I was planning on waiting until FFN stopped screwing up to post this, but I figured I may as well do it now. I'm getting my wisdom teeth out next week, so I won't have much time for writing for a little while.
Okay, I'm just gonna warn you all right now: This chapter is LONG, and excessive portions of it take place in the past. So, to avoid burning all of your eyes with excessive italics, I'm putting most of it in normal text. Hopefully you can tell by this point what parts take place in the past or not, because despite my tendency to swap to present tense during flashbacks it's still obvious it is, in fact, in the past. If that makes any sense at all. -sweatdrop-
Moving right along... Despite this chapter seeming like a filler (which it sort of is, ehehe), I manage to cram a bunch of stuff into it. The FalCopper storyline finally finishes up, and we get some SoraChar pseudo-fluff. Oh, and they get to Hollow Bastion at the very end. Told you it was a filler.
Disclaimer- I don't own Kingdom Hearts.
Almost the instant the door closed behind him, Sora crossed the room and sat down on the bed, resisting the urge to flop down on it and give in to his despair. Strangely, it felt like to even do that much would be acknowledging how hopeless the situation had become; even though he understood that hopelessness all too well at this point, something within him – the perseverance that had gotten him this far already – was prodding him to keep going despite the setback, to not give up.
He sighed and found himself staring at the limited view of Twilight Town offered by the window in his room. The sight of the orange brick of the buildings that made up the back alley's perimeter should have reassured him, but any hope of that reassurance died off instantly when he remembered he didn't know why this world brought him so much comfort.
A soft murmuring noise came to his attention, and he turned toward the door, dully noting the conversation that was going on just beyond. He could hear Donald's telltale hoarse squawk, along with the feminine timbre he had come to know as Char's own voice, although the latter differed drastically from its ordinary tone in that it had become softer, filled with uncertainty. Unconsciously, Sora's shoulders tensed at hearing the lack of confidence in her voice; when even Char was faltering, something had to be off.
The soft, albeit half-hearted smile that had come on the heels of that thought faded slightly as Sora recalled the way she had acted all day: strangely absent-minded, staring at the twilit sky but not really absorbing the beauty of the dying sun tinting the clouds red and gold… The way she had just gone off by herself without consulting any of them alarmed him most of all. Somehow, he couldn't just chalk it up to her feeling a bit nostalgic for the place she had obviously been living in up until she met him: it must have gone deeper than that, otherwise she would never have left in the first place, her promise to follow him notwithstanding.
He surfaced from his thoughts just in time to catch the sound of a sharp rapping against the door; the sound sent a chill of unexpected dread throughout his body. Guilt followed that up – after all, why should he feel dread at hearing one of his friends at the door?
Maybe because none of them trust each other? And it's obvious they're keeping secrets from you?
With some effort, he pushed those suspicion-filled thoughts aside and opened his mouth to give whoever was at the door permission to enter, only to close it with a soft murmur of surprise when a distinctly female voice sounded through the door's barrier.
"Hey, Key-boy, it's me. Can I come in?"
Char. Sora let out a breath – why had he been holding it, anyway? – and nodded before remembering belatedly that she couldn't see the gesture. "Uh, yeah, sure," he called hastily. "Door's open."
A moment passed, during which he could have sworn he heard a soft sigh; then the knob turned and the door swung open with an audible squeak. Char stood there with one hand still on the doorknob, frowned at the offending noise of the door opening, muttered something about needing to oil the hinges, and swept into the room.
"Dunno if you heard it already," she said briskly, "but we're leaving Twilight Town in a few minutes. So… yeah, get ready, I guess." She finished her sentence a little more quietly than the rest of her words and stared down at the floor. Sora blinked as he realized she didn't quite know what to say.
Knowing she was waiting for a response, he gave a single nod of acquiescence. "Okay, that's fine. The sooner we get going to find Riku and Kairi, the better," he added for good measure. Unfortunately, however, the attempt to encourage himself and remind himself of what hopefully awaited him at his journey's end only served to remind him of everything he had lost since that fateful storm had stricken Destiny Island. He lowered his head to copy Char's gesture of focusing on the ground, suddenly at a loss for words.
Char raised her head, causing the brunette to look up upon detecting her shift of movement. She looked as if she were about to say something else, but ended up only giving her head a slight shake and pushing a strand of hair out of her face. "Yeah, you're right. I'll go tell Donald we're ready so he can take off."
