AN: Uwaaa! I am so squealishly excited! I have… wait for it, and drum roll please… fifty reviews on this story. That's a big old five-oh, there, people. More, actually, counting the ones that were PMed because they wouldn't go through. Uh-huh. Thank each and every one of you so much! It's the best finishing-story present ever.

One little thing about the quote – I need some understanding with the switching of gender pronouns as, obviously, Yuki is not exactly of the same chromosomal persuasion as our sweet Kate. And she meant it about death – I'm applying it to Yuki's life.

Dedication: One last time – for this fic, anyway – Katia, Katia all the way.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did, it would imply a talent for drawing. You know, just a little. Guess what, I can't. But I can write fanfiction! Feel the power.

…Yes, that counts as power, dammit.

But big girls don't cry, right? You said gone's gone, and there's no use wallowing. Worms and dirt and nothing, forever. And not one word about a better place. You couldn't even tell a scared little girl a beautiful lie.

– Kate Lockley, "Sense and Sensitivity," Angel

Chapter Fourteen

The cat is locked away behind bars. That's its fate, every time. How it's always been. So it deserves it, of course.

Still… still, if it was anyone else… it wouldn't be tolerated, would it? Locking someone away, denying them any life, future, soul, of their own – wouldn't someone make it stop?

But no one cares if there are no bars. No one saves you from nothing. And if you stay, you have no one to blame but yourself.

There are perks to being an insider Sohma. The whole family knows this. And like most things classified under common knowledge, it's a legend.

Not wrong. No, not a lie. Merely… misrepresented. A grain of technical truth buried in layers of cloying myth.

Every good thing in my life, everything that should protect me, is double-edged. Holding onto them only cuts me up inside. But I just hold tighter, and I don't know why. Because I'm so used to the pain that I don't want to go without it? Because I don't want to feel the nothingness that threatens? A presence or an absence…?

People prefer heat and light. Our bodies are designed to operate under circumstances providing these things; we've evolved this way. Chosen it, you could say. This predilection leads us to assume that these things are natural. That isn't true.

Darkness and cold… these things are an absence. Heat and light are unnatural, forced. They come and go. And what you have without them…

No matter how fast the light goes, the darkness gets there first.

This absence is always lying just beneath the veneer. Most people can ignore this fact.

Don't be mistaken.

It would be easier to believe in that, in the beautiful lie of all things bright and beautiful.

I wish I could. I wish I could live in that belief, wish I could climb from this hole I've fallen into myself, but I can't and no one else even sees that I've fallen but Haru and Akito.

Akito's why I've fallen.

And all Haru can do, my Orpheus, is follow me down, and I don't know why he does.

So I've made up a story and told myself it's true, and it gives me enough light to see by. In this story, the world is a bright and warm place, and that's fine, because it's wrong. Unnatural, as it should be. And we, the Sohmas, our world is right, because it's cold and dark.

But if I could just get out…

Sometimes I'm not even strong enough to believe that much, but I always come back to it because, in the end, I cannot be without it.

"Yuki." Akito's hair sweeps across my face as he leans over from behind.

I slowly force myself to consciousness, taking in small things, a bit at a time. I'm on Akito's futon, on my left side, facing the doors. His hand is on my arm. It's warm and dark and I don't want to move.

I'm a heavy sleeper. Every time I close my eyes… but they always open again, and here, once they open, it's hard to get them closed again. "What time is it?" I ask blearily, moving to sit up.

"I don't know." He sounds aggrieved, tugging on my top arm until I roll onto my back, instantly regretting it but gritting my teeth until the pain fades. "Shigure was knocking." He drops his head onto my chest, pulling the covers closer. He doesn't like getting up in the mornings either – gets cold too easily.

I very carefully don't move. I should get up. I know that, and almost, I want to. Ans with any morning, it's not precisely appealing. But staying here is, if anything… not worse, but…

I can't see his face, but I can hear the bitter pleasure in his smile. "I told him to go away and let you sleep. However, since I'm always thinking of you, I did wake you eventually. I'm sure you'll want to run away as quickly as possible."

"Well," I reason, gauging his mood gingerly as I rub my eyes clear, "the house shouldn't stand empty, and Shigure will want to stay here a while longer, so I should get back. And I'm helping Mother and Father say farewell to the morning departures, as well…" He doesn't object, and then sits up with a small huff of annoyance, sliding his legs from under the blanket and reaching for his yukata.

I stand. Another day. One at a time.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…

And there was no need to tell him that I would be with the farewell party. I always am. Me in the morning, Shigure in the evening. Always.

Scraping together my scattered clothes quickly, I bundle most of them on and fold the others into a pile. I only need to get back to my rooms to take a shower and change, so beyond a nominally suitable outward appearance there isn't much to concern myself with as regards to my wardrobe.

"Have you seen…" he's holding it, my sweater. Mostly dressed, he's sitting on the end of the futon, running his hands over the white wool, picking the lint off it.

"Most people would assume you take care of things like this. A tidy room with a place for everything and everything in its place."

I could just leave the room. I don't need the sweater for a walk down the hallway.

"…" I sit slowly beside him.

His mouth twists into a smile, eyes – black in this light – never leaving the white cloth. "I know you better."

"…Yes."

He turns to look at me with labyrinth eyes, fingers curling around my wrist. "Don't go too deep, Yuki. It just means I have to reach further in to find you, and there's only so much room inside."

I nod.

He doesn't see, then…? It's too late. There's already nothing left but shell. The only time there's anything inside me is when someone else fills me up.

There is supposed to be a place inside of you that only you can reach. A soul, I could call it. A center.

But I seem to have lost mine, and the empty place where it should be is numb.

