-Part III-

Sora felt a warm kiss on his forehead and a hand brush his cheek before his eyes fluttered open, taking in the angelic, gentle face of his mother standing before him.

"I'm sorry, sweetie. I didn't mean to wake you up," she whispered softly.

Sora yawned, stretching his arms over his head before responding.

"That's okay; I'm sure by now I've slept plenty anyway," he said, offering his mom a wide smile.

His mom smiled at him sadly, as she readjusted her purse's strap over her shoulder.

"I'm going to have to head home now, okay?"

Sora stifled another yawn, and nodded.

"When's the doctor coming?" he mumbled sleepily, his eyes not focused on her, but on his blanketed feet instead.

"Well, he already did a couple of hours ago," she replied, causing Sora's attention to snap in her direction.

"What?" he asked in shock. "Then why am I not coming with you?"

"Oh, Sora," his mom said, shaking her head. "He thought you looked fine, but he wanted to wait until morning to release you; just in case."

"Just in- but Mom, I need to go see Riku! I want to make sure he's really okay!" Sora exclaimed, now sitting upright in bed. "I'm fine! Really! Want me to prove it?"

"No, Sora," she said sternly, grasping his upper arms tightly to get his attention. "Look, I want you to listen to the doctor and just wait until tomorrow. Nothing's going to change overnight anyway, alright?"

"A lot could change overnight," Sora mumbled to himself, as his mother attempted to kiss his cheek through his messy locks of brown hair, but ended up kissing his ear instead.

"Go back to sleep, okay honey?" she said, more as an order rather than a suggestion. "And I'll see you in the morning."

"Right, bye Mom," Sora muttered rather unenthusiastically, not even turning to face her.

"Goodnight Sora; I'll see you tomorrow!" She was then standing at the door, blowing a kiss in his direction.

"Yeah…"

Sora crossed his arms and frowned in the darkness after his mother had swung open the door and left. He was fine. He knew his body, and he'd been way worse than this. Sure, he was still a little tired, but that was to be expected after traveling through the worlds for a year, right?

He got out of bed slowly, unwrapping his IV's cord from around the bedpost and dragging the entire unit with him over to the window. He had a perfect view of Destiny Islands, though it wasn't very easy to make out in the current lighting. Sora wasn't entirely certain as to what time it was, but gauging from the darkness of the streets and buildings below, he was assuming that it was quite late. He glanced over towards the opposite side of the room, and recognized one of his mom's old duffels in the corner that they used to use for camping. He walked over towards it, his bare feet hitting the smooth wooden floor gently as he crouched down beside the bag and began examining its contents. His mother must've brought it for him, as it carried many essentials that only a mother like his could remember. A toothbrush, bar of soap, shampoo, a hairbrush, a razor, a change of clothes that he doubted would even fit him anymore, and some towels. Dumb essentials, in Sora's opinion. Whenever he'd sleepover at Riku's house, these were the things that he always forgot to pack, but he always remembered his idea of essentials. Which mainly consisted of junk food, video games, comic books, sometimes homework (that he and Riku would only use to spread out as a mat), and anything else that Sora deemed fit in order to have a good time at a sleepover. He often times forgot his toothbrush, which he figured was okay, since he always had to brush his teeth the next day with his mom hoarding him to do so.

Down at the bottom of the bag, his hand rubbed over something small and hard, which caught him off-guard. He'd thought that was all his mom could think of; unless of course she was planning on embarrassing him more by including yet another one of her ideal 'essentials'!

He pulled out his old watch, the one that he'd owned ever since he was a little kid. It was during one of their campouts, when Sora's dad had taken him and Riku to a fair the next day. Both Riku and Sora had gotten matching watches, that Riku to that very day would taunt him about losing the day he'd brought it back. Sora had never known what happened to that watch, and was almost happy to have finally found it.

Sora glanced over towards the window, as his thoughts drifted off towards his best friend of whom resided within that hospital on a bed somewhere. His friend that he so desperately wanted to see. Riku was bad when he'd left him; Sora remembered how forlorn his expression had been, and how darkened his eyes had become, as he was telling Sora that it was too late for him. It was so far from the sun to rise; what if it was too late then? Sora couldn't just wait and find out, he act to act…right then…

Sora reached out for his change of clothes and considered them momentarily. They looked a bit small, that was for certain, but he figured they'd work in a pinch, and he was going to do just that. He slipped on his old crop pants, which now fit him more like shorts would, and he began to pull the hospital gown over his head until he got caught on something.

The IV…. He'd entirely forgotten about the IV until that point, but would they notice if he took it off for long? He stole a glance at his right hand, observing the placement and the tube that fed through the needle. He couldn't take the needle out and put it back in – that much he was certain of. But if he just unplugged the tube…surely no one would notice before he got back, right?

He tugged on the tube and at last got it to separate from the needle that it was attached to, and gently placed it onto the floor. He slipped on his gloves from his older attire, hoping to conceal the needle, and he then began biting at his ID bracelet that was attached to his left wrist.

After a moment of biting, he finally gave up and decided to just tuck it under his glove and hope for the best; he just hoped that he wouldn't have to deal with anyone that close-up for them to discover it, anyway.

After pulling on and lacing up his big, rather bulky shoes, he carefully turned the knob of his hospital room and slid out the door. No sirens blazing, no nurses running; so far so good.

He picked up his pace and began walking briskly down the hall, as if he was just a perfectly normal boy, who had any right to be strolling through the hospital's halls at that hour. It wasn't until he'd reached the end of the hall that he discovered a problem: how would he ever find Riku? And after he found him, how would he find his way back? He really didn't want to resort to having to pull down his glove to reveal his ID bracelet and try to explain to the nurses that he had to get back to his room; that would be rather embarrassing, and not to mention it'd quite likely get back to his mom. Not only would his mom be concerned that he'd done something like that, but would also be downright furious. Sora glanced around, hoping to notice some sign of sorts to decipher which floor he was on, and possibly a name of the part of the hospital he was in. Luckily, Destiny Islands had a very small population, and therefore their hospital wasn't entirely huge. Sora had seen the hospital back in Hollow Bastion, and he was in shock at how large a hospital could really be.

"Can I help you, son?" a deep voice asked from behind him, which caused Sora to freeze in his steps. Panic seized him momentarily, until he remembered that he just needed to act like a 'perfectly-normal-boy-roaming-the-halls' and everything would be fine.

Sora cleared his throat and turned around to face the man behind him, who happened to be a security guard.

"Yeah, I'm just looking for my friend," he said nonchalantly.

The security guard grunted, not looking bemused in the slightest.

"Look, kid; this isn't a playground. This is a hospital, and do you know what time it is?"

"Ummm, actually no; I don't," Sora said, locking his fingers together and putting his hands behind his head as he so often did. "But you see, I'm not playing. I'm just looking for my friend, that's all."

"What are you and your friend doing roaming about the hospital at an hour such as this?" quizzed the security guard, his eyes fixated on Sora.

Sora raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I still don't know what time it is, but my friend's a patient in the hospital, and he's hur- I mean sick. And I want to go see him, that's all."

Sora watched the security guard, battling himself to not bite his lip out of nerves while the security guard seemed to process what Sora had said.

"Alright, normally no one's allowed in these halls past a certain hour, but since you seem so desperate to see your friend, and you seem like an okay kid…I'll escort you."

Sora's eyes widened in surprise, and then darkened once the security guard asked, "Where's his room at?"

"Uhhhhhh..."