Loopier and Loopier: Yet Another Love Hina Time Loop Fic

By SecondSeraphim

Chapter 2: A Long Life Lost

"Keitaro…wake up," came the voice from beside him. Opening his eyes, Keitaro blinked in shock, then a deepsadness filled him as realization sank in. There in front of him was his beautiful wife of nearly sixty years…only she wasn't eighty years old. She was thirteen.

The loop had reset.

"Shinobu…do you...remember?" he asked her. The worried look adorning her face vanished at once, replaced with eyes full of joyful tears, and he knew that she did. He let out a sigh of relief before taking her into his arms. "I thought we had escaped…it was such a long loop. What reset it?" he asked her. It was then that he noticedthat she was crying.

"Shinobu…"

"You died Keitaro," she answered, sending a shiver through him. "It was a heart attack. The doctor…they said it was painless. You went in your sleep."

Keitaro nodded, but then asked the question he had both been dreading and dying to know the answer to. "How did you…" he couldn't finish it. No matter…Shinobu knew him well enough to know what he was asking.

"I..I made it another two years. And then…I just couldn't take it anymore."

"You don't mean you…" Keitaro began alarmed, but Shinobu shook her head.

"I just stopped eating…I just..couldn't take it anymore…" she repeated, breaking into tears at the end. Keitaro just held her all the tighter.

When she was done, Shinobu pulled away but Keitaro stopped her. She looked at him quizzically for a moment before he pulled her into a kiss.

"I love you…" he whispered before breaking away. Shinobu blushed…oh how he had missed that blush. She still did it when older, but it was never as bright as now…

Just as suddenly as it appeared, Shinobu's blush vanished as he face went deathly pale. "Dear Kami…Keitaro, the children!"

At these words Keitaro's heart broke. When the loop reset their children, their grandchildren…even their one great-grandchild was gone.

No. Not gone. They haven't been.

"Its ok…"he whispered, clutching her to his chest. "We'll…we have another life together. They'll still be born…"

"What about next time? What if one of us doesn't remember? I…I don't think I could take you not loving me anymore."

Keitaro gulped, but didn't say anything. He knew the feelings that ran through her all too well…on more than one occasion he had ended his own life early because he was unable to deal with her not remembering him.

"It's ok. As soon as we are both awake again we regain all our memories. You know that."

"I know…but still. I wish we knew what was causing the loops, or at least what caused us to be awake when we are. That way…maybe we could make it so that we both were always awake?" she suggested, looking up at him with new hope in her eyes. Keitaro noticed and smiled.

"Good idea. Maybe…maybe Su could help. She might not be able to solve the problem but…I'm sure that even we could learn all the time travel theories and mathematics given enough time. And besides," he added, we seem to have plenty of that."

"About that…we won't be able to be together in front of the girls…not for a long time."

"I know…oh man! This means I'll have to pretend to be interested in Narusagawa again…"

"I know...it's ok. We can make it. We'll just need to be carefull" she added as she snuggled deeper into his embrace. Keitaro kissed her once more on the head, then held her as they each drifted off to sleep. They would be found that way by Naru in the morning.

It was worth the beating.

Decided to go a bit of a different route with this one, to show that time loops aren't always fun and games. I actually cried a little while writing this.