Tattooed

Summary: "I've lost everything to drugs, do you know that?" Sakura told him with tears in her eyes. "The funny thing is I've never even touched a drug in my life and yet it destroyed me. It took everything." She turned to face him then. "Please, don't let it take you away from me. I won't be able to handle it, not this time, not again." S x S.

Author's Note: Fashion Fairy 26, lhaine07, deadflo. BlossomofShadows, SweetSeductionCherryB :

Second update of the day!

I believe we come back, as humans, to repay our sins, to undo our messes. I don't really think there is a heaven as much as there is Moksh. After a point, if you've been good, you're probably redeemed from having to come back to Earth.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

xxxxiv.

I lose myself in all these fights; I lose my sense of wrong and right. I cry, I cry. I'm
Shaking from the pain that's in my head. I just want to crawl into my bed and throw away
The life I'd led. But I won't let it die. But I won't let it die.

- It's Not Over/Secondhand Serenade

Touya had come to receive her at Tokyo airport. They would have to drive to the ferry and then drive to Tomoeda. All in all, it was a four to five hour drive and Sakura wondered briefly why her big brother insisted on coddling her so much.

"I could have been there myself, you know," she told him as she cranked up the heat and rubbed her hands together.

"I know that,"

"How's Yukito?"

"Fine,"

"Where is he?"

"At a meeting in Tokyo,"

"Uh huh," Sakura muttered as she realized what Touya was doing. Monosyllables, she realized, were Touya's way of saying he was nervous.

"It's going to be alright," she told him. He looked at her then.

"I know that."

"Then what's eating you away?"

Touya sighed heavily, filling the small car with the sound. "I don't know, Sakura. You weren't exactly in the best of places with dad the last time you were with him."

"The last time I was with him was eight years ago. Besides, you'd said he's changed."

"He has,"

Sakura grit her teeth. This was going nowhere. "So what is this about?"

Touya didn't say anything to answer her question and instead drove into the ferry, the familiar bumping of the car making Sakura realize that this was it. She was actually on her way home.

Usually, well, over ten years ago, the brother and sister would go out onto the ferry and watch the fish jump in and out of the water as the ferry made its way slowly to mainland. This time, they sat together in the car. Feeling stuffy, Sakura decided to slip in a CD she had.

"Still with the classical stuff, huh?" he asked her as it began to play. Random symphonies by people Sakura herself wasn't familiar with played.

"Hmm,"

"I'm sorry, Sakura," he said all of a sudden. Sakura turned to him then.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"If I was there with you, if I had known dad was still—"

"Touya,"

"If I had known, Sakura, then I would have helped you sooner. I just can't help regret that." He paused then, clearing his throat. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Sakura looked away then, her eyes burning now. Truth be told, they'd been burning since she woke up in Paris, probably sleep deprivation, probably the tears she'd spent crying.

"Dad, isn't it time you ask for help? I know it's hard to..."

Sakura had been clearing up her father's room as he bent over the table and sniffed. Sakura had hated the sound. It sounded like something perverse, something wrong. She hated that sound.

"Maybe it's time you spoke to Touya about this?" she'd said as she tossed clothes into the hamper; clothes that hung onto the stench of her father's sins.

"No,"

"But dad,"

"No."

Sakura remembered staring at her dad as he moved away from the table, his staunch eyes on hers.

"Don't tell Touya,"

Sakura remembered thinking that was exactly what she would do, but then decided to never disobey the man whose roof she lived under. Somehow, even at the tender age of fifteen, maybe, fourteen, she knew to be scared of a drug addict and she had been.

"He told me not tell you." Sakura revealed finally, as though breaking the suspense of an age old mystery.

Silence was all that was heard the rest of the way, apart from the music, of course.

*.*

Touya climbed out of the car first and went to take out her suitcases from the trunk. Coming back home after eight years should have been more... fulfilling... was that the word? But it wasn't. Sakura's hair was on its end as she climbed out of the car after repeated deep breaths.

