...Well. This is my first Higurashi fic ever. And second fic ever uploaded to this site. Go easy on me.

Before I wrote this I said I was going to write a story which had actual substantial dialogue and a decent plot.
Evidently this is not that story. There is very very little speech and it's all very random and rambling.
I hope you manage to enjoy it anyway but I won't hold my breath. You shouldn't either.

As always this is dedicated to Hazel-xx, my awesome friend who has gotten me into FF.
This is also dedicated to my friend Brian. I forgot his name on this site (great friend that I am), but he's the one responsible for this story, seeing as I wrote it in my head at 5am after he texted me and woke me up.
Even though his favourite characters are Shmion and he isn't a bit Rena fan. Sorry.
This is also dedicated to everyone who reviewed/faved my first story, even if they don't like Higurashi. You made me float around in a stupidly happy daze for a day or two.

Carry You Home

The first time Keiichi Maebara and Rena Ryuugu meet, it is in a world that tastes of innocence and promise.

They do not have a future haunted by lies and secrets and blood and the shrill cries of the cicadas in the night. They walk to school each morning and laugh and Keiichi teases her in a way that comes to him so very naturally. He helps her with math problems and grins at her when she doesn't understand. As he watches her clamber over heaps of junk in the sunset-illuminated scrapyard, he thinks, silently and with a small smile on his face, that this might be the beginning of something beautiful.

It only takes two swings of the bat before she's dead.

In the 11th world, Keichii meets Shion Sonozaki for the first time.

At first she seems much more timid than her sister, blushing and tugging at the edge of her shirt when she talks, but a few days later she's teasing Keiichi and clinging to his arm and pressing her body up against his. Rena sees it all through narrowed eyes and says nothing. This is a seed that will come to blossom worlds away from now.

In the 78th world, they awaken to find themselves in an unfamiliar room with only a faint glimmer of light seeping through the cracks in the door. Across the room sits a girl who looks remarkably like Mion Sonozaki but with pretty wild eyes and a dark smirk laughing at something beyond their reach. Their hands are bound, chained to the wall by cold metal links that steal away their freedom. Keiichi shouts with a raspy voice and demands an explanation but the girl who looks like Mion just laughs a cold shrill laugh that sends shivers dancing along Rena's spine. From the folds of her clothes she pulls out a vicious-looking knife that shines briefly in the darkness of the room, and Rena realizes that she is probably going to die. For some reason this thought doesn't quite terrify her as it should. Perhaps, she thinks, it's because she's already died so many times before – why did she just think that? She's never died before. She's alive. She's alive right now and there's no bat crashing into the side of her head and no electric shock grazing her ski-

"Hey, Rena."

Keiichi speaks suddenly, his voice low and his eyes staring at the floor. The girl is advancing towards them torturously slowly, the smirk never leaving her distant expression.

"What is it?"

He looks at her now; his eyes are narrowed but a small smile plays upon his face. "Will you stay with me?"

What a stupid question. Isn't it a stupid question? Why would she leave him? She's always here. "...Yeah."

If they strain against the hold of the chains, they can almost reach each other. Their fingertips are so close. If they just push a little more – they'll touch. Just like thi-

In the 147th world, Keiichi awakes from constant dreams of a Rena who has catlike eyes that pierce him through the heart and who slams a hatchet into his neck in a morbid rhythm that continues long after he is dead.

The others are keeping something from him. He knows this for certain. He was naïve enough in the beginning to think they were doing it so as not to harm him, but he's recognized their cold-hearted deceit for what is truly is. He thinks that maybe the dreams are a sign. A forewarning. They're realistic in a manner that sometimes seems to surpass reality itself. But it isn't only Rena who's working against him. Satoko's mischievous half-lidded gazes are becoming laced with something much more sinister. Mion constantly switches between her cheerful confidence and a cold malevolence that chills Keiichi to the bone.

"Be careful."

This is all Rika Furude has to say to him. The remark comes one day as they depart from school. It's quiet but just about audible and she says it in a low voice tinged with some deeper meaning that he can't quite place. She's taunting him. Challenging him. Keiichi-kun, Keiichi-kun. Try and stop us.

He won't lose.

In the 245th world, Shion Sonozaki is there again, fluttering her extravagantly long eyelashes at Keiichi and laughing and tugging lightly on his cheeks in a teasing manner.

Go away go away go away. I was here first I'm always by his side you don't belong here.

The 398th world passes – at least in the beginning – in a reasonably docile manner. Keiichi walks with Rena to the junkyard in a maid dress that has Rena breaking out in giggles every time she glances over at him. He sulks and mutters under his breath but her laughter seems to warm his heart.

"Hey, hey, Keiichi-kun, help me!"

"What do you want? You can't expect me to do much in this stupid dress."

"But, but... Look at this..."

"...Rena. What the hell is that?"

"Hauu... It's so cute..."

"...I'll never understand you."

