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Returnees had been coming in masses after Xehanort's demise. The Restoration Committee worked day and night to accommodate the Returnees. Volunteers and small organizations did their best to help with basic needs like food and clothing. The first month had nonetheless been nothing short of chaotic. Residents flocked around the masses lining up to the castle, desperately looking for long lost family members and friends. There was fear coupled with hope in their eyes. Far from all made it back.

Lea had been on guard duty at the time. He remembered it well. If the lesser Nobodies were coming back, then surely, Isa would be amongst them, too. But after much diligent searching, Isa was still missing, and Lea found himself asking why he would even want to see Isa again. A few weeks in, Lea's hope started to wane, not only in regards to finding Isa, but in his capability to keep insistent and disturbing emotions in check.

Lea's wariness was interpreted as depression by those around him, although he tried his best to convince everyone that he was okay. Isa had been too far gone, Yen Sid said. Death had been his only salvation. It was Yen Sid's take on comforting words and Lea was starting to believe him.

A month later there were still Returnees walking into the city; exhausted and weary, trembling with joy and fear when they walked past the gates into the grand city many of them had seen at the brink of destruction before they were brutally torn to pieces. Lea led them into the castle when he found them walking around in the city. It was his job until he was summoned by Yen Sid for a job that needed to be done in another world. A change of scenery could do him some good, Yen Sid had said. Lea was stationed in Twilight Town despite half-hearted protests. Roxas managed to convince him to take the chance of getting out of Radiant Garden, promising that they would meet for lunch everyday and maybe even squeeze in some time for ice cream on top of the clocktower. A whole summer came and went before Lea was asked to return by request of the Restoration Committee. There were rumors of Heartless-sightings and they wanted it investigated. Lea and Roxas were the two Keyblade-wielders in charge of overseeing Radiant Garden.

Lea didn't return until early spring. Radiant Garden was beautiful in spring. Flowers were sprouting, morning rain colored the tiled ground a darker shade and highlighted the restored mosaic art. There weren't long lines of Returnees outside the castle anymore. Most had moved out to the building sites outside the city center. For a moment, Lea saw the Radiant Garden he remembered.

"I still don't know where I want to live," Roxas said as they walked up to the stairs and toward the Restoration Committee's main office to report for duty. "Is it even a good idea to have a permanent residence? I haven't been in one place longer than three months anyway."

"How about Twilight Town?" Lea offered. "It's nice, mostly calm. You know your way around the place."

"Yeah, right to the ice cream stand." Roxas laughed. "Speaking of ice cream stands, you haven't showed me around yet. Aerith told me that the city is almost exactly the same as it was from before the First Fall. There are a few more hills here and there, and the shop owners aren't all the same. You could show me your old house!"

"Absolutely, I could," Lea agreed with a wry laugh. "Time permitting. You know, with work and all, we'll be kept busy. And Heartless-sightings sounds pretty serious."

"Don't be a worry wart," Roxas said with a light-hearted shrug.

Lea wasn't the only one who had changed. While Roxas still had his moments of grumpiness and questioned the meaning of it all, it wasn't who he was anymore. He was finding his way and place in life, and he looked forward to the future he thought he would never have. Lea felt his problems pale in comparison to the ones Roxas had been forced to overcome. Roxas's change to the better was inspiring, and his newfound hope and joy of just waking up in the morning and knowing that he was in charge of his own destiny, was contagious.

"Have you heard of the waffle place that recently opened up two blocks from the clocktower?"

"Are you serious?" Roxas gave Lea a look. "We're not going to Twilight Town for waffles. We just had breakfast."

"I wasn't saying that we should go now. I was just saying that there's a new waffle place, and haven't you heard of second breakfast? It's in a book somewhere."

"You don't read."

"I was told that it was in a book somewhere," Lea corrected himself. He paused at the sudden twinge in his chest. He rubbed his neck subconsciously, annoyed by his reaction at the reminder of a certain someone summarizing a book for him he couldn't be bothered to read for Book Club.

"You finally made it!" Cid greeted them from across the grand office. Cid had been working there for almost half a year and he still looked out of place in the castle in his oil-stained jumpsuit and not so white T-shirt.

