I thought the biggest shock I would have to face would be opening my eyes with my beloved Nadeshiko standing smiling at me, her hair floating gently around her in some invisible breeze, and snowy white wings arching from her back. Yes, I definitely thought the biggest shock would be realizing I was dead. I was wrong.
"I want to see the children," I told her as she took my hand, I was worried about them, I knew that Sakura had no memory of losing her mother, this would be unfamiliar ground to her, I didn't know how she would cope. Touya worried me too, he had been through this before, but would that make it harder or easier to deal with going through it again.
"I can take you to them, Fujitaka-kun, but I am not sure you are ready for it," she said, pressing one hand lightly to the side of my face. My heart lifted, to feel her touch again meant the world.
"Please, my love, I just need to know that they are safe," I insisted, I should have known better, my beautiful Nadeshiko wouldn't have suggested I wait without good cause.
"Then come," she sighed, gathering both of my hands in hers.
It was like a soft, warm gentle summer breeze blowing around me, light, delicate scents of Sakura and Peach blossoms. Everything blurred bar the feeling of her hands in mine, and the breeze, and then we were standing in Sakura's girly bedroom.
That was when I got the second shock, when we arrived in my little girl's bedroom, she was lying on her bed, sobbing her heart out into the thick fur of a huge lion. It…he? whatever, had on some kind of jeweled headdress, and had a pierced ear. One huge paw was wrapped around her in a position that looked like nothing more than a hug. Her bedroom door opened, I thought it might be Touya checking on his sister, but it was Tomoyo-chan. She didn't bat an eyelash at the lion, she just crawled up the inside of the bed, lying so that Sakura was bracketed between them, resting her hand atop the heavy paw.
"Its all right, Sakura-chan, its going to be all right. Kero-chan and I are here," she soothed.
"There's a lion on Sakura's bed," I said, rather foolishly, before compounding the idiocy by adding.
"She never seemed interested in having a pet before."
Nadesiko's laughter startled me, and she wrapped her arms around me, resting her chin lightly on my shoulder.
"Fujitaka-kun, Kero-chan is more than a pet. He is a Guardian, he helps keep her safe while she is using her magic," she told me.
"What magic?"
"There was so much they kept from you, Fujitaka-kun, because they had to, because they didn't want to worry you," she sighed close to my ear.
"They? Touya too?" I asked, although that surprised me less, I know I never really knew my son, he was some otherworldly child from the moment he was born, and it only got worse after losing his mother. It shames me a little, well, more than a little, to admit that I never tried too hard to break the shell he closed around himself. He always made me nervous, the dark, echoing distance in his eyes, like a chasm between us.
"Oh, she kept it from him too, but Touya-kun always knows more than you might imagine," she told me gently.
"How blind was I, to not notice there was a lion living in the house? To not notice that Sakura-chan was using magic?" I asked her.
"Say goodbye to Sakura, koi, we don't have long, if you want to see Touya too," she said, not answering the question, it needed no answer anyway, I knew how blind I had been, I knew that I had buried myself in my work as much as possible to take my mind away from the gaping hole she had left in my life that even our children hadn't been enough to fill.
I went to the bed, looking from the lion, to Sakura, and over to Nadeshiko.
"None of them can see you, it is not a gift any of them carry," she assured me.
I leaned over the lion, and rested my intangible hand over Sakura's hair, wishing I could touch her.
"Goodbye, Sakura-chan, I will miss you," I told her, bending down to press a ghostly kiss to the top of her head.
"I love you, Sakura-chan," I sighed, stepping back to where Nadeshiko waited.
"Come on," she said, taking my hand once more, and leading me towards the door. We couldn't open it, obviously, but she used her grip on my hand to pull me through it, which was an odd experience, I can tell you. I have never seen wood grain from the inside before, and I am not entirely sure I want to see it again.
"You know that Touya-kun is going to see us, don't you?" she asked me.
"Isn't there any way to make sure he can't?"
"No, koi. We're spirits, if we are here, he will see us," she sighed.
"You know, I used to wonder, sometimes, if he really saw what he said he did, or if he maybe needed…help…to get over losing you."
"Touya is gifted, Fujitaka, truly gifted," she chided me.
"Come on," she said again, tugging me down the stairs.
We found Touya in the kitchen, chopping vegetables, his face blank. It didn't surprise me that he wasn't crying, he had cried very rarely even as a child, and the very last time I had ever seen him cry was when Nadeshiko had died, even when he had broken his arm a year later, he had not cried, whatever had gone wrong between him and Kaho, he had been heart broken, he had been depressed, but he had not cried.
