Disclaimer: Do not own, otherwise I'd be doing strange things concerning time and space with it. Because I like doomed time travel.

He'd heard it all before from her.

"Reincarnation can take years, Watanuki. Decades."

"I'm prepared to wait," Watanuki replied and rose up from the cushions to collect the dirty dishes. Maru and Moro grabbed the last tea biscuits before he took away the tray.

"This particular reincarnation seems to be taking more time than usual."

Watanuki snorted. "It would, wouldn't it? It's getting really annoying. I swear it's on purpose."

She was glad Watanuki sounded so exasperated. In the beginning he'd just looked sad and heartbroken whenever she'd brought up the subject. "How long is it supposed to take? A few years?"

"Yes," Watanuki said, and then smiled crookedly at her. "You should know. You always know more about this supernatural stuff than you let on."

She laughed at that and piled up her plates so he could carry it all into the kitchen. "So is it off schedule, or do you think something's happened?"

"I don't know," he replied over the running water. "But I've stayed this long- I can wait a little longer."

"It's because you stayed so long before. Too long."

"I didn't realize everyone would leave me behind. Leave completely." He started stacking the dishes in the dishwasher. "I mean, I knew they were all growing up, but I didn't think…If I could have-"

"-Is that a wish?" she asked, smiling. Somewhere in the yard, Tanpopo was chirruping and playing with the sparrows, who were probably huddled together cheeping fearfully. Tanpopo had grown into quite a terrifying looking bird, but he still thought he was a chick and always tried to crowd awkwardly onto her shoulder to sleep. She was a favourite of his, probably because he found her long hair familiar.

"Yuuko-san..."

"My name isn't Yuuko," she reminded him gently as she lit her pipe and blew the smoke out in a perfect ring. His fingers itched. He'd given up smoking after she'd come back, afraid to have too much in common with her.

"It used to be."

"Yes." She frowned at him. "But you can't expect people to remember everything from their past lives. How much do you know of yours?"

"I know, I know," he grumbled and shut the dishwasher door.

She shrugged. "I'm just warning you. I don't want you to be disappointed."

Watanuki smiled, and it was a little soft, a little dreamy. Like he was remembering something long gone. "I would never." He walked out onto the back porch where he'd set out the glasses of sake and watched Mokona and Tanpopo terrify the squirrels. "But if Tanpopo can wait for someone, I think I at least deserve...." He looked away, not able to go on.

"I never said you didn't," she replied and ruffled his hair fondly before shouting for Mokona and waving one of the glasses of sake. Mokona squealed and immediately abandoned the game to hop over to the table and take the glass from her hands. Those two. Some things never changed.

He looked over at the fourth setting and realized he had forgotten and put out an extra glass again. He sighed and poured into that one too over Mokona's complaints that he was taking too much of the sake for himself.

They all knew Himawari-chan would be reborn in a few months- it was why Tanpopo was happy and chirruping again for the first time in what seemed like years. But Yuuko was right- this reincarnation was taking a particularly long time.

Watanuki gulped down the sake from the extra glass as he stared out at the trees in the backyard.

"Hurry up. Jerk."