Thirteen- Suffering

Suffers like the divine Miranda... plunged in torment plunged in fire

When I next opened my eyes, they felt almost too heavy to open, they were almost impossible to hold up, as if the weight of the world had somehow been hung on my upper lids. My entire body felt curiously cumbersome. Even my mind felt sluggish. With effort, I turned my head. Tamaki was there, his arms folded on my bed, his head resting on them. Asleep.

"Tamaki." I said, trying to rouse him. I could hardly hear myself. My throat was not making more than a whisper. It felt as if I was having to force the words upwards, past a great resistance, a film over my throat or a sludge down it. "Tamaki." I tried again, but it still sounded more like a hiss, or a groan, and barely audible. There was something over my face. A mask, to help me breathe, I realised later, but at that time, I could hardly think. I would have slept again, but I felt fearful. Something had happened. I couldn't think, but something was instinctually wrong. "Tamaki."

It was no use. I couldn't raise my voice enough to wake him. I wanted to reach over, to shake him, but the best I could get my hands to do was a feeble sort of flap in his direction. Thankfully, there was someone else in the room, sitting just across, awake. She noticed my open eyes.

"Kotoko-senpai!" Haruhi gasped, and shook Tamaki herself. "Senpai!" She called him, urgently. "Senpai! Senpai, wake up! She's awake! She's awake..."

Tamaki woke up, blinking. "H-huh? Haruhi, what is it?"

"Senpai." She said, again. "I think she's awake!"

"What?!" He turned to me, saw my open eyes. "Oh, Kotoko..." And, suddenly, he was kissing my cheeks, my forehead, as close to me as he could be, and tears streamed down his face. I had to wonder what hell he had been through to get to that point.

*

I was lucky. After the bus crashed, I was aware of nothing. It was Tamaki, poor, caring, easily-moved, loving Tamaki that had to cope with it all on his own. He had thought we would be alright on the commoner bus. Other people did it every day. There was no reason to worry about Daisy and I.

He had been called into the office over some communiqué from a foreign investor. Why that required Tamaki to go in when his role was always so superficial, we were never quite sure. I assume it was because he was going to be the next to take over. Either way, it turned out to not really be very important. He came home as soon as he could, expecting me to be there, to tell him about the scan as he questioned me about every last detail. He stopped and picked up some houses for us to look over from an estate agents. He hurried back, but Daisy and I were not there. He assumed we had decided to go elsewhere, and settled down to wait. He watched the news.

The last item. Just a small report. A bus crash in the city centre. Casualties not yet known. Cause not yet known. Further details as they came. Another day, another accident, another average occurrence in the city. Yet, Tamaki's blood ran cold. He had always been the imaginative sort, and he assumed the worst. Trying to calm himself, he tried to call me. It didn't even ring. That was when he started to panic, and he searched the house to find Shima-san, and asked her when we had left. She hadn't seen the news. She did now. Tamaki paced back and forth, not sure what to do. Eventually he decided to go to the scene himself, to track us down, but before he made it to the door, the police arrived. Took him to the morgue. Three bodies, two strangers. One so small it was hardly a body. Identify her. Yes, his daughter. Almost eighteen months, hardly lived. Perfect. Just a tiny bruise, on her forehead. Kiss it, it was cold beneath his lips. Hold him up, his knees are giving way. Images. Doors. Lights. Where was his wife?

Poor Tamaki, having to cope with it all on his own.

He came back to himself in the end. He couldn't stop crying. He couldn't stop the silent tears. Still, he had something to drive him forward. At that time, there was no room for anything in his heart but our little girl, but his mind was filled with me. I wasn't at the morgue. I was alive, then, surely, I would be at the hospital. But if I was at the hospital, why hadn't he been informed? Perhaps they hadn't identified me. In which case, I could have been dead. But they had been able to identify Daisy, so they should have been able to identify me. He had to get to the hospital.

He reached it, somehow, one way or another. Too many people had come in from the crash. Everyone was running around. No-one could stop and talk to him. Eventually, he found someone, they knew nothing of me. Said I wasn't there, at least not yet. I'm glad of it, to be honest. Glad he didn't see me in those first minutes, when I struggled to breathe, each one a death rattle, the blood, and the like. Although perhaps even that would have been preferable to the desolate, lonely, hopeless waiting. He couldn't cope with it all alone. My brother did not exist in this world. So he called the first person he could think of- Haruhi.

Haruhi, smart and straight forward as ever, even then. She was a first-year law student. She was still with Hikaru, just about. They had ended up at the same university, so it should have been all plain sailing for them. Of course, nothing in this life was ever simple, especially when Hikaru knew as well as I did, somewhere in the dark corners at the back of our minds, that there should have been something between Haruhi and Tamaki. In another life. Still, they went on. It was a 'rough patch' for them, nothing more. They had been together some time already. It should have been easy. It wasn't, of course. The demands of her studies were so great, he hardly saw her. When he seemed to not understand, she got frustrated. Still, they stayed together, somehow. They had no-one else.