Despite himself, Sora tilted his head to the side in confusion. Donald hadn't driven the Gummi ship since the early days of his last quest. "Donald's driving?" he couldn't help asking.
Char snorted aloud, folding her arms across her chest. "Yeah, seriously. I had the exact same reaction. Like, can he even reach the steering wheel from where you've set the pilot seat?"
"He could do it on our last journey," Sora pointed out, fighting the urge to laugh in lieu of standing up for his friend.
A small smile appeared on Char's countenance. "Yeah, I'm guessing the idea of having a fourteen-year-old boy driving their King's prized vessel around didn't sit too well with duck boy." Without warning, she stepped closer and situated herself on the bed next to Sora; the Keybearer barely held back a start of surprise at how abruptly close she was. If he wanted, he probably could have reached out and…
And he was not going to finish that thought.
"How were the good old days, anyway?" she asked, genuine curiosity in her voice.
Sora told himself she wasn't trying to pry; however, at the same time, a very small part of him was dubbing Char a hypocrite for her tendency to keep secrets from the group and then promptly want to know more about them. He shrugged. "Not much different from now, to be honest." Hesitation filled him for the briefest of moments as he wondered whether or not to divulge what he wanted to say next, but the inquiring expression on Char's face seemed to gently nudge him into doing so. "I was way more homesick then, though," he admitted, his gaze finding the floor again. How had the pumpkin mask gotten down there, anyway?
He could feel her own eyes on him and didn't dare look up to see what emotion his words had pulled from her. Contempt? Annoyance?
Char didn't realize it, but her features softened in sympathy at Sora's confession. The memory of the way she had acted at the beginning of this journey – hell, still was, if she wanted to be perfectly honest with herself – came back into her mind: constantly thinking about and coveting Riku and the days she had spent with him; remembering Hollow Bastion and her life there, before her fellow apprentices' betrayal of her and Ansem to darkness had sent her world spiraling in a large-scale caricature of someone throwing a die. She would have to be stupid not to think that the same feelings had plagued Sora at waking up in Traverse Town and realizing that yes, this was indeed not his island, and he was probably going to have to go through hell and back before he returned safe and sound.
Sora continued staring at the mask on the floor as he went on, suddenly feeling the urge to tell Char more despite his previous disinclination. "I missed sparring with Riku every day and coming home to my mom's cooking," he confessed. "Every once in a while I'd stay up late at night thinking about Tidus and Selphie and Wakka and everyone else, and whether or not they were still okay after…" His voice caught at remembering that night: the fearful way his heart had pounded at leaving his house and finding the storm that was plaguing Destiny Island was entirely a different kind of hurricane; then finding Kairi in the secret place only to have her literally slip through his fingers.
He was speaking so softly that Char had to strain to hear him, but when she caught his words, she felt the flame of sympathy growing within her intensify into a steady rush of heat. "After the darkness came?" she quipped before she could stop herself, and then immediately wanted to clap a hand over her mouth for giving more evidence that she knew things she shouldn't have about Sora. If Donald and Goofy were in the room – which, she found herself thanking the gods for, they weren't – their suspicions would have flared up instantly.
To her intense relief, however, Sora didn't seem to have noticed her slip-up. "Yeah," he murmured. He steeled himself and raised his head to meet her eyes; to his surprise, he saw not the caustic contempt he had expected her to express at hearing what should have seemed, to her, like a maudlin, pathetic stream of whining, but… empathy. Almost as though she could relate to the homesickness he had felt a year ago, and, if he wanted to be honest with himself, still shadowed him even now.
Abruptly, trying to change the subject, he asked, "Do you ever miss Hollow Bastion?"
Well, that was a stupid question, he thought with a cringe. It's not like she never sees it anymore or anything.
His words had about the reaction he had expected: she drew back very slightly, blinking a couple of times, an expression of bemusement covering her face before being replaced by a mildly wary one. "Sometimes, yeah, I do," she answered, not taking that guarded look off her face. Even Sora could tell what was going on: the walls had gone up again, and he wanted to smack himself for facilitating that process, the process whose inevitability he had known practically from the moment she had walked in and let him ramble on about his home.
To his frustration, she gave no response other than those four terse words. "Um, well, what was life as a researcher like?" he tried, feeling his spine prickle at the way he was obviously pushing his way into matters that didn't concern him.
