Anyone else notice the subtle burst of RikuXion at the moment? :D

(My friend's going to kill me. I told her I'd write a follow-up to "Metempsychosis" with the "aftermath" of Sora's fight with V-K, but I got distracted by Riku/Xion. Maybe if I dedicate this to her, she won't be angry with me... LOL, JK. DEDICATED TO khfans100, who has a username now, for putting up with me when I ramble and pace and demonstrate in her basement. I'm still working on the sequel!... Just not now.)

Their impermanence haunts her, even in their most intimate moments.

Xion is almost asleep, held close to his chest, when Riku asks her the question.

"What are you going to do? When this is all done?"

"If I survive?" she murmurs groggily. This quiet moment marks a first in their tangled "secret" of a relationship. It was part of that unspoken agreement when he led her away from the others and pressed his lips to hers for the first time, that they would never broach the topic of the future. She has disappeared from history once, and he has destroyed and watched many lives destroyed from the Darkness. They are well aware of their impermanence.

Maybe Xion shouldn't give him her answer now, save it until the occasion to act upon it ever comes. Riku won't want her to follow this course. He wants her to live happily, as compensation for what she's already given up to defy Xehanort, and he doesn't think the life he's chosen is that at all. It isn't, it's much harder, but Xion's already had a share of sorrow and life's injustice, and she has to believe it's easier, better, to put someone like her between the innocents and the monsters the Keyblade is fated to eliminate.

As he waits patiently for the answer, one of his fingers taps a rhythm on her waist, and the tips of his silver hair trail along her cheekbone, as light as a feather – as light as memories made solid, she thinks, and a shiver rolls down her spine. Riku wraps his arm around her tighter, erasing the sensation as more of his hair leaves a firmer path down her face, tickling the corners of her nose and mouth as he pulls her closer.

"I don't know," she replies at last, leaning her head back against his chest. She's sure that Riku will find out about her intentions – Roxas is even worse of a secret-keeper than Sora is – and she knows for a fact that a secret kept from her closest friends can destroy everything they are working to preserve. "I was thinking... about training under Yen Sid, if he'll take any more students. I mean," she adds hastily, "isn't he supposed to be retired?"

"I'm not sure you can ever retire from being a Keyblade wielder, much less a Master." They're both quiet again, the realization coming into focus – after all, Riku's full title includes Master now. His heart pounds reassuringly behind her while she weighs his words.

"I guess... that's actually the point I was making."

"Oh?"

"In a way it is." Unconsciously she laces her fingers between his. "I thought that maybe, if I was a Master someday, you and Sora wouldn't have to be everywhere at once."

"You mean Sora wouldn't have to be everywhere."

"Huh? And why is that?" For the life of her, she doesn't understand him sometimes. "Not even you can go forever without a little break somewhere, Riku – "

"D'you really think I'm going to let you go that easy?" he whispers into her skin, breath gently sliding over the nape of her neck and making her own uneven. His lips graze the place where her shoulder and neck meet, then slide back up to her jaw bone.

"Oh." Right... She feels Riku's chuckle more than she hears it, even this close to him. "... I guess I don't have to ask what you'll be doing then."

"I'll stay with you. I could train you, you know."

"But then, Riku," she says as she pushes herself up to turn over so that she is on her back beside him, "I wouldn't learn anything at all."

"Hmph." Not that that idea isn't tempting. Because it is. She can picture all too well what it would be like, traveling with Riku, by day training and by night...

Riku slides his arm around to cradle her around her shoulder, which in turn allows her a better view of his eyes. She remembers the first time she saw his eyes – not when he knocked her down in a castle courtyard, but when she woke up a few months ago; there they were, peering down at her, still the same striking shade of turquoise and as deep as she imagined they would be. Now she has every piece of those depths committed to memory with every sunset she shared with Axel and Roxas.

Hand reaching out of its own accord, her fingers ghost along his cheek, trace his bottom lip with her thumb, feels his smile form. "Xion," he breathes, and he sounds so content that it resonates in her heart, and it takes so much willpower not to cry. "I – "

Don't tie us to something that might not be.

She moves her fingers to cover his mouth. "I know. Don't say it," she warns him softly, gently. Her fingers fall away, only to gather themselves on his chest. "Not yet."

Neither of us needs any more regrets.

"Then when?" She doesn't hear upset in his voice, just persuasiveness. He doesn't even question her interruption.

Then when? When she knows that he isn't saying it because he fears they'll never get a chance to again. When she is sure that they won't be left with the ghosts of another life that never was. When they can actually build a future together.

"When this is all over," she says, and leans up to kiss him goodnight for the last time.

I love you, too.

I. Hate. Endings. Gah... This one did not like me. At all. I stayed up until three in the morning last Tuesday to get it, and I'm still not sure I did. But sleep = good.

As a side note, I DO like that second-to-last line. It's a bit ambiguous in my head...