A/N:: First off, my most deepest apologies for not having this put up, like, A HALF YEAR AGO! Life's gotten so hectic that I can't really keep up with it anymore, but you don't need to hear much about me... LET'S GET THE STORY ON THE ROAD, EH?
Chapter Four
The Fire Guardian felt the pull.
The Water Guardian looked to the sky.
The Dark Knight blinked.
The Wood Guardians glanced to each other. The one holding the glass cage felt his hands slip slightly.
The world felt cold. Empty. Like there was no-one there, just for that brief second.
"I want to go home."
The rain began to pelt against the hospital windows, and Haruhi watched them with sightless eyes.
It was too quiet in here. She wrapped her hands around her legs, and watched the rain fall. She felt a shiver.
Tamaki had disconnected the heart monitor, she knew. He'd pulled the patches off his skin when he'd come to a few minutes ago. No-one had come in. It felt like everyone had forgotten him, and no-one cared. He hadn't said a word, and she didn't try to either.
She knew he'd made up his mind.
But she didn't want that, did she?
"I'm fine, on the outside at least. But on the inside, everything's all messed up."
She was bleeding. Her heart was pounding with the pain of it. Her eyes told anyone who looked closely she wasn't happy. She didn't understand the colour red: everything was painted gold and silver.
Now, she gazed at the boy with sunlight for hair and alabaster for skin. He was sleeping fitfully, unable to rest.
And something made her shiver again. She wanted, more than anything in all the world, to make him feel better.
She wanted to make him happy, just like all those times she desparately wished to make her mother happy, to please her father, to make everyone happy and safe and well and comfortable. She felt her breath hitch, then grasped her hair in her hands.
She wanted peace.
She wanted endlessness. She wanted a glass capsule.
She wanted goodbye.
"It's stopped glowing," Kaoru murmured as he walked the streets in the wet and puddled rain. He'd pulled his hood up a half hour ago, but it was useless : he was soaked through and freezing cold. For some reason though, he couldn't feel it.
Hikaru stopped walking and watched the once-white gold heart in it's little glass cage tucked safely in his brother's hands. His hair slicked over his eyes. He could barely see a thing. Watching Tamaki's heart slow down made his pound faster. He closed his mouth, and looked to his brother.
If he understood what this meant, then they could already be too late.
"The boss isn't human, is he?" Hikaru whispered, as if it was beginning to dawn on him. Kyoya was right.
"Of course! I want as many as we can manage in our little family! The more the merrier, right?"
"Anyone that acts like he does isn't human," Kyoya spoke up from behind them. His glasses were fogged up, but he didn't complain. "He isn't human, at all. But he's ours. And that's all that really matters. He needs us, just as much as we need him. We can't let him walk away as easily as this, no matter what he thinks."
Kaoru sighed, and squeezed the glass box that held the most beautiful heart in all the world. "I want to find him. I want our family back. I want us to be together, for as long as we live. We are a family, and he's not allowed to leave us, not without saying why."
Something clicked, loud and sure. It sounded like a lock opening. It made the three of them peer closer at the fading heartbeat. Something was glowing from the inside of it, glittering like the surface of water on a sunny day. It was warm, but not too hot. It was faint, but it was still there.
It spoke to the three of them. It was telling them where to go.
It was the Light Guardian's final wish.
They began to walk in the misty rain, drawn to where they knew they were Fated to be: by the Light Guardian's side. Forevermore.
It spoke to Takashi and Mitsukuni from where they sat in the hospital.
Takashi breathed, and Mitsukuni looked up to the Fire Guardian, frowning slightly. They both knew what it was.
"He doesn't even know me," Mitsukuni whispered. He grabbed his brother's elbow. "Why would anyone want to be my friend?"
"He's leading us home," Takashi murmured back, his dark eyes trembling slightly. There was no more Fire now. It was all... ash. He wasn't angry, not anymore. He was... at peace.
He knew what this really meant. They both did.
"He's calling us back to where we belong. And we aren't the only ones."
He could feel them all. Wood, Darkness, Water, and Fire... All coming home to the Light, where they began, where they would end, if need be.
He got up, and started walking. He could feel it pulling him along- a string on the end of a lifelong journey. They were all being brought to him. Everyone was coming home.
Finally.
"It's a path," Kaoru muttered. They watched the Light as it filtered upon the cement pavement in front of them. At a bend in the road, they began to walk, and followed the Light as it led them home.
Balls of Light communed the air in front of them. The same balls of Light the little Light Guardian had used to draw his mother back to the reality she suffered in.
Maybe the Light Guardian was dreaming of them. Nobody knew.