Char shrugged, but a smile had made its tenacious way past her defenses onto her face. "Hard, mostly. We had assignments almost every single day, but thankfully they were almost all partner projects, so it wasn't like An –" She halted abruptly, and Sora tilted his head to the side at the way she hesitated before correcting herself. "– Master was just throwing assignments at us and then expecting us to do them alone."
She directed her eyes at the floor – why the hell hadn't Key-boy bothered putting up the mask that comprised part of his Halloween Town outfit? – and felt her heartbeat spike with the force of her fervent hope that he wouldn't ask about how she'd almost uttered Ansem's name. Sora and the others still thought the real Ansem took the form of that gray-haired bastard Xehanort's Heartless, after all.
But what's wrong with telling Sora even that much? a traitorous, completely and utterly random voice in the back of her mind asked, very seriously. He's just about figured out that Roxas is his Nobody already, hasn't he? He deserves to know the rest of the truth.
Char furrowed her brow, trying to tell the voice to mind its own damn business and leave her alone already – but then Sora's voice cut into her thoughts and effectively tore her out of her attempt to quell her own annoying doubts.
"And that was why Yuffie and the others had never seen you before when we first got to Hollow Bastion?" he inquired.
Char breathed a quick sigh of relief through her nose. The question seemed harmless enough, thank the gods. "It'd probably explain it, yes," she confirmed, pushing her bangs out of her eyes as she glanced back up to Sora's face, feeling safe to make eye contact at this point.
However, she was not prepared for the look of innocent curiosity on his countenance and in his wide sapphire eyes. For some reason, the breath caught in her throat at the deceptive naïveté she found in his gaze; and the heat that oozed into her cheeks completed the reaction at the way he'd taken her off guard. As she stared unashamedly at him, for once completely at a loss for words, it occurred to her vaguely that the look on his face was almost tender.
She had to stop thinking these thoughts. Now. She couldn't afford to give him any room to dwell on his desire to know more about her past when he still had yet to fulfill the purpose she and Ansem had wanted to use him for in the first place: destroying the Organization.
Not to mention that Kairi's still waiting for him. At that thought, the mental image of Sora's best friend – standing at Destiny Island's shores, smiling breathlessly and waving as the brunette rushed to meet her embrace – played out through Char's mind; and suddenly, she had to fight the heat of the tears that were building at the back of her eyes, especially when the scenario of the end of Sora's journey completed itself with Kairi throwing herself into Sora's arms. The fact that Riku was smirking in the background of Char's vision didn't help matters, as it only served to remind her that Riku was also a victim of the idiotic, illogical notion known as unrequited feelings.
Stupid hormones, she thought irritably.
Sora appraised her cautiously; he contemplated asking an obligatory question as to whether or not she was okay – that expression of nervousness hadn't appeared on her face for a while, after all, though he couldn't fathom why she should feel nervous in front of him – but then thought better of it. The way she tore her eyes away after a scant few moments of eye contact and the silence that permeated the air told him that further prying was the last thing she wanted.
He tamped down the frustration – and pain – rising within him at her stubborn determination to keep her secrets and chose, in an attempt at optimism, to dwell on what he did know about her. Well, he mused, she used to do research in Hollow Bastion with six other apprentices under a master – whose name he still didn't know – they went to other worlds – he still couldn't understand how they'd done it without a Gummi ship – no one in Hollow Bastion knew they existed because they were either cooped up all the time or were at other worlds too much – the previous thought rang throughout his head again – she used to have a pet Heartless… Upon reaching that final fact, he instinctively cringed. Thinking of the slightest insinuation of that last idea still made Sora feel as though someone were ruffling his hair the wrong way; pet and Heartless shouldn't even go into the same dictionary, as far as he was concerned. Then again, though, he may have been just a tiny bit biased, due to the complication that Heartless were chasing him and trying to kill him at every turn. And Char had managed to tame one, however in the worlds she had done it.
Having gotten that mental tangent out of the way, he resumed counting off what else he knew about her past. The six other apprentices are gone now…
A frown creased his brow, and he unconsciously tilted his head to the side as he thought. Now that he was taking the time to properly think about it, it hit him that he still didn't know how the other six who had lived and worked alongside Char in the past had disappeared – or how she had ended up in Twilight Town, for that matter. The cautious curiosity that had nudged him into bringing up her past in the first place now took a much more forceful presence in the back of his mind, threatening to push its way past its boundaries – past what Char had deemed appropriate. He tried to shove it aside, telling it that she had set her boundaries for a reason – and then felt an irrational surge of defiance toward his own hesitation. Char's kept these things in the dark for long enough. I can't reach her if I let her keep her entire life a secret.
