When Sora woke up, all he could see was blinding white. Which didn't really make much sense, considering that the room he should have been in hadn't had any white in it at all.

He remembered watching Roxas. His blond head had been resting against the wall, and his blue eyes—eyes so similar to Sora's—had been closed, as though not being able to see the situation would make it go away. He remembered how cold his legs had felt, pressed up against the floor. He remembered how his chest had felt like it was filled with something unpleasant and foreign. He remembered closing his eyes, thinking that maybe sleeping for the next five years would be an excellent idea.

"Ah, I see that you're awake! It boggles my mind how someone could manage to contract pneumonia in the middle of the summer, but you certainly managed."

Pneumonia...?

"Your friends—the ones that brought you in—left a while ago. Said they had something important to take care of and ran off." She wandered around the room, checking his vital signs and testing the heart-rate monitor. It wasn't until she added something to a bag near his head that he noticed the needle sticking out of his arm and the clear fluid pumping through the tube into his body.

"I don't know how you managed to get yourself in the state you're in. Really, you should have known better. Even without the pneumonia, you're so dehydrated I'm surprised you're even alive. Honestly, you'd think you'd at least try to take better care of yourself. Here, drink this." Holding a cup of water up to his mouth, she tipped it gently, and the cool liquid felt heavenly against his throat.

When she put the cup down on his bedside table, next to a pitcher of water that he was sure would be too heavy for him to lift, he tried to ask where Roxas had gone. Who had been with him. Why he'd left. But, for some odd reason, the words got lodged in his throat, sticking there no matter how badly he wanted to say something—anything.

The nurse looked at him worriedly, fluffing up his bedsheets and tucking them gently around him.

"I'll have Doctor Kadowaki in for some final check-ups, but earlier this morning she said that you would probably be able to leave as soon as you woke up. Not without someone to help you, of course." She left the room, leaving Sora alone with his thoughts.

He felt very ill—there was no denying that. It probably would have affected him more had he not spent the last few years of his life being injured, but he wasn't stupid. He knew when he wasn't healthy. Still, he couldn't stop the feeling of helplessness, sitting there in that bed, not able to move any part of his body particularly well. He was the Keyblade master, for God's sake!

Slumping back on the pillows, he remembered that he wasn't. Not anymore.

"Well, now that you're awake, perhaps you can answer some questions I have." He opened his eyes, and his gaze rested on the doctor, a middle-aged woman who had been working at the hospital since he was rushed into the emergency room when he was four with a broken arm. She could always make him feel guilty with a single look, and he'd never quite gotten used to that.

"Hey, Doctor K."

She sat down on the edge of his bed, forgoing the normal separation between patient and doctor.

"Sora, I'm going to be straight with you. Now that you're eighteen, I'm leaving it up to you what you tell your parents, but that also means that my concerns are given straight to you. You just got out of the hospital a few days ago, and now you're back with a relatively severe case of pneumonia. It boggles my mind how it managed to develop so fast, but it certainly did. I know you always had some crazy idea in your mind that you could do anything, but the truth of the matter is that you're mortal. Completely. One hundred percent. If you don't start taking care of yourself, you're going to be in for one hell of a reality check when you realize that I can't cure everything."

Pouring him some water, she dropped a bottle of pills on his bedside table.

"I'm trying, Doctor K! I swear...I don't know how I keep getting myself into the situations."

With a sigh, she brushed the hair back off his forehead.

"I'm not going to ask what happened. But, you have my opinion. Your days of being reckless should be coming to an end. Regardless, I called your parents, and they're on their way. You can leave with them, but your body will regret it if you try to do anything strenuous for awhile. Alright?"

He nodded. Even without her advice, he knew. For some reason, he couldn't bring himself to be overly concerned about himself when the worry he had for the others was still fresh in his mind. Friends...the nurse had said 'friends'. More than one. Roxas? Axel? Demyx and Zexion? ....Riku? It was too much to think about. Although...the people who had been on the gummi ship probably weren't in danger. They would float around, looking for wherever Larxene had been hiding, and would come back once they didn't find it. Roxas, on the other hand...nothing was sure about Roxas.

"Right."

"Good. I don't want to see you here for a long time, Sora."

