ANDATORY AUTHOR'S NOTE: I hate suspense so I wrote the whole next chapter on my phone, too. In one day T.T my thumbs hurt waaaah. Anyway thanks for the massive positive response you guys have given! I hope you all like the turns this story has taken. We still got a little more drama to go so I hope you stick with me and continue to support me!
DISCLAIMER: This disclaimer applies to the entire story. Kingdom Hearts and any and all things having to do with it do not belong to me. However, the plot and plot events are entirely MINE, along with the band Destiny's Embrace, the use of the word Hikari as a name, and the character's personalities.
NOTE: This story is rated M, but this chapter is a nice breather from the violence. However there's some eating disorder content in this chapter.
ENJOY!
~x~
Chapter Fifty-Three
~x~
Kairi was in a dazed shock as it seemed like her world was crashing down around her. She didn't know what to do. Everything was chaotic: Vanitas was panicking because he couldn't get up and help, Yuffie and the security guards were trying to figure out what was wrong with Sora, and Leon was shouting and performing CPR. And all through it, Kairi was feeling lower and lower because she felt like it was her fault.
Sirens eventually came screaming across the mostly-empty parking lot, and EMTs started milling about, helping get the twins. Kairi barely had time to snap out of her stupor and thank Leon and Yuffie for their help before the ambulances left without her. She climbed into Sora's and stared while the EMTs got to work on trying to resuscitate the only person who Kairi felt like truly loved her.
Her chin began to tremble. Was this really happening? Was she doomed to lose everything? This wouldn't have happened if it weren't for her. Sora and Vanitas wouldn't have had to go through this torment if Kairi wasn't such a magnet for trouble.
"He's got a pulse, but it's weak," one of the paramedics announced to the other.
"I-Is he go-gonna be okay?" Kairi managed to choke out past the tears that were still silently pouring down her face. Her hands were shaking violently. She wanted to touch Sora, but she didn't think she had the right to anymore.
The other paramedic looked at her with narroe eyes and then maneuvered around Sora's gurney to get to her. "You're hurt, too. Can you feel anything that's broken or hurt worse? Is your vision blurring or hearing impaired? Anything wrong with your breathing?"
Kairi shook her head. She was pretty bruised up and she was pretty sure she had more blood, bruises, and scrapes on her face than was normal, but she deserved those. All that mattered was Sora.
"Help him," she whispered pleadingly.
The other paramedic spoke up, "It's his lung . . . He's got a shattered rib, possibly a couple broken ones, and his breathing is pretty ragged. Sounds like there's blood in there."
Kairi anxiously jammed her fingers through her hair. There was blood in Sora's lungs? What did that mean? Kairi just wanted him to be okay and hearing that was causing her to be on the verge of a panic attack.
Truthfully, Kairi was hurt. Her vision was swimming a bit and her stomach was hurting quite a bit. She placed a shaky hand over her belly. The doctor had told her that she couldn't carry the baby to term, and that there wasn't really any way to know if the fetus she was currently carrying was alive or not. It would end in abortion or miscarriage, and she wouldn't really have a choice in the matter. She bit her lower lip worriedly. Was she going to miscarry as a result of the beating? She didn't know. When Hikari came out of her, there had been no warning and no way of knowing when the baby died between her last ultrasound at three months and the time of the miscarriage at six months. Perhaps that was why Kairi had hope, though. If she could get to three months, then maybe she could get further. Kairi had to have hope, otherwise there was no point to anything.
Arrival at the hospital was a blur. They wheeled Sora in first to get him to surgery, and then they wheeled Vanitas in right after to prep him for operation as well. He was still conscious, however, and the doctors allowed Kairi to speak to him for a split second.
"Sora . . Is he . . .?" Vanitas whispered, reaching a bloodstained hand to touch Kairi's arm.
Kairi squeezed his hand. "They got his heart to beat, but they think there's blood in his lungs," she told him.
