A/N: Midterms are around the corner and I really should be concentrating on my gazillion homework and reports. I'd like to thank apple and Property of Eriol for loving chapter 19. :) Annonymous Amethyst, here is the quickest update that I promised you about. :)


Act 20, Winter

The steady buzz of the blizzard was supposed to lull Tomoyo to sleep but there she was, wide awake, uncomfortable in her borrowed night dress, and mindful of the littlest of noises outside her room. Her heart was as heavy as lead, and it was particularly vexing that her own mind wouldn't let her rest even at fourteen minutes past twelve o'clock. Without waiting for another second to pass, the girl liberated herself from the confines of the guest room, sauntering confidently in the darkness as she lead herself to Eriol's quarters.

His unlikely question still disturbed her, and she wanted to be assured again that he wasn't delusional anymore.

She quietly padded on.

Though the Amamiya house was traditionally Japanese in structure and had a lot of rooms it was fairly effortless to find her senpai's door. It was the only door that had a dimmed light coming from the gap anyway while all others implied they were empty.

She already had a hand on the sliding door when she suddenly wavered.

This is wrong. I shouldn't even be here.

"Daidōji-chan."

It was Nakuru who found her still standing there, undecided and awkward. Tomoyo bowed to her, wondering if the older woman could notice her timid smile in the dark.

"Do you want to see Eriol-san?" The nurse asked her as she opened the door. Despite the faint shade, the light was oppressive as it fell partially outside the room, and Nakuru could clearly insinuate that expression of dilemma on her face now.

"I wasn't going to...actually, I was just—"

She knew she was blushing, and the girl didn't understand why it seemed wrong to be caught stuttering like that.

"The floor is cold, and you are barefoot. Come inside."

Whatever the older woman had read in her body language, she brushed it aside. But the she was still suddenly embarrassed as she stepped in the carpeted room.

The warmth of the room was infinitely inviting compared to the cold of the floorboards.

"I don't want to distract you of what you're doing, Akizuki-san."

"It's not a problem," Nakuru told her as she set aside the syringe and medicine on the lamp table. "I was just making sure Eriol-san has his medicine ready when he should have it."

The ebony-haired girl took the seat in the other side of the bed, embarrassment gradually dissolving into mild unease.

They watched Eriol sleeping for a few minutes before Tomoyo started speaking, voice oddly shallow and breaking in the air.

There were things that bothered her even before doctor Kinomoto and his assistant arrived from their trip and attended on Eriol.

"Is there a cure?" She didn't have to elaborate or explain what she meant because her tone already suggested her thoughts.

Nakuru's gaze flew to her face, looking uncertain of how to reveal the true nature of Eriol's disease to her.

"I'm afraid Eriol-san has to bear with it for the rest of his life," the nurse told her after a moment's hesitation.

Tomoyo didn't know why but it just felt like she suddenly couldn't breathe. Her amethyst eyes that looked golden in the lamp light were actually shining with tears.

"Hiiragizawa-san said...he said is scared of dying."

The doctor's assistant didn't particularly look surprised at her statement but there was a sad gleam in her own eyes.

"Kinomoto-sensei just recently decided to specialize in lung conditions so that he can save him." The nurse's own voice was notably sympathetic but also proud. Just like Yukito, she had refused to give her a straight response.

Tomoyo's eyes fell on Eriol's profile in the soft, yellow light again, wondering if Tōya's mother's fate also had to do with his decision to become a physician. Whatever other reason he had, her respect for the older Kinomoto anyway grew significantly.

"There is nothing to worry now, Daidōji-chan. Everything will be fine."

She tried not to think about how haunted Eriol had looked when he stared at her that afternoon. There was no other way but to be hopeful for him.

The silence unnervingly draped over the two women before Nakuru decided to break it.

"I am going to tell you a story. This may change your impression of him but you also need to understand. Eriol-san...he's braver than you think, but he's had a complicated childhood and that's probably why he's suddenly afraid. I first met him when he was only twelve. When the Kinomotos took him in, he could speak very little Japanese and wouldn't mingle with his cousins, yet he was amazing with the piano, and he played like a prodigy."

The nurse only delayed her absorbed narration when she had to apply a fresh cold compress on Eriol's forehead.

"At first look I could tell he was a lonely boy. In England, the other children couldn't relate to him and so he didn't have a lot of friends. Everybody regarded him as Clow Reed's bastard child. His parent's never married, and when they suddenly ended their relationship it was Eriol-san who suffered. It didn't help any that Clow Reed wouldn't acknowledge him or his obvious talent."

"Why would he do something like that?"

"I think he got frustrated of his son's disease. Eriol-san, though very talented, was a very sickly child."

Tomoyo's frown deepened.

"But shouldn't Clow Reed have been more of a father because of his condition?"

Nakuru didn't have an answer for her.

"It's such a shame, ne. He's grown to be just like his father. Clow Reed just has to see it before it's too late."

What Terada said before seemed sensible now. Her senpai had been trying his best to get noticed by his own father.

All he wants is to be accepted. He is chasing after a love that eludes him.

"And Hiiragizawa-san's mother...what happened to her?"

This time the comely nurse looked as if she didn't want to even finish her account. There was something in her golden eyes that told her that she couldn't say anything more and the truth shouldn't come from her.

"Nakuru-san?"

The air was heavier and it seemed as if the walls had edged closer around them, depriving them from any little comfort.

She sighed once before she looked at Tomoyo square in the face. Both of them realized that the former heiress had to understand.

"She died of overdose of sleeping pills. Nobody could dare to say that it was deliberate because she didn't seem like she was someone who would do something so careless and leave her son all alone. But at the back of people's minds, they knew for certain it was no accident. She was depressed for too long, and that was why she had sent his son to Japan to be taken care by his only relatives."

So it all made sense now, why her general feelings for him before was that he was someone who was mostly removed and distant despite any stimulation.

The amethyst-eyed girl swallowed the painful lump in her throat.

"I am really sorry to hear this."

"I am, too, but I am just grateful that he has a family now. He is going to live."

Eriol Hiiragizawa's experience was something that anybody shouldn't even have to go through at all. Yet despite his wretched past, Hiiragizawa Eriol came to be the man who quietly offered her his umbrella in the rain when she first came to Tomoeda, the same one who stepped up against the harassing American customer in Aoiya, the same one who caught her as she fell from the emergency exit in their dormitory, and the same one who finally found her in the streets of Hakata.

Seeing him so helpless like this made her emotional, and her vision blurred again with unshed tears.

The women sat together for a while, observing the rise and fall of Eriol's chest in peace. The companionable silence allowed them to contemplate of the day's events and their own separate feelings, and to wish for things to look brighter in the morning to come.


A/N: Aaaaa...I don't know what happened. The original version of the chapter didn't have Eriol's mother's story but it would seem lacking without it, anyway, and I don't want to keep her alive. LOL I hope I didn't overdo the chapter with all explanations. :/ Everybody's half an orphan, and I just noticed that. Wow.