Author's Note: Okay I know that I said I was going to reveal the father's name in this chapter, but I changed my mind. Sorry, I promise that it is in the next chapter, Pinky Swear! And now that we are on the topic of the next chapter, the next chapter is going to be the last chapter. I know that that is going to make it a very short story but I didn't want to drag it out too long. If I get enough reviews saying that they want the story longer I might consider adding more to it, but for now that's all she wrote. Well, Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Fruits Basket or any of the characters within it, but Risika is mine.

Love Me Not

By: Priestessbaka

A Second Chance

At twelve I went upstairs to get her fromher room as she instructed. I knocked before slowly sliding open the door.

"Ready?" I asked quietly.

"Just a sec" she answered and put a box on her desk. Curiosity getting the best of me I walked inside the room and peeked inside the box. What was in it made my heart squeeze painfully. She couldn't have been serious. She couldn't have been getting rid of this. I picked up one of the hand painted figurines and turned it around in my hand. I flipped it over and saw 'Shigure' written neatly across the bottom.

I put the tiny glass dog back in its place and ran my finger across the animals until I noticed one was missing.

"Risika, there's one missing" I told her.

"I know" she said and emerged from her closet "It's this one"

She held up a tiny velvet drawstring bag, the kind that you might put a pair of earrings in if they were a gift. She opened the tiny sack and tipped it over so the contents would land safely in the palm of her hand. She was right, it was the one that was missing.

"Why isn't it here with the rest?" I asked truly confused.

She looked at me with an expression that I couldn't read and then shook her head and put the tiny figurine in the box.

"Do you really have to ask?" she sighed. I didn't answer, instead picked up the box and carried it into the hall way.

"You don't have to carry it, I can do it" I heard her say behind me, but I ignored her. I continued down to the storage closet by the steps and gently placed the box on the top shelf.

"What are you doing?"

"You might want to bring it back out later" I told her and gently shut the door.

She was quiet for a few seconds like she was mentally dissembling the entire interaction piece by piece. Her eyebrows furrowed and she shook her head.

"No. No, I want to sell it. I'm not going to bring it out later, I don't want to bring it out later" she said evenly.

But I refused to let her get to the closet. I didn't want her to make a mistake, as if I of all people knew when a mistake was being made.

"You're just a little angry from the argument we had last night. You'll get over it. You aren't selling it and that's that" I told her.

She was flustered by now, her eyes had narrowed and she was looking at me defiantly.

"Please" she stressed the word "I know what I'm doing, give me the box"

"No, you don't. Now go to your room. You're mother would have never gotten rid of something so precious to the family." I notified her.

She laughed, a bitter sound that fell heavily between us. I shifted in my spot but stood strong against the wooden door. She was looking at the spot in front of my feet, standing motionless.

"Mom's dead" she said

I jerked from the pure shock of the statement. Her words echoed in my head over and over again, each one louder than the next. Mom's dead.

We didn't move, the seconds ticked passed and we stood there not saying a word, a twelve year truth ringing clearer and louder than ever before. My eyes closed and my head lowered so my chin was almost resting against my chest. She was right, Tohru was dead, but I couldn't let go, not then not ever, I couldn't let go of my life line.

"She's dead" she said quietly "and she isn't coming back. I know that you miss her, I miss her too. But you need to stop trying to make me a replica of mom! You need to realize that you have a daughter and that she needs you just as much as you need her."

"But you look so much like your mother-"

"Stop It." she hissed "I am Risika Sohma, not Tohru. I will never be her and you need to accept that"

As she continued her voice rose and I just drew into myself more and more. It wasn't true, yes, she was my little girl, not Tohru, but she couldn't be saying this. She couldn't leave me without help, without something to save me from this abyss that I had fallen into. I had drowned her out with my incoming thoughts but was quickly brought back as her fingers curled against my chin and my head jerked up-right.

"Look at me!" she cried "Look at me…"

It was the first time since Tohru had left us that I had actually looked at my daughter. My eyes finally meeting hers and at that moment, her entire life rushed passed my eyes. The laughter of a five year old, the confusion of an eight year old, the awkward smile of a thirteen year old, the stages of growing into a woman. I had been there for all of them, but as a passerby.

She was studying me now, the father that had never been there for her and I was afraid. What if she decided that this whole interaction was a mistake, what if she realized that maybe it was too late to save me, and she would have to make her journey through life forever alone without a mother, or a father.

As I studied the eyes that I never met I recognized that emotion that I was dreading, Loss. I went to pull her hand off my chin when I heard something that I hadn't heard in quite sometime.

"Hey dad"

I froze my hand still on her wrist. She had called me a name that I hadn't heard in years and I couldn't believe it. She did want to try, she was willing to give me a second chance to reconcile. She wanted me as her father.