Kairi awoke suddenly, shaking herself from a nightmare.

            Only a dream…

            Wait.  Exactly how much of yesterday had been a dream?

            She scrambled out of her bed and ran for the room next door.

            He was there.

            Sora was here in her house, safe and sound.  Sora lived.

            Kairi settled herself against the wall, relieved.  From where she stood, she could see his chest rising and falling gently.  Sound asleep he was.

            She went to his side and sat on the stool by the bed.  She had sat here last night until three in the morning.  She was worried for him.  He'd seemed all fuzzy and upset.

            What had happened during the last ten years?

            He had grown, for one thing.  Sora was a lot taller—not as tall as Riku, but tall enough.  He was by no means as scrawny as he had been as a child.  His hands were thick and calloused, his limbs refined.  His hair had gotten long and scraggly, tangled all the way down to his shoulders.

            Riku had helped Sora clean up last night.  The hair was still too long and droopy to make Sora look like Sora.  But a little scissor artistry and some hair gel could surely fix that, couldn't it?

            The question dared to linger in Kairi's mind.  How different was Sora on the inside?

            He's here with you, Kairi.  That's the important thing.

            She came back with, But last night he didn't seem like himself at all.  He couldn't answer any questions…  I don't know what's happened to him.  Is he all right?  Is he…is he still Sora?

            Kairi was about to sigh at herself when she noticed Sora looking at her.

            She jumped, tumbling to the floor as the stool rolled to the side.

            "When did you wake up?" she asked, trying to laugh at herself while averting her eyes.  She righted the stool and cautiously remounted.

            Sora blinked, a bit sleepily.  "Oh…that's right."

            Was he even in the same world?

            He must have noticed the way her eyes danced around with apprehension, because then Sora sat up a little and smiled.  "I just got up a second ago.  I was a little mixed up.  I had to remind myself where I was.  Are you okay?"

            Kairi nodded.  She really liked that big grin of his.  She couldn't help but giggle, and this she did behind her hand politely.

            Sora touched the top of his head and felt down one of the long knotted strands of brown hair.  "What a mess, huh?"

            She nodded.  "We can fix it."

            Thunder shook the room.

            "It's raining?"

            Kairi looked at him oddly.  "It's been storming since yesterday…when I found you."

            "Oh…right.  I don't really remember it too well."  He scratched the back of his head.  That big old grin…

            It was a lie, wasn't it?

            "Kairi—hey, Kairi?  Why are you crying?"

            She realized that the tears were coming, as they had come a hundred times before, round streams that formed a glistening net down her cheeks.  She couldn't stop them, as she couldn't stop them a hundred times before.  She coughed into her hands in a futile attempt to hide her face.

            "Kairi…"  He held her wrist.  His grip was hard.  It hurt a little and she recoiled.

            "Sorry," he said immediately.  He loosened his fingers, but they still lingered against her bare skin.  "Tell me…what is it?  What did I do?"

            Kairi lifted her gaze a few inches.  Through the blur of tears she could make out his expression.  She only cried harder.  "Your smile…it's a lie."

~*~

            Kairi fell into his arms, her tears moistening his chest.  Sora placed his hands against her back, holding her close to him.

            He cursed his mind for being fraught with nightmares.  He tried to remember the things he was supposed to and forget the things that kept him up at night.  All of it was so blurry.  His consciousness wove back and forth between past and present.

            Was he insane?

            Oh, God.  What if none of this is happening?  What if I'm hallucinating…again?

            He held the woman close, his face near her neck.  He dove his nose into her hair.

            This smell…  This is Kairi.  Kairi always smelled like this…

            She smelled sweet, like a flower.  She smelled salty, like the ocean breeze.  She smelled good…like fresh-made bread.  It was so many sensations all at once.  Sora tightened his grip, wrapping his arms so far around her that his fingers reached his own sides again.

            There was one thing about a smell.  It couldn't be a dream.

            Kairi.  Kairi.  Kairi.

            He held her close.  At that moment he thought only of her, only of the fact that he was home and she was in his arms.  Nothing else mattered to him then.

            Kairi pulled away from him after a few of these heavenly moments.  She held her face very close next to his and stared right into his eyes.  It felt like she was piercing into his soul at that moment, and Sora felt a little scared.

            Dried tears crisscrossed her cheeks.  Her lips were held straight.  Her eyes seemed enormous, huge and pure and maybe…maybe a little scared, too.

            "Sora…is it you?"

            "Of course it's me."

            They spoke in whispers, as if any sound too big would ruin everything.

            "Are you the same Sora?"

            "…I'm not sure."

            "Do you remember me?"

            "Yes."

            "Will you stay with me?"

            He nodded.

            She slid onto the bed beside him.  They both lay down on their sides, facing the door.  Kairi leaned up against Sora and Sora slipped one arm around Kairi's waist, holding her very close.  Kairi closed her eyes and slept.

            When the clock downstairs announced the arrival of eight o'clock, Kairi reluctantly rose from the bed and shook Sora awake.

            "I'm going to go downstairs and see how Nadia is doing," she told him.  "I'll bring you breakfast in a bit."

            Sora realized he had only just fallen asleep.  He had listened for hours to the sound of her breathing, had run his hand from her shoulder to her hip and then back up again, his fingers barely touching her.  Her skin was very smooth beneath the calloused tissue of his fingertips, as well as warm.

            He watched as Kairi left, the end of her robe dragging along the floor.  Her hair was a little curly in the moist air, and it bobbed nicely when she snuck in a little smile at him on the way out.

            Sora sat up, swinging his legs over and setting his feet firmly on the floor.  His legs were long and muscular.  No more knobby knees for him, no more oversized shoes.  He pushed knotted hair from his face and stood.

