In One

Summary: Sakura carries the memories of three souls. Sometimes it is too much to bear. OneShot.

Warning: Probably a bit confusing.

Set: post-TRC

Disclaimer: Standards apply.

Sakura carries the memories of three souls.

And while each single one of them carries her name, they are different. And yet the same. Or are they? Sometimes it is hard to tell. Sometimes it is easy.

Sakura the princess.

Sakura the school girl.

Sakura the mother.

Sakura the clone.

Sakura the traveler.

Sakura the girl-lost-in-time.

They ache for her attention, sometimes. They throw memories at her and feelings and thoughts and she has to stop dead whatever she is doing to press her eyes shut and wrestle them down. To calm them in the same way she calms herself – breathe, breathe, you're alright – because they are her and they are as scared as she is.

As torn.

Cherry blossoms and pavilions and journey's memories and childhood images come rushing towards her, image by image, too fast to see more than a blur of colors and feel the emotions connected to the pictures. Sakura does not need to see the pictures clearly. She knows them. She knows the little house in the outskirts of Tokyo where she lived with her father and her big brother. She knows the ruins of the temple in the desert she watched from her window in the palace so often. She knows the darkness of Fei Wan's prison, the soundlessness of unmoving time. Her husband's warm, strong arms around her shoulders. Kurogane's arms, carrying her protectively. Fay, teaching her to cook. Walking along the street breathing in the summer air, Umi, Hikaru and Fuu by her side. Fuming at Touya's teasing and her little revenge when she steps on his foot with all her strength. Yukito, Touya's best friend. Tomoyo, Princess of Piffle country and Ancient Japan, and Yuzuriha and her huge dog. The soft feel of a baby's skin and the delicate, tiny body in her arms. Pictures of a beautiful woman named after a flower.

The loneliness of a broken world is with her, as is the happiness of finding her great love, the sadness of leaving him, the darkness of a lost memory. The feeling of meeting new friends and knowing you were fated to meet, of being lost in the darkness, of knowing her son will leave her. It all belongs to her, is part of her as much as the name she carries is a part of her.

Three lives collect plenty of memories.

Sakura is twenty years old, heiress to the kingdom of Clow Country, although her brother comes first in succession. But she is the priestess of the ruins of Clow. As such, there is a lot of work she has to do every day: she visits the people of her country, talks to them, laughs with them and listens to their worries. She attends the ceremonies in the temple and takes part in the holy cleansing rituals. Her days are filled with laughter and happiness and though a part of her heart is constantly on a journey through the worlds she knows Syaoran will return. He has promised it, as she has promised him never to leave him. (In this world? In another? And does it matter?) He will always come back to her.

They will always come back to us.

Four corners of her heart belong to the same man and yet to different ones. She loves the traveler as much as her husband as much as the traveler's mirror image and her son. Is it possible? Maybe, maybe not. Sakura does not care much for possibilities as long as they do not present themselves. She has learned about choices and she chooses to love them all alike.

The souls in her heart agree.

They share memories.

Tokyo Hongkong Clow.

They share emotions.

Syaoran Syaoran Syaoran.

She breathes for him and longs for him and lives for him, for him and the people with him and for all the people inside and outside the palace's walls. Those memories are a part of her. The four corners of her heart – and soul and being – are a part of her. She embraces them wholeheartedly, as they without doubt would have accepted her.

They are the same, after all.

Sakura feels tears in her eyes and wonders who it is who is crying.

Maybe it is the first Sakura. The one who lived a new life with old, sad memories, who waited sixteen years for Syaoran. The one who was born with all the sadness, desperation and guilt she had accumulated on her journey. The daughter who left her home and her family for the sake of someone she had never met in this life before. The mother who saw her child grow up to be the person her husband is. And who loved it regardless. Who sacrificed herself to save the person as whose image she had been created.

Maybe it is the clone. The young girl who knew the life she was living wasn't her life and yet felt happy. The princess who loved her country and would have given anything to protect it. The weak travel companion, not even strong enough to keep her eyes open for long, dreaming of a faceless person she never met and yet loved so much. The young woman who knew she had to hurt the people who had saved and protected her again and again because it was the only way to save them. Who protected her son from the person who was her husband once.

Maybe it is the Princess. Maybe it is her, Sakura, who feels this unimaginable love swell in her heart. She loves them so much it hurts. The wife, the traveler, the teenage girl, the mirror image. They are everything she is: they are strong and weak, hurt and healed, they love and fear and live and die. They are three in one and yet one and all those memories are hers and yet are not. She never wants them to leave her, no matter how heartbreakingly sad and lonely she feels when she remembers. It is all a part of her: the happiness, the sadness, the loneliness. The love.

They are alive.

Sakura wishes for three things.

Let Syaoran, Fay, Kurogane and Mokona be safe and return to Clow Country soon.

Let Clow Country and all its inhabitants live peacefully and happily.

Her last wish she never speaks out loud. She does not need to. The pieces of her heart understand and they agree wholeheartedly. They yearn for the day as much as she does.

Please.

Let us meet again.