Vanitas's eyes flashed with pain and turmoil. "Fuck . . . Okay, call Olette but don't let her panic and don't let her tell anyone. Just tell her to come straight here, I . . . I really need her to be here."
Kairi nodded and then with their apologies, the doctors wheeled him away. Kairi watched after him worriedly for a moment and then she hurriedly called Olette.
"Hey, did everything turn out okay?" Olette sounded anxious and scared. Kairi had a feeling she knew.
"It's . . ." Kairi dissolved into tears. "It's really bad, Olette. They're both being operated on."
"What?! Oh, my God . . . Shit, okay, I'm on my way to the hospital right now!"
"Don't tell anyone, Vani doesn't want anyone to worry. He just really needs you here."
Olette hung up and Kairi walked over to the nearest wall, putting her back against it and sliding to the floor. She looked at her cell phone. She still hadn't sent the text to Xion yet. She didn't know if she should anymore. Technically, if Sora and Vanitas made it through this, they were in Kadaj's gang. They'd have help defeating her, Axel, Demyx, and whoever else they brought to hurt them. Wouldn't it mean Sora and Vanitas had been hurt in vain if she just went and turned herself over? It was hard to know. Lenne's words had really gotten under Kairi's skin.
Kairi kept having other people fight her battles and if she didn't start fighting them herself, more innocent people would die.
So Kairi put her phone away. Xion could be dealt with later. She needed to think about it a little bit longer. Besides, a kindly nurse was taking to a designated waiting area, and Kairi was starting to get nervous. She hoped Sora would be okay.
Kairi called her father and told him a made up story about them getting mugged in the back of the mall. He was worried about the twins just as much as she was even though he was still peeved at them for canceling their show the night before, so he promised he was rushing right over in the company limo. Feeling relieved to have family there, Kairi hoped that the boys wouldn't be angry with her for having her dad there. She just needed someone else to be there who she could get some comfort from. Olette and Kairi were both going to need it.
Olette arrived before Kairi's father, and after Kairi directed her where to go by phone, they met up in the waiting room and embraced desperately. Olette's eyes were dry but she looked absolutely beside herself with worry. Kairi explained quietly and in detail what had happened from start to finish, ending with what Vanitas said right before going in to be operated on.
"They're both going to be okay," Olette said, sounding more sure of herself than she looked. She took Kairi's hand and held it. "They're stronger than a few cracked ribs and a punctured lung, right?"
Kairi nodded and offered Olette an encouraging yet shaky smile. "Y-Yeah. Of course!"
Olette put her arms around Kairi again. "It's not your fault, okay? You can't listen to whoever that Lenne bitch is. You were completely against this from the start."
Kairi hugged her back. "But I can't shake it, Olette. Sora wouldn't have done this if I had just stayed out of his life, and Vani wouldn't have gotten dragged into it."
"You can't think like that, though. We have to think positive!" Olette smiled at her, but both girls had tears in their eyes. "They're our boys. They'll make it through."
Kairi's father came jogging in, gathering both girls up in his arms. "Hey, girls. It's gonna be all right. The kids are gonna make it."
Kairi and Olette both burst out crying, clutching to the man for dear life. Nobody knew for sure what was going to happen to the boys, and that was what was so terrifying. Vanitas had been conscious, yes, but that didn't mean anything. They weren't out of the woods just yet.
Kairi, her father, and Olette went to sit on three nearby seats so they could wait. Kairi was feeling a little discomfort in her stomach again, but she tried her best not to show it. She didn't want even her father to know about the pregnancy (or lack thereof). She was scared he would think less of her or stop talking to her again and she didn't want that. She sometimes wondered what her mother was up to, but she never dwelled for very long because it only depressed her to think about it.
Kairi's father whispered to her, "Did you call the twins' parents?"
She shook her head. "I don't think Vanitas wants me to."
"Kairi," he scolded gently as he put his arm around her shoulders, "It's not up to him to make that decision when one of both of their lives hangs in the balance. Don't worry, I'll call them and tell them the same lie you told me."
