Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and the situations I put them in. Everything else belongs to someone else whose names I don't even know. Thanks for reading and reviewing, have a great day.
A Very Merry Christmas
"So do you have family in China ma'am?" The pilot asked the young brunette beside him who was anxiously staring out the window. She didn't look Chinese but nowadays that didn't mean anything. She sure looked agitated, maybe she didn't like flying?
"Ahh not exactly. My boyfriend lives there." The brunette answered with a blush that had nothing to do with the cold weather as she turned to smile nervously at the pilot. She wasn't nervous about flying, it was where she was flying to that had her heart beating double time in her chest.
"I bet he's real happy you're coming to visit him." The pilot said with a grandfatherly smile, thinking that the girl was even more adorable looking when she blushed. Whoever this guy was he was obviously one lucky duck indeed.
"He doesn't know I'm coming actually. I didn't know up until last night whether or not I could go and I didn't want to disappoint him if I didn't manage to get there." The girl said as she played with a strand of hair. She was hoping he'd be really happy to see her. She hadn't seen him in person in months after all.
"Well I bet you'll be the best Christmas present he's ever gotten. So what's your name again, young lady? Can't recall if you told me or not." The pilot said as he patted her thigh comfortingly. "Afraid my memory isn't quite what it used to be for that sort of thing.
)
"I'm Sakura. Sakura Kinomoto." The girl said with a sunny smile, touched that he was trying to obviously distract her.
"Sakura, that means cherry blossom as I recall. It suits you. I'm Joe by the way." The pilot said with a roguish wink though he was old enough to be her grandfather.
"Nice to meet you Joe." Sakura said as she shook the hand he held out, feeling a lot better now that she had a friendly face to talk to. Right now she could really use one too. "Are we almost there? I'm sorry I didn't talk to you much earlier, I haven't had a lot of sleep the last couple of days."
"We'll be there in about a half an hour." Joe said looking at the many gauges. "And don't you worry your head about that, missy. I'm used to the quiet, I usually prefer it unless I have a lovely lady like yourself to keep me company."
"Thank you. I hope I haven't taken you away from your family on Christmas Day Joe." Sakura said looking concerned as the idea occurred to her. Here she'd been thinking of her own needs and plans without considered the fact that whoever flying her would most likely be missing out on the holiday festivities. How awful!
"No need to worry about that. I've got family in China that I was going to visit anyway." Joe said with a smile as he adjusted the throttle. "When Mrs. Taylor called in to the airport to see about your flight my boss approached me since he knew I'd be more then happy to help out, have some company and all that. You're a friend of the family's I take it?"
"Yes. Her daughter Tomoyo is my best friend and our mothers were too." Sakura said, her eyes lighting up at the mentioning of her closest friend. She was also really glad she hadn't taken Joe away from family, especially since he was being so nice to her after she'd slept through most of the flight with him.
"Well that's nice. So why was this such a last minute thing?"
)
"Well you see my father caught a cold just before Christmas and so I didn't think I'd be able to go since I wasn't going to leave him while he needed me to take care of him. Luckily he was much better when I left since thankfully my brother and Yukito were able to come home to help take care of him so that I could go. Toya wasn't too thrilled but he couldn't argue with Yukito and me, especially since it's almost Christmas."
"Toya and this Yukito your brothers?"
"Toya is. He doesn't like Syaoran very much and he didn't like the fact that I was flying all the way to China to be with him for Christmas." Sakura said in a weary tone that suggested that this was a normal occurrence. "Yukito is my brother's boyfriend. They're both in university right now."
"Why doesn't your brother like your boyfriend if you don't mind me asking. He must be pretty special to warrant a girl like you." Was Joe's opinion. This girl struck him as being pretty happy go lucky but there was a brain under that cuteness too. Plus as a brother himself he knew that older brothers were usually obligated to find fault in their sisters' boyfriends. One of those little rules to always be followed no matter how great the guy was.
"Syaoran and I didn't get along very well when we first met and they almost got into a fight when Toya tried to intervene during one of our little spats. Even after Syaoran and I became friends they still act like two dogs fighting over a bone." Sakura said in exasperation, the stupidity of it all still getting to her every time. "Syaoran and I were only ten after all. But no, Toya's never let it go that someone other then him once talked to me a little meanly."
