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, ginnna, Randomsam123, SweetSeductionCherryB :

I love staying up and working late rather than getting up early to get something done. I don't know, it's just something about the cold, quiet night that makes me work better. It's the two in the afternoon now, and I'm hoping my best friend and I can hit the mall. :)

Disclaimer: Not mine.

xxxxvii.

Tears stream down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace

Tears stream down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes

- Fix You/Coldplay

One day after cheerleading practice Sakura had returned home tired and restless only to find that her father's door was locked, again. She sighed and got to work. She cooked, she cleaned, she tossed clothes in the machine and she left some dinner in the fridge for her father if he came looking in the middle of the night.

Sakura had been doing her homework when his door had finally opened. He shot through the door and headed straight to the bathroom. The sounds of her father throwing up had alarmed her.

"Dad?" she called out to him from the bathroom doorway.

"Go away, Sakura," he told her as he held the basin tight.

With a sigh Sakura had moved to him, turned him around and then wiped his mouth, noting his dilated eyes and shallow breath.

"Are you high?" she asked him as she wiped his face with a wet towel. Also, that was a stupid question. When wasn't her father high? Surprising that a fifteen year old should what a person looked like when they were high.

She tucked him into bed, sat with him all night and held his hand when he got up, restless and uneasy. The next morning she'd simply stood up, taken a bath and gone to school as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

That had been the first time she'd taken care of her old man. There had been many other times after that, but she'd never done it for anyone else, not even Touya. The only other person she'd done that for was Syaoran.

*.*

"I want to go dancing!" Tomoyo shrieked after dinner, the five of them sitting on a squished table at a cafe across Tokyo Tower. The Tower was beautiful now, a few hours before the ball dropped, all lit up and tall, just like from a fairytale.

"I'm taking dad and Yukito to a play, so you girls are welcome to do as you please," Touya subtly gave them the okay to their plans.

"Ugh," Sakura complained. "I'm wearing high heels."

"You'll take them off if you have to," Tomoyo told her with a wink.

Sakura laughed, took a sip of her fruit punch and turned around to find her father staring at her. She touched her bare neck consciously as she thought about what was wrong. She then felt the back of the earring against her index finger. She looked at her father then.

An empty box had been left on her dresser when she'd come home from school one day. The box in which the earrings her mother had had were.

"Dad, what happened to the earrings mom gave me?" Sakura remembered asking as she sat there mutely, realizing what her father realized. Her father had been on his back, staring at the ceiling, not saying a word.

"I sold them."

Touya was saying something to Yukito. She'd forgotten to compliment them. They looked so prim and done up. How did she forget to tell them so?

"How could you! This was all I had left of her. She gave them to me! How could you have sold them? How dare you come into my room and look through my things!"

Sakura remembered the way she lunged forward toward him, angry tears threatening to escape as she pounded her fists against his chest.

"How could you?"

Sakura knew she'd been testing his patience. He was her father, sure, and he did many things to make her angry. That didn't really give her the right to test his patience. No. It didn't. It seemed like she'd been asking for it, now that she thought about it. She could feel his shirt fisted into her hands as she banged her legs against his, fighting him with all her strength, trying to understand why the man who loved his wife so much would give away the things she left behind.

She could still feel the sting of the back of his hand against her cheek.

Not once, but thrice. And then, there was no ending it.

Sakura was surprised by how easy she felt as she recollected the memory. Most days she couldn't even remember the details moving up to the fight that led her to leave Tomoeda for good.

She remembered calling Touya next, hysterical and sobbing from the telephone downstairs.

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

"What happened? Sakura? Is that you?"

"Help me. Please. Come back and take me with you."

"Sakura?"

"Dad's gone mad, Touya. He's gone MAD and I don't know what to do. Help me."

"Sakura?"

"Hmm?"

"I was asking you about where you got your earrings." He asked her over the buzz of the crowd. A delicate light shined into the restaurant from Tokyo Tower.

"Let me put them on,"

"They were a gift." Sakura found herself saying.

"They're beautiful," he leaned over and touched her ear, feeling the emerald it seemed, his eyes on hers.