--

Sora burrowed more deeply under the covers, irritated by the light streaming through the window as much as the incessant knocking on his door.

"Sora, Honey, are you awake? How do you feel about going to school today?"

His mother's overly sweet voice carried through the fabric no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. How did he feel? He felt like he wanted to jump out the fucking window, or melt into their ugly brown carpet. As for wanting to go to school again...he had to hold back a snort at that. As if he would ever feel like going to that hell again. He could remember banging his head against the student desks, complaining loudly and abrasively to anyone who would listen that Destiny Islands History was tantamount to torture.

Well, at least now he knew that was completely untrue.

"Honey?"

She tapped on his door again, before gently opening it and peering inside. From under the comforter, Sora blearily opened one eye, staring at her as though she might get the nonverbal hint to leave him the hell alone.

"I had pneumonia, Mom. It's not like I'm going to get better overnight."

"It's not overnight. You've been out of the hospital for two weeks, Sora! If you ever want to get better, you're going to have to get out of the house. Go outside. Go to the park or something if you're not going to school."

Sora didn't want to go outside. He didn't even want to get out of the god damned bed. Of course, he couldn't tell his mom that. The only people he was interested in talking to were either missing or presumed dead.

"No. Maybe tomorrow."

She sighed, the long, drawn out sigh of someone who disapproved but didn't want to voice it.

"Fine. I called Hana's house, but no one picked up. Maybe you should think about trying to get a hold of Riku—if anyone can get you out of this damned funk you're in, it's him."

He tugged the covers more tightly around his shoulders at the reminder. It wouldn't matter how many times his mother called the house, because no one would ever be home. He wouldn't be surprised if the two people that lived there hadn't just mysteriously disappeared. That was how the other world worked—it stole a lot of things, and sometimes it forgot to give them back. He hadn't heard from anyone, not a single person, and it was driving him up the wall with worry. .

The door closed behind his mother, pushing the room into semi-darkness again. Thin streamers of light flowed through the slats in the blinds, illuminating brief strips of floor, but Sora's mood was depressing enough to blot them out.

Axel and Roxas were gone. The nurses had told him that they were the two who dropped him off at the hospital, but when he had gone to their houses later that afternoon, a woman he didn't know had answered the door. Sora was fairly certain that they had somehow disappeared into the void that made up the other worlds. Their families were gone, no one remembered who they were. That was just how it worked: one day they were there, the next they were gone. Shoving his face into the pillow, Sora couldn't help but wish he'd been taken to wherever it was that they had decided to go.

"What the fuck am I supposed to do now, Riku? What happens when everything I ever wanted gets taken away? What then?"

The Keyblade chooses its master. And it chose you.

If two people share one, their destinies become intertwined. They'll remain a part of each other's lives, no matter what.

My heart may be weak. And sometimes, it may even give in. But deep down, there's a light that never goes out.

Don't ever forget: wherever you go, I'm always with you.

It started as tiny pinpricks of feeling in the tips of his fingers. Then, slowly, the feeling began to spread down his arms, through his chest, to every single part of his body—this strange tingling, like thousands of invisible hands were just barely skimming their fingers over his skin. Like little reservoirs of power that should have taken years to fill were brimming over in moments.

"Sora?"

His eyes sprang open, and he sat up in bed like a shock. The sensation of vertigo made him dizzy, but it was well worth it.

"Minnie?"

"I'm sorry to bother you again, but I think you're the only one who can help. See...now that Larxene is gone, the pollution in the Hall of the Cornerstone is gone too, and now you can travel to the vault where everyone is trapped."

"Wait...who was trapped in there? We thought that Mickey had stowed you away somewhere."

He heard a someone nervous chuckle echo throughout the room.

"Well, he did. Unfortunately, he had to make it so that we couldn't get out again, to keep us safe. We need your Keyblade to help us get out of here. It does open any door, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, but Larxene took it. I haven't been able to use it in weeks."

"No she didn't. Look down, Sora."

And he did. And what he saw made him so happy that he thought his joy might just possibly burst through his chest—there, on his bedspread, was the one thing that he never thought he'd see again. His Keyblade. It was the basic model, the Kingdom Key, silver, with a yellow handle, but it was more thrilling than anything else he could imagine.