He opened his mouth to make his inquiry as to her friends' fates, and Char lifted her head to reestablish eye contact at catching his movement. Though the smallest shadow of her previous nervousness remained, it had been replaced for the most part by the same defiance that he had felt upon deciding to forsake his tentativeness and keep prying. Inwardly, Sora smiled; clearly, she had decided to push her own anxiety aside in favor of her typical pride.
"Char," he got out, and then the door swung open.
Goofy stood in the doorway, one gloved paw still on the knob, his gaze shifting from one teenager to the other and back again. Char could see the discomfort wreathing its way onto his face as he saw that clearly, he had interrupted a conversation. But he spoke nonetheless, in spite of the mild annoyance that, she was sure, cloaked her own countenance right now. "Um, Donald just wanted me t'come and ask you guys if you were ready to go," he mumbled.
Sora blinked, an odd emotion tracing throughout his body and making him feel as though he had just surfaced from dark waters. Within that feeling of being pulled away from something, though, came the thought that if he'd remained in those waters, he would have found what he was searching for. He risked a sidelong glance at Char and, with a brief prick of surprise, saw that she seemed to feel the same way, if the way her eyes were ever so slightly narrowed into ice-colored slits was any indication. However, when those eyes flicked in Sora's direction, she relented and turned her attention back to Goofy, who, the Keybearer realized belatedly, was still waiting for a response.
He opened his mouth to respond, but Char beat him to it. "Yeah, I think we're ready," she said, and looked over at Sora. "Right?"
With a start, Sora recognized the insistent look on her face, an expression that told him the conversation they'd been having was over. He fought back a sigh as that fact registered itself in his mind and couldn't help thinking that, had they had enough time, Char would have yielded to his curiosity and divulged what she had been hiding. An odd mixture of irritation, frustration, and regret swirled its way into his consciousness at the thought: irritation that Goofy had interrupted; frustration that Char felt she had to hold some parts of her identity close to herself; and regret that the opportunity to learn those secrets had gotten so teasingly close, only to be yanked away. The latter's potency nearly pulled tears out of his eyes, but he pushed it away.
"Yeah," he replied instead, steeling himself and locking his gaze with Char's. Maybe it was because he was sitting right next to her, but he could have sworn he saw her eyes widen almost imperceptibly.
Goofy didn't catch it, though, and simply nodded, relaxing visibly as the awkwardness of his entry faded. "Well, I've got some noodles cookin' if you want some."
Char rolled her eyes as Sora immediately perked up at the mention of food. Way to be bipolar, Key-boy, she thought, and then immediately had to chide herself for being a hypocrite in that regard. Outwardly, at least. "Really?" the brunette asked, grinning. "That'd be awesome!"
On cue, the sound of an empty stomach demanding sustenance rang throughout the room. Goofy had the look of someone trying very hard not to laugh, while Char simply allowed just the smallest hint of a smirk to appear on her face. "Your stomach seems to agree," she commented.
Sora pouted indignantly. "Give me a break," he protested. "I haven't eaten since before we got to Twilight Town."
Char's initial amusement petered off when she realized the truth of his words. She glanced over at the clock on the wall and saw that Goofy's decision to cook lunch hadn't entirely come about just on a whim: the clock gave its verdict for the time as being half past noon. She inwardly thanked the gods that almost all the worlds had the same time zone; otherwise the time Cid programmed into the clock as part of the Gummi ship's renovations back in Hollow Bastion would be totally wrong. Of course, the notable anomalies of Port Royal, where night had reigned despite the group having just awoken before arriving there, and the World That Never Was, where the skies were almost always shrouded in rainy clouds and darkness, remained as exceptions.
And, now that she was really dwelling on it… She winced as she felt, rather than heard, her own hunger voicing its existence. Sora came to attention immediately at the sound and eyed her with an uncontrollable grin; in contrast, Char narrowed her eyes in mild discomfort and embarrassment. "You are hungry," he said triumphantly, folding his arms across his chest.
Char chose not to dignify his overtly obvious statement with a response and turned to Goofy. "How long before those noodles are ready?" she asked briskly.
