~*~

            There were times when she thought life too unreal to be reality.  There were times when she was not sure if she was dreaming or not.  Could things really be as terrible as they were?  Or was today just a nightmare?

            Thump.  Thump.  Thump.

            Was her mother going to die?

            Thump.  Thump.  Thump.

            What about the unborn baby—her little brother or sister?

            Thump.  Thump.  Thump.

            When she clamped her hands over her ears tightly enough, she could drive out all the noise around her.  She wanted to rid herself of every sound, but there was still the buzzing of her own thoughts.  When these were quieted, there remained the steady pulse, the beating of her own heart, echoing inside her ears.

            Thump.  Thump.  Thump.

            Never ceasing, sometimes speeding up and, at other times, slowing down.  If she concentrated hard enough, it was almost a drum commanded by a skilled musician with a steady hand.

            Thump.  Thump.  Thump.

            Her eyes were squeezed shut.  Inside her mind was displayed a scene of dancing whites and grays and blacks.  She kept a tight leash on her imagination, lest it show her something more human than these swirling colors.

            Thump.  Thump.  Thump.

            Her own little world.  She was in her own world.  There was no one else.  There was no chaos around her.  Swirling colors and the steady beating of her heart.  That was all.

            Thump.  Thump.  Thump.

            No.  No!  Someone was shaking her.  Someone trying to rouse her from her self-imposed seclusion—her paradise where there was no trouble.  There was no one around to be in trouble.

            Thump.  Thump.  Thump.

            Farewell, heartbeat…  The real world had broken through.

~*~

            "Nadia?  Nadia!"  Edgar continued to shake her.  He grabbed her arms and pulled her hands from her ears.  She put up quite a struggle.  He had to employ a great deal of his strength.

            "What?" she growled in a low voice when she was finally pulled from her reverie.

            Jalen moaned and wiped his eyes.  He was awake, too.  Everyone was awake now.

            The clock in the study announced it was two.

            Nadia took one hand and pulled a mesh of hair away from her face, pulling it back to reveal a dull expression.  She leaned back and took her little brother against her, hugged him to her side.  The boy, trembling, responded by throwing his arms around his sister.

            Edgar took a seat for the first time in nearly two hours.  He sat on the couch next to Nadia and Jalen.  His aching legs thanked him dearly.

            "Well, what is it?  What did you bother me for?"  Nadia looked around the room.  "Where'd Sora go?"

            "To see your mother," Edgar replied.  "You are going next."

            She turned her head toward him slowly and mechanically.  "Nothing's happened…?"

            She really was oblivious to all that went on in the past three hours?

            "Nadia, they delivered the baby."

            "Is it—?"

            "Very small…"

            "But—?"

            "Still alive, as of now."

            "And Mom?"

            "Selphie came down and told us that they are both doing all right for the time being, but that it is not certain when this could change…"

            "What's gonna happen ta Mommy, big sister?" Jalen whispered fearfully.

            "I don't know, Jay…" Nadia told him, her words and expression echoing his uncertainty.

            "You can go see for yourself," Sora said from the edge of the room.  It was impossible to judge the situation using the blank look on his face.

            "Mom!" Nadia cried.  She left Jalen with Edgar and ran for the stairs.  Her path took her right by Sora but, as far as Edgar could see, the two failed to exchange any signal whatsoever.

            Sora continued to stand there, and Edgar continued sitting.  There was nothing either of them could do.

            Fate had taken the wheel now.

~*~

            It was dim. It was cloudy outside and, on top of that, the curtains were drawn.  There was only a candle's wavering light.

            Kairi was alone in the room when Nadia entered.  The older woman was lying—sleeping, perhaps—in the middle of the large bed.  The candle was on a table directly behind and slightly above her, so it cast long shadows under her eyes, nose, and mouth.  These dark shadows leapt across her gentle face.

            Nadia froze where she was, her hand lingering on the knob of the door she had just closed.  Half of her wanted to open it back up and run out and scream.  The girl could not help but recall her father's tranquil expression when he died….

            Had her mother left this realm to join him?

            She very much wanted to scream, but it was far too quiet to scream.  She would not dare to shatter the peace of that darkened bedroom.  She instead made silent steps to Kairi and knelt on the floor beside the bed.

