Disclaimer: I don't own Cardcaptor Sakura, if I did, it would have a direct continuation. But that's what fanfiction is for.
AN: I'm bored. I won't be done with Love Always until at least May and I miss conversing with my reviews and readers on this website. So I threw this little piece together a few weeks ago, based on a short oneshot that I expanded. It's not nearly long enough to rival my longest stories which knock on 90k+ words, but it wasn't short enough to be a oneshot after I expanded it. So I'm posting it in three parts of about eight thousand words, which would make it the equivalent of a short story.
In any case, there are some warnings before you move on. The first is that this story contains not only the mentions of, but also dealing with the aftermath of rape. It's not graphic. Just very emotional, angsty, and focused on the road to healing. I've never been through that before, but for some reason I suddenly felt the need to right this. So for anyone who has been through it or is sensitive to the topic now, you may continue to read, but note that I'm giving sufficient warning if you need to turn back.
All other notes are at the end.
Read, enjoy, and review!
Always in Motion
Part I
She had stopped struggling a long time ago, figuring it would be quicker that way. Her throat was too raw to scream anymore. Besides, there was no point. The deed was already done. Why continue to fight for something she couldn't get back? That didn't stop her from sobbing at what they had done to her though, even after it stopped, her assaulters crawling to the front seat and turning on the car, probably to go dump her somewhere. One of them turned to look at her and rolled his eyes, annoyed with her tears.
"Stop bitching about it. It wasn't that bad."
Sakura only turned her head to look away from them. She was humiliated enough as it was. When the car stopped again, the driver said, "Get out."
Sakura didn't move. She couldn't even though she wanted to.
"Really," the one on the other end said getting out the car, opening the back door and forcing Sakura to sit up as he pulled her out the car, leaving her on the sidewalk they had found her on. He threw her book bag out to her and then got back in the car, closing the door just as it sped off leaving her on her knees on the empty sidewalk.
She sat there for a moment, feeling numb, unable to believe this had happened to her, that they… She huffed. That's what she got for wanting to be normal, for all but ignoring her magical life, leaving her most powerful magic in a drawer in her desk, something that might have been able to prevent this. This is what happened to normal girls.
"I have to get home," she whispered to herself as she slowly reached out to grab her book bag before standing on shaky feet, ignoring the ache in her bare lower regions. She had no time to rest, to try to adjust herself besides making sure her skirt was in place, covering where they had torn her panties off. It was already late.
When Sakura arrived at the house, she tried to slip in without anyone noticing. Unfortunately, Toya came out the kitchen at that moment. She mentally cursed. She forgot he was coming over for dinner today.
"Hey squirt. You're home late, but just in time for dinner… Why are your eyes so red? Have you been crying?"
No. Not now…
"I'm fine," she said quickly.
"No you're not. What happened?" Toya said reaching out to touch her tear streaked face, but Sakura backed away from his touch.
"I…" Sakura swallowed trying to hold back tears. She didn't want to talk about this right now. She just wanted to go to sleep for a while, to make the pain go away.
"Sakura," Toya said sternly.
The tears fell again. Sakura dropped her bag, rushing past her brother and letting out a sob as she ran upstairs to lock herself in the bathroom.
She turned on the fan and then collapsed onto the floor, ignoring the pounding of her brother's fist against the door and later Kero's voice outside it.
How could she tell them what happened, what those monsters had done to her? How was she supposed to explain that she had been raped?
"Oh god…" she whispered, leaning against the wall. "I…"
Sakura choked back a sob as the realization set in. She had been raped. What would people say when she told them that she, the supposedly most powerful sorceress in the world (she never really believed it and certainly didn't now), had allowed herself to be violated in such a way, wasn't able to put up enough of a fight to get away. Part of her reminded herself that there had been three men, that there was no way she could have taken them on her own but still…
She sighed unable to cry anymore. She wanted nothing more than to feel numb, to not feel so dirty and terrified. At the very least, she had survived it and because she had survived it, she could live with this secret. No one had to know. She just had to forget it and move on.
When she didn't hear or see Toya and Kero at the door, she tiptoed out the bathroom and made her way to her room. She was so tired. She just wanted to sleep and make the pain go away so she could forget everything.
It didn't work. For the better part of a week, she claimed she was too sick to go to school when in truth she was so tired because of the nightmares that forced her to relive her rape, the feelings of their hands touching her breasts as they thrust inside her, the way they tried to convince her that she wanted it.
She couldn't forget it. Her mind wouldn't let her and she was at her wits end after almost a week and tried to force herself to stay awake. Better to be awake than to relive her nightmare. It must have gotten to her, because a little after midnight, she started to see a light, shining white light and for a brief moment, Sakura hoped that it meant the end of her suffering; that this was her end; that he body had given out on her. But it wasn't. Instead, the light lessened and left in its place was the ghostly image of her mother. She was dreaming, she convinced herself, but it was the first night in a week that it wasn't a nightmare, so she reached out her hand.
