A/N: I'm not really back… I've just been reading through favorite stories from GAFFn before, because I felt a bit nostalgic and stuff—and then this happened. I'm still busy with acads, but it felt liberating and cathartic, in a sense, to write again.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

This is the end as she imagines it:

She will step out of the door.

It will be spring—flowers will bloom once more, creating a landscape of color (green, yellow, red, orange, pink, blue… maybe, you name it) as the leaves from the trees grow back as well. The sun will shine high up in the sky, illuminating creation in the best way possible, emphasizing the life that they have been blessed with again as a new season has come to pass. The sky will be clear, the right shade of blue that is neither dark nor bleak, but is bursting with life, as the wind blows—a bit chilly, yes, but not excruciatingly cold, like it has been just a few weeks before.

Funny how time flies.

And she will be walking once more to the place she has visited every day, same time, without fail: she will lock the door to her flat at 9:30 in the morning, and will walk three blocks, cross the street, walk two more blocks, and arrive at the hospital: the same hospital that has changed her life for so many ways—where she'd been born, where her parents had known as soon as she was born that she had a heart ailment and was thus innately weak, where she was sent when she fell off the swing that one time in first grade, where she miraculously got cured from all the ailments she has suffered for the past seventeen years.

And now, the hospital where a certain blond boy resided: the same boy who had found her when she fell off the swing, who had been with her as she underwent treatment for goodness knows how many times, who was sick and quite positive he was dying as each day went by—and whom she has loved (god, she loves so so so much it hurt, it hurts) for as long as she can remember.

She will stop in front of the entrance, and will take a minute—like always—to assess what it was that stood before her: 1,091 bedrooms, and who knows how many she has gone to? But no matter—there was only one room she went to nowadays, and she prayed once more that it would be the last time she went there.

Please be well, she will pray for the 364th time.

And she will brave the place once more, first passing by the receptionist to say hi, and then going up the stairs, right, passing by four rooms, and then… there. Kaname Sono. She will knock thrice, but he won't say, "Enter," as he usually did as he expected her.

And for the first time since a day short of a year ago, she will not open the door. Instead, the door will open, for her, and he will stand there, a good five inches taller than her, with a smile—a real smile, not a tired one—in his face, and he will say, "Hey."

The end of an era of heartbreak and pain, and, if fate permits, maybe the beginning of something as well.

This is the end as it happens:

Kaname wakes up to the familiar sound of the wind rattling against the windows. That makes it the third day he woke up to snow—the world seemed rather bleak lately, with an air of loneliness he could not quite place. Coincidentally enough, the state of the weather—the state of the world, really, he would like to think—mirrored his body's condition, reflected his mind's thoughts. It had been an exhausting and tiring ten months and his body wanted to give in, to give up.

The clock reads 4:51 am, a good 5 hours before Nobara visits him.

"This early in the morning, huh?" he muses out loud, his mind drifting back to the familiar blue haired girl with ice blue eyes who visited him religiously even when his health deteriorated as each day went by; who was the reason he had the courage and could find the strength to wake up every morning, as he waited for her to come by; who tasted like salvation; who looked like life; who felt like home.

Too bad he will never be able to tell her how he felt—

-but at least she will not see him in pain anymore, and she will not be around as he dies.

As sleep takes him once more, he is reminded of those eyes. He feels the tears struggling to be set free, but instead of giving in, he smiles.

She will not see me like this. I will not be in pain. I will be happy… because I was happy, really.

"Good bye," he whispers—a silent benediction, and he hopes, prays (if there is a god, please, please, please) it will reach her.

This is the end as she remembers it:

It was snowing the worst snow that year. She woke up to the wind rattling against the windows, howling and wailing every few minutes. Her mind spun as she sat up on bed and she felt heavy—the kind of heavy that made breathing hurt and made her shoulders slump and her chest heave. The kind of heavy that you got when you were terribly afraid, when you felt like something was off but you could not quite place it. The kind of heavy that told you something was going to happen. The wind's howling and wailing seemed like a prelude to something terrible, and she shuddered at the thought.

The clock read 7:51, and the weather outside told her she would not be able to make it to the hospital that day. As much as she loved the snow, she was positive she would get blown out by the wind the moment she stepped out, and the snow was so dense she was sure she would not be able to walk properly—if at all—even if she tried.

She ignored her throbbing head and made her way to the telephone to call the hospital. Two rings, and someone picked up. "Hello?" she said, feeling utterly regretful that she would not be able to visit her best friend today. "Please tell Kaname Sono, patient at room 234, that I'm sorry, I won't be able to go today because of the blizzard."

"You're the girl who visits him every day, no? I'm sorry, I thought you'd known already, but he's… he died a while ago today. He-"

He died a while ago today.

He died a while ago.

He died.

He's dead.

"I-I see. Th-thank you for inf-forming me." She promptly hung up, and stared at the window, unmoving. She wanted to cry, to scream, to curse the heavens for making it happen the one day she wouldn't be able to at least see him.

It was not supposed to happen like this. He was going to live. He told me he wanted to live, to go outside and bask in the sunlight, to walk along the streets like he was not confined at the hospital for a few months short of a year now, so why?

Please, why?

She hugged her knees to her chest and cried openly, the memories flooding her mind like an endless stream of had-been's and never-again's. In the midst of them all, one voice echoed and filled her mind until all other thoughts were pushed away.

"Hey, Nobara," he said with a smile, "you know I'm happy, right? You're my eyes, you're my senses. You experience the world for me, and you bring the world to me. You confine the whole of Japan to one little room in a hospital and you let me see it. Thank you."

"But one day… one day you'll see the world, too. You won't need me to describe it to you; you'll see it. You'll feel soil and taste the wind and you'll be free."

"I might… I might not. I'm fighting, you know that, but we both knew from the day I got admitted that there was a slim chance of me surviving. But I told you: you're my eyes, you're my senses. Even when… even if I leave, I'll be here with you. I won't give up, even after I've lost. Okay?"

"Why are we talking about this… I don't want to think of that. There's a slim chance but I am hoping for the best and—"

"So am I. I am hoping for the best. But I know there is a bigger possibility of the best not happening, and I want you to know that I am happy, that you made me happy, and that I want you to be happy for me, even after… you know. I won't leave. But hey, don't cry. I told you, I'm fighting. I'm doing my best, okay? I will always do my best, I promise."

"… okay. I hold you to your promise."

"Smile, Nobara. Don't cry because of me. Please promise that you won't cry because of me."

"I promise."

"What a difficult promise you had me make. You're unfair, Kaname. You're so unfair," she cried to nothing in particular—to the stuffed bear he gave her back when she was having therapy, maybe. To the album of pictures of them she kept under her bed, maybe. To his body, a few blocks away, maybe. To his soul, on the way to goodness knows where, maybe. "If only I'd known things would end this way, I wouldn't have agreed," she sighed, looking up once more to the ceiling.

"You know I can't do that, Kaname. Not now, at least... but soon," her eyes were bright and brimming with tears but she struggled to smile a little - because that was what he would have wanted.

She was going to live the way she wanted him to live. Not now, not while she was grieving, but soon. And Kaname was a forgiving bloke who understood that everyone had a reason for everything.

Just that day, she spent the day crying over a boy who never knew how much she loved him, whom she would never see, nor smell, nor hear, nor touch, nor hold.

But the day after she would be strong and she would live. And the day after that, too. And the day after, and the week and month and year and decade after. And she would continue to bring the world to the blond boy confined in the four white walls of his coffin, buried six feet underground.

"Okay, Kaname? Just for today, please, please let me be selfish and let me exhaust the tears I can shed for you. Today... just for today, I will mourn."