Sora sat up in his bed, looking out of the window.
He went through this every night. Ever since he had found his way back to Destiny Islands, ever since he and his now gone companions had managed to find the most precious thing Sora had and drag him back here, limp and empty.
Even after they had woken him up, he had never been the same again.
Sora looked out over the waters. The tiny island where he and his friends played was a long swim or a short row away.
His eyes flicked down to the dock. One ship was gone again.
Sora climbed out of bed and clambered down the house, clinging to the vines that covered the front of his home. His mother slept on, unaware of her child's departure.
No one seemed to remember much after the Darkness had arrived that night. No one except the children. And who would believe them?
He hopped into his small canoe and paddled across the stretch of dark water. Once he had been fearful of night trips across the waters, now he had lost any fear he once had of the Dark.
He'd stared it in the eye. There was nothing more to fear from it.
He tied the boat to the small dock and started off towards the island. The tiny piece of land that was connected to the main play island by a long bridge. The island with the paopu tree.
No one came onto this island anymore, not after the Darkness.
No one except Riku.
The silver haired boy was sitting there now, up on the sloping trunk of the tree. He spent a lot of time there, unresponsive at the best of times, staring out over the waters to something no one else could ever see.
Sora could imagine what it was. He had seen what the Heartless did when left to their own devices, trapped in their own world. He had been lucky, he had had his friends, the Keyblade, and an unerring faith that it would be all right.
Riku had had nothing. And when they had dragged him out, he had been as still as Kairi had been for those first few days.
He walked now, and he sometimes looked. He never met anyone's eye though, and he had flinched when Tidus' sword flashed past him; right before going into a berserk anger, snapping the wooden blade over the crying blonde's head.
The other children let him be now. They left him on his island and tried to pretend he hadn't ever been elsewhere.
Even Kairi; who was meant to be their best friend; had asked Sora not to go near Riku anymore.
He stopped when he reached the sand of the island. There was a cold breeze, one that didn't reach the rest of the island. The light seemed dimmer here, shadows encroached over the white sand.
Sora had made them bring Riku back with him. Even if it meant bringing a piece of the Darkness back with them.
He walked over to the tree and climbed up. Riku didn't look at him, just stared over the water with large green eyes.
Kairi said his eyes looked dead and empty. Wakka said that something lurked behind them, something not Riku.
Sora thought his eyes just looked scared and sad, and all that watched them was Riku himself, from behind a facade of indifference.
He reached over and covered the older boy's hand. Riku didn't flinch, didn't look, but he did blink slowly.
They sat there for a short time, Sora's hand covering Riku's on the bent trunk of the paopu tree.
He looked to his friend. "Riku?"
Those sad eyes turned to look at him, even though he still faced out to the ocean.
"I'll never leave you behind. I promise."
His eyes shifted to face the ocean again, but his fingers tensed under Sora's.
"I'm sorry that you thought that I picked them over you. I didn't. I said I'd sooner stay in the Darkness with you than go back alone." He shifted closer, thought of something. He moved his hand and reached up to undo the chain around his neck.
"Riku, I promise, I'm not going to let you go anywhere you don't want to. I won't leave you alone again. Even if you tell me to. Every time you come out here, I'll be right behind you." He leant over to clasp the chain around the older boy's neck, arranging the warm metal crown over the centre of Riku's chest. "There. Now you have my necklace, so even if you can't see me, you know I'm only a whistle away."
Riku looked down to Sora's fingers, adjusting the pendant. He reached up, touched his fingers to the warm metal and then looked at Sora.
Sora held his gaze, a small smile on his lips, his hand close enough to feel the chill of Riku's own.
Slowly, Riku curled his hand around Sora's and held it over his heart, brought up his other hand to hold it there. His eyes sank closed.
The brunette reached up and softly tucked a silver bang behind one ear, letting his hand linger along Riku's cheek.
"Can you hear it?"
Sora blinked, his eyes going wide as he realised it was Riku that had whispered the soft words.
"Hear what?"
For a moment, Riku did nothing, but then his hands tightened over Sora's for an instant and one hand reached over to Sora's bare chest, touching his breastbone. "I listened to it. It called me back to you."
Sora held Riku's hand to his heart and they both just listened.