Hallelujah

It's not a cry you can hear at night / It's not someone who has seen the light / It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

There wasn't anything he could do, and he knew that. He was left to pick up the pieces and move on alone, as always. He knew what people would think: he's not alone. He has his family. And that may have been true, he remembered saying something along those lines himself at one point. Everyone got what they were fighting for in the end, the worlds were safe and friends brought back to life, brought back home to those who loved them.

Shark's not coming back.

Thomas remembered Yuma tell him with tears in his eyes. Thomas scoffed at the statement. Of course Ryoga – Nasch, whatever, whoever, wasn't coming back. Fists were balled angrily at his sides, shaking as he turned away from the exhausted boy. For the first time he felt all the words in the world escape him. What was he supposed to say? That's obvious. You should have known that all along. He's an idiot. Always an idiot. A stupid fucking idiot, how dare he leave us – how dare he leave me alone.

A knock on his loft door caused him to groan and shove the almost empty whiskey bottle back into the cabinet. Long fingers ruffled through his hair in a futile attempt to control the crimson strands. A few days had passed since they all returned; the days had run together for him as sleep never came no matter what was in his system.

He opened the door with more force then intended as it bounced off the door stop. A gasp hitched and stuck in his throat as he stared at the pair standing in front of him, words proving absent again.

"Are you going to let us in, or stand there like an idiot?" She asked as she pushed passed him not waiting for the invitation, the other following quickly behind her.

Thomas closed the door behind him, leaning against it not exactly trusting his legs at the time. Magenta eyes trailed up and down her frame, trying to decide if she was some sort of cruel phantom his tired mind had plagued him with or not. His shoulder tingled still from where she brushed passed him, she had to be real.

"Rio."

She smiled sweetly at the sound of the name, soft blue bangs falling across her face. It had been so long since she had heard it. If she was honest it was the name she preferred, the one given to her in this lifetime.

"Come on, you look like an idiot. Stand up straight." She moved toward him again, pulling him from the door and into her arms. Thomas sighed, releasing the breath he wasn't aware he was holding as he returned the embrace, taking in her fresh winter pine smell.

"Don't mean to drop in unannounced, but we need a place to stay."

We? Thomas's eyes snapped up forgetting someone else was even at the door. Who he saw wasn't who he expected; it wasn't who Rio's "we" ever implied before. Standing anchored where Rio was previously was a shorter teen, gray hair to match steel eyes hiding behind glasses. Thomas only saw him once before, and knew he was Barian, but had no name to go on.

"Uh."

Rio shook her head and clicked her tongue as she pulled away from the older teen. "Right, I suppose names would help. Thomas, Durbe. Durbe, Thomas."

The two men gave each other a small nod but otherwise stayed quiet, eyes quickly finding anywhere but the other to look at. Thomas cursed himself and his unusual silence. Too many questions were floating in his head. Where was Ryoga, then? Why did it take days for the Barians to show up? Where were the other Barians? Hell, where was Ryoga? Were they humans now? Were they even alive? Where the fuck was Ryoga?

Don't be stupid, he was probably at Yuma's.

A sharp sting flared up on his forearm, his gaze locking with Rio's who was still smiling at him.

"Don't make me carry this conversation all by myself, it's quite rude."

Thomas's eyes narrowed on her, "you're the one being rude, pinching me like that." He sighed, relief washing into him that he could in fact still form sentences.

"Oh, good. You can talk," she teased, shaking his comment off as if it was nothing, "so inviting us in?"

Thomas rolled his eyes as he walked past the pair, leading them both into the living area. He flopped ungracefully into the armchair across from the couch where Rio and Durbe sat. A coffee table sat between them, littered with too many dirty drinking glasses stained amber from the trace amounts of alcohol dried inside them.

"What the hell is going on?" Thomas asked as he started to group the glasses together, not that it made him look like any less of a lonely alcoholic but he needed to busy himself.

