Title: The Third Thing
Rating: PG
Pairing: Yuui/Tomoyo. Romance, sweetness, mild angst.
Spoilers: Post-series, spoilers for the Nihon arc.

Author's Notes: This storyline will be continued in a new fic, covering Fai and Kurogane's return to Nihon from their travels, as well as Fai and Yuui's reunion. I decided to split it into its own story because it didn't really match the pace or tone of this one (which was mostly about Tomoyo and Yuui.) So for everyone looking forward to seeing Kurogane's reaction when he finds Yuui and Tomoyo together... don't worry, it will come!

It was not quite true to say that Tomoyo had never regretted giving up her dreamsight. It had been her true gift, a rare ability granted to only a few among millions, and it had allowed her to steer her country and her beloved ones towards safety and happiness for many years. The Witch of Dimensions would not have been able to take it as a price if it were not truly valuable, nor if its loss had not hurt.

But she had accepted the loss, and the hurt, and continued with great grace. Indeed, for all the wrench to lose that certain sight, it was also somewhat of a relief - all dreamseers knew too well the pain of being able to see the future, but to be unable to act on it to change anything. Freed of that burden, she had contented herself with the lesser foretellings of her position; the star-gazing and auguries that most priestesses relied on. And for years, that had been enough.

Now, though, she sat in the Tsukuyomi's sanctuary and gazed upwards at the sky, and wished with all her heart that she could have her old powers back - for a day, or maybe just for an hour. Three days ago she had left the comfortable routine of her old life and stepped into something new. Something that she had always known, abstractly, that she would have to do, but never seriously given thought to before.

She was going to become a mother.

Not soon - not even within the next year. The auguries that she had managed to perform warned her that conceptions would be rare between them, in part because of the strong magical abilities that slowed aging for both of them. But sooner or later, children would come. And Tomoyo was assaulted by a whole new battery of fears and questions that she had never, in all her visions, dreamed that she would need to ask.

Will my children be born healthy?

Will the fact that their parents are from different worlds cause a problem?

Will they be cursed?

Will they inherit our magic?

Will the country accept them as heirs to the throne?

Will the sacred bloodline of the Sun Goddess run truly in them?

Will the people come to love them as they love us?

Will they live to take the throne?

Will there be war, plague, storms, some catastrophe that I cannot foresee, that I cannot help them with?

Will they thank us for bringing them into this world?

Will my children be happy?

Not all of her powers as the Tsukuyomi could bring her the answers to the storm of questions within her; no matter how long and hard she gazed at the stars, they returned only dark nothingness.

A step on the floor behind her brought her attention down from the sky, and she turned and smiled as her lover ducked through the door.

"Yuui," she said softly, foregoing the honorifics that had always been a mark of formality between them. He smiled at her, a rare true smile that was concealing nothing, and held out his hand as he came towards her. She captured it in her own, and pressed his palm against her cheek.

"You've been in here for hours," Yuui said, a note of gentle teasing overlying real concern. "I wasn't sure I wanted to interrupt whatever was holding you so spellbound."

She smiled in return, and shook her head. "Just woolgathering," she said. "I can see nothing clearly, tonight. Perhaps I am asking all the wrong questions."

"Questions?" Yuui prompted her.

Tomoyo hesitated, then sighed. "You know," she said. "For all that I knew, in a corner of my mind, that someday I might marry and bear children… it never seemed real to me, not until now."

To her surprise, Yuui chuckled. "You're still one up on me there," he said, and there was an unsteady note in his voice that made her look more closely at his face. His blue eyes were shadowed, his mouth tight with strain. "I never dreamed it was possible at all. And if even the possibility had presented itself to me, I would have…"

Run away, Tomoyo finished for him silently. She could never understand how much that urge was a part of him, how hard it was for him to stay in place every day, but she knew that it was true for him.

"Because of my curse, you see," Yuui continued. "I was scorned by my family, cast out by my people, I wandered alone for years… I could never stay in one place for long enough to meet and fall in love, let alone consider… children. It would never have crossed my mind to bring new children into such a life, where they would always be hurt and rejected by others. Never until I came here, until I met you…" His eyes met hers, and he managed a small smile for her.

Tomoyo nodded; for all her anxieties and fears, she understood that his ran much deeper, tempered by his early trauma and grief. "But you are safe here," she prompted him gently. "And so will they be."

He sighed softly, and pulled her into his arms; a loose, warm embrace, more for comfort than for passion. "It was a gift I never thought I would be given," he said. "A wholly unexpected thing - not something I ever sought. But… for all my fears… I am not sorry to receive it."

For the first time in her life, Tomoyo truly did not know what the future held. But as her lover led her out of the door and into the moonlight, she did not fear it.

~the end (for now!)