Kairi went pale. "You knew I was lying?"
He shot her a look. "I'm your dad. Of course I could tell that you were lying. You don't have to tell me what really happened unless you want to, though."
He got up and pulled out his cell phone to call Sora and Vanitas's parents, walking out of the building. Olette reached for Kairi's hand. She looked like Hell.
"What if one of them dies?" She asked nervously. "I haven't . . . I mean, I didn't get to . . ."
Kairi wiped her eyes and turned to face her best friend. "Do you love Vanitas, Olette?"
Olette blushed and hesitated a moment. Finally, she nodded. "I think I do . . . I just feel like if he . . . Well, I didn't get to say it yet."
Kairi smiled warmly. "Don't worry, you'll get your chance. I know you will."
Olette smiled sadly back. "I hope you get a chance to tell Sora you love him, too. Even if it's just one more time."
In that moment, Kairi wanted to tell Olette the truth about her pregnancy issues so badly. She hated lying. She hated it more than anything on thr planet but she . . . She just couldn't. She could feel her stress and emotions building higher and higher until she stood up.
"I'm going to go find something to eat," she said. "I'll be back as soon as I can."
~x~
An hour later, Kairi came back from the cafeteria with an aching, empty stomach and a dazed expression on her face. Her heart felt like a black void. She had just eaten enough food to feed a village only to be bent over the toilet in one of the hospital bathrooms for twenty minutes forcibly ridding herself of it. She had pretended that every morsel of food that had entered her lips was a different emotion that was bothering her, stuffing herself full of despair, guilt, and anxiety until she thought she'd explode. Then, she'd released it all bit-by-bit, watching as all that anxiety, that guilt, and that that despair went spinning down into the sewers. She was clean and empty.
For now.
Kairi's father looked up from a newspaper when Kairi entered the waiting room. Olette was curled up in the chair next to him, sound asleep. Sora and Vanitas's parents were pacong back and forth, conversing anxiously in Japanese.
"Where were you? I would have paid for your breakfast if you had waited," her dad said.
Kairi shrugged. Her stomach really hurt now. She couldn't take her eyes off of Sora's parents, who she hadn't seen since the day Sora had turned her away on their front lawn. She didn't know what they thought of her; didn't even know if they knew Sora and Kairi were now dating. She wanted to talk to them and yet at the same time, she was apprehensive.
"Leave them be for a minute," Kairi's dad murmured. "They're worried about their children. Imtsure I'm sure they'll talk to you once everything has settled down."
Kairi merely nodded and then rested her head on her dad's shoulder until she drifted to sleep with memories of the time a couple weeks ago when Sora had sat with her on the beach and they'd watched the stars.
~x~
". . . Be okay, but we'd like to keep him a few days for observation, Mr. And Mrs. Yoshimura."
Kairi drifted in just as a surgeon was finishing talking to Sora and Vanitas's parents. Her father was alert and listening as well, but Olette was still snoring soundly.
"What happened?" Kairi asked loudly, her voice laced with worry. "Are Vanitas and Sora okay?"
The surgeon and the twins' parents all turned to look at her. The surgeon then excused himself, and Kairi and her father got up to greet the other two.
"We're glad to see you, Kairi," Sora's mother said, wiping away her tears. "Sora will be glad to know you support him."
Sora's father shook hands with Kairi's dad and thanked him for calling him. They began to discuss the boys' statuses so even though Sora's mother was embracing Kairi, the redhead paid more attention to them.
"Vanitas ended up having a cracked rib, some internal bleeding in his stomach, and a pretty nasty head wound. They said it was some minor blunt force trauma, but he should be okay. Sora's the one they're worried about. He has a rib that's completely shattered and he punctured a lung. Plus his wrist his broken and he had a head wound, too. They got him stabilized, but they're keeping him to make sure everything checks out."
"That's relieving to hear that they made it out of the emergency room okay, though," Kairi's dad said, giving Sora's father a comforting embrace. "When will they start allowing visitors?"
