DM: Hey there, sorry that it's been a while. Thanks so much for your reviews, you people rock! Here is where things get serious and the blanks start getting filled in. Hopefully this will blow your mind at least a little bit.

Disclaimer: I do not own CCS.

Atlantis

Chapter Nine

Black Book

Last night was the Senior Prom. It was my last chance to tell him how I really felt. Not one of my lame-ass confessions that we would both just pretend were jokes, a real, serious confession. He went with he as his date, of courser. Not me. He would never go with me. But that is alright because he is here with me now. And he will be with me forever.

It all started out fine, and even I was having a little fun with my friends (if you could call them that). I kept my eyes on the two of them as they danced a little, talked a little, drank a little spiked punch...Nothing special. A few boys asked me to dance, but my heart was set. I could love no other.

"Now is your chance, my child…"the voice rang in my ears, louder than the dance music and the chatting teenagers. I held myself steady and set my shoulders.

I hate being schizophrenic. But that is alright, because he is with me now. And he will be with me forever. She said that now was my chance to take him to the land of dreams, to take him to my land of happiness.

I looked for him everywhere, imbued with a new resolve, but to no avail. I noticed that she was missing too. I stepped outside, a cold panic gripping my heart. The prom was in a huge warehouse by the docks. I saw them standing together on a small pier. He was getting down on one knee. I had to stop him. I had to bring him with me to the land of dreams.

Without thinking, I called out his name, but I was too late. He put the ring on her finger. Then he looked up. Then I mattered. I only mattered after he proposed. Crying, I ran down the road to a dock farther away, where I could leave this wretched earth. But, just as I got to the edge, she came and stopped me.

Pulling out my lucky knife (which I had once used to try and slit my wrists) out of my garter, I made a blind stab at her chest. It felt good to get her. For all the times my heart was shattered.

She fell back away from me, blood blossoming from between her breasts. Angry, he held her limp form and stared at me, still in shock. But, before he could yell at me and call me a murderer, the voice in my head screamed.

"Now!"

I had no idea what was happening. I saw chains, but then…Then I was here. All my possessions were here. He was here, too. And what's more, he seemed to have forgotten that I killed the girl he loved. He loved me. It had worked. I was in the land of dreams. Looking up at the "sky", I saw a school of fish swim by. I will call this place, Atlantis, like in all of those silly stories.

"No way," Sakura whispered to herself.

Amazed, She skimmed through the next few entries. They described Atlantis, and how the girl thought up new people to populate it and made her very own language. A few pages down she began to write about an intruder magician. Sakura's palms grew sweaty as she turned the pages furiously.

The book ended after "I will not let her steal him from me." There were still a bunch of blank pages to spare afterwards, indicating that it was a very recent diary. Sakura wondered who it could belong to, shaking with a mixture of fear and amazement.

Well, whoever it is, they're still writing in it, she thought, if I keep a close enough watch, maybe…

There was nothing else she could do. Hiding behind a nearby bookshelf, Sakura watched and waited.

Tonight was the night. They were going to Chez Gerard, and, unbeknownst to Tomoyo, he was going to propose. He opened the box one more time, and, as he had been doing all day, fingered the ring inside. He hoped she liked it. It was a delicate blossom of amethyst surrounded by little diamonds on a silver band. It was very different from the one he had given Sakura. He had made sure of that. Sakura's had been a gold band covered in pink diamonds. But tears no longer came to his eyes as he thought of her, now dead for several years. Thank goodness.

Eriol heard footsteps approaching from the hallway. Lost in thought about how exactly he was going to phrase his proposal, Eriol simply sank down into an armchair facing away from the door. Perhaps whoever it was would go away quite soon and leave him to his own little fantasies without much fuss.

But, lo and behold, it was none other than Tomoyo, wearing her summer uniform the top buttons unbuttoned because of the heat and humidity common in England at this time of year. She had insisted on keeping her job as his maid despite his entreaties. He hoped she would quit after they were married. Peeking over the top of his chair, Eriol noted the scar on her chest. Every time he brought it up, she changed the subject. Still clutching the ring box, Eriol stood up, slightly startling his angel.

"Oh…I thought this room was empty…" she apologized, blushing a little bit as she noted the direction of his gaze.

"Quite alright," he assured her.

Eriol walked casually up to her as she sank down into an armchair, making it very obvious as to what he was carrying. Tomoyo's eyes widened a little, and her breath caught in her throat.

"Now, my dear Tomoyo, I have a present for you," he began, smiling at her/

Tomoyo had started to smile, but as Eriol continued, the smile faded and her brow furrowed with worry at his ultimatum:

"But I will only give it to you if you tell me what that scar is from."