Goofy straightened in an attempt to quell his amusement. "Gawrsh, 'bout ten minutes, I think."
Char gave a brief nod of acknowledgment. Ten minutes, she told her traitorous body firmly; she could survive until then.
Sora smiled at his animal comrade. "Thanks, Goofy. We'll be out there in a bit."
The knight nodded, tentatively returning the gesture, before turning on his heel and closing the door behind him. He must have remembered the tension that had prevailed between Char and Sora earlier, even before he had entered, because the door barely made a noise as it made contact with its frame.
Char listened to the sound of the dog's footsteps clopping away down the hall and managed to look at Sora. The slightest trace of a faint smile lingered on his face as he returned the eye contact, and she had to blink; if he felt any vestige of frustration at her constant evasion of his attempts to find out more about her past, he clearly was choosing not to dwell on it. "Goofy makes the best pasta," he told her. It was obviously an attempt to fill the silence, but oddly, it didn't really come across as such to Char.
Nonetheless, she recognized his attempt to try and get back to whatever they'd had before – for some reason she fought the catch in her throat at the thought; what was it anyway; some kind of weird friendship that he kept shaking the foundation of every time he chose to hug her or do something that clearly didn't define her as a friend, when he so obviously still needed Kairi? – and, with a herculean burst of mental effort, cast off the doubts about said relationship. "I know," she answered, smiling despite herself. The genuineness of the gesture surprised her, but not enough to remove it from her countenance entirely. "I've had it before, remember?" As she spoke, memories of that day came rushing back into her mind: of Barbossa, of Port Royal, and of that damned hangover that had resulted from her rash caprice and random desire to sample the rum on the Interceptor… Good gods. If she didn't drink again, it would be too soon.
Sora opened his mouth to respond, only to close it as the reality of her words dawned on him. "Oh yeah," he muttered.
A thick blanket of silence descended upon them again. Char self-consciously pushed her bangs out of her eyes, only for them to fall back again when she lowered her head to stare back at the floor. She contemplated trying to resurrect some semblance of conversation, only to relent when she found that this silence didn't have the choking effect she had anticipated. If anything, it was almost comfortable. Ironic, considering what he had trying to talk to her about moments before. Briefly, she wondered what he had been about to say to her before Goofy had walked in – clearly, something that she had set as a "taboo" topic by her unspoken boundaries, which involved her past.
When she thought about it that way… The redhead abruptly wanted to sigh again as it hit her. He more than likely wanted to ask her more about her previous life. Suddenly, she was almost grateful to Goofy for his interruption; her faltering resolve couldn't have taken much more of Sora's questions without just giving in and telling him everything. And that was the worst part of all, the part that made her want to scream and cry and ask Ansem for forgiveness for and throw an undignified tantrum all at once: that she had allowed Sora to corrode her walls and make her feel even this much and make her all but forget about trying to destroy the Organization for her own sake instead of his.
At the thought of that, the doubts of her mission – of what his was supposed to be, according to her and Ansem – pushed themselves out of the abyss in which she had shoved them earlier in order to rage in the back of her mind. Tell him everything, they repeated. He deserves to know after everything you've been together – after you fell for him. After he made you fall for him.
Char didn't realize it, and Sora didn't note it due to his own eyes having landed on the pumpkin mask once again, but her eyes widened a little at the new turn her doubts had taken. Like it was Sora's fault her stupid hormones had decided to make the needle of her heart's compass swing from Riku to Sora as its respective "north" in the span of about three weeks.
Riku. Gods, she didn't even want to think about how she was going to face Riku when all of this was over. Again, she felt a pang of bitter irony somewhere in her chest: when she had first joined Sora, she would have given anything just to get away from these dorks and finish out the remainder of her plans with the silver-haired emissary of darkness at her side. Now, though, she couldn't exactly claim to feel the same way, especially because she could safely call said dorks three of the best friends she'd ever had without feeling like she was lying. Even Donald seemed to nurse a grudging respect for her, and that was saying something, considering the stubbornness that had marked him even in Sora's memories of his last journey.
