Disclaimer: Fruits Basket does not belong to me…

Cold Spring
Written by Darkest Evil

Chapter 1:

Hatori's shoulder clumsily buffeted the shelves mounted on the wall as he swept around, performing his everyday routines. With a rattle the contents bounced, one object being unluckily tossed to the ground. The Sohma family doctor's sigh stabbed through the gentle silence, as if he were weary of his trapped, lifelong work.

The object that had fallen to the ground, although he had heard the tinkle of glass faintly, was the least of Hatori Sohma's worries. His naturally cold manner persuaded the man that he really couldn't care less. It was only when he bothered to examine the mess made that he crumpled those thoughts and tossed them into the cradling wind.

Lying face down in a shadow morphed by the blind was a flat, rectangular shaped object. Hatori bent down and nervously turned it over. With heart twisting into painful shapes, cursing its owner with dagger-like emotions, the doctor acknowledged the fact that there was jagged glass sticking out around the frame of the object and that there were marks from its slashes scarring her face. The second sigh rippled through the room, except it had a completely different tone.

The sound of a sliding door opening followed seconds after. Hatori still crouched on the ground but turned his head slightly, noticing Tohru's appearance.

"Ah...Mr. Hatori, I brought a drink for you, in case you want a break at all, but if you're still working..."

Hatori attempted his usual interpretation of Tohru's overlapping words with his ever so common blank expression facing the girl, who was now focused on the photo frame and the shattered glass.

If I continue to be so cold...will she ever know that this dragon is warm-blooded...deep inside? In a place where even I sometimes cannot reach?

"Mr. Hatori, what happened? Did you fall? Oh...something fell off your shelf!"

As expected, the young woman instinctively collapsed to her knees in order to offer help of some kind. Hatori closed his eyes and retained his cool sense of mind.

"It's ok. There's no real damage done. It's just a small object; please don't worry about it, Miss. Honda..."

The item, the casing is only a small thing...yes...but what about its contents? It may just be a visual, a feeble photograph...but it's a memory...

Tohru had already taken the damaged photo frame and turned it over, her reaction mirroring Hatori's, its only difference being that hers was shown on the surface, not just deep down inside.

"I-I'm so sorry, Mr. Hatori, this is Kana's photograph! I'll go and get her a new frame this afternoon and I'll fix her for you...ok...?"

Hatori didn't respond he was only confused over the reason she was taking this mistake as though it was hers.

"Look though, she's hurt...the glass...but, she'll be ok, won't she?"

This girl...for as long as she has been with our family, she has always done something to help out...she understands this memory, my memory of Kana and wishes to help her as well...

"Miss. Honda...it's alright." Hatori prised the precious photograph out of her hands. "I'm sure I have another picture of her. But thank you for caring about Kana, truly."

Tohru accepted his reassurance and watched him move back to the shelf, setting Kana back there. She fell lopsided in her now defenceless state.

I'll replace her frame later...for now, she'll just have to stay like that, vulnerable to the elements...

Vulnerable to the autumn, to the winter...but through all that, no matter how much damage is done, the spring will always come around to Kana again. But it seems like...it has always been there.

"Thanks for the tea."

Tohru's attention was grabbed again. "Ah...ah, no, it's no problem!"

Hatori's face unintentionally frowned when he discovered that his drink was now only luke-warm, having cast away most of its heat during the kafuffle over Kana. Once again, Tohru noticed this and gasped apologetically.

"I-I'll heat it up again! It's no trouble!"

Hatori's mouth opened to protest, but a hand had quickly taken the mug again and Tohru was by the door.

"Miss. Honda…" came out instead, even though it sounded almost unenthusiastic because of his reluctance to complain.

"Ah…ah, no, really, it's no problem!" were Tohru's repeated words.

And she was gone.

Hatori ran his hands through his glistening mop of hair, now 'cursed' – in his opinion – with the odd streak of natural grey. A few minutes later, the door glided open again and likewise Tohru came in, placing the reheated tea beside the doctor again.

"Thank you."

He leafed through the tiring pages of notes jammed into his clipboard whilst Tohru sat down nearby. It was a perfectly natural and everyday thing to do, yet…Hatori realised somehow that in certain ways it was a strange thing. She was doing something normal, she was living normally, but what was abnormal was her knowledge. She had had the strength, over these many, many years to retain the memories that she had gained during a fateful time of her life, the memories of a curse that she had lived through and turned into…happy memories.

How…? I've never realised…how can she turn a curse into happy memories…something positive?

But I know now that as more and more time goes by, the more terrible it would be if I ever had to…had to…

I wouldn't just be rubbing out the finer details. I would be erasing the sweeping pencil lines, the main structure of this masterpiece. I would be taking away her life.

His attention turned briefly to Kana's photograph swaying with the constant stream of breeze, bravely clinging on, before turning back to Tohru.

"Is there something you'd like to tell me, Miss. Honda?"

Tohru shook her head after a short pause, inconclusively, letting the fading and disintegrating old yellow ribbon in her hair bat at her shoulders. She then spoke:

"Well…yes, but it's nothing important and I wouldn't want to worry you with anything…it's ok."

There was no point in a reaction.

