Power Struggles:

The Dream Seers

Sakura carefully aligns her thoughts to a certain landscape and person as she falls asleep.

It's like travelling with Mokona, and yet not like it at all; it's also like standing in the cleansing cavern and listening to the voices that flow through the air: all the priestesses that have gone before whispering around her. It's similar to the feel of Syaoran's magic as it wraps protectively around her again, and again, and again.

She opens her eyes to see a large, blooming sakura tree. Passing by it, she smiles faintly in fond remembrance. Just as she approaches the low porch, the shouji slides open.

Watanuki smiles at her, a small tray balanced on his left hand.

"It's been a while, Sakura-chan."

She smiles brightly at him.

"I followed your instructions," she tells him needlessly. "Thank you for sending them with Syaoran."

The shop keeper smiles again at the mention of his other self, and sets down the tray on the porch. He offers her a hand up, and she steps onto the porch beside him, now able to see all of the yard beyond, and the moon above the tall, tall buildings that surrounded them.

"How are Syaoran, and Fai; Kurogane and Mokona?" he asked. "It's been several weeks since they stopped by."

She kneels carefully, moving layers of cloth behind her. This time her dream-self wears the layered robes of her coronation as Heir, instead of the flowing dress from before. She takes a moment to wonder why this has changed. Watanuki sits at the edge of the porch, his own silk robes spreading out around him with a soft shushing sound.

"They're doing well. But I heard that you weren't."

Her eyes rebuke him.

Watanuki chuckles. "Is that the reason for your visit?"

She nods once, face stern.

"Syaoran was upset."

Watanuki's eyes widen a bit. His other self had hidden that from him during their visit; he had thought he had been recovered enough by then to hide his slight infirmary. But the four were all becoming more perceptive and powerful in their own ways, and they had reasons to watch him closer than they had been able to in the past.

"I'm all right now," he assures the princess. "Doumeki and Kohane-chan always lecture me when things happen."

Sakura's face relaxes. "Good. Hopefully I can help too, now that we can meet again."

Watanuki makes a face, and they both laugh.

"I made some fruit-filled buns earlier today. Please try some."

Sakura's eyes glow with excitement.

"Thank you. Fai and Mokona always talk about your food when they come, but they never think to bring anything with them!" Her light laugh fills the air immediately after her complaint. "Or maybe they just pretend to forget, and finish it off before they come to Clow Country."

Watanuki chuckles too. "That sounds like something Mokona would do. But I never thought to send food with them. I'm sorry."

Sakura shakes her head. "You don't have to. Now I get to enjoy it and say thank you in person."

She picks up a lightly browned bun and takes a generous bite. Watanuki smiles softly as she chews with her eyes closed, and leans back to stare at the dark sky of their dream.

"If we have time, I'll show you around the shop," he says impulsively, and she swallows and looks at him, surprised.

"The last time you were here you were asleep - and even that wasn't exactly you," he explains. "Not many people come here," he adds, more subdued.

Her face seems to gain a tinge of sadness, but she nods in understanding.

"I'd love to see your home," she murmurs, and reaches to cover his hand with her own. "Then I won't be a guest anymore, but a visitor."

Watanuki blinks at her choice of words, and then his smile spreads slowly, all the way to the back of his eyes.

"Yes. You're always welcome."

Watanuki wakes suddenly, his hands clutching at white sheets, as though to hang on to whatever he had seen just moments ago.

He sits up, one hand coming to cradle his face.

With a start, his hand jerks away, searching the bed beside him.

"Maru? Moro?" Neither girl responds, and he realizes: it is another dream.

With a nearly silent sigh he slides out of bed and pulls on the silvery gray kimono that lays at the bottom of the bed, belting it loosely as he walks through the shop towards the veranda. He isn't sure who his visitor is; it isn't Haruka-san, or Sakura-chan, yet the feel of their magic is familiar.

His step falters, and his heart begins beating at double speed.

He clutches at the cloth above his heart, instantly denying the hope that has sprung to life. It isn't her, either, unless she has truly changed - and he can't imagine her changing so much.

With a slower step, he gains the largest room in the shop, which opens out to the porch.

With a trembling hand he slides open the shouji, as he has done countless times before.

Her back is to him, and at first he can almost sustain hope. But then she spins around to face him, sensing his presence, and his hope retreats to the small space hidden behind his breastbone.

"Sakura...chan?"

The familiar face smiles - no, beams - at him.

"You can call me that, if you like. And you're Watanuki Kimihiro-san."

Her green eyes are deep and serene, like a gazing pool that Watanuki knows he's once seen, yet could almost swear he's never been to.

"It's a beautiful evening here," she says, tone gently wistful. "In Tomoeda, it was storming."

Watanuki reaches for one of the roof supports with an unsteady hand.