If she really wanted to be honest with herself – and her mind actually seemed to give a preparatory deep breath at trying to actually face her emotions, something one couldn't exactly laud her proficiency at – what she really missed about the year with Riku was the deceptive simplicity of those days. If she wanted to distract herself from thoughts of her apprentices' fates, she would go talk to Riku or Namine or watch Sora's memories for a bit; seeing the boy who held the fate of the worlds on his skinny little shoulders try to make sense of everything tended to put things into perspective, after all. If she wanted to distract herself from thoughts of how similar she was to that kid – they had both been torn away from everything they had known and thrown into relatively undesirable circumstances – she went out and bought some sea-salt ice cream. If she wanted to distract herself from her budding feelings for Riku – although, as long as she was being honest with herself, she knew she had been performing a complicated little dance to stay away from directly realizing that practically since Riku's first failure to capture Roxas – she hovered over Namine's shoulder while the blond drew out Sora's memories. The ease with which Char had succeeded in pushing her problems to the back of her mind surprised her now, to the point where she felt an undercurrent of ruefulness at the way that little talent seemed to have ebbed.
Unconsciously, one of the redhead's half-gloved hands came to rest against her shin, one finger beginning to tap a staccato beat against her leg, and the other reached up to cup her chin, as she thought. A dry little smile nearly crossed her face with the force of her desire to forget everything that had happened. What I wouldn't give to go back to the days when the object of my feelings actually made sense to me…
Then again, she reflected, in those days, she never would have pictured herself three weeks into the second – and hopefully final – part of the Keybearer's journey, sitting next to him on his bed wondering why exactly she felt she could dub her feelings about Sora love and only slightly feel like a hormonal teenage moron.
In fact, back then, she'd felt only a degree of almost-maybe-admiration for the Keybearer, an admiration that was fed by visions of his memories and seeing everything he had done for people he really didn't have to give an honest damn about. An admiration that she had disguised with the moniker "mildly impressed." Riku seemed to have known about it – he had teased her with it time and again – but had humored her due to not wanting to be on the receiving end of her old pair of swords. Admiration or no, however, she never would have imagined seeing Sora the way she did now.
Unbidden, a memory of those days rushed back into her mind. The ironic part was that it had occurred not long before Riku's ill-fated first attempt to kidnap Roxas; Char figured that, given her previous train of thought of nostalgia for the "good old days," anything she might remember would have taken place near the beginning of that year in Twilight Town. As a result, she was slightly surprised at the capricious turn her mind's eye had taken. Although, she reasoned dryly, the memory still had the distinctive flavor of bittersweet nostalgia that patented her thoughts of that time.
"Riku, have you seen DiZ anywhere?" Char called, her voice echoing loudly throughout the basement as she descended the steps into the computer-lit room. "I need to borrow some munny from him for some stuff…" Her voice trailed off when neither a red-wrapped man nor a cloak-clad, silver-haired boy greeted her eyes. A loud, huffing sigh escaped her, issuing out into the pleasantly-conditioned air to mingle with the beeping of the computer screens, and her fists planted themselves firmly on her hips in ire. "Dammit, he never leaves this bloody room and he chooses now to?" she grumbled, crossing the room and moving toward the exit.
The door to the next room slid open, and Char surveyed one end of the spacious area to another with slitted blue orbs before her eyes widened in defeat. "Where the hell are those idiots?" she spat under her breath. As she swept across the green-and-blue area, her arms folded across her chest, as though she were annoyed; however, she couldn't hide the way her fingers twitched slightly as they came to rest on the opposite arm. Char hated admitting it, but she loathed going into the pod room where Donald and Goofy slept; it didn't send quite the same shudder of icy cold eeriness down her spine as Sora's room did, yet the fact remained that watching the two animals float unconscious in their respective ivory prisons wasn't exactly on her list of favorite things to do.
Nevertheless, she steeled herself and stepped into the now-blinding hallway where the pods were kept. She had to blink a couple of times to get used to the change in lighting and décor color, but didn't slow her stride in the slightest. Looking around at the pods that lined the perimeter of the winding corridor, she couldn't hold back a shiver and wondered why exactly so many pods were in here. The maximum number she thought they had needed was four, the last one being on the off-chance that Riku had decided to join his best friend in sleep. As it was, though, Riku had refused Namine's offer, which Char found herself thanking the gods for. I don't know what I'd do if I were stuck here for ten months with just DiZ and Namine for company, the redhead thought sardonically.
With a start, she abruptly realized she was directly in front of the entrance to Sora's pod room. She halted in her tracks, stared at the blinding white door for a few moments, took in the off-white light being cast off the walls of the adjacent room filtering in through the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor, before shaking her head, telling herself she was being stupid, and sweeping into the room without knocking.
