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Unforgettable: Deleted Scene

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The sky was blushing through the windows as Yuuki Ootori made her way upstairs after an afternoon prom-dress shopping with Suki and Jasmine. The woman looked out the glass above the landing and sighed softly.

Kain was sleeping at a friend's house that night. He had become quite the young man. He was all of seventeen years, six feet and future heir to the Ootori Company. And he was chivalrous, athletic, academic and polite. He was also a tad devious, a little straight-forward and all around teenaged in his social life. Very much like his father had been.

Yuuki smiled and opened the door to her bedroom. It was silent and still and peaceful. The girl wandered over to the neatly made bed and collapsed onto it with an airy thud. She stared at the ceiling.

A day of shopping with Suki and her daughter.

A day of shopping for a daughter's special day.

Prom, wedding...mothers and their daughters and those occasions.

Yuuki ran her hand over her abdomen and turned her head to the bedside table. On it was a picture. It was black and white and all around fuzzy. It was her baby. Her baby girl just days before she had slipped through their fingers.

Kyoya had found the image in a folder in his office. They had probably gone there after a check-up with the doctor. Yuuki had hugged him for brining it home and put it in a frame by the bedside so that they wouldn't forget about their baby girl. She had given them such happiness even though they had only known her a short time.

If they had known her longer, then she would be prom dress shopping too.

Yuuki reached out and touched the image and smiled gently. She was saying 'I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough. I'm sorry I never got to hold your hand and take you places and let you know how special you are. I'm sorry I wasn't able to keep you in my tummy for six months longer'. Kain knew about his little sister. He had found out when he was seven and asking for a little brother or sister. One that his mother was unable to give.

The picture was only small, but it was their baby. It was their baby girl. She would have loved her dad. Yuuki was sad that Kyoya had never known their child in the way she had known her. He'd never held her. Over a decade later, Yuuki still felt like she had robbed her husband of something by not being able to hold onto Sayuri.

It was an hour later when the door to the bedroom opened again. Kyoya walked inside. He had figured that Yuuki was out, but soon discovered that her usual mugging in the doorway had resigned itself to a crumpled slumber in bed instead. The man smiled as he undid his tie and hung it over a chair. He quietly sat down by his wife's knee and laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Yuuki." Kyoya said quietly. "Yuuki, it's nearly six."

He knew that his wife sucked at sleeping patterns and, if she fell asleep in the late afternoon, would not fall asleep until early morning. And then she would be grumpy and unhappy and all around tired.

The girl mumbled something and brought her hand up to her eyes. Kyoya kissed her temple and tucked her hair behind her ear. Yuuki moved her hand, blinked and mumbled something incoherent but presumably pleasing.

"You didn't give me a bruise saying hello today." Kyoya said as she sat up groggily.

"I haven't said hello yet." There was a short pause. Yuuki opened her arms wide and woke up. "Hello!"

Her husband was engulfed, as much as one can be by Yuuki. "Good evening."

"I fell asleep." The girl pulled back. "I went shopping."
"You're such a desperate housewife."
"I work."
"You don't get paid."
Yuuki raised her finger in objection. "I do. I just don't get paid money."
"Ah." Kyoya pushed his glasses up. "Good thing I do."
"We'd be fine without it. We would just have to buy the occasional home-brand product and only have the maid vacuum once a week."
"Kain wouldn't be getting a Mercedes for his birthday."
"We're getting Kain a Mercedes for his birthday?"
"As opposed to what you call 'a coffin on wheels', AKA – every other car." Pause. "Yes."
"I didn't get a Mercedes for my birthday."
"Yuuki, you can't drive."

Yuuki moved so that her feet were under her. She placed her hands in her lap and smiled, amused at her husband's closing statement. "Kain is at Tamaki's tonight with Tamaki Jr."

The Souh boy had become the Souh heir and, in due course, the epitome of Tamaki's son. It was like Haruhi had never existed as a moral influence in his life. Either way, he was Kain's close friend and the reason he Yuuki in him kept itself reigned in.

"I know." Kyoya pushed his glasses up.
"Can we watch a lame movie?"
Long suffering silence.

"Please?"
More silence.

"Pretty please?" Yuuki peered at her husband.

"Do I get a choice?"
"Nope." She grinned.

Yuuki was the single person in the entire universe who could direct Kyoya Ootori in a direction he would have not chosen, or rather, avoided. If she was going that way, then he would go too. Kain had a slight affect on his father's course, but not so much as his mother and not quite so widely manipulative.

Kyoya exhaled slowly and put his hand on his wife's head. "Will you tell me what's bothering you now?"

Yuuki smiled and grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand to rest between hers. "How do you know these things?"
"You always say hello the moment I walk in the door. It's a very pleasing conclusion to any day; good or bad."
"And when I don't say hello?" She tested.

"Then I get worried."
"I don't want you to worry." Came the quiet reply. "I mean, you're always helping me and I'm like...'that person you help all the time'."

Kyoya smiled. "Yuuki, you help me greatly. You don't have to be there for me like I'm there for you. If I wanted someone to love me like I love you, I would be a narcissist." He paused for a moment. "Will you let me help you?"

She was silent. "I'm not strong like you."

"You're not weak."
"If I was strong, I would have been prom dress shopping with our daughter today." Yuuki met his eye. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?" Kyoya lifted her chin up as she dropped it.