"Come on," she heard Touya's voice as he walked past her. Sakura stood, bag in hand and backpack in place, as she made steps behind him.

The front door opened, and Sakura wondered where exactly her feet had touched the ground when she'd left. They dropped their shoes off, then Touya walked upstairs as Sakura stopped short at the end of the corridor, branching off toward the stairs and the kitchen, the phone in direct line of sight.

"I don't want to be here anymore, Touya."

The phone call she'd made from Tomoyo's cell phone, the phone call to Touya that had changed her life... forever.

"Dad is... he's gone mad!"

Sakura heard voices from the kitchen and suddenly felt fear. Fear that she had no reason to feel... until now.

"Sakura?" she heard Touya's voice, like she had so many times before. Then, he came out to get her. "Sakura?" he looked at her, a few feet away and probably saw her fear-stricken face. He then held her hand and hugged her, bag and all, and whispered what she'd needed to hear all along.

"I'm right here," he told her with certainty. "I'm not going anywhere, Sakura. I'm going to be here, with you. Nothing will happen, okay?" he looked into her eyes then, his hands cupping her cheeks. "He's not going to hurt you."

Sakura willingly walked with Touya into the kitchen, numb and frozen from sensation. So when she had finally met the man that had caused the havoc he had in her life, she didn't know what to say, or do. She simply looked him in the eye, and he looked right back.

"Hello, Sakura,"

A glee she'd never known to find in his voice was now present as he greeted her. Something was different; she realized immediately. She nodded in greeting and sat down at the chair Touya had directed her to. With one last squeeze of her hand, Touya went to sit next to her father, their father.

"Would you like some tea?" her father asked her, as though they were a normal family, as though none of what had happened had ever happened. Was this what this trip was about? Was she supposed to simply overlook all that she'd seen and experienced? She nodded her head weakly, noticing the freshly painted walls, the waxed floorboards. New portraits and wall hangings she'd never seen before were up. The house looked as good as new.

"How about I make it?" Touya suggested. She jerked as Touya stood and walked to the kitchen.

Don't go.

Don't leave me here.

Don't.

"How are you, Sakura?" her father asked her, bringing her out of her stupor. Sakura noted his tired eyes, the spectacles she was so accustomed to seeing on him, the familiar white shirt and trousers he almost always wore.

"I'm fine,"

"Touya tells me you're a teacher." He told her, leaning forward. Sakura nodded, leaning back. It was a subconscious move on her part, but it was there nonetheless. Her father had probably caught her doing it. She didn't care enough to pretend not to be afraid. She was afraid.

Touya brought tea and poured some for Sakura. Black, with a little lemon and sugar, just the way she liked it. Her father liked milk and cream in his, as did Touya. They sipped their tea quietly.

"What do you do now?" she threw a question at her father.

"I'm a consultant at the Tomoeda Museum."

Sakura nodded. He'd lost his job at the University years ago, because of... well, obvious reasons. She wondered if they found out what he'd been doing. They probably did.

"How long do you want me to stay?" she asked her father then. Touya tried to shush her. Sakura sipped her tea, tilting her head to the side.

"I didn't know you intended on staying at all," her father responded without a smile. A smile washed on his face almost immediately though. It was one of those honest smiles, just a ghost of one, which made Sakura want to lurch. He was smiling at her. "I'm glad you are."

Sakura glared at the teapot, and then at Touya.

"I'll go settle in then." She announced and placed her empty teacup in the sink, rinsing it out. She then walked out of the kitchen, up the stairs and into her room. She shut the door behind her, observing how everything was the way she'd left it. She moved forward and touched her doll collection on the bench next to the small television set on the ground, then observed her empty closet. She would have bring her clothes up and unpack, soon. She sat on her bed and petted it softly, loving the feel of the satin soft covers against her skin, hating that she had given her word to stay with her father to Touya. She typed out a message to Tomoyo.

I'm fine. Just reached. Will call soon.

It was only after lying down that Sakura had realized that the covers were new. She sat up on the bed and eyed the pot of plants outside her half open window, the creepers along the sides of the rooftop, the dustless small room she'd left behind when she'd left home all those years ago.