"Sorry we're late. Lea was in the mood for food." Roxas apologized and reached his hand out reluctantly, unsure whether that was what Cid was going for once he had wiped off his hands onto the towel hanging from his belt.

"Well, you should'a saved yourselves for Aerith's brunch. She's been cooking since the crack of dawn. We've missed you Keyblade-wielders." Cid squeezed Roxas's hand in a manly handshake and then went for Lea's.

"Why? You've had much trouble?" Lea asked, frowning slightly with concern.

"Does there have to be trouble for friends to miss friends?" Cid asked with a laugh and waved at them to have them follow him down a big hallway at the back of the office. "There is a reason I wanted you to be summoned, though. I've been building a new security system that we want to launch in approximately two months. We have a testing area around the centre of Radiant Garden, and I was wondering if you'd be up to test it for any bugs that need fixing."

"You've had any attacks lately?" Roxas asked. He looked around, amazed by all the colors of the marble walls and the paintings on them.

"There are some stray Heartless floating about," Cid admitted. "Nothing too noteworthy, but it's got folks worried, y'know. A lot of families have recently been reunited and having those little bastards around, reminding them of what could happen - I'd prefer them gone. Or at least out of sight."

Cid opened a small door in a larger one that led to a spiral staircase.

"We think there might be a leak somewhere. Some kind of gateway to the World's Heart where the Heartless are escaping from. We've been trying to find the leak for months, but without luck. So in the meantime, we're setting up the security system."

"We should be able to start testing the system as soon as you give the orders," Lea said. "Yen Sid said that we're stationed here indefinitely, so as long as you need us..."

"Great! I'll just brief you on the workings of it once we get to the basement, and you'll get some practice; to see what sets the system off and, you know, all the things I want tested. Questions?"

"What's on your neck?" Roxas was quick to ask.

Cid stopped in his tracks and repeated the question in a mumble while he put a hand on his neck, and when he did, he remembered and quickly gave the palm of his hand a wide-eyed look. The message Aerith had written down for him was a smudge on his hand and mirrored on his neck.

"Shit! I forgot!" Cid turned around and rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger. "I completely forgot. That's why I was waiting. Let's go back up."

"But, isn't the basement closer?" Lea asked as Cid walked them by with a tired sigh. "Cid? The basement. I'm gonna get a stitch. I just ate."

"C'mon now!" Cid called from wherever he was now.

"Damn it," Lea mumbled as he walked up the stairs with a grumpy look on his face.

Once back on the main floor, Cid led them four hallways down to the bureaucrats' part of the castle. Their working space had been an enormous ballroom once. There were still traces of cherubs on white puffy clouds on the ceiling and other religious symbolism. Most of the paintings had disappeared and with so many people returning, the complete restoration of the castle had lost priority. The ballroom still held some of its former glory, however, and that surely helped the bureaucrats from dying of boredom.

Piles of paper came and piles of paper went. With every cubicle they passed, Lea found the grand ballroom grow smaller and smaller until they could have just as well been walking inside a closet.

"Looks a lot better than the last time you were here, huh?" Cid said to Lea with a proud smile. "We weren't sure we'd get this set up as quickly as we did. We hadn't counted on the help from so many of the Returnees."

"Why were they eager to help with this?" Roxas asked confused. He had been in Radiant Garden for the victory celebration, but he had soon left for The Land of Departure for more training. The unfinished houses in the slums had been a shock to come back to. "Shouldn't you be building houses?"

"This is the Information and Research Center. As soon as we were able to, we sent some people over to The World That Never Was to retrieve as much information as possible. The information is analyzed, digitized and filed for future reference and research. As you may know, our list of missing persons is growing everyday, and a lot of the people looking know that the chances of getting them back safe and sound are slim, but just knowing what happened to them and finding some trace of them might help a lot of people with closure. We're also putting together a commission report of this whole ordeal. Hopefully, it'll prevent something like this from happening again."

"Uh, Cid, that's great and all, but why are we here? Neither me nor Roxas are cut out for office work."

Cid sighed and crossed his arms, giving to floor a quick look. "Listen. I'll be honest with the both of ya." Cid paused and closed his eyes for a moment to not have to look at the intrigued expressions on Lea's and Roxas' faces.

"You're worrying us, Cid." Lea said impatiently.

