Title: Rewind

Summary: Replay. It has always been the same, until now. Hagi isn't sure he likes the future.

Word Count: 946

Disclaimer: Blood + is, rather obviously, not mine.

This is sort of working off the assumption that Saya loses all her memories after every hibernation. I'm actually not sure if that's true, but whatever…

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Every time, he wanders and waits and wishes for thirty years. (And sometimes he visits, but really, there isn't anyone to visit so he only comes back occasionally.) He only returns long enough to get his bearings, to reassure himself that his purpose in life was still there, alive and sleeping in her resting place. It wouldn't do any good to draw attention to her resting spot, and sometimes, he tells himself it is better not to return at all, not until she awakens. However, Hagi has long since given up on making such resolutions, as his steps always seem to wander back towards Saya, and he inevitably finds himself before her sleeping form once again.

Time and time again, that has always been the same.

He waits, endlessly patient, for his dream to return. (Because he doesn't sleep anymore, so she is the only dream he has.) Slowly, slowly, the minutes tick past. Life goes on all around him and the years roll by. She eventually comes back to him.

And he is there to receive her. (With his cello case and dark clothing, ever unchanging.)

In this world when both time and people pass him by, she is his constant. She is his everything. She will be there, and in the end, nothing will change. This is the cycle, their cycle.

In the darkness of the chamber, the coffin lid slowly rises, inch by inch. The edge eases back and for the first time in thirty years, Hagi sees her. (Again.) Saya blinks up at him, and he holds out his hand to pull her up, draw her close as she sinks her teeth into his neck and drinks her fill. (Again.) That part is instinct, instinct and thirst. The easy part.

Then he leads her out into the world, and, regular as clockwork, the dream starts anew.

Rewind. Replay.

She doesn't remember, but then again, she never does when she first wakes up. It is up to him to coax those memories back to her, carefully, gently, even as he protects her from the Chiroptera that sense her awakening. He is her Chevalier, born through her blood. He is her servant, and she his Queen. He lives for her. And needing to remind her of that fact every thirty odd years is a small price to pay. (Though, sometimes, in a very small part of the heart he has long since given up to Saya, he wishes that he were enough of a part of her that she would always remember…)

Some skills, she retains over the years. It never takes her long to remember how to properly use her sword. Others, he must teach her again. And again.

And again.

After some hundred odd years, Saya still hasn't gotten the knack of taking care of herself, and Hagi is glad that she will always have him to look after her. (It means that he is necessary.)

Once, a long time ago, she had vowed to kill Diva. After every awakening, he is there to remind her of it, and the oath is renewed. Because it is her wish, Hagi will throw all of his self and his power into fulfilling it. But in the quiet moments of his mind, he cannot help but hope that this continues. That the centuries will roll past and she will sleep and waken and set off for the final battle against her sister again and again.

But one day, the dream will end.

One day, when the task is complete, he will do as Saya once commanded (he had promised, hadn't he?) and end her life. And because this too, is Saya's wish, he will do as she says. But he still has wishes of his own, and feels guilty for them, because shouldn't anything he might think or do take second place to the desires and orders of his Queen?

And one more time, she awakens again, but this time, he is not there to take her into his arms and offer up his blood and his life to her. Others are there, waiting, enveloping her in the love and family warmth that he, no matter how much he'd loved and served, had not been able to give her. (Her happiness is brilliant, almost tangible and he is no longer sure if he did her a service, reminding her of who she was time and time again…)

But he'd found her again, so that was all that mattered and it was too late before he realized that the cycle was fracturing, fraying at the edges and that the dream was finally drawing to a close. Saya draws them all to her, a circle of friends and family and people who had faith in her abilities, and they are new, changes he has not reckoned in a cycle that has never changed before. And perhaps that is what did it, what makes them succeed this time out of many others, where the two of them had failed before. (In that knowledge, he knows failure, because he recognizes that he was not enough for her.)

And the time for wandering and waiting has returned, but this time, they had parted with regrets and tears and pain and an odd new affinity that he isn't sure what to do with. His world, which was once utterly stable (Serve. Obey.) has turned to quicksand under his feet, and he is no longer sure of his place in it.

He has nothing left to do but wait for his dream to return, but now, Hagi isn't sure he likes the future. (He knows he is no longer necessary…)

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A/N: My first Blood + story. Too many run-ons to count, excess commas, overuse of the word 'and', and only semi-coherent. DD: What can I say? I write like that.

I think the ending is kind of weak, but I couldn't think of anything else. Any suggestions on that would be welcomed.

Err... what else to say? I shamelessly fangirl Hagi. xD

Reviews are love.