His muscles sprang to attention, knees locking and arm already out, the subconscious act of drawing his keyblade second nature now. All memories of sleep had been abandoned for survival mode; joints in his legs popped the moment he jumped out of bed, his blade whistling through the air with barely a streak of blurred colors in it's wake. Whatever had roused him from sleep, kick starting his warrior instinct, was to get a blade in the face—

--"Mew." His mother's cat had slipped through the door, no doubt looking for snack scraps littered on the floor. The oversized key barely phased her; instead, she rubbed against it and sauntered into the rest of the room.

Sora's sigh was comically theatrical. The years—the nights—he'd woke up to invisible threats, dark bodies on dark skies, had honed him. Countless times he'd pulled his keyblade out of thin air, not a moment too soon. Survival…it was a sixth sense. Sora thanked all of his lucky stars that his mother hadn't come into his room in the middle of the night yet—the idea of pulling the keyblade on his mother made him want to wretch. There was only so much she'd be able to accept, after all.

At any rate, Sora's REMs were beginning to get to him. He doubted that these dreams really meant anything—or was that wishful thinking, remembering his last foreboding dream—but that didn't make them any better. He often awoke with chills, with the colors in his room blanching while his eyes adjusted, so much built up in his veins that he couldn't even think about staying still. There wasn't much you could do about insomnia; that was something his best friend taught him a day after they returned.

Black, he was surrounded by black of similar shapes and sizes, swarming him as if he stood in the center of a mob. He swung to the left, the right (stab, stab, turn, stab) and while his foes burst into former wisps of themselves, the numbers never dwindled. More heartless than he'd ever seen poured out of the woodwork. Magic struck around him, and the sound of steel slicing through air was too familiar.

A name, a shout, bubbled on his lips, but before he could really think about it, something snagged his leg. Sora pivoted and sank his keyblade down, piercing the cranium of the creature with whose claws he'd been recently acquainted. But that blow alone wasn't enough to vanquish it; Sora twisted and arched his arm in an underhand motion, stabbing at it. The heartless disappeared. These shadows were fast. And unnervingly durable. It took a special foe to withstand a direct blow from end of his keyblade. Something wasn't right here, a fact that Sora knew with no hesitation. He couldn't see a single one of his friends through the impenetrable wall of heartless, though he knew that they were around. His stomach dropped as one thought surfaced in his mind: he hoped that Riku had a good eye on Kairi. Because, when it came down to it, Riku was the only one that Sora would truly trust to protect the Princess, the only with whose protection he wouldn't constantly have to fret over. And the others, were they safe? Donald, Goofy, Ca—

Sora's eyes had fluttered closed of their own volition. His…dream? These strange dream/visions were getting to be too much. It was too detailed, too self-specific. It was…almost like a memory. But he was sure (as sure as someone whose temporal lobe had been recently tampered with) that he'd never even been in a similar situation. And that name in his mind, the one he'd been worried about—who was that? Ca…Ca…he was certain that no one he'd ever fought beside had this beginning name diction.

The Keyblade Master's silent reverie was broken by the companionship he'd been expecting. His oldest friend's footsteps padded behind him, and up beside him. Riku didn't bother to announce his presence; Sora would have, no doubt, heard him. And recognized his gait, for sure—no one else with good intentions came out this time of night/morning—for he'd yet to be impaled.

"What took so long?"

Riku took a seat beside Sora. "I had to sneak down the hall, past my mother's room, and out the front door. We can't all jump out of our windows."

A smile played on Sora's lips. "You won't get caught."

"Yeah, but I'd hate to wake her up when I get stuck trying to leave. Anything suspicious and she'd be pounding down the door in a minute."

Sora recognized a hint of affection coloring Riku's tone. He himself could easily picture Miss Kaito, Riku's mother, busting down the door to her son's room simply because she heard him loudly exhale in his sleep. After all, most of what she did was in an overzealous, over-passionate haze.

This he could say with a confidence, especially when comparing Kaito to his own mother. Lilly was a saint—unless you got her mad…or she was concentrated on something…or someone insulted her (however much impromptu) family. Okay, so maybe Sora didn't inherit her nose, or her penchant for all things culinary. But he knew how to hope—how to hope so hard that it became a force of its own.

"So…what did you want?"

Sora had approached his older friend earlier that day, requesting a late night audience by the shore. Sure, Riku had a good idea what such a meet was all about, but he wasn't about to touch on such a subject without Sora's confirmation.

"I can't sleep. And I can't sit around trying. I need to be out."

"I know what you mean. It's hard to sit around all day." Riku had found himself eager, twitching, to get up and do something. When everything in the past few years of your life warned against sitting still, the lazy days of Destiny Islands seemed a quaint sort of torture.

"I guess it'll come in handy…when we leave again."

Because neither could deny that their homecoming wouldn't be shortened. He knew, just as Riku did, that nothing could purge what they'd spent years trying to destroy. It was only a matter of time before it flared up again.

"You're right. I doubt we'll have time to adjust again."

"How long have you been thinking about that?"