"Alright, I can't be honest with ya quite yet. Lea, we all know that you're a bit impulsive and, what's the other word I'm looking for…"

"Obnoxious." Roxas offered quickly.

"Hey!"

"That's the word!" Cid said with a snap of his fingers. "Lea, we all know that you're a bit impulsive and somewhat obnoxious. I need you to not be that for at least ten or fifteen minutes onward. Can you handle that?"

"Now I'm really worried."

"This is really important, so I need you to promise on everything you hold dear."

"Why isn't Roxas getting any of this?"

"I'm not impulsive or obnoxious." Roxas shrugged easily.

"Lea, we don't have all day."

"Yeah, yeah, alright! I'll be calm and the opposite of obnoxious."

"Follow me then." Cid turned on his heel and walked further into the office landscape like he knew every twist and turn by heart.

There was nothing about the office setting that Lea liked. The color of the half-walls was dull, there were bunches of paper everywhere, hoarded like food during wartimes. The smell of ink made his stomach turn and all the small details around him reminded him of the Castle That Never Was and mission cards and mission reports and Saïx standing there with a vacant look in his eyes, day in and day out, slipping away while Lea could do nothing.

"And we stop... here." Cid stopped where the cubicles and offices met. "Before we go any further, you have to understand that we had to assess the situation before we could tell you anything, alright? There's no conspiracy, just concern for your well-being as well as the well-being of everyone else involved. What you need to keep in mind for now is that everything is as fine as you could consider it to be under these circumstances and the most important thing to do, is to keep calm. Are you calm?"

"Yeah, sure. I'm calm."

Lea's heart was about to burst right out of his chest. Even without it being said, Lea knew. He wanted to be happy about it, but only managed to feel apprehensive.

Cid led them down yet another empty hallway and stopped by a large window. Lea found himself staring into a normal office; there were books on shelves, a small desktop computer with a screen showing a screensaver on an endless loop of building pipes in different colors, a desk, piles of paper, and by the desk sat Isa with a concentrated look on his face as he read through one file while making notes in a notebook like he hadn't just come back from one of the worst things to happen their worlds in millennia.

Isa looked tired, or maybe it was boredom that had him slumped over the desk. He had propped one elbow onto the table to rest his head against his hand while he took notes. It was a relieving sight to see. It made it easier to accept the apparent scar on Isa's face when he showed mannerisms Lea wouldn't associate with Saïx.

"He can't see or hear us."

"What? Why not?"

"This is a one-way mirror, but we've programmed a simulator into it, so to him it looks like every now and then, someone passes by so that he doesn't suspect anything."

"Is he, like, a prisoner here, or? Why…" Lea's attention kept going from Cid to Isa, and the cascade of questions in his head made it difficult to focus. "Why the one-way mirror?"

"He's not technically imprisoned, just under very close supervision."

"I don't understand. Did he do something when he got here? When did he get here? Why... why hasn't he been put on trial if he's a prisoner? This doesn't make sense to me. Can I talk to him?"

"Deep breaths, Lea. Remember that you promised to keep calm."

Lea took a deep breath and then another, but it didn't help much, not when he turned his attention back to Isa and started to notice how small the office was, and wonder what files he was reading and what kind of "very close supervision" Cid was talking about.

"He was Xemnas' second in command, Lea. You think we'd let him walk without making sure whether he was Xehanort-free or not? Not to mention that there's a bigger picture here. We have half a city that was put through hell by Xehanort, personally. A lot of those people have memories of it, a lot of them fuzzy, but still memories. Many remember Saïx for what he was, Lea. And that scar on his face and the tint of yellow in his eyes won't do him any favors out there. We need to keep a close eye on him, for his own sake and for the sake of others, because, honestly, we still don't know whether he's a hundred percent himself or not."

Lea clenched his fists, reminding himself to take deep breaths to remain calm, but the questions kept on piling up like the damned papers in this whole office landscape and Lea was having a tough time keeping it together. He wanted to talk to Isa, ask Isa himself about what was going on, see the yellow taint in Isa's eyes that Cid was talking about, but the thought of seeing that poison reflected in Isa's eyes again toughened the breathing process.

"I want to talk to him," Lea demanded.

"That can be arranged."