"Mom," she whispered.
Nadeshiko's ghost nodded slowly, sadness and worry etched into her features as she stood before Sakura, who was unsure what to do. What was she supposed to say? How could she say anything after…? Tears pooled in her eyes again and Nadeshiko opened her arms to her.
Sakura launched into them, needing this comfort. But it wasn't warm. This was just a ghost of her mother, if it was at all real.
"Oh Sakura," Nadeshiko said softly.
"I'm sorry mom. I didn't mean for it to happen."
"I know. You're not to blame darling. You had no control over this."
"I should have."
"But you didn't," Nadeshiko said to her. "I know it hurts. You shouldn't have to go through this, but I'm here right now. Don't worry."
Sakura sighed, closing her eyes, still unsure of whether or not this was a dream, but not caring anymore.
"I miss you."
Nadeshiko smiled a little. "I miss you too Sakura. You're so precious to me."
Sakura shook her head. "No I'm not. I'm not pure anymore."
"Don't say that. You did nothing wrong," Nadeshiko said and then added, "I can't stay long Sakura. You're not supposed to see me. I can't stay here with you like this."
"I don't want you go. Please stay. Keep holding me."
"I can't," Nadeshiko whispered. "I'll always be with you, but I can't stay like this."
Sakura began to cry again saying, "I don't know if I can do it mom. I can't live like this."
"Yes you can. You'll get through it. You won't suffer alone. I promise someone will come and help make this better, someone who won't be forced to leave you."
Sakura nodded, but she didn't believe it.
"I love you little one. Be strong. Everything will be fine."
Sakura closed her eyes, allowing herself to fall asleep, and when she opened them again, her room was empty, her mother gone. Sakura sighed. It had just been a dream, a pleasant one and the first good rest she had gotten all week. With that in mind, she forced herself to get up and go to school.
"Feeling better?" Kero asked her.
Sakura nodded as she gathered her things and made her way to the bathroom. She hadn't looked in the mirror since a week ago, but she didn't look as bad as she thought she did. Sakura touched her cheek with that in mind. It was a good thing it hadn't bruised where they smacked her. That would have made it harder for her to avoid explaining what had happened. However there were bruises present on her upper arm where they had held her down. Luckily, her sleeves were just long enough to cover them, especially when she put her jacket on.
Tears began to well up in her eyes again, but Sakura wouldn't let them fall, she had to put up a front, at least long enough to make it through the day. So she took in a deep shaky break and slowly got ready. When she was done, she put a hand on the door knob and schooled herself features to appear like everything was okay.
"But it's not okay," Sakura muttered to herself before opening the door and making her way downstairs.
"Good morning," she said feigning her usual cheerfulness and trying to ignore the strange looks she was getting from Kero, Toya, and her dad.
"Morning," Toya said exchanging a look with Fujitaka. "You look like you're feeling better. That was one nasty bug if it had you down all week. Sure you don't want to see a doctor or something?"
Sakura had to keep herself from tensing at the mention of that word. A doctor would know something was up and guess what happened. A doctor would force her to admit everything.
"No. I'm fine," Sakura said.
Kero looked at her with his arms crossed before saying, "If you say so. So now are you going to tell us why you were in hysteric last-"
"I'm leaving now," Sakura said. "I don't want to be late."
"Without breakfast?" Fujitaka asked and Sakura nodded, making her way out the kitchen with only a piece of toast in her mouth.
Fujitaka and Toya exchanged another look before Fujitaka decided to go after her. He caught her just as she was about to go out the door, touching her shoulder as he said, "Sakura. You know if there's something you need to tell someone, we're here."
Sakura jumped, snatching her shoulder out his hand, nearly tripping out the door as she did so. Seeing how her reaction startled him she said, "Clumsy me. Anyway, thanks dad. See you later!"
Sakura let out a sigh of relief as she got out of sight of home. It would be much easier to act like everything was okay at school than it would to do so at home. Hopefully by then she could come up with a decent story, especially after that with her dad. He was her dad for goodness sake. She shouldn't be afraid for him to touch her.
She'd deal with it later, she decided as she pushed all thoughts out her mind and got ready to fool everyone into thinking she was okay.
"I'm worried about Sakura…. She's been acting strange," Toya said.
Yue, who was doing what he normally did when within the subconscious of his false form (sleeping), stirred at hearing that from Toya. While he rarely paid attention to the mundane conversations his false form and Toya had, he always kept an ear out for something that concerned his mistress, particularly something wrong.
