Yes, I'm alive. It's Christmas break and though I still have priorities, in general it's safe to say that things have slowed down a little.

La petite amie means girlfriend in French, according to the online dictionary.

Thirteen

The Last Piece of the Puzzle

"Li-san, there's a caller on line one."

Yelan nodded at her secretary in acknowledgement and picked up the phone. "Li Yelan."

A burst of static hit her ear. "Yelan? It's Sakura."

"Oh hello dear—where in the world are you? What is wrong with your phone?"

Sakura laughed. "You won't believe where I'm headed right now, Yelan."

"Where?"

"My boyfriend's taking me to Paris!" Sakura squealed, worsening the crackling of the static.

Yelan sputtered. "R-right now?"

"Right now!" She giggled with childish delight. "He paid me an unexpected visit at the office, told me he was taking me out to lunch, and ended up dragging me to the airport. We just boarded—the plane will be taking off in a couple of minutes so I have to get off the phone very soon."

"How romantic! I assume that you won't be coming in to see me then?"

"I'd love to, but I'm afraid that I'm dying of hunger. I'll see you in a couple of days?"

"I'll put you in. Have a lovely time and give your boyfriend my regards."

"Will do. Bye!"

Yelan set the phone down but as soon as she did, the button alerting her to a call flashed again.

"Li-san, someone else is on the phone!" Her secretary called.

"Kami, what's going on today?" Yelan shouted. "Phone-the-shrink day?" She lifted the receiver and fought to keep her voice neutral.

"Li Yelan."

"Mom?"

"Syaoran!" Instantly her tone changed. "I've been trying to reach you for days. How are you? What are you doing? Are you feeling better? How—?"

Syaoran chuckled. "Slow down there, Mom. You're too young to have a heart attack."

"Then don't scare me like this anymore, Syaoran!" Yelan snapped. "Do you know how worried I've been these past couple of weeks? You haven't returned my calls, you didn't come to dinner that one night…Eriol told me you were ill but I didn't know that it was so severe that you couldn't even call to tell me! Kami, when I see you—"

As his mother rambled on, Syaoran tried to place everything she had said. He vaguely remembered something about a dinner—Eriol was talking to her about it that one night they stayed late at the office and his mother had left a message about it on his voicemail—but as far as he knew, he hadn't gotten sick in the past couple of months. Why would Eriol tell his mother that?

Whatever.

It wasn't that big of a deal. Maybe he had been with Sakura at the time and Eriol was just trying to cover up for him so his mother didn't get suspicious. Syaoran snorted.

So he is good for something.

"Sir?"

Syaoran turned to see one of the cabin stewards talking to him.

"If you could please turn off your cell phone and return to your seat, we will be taking off shortly."

"Oh, sorry." He gave the man an apologetic smile before returning to the one-sided conversation with his mother.

"—Are you overworking yourself again, Syaoran? Because stress weakens the immune system and can cause you to fall ill. Are you drinking orange juice? Getting some vitamin C? What about that herbal drink that I sent you—"

Syaoran cleared his throat. "Mom."

"—it's really effective. Drink it whenever you feel the slightest itch in your throat and it'll kill the virus right away. Do you still have it at your house? If not, I can tell Wei to order some from the mainland. It should take about—"

"Mom…"

"—but until Wei gets that shipped to you just rely on orange juice, okay? It's still the best way to prevent any nasty infections and—"

"Mom!" Syaoran said loudly, finally cutting Yelan off in her long-winded, breathless monologue.

"What?"

"I'd love to keep talking to you but I'm on a plane right now and it's about to take off."

"Y-y-you're where!?" Yelan shrieked.

"I'm going to Paris for business. It's short—I should be back in a couple of days."

"Why do you need to go that far?" Yelan wailed. "What's so important that you have to do it yourself?"

Syaoran sighed. "Because it's my company Mom, and I have to take responsibility."

"But you were sick! You just recovered!"

"I'm fine."

By this time, the steward from earlier had returned and was now frowning at Syaoran with undisguised annoyance.

"Sir…"

Syaoran gave a weak chuckle. "I'm so sorry…Mom? I have to go."

"B-but—!"

"I love you too. Bye!"

Snapping his phone shut, Syaoran smiled at the steward. "My mother."

Seeing that the man did not share his cheer, Syaoran quickly walked away from the bathroom area and returned to his seat.

"That was a long conversation," Sakura said lightly as Syaoran plopped down and buckled his seatbelt.

"My mother," he said shortly.

"Aww…how sweet. You keep in touch with your mommy!"

"Did you call your therapist?" Syaoran asked, ignoring Sakura's derisive cooing.

"Yeah. She says to give you her regards for doing something as romantic as taking me to Paris for lunch."

"Tell her it's because la petite amie has a stick up her ass and this is the only way to get it out."

Two minutes later, Syaoran's favorite steward arrived to investigate a disturbance in the first class cabin.

"I'm going to Paris for business. It's short—I should be back in a couple of days."