"Now."

Roxas glanced at Lea from where he stood. He felt that he should probably say something. Lea was agitated and he was doing his best to not simply run into Isa's office without permission. Roxas knew how Lea was with authorities when he saw himself pressed into a corner. No breathing exercise in the world would keep Lea from breaking rules unless he got straight answers.

Cid sighed.

"Alright. Go down the hall and into the coffee room. There'll be four guards there shortly to guard the exits. I'll be there in a couple of minutes with him, and if possible, his shrink."

"Shrink?" Lea gaped.

"Just go and we'll sort out the details later."

Lea didn't hesitate, not at first, but when he got closer to the sign that pointed at the door to the coffee room, he slowed down until he came to a full stop. He wanted to see Isa, but at the same time he didn't. Lea had had a long time to imagine what their reunion would be like. He wanted it to be like Ven's and Aqua's reunion or even like his and Roxas's. The likelihood of that happening was, however, not likely at all. It had been too long since they were on good terms.

"I'm gonna stay here, or I'll just head back to the office," Roxas said.

Lea looked back at Roxas, puzzled enough to have Roxas scratch the back of his neck sheepishly, the same way he had seen Lea do so many times before.

"I don't think I'm his favorite person right now," Roxas said with a slight shrug. "I can stay right outside if you want. I don't mind. But, I'm not going in."

"Yeah. Sure. That's probably best. I... this won't take long... I mean, maybe it will, but it probably won't." Lea looked back at Roxas with a plea clear in his eyes. "Could you wait for me?"

"Yeah, sure. Take your time. I won't go anywhere."

Lea nodded quickly and pursed his lips together, going for a smile, but failed.

The guards Cid had mentioned were already in position when Lea walked into the coffee room and sat down by one of the four long and white tables. Lea was starting to suspect that one of Ansem's former apprentices were behind the interior design of this office. Ienzo, probably.

It was the moment of truth. Cid walked in from a door at the back and held the door up for Isa. Cid must have forewarned Isa; he didn't seem surprised to see Lea, but he was nervous. A shiver ran down Lea's spine when he suppressed a smile. He could tell Isa was nervous by the way he waited for Cid to catch up with him before they approached the table Lea was sitting at, the way Isa didn't seem to know what to do with his hands, and his wavering glances at Lea that didn't last more than half a second. Lea wished he could do something about the last one. Yellow eyes or not, Lea wanted Isa to look at him and let Isa see that he had made a life for himself. Lea was far away from Xehanort's influence and perhaps Isa could be too one day. A small part of him wondered if there was a chance for them to rekindle anything akin to friendship, enough to at least be able to talk about what had happened and finally gain some sort of closure to the macabre adventure their lives had been.

"Alright, we all know each other here so introductions aren't really necessary. I told Isa here that you wanted to meet, so here we are," Cid said.

Lea fidgeted in his seat. He couldn't decide whether it was a good idea to lean forward or not. He entwined his fingers together, trying to keep himself from squeezing his fingers to the point of them shifting an unattractive mix of red and white. He leaned forward slightly and cleared his throat, painfully aware of the heavy silence he broke.

"Hi," Lea said finally. Cid had essentially ruined the chance of starting with a good ice-breaker, and a simple greeting was all Lea could think of saying.

"Hello."

"How," Lea paused to clear his throat again. Why hadn't anyone thought of serving some water? "How are you?"

Isa finally looked up at Lea. The yellow tint in Isa's eyes was definitely noticeable. Lea gulped at the sight. The yellow was all around the edge of the iris and bled into the dark cerulean around the pupil. Isa noticed Lea staring and he quickly looked away, but not before Lea caught the incredulousness with which Isa had looked at him at hearing the question.

"Fine," Isa answered, finally.

"Good." Lea smiled nervously. "That's good."

"You boys will have to excuse my interruption, but we're running on a schedule. I thought you had something important to say, Lea."

"This is important."

"Well," Cid sighed and gave Lea a smile that was upside-down. "I'm afraid we'll have to save this for visiting hours then. I'm very sorry that I misunderstood your intentions, Lea. Truly. Visiting hours start at five and end at eight. Let's go." As soon as Cid got up, Isa followed suit.

