Alright, for some reason, this is the only chapter FFN will let me edit. Sorry for breaking the mood, but I feel I have to put in this note - PLEASE stop sending me reviews that say that this isn't accurate. I know it isn't. I put in the summary that it's an AU. I'm well aware that Sakura and Syaoran didn't die. The thing is, I wrote this quite a while before that was revealed. So please, if you review, make it a real review, not a know-it-all statement of the obvious.
Alright, enough of that. Enjoy the angst.
"It's happening now," she whispered as the car lurched forwards. Her husband, who was driving, glanced at her, and grabbed her hand to comfort her. They shared a sad smile for a fraction of a second, knowing there was nothing they could do to stop fate, but as the other car came screeching towards them, they both dove in unison towards their son in the back seat, shielding him with their bodies as the walls crumpled and the windshield exploded into shards of glass.
For an instant, the world as all noise and light as the car spun on the wet road. The rain was refracting the stoplights of the intersection, the headlamps of the cars around them, and the ambient light of the bright city into a blaze of color all around them. The brakes were screeching, the horns of the other cars were blaring, a scream issued from within the car itself, and she wondered dimly if the sound was coming from her husband, her son, or her own throat.
Then there was silence. She heard nothing more than her own heartbeat in her ears, and saw only darkness.
After a moment, she opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was a blur of light, and then her son, who was clutched unconscious in her arms. His glasses were broken, he had a large bump on his head, and he was covered in blood, but she could feel his heartbeat against her arms. She turned her head, painfully, to face her husband. His glasses were broken, too, as he lay draped across his seatbelt, twisted in the seat to try and cover her and their son with his body. But the broken glasses had left shards in his eyes, and his neck was twisted too far on his neck. Those bloody eyes were shut, and his every muscle was completely relaxed, because he had already died. She was dimly happy that he had died first, instantly, because she knew it would have hurt him even more to see her bleed to death.
After all, it was her own blood that painted her son's face, and the twisted piece of metal that poked through both sides of her chest implied that she didn't have much time left.
Between that instant and her awakening in an ambulance, she dreamed.
She saw the past first.
In the past, she saw a glimpse of her mother's smile, and then her father smiling back at a photograph. She saw herself clutching the back of her twelve-year-old brother's bicycle as he pulled her along on her new roller blades, a smiling girl who offered her a strange outfit and pulled a video camera from nowhere. She saw a tiny lion climb out of a book, a girl who looked just like her mimicking her every move, a black-haired girl in Chinese robes fighting another girl who seemed to glow blue, a boy with smiling closed eyes, getting dragged away by his curly haired girlfriend. She saw a winged man clutching her older brother in protection, a black haired boy with glasses smiling in the darkness with his butterfly-winged guardians, and an older bespectacled boy laughing merrily as he threw her a piece of candy.
In the past, she saw a boy in elementary uniform grabbing her arm in anger. She saw him in green robes, casting lightning from his sword. She saw him blush when she approached him, and felt his embrace when she collapsed from exhaustion. She saw him appear, too weak to stand properly, over her shoulder to help her grasp her staff and give her his power. She stood awkwardly at the airport, but saw him smile and hand her a teddy bear, far better quality than any she could have made. She saw his eyes widen in shock as she jumped into his arms from across a clock tower. She saw him dressed in Chinese wedding robes through her veil, and saw him grin as she leaned in to kiss him.
In the past, she saw her first son in her arms, and heard herself whisper, "He looks just like you." She saw the sadness and confusion as she hugged the preteen goodbye, his father's sword clutched in his fist, looking so much like the boy she had fallen in love with. She had no wish, so she didn't see the building, but she saw him disappear as he entered what looked like an empty lot.
In the past, she saw her second son, born at the same time as her first, but in a different timeline, a tiny creature with black hair instead of brown. She saw what looked like a stranger where her husband should have been, with black hair and glasses to match their new son, and saw him scowl when she giggled, "You look like Eriol."
She saw their second son grow, and saw herself give the lion her staff, to give to the witch as payment for her first son.
Next, she saw the future.
She saw a funeral – two graves side by side, and her friends and coworkers surrounded them. She saw the funeral end, and saw her brother, her guardians, and her closest friends, all of whom hadn't seen her since either son was born.
She saw her second son approach the witch, but didn't hear what he wished for. She saw him come again, and he didn't know where he was, but she smiled to herself when she saw him dressed in an apron, cooking the same dishes her husband had made for him. She saw a boy who hid his emotions but loved her son, and a girl who loved them both and smiled. She saw a little girl too afraid to smile, balloons, foxes, monsters, spirits, and through it all, her smiling son, his eyes mismatched as the witch and his friends smiled back.
She saw what could have been her own past again, but she had never lived in a desert, her brother had never worn a crown, and her son was taller, thinner, and filled with more sadness than his father had been at that age. She saw him live out his childhood twice, no, three times, and saw him rip his eye out to save the girl he loved. She saw a dark man who scowled and a light man who smiled, and knew their appearances reflected the opposite of their souls, and saw them all grow into a family. She saw two fat rabbit-like creatures who sighed for each other across dimensions, and could only watch as her son fought himself, the blood of the smiling man still on one of their lips.
But through the pain of one son and the joy of the other, she saw at the end –
She awoke briefly to a siren blaring, and saw the white roof of the ambulance. A doctor was busily attaching things to her and taking things away, doing everything possible to save her life. She turned her head and saw her son, still unconscious, but alive, and her other son lived on as well. She reached out with a trembling hand and touched his arm lightly.
"You will be alright," she whispered, "Definitely."
As she fell asleep for the last time, she saw her mother and father waiting, and the mad sorcerer who had given her so much to love in her life, and the man she loved, somehow appearing in both forms at once, the father of both her sons.
And as he wrapped his arms around her, they watched their son ride away in the ambulance, and they saw their son asleep in a glass container, and they saw their son twice, playing with the girl he loved under the desert sun, and she whispered to all of them, "Zettai daijoubu."