He started at the beginning: with Even's suicide and the memories of the young boy's body, fragile and broken, in clotted, darkened blood. With the horror, the curling, ugly, helpless flash of pain in his stomach, the distant screaming and crying in the ambulance to the hospital. Then he days of numbness between the death and the funeral, when time carried on ticking and classmates carried on laughing and Lumaira was stuck in limbo waiting for closure. Then the funeral with only family to attend, and watching the coffin be lowered into the grave in the pouring rain. Even's mother's crying face. She had seemed shocked, Lumaira recalled now, that her one beloved son could be gone so suddenly of his own accord. The guilt. The kneeling in the mud, begging for some kind of release, conclusion, a second chance; with Even pale and ghostlike, limbs like bones and eyes like hollow, deadened sockets. Then the months that followed nursing Even back to health and into love, and finally L'Erena's death – and resurrection.
Throughout this, Naminé was silent. She watched him with blank, secluded eyes.
"It was me," Lumaira finished, finally, once every painful and inexplicable memory was recounted in its entirety. "We all thought that it was Even who was special, but it was me. I brought Even back. I fixed his scars, and the car – I must have somehow stopped the car through him. And L'Erena; I brought her back, too."
Still, Naminé did not speak. She hadn't rebuked Lumaira's claims, no matter how outlandish they must have seemed, but neither did she speak. Lumaira swallowed thickly, preparing to tackle the crux of the situation: why he, Lumaira, had the ability to bring people back from the dead.
"Even thinks it's something to do with Dad."
"Yes," Naminé said gently, glancing at the clock on the wall. "I daresay it is."
She stood carefully so that her chair didn't scrape against the floor tiles, and pulled Lumaira into a hug. He clung to her, desperately, the only thing that still felt real and secure in his crumbling little world.
"He was always different," Naminé murmured into Lumaira's hair when the silence spanned three, four minutes. "Always special."
"Did he ever tell you anything? About being able to revive people?" Lumaira asked, swallowing thickly. He didn't like to think that his father was anything more than he had always imagined - a heartless, cruel man with no care in the world but for himself. It had shaped Lumaira's past, his personality. But what if Even was right? What if he hadn't left of his own volition, but was forced? What if he really wasn't dreaming when those silvery people visited him in the night? What if Marluxia had been watching over him all this time, protecting him, loving him, and he'd-
The thought was too alien to grapple with.
"No," Naminé was murmuring. "But I put two and two together. It all makes sense now."
No, it doesn't, Lumaira wanted to reply - but Naminé was pulling away, continuing her preparations for the night.
"Thank you for being honest," She said finally as she was packing her back. Lumaira forced a smile, stifling a sleepy yawn.
"Thanks for believing me."
Lumaira hugged his beloved mother one more time, and ran upstairs to where Even was reading by the bedside lamp. He crawled into bed next to the taller boy, pulling his glasses off his nose and gently prising the books from his fingers, and together they snuggled down to sleep in the darkness.

As the week drew to a close, the late August heat nearly unbearable, the three of them found themselves spending longer and longer sheltering in the shade of the sweeping boughs of the willow tree by the little fjord in the reserve, sustained by flasks of fruit juice and half-melted chocolate bars. Lumaira and L'Erena had always liked the place, but it was Even who dragged them back time and time again. As out of place as he looked with his trousers rolled up to his knees, his pale feet bare and clinging to the rocks beneath the water, he seemed somehow at peace, eyes closed and head cocked up to the sky.
"He's out there," He'd say periodically, when the idle conversation of boys and girls and shops and life drifted to natural lulls. "He's out there somewhere. We just have to find him."
"I wish he'd come back," Lumaira, making daisy chains or catching the little freshwater fish and plopping them into jam jars, would reply. "To me. To Mum."
L'Erena, perched in the branches of the tree with her nose in a book, would laugh.
"Hey, I have an idea. Let's stop moping about a guy we never knew. We have lives to live, here!"
Even Lumaira could not dispute this, and soon enough they'd paddled up to the swing over the river and were shoving each other about on the precarious ropes. Lumaira's shirt came off as soon as he fell into the water, and it didn't take long for L'Erena to have stripped down to her swimming costume.