"Strange?" Yukito asked.
"Yeah. She came home last week in tears and wouldn't tell anyone what was wrong. Then she stayed in bed for nearly a week and got up a few days ago like nothing had happened and moved on," Toya said.
"Does she seem upset?"
Toya shrugged. "She doesn't act like it. It's just…"
Yue waited patiently to hear the response through Yukito.
"I guess it's just that her eyes seem dull lately. She smiles and acts cheerful, but it's like she's running on automatic or something. I just don't get it. She won't tell anyone what's wrong," Toya said. "Every time we try to bring it up, she finds a reason to run out the room."
"Well," Yukito replied. "She's fifteen. You know how that age is."
"I guess…" Toya said sighing. "Still."
That conversation was the reason Yue found himself flying to her house one night, just to make sure she was okay. It was an odd visit from the beginning. First of all, she wasn't in her room, though the window had been left open. So Yue quietly crept inside, careful not to wake his brother. Next he noticed that her bed was undone which meant at some point she had been in it and for some reason couldn't sleep or was awakened.
He crept out the room to find her, careful not to alert her father who, though aware of his existence, would probably ruin his plan to get Sakura to talk. Whatever it was, she didn't want anyone to know, but maybe he could pry it out of her, if only indirectly.
Yue found her outside in the backyard, knees pulled to her chest and eyes staring straight ahead, but not really looking anyway.
"Mistress," he said figuring she wasn't going to sense him there anytime soon. Her reaction concerned him.
She jumped, putting a hand over her mouth to muffle her yelp as she whipped around, fear in her eyes. Then her eyes landed on him, and she looked him over before sighing.
"Oh. Yue," she said looking relieved. "It's just you."
"What did you expect?"
Sakura didn't answer, and Yue determined that whatever was bothering her had to do with her reaction to seeing him there. She looked genuinely afraid for some reason, like she hadn't been seeing him at first. With this in mind, Yue decided to cut to the chase.
"Your brother said something was bothering you."
Sakura tensed, just a little as though she had realized she was tensing halfway through the motion. She rolled her shoulders to play it off and laughed while saying, "He's just being overprotective is all."
Yue didn't buy it. The way she stopped herself from tensing up told him that this was all an act of some sort, that she was only pretending that she was okay when she wasn't.
"You can't lie to me," he said to her. "You're hiding something. What is it?"
Sakura sighed. "I'm fine Yue."
"No one comes home crying for no reason and it turns out to be for nothing."
"Who told you that?" Sakura asked this time not trying to keep herself from tensing.
"I heard your brother tell Yukito."
Sakura sighed. "It was nothing Yue. Nothing you could help with anyway."
"So it was something?"
Sakura groaned. Damn Yue and his skill at playing with words!
"No… That's not what I meant. It's nothing to worry about."
"If that's the case, why are you trying so hard to hide it?"
"I'm not trying to hide it," Sakura grumbled, the irritation growing in her tone. "That doesn't mean I have to tell anyone."
"True. But why not tell if that's the case?"
Yue had been expecting her to cave to her the nervousness she always had when she was trying to lie and knowing she was failing. But while he had noticed that she seemed more desperate the longer she tried to keep it from him, he hadn't expected her to react like she did.
"Because admitting it happened means it's real, and I don't want it to be real!" she snapped loudly in her anger as she turned to look at him, and then seeming to realize what she said, how she said it, and who she said it too, she gasped, staring at Yue for a moment. She darted her eyes toward the ground as tears welled up in her eyes, bottom lip trembling.
"I just want to forget it. Why won't you let me forget it?"
"Sakura."
He only said her name when it was serious and this certainly counted. Upon hearing her name, she let the tears she had been holding in all week fall and a sob escape her as she sat on her knees and put her hands on her head.
Yue wasn't quite sure how to deal with this. It wasn't the first time he had seen her cry, but she had never been this devastated about something. First he had to get her to tell him what it was.
"Forget what?"
She looked up at him at that point, still crying, but now looking more nervous than anything as she said, "I didn't mean for it to happen. I didn't want it to happen. You'll believe me, right Yue?"
Yue was getting frustrated now and so he said in a sarcastic tone, "It would help if I knew what you were talking about."
She covered her face with her hands looking toward the ground as she confessed the source of her troubles.
"They hurt me Yue. They-They raped me."
It took Yue a moment to register what she had said for two reasons. The first was that it took him a minute to figure out what she had muttered. Then, when he did figure it out, he was so shocked by it that he couldn't fully comprehend it, thinking maybe he had heard wrong.
"What did you say?" he asked just to be sure.
"Please don't make me say it again," Sakura whispered
Yue hardly ever got angry. Annoyed? All the time. Frustrated? Often enough. But he was hardly ever truly angry. But this time warranted it.
