The insane musings of the authoress: This is 'Glass Roses' number ten! I hope you all enjoy it! Sorry about the cliffhanger, I hope you didn't mind waiting for this chapter!

Special thanks to: All my lovely reviewers! Especially Lilqtazn, because I have to admit that she's my favourite reviewer, and also to Lily, because she's Lily.

Disclaimer: I do not own CCS. I do, however, own the original characters in this fic, such as Ms Isabelle Chase.

Glass Roses

Chapter Ten

What Happens When: The Mystery Caller is Revealed

"I asked you a question," Tomoyo said, sounding firm and in control, but her voice was shaking, "what. The. Hell. Are. You. Doing. Here?"

Her arms were stretched out to block the person from entering her house. The figure in the doorway said nothing, instead choosing to stare at the ground in a guilty manner.

"She sent you here to get me, did she?" Tomoyo demanded, her voice now shaking in rage as she slowly began to understand. Or, at least, she thought she was understanding.

"Tomoyo-chan, it's not like that!" he exclaimed, stepping forward into her doorway.

"You're not coming in here!" Tomoyo said firmly, stepping forward as well to block his way even more.

"Tomoyo-chan, just hear me out!" he pleaded.

"I thought that when I left Tomoeda, I would never have to see you, or your little sister, again. It hurts too much!" Tomoyo cried, tears forming in her eyes.

"I don't want anything to do with any of you anymore! I left that life behind, Touya-kun! I left it behind when I walked away. And you let me leave it behind when none of you stopped me," she said bitterly.

(A.N. Ha ha, surprised? You have no idea how good it feels to tell you that were all wrong! I'm glad nobody guessed who it was, though. I wanted it to be surprising.)

"We didn't know you were leaving!" Touya cried.

"And do you know how worried we've been?" he demanded of her. Tomoyo bit her lip and looked guilty.

"Your poor mother…" Touya began, but Tomoyo angrily cut him off.

"Don't you dare bring her into this!" she hissed angrily. Touya immediately closed his mouth. Nobody messes with an angry Daidouji, especially not this one.

"I need to talk to you," Touya tried again, the pleading tone creeping into his voice again, "please. I've looked so hard for you, and I miss you so much."

Tomoyo knew that Kinomoto Touya never begged anyone for anything, so he must be desperate. She chewed her lip so hard in her indecision that she could taste blood. Finally, she nodded and threw her door open.

…

Tomoyo, ever the polite hostess, had offered Touya a drink, and now they were both seated in her living-room, sipping tea nervously. Finally Touya felt he could take the silence no more.

"Why didn't you come to us? To Sakura, my father and I? We would have looked after you…" Touya said, sounding as if he just couldn't understand her actions. Tomoyo smiled sadly.

"You really don't get it, do you? It was memories that drove me from Tomoeda. My mother's memories of Nadeshiko-san and my memories of Sakura-chan. It hurt, Touya-kun. Even seeing you now, it hurts. Because you look like both of them - Nadeshiko-san and Sakura-chan," she set her teacup down on the coffee table.

"I took the coward's way out, I know. I'll always be the first to admit that. But, even having to live with the knowledge that I am a coward, isn't it better than living there and pretending to smile under the weight of my memories?"

"Do you want to forget?" Touya asked her. Tomoyo smiled again, but it was a soft, and in a strange way almost wondering, smile.

"No," she said quietly, so quietly that Touya could almost not hear her, "I don't. I have precious memories, too. Someday I'll be able to go back, and look at all of you, and it won't hurt anymore. And every memory of all of you that I carry, they will all be precious. And I'll treasure them forever. Just as I treasure all of you."

She smiled at him before taking a sip of her tea. Touya raked his hand backwards and forwards through his dark hair, as if he couldn't decide whether or not to voice aloud the next part.

"Sakura misses you," Touya said suddenly, simply, blurting the words out. Tomoyo's eyes narrowed.

"This is a sick ploy to get me back, isn't it? Bringing first my mother, then Sakura-chan up," she said, sounding suspicious. Touya shook his head, and when he spoke, his voice was weary and sad.

"Tomoyo-chan, you have become so overly wary in the little time you have been away. It's such a shame - where has my happy little cousin gone?" he asked, but then he shrugged and smiled apologetically.

"Sorry. I didn't mean that like it sounded I did," he said. Tomoyo shook her head.

"It's okay. You probably don't even know the whole story of the night I ran away, do you?" she asked, suddenly changing the subject. He said he didn't, and she proceeded to fill him in.

"So, really," she finished, "I think the things that happened that night were just a trigger. I'd been hurting for a long, long time, and my mother's actions that night just sent me over the edge."

"It makes sense," he said, "if you forget about the flower in your greenhouse and don't water it, it will wither away. Being ignored is the worst thing. I'm sorry I didn't see that you were in pain."

He was jumping so rapidly from topic to topic that Tomoyo was finding it hard to keep up, but she managed to say, "no, it's not your fault - I wouldn't let anyone see that I hurt. It was a pain I had to bear all by myself, because what right had I to burden anyone else? Eternally-videotaping, cheerful, perceptive Tomoyo-chan is there to take away other people's troubles, not add to them."

"So," she said, the look in her eyes switching from far-away and thinking to business-like, "tell me. Who sent you here? What's happening in Tomoeda?"

Touya smiled, but it was a small, rueful smile.

"You don't even call it 'home' anymore," he said.

"That's because it's not my home anymore. This place is," Tomoyo said as she took a sip of her rapidly-cooling tea.

"But that is not what we are talking about right now. Answer my questions, and I will tell you about this place," she said.

Touya took a deep breath and began.

