A/N: Here it is, guys. You're in for a surprise… I hope.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 9: The Definition of Escape

"Okay, Kairi, you know where the emergency numbers are, right?" Aerith asked Kairi hastily. Before she could nod or respond, her mother added, "We should be back by nine, but don't worry if we come back later, kay?" She then ran out the door to get into the car with the rest of her family.

Kairi mindlessly waved goodbye to the car. She wasn't paying attention, really. In fact, Sora would be coming in about fifteen minutes, too soon for her. She had thought over the escape plan about a thousand times over the past day, and she was now sure, without a doubt, that it would be the right thing to do. She had already packed a small bag together with all of her important belongings, including the plastic, gold harp.

It was funny, when she looked back at her actual harp; she felt a small sense of longing to take it with her. She had shaken off that idea pretty quickly, knowing that it would be inconvenient, plus she did not want to bring anything that reminded her of this stage of her life. The harp, she had concluded, was what brought a possibly good family down to one that she had wanted to and would get rid of.

She heard a loud honking outside and peeked through the window, hoping it would be a certain someone. It was Sora's car, alright. She squealed as she anxiously ran outside and hastily locked the door. She honestly didn't know why she bothered to; perhaps it was her conscience. Sora had pulled the door open for her, and she hopped onto the seat. "Hi!" She smiled.

He grinned back, making her heart flutter. "Hey." As soon as she had buckled up, he drove off, not knowing which direction to go.

"So... uh..." He was looking through the car windshield in confusion. "Why did you want to leave so bad?" His face was filled with concern.

Kairi looked down at her lap. "I don't like it there. Everyone's so... perfect." She sighed and felt herself internally shaking, feeling a couple of tears ready to fall from her eyes. She blinked them away.

He turned a corner. "I know what you mean. I really don't get Aerith with her whole teaching thing. It's just so... different, you know?"

She nodded in agreement, and felt his hand cup over hers. Her face turned a little pink, but then got used to the fact that it was there, and enjoyed it.

"So, where do you want to go?" He broke the somewhat comfortable silence. "You seemed like you wanted to go somewhere pretty badly."

"I really want to..." she paused, thinking, What will he think if I ask him to take me to Tifa's? Is he really going to do it? No guy in his right mind would do something like that. Unless…

"Go on, I'll take you wherever. As long as it doesn't require going across the sea." He chuckled.

"I want to go to my social worker's home." There, that wasn't so hard, was it? She continued to stare down at her lap.

"Do you know her address?" Sora pulled into a parking space in front of a shopping center, and stopped the car engine so that they could talk.

Kairi flipped through the few things that she had, to find a slip of paper with Tifa's address and apartment number on it. She handed it to Sora. He frowned as he looked at it. "This is kind of far from here..."

"Oh." She blushed at her own stupidity. Didn't she remember the long car ride from her old home to Aerith's? Her old home was close to Tifa's…

"But it shouldn't be too far." His goofy grin told her that he was just saying so to make her feel better, although he was, also, troubled by the far-away location.

Soon enough, he pulled out of the parking lot, and back into the street traffic. His mouth was pressed into a straight line, wearing an expression that Kairi had never seen on him before. He looked even more stressed out than the day of the Blitzball game.

Maybe it was wrong to do this... Kairi thought to herself. He obviously wasn't up to their, or rather, her little plan, but was doing it for her because of an unknown reason. She rested her head on her hand, and sighed. Rain had started to pour from the sky, making the streets shimmer in the darkness.

She felt herself nodding off until she heard Sora slam on the brakes and mutter some unfriendly words. She looked up at him as he gritted his teeth in anger. He took a deep breath before he continued down the road, and tried to smile at Kairi. She, however, couldn't have believed him less.

After a few more minutes of Sora muttering under his breath about some other driver on the road, she spoke. "Why did you agree to this? You said yourself that you were just joking about it..."

Sora sighed, and then looked at her with concern. "Because..." he thought of his reply as he drove down the road. "...you wanted to."

-

"Kairi?" Aerith walked into the well-lit living room of her home. "Kairi?" She asked, a little bit louder.

"Where's Kairi?" Selphie entered the room, looking around anxiously. She then looked at her watch. "Well... it IS 9, and Kairi seems like she likes to sleep early..." The youngest girl reasoned with herself.

Aerith then dashed upstairs to Kairi's room, and flicked on the light, only to find an unmade bed. She stood in complete horror for a few moments, and then gasped. "SELPHIE!" She screamed for her youngest daughter. As she heard the quick footsteps of Selphie running up the stairs, Aerith hastily looked for any form of a note, or anything that might have told her where her daughter was at the moment.

"What-" Selphie stopped in the middle of her word. She, too, noticed the unmade bed.

Soon enough, the rest of the family had come into the room that where the two females were flipping through Kairi's things. Selphie had noticed that quite a few of the girl's things were missing.

Seeing Selphie's anxious dash, the rest of the family hurried up the stairs into the girl's room. The reactions they had were all completely different. Squall just huffed and left the room, Maria stood in shock, Cloud muttered quite a few curses, and Wakka was fidgeting with his fingers. The family looked at him, realizing that he seemed like he was the only one who knew of anything that was going on, and was doing a bad job of keeping a secret.

Cloud grabbed his son by the arm, and sat him down in Kairi's desk chair. "Spill."

