Disclaimer: Story mine. Kingdom Hearts not mine.


Prologue

One of the last things you'd ever pegged Squall Leonhart to do post-Heartless War, especially after surviving and shouldering a good portion of the responsibilities from both front and back forces, was ignore a well-needed period of recuperation and develop an almost-feverish obssession for burning whatever was left of his midnight oil.

So when he disappeared into the depths of Ansem's laboratory with nothing but a toolbox and the sad remains of what used to be the gummy ship courtesy of their resident keyblade master, no one had expected him to fly a newly repaired model right into the backyard of Aerith's kitchen three days later, thumping Sora on the back and proceeding to wolf down three servings of dinner.

And when Merlin had turned up at their doorstep, furiously announcing that he would start charging for all future 'loaning' of his equipment, no one saw their leader throw a sheepish grin at the exasperated sorcerer, all too focused on glaring at a very disgruntled-looking Cid.

The falling out of that scene was not particularly pretty, with half the room attempting to subdue the tirade of their agitated engineer and failing miserably.

But the noise and spectacle was grand enough that Merlin managed to round the chaos unnoticed, only to scuff Leon at the back of the head as they discussed their future dealings in hushed tones.

No one knew for sure but some had suspected, and Cid, out of all people, was the first one to voice it out loud one day.

"He hides it pretty well and I applaud him for that, but I think Mr. Leader is going batshit insane."

Everyone had stared at him. Yuffie and Sora, who were in the middle of an arm wrestling match, piped up that they didn't notice anything different other than his usual 'broody' self. But Aerith had a contemplative look on her face. "What do you mean, Cid?"

He shrugged. "Ya know, there is a saying that goes a battle-worn soldier's greatest hurdle is encountered in peacetime," Cid tapped the side of his head, "With the Heartless gone, world reconstructions slowing down, and the colliseum closed for good, the guy's probably going through some major boredom issues."

"What!?" Sora exclaimed, "He's been busier than ever increasing "relations" or something and broadening Mickey's world security and whatnot! He hardly even has time to visit us at Destiny Islands anymore!"

"Are you saying I'm not good enough for you, kid? I'll show YOU boredom. Let's go, round two!" Yuffie slammed her right arm on the table.

"Shut up both of you! I have an idea. Let's throw Leon a party! That'll lift his spirits up."

"I don't think adding MORE things to his schedule will work, Tifa."

There was some more roughhousing and general peppering of ideas about what to do with their leader's apparent lack of joy and happiness in his life as well as his current state of insanity, but the final consensus, made by Aerith, was that they simply needed more hard evidence to warrant any direct confrontations with the man himself.

So they decided to wait for an opportunity to test the waters.

And when Leon rejected multiple offers of accompaniment before leaving on a 'trip' to recover material from a debris site, the group resorted to plan B; convince a very reluctant third party to tail Leon and report his findings back to headquarters.

TBC