"She never took it from you. I don't think she had the power."

But...he'd been so sure that it had been gone forever.

"Close your eyes, Sora. I'll take you where you need to be."

–

When he opened his eyes again, for a brief moment he thought he'd died, because everything was so completely white that he couldn't be anywhere other than in Heaven. Or, at least, that's what his first impression was. As he got a better look, it became clear that he was inside the mansion in Twilight Town, in the room which was painted in a glaring, pure white. Pictures covered the walls completely, but they weren't the pictures that he remembered. More had been added, most of which had nothing to do with him, or Roxas, or Donald and Goofy. There were pictures of the forest, of the clock tower and the train station. He saw a few sketches of the yearly struggle tournament, of Seifer and Vivi, but that was about all that he recognized. Everything else seemed like it had come from very far away. Maybe another world? He didn't know.

"It's about time you got here." He whirled around at the sound, coming face to face with Namine. She was smiling that serene smile of hers, the one which, when coming from Kairi, had always managed to calm him down. The similarities between the two women were obvious, and he wondered whether that was what people saw when they looked at him and Roxas.

"What are you doing here, Namine?"

She chuckled a little, and gently ran her hand down his arm.

"King Mickey made me the guardian for this room. It's the royal treasury most of the time, but now that there are actual people in there my job is a bit more interesting. I guess this is how he apologized for not giving me my own life, like he did with Roxas. Did Queen Minnie send you here to let them out?"

He held up his Keyblade, and the light streaming in from the open window glanced off the steel as if it knew it was being talked about. It wasn't as handsomely made as Oathkeeper, but it would get the job done, hopefully.

"Do you know what happened to them? Roxas...and Axel, I mean. They left me at the hospital, and I haven't seen them since."

"They're gone, Sora. I guess I should be happy that King Mickey didn't put me on that plane, because I don't think they were supposed to exist there. As Nobodies, I don't think they could live in a place like that. Minnie says that they're gone, but that wherever they ended up, they're together. And that's really what matters, right?"

So, the world had taken them back, just like he thought it would.

"What about Riku?"

She bit her lip, walking back towards the long table in the middle of the room. Her sketchbooks and pencils covered the top, and she gently perused them, looking for one drawing in particular.

"I don't know about him. I think he might be in the vault, but that's just speculation, really. The gummi ship they were all on disappeared a few hours after Larxene was killed, but Minnie wouldn't say what happened to it. So, I can't say for sure."

Pulling one picture from the pile, she held it out to him. It was clearly Riku, down to his long silver hair and stomach-exposing vest, and he was smiling like he used to before everything happened.

"Here." She wrapped his fingers around the corner. "I used to talk to him, you know? I don't know if he thought he was going crazy or what, but he used to speak to me like I was his friend. As I'm sure you can imagine, there isn't much to do here, so our little chats were the best part of my day, even if he thought I was all in his mind."

Sora looked down at the drawing, eyes quickly skimming over every detail. Riku was reclining on the beach, one leg straight out in front of him with an arm hooked around his other knee. Sora had to admit—it all looked terribly comfortable. But, there was one thing that didn't really fit. The ocean was smooth and flat, as it was on the best, most windless days, but the sky was covered over in dark, rolling storm clouds.

"What's with the clouds? Was it raining that day or something?"

She shook her head, taking the picture back for a moment and looking fondly at it.

"No, Riku always asked me to draw clouds in the pictures I made of him. He said that his life was filled with them anyway, so I should try to be as accurate as I could."

"But, Destiny Islands is always sunny. We get three hundred and twenty days of sun a year."

"I don't think he was speaking literally, Sora. He had a lot of things to be sad about, and I think he liked telling me about them because he didn't think I was really there—he felt like he could tell me and I wouldn't say anything." Wandering over to the window, she pulled back the curtain, looking out over the sprawling lawns in front of the mansion. With a sigh, she rested her head against the glass and closed her eyes. "He's in love with you, you know."

"Of course he loves me. I'm his best friend! We've known each other forever, so it would be kind of ridiculous if he didn't. I mean, we haven't really talked about it, but I guess I just assumed--"

She turned to him with a sympathetic smile on her face.