The day of the crash, Hikaru was supposed to be taking her to dinner. In fact, he was stood at her front door, waiting for her to put a coat on so they could leave. Worried about the cost, Haruhi had continued to live with her father as she studied, so Hikaru rarely went inside. Ranka would only lecture him on how to treat his precious daughter. So he hovered, watching her. She was still so beautiful to him.

"Ready?" He asked, as she turned to face him. She nodded, but then, the phone started to ring. "Leave it." He said.

"I'll just be a second." She answered, sighing slightly. "It might be important." She picked up the phone in the hall, listened to it.

"Hello?" She said. No answer, there was no reply. Tamaki couldn't speak. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

"H-Haruhi?" He got out, eventually. His voice was so quiet, she hardly recognised it. He was caught somewhere in the eerie calm between shock and grief. Still, his words quaked. "Haruhi... something really bad..."

"Tamaki-senpai?" She asked in confusion, but at his tone felt her stomach clench in fear. "What is it? What's happened?" She calmed herself, fairly convinced this was Tamaki's usual dramatics over nothing. She thought we had probably just had an argument. Still, there was that catch in his voice that she hadn't heard before. "I'm about to go out, senpai, I can't really talk right now; but..."

"Daisy's dead."

"W-what?! But-"

"And... Kotoko... there was a crash... I don't know where she is... and Daisy... and..."

He was losing all coherency. Haruhi could not doubt him any more. She swallowed hard.

"Where are you, senpai?" She asked, quietly. "We'll come."

"...T-the hospital. I thought Kotoko might... but... I don't know where she is."

"We're coming, senpai. So just... just hang on." She said, and hung up, with no idea what else to say.

"We have to go and find Tamaki-senpai." She told Hikaru, urgently.

"Why? Is he upset again? Wouldn't you rather go alone?" He answered, a little spitefully. "Haruhi, you can't chase after him all the time... We're supposed to be going out."

"His daughter is dead." She said, flatly. "Kotoko-senpai too, maybe. He needs us, Hikaru."

Hikaru froze. He couldn't doubt her words, not when she looked like that. Yet it seemed impossible to him that what she said was true. He and Kaoru had always adored Daisy, or rather, dressing her. Most of her wardrobe had been gifts from them. I always remarked that if we ever needed a babysitter it would have to be one of them. But we never needed one. I never went out. Why hadn't I thought to leave Daisy with the twins while I went to the hospital? She wouldn't have died. This life would have been hers after all, for a little longer. Instead, in the blink of an eye and a crash of a bus, she was gone. Another day in the city.

"Let's go." Hikaru said, eventually. No matter what his feelings were to Tamaki when he saw how he looked at Haruhi and didn't even realise it, they were friends. Tamaki needed friends then more than ever, or he had to cope alone.

When they reached the hospital, they found him slumped in the waiting room. The other people there were sitting as far from him as possible. Some looked at him in annoyance for causing such a disturbance. Few looked on him with sympathy, even as his crying fell silent, and he stared at the floor, unblinking. The tears still came, dripping to the tiles between his feet. His hands were woven together into a tight knot, gripped to stop them shaking, gripped because he had nothing else to hold onto. I had still not arrived, as far as he knew. I was missing. Daisy was dead, never to return. I could be too. And what of the unborn child that had barely begun to grow? He just didn't know. He cried.

Hikaru and Haruhi arrived. He didn't notice.

"...Senpai?" Haruhi said gently, sitting down beside him, Hikaru hovering awkwardly. "Senpai... I'm so sorry."

Tamaki said nothing.

"...Has Kotoko-senpai arrived here yet?"

He shook his head.

"...Are you thirsty?" She asked, uselessly.

Another head shake.

"Or hungry? It is dinner time..."

Again, he shook his head. She fell silent, not knowing what to do, what to say. Hikaru busied himself by glaring back at those that stared and going up to the desk to speak with the receptionist. He couldn't bear to see Tamaki like that, I suppose. I wonder what Haruhi felt, seeing him in pain. I was glad I did not see him that way.

"H-Haruhi." He whispered, eventually. "...I took the car... she went on the bus, and it..."

"I know." She muttered, though it was the first she'd heard of it.

"And Daisy... a-and..." He broke off, choking audibly now. "Haruhi, what if Kotoko dies too?! What am I going to do?! I... I can't... Why did this... I should have..."

"Sssh." Haruhi murmured, hugging him. "It'll be fine, Senpai, I promise... I promise..."

"She's dead." He said. "She wasn't... wasn't even eighteen... year and a half... we were going to..."

