Kyralea: HOWDY!!!!!

Annie: Weee'rrrreeee bbbaaaaaacccckkk!

Kyralea: Betcha thought we'd never end the suspence, huh? Well, we are. This isn't as long as the last one, but at least you'll know what happens!

Annie: And there isn't even that big of a cliffhanger at the end of this one!

Kyralea: Annie! Shush!

Annie: Sorry!

Kyralea: Read on!

Annie: Yeah!

~*~*~*~*~

Disclaimer:

Yadda Yadda Yadda,

We don't own anything,

Blah Blah Blah.

~*~*~*~*~

"Talking"

'Thoughts'

_Enforced words_

(F.Y.I.)

[Editors notes]

~*~*~*~*~

Near Or Far

Chapter Four

Li ran as fast as he could to the door to the roof. He could sense her. She was in danger.

'God bless that woman.'

He got to the door, not bothering to be quiet, and ran as fast as possible to the top. Zachary was waaayyyyyy behind.

He burst through the door. He didn't see anything. He walked forward, to the end of the roof. Looked to his left, looked to his right. Chose his right. He quietly
walked to the end. And he saw it. The card. Grinning evilly, about to kick his beloved off the roof. His eyes widened, as it succeeded.

"NO!"He called out his sword faster than he ever had in his life, calling to wind element just as fast. He caught her right as she was about to hit the second
roof. He set her gently on the roof.

"You dumbass." He whispered, lifting her up.

"Ah. So the weak little princess has a price. I was wondering how she captured any cards. Maybe you'll give me a challenge. Though I'm getting a little tired.
Maybe I'll just leave." The seek yawned.

"Don't even think about it, sweetheart."

Li raised his sword, calling lightning, with which he shocked the seek with. And, as unexpected as this was, it actually effected it. With one of it's magnified
senses being Feel, it hurt a LOT. Li grinned triumphantly. He had her. He thought.

"You run WAY too fast!" Zachary shouted running onto the roof, immediately losing his balance and falling off the roof. Li gasped, and on instinct, forgot
about the card and helped his friend, giving the card enough time to get away by telaportation.

"Godammit, Zachary! You made me lose the card!" Li screamed. Sakura stirred. Li, again, forgot all about anything at the moment other than her. He ran to
her side as she woke up. She looked at him and gasped.

"Li!'

"DUMBASS! DID YOU EVEN LISTEN WHEN KERO TOLD US TO STAY TOGETHER?!?!?!?!"

Sakura gasped, taken aback

"Well, sor-ry! You were all 'But I'm the desn" Li cut her off, pulling her into his arms and hugging her tight.

"Don't you ever, EVER scare me like that again!" He said, burying his head in her hair. He even started to cry. A little. Sakura was even more surprised.

"What?"

"I said, don't EVER do that again! I though you were going to die!" He tightened his arms around her. Sakura almost smiled, but was a little too confused to.
She hugged him back, and noticed him silently crying. A little. She gasped. Li paid no heed, and leaned his head onto her shoulder. They had both
completely forgotten about Zachary.

"Don't ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever scare me like that, ever ever ever ever ever...." He ended in a whisper/whine/plead only she could hear.
Sakura smiled and kissed his head, closing her eyes and enjoying the moment, knowing it wouldn't be near long enough.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Seek Materialized in the snow up to mid-thigh point. It shuddered violently against the biting cold wind whipping around it's bare shoulders, it's sense of touch
magnified by a hundred. It pulled it's cloak tightly around it, and began trudging through the deep drifts, to weak to apparate some place else. The 'Weak'
young cardcaptors were not as weak as it had let them see.

'They are going to be harder to beat than I thought.'

It scanned the horizon for shelter, and saw a wooded area. At least the wind wouldn't be so fierce, so it pointed itself in that direction. After what seemed like
hours, it came upon the edge of the thick coniferous wood and ran into the trees, following a small trail. It hated the cold. But it had been so long since she
had been cold for it to remember why. Now it did. Eventually it came upon a building. It couldn't see though it, but it could feel heat radiating off of it. It allowed
itself a tiny smile.

