Rachel curled up around her pillow with her kitten, Tatiana, snuggled in a fluffy ball under her chin. It felt good to be home. Merlin was safe, the witch was gone and tomorrow a new world awaited them. She could tell by the silence Bryan had fallen asleep. That sounded like a great idea, it was approaching evening so bedtime would be fast approaching anyway. Rachel knew she wouldn't go to sleep just yet. Unlike her brother, Rachel couldn't just let go and doze off. Even now, body desiring for rest, she could tell her eyes wouldn't stay shut even if she tried.

Tatiana batted her mistresses' cheek with a soft white-socked paw. Rachel tumbled her over and scratched her belly. Appealing as the idea was, she knew she couldn't kill hours just by coddling her precious fluff ball. Rachel glanced at her desk. Her thick, leather-bound journal lay right where she'd left it. That's what she'd do. Rachel rolled off her bed, Tatiana (who had gone boneless) in one hand like she was carrying a stuffed animal. Seriously, the kitten could go completely limp and could practically juggled before she would protest. She'd just look around blankly until the treatment was over.

Rachel went to the fireplace, activated a spell to get hot water going then sat in her chair and stroked the rose-embellished leather of her journal. In the upper left and lower right corners a large rose blossomed, surrounded by hummingbirds and tiny butterflies. She opened her journal to the next blank page. Her favorite quill pen had been enchanted so the ink wouldn't drip or make nasty blotches. She took the desk lamp from the top shelf and puffed at the unlit candle. The blow lit the flame. The mirrors inside the lamp created a bright, gentle glow. The enchanted tea tray brought over the hot water and bowl of cocoa mix. She mixed up her cocoa in her favorite clay mug, picked up her quill and began to write.

That first day on a new world. How she felt. The people she'd met. The name, Dancing Fire. Pixie Hollow and their magnificent gift. The feeling of sealing their first Keyhole.

Rachel continued writing until she was blinking so much to make her eyes focus it would be dumb to continue. Tatiana sat on the desk eyeing the end of the moving quill as Rachel wrote, batting it once in a while. Rachel closed her book. She looked to the door. It was getting late. Was Master Yen Sid still talking with Merlin? She doubted that. Even if he did have matters to discuss, Yen Sid wouldn't press them on one of his closest friends after they'd been through a great ordeal. She did wonder if he would want a word with them before morning.

Bryan never drew back the dividing curtain so her view of the window was blocked. There was no way to tell if the sun had already set or not. Rachel assumed it had. She blew out her lamp, left the empty cocoa mug on the desk, picked up her kitten and went to bed. Now she truly felt spent. She didn't bother putting on her nightdress. She was gone moments after she surrendered to the silky warmth of her bed.

Rachel woke in stages the next morning. Eventually she felt her mind was wide awake but her eyelids were still winning to fight to the death to stay shut. She had fallen asleep in a ball again, wrapped around her pillow. Judging by the warm spot by her stomach, Rachel guessed that was where Tatiana had nestled. She didn't fight the desire to keep her eyes closed. In fact she fell in and out of a light slumber a few times before her inner clock said it was time to get up.

Rachel opened her eyes. Light splashed across the floor. The curtain and window drapes were enchanted to open at a certain time every morning as sort of an alarm clock. The idea being the bright sunlight would wake them up. Not today though. Judging by the brightness, it had to be at least an hour after they normally would've had to get up. Rachel gently rubbed her kitten awake before getting out of bed. She took one of the antique brushes from her vanity desk across the room and pulled up her hair. Bryan, as she suspected, was still asleep. No matter. She'd just leave Tatiana in the room with him. The attention hog would find him soon enough and demand to be cuddled. Even he couldn't sleep through a wad of fur in the face.

Rachel went down to the kitchen extremely hungry. All she had for dinner was a cup of tea and a piece of toast and closed the night with a cup of hot chocolate. Like most everything in the Tower the kitchen had an old, antique yet magical look. A long table sat in the middle that could easily sit ten people. As always everything had been already set. Rachel remembered the bewildered feeling she had for the first few days she had come to live there. She never saw another soul apart from Yen Sid yet everything everywhere was always prepared in one way or another. Meals were always prepared by the time anyone entered the kitchen. Laundry always cleaned and folded and absolutely everything everywhere was always nice and tidy. But that was also the point in her life where the idea of magic still took some getting used to.

Master Yen Sid rarely took meals with them but was in the kitchen that morning. He looked out the window, deep in thought.

"Good morning," She said.

He turned and smiled. He didn't look at all surprised her brother wasn't with her. Rachel looked at that morning's spread. A pitcher for milk, orange juice and fruit juice. A small plate of bacon and another of sausage. A tray of toast and assorted jams and jellies. A bowl of strawberries and another of miscellaneous fruit. And finally a platter of very large assorted muffins and butters. As always two plates were set out for everything. So she helped herself to a few strips of bacon, two sausage links, a tall glass of cold milk and the largest apple-cinnamon muffin in the pile.

"I trust you have regained you strength since yesterday."

"Much. But eating will help." Rachel cut her muffin in half and spread a light amount of butter inside each half. "Did Merlin go home last night?"

"He did. I of course offered him a room here so he did not have to make the journey home but he insisted the best comfort for recovery was in his own bed."