"Probably not until tomorrow," Sora's mother said, pulling away from Kairi. "Why don't you guys go home and get some rest?"
"Can Olette stay?" Kairi asked timidly. "Vanitas told me he really needed her here."
"Sure," Sora's mother replied with one last warm embrace. "But you look pretty beat up and like you need to sleep. Come back first thing tomorrow."
Kairi and her father said their goodbyes to Olette (who was ecstatic to hear that Vanitas would be okay) and then her father offered to take her home in the limo. Kairi knew it probably wasn't smart to leave Sora's car at the mall overnight though, so she had him drop her off there.
"Sora will be okay, honey," her father said, giving her one last hug.
"Thanks for coming, dad," Kairi said gratefully.
"Of course. Call me anytime! I love you." With that, he got back into the car and the driver drove him away.
Kairi heaved a heavy, heavy sigh as she pulled the keys out of her pocket and climbed into Sora's car. She was glad Vanitas was okay and that Sora was at least stabilized, but man, she just felt low. Nothing anyone said would ever convince her that this wasn't her fault.
As she drove down the road, Kairi couldn't help but wonder how different things would have been if her birth mother had lived and she'd grown up with Roxas as a brother. Would she still have become such close friends with Sora? Things would be very different, that was for sure. Kairi didn't know whether to be humbled by her experiences and happy with how strong she was because of them, or to keep wishing for a different life.
The only thing she'd never wish to change was Sora.
When Kairi got home, Fuu was hanging out with Zidane and Tidus in the living room. They hailed her when she entered the house, but all she could muster the energy to do was wave. They seemed confused, but Kairi didn't want to go against Vanitas's wishes so she said nothing. Instead, she went directly to the kitchen where her food fron this morning still sat on the table. She stood there and stared at it blankly for a long time. Her stomach really hurt but her heart hurt worse.
Kairi proceeded to spend the next fifteen minutes shoveling everything on that table into her mouth. She didn't care that she wasn't hungry. She didn't care that it felt like her stomach was ripping at the seams. She didn't care that it was making her physically ill. All she cared about was punishment. Punishment for her lies. Punishment for her existence. Punishment for influencing Sora's life. Punishment.
She ran to the bathroom and sobbed as she vomited until she hit bile, and then she sobbed and she ran back to the kitchen to do it again. Kairi binged and purged a total of two more times, and on the third binge she was in too much physical pain to throw it up so she just felt worse about herself for being a failure. She clutched her swollen stomach and staggered into Sora's bedroom. She grabbed as many of his shirts from the messy floor as she could and gathered them close to her. Picking them up, she placed them on the bed and curled up with them, breathing in the vanilla musk that was Sora. She didn't want to lose him.
Kairi cried herself to sleep, wondering if she would ever be okay again.
~x~
Kairi slept for a day and a half, waking up with aching, creaking bones and a raw throat. When she tried to speak, she found that she couldn't for she had lost her voice. Her face felt puffy and odd and her stomach was tender to the touch. Someone was knocking on her door, that having been the reason that Kairi awoke, so she got up and stumbled over to open it.
Olette stood there. "Hey, you never showed up to see Sora. Were you sleeping?"
Kairi rubbed her eye and nodded. "Yeah, sorry. I'll get ready and go back with you. How were they doing?"
"Well, Vanitas is chipper," she chuckled. "He's more concerned about Sora than anything, though. As for Sora, he was awake for ten minutes before the pain was too much so they drugged him up on morphine and he went back to sleep. Punctured lungs hurt like Hell; who knew?"
Kairi frowned. She didn't like hearing that Sora was in so much pain. She told Olette to wait just a second while she got ready as fast as she could. She threw on a pair of black leggings and one of Sora's black Attila tee shirts (which was more of a dress on her) and then rushed to brush her teeth.
"Whoa!" Olette remarked as Kairi went by, following her to the bathroom.