"Heat."

It pulled open the door. The warm, damp air was welcoming. The Seek realized where it was. The magnified sent of roses, orchids, and tiger lilies invaded her
nostrils. It was a greenhouse.

'The perfect hiding place.' It thought. 'They would never believe me to be someplace like this, someplace I can't see out of, so I couldn't see them coming. It
would be too risky. But it's not, because they would never believe it.'

Then another feeling came into it's senses. A burning sensation. The Seek's pale skin was thawing out. It looked at it's bare leg, which was now a bright
shade of red. The burning sensation grew. To you and me it would just feel tingly, and comfy, but with the Seek's magnified senses, it was agony. The Seek
fell to the floor in pain, twisting on the ground until the pain subsided, then brought it's legs up to it's chin and wrapped it's cape around itself, whimpering
slightly, and now remembering more than ever why it hated the great white north.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Don't get too comfy, you still have to yell at me." Zachary said. You could tell he was ashamed.

Li let in a sharp breath, and Zachary braced himself.

"You know what? It's okay. You just bought us time to think of an actual plan." Li said, and leaned his head back on Sakura's shoulder. Zachary was VERY
surprised(duh).

"Wow, man, I knew Sakura could do stuff to you, but, wow......"

Li just ignored him. Getting mad at him would have to include letting go of Sakura, so he just sat there, holding her, trying his best to drag out the feeling for
as long as possible. Zachary gave up.

"OHMYGOSH!!!!! HOW CUTE ARE THEY?" He heard someone scream. He spun around, to find Madison standing video taping their friends. His face went
weird, and he almost did the anime fall, but realized he was way too close to the edge of the roof for comfort. He jump away.

"What is it with you people and the roof?" He heard another person say. He looked to find the woman that had given them the directions to the roof. Li
sighed, and pulled Sakura off of his lap. He slowly stood up, unsure of what to say. Zachary smirked.

'And they thought I wouldn't be useful!'

"Well, ma'am, to tell the truth...." Zachary started. Every one looked at him like they were about to throttle him."We are under cover agents for the FBI. We
have been chasing after a woman for quite some time, but unfortunately, she got away in a helicopter just a few seconds ago." He finished. Madison fought
back giggles. Li and Sakura just gaped. Zachary smiled an 'I did it!' look.

"Um, oh. Ok." The woman just stood there, not sure what to do.

"Hey, Madison? How did you know where we were?" Li asked.

"Well, I had gotten to the bus just as it was taking off, and asked someone there were it was headed, and then I got the rental car and drove down here. I
wasn't actually sure of where you guys were, but then I saw the, ahem(cleared throat), the uh, Helicopter, So I took a wild guess, came in, saw the secretary
unconscious, so suspicions confirmed, I basically did the same as you and Zachary probably did, and found my way up here." She finished, gasping for
breath.

"And I thought Sakura could talk if she wanted..." Zachary trailed off. Sakura giggled. She looked at the woman.

"Uh, do you think you know where there would be a map?" She asked. The woman nodded.

"Hey, how about a change of clothes?" Zachary asked. The woman shook her head. Zachary sighed.

"Figures."

The woman led them down the hall, still at a loss of words, to an office, still on the top floor, and opened the door with a key.

"I'm....uh, here...." The woman was still obviously flustered. She opened the door. Zachary smiled at her.

'Hey, thanks! By the way, we don't ever usually dress like this." He said. This got a laugh from the uptight woman.

"Do you want the door closed?" She asked.

"Yes, please. Thanks a lot." Sakura smiled. The woman blushed and walked out, closing the door behind her. Sakura turned around to the rest of the group,
and was about o speak when the door slammed open. She spun around, to find the virgin, annoying-assed secretary. With a bump on her head.

"What happened to your head?" She asked. The Secretary pointed at Zachary.

