Disclaimer: I do not own Fate/Stay Night or any of the other Fate series; they are owned by Type Moon. This story follows the Fate route of the visual novel and centers around Shirou and Saber through the memories of Rin, taking place many years after FSN. On a note, I chose to portray Saber as a queen instead of a king in disguise which I felt would have made the VN and anime more interesting. Just my opinion so enjoy and please review! ;)

Loyal Servant, True Friend

It was the beginning of a beautiful new day in Fuyuki City; the leaves had returned to the trees and the flowers had begun to blossom, signaling the end of winter and the beginning of spring. The birds had also returned, filling the city streets and nearby hills with their sweet songs. It was springs like these that made even the bleakest of places look brighter and more beautiful. The thought had crossed the mind of a raven-haired woman slightly past her youth and approaching her prime as she made her way to the town cemetery, a place she had not visited, in fact, avoided for years since her parents died for though she loved them dearly, she did not want to be reminded of the pain of their loss.

But today, the woman had to make an exception for in addition to paying respects to her late parents, she must also pay respects to two friends dear to her heart whom she felt left this world far too soon. As she approached a fairly new grave, the woman gently placed the bouquet of flowers she had been carrying on top of it.

"I'm here, Shirou, Saber", the woman quietly called out to the friends she hoped somewhere could hear her.

Rin Tohsaka kneeled before the grave to say a silent prayer for her friends. Though she addressed both of them, only one of their graves was actually in this cemetery; the grave of the other was far away in her native country of Britain. But it did not matter, she would honor both of them just the same. Though it had been many years since Saber had left the human world, Rin had lost Shirou only recently; he was never quite the same after losing his first and only love, an extraordinary woman who was not of this world. Yet, he forced himself to move on and live his life the way he was sure she would have wanted. As he matured, Rin noticed that Shirou started to resemble her previous Servant, Archer, as well as becoming more skilled in exercising his unique magical talents and abilities- under her tutelage of course. And as the years went by, Shirou also caught the eye of many a woman and girl but never noticed any of them and Rin knew the reason.

Saber.

Or as history remembers her, Queen Auturia Pendragon, the great and first sole-female ruler of Britain. Growing up, both Rin and Shirou heard the legends about the famous daughter of Uther Pendragon but never imagined that the legendary warrior-queen was a petite girl barely taller than Rin herself. But then again, it should not have been a surprise since there was no photography in Saber's day and people in the modern world only have descriptions of ancient and medieval rulers by historians of their time to go by. And these descriptions were often either exaggerated or nothing like how the person actually was or looked. Rin had suspicions and was skeptical herself at first until she saw Saber's noble phantasm which erased all doubt from her mind. The beautiful queen was indeed a great and powerful warrior but deep down, she yearned for the life of a normal woman while bearing the responsibility of ruling a country and protecting her people so it wasn't hard for Rin to see why Shirou fell in love with her.

Once she realized this, Rin tried to discourage the two from getting too close, not because she was jealous, but because she knew a love like theirs could only end in tragedy and cause them both pain for Saber was no longer human, but a spirit who could remain in this world only until her duty as a Servant had been fulfilled or only if her master could continue to supply her with mana indefinitely which would have placed a great strain on Shirou's body and possibly cause him life-long pain which both of them was fully aware of. But Rin knew her efforts, even done out of good intent and concern for her two friends, was futile. And as she predicted, Saber's departure from the human world did cause Shirou great sadness even though he did his best to hide it and immersed himself in his magical training to distract others from that fact. But he could not fool Rin; she had gotten to know him a little too well by that time.

Brushing aside the dust that had begun to gather on the simple grave, Rin smiled sadly. "Shirou… I know it hasn't been easy living without her all these years. But now your wait is finally over and I hope you are both somewhere you can be happy and never forced to part again. Wherever you are, please know that you still have friends in this world who care for and miss you both dearly, including me…" As she said this, Rin wiped a tear from her eye. As his friend and the one who tutored him in the ways of magic, Rin had grown very fond of Shirou, even thinking that she might have been in love with him herself at one time, seeing how he reminded her so much of Archer, but never allowed herself to act on her feelings for she knew that Shirou's heart was and always would be with Saber as he stayed loyal to her for the rest of his mortal life as well as his existence as a heroic spirit.

Like he promised his adoptive father, Shirou used his powers and gifts for the benefit of humankind, even going so far as to sacrifice his life as a human to become a heroic spirit himself, fighting alongside Rin as her Servant in the 6th and final Holy Grail War. And though she never questioned him about it, Rin always felt that one of the reasons Shirou did so was to make up for the fact that she had sacrificed her previous Servant to save him and Saber in the 5th war as well as her own chance of winning the grail for herself, something she had spent ten years of her life preparing for. But after she had learned the true nature of the so-called holy vessel, Rin finally realized that it was not what she thought it was and agreed with her two friends that it had to be destroyed. And while Saber had seemingly destroyed the grail twice, it was Shirou who finally erased its existence from the world for good- that was to be his final duty to humankind.

After they had won the last grail war together, Rin found herself wishing that Shirou would stay with her but knew that was not what he himself wanted. Like Saber before him, Rin knew that if she truly cared for Shirou, she must honor his wishes and let him go, the same as he had done for his first love almost two decades prior, and after wishing him a final farewell, sadly watched as vanished from the world and her life forever. He was thirty-four years old, the same age his adoptive father had been when he passed away.

When he left the human world, Shirou Emiya left nothing behind as proof that he ever existed except in the memories of his friends and the people whose lives he saved and changed, including Rin herself. She knew his body was not actually in the grave, it was only a symbolic marker she had placed there in his memory and honor so that she would never forget the dear friend she had lost. But Rin knew it was for the best; after everything Shirou and Saber had been through in their mortal lives, she felt that nobody deserved to be happy more than those two and hoped that wherever they are now, they were.

After saying another quick prayer for her dear, departed friends, Rin finally stood up and looked toward the sky as she thought.

"Good-bye Shirou...Saber… be happy…"

A/N: My first FSN fic finally done! I've been a fan of this series since I saw the 2006 anime version of FSN but was never able to think of any stories for it until now After playing all three routes of the VN and watching every anime adaption up to date as well as reading the manga, I've finally got some ideas I want my readers to know that this will be an on-going project for me and I will continue to add new stories as more ideas come to me in the future and they can be from any of the VN routes, manga, anime etc. I will try to stay as canon as possible with a few minor changes to make my stories work and if I can think of any, I'll throw in a couple of AU stories as well