Time, energy, and inclination finally managed to come together at the same time(!!), so here's a little ficlet very hastily slapped together that I hope is at least somewhat entertaining...

Of Little Faith

by Mirune Keishiko

It was strange, really, how everything suddenly seemed so incredibly, impeccably clear in those last few fevered moments. Time seemed to slow down around the time she lost her footing in the swaying carriage—it was as if she sensed every centimeter disappearing beneath her shoe over a matter of minutes, rather than split seconds; she felt keenly the cool sting of the wind in her hair, heard the crisp rustle of the folds of her voluminous skirt in the air as she plunged wordlessly backward. The absurdity of the entire situation struck her then with merciless clarity, and in other circumstances she might have laughed—the ruffly ornate dress she'd been forced to wear for all of an hour before she'd ripped it apart, the imported carriage that would cost a fortune to repair and out of which Kyouya-sempai would probably concoct a whole new debt for her to discharge, the well-beloved boy who'd been the cause of it all hardly able to appreciate all of these efforts, because he'd left so soon and seen so little. And now, because she was going to die.

Later that night she would remember the surprise that overrode and muted everything, even fear, when the last of the reins slipped out of her grasp and the distance to the river far below gaped beneath a body that suddenly seemed small and fragile as it never had before. Then she would remember Tamaki, Tamaki with his wide, naked violet eyes and terrified face, just before her head had snapped back and for a moment all she saw was sky.

She would remember, too, the numb creep of puzzlement over her mind, as she watched in a kind of shock Tamaki leap over the railing of the bridge after her. What on earth is he doing? Did he even stop the car? she mused in an irritation too habitual to be foregone but too distant to really matter, noting that the fading sunlight did really very beautiful things to his golden hair. When Tamaki's mouth opened, formed around an oddly familiar sound that was lost to the air that rushed past them both, it occurred dimly to Haruhi to respond—that was what one did when one's name was called, wasn't it?—with a voice that, too, dwindled in the wind, and to reach out a chill and nerveless hand as she had mere moments before.

Then she was stunned when he caught it, stunned when he sank gently closer to her—he has more mass, but I fell a lot sooner than he did, so how could he have caught up to me? And why does he look like he's skydiving?—stunned when he drew her near, stunned when she let him.

How high is this bridge anyway? Shouldn't I have hit the water by now? How come—

—How come, she realized, she didn't really care?

Tamaki's arms tightened around her, and he was warm and strong and solid and safe, and she knew she could trust him and rely on him as she hardly ever relied on anyone else; and he'd cast his spell on so many others before, and really, what magic couldn't he do, when he clearly could defy even the laws of physics like this?

And that finally seemed to make the best sense out of a thoroughly strange and confusing afternoon, so Haruhi simply closed her eyes and held on tight to the boy who had started it all for her, and fell.

They hit the water in a way that could almost be called gentle. Fujioka Haruhi really couldn't complain.

fin

Hope you enjoyed. And hope I somehow did justice to this wonderful series!