"It was probably less than an hour after you fled that Sonomi-san came to our house. She was weeping and babbling something incoherent about 'Tomoyo leaving'. My father, Sakura and I were home at that point, and the three of us took her into our kitchen and tried to calm her down.

Eventually, she managed to say that you had run away. She told us a little about the argument you two had. We panicked. Our little Tomoyo on her own somewhere sat night, with the intention of never returning? You were angry, and in your state of mind you might come to harm. Or you could get lost, and want to come back but be unable to.

Sakura was beside herself with worry. Immediately we launched a search party. Sakura and the Gaki went together to search a particular part of Tomoeda, my father went with your mother to search another part (your mother was too worried to argue about being paired up with 'Kinomoto-sensei') and Yuki and I went to search the last part.

We visited everyone - anyone who might know where you were, anyone who might actually have you in their house. Takashi-san, Mihara-san, Yanagisawa-san, Sasaki-san and Terada-sensei had all joined the search at this point, but none of them had seen you, or had any idea where you might be.

We searched for ages - some of us walking far out of town, knocking on every door and giving a description of you, in the vain hope that someone might have seen you pass by. Sonomi-san kept in contact via her cel with the servants in the Daidouji Manor to see if you had come home.

Finally, hours after we had begun our search, we all met back at Daidouji Manor. None of us had found you, or found any clues as to where you might be. We were devastated, but we didn't give up.

Starting the next day, we filed a 'missing persons' report with the police and Mihara-san, Sasaki-san, Yanagisawa-san and Takashi-san began doing out posters."

He paused to smile.

"I know it sounds like we were looking for a cat or something, but we put them up everywhere. 'Have You Seen This Girl?' With a reward for any information. You are a distinctive-looking girl, Tomoyo-chan, so we hoped that someone might have seen you. And if anyone had seen you, yours wasn't a face they were likely to forget.

We were all worried as you would be a prime target for kidnapping, as you're so rich. We knew it was of utmost importance that we find you soon. Every night, at least two groups of two would go out and look, searching every house on every street, stopping every person to see if they had seen you.

Weeks passed and we still hadn't found you. We began to fear the worst - sensible and intelligent as you are, Tomoyo-chan, you were vulnerable at that moment. All someone had to would be offer you a place to sleep for the night, and…"

Touya paused to draw a deep, shuddering breath.

"Well, you might never come back to us. Or, if you did, you might not be the same person you were. We never voiced those thoughts aloud, but they were in all our heads. Sakura and Sonomi-san in particular were going out of their minds with worry. Sakura devoted every spare moment of her time to trying to do something for you. She even forgot to eat, forgot to sleep, forgot to do her homework and forgot to go to school.

Father and I actually had to make her stay home from school some days and force her to go to bed. She's lost so much weight, and she barely ever stops crying. She'll be sitting looking up phone numbers in the phone book, and after every call she makes, she'll weep a little.

She'll sit for hours looking at a photograph of you and weeping. I found her, one night, cradling in her arms a costume you made for her. The fabric had soaked right through. I asked her how long she had been sitting there. She said she didn't know exactly, but it had been about five P.M. that evening when she sat down there. When I found her it was eleven P.M.

She'd been crying non-stop for six hours."

Tomoyo herself was crying silently at this point.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Touya-kun!" she cried, and hurled herself into Touya's arms. He hugged her close, not minding that she was wetting his shirt.

"I was so selfish!" she cried.

"I only thought of myself! I didn't stop to think if I would hurt anyone else… I was so sure I was the only one in pain!"

"Don't be sorry," Touya said softly as he stroked her hair, "just come back with me, and we can go back to how it was. We can forget about it."

Tomoyo looked up at him, her violet eyes wide.

"I don't know if I can," she said.

"You have to," Touya said, his voice pleading, "or we fear Sonomi-san will die."

"What?" Tomoyo demanded sharply.

"Sonomi-san is dying, Tomoyo-chan. She's dying. I know she is. The guilt is killing her. Every time the search party returns, she looks so hopeful. And then, when we have to tell her we haven't found you, her face crumples. I've never seen her look so distraught before. She hasn't even gone to work since you left.

I think if you don't come back, she'll be dead within a few months," Touya said, his brown eyes looking unflinchingly into Tomoyo's.

"I can't leave here," Tomoyo said, hating herself for it. But she couldn't. She lived here now. She worked here. People she loved were here…

"Why?!" Touya asked, finally getting angry.

"We're your family, for Christ's sake! Your mother is dying, your best friend looks worse every day, and your friends can't get on with their lives because they think you're dead!"

Touya took a few deep breaths and calmed himself down.

"I'm sorry for yelling, Tomoyo-chan," he apologised. Tomoyo shrugged.

"It doesn't matter. It's about time somebody lost their temper with me," she said.

"But I don't understand why you can't come back. We can sell this house, and you can just move back. What could possibly tie you to this town?"

At that moment, Eriol walked into the house.

"Tomoyo-san!" he said when he reached the living room.

"The door was open so I let myself…" he began, then stopped dead when he saw Touya.

And when Tomoyo looked at him, and Touya saw her expression suddenly lift, he understood immediately what tied her to this town.

'Oh dear,' Touya thought.

…

A.N. Not an overly long chapter, but I wanted to end it there. Originally, the chapter was going to go on for longer, but I realised it was going to end up like two chapters in one, which was going to take me quite a while to finish. And since I left a cliffhanger last time, I wanted to end your misery by getting this posted and clearing up the mystery.

I bet you can't believe it was Touya, huh?! : -) My sister guessed practically everyone except him, and all you reviewers guessed lots of possibilities, but nobody even considered Touya! Well, I'm actually very glad that nobody guessed right as I wanted it to be surprising.

See you next time!

Shattered Midnight Dreams…zzz…

Because life's like that sometimes…