Perfect storm Chapter 3:

A/N: AYE! It's me again with another chapter, I hope you guys like this one. Reviews would be much appreciated, I'll even take some flames, maybe that'll help me grow and stuffs.

The weeks that followed were both horrendous and painful. It was a pain that was almost unbearable, like a hot dagger being dragged down my back repeatedly, but these cuts went deeper than mere flesh wounds. These were mental, and emotional wounds that would possibly never heal correctly.

Losing your parents, is something that you don't ever fully recover from, because these are the people that are there from the very beginning. It's almost like losing an organ vital to the way you live, and when it's gone you have to change the way you live for the rest of your life. This whole thing seemed to be a big crazy nightmare, though it was a nightmare that I knew I would never wake from, and the knowledge of that made everything so much more frightening. Because of… everything, I had to miss the rest of the school week that followed the accident. I couldn't deal with everything that was going on, and I could barely perform everyday tasks, let alone going to school and putting on a happy face.

We had a small funeral, just the people that were closest to them were invited, and family of course. Though not many Nomura's were in travelling distance.

The week after, the idea of school was a little easier to process, maybe I knew that I would have to do it sooner or later and that the sooner it happened the easier it would be to move on with things. I guess getting back into the flow of things worked. Thanks to it being the first week, I didn't miss much homework and curriculum wise, just the introductory things that got us into the heavier stuff. I sighed as the teachers droned on and on about things that I didn't care about, watching the clock tick slowly toward the goal that was the end of the school day. I bit my lip and shook my head, forcing myself to look toward the lecture the teacher was giving, though I soon found myself concentrating so hard on trying to listen to what she was saying, the words had started to fade into the background. I growled under my breath to myself, my lack of being able to concentrate was actually starting to anger me.

"Sora?" Ms. Farron said in a questioning voice, effectively pulling me out of my rant.

"Yeah?" I said, even I could hear the uncertainty in my voice, and it was quite possibly obvious that I wasn't really paying much attention to what she was saying. I blinked again and looked up toward her.

"Can you stay after class? I have to talk to you about some of the things that you missed last week." She said politely and went on with the lecture she was giving, from the words that I got before I fell back into my thoughts, it was about the book that we would be covering over the next month.

The bell rang, and I stayed in my seat, sighing when the class cleared out and Ms. Farron made her way toward me with a concerned expression. I sighed, knowing exactly what this was about. "Sora, are you alright?" She asked in a mildly concerned voice. "I know you, you're an excellent student, and I have never seen you so unfocused in class before."

I nodded. "Yeah, I have been pretty unfocused, it seems like even when I try I can't concentrate on what any of my instructors are going over, and I know in the end this is going to hurt my grades, but I'm trying." I said in a hollow voice.

She nodded slowly. "I know how hard this must be. I lost my parents too, when I was very young, my father died around the same time I was born, and my mom got sick when I was 12 and passed away. I'm not saying our situations are the same, because I know they aren't, but I am saying that it'll get better." She offered a small, comforting smile, and I nodded.

I faked a small smile. "It'll get better." I said, my eyes starting to sting a bit. "I have to go, I'll be late for class." I said quickly standing up. "Thank you." And I was off, walking quickly to the door and making my way to my next class. The rest of the day was a blur, I forced myself to focus in the remainder of my classes, taking a many notes as I could. The end of the day came, and I was out the doors of the school so fast I probably made people's heads spin.

I felt ill, that was the best way to explain the grief. My whole body shook and I was literally on the verge of tears at the drop of a hat. If one thing went wrong, I had to stop myself from just breaking down. My stomach cramped at the thought of everything that had happened in the past week and my heart dropped all the way to my feet.

I opened the door to my home quickly and slammed it shut behind me, running quickly up the stairs toward my bedroom. I had been lucky in some aspects of this, I turned 18 a few weeks ago and wasn't required to move out, and my parents had left the house to my brother and I anyway. Squall was moving in to help keep the bills up while I was still in school, then he was going to move back out and live with his fiancé Rinoa. But until then she would be living in her apartment.

I plopped onto my bed and sprawled out across the blanket that was on top, pushing my backpack off of me and onto the floor. After lying there for about fifteen minutes, I sat up and sighed, grabbing my phone to check the multiple messages that had come through while I was walking home. My stomach churned when I read them all, Yuffie was on her way with Riku, Rikku, and Kairi. "Gods…" I grumbled to myself, "Knowing her this is going to be… fun." I whispered and jumped out of my bed, as I landed in the most unsteady way possible I heard knocks on the door and groaned, walking down the steps to answer it, as slowly as possible, as if my slowness would possibly make her go away. But she was too stubborn for that, she would wait around my house until I got home if I wasn't there.

