something to her that she cannot hear, then produces a thin strand of red thread from his shirt pocket. He ties it around her wrist, kissing the pulse there.
"Whenever you need me," he whispers, as he fumbles with the clasps on the front of her dress, and the moon hangs heavy in the thick summer heat, shining through the open doors, scampering across the polished wood and up the bed to light up her alabaster skin.
"Just call."
Thin violet curtains hang around her Western style four poster bed, making Clow's eyes seem darker, full of some deeper feeling that Yuko doesn't want to think about; she only knows it stirs something within the vicinity of her heart.
"You're too sentimental," she murmurs against his collar bone in reply, and he just chuckles, removing his spectacles and bringing his lips down to hers. In the morning, when her eyes flutter awake and the sheets are tangled around her legs, she lifts up her arm to see the red band still there, stark against the white of her wrist. Looking around to see if anyone was watching and finding no-one except the quiet buzz of August insects, Yuko allows herself a secret, joyful smile.
After it happens, and she feels the pangs of eternity coursing through her veins, pumping through her heart, Clow is at her beck and call more than usual; she sees the guilt in his every movement as soon as her arrives, and she regrets summoning him at all.
"Don't pity me," she snaps one day, after they've both had too much wine. "And don't pity yourself."
He'd only gazed into his cup and nodded slowly, so she had slapped him, then kissed him, and they'd fallen onto the couch in a mess of long cloaks and robes with butterfly patterns on them. When he's still there in the morning, she wraps her arms around him from behind and clasps his hand, tracing first his make-shift bracelet, and then hers.
"Whenever you need me," she echoes. "Just call."
He smiles weakly; she feels his back muscles shift as his laugh escapes his throat, and Clow brings their hands up to his face, pressing their ten knuckles, their two palms, their one pulse, to his forehead.
She feels the tears in-between her fingers, wetting her lifeline and the whorls of her fingerprints.
"Yuko," is all he manages to get out before his voice leaves him, and she just holds him until he pulls away, leaving her with the lingering warmth of his body against hers.
The day after Clow Reed dies, Yuko wakes before the sun rises. It's summer once again. The pond in her garden is still in the secret-silence of morning. The dew tickles her ankles, and soaks the bottom of her robe. At the base of the only tree in the garden, Yuko kneels and hooks a thumb under the red band, pulling until it breaks with a soft snap.
She scrabbles at the dirt until it's deep enough, and then looks down at the string. It's faded with the years, a dull maroon color now, and she clasps it tightly, not allowing herself to cry as she finds the tiny flicker of his magic in its weave, the connection he gave her so long ago.
Yuko finds him, and calls to him with her own magic, the magic that comes with living forever and knowing the future, knowing who dies and when. The magic he gave her.
There is no answer.
She dries her eyes and buries the string.