"Sounds like you're really caught in the middle." Joe said sympathetically, understanding this easily too. He'd certainly dealt with his share of guys that he'd felt hadn't been treating his sister right or thought they could pick on them without anyone stopping them. It was one thing for a brother to be mean and an entirely other thing for someone else to be.
"You could say that. Its gotten better though and my dad says that eventually they'll realize that the reason they're always at odds is because they're so much alike." Sakura said with a laugh, secretly agreeing with her dad though she never said so out loud. She was in the middle enough as it was without getting them both worked up with the oh so obvious truth. "Plus they both can't stand Eriol so they kinda have a common enemy now for them to bond over. Of course that's not good either but at least I'm not caught in the middle so much in that case."
)
"Who's Eriol?" Joe said curiously, getting caught up in this little drama this little thing seemed to have found herself in.
"Oh Eriol's Tomoyo's boyfriend. Neither Toya or Syaoran appreciates his weird sense of humor and he's pulled some pranks you wouldn't believe possible." Sakura said thinking to the time Eriol had almost drowned her with stuff sheep and caused Yukito's bear to go haywire. "Plus Syaoran was convinced for a while that Eriol liked me so that pretty much assured trouble there. The two are getting better but Eriol still likes to set Syaoran off, just for fun."
"Sounds like Tomoyo will have her hands full with that one." Joe said with a chuckle, getting the idea from her tone of voice that this Eriol was quite the trouble maker.
"You bet. Spinner and Ruby Moon like her though so at least Tomoyo won't have to worry about them." Sakura said with a grin. "If they didn't like her she'd have more trouble that anyone could handle on her hands!"
"Who's Spinner and Ruby Moon?" Joe said becoming more and more interested in this very strange but entertaining story. And weren't those just weird names.
"Spinner and Ruby are friends of Eriol's who live with him. It's not a good idea to get on their bad sides, especially if Spinner's near sugar." Sakura said as she giggled as she remembered what had happened the last time Kero had gotten mad at Suppi and had stuffed an entire cupcake into his mouth.
)
"I take it Spinner gets hyper very easily?" Joe said raising an eyebrow.
"You have no idea. I've seen explosions that cause less destruction then Spinner on sugar. That's why Kero doesn't like it much when we go to Eriol's house, minimum amount of sugar in sight." Sakura said with a grin. After Kero had shoved that cupcake in the last time Eriol and herself had made it a policy to keep anything containing sugar away from them when they're in the same room. "There's nothing Kero loves more then sugar unless it's more sugar."
"And who's Kero?" Joe said wondering what the next character in the crazy plot was like.
"Kero's another really good friend of mine. He pretty much lives for food, trouble and video games. He doesn't like Syaoran much either though he's not as bad as Toya. Kero doesn't like him for the same reasons as Toya only add in the fact that Syaoran made fun of his size one to many times." Sakura said dryly as she shook her head wearily. "I keep telling Syaoran not to but I think its become an ingrained habit by now."
"Short huh?"
"Well he was. Kero's really egotistic and doesn't appreciate being taken down a step which Toya and Syaoran do regularly." Sakura answered, grimacing at all the short jokes her brother and boyfriend had managed to come up with in the past few years. Since Kero couldn't go walking around in his true form he was pretty much stuck putting up with the boys' razzing.
"Ahh I see what you mean. You have very interesting friends if you don't mind me saying so." Joe said with a shake of his head.
"Not at all, I agree with you." Sakura said with another giggle, her eyes shining brightly. It was true that most of her friends were on the weird side but she definitely wouldn't trade them in for anyone or anything. She loved them all, weird traits and all. "But I wouldn't trade them in for anything! But if you think they're bad you should meet Yamazaki."
"And who's Yamazaki?"