Rachel understood that logic completely. If she had slept anywhere else but her own bed last night she knew she wouldn't have felt so good now.

"I suspect you both intend to continue your journey today?"

"I was thinking immediately after lunch. I did want to see Merlin before we left. Hopefully that would allow plenty of time for him to have gotten his rest." Oh great, a piece of bacon got stuck between two teeth in a place that was hard to fish out with the end of a tongue.

Yen Sid nodded. "Merlin did say he wished to see you before you left."

Rachel drained half of her glass. "So?"

"Hm?"

"No comment about the darkness we'd gotten splashed with yesterday? I sure do."

Yen Sid twirled a lock of his beard around a long finger. "How are you feeling?" He asked simply.

Rachel swallowed a bite of her muffin. That kind of question in itself implied there might be something to feel bad about, implying he was concerned they might in fact be affected by it.

"So far I feel fine."

Yen Sid raised an unbelieving eyebrow at her.

"Really, I felt icky with it all over me but otherwise there was nothing. Getting cleaned up helped a lot. Apparently darkness comes off with sweet pea scented soap."

Yen Sid chuckled then was silent for a while. The silence made Rachel nervous. Did he really expect something to happen? Were she and Bryan in danger because of their exposure with that much darkness?

"Master?" She finally asked. "Should Bryan and I be worried?"

"I really couldn't say." Yen Sid answered. "One might assume being touched by so much pure darkness at once would immediately corrupt or damage a heart. That it would plunge a knife into the existing darkness within a heart and gouge open a wound that would allow more darkness to pour in. Or that it might plant just a seed of pure darkness to be awoken by causes unknown. Or, perhaps, as it seems most of the contact appears physical; there may be no adverse effects a'tall. From what I have seen, you both have strong hearts. It is possible, and I am confident your own light may have shielded you from any serious damage. After all, although hearts can change, the Keyblade does not take the choosing of its master lightly. It you two did not have what it takes to stand up to the darkness, I'm sure you would still be trying to occupy yourselves in Hollow Bastion."

Rachel stared at her plate. She still had an uneaten sausage and the top of her second muffin half left. She ate her muffins from the bottom up because the tops were soft and moist and deserved being saved for last. But the uncomfortable prickle growing in her stomach warned her that so much as one more bite would be most unwise.

Basically what Master Yen Sid was saying was he didn't know. Rachel hated it when he didn't know. That wise old wizard seemed to know everything. His library was the size of the city square back home with a ceiling as tall as a two-story building. He claimed to have read all of them at least once and remembered everything he'd ever read. And it wasn't like Yen Sid was a spring chicken anymore. He'd obviously been around the block a few times and learned countless things from experience and other people from other worlds. For him not to know would be falling off the map and having the lights turned off with monsters breathing down your neck.

Sure, he did offer words of comfort and reassurance. But there were times when Rachel really couldn't tell if he truly meant what he said or not. He would never deliberately put them in danger, she knew that for certain.

"What do we need to do in case you're wrong." Rachel could cut to the quick of a matter if she really wanted to. She trusted Yen Sid's wisdom and instinct but the growl of self-preservation within her would not keep quiet. If there was a chance her heart had somehow been stained with darkness that was not her own, she wanted to know how to get rid of it.

Rachel had understood for a long time that light and darkness had to coexist. She always remembered that one cannot go outside on a sunny day and not cast a shadow. But that shadow doesn't hurt anyone or anything. It can cover people or things but cannot harm them. Yet it has to exist. The only way to get rid of a shadow is to take away the light. But then you would be lost in night. She accepted her shadow a long time ago. It made sense and she never felt ashamed of or feared it. As far as she could tell, it never hurt anyone and hadn't affected her heart in any bad way.

But the darkness that touched them yesterday belonged to someone else. Maybe it wasn't even the darkness within Mim's heart but just power she called upon in hopes it would do her bidding. Pure darkness. Free and answering to no one. Rachel refused to be tainted by someone else's poison. If her heart was to blacken, it would be because of her own doing. Her own choices. Good decisions. Bad decisions. Betrayals, lies, disloyalty. Rachel couldn't imagine herself ever doing anything intentionally malevolent to anyone, but if she ever did, it would be because she chose it, not because the influence of darkness that was not her own.

In the midst of this heavy contemplation Rachel had a whimsical thought. What if Peter Pan's shadow was the manifestation of the darkness in his heart that he had accepted and perfectly coexisted with? It could be independent, playful and mischievous but ultimately the two were one. Yeah, she could be totally off the mark, and probably was but it was still interesting to think about.

Yen Sid sighed heavily.

"Be aware of your heart. Be cautious of actions that may cause darkness within you to grow. I'm afraid awareness is the only weapon I can offer you now. If you know your heart well, you will know if anything changes. For good or ill depends on you. But if you stay aware of the workings of your heart, you should be able to tell if a change is because of your own doing or not. I should have had you and your brother focus on awareness much sooner."

"That's ok. Not even you could predict all things at all times."

Yen Sid chuckled at her understanding.

"Why don't you go wake your brother. He needs to hear this too. And I'm sure he has questions of his own."

"On it." With a bit of her appetite back, Rachel took the remainder of her muffin with her to finish on her way upstairs.