Wings of Avalon: So true! I'm glad their feelings seem to have come through the way I want them to.

coolmegan123: Talking about what you're thinking and feeling always helps...if only Riku and Meli would get that through their heads!

So, this week I wrote a oneshot for posting after this story. It's an AU, a look at another parallel universe that branches off from an early chapter of Sorrow's Promise. Ie, something that happened in the story goes a bit differently, sending Meli's life on a completely different path.

I'm interested in writing more of those, exploring some of the "what if's" from KH canon or my own canon, but I don't necessarily have any more ideas right now. So if any of you guys have thoughts of things you'd like to see, shoot them my way!

Chapter 4

Perspective – Riku

"So." Sora plopped down next to me in the sand, sprawling his legs out in front of him. "Spring break starts tomorrow."

I gave a moderately-interested grunt and nod. It didn't really make that much of a difference to me, but I assumed that he was going somewhere with this statement.

"Did you have anywhere that you wanted to go next week?"

I watched Kairi for a moment, who had taken of her shoes and socks and was standing at the edge of the surf. It would probably do me some good to get off this island. I have no idea where I would go, though, that wouldn't be just as bad. "No, not really."

"Well, Kairi and I were talking about maybe going to Twilight Town to see the guys over thre. You know, since we didn't get much of a chance to talk to Roxas and Xion yet." He cut his eyes over to me. "What do you think?"

My face blanched, and I swallowed hard before shaking my head. "Yeah, no, I...I don't think I would want to do that. You guys go ahead, though," I hurried to add. "You should visit, I know you want to, and I'm sure they wanna see you guys, too."

Kairi turned to face us, a pout on her lips. "We're not just gonna leave you here by yourself."

"I'll find something else to do." I racked my brain to come up with a quick idea. "I'll, uh...maybe I'll go see Mickey. You know, I haven't gotten to meet Queen Minnie yet."

Sora brightened. "Oh, yeah, that would be fun! Kairi should meet her, too. Maybe we could do that after...but I really want you to come to Twilight Town with us. Why won't you go?"

I sighed. "I don't even like Axel...Lea...whatever the heck the guy's name is. And Roxas and Xion...they don't want to see me, trust me." Not to mention the plethora of memories of Meli waiting for me there.

"Why not?"

He's really gonna make me spell this out for him, isn't he? I rubbed the back of my neck uncomfortably. "Sora...there were...it...things happened while you were sleeping. Bad things. Things I'm not proud of. The two of them have every reason to hate me."

Frowning, Kairi crossed to us and dropped down on her knees in front of me. "You think they blame you for them having to go back to Sora?"

I ducked my head down, bracing my forehead against one hand. "Of course they do. It was DiZ's idea, but I was the one enforcing it."

Sora wrinkled his nose. "I thought they both made their own choice to go back."

"Well...yeah...sorta...after being manipulated and kidnapped and threatened." I sighed again. "It doesn't really count as a free choice."

Kairi slapped her hands down onto her thighs. "Well then, it sounds to me like a trip to Twilight Town is exactly what you need."

"What? Kairi –"

She held out a finger in front of my face to stop me. "You're never going to stop feeling bad about all of that if you don't give yourself the chance to apologize to them. Even if they don't forgive you yet, you'll know you've done your part and can move on."

I rubbed my hand vigorously over my face. She had a point, I had to admit that. "Yeah, I get it. But...I just don't know if I can right now. It's just...bad timing, I...I don't know if I can." The last thing I needed at this point in life was more emotional turmoil.

Sora turned over onto his knees to face me and started giving me those blasted puppy dog eyes. "Please, Riku? It'll be good for you to go somewhere, and I don't know if you'll actually do it if it's not with us, plus we really wanna be with you, and our parents will feel a lot better if we're all together, and Roxas and Xion deserve to have the chance to talk to you, and you deserve the chance for them to forgive you –"

"Ugh, would you stop I?" With a hand to his face, I shoved him over backwards. I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go. "Fine, I'll come with you, if you'll just stop it with the begging." I'm gonna regret agreeing to this.

"Yay!" He scrambled up off of his back and started digging in his pocket. "Okay, I'm gonna call and let them know we're coming!"

Kairi reached forward and clasped my hands in hers with a gentle smile. "It'll all work out. I promise."

.o.0.O.0.o.

One restless night's sleep, a brief goodbye, and a few hours Gummiship ride later, we were docking in Twilight Town. Sora and Kairi had done their best to keep my mind off of what was to come for the whole trip, chattering pretty much nonstop about anything and everything. A pit of dread had still been steadily forming in my stomach since the evening before anyway. The only good news so far was that the trio lived outside of the main part of town, so we didn't have to actually traverse memory-haunted ground to get there.

The address that Roxas had given Sora led us to the second floor of a small apartment building. I leaned against the wall beside the door as Sora rapped on the wood, my heart beginning to do flips in my chest.

