Au Revoir

          Official Documents:

1. I am a natural redhead. I am American. Ergo, I am not CLAMP or any representative thereof. Thank you.

2. If for whatever reason beyond the thought of sentient beings you do not like this story, tell me so. Flame me. Please. I love flames. They're fun to MST.

3. Contents one pairing: Fujitaka/Nadeshiko. If this for some reason bothers you, I have no idea why, feel free to go away.

4. This fic is in response to a challenge from the Tsukimine Shrine Livejournal community. Hey minna!

5. This item is blank.

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            He never felt as distant from the rest of the world as he did when he stood in the cemetery on that warm and sunny day in late April. The sakura blossoms still clinging defiantly to the trees fluttered in a wind that didn't seem to touch the silent group standing before the newly dug grave. They were all in varying degrees of mourning, from Sonomi Daidouji's unrelieved black where she stood with her young daughter by her side to the black-trimmed white worn by Nadeshiko's childhood friends. He himself wore a black suit edged with fine white ribbon at the collar and cuffs. He didn't feel that wearing plain black would be respectful to his Nadeshiko's way of thinking. She never would have wanted to see nothing but grief on the faces of her nearest and dearest.

            They didn't seem to it in the same way. The only ones there were the people who had really known Nadeshiko, but even they were sorrowing more completely than he felt he could. Even Sonomi was crying for someone who was gone forever from her sight. He couldn't do that, just as he couldn't feel as they did, simply because he was unable to feel that Nadeshiko was utterly gone. How odd it was that, out of all these people, he was the only one to still sense himself in her presence.

            Not quite the only one, at that; a brief glance to his side showed him that Touya was just as indefinably, impassively distanced from his surroundings as he was himself. That was their Touya, so strong and quietly certain. He would grieve for his loss in his own way, a long and silent way, but he would not believe that his mother was gone when those very senses she had bequeathed to him told him otherwise.

            Little Sakura was crying, though, in the same way Sonomi was. She was only a small child, of course, and she couldn't be sure of where exactly her Mommy was and was no longer. He thought she might learn, someday, that Nadeshiko would never dream of leaving her baby girl completely. She would always be there when she was needed most.

            He knew she would always be there, even if he couldn't see her. So he said his goodbye until he could see her with his eyes again. He would never stop seeing her with his heart.

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            He had been waiting for something from the moment he told her grave, "I'll see you again someday," and walked off without shedding a tear. He knew, now, that he had been keeping himself prepared for someday. All the time he'd carefully dusted off the small ornaments Nadeshiko had placed and reorganized so often, he had been half-expecting to hear her suggest that they rearrange them again. Every morning he had come downstairs to greet one of an endless procession of carefully preserved photographs, he had felt, just on the edge of hearing, a gentle return to his "Good morning." In seven years of going out the door, he had paused an infinitesimal fraction of a second to give Nadeshiko time to come clattering down the stairs, apologizing for making him wait and promising vehemently not to be late again-a promise she would invariably break the next morning. He always caught himself waiting, but never before having the faintest of sensations that she would come in just another second, if he waited. She never spoke, or came, that he could tell. But that had never stopped him from waiting. And now, at last, he knew why.

            He smiled in contentment, looking around him. Sakura was visiting Tomoyo, Touya was at soccer practice, and he was home with the most wonderful person who had ever lived. Life, even their own peculiar brand of it, was good.

            "I'm glad to see you again, Nadeshiko." His wife laughed at his understatement, bells he had not quite been aware of on the edge of hearing for years on end ringing purely in his ears.

            "Me too, Fujitaka. Me too."

Sometimes goodbye is forever. Others, it's just au revoir.