"Come on, Even, your shirt's so wet it's practically see-through anyway. You might as well take it off."
But Even stayed stubbornly clothed, even when Lumaira sat on his lap and kissed his nose, hands damp and cool against his hips. L'Erena called him a prude and he made no attempt to disagree; then she sensed something in Lumaira's dreamy expression and, finding her shoes, tramped off into the nearby woodlands under the pretence of finding some berries to eat.
For a few moments, the two boys stayed still, listening only to the chirping crickets and song birds in the sky.
"It's Friday today, isn't it?" Even asked eventually as he shifted under Lumaira's weight. Lumaira nodded, tucking his head beneath Even's chin.
"Uh-huh."
"There's, um, there's somewhere I want to go tomorrow. I was wondering if you'd come with me."
"Sure," Lumaira said without hesitation. "Where is it? Can Rennie come too?"
Even shook his head.
"I want it to be just the two of us. And it's... well, I want to go visit my grave."
Lumaira didn't really understand, but he nodded anyway.
"Alright."
"Thanks."
And then L'Erena came crashing back through the trees, spilling fat summer blackberries onto their laps, and their laughter seemed to echo all afternoon, even after Lumaira and Even had crept back indoors to finish all the housework before Naminé woke up.

Even and Lumaira left at eleven the next day, with sandwiches in Lulu's falling-apart rucksack, to walk into town and down the country lane that took them to the church graveyard where Even had almost been buried.
"D'you remember the first night?" Even asked as they turned out of one of the back alleys into the park next to the graveyard. "You know, after my funeral?"
Lumaira nodded, shifting the weight of his rucksack on his shoulder.
"How could I forget?"
"You passed out," Even stated, almost thoughtfully. Lumaira shivered, recalling the sodden graves and the bone-white fingertips, and the fear.
"I was terrified."
"I was pretty scared too," Even admitted, and then they were turning into the cemetery, looking over the newest graves in search of Even's name. And there, on a wooden cross in place with a little plaque in the centre, in temporary place of a proper stone, lay Even's empty coffin, the dirt packed down - and the flowers still fresh.
Even sat down, reached over and picked up one of the roses. Lumaira noticed after a moment that tears were dripping down his face, the petals of the rose quivering a little as his hands shook.
"I miss them," He said softly. "I miss them so much."
"Your parents?"
"Y-yeah."
Lumaira reached out to brush his fingertips against the back of Even's hand where his skin was dry and cracked from the summer heat.
"You'll see them again one day."
"Yeah," Even said after a moment. "Yeah, I... maybe soon." And he restlessly pulled one of the rose's petals away, running his fingers over its silky surface. "Maybe... maybe in twenty minutes or so."
"What?"
"Well," Even said in a voice barely above a whisper, plucking thorns from the rose. "When L'Erena was in the hospital, I... you know I ran to the reserve? And before that I went back to my old house, and... and I left a note. For my parents. I asked them to meet me here today."
Lumaira glanced around; the cemetery was empty.
"I don't think they'll come, though," Even added in a croaky whisper, and began to cry again. Lumaira habitually held him close and there they stayed, locked in each other's arms, for several minutes.
"You've still got me," He murmured comfortingly, "Me and Mum and Rennie."
Even nodded, but didn't reply, glancing nervously towards the gate as the seconds ticked by.
"They might not even have read the letter," He said after a few tense minutes. "I mean, they probably wouldn't have come if they had. It was a long shot anyway. It doesn't matter."
But it did matter: Lumaira could tell from the way every fibre in Even's body quivered with fear and anticipation, the shortness of his breath and the prickling of his blunt fingernails against Lumaira's back. And when, at one o'clock precisely, a tall and lone figure appeared at the gate, Even stood quite abruptly, falling away from Lumaira's grasp. The woman, of large but slim build, seemed to walk in slow motion, as though through treacle, weaving through the ageing graves almost as if she were asleep. Even stepped forward once as though to run and meet her, but hesitated; it was only when she was just a few feet away that he dared break from his post, approaching her as apprehensively as she him.