"Who was it?"
Someone had done this to her and now as a result she was a mess, hardly able to function because of it, it seemed. No one deserved this no matter how old, but she was fifteen for God's sake. Too young to be so violently attacked like that.
"I don't know," Sakura said. "I… Please. Not now…"
The fragility of her voice made him push the anger aside. That was the last thing she needed or wanted right now. But he wasn't exactly the best person to get comfort from either. So he simply knelt down in front of her, not exactly sure what she would want or need, or even whether she'd react badly or not.
Sakura looked at him for a moment, sitting in front of her without anger or judgment, just there and seeing that, she threw herself at him, clinging onto him as she cried.
"Why can I still feel it? Why do I still feel their hands on me? How come it won't go away?"
"There, there little one," Yue muttered holding her to him and shielding her from the cold night air with his wings. "You don't have to suffer alone and in silence anymore. Go ahead and cry."
Sakura did so, for a long time in fact, until she fell asleep from pure exhaustion, but for once it wasn't restless. She actually felt safe for the first time in the last two weeks, felt like no one could hurt her again. When she woke up, it was to the smell of a musky lavender scent, one she was well acquainted with but had never found the chance to really appreciate like this before. Why was she in Yue's arms again…?
The previous night came rushing back to her. How he had forced her to admit what was really bothering her and instead of getting angry or even judging her, he knelt in front of her, his way of offering himself for whatever she needed and at that moment it had been a shoulder to cry on.
If only for that one thing, for simply being there even if he wasn't sure what she needed, she owed him an explanation. Not only that, but she needed to get it off her chest.
"It happened two weeks ago," Sakura began detecting Yue's surprise at her suddenness, but also his impatience, spurred by his curiosity at wanting to know the entire story.
"I saw the car earlier that day when I was at school, but I didn't think much of it. It was just a car, and it was just passing through. I had never seen it before. But after me and Tomoyo had split to go to our houses and I was on my way home, it came from the direction I was going in and stopped on the curb. I was just going to walk past it, but when I started to someone grabbed me from behind and pulled me into the back of the car."
Sakura clenched her fist tighter onto Yue's robes, trying to stop her trembling as she began to cry again. She could remember it so vividly. It was such a clear picture in her mind.
"They drove me somewhere," she whispered, "somewhere there weren't a lot of people. I don't know where."
"They?"
"It was three of them," she clarified, a dazed look coming in her eyes as she continued. "I tried to fight them. I tried to get away but they were stronger than me. When the car stopped, one of them held me down so I couldn't move, while another held my legs open and… and they took turns…" She couldn't finish, wouldn't finish. She couldn't relive that again. It was hard enough getting that far. "It hurt so much."
Sakura began to cry again, but this time not as long for she was tired of crying. She just wanted to put this all behind her, not think about all this anymore.
"You should tell someone. Besides me."
Sakura sat up to look at Yue, horrified that he would even make the suggestion. "No! I can't."
Seeing the way he set his jaw and the hard look in his eyes she added, "And you can't tell anyone either. Please don't tell anyone."
"You need help. I can't-"
"Yes you can! Please. I don't want them to worry about me. I don't want anything to change. I just want to be like I was before all this and if everyone finds out they'll treat me different. Yue!"
Yue sighed. Even without the reasoning, the desperation in her tone got him.
"Fine. I won't say anything. But I'll be watching you."
Sakura smiled a little. "You're always watching me. That's no different than usual."
They thought it might get easier now that Sakura was willing to admit at least to Yue that she had been attacked, but that made the situation all the more delicate. The strangest things could trigger a flashback from the utterance of a simple harmless phrase to watching television. Yue couldn't always be there, but he was as often as he could without interfering with Yukito's life and under everyone else's radar.
"Yue…"
He looked up at where she was sitting, staring at her homework that was scattered about the table from the previous night. He knew that look. Another flashback.
"Are you okay?"
Sakura shook her head. "Can you please just hold me for a minute?"
Yue came over to where she was kneeling and pulled her into his arms. She leaned into his chest and closed her eyes, letting out a sigh of relief.
After a while she said, "Sometimes I can still feel their hands touching and feeling me. Your touch makes it go away."
It wasn't the first time she had said it, for he had been holding her a lot in the past three weeks. As a result, Yue couldn't help but notice how thin she had gotten. It couldn't be healthy. She was already rather petite.
"You haven't been eating," he pointed out to her when she finally pulled away from him.
"I haven't had the appetite," Sakura replied as she got ready to head to school, gathering her homework from the living room. "Don't you have to go?"
"Yukito has nothing important to do today," Yue said gesturing for her to follow him to the kitchen.
Sakura sighed. "Don't bother Yue. I don't feel up to eating. It just makes me sick."