-

It was now getting late, and the streets were now almost abandoned, by both cars and people. Although it was both clear to Sora and Kairi that they were lost, neither brought up the subject. Sora just continued to drive. Silence had come over them since his outburst.

Kairi's eyes flickered over to the car's backlit clock. It read 10:30. They had now been driving for 3 hours down to nowhere. Kairi didn't recall it taking this long to get to Tifa's home before. Maybe they had passed it? And although she didn't want to admit it, she was sleepy, and let out a yawn.

After slamming down the brakes one more time, Sora sighed and looked at Kairi. She had taken to notice that they were at a gas station, in a parking space. "It's obvious to both of us that we're lost. And it's also obvious that at this rate, we're not going to get there." He spoke bluntly, with the same stressed expression he had worn for the past few hours.

Kairi looked down and nodded in agreement. "So what are we going to do?"

He frowned as he thought about it. "Well, we're not going home, that's for sure. Both of our parents would kill us. So I thought... maybe..." he winced from his mind's suggestion, "we could go get a hotel room tonight."

Kairi's eyes widened in shock. She wondered if he was implying anything, but from the look on his face, she realized that he knew it would be as awkward as she was thinking.

As silence loomed between them, a clap of thunder struck in the night. "Okay... I guess." Kairi continued to frown as Sora drove to the nearby inn.

When he found a secure parking spot, they hopped out of the car. "Kairi," He looked at her with all the seriousness that he could muster, "we're going to say that we're siblings, okay? And we're just going to act if we're siblings tonight."

Kairi nodded in agreement- it was the best way to go; plus, she didn't have enough money to pay for a room of her own.

The two of them dashed into the hotel lobby, away from the rain. Despite their running, both Kairi and Sora's hair was wet. And, despite their situation, Kairi let out a giggle when a spike of Sora's hair flopped down in front of his face from the water.

She stood back as he walked over to the man at the counter, and waited until Sora was done talking to him. When he came back, he grinned and slipped one of the hotel card keys into her hands. "Need anything from the car?" he asked.

She shook her head, and pointed to the bag that she had on her shoulder.

"'Kay then, I'm going to go get a few things. Go get comfortable in the room; I'll be up there soon." He gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder."

The two parted, with Kairi walking towards the elevator and Sora out the main doors. She pressed the three on the elevator key pad, and waited as the elevator brought her up to the third floor. She casually walked out, and looked at the room numbers as she looked for her own. As she found it and walked into the room, she flopped directly onto the bed.

I'm such a burden, she thought. Such a burden to Sora... why did I have to ask him to do me such a big favor? And now we're stuck here for the night...

A few worries came to her mind as she looked down at the single bed. After all, she'd only known him for so long... what was going to happen? She had no defenses if Sora would try to... do something she wasn't ready for. But… would he actually do something like that?

She heard the door click open. Sora had obviously just come in. She sat up on the bed, and turned her eyes away from the male as he sat down next to her. "Look, Kairi..." he put his hand on her shoulder. She turned her head around to glance up at him, then down at her hands. "I'm sorry it had to happen this way. Let's just get some sleep, okay? I'll sleep on the floor." He spoke the words calmly.

"No. I'll sleep on the floor. You paid for it." Surprisingly, Kairi spoke in an authoritive manner.

"I can't let you do that, Kairi. I'm the male so you have to sleep on the bed." He patted her shoulder and smiled, telling her it was okay.

Kairi sighed, and then giggled. Funny how the tension was so easily raised. "Okay, you win. I'm... going to go change." She picked up her bag and walked into the bathroom.

While she changed, Sora turned on the TV, but wasn't watching it. How did he get into this mess? Why was she so... special? He had never had the nerve to go to such lengths for a girl, one that he barely knew at that.

The door to the bathroom opened, revealing Kairi in shorts and a big T shirt. She stretched and yawned, then walked over to the bed. She sat down on it, looking tired and limp.

"Tired?" He asked. She nodded.

He walked towards the bathroom door with his own bag. "Sweet dreams, then." He turned off the TV as he walked past it.

Kairi snuggled into the covers as she watched Sora go into the bathroom. She felt so guilty, having him do nearly everything for her. She slowly fell asleep, after hearing the click of the bathroom door.

A few hours passed by after Sora had come out and made a makeshift bed on the floor. He made sure that Kairi was sleeping deeply enough for him to watch TV with no sound. He was still contemplating what had just happened so many hours ago, and wasn't able to sleep. He watched her form as she slept, and noticed she seemed to shift and whine a little bit in her sleep.

While he was watching her, her eyes surprisingly flew open. They were filled with tears. "Sora?" she whimpered, reaching out for him.

He walked over to the bed and sat down next to her, taking her hand in his. "What's wrong?" She had never seemed to be so defenseless before…

"Why did you do this for me?" She scooted a little closer to him. "You didn't have to and you didn't want to... but you still did..." she rambled on.

He paused to think of a good answer. "Because... I care about you." He meant what he said.

She felt her lids pulling down over her eyes as she clenched his shirt. "Really? Then you're the first one..." she mumbled a few more words before falling back asleep.

He noticed that her hands were still gripping his shirt. He didn't want to peel her fingers off, so he did the only thing that he could- he wrapped his arms around her and fell asleep next to her.

-

Reviews, please. :D One more chapter to go!