Chapter 176: Home

"Should we finish washing the dishes?" Riku asked.

"Dishes can wait," Aerith said, getting to her feet and slipping back into the kitchen. "I should drain the sink, but we can finish washing the dishes tomorrow. Or I can. It's no big deal."

"We can do them now."

Aerith just smiled, shrugged. "I don't feel like it, though." She wiped her hands off on a towel, having drained the sink and rearranged the still-dirty dishes. "You want some tea? Or hot chocolate?" She reached up into one of the cabinets. "Or I suppose you could have some more soda—Cid won't mind."

"Ah… tea, I guess," Riku said, remembering that he didn't quite like the taste of Cid's soda. "What for?"

"Just because."

"Okay…"

Riku got up and joined her in the kitchen, not entirely comfortable being left in the other room by himself. He waited until Aerith had finished pulling the tea bags out of the cabinet, so he wouldn't interrupt her, and then hugged her again.

She laughed, but returned the hug. "Can't get enough hugs, hmm?"

"That- that one was for you," Riku mumbled, letting go of her. "For. Uhm. Zack." He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I- I bet it's awful."

"It's alright." Aerith smiled at him, though it wasn't as wide as normal. "He's been- been gone a while now. I miss him dearly, but I'm… I'm alright." She turned the kettle on.

"You sure…?"

"Yes."

She seemed awfully interested in the teakettle, though.

"Aerith…" Riku said, slowly. "I'm… not sure if you should try lying about this. I know what hiding your pain looks like. Feels like."

"Fine." She sighed, turned to him. "Maybe I wasn't okay, a week ago. Maybe I'm not actually okay now. But yelling at you made me realize that ignoring the thought of him entirely just to save myself some pain isn't worth completely forgetting all the good memories of him I still have. Pain is a part of life just as much as anything else is. You just have to… learn to live with it."

He frowned.

"…this is another indirect lesson for me, isn't it?"

She chuckled, now. "If you want it to be!"

He just shook his head.

"Sorry about earlier, too," he said. "I wasn't exactly nice to you."

"That's alright," she assured him. "I wasn't, exactly, either. Besides—" she grinned "—what's a family if you don't get on each other's nerves every now and then?"

Riku couldn't help but grin with her, still marveling at the turn of events this night had taken.

He and Aerith ended up staying up for the rest of the night, continuing to talk about… things. Aerith apparently didn't need—or want—the sleep, so she was more than happy to stay up and talk with him. Maybe she decided that staying up with him was more important… He wasn't sure, but he couldn't say he cared either way.

He learned more about how they were working on restoring the town. Apparently everything had been going great—they'd restored the market and a few houses—up until the Heartless started showing up large amounts. Things got put on hold to deal with Heartless, but now that the Heartless levels had gone down, repairs were being picked up again. The main goal was to fix up more houses, so that more people had places to stay. Their own places to stay.

In return, Riku told her about the Rebellion, and how things were going. He told her about Roxas. (She politely said nothing about the whole bringing-him-back-from-the-dead deal, but the look on her face was tight). About how the Organization maybe still wanted to kidnap Namine. About Namine.

Aerith ended up telling him more about Zack, too. He learned that Zack was not only a mercenary, but also made his living on bouncing from world to world and defeating monsters. (The idea was actually sort of appealing to Riku, to be completely honest.) He also learned that Zack and Cloud had been good friends, to the point where they played excessive pranks on each other. According to Aerith, some of the pranks ended… disastrously. Apparently, they—Zack—had broken her door once.

After the second cup of tea, their conversation slowly dwindled into something more serious. Riku decided—after a lot of hesitation—that he wanted to tell Aerith about Larxene. He felt he should. Well… no, he just wanted to. Namine was comfort enough, but he wanted to tell Aerith—his family—too. She assured him that she didn't mind, so he told her. Not just about the lightning, but about the taunts, and the things Larxene told him. That crying was weakness. That he was a failure. That bit of the conversation ended with a lot of hugging and Aerith telling him very repeatedly that Larxene was awful and that her words meant nothing and he shouldn't ever believe them. Ever.

He'd already sort of figured that out, but it was nice to hear the words from someone else's mouth.

After the third cup of tea, Aerith started crying.

"I just miss him so much," she choked, wiping her eyes.

Zack.

She missed Zack.

Riku wasn't quite sure what to do to comfort her, but he eventually ended up holding her as she cried, telling her that it was perfectly okay to cry and perfectly okay to miss him. It was all he could do, really.

By the fourth cup of tea—which Riku made and spilled a good portion of—the conversation had moved back to a lighter mood. Aerith was still a little shaky, and brought up Zack less, but she seemed… fine.

They never made it to a fifth cup of tea, because by that point it was morning and the rest of the house was starting to get up. Well, actually, it was just Leon. He was only mildly surprised to see them both up, and after a moment he offered to make breakfast.