"We all suddenly showed up yesterday," Durbe finally spoke up, the deep voice taking Thomas off guard as it didn't match his kind appearance. "We were all at Yuma's but it's too crowded."

"All?"

"Well, Alit, Gilag, and Vector stayed there for now," Rio clarified, "Mizael went to the hospital to see Kaito."

Thomas nodded, that made six. "And Ryoga?"

The question made the pair visibly jolt, their gazes falling to their laps. The clink of the glassware echoed in the barely furnished room as Thomas stilled his movements, falling back into the armchair. Yuma's words rattled around in his empty brain. It could have been that the whiskey finally numbed his mind to all feeling, but the only emotion he had was a disappointed confirmation.

Of course he wasn't coming back.

He busied himself in the kitchen as distraction the next day. His brothers filed in and out, Michael spending all his time at Yuma's and Chris was only home long enough for a shower and fresh clothes before he was back at the hospital.

"Are you going to be OK here all alone?" Merag asked as she pulled Durbe off of the couch, tossing the tablet he had in his hands onto the cushions. "You could come to Yuma's with us."

Thomas scoffed at the idea of seeing even more people. No, alone was just fine; alone kept him sane. He put the last of the dirty drinkware in the dishwasher before closing it, waving them off as he dried his hands. "I'm fine."

A soft sigh passed over her lips as she shook her head. "Be that way, you stubborn pain in the ass."

"Look who's talking."

The only response he received was Rio rolling her eyes before leaving the loft, Durbe on her heels.

He muttered curses as he tossed the dishrag against the back splash, leaning forward as his fingers gripped the counter's edge tightly. There wasn't a fiber in his being that felt "fine" but he never brought it up in the past, what was the use to start now? His gaze fell to the clock above the oven; 10:39 AM, perfect time to start drinking. Maybe if he was drunk enough later he'd forget that he had agreed to let two constant reminders move into the spare room.

The space around him felt warm as it woke him gently from his drunken slumber, the whiskey bottle long since emptied on the table next to the armchair. He didn't remember turning the heater on as a yawn passed over his lips as he stretched sore from falling asleep sitting up.

Once his eyes focused he noticed an orb of light – energy almost floating in front of him. His eyebrows knotted together as he rubbed his eyes, swearing he was still drunk, sleep deprived, or finally losing his mind. When he opened his eyes again the ball of purple energy had moved closer, heat radiating off of it as it warmed his face.

"The fuck," he muttered as the ball moved even closer. He pushed himself back into the chair only to feel more trapped as the ball finally touched his cheek. An audible gasp left his lungs as the warmth surged through him. Only it wasn't just a heat. It was a love, a kindness he knew was familiar. His heart felt light in his chest even though his chest itself felt as if it was constricting. Magenta eyes slid shut as his stomach jumped before corkscrewing on itself, his fingers digging into the arm rests of the chair.

Only when the ball of energy moved back did his eyes open again. He was panting slightly as he felt the love leave his body as it backed away. There was no mistaking it. A love he may have only just gotten to know, a few weeks at the most. But it was one he swore he would never forget, one he already died once trying to defend.

"Ryoga..." The name ghosted over his lips and the purple orb seemed to respond, glowing bright until its center was hot white.

Thomas shook his head, confusion was clouding his mind easily as he wasn't even going to try to understand what was happening. None of the last 24 hours made sense. Rio or Durbe couldn't tell him why they were suddenly revived as humans. And now Ryoga was –

He held out his hand, palm up. The orb bounced slightly in the air before it settled in his palm, the warm love starting to flow though his body again. He watched the orb pulse in his hand unaware that tears were silently collecting in his eyes.

"Ryoga, what happened?"

The silence in the room was deafening, shattering against the warm circle the pair had created. Realization set in, they couldn't communicate. A shaky sigh skipped over his lips as his eyes slid shut, pushing the hot tears down his cheeks. Alone kept him sane; and now he didn't have either.