"W-what, wait, but!" Lea got up as well, eyes wide. "What did you think I was gonna say? And visiting hours?"

"You, go back inside," Cid told Isa.

Lea stared after Isa who walked back to his office without a question, not even turning around to give Lea one last look.

"Cid, what's going on here?"

"Lea…" Cid sighed.

"And don't tell me to calm down. You're keeping him a prisoner here, aren't you?"

"Under close supervision," Cid corrected Lea.

"He's got visiting hours, Cid."

"We suspect that he's sitting on very important information, alright? His return is currently privileged information. You and Roxas are the only ones outside of the Committee that know that Saïx is back. Us and three of your former comrades. You may not disclose this to anyone else."

"What important information is he sitting on?"

"Information, that's all I can tell you."

"You better tell me more."

"Excuse me?" Cid crossed his arms.

"Tell me more about what you expect to get out of Isa. That's what you thought I was gonna do, right? Ask him about whatever you're looking for?"

Cid sighed again. "Different kinds of information, Lea, and I wish I could tell ya, but this is about national security…"

Lea scoffed and rolled his eyes. This place just about triggered every maddening pet-peeve Lea had. He had wasted ten years of his life, nibbling at crumbs of information hoping it would be enough to lead him back to the light. He didn't have ten more years to waste.

"I'll give you reasons to worry about national security if you don't tell me what information you're trying to get out of him," Lea said sternly.

"Is that a threat, boy?" Cid narrowed his eyes and walked closer. He clenched his arms tighter. "'Cause I bet Yen Sid would kick your ass all the way from Mystery Tower to Twilight Town and back if he knew about this. You better stay in line. As I said, there's a bigger picture, and you acting like this makes everything all the more suspicious."

"Why suspicious?"

"Weren't you two enemies? What are you getting all worked up for?"

"Axel and Saïx were. Isa used to be my best friend." The past tense stung in Lea's mouth.

"Y'all ex-Norts talk like that, as if there's a big difference between who you were then and who you are now. As far as the evidence goes, Xehanort only managed to get under the skin of three members of that little organization of his. You weren't one of 'em, so don't talk like you've been or are two persons, alright? If Saïx was your enemy then, I'm sure he's your enemy now, and I thought that meant you were on our side and that you wanted things from him that we want too. But clearly, I was wrong." Cid walked over to the back door and paused right when he reached for the doorknob, "Stay in line, Lea."

-x-

A bit of asking around led Lea to some unknown, partly hidden backdoor exit on the subterranean floor where the former Royal Garden had been left under construction. A tramcar stood parked right outside on a private rail that went on for at least five-hundred yards before it merged with the public rail upstairs.

Lea didn't like the sound of 'visiting hours'. It sounded like something supervised; voice recordings, signing in and out on time tables, guards. He didn't want to feel like he should be censoring himself once he finally got to speak with Isa in private or have to speak in riddles in hopes Isa would understand but that the others wouldn't. Not that there were things Lea wanted to hide. All he wanted was a normal conversation. It couldn't be much to ask after everything they had gone through.

At four o'clock the bigger than average backdoors were pulled aside by two men in uniforms. Lea stood flat against the wall and waited for a handful of people to walk out before he quickly joined the group and looked back to see if Isa was nearby.

There he was, behind two middle-aged and fairly short men. Isa's clothes stood out more than his messy ponytail. The coat he was wearing was obviously not his. The sleeves were too short. The coat was just big enough to go around him, but there was an obvious stretch over his back that made the coat impossible to button. The washed out dark gray and brown woolly corduroy didn't strike Lea as something Isa would have chosen on his own either.

Lea slowed down and waited for Isa to catch up with him. This wasn't what he had imagined their reunion to be like, him sneaking up on Isa after a day of forced labor with guards around. He knew he shouldn't be picky. This was just the way things were. It could've been worse. Isa could've still been lost in the ether of the universe with no intention of finding his way back, but here he was.

"Isa?" Lea intended to reach for Isa's sleeve, but a slight miscalculation had Lea brush his fingers against the small patch of visible skin between the hem of the sleeve and the hem of the knitted glove that didn't match the glove on Isa's other hand at all.

Isa pulled away immediately. He searched for pockets that weren't there and had to settle with hiding both his hands under his arms as he folded them over his chest.

