Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts. This is a not-for-profit fanwork.

XXVI.

Chords

So much for a fun date.

They went home. It was only afternoon, but he was drained. He collected his laundry and then lay in bed. He heard her words, over and over again, and they twisted such a complicated mixture of joy and pain that he thought he might be sick.

Demyx forced himself to eat. His anxiety was mounting again, making him feverish and weak. Despite his exhaustion he started moving to try and alleviate it. His hands hurt. His whole body hurt. His head pounded. Was this just a panic attack, or was something really happening?

He wandered aimlessly through the hallways, counting each breath. He thought he heard something—a soft pinging—and he followed the sound absently. Music, he realized, tinny and canned and trapped. It had been so long since he'd heard any, at all, not with everything going on. Had somebody found a working radio? Who would be broadcasting?

It was the same pattern repeating, over and over again. Four succeeding tones. The piano room, he realized. Who was in there?

Ienzo, slumped over the keys, one hand in his hair, playing four notes resolutely with his right hand. Over and over, with barely a pause between.

"…Arpeggio," Demyx said suddenly. The room around him seemed to jerk slightly, but nothing moved.

Ienzo on the bench. His eyes were bloodshot. "Yes," he said.

"D Major?" The vocabulary came to him naturally, as though he'd never forgotten it.

"A Minor, actually. Close."

"Why the arpeggio?"

"Because everything flourishes in simplicity, wouldn't you agree?"

Demyx sat next to him. He placed his hand next to Ienzo's, one octave higher. He played the same arpeggio, and with the left hand, a complementing harmony.

"You're back," Ienzo said.

"I guess so." Everything looked slightly different; colors a little brighter, textures slightly rougher against his skin. "I feel—" He hesitated.

"Play it for me."

He paused. A right hand song. B-Flat. Sliding smoothly from note to note to note, a chromatic ascent. He didn't know how to end it.

"Your name?"

"Still gone."

"I had hoped that it healed. Even feared the worst."

"So did I." His heart beat strangely in his chest. "The knife," he said suddenly. "Was it—"

"It's possible."

Demyx took the knife out of his holster and looked at it. It seemed to glow slightly, though that may have been the alloy.

"I suppose you must feel relieved," Ienzo said.

"Strangely, I don't. Actually, I'm super anxious. But I do feel more… me." It would figure that this was no orgasmic revelation. "What did you do?"

"Brushed away some dust," Ienzo said. ""Vulnerability is a tool." I saw that in your memory. Aeleus was right."

"Do you think it's because I'm in love?"

"It's a contributing factor, no doubt. The light in her heart, when you made a connection, for the first time in maybe your whole life…"

His hands shook.

"You're not healed. It's imperfect. The danger is still there."

Demyx put the knife away. He shut his eyes, feeling the weight of his body, the faint rhythm of his heart. He played a C chord. Tears gushed, suddenly and indiscriminately, from his eyes. "Oh my god." C, G7, A. A scale. His hands were clumsy and out of practice but it was there, it was all there. The piano was so beautifully discordant.

"You're human, Nine," Ienzo said. "I was wrong to admonish you."

"I should have listened."

He stood. "Should I leave you be? To practice?"

"No. I don't want to be alone."

He sat down, gingerly. "Will you play something?"

"I don't know what."

"Anything."

He stumbled through the song of Ansem the Wise's, the one Ienzo had showed him some weeks ago. It sounded rough to his ears, and harsh, because he couldn't keep up with the complicated rhythm. The song ended, and the silence pressed tight around them. His eyes were raw. "I guess I should say thanks," he said at last. "I wish I could help you, too."

"No need." Ienzo patted his arm. "I'm going to go rest."

Demyx met Lea down by his house shortly after. He was sitting on the stoop, eyes unfocused, a brilliant scabby scratch all down one cheek. "Hey," Demyx said.

"Oh, hey, what's up," he said dully.

"What's got you down in the dumps?"

Lea grinned, but his eyes were distant. "Look at you. You're back."

"Ienzo said the same thing. Is it really that noticeable?"

"You carry yourself differently. You always looked… I don't know… like such a zombie." He scootched over and patted the spot next to him.