But he digs it out for her anyway because it's worth it when she smiles brightly and hugs him. As he laughs, his hand lightly patting the back of her head, he thinks that he wouldn't mind if this could last forever.

In the back of his mind, he somehow knows it won't.

In the 399th world, Rena's cleaver tears open Shion's jugular with a smooth effortless ease. As she stands amongst the pretty pretty blood and stares into Shion's lifeless eyes, Rena feels a quiet sense of accomplishment. I told you I told you I can't remember when I told you but I did and I warned you and now I've won. I'll drag you down to hell with me Shion Sonozaki it's over it's over it's over.

She laughs and laughs and laughs and it's only when she catches sight of her reflection in the mirror across the room that she realizes she's crying.

In the 582nd world, a girl called Rena Ryuugu dreams of a boy called Keiichi Maebara whom she has never met and probably never will.

She isn't entirely sure when her life began to feel empty. It seems as if it's been that way forever but when she really thinks about it, perhaps it only began recently. It doesn't matter because the simple fact is that something is missing from her life. She's not entirely sure what – some days the answer seems to be on the tip of her tongue but the moment she seizes the thought it slips out of her hands. It seems like everything's slipping out of her hands as of late. She walks to school alone and smiles with her friends and plays a few card games and then she walks home by herself with the sound of the cicadas ringing in her ears. She realized long ago that happiness is only a fleeting, ephemeral concept, but she has to wonder when it's going to come around her way.

The more she thinks about it, the more she realizes she's never really been happy before. And yet at the same time she feels as though there was something happy in her past once. But maybe it wasn't her past. Someone else's, but still very much Rena Ryuugu's. Rika isn't happy in this world either.

She finds herself thinking odd thoughts like that too. Referring to enigmatic worlds that she can't quite remember or understand. She's beginning to doubt her own sanity as of late. Her skin itches.

In the 1356th world, he tells her he loves her before her skull splits open on the concrete beneath his feet.

1624. It's a nice number. All even. Rena likes even numbers because they're good. Not like even numbers which are bad. Bad like the lies he keeps telling her. Over and over and over again. Why? Why do you lie to me? Liar liar liar. Friends aren't meant to keep secrets from each other. Are you not my friend, Keiichi-kun? Why do you keep lying to me? Why aren't you answering me? You're lying on the floor with your throat torn open and there's blood blood everywhere like Shion's all that time ago but that's no excuse not to answer me. I've done this before you've died before and you still answer me. Every time. You're always there all the time next to me every every time I don't want that to end you liar. I'm not crying I'm not crying I'm not -

In the 1897th world, they're walking along with the light of the sunset stretching out their shadows and covering everything in an ethereal glow. They're laughing just like they always do and everything's fine but then suddenly Keiichi stops and his eyes are wide and he sinks to his knees. Rena grabs his shoulder and shakes him gently and asks if he's okay, but he can't see her. All he can see is himself swinging a baseball bat against her head and bringing it down again and again and again. And then he sees more; Mion, lying dead on the floor with her skull broken open by the force of his swings; Rika, lying at the top of the shrine stairs naked with the blood decorating her broken body; Satoko with her eyes glazed over and her wrists torn open – and the tears come flooding out his eyes before he even knows what's happening.

Rena opens her mouth to ask what's wrong but she's interrupted when he hugs her. He holds her close as if he never wants go and his tears drip down her back and soak her clothes.

"I'm sorry."

She doesn't quite understand what he's talking about. But a small thought says that she might. Soon enough.

I forgive yo-

The 1997th time around they're fighting in the junkyard. Rena's cleaver shines with a sinister gleam under the setting sun; Keiichi blocks her attacks over and over again with his worn-out baseball bat. In the back of his mind a faint memory re-emerges of a school rooftop with the moon lighting their dancing figures, but he pushes it away because he doesn't want to remember yet.

Rena's eyes are wide and brimming with insanity and she strikes again and again and again, laughing all the way, short of breath but not ever stopping. Somehow – somehow – she remembers this. They were on the roof and all the world was watching because that was the moment hope first shone on the horizon. They'll break this cycle even if it's not today.

The cleaver's fallen out of her hand before she knows what she's doing. Suddenly she's on the floor, crying like she's never cried before and Keiichi's arms are around her and it feels like a hundred worlds ago all over again.

Through her sobs she struggles to choke out, "I'm s-so-rry..."

She doesn't see Keiichi smile but she feels it. "I'm sorry too, Rena."

They know everything will be alright.

On July 1st, Keiichi Maebara awakens to the light tap of a pebble hitting his window. Groggily, he forces himself out from his bed and staggers over to the window, wincing as he opens the curtain and the light momentarily stuns his eyes. Outside, down on the ground, is Rena Ryuugu.

"What are you doing?" she shouts up as he pushes the window open. "It's noon already! Hurry up!"

He grins as he shouts back his response, turning away from the window and stretching with a wide yawn.

Maybe this time – it really is the beginning of something beautiful.