He muttered an offhand, "A while," before collapsing back into the sand, the heels of his palms digging into his eyes. "We never know what's happening, right now, in the other worlds. We have to stay prepared."

"A good night's sleep is all I need..." Sora stifled a yawn. He could detect the faintest hues of orange beginning to rise from the ocean, gilding the skyline. "Or morning's sleep. Either way. Are your dreams like…too real?" He peeked over at his friend from the corner of his eye.

"No. Mine are different."

The older Keybearer blinked up at the sky. Of course his were real, too real, but there was no way they could be having the same dreams. Sora sighed. He knew that Riku, like himself, was being plagued every night. Nightmares were to be expected, of course. They'd come back from a life-altering tirade of murder, of kidnapping, of darkness swallowing you whole and seeping into your senses until it was who you were. They hadn't expected to sleep peacefully; even Kairi could be seen dozing in the middle of the day, having been up all night fretting over some dream.

Riku's nightmares were vicious. Tossing, turning, yelling, sweating, beating the mattress. He'd woken up, teeth gnashed and body bleeding from where he'd scratched himself violently. His mother had come in, the first time, and sank to her knees beside his bed, her damp cheek a worthy cooling cloth for his own. She'd set to wiping the blood from his face and neck with the corner of her nightgown, too worried to leave him alone long enough to fetch a rag. She opened the window to let a cool breeze in, to keep him from overheating. Riku's nightmares were of darkness, and Ansem, and feeling the heat as his heart burned fire, from the hatred he harbored, and he was flanked by his own dark bodyguard. That's why, now, he tried not to sleep.

"Do you think there's anything we can do about it?" Sora asked, feeling the sea breeze cool on his face. He inhaled; the famillar scent could purge his recollection of the heavy, magic-filled air, the smoky, dark heartless remains.

"I doubt it," Riku replied, sitting to avoid sleep, bluntly, grinding his knuckles into the sand. "It's just something we'll have to deal with."

"You're mine, Riku. Not matter what you'd like to think. In the end, you always need my darkness."

He ignored the growling inside his head, keeping his eyes wide on the nothing in front of him. Voices in one's head might mean insanity, in some's case. In his...it meant that his mind was as strong as ever. Strong enough to be Ansem's prime target, to keep him sated deep within Riku's psyche.

"Riku. Serve me, Riku. Be me. You are me." He could feel dark tendrils, like lips, whispering around his ear. When the voice subsided into low chuckling, Riku snapped.

"Arghhhhhhhh!" He roared and lept forward, keyblade in hand, ripping the very air to smithereens. The chuckling grew loader, now in stereo on both sides of his head, and it was very hard to resist the urge to chop his own head off, to release the Heartless straight from his brain, and thus his dead heart.

"Darkness doesn't end in death, Riku," he chided. "I would know."

"We can't tell Kairi," Sora added, a part of the unspoken agreement. The one that wasn't even thought about, just there, a consequence of meeting on the beach in the wee hours of whatever day it was. Kairi would worry, lose more sleep of her own, trying to help. Little good she'd do, and no one would benefit from any of that. Not that she didn't realize their predicament. She'd called them on it, when Sora would doze off on her couch, or when she spied some kind of bruise Riku had left from beating up on himself. Not that they ever admitted anything to her, no need when she already knew, and though they might not know how much she truly saw through their tired eyes, they knew that she did. "She worries enough already."

Riku looked over at him. "I'm not going to baby her. But, you're right, she doesn't need to worry about this."

They knew that Kairi would get angry at them for talking about her that way, but they knew that their psyches would never be the same again—why did she have to suffer? Besides, she seemed to bring out a protective side in the both of them.

"What are we gonna do when we leave? Kairi's not going to want to stay behind."

"Let's worry about that later. I'm too tired to think." He hadn't had a real good night's sleep in years. "The sun is rising; we should get back anyway."

Sora sprang up and offered out a hand to Riku, who shook his head and pushed it aside, rising on his own. The more work he did the easier it would be to stay awake, and then when he did pass out, exhaustion would be so great, hopefully, that he wouldn't be able to dream. But he had a sinking feeling that his nightmares were more than normal dreams, rather, that they were invoked.

The two young men made their way slowly up to the point where shore became ville, sand became dirt. Riku's house was farther down than Sora's; momentarily they lingered outside the latter's door.

"I'll see you in a few hours?"

"If I'm not dead yet. No, my mom would probably still drag me over."

Sora smiled; they referred to a tradition that had just sort of popped up over the years. Every first Saturday morning of the month, his mother would make the most delicious breakfast anyone ever could, and Riku and Miss Kaito, and Kairi and her own mother would show up at their door to help them polish it off. The mayor had joined them too, occasionally, but normally he was too busy.

As Sora turned onto his home's walkway, and Riku kept walking to his own, he paused and looked in the direction of his friend. "Sweet dreams," he said, only sort of joking.

Riku snorted. "Goodnight Sora."

0----0

Kairi slowly ran her hairbrush through the tangled curtain of her hair; ever since she'd grown it out, brushing had been a hassle. She suspected it had more to do with the tossing and turning than the length, but that wasn't the point. A few crimson strands fell to the rug below her bare feet, but Kairi didn't bother with them.