Sakura had so many cruel and vile things going through her mind. She had them stocked up since she'd left home, things she'd wanted to say to him, things she'd wanted to do to him if she'd ever had the chance to see him again. Now that she had her chance, and all those words were right at the tip of her tongue, she found herself stunned into silence. Somehow, every despicable and nasty thing he'd done to her was at the back of her mind now, effectively silenced into inexistence.

He seemed worn out, her father. He seemed defeated, like life had beaten it all out of him. He looked so lost sometimes when she looked at him cooking, cleaning, and surviving. Simply thinking about how alone he must have been made her want to sob but then there were the memories, the only reminder that never let her forget that when he wasn't alone, when she'd been living with him, she had been. She'd been alone. He'd done nothing to make it easier for her. He'd done everything to make it worse. He could have stopped. He could have changed. He didn't.

His hand shifted over to her cheek as he cupped it lovingly. Sakura wanted so badly to lean into his touch, to pull forward and hug the man she knew to be her father. His eyes glimmered of something dejected, something like an apology most probably. It would do, Sakura decided right away. In that split second her will of judgmental prejudice snapped. She'd lost too much, too many people. She'd almost lost her family, her father. She would take it. Beggars couldn't be choosers.

Touya watched the encounter through wistful eyes. Yukito did the same with a smile. Tomoyo pretended to be texting someone.

"Enjoy yourself tonight," he told her, his hand still on her cheek. Sakura nodded.

"Happy new year, Sakura,"

"Happy new year, daddy,"

*.*

Yukito, Touya and her father parted ways with Sakura and Tomoyo, right after they promised to be safe and back home before two o' clock. No later, Touya had warned them. Sakura stuck her tongue out at him. Tomoyo even did the ears.

In the midst of scores of people Sakura danced mindlessly with Tomoyo, thinking of good times, thinking of bad. The New Year had been reined in with a bunch of songs Sakura had never heard and she thought of Syaoran.

Was he enjoying his time with his family? Was he having fun? Would they have liked her? Would they have accepted her? After sometime, all thoughts left her, as Tomoyo had brought out the drinks and forced one down her throat.

"To the New Year!" she screamed. Sakura laughed.

She hoped it would be as good as the last.

Getting home had been late that night, Sakura and Tomoyo piled into the house like a couple of giggling idiots.

"Did you let Kero in?" Sakura asked as she removed her earrings, then her dress. Tomoyo's muffled "yes" came seconds later, and Sakura wondered where the hell dog was so quietly hiding at this hour of the night. She put on a robe and went to take a quick peek at where Kero was.

After fumbling through the basement, then the entire house, calling out "Kero," in every dark corner, Sakura almost gave up before checking Touya's room. Then, she checked her father's. There, on his bed, was Kero. Sleeping like an angel, snoring away like the old man beside him.

"What are you doing?"

Sakura shrieked and clutched at her chest before turning around to find Touya. She smacked his chest, hard. "Don't do that!"

"Ow, alright,"

"What's my lab doing in dad's room?" she asked.

"Guess he likes it there,"

Sakura looked back at the sight and quietly shut the door.

"He was dad's before he was yours. Dad thought he'd be a nice present." Touya announced.

"What?"

"I knew you'd never have kept him if you'd known that." Touya turned around yawning, heading downstairs. "Good night, Sakura."

*.*

"Here," her father had given her a package early the next morning, on New Year's Day. Sakura smiled at him.

"What's this?"

"Your Christmas present,"

Sakura opened it slowly, taking her time with it. This was probably her second gift from her father. In the past he'd never really fussed over birthdays, or even Christmas, and that was probably because he was always high. It was also probably because he was broke. Shuffling between jobs and paying for Touya's college alone must have been a fortune for a drug addict. Sakura didn't want to think about what he'd done to make ends meet, to put food on the table, to have water running through the taps.

Inside was a pink sweatshirt with the words Daddy's Girl jotted on the side.

"I know it's a bit... assumptive on my part. Do you like it?"

Sakura looked into his face and saw two men, one who so eagerly wanted to please his beloved daughter and the other who so easily betrayed her into a broken past and deserted childhood. Both of them trapped inside this one man, the man who was trying hard not to pry, not to hover, and yet, somehow, was prying and was hovering. He'd given her that damned dog, and now he was giving her this.

