AN- My friends and I have been on a bit of a movie fest lately. We saw the Vow two days ago, and today we saw The Princess and The Frog, Tangled, and Arrietty (British Studio Canal dub). Inspired, and having been sustained upon home baking and diet coke most of the day, I typed this up. I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: Not only do I not own this movie, I don't own the soundtrack that was playing while I wrote this. Will be sure to change this when I get Itunes working again.


The world is a big place, and forever is a very long time.

It's been a year since he and Arrietty said goodbye. A year since his operation. Despite the blatant white scar stretching down the centre of his ribcage, Sho's pretty certain that the first marked him far more deeply.

Reclining in the grass, with familiar furry warmth against his side, it was easy to forget how much time had passed.

However, he knew that there would be no more missing tissues, or sugar cubes found on the floor. Borrowers couldn't be seen by humans, last summer had most definitely taught him that lesson.

Haru had taught him that lesson. Humans were simply too curious. They'd destroy the Borrowers, exactly as he had told Arrietty the first day he'd seen her face to face.

In an odd way, he missed the young Borrower, for all that he'd only really seen her four times- and only known about her for most of their brief acquaintance. She'd been full of life, belying her size with the sheer fire in her soul- the passion resounding in every word she'd spoken, from pleading with him to leave them alone, to furiously biting out that the Borrowers wouldn't simply die out.

Even the compassion she'd shown to him after learning about his heart condition- untempered by the pity he usually saw in the eyes of others- had been furious. He'd taken her words that day to heart- he would fight for the life he had now.

A smile on his face, he glanced down at the notebook he now carried everywhere- the notebook he'd asked Great-Aunt Sadako for the day he'd woken up in the hospital, to the hushed-busy sounds of the post-surgery ward. He'd decided to take a hobby he could manage anywhere- even his sickbed. Sadako had smiled and said it was just as well- they were running out of books.

He'd laughed- regretting it immediately when the motion pulled on still healing skin.

The next time he'd woken up, he'd found four items on his bedside table- a notebook, an artist's sketchpad, a scholars set of pens and pencils, and a book on how to draw.

All of them had come in extremely useful, especially as the surgery hadn't been as successful as hoped- he still had to be extremely careful. So, rather than sit around, killing time until his heart gave out on him, he'd found a passion of his own.

At first, he'd just drawn for practice, for something to do. The notebook had been used to jot down ideas, and lists for later. Back at the house though, in his own room, he'd drawn the house his ancestor's had made for the Borrowers- and he'd suddenly thought about how it would look from the inside looking out, to Arrietty.

It had been the beginning of a brilliant idea- and soon his sketchbook had filled with images of a too big world, of humans with their clothes made of recycled house hold items- a clothes peg to tie back hair, a handkerchief as a cloak, a chopstick as a walking stick- and his notebook began to fill with anecdotes, about what it might be like to live in such a world, where survival depended on what you could take without notice, where a crow thought of you as prey, where your mother could be put in a jar and placed in some big person's larder without so much as a by-your-leave….

When asked, he'd simply say he'd been inspired by the old stories of his great-aunt's home. And Haru's 'episode'. And Great-Aunt Sadako would give him a small, secretive smile, and he'd feel joy bubbling in his stomach that she knew, and would never ever tell.

His thoughts strayed to the necklace he wore- where the Arrietty's hair clip still hung. He'd never tell either- his story, even if he decided to get it published, could easily be written off as a child expanding on his favourite bedtime story- he'd hardly be the first to make a book out of a family fairy-tale.

A mewl caught his attention, and he automatically reached out to soothe Niya. His eyes opened, and landed on where his hand rested on beige fur. A small, wistful smile tugged at his lips. While he'd grown a little taller, and his hair had changed slightly, the passing of time could be most easily be seen on his hands. No longer lily-white, due to more time outside or pristine from inactivity- no matter how he tried, these days it seemed like ink-stains and pencil dust were ingrained into his skin. His left hand had begun to form callouses, from constantly holding a writing utensil. Slight callouses, but still there all the same.

It'd been a whole year since he'd seen Arrietty- a girl he'd barely known, when all was said and done. And yet, he'd loved her- a mix of a child's wonder, a dying boy's hope and a young man's adoration. But forever was a long time, and the world was a big place- even for someone his size. He'd remember Arrietty as long as he lived- and she'd always hold a special place in his heart. But one day, her face wouldn't be the first one to pop into his mind when he thought about beauty, and she would no longer be the only girl he'd loved.

She would always be the girl he'd loved, and never a woman in his mind. A girl of great impact upon his life, but a girl nonetheless. A girl who'd reintroduced the fantastical into his life, when he'd resigned himself to leaving it all behind- to dying before autumn. But she would always be within the past, and reality no longer held a teapot the size of his thumbnail filled with sweet-smelling tea, or a flash or red in the corner of his vision. He couldn't keep holding out hope that such things would become part of his life again- no more than he could close himself off from future possibilities because of a longing for the past.

The world was a big place- odds were that they'd never see each other again, let alone reconnect the way they had. Forever was a long time- too long to wait for a childhood love that could never become anything more.

Picking up Niya, Sho wandered back inside the house that had held generations of both his family and Borrowers, and he didn't look back.