"Is waffles too ambitious?" Leon asked, as he headed to the kitchen.

Aerith shook her head. "If you don't mind—"

"I can manage waffles," Leon said. "But if we want anything else, someone else is going to have to cook it."

Aerith made a face, granting him that. She turned to Riku. "Do you- oh." She caught herself mid-sentence, laughed. "You don't want anything, do you?"

"I… wouldn't mind some waffles," Riku said, shrugging.

Aerith broke into a grin. "Do we have bacon?"

"Uh…" Leon checked. "Yeah."

"Great! I'll go wake Cid!"

Aerith practically skipped off, taking the stairs two at a time.

"Were you two just up early, or were you up all night?" Leon asked, looking over at Riku.

"We were up all night."

"Right." Leon nodded at that, seeming entirely unsurprised, if a tad worried. Did Aerith do this often?

Cid came down the stairs a few minutes later, pounding to the kitchen, grumbling something about coffee. Clearly, he wasn't awake enough for conversation.

Yuffie came trudging down the stairs not long later, tailed by Aerith. Yuffie was still in her pajamas, though she kept her mouth shut and didn't complain about being up so early, which came to Riku as a surprise. Maybe it was the idea of waffles and bacon that kept her from complaining.

After a few minutes (and a lot of Cid swearing), Leon announced that breakfast was ready. Riku moved to the kitchen, assuming he was supposed to get his own food. He didn't get far though, because Leon was frowning into the cabinet.

"Are we… missing a plate?" Leon asked.

"Ah, right." Aerith got up and slipped past him. "I need to take the trash out."

Leon slowly turned to Riku.

"Did she… drop another plate?"

Riku shook his head.

"No, I- I did," he said.

That wasn't the total truth, but…

"Oh." Leon made a face, then shrugged, grabbing one of the remaining plates out of the cabinet and dishing up food for himself.

Riku reached to get himself a plate, but Cid forced one—already filled with food—into his hands.

"'ere," he said. "Now go sit down."

"Uh-" Riku took the plate, but didn't argue. He made his way over to the table, sitting down next to Yuffie, who was already munching on bacon. Riku took a bite of his waffles. They weren't bad.

Leon was the next to sit down at the table, followed by Cid (who had another cup of coffee, from the looks of it), and then Aerith. Out of the corner of his eye, Riku saw Yuffie reaching for his bacon, and he snatched it away from her before she could grab it.

"Yuffie, don't steal Riku's bacon!" Aerith scolded.

"I- I didn't even have a chance!" Yuffie protested, staring at Riku, eyes wide. "He- he snatched it away before—how did you even?"

"I saw you reaching for it," Riku replied, smiling a little.

"No one sees me."

"Well. I did."

Cid burst out laughing. Leon grinned, but covered it up by taking a bite of waffles. Aerith told Yuffie that if she really wanted more bacon she should just go get more, but Yuffie argued that that wasn't the point. Riku just chuckled and ate his bacon, finding it hard not to grin.

It wasn't long before Riku had to go back to Castle Oblivion. As much as he loved it here, he missed Namine. And he needed to go back.

"You'll visit often, right?" Aerith asked.

Riku smiled. "When I have time, yeah."

"Oh, and can you send Namine over? When she's free."

Riku chuckled. "What for?"

"I want to talk to her, that's all," Aerith said.

"'bout what?"

"'bout you!"

She was joking. He could tell.

He laughed, rolled his eyes.

"Actually, I mean it," Aerith said. "Family looks out for each other, and I can't do that if you're not here. So I'll make someone else do it for me."

"I… don't think Namine needs telling to look after me," he said, grinning.

"No, but I'd still like to talk to her."

"I'll let her know."

Riku started to form a dark corridor, but stopped. He hugged Aerith one last time.

"Take care of yourself," she told him, gently.

"I will," he said.

He pulled away from her, formed a dark corridor.

"And be careful of your shoulder!" Aerith called.

He was gone.

xxx

"Family?" Cid asked, a little surprised.

"What… did you two talk about last night?" Leon asked, a touch of amusement in his voice.

"A lot of things," Aerith answered vaguely, because a lot of it was things she wasn't sure she should share.

"But, like, family?" Cid repeated.

"He needed it," Aerith argued, more than certain of that.

She was tired of seeing him suffer, tired of watching him believe that he didn't deserve kindness. This had been the only way she'd come up with to fix that. Well… it had been a little spur of the moment, too. But she didn't regret it.

She turned to the rest of her family, and she smiled. "Besides, it's not like there isn't room."

No one argued with her there.

"This means he's gonna be around more, huh?" Yuffie asked, a quiet thoughtfulness to it. After a moment, she nodded to herself. "Actually, that might not be so bad."

Aerith found it hard to wipe the smile off her face for the rest of the day.