AN: I really love the idea of Riku and Naminé bonding during the Days timeline, and a friendship forming between them. They've got similar demons and similar battles to fight, and also it'd be nice to see someone looking after her.
I hope you enjoy! Please leave kudos or a comment if you can :)
Sometimes Riku comes to visit, to check up on them. Really, it's more to make sure Sora is safe, which is progressively getting less and less the case, despite her best efforts.
Naminé wishes those times were more frequent; she longs for the company of anyone other than DiZ and the sleeping Sora, who both remind her of her own shortcomings. Riku doesn't judge. He says he doesn't have a right to.
It's one of those days when the door to the White Room opens slowly, creaking on its old hinges. She looks up, even though she doesn't have to; he's always much quieter than DiZ is.
"Hello, Riku," Naminé says, and he nods in her direction, silver hair longer and messier than the last time she saw him. She vaguely wonders if he has anyone to take care of him, or even talk to him.
Maybe he's as lonely as she is.
"How is it going?" he asks in place of a greeting. There's the usual steely tone of him voice. You couldn't tell by it, but Naminé knew it belied a deep concern. She wished she had better news for him.
"It's... stalling," she said slowly. She glances around the room, walls covered corner to corner with drawings, memories she's put back how they were, the order shifting and changing every day to try to make things right.
"Because of her," Riku says, and Naminé nods sadly. Her eyes find one drawing in particular: three figures holding hands, one shorter than the others, with black hair. She looks down guiltily.
"She doesn't deserve to suffer like this," she says.
"She doesn't. But it isn't your fault," Riku asserts, sitting down opposite her. "It's theirs."
The way Riku says it with significance, Naminé knows who he's referring to. The Organization. That's where it all started.
But she played her part as pawn. She didn't have to, but she did.
"I watch them sometimes," Naminé admits. "The way they sit and laugh together. How they worry about each other. How they smile and talk about nothing important... They really care about each other. It makes it so much harder."
Riku just sits there silently, breathing deeply with eyes downcast. He feels the same way, she knows, or this wouldn't still be happening. Despite how much he wanted to help Sora, he wouldn't kill her to do it. It left them in an impossible situation.
"I want it to be her choice," says Riku quietly. "It has to be her choice. I can't hurt Kai- I can't do this again."
"DiZ says it's taking too long," Naminé says. "And Roxas doesn't even know yet."
"DiZ says a lot of things," Riku says dismissively. "Don't always listen to him."
Naminé sighs. "He's right this time, though. The longer it takes, the harder it is. The more it'll hurt Xion... and Roxas."
Riku says nothing again, and stands, walking over to a wall and just barely lifting his blindfold to look at the picture on it. He goes to that one a lot.
"She doesn't want to leave him," he says finally, pulling the black back over his eyes. "I understand the feeling."
Naminé sighs again, smoothing out her dress with her hands, which have begun to cramp. The drawing and the meddling and everything is taking its toll on her. She's tired. Are Nobodies supposed to get tired?
"We have a terrible job," she says, and watches Riku lean back against the wall, arms crossed. She knows he's antsy. Simultaneously desiring and dreading to do what he came here for.
"Do you want me to come with you?" she asks, voice soft.
He waits a beat. "Alright."
And together, silently, they go down the stairs, past the computers and machines and into a familiar towering white chamber.
From his spot in the middle of the room, raised in his pod, it would seem like Sora is watching them, if his eyes weren't closed and his breathing slow. Naminé shudders just a little; the room always does this to her.
Riku walks closer than she dares to, stopping a pace from the glass and putting one hand on it. "He looks older."
"It's been a while since you last visited," Naminé says.
"It's hard to escape their watch long enough to get here unnoticed." He stands like that for a while, several minutes probably. Eyes downcast, gloved palm on the cold glass.
A simple realization washes over her. A truth maybe he was trying to conceal, or maybe not. Maybe he didn't even know.
"You love him," Naminé says. It isn't a question.
Riku doesn't say anything, breathing slowing to match the leisurely rise and fall of Sora's chest.
Naminé steps closer to him, testing the limits of their fragile bond. She stops a step behind him, looking down at her folded hands. "I wish I could tell you he feels the same. The truth is... I don't know. His feelings aren't so obvious." She pauses a moment, puts one hand gently, comfortingly on Riku's shoulder. "There's warmth, though. When he thinks about you and Kairi. Sometimes he'll talk about you. All together. It's just mumbling, but always together. Like the three of you are one unit he can't separate from each other." (She ignores the slight pang of jealousy throbbing inside her. She shouldn't be able to feel this way, anyway.)
"That's more than I could ever ask for," Riku says, hand falling from the surface of the glass. He turns to her, his lips curled slightly upwards. Naminé doesn't think she's ever seen him smile before.
He'll do it more often, she thinks, when Sora is back the way he used to be.
Riku takes her hand from his shoulder, easing back into careful nonchalance. "I should go. I have a job to do."
"Me too," Naminé says sadly. How long will it be until she sees him again, she wonders. Days? Weeks? Months?
Do they even have that kind of time?
She doesn't say that. Instead, she walks him to the front door, tipping her head slightly. "I'll do whatever I can for him," she promises.
Riku nods once, slowly and surely. He knows this. He believes her. It feels nice, she thinks vaguely, to be believed.
Then he's gone, a flash of silver and black amongst the trees, and Naminé sighs again. Closes the door behind her. Walks back up the stairs, back to the room covered floor to ceiling with scribbles of crayon and desperate attempts.
"Whatever I can," she says sadly, and gets back to work.