"You didn't survive this just to come back and starve yourself to death in the aftermath," Yue said bluntly. Sometimes his bluntness was the only thing that got through to her no matter how cold or harsh it may be.
"I wish I hadn't survived it sometimes," Sakura whispered. "Sometimes I wish they had killed me so I didn't have to suffer this. I wouldn't have to feel any of this if I were dead."
Yue looked at her, eyebrows furrowing in concern at her words. "Are you sure you want to go to school?"
Sakura rolled her eyes, giving a tiny smile as she said, "Relax. I'm not going to commit suicide or anything. It's just how I feel sometimes. But you're right. How about something sweet like hotcakes and syrup?"
Sakura went about making her hotcakes and when she was done only managed a few bites before pushing it away, finding it hard to keep down the little she had, which was more than she had eaten in the last few days. She wasn't purposely doing this. She wanted to eat but…
"When will this all be over?" she asked lying her head on the table trying not to cry again.
She didn't expect Yue to answer, and he didn't. How could anyone answer that question?
"I smell hotcakes! I want some!"
Sakura jumped up when she heard Kero's voice and wiped the tears that had leaked out, holding the rest inside.
"Sakura! Did you make me some-Yue? What are you doing here?"
Yue glanced at Sakura, not sure what she wanted him to say.
"Just a visit since Yukito's not busy today," Sakura said. "It's been so long since I've seen Yue."
Kero looked between the two and shrugged. "Don't know why you would want him around but okay." He pointed to her unfinished hotcakes. "You want those?"
Sakura shook her head, pushing the plate toward Kero as stood up and grabbed her book bag.
"I'll see you later."
She left and when the sound of the door opening and closing was heard, Kero looked at Yue and said, "You know, don't you?"
Yue didn't betray any outward expression, simply crossing his arms as he asked, "Know what?"
"Don't play dumb. When you looked at her, it was like you were asking her what you had permission to say and how much of it to say."
"You're reading too much into it."
"Only because you obviously know something Sakura doesn't want anyone else to know," Kero muttered dryly a hint of bitterness in his tone.
"Cerberus-"
"Don't worry about it Yue. I'm not upset. Whatever it is, at least she told someone. That girl has a lot of pride in some ways, more than she's willing to admit and she doesn't like to admit when she needs help. She's just independent and stubborn like that. Whatever it is, just take care of her the best you know how. It's probably best she told you anyway. She probably needs your strange form of comfort mixed with distance and bluntness," Kero replied. "She'll tell everyone else when she's ready."
"You're more observant than I give you credit for," Yue replied.
Kero rolled his eyes. "I always have been."
A startling realization dawned on her when everyone was getting ready for the holidays and Tomoyo was the one who made her realize it while over the house preparing Sakura's outfit for the Christmas festival fair, but Sakura didn't immediately pick up on the implication.
"Sakura," Tomoyo said coming back from the bathroom.
"Hm?" Sakura asked admiring her outfit in the mirror. Tomoyo had outdone herself once again.
"Do you have any sanitary napkins?"
"Yeah…" Sakura said absently. "They should be in a container under the sink."
"I checked there, but there aren't any," Tomoyo replied.
"Hm… I must have used them all during my last period and forgot to get more," Sakura said.
"Oh well. I have to go home then. But the outfit's done anyway," Tomoyo said gathering her things. "I'll meet you at the park tomorrow."
Sakura nodded, seeing Tomoyo out the door. It was only when she was heading upstairs to change into more casual clothes that the conversation she had with Tomoyo sank in. She had run out of sanitary pads during her last period, but that had been at the beginning of November. December was almost over now. So that meant she should have replenished her supply by now, especially since she had been due for a period…
Sakura almost lost her breath, feeling physically sick at the realization. She hadn't had a period since the beginning of November. That was almost two months ago. How could she not have noticed that until now? That was the one thing she should have been paying attention to.
"No. No. No," she said to herself. "It can't… No!"
She wanted to break down and cry, but it was too early to jump to conclusions. Maybe she was counting wrong. Maybe her period wasn't that late. Maybe she was just stressed or her body was still in shock and she was still adjusting and…
She ran to her room and snatched her calendar off the wall, going back to the end of beginning of November, the seventh, marked with a red marker to signify the start of her period.
"Alright," she muttered. "It lasted five days… Then after that…"
She didn't need the calendar to help her remember the date for this. November nineteenth was a day she'd never forget no matter how hard she tried. That was the day… The day…
"Not now," Sakura said to herself sucking up her tears and moving past it to December and the day her period should have come back around on the fifth, but there was no red marker strike to signify the start of her period. It was the twenty-fourth now. Her period was almost three weeks late. How could she not have noticed that before?