            The man walked across the room.  Near the door was a full-length mirror, a little grimy from disuse.  In fact, everything was a little dusty.  Must have been a spare room.

            Sora touched a few fingers to his tongue.  He rubbed an oval clean and squinted at his face's reflection in the dimness before wiping his hand on his pants.  In his mind, he was interrogating himself.

            Who are you?

            "I'm me.  I'm Sora."

            Are you sure?

            "Y-Yes."

            But you're not who you were before, are you?

            "Everybody changes."

            You know things can't go back to the way they were before.

            "I know."

            "What's the scowl for?" teased a new voice.

            Sora wasn't used to someone interfering with his internal struggle.  He assumed a battle ready position, swirling his leg back and bending it at the knee.  His empty hands formed fists in the air, ready to strike.

            "Some reflexes you've got there," said the same, cool voice.

            "Riku..."

            "I'm not going to attack you.  Kairi told me you needed a haircut."  Riku emerged from the doorway, gesturing with a pair of scissors.  He inspected Sora carefully.  "You do look like you took a lightning bolt to the head."

            Sora straightened, trying to keep his cool in the face of Riku's harsh smirk.  He really couldn't remember all that was said last night; his head felt sore and fuzzy.  Still…he distinctly remembered a certain dejected look in Riku's eyes.  A look that was absent now.

            "C'mon and sit," Riku ordered, pulling the stool in front of the mirror.  Riku found a cloth in the bottom drawer of the desk and washed the dirty glass.

            Sora sat while the other man was still cleaning.

            Riku came up from behind, the slender silver blades gleaming in his hand.  "What do you want?"

            "I…"  His heart came to his throat.  What do I want?  I want Kairi, and I want to know what happened between her and Riku.  Who is that little girl?  Ach, God, I can't remember.

            "Earth to Sora!  Your hair?"

            Sora started.  "Oh, right, right.  Um…  A little long, you know…"  He began describing the style he wanted, stumbling a lot in his delivery.  He didn't want to be a spiky-headed Sora anymore, didn't want to be the kid with the big shoes and the knobby knees.  He had saved the world, after all…or something.

            Riku begin to snip rhythmically, interjecting comments like, "Have you ever cut it in ten years?"  Sora was mostly silent, trying for a bit of nervous laughter here and there.  He never thought Riku would hurt him, but what worried Sora was that Riku would have motivations for hurting him.

            "Is it done?" Sora asked finally when the snip snip's died away.

            "Yeah, you can't tell though.  Lemme get a brush—wherever Kairi keeps those things."  Riku left, the scissor handles still looped around his fingers.

            Sora had noticed how Riku's hair was kept very short now.  Probably the silver-blue locks got too hard to handle, or something.  Riku just seemed so…grown up.

            Damn it, Sora thought.  I can't keep comparing things to the past…

            "Got it!" huffed Riku, out of breath after his footsteps thundered on the stairway.  He held a large comb in his hand, a tool that looked to be carved from a shell.  Riku dragged the hard teeth through Sora's hair, freeing up a few last stubborn knots.  He then used a bit of string to tie up the inches of excess in the back, which fringed out.

            "Satisfied?" Riku asked.

            Sora stared down his mirror image.  He saw himself a new man.  A few curved bangs hung over his forehead, the tips daring to fall into his eyes.  The rest was pulled back into a loose ponytail that scraped the nape of his neck when he moved.

            "You don't even look like you anymore," Riku mumbled, amused, as he picked up some scraps of knotted brown hair from the floor.

            Sora stood and examined himself in the mirror.  He realized then that his old clothes, the ones full of holes that he had long ago outgrown, had been replaced by a plain white t-shirt and loose-fitting black-brown pants.  "These clothes belong to you?"

            "Yeah, but I never used them," Riku replied.  "I can't believe you were still wearing your old red pants when Kairi found you."

            Sora turned his side to the mirror, still amazed at the transformation.  He had only seen his reflection a few times in the last ten years, when he had stumbled upon a river or lake in the daytime.

            No…don't think about the past.

            His thoughts began to whir.  He was transported back to a battle near a body of water.  He had just been trying to drink and the monsters had snuck up on him and—

            "Hey.  Hey."

            Riku's hand was gripping Sora's shoulder.

            "You okay?"

            "Y-Yeah…  I just spaced out."

            Riku's features were pinched slightly with concern.

            Sora fumbled with his tongue inside his mouth, trying to think of a subject they could switch to.  "Hey, you're pretty good at cutting hair."

            "I cut Nadia's hair all the time.  She likes it a little short, but it grows pretty fast."

            "Nadia is…the little girl…"

            "My daughter," Riku said.

            "Right…"  Sora backed up to sit on the bed.  He held his bare hands in front of him, had his elbows rest on his knees.  "Your daughter…"  He was slumped over, thinking.  "And Kairi's?"

            "Look."  Riku's word was a firm command.

            Sora jerked his head up.

            Riku's eyes were hard, buried beneath a frozen face.  "Look here, Sora.  Any relationship Kairi and I had…ended six years ago.  She's all yours."

            He left for the door.

            "Riku—"

            Riku paused, his back toward Sora.  His voice was breaking.  "But Nadia is still mine…"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wau, actually got in over 2,000 words this time.  Amazing.  I really deserved it after spending 5+ hours on my Hot Zone project.  Did you think this chapter was a little depressing?  Try spending half your day thinking about people dying of Ebola.  Yeah.  Kingdom Hearts characters being moody doesn't seem half bad, does it?  Anyway, I'm starting to feel more serious about this story…so look out for a lot more people feeling sorry for themselves and all that.  Oh, and I'll be gone Wednesday—Sunday next week for the Science Olympiad national competition, so y'all probably won't hear from me until after that.  I get to go to…Ohio.  Ooh…exciting.