"No. He doesn't just love you, Sora. He's in love with you. Like how you thought you were in love with Kairi, and how I was with Roxas. His entire life, Riku has felt like he existed just to be with you, to protect you, to make sure you stayed safe. He...felt so guilty for everything that happened to you. That's why he was always kind of depressed—he never forgave himself."

At her words, the pit of Sora's stomach suddenly felt like it had dropped right through his feet, splattering ungracefully on the floor. In love...with me? It didn't seem possible. They were best friends, sure, but Riku had never seemed like he wanted to be...more than that. Not to mention that they were both men, and guys didn't really do things like that, did they?

Not that it was unheard of, obviously. There were a few people at Destiny High who had expressed such a preference, but he would never have pegged Riku to be one of them.

"Did he tell you that?"

"Not in so many words, but it was obvious. I loved Roxas for so long that I think I can pick up on that sort of thing easier than I should. I'm not asking you to do anything about it, but I just thought you should know—it wasn't something he ever planned on telling you, but I think you should have the right to make your own choice about it."

Ho looked down at the picture again, and saw the melancholy look on his friend's face as he stared out over the water. Could that really be what had been bothering him for so long? Had Riku been secretly harboring feelings for his best friend? It seemed too surreal to be possible, but it made a strange sort of sense.

"Thanks for telling me. Knowing Riku, he would have kept it to himself until he was tossing the dirt on my grave." The smile he sent her was a resoundingly fake one. "Well, I think we should let these people out of here, don't you?"

Namine nodded hurriedly, turning towards the glass-fronted cabinet on the far wall.

"They're in here. Like I said, this is usually just the royal treasury, but it was big enough for everyone in Disney Castle, I suppose."

He decided not to ask how an entire castle-full of occupants could fit in a cabinet.

"One more thing, Namine."

"Yeah?"

"You said that Roxas is gone...not just for a while, but for forever. Gone. And you said that you love him. I don't really get it."

For a moment, he thought he had stepped over some sort of imaginary line between what he was allowed to bring up and what he wasn't. This look came over her face, like she was remembering something particularly painful, and she closed her eyes tightly as though she wanted to hold onto the memory despite the pain.

"I've loved Roxas for a long time, Sora. I think part of it was because Kairi loves you, and that carried over. But, for almost as long as I have loved him, I've known that he wasn't for me. Axel and Roxas...they were practically made for each other. What right did I have to step in between that? When the only place I am able to go is this room, and the only love I could give to him was mine, which would have never been enough? At least now, wherever they are, they're happy. I think. That's all that really matters to me."

She ran her hand along the glass front of the cabinet, gently letting off the clasp holding the two doors shut. From where they stood, the shelves looked completely empty.

"How can you say that? Are you saying that you don't deserve to be happy?"

"Of course that's not what I'm saying. I think everyone should have a shot at happiness at least once in their lives. But, when you love someone, it's not really that simple anymore. Suddenly it doesn't matter so much anymore. Because, if they're happy, then you can rest easy. Like maybe looking out for them will be enough to make you happy, too. Now, come over here, I need your help."

He stood for a moment, not understanding how someone could possibly feel that way, not understanding why she would give up her happiness just so someone else could feel it instead.

Ignoring the voice in the back of his mind that whispered 'Wouldn't you do that for Riku?', he walked over to the vault, instantly feeling the tingle of suppressed power running through his Keyblade. It was strange, but he'd never had to know when to use it. It was like some bit of intelligence had hidden itself away inside of it, and it always knew when it was needed.

His clothes began to wave in a nonexistent wind, and he pointed his arms out in front of him, clutching the Kingdom Key in his fists. He could feel the power move through him, using him as both producer and conduit. This feeling, one he hadn't felt in what seemed like forever, nourished him.

They both closed their eyes against the blinding jet of light that shot out from the end of the Keyblade, directly into the middle of the cabinet. Before their eyes, a giant doorway appeared, stretching all the way to the ceiling in ornately carved wood. When the glare had finally subsided, the door had been pushed open, and all Sora could hear was Riku's voice inside his mind, and all he could feel were waves gently lapping over his feet.

"Well, there is one advantage to being me...something you could never imitate."

"Really? What's that?"

"Having you for a friend."

–

A/N: Two chapters to go! (Three, if you count the epilogue)