"Hey." It was Roxas who opened the door, though I couldn't actually see him from my position. Sora leaned in and exchanged a bro-hug with him, and Kairi smiled and waved. Xion's voice joined in, too, happily inviting them inside. Sora disappeared, but as Kairi started to step forward she paused, glancing over at where I was still leaning with a questioning look.

Catching her eye, I opened my mouth to say something, realized I had no idea how to express what I was feeling, and dropped my gaze to my shoes.

Kairi cleared her throat. "Um...Riku is here, too. I think he's...is it okay for him to come in, as well?"

There was an awkward silence in which I tried to swallow down the lump blocking my throat. Finally Xion answered, in a tone that sounded like forced cheer. "Yeah, of course."

I almost wished they had said no. Vaguely I could see Kairi motioning to me out of the corner of my eye, but I didn't move until she actually grabbed onto my arm and pulled. I knew continuing to stare at the floor would look stupid, but I didn't want to look up far enough to actually make eye contact. From what I could see of Roxas and Xion, they were doing their best to avoid the same thing.

"Hey, guys!" Lea entered the room with a grin. "Welcome to our humble abode."

"Thanks!" Sora returned.

"Nice to be in Twilight Town and not be running from a kidnapper," Kairi teased.

Lea groaned, throwing his head back. "You just had to bring that up!"

Kairi just laughed at him and glanced around the living area. "It does look like a pretty nice place."

"Yeah, it is," Xion nodded. "We looked all over trying to find the right one. It's one of the only apartments in town with three bedrooms."

"It's got a nice kitchen, too, but..." Lea chuckled. "None of us know anything about cooking. So we just use it to store food that doesn't need to be cooked."

Sora laughed. "Yeah, I can't cook either, unless Little Chef is helping me. Riku's really good at it, though!"

I barely managed not to cringe at being brought into the conversation. The awkward silence was back, at least until Lea broke it with an almost as awkward segue into inviting us all to sit on the couch. At Kairi's prodding, I lowered myself stiffly in between her and Sora, finding a sudden, extreme interest in the half-finished puzzle on the coffee table. Xion settled into an armchair nearby, and the two guys snagged chairs from the dining table to pull up across from the couch. The conversation was still lagging, though, and I knew that if I didn't suck it up there was no chance that the remainder of the visit wouldn't go this way.

"Okay, we might as well get this over with now," I mumbled, still keeping my eyes on the puzzle. "Xion, Roxas...I'm sorry. I don't expect you to forgive me for what I did to you, but I want you to know that I am really sorry about all of it. The fact that I was doing it to try to save Sora realy doesn't excuse my behavior. I..." I bit down on my lip, then gestured to my friends on either side of me. "These two can attest that I have a bad tendency to get a one-track mind when something is important to me, and that wasn't the first time that other people have gotten hurt in my wake...though it was definitely one of the worst.

"Besides that, I...I let DiZ get in my head." I heaved a sigh. "He had me convinced that none of you could actually feel anything and didn't need to exist, and I refused to change that view even when I could clearly begin to see the evidence otherwise, even when...when Meli was trying to convince me otherwise. Admitting that DiZ was wrong, that I was wrong, would have meant having to take responsibility for my actions, and trying to talk DiZ into finding another way to go about saving Sora, and...and I wasn't strong enough to do so. Now I am taking responsibility, but I realize it's way too late for that to do any good, so...all I can do is apologize. And say that...I'm glad you're both back. Really glad."

In the short silence that followed, Kairi squeezed my elbow supportively. I wasn't sure whether or not I actually wanted anyone to respond, since I didn't really expect the response to be a favorable one.

Xion was the first to speak up. "I forgive you, Riku." I snapped my focus up to her in shock, then dropped it back down as I spotted Roxas giving her an equally shocked stare. "I never blamed you for anything that happened. You were always very kind to me...well, other than the very first time we met, before we got properly introduced." There was a gentle smile in her voice as she continued. "But...my life at that point was...a confusing mess. Bad, confusing things kept happening, and I had so many questions, and you were the one who actually gave me answers."

"Yeah, but they weren't good answers," I interrupted. "I talked you into sacrificing yourself."

"I never felt like you talked me into it, though. You never pushed me in any direction. You gave me plenty of time to think about it, and even took me to see Axel and Roxas that time. The only time you maybe 'pushed' was when M–" She paused. "When Meli came to the clock tower to see if I had decided yet. But...I kinda needed the push then. I was putting off making up my mind, and everything was just getting worse in the meantime."

"Okay, but I still should have tried to find another way, so that you didn't have to disappear. Even if that meant the process taking twice as long."

"And if it had, then maybe Xemnas would have found a way to complete Kingdom Hearts before Sora could wake up and stop him." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her shrug. "I'm not saying that I don't have regrets, that the whole process was painless. I'm just saying I forgive you. So...just accept that, okay?"

Before I could finish processing and offer her my thanks, Roxas burst into the conversation. "I don't see how you can just forgive him like that."