Her mind went back to a date two days before that, the day she confessed what happened to Yue. She had just been so relieved that someone knew, that she had someone to comfort and hold her when she needed it that she hadn't even worried about it. Hell, it had never crossed her mind that something like this could happen. She thought it couldn't get any worse than being just being raped. Her main concern had been trying to make it day by day, not if her period would come in a month's time.
"Maybe it's just stress… Maybe…" Sakura held in a sob that threatened to come forth. It wasn't just stress. Too many things added up now. She hadn't just lost her appetite which was the reason food was making her sick. It had been morning sickness and the reason she had been so tired, even when she managed to get enough rest.
She was pregnant.
Sakura leaned on her bed, letting out a long shaky breath. Suddenly she wasn't in the mood to do anything for the holidays.
Sakura made it through the holidays and finally made it through to the New Year, but she didn't participate in the festivities like everyone else did. There was nothing for her to celebrate and during the celebrations, she watched everyone, green with envy over the fact that none of them had to deal with being raped. None of them had to deal with being pregnant from it. While they could celebrate carefree, with nothing to worry about besides trivial things, she had bigger things to worry about. Namely how long it would be before she could get some time to herself so she could set up the appointment for an abortion.
It was the only choice she had. She couldn't have a baby, not when she was finally starting to move on, finally starting to slowly but surely readjust to life after being raped. She didn't need this.
Her stomach growled and though Sakura was hungry, starving in fact, she would not give in to her hunger, the hunger for some of that American food she had seen on a commercial earlier, no doubt a craving induced by the child inside her. Besides, it would probably make her sick anyway. It was stupid she knew, but denying herself this craving made her able to somehow deny that something was growing inside her. She was angry at it, that it could be so comfortably settled inside her womb as though she had welcomed the seed of the monsters who caused this.
"Sakura? You okay?"
Sakura snapped out her thoughts at her brother's words.
"Oh. I'm fine. Just fine," she said.
"You look like you have something on your mind? Want to share?" Yukito asked.
Sakura shook her head.
"You sure? You didn't eat much," Toya pointed out.
Sakura hadn't been eating much since she realized she was pregnant a few weeks ago during the holidays. She just ate enough to get by.
"I'm fine," she said standing up to collect the dishes from the dinner she had with Yukito and Toya. "I'll take care of the dishes since you have to go to work Toya."
"I'll help," Yukito said rising to assist her.
Toya looked at her, like he wanted to press the issue but didn't. Instead he stood up and rubbed her head saying, "See you later kaiju," and left.
Sakura looked after him as he left, sighing. Him calling her that used to make her angry, but now she'd give anything to just be that little girl again. She couldn't be that anymore.
"Sakura?"
Sakura turned around, plastering on a smile for Yukito as she went to the kitchen to start the dish water to wash dishes. After she took the ones from Yukito to submerge them in hot water, the transformation that signaled Yue's arrival came and the next second, the said moon guardian was standing next to her. Somehow she wasn't surprised.
"What?" she said dryly though she already knew. Somehow he had figured it out.
He didn't disappoint. "You're pregnant."
She sighed. "How did you know?"
"The way you looked at that woman's baby in the store earlier," Yue said.
Sakura scowled, a brief look of contempt flashing across her features as she said, "I don't want it."
Seeing that she was washing dishes, Yue grabbed a dish cloth to help her dry them.
"Of course you don't," he said.
She looked surprised.
"What?" he asked.
"You mean, you're not going to try to talk me into having it since it's not the baby's fault, since it didn't have a choice in choosing how it was conceived?" she asked as tears welled up in her eyes again.
"While all that may be true," Yue said, "there are other things that have to be taken into consideration like the fact that you're fifteen, still in school, the violent way it was conceived. No one can blame you if you wanted to get rid of it."
Sakura stopped washing dishes for a moment, staring at the water as she said, "That used to sound so cruel to me."
Yue didn't ask her what she meant. He already knew.
"I used to wonder how anyone could willing punish a child by killing it simply because it came into existence. I'm not against it completely. That would be Tomoyo. It's all up to the choice of the woman to me, but I couldn't comprehend how a woman could punish an unborn child for something it had nothing to do with. Now I get it. Now I understand why some choose it, because I feel the same way."
She didn't cry. She was acting with some strange apathy to the entire situation, like she hadn't fully accepted it, couldn't fully comprehend that his was happening to her.
"When are you going?"
That was all Yue could ask. He wasn't going to try to talk her out of it. It was the logical solution to this situation.
"I don't know. I haven't called to set up the appointment yet."
