Dear Karen,

I wanted to say thank you.

I'm quite horrible at saying things plain and simple but I'll give it a try here. Poetry sometimes doesn't cut it, even when it's from the heart. I sometimes have a lot to say and sometimes nothing to say.

Right now, I have a lot to say and have little clue of how to say it. So I suppose I'll start simple.

Thank you.

For everything -- tolerating me when I get all emotional, be it angry, sad, afraid, whatever. For so many years of just being here. Seven years now, that's a long time with me.
I worried about you when I didn't see you return in 2003. I worried and I missed you. But I couldn't ask; the aire of everything was so different as to be volatile.

When you came back in 2006, I was most happy. It felt like completion in a little clan again, however much or little sense that makes.
When Archie dragged Renne behind the bar to evade a bullet that I know would have annihilated him, I was shocked. And while so was he, we all know that sometimes things are mutually shared between a creation and creator. Opinions and such.
But yes. Shock was there as was, and still is, gratitude.

When Kaori came along and things happened there, I admit to confusion. I was, for a brief second, a little angry at seeing Renne left on the beach and later, in the dark with the portal and subsequently, the Nance fiasco. But I always found myself happy, relieved, when you returned.

I know it kind of runs parallel in play and while I may sound like I slightly blend, I don't mean to. Again, sometimes parallels run. In this case, the parallel lines run with...coming back. Be it to a place or Archie simply coming back to talk with Renne, or you coming back to talk with me.
It sounds crazy, but thank you for coming back.

It lent a lot of hope, especially in 2006 when, on December 1, I watched my grandmother die. You helped, a lot just by being there. Yapping each other's ears/fingers off or just enjoying a quiet night.

On the Ides last year, when all that occurred, I held hope. While Renne's hope faded and in the end, Harold (whether intentionally or not, I'll never know) told Renne a lie and made the Maritime disappear, I was indeed angry. Still am to an extent but I take relief knowing it wasn't torched.
Simply because the place itself holds memory and the echo of the people. And its heart and soul, which I think, was you/Archie.

The anger grew when things further deteriorated as you might or might not have seen.

The anger was swept away by surprise when I first found your private message to me on Mutual Endeavours. I still have that whole exchange simply because it brings me happiness, even again, that little ray of hope.

Since then, I've seen you and listened to you ramble on about Adalia and I've enjoyed, still enjoy, just sitting there listening to you yap, laugh or vent about her or anything at all.

So thank you. And if ever I may return the favour, don't hesitate to ask. Fir seven years, I have consistently seen you as a friend and thus, I write this probably overdue message.

I apologise many times over if ever I made you angry. Some things, I cannot apologise for or recant, but those thoughts are not aimed at you. You didn't cause them but if ever, they angered you, I am sorry.
Angering a friend is something I'm not keen on doing.

You've been there, endured, laughed, cried and done it all. So have I. We may only be communicating through bits, pixels, codes and electronic wires but to me at least, the communication is as equally valid as speaking to you face-to-face.

Thank you for being the proverbial leaky pipe. The proverbial mentor, annoying sister-figure and overall friend.

I hold hope seven years may grow into a much longer period, perhaps a lifetime. And maybe one day, Archie's "later" in "see you later" will come. From one friend to another, be it in life or in the minds of writers.

Thank you.

-Danie