D'Amour

Author's Note: Just to make sure everyone's clear- Uta is the only one who is pregnant at the time the deal is made, or rather is aware that they are pregnant.

My appologies for yhr delay with Part B, but it just refused to write and it made me realise that I didn't like writing this anymore. So I stopped. But, then I realised how unfair that was to you the reader. So here I am trying my best to finish this story the best I can.

Thanks to: AmericanGirl15, Scorpinac, NeCi, TheMysticWarrior, a reviewer, heather, Rushi Star, Frosted BlossomZ, nitengale, Immortal-Blood, hellokittychic and Wolf Jade.

Bex Drake.

Smile Like There's No Tomorrow (Part B)

Five Years Later…

>>Sakura.

The five years she had requested from her aunt were up, officially a week ago. As yet nothing had happened. She was worried.

In five years she had married Syaoran and together they had begun to build and rebuild a vast empire. There was only one obstacle in the way- Uta. "Mummy!" A voice whined. She glanced up from the kitchen counter top, where she was in the process of making lunch.

"Yep?" She replied as three children trooped into the room. Two of the group had honey brown hair, the eldest of the two who was four had hazel eyes whilst the youngest who was three had dark green. The third child had black hair and dark violet eyes and she was about four and a half. All three children were muddy and the youngest had tears streaming down her face. "What's wrong sweetie?" Sakura asked the youngest kneeling down next to her.

"She fell over Mum." Explained Hiroshi as Sakura enveloped Kyoko in a hug, humming her children's favourite nursery rhyme softly. Hiroshi and Aya moved closer to Sakura, so she brought them both into the hug her eyes troubled.

"Aunty Sakura there was a strange man outside." Aya whispered. Sakura took a deep breath, feeling uneasy, and stood up her eyes flashing.

"Go to your room." She instructed moving to the cupboard and pulling out three packets of crisps, some biscuits before moving onto another and pulling out some drinks and placing them all into a bag along with some fruit. She handed the bag to her son. "I want you to go to your room and tell Lita that Mummy told you to lock the door and that no one is to come into the room unless you know them. Do you understand Hiroshi?" She asked softly. He nodded his face as determined as his father's. She bit back a smile and watched them leave the room, before she went into the garden she waited until she could hear their steps on the stairs and the sound of Lita's surprised voice and the slam of a door. Smiling grimly she reached under a set of cupboards and pulled out a gun- well, there was no sense in being stupid. Being stupid meant you died and Sakura didn't plan on doing that just yet.

As she had expected it was indeed one of Uta's henchmen waiting outside in the garden fiddling with a gun still in its holster. She smirked; the guy appeared to be nothing more than an amateur but she had been fooled in the past. Schooling her face into an impassive mask that would have rivalled her husband's she deliberately stood on a twig watching with grim satisfaction as the guy turned. "What do you want?" She enquired lazily, making no effort to discover the guy's name. Long ago she had learnt that it was stupid to know the name of someone you were going to end up killing, it only made the whole experience more personal and you wanted, no needed, to keep the killing strictly business.

"I am here on behalf of my boss." The guy replied his voice neutral. "With a message for Li Sakura."

"I am she." Sakura said coldly.

"The boss said it has begun." He said calmly before divulging some extra information that was for Sakura's ears alone then he turned to leave.

"Thanks for the message." She called, he turned around in time to see her smile coldly at him, raise her gun and shoot. It took all of five seconds. She turned to go back in to the house; she would dispose of the body later. "So it has begun, the final crescendo is about to be played and all the players are in position"

Later that night Sakura lay in bed cuddling up to Syaoran, the rest of the house was dark and eerily silent. They could hear the breathing of their children down the hall. "We need to end this sooner rather than later." Sakura said into the darkness, that seemed to grow darker still at her words. "I will not have our children growing up in fear. This has to be sorted out once and for all." Syaoran's arm snaked around her, pulling her closer to him. He kissed the top of her head gently. Earlier they had discussed battle tactics and had decided that they were going to strike tomorrow.

"It will all be over soon, I promise." He whispered.

She twisted so she could see him better, with a trace of a smile on her lips. She leaned in and kissed him. At first the kiss was soft and gentle but it got more passionate as their lips moved in unison. Teasingly she moved away from his lips and began placing butterfly kisses along his jaw and down his neck. It had been years since they had slept together wearing anything, the last time had probably been before their youngest was born and before Tomoyo had pointed out in her 'tactful' way that they were in love with one another.

His hands moved down to cup her breasts, his thumbs gently brushing over them. She gasped making him smile. For three years he had been making love to the same woman every night and to his surprise he found that he relished the idea that she was his alone and he was hers alone also. She seemed to fit against him, and her smile could light up the gloomiest days. He loved her more than anyone else in the world and he would do anything to make her happy which was why he had agreed to act so soon against his better judgement.

