Cloud stayed with Roxas in their parent's apartment. Leon was with them daily, and stayed most night. Two nights after he had first arrived, Leon took out a legal pad and sat and talked with Cloud and Roxas about planning and money matters. He talked with them about Roxas being a minor and that he would have to go into the state's care if someone didn't adopt him. Leon offered, but Cloud became furious and said he was Roxas's older brother and he would take responsibility for him. Roxas sat quietly, pained that he was the cause of the fight between his older brother and his boyfriend. After a few intense moments, the two young men calmed, especially after Cloud noticed that Roxas was indeed still in the room. Leon moved the discussion to other things: the funeral costs and planning, the need to get a lawyer to handle the inheritance, the possibility of giving up the apartment since their parents' income would be supporting them any more. All of this was written into the long, yellow legal pad.
Over the couple of next weeks, Leon frequently had the legal pad with him. Two nights after Cloud and Roxas's older brother, Zell, came down and stayed for the funeral, but left shortly after. He was by far the most stoic and distant of the three boys, and Leon remarked to himself how the Strife boys grew more and more down to earth and open as you looked down the line. He loved Cloud, but sometimes he was hard to understand.
Other than the first night Leon stayed with the two Strifes, Roxas stopped sleeping in his bedroom, reverting to the couch where he and Cloud stayed much like their first few days home after the accident. He started going to school again, but every time he came home he was reminded by the absence of his parents. He didn't want to be alone anywhere, even in his own room. So he stayed with Cloud in the living room. They continued to stare at the bookshelves, eyes going over and over the shelves. They looked at the books that marked their years: their parents made a point to continue reading time with their sons even as they grew older. Cloud remembered them taking turns reading chapters from The Hobbit when he was fourteen and The Lord of the Rings trilogy when he was fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen. Roxas looked at the collection of Harry Potter books. They read two each year from when he was eleven, and they had just finished the seventh. He was going to read with them The Hobbit next when he turned fifteen, to keep with tradition set with his older brothers.
Roxas turned his gaze to the grand piano on the side of the room. He won national contests when he was little. He was a child prodigy, a wunderkind. He loved music for all of his life, but since his parents died, he didn't want anything to do with it. He put his head onto Cloud's lap and tears fell silently once again. He cried himself into a light slumber. He was awakened by the sound of a door shutting, then felt Cloud shift a little. He stayed still, not wanted to deal with being awake again.
"They wanted him so badly to have a well rounded, normal childhood. I guess that dream is gone too, now," Cloud whispered.
"I don't think there is such thing as 'normal' with your family," Leon responded. Cloud chuckled in his throat. "But he's a good kid. And he has had a good childhood. This is a new chapter, right? They would say, 'The story goes on,' right?"
Cloud put his head on his friend's shoulder. "The story goes on," he repeated hollowly. "This doesn't feel like a new chapter, this feels like a different book entirely."