Agent08 Reporting for Duty!

Now… on with chapter three!

I Forgot to Remember

Crying

The Beginning

"Who are you?" Syaoran asked politely, to a girl he'd never seen before in his life that had just told him she loved him, and trembling with tears.

He watched the girl as if in slow motion. She fell to her knees and allowed her auburn bangs to cover her face, as well as her hands. He watched her heave and shudder with broken sobs, confused and helpless.

He continued to stare in desperation, downright horrified by her reaction to his simple question. It seemed like hours before anyone else arrived at the tower. And by that time, everything had gone to normal. Sakura's loved ones had been returned to her and the town of Tomoeda was in peace. But the single shadow of the day was starting to become a threatening, gray cloud.

"Sakura?" he heard someone call. "Sakura?"

More voices below him. But he didn't remove his eyes from the girl. He was frozen, paralyzed by her sobbing.

He heard footsteps. They seemed faint, but they were closer than he thought. Before he knew it, there was Tomoyo, Meiling and Kero all surrounding the crying girl and asking her what happened.

She melted into their arms. "He doesn't love me anymore," she cried, "he doesn't love me anymore!"

And the way she said it didn't seem as though she was crying in despair. More like she was trying to explain the situation to them, but she couldn't do it without crying.

"What?" they all asked, puzzled.

"She took his most important feeling," the girl said. He figured she must be the one they called Sakura. "She took his most important feeling, and I wish – I wish she took mine instead!"

Sakura continued crying, shaking hysterically. Tomoyo hushed her and Syaoran was left gaping, staring, wondering who she was and why she was crying, what she was even talking about. He had never seen anybody so sad before in his life.

"Syaoran," Meiling whispered, taking his arm and shaking him lightly. Everything about him remained still as stone, except for his eyes, which were following Sakura and Tomoyo as they walked out of the tower. "Syaoran, come with me."

"Meiling," he said breathlessly, "who is she? Who is that girl?"

She ignored his questions and gripped his arm tighter. Together they left the tower and walked to Daidouji's house, where they sat in silence for quite sometime, until Tomoyo herself arrived.

She entered the room quietly and took a seat opposite the two. She folded her hands neatly atop her lap and calmly gazed into Syaoran's pained and confused eyes.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I — I don't know!" he exclaimed desperately, as if she'd turned a spotlight on him and was glaring. "That girl, the one you call Sakura – she just told me she… she…"

"She told you she loves you?" asked Meiling.

He swallowed the knot in his throat and nodded.

"And what did you say?"

"I didn't say anything! I just… I just… I asked her who she was," he explained, shrugging.

The two girls looked to one another in confusion. "You don't remember her?"

"I know her?" he asked, confused as well. "I've never seen her before in my life until now."

Tomoyo shook her head viciously from side to side. "No, no. That's not true. You've known her forever. She's one of your best friends. She—"

"What?" he asked, "What on earth are you talking about? I'm telling you, I've never seen her before in my life!" he nearly shouted. He looked to each girl, confusion and fear clearly visible in his eyes. "Who is she? Why was she crying? Is what she said really true?"

Both remained silent. After a while, Tomoyo spoke. "Why don't you ask her yourself?"

"What?"

"Ask. Her. Your. Self." She repeated whilst emphasizing each word, almost as if daring him.

She stood up from where she was sitting, walked over to the door and slipped out quietly. After a couple of seconds she returned, Sakura in tow.

Syaoran tensed and felt a sudden urge to jump out a window. But he ignored the feeling and focused on the girl. She was dressed in a simple, white night gown, no longer in the flashy pink costume she was wearing at the tower. She seemed tired and resigned, and – thank the heavens – she was dry eyed.

At the sight of Syaoran she seemed to deflate even more, if that's even possible. Her entire body sagged, as if the looks of him made her want to shrivel up into a sad, little cactus weed.

They stared at one another, Syaoran's gaze hard and expectant; Sakura's tired and sad.

