Disclaimer: I do not own Kamen Rider Double, and I am making no money off of this. This is solely for my own and other's entertainment.
AN: I think this may have been one of the most depressing things I've written in a while, but I couldn't really help it. This is set between 48 & 49 as I think (from what I've read) that 49 is set 1 year after 48.
Warnings: Spoilers to 48 so that should explain everything if you've seen it.
Gone
It's been over three months, and yet it still doesn't feel real. Sometimes I'll get a case and think, for a moment, to ask him to look something up, even turn to look where he normally sat. Other times I'll wander into the secret room and still halfway expect to hear his voice accompanied by the squeak of his dry erase marker. By far, though, henshining is the worst because despite all the time that has passed and the fact that I know I'm using the Lost Driver, I still expect to feel that rush as we join. Each and every time, though, I'm met with silence and empty air, and then I'll remember he's gone. Phillip – my partner who was closer than family – is gone, and nothing can change that.
I think, sometimes, that the worst part is that almost no body knows. Sure I know, Akiko know, Terui knows, Shroud knows, and I think even Wakana-hime can sense it with her connection to the Gaia Library, but that's it. Only a handful of people, not even a half-dozen really, know that he gave his life in order to defeat Utopia in the last fight. Phillip willingly fought, despite knowing he'd disappear, so that we could defeat the last of the Generals and save not only his sister but the whole of Futo as well. It's not fair that no one else can know that he fought and died to protect them, it's not goddamn fair that so many people – his friends, those who actually cared about him and still care about him – think he's safe studying overseas when in reality he's just gone and is never coming back.
Maybe it would've been easier if they could've know, but probably not because at least this way they can imagine him growing up and older, safe and happy in some foreign country rather than know he was gone without even some kind of gravesite to visit as, legally, Phillip didn't exist. Either way, though, Phillip is gone, and it wasn't until after he'd disappeared that I realized I'd slowly been coming to love my research-obsessed younger partner. By then, it was already too late because he was gone, and all I had left were memories and regrets.
No matter what, though, life still goes on, and cases – both involving and not involving dopant, even if the latter were becoming more common – still come my way. Yet nothing is the same, and it never will be because Phillip isn't here. I hope that he's watching over us and is happy with the way we've tried to go on, with the way I've tried to fulfill my last promise to him even knowing that the city will forever be short one Kamen Rider without them ever knowing it.
After all, he is still my one and only partner, and I am his. That is, perhaps, the one thing besides my feelings for him that will always stay true, even if everything else fades away.
AN: ...I have nothing to say really other than I still live in hope that it won't end like this in 49.