It was the answer she gave him for the next three months whenever he might ask about it. It was never a question whether she had gone or not for after a while it was hard to miss the pulsing magical presence that was intertwined with Sakura's when Yue knew it was there. But the real question was why she hadn't gone to get an abortion yet or at least called to set up an appointment. It might be that sometimes it was easy to forget her condition if not for that vibrant presence. She hadn't changed, only regained some of the weight she had lost in the last few months and fell into a pattern of blissfully ignoring the presence of the child inside her, unable to accept the fact that it was growing there.
The more Yue thought about it, the more he realized that was the problem. She was in denial.
"You can't ignore it forever," he said to her.
"I'm not ignoring it," she replied.
It was a few days after her sixteenth birthday and though she hadn't been in the mood to celebrate, she had allowed her friends to throw her a party the weekend following the actual date, putting up a façade of cheerfulness when in actuality she just wanted to show how she was really feeling which was depressed, worried, desperate…
She was in bed now, lying on her side while looking at Yue who was sitting on the floor next to her bed.
"You can sleep up here you know," she said.
"I'm fine."
Sakura looked at him, sighing before closing her eyes, but before she went to sleep Yue spoke up.
"Sakura."
"Hm?" she said with her eyes still closed.
"I saw you today, recoil from the touch of your male schoolmates and even your brother and Yukito to some degree. Why don't you recoil from me?"
Sakura was silent, her breathing steady and even like she had fallen asleep, but her eyes were open again, staring at him.
"I don't know," she replied.
She was lying, and they both knew it, but Yue didn't press the issue only let her fall asleep. He hadn't planned to stay there all night, since he knew he was taking time out what Yukito usually spent with Toya, but he felt a need to stay there for the night So he rested a hand on her forehead, glad to see that she was having one of her rare moments of restful sleep.
"Such a brave girl," he said. Her procrastination of getting an abortion only proved what he had already suspected but she'd never admit, at least not now. While there was certainly a part of her that didn't want this child she was carrying and only wanted to move on like it had never existed, there was another part of her somewhere that was ashamed to admit she didn't want to get rid of it wither, and Sakura wasn't sure how to deal with that part of her. So she denied the existence of it as a result.
Yue sighed. He was surprised she managed to hide the pregnancy thus far. Soon, she'd have to tell everyone, especially since he knew her well enough to know she wouldn't go through with an abortion. She had no choice but to eventually tell everyone.
He was snapped out of his thoughts when Sakura suddenly jumped up out of her sleep, nearly falling out the bed if not for the fact that Yue had been there to stop her from doing so.
"What?"
Sakura didn't answer only sat frozen for a minute, before gasping, hand flying to her stomach. Then, seeing Yue's questioning gaze, she slid down on the floor next to him, grabbing his hand with her own trembling one and placing it on her lower abdomen.
"What is it?" he asked, not sure what he was supposed to be feeling.
"Just wait."
Yue felt it after a few second, something bump against his hand, the child Sakura had been denying for the last few months. He looked at her, watching for a reaction. She was being strangely apathetic.
"Did you feel that?"
Yue only nodded once.
"It's really there," Sakura muttered. "It's moving inside me… I really am pregnant aren't I?"
With that, the apathetic mask that she had worn in regards to her feelings about the entire pregnancy shattered and she let out a choked sob, grabbing onto Yue as she began to cry.
"Yue, why did this have to happen to me?" she asked. "I hate it. I hate it."
Yue wasn't sure if she was talking about the situation in general, in which case he hated it too, or the baby who was now certainly making them aware of its physical presence, in which case he had his own mixed feelings about.
"Sakura. Calm down," he said rubbing her back.
But she wouldn't, the sheer realization that she was pregnant finally settling in her mind, forcing her to accept it, which meant she could no longer ignore that she had a difficult decision to make.
"That's it!"
Yue looked up to see his brother had awakened and was now in front of them in his true guise. Yue had been so preoccupied, he hadn't even noticed Cerberus awaken.
"What's going on? Why is she crying now?"
Yue wasn't sure how to respond to that without giving away the secret that he and Sakura had kept so diligently for five months now. Sakura solved the problem for him.
"I'm pregnant," she blurted out through her tears.
"What?" Cerberus asked and Yue could tell he was about to go through a tirade of questions for them to answer.
Yue stiffly shook his head, signaling his brother not to ask questions right now as he held Sakura, hoping she would eventually calm down. She did, not the way he wanted her too, but she eventually cried herself to sleep. Yue leaned his head against the wall with his eyes closed, sighing in relief that she had finally gone sleep. He was also very aware that Cerberus was watching him, knew what Cerberus wanted to know, but he wasn't about to reveal it without prompting.
"What's going on Yue?"
There were no accusations in Kero's tone, no judgments, no assumptions. He just wanted to know everything, from the beginning. At this point, Yue knew that he at least owed him that, if not anyone else.