Before anyone in the room could get a word out, Sakura took off the necklace around her neck and placed it in her palm. Too tired to form any words just yet, she closed her fist around the tiny, miniature staff and opened it again, but with force. In her hand was the real staff.

"Sakura," Tomoyo asked cautiously, "what are you doing?"

She ignored her. "Return!" she cried.

A card was flipped into the air and put into effect. A woman draped in a dark blue cape with long, ghostly white bangs holding a clock escaped from the card and came to stand before all of them. She opened her eyes.

"Return Card, take him back, back to every single moment he shared with me. I don't care if it uses up all my energy and power. Make him remember me!" Sakura commanded, fierce and determined.

The Return looked at her sadly. "I cannot," said the card.

An anger that not even Tomoyo or Kero had ever seen on her seemed to cloud her eyes. "Why not?" she demanded, "Are you refusing to do my bidding? I'm your mistress! Do as I say – now!"

It was the first time she'd ever literally commanded a card to do anything. Other times she would order them politely, but this time was completely different.

Though she'd just been scolded, the card seemed to be unaffected. "I cannot,"

"Why – NOT?" Sakura said, through gritted teeth.

"I cannot," repeated the card, and Sakura nearly exploded. However the card cut her off. "This is the will of the Void. I cannot interfere. Not this way."

All the anger seemed to drain from her body. She was back to looking tired and worn, as if she was recovering from a bad accident, which this all kind of was. She looked to the card and back to Syaoran, who was watching the whole thing as if in a trance.

"Please?" she asked desperately, in a small voice. "Please," she begged.

The Return began fading into a mist, becoming a card once more. "Have hope, Mistress Sakura," she said in goodbye.

The card disappeared and her staff returned to its miniature version. Sakura, for the second time that day, fell to her knees, except this time in exhaustion. And to Syaoran's horror, he saw a brand new film of wetness cover her pained eyes. She began crying again, quietly this time, as if she knew it hurt him to see her like that.

Meiling and Tomoyo rushed towards her and helped her out of the room. He was left with Kero.

"Will she be okay?" he asked.

"She'll be fine, kid," Kero answered, though Syaoran wasn't sure how he could know that. "She's staying the night. Maybe you should let her rest and talk to her in the morning."

Syaoran nodded. That was best. Wait and let both of themselves gather their thoughts and just calm down. After a good night's rest, they'd both be level headed and prepared to discuss what happened.

He crept into bed and stared at the ceiling. Sleep never came to him that night, neither did peace or rest.

xxxxxx

When he woke the next morning (though he never really woke, since he never got a wink of sleep in the first place), he got dressed out of his night clothes and without a word to anyone else, headed straight for Tomoyo's other guest bedroom on the other side of the house, where he knew Sakura must've been sleeping.

He paused at the front of her door and took a few deep breaths. He squared his shoulders and knocked. Then he waited.

After a couple of seconds, there was no answer. He knocked again.

Still no answer.

He knocked again, harder this time, but did not wait for anyone to respond. He turned the knob and entered, without being invited. He saw Sakura still sleeping, her plain white bed sheets tangled between her legs. She was lying on her side, facing away from him.

Suddenly he didn't know what to say. Even though he'd been thinking about this conversation all night, the words escaped him completely.

"H – Hi…" he began unsurely. "Sorry, I – I didn't mean to wake you. Um… did you have a g – good sleep?"

Sakura shifted, keeping her face away from him. So she wasn't going to answer him, was she? That made things easier for him. But it also complicated things for him, when he expected the answers to his questions.

"It's… it's Kinomoto Sakura, right? That's what Daidouji and Meiling said your name is. My – my name is Li Syaoran. But then again, you probably already knew that, didn't you?" He asked, attempting humor but failing miserably. He laughed nervously.

Sakura shifted again. Still no noise came from her lips.

"I'm really sorry about everything… I know I shouldn't have made you, uh, cry. I wish I reacted better to all the things you said to me." Although, in his mind, there was no better reaction he could've given. He asked politely who she was, and that was the best he came up with. He couldn't exactly tell her he felt the same way – he had no idea who she was.

