Author's Note: Sorry for the briefness of this chapter. It is finally pulling along again, so I hope to be updating again in a month or so, but I shan't promise anything.

Try to Wish

Chapter Seven : Falling Apart

Umi flipped the cooled cake out of its pan and onto a plate. Moving the plate and bowl of frosting to where she could see the living room better, the knight laughed. Huki had found the box of tissue again and was pulling the sheets out one by one. It was his intense look of concentration that amused her. Clef, himself, had been fascinated by the way a second tissue appeared when you pulled out the first one. And with the wild way Hideaki's hair was growing, he really did look like a miniature version of the mage.

Keys jangled and the door opened as Umi finished icing her cake.

"And what mischief is my boyfriend concocting today?" Kuu's voice rang from the entryway.

"He decided to redecorate."

The blonde looked over at the boy sitting amid a pile of tissues. He has since emptied the box and was playing inside it with his hands.

"We did need some male input."

Both girls laughed and Huki turned round to give them a big five toothed grin.

Kuu set her bag aside and gathered the boy in her arms. She bounced him around a bit to make him laugh.

Umi smiled half heartedly. The warm strawberry smell of the kitchen did nothing to brighten her mood. She spent the afternoon baking Clef's favorite cake. Tomorrow Hideaki would be one year old, and what better cake to have than the one the boy's father adored. It wasn't as if she ate sweets anyway.

If Clef always requested it, it was likely there son would like it too.

But that is what depressed her most. The warm scents that filled the apartment were too reminiscent of the mage. They reminded her that he was not here and that Huki may never see him. Therefore Umi had been in a rather melancholy frame of mind for much of the day. The cheer of her flat mate was not contagious enough to bring her out of it. At least the knight knew she had other things to worry with. Her mother would be arriving tomorrow as they had decided to throw a birthday party and Kuu had insisted they have it in Kyoto.

So many things needed to be done. Umi had straightened the apartment, found things that needed cleaning, much truly didn't need any of the work she was putting into it. Huki had been making messes all day which suited her just fine because it gave her something else to worry about.

Washing her hands and drying them, she set the cake aside. She could do the final decorative touches later. Taking a moment to gather the mountain of tissues Hideaki had strewn about the floor, Umi left Kuu to supervise her son and disappeared into her bedroom. She needed a moment to herself. To reorganize her thoughts so she could push them back into her subconscious where they belonged.

Umi sat on her bed and picked up the frame on her bedside table. She and her lover looked so happy in the photo. It tore at her heart.

"Clef, I just don't know if I can do this. It's just so hard."

Tears ran down her cheeks. Why did this have to happen? It was torturous. Every smile, every milestone ripped the wound larger. Soon Hideaki would be walking and she would agonize through it as every step would be a reminder of the man who would never see those first wobbly moments.

Too much time was spent brooding over this distant person. The separation was killing her but wasn't her introverted grieve depriving her son of a happy mother? Opening her bedside drawer, Umi shoved the photograph inside. Today and tomorrow were about Huki. She needed to put Clef out of her mind for just a short while.

Trying only to think of Huki, the knight made her way back to the kitchen.

Kuu was singing a silly song to the boy on the floor. He was laughing and babbling back at her. Umi smiled. She took the small basket of strawberries and moved them back to her workspace.

"I don't think I can do this."

The voice echoed in Clef's head as he rolled over. He hadn't been sleeping well lately. All the meetings involved for this law change were draining the life out of him. Vespasian was dead set against him and kept trying to sway the council to his view, yet most of the council knew that Clef's motives were rarely selfish and this move likely had little to do with him.

On the days hew went nearly without sleep, he heard the disembodied voices more often. Maybe it had to do with not sleeping and therefore not dreaming.

In his dreams, he saw her, he heard her, spoke to her, and touched her, but that didn't make his dreams anymore real. He was too old for this. Maybe he was losing grip with reality. He did hold great power and could likely live much longer due to that power, but he felt so old and tired.

Shrugging off his blankets, Clef climbed out of bed. Just being tired wasn't and excuse that would allow him to stay in bed all day, and he hadn't been ill in ages, so if he were to stay in his room all day, someone would likely be worried enough to come looking for him.

Donning his robes, Clef stumbled through the corridors to the kitchens. He would much rather be sleeping the day away.

If he could settle down to sleep.

"You look terrible, Love." The head cook stated as she placed a steaming cup of tea in his hands.

The mage merely nodded as he sipped his tea, letting it burn his tongue and throat. The pain was welcome in the cloud of numbness he was living in.

"Fretting isn't going to change the outcome. You can always appeal again." Tulva leaned in close to him. "Or I can put a little halli in the prat's breakfast tomorrow."

Clef smiled. As much as his former student's staunch advocacy against him, troubled the mage, he wasn't to the point of having the cook as sick making herbs to his meals.

"I don't think that will be necessary."

"I hope not. I am getting tired of this stressed and sulking version of Mage Clef. Simply sulking, moping Clef was enough."

"We'll see in a few hours."

The cook puffed up in annoyance. "If you're change passes, you had better cheer up a bit."

Clef nodded solemnly.

"I just wish that damned portal would open again, so I can have my old Mage Clef back, since the more cheerful half seems to be trapped in the magic knights' world."

Placing the empty cup down on the worktop. Clef readied himself to face the day.

"You and I both." He said glumly.

"Oh, don't you be givin' up like that. She'll be back." Tulva looked over at him with a glint of worry in her eyes. He really wasn't the same man she had met all those years before.

"What that beautiful girl saw in a grumpy, old man like you, I'll never know." Grinning at him, she went back to work.

Felling a little better, Clef walked back to the library. He still had a few hours to kill before his audience with the committee this morning.

The cake was finished, dinner was nearly ready, and the apartment was neat and tidy aside from the corner of the den Huki was playing in. The bin that normally held his toys, was overturned and the toys littered the floor. The wind of a plush bumble bee was shoved in his mouth as he looked up at his mother.

A smile broke out on his face.

Umi's expression softened to a smile as she sat beside him. She was flustered for no visible reason. He parent's had see her apartment before. It was usually a little untidy. With a small child, tidiness didn't happen often.

The doorbell rang and Umi stiffly climbed to her feet.

Mrs. Ryuuzaki greeted her cheerfully at the door before coming in to scan the room for her grandson.

Hideaki laughed and waved his arms at his grandmother. Standing on wobbly legs, he took tow steps forward as she knelt to meet him.

Umi had to take a deep breath as the stabbing pain of grief shot through her heart.

To be continued…

Author's Note: Feel free to hate me. I told you it was short. This is how the chapter ended as I wrote it. No one wanted to do anything more. I think the angst of this fic is even tiring the characters. The next chapter should be a little more upbeat-I hope.

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