She captured his mouth again with hers, her hands moving slowly down his back. The world disappeared in lustful love.

>>Aurelius

His plans were coming to an end. Tomorrow was make or break day on more than one level. If fate needed a helping hand then Marcus was prepared to give it more than one. He would not fail his people again. Uta would die and so would those who chose to follow her once they realised the truth. He smirked, watching the dark city below. Sometimes family hatred had its advantages and so did love, because some people would pay any price to protect the ones they loved. He chuckled cruelly.

>>Sakura

They were all outside hidden in the shadows waiting for the last Raven to get their too slow arse into the compound. It was frustrating. Sakura knew that her children would be okay, they had stayed the night over at Eriol and Tomoyo's house where the security was as good as it was at home. Tomoyo had wanted to join the battle but being four months pregnant Eriol had talked her out of it and instead she had consented to protect the kids as long as Sakura made sure that Eriol made it home in one piece. Sakura would be damned if she didn't keep that promise.

Hidden in the shadows with her where hundreds of Wolves, as the Panthers had long ago abandoned their name and become Wolves, hidden within this large mass was Sakura herself, Syaoran, Eriol, Touya and Chase.

It was time for the final battle.

As the last foolish Raven moved inside the building, she stood up her auburn hair whipping around her face in the wind and her emerald eyes glowing with an intense anger. She was going to finish it tonight, whatever the cost. She looked at Li who nodded before moving out of the shadows towards the main door of the complex. She knocked on the door and stood waiting tapping her foot, shooting glances around occasionally as if she had been stupid enough to come here on her own. "Yes?" Someone drawled on the other side of the door. Her attention instantly snapped to the door.

"I'm here to see Uta, with a message for her." She replied icily.

"And you are?"

"Me? I am Sakura." She could hear them whispering with one another through the door, debating what to do. They could kill her now, but if that were against Uta's wishes they too would shortly be dead so they wouldn't risk it. After a couple of seconds the door opened and the four guarding the entrance walked out with their guns pointed directly at her, Sakura resisted the overwhelming temptation to roll her eyes- they were so predictable. Slowly she brought her hands up so they were raised in the air, signalling to the guards that she had come in peace and that there were no weapons in her hands. Three of them lowered their guns but the forth kept his pointed directly at her.

The Wolves moving in the darkness where almost impossible to see even for Sakura and she knew what they were up to and roughly where they were. After she received the signal, she vaulted over the heads of the guards landing with the grace of a cat behind the one whom had the gun. Whilst she had been jumping overhead he had managed to get a clear shot at her, the bullet ramming itself firmly into her shoulder bone. She gritted her teach as she stood up facing him, ignoring the gun he placed on her temple, and smiled cruelly. "Tell your people to beak off their attack." He snarled.

"Go to hell!" She retorted coldly, enunciating every word clearly, before kicking his legs out from under him and ducking so that if he did get a shot off it wouldn't hit her. The guy landed on his back with a thud, she kicked the gun out of his hand and positioned a knife against his neck that she had just removed from a hidden compartment in her sleeve. "Surrender or die." She whispered, pressing the blade against his neck. He swore at her repeatedly. "I guess you choose death then." She remarked idly as she slit his throat and stood up. Looking around she noticed that all four guards were lying dead. "Come on people, let's move." She instructed drawing her gun and walking into the compound, ignoring the pain of the bullet in her shoulder. Now was not the time to deal with it. They moved forward together, their movements synchronised, as they entered the building before splitting up into preordained groups and heading to set areas. Syaoran nodded to Sakura, Eriol at his back, together the three of them moved forward in the fray one target on their minds.

It wasn't hard to spot Uta, the number of 'guards' she had around her made her position ridiculously obvious even to an untrained child. "Not prepared to face me Aunt?" Sakura taunted, as the battle flared around them. Uta turned around and looked down at her niece from the daises.

"So you got my invitation?" She remarked lazily. "To end this you've got to reach me Sakura." She chuckled sitting down in a throne like chair. "I wish you luck- you'll need it." Uta taunted, before she had finished her sentence her guards raised their guns and pointed them at the trio. Sakura threw a glance at Eriol and Syaoran.

"We'll draw their fire. Make sure you get up there." Eriol instructed his hand slowly moving towards his gun.

"Are you guys sure?" She questioned her emerald eyes worried. Syaoran raised his gun and shot one of the guards.

"Yes. Now move." He instructed as he and Eriol dived for cover. She shot a troubled look over her shoulder in their direction and began heading towards her aunt. As the battle raged around her Sakura had eyes only for her Aunt. She shot those unfortunate enough to get in her way, but otherwise she paid them no heed.

Seeing her niece nearing Uta got up and walked quickly from the room, cursing Sakura moved quicker and set off after her without a backward glance. She followed her Aunt down a dark corridor; unaware that Syaoran had got shot when his attention had wandered too long as he watched her leave.