"It's been really bad these past couple of hours. I'm so… I don't know… bothered by everything that's happened. I've been trying the entire night to put a finger on you, to figure out how I know you… why I feel a pulsing in my head every time I look at you, but it's so hard. I wish Daidouji and Meiling would explain some more. I wish you would explain. Please, Kinomoto-san?"

Silence.

Syaoran swallowed, cleared his throat and found his courage. Not all of it, but enough to get on with his visit. "Okay, fine. Listen – enough with the preliminaries, alright? Is it true?" he demanded.

Sakura remained still, but sighed lightly.

"Do you really… you know? Do you really lo… do you really lo — do you really feel that way about me?" When she gave him no reply, he realized this was going to be harder than he thought. "I don't even know who you are… but you seem to know a lot about me. According to the others, we're best friends? I don't know. Are we?"

She mumbled something incoherent and he took that as a yes.

"So we really are best friends, huh? Best friends that fell – that, uh, wanted to be something more than that?"

No reply.

"You know I'd really appreciate it if you answered me. Please? Please stop ignoring me?"

Still no answer.

"You know, you never really gave me a proper reply to my first question. Is it true? Do you really… love… me?"

His question was answered by silence once more and he finally lost all of his patience. "I asked you a question," he said, irritated, "and it's only proper manners to face someone when you give them an—"

He took Sakura's shoulder and shook it, bringing her face around to meet his. He saw to some embarrassment that she'd been sleeping the entire time, talking in her sleep and unconsciously moving. And after all that he'd said, the effort he put into speaking to her… wasted.

He sighed. "Never mind," he murmured, more to himself than to Sakura, since obviously she wasn't conscious to hear it. He pulled the blanket higher over her shoulders to keep her warm and stared at her for a moment, his eyes tired and disappointed.

"Nice try," Tomoyo said from the doorframe which she was leaning on, a tray of tea, bread and jam spread neatly out on top of it. "You should try again when she's awake."

Syaoran turned and shrugged sheepishly at her. "I don't think she'll want to talk me when she's awake."

Tomoyo returned his shrug. "You never know unless you try."

He stared at her, some of the fear that was evident in his eyes from the other day making another appearance in his amber pools. "What if she cries again? I… I can' talk to her if she cries, Daidouji. It's too…"

"Painful?" she asked, finishing his sentence. "I know. I was here with her and she just about bawled her eyes out for all of last night. You didn't hear her?"

He shook his head. "No." And he was definitely glad that he didn't.

"Good," she answered, pushing herself away from the doorframe and coming to stand next to Sakura's bedside. She placed the tray quietly upon the table next to the mattress and looked to Syaoran again. "I made her sleep on the other side of the house for a reason, you know."

He attempted a smile. "Thanks," he said, "I owe you one."

"Yeah, you do," she replied. "You can pay me back by talking to Sakura again, when she's awake."

He gaped at her. "But I – I can't do that! What if she… what if she –"

"Cries? It'll be nothing new, then. Just suck it up. I know it's awful every time it happens – believe me, I know – but you have to talk to her. You have to try."

He stared at her for a long time before finally replying. "Fine, I'll talk to her." He told her. She returned the stare for an equally long amount of time before nodding and leaving the room. Syaoran took one last glance at the sleeping girl before him and muttered beneath his breath, "When I'm good and ready."

As he left from the room, Sakura's eyes opened slowly, revealing not the sleepy eyes that are expected from someone who has just woken up, but tear-filled eyes that showed she'd been awake the entire time.

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Is this early enough in January for you?

I'm back at school and busy as usual. I'll update when I can. I give you guys permission to hold the promise I made about updating against me. If your memories need refreshing, go back to my Chapter 1 author notes!

I hope you enjoyed the third chapter and really, really hope you continue to read and review. There are only two or three chapters left. Like I said, this is just a very short fic. I hope you enjoy it all the same!

Goodnight and goodbye!

Signing off,
Agent08 – My life as a secret agent