Big thanks to faithful reviewers (my two favorite) and friends who bear faint resemblances to the card captors set (you know who you are!).  Inspiration has finally reared its ugly head once more and so, on with the story! The song that I've used is 'Sleep instead of tear drops' by Del Amitri. I generally frown upon the practice of using songs as part of stories cause it just fills up place needlessly and most of the time I end up just skimming instead of actually reading that section. Plus I like using my own music to set moods. But this song was playing on my computer as I wrote the chapter and it seemed to be so very apt. I'll try not to use too many lines. Let me know if this experiment works out.

   Chapter 7

   Miaka bolted upright in bed as she felt a surge of energy shoot through her. Being the Suzaku no miko meant that she was joined irrevocably to the world of the four gods as well as her remaining seishi. She felt the bond between them all the time and she was sure that they felt it too – the strange shimmering threads in their subconscious that connected them all. How else could Taka have been drawn to her as forcefully as he had? The power of their love was involved, no doubt, but she also remembered how the air around them had shimmered red for an instant when they had first touched. She had trusted her senses then and understood that she was receiving a gift of unprecedented value from Suzaku. She laid her faith in those same instincts now. And they told her that something was definitely wrong. She shoved her long wavy hair out of the way before scanning the room with her large brown eyes.  It still looked clean with nothing out of place. A chair stood by her bed, angled such that her hand had been resting upon it when she had woken. "Taka", she thought, "he was here just a while ago. I wonder…"

   Then she felt the strong current of red energy that had disturbed her again. It was coming from the attic. "The book!" she screamed. "Keisuke! Something's wrong with the book!" Shoving off the blankets that confined her to the bed, she raced towards the door, ignoring muscles that were screaming from days of disuse. Her hand closed around the doorknob and she wrenched the door open just as Keisuke pushed on it, having raced up the stairs at her shout. The two of them slammed into each other and ended up collapsing onto the floor with Miaka slamming her head rather hard on the floor. Even through the daze of pain she could hear the faint calling of the book and it's rapid pulsing energy. The book was calling out almost as if it were under an attack of some sort and its short, frantic jabs of energy were leaving her feeling light headed and slightly nauseous. "Oh my god Miaka! I'm really sorry. Are you all right? Why did you yell? Where's Taka?" yelped out Keisuke. He scanned the room quickly for any signs of his sister's boyfriend. Taka was very protective of Miaka and Keisuke didn't think his status as her older brother would provide him with much protection if he somehow hurt Miaka.

   "Keisuke, help me up! Something's wrong with the book! It's almost as if it's being torn apart…" Miaka managed to gasp out. Keisuke finally recovered enough of his senses to help her to her feet and then the two siblings raced towards the attic. Thoughts chased through both of their heads as to what they might face. Miaka tried to concentrate on calming her breathing and heartbeat so that, if she needed to fight, she would be ready. Keisuke concentrated on the various ways in which he could drag Miaka out of danger and still save the book. "What use is Taka if he's never around when you need him?", he mumbled to himself, panting slightly. The two of them pounded up the stairs in almost one motion, the thick carpeting that covered the stairs muffling the sound of their feet. Keisuke hauled himself onto the stairway banister and pulled himself over it instead of going around it. They ran towards the door of the attic and paused before throwing the door open. Neither of them was prepared for the sight that greeted their eyes…

   Taka was kneeling on the ground with his head in his hands. His shoulders shook with the force of his emotion and they could hear an occasional rasping sob. Keisuke looked at Miaka uncertainly, unsure of what to do. He had been prepared to fight some sort of horrible monster or defend the book against some sort of evil. But Taka wasn't evil nor was he a monster. Oni. The word flashed through his head for an instant before he shrugged it away. As both Taka and Tamahome, the Suzaku seishi had never shown himself to be anything less than a decent honorable man, warm and caring towards all. "Has the book done this to him?" Keisuke wondered silently. His eyes searched the attic for the book and found it tossed in the corner of the room, with an old knife lying close to it. It appeared that Taka had read something in the book and then tried to destroy it with one of the stored knives from the unused sets that were kept in the attic. The book still appeared to be pulsing with energy, unharmed from its ordeal. Keisuke looked at his sister to see how she was dealing with the sight before them.

