A/N: written for the 100_situations_challenge at lj; also posted on my lj account (link in profile)

An AU based on tb/x. In a way, it's "other world" versions of them, or reincarnations. Doesn't really matter. They're just not in the magic world of Tokyo Babylon and X/1999. The reason this is in X/1999 is because other characters that aren't in TB show up later.

Maybe I Loved You Too Much

001. Hide

Hokuto found him covered in blood.

Subaru stared vacantly back at her, unrecognising. The pungent smell that enveloped him caused her stomach to churn, but she still took him into her arms. Her clothes moistened as they leeched the river from him; had she cared, she may have noted the dress she had spent all week sewing was ruined beyond repair.

But she didn't care. Not about that. Not when it was Subaru.

Instead, she took the coat in her bag and wrapped him warmly in it. He didn't move, not like the time she had found him shivering and giving him her coat. That time, he had cutely curled inward and brought the edges closer to himself like a kitten hiding from the cold. But this…was just a doll she was dressing.

A cold blast made her tremble, or so she told herself. But it wasn't just her body that froze; it was her mind. She knew she should call the police. Subaru's father. Her own parents. Take Subaru away…far away from…

But her feet refused to move; they barely supported her weight. Her knees shook in the effort to keep them both upright; Subaru did nothing for himself, eyes still drifting over the spot in the darkness that had stolen his attention.

Then she gasped, and screamed. A sharp shrill scream that brought footsteps running to them both.

002. Amnesia

The marks on Subaru's arms were taped; the bruises around his wrists were comfortably wrapped. The blood had long since been washed off and the ruined clothes had been disposed of. His eyes were also no longer blank and staring, but that could only be accredited to the drip in his right arm, slowly injecting a sedative into his bloodstream and restraining him in the blank world of unconsciousness. Straps were around both wrists, physically binding – although their practical use could be questioned with the drip in place.

Hokuto sat silently by his bedside, clasping the pale hand and doing her best to ignore the restraints that held the other down. It was just so…unfair; Subaru was the sweetest boy in the world and more than that to her. Often, she wished she was older and could marry him and give him beautiful wings and a perch to return to…because poor Subaru had always been moved from one place to another and the place that should have been called his home and become nothing but a rest stop in between.

She clenched her fists, before abruptly releasing them when she realising she was crushing her best friend's fingers. Her eyes burned, painfully dry.

It wasn't fair. And she had no idea what to say to him when he woke up.

She wished…she could forget as well. Beyond that, she wished Subaru wasn't – that he was fine.

That was it. He would be fine. Soon. And he wouldn't remember a thing…

And she would have to tell him.

A tear fell from her lashes.

003. Funeral

Hokuto was swallowed in a crowd, but she stood alone. Subaru was not there, but it was no fault of his own. She knew he would have come, if he could.

But she couldn't tell him. And the doctors wouldn't have let him out anyway. They still had him in the restraints after all.

It was cruel though. So cruel that he was absent at his own father's funeral. The only parent he remembered; his mother neither of them recalled. There were no photos at Subaru's house, and his father had simply said she'd left them both when Subaru was young. Two, or maybe three. Hokuto remembered then she couldn't imagine how a parent could leave their child.

But remembering that sadness on his face when he said that, she wondered. Because now, he had left Subaru too. Alone in a world that fought him every step of the way.

She was the one who got to say goodbye. And she wasn't even family.

It was painful. It was heart-wrenchingly agonising. She wasn't the one who should be saying goodbye. She…no – he, Subaru's family, should have one day welcomed her into the fold.

And now, if the rest of the world had their way, that would never happen. Even if – even if Subaru ever saw her as anything more than his best friend.

004. The End

Subaru was silent, staring up to the ceiling. When he had first awoken, it was pale and shaking and muddled in most aspects of the word, but it hadn't taken long for the world to realign itself. And then it became frozen and barren and all-round numb. Nonsensical whispers floated around his head, little thoughts slipping through his fingers and flashes of images he couldn't seem to put together if his life depended on it.

A voice – unfamiliar – called to him and he turned his head. His movements were slow, mechanical. His mind was still missing something, scrambling for some foothold held beyond his reach.

Something moved. Shadows. Light. Colour. Words, again nonsensical. Air breathing – no, air didn't breathe. Or did it?

After a moment, Subaru decided it didn't really matter and closed his eyes, unchanged from the brief spell of awakening. And another loop slipped off the rope, pulling it a little further in and bringing the end – or a fork at the very least – a moment in time closer.

005. Lament

'When?' Subaru asked, hollowly.

'About a month ago,' Hokuto responded quietly, before adding, hesitantly: 'You don't remember?'

The boy looked at his hands, pale and marked only with long healed scars, shook his head. 'How -?'

Hokuto really wished the other hadn't asked that; she didn't think years could prepare her enough for her to tell him the truth. 'Heart attack,' she mumbled finally, immediately going off on a tangent, voice higher than it should have been and so obviously fake as she blabbed out some story Karen had told her the day before.

Subaru just looked at her, eyes two green pools of welling but restrained emotion, and she wanted him in that moment to collapse forward into her arms and sob into her shoulder – but instead he pulled back a little, clutching the white sheet and jerking it to cover just a little more of the pyjamas he wore.

'Subaru –' she began.

'It was my fault, wasn't it?'

The words died in her throat, and the silence that descended was choking.

'Hokuto-chan.' The girl's head snapped up as the boy's sunk. 'Could you please…leave for awhile?'

Subaru never asked anyone to leave. Ever.

Hokuto's heart was painfully constricting in her chest as she replied. 'I – alright. I'll…see you tomorrow.'

But Subaru was already staring elsewhere, lost in thoughts and a silent lament.