"HE'S what happened!" She shrieked. " Who are you people! And what the HELL are you doing here?!?!?!" She shrieked again. Li stepped forward.

"Sorry, ma'am, but my partner here says you would not let him pass to the perimeter?" Sakura hit him.

"Stop it, Li, were not playing our characters anymore." Li blushed.

"Sorry. The cross dresser wanted in, you wouldn't let him, so he knocked you out. Basic maneuvers for our job." He said, simply. Though he still wasn't sure if
the dumbass had gotten it.

"And your job would be?"

Zachary smirked.

"We're undercover FBI agents, sent from Japan to capture a murderer, under the name of 'S.D.', short for 'Seek and Destroy'." He answered. Madison
giggled, but Li ad Sakura managed to keep a straight face. The square-assed secretary look skeptical. Li went to find the map.

"Your from Japan?" She asked.

Sakura nodded.

"The only thing I don't get is why the FBI would get Japanese to do this assignment."

The square-assed virgin, and now apparently racist secretary was hanging over Li's shoulder, staring at what he was doing with the world map that hung on
the wall in front of them.

"Actually, I'm Chinese," he said in an annoyed tone.

"If you don't want to be slaughtered in your bed while you sleep by this murderer, I suggest you leave us be." Zachary was working his charm again. The
woman's eyes went wide. She bowed low to them, and left the room. After she was gone, they all laughed at her.

After they all stopped to catch their breath, Sakura thought of something she hadn't before.

"What would we have done if she was actually smart enough to ask to see our badges?"

They all looked at her, now wondering the same thing.

"We have to be more careful."

Li stood up from his crouching position. "Good point. But first we have a Clow card to find." He walked towards Sakura as she called out the sealing wand,
and they went through the spell again. As they swept the wand slowly across the map, Sakura leaned against Li. She felt his muscles tighten as she did so.
He seemed troubled, but right now she had to concentrate on the task at hand. The wand went over Australia, nothing. Then it was over South America, and
again, nothing. As they brought it north, it began to dimly glow. It was right on the boarder between Canada and the USA. They brought it higher north, and it
started to glow radiantly. It was somewhere in Ontario, Canada. North of Toronto, south of Sudbury. They brought the wand down and simultaneously turned
to face their 2 friends.

"Do you know how long we're going to have to drive to get there?!?!" Zachary freaked. After spending countless hours on an airplane, they were all ready to
sleep for a while.

"I am not driving anywhere tonight. You can just forget it." Madison was indignant.

"Okay, We won't leave tonight, but we have to start out tomorrow, before the card regains all its strength. Deal?" Li asked.

"Yeah, okay. As long I get to change these clothes. I know you wanted to disguise me as a woman, Madison, but did I really have to wear a thong?!?"

They all looked at him in disbelief.

"Um, Zachary? I never made you wear a thong," she said puzzled.

There was a pause, in which Zachary grew very red, and they all looked at each other, and then the other three exploded in hysterical laughter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They called a cab to get to Madison's house. They all had to hold their breath most of the way. The driver smelled like he hadn't bathed in about three years.
Sakura finally opened a window and stuck her head out when she couldn't take the disgusting odor any longer. After about two hours, the car pulled to a stop
outside of a large house with a sprawling front yard, set back from the road. Madison paid the driver, while the rest of them piled out into the fresh night air.

"Whew, did you ever smell something so gross in your life?! I thought I would die of inhaling toxic fumes before we got here!" Madison grumbled something
about the ride not being worth a hundred bucks, and told them to bring their stuff up to the house.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The whole house had a Victorian feel to it, from the unreasonably long table in the dining room, to the intricate carvings around the windows. Sakura was
shown to her room. In the middle was an antique-looking canopy bed that even had the curtain- things on the four sides of it. The whole room looked like
something from a scary movie. The walls were a dark red color, and everything was made out of cherry wood. In the corners there were tall black iron
candelabras with multiple candles on them, which were unlighted and would provide the only light in the vast room, save the light of the moon and stars
shining through the bay-window at the far side of the room. Sakura dropped her suitcase on the floor and walked to the bed in the dark. She flopped down on
it and millions of tiny dust particles came flying up around her.

