Rin x Archer

Dedicated to my editor.

Memories, in Hope

And I long for you to appear after losing your way across star riddled skies
To carry you home: I cherish my loss
A gentle reminder that life is unkind at the best of times
Brace yourself, because I think I'm falling for you
-Enter Shikari

I watch the night sky sometimes and wait for a sign. I don't mind what the sign is, but I am sure that there will be something, one day, to show me that you are still out there somewhere, waiting and dreaming and mourning as much as I am. Perhaps it is perverse and cruel of me to want you to feel this listlessness and longing, but I cannot escape the belief that it all meant as much to you as it did to me. Somewhere, up in those dark constellations and behind those thick clouds lies something that will give me an answer, an explanation, a meaning, a hope.

Hope.

Hope is what I cling onto now, something comforting in its intangibility, an abstract that in so many ways is unfounded and makes no sense but is so uniquely soothing that it cannot be abandoned in the conscious or subconscious. We put up barriers of hope, we deny that painful inevitable of truth.

Hope. Man-kinds last defence against the unknown.

My mind is rambling but I cannot bring myself to correct and stream my thoughts. There is a comfort in letting myself delve into hidden emotions that I dare not voice, in listening to what my mind will find, to what memories I may forget in time.

It doesn't really matter any more about the competition, about who got the grail and who won in the end, because the past is the past and that is where it belongs, water under a proverbial bridge that flows further and further away with each passing second. Like water, the passage of time wears down the sharp ridges of the memory to leave nothing but smooth feelings that we want to remember in their place.

So many memories swirl around me, soft and cautiously optimistic that something better will come along, that there will be a time when everything will make sense and we will have the good without the bad, the happiness without the sorrow, the joy without the tears.

I still remember everything.

The day you arrived, landing with a crash in the middle of the room in a pile of dust and broken furniture, me cursing under my breath and you sitting there, eyebrow raised, regarding me as if I were some strange creature you had never seen before. As if you had never been so bemused. I just found myself glaring. Certainly not my finest hour.

All those days we spent together, Archer. Do you remember too? Long afternoons spent on surveillance, training, my yells echoing around us and your antagonizing stare your only reply. Mornings that started in the dark because of how early I made you start training. I've lost count of how many times I told you that you were useless, weak, pathetic. God, I wish now I had spent less time yelling at you and more time… I don't know, more time just being with you.

Do you remember the time we stood on the top of that hill and I paused, just for a moment, to stare at the skyline? You came up behind me and rested a hand on my shoulder and we stood there in silence. You didn't feel the need to fill that heavy quiet with words, you just understood that I needed, right then, not to have to speak at all. I needed to realign my thoughts because you had just given me the most wonderful smile I had ever seen because I had told you that you were doing better. I remember standing there trying to work out why it was that you could make me feel so strange, blinking back tears I could not understand, your hand still there as a heavy weight of reassurance and strength.

Oh, for the days when I still aimed to rationalise everything I did.

I knew you were still smiling, and I couldn't turn around. I just waited, trying not to stop breathing, until your hand moved. I thought you had taken a step backwards so I swivelled, trying to reassert my authority, but you were still there, and I found myself looking at your chest.

You touched my cheek, and tilted my head upwards, and kissed me. On top of a hill, in that melting and warming sunlight, it felt like nothing could ever go wrong.

All those nights, too. Long nights of walking and talking and sitting and staring, nights of fighting and fucking and blood and hands and sweat, of many things understood and many more things left unspoken of. The best nights of my life, warm just by having you near, safe just from your physical presence- your arms around me, the solid mass of your chest, your lips on mine.

The night you left here, I felt so cold.

I sat up all night waiting for you to arrive, but of course I knew inside that you would not be coming tonight. I hugged my knees to myself, but of course it was not the same.

All I could think of was that there was something that still needed closure. I didn't worry that I wouldn't see you again, not then anyway, but all I could think was that there was something I never told you, and that I was not going to have a chance to tell you again.

I wanted to tell you… I wanted to tell you that you were someone more important to me than anyone else I had ever met, and that once you left (because I always knew that it would inevitably end) I would be left feeling more alone that I ever had before. I wanted to tell you that you meant more to me than the grail, or my magic or my pride or anything in this world, and that I did not know what I would do without you.

I'm still not sure where I'm going.

What I do know though is that I will carry on.

We survive. That is what we do. We cling on to the memories of the good times that have gone and the good people we have lost and we wait in hope, with a strong façade, an eternal confidence and a continuous optimism.

That is what I will do.

I lost faith when I lost you, at least for a little while. I started to wonder if there was a reason without you. I questioned whether such a cruel world could exist with a viable meaning and reason. In the end thought, I just came to the conclusion that it did not matter whether there was reason, whether I should have faith. All that I decided to focus on was hope, and my memories, and the never ending thankfulness that I had you, even if just for a little while.

So I'll stand here in the cold night air and stare at the stars, and I'll wait for you for as long as it takes. One day, you still could come back to me.

Sometimes, I find myself praying.

Sometimes, I still believe.

Hope? Yes, I still have hope. Just hurry up, would you? You know I don't like to wait.