"Ah!" she suddenly cried, "I have to go! I'm sorry, Mr. Hatori, I hope I didn't disturb you…"

"No, not at all…thank you for the drink…"

"Goodbye!" She cheerfully waved from the door leading outside and turned.

That façade turned away again…

Such a façade…she said it was unimportant, but…it may have sounded like something small on the surface but…what about what's inside? It was only something she wanted to tell me, but…it could have been very, very important indeed…no matter how much she denied it…

By the time Hatori turned back to the door, she had gone. Only the ongoing breeze accompanied his and the weakened Kana's presence.

Kyo Sohma watched in disapproval whilst Tohru clattered through the gate, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. He was already in enough of a bad mood, having been forced to drive this 'forbidden vehicle' away from the murky depths of Shigure's garage, which was very humiliating.

Tohru clumsily wrenched open the passenger-side door and stumbled into the seat, brushing strands of hair out of her now rather rosy face. After an apologetic glance towards the cat zodiac member, she looked into her lap and fiddled with the threads that had disintegrated away from her ribbon and now lay there.

"Are you finished?" he asked in his sharp, careless tone, still drumming his fingers again.

She looked into his face again. "Uh, yes...I'm sorry I took so long...something happened to one of Hatori's possessions."

Kyo shook his head, revving up the engine. "You shouldn't...worry about other people's little things, ya know. They're not really that important, especially if they're only little."

Tohru didn't reply, only watched the main house shrink away into the distance whilst the car cruised along. Kyo desperately kept his head as low as possible, almost sinking out of view, which was what he apparently intended to do. The last thing he wanted was for people outside to stop and stare at the prank present that Yuki had given to him, thinking their thoughts of, 'oh look, that bright orange automobile matches its driver's hair'. The passenger, however, didn't seem too bothered about it, only watched Kyo's bright red face sink lower and lower.

"Did you tell Hatori? Talk to him about it?" Kyo riskily sat up straight to watch the road properly, just in time to narrowly miss a streak of fur dashing out of the way that turned out to be a terrified cat. "He wouldn't mind hearing you out, by the way."

"Well, I didn't want to worry him, and in the end..."

"You didn't tell him." Kyo sighed, partially because what he had just heard, partially from relief, having just avoided the would-be ironic slaughter of a member of his 'own species'. "That's ok..."

That is so like her...she has always done it...dummy...

No matter how much I tell her that it's ok to be selfish once in a while, she has always, always put other people's needs before hers...even other people's silly little items.

"You didn't even tell him where you were going, did you? And it is important, you know it is..."

Tohru gazed out of the window, watching their destination zooming in on them. Only then did her heart clench, nervousness needling her at last. But it was alright...whatever happened today, whatever the results; it would still be the same with the exact same philosophy.

"Love and life..." she mumbled, absent-mindedly.

"Wha'?" Kyo blurted at her, again, rather carelessly. He steered the car roughly through the gates and began to weave his way through the array of parked vehicles.

"I was just daydreaming again!" she giggled joyously as usual, making Kyo's heart sink.

Ain't she worried?

Well...I'm sure she'll come out fine, it all looks so positive because she looks so positive. Knowing Tohru...

But...that façade...

"Come on..." Kyo swung the door open, sweeping away his thoughts. "I'll take you in."

The smile flickered over her face again as she, too, got out and they wandered towards the building nearby. Kyo threw uneasy looks back towards his car that stood out with an almost radioactive glow against the others. Luckily, the frosted glass that the automatic doors were made of hid it from view and he turned his attention to the large interior area. Tohru waited, gluing her line of sight to a professional photograph of a tree which was blossoming in pulchritude and fiddling with her fraying hair accessory whilst Kyo dealt with the receptionist.

"Yes, Miss. Tohru Honda. We have somebody who she is going to see, I'll call her down." After speaking these words, the young girl sitting behind the desk tapped an extension number into a convenient phone. Kyo walked over again and snapped his fingers in front of Tohru's face.

"Hey..." he said, after she looked away from the photograph, "You'll be ok now, right? There's a person coming down to see you, she'll..."

"Ah, ok! Don't worry!" she smiled again, an instinctive action, "Thank you!"

"That's alright..." he looked uncomfortably at his sneakers and dug his hands into his tatty jacket. "It may sound strange, but...good luck."

The expression on the young woman's face wavered slightly – for a second Kyo's heartbeat failed in the worry that her smile would too – but she regained it, the smile itself whispering the words 'thank you'.

'I'm so happy', 'thank you so much'...it's always the same...always the same...time after time...

Kyo gave her a brief pat on the shoulder and, turning from the plastered but genuine grin on Tohru's face, left through the doors and strode towards his embarrassingly neon-orange automobile.

Genuine...it's always genuine...but it's sometimes a façade.

That doesn't make sense...does it? A genuine façade...perhaps it does work for Tohru Honda.

I'll never really know, but...please, please let everything be ok in the end...everything has to be ok...forever, not just temporarily...

He slammed the door of the car.

(AN:) This is my first (so far) successfully written Fruits Basket fanfic. I don't tend to use Japanese titles or little bits of the language etc. simply because I'm not confident with them. XP I hope it doesn't bother anybody.

Please review!