"I love it, but I didn't get you anything," she told him sadly.

"That's alright. Your liking it is gift enough."

Her chair screeched as she stood and paced slowly towards her father. Unhurried, warm hands went around her neck as she did the same, her face in his shoulders, the smell of mothballs in her nose. She had meaning to do this since last night and she finally felt free. Like something she'd been trying to hold onto had escaped and now, she was free.

"I'm sorry, Sakura," he whispered. "I'm sorry for what happened. I'm sorry I put you through that," he pulled her away to look at her face, his eyes on hers. "You were so small and I hurt you. I can't believe I hurt you like that."

Sakura couldn't really tell how long she'd been in her father's hands like that, crying, sobbing, and reviving what she thought they'd once lost.

"Never again," she told him austerely. "I can't do any of it again. I can't... I just can't."

"I promise you, Sakura, never again." He pulled her away and stood, cupping her cheeks in his hands. He then pulled her in, his hand on her head as he hushed her uncontrollable tears. How many times in the past had she hoped that he would comfort her instead of she him? How long had she simply craved her father to be a normal, happy person she could rely on?

Touya came downstairs moments later and found father and daughter in an embrace that could only be called heartbreaking. Yukito clasped his hand in his.

"Should we have breakfast at the diner?" Tomoyo suggested. No one could really say how long she'd been standing there.

"That sounds like a plan," Fujitaka confirmed as he wiped his daughter's tears, for what could have been the first time in a long time. "Sakura liked the blueberry pancakes there,"

Five of them, along with Kero, piled into the car, Tomoyo and Sakura held hands through the ride, Sakura now wearing her Daddy's Girl sweatshirt.

How long had it taken them to get here? Ten, maybe twelve years even, but they had done it. They'd forgiven, and Sakura would learn to forget, as she would start life afresh here, in the small town she'd always known to be home, in the house she would learn to call home once again.

She couldn't help but wonder about the boy she'd met in a city too large, a complete happenstance that he'd ended up on the pavement just on her pathway to what had then been home. Sakura shook her head as her father offered to bring her some honey from the counter. True, she didn't really care for honey anymore, but that wasn't what she'd been shaking her head at.

It was time to let go, she decided. It was too late now, and it was time to let go. Not just her father's mistakes, but her own as well. Letting go of Syaoran was probably a mistake, Sakura saw that now. How did it matter? In any case, what had been so special about what they'd shared anyway?

Sakura sighed. It was special. Special, because the next time she found love, she'd know it'd be her second because undoubtedly, Syaoran had been her first.

Truth was that the last time she'd decided to let go was the last time she'd been in Tomoeda. Now, she was back again and it made her want to hope. Hope. For what? For Syaoran and her to get back, cross the long miles that had been placed between them miraculously and simply fall back into the love that they once shared? Sakura chuckled.

"What's so funny?" Tomoyo asked her between bites. Her father was feeding the dog bites off the table. She laughed again.

"Nothing,"

Syaoran Li. God, even his name was out worldly, like he was some kind of movie star. When was the last time she'd kissed him? She couldn't remember, no, not really, what his touch felt like, what his voice sounded like. Sure, she had a close estimate of it, but nothing would be as good as the real thing, and of that she was sure.

Sakura was just glad that he'd happened. Granted, she still ached from his absence, and Lord she missed him every day. She wanted to share this with him, like she did with the rest of her family. She wished they could have had that. She wished he could have met her father.

She wished.

She felt for the envelope in her bag and thought of the boy who touched her like no one else had, who'd loved her like no one ever would. He would forget her though, Sakura realized. Time would move on and so would they.

I'm thinking about you, Syaoran Li.

Happy New Year, my love.

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

QUESTION: Are you happy?

This is the last part of Sakura's journey. No, they don't lash it out and fight for hours before finally leading to a reconciliation. Sakura had been meaning to forgive her father, and she did. Simple as that. As you can see, she's been through A LOT.

I THINK if Tattooed had to have a song, it would be this one. Sure, many songs fit the label and the story but Fix You touches the story in a way nothing else does. Do you think so too? If not, what is the ONE song that describes Tattooed?

Next chapter coming up right away.

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