Hi. Um. I'd just like to say that I love these people. Not just the CLAMP's people. In fact I love my original's better, I think. At least Ren and Kakeru. You have to love them. Yasuo's kind of a wimp, so don't love him if you don't want to. But love the other two, they're so cute! Right, chief?

Both parties met in the gathering room. "Caldina! Caldina! Caldina!" Sable cried as she squirmed to get down from Ren's shoulders. Fuu studied the man and the child as they untangled themselves and she ran to Caldina to be hugged and kissed and pinched and fussed over. Fuu simply could not comprehend this man. And she had no idea why she so wanted, so needed, to understand him. Their eyes met from across the room. He had caught her watching him and winked, good-naturedly. She blushed and turned her attention to Kakeru and Umi. She never tired of watching them. "Oh my brave Magic Knight," Umi was playing, "Was the trial very hard?"

"He was the last one to finish!" Yasuo called from across the room where he was being drilled by Corsica.

Umi's face turned into a caricature of concern, "You did get the escudo? Didn't you Kakeru?"

"Stop making fun of me," he laughed as his face turned bright red. "I got it."

"But what took so long?" she asked innocently.

"That's what I wanted to know, chief," Ren probed from behind Kakeru's ear.

Umi stared as Kakeru lightly brushed him off. "Bond much?" she asked amazed.

"A little," her fiancé smiled as Ren sauntered away from them.

He walked slowly over in Fuu's direction and passed through the doorway she was standing in. He smiled as he passed her and continued his ambling pace down the hallway. Curious, she followed him. Where was he going? He didn't know the ins and outs of the fortress. They somehow ended up in the little herb nook-with-fountain they had talked in two days before. She stood in the doorway again as he leaned against the fountain and swirled his hand through the clear water. They just looked at each other, studying. He spoke first, "This is one hell of a place."

"It grows on you," she replied. "Umi hated it when we first came."

"I bet she hates it more now, what with creepy-gray-haired guy obsessing over her," he observed with arched eyebrows.

"You were watching?"

"It was quite a raucous."

"You watch a lot, don't you; study things?"

"Don't you?"

He answered a question with a question and it pissed her off. "So what have you discovered?" she asked heatedly.

"I could ask you the same." His grin was infuriating.

"Well you didn't, I asked you."

He looked down and away, almost serious this time, "I think I require further observation before I can answer that."

Fuu glared at him, furious, as she shot back, "I think I've had just enough," and stalked away, looking for something to calm her down. There was no reason for her anger, but it was there and she couldn't shake it. She wanted to know him, to understand him. "Don't you?" he had said. "I could ask you the same." She stopped and he shoulders eased from their tense anger to relaxed realization. They were so much alike, her and Ren.

Umi finally had Kakeru to herself. They were in the room they had been allotted. Kakeru set his sword against the wall in the corner; the place that seemed to have become its home, while they were in the fortress anyway. "We'll be leaving as soon as Corsica makes your weapons and we can get some supplies together," she said as they both undressed. She continued, "No one knows if he's going to come back this time. Hopefully we'll be okay without him." He had pulled her into bed and was slowly massaging her body. "Are you sure it isn't me who should be giving the massage?" she joked.

"Umi, please stop talking."

She laughed and they both stopped talking.

The next morning, they lay on the bed and held each other. Her head rested on his chest as his hand lazily smoothed her hair. "I missed you," he said as he bent his head down to kiss the top of hers.

"It was like two days you were gone," she laughed, "anyway, we won't be apart for a while now. We have to actually find all three Shrines."

"Wasn't hard for you was it?"

"We had Mokona, darling. He made things a lot easier for us. But we don't know if he'll return."

"We'll manage," Kakeru said off hand, "What I want to know is, when are we getting married?"

The idea of getting married in Cephiro made her laugh, until she remembered. She shot into a sitting position and stared at her left hand, "Oh, Kakeru! I can't believe I forgot! The ring, Clef threw the ring in the pond." She was shaking from the memory, and he quickly took her in his arms.

"It's okay," he said cradling her head in his hands, "It's okay. Remember, it's just a symbol. Its absence doesn't change anything between us."

She nodded, tears still streaming. "I know. But he . . . oh, I loved that ring."

He smiled and kissed her forehead, "I know, Umi. But it doesn't give him any power over us."

Her brow furrowed, she ceased crying and thought, "But he thought it did. How could he have known about the ring, yet not understood what it was?" She remembered back to the night they had arrived Cephiro. They had had a conversation in the study after they had told the whole tale. He had shown himself at the pond and spoke about what someone had done to her. Then he saw the ring and. . . "Kakeru! I know what happened," she exclaimed as she jumped out of bed and rushed to get dressed, all the while explaining her theory.

Hikaru stood with Lantis in the dinning hall, pouring over large and incomplete maps of the new Cephiro. The sheets of parchment were large and some were torn or indecipherable from water damage. Lantis frowned deeper, "This is all we have," he explained. "Even if we had been able to make it out of the palace with all the maps we had of Cephiro, they still wouldn't have given us a complete view of the terrain."

Hikaru traced a finger languidly down a twisting river in the middle of one of the sheets of parchment. "I don't know how we're going to manage this without Mokona," she said, gazing at the maps yet not really seeing them. Lantis placed a comforting arm across her shoulders. How could Cephiro be bigger than she remembered?

Umi came running up to them with Kakeru close behind. "Lanits!" she called, "Lantis, there you are!"

"What is it?" He asked concernedly, stepping away from Hikaru.

"Oh, don't worry," Umi said realizing how she and Kakeru must look, "No attacks or anything. I just . . ."

Kakeru finished for her, "We know why Clef came here and why he threw her ring in the pond."

Hikaru was startled, "Is that what he threw? We heard you scream but no one knew what he had done."

Her friend nodded as Hikaru moved to hug her, "It was the engagement ring."

Lantis turned to Kakeru and her brother continued in a hushed and serious tone, "We think he must have been watching us. Earlier on the night he came here, Umi and I were in the study discussing certain things and she held up the ring and said something to the effect of 'this ring means that I love you.' We think he took it to mean, 'this ring makes me love you.'"

Umi finished, "And so he came here, thinking to free me from Kakeru's spell."

Hikaru snorted derisively. "So what does all this tell us?" she asked, knowing Lantis had already put it all together.

"It tells us that Clef has a way to spy on us, even here. But it doesn't tell us whether or not he is being controlled," He explained

Umi jumped to Clef's defense, "But doesn't this mistake prove he's being manipulated?"

Kakeru took her hand and said softly, "He could have misinterpreted what you said all by himself, love."

Umi put her hands to her face and cried, "It can't be him that's doing all this. It just can't be!"

Kakeru held Umi tightly and she leanded into him, as Hikaru's lover looked down on her, his frown ever deepening, and said, "Love makes people do strange things."

Hikaru took his hand and added, their gazes still locked, "Especially unrequited love."

Umi cried harder.