Tsukishiro-kun wandered into the kitchen then, passing between Nadeshiko and I blithely, without noticing us. He leaned against the counter were Touya was working, watching him quietly for a moment.
"You're going to have to stop some time, To-ya. You already scrubbed the entire house, top to bottom, you did all of the laundry, even…what didn't need to be done. You've cooked more food than even Kero and I can put away between us," he said.
"Later, Yuki," Touya said, picking up another carrot to chop.
I didn't know whether I should be surprised or not, that sweet, oblivious Yukito knew the lion, and knew it well too, apparently.
"No, now, koi. You cannot work yourself into exhaustion this way. Do you think Sakura-chan needs to see you collapse, right after losing your father this way," he said firmly, taking the knife from Touya's hand and putting it down on the chopping board. He gripped Touya's wrist and pulled him around to face him, resting a hand on the side of his face in an intimate and familiar gesture, an echo of the way Nadeshiko had touched me, just a short time before.
"You have to stop, you can't take care of everyone else if you won't take care of yourself. Please, koi," Yukito sighed.
I felt my jaw drop when Touya leaned down to kiss Yukito, something else I had missed, something I had expected since a month after I first saw them together, but I had missed that they had made the change in their relationship.
"I…let me finish this soup, and then I'll stop, I promise," Touya told Yukito when he pulled back from the kiss.
He stiffened, and I knew he had seen us out of the corner of his eye. I got the next shock as Touya turned sharply to face us, Yukito put himself between Touya and what he interpreted as a threat from the look on his face, and there was a flare of brilliant light. When it faded. Yukito was gone, and in his place…the third shock.
Despite the wings, as white as Nadeshiko's but more tangible, spread between us and Touya as a barrier, this angelic figure was clearly no angel, the amethyst eyes were cold, hard, dangerous, and a white light glowed around the palm that was extended toward us.
"Yue, it's all right," Touya said softly, not looking at us as he rested his hand lightly on the being's shoulder, rubbing lightly until the light faded away and the wings folded against his back.
The coldness left his eyes as he looked back over his shoulder, and up, to meet Touya's eyes.
"Do you wish me to leave you alone, turn back, or remain?" he asked.
"Stay," he said, wrapping an arm around the being's shoulder and pulling him in against his body. Yue banished his wings so that he could lean into Touya more comfortably.
"You…you…where's Yukito?" I found myself stammering.
"I am him, and he is me, we are the same, yet different," Yue said, knowing that he was being infuriatingly vague, but not caring.
Touya dropped a light kiss on top of Yue's head, squeezing him gently,
"Don't be a brat, koi," he whispered, but the slightest hint of a smile on his face let Yue know he wasn't bothered either.
"Why are you here?" Touya asked, finally turning his attention back to us.
"I wanted to be sure you and your sister were going to be ok," I told him.
"You died, you died yesterday, I don't think now is the time to ask if we're going to be ok." Touya told me, a hint of anger in his tone.
"I know, I'm sorry, I never intended…"
"Most people don't intend to die. You know if Sakura realizes there are ghosts in the house, she'll flip out," he pointed out.
I did know, I knew that much about my children, that Touya had teased his little sister mercilessly with stories of ghosts when he was younger.
"I'm sorry," I said again.
Touya sighed, his midnight eyes suddenly looking very, very old.
"You and 'kaa-san are going to be together on the other side for a very long time, 'tou-san. You need to trust her to know when it is the right time to visit," he said.
"You would not object to me returning, to me visiting?" I asked in surprise, I had thought that his restrained anger meant that he didn't want to see us, or rather, me.
"When the time is right," he told me.
"I will miss you, son, and I know I never showed it very well, but I do love you, and your sister, very much," I told him.
"I know, I always knew. We each of us has always been who we needed to be in this life, everything that has happened, everything that will happen, will be as it is meant to be," Touya said with the faintest hint of a smile.
"It is time to go, Tomoyo-chan and Kero-chan have convinced Sakura-chan that it is all right for her to want to eat," Nadeshiko said, gliding from my side, closer to Touya and his companion, Yue, I reminded myself.
She pressed a ghostly kiss to each of them, brushing lightly over their cheeks.
"Take care of each other, all of you," she admonished softly, before returning to me.
She kissed me this time, and I was barely aware of the summers breeze as we faded away. Our children would survive, I realized as we appeared in a beautiful garden, survive, and thrive, and grow, because while I had never been what could be considered a hands on, or even good, father, my absence from their lives had made them strong enough to weather any storm together. They would miss me, they would grieve, but I had been gone from their lives long enough that they would never need me, and that was the biggest shock of all.