Note: A very self indulgent post-canon reunion, because I've been feeling down and I needed to write these traumatized witches a happy ending.
Anthy imagines it like this: Utena in a tea shop, sipping tea, wearing sensible clothes or a jacket with the logo of a local university. Utena in a public park, reading a book, looking frustrated because she has never enjoyed reading. Utena in a grocery store with a basket full of snacks, hair in a ponytail, in running shoes, perhaps, skin sticky with dried sweat. Utena picking up a bouquet off a flower shop, a ring on her finger, wearing makeup and heels and a nametag tacked onto a white shirt pocket. Utena on a bike, stopped at a red light, bored and annoyed with the endless minutiae of life, thinking about dinner with subdued enthusiasm.
Anthy would freeze in place and miss her and would need to find her again. Anthy would run over, her heart in her throat, and not be remembered. Anthy would reach her and cry and cry and not be able to say anything. Anthy would be cold, frozen into cordiality, and they would chat meaninglessly, old acquaintances reunited by chance, and go their separate ways. Anthy would be bold and brave and honest, say everything she needs to, say it well, not as she'd rehearsed it, and Utena would laugh or stare at her, would be angry or indifferent, would say it's too late or that it would have been better if Anthy hadn't come looking at all.
(Sometimes she imagines it like this: Utena lonely but living, Anthy mindful and unselfish. A hug, a smile, teeth showing, tears soaking into Utena's collar and loud sniffling in Anthy's ear. Utena in her arms, safe and real at last.)
(That's far too terrifying to imagine very often, of course.)
She travels and looks and sleeps and keeps looking, and with every passing Utena-less week it seems imaginings are all there is for her.
Anthy stares at her wallet, slouching gracelessly on the bright bus stop bench; she has enough for this bus and another and then she might really have to find a source of income quite soon. She hasn't showered in – four days? Five? A week? Her clothes feel grubby but look presentable enough. She could find a temporary job, save a bit of money and start over in a few months. A few more months without her.
"Himemiya?" Anthy's head snaps up, and there she is, there she is, in the glorious beautiful living flesh – but Utena's eyes immediately dart away, neck twisting, embarrassed. She mutters, "Oh, sorry. I thought –"
Anthy throws herself at her. She cannot take the time to think whether this would be welcome, whether this would be terrible and cruel and catastrophic; all she can think is Utena, Utena, Utena. She wraps her arms around Utena's neck and pulls her down almost onto her lap and squeezes and clings, because there's nothing else she can really do. Utena feels different and smells different; she's larger and bulkier and scratchier, she's covered in wool and it smells a little dusty, her shampoo is unfamiliar and her deodorant is something cool and metallic, calling to mind a shiny blue and silver label with maybe an image of a foamy ocean wave and too many exclamation marks.
Anthy is struck with an urgent need to know all the ways in which Utena's grown up, the little habits she's broken and formed, the kinds of comfort food she likes now, the routines she completes by muscle memory alone, the memories she's forgotten or that have been unrecognizably altered, the songs she hums when her mind wanders. Does she drive? Does she jog? Does she fall asleep with the television on? Anthy breathes in Utena's dusty sweater and burns with an impotent curiosity; all she can do is hold on, and wait to be pushed away or held in return.
A moment passes, and another; Anthy's breath stutters in her throat. She can't loosen her hold. Utena would have to pry off her arms by force. Perhaps she wouldn't be able to, would detach them from Anthy's body and they would cling, still. But Utena doesn't. She bends forward and drags her fingers over Anthy's sides, digging grooves in her sweatshirt, squeezes her hands between Anthy's body and the back of the bench, wraps them all the way around, rubs her face in Anthy's shirt like a dog in muck, and laughs, loud and wild.
"So it is you," she says, rushed and stumbling and intense. "It really is you. You have no idea how many times – I apologize on reflex by now – you look really – I mean." She lifts her head, looks Anthy right in the eye like it's nothing, like nothing's happened between them and no time has passed. "Here you are, huh? Here you are, Himemiya."
"Utena," Anthy chokes out, scrambling for words that make sense, "do you remember me?"
She laughs again. "Of course I remember, you dumbass. Didn't I call your name just now?"
"Do you forgive me?" How lucky that Anthy's rehearsed this so often, since nothing else she'd like to say comes to mind.
Utena shakes her head, laughter frozen on her lips. "Stop that. If you're really here, you don't need to ask me that."
"I'm so sorry," Anthy continues. She just needs to push through this.
Utena keeps shaking her head. "Didn't I just say? Don't do that. If you're really real, don't do that."
"I've been preparing to say these things since the beginning," Anthy tries to explain.