"Huh?" Kairi asked around a mouthful of toothpaste.
"Have you lost weight?" Olette asked, sounding surprised. "You like, have a thigh gap!"
Kairi blushed. She had, but when she looked in the mirror, she looked the same as always so she didn't know how to answer her friend. Kairi had started at about 115 and now, as she stepped on the scale, she was 105.
"I guess I did," she said nonchalantly.
"How much weight?" Olette queried. "I mean, you look good, it's just weird because you're pregnant so you should be gaining. Not to mention all the food you've been eating lately "
Kairi felt her heart screaming against her chestbone in a panic. "I dunno," was all she could think to say.
Olette shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe you just have a weird body."
Kairi mentally shrugged off the "weird body" comment because she knew her mind was so skewed right now that she shouldn't be taking it as an insult. Olette had left to get in the car, so Kairi took the liberty of lifting her shirt so she could look at her so-called thigh gap. Lo and behold, there it was. She tilted her head to the side, unsure of whether or not to be happy about it. She'd certainly never had a thigh gap before, and she certainly still felt fat, so it couldn't mean much, could it?
After finishing running a brush through her waist-length tresses (which really needed to be trimmed), she hurried out to the car where Olettte was waiting for her.
After a comfortably quiet car ride, they arrived at the hospital. They headed straight up to the boys' hospital rooms, choosing Vanitas to visit first.
"Road Blockkkkk!" Vanitas exclaimed excitedly from his bed with his arms outstretched. Kairi ran into his arms and hugged him tightly. She could still remember how panicked she was, screaming and pleading for him to wake up.
"I'm so glad you're okay, Vani," Kairi said happily.
"Yeah, same," he laughed, wincing sharply at the end. "Sorry . . . Cracked ribs and all that."
Kairi sighed and stepped back. "I told you guys that it was a bad idea."
Vanitas shrugged. "I knew it was, too. But I couldn't let my brother go out there and get himself hurt on his own. So I just went along with it."
Olette came to stand next to Vanitas's bed. She leaned over to push his hair back and fluff his pillows a bit. "That's because you're too nice for your own good. You just like to appear like you aren't."
Vanitas's orange eyes twinkled. "Kairi, don't worry about me." He then looked directly into Olette's eyes and for a moment, Kairi's heart swelled. Vanitas looked happy and compared to how much he had hidden himself away in his room when they were all kids, this was everything Kairi could hope for for a friend.
Olette giggled shyly and said, "Don't be silly, Vani. Everyone is going to worry about you. We . . ." She looked to Kairi, who only raised her eyebrows playfully and grinned, urging her to continue. "We love you, so we worry."
Kairi had to stifle her laughter when she heard how fast Vanitas's heart monitor had begun to beep. She moved aside so Olette could move closer, but the poor girl was blushing so much that she couldn't even lift her eyes from the hospital room floor. In spite of how worried Kairi was about Sora, she was happy for her friends. She gently placed her hands on Olette's lower back and nudged the brunette forward.
Vanitas was smirking (which was totally in-character for him), but Kairi could just barely see that tiny bit of pink that was tinging the apples of his cheeks.
"And does that 'we' include you, Olette?" he asked teasingly, reaching up to touch her cheek.
For some reason, Olette started to cry. "If you . . . If you want it to . . . ?"
The look of warmth and adoration that filled Vanitas's twilight-colored eyes right then was so intense that Kairi felt embarrassed and had to look away from her two friends' private moment.
"I see your confession, and I raise you one back," he laughed, trailing his fingers down her arm and entwining his fingers with hers. "Because I love you, too."
Olette's soft sobs began to mingle with relieved laughs and she attempted to wipe her eyes with her free hand.
"Really?"
Vanitas grinned the same lazy half-grin that Sora usually did and said, "Who else is going to make my coffee every morning before work?"
Kairi gasped in mock affront. "Vanitas, is that all she's good for? You jerk!"