   Miaka was leaning against the doorframe, looking shell-shocked. Her wide, pain filled eyes were fixed upon Taka's still heaving shoulders and her hand was pressed tightly against her mouth. Keisuke put his hand on her shoulder in a bid to comfort her but was shrugged off as she moved jerkily forward towards the man kneeling in the corner of the floor. She whispered his name as she knelt beside him and placed her arms around his shoulders. He jerked at her first touch and seemed to be on the verge of throwing her off himself. But Miaka held on, her mouth settling in a familiar line of determination, resolve darkening her eyes. Keisuke had seen that look many a time before. It was the look that Miaka had worn when she had made up her mind to go back into the book for Yui, the look that she had worn when she had gone up against her mother and taken the entrance exam for a school other than Jonan Academy, the look she wore whenever her stubbornness came into play. It was the look that said that she would not give up, that she would fight – to the end if necessary… and she would win. He backed out of the room slowly, wanting to give them privacy. Whatever plagued his sister's lover, he was sure that she could handle it.

   Miaka heard the door shut softly. She shut her eyes for a second, silently thanking Keisuke for his understanding. She shifted around such that she was kneeling in front of Taka, almost in his lap. She needed to see his eyes. Everything would be all right if she could just see his eyes. She laid her hands on his wrists and tugged gently while softly whispering soothing words. She had no idea what she was murmuring but it seemed to be working as Taka let her pull his hands away from his face. His beautiful gray eyes looked into hers, filled with tears and misery. He choked back his sobs and laid his head in the curve of her neck. She put her arms around his shoulders and hugged him to her while her own eyes filled with tears. She could feel the wetness from his eyes trickling into the collar of the shirt that she had on. Her own tears overflowed and raced down her cheeks. She had never seen that much anguish in his eyes before - like he was holding on to the pain of the world and it had seeped into him instead. She tried to make soothing noises and soothe him with lines like "everything's going to be alright".

Cry… cry out your eyes forever,

It won't go away,

I, I'm just a dumb observer,

It's so stupid what I say.

   "They're all dead! My fault… all dead….", he whimpered into her neck. His shoulders shook once more. Miaka shut her eyes in pain. So many were dead now. Which ones was he referring to? She had been unable to bring herself to read the book after the final summoning because she couldn't bear to remember the number of people who had sacrificed themselves for her. She liked to remember them as happy, basking in the sun and not dead or torn. She didn't want to read the book and find out the ways in which she could have saved them, if she had been faster… smarter…. She swallowed her own pain. This wasn't the time for her to collapse as well. Taka needed her to be strong. She moved so that she could place small comforting kisses along his face and hold him closer. He flinched at each kiss almost as if it burned him, as if the human contact had burned him.

You know my holding you won't change anything,

I can't stop this whole charade continuing,

As each consoling kiss from me remains on your face like a stain.

  "It's going to be okay. It'll be okay. You won't think so now, but it'll get better soon and it won't hurt as much. You'll be able to remember them without the pain. Then it won't make you cry anymore", she murmured into his ear. They were all lies of course. The pain never totally went away. She still woke up in the middle of the night sobbing, replaying deaths in her head as she felt the loss of that special bond, felt it slip away again. Nuriko… Chiriko… Mitsukake…Hotohori …But Taka didn't need to hear that right now. She needed to lie to him so that maybe, just maybe, he'd feel better. Then when he felt stronger then he'd be able to deal with it again, properly. On the other hand maybe it would be better that he cry it all out now. "Its okay to cry. You can cry all you want. No one will stop you here.", she whispered, unconsciously repeating words said long ago by the Seiryu no miko. "I can't bring them back but I'm still here. I'll always be here."

So cry… cry out those tears

And let them succumb to gravity.

And try… try as I might

I'll never fill that vacancy.

    And he held on to her and tried to believe her. He knew her lies for what they were but that could be dealt with later. He needed to believe right now and she was so warm and close. He could hold on to her. He let her help him stand and stood still while she gently wiped the tears from his eyes. He was too shattered to notice the tears still streaking down her face. She took his hand again and smiled into his eyes but he could see the sadness and concern fill those deep brown pools as they gazed into his. It hurt to look into them and realize how he was affecting her and so he dropped his eyes to the floor. She tugged on his hand and he let her lead him back downstairs and into her bedroom. When she pushed him onto the bed, he barely noticed. She gently covered him with a blanket and climbed into bed with him, rightly assuming that he needed some sort of contact to hold onto his sanity. As he closed his eyes he could see their faces in his mind one more time – Chuwei… Gyokuran… Chunsei… Dad… Yuiren… forgive me. He heard Miaka murmuring again, trying to soothe him. He shut his eyes on the world and tried to hold back the pain. "It'll be better soon", she murmured again, "It may seem like the world is a really horrible place right now but it'll get better soon. And I'll hold on until it does. And then the tears will go away."

Like everyone else will do,

I'm gonna lie to you –

Tell you that life is cruel but someday you're gonna wake up,

With sleep instead of teardrops in your eyes.