"Remember back in November, when you said she came home crying and wouldn't tell anyone what was bothering her?"
Kero nodded.
"She…" Yue trailed off, hardly able to admit it himself. Sure it was easy to think it in his head, but he had never actually said it aloud himself. Sakura hadn't said it aloud again since she admitted it to him. It was understood between them now, so having to say it after all this time was difficult, and Yue had a feeling it wouldn't get easier. "She was raped."
A light bulb appeared to go off in Kero's head as he put the rest of the pieces of the puzzle together, Sakura's earlier admission that she was pregnant and the tears that accompanied the realization making sense now.
"And this is what's been going on the last five months?"
Yue nodded.
"And you've been helping her deal with this by yourself?" Kero asked.
Another nod.
"How are you feeling about all this Yue?"
His question surprised Yue, but he composed himself. "What do you mean how am I feeling? It's Sakura you should be worried about."
"You're stressed out Yue. I can see it in your face and that in itself is saying something. You've been dutifully staying silent about all Sakura's troubles, locking them all away when she needed someone to talk to and lean on. I think now it's time you had someone."
Yue looked down, something that was a cross between a laugh and a sob of his own escaping him as tears he had kept away in effort to give Sakura a stronger pillar of support fell. Cerberus settled next to him and Yue leaned into his fur, something he hadn't done since he was a child.
"She can't bring herself to hate it. That's why she won't save herself the misery of dealing with this and abort the parasite. But I have no problems hating it simply because it came from the bastards who forced this on her. Damn it! Why did this have to happen to her, of all people?"
He must have fallen asleep because the next thing he was aware of was the fact that Cerberus was gone and Sakura was missing from his lap. He stood up, going over to the window. He'd have to leave soon.
As he was getting ready to climb out the window, he felt slender arms wrap around him from behind and Sakura lean her head on his back. That in itself was enough to make Yue stop.
"What?"
"Let me hold you Yue."
Yue was so surprised he didn't fight her when she knelt them both down on the floor. She lifted up on her knees and wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning his head on her chest and her on head on top of his.
"I'm sorry," she said softly.
"For what?"
"For making you worry so much. I didn't know all this bothered you so much. Thank you for letting me dump all my problems on you."
He sighed. "You heard me and Cerberus talking last night didn't you?"
Sakura laughed a little.
"Don't apologize. You're the one who has to suffer through it."
"But you've been suffering with me every step of the way."
They were silent for a while and then Sakura took a deep breath before speaking again.
"I'm going to tell you something, and I don't want you to respond to it or think you have to act differently because of it, because you've been great and maybe that's why I…"
She trailed off, a blush forming on her cheeks. Yue allowed her to take her time.
She kissed his forehead and let go of him, casting him a serene smile as she looked him in the eyes and said, "I think I may be falling in love with you."
Sakura didn't wait for a reply as she had said she didn't want one, only stood up and left the room. Yue watched her, strangely not bothered by her admission. In fact, he wasn't even surprised by it. But it was nothing to dwell on. The last thing she needed to deal with was a love life and perhaps she knew that which was why she hadn't waited on a response, not that he didn't have one. Sakura just wasn't ready to hear it.
AN: My regular readers will notice how different this is from all my other stories, namely that the story itself as in the plot and situation aren't really dependent in the the CCS series. This could have just as well have been written in Harry Potter, Star Wars, Sailor Moon, etc. with any given coupling or maybe even without a pairing given a few tweaks to the places, language, names, and abilities (magic, the force, sailor planet power, whatever). But I'm comfortable with the characters in this fandom.
Now, I felt the need to bring this up considering a review I got for a story that was controversial simply because of the psychology and justification I used in it in regards to characterization. Yes Sakura may seem a little OOC and so might Yue for that matter, but given the situation I think it's justified. If you don't, that's fine.
Next, I also want to say again, I've never been raped, so I can only imagine the psychological issues and ramifications that come up as a result based on my study of psychology, knowing people who have experienced it, and years of writing. However, I do understand the sensitivity of such a subject which is why I didn't feel the need to let a scene that described the actual happenings make the final cut. I wrote it, but in the end I took it out, even though it wasn't graphic at all. It wasn't needed for the story and since this is already a delicate subject to be writing about, I decided not to push it.
Anywho, don't even ask what made me begin to write this, in this fandom no less. Sakura's character just seemed like a character where it would be easier to show the change in her psyche over a period of time considering the extreme cheerfulness and joy of her personality, someone who hasn't had to face a truly dark situation and in a way, that's why I decided to write this story in this archive.
So, it's different from what I usually do, much more angsty and emotionally driven rather than plot driven. Tell what you think. I'll update whenever I get the chance to edit the other two parts.
Hope you enjoyed. Review Please!