"What are you doing here?" Isa asked in a hiss. Isa didn't look at him. He looked straight ahead, occasionally looking down when the wind blew in his eyes. He made sure to not bump into Lea by keeping his distance and sped up to get into the tramcar, the one place that was off limits for Lea.

"What do you mean? I want to talk to you."

"About?"

"I don't know! Everything. But in a socially chronological way, like start with a hello, talk about the weather for a bit, maybe you wanna tell me about your lunch, like did you find anything interesting or maybe appalling in the cafeteria, and then we can maybe start tackling the little heavier subjects, like people do!"

Isa stopped in his tracks just to turn around and give Lea a ice-cold glare.

"What do you want? This is the last time I'm asking."

In that moment, the yellow was much more visible than the cerulean blue. The blue almost disappeared in the way the faint sunshine lit through the cloudy sky, and though Lea wanted to ignore it, to convince himself that the color of Isa's eyes didn't matter, he couldn't, and he froze.

"Leave me alone then."

Isa got into the tramcar, still convinced that Lea wouldn't follow him all the way in there, but he was in for a surprise. Isa walked to the back of the tramcar where he sat next to a window. There was usually room enough for the passengers to be seated alone, but today Lea flopped down next to him, further testing his patience.

"We're not done yet, Isa. We have to talk about what happened, and to be honest, I'm really keen on talking about what's happening right now, and why the hell you seem so cool about it."

"You can't be here."

"Well," Lea said with a shrug, looking ahead as the driver took his seat at the front. "Looks like I can."

Isa gave him the cold shoulder the whole way to the tramcar's destination. They could see the gloomiest looking parts of Radiant Garden where houses were half-built, covered in large plastic sheets to keep the rain from pouring in. The old railway went around what was known as the "original" Radiant Garden. It parted the ugly and the poor from the rich and pristine. Small kids were running on small, muddy roads between the houses with their tired looking mothers right behind. The previously non-existent slum had grown exponentially since the Returnees started to pour in. With so many people coming in under such short notice, it had been impossible to meet the demands of new housing, and so, the slums came to be.

By the time the tramcar came to a halt, Lea was expecting to see a prison from old times when they stepped out and were told to form a line by large gates, but saw a newly built building. The Restoration Committee seemingly had time, resources and money to build some sort of penitentiary while thousands had to live in misery while waiting for their houses to get done.

Lea glanced over at Isa standing next to him to keep himself from thinking of anything else, but it didn't help. They had been through so much already, everyone who had survived Xehanort's malicious plans had been through enough, and yet it seemed like there was so much more to endure.

"Isa," Lea began, but was quickly interrupted.

"Look, if you're not gonna say it, I'll do it for you. When I find Dr. Even's diary, I'll give you the pages about Xion, alright? What you do with them after you've used them, is entirely up to you. I couldn't care less. But know this, Dr. Even would preferably put that information under lock and key at the bottom of the ocean because it's dangerous. Just keep that in mind when you self-righteously decide to hand over the documents to the Restoration Committee."

The line started to move forward, and Lea followed, knowing that he should go before he was discovered, but was unable to because he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Wha—"

"Until then, leave me the hell alone. Understood?"

"ID-cards, please! Have them ready!" A guard called from the front and waved a plastic white card in the air.

Lea watched Isa walk past the first control and follow the line up to one of three small booths were a guard checked his ID-card with a small black and blue beeper. It lit up with a green light when it approved of the information it got from the camera reading off Isa's corneas and the information on the card.

Lea's heart was pounding painfully hard in his chest. How did Isa know about Xion? Yen Sid had made sure to keep her a secret. Only the Keyblade-wielders, Cid and Dr. Even knew about it. Dr. Even had been the first person they had turned to for answers only to be told that Dr. Even didn't remember anything from his Replica-project and that his notes had probably been lost forever, and yet Isa had known. He knew about a diary that needed to be found, he knew how Dr. Even felt about the information stored in there, and somehow he had been informed about Xion. He had ears and eyes everywhere. Combined with his cold demeanor, he was only a shade of amber away from being the monster Axel had run away from.

Lea didn't want to, but a part of him slowly started to understand why the Restoration Committee wanted Isa behind bars.