The corridor exploded behind her, knocking her off her feet.

She scrambled to her feet cursing softly. There was no going back now. Only forward, after her Aunt. The corridor seemed endless; dark; cold, unforgiving. Rather like her life, she thought ironically. Rather like the life she would make damned sure that her two children would never have. Ever. They would, instead, have the life that Syaoran had led. That she and her sister had longed to live. To be loved and above all else to have somewhere to belong.

Sakura was surprised that she hadn't been attacked yet. Her Aunt was never usually this sloppy. A smile crept unbidden onto her face as she came across a room lit by candlelight. As she entered the room she heard a loud bang and the world shook and she slipped into darkness.

>>Syaoran

They had never found her body.

All he could remember of the day he last saw his wife was her determinedly following after her Aunt. It wasn't long after she had disappeared into the darkness that he had been shot, and that Eriol had forced him to leave the building. If he had stayed he would have been with his wife now.

Some unknown figure had managed to shoot him in both the shoulder and the leg, so he had needed Eriol to help him get away. They all bore scars from that day, physically and psychologically. The kids didn't really understand that there mother was never coming back; Tomoyo blamed herself for staying behind, if she'd have gone she would have been with Sakura as the building exploded. Eriol wished he could have done more and he; he knew he shouldn't have let her go on her own, that he should never have agreed to the abrupt attack on her Aunt.

Today was the funeral.

They were finally laying her to rest. He was finally letting her go. Hiroshi and Kyoko sat and watched him silently, already dressed in black, as he straightened his tie. They were all he had left now, other than the gang and he no longer had the heart to run that but he had too. At least until Hiroshi was old enough and then he could step down.

The house was too sombre, too quiet. Oh there was still laughter, and smiles; there were good times and bad times, but something irreplaceable was missing. The house no longer felt like home and Syaoran realised with a sudden certainty that without Sakura there with him, he could no longer live in the house. He'd keep it, preserve it, so he'd never forget her but never again would he live there, for it was her house. No one but her deserved to live there with him. But the kids would need a mother…

"It's time." Tomoyo said from the door, her eyes no longer seemed quite so full of life. In the depths there was a dark knowledge that had never been there before, a deep hurt that would never truly fade. They had all loved Sakura. She was what had brought them all together; she'd been there for the good and the bad, and always with the right thing to do or to say. Now she was gone and they were left bereft.

He straightened, and turned to face her. His face echoing hers; drowning in an endless torrent of pain. But life must gone on. Sakura would have wanted them to live, so he would but he'd wait in the shadows, never quite dancing in the light but not far from it, until he could be with her again. He held his hands out to his children, and they each took one. Hiroshi took his left and sweet little Kyoko took his right. Together; united in their grief they joined Tomoyo in the hall. As a family they went downstairs to begin what would turn out to be the longest day in any of their lives.

The day that they buried Sakura.

>>Someone.

The café was brim full of tourists, as it was every summer. People were crowded round tables chatting animatedly, children were rushing about playing, couples were sitting in alcoves. The place was alive; music playing against the thrum of human voices as people talked, argued, shouted and laughed. Brilliant emerald eyes watched the scene in front of them, "Why have you brought me back here?"

"To celebrate." The emerald eyes looked quizzically at the speaker. "It was a year ago today you turned up here, my dear, and we first met- do you remember?"

"I- I was lost, and I couldn't remember who I was." The emerald eyed woman laughed; but her eyes betrayed her sadness. Sometimes in the middle of the night she would sit up and wonder who she had been. Had someone loved her, and if they had did they miss her? She hoped not. She was happy, here in the village of Mousehole, Cornwall in England with Peter Werrington. She didn't want to remember who she had been; the nightmares with the blood and the men with no faces scared her.

"Jessie?" She looked at Peter; he had been the first person to help her when she had turned up mysteriously on the shingle beach. Somewhere along the way, she had fallen in love with him. He was handsome, in a boyish way, with sandy hair and expressive amber eyes. He didn't care that she knew nothing of her past, of who she had been. For all she knew she could have been a murderer. "Will you marry me?" She looked into those amber eyes, oddly hesitant and smiled.

"Yes." She whispered, the smile broadening as he placed a diamond ring on her left hand. "I will."

Author's Note:

And so here it ends.

Not quite how I was originally planning to end it, but this was how it wanted to be written. But here it is, did it live up to your expectations? It was also longer than I planned, but the more I wrote the more that seemed to be needed to be written.

I bet you're wondering if Jessie is Sakura, and I can quite honestly tell you that she isn't. Sakura died as the building exploded around her. Jessie is someone else entirely; someone who never had a twin sister, who was never abused as a child and someone who never fell in love with the enigmatic Syaoran Li. I suppose, she is who Sakura could have been if she hadn't been Sakura.

Adieu.
Bex