"For not letting you meet her."

It was amazing how quick light banter can turn into something serious when you're with a person you trust.

Kyoya was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry for not being there." Would it have been easier if he had been there to hold her hand. Would it have been any less painful? They would never know.

It was also amazing how years and years can pass, but you don't forget the things you love.

"No. No, you had things to do."
"I always have things to do." The man replied steadily.

Yuuki laughed shortly. "I just...you know. I mean, she would go with me to the store and try on dresses and I would keep giving her navy coloured ones because I would want them for myself and then I would end up trying dresses on with her. And we'd go look for the perfect jewellery and look for the perfect hairstyle and get our nails done by someone wearing a little blue mask. When she got married I would take her out and let her find her dress and then I'd come home and show her off to you and her little brother." The girl blinked. "I'm sad because I miss that, but I'm even sadder to know that you missed it too."

Kyoya took his wife in his arms and held her steadfastly. "She loved you so much."
"She never met you."
"Of course she met me. She was made up of me and you. Sayuri knew us, she didn't have to see our faces or speak or walk or talk. She knew us in the most intimate way a child can know their parent."

Yuuki pressed the bridge of her nose into her husband's collar. "Do you ever wonder what would have happened if things had happened differently? Like...the person ten meters away from you could be the love of your life, but you'll never know. The little baby in the stroller would have had different features if it had been conceived a second later."
"It would be a different baby. It wouldn't have been Sayuri and that person wouldn't have been you."

"Don't you wonder though?"

"I used to wonder what life would have been like if I'd never let you get on that plane back in High School. I wonder what we would have been like."

"Would you do it any other way?"
"I would do it so that I didn't lose a whole year to stupid decisions."

"They weren't stupid."

"They were pretty stupid."
Pause. "Okay...yeah. You were a jerk."

Kyoya smiled. "Are you okay?"
"Are you?"

"I will be." It's not just the woman in the relationship who needs support; it's just easier for her to ask sometimes.

"I'm glad we're not different people. If I hadn't left then I wouldn't be this Yuuki. I might even be someone else's Yuuki."
"Don't say that." Kyoya ran his hand over the back of her head. "But if you must, say it about our baby. Say, we wouldn't be here, like this, if it hadn't been for her."
"We would still be happy."
"Yes. We would."
"Would you want it different?"
"I can't give that to you." Kyoya kissed his wife on the temple. "Are you okay now?"

Yuuki smiled and leant back. She closed the distance between them and kissed her husband properly. He was warm and honest and he knew what being a human was like. He knew what wanting to change things was like and he knew that he couldn't. They knew that powerlessness and all they could do was trust God and trust that, where they were was the place they were supposed to be. They got there. They got through it. Time and time and time again. Humans have an amazing ability to survive, but they keep forgetting that it's easier if you've got someone you let help you stay alive. Not someone who is life, but someone who makes it all worthwhile.

Yuuki and Kyoya had experienced the joy of a child and then the devastation of loss. It had been a short time that they spent with their daughter, but it was a time they wouldn't replace. Neither of them would go back in time and take that baby away before they even knew it existed. Neither of them could now that they knew what it was like. Truth be told, there is some beauty in sadness just as there is beauty in life itself.

Kyoya knew that Yuuki still took his breath away. Every day was like a date in High School with your first love. It was time you got with them, it was time you wanted to spend with them and it was doing something you both agreed on, even if you couldn't both enjoy it.

Joseph Campbell once said that "we cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can chose to live in joy."

How true that was. What you chose daily determines how you live daily. You can't alter the past and you can feel pain. But when you look back on those memories, let them be beautiful because they were times that brought great joy, even if they ended in sadness. It's hard to look back on mistakes and grievances and learn from them, but it's not impossible. If it was easy, life would be too. But then, life wouldn't be life, it would be a walk in the park and there would be no pure joy because there would be no pure sadness. You have to experience the whole world to experience whole life – and everything that that implies.

Yuuki blinked and pressed her forehead against her husband's. "You smell like peppermints."
He smiled. "Kain is very lucky to have you as a mother."

"You're his father. He's got you too. He loves you too." They focused on what they had as opposed to what they could have had. You can't work with what you no longer possess.

Yuuki twisted and reached for the image on her bedside. It was fuzzy and comprised of black and white. It was their baby. Their little girl. "She's smiling here."

Kyoya felt comforted by this. He felt warmed and he felt certain that his daughter had been just as joyous during that time as they had been. "She's smiling even now."

Yuuki nodded. "Even now."

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Unforgettable, that's what you are
Unforgettable though near or far
Like a song of love that clings to me
How the thought of you does things to me
Never before has someone been more
Unforgettable in every way

(Nat King Cole, Unforgettable)

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I hope you have a very happy New Year. Did you know that it's been just over a year since I started Chrysanthemum? How far it came.

I have been working a lot on my own writing more and more lately, so I may disappear for a while. Actually, high chances that I will. I'll reply to messages and such, but I may not post fanfiction for a quite a bit. I know I keep writing Yuuki x Kyoya bits-and-pieces but theirs is the story I'm most connected with and that means the most to me, so I can't help but come back every now and then.

Hope you had a very Merry Christmas, keep safe.

Blessings,

P.