            Kairi's breathing was either very faint or nonexistent.

            "Mom…"

            Sora would have said something if she were dead, right?

            "Mom, please be here…"

            He would have warned her, right?

            "Mom, please wake up."

            Right?

            "Please…"

            Kairi's eyelids fluttered and she turned her head just slightly.  Her lips opened into a tired smile.

            "Mom!"

            "Nadia," Kairi breathed softly.  "It's wonderful to see you."

            "Oh, Mom…"  Salty tears were spilling down Nadia's cheeks as warm relief flooded into her heart.  "I thought you might…  I didn't know if…  If…"

            "I know, honey."

            The echoes of darkness were still dancing under her eyes, her nose, her mouth…

            "I just wanted to tell you I was wrong to say that horrible stuff before," Nadia blurted out all at once.  She choked back sobs.  "You will…always be…my mother…"

            "Nadia…"  Kairi's eyes sparkled.

            "No matter what, Mom!"  She paused, holding one hand near her mouth.  "I'm so sorry for what I said.  I got carried away.  I didn't even think about you and the baby…  I wish I could take it all back now, but I can't.  I'm so sorry!"  She collapsed into the bed, her head buried in the comforter.  She felt Kairi's hand on her head, straightening the hair with motherly affection.

            "Some of what you said is true, Nadia…"

            The girl straightened, pushing herself up with her elbows.

            "Sit by me," her mother directed, indicating the spot next to her.  Nadia obeyed, sitting with her body twisted slightly so her long legs touched the floor but her torso was still angled towards Kairi.

            "Mom…?"

            "You know, Nadia, love is…a complex thing.  In my life I have experienced so much love…for so many people.  But the feeling is unique with each person.  Even my feelings toward you and Jalen are different.  I don't love one of you more than the other, but my feelings aren't identical.  Do you understand, Nadia?  Maybe just a little?"

            She nodded.

            "If I were to sum up love in one word, I would have to choose 'complex,'" Kairi said next, more to herself than to her daughter.

            Nadia nodded once more.  She realized then how much more life experience her mother had, and she felt a little humbled by it.

            "There's something else you have to understand about me, Nadia, and that is that I'm really a very weak person.  I'm not like you or your father or Sora.  I'm not so strong-willed.  I'm weak…I need other people to help me.  And I'm really quite selfish."  She smiled, then, a humble smile of reflection.

            The reflection deepened, and Nadia knew her mother was traveling back to a different time.

            "From the day I first came to this island, I always relied on Sora and Riku.  We played together constantly—hey, I was a kid once, too, you know.  I thought the endless summer days would last forever.  I never really considered that things could change.  Maybe I didn't want them to, and that's why I tried ignoring it when they actually did…

            "Riku was a different person when he was fifteen.  What he wanted more than anything was to get off this tiny island and see the world—actually, he wanted to see different worlds.  We had this…ridiculous plan to take a raft to another world.  Riku was the mastermind behind it, and Sora got excited about any kind of adventure.  I went along with the two of them because I didn't want to be left behind.  I believed that, if the three of us were still together, nothing would go too terribly wrong.  I thought we could always come home and everything would go back to the way it used to be.  Who knows how long I continued to feel that way…

             "I was blind, then.  I didn't see that Riku was changing until it was too late.  I didn't understand about the Darkness then.  You just can't understand it until you've experienced it…  I guess I'm still pretty ignorant, too, at least compared to Riku and Sora…"

            Nadia continued listening.  She had heard something of the Darkness and Sora and Kairi's adventure, but never really processed it as more than a fairy tale.

            "But…things did go terribly wrong.  Our world was swallowed up by the Darkness, and I almost lost my heart.  Sora saved me and kept my heart safe.  Riku was corrupted at that time and taken over by an awful man called Ansem.  I think I've told you this before…"

            Kairi recounted most of the important details of her adventure and how the worlds were saved.

            "There's something I've never told you, Nadia:  what happened after the Door was sealed.  Your father was trapped in the Darkness for two years and he…he continued to suffer...  Finally, he made it back here.  Sora was still missing, though, and that's how this whole…ordeal started.