Vanitas began to laugh and then he struggled to sit up as far as he could. Kairi's happy mood faded as she saw how his face screwed up in pain, but her concern was soon replaced by happiness when she saw that Vanitas was just trying to kiss Olette. Olette obliged him, meeting him halfway only to pull away so she could ream him out for trying to get up.
"Vanitas! You're going to exacerbate your wounds!" Olette cried when Vanitas wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
Kairi took that as her cue to leave, so after whispering a goodbye, she did so. She knew Sora's room was just down the hall because she could see his parents standing down there with one of the teachers Kairi remembered from the school they'd all dropped out of. She hesitated in the hallway for a long time, wondering what to do. She felt unbearably guilty for getting Sora into this mess. Did she have the right to visit him in the hospital? To be his girlfriend? To love him? She wasn't sure anymore.
Sora's father spotted her standing there and his face cracked into a relieved grin. He jogged down to where she was at and gave her a quick hug.
"Good thing you finally came, kiddo," he said. "First person he asked for when he woke up was you."
Kairi lowered her gaze. She didn't deserve to be here. Still, she allowed herself to be led to the hospital room feeling more nervous than usual. Almost like at the very beginning of the school year when she had been at her locker, trying to hide as a laughing Tidus and joking Sora had come down the hallway towards her. Of course, that had been back when Sora had "hated" her, not when he was openly and blindly in love with her.
Sora's mother was deep in conversation with Sora's teacher when Kairi woke up, but she broke away long enough to let Kairi know that Sora was awake and that she could feel free to visit as long as she liked. Kairi thanked her. She had to admit, she was surprised that Sora's parents still liked her. After how convincing Sora had been with his false hatred, she would have thought that they'd take their son's side in the matter.
Kairi turned to place her hand on the doorknob, took a deep breath to steel herself for anything to happen, and then went into the room.
Sora looked a beaten up mess. He had been cleaned of all the blood, but from what she could see above the blankets, his body was mottled with black, green, and purple bruising. His wrist was in a cast and though his eye was no longer swollen shut, it was still ringed in black. He had few cuts on his upper cheek that had small, rectangular white bandages placed over them and reddish brown bruising on his righthand collarbone. Kairi had no idea how bad the wounds were under his hospital gown, and she didn't think she wanted to know.
He was diligently flipping through channels on the TV, seemingly too out of it to notice that she was there. He coughed for a moment and in his cough, Kairi could hear how much pain he was in. Her eyes widened in horror when she saw him look at flecks of blood in his palm from where he'd covered his mouth, and she fought the urge to leave immediately because Jesus Christ, this was all her fault.
"Look at you," Kairi said softly in a tremulous voice, placing her hands on her hips. "You lazy bum . . . Always getting yourself hurt."
His lidded cobalt blue eyes traveled to her and lit up. His lips tilted into the same half of a smile that Vanitas had given her and he set the remote down in his bed. He moved his head over to look at her and coughed miserably again, even though he was still smiling.
"You're here," he said quietly, and Kairi had a feeling that was as loud as his voice would go.
She pulled up a chair as close as she could and tentatively held his hand. She could tell he was trying to squeeze her fingers affectionately but he was too weak. She held back tears. This was her fault.
"I'm sorry, Sora," she said. "I'm sorry that I made you feel like you had to go through with that."
Sora shook his head and said, "It's not your fault. You tried to stop me. I knew this would happen, and I was-" he was stopped by another violent coughing fit and a groan of agony. Then, he continued, "I was prepared for what happened."
"To be beaten up like that?" Kairi looked down. "If I wasn't in your life, then none of this would have happened to you and Vanitas."
"Hey, don't say that," he said angrily, causing her to look him in the eyes. "Don't you ever say that. I love having you in my life, and I wouldn't have it any other way."
"But I cause nothing but problems for you, Sora," she protested, voice thick with emotion. "I was the reason we lost Namine and Roxas. I was the reason that this all started. I shouldn't have told anyone what Riku was doing. I should have just kept it a secret until I was eighteen and could leave."