"Ssh," Haruhi said, hating herself for not saying more. "Ssh."

Haruhi cried for him that day. Hikaru almost cried himself, seeing them like that. There was too much loss in that scene. Too much pain. To describe it, though, would only detract from it. It was beyond human, it was animal. Words are human. Words would soften the blow, detracted from the gouges it left in our hearts. It hurt. Him most of all. Her, because she couldn't help. All those who could do nothing, and stood idly by as we fell, like the leaves of autumn.

They cried.

"...Excuse me." A nurse said, timidly interrupting, and looking at Hikaru. He had been the one to ask, after all. "...You wanted to know if Kotoko Suoh came in?"

"Yes!" Tamaki said, in his eyes the look of a drowning man that sees a helicopter on the horizon. He leapt to his feet. "She's my wife! Where is she? Is she okay?"

"She's stable. I apologise, it took us until now to work out who belonged to who." She said, not meeting their gaze, and they feared the worse. Tamaki followed her, to another room, another part of the hospital, and there I was, covered in wires, the lower right hand side of my face covered in a gauze. I had been cut there, it would leave a scar.

"...Will she wake up?" Tamaki asked, anxiously.

"We... think so." The nurse answered. "It's hard to tell at this stage."

"...She will." He said, and swallowed. He took my hand, tentatively. "...She has to, or I... I'll be on my own..."

He pressed my fingers to his forehead, thought of all he had lost, and cried. They left him alone for a few moments.

"...Geez." Hikaru sighed, as they stood in the corridor. "This is..."

But it was beyond words, because words were human.

"It's cruel." Haruhi said, quietly. "...I can't imagine... losing a child..."

"And a wife, in one day."

She shook her head in refusal. "She'll wake up."

"She looked pretty... well, it didn't look that way to me."

"She'll wake up!" Haruhi insisted. "Or he'll..."

She couldn't finish the sentence. Hikaru couldn't question her. Eventually, they went back in to Tamaki. He stayed with me. They stayed with him.

When it got to midnight, Hikaru finally spoke.

"Haruhi, I'll take you back."

"No, I... want to stay." She said, glancing worriedly at where Tamaki was staring at the floor, his hand over mine. He hadn't eaten anything.

"You have lectures tomorrow." Hikaru reminded her. "Come on. I'll take you home; then I'll come back and... stay with him."

"You have lectures tomorrow too!" She argued, frowning. "Besides... some things are more important..."

"My lecture," Hikaru said, firmly. "Will consist of a twenty-minute discussion of the best way to sew on a button and little else. Yours will actually be important. If Tono was... thinking straight, he'd tell you to go. It's important to you. It's your dream."

"I'm staying here."

Hikaru took hold of her hand and dragged her by force. "Come on. You're exhausted. You've done your bit, Haruhi, and you're going home even if I have to drag you all the way there."

Most of the car journey passed in a brooding silence. The gravity of the situation seemed to put a dampener on any conversation. What was there to say?

"...Poor Tamaki-senpai." Haruhi muttered eventually, her gaze fixed out of the window. "He... really loves her."

"...Do you think so?" Hikaru replied after a slight pause, pulling up outside of her apartment.

"Yeah." Haruhi said, confused. "Isn't it obvious?"

"He... cares for her." Hikaru said, slowly. "But... I don't think they should ever have gotten married. It's not that kind of love. It's... She's more than his sister, he's not just her brother, but... they're not quite... together."

"Do you think so?" She echoed, and said nothing more for a moment. "...Still. It... puts all our problems into perspective." She said, and looked at him rather shamefacedly. She opened her mouth and would probably have sworn to work harder at their relationship, had he not gotten there first.

"Yes, it does." He agreed, unusually serious. "Haruhi, you... Haruhi, you still love him, don't you?"

Her eyes widened. "N-no, don't be silly." She said, stammering. "I've never-"

"Then how did you know who I meant?" Hikaru said, smiling wryly. "It's okay, I knew before I started dating you. I just... I thought maybe I would be able to replace him, you know? But if it's been this long, and I haven't, then I'm probably not going to."

"Don't-" She began, but he held up a hand to stop her interrupting.

"It's okay, Haruhi. I... I believe that somewhere out there, there is someone who could make you forget Tamaki. But it isn't me. And... I shouldn't have to settle for being second best any more than you should have to settle for having it."

"Hikaru..."

"It's okay." He winked, cockily. "I'm sure there's someone out there who can make me forget you."

"Then... you want to break up?"

"It's about time we did." He said, serious. Then he ruined it all. "Unless you want to sleep with me after all, in which case I'm willing to post-pone it till the morning."

"Hikaru!"

"Joking, joking." He shrugged. "You can leave with your honour in tact."

