A Winter Rose

Angst/romance/ comfort

Illya/Shirou

"I love you," those were the last words he ever heard from his beloved's lips before she faded once more into the mists of the past. Shirou Emiya was now a man without direction or focus, perpetually lost without a certain blond haired knight to guide him. Despite all of this he never once let those around him know the burden weighing upon his subconscious. As he imagined, the last thing his friends needed was yet another reason to worry about him. And so, the red haired youth sealed away his anguish deep in the vault of his heart and threw away the key. No living soul would ever hear even so much a word of his pain for it was a burden he intended to carry by himself, like great Atlus once held up the heavens themselves in an era long past.

Even as his mind,soul, and heart struggled to deal with the loss of a beloved friend and lover, life went on in Fuyuki City with the chaos of those fateful two weeks slowly fading into the past where they become the stuff of memories and legends. For Shirou it also meant a return to routine, much as he had before the Grail War, every morning he would rise early, practice magic for an hour or so, eat breakfast with Sakura and Taiga-sensei, and then proceeded to school to carry on the education that had been put on hiatus for reasons those around him would never know. For Shirou school was an escape from his internal torment. With his mind occupied by literature, mathematics, and other scholarly pursuits there was little time to dwell on the loss he had suffered just a few weeks before. After school came part-time work and, afterwords, a late night return to the nearly empty Emiya estate.

After the war had ended the once lively mansion the red-haired youth once shared with a small harem of women now lie empty. Rin had returned to her home, Illya was living with Taiga-sensei, and She was no longer of this world. This left Shirou to his own devices, save for instances when his old "family" would stop by for breakfast and dinner. With so much time to himself, Shirou would fill the void with more and more training, hoping to perfect his projection magic so something would change and mark that he was proceeding towards a tangible goal. And so life went for Shioru Emiya, a consist and mundane existence marred by a psychic scar laid so deeply into his psyche that he imagined would never heal.

Many who had known Saber knew Shirou had felt deeply for her, and tried their best to cheer up the errant magus. Many insisted Shirou pursue one of the many beautiful girls that often surrounded him. They insisted finding a new love may help him move on from his loss. Shirou had even headed such advice and dated his close friend Sakura for a time. Though their dates were always fun, they both knew such things would never fill the hole Saber's departure had left in Shirou's heart. And so the pair returned to being friends, leaving Shirou no closer to solving the issue at hand.

And so Shirou's existence continued over and over. A seemingly endless series of similar days that began to run together into a single unbreakable chain of being. With the only break coming in the cycle coming in the form meals he shared with his makeshift family. Chatting with friends old and new helped the would-be magus center himself and remember a time when things were better. One such dinner would serve as a catalyst to break Shriou's slump, though it would come from the least likely of sources.

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Part 1: A Winter Rose
It was night in Fuyuki city as Shirou arrived home after a long day at school and work. Though his body ached from the manual labor he had just finished his day was far from over as it was his duty this night to make dinner for the usual gang of friends and freeloaders that insisted upon making his home their restaurant of choice almost every weeknight. Upon entering the expansive, eastern-styled mansion he had inherited from his father, Shirou parted with his school uniform and slipped into more casual clothing before making his way to the mansion's small kitchen to finally begin dinner. Tonight's dish was a simple mixture of chicken and rice that was chosen for the speed with which it could be made, rather then how it may taste to those who would be forced to eat it. While Shirou hastily prepaired the night's dinner, a rapid and violent knock came at the door. Shirou knew only one of his friends was capable of making such a strange noise with just their hands and responded accordingly.

"Yo, Taiga-niisan, the doors open!" Shirou yelled in the general direction of the front door. Sure enough, Taiga, a high-school teacher best known for her explosive temper and clumsy nature, burst through the door while offering an a greeting as loud as her yellow and green striped dress. Behind her trailed a short young girl with snow white hair and eyes a shade of crimson that marked her as being something other a normal human being. Her name was Illyasviel von Einzbern, or Illya for short, and despite her appearance she was actually two years Shirou's senior. The teacher and snow-haired girl promptly sat at the same long table that dinner in the Emiya household was always served around and quickly settled in for dinner like sharks circling a kill.