)
"Yamazaki's Syaoran's best friend and the on again, off again boyfriend of a friend of mine. He's always telling these huge tall tales and it's impossible to know when he's telling you the truth or not. Chiharu, his girlfriend, is the only one that can shut him up and some times I wonder if he ever tells the truth about anything. He once convinced me that coconuts were originally used as volleyballs that were later outlawed because to many people were getting badly hurt." Sakura said with a roll of her eyes. "I stand by the excuse that I was only ten but even then..it's pretty sad that I believed him, huh?"
"Definitely a character." Joe said with a chuckle, trying to imagine anyone managing to pull off that big a tall tale. The kid must have been one hell of a story teller, no question. "I have a feeling I'd like this Yamazaki. I've been known to tell a pretty tall tale every once in a while myself."
"Then you'd definitely get along with him." Sakura agreed. "Yue can't stand it when he tells me those stories though. He always gets so worked up on my behalf because he says Yamazaki is filling my head full of nonsense and there's enough nonsense in there already."
"Another friend of yours?"
"Yup. Yue's very serious and he's forever shaking his head at the ideas Yamazaki puts in my head. It's gotten so that I'll ask my dad before I tell Yue anything so that I don't give him a headache if it's a lie. Toya says that Kero's the one that gives him all the headaches but I think it's more a combination of both."
"So tell me, do you have any normal friends?" Joe said with another shake of his head. This girl certainly seemed to collect the most unusual friends indeed.
"Well Rika and Niki are pretty normal I guess. Other then the fact that she's obsessed with making me costumes and play clothes for the school I work at Tomoyo's pretty normal too. In my line of work normal isn't a regular occurrence though." Sakura said with a wink, thinking of her cards which were currently safely tucked into her purse in her lap.
"And what is it you do?" Joe asked curiously, turning his head to look at her. "You said school, do you teach?"
"I'm a kindergarten teacher right now." Sakura said with a smile, and the Mistress of the most powerful deck of cards known to man she quietly added to herself, those cards responsible for the fact that her life was usually anything but normal.
)
"Well from what I can see the job suits you to a T. And you'll be happy to know we'll be landing in a couple of minutes. Do you have someone there to get you?" Joe said looking at her, a little worried at the idea of a pretty little thing like her wandering around China by herself, especially with her boyfriend not knowing to expect her.
"There will be a car waiting for me, Tomoyo's mom said she'd make sure since she was convinced that if I tried to take a taxi I'd end up dead in some alleyway." Sakura said with a chuckle as she leaned forward to see the runway which was coming into view. With her cards at her side there wasn't a lot she had to worry about but she couldn't exactly tell Tomoyo's mom that.
"Well here we go." Joe said and with easy set them down on the runway with barely any bumps. Having flown herself more times then she could count Sakura definitely appreciated the smooth landing.
"You're a very good pilot, Joe." Sakura said as she buttoned up her jacket once they were out of the plan as one of the stewards brought over her suitcase, handing it over to Joe to carry for her. This part of China didn't have snow but it was sure to be a little cold. "Thank you very much and Merry Christmas." Sakura said with a big smile for the steward before turning back to Joe.
"Well thank you, Sakura." Joe said with a small bow, pleased with the compliment. "You're a very nice passenger as well."
"Thank you." Sakura said brightly, nerves coming back into her eyes now that she was finally here. "Maybe I'll see you when I head back home?"
"You never know." Joe said just as the driver of a really smart black limo parked nearby headed in their direction. "Looks like you're rides here too, right on time too."
Smiling Sakura turned and waved to the driver to let her know that it was in fact her and that she'd be right there in a minute. Moving over Sakura insisted on taking her suitcase and the bag of packages from Joe, giving in on his insistence to at least help her with loading them into the limo.
"Thanks again, Joe." Sakura said impulsively giving him a hug. "Merry Christmas."
"It was my pleasure, Sakura. Till we meet again." Joe said tipping his hat. "I'll expect you to tell me how things went. Merry Christmas."
"I'll be sure to." Sakura said as she waved at him one last time before she slipped into the limo, shutting the door softly behind her.
Waving Joe watched her go and then headed for the base office to get himself some hot chocolate, thinking about how he was going to tell his buddies all about the interesting young lady he'd just met before heading off to see those relatives of his.