I gritted my teeth, bracing myself once again for the reaction that I had first expected and been distracted from by Xion's surprisingly calm response.

"I...I just explained –" Xion began.

"Yeah, but you heard what he just said. He didn't even try to find another way. You died, Xion, and none of us could even remember you." His shout turned into a snarl. "And that's not to mention him turning himself into a monster and almost killing me, then kidnapping me and taking all my memories."

Kairi squeezed my arm again as I fought to keep my emotions in check. "That part...that wasn't me, that was DiZ and Naminé..."

"Oh, so are you saying you didn't know what they were going to do?"

"Actually, no. I didn't know his plans for you, I just knew I had to bring you back." I laced my fingers together, studying them intently. "And I freely admit that the method I used was...reprehensible. I wanted to be able to let you choose, like Xion. But you were too wound up, too set on doing something that could have ruined everything. I had to stop you."

"Too wound...?" Roxas scoffed loudly. "Yeah, because I had just lost one of my best friends! Thanks to you! You're lucky I didn't know it was thanks to you at the time, or else I would never have let you get the upper hand."

"Roxas..." Xion pleaded.

"Did you know that I held her in my arms while she disappeared, just like you did with Meli?"

"Roxas, that isn't fair!" Xion exclaimed, sounding angry now. I was trying my best to keep myself from bolting out of the room, or worse yet, crying again. It was bad enough that I went to sleep seeing that moment every night, without being reminded of it during the day.

"How is it not fair?" he demanded.

"Well for starters, you forgot that I existed right after that, so you weren't hurting like he is right now."

"It did hurt, to start with. And it hurts now when I think about it," he shot back.

She sighed. "But now when it hurts, all you have to do is look across the room and see me, and it's all okay. He doesn't get that."

Now it was Kairi's turn to break in, her voice on the verge of cracking. "Guys, can we please stop talking about how Meli isn't here?"

The quick glance I gave Roxas showed that he at least had the decency to look guilty for upsetting Kairi. "Sorry."

"Sorry," Xion echoed quietly.

No one seemed to know how to continue from there. It probably seemed weird to Roxas for him to go right back to yelling at me, but clearly he wasn't ready to have any kind of pleasant discussion with me around.

"I, uh...like I said, I don't expect you to forgive me. I appreciate that you did, Xion, but Roxas, I don't blame you that you haven't. You're not obligated to do so, ever. So, uh...I guess...I've said my piece, you've said yours..." Making up my mind, I stood quickly and gestured toward the door. "I'm gonna head out now. You guys do your catching up. I think everybody here had heard plenty about my involvement in everything at this point."

"Riku..." Sora caught my hand and looked up at me with a pathetic expression.

"You guys are planning on staying the night, right? I'll meet you back at the ship tonight." Shaking Sora's hand off, I gave him a brief, small smile. "Have fun."

Thankfully he didn't protest anymore, and I was able to take my exit rapidly. I was rubbing away the tears that were trying to form with the heels of my hands when I heard a door opening behind me.

"Hey, Riku! Hang on a sec."

I stopped walking, though it was with great reluctance that I turned to face Lea. He shut the apartment door behind him and jogged down the hall to catch up with me.

Once he reached me, he cut his eyes off to the side and scratched the back of his head, not seeming to really know what it was he wanted to say. "Hey, I just...um...I'm sorry about Roxas. He's...he's still dealing with a lot of stuff, ya know?" He shrugged. "We all are, really. But the two of them had a bunch of crap dumped on them during their last days with the Organization, and they're just now getting the chance to work through it. Plus, ya know, emotions...those are all kind of new and weird still...at least having them to this extent. Arguments and blow-ups like that happen, like, a lot these days. But we always make up in the end, so...I bet he'll come around eventually. It might just take a while."

I glanced back at the apartment door. "I'd be very surprised. But...thanks. I'm sure like will get easier for the three of you soon."

He grinned, placing his hands on his hips. "Yeah, I hope so. Anyway, for what it's worth, I don't judge for stupid past mistakes. You seem like a pretty cool guy to me."

Of course he didn't judge for stupid past mistakes, because he – or at least Axel – had made more of them than any of us. But I supposed that if he was going to give me the benefit of the doubt, I should try to do the same with him. After all, he had been nothing but helpful and loyal to the cause since coming back to life as Lea.

"Thanks." I let a small smirk onto my lips. "You, uh...you seem alright, yourself."

"Really? No more threatening to feed me to a Darkside?" he teased.

My smirk grew bigger. "Not today, anyway."

We parted ways, and I found myself standing outside of the apartment building without a plan from there. Go back to the ship and try to waste the day away? Or go into town and face the memories lurking there? Neither option seemed very palatable. Finally I went with the coward's choice, and turned toward the Gummiship. The day had been enough of an emotional disaster already without making it more of one.

A/N: Goal #1 for this story - deal with Meli's death

Goal #2 - Force Riku to have all the conversations/moments that he needs and we deserve but canon will never give us. This was the first of those, so let me know what you thought!