            "Like I told you, I'd always relied on Sora and Riku.  I came back to the island when it was restored, but I didn't have either one of them.  I was lonely and scared.  I began to think they would never return and I would be alone forever.  I told you, Nadia…  I'm a weak person.  When Riku finally came back, he was still scarred from his ordeal in the Darkness.  He told me he didn't remember any of it, but I suspect there were parts that haunted him, at least in his nightmares.  There were times when he cried out in his sleep…a piercing scream...  It broke my heart.

            "At that time, we were both hurting.  We leaned on each other and grew very close.  Riku took care of me.  He was always there to protect me when I was afraid.  I think Riku had always cared for me, but I had been closer to Sora before because of how Riku had been when he had was being polluted by the Darkness.  But now all I had was Riku and all I knew was Riku.  I felt madly and passionately in love with him.  For a short time we shared something beautiful…

            But then you abandoned him, Nadia couldn't help but think as she tried to stop her face from revealing her resentment.  He was devoted to you, Mom.  And what you did to him in return…

            "I had tried to tell myself Sora wasn't coming back.  Every year that passed hurt a little more because I was still hoping he would return.  I wanted to bury that hope so it couldn't hurt me anymore.  I tried to forget Sora, or come to terms with his death, but I just couldn't.  I struggled so much with this.

            "I realized that Riku loved me completely, and yet I still thought of Sora every single day.  I thought that it wasn't fair to Riku to stay with him and still be thinking about someone else.  He proposed to me and I…I had to reject him.  I thought that was best."

            Nadia took a moment to process this and for that time the room was quite still.  It was darker, now; the candle's light was dwindling.  Kairi's strength seemed to be on the same path, or, perhaps, her mood had created the hollow tone the woman now employed.

            The light went out, suddenly.  Maybe a draft had extinguished it.

            "Mom?"  She was horrified, suddenly, trying to break the connection in her mind between the candle's flame and her mother's life…  "Mom?"

            "It's hard, you know," Kairi told her in a broken voice.  Nadia realized she was fighting back sobs.  "Love can be the most painful thing in the world.  I think that the deepest wounds come from people you love and trust…"

            Nadia knew exactly what her mother meant.

            "Did Riku feel betrayed?  I don't know.  I hope to God not, but…  But I sure felt like a traitor.

            "Sometimes it's when people love each other the most that they can hurt each other the worst.  Not on purpose, but it happens.  I didn't want him to keep loving me.  He should have hated me.  I wish he had hated me…"

            Nadia understood then.

            "I miss Papa," she whispered into the darkness.

            "I miss him too, baby.  Every single day."

            Nadia fell into her mother's embrace, became buried in her mother's arms, as she hadn't been for nearly a decade.  She felt like a little girl again. She felt her father's loss from a perspective other than one of self-pity.  She realized what a great man he had been and how, up until now, she had mourned the hole Riku had left in her life and not Riku himself.

            Maybe people were designed to be selfish.

~*~

            Kairi held her daughter for a long time in that darkened room.  She finally drifted off to sleep.  Her new baby was close by, in another room with the doctor, being watched around the clock.  Selphie and Tidus had taken Rinny home so all three of them could get a little rest, especially since the two adults had not had any sleep at all.  Sora, Edgar, and Jalen were at the dock fishing for supper.

            It was there that they first saw the boat, a simple and small vessel painted white.  The clouds had parted recently, so the thing shone very brightly as the sun's rays struck it.

            The boat docked nearby.  Out stepped the passenger, Andra, Sora's mother.  Despite the heat of the pounding sun, she wore a full-length dress of heavy black fabric.  Her sand-colored hair was tied into a bun, over which a small hat was affixed.   From the hat hung a floor-length veil of translucent black across a somber face.

            She was in mourning.

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my mother's father said that once…  'when someone dies, you're not crying for him, but for the hole he's left in your life.'  something like that…and it's so true.  humans are selfish creatures...  i never knew my grandfather, though; he died when my mom was seventeen.  actually, he had a brain tumor…  don't smoke, kiddies…it'll get into your lungs and then spread to your brain and kill you…  smoking is why i never met my own grandfather…