After the exhaustion of writing the 107 chapter epic that is The Xehanort War, I needed a break from drama writing to do a heartwarming little fluff piece before I begin working on the real grunt work of my Acolytes of Chaos stories.
Sora fought to keep his hands from shaking as he, Riku, and Kairi paddled their small boats toward the main island for the first time in over a year. Mickey, Donald, and Goofy had flown back to Disney Castle in the Gummi Ship, leaving the three teenagers to reunite with their families. Although he didn't want to admit it out loud, Sora was afraid of going home. It wasn't that he didn't want to come home. Far from it. He'd been away for over fifteen months and he missed his parents.
No, Sora was nervous because he was afraid of how his parents would react when they saw him again. Would they be terrified? Angry? So nervous about his sudden and inexplicable disappearance that they either didn't recognize him or thought they were just imagining him? There were so many ways his reunion with his parents could possibly go wrong, and he wasn't sure if he deserved for it to go right.
When the islands had been consumed by the Heartless, he'd been so laser focused on finding Riku and Kairi that he hadn't even given a thought to if his parents had even made it off the island. It was only when Cinderella's Fairy Godmother explained the concept of Summon Gems that he'd finally realized the full ramifications of what had happened. But he'd already started going around saving worlds from the Heartless, and Donald and Goofy had needed his help to find Mickey, so he had buried his concern for his parents' safety until later, silently hoping that they'd show up in Traverse Town eventually.
After he and Riku had landed back on the small island, Sora felt guilty that he'd never once considered stopping by the island after waking up from his Namine-induced coma to let them know that he was alright. As he, Riku, and Kairi reached the docks on the main island and climbed out of their boats, he couldn't help but feel ashamed that he'd been so focused on finding his friends that he never stopped to think about his family.
Riku's family lived a little way up the coast, so the older boy headed off to his own family reunion, leaving Sora and Kairi standing alone on the docks. The mayor's house was only a short distance away from his own, so he and Kairi usually walked back from the docks together. On the way back, he finally shared his fears with Kairi, only for her to reassure him that his parents would be overjoyed for him to be home. After all, she'd pointed out, because of Namine messing with his memories, they forgot he even existed for a whole year. He wasn't the only one feeling guilty.
After a few more minutes of walking, they reached their neighborhood just after sunset. The street lamps flickered on just as the sun dipped below the horizon. After dropping Kairi off at her adoptive father's house, Sora nervously trudged back towards his own home. When he reached the front porch, he stood there nervously for a few minutes, running through a million different worst case scenarios in his mind. Deciding that the only way to know how bad his parents' reaction would be was to find out, he took a deep breath, and rang the doorbell.
A minute later, the door opened to reveal his mother standing has still as he was, in shock that her son had come home. Before Sora could say anything, his mom quickly pulled him in for a long, tight hug.
"It's really you," she said as tears fell from the eyes of both mother and son. "You're finally home."
"I'm sorry I didn't come back sooner mom," Sora replied shakily. "I had a million opportunities to come home, and I was so worried about finding Riku that I never thought about how worried you and dad must've been. I'm so, so sorry." His mother hugged him tighter as he cried into her shoulder.
"You don't have to apologize, Sora," his mom answered, just as nervous as her son was. "For almost a whole year your father and I completely forgot you existed. I don't know how it was possible, but we just forgot you had ever been born." After agreeing that everything that had happened was too tangled of a mess for either of them to blame themselves over, the hug expanded into a group hug a few moments later, when his father came downstairs and joined in the family reunion.
After a several minutes of standing there, the reunited family closed the front door and headed into the kitchen. His parents had already eaten dinner, but Sora smiled as his mom insisted on heating up the leftovers. He hadn't eaten since before the battle in the World That Never Was, and even if he had, his mother refused to take no for an answer. Sora breathed a sigh of relief as his mom pulled the newly reheated leftovers out of the microwave. His fears about how they would react had been unfounded after all.
As he started to tell his parents the story of his adventures, he couldn't help but think about how good it felt to be back on the islands. Sure, he, Riku, and Kairi would always yearn for adventure and excitement. It was practically in their blood. But after several months of fighting and a year-long coma, it was nice to come back to the islands and spend time with their family without having to worry about the Organization or the Heartless all the time. It was good to be home.
I wanted to have a little warm and fuzzy piece with Sora coming home after Kingdom Hearts 2. But looking at all the other fanfics with the "Sora reunites with his parents" premise are all written from Sora' parents' point of view, so I decided to do mine from Sora's point of view to make my version stand out, and to show Sora's perspective on the whole thing. Now that this story is done, I'm going to finish up my Young Justice/Avengers crossover Secret Identities before I start writing any more Acolytes of Chaos fics.