Special note: I wrote this before I started Hollow Ataraxia, so any similarities/differences are completely coincidental. Furthermore it's been ages since I actually read through F/SN so I may make minor lore errors. Please feel free to point these errors out and I will fix them as best I can, provided I can still make them fit into the story. If I can't fit them into the story I'll pretend I didn't read them.
Rin Tohsaka stared at the ceiling of her bedroom at 4 in the morning. It wasn't a particularly bad looking ceiling. Maybe in need of a new coat of paint but otherwise pretty decent. But she wasn't losing sleep to admire the various minor details of her room, but instead because she was troubled by her emotions. Specifically, she was bothered by a feeling of love. It wasn't love towards her de facto boyfriend of 6 months, Shirou, and that's what worried her. Instead she was feeling love towards her new "familiar" Saber.
"It's wrong." She told herself as she buried her face in her pillow. Whether she felt that way because Saber was another girl or because she was already in a "sort-of" relationship was uncertain. It's not that Rin ever considered herself attracted to women. Sure, she found some girls good-looking, but that doesn't automatically mean you're into that sort of thing, does it? She groaned in frustration and rolled over to face the window. The deep indigo of the sky outside told her that the sunrise was still a little ways away. She shut her eyes tightly and told herself to sleep while she still could.
When she closed her eyes, however, her thoughts drifted to the golden-haired girl down the hall. After the war's end they had all decided that it would be best for Saber to live with Rin. As fun as it was, the three of them figured that they could no longer all stay at Shirou's house without arousing suspicion from Taiga. And so, Rin returned to that lonely western-styled mansion on the hill. Over the next six months the three of them lived happily in their new, quiet life. Saber and Rin bonded as Master and Servant during the week, and on the weekends Rin and Shirou would frequently go on "dates" around town. It was a simple routine, and it was a welcome change from the dangers of the Holy Grail War.
But for some reason she wasn't satisfied. More and more, over the past few weeks, she was troubled by thoughts and feelings. Thoughts like how beautiful Saber's hair was, or how her emerald eyes seemed to shimmer in the moonlight. The most disturbing thought came to her after seeing Saber leave the path clad only in a towel, and after that Rin's face burned red whenever she looked at Saber for a week. Perhaps the most frustrating thing was how familiar the feeling was. Was it familiar because she felt the same for Shirou? Of course she already knew the answer. It was familiar because she had felt the same way ever since she first saw Saber on that cold winter night six months ago.
"I'm such a twisted person." She told herself. "I'm in a great relationship already, why can't I be happy with that?" It wasn't that she was unhappy with Shirou; the opposite in fact, she had never been happier. "I never thought I was someone who always wanted what she couldn't have." She shoved her head into the pillow roughly in a show of half-hearted self-flagellation and forced her eyes closed. "SLEEP!" She shouted, as though it were a spell. Maybe it was, or maybe the exhaustion just caught up with her; in any case before long she was snoring softly.
She found herself drawn into a familiar dream. She was on a hill overlooking a field. The sky was red and swollen as a blister in the light of the setting sun. The air was heavy with a strange sickly smell she couldn't quite recognize. Her body was heavy too. Her armor weighed down on her chest, forcing her to struggle to breathe. She reached up to try and loosen the cloth around her throat, and her hand came back covered in blood. It was then that she remembered that she was dying; cloven from collarbone to hip by her own sword. She had seen enough of battle to know that there was no recovering from a wound like that without some sort of magic, and with her sheath missing things were looking grim. She thought of all the things she had left undone and it scared her. She didn't want to die. The dream ended suddenly. Down the hall Saber awoke in a cold sweat.
Reflexively she reached over to the place beside her bed where she kept her sword, but that was a thousand years ago, and the only thing there was her alarm clock. "Five-thirty..." She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. She felt the sheets around her, and it was as though someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on her. "Was I really sweating that much?" She stepped lightly down the hall, taking care not to disturb her housemate. She entered the bathroom and peeled off her pajamas, throwing them into the laundry hamper before opening the bath faucet and sliding in. As the hot water slowly filled the tub she noticed her hands were still shaking.