Demyx sat down. He shut his eyes and let the warmth of the sun wash over him. "Your knife," he said suddenly. "You can probably have it back now."

"Have you tried calling your weapon?" He reached into his pocket, took out a cigarette, and lit it with his bare hands.

"…You're almost as bad as Cid," Demyx said.

"Oh, please. This is the only thing that makes me feel half human." He laughed to himself, darkly. "So why'd you come? To bum off me again?"

That laughter made him feel uncomfortable deep in the pit of his stomach. "Not my fault you keep offering. No. I just wanted to talk, I guess."

Lea smiled to himself. "Talk away."

There were so many things he wanted to talk about, all of them deeply personal. Demyx wanted to ask Lea about the New Organization, and things about Sora, about Roxas, Isa, and the strangeness of this new life. He wanted to ask Lea if he'd ever been in love. "I…" he trailed off. "I'm… scared."

"Well, shit. Of course you are. I am too."

"Is it bad, there?" He couldn't bring himself to make eye contact.

"It's… I don't know how to describe it. Chaos, but there's something in the air, you know? Paranoia, you might call it. Of each other. Of everything. It's the feeling they want strangers to have, too. I didn't sleep for three days when I went. I still have trouble." Lea shook his head. "I got so desperate I went to the eggheads for help about it. I get these… nightmares."

"About?"

"About everything, I guess." He shrugged. "What I've done. What I could do. Things they do, and to who, and how." He had finished his first cigarette and rubbed at his neck. "It's disturbing. And then I think about the fact that we're sending you into this. And I know that whatever happens to you will feel like my fault."

Demyx was starting to feel nauseous. "Don't worry about me. You never did before." His attempt at humor fell flat.

"Well. Things are different now. We're both different. Look at us. I'm a hero." He said this dryly. "And you're helping the committee, helping everyone you can, trying to get stronger."

"I'm doing it for me," he said quietly.

"I know. I am, too."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. The afternoon was starting to lose a bit of its edge. "I miss clouds," Demyx said. "And rain. I would kill for some rain, right about now." He stretched out his legs and looked at his worn sneakers.

"So make some."

"Do you know how much energy that takes? Especially when it's this dry? It would kill me first." He cast out his consciousness for a moment, just because he could. There was still a bit more resistance than there had been before reformation, but less so than after. He could feel Lea's blood, and his own, and not much else in the strained air. The meager reservoir just outside town. The few tanks of stale water. Some tired people, hanging around. Here and there, sticky patches of darkness where Heartless must be. "This is so weird. How it just clicked."

"Happened for me that way too, with the Keyblade. You work and you work and nothing happens. Then all of a sudden, poof! There it is. Usually when the time is most dramatic."

"…It was pretty dramatic, wasn't it?" he said, more to himself than to Lea. Lea shoved a cigarette into his peripheral. "Thanks."

"I'm feeling pretty generous."

"You enable me."

Lea smiled. They both smoked for a while. Demyx figured his powers must have been working better, because the heat didn't feel as oppressive. It was definitely some magic bullshit, he decided. "Well, I'm gonna make the rounds," Lea said. "You're free to come with me. I don't mind the company."

He thought about this. It wasn't exactly what he wanted to do, but he didn't like that look in Lea's eyes. "Sure. Why not?"

Lea chuckled. "Right. Come on, then. As long as I don't have to protect your sorry ass."

They walked back towards town. The air was quiet, and still, with barely a hot breeze to stir it. Soon it would be August. "Why are they having me wait so long to go?" Demyx asked.

"A few different reasons, each a little more valid," Lea said. "Well, first, the longer you wait, the more you can pretend the deterioration has worsened. You can play frantic. Then there's the war. We're trying to push more on them, trying to make them feel desperate, in general, so they'll be more reckless in what they do, and more vulnerable. And when that happens, they'll take whoever they can get. Just how it happened the first time around. Third… getting you back into shape. Getting you "ready"."

He thought about this. "But wouldn't it be more convincing if I went to them weak?"

"Maybe. But then they would be all the more likely to dispose of you, if you couldn't be of use to them."