"Okay. In that case, you've said them, and that's done." Utena cups Anthy's face, looks straight at her again, without a smile this time. It feels like a struggle to maintain eye contact, although Anthy is certain she couldn't look away if she tried. "Now come home with me?"
When Anthy nods, her cheek rubs against Utena palm. She shivers. Utena kisses her, soft and quick, and climbs off of her, grinning brightly. Anthy stares at her smile, reaches out and runs fingers through Utena's hair, following some inexplicable impulse. Utena catches her fingers and kisses them, too, huffing a laugh against the knuckles.
Utena's home is a studio apartment made to appear even tinier by a truly astonishing clutter. To Anthy's pleasant surprise, however, there's a washing machine in one corner.
"I know it's messy," Utena says, stretching her arms over her head in a familiar gesture of embarrassment that makes Anthy's chest ache. "I hope you're not too bothered. Obviously I'll start keeping things cleaner now that you're here."
"Now that I'm here," Anthy repeats absentmindedly, looking over the pile of clothes leaning against the wall, climbing halfway to the ceiling.
"Yeah." Utena glances at her. "You're staying," she says, inflection caught between statement and question.
She is. Of course she is. "You can't weave me into your life just like that," Anthy finds herself saying.
"Of course I can. Watch." Utena pulls a pair of slippers out of the closet and drops them at Anthy's feet. Anthy takes off her shoes and steps into them (they're a size too large). Utena leads her into the tiny apartment and hands her canned tea out of her fridge and sits them down in a nook made of cushions. "You wanna know something embarrassing? I don't need to work you in, because in the first place I've set up everything around the idea that I'll find you."
Anthy closes her eyes and takes even breath. She finds she can't quite cry, and can't quite feel her arms or her hands or her torso or anything below her neck. She might be too full with relief and emotion to feel anything. "Tell me what you usually eat for dinner," she murmurs, because she's numb and anchorless and she'd like to know.
"Pfft, okay." Utena pulls her against her chest, so that her chin is resting on Anthy's shoulder and her hair tickles her neck. "Rice and whatever I have in the fridge that will fit in a pressure cooker, usually. Premade dinner if I'm really exhausted. Is that all right with you, miss shaved ice for every occasion?"
"Do you… use conditioner," Anthy asks in a sort of wonderful stupor.
Utena shakes her head against her; it feels much more intimate than it likely should, absorbing the motions of Utena's body with her own. "I'm too lazy," Utena says. "Do you want me to tell you all about my socks next?"
Anthy nods; makes sure to maintain contact with Utena as she does. She thinks perhaps Utena would enjoy that, too.
Utena blows an amused breath, shakes her head again, and starts talking about her socks.
Anthy closes her eyes, tunes Utena out and simply marvels at the feeling of being in deep, expansive, overwhelming love.
They eat rice and pressure cooked root vegetables; the process of making them involved dumping materials into appliances and pressing a button. Utena appears disproportionately pleased with herself considering this fact.
After dinner Utena fishes a bottle out of the kitchen cabinet and takes two pills from it, grimacing in apparent embarrassment.
"Prescription?" Anthy asks, feigning nonchalance.
"Yeah. I have chronic pain. Since, you know." She fiddles with the bottle, places it back in the cupboard, glances at Anthy (not particularly casually). "Do you?"
Anthy shakes her head. "I suppose you've stolen it from me." She gives Utena a cool look. "Thief."
Utena grins, pulls Anthy closer by the waist, kisses her cheek and presses her nose there.
"You absolute rogue," Anthy murmurs.
"You're staying, right?" Utena asks again.
"Yes," Anthy answers this time. "Your cooking prowess has convinced me."
Utena's apartment doesn't have a shower, so Anthy does her best to clean up in the kitchen sink and borrows Utena's deodorant (it has Ocean Breeze Deluxe written on it in metallic blue followed by two stylized exclamation marks). Utena gives her clean clothes to sleep in and they curl up together on the narrow futon.
"I've found you," Anthy whispers into the fabric of Utena's pajamas. "I've found you."
Utena grabs her hands and wraps them around herself; Anthy trembles with pride and love and the need to shield and protect, to feel like she's capable of keeping this precious thing in her arms safe. "I did the actual finding, you know," Utena says, bumping her head back against Anthy, playing with her fingers, placing her cold feet on her shins. Does she know how much every bit of this means? Or is she still, as always, oblivious but somehow instinctively just right? "But let's say we've found each other."
"How generous," Anthy mutters, and Utena laughs, a short, reluctant sound in her throat, and says nothing else, and eventually falls asleep and curls away from Anthy's arms, too hot and restless in sleep to be held.
And life goes on, but this time together; there's no other kind of someday to wait for.