"Great. They have houses all over the world, and yet they can't manage to change the sheets."

Sakura stripped the covers off the bed and went to find Madison to ask where she might get some new ones. Once she finally succeeded in tracking down
the closet, she had no problems.

As she was just tucking the ends of the quilt under the end of the mattress, Madison came in to her room.

"Why did you buy this place? It's a fire waiting to happen!"

"Don't you love it? It's so, I don't know, original."

Sakura looked skeptical.

"Okay, I mean besides the peeling wallpaper, dust and creepy carvings."

Sakura still looked unconvinced.

"Okay, well, at least your room doesn't have carvings of the devil all over it. You should see Zachary's. I think it's a sign."

"Small blessings. How old is this place?"

"Just a hundred years or two. It's been abandoned for a long time. When mom bought it there were a bunch of hobos living in it."

"So that's what that smell is."

"Plus you know what?" Madison continued, choosing to ignore the last comment, "People say a man was murdered in one of the bedrooms. They say his
ghost haunts the house to this very day."

To cover the fact that she was scared shitless, Sakura snorted and pretended to be indifferent, fluffing her pillow, imagining a dead guy in the bed in front of
her.

"Is there a point to this visit, or are you just here to tell me a bedtime story?" Sakura asked, the hair on the back of her neck standing up.

Madison opened a bag and pulled out several candles, which she tossed onto the bed.

"Here. I thought you might like the smell of these more than the smell of ancient animal fat," she gestured to the candelabras in the corners.

"Thanks, but after smelling that cab driver, century old lard would be a welcome stench." Sakura picked up one of the candles, and smelled it. It smelled like
some kind of

flowers. Madison turned and left Sakura's room, and Sakura began replacing the dust-covered candles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"This is WAY creepy, man."

Li was in Zachary's room, looking around. It was like castle Dracula in there. At the headboard, there was a carving of some satanic demon, and there were
revolting diminutive creatures all over the place. On one of the walls was a painting of a bony woman who looked like a horse, with a black cat on her lap who
looked equally skeletal. The amount of candles surpassed the number in Sakura’s room.

“This must be where they made the in-laws sleep or something.”

“I don’t know, but it’s freaking the crap right outta me.” Zachary got off the floor where he was sitting and walked to the picture, which he immediately pulled
down and turned facing the wall. Madison had already come in with new candles and Li was helping Zachary replace them. He put the final candle on the
tallest candelabra, and began lighting a few more.

“Hey, thanks man. If I get possessed by the devil tonight, you’ll be the last one I’ll come after.”

“Thanks. You’re a real pal. I better get going. I've hardly even se-”

Li was interrupted by a terrified scream from the other end of the hall. He looked at Zachary.

“Sakura” they both said at the same time. Li was skidding out the door within seconds.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sakura awoke to the sound of her own earsplitting screams. The sheets were soaking wet with sweat, and her whole body was twisted up in them. Where was
he? The man had just been lying on the floor beside her bed, his blood pouring out in a massive crimson puddle on the Oriental rug. The door slammed
against the wall as Li threw it open.

“Sakura!”

She was trembling unstoppably. Li ran to the side of her bed. “What happened?!”

“There was a man (Gasp) with a sword (pant) and he stabbed (stammer) the old man (choke) in the back!”

Li sat down on the edge of the bed and hugged her tightly. Sakura was crying into his shoulder now. “It was just a dream. It’s okay. There’s nobody there. It
was just a nightmare.” He stroked her hair.

Sakura could feel her eyes getting puffy. “It was so real,” she whispered, “Then he turned around and (sob) came at me!”

“It’s okay. You’re all right. Nobody’s coming to get you.”

He stood up after a minute.

“DON’T LEAVE ME!” she practically screamed.