He pointed with the ring box at the scar on her chest. Tomoyo covered it with her hand and took a deep breath.

"But, Eriol, I-" she protested.

Eriol got down on one knee and took her hands in his own. His eyes were pleading.

"Tomoyo, I cannot give you this present if you do not trust me," he interrupted, his voice firm.

Tomoyo sighed.

"Please, Tomoyo," he begged. She had turned away from him.

Silence. More silence. Eriol felt suffocated by her silence. Then, with another deep breath, Tomoyo finally caved in.

"Eriol, could you fetch me your senior yearbook?" she asked softly, keeping her eyes on the floor. She pushed up her glasses to rub a stress headache that was now forming on her brow.

Eriol looked throughout his study and finally found it. It was a black leather-bound book from the prestigious private academy he and Sakura had attended together. He remembered being shocked that an orphan such as her had managed the tuition, but she had always had some money left from her unknown parents.

He brought it back to Tomoyo, who looked close to tears. She began flipping absently through it as he watched, sinking slowly to his knees/

"There's you," she said, pointing at Eriol's dorky picture. One could see he was handsome already, albeit a bit awkward.

More page flipping.

"There's Sakura," she indicated again. She had been so cute. Eriol had no idea where this was leading.

She continued to flip through it, finally stopping on a seemingly random page.

"Now. Who is that?" she asked.

Eriol peered curiously at a picture of a girl with short, dark hair and bright, happy eyes. The name, Tomoyo Daidouji. Eriol remembered having a crush on her. But…she was here all along?

"That's…you?" he asked, confused. The Tomoyo he knew now had long hair and glasses. The happiness was coming back, though, or at least it had been until he brought this whole thing up.

A tear leaking out, Tomoyo nodded weakly. Then she turned a few pages forward and pointed to a picture of a boy that took up an entire page. "Lest We Forget" was written across the top. Eriol recognized him as one of the two who had died his senior year.

"That was my boyfriend…" she choked out. Tears were falling freely now.

She turned the page to the other "Lest We Forget" tribute, a girl with black pigtails who Eriol also knew from the incident. The two dead students had the same last name.

"And that was his jealous cousin…" she continued.

Tomoyo closed her eyes, trying to compose herself and failing. Eriol waited patiently for her to continue.

"And on the night of the senior prom………Surely you remember? He proposed to me…and…" Tomoyo broke off, sobbing. Eriol remembered. It had been on the news.

"And…she was going to jump off the docks…But when I tried to stop her…" she stopped again.

She placed a hand on her chest. She had broken down completely now.

"And now they're gone…lost to the sea…like Sakura…" she managed to gasp out before falling back into tears. She hadn't spoken about it in so long…who knew it could still affect her this way?

"Tomoyo…" Eriol whispered, stroking her head.

Eriol would have said something comforting, but they were interrupted by a servant stepping into the room.

"Sir…Phone for you…" he said timidly.

The man had plainly realized he had interrupted something rather important, and nervously side-stepped out of the room. Eriol picked up the phone. The caller ID said "Search Party". It was the search party he had never called off. Had they found something after all this time? Tomoyo's tears slowed to a halt.

"Hello?" he asked tentatively.

The answer that came shocked Eriol to the bone. They had found something, alright…

Sakura was beginning to get a little drowsy. Not to mention hungry. She had missed both lunch and dinner waiting behind the bookshelf. She leafed through a few of the other books, but they weren't very interesting. And reading Atlantician strained her eyes. She thought about the diary continuously. There was something faintly familiar about that first entry. Sakura felt as though she had heard a similar story before.

The play! She realized suddenly.

Yes, this was the story in the play, some minor differences. But Sakura was certain she had heard it somewhere else, too. On the news? Sakura could not quite remember. It felt, like most of her memories of her surface days, like it had happened ages ago, in another life.

She wondered what Syaoran was up to. She hadn't seen him since breakfast. Sakura felt a little twinge of guilt at the thought of him looking for her.

Lost in thought, Sakura almost screamed when she heard footsteps in the library. It was almost midnight, and there were only a few candles to light the room. She saw a figure approach the corner with the diaries in it. Was this the person she had been waiting for? Her breathing quickened. The figure pulled a quill pen out of its pocket and moved into the light of a candle so it could write. It removed the black book from its place on the shelf. Sakura's eyes widened as she realized who it was.

Meiling!

DM: Well, that's it for now…Hope you liked it and I hope that it intrigued you. Turns out that our heroes' lives were more intertwined than we thought! Please, please, please review! I would love to hear everyone's reaction to this (since I know a lot of you thought the diaries were Tomoyo's). Anyway, next chapter, things may get a little weird as more secrets are revealed. Next Chapter: Truth, Part One