"Kairi, stop," he said. His voice sounded pleading and meek, which was surprising from someone as strong as him. "Please don't say that. That's the worst possible option you could have chosen. If you hadn't told, then you could be dead by now."
". . . Better me than Roxas or Namine." She hung her head ashamedly.
Sora was silent. He was quiet for so long that Kairi got worried and forced herself to look him in the eyes again. He was crying, his chin trembling as he did nothing to try and stop himself. Though Kairi had a feeling he was in too much pain and had no energy to stop.
"How could you say that, Kairi?" he demanded through his tears. "Seriously, how the fuck could you say that? Roxas and Namine didn't deserve to die, but neither do you! It's not like it's some race or competition where it's one or the other. I know you're sad, but I made the choice to join a new gang and now, you'll have all the protection you need and I'm fine with that."
Even more ashamed, Kairi averted her eyes. "But it almost cost you your life."
"For you, anything."
Kairi looked up at the conviction in his voice and sighed. "I'm so sorry about all the arguing lately. I'm gonna stop getting on your case about things all the time. You . . . You do so much for me, and you don't deserve to hear me nag."
"It's okay," he said before coughing again for what seemed like an awfully long time.
"Jeez, Sora," Kairi whined. "Are you gonna be okay?"
"Once I heal up," he said in an agonized voice. "I'll make it through. But you . . . You weren't hurt, were you?"
Kairi shook her head. "No, you shielded me from the brunt of it."
He smiled satisfactorily. "Good. I still feel like shit, though. I knew if I let you come, you might get pulled into it."
"I'm stubborn," Kairi said with a small smile. "I would have followed you in Olette's car."
"I know," he mused. "And I still would have protected you from whatever came. You're welcome, by the way."
Both of them giggled a little madly for a minute before Kairi stood up and leaned over to kiss his forehead through his bangs. When she did, Sora gathered up all of his strength to lift the hand of his that wasn't broken so he could hold her face and bring her down for a real kiss.
"I almost didn't get to tell you I loved you one last time," Sora murmured, kissing her again. "You, and the baby."
Kairi's heart skipped a beat.
Sora went on, "He or she is okay, right?"
"The baby? Um . . ." She couldn't believe she was still lying about this. "The baby is perfectly fine."
Sora's eyes brightened. "Thank God. I was worried I was gonna have to get myself killed defending your honor. Though I might punch Yazoo in the face because I know this whole thing was probably his idea."
"He doesn't seem to like any of us that much," Kairi said absently. She was too busy mentally attacking herself for lying to the love of her life still.
"Yeah, well he's an ass napkin." More horrific coughing, more blood on his hands.
"I second that," she joked in reply before she sat down again and sighed. "I wish that there was something more I could do to help you. You really seem like you're in a lot of pain."
"Kairi, you know I'd do anything for you, right?"
Kairi could only nod.
Sora smiled. "Well, this pain is nothing. Don't worry about me."
"Too bad," she laughed. "I worry about you constantly because I love you."
"Mm, don't doubt it. I'm pretty lovable."
Kairi rolled her eyes. "Yep. A total teddy bear. Anyway, do you want me to go get you some food? Something that isn't hospital mumbo jumbo?"
Sora shook his head, smiling fondly over at her. "Nope. I want you to stay right her and watch crappy TV with me while I recover. Because once they discharge me and I'm well enough, I'm going to go to Kadaj and see about getting this shit over with. I'm ready to be done with it once and for all. Once it's done, we can move to the mainland if you still want to, okay?"
Kairi settled into her chair and folded her arns on the mattress, resting her head on them and closing her eyes. She didn't care if they moved. Not anymore. Because now she was ready for it to be done and over with. And as Sora pushed past the pain in his body so he could comb his fingers through her hair, Kairi knew.
It was time for her to fight in her own battles, too, even though she had people who wanted to fight them for her.
~x~
A/N: Holy poop. It's like the calm before the storm. See you next time!