“It’s okay! I’m just going to give us some light.”

He walked over to the candles and lit them one by one, until the tiny flickering flames lit the room up. He sat back down beside Sakura and she threw herself
at him, wrapping him in a tight hug around his waist. She was obviously really scared.

“What happened that made you have that dream, I wonder?”

“Madison (sniffle) said that a man was murdered (gasp), and his ghost still haunts the house.”

Sakura felt like an idiot. She was eighteen, and she was still afraid of ghosts.

“Well, I don’t think she was serious. She was just screwing with your head. It’s okay.”

They were both silent for a minute, save for Sakura’s occasional sniffles. She looked up at Li, who still had an arm wrapped around her. He looked very
distant.

“Li?”

“Hmmm?”

“What was wrong? You know. This afternoon, when we were trying to capture the card?”

Li said nothing for a few seconds, then closed his eyes and tilted his head back.

“When you went over the side of that building it really scared me. I thought you were going to die.” He was still looking straight ahead of him, into the
candlelight dancing across the walls.

“How did that make you feel?”

He hesitated again. “Like…bad.” He wasn’t used to telling people his feelings. It just wasn’t what he did.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” Li was surprised.

“For always being there. For not letting me get killed all those times.”(Sniffle)

“Oh. Your welcome.”

Sakura looked up at him again, shivering from the drafty old house. He looked as though he was deep in thought. It felt so nice to just be sitting beside him in
silence. She truly felt calm now that he was there, as if nothing could hurt her, ever. She squeezed him even tighter, not wanting to let go and closed her
eyes, and then she heard it.

‘I love you.’

She snapped her head up. “What?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Oh.” So it was just in her head. She looked down at the flowered sheets in disappointment.

“Nice shorts.” She had just noticed Li’s, er, pajamas. They were boxer shorts with melting happy faces on them. That was it. Li felt his cheeks growing hot.

“Oh. Like them?”

“You think it’s bad when I’m in my room in my underwear.”

“Yeah, I know. Twice as bad when I’m in your room in my underwear, right?”

‘I could get used to it.’ Sakura thought.

“Oh really?” Li had just picked up on that thought.

“What?! I didn’t say anything!”

Li just smiled. “Are you okay now?”

Sakura hesitated. “I …guess so.”

“Then I better go. Do you know what time it is?”

She looked at her watch. “It’s 1:30!”

“We have to get up early tomorrow. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“No.”

“Well, if you’re scared, just think of Zachary dressed as a woman.”

“That’ll scare me even more.”

“Forget it then. See you in the morning.” He was about to close the door.

“Wait!”

“Yes?”

He poked his head into the doorway again.

“Um, goodnight.”

“Sweet dreams.”

He closed the door softly behind him. Not even a second later, he heard,

“Li?”

He poked his head through the door again.

“Hummm?”

“Please don’t tell Madison I freaked out.”
”Just as long as you don’t tell Zachary.”

“Tell him what?”

“Anything. Good night.”

“ ’Night.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Well, what was wrong?” Zachary asked as Li walked by his room.

“Bad dream.” Li turned around and went into Zachary’s room.

“You were gone an awful long time.”

“She was pretty upset.”

“Anything happen that I should know about?” Li knew exactly what Zachary was getting at.

“Nope. Nothing you should know about.” He knew it was driving Zachary crazy.

“OH_COME_ON! Nothing?!”

“Nothing I’m going to tell you about.”

“Traitor.” Zachary looked disgusted. Li grinned, and left the room for his own.

To Be Continued.....

~*~*~*~*~

Annie: HaHA!

Kyralea: We see ROMANCE!!!!

Annie: We couldn't help it!

Kyralea: S and S are just too cute together!

Annie: Next time, The gang go on a road trip to Canada, the newest hiding place for the card. Read and Review!

Kyralea: Yeah! Please?

Next Chapter:

“Okay, who’s driving first?”

‘You feel affection for him?’

“Whoa, it looks even better up close.”