"I'm... sorry."

"Don't be." He said. "I had fun. We did, didn't we?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "We did. Thank you." She kissed his cheek, briefly, and then left, her back to him.

Hikaru rested his head on the steering wheel for a long time, wondering what he had just given up. When he felt able, he went back to the hospital, and did not breathe a word of what had just happened.

Between them, they took care of Tamaki. He had loved Daisy more than anything in the world, and now his grief seemed bottomless. His hope for me never wavered, neither did his vigil by my bedside. Doctors and nurses and friends could not remove him. I was moved to a private Ootori-run hospital, and there I stayed. He stayed by my side, grieving on his own, relying on his friends to remind him to eat, to wash, to sleep. They knew the only way he would get a proper night's sleep would be to go home and do so in a proper bed, but it was impossible to convince him. The child inside me was gone. Killed before it had even begun, aborted, taken to the afterlife before it had a soul. Tamaki waited by my bedside. He didn't speak much, though Haruhi tried. She knew if he didn't talk about what had happened, he would never recover. But he usually tried to avoid her questions.

"My children are gone." He said, quietly, one day. "What if... she goes too?"

"She won't." Haruhi reassured him.

"I know." He said, unconvinced. "I know."

There was silence for a little while. Then he spoke again. "But... But if she doesn't... at least s-she would never have to know... to know that..."

He broke off, and he cried again when he thought of his daughter. Haruhi, forgetting her usual inhibitions, went to him and held him, comforted him more than I would ever have been able to. I wonder if he realised he loved her then. Perhaps that was why he cried harder.

He had tried so hard. We had almost made it.

After that, he did not cry again until I came back to him. Because, one day, I woke up, and Tamaki cried in spite of himself and kissed whichever bits of my face he could get to. He cried in relief, he cried for everything I would find out, for everything we had been through and would go through, all of which was waiting for me. He cried for all of it. That was the only time. He never cried before me again.

Time passed. I began to recover. I could talk, and think, and one day it occurred to me he never brought Daisy to see me, and he was always there, so where was she? Who was looking after her? I asked him, one day, when his movement in the room woke me.

"She'll come and see you when you're better." He whispered, brushing his lips against my forehead. "Go back to sleep."

Another day, I said "How is Daisy doing? Was she hurt?". He said "She's fine, sweetheart, don't worry. Just rest now.", and smiled reassuringly.

Another day, when I could stay awake for longer periods at once, I said "I want to see her. Bring her with you tomorrow", and he said "Not yet, darling. Soon.".

Someone had given him the impression the stress would damage my recovery, particularly at a time when I was still confused and my mind was vulnerable. So he smiled, and he lied, and he bore it all alone, and sometimes he cried in an empty house.

Another day, finally, I was aware enough to think properly, and I said "Tamaki... I think I lost the baby. In the accident."

"Ssh." He said, quietly. "I know, Kotoko, I know. It was too early in the pregnancy... when you were hurt, it dislodged and..."

We were both silent for some time.

I said, "Tamaki?" and he said "Don't.", but we both knew I had to. So I asked, and he told me. Because he could no longer do this alone.

That was the first, and only time, I saw my phantom while I was awake. He was standing in the corner of the room, where the shadows fell first as it grew dark, watching silently as we sat there, despairing. I had always heard his voice, but I recognised the spectre even when it did not speak.

"You." I said, quietly. I had no eyes to see Tamaki watching me worriedly.

My phantom said nothing.

"You killed my children." I accused, quietly.

"They were not your reason."

I went mad. I have never been so angry in all my life as I was in that moment. Tamaki tried his best to calm me down, to tell me there was no-one there, tried to make me look at him alone, but I would not stop shouting. I think he must have realised then that I was truly insane. Frightened, and unable to console me, unable to hold me as I fought him off every time he reached out to me, Tamaki eventually called the nurse. Once they had injected me, everything went black. When I woke up again, the hysteria had subsided and I was being held in Tamaki's arms. He stroked my hair and told me not to cry as tears made their quiet migration from my eyes to the sea. It didn't work, though, because he was crying too.

Any purpose I had was gone. My children had gone with my brother, one not eighteen months, on barely conceived. With them, it seemed, my future had gone too.

"I can't do this any more." I whispered. "I can't."

"Sssh." Tamaki answered. It didn't help much.

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A/N: What a cheery chapter. I feel kinda guilty… Ahem. Disclaimers as always.

On a note of random trivia, I turned 18 yesterday. :D Just kidding. XD Well, I was 18 yesterday, but that wasn't what I was going to say here. I was going to say it's chapters like this that really make me want to write this story again from Tamaki's POV…

So, next time, it's the penultimate chapter. Tamaki gets drunk, and Kotoko gets desperate. Please join me then, and thanks for reading!