I got to the door and the four of them were waiting there, Yuffie in her normal black t-shirt, jeans and converse outfit, while Kairi wore what looked like an anime school girl outfit. These two were always quite different, even though they looked and sounded alike. And Rikku was… Rikku, standing behind the two in one of her outrageously colorful outfits just wriggling about. Sometimes I swore she was on a constant sugar rush. And Riku was just standing back from everyone, being his normal cool self. I forced a smile and stepped to the side letting the quartet of people that I called my best friends in.

We had been a quintet since we were mere eight graders, always a tight group, mostly because we didn't trust a lot of people, especially as we went through high school. The group grew slightly in ninth grade, we had a lunch table of about eight people that year, but as the year went by the ones who had attached themselves to us simply faded off into the noise of the other world, either moving, or simply found themselves being a bit more distant from us than they previously were. But us five, we were the original five, and no matter how much one of us grew up, the others seemed to grow right along with them, and our differences had simply brought us together. At the thought of all this I cracked a smile, my first in about a week.

"Sora!" Rikku called out, practically pouncing on me. This caused my smile to widen a bit more, her excitement had always been a bit infectious, no matter how sad any one of us was, she managed to break through it and have everyone laughing in a matter of minutes.

"Rikku!" I mocked her, and hugged her tightly. It's funny, I had actually been dreading this a few seconds ago, but now I'm glad Yuffie had brought them over. I wish I would have done it myself the day that it happened instead of pushing them all away, maybe that would have made this whole thing a little easier. We all moved to my room, the normal place we went to, even though that wasn't really a necessity anymore, but some things become traditions among friends, and no matter how what happens those traditions don't break. I wonder if 50 years down the line, if we're all still together, if we'll all come to this room for our little meetings like this.

I was pulled away from my thoughts by Kairi piping up. "What have you been up to, ya lazy bum?" she said with a smile.

I shook my head. "Not a thing, being a lazy bum I suppose." I grinned and stuck my tongue out, she was the next to hug me, and we sat on my bed. We were quickly followed by the otherthree who all basically claimed their spots by jumping onto it all at once. When we were all settled we broke out into laughter. These meetings were called when we knew one of us was in some sort of trouble, I guess for the first time since I was about to fail my ninth grade science class, and my grade depended on my final exam, that person was me.

Riku smirked, punching my shoulder gently. "You're such a loser." He said still smirking.

"Me a loser? Nah, I think you got it reversed. You're the loser!" I quipped back at him with a grin that reached ear to ear. He and I had always had the strangest relationship, how two people could be so mean to each other and then proceed to hug it out with no problem, eluded even my mind. But it was a relationship that I wouldn't change for the world, because it was fun to be able to pick on someone and not have them be pissed about it.

The gathering continued when Rikku's high pitched giggle broke the silence, we all looked toward her and she pulled out a whole bunch of junk food. "Can the party start already? This awkwardness is starting to get to me." The whole group nodded, and Rikku pulled out a cd and practically sprinted over to my computer set up. The next thing I knew our mix CD was playing and Yuffie was pulling a bottle of green apple vodka out of her bag, along with some plastic red cups. She poured the first cup and handed it to me, I took it without hesitation and took the first sip, it was strong, but it was vodka. The first sip burned like hell going down, it smelled and felt like I had taken a sip of rubbing alcohol. I shrugged and quickly downed the rest of the cup. At that point, she had already poured everyone else's cups, and I reached for the bottle pouring my own.

"Gods Sora, slow down." Yuffie and Rikku both said at the same time, Yuffie giggled a little, and I shrugged again, taking a gulp out of the new cup. I was already starting to get the calming effect, I stretched a bit, and noticed that it felt like my limbs were going through water.

"I'm such a lightweight…" I muttered, apparently loud enough for the rest of them to hear, because the laughter that erupted from them was almost ear shattering, but I couldn't help giggle along with them, maybe it was the alcohol that was making me laugh like this, but I didn't care. I felt good, almost happy, for the first time in over a week, and I just wanted to enjoy it, even though my parents were dead, I was allowed a little fun… I'm sure that they didn't just want me to mope around for the rest of my life. Maybe this was a step to a bit of recovery, maybe this whole gathering here, is exactly what I needed. I mean, yeah they were dead, and that was sad, I was sad about it, and it probably always break my heart when it came to it, but I couldn't just… lay around the house, and fail school because of all this, I had to be stronger than that.

I took another drink from my cup, and my head was getting fuzzier by the minute, but I knew I would remember these thoughts, and that was enough.

A/N: Okay, Chapter 3 end. Thanks jobelle516 for being an amazing Beta-Reader and friend. Chapter 4 will be up next week, and number five is in progress! Please Review cx