Disclaimer, etcetera, can be found in chapter one.
Notes: Rolf Harris had a hit in 1960 with "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport."
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"Eriol? What's this?"
He glanced up from his book to see Kaho standing in the door, a long red ribbon dangling from her fingers. Only the weight of a sleeping Nakuru, who'd sprawled over him earlier with claims of deepest affection and an almost filial duty to express those affections, kept him from jolting out of his chair. He had two options, he thought frantically, and neither truth nor lie would fit. Fake it, a split-second study of Clow's experiences suggested, and hope she'll lead the way to what she wants to hear from you.
"I was wondering where that had gone. Where did you find it?" He forced calmness into his voice. He knew exactly where he'd stored it and it wasn't a place he'd expected anyone to go through.
"In the manual for your cell phone; it fell out while I was going through all the papers you've hoarded away. Why did you have a girls ribbon in there?" Kaho walked over, still holding it by one end. Eriol was tempted to test it with magic to see if he could get away with saying it had belonged to Sakura. What stopped him was not that Kaho would feel that brush of power, but the fact that Daidouji-san had a very strong personality. He was fairly well certain that even after a year the sense of her would still be easily picked up off it.
"Oddly enough, to keep from losing it," he smiled fondly and hoped that most of the truth would be enough to keep the situation in check. "I told you about the day I set Keroberus loose while we were baking cakes at the Kinomoto's home? This was the ribbon he was tied up in. I thought its disappearance would add to the confusion. I'd just got a new phone so I put the ribbon in the manual for safe keeping. Apparently it's been there all this time. I'm sure Daidouji-san has wondered where it got off to."
Kaho had been quiet as he spoke, but now she smiled, looking amused. "You stole Daidouji-san's ribbon?"
"If it gets returned to its owner, it isn't stolen," he replied cheerfully. He reached up and tugged the ribbon out of her hand, resisting the urge to sigh in relief as she let it go. "I suppose I should send it off with an apology about its long absence."
"When you can," she agreed, turning to leave. "I'm going to finish sorting the rest of those papers. I think you've kept every scrap of paper you ever picked up."
"You never know when you'll need a software registration card or information from an expired warranty. I threw that Beta-Max VCR out years ago for eating the tapes, but its programming manual is probably a collector's item now."
Kaho laughed. "I'm not so sure; it's pretty dry reading." She paused at the door and looked over her shoulder at him. "I'm not going to find any more surprises in there, am I?"
"Not to my knowledge, although I can't make any promises. I don't think I spelled that cabinet against spiders."
"I see. I'll just have to use whatever is handy to defend myself."
"Not the liner notes from the Rolf Harris album I no longer own, please."
Her laughter trailed out of the room and he gave in to that sigh, curling his fingers gently around the ribbon. Kaho was still happy, the ribbon was still there, and Eriol was still whole. Good enough for now.
"You're not really going to send it back, are you?" Nakuru asked quietly, eyes closed as though she was still asleep. "When you saw Mizuki-sensei come in with it I felt like I should change to my other form."
"I was just surprised," he told her, hastily putting the ribbon into his shirt pocket. "That's all."
"You were scared," she disagreed. She blinked up at him, not moving from his lap. "You don't want to send that back to Daidouji-san. You want to keep it, like you wanted to keep it back in Japan." He shook his head and so did she. "You aren't going to do it, either, I can tell."
Eriol didn't say anything. Nakuru was right; he wasn't going to send it back. He'd go out and get her a new ribbon, send it with a note saying it was to replace the one she'd lost due to him, explaining how he had forgot, in all the excitement, to return it to her before he left. Apologizing for having taken so long to remember it at all.
"You can keep it with my ribbons, if you want. But…can I ask why you took it in the first place?"
He fidgeted but couldn't ignore the question. "Because I won't tell her my feelings in case it would make things awkward between us. It's very foolish of me, but I can pretend like it's gift from a her, one like a lover would give to remember her by."
Nakuru sat up, making him wince as feeling returned to his legs. "You know that if Mizuki-sensei finds it again she'll figure out how you feel. If she decides to look for Daidouji-san here, she'll find it; it's still strong. What then?"
"I'm going to seal it." He would rather not have, because unsealed and knowing what to look for, he would be able to feel Tomoyo in the house. Sealed, it wouldn't appear at all. He was growing up and it was time to put away such childish notions. But he'd still have it, a tiny piece of her. It would have to be enough.