He thought he saw them walking from each direction. He only remembered smiling.
They hadn't forgotten him.
"You cant always be alone, you know. That's not possible."
She let herself out of the bed. He was still sleeping. His breath was becoming harder to hear. It was fading away.
"You cant always be alone, you know. That's not possible."
She put her shaking hands to his forehead, feeling the fever, the heat. She closed her eyes, and sat into the chair by the bedside that hadn't been sat in the whole night and day he was here. There was a spark, a connection, and then there was a silent plea, made by her voice, and whispered by his fearful mind.
"Please, don't go. I don't want to be left alone. Not by you. Not by anyone."
There was something different about this boy. He wasn't... normal. He was different. Just like she was.
Her fingers weaved through his hair, and she felt a pull. Magic, she always imagined it was, but in reality, it was porbably much more darker than that.
She thought it could be love.
Or maybe it was a Curse.
Light blinded her closed lids, and she felt Tamaki grab her wrist, pulling her down to the bed. She followed, unable to keep herself away from him. Her heart thudded dully in her chest, and she fell into the Light.
She fell into sleep, and her dreams were of the sad-smiling boy who said, "Nobody cares. And it's all my fault."
That's not true. I care. I care. So, please, please, come back. For me. Please.
Tamaki awoke to find the girl asleep on his chest, her hands cold on his neck.
"You can't always feel this estranged. There are people out there, they do care for you. You just can't see it."
"How can you tell for sure? I could never see it, and I usually see everything- every frown, every crease of worry, all the pain and sadness. I'm pretty sure I'd be able to find happiness there too."
"But what if you've only ever been brought up to see pain and sadness? Would you know what happiness felt like if it hit you in the face?"
Tamaki blinked, as if a light had flickered on in his mind. He watched Haruhi for a second, then grinned.
"You know what? You're probably right."
She didn't see the grimace of pain on his face when she blinked. It was fever-quick.
Outside it began to snow. The rain had melted away. It was a Gift, to those who knew who it was from.
"The hospital? Why the hospital? He isn't... hurt, is he?" Kaoru whispered worriedly. No-one uttered a word. They stared at the bleak-white washed walls that ungracefully complimented the sudden cool weather, the white snowdrops that fell from the grey heavens. Kyoya felt something tick in his head, a clog he had long since forgotten since he had met Tamaki Suoh:
He'd completely ignored his family's business. He actually didn't care about it anymore.
How did Tamaki Suoh do that?
All his life he had wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. He'd driven himself to the point of insanity just to find a place on his father's mantel. Now, now that the Dark Knight had met and cared for the Light Guardian, now... Now he didn't want anything to do with it. His older brothers could take whatever they wished of the medical profession.
If Tamaki Suoh was safe, and their uncoordinated family was together, then he didn't really care after all.
"My name is Tamaki. Let me show you what true happiness is."
He'd done it, without a second whim to the careless air. He done it, without a second glance backward from the Dark Knight. He'd selfishly given Kyoya Ootori another way of life, and Kyoya was beginning to see that this way of life was much better than his own.
He wanted to have more fun. He wanted his life the way the Light Guardian had handed it to him.
"He's a bloody idiot," Kyoya whispered, staring at the hospital. Kaoru and Hikaru looked to each other, then smiled softly.
"Yeah, but he's our idiot," they said together.
The Light Guardian had done his job.
He'd finally molded the family they all wished they had. The Guardians of the family they'd become, the useless and Damned that they were.
They ran in through the hospital doors, and prayed it wasn't too late.
Takashi stood outside the hospital room, and watched the Light Guardian as he raised unsure hands to the girl who'd lain, crumpled, on his lap. Tamaki Suoh was staring at her, bewilderment etched on his face, blond hair falling forward as his eyes closed. The Fire Guardian was staring too, and the Water Guardian's eyes widened slightly.
"Did you see-" he whispered. The stars were still falling onto the white-tiled floor. White against gold, silver and bronze.
The Water Guardian nodded, gripping the Fire Guardian's hand with renewed fervour. The rabbit he held in his left hand seemed useless now as he'd watched someone give their life for someone else. He felt his eyes water slightly, and his chest caved.
Light Guardian's carried their Curse. His mother had been one, once upon a time. The Water Guardian remembered the story of the blonde-haired woman who fell for the Water Guardian. When he was on the brink of death, she brought him back to life. Because of her love for him.
It was a Curse, to love someone else. Light Guardian's carried it to their grave.