A dress was already hanging over her bedpost. She slid the brush across the vanity table and removed her nightgown. The open window didn't phase her—a room in the back of a house atop a hill wasn't easy to spy into, and the breeze from the breakers was as cleansing as any shower.

"Kairi?" Her father's knuckles rapped the wood of her door. Even though it was still closed, she wrapped her arms around her chest in surprise.

"Don't come in—I'm getting dressed!"

"I just wanted to tell you that I'm leaving for the mainland and that your mother is waiting for you downstairs. Alright?"

"Yes sir. Have a nice trip."

He didn't respond, as Kairi could hear his footsteps already on the stairs. She loved the poor man, so unsure how to be her father. It wasn't that he didn't love her…but Kairi was here because his wife wanted, and couldn't have, children. As a father he was still rusty.

Giving her hair one last tug, Kairi's feet found, and slipped into, her shoes. Makeup, hairstyling, outfit coordinating—she'd save it for other girls with nothing else to worry about. There wasn't time to paint on your face when you were wondering if it would be the last time you'd see your room. The darkness could strike at the most inopportune times, she knew that for a fact.

Sure enough, by the time Kairi had made her way down that maze of spiral stairs, Mie was tapping her foot, a tad impatiently. One of her mother's less endearing qualities. She turned to look at her daughter, a small frown playing on her lips. "Did you brush your hair?"

Kairi nodded off her concern. "If we get there late, Sora will eat all the food."

That made Mie smile. Though at the time of the disappearance she'd blamed the boys, they were still practically her own, and she'd apologized to Lilly and Kaito instantly. "If he's up before one."

As they headed out the door, Kairi didn't bother to correct her mother on Sora's sleeping patterns. The less she knew about the things that plagued them the better; Mie was probably the least understanding of all the parents.

By the time they'd made their way down the hill to Sora's house, the smell of Lilly's cooking was wafting through the air. Kairi felt her stomach do little leaps in hungry anticipation--Lilly's cooking had gone absent with her son. Knocking was for strangers, so she and Mie opened the door without a second thought. Already sitting around the rickety table were Sora and Riku, plates of food stacked between them. Kaito, who, for good reasons they kept secret from her, wasn't allowed to help in Lilly's kitchen, was arranging the cuisine, carrying more dishes over. She was a jack-of-all-trades employee at the island's bar/restaurant, and pilling hot plates on her arm had become second-nature. Kairi offered help, but Kaito waved her off and nodded towards an empty chair. Though her back was turned, Lilly voiced Kaito's idea, "We're not going to let the three of you do anything. You need to eat and relax. Understand?"

She turned for a moment, blue eyes appraising each of the teens, who didn't have a word to say. Arguing with Lilly was a pointless conflict. So, when Mie placed a plate in front of each of them, they dug in without a word. Sora was making a mess from the moment he picked up his fork while Riku, though his appetite was the same, was a lot less rambunctious about it. Kairi paused a moment to admire them, her boys, her family, and caught Lilly's eyes. The mother grinned at Kairi and gestured and the table. Kairi returned the smile and carefully began pilling her plate. It was the kind of deja vu that she welcomed.

It was the kind of moment that, for the most part, could push the darkness out of their minds. Sure, Riku still felt those little pangs in his heart--it was Ansem, reminding Riku that he was still there with the equivalent of a kick to the gut--, and Sora felt himself tense at every clang of the silverware. It would take a little getting used to, Saturday morning feasts and the ever-watching eyes of their mothers. But it was a familiar feeling.

Sitting amongst one another, the pale island sun streaking through the open windows, well, it felt like home.

0----0

Welcome to my new story of all stories. Yes, I'm actually going to start a multi-chaptered fic. And I'm actually going to finish it! You read that right. I already know how the whole thing is going to play out, and then end. I once thought that such a feat from myself was impossible. Especially without a beta.

The families are ripped straight from my other fic, Motherhood, and it's companion The Potatoes Versus the Toilet. Neither need to be read to understand any of this, but it would be helpful. The mothers will be making quite the appearance here.

The first chapter is conspicuously woven with plot, so look out for future references to this. Scenes in italics are either dreams or flashbacks, but I'll touch more on that later. So get ready for this things, because Remnants is going to touch on the past of some of our familiar characters, introduce some new ones (No Mary Sues/Gary Stus, I promise you. Seriously.), and reintroduce some old foes. I've pretty much fried my brain for this thing, so I'd love for you to give it a chance. No joke. I was talking to my dad about it on a road trip:

Dad: We're about to pass the big baseball thing. Don't you remember?

Me: Um…no. Not at all.

Dad: What's wrong with your memory? We've driven around here plenty of times.

Me: You see this thing I'm writing? I've sold my soul for it. All that's left now are my writing muse and my right hand.

So drop me a review, no? I loveneed your input.

Oh, and I don't own Kingdom Hearts. Just Lilly, Kaito, and Mie. But I love them so much that it makes it almost okay. And the chapter title is from one of the songs on my writing playlist—my absolute favorite--so I don't own that either.