"What's wrong with me?" Saber sighed. "It's only a dream." She lied to herself, knowing that it was only half-true. She knew that Servants never had dreams, only memories. "I don't understand." She slid neck-deep into the water. Before the war ended all she could think about was winning the Holy Grail, but now that it was over, she just couldn't let it go. To her that hill was a hell she earned for her failure as a king. Without that mission it was like she had lost a chunk of herself.
She looked at one of her hands. She was starting to prune up, which was a good sign that she had been in the bath for long enough. That and her hands had stopped shaking. She just had to push the memory out of her mind, she was past that now. She had the rest of her life to look forward to, no kingdom to watch over, no dragons to slay. For once she could just live for herself. But what scared her was the thought of possibly returning to that bloody hill when her time ran out.
Saber entered the dining room, her skin still flushed from the heat of the bath. She found Rin sitting at the table drinking coffee drowsily. "You didn't sleep well?" Saber asked. She had lived with Rin long enough to know that she wasn't a morning person, but this morning she looked even more dozy than usual.
"Just nightmares." Rin replied absently. After a moment she mentally kicked herself. More and more recently, Rin found herself having increasingly vivid dreams about Saber's past, but so far she had avoided talking about the uncomfortable subject.
Saber either didn't notice or didn't care, she only nodded. Even after all this time, Rin had trouble reading Saber's emotions. "Are you still going out with Shirou this afternoon?"
"Crap." She sighed. "I almost forgot." She rubbed her eyes before looking at the clock on the wall. It was 6 AM so she still had more than enough time to shower and prepare for the upcoming lunch date. "I never realized how much time relationships took." She smiled, stirring her coffee absently. "Do you know what it's like?" Truth be told, Rin had been curious about this topic for some time now, but she seldom had an excuse to bring it up.
"I am not sure what you mean." Saber poured a glass of juice and took a seat across the table from Rin.
"Well... In the legend I mean, your legend; you were married weren't you?" Rin asked, letting curiosity get the better of her.
Saber nodded again. "That is correct. I was married to Guinevere, daughter of Leodegrance. While we were close, it was never anything more than a political marriage."
"I see." Rin suddenly remembered how that marriage ended in the legends, and realized that the subject was likely sorer than Saber was letting on. A part of her felt bad that Saber never experienced romance in her life as a human, but there was another that was almost glad. Was this jealousy? "Why should I feel jealous when she's not 'mine' to feel jealous over?" Rin mentally kicked herself for her selfishness.
Rin quickly changed the subject. "Are you going out job hunting again today?" She had noticed that Saber was dressed in loose-fitting, breezy clothes, so it was safe to assume she had planned on walking a lot. These days Saber spent most days walking around Fuyuki's commercial districts looking for someone to hire her for any small job. Unfortunately, no one wanted to be arrested for hiring an illegal immigrant, and without any official paperwork, Saber had no way to prove her credibility. Not that she was a legitimate citizen to begin with.
"That's right." She smiled. "Sooner or later I will have to start pulling my weight somehow." They had had this discussion before. Saber seemed convinced that she needed to make herself useful by going to find work. Rin insisted that her finances were perfectly fine without help, but Saber would have none of it. Eventually Rin just stopped trying to dissuade her and let her go around from store to store asking for some work to do, knowing nothing would come of it. However, after remembering the package that arrived the day before, Rin smiled to herself secretly. Maybe with the help of that special surprise, job hunting would be a lot easier.
"Is everything set for this weekend?" Rin asked her boyfriend from across the table in between bites of her croque monsieur. Today's lunch date venue was a small French themed cafe in Shinto that Rin had taken a liking to.
"Well the food is prepared. Issei was a bit hard to convince after I told him you'd be there though." Shirou scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "But he said he'd do it for Saber's sake."