"You're Sakura," he replies, feeling slow; it reminds him of the early days with Yuuko, and he resents it, being reminded of her just as he'd shoved his hopes back into the dark. "But not Sakura-chan."

She shakes her head slowly, and steps closer. He can see now that she has several years on Sakura-hime, and her clothes are that of his world. A pale green skirt waves gently in the evening breeze around her knees, and a delicate blouse with green trim that Himawari would have liked adorns her older form.

"I'm sorry to show up unannounced, but I had a vision, and since the other me doesn't remember how to find me, I wanted to leave the message with you."

Her eyes shift; seem to reflect the pain he keeps hidden from his friends and companions.

"And I wanted to see you, too," she admits quietly. The sincerity of her words collide with his soul, soothing as they jar his perceptions about himself.

"I wanted to see the one who is so like my dear Syaoran-kun."

Without him noticing, she has drawn close enough to reach up and touch his cheek.

The purity of her magic scorches through him with just that touch, and he shudders.

Yet when she pulls her hand away, places he had forgotten were broken now hum with wholeness. Injuries he had chosen to hide and live with are no more.

"Syaoran-kun and I are going to have a baby," she whispers. "And I think that those two, too, will someday bear an heir for Clow's country."

Watanuki sucks in a deep breath, his legs suddenly unsteady again.

Those green eyes, so like the princess's yet situated in such a different face, bearing a vastly different life, turn distant.

"Because they share the memories of those others, you hope that they will someday be the people you lost. But it is precisely because they hold those memories that they cannot be your parents."

Watanuki feels as stiff as a statue, yet fragile as china, just waiting for the blow to re-shatter him. This Sakura is not the Sakura-chan he knows; this one has the power to destroy him, even after she has built him back up.

Her green eyes are nothing like Yuuko's, yet the expression in them reminds him distinctly of the witch.

For an eternity she reads his heart, not missing a thing. For a moment Watanuki longs for a missing presence.

But then she sighs, and looks away, wistful.

Watanuki looses the breath he had been holding.

"I wondered if he would be like you, you know. But you are unique, Kimihiro-kun, and perhaps not to be repeated."

There are too many things that she is implying, and Watanuki can't take them in.

"There have been a few like that. Clow-sama, Eriol-kun, Miho-sensei… your Yuuko-san."

Watanuki isn't prepared for the blow to come from this direction, and he can't take the necessary breath in. It would be his luck, to suffocate in a dream.

A warm hand cradles his face.

"It's okay; it's all right! Everything is going to be all right," she says, comforting him with the lightest of spells, and perhaps sending a jolt of magic through him, to restart his heart. "There's no telling what the future might bring. You will be all right, Kimihiro-kun."

Watanuki slides painfully to the wood of the porch as the words of her promise flow over him, and Sakura descends right along with him.

At first tentative, she puts her arms around him, and when his shoulders shake, she strengthens her hold.

In a flash they both remember a memory, no longer Watanuki's, and never Sakura's. Yet it was Sakura who had been holding him then.

Without realizing, she murmurs the same soothing words into his ear that that Sakura had spoken then, his black hair soft against her cheek, and Watanuki - the baby and the young man - relax against her.

Sakura holds him, amazed, for he has recognized her as that person, and she can't deny the inexplicable love she now feels; that she already feels for the baby inside herself.

She brushes trembling fingers through his long hair, and is almost tempted to kiss his forehead. But no, not yet, they aren't quite that close yet.

"Kimihiro-kun, I came because there is no other you. Your existence is not Syaoran-kun's, though you are tied so closely that most will never see the difference. And the Syaoran-kun of now has chosen to set aside his other memories. Kimihiro... I came because I want you to know me. You can call me anytime, and I will come," she promises, wanting with a mother's heart never to leave, already feeling guilt that she has to leave.

Watanuki's watery chuckle blows air across her neck.

"Thank you."

He can't say he instantly understands, because he doesn't. He doesn't know this Sakura, and yet he does, and her offer is beyond what he had ever expected, from her or from any of the others.

With her own laugh, she adds, "My lap probably isn't big enough for you anymore, but I will answer to 'Mommy'."

Watanuki wakes up between Maru and Moro, and doesn't need to check to know that there are tears on his cheeks, and a painful smile on his lips. He feels all of eight, and eighty years old.

But he's not alone.

A/N: This came out of a desire for Sakura-chan and Watanuki to reconnect, and then headed a whole other direction, which was the no-parents issue: Watanuki has to lose his memories of his parents, which aren't even his memories at all... and the people who had once been his 'parents' he mentored through their journey as teens! Yuuko might have been like a (dysfunctional) parent to him, but she's gone. There are at least two sets of Sakura-and-Syaorans alive out there, someone parent the boy! Ahem. End rant.