Yelan was fuming. She didn't know what made her angrier: the fact that Syaoran called after weeks of virtually no contact just to tell her that he was leaving the country to go to Paris—or the fact that he was leaving the country to go to Paris.

What matter would require him to fly all the way over to France but only take a couple of days to sort out?

It just didn't make sense to Yelan that Syaoran, the company president and chief executive officer, had to go to Paris, of all places, to take care of something that was apparently too little to require nothing more than a couple of days to figure out.

Let's call someone who would know.

Picking up the phone, Yelan punched a couple of numbers. On the third ring, someone answered.

"Entia Corporation, this is Miyazaki Sasara."

"Get me Syaoran's schedule," Yelan commanded.

Sasara tsked. "Aren't we demanding today. What do you need to know?"

"Why the hell he's going to Paris."

"Ah, yes. I was going to tell you about that later today because it seemed so random."

"Is he going over there to finalize some deal with the French? An international business leaders' conference? Prospective merger? Potential takeover opportunity?"

"There are no European deals at the current moment. The next conference is in the United States in a couple of months. As far as I know, there is no talk of any mergers or lucrative businesses to absorb. But of course, I am just a lowly secretary and wouldn't know everything about the last two."

"So why would he be going to Paris if nothing's going on with the company?" Yelan snarled.

"Oh, who knows," Sasara said airily. "Maybe he and that phantom lawyer are having a lover's tryst in the city of looooove," she sang.

"Oh stop being ridiculous, Sasara," Yelan snapped. "You sound drunk—"

She stopped.

Lawyer.

Lover's tryst.

City of love.

"Yelan? Are you still there?"

"I need to go." Without waiting to hear Sasara's reply, Yelan hung up.

How often was it that your patient and your son were headed to the same destination at the same time?

"You said she was cold? Imperious?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember what the woman looked like?"

"Auburn hair, green eyes. Very fine, delicate features—pretty young thing."

"My boyfriend's taking me to Paris!"

"I'm going to Paris for business. It's short—I should be back in a couple of days."

She should have known. She even entertained the thought once, thinking that Sasara's description fit Sakura perfectly. But really, it was the last part that was the dead giveaway. It was the last part that sealed the deal. So what if Sakura's firm, Nakamura, Itou, and Kinomoto, wasn't handling any cases for Entia Corp? So what if Eriol said Syaoran wasn't dating anyone and Sasara couldn't come up with evidence to contradict it? Law firm partners could keep cases hidden from each other. Syaoran could close off the loophole that was Eriol. Syaoran wouldn't do something as stupid as carry out an affair in front of Sasara's watchful eyes. As far as Yelan could see, all the facts going against her hypothesis could be disregarded…and all the facts supporting her hypothesis were irrefutable.

Business my ass…

"Reina!" Yelan called. Moments later, her secretary appeared in the doorway.

"Yes, Li-san?"

"I need you to find out how many flights departed to Paris from Narita within the last couple of minutes."

"Direct or transfer?"

"Direct." Syaoran always liked getting straight down to business.

As her secretary hurried away, Yelan found herself filled with jitters. All that work pursuing a cold trail, and now she had finally arrived at the moment of truth. She always knew that there was something fishy about that lawyer. Sasara had scoffed at her, saying she was being petty, but Yelan knew Syaoran like no one else did—as any mother would her son. Syaoran may have dated bimbos from time to time, but in the end he was an intelligent man and like most intelligent men, he was attracted to intelligent women. Cold, imperious, a lawyer…how could he resist that? No doubt she would brush him off and Syaoran, who had never been denied, would be driven into a more fervent passion. And Sakura, with her tendency to always shy away from something initially, would cause him to fall into that frenzy.

Syaoran had to be involved with that lawyer.

And Sakura had to be that lawyer.

The puzzle was close to completion. Now all Yelan needed was the last piece.

"Li-san?"

In her tenseness, Yelan found she could barely breathe. "Did you find out?"

"Yes. I checked the entire list of departures within the last half hour."

"And?"

"There was only one flight to Paris, direct or transfer. It took off about ten minutes ago."

One flight to Paris.

Took off about ten minutes ago.

"We just boarded—the plane will be taking off in a couple of minutes…"

"I'd love to keep talking to you but I'm on a plane right now and it's about to take off."

Sakura and Syaoran were on the same plane.

Kinomoto Sakura and Li Syaoran were on the same plane.

Kinomoto Sakura, the patient who had been doing unmentionable things to and with her boyfriend, was on the same plane as Li Syaoran, Yelan's son.

And as realization finally dawned on Yelan, the full impact of the discovery she had just made understood, the world came crashing down.

I cranked this chapter out in two days. It's 2:03 am right now and my brain has turned into mush. So forgive me if this chapter seemed too sudden, too rushed, illogical...whatever. I decided it was time to FINALLY let Yelan find out. I checked it over and over to make sure there were no plot holes and that everything made sense and flowed but you never know. If you catch anything, PLEASE tell me so I can go back and fix it. That was one of my big pet peeves with the old version, the fact that I wasn't tying up loose ends.