"Is he still hinting that you should dump me?" Rin was always somewhat amused by Issei's instinctive dislike of her and Caster. Part of her wondered if he had some sort of natural ability to detect magic or if he just naturally didn't like women. Rin once proposed an experiment to Shirou to test her hypothesis, but he was, of course, vehemently against the idea. She still planned on doing it anyway eventually.
"I think he's graduated to outright telling me that." Shirou scratched the back of his head, giving Rin his best "what can you do" expression.
"Well he was never one to be subtle about his dislike of me." She grinned, putting down her sandwich. "You know he's been against us dating for something like six months?"
"Has it really been that long already?"
"Well... if you count when I took you and Saber out during the war, it's almost six months exactly."
"I see..." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I hadn't been keeping track."
"Hey now!" Rin exclaimed with feigned indignity. "I'm going to be mad if you forget our anniversary."
"I think we were all a little too busy during that time to properly keep track of the day." He argued in a way that left Rin unsure whether or not he was actually defending himself or if he was just humoring her teasing. "And besides it's not like either one of us just said 'OK now we're officially dating' it just sorta happened."
Rin rolled her eyes and went back to eating but after a moment of thought, she added. "Saber's been around for just about as long, too." She looked suddenly pensive.
"It does feel like a whole lot longer, doesn't it?"
"Yeah..." Rin paused awkwardly, suddenly reminded of her sleepless night. "Hey Shirou?" She sounded a bit more nervous than she had hoped. "What do you think of Saber?"
For a moment he seemed a bit surprised by the question, but he quickly smiled and said. "She's an important friend. I can't tell you how glad I was when I found out she wouldn't just vanish after the grail war ended."
"Are you attracted to her?" She raised an eyebrow, putting a faint teasing edge to her words.
"W-well..." He was definitely starting to get a bit nervous now, probably afraid of saying something that would make Rin mad. "I'd be lying if I said she wasn't beautiful."
"No argument there." She nodded. "Definitely the prettiest girl I know." She noticed Shirou relax as soon as he saw that the danger had seemingly passed, until she decided to drop the second half of her question on him. "So would you date her if you weren't dating me?" She wasn't asking out of jealousy, of course, she just wondered what he thought of the girl she accidentally found herself falling for.
In response he quietly elected to take a sip of his cola. After a few moments of waiting patiently, Rin realized he was, in fact, just chugging the whole glass of it to buy time. When he was finished he put the glass down, eyes watering. "This stuff is really unhealthy huh... Parents probably shouldn't let their kids drink this. What was the question again?"
Unshaken by his attempts to change the subject she simply asked again. "Would you date Saber?" She tried to keep her tone as non-accusatory as possible.
"Tohsaka... you know there are laws against entrapment, right?"
"I'm not trying to entrap you!" She lost her temper momentarily and hit her hand against the table. "I'm just curious what you think, I promise I won't get mad whatever you say."
"Since you promised." He nodded, taking time to think out his answer. After a few moments he finally said "I think I could see myself going out with her. It makes me wonder what would have happened if things had turned out differently."
Rin thought this response was fair enough. Sometimes she was baffled by how hopelessly honest Shirou was. Most people would just lie say something like "oh no, you're the only one for me, blah blah blah." If only to make their partner feel better. Of course she couldn't be upset with him. After all she felt the same way, more or less. Maybe it was the lack of sleep getting to her, but she let slip a comment she had wanted to keep quiet. "Yeah, I probably would too."
"I see." He said visibly getting a bit nervous. "I guess I didn't know that about you." His tone was hard to read, as was often the case. On the one hand it sounded like he may have been joking to ease the tension, but it also seemed like he was trying to be supportive of his girlfriend's admission. "Anyway..." He wisely changed the subject, and for the rest of the date they discussed far simpler topics with only a small fraction of the prior awkwardness.
And there we have the first chapter. I'm mainly posting this to gauge interest, so please tell me in reviews/replies if you're liking it so far and I'll keep writing more. If no one likes it I probably won't continue.