She chuckled and lay down once more.

He wouldn't have bought new covers if he hadn't known she had intended on staying.

*.*

The streets of Hong Kong were crowded and swathed with the cold as Syaoran and his little niece and nephew made their way through the town with Fuutie hot on their tail. They'd decided to go down to the toy store to buy new toys. The kids scrammed just as they entered the toy store, and Syaoran gave them a time limit of half an hour, not more.

"So..." Fuutie had started as soon as the kids were out of sight. "Tell me about Glasgow."

"It's really something. You'd love it. I heard you were planning on going to school there." He told her with a grin.

"I meant tell me about the love of your life. Where is she, anyway? I thought for sure she'd come back with you."

Syaoran hadn't really been ready to tell the family, but he presumed Mei Ling wouldn't tell them. Apparently she did.

"We broke up, Fuutie,"

"Oh,"

Syaoran said nothing as he piled through the games section looking for Xbox games. Finally, he found them. He stood flipping through them, looking for something for Caden and Ai. Maybe even a three or four player game?

"Tell me about her anyway. What was she like? I mean, Big was so mesmerized by her; I thought for sure you wouldn't come home without marrying her."

Syaoran frowned. "She was lovely. I was the problem."

"If you mean the drugs, then I don't see what the problem is. You are over it..." she looked at him then and paused. "Right?"

Syaoran asked himself the same question at least five times a day.

"Right now, I don't want to... you know? I can never really say, though. Something might trigger it and I might end up wanting to. I'm kind of a flight risk right now," he told her caustically. "Part of the reason why she left me,"

"What's the other part?"

I cheated her.

I betrayed her.

I hurt her.

And apparently, I wasn't the first.

"Things happen, Fuutie. I can't do anything about it. We're done. Case closed." He told her.

"You sound like you're over her. Well, good for you then."

"No, Fuutie," he stopped her there as he turned completely to stand inches from his half sister.

"Why don't you go do something about it? Call her, talk to her. You could fix things. You still can. It's never too late," Fuutie tried to coax him into it. Boy was she good at making him think it was feasible.

"That's not happening," he walked away to the next counter to the PS3 games.

"Well, then. Get over her. There are other fish in the sea."

Syaoran grinned sardonically and shook his head. "I don't think I'll ever get over her, Fuutie."

"I get it. You're grateful to her, maybe even indebted, but that doesn't mean you can't move on."

"Actually, it does mean that."

"Xiao Lang..."

"You don't get it, Fuutie. I can't get over her, not today, not tomorrow, not ever,"

Syaoran heard the words in his own ears and felt the weight of them on his shoulders, in his blood, in his heart. How profound and great that confession was, Fuutie would never understand and Sakura would never know. Somehow, saying the words aloud made it true, and it was true enough already. Syaoran loved Sakura, and that wouldn't be something he'd be getting over anytime soon, no matter how much anyone said otherwise.

"Are you happy?" Fuutie asked then. Syaoran looked at her questioningly.

"Are you happy?" she repeated as the kids came into view, running along the store like little rug-rats. Had half an hour passed already?

"I suggest you start thinking about that first," Fuutie said as she walked over to them, leaving Syaoran alone with his thoughts.

Had he been happy with Sakura? He thought he had been... he wasn't so sure anymore. The memories of them together had seemed like a big black haze from another lifetime somehow, and while he knew he felt glad he'd been with her, he wasn't exactly sure if that was what happiness was.

Was that it? Happiness, was that all to it? It was made a far bigger deal than Syaoran wanted to anyway, but he still couldn't help but wonder if that was all there was to it, to happiness. Getting high had made him feel happier than anything else in the whole world. If that was happy...

Had she been happy being with him?

Syaoran picked up five random games and walked over to the billing counter behind Fuutie and the kids.

"Are you happy?"

That had to be the most Earth shattering thing anyone had ever asked Syaoran.

We could be over
And over, we could be forever.

QUESTION: What was your most embarrassing moment of all?

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