Chapter 47: Running from a Memory

They all sat in Cid's room, everyone enjoying their lemonade. They only sat in Cid's room because he didn't want to be left out from the conversation (and wanted to examine Sora's star shard for some reason). Cid was in the bed, propped against some pillows and his injured leg out. Yuffie sat at the end of the bed, on the edge so she wasn't too close to his leg. Cloud was leaning up against the wall. Leon sat in Cid's desk chair, and Aerith stood next to him, a hand on his shoulder. Sora stood a little bit awkwardly by the doorway.

"I, um… sorry for running off," Sora mumbled, tugging at his fingers.

"It's fine! I'm just glad we found you," Aerith assured him, laughing. "What? Were you afraid we weren't going to let you stay here because of your darkness or something?"

He shrugged. "I- I don't know," he replied. "I was more… embarrassed than anything. I just panicked and-" he trailed off.

"Well, if it is your darkness you're worried about, then don't," Cid said, still examining the star shard. "We had to deal with that enough when Cloud was struggling with his darkness, forever ago. We're used to it."

Sora glanced over at Cloud, who made no movement whatsoever. He either didn't care that they were talking about his darkness so openly or was ignoring them.

"Man, that was forever ago," Cid continued, with a wistful sigh. "Back when Zack was still—aw, shit."

Cid put a hand to his mouth while everyone else all turned to Aerith. She had gone very still, a blank expression on her face.

Leon quickly downed his lemonade. "Aerith," he said. "I'm out of lemonade, may I have some more?"

Aerith quickly shook her head and glanced over at him. "You forgot to say please," she laughed.

Leon sighed and rolled his eyes. "Please," he added.

"Sure!" Aerith replied happily. "Does anyone else need refills?"

Everyone else had taken the hint and quickly finished their lemonade, too.

"Here, I'll help," Leon said, helping Aerith arrange all the glasses on the tray. He ushered her out the door, closing it behind him.

There was silence for a moment, and then Sora asked: "Okay, what was that about?"

Cloud sighed, and Cid opened his mouth, but Yuffie beat the both of them to it.

"Well, alright, I'm not sure exactly because I wasn't here when he was still alive but he was long gone when- when we lost our home and we all started living together in Traverse Town and…" Yuffie fumbled here, face falling and fervor leaving her tone. "I dunno. Aerith just misses him. A lot."

"Oh…" Sora whispered, feeling a little stupid now. In hindsight, assuming Zack had passed away when Leon had said he was gone would have been the most obvious assumption.

"He was… a good friend," Cloud continued where Yuffie left off. There was a tremendous pain in his voice, too. "He and Aerith were close."

"Leon mentioned…" Sora said. "He, uh, didn't mention any of the rest though."

"Well I'm sure he didn't," Cid laughed, though not with the same loudness as usual. "He doesn't like thinkin' about it either. None of us do. Zack was a good kid, and it's a shame he didn't get to live as long as the rest of us."

"Yeah…" Cloud murmured in agreement, hugging himself tight. His eyes were fixed on the ground.

Yuffie shifted uncomfortably where she sat.

"I'm… I'm sorry," Sora said, not sure what else to say. But the heaviness in the room made him feel like he should say something. "What… what even happened, to him?"

Cloud shook his head, firmly.

"Oh," Sora realized belatedly. "Oh, I'm sorry, that was kind of insensitive."

"It's fine," Cloud said, though he still wouldn't look up.

"Can… I ask how long it's been?" Sora ventured. It was something else he was curious about, and seemed like a less loaded question.

"Four… Maybe five years, now?" Cid answered. There was a note of uncertainty in his voice. "Kind of hard to keep track of everything. A lot of bad things happened in those years."

"Losing our world among them," Yuffie grumbled. "I mean- I'm glad we got it back, but."

"Five years? That seems like a while…" Sora said, running it over in his mind. "Why is Aerith still…?" But he trailed off there, not sure of a polite way to phrase it. Maybe it was another question he shouldn't have asked. But five years seemed like an awful long time to carry so strong a grief around.

"Everyone handles grief differently," Cloud answered, a surprising sharpness in his voice. "Everyone heals differently, too."

Yuffie nodded. "Yeah! We just gotta be nice to her."

Sora nodded too, to show he understood. "Thanks for telling me," he said.

"Yeah, sure thing!" Cid assured him. "You deserved t'know, 'specially if you're gonna be stayin' here for a while."

"Right," Sora said, a little surprised. He actually hadn't thought much about how long he was going to stay here. He could stay a while, he guessed. He was certainly welcome here, and this seemed like maybe the best place to stay, if he wanted to try figuring out how to keep his darkness in check.

He smiled a little, as he considered it. Yeah, staying here might be nice.

xxx

Riku shifted uncomfortably. The Organization cloak was really beginning to bother him. He sighed, glancing at Namine, who was sleeping peacefully. She hadn't really budged an inch. However, he was still holding her hand. It wasn't like he couldn't move. He just… didn't really want to…

However, the cloak had been bothering him long enough. He let go of her hand and stood up, quickly removing the darn cloak. He let out a small sigh of relief once it was off. He then frowned, realizing he had no idea what to do with the cloak now. He couldn't just leave it lying around…

Sighing, he opened up a dark corridor to his room and just tossed it through, deciding not to worry about until… sometime later. It didn't really matter now. He was about to sit down back down when there was a knock on the door. He frowned, but went and opened the door.

It was 19.

"Sorry, sir, if you're busy," 19 muttered. "I do, however have all the research I could find on the subject of memories. If you would like to come see it-" he trailed off, and then frowned. After a moment, though, he got an idea. "Would you like me to bring it to you?"

Slowly, Riku nodded.

"If you- wouldn't mind," he said, trying to sound polite.

19 nodded. "It's no problem, sir," he replied, heading off.

He returned only moments later, carrying a small stack of books and a folder. He quickly handed these to Riku, as if they were heavy. However, Riku seemed to have no trouble holding them. Then again, he was pretty strong. He ignored that thought, though, and examined the stack he was now holding.

"That is all the books and loose papers I could find on the subject," 19 explained. "The sections in the books that I thought would be useful are all bookmarked, though you might want to browse through everything to be safe. I'm sure Master Vexen had more files concerning this subject saved to his computer… but… I'm no good with computers. You'll have to ask someone else about that."

Riku nodded, again. "Thank you," he said.

"It was no problem," 19 repeated. "If you have any questions, feel free to call me." He paused, considering something. "Though, if you would like my help with the research-"

Riku shook his head. "It's alright," he muttered. "This way I actually feel like I'm doing something…"

"I'm sure Miss Namine appreciates what you're doing already," 19 said.

Riku glanced up at 19, a bit shocked. "And what exactly am I doing?" he asked.

"Well, you're always there for her when a meltdown is happening-" 19 began.

"But that doesn't stop them from happening," Riku interrupted, bitterly.

19 slowly closed his mouth, unsure if he could say anything else. Anything else that he could think of saying… well… he was sure that Riku didn't want to hear, especially not right now. Finally, he settled on: "If you need me, sir, just call."

Riku nodded again. 19 left.

Riku glanced over the stack of books he held again. He glanced around the room, then at the chair, and then sighed. He settled with sitting on the floor, and began skimming through the loose papers.