A girl just gave her life to save the boy with the golden heart. He gritted his teeth, and let go of Takashi's hand, feeling himself be drawn forward, into the hospital room to where she lay. He couldn't hear a word of what Tamaki-chan was saying as he shook the girl's slight form. Her pink nightgown covered her pale skin, her near-white face, and Honey raised his hands just in time to feel the rabbit he'd held ever since before fall to the floor.
Water slicked the air, and electricity lighted the room. He felt his hair tickle his face, and he wondered faintly if any human would see him from beyond the doors. He didn't care. They'd think they imagined it, of course.
Because magic didn't really exist, did it? At least, not this kind of magic.
And Water could speak to those not too far gone.
His father had, when his mother had passed away. Mitsukuni was no more than five years old. He'd watched through the crack in the screen door.
Water flowed, like the spirits did. His father had shown him.
And he hadn't used this ancient power since... before.
Light always brought out what mattered most, in the end. And Water always made sure to capture it, and hold dear to whatever it was.
The nurse wouldn't let them through the doors of ICU. They were standing on one side, and they knew Tamaki Suoh was standing on the other.
"I'm afraid we cannot let anyone through, not unless they're family," she was saying, her eyes flashing with sadness.
Kaoru gripped the glass orb tighter, and Hikaru wanted to punch the wall. Kyoya felt something tickle the edge of his mind, and he blinked.
"Someone is using magic," he muttered, before he took his hands out of his pockets. It wasn't Tamaki, no, someone else. He couldn't tell who it was, but he would become very well acquainted with him soon enough.
Kaoru and Hikaru looked to him just as the nurse furrowed her eyebrows. She gripped her clipboard tighter. He flashed a smile, dark, tempting.
He never believed magic existed. Darkness did, as did Light. Without one, you couldn't live, without the other, you knew not how to breathe. But this... this was ancient, old and faded in sepia ink. His father once muttered something along the lines of those who could bring back the dead. Lights, he said, brought them back. He could feel it in his veins.
The Gates where the spirits walked, were being opened backways.
And Tamaki was so close.
He stepped closer to the nurse, and convinced her to let them through these Gates.
They found the Water Guardian, the Fire Guardian, standing over the two Light Guardians. The one Kyoya was concerned over, was the one who was still living, still breathing.
The other wasn't moving.
The Light Guardian's heart broke at the sight of the slight girl in his arms. He shook her, but she wouldn't wake.
He looked up and saw people standing there, five of them. He knew them: they were his friends, they were his family, and he loved them dearly-
"You cant always be alone, you know. That's not possible."
But she was- she wasn't- here. And he wanted her to be here.
He wanted her.
He couldn't see a thing, not properly. He couldn't breathe, not properly. He couldn't hear, not properly.
His eyes blurred into shadows and light, his fingers shook uncontrollably, and he opened his mouth, to say her name, but all that came out was a shallow croak. He winced: it still hurt. The bandages were tight, but he didn't care.
He wanted her.
He needed her. He couldn't live without her-
"Wh-Why are you crying? Did I say something wrong? I'm sorry, really. I didn't mean to make you cry-"
"You shouldn't talk. It's bad for your throat-"
"I'm fine, on the outside at least. But on the inside, everything's all messed up."
No. No. Nothing was messed up. She was fine. She was made of Light. That was all. Let her come home, let her come back, please-
PLEASE!
He could feel the tears prick his skin, drop down to his hands, glide onto her nightgown. He couldn't dare look at her face as he held her, so he laid her head against his shoulder. She was still, like she was sleeping, but even he knew that was too good to be true.
She was gone. She wasn't coming back. She'd used everything up to save him: she'd brought him back.
And he wanted her.
"Haruhi," he whispered into her hair, "Haruhi."
He closed his eyes, and felt himself warm. Her body was still warm. Maybe there was still a part of her, lying somewhere deep inside. He wanted to believe that. He desparately wanted to believe that. She was like him: he couldn't leave anyone behind, no matter how badly he wanted to.
Someone was trying to bring her back, but he knew it would be futile. The Water Guardian hadn't done this in years. Ancient magic required practise, and a lot more magic, than what this Water Guardian was trying to give.
He imagined balls of Light, and placed them delicately into her mind. Balls of Light to guide her home. Just like Mother.
He was of Light. He'd always known that.
He was of Light, and it glowed like a sphere in the room, pushing it's boundaries, and escaping through the cracks of his eyelids. His body glowed like a beacon, and he imagined he was calling her home, a candlelight in the dark of night placed on a windowsill as her guide. Come home. Come home.
I love you, Haruhi.
He heard her voice. "Tamaki-?"
And then everything disappeared.
And there was no more pain.