The only one who can still make it hurt, make me feel anything deep down inside…

Akito hands me my sweater dismissively, eyes searching mine, and pulls me into an embrace. I stiffen, still sore and aching, but he traces patterns through my hair and along my back, whispering nothingness until I'm too tired to do anything but loosen into his arms.

Only then does he kiss my forehead and let go.

I rise to my knees, instinctively combing my fingers through his hair, straightening it in the same way I would my own if I saw it mussed in a reflection.

"I'll be back after I see the exodus off, to say goodbye," I remind him, looking down to his upturned face.

He nods, wrapping his hands around my waist and dropping his head against my chest again. I bite my tongue, his touch eliciting the fear it always will because part of me needs it. "To say," he corrects, "au revoir."

Hours Later

I take comfort in knowing what to do, how to look, what to say. The rat should be perfect, mannerly; I am perfect and mannerly.

It's nice to know, always, how to act.

I bow to another fleeing family member. I recite the name that goes with the face, smile and make Akito's excuses – so ill, and all this excitement, so sorry not to have been able to see you again – then I listen and answer when required, and eventually they go away.

Mother and Father and I have this shift together, a show of familial bonds to reassure everyone that all is well within the higher, inner sanctum of the family.

Father's plane leaves in five hours. I have no idea what his destination is or when he'll be back. And I suppose we're hoping no one remembers Nii-san.

More faces and names. So many and I don't know any of them, not really. All we have in common, the only thing binding us, is blood. And sometimes I wonder if I haven't spilled so much of that that I shouldn't be considered a Sohma any longer…

Only that isn't all, is it. There's tradition. There is how it has always been and so will always be.

And at any rate, no matter how much blood I lose, I always have more. My body persists in filling my veins and heart, permeating my being, with the bonds of the curse. I suppose Akito wouldn't make me bleed like this if he didn't know there was always more.

Or maybe he would. It's not as if I'm of any real use to him. I wouldn't even question the fact that he would, only… when I woke up that night, after the pills, in Hatori's office surrounded by machines and with his head on my torso, asleep… his eyes were crusted, cheeks sticky, with the tears that were always mine.

Smile, nod, and bow. All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players…

I realize that the woman Mother is talking to now is Haru's mom, and look around for him.

Warm darkness, the smell of leather, as his bicycle-glove covered hand closes over my eyes from behind. "Guess who."

"Haru, what are you doing?"

"Interesting question. One of the imponderables." He drops his hand, coming around to face me with both in his pockets now. "…Just living."

I raise an eyebrow, tugging him out of the way of the meandering departures. "I meant more immediately."

"Oh. Avoiding my mom, talking to my Yun-chan."

"Yuki-kun! It's been so nice to be here again!"

I turn, smiling automatically, to the woman approaching us with two small children being herded in front of her. "Araki-san. Yes, it's been a pleasure to see you."

"So I understand you've moved out of the Main House?" Incredulity stains her voice. "Oh, yes. Just a few miles, though."

"My, that must be a significant change." And why would you want it, ring the unspoken words.

I think of school, and living here, and the bars that have become that much more solid with every day that they aren't there.

"No, not so much," I say.

"You'll give my regards to Akito-sama? I understand the poor boy's feeling ill again…"

I open my mouth to say something that will make the sickness sound dire enough to tear him from his beloved family and her in particular, but not bad enough to be alarming, and Haru slings an arm around my shoulder.

"There is," he announces in his monotonous voice, "a darkness on his soul. It saps him of his strength."

"Ah. Yes… well. It's been nice seeing you as well, Hatsuharu-kun. But we have to be off before someone misses their nap…" She hurries away and I drop my face into my hands.

"Haru…"

"What? He does. And neither of you wanted to be talking. Come on, let's go."

"Go? Go where? …I mean, I can't, I have things I need to do here."

"Mm, yeah… but, it's boring."

"That isn't the point." I glare. Why does he have to be so…

"Yuki." Mother sounds distinctly unhappy, and I cringe without meaning to. "Do you two need to go somewhere to chat, or are you going to help me out here the way you're supposed to?"
"No, we're done," I reply, recovering the way I always do.

She sighs and returns, already smiling, to her post.

I make a shooing motion to Haru, who smiles patiently. He's always patient, especially with me. It makes me want to push him, see what he'll let me do before he gets angry, makes me sorry, like…

I wonder – is this how Akito feels about me? Wondering how much I can take?

"I'll help you pack," he says, patting my head in his odd way and pretending that he doesn't know I am packed, that I've been living from my suitcase.

"Thank you." Because I do need him.

"See you," he calls over his shoulder, already disappearing into the inner House.

Yes, you will.

Probably someone else needs him more, right now – Momiji or Rin, even the stupid cat.

I turn to the next visitor and smile.

The family will always be excepting. Haru will always be waiting. Akito will always be beckoning.

And I'll always be there. What can I do besides fulfill those expectations?

Tyrants smile with their last breath

For they know that at their death,

Tyranny just changes hands,

Serfdom lives on in their lands.

– Heinrich Heine, "King David"

AN: That's all! No more to this story. Whoot, my longest one ever. Though, interestingly, despite having way more chapters it was not actually longer than FTH, with its six or seven chapters – even with all these quotes and ANs – until about chapter twelve or so.

So… let me know how I did? Eh? Eh?

And the closing quote needs some understanding as well, since Heinrich and I have very different aims in its meaning.

"No matter how fast the light goes…" is from Terry Pratchett, one of the Discworld books. It isn't exact, because I can't find which book it is to get the actual quote, but it is his phrase at heart.

God, he's a genius… I don't like comedy, generally speaking, but he is just a genius.

Oops, and almost forgot - it is pretty obvious, right? The bits from Shakespeare? Well, I didn't make up "Tomorrow, and..." or "All the world's a stage..."

And that's it, it's over.