Disclaimer: TRC and the characters herein aren't mine. Which is probably for the best, because I would do wicked, wicked things to them.

Author's Note: This story has taken a very unexpected turn. But I'm gonna go with it, you know, see where it takes me.

"Well, I have to admit, I am a bit surprised."

Kurogane blinked his eyes open but could hardly see a thing.

"What the hell -"

"Give it a minute. It was much darker where you were."

He did as he was advised, struggling into a sitting position with his eyes still squeezed shut against the light, noting as he did so the grass beneath his hands. It was soft, well-tended and, judging by the green sweetness on the air, recently cut. Kurogane breathed it in, taking great lungfuls at a time, and briefly he was a child again, laying back in the meadow near his home and imagining that he need only lift his lids to see a dragon floating lazily among the clouds. But he opened his eyes and saw only that curious light, dimmer now - and then other things, strange things, came into focus.

"What the hell?" he repeated, taking in the bizarrely familiar world. The grass beneath his fingertips had disappeared, along with its sweet smell, and in its place was cracked tile. Fucking cold tile, darkly stained with blood in places, most heavily on the spot where he sat. High above his head, Kurogane could see a stately arched ceiling, probably coated in all sorts of precious metals; snow drifted in through a gaping hole.

This is a dream.

Turning towards his companion, he said, "This is -"

"Celes, yes."

Kurogane grimaced, seeing the figure. "I thought it might be you."

With a small chuckle, Fai, who sat cross-legged beside him, rested his face in his palms, beaming in that obnoxious manner of his, long limbs peeking out from underneath his cloak at awkward angles. "Why, Kuro-tan, who else would it be?"

He couldn't help but laugh at that. "You're right," he said, falling onto his back and passing his hands over his face. "Who else?" The hole in the ceiling opened up onto the night sky, but there were no stars. Kurogane couldn't remember whether this had been true of the real Celes or if it was just a figment of his imagination, trying to strip the world of its aesthetic beauty in order to properly match it to the haunted, dead place he remembered. "You're dead and you're still annoying the shit out of me."

"Come on, Kuro." Fai leaned back on his elbows next to Kurogane, sighing contentedly, completely at ease, before leering at him with a wicked, meaningful little smile. "You know that's not true."

It was, admittedly, rather fucking unnerving to bolt into a sitting position, having been awakened by the sound of laughter, only to find himself completely and utterly alone. It took Kurogane only moments to realize that he had been the one laughing, low and mocking, but somehow the realization was not as comforting as it should have been.

"Losing my fucking mind," he muttered to himself, throwing a glowering look across the room to where he could clearly see the very top of Fai's staff, glinting vaguely in the moonlight.

"Stay out of my head."

"Kurogane," Tomoyo said warmly, though not without surprise, upon seeing him the next morning. She turned away from Amaterasu, with whom she had no doubt been discussing something of importance, to meet him halfway across the room and once again take his hands.

"Tomoyo-hime," he greeted with a nod. He felt a tendon in his neck twang in protest and wished not for the first time that he hadn't dreamt at all. Uninterrupted sleep, it seemed, suited him best.

Something flashed in her eyes, and she gave his hands a squeeze before releasing them entirely. "Take a walk with me, Kurogane."

Kurogane couldn't help but feel slightly at peace, with the cherry blossoms overhead and the castle so quiet and his princess's calm presence beside him. For a while, they simply strolled in silence, Kurogane's hand resting as always on the hilt of his sword, his eyes watchful, ever on-guard even in the confines of their home, where his services were largely unnecessary. Tomoyo, it seemed, was waiting, eyeing him softly whenever his back was turned, but otherwise keeping her gaze on her own hands, folded before her.

"You can't walk in dreams anymore," he finally said, reluctantly. It wasn't a question; more of a prelude.

"No," she affirmed, smiling, he thought, a little sadly. She paused for a moment to reach up and pluck a sakura blossom from a low-hanging branch, her eyes warm; this she twirled between her forefinger and thumb as they continued. "But I still know them better than most." She cast a sideways glance towards him. "Did you dream, Kurogane?"

"I did."

"About him?" That same knowing tone, those gentle eyes. Sometimes Kurogane wasn't sure whether he found her infuriating or calming. A bit of both, he supposed, with occasional pitches to one side or the other.

He sighed, and then, gruffly, "Yeah."

Tomoyo smiled suddenly, bright, all teeth, and for a moment Kurogane felt that none of it had ever happened, that he'd never left in the first place, and, most strongly, that they were no longer the broken remnants they had become - for Tomoyo was broken, too, she had to be, as she'd lost a great power and gained an overwhelmingly cynical outlook on the world. But here, for just a moment, she was his toying, maddening, cheerful princess once again. And while that moment faded away, disappeared behind them, Kurogane found the fact that it had happened comforting.

"You know, Kurogane," she sighed a few minutes later, content, stretching her arms out in front of her, "I think it will all be alright."

Kurogane snorted. "Is that your professional opinion, Princess?"

Her smile was gentle, but with an underlying mischief. "Yes." She tucked the sakura blossom into the collar of his cloak before he could stop her, and then, with a giggle at the sight, repeated, "Yes, it is."

Kurogane followed her back towards the courtyard entrance, stubbornly attempting to dislodge the flower from his collar with naught but his breath, much to the Princess's - and a few onlooking guards' - amusement.

Author's Note: Well! That was certainly cheery, wasn't it? I feel all fuzzy inside having written that after all that angst. I can almost guarantee it won't last.