"Emiya-kun, is dinner ready yet?" Taiga lamented to her most gracious host. Shirou refused to respond to such moaning and continued putting the finishing touches on dinner. Within a few minutes the meal in question was ready and put upon plates for the consumption of his guests. With everything in place upon the long table dinner began, with Illya and Taiga devouring their share quickly, while Shirou took his time savoring his handiwork, his only reward for diligently preparing meals night after night. As the night's meal disappeared from is plate and found home in everyone's stomach the activity at hand changed from dinner to light conversation, as it often did. The topics at hand usually consisted of current events, school, Illya's home life, and Tagia's latest mishaps, crashes, and brushes with death. Tonight, however, the conversation turned to the matter of Shirou's melancholy state of mind as of late.

"Emiya-kun, have you been feeling ok lately? Ever since Saber returned home you haven't been your self." Shirou tried to shrug off Taiga's questioning but here, in the confined space of his home, he found avoiding the question impossible.
"I'm all right, it's just been lonely around here without Saber, Rin, and Illya around to liven things up." Though it was only a small portion of the truth, it was all Shirou could admit to at the moment.

"If that's all that's wrong I could always send Illya over to keep you company for a few days. Taiga mused while stuffing her face with an after-dinner cookie. As Taiga uttered those words, Illya's eye lit up a light bulb. Quickly interjecting herself into the conversation before Shirou could get a word in edgewise.
"I think that's a great Idea, Taiga-neesan! I've been so lonely without big brother around..." Illya was milking her youthful appearance for all it was worth. Though she was nearly twenty years the snowy-haired girl abused her little sister status for all it was worth.

"See Shirou-kun? Illya would be more then happy to stay with you for awhile!" Both Taiga and Illya beamed weapons-grade smiles at Shirou, paralyzing his ability to say no without causing a serious backlash. With a deep sigh, a clear sign he had resigned himself to his fate, Shriou finally spoke.
"Fine, fine. It'll be ok if Illya hangs around here for a few days." It was a long weekend, a fact that, for the first time in his life, Shirou cursed, meaning the Eizbern family homunculus would be in his face for nearly 72-hours. Meanwhile, Illya happily bounced to her adopted brothers side and embraced him with her tiny arms.

"We're gonna have lots of fun together this weekend, right big brother?" Shirou, wearing a long, dejected look upon his face, simply nodded in agreement with Illya's joyful declaration.

"YAY!" Illya yelled at the top of her lungs, her arms still wrapped around Shirou's waist. Taiga smiled as well, marking her approval of the situation at hand.
"Well it looks like everything is in order, if you two don't mind I think its time for me to go home for the night." There was no time for Shirou to argue with his home room teacher, for she was long gone by the time he was even able to speak. Shirou, still left with a small homunculus hanging around his waist, sighed at his fate.

"Illya-chan, could you please get off of me? I need to clean up the kitchen." Illya responded with a sad look that would put a puppy to shame, though it had no effect on her stern, and slightly annoyed, big brother. "You should go get ready for bed, you can use Rin's old room for now."
"Nooooooo!" Illya shouted in a fit of fake-rage. "I want to sleep with my big brother!" Illya again played the little sister card, hoping to invoke Shirou's intense need to help others to get what she wanted. Shirou knew Illya would not stop complaining until she got what she wanted, and thus offered a compromise.

"Fine. You can sleep in my room, but there is no way your going sleep with me." Shirou was firm in his insistence. If Illya was going to be here for the entire weekend, he intended to be in control of everything that happened in his household. Though pouting, Illya complied with Shirou's wishes and made haste to set up their shared sleeping quarters while her big brother finished putting away the supplies from the dinner of an half-hour prior. After brother and sister finished their appointed task, both convened in the small, unadorned, room Shirou called his own. Illya had set out two pairs of bedding as per Shirou command and changed into a nightgown and white as her own hair. With a heavy yawn, Illya settled into her makeshift bed and gently closed her eyes for the night. A few minutes later Shirou did the same, it had been a long day and with the thought of his beloved Saber still weighing heavily on his psyche, soon found himself falling asleep upon the rooms ground of woven grasses and reeds.

A few hours into the pairs shared winter night, Illya awoke with great purpose. Staring intently at her big brother, Illya silently rose to her feet and made her way to her brother's sleeping place and slipped into his bed with all the stealth of a ninja-assassin. One way or another, Illya was going to get her way. Before again welcoming sleep's sweet embrace, Illya whispered, in an almost inaudible tone, a small missive into her younger brother's ear. "I know you've been depressed since Saber-san returned to her own time, Big Brother. But don't worry, I'll take care of you. After all, I love you with all my heart..."