Demyx shuddered. Thinking about that cold, white castle… of everything that had ever happened in it… made him shivery and anxious again. Organization training had been brutal, and weeks-long. He saw it through a dim veil in his head. It wasn't just physical and mental training, or even training of his powers. Extensive survival training; learning how to cope with all sorts of terrain, all sorts of food sources, finding water, tying knots, orienteering. Reading the stars, before they got to be so few. Stealth. Learning to read the land of each world, its people, and what all the little details added up to be, what they might mean. He'd been good at intel-sitting, waiting, and observing every little thing as it passed. His mind was hardwired for it, because seeing such details has been crucial to surviving to adulthood in his harsh desert homeworld. Noticing a bit of off color or texture might mean finding something to eat, or drink, or avoiding some poisonous creature in the wild.

He wasn't sure how this would work. How much of it would be like old times? Doing missions… sowing seeds of destruction… passing drops of information back and forth. Would it be worth it? Would he really be helping more people than hurting, in the end?

Providing, of course, that he survived whatever initiation that he was sure to go through sane. What if they brainwashed him? Violated him? Crammed another fragment of heart or soul inside of him? He gagged on the thought.

"Look, there's one," Lea said. "A weak one. Get ready."

It was a Heartless, a small Shadow. It skated towards them, eager and hungry. The stickiness of its darkness, in his mind, felt kind of numbing.

"Why don't you get it?" Lea asked. "I think you can handle it."

The Heartless leapt towards them, so slowly he could have sidestepped it. A quick cross swipe with the knife and it vanished back into the summer air. "That was anticlimactic," Demyx said.

Lea shrugged. "Most of the time it is. Not like this is new to you, anyway." He squinted into the comparative darkness of the Bailey. "Well, look what the cat dragged in."

Luxord's Somebody was waiting there for them like they'd arranged this. "I could say the same for you lads. Lea. Nine."

"Hey," Demyx said uneasily. Ten never just visited anymore.

"What can we do you for?" Lea asked. His eyes were stiff and guarded.

"I was hoping to borrow our friend for a chat," Ten said. He took his cards out of his pocket and shuffled them so quickly Demyx had trouble seeing them. "Unless the two of you have business."

Immediately Demyx's anxiety shot up. He swallowed the excess spit that had suddenly welled in his mouth.

"No, I think I can release him into the wild," Lea said. He slapped Demyx on the shoulder. While the gesture was meant to be playful, it actually hurt quite a bit, and he flinched. Demyx watched Lea retreat into the shadows.

"Shall we go for a stroll, then?" Ten asked.

"Where to?" He could feel sweat gathering under his arms.

"Oh, I've no preference. I could do with a cup of tea, actually. Shall we?"

Demyx numbly followed Ten to the marketplace. Ten ordered two cups of iced tea, but Demyx felt too sick to drink it.

"You've become quite the local. Are there any good places for us to sit and catch up?" the Somebody's expression was easy and light.

"Sure," Demyx said. He brought Ten back up through the construction sight to the postern, and there they sat, watching the town and sipping the weak sweetened tea. Demyx tried to keep his breathing level. "I take it you're not here just to talk to me."

Ten smiled sadly. He set his tea on the ledge next to him and brought out the cards again. He fanned them and offered the hand to Demyx. "Pick a card, any card."

Demyx took one. He'd never actually touched Luxord's cards before, and they were heavier and more substantial than regular cards. The back of the card had a slightly raised surface, and he stroked it absently. "Am I not supposed to tell you what it is?" A nine of hearts glared back at him, blood red. Demyx was getting really fucking sick of the number.

Ten took the card from him, studied it, and smiled. "Yes," he said. "I'd thought so."

"What does it mean?" Demyx asked.

"You've changed," Ten said. "You must feel the difference."

"Is that… good?" He wasn't so sure. Ten's face was so hard to read.

He didn't respond immediately. "We've always had a warm rapport, you and I, Nine," he began. "I know I shouldn't tell you this, but I feel I cannot in good conscience be silent. Isn't it amazing, how one's consciousness shifts, once one has a heart?"

"What?" Demyx asked in a low voice. "What is it?"

Luxord's Somebody squeezed his hand firmly. His skin was dry and strangely cold. "There are so many uncertainties, but lately your futures have been twisting together into one linear path. Your heart has changed. Your decision has been made, as much as you dread it. But I'm afraid it'll all be in vain."