"Even?"
There was a moment of silence, of is this a miracle or is this a dream, and then Even spoke.
"Mother."
She reached up almost automatically, brushed the back of her hand against the rough skin of Even's cheek.
"Oh, sweet Jesus Christ," She murmured. "Oh, thank the Lord. It's really you. You're alive."
And she pulled him by his shoulders into a crushing, desperate embrace.
Lumaira, feeling intrusive, averted his eyes and instead watched the flocks of summer birds wheeling in the sky. Even was sobbing openly; his similarly emotional mother holding him suffocatingly tight and stroking his flaxen hair. Lumaira, glancing back for the briefest of moments, felt a pang of jealousy - where was his joyful reunion with his alien father, so long lost and so intricately connected to Even's life and Lumaira's love? But he quickly suppressed the emotion; this was Even's moment, not his. Marluxia, no matter how profoundly his legacy remained, was gone.
The Carlisles had broken from their embrace now, although they still stood close, speaking in hushed tones. Lumaira waited patiently for them to finish, raiding his head only when Even turned to speak with him.
"So I guess I'll see you around, then."
Something snapped inside Lumaira's head, something that said this wasn't how he had expected the story to end.
"What?"
"I'm going home," Even said.
No, Lumaira wanted to argue, home was in the little terraced house with Naminé, not a herald back to Even's old life, not with parents he hadn't seen for months. Home was with him, Lumaira. But the blonde boy had a strange expression of relief and hope on his face, reaching out already to grasp his mother's hand.
"Oh," He said instead, fighting down the strangled choke of his stomach. "Oh, okay."
"Can we have a minute, please?" Even asked, turning briefly to his strikingly green-eyed mother. She nodded, stepping away to inspect the other graves. Even watched her for a moment, almost sadly, before stepping close enough to Lumaira to hold the younger boy's hands, and clearing his throat.
"Thank you," He said haltingly, "For everything. I can't even begin to express how much I owe you."
"It's alright," Lumaira began to say, feeling a blush rising to his cheeks, but Even shushed him.
"And these past few months. I know I've been difficult, but it's been wonderful. All of it. Probably the best of my life, and... well, I couldn't stay at your house forever anyway, and you're such a wonderful friend but I need a family. My family."
Lumaira rested his head on Even's shoulder so that the taller boy couldn't see that his eyes were prickling with tears, and thought about Naminé, and Marluxia.
"Yeah," He said, "I understand."
"Thank you," Even murmured again, and for a few moments they shared the afternoon sun and the still silence of the cemetery. Then Even, who had been shyly resting his hands on Lumaira's hips, pulled him into a hug and whispered so quietly that Lumaira hardly heard him speak at all.
"I love you."
Lumaira smiled. Things were going to be okay. Things are going to be better than okay.
"I love you too," He whispered back, the ground feeling real and secure beneath his feet, the air thick and heavy around him. And then with a surreptitious kiss to his cheek, Even pulled away.
"We can meet up tomorrow," He said, "Maybe we can go down to the reserve again."
"Rennie wants to go to the beach. We only have a week left before school starts again, and she says that if we do enough jobs for him, her Dad'll give us money for the train down there."
What L'Erena's family was going to do now that the petrol station had burned down was an open question, but in the meantime her father was busying himself salvaging what was left of their old lives from the wreckage. Lumaira had been down to see it; it was a surreal picture, produce still lining the shelves towards the back of the shop where the firemen had arrived just in time to save cans of fizzy pop and not L'Erena's life.
"Okay. I'll come round tomorrow morning?"
"Yeah, alright."
And Even trotted after his mother away and out of the graveyard, leaving Lumaira to walk home alone.

(A/N: I feel a need for this, since Blackbird is nearing the end of its plot, and the entire story is absolutely riddled with inconsistencies and continuity errors, since I have been entirely making this up as I go along. I doubt that I'll ever revise this, but if I did there would be quite a few significant changes to several scenes. Anyway, I apologise for the flimsy plot and broken logic, and hope that you can enjoy the story with all its faults. Thank you!)