"Hey, Key-boy," she greeted, her eyes finding the floor in lieu of looking at the sleeping brunette who was the room's sole inhabitant. "Don't suppose you'd know where your best friend since childhood is…?"
At the last part of her words, she had raised her head, only to trail off when a different sight from the norm greeted her: a cloak-clad, silver-haired boy kneeling in front of Sora's pod, partially obscuring her view of Sora's body. Next to Riku, Namine stood, her slender, white-clad frame all but blending into the background of the creamy walls, barely taller than the half-bent Riku. Char stopped automatically at the sight, her previous annoyance becoming eclipsed by curiosity. "Uh… Riku? Namine?" she asked, tentatively stepping closer.
At the sound of her voice, both blond Nobody and silver-haired boy alike turned to face her. "Char," Riku greeted, sounding a little startled as he got to his feet. "Why… why are you down here?"
Char narrowed her eyes very slightly at the wary tone to his voice. "I was looking for DiZ," she answered in the same mildly-bemused manner. "Why are you here? Y'know," she added dryly, "besides the whole 'he's your best friend since childhood' thing."
A tiny smirk tugged at Riku's mouth at that last part, but failed to take over his countenance. He chose instead to turn back to Sora. Char couldn't see his face, but she swore she heard a small sigh come from his direction, which caused her eyebrows to raise.
Namine spoke for Riku. "It's Sora's birthday today," she explained quietly.
That made Char's eyebrows go up. "Key-boy's birthday?" she queried carefully, slowly, testing the weight of the words on her tongue, and couldn't resist the barb, "What's that make him now, twelve?"
"Fifteen," Riku corrected tersely, not turning to look at her. "I thought I'd come down here to see him. Namine just wanted to come along."
The blond averted her ocean-colored eyes and gave a very small downward tilt of her head to acknowledge the truth of Riku's words. "We figured it was the least we could do, since…" She gestured helplessly at the white-encased Keybearer behind her, still not meeting Char's eyes.
The redhead allowed her eyes to return to their normal state from their previously-widened form, if only just. Now that she thought about it, Riku had woken disturbingly early this morning – she would know, she thought with a surge of embarrassment; due to having a nightmare and coming to his room out of instinct, she had been trying to get the blanket back from him for the better part of ten minutes before he left – and woken her up. And she'd thought she'd heard Namine's soft voice mingling with Riku's masculine one a little down the hall from Riku's room. I really need to start noticing what my friends do more, the redhead thought, a little guiltily.
And so, out of guilt – not much else, she told herself firmly – Char stepped forward. Namine watched, her head angling to the side, as the older girl came to stand right next to Riku. At seeing the predominantly red-and-black shape in his periphery, Riku turned his head to look at her. Their eyes met, and for some reason, Char's breath caught at the raw emotion on his face and in his gaze. Only now did she realize that Riku's voice had been taut and gruff, even as he had brusquely told her why he was down here.
Something tugged at her heart, but before she could try to get the name of that emotion, a swish of gold at the corner of her eye made her turn to the source. Namine had stepped up on Char's other side and was quietly eyeing Sora. To Char's shock, an expression much like Riku's – wistfulness and nostalgia and sorrow and agony – had crept over Namine's face. Char wanted to tell herself that was impossible due to Namine having no heart, but the fact that the blond was her friend held her back.
She chose not to dwell on that feeling of discomfort and refocused on Sora, who slumbered on, not knowing that two of the people who cared the most about him were here right now praying for him. For no particular reason at all, that discomfort resurfaced, along with the feeling that her being here with Riku and Namine was somehow violating the intimacy that both of them had shared with Sora.
Trying to lighten the mood a little, Char spoke, her voice cutting into the silence. "Happy birthday, Key-boy," she murmured. "Here's hoping next year you're actually awake."
It was the wrong thing to say – even she knew that much, she thought with an involuntary cringe – and yet a moment later she felt a gloved hand slide into her own. Startled, she glanced toward Namine before remembering that the blond's hands were always bare – that, and the contact had come from the other side – and looking back to Riku. The silver-haired young man hadn't taken his eyes off his sleeping friend, but his jaw was tight, and his hand squeezed hers almost imperceptibly. Char's first impulse was to shake him off, but then it hit her that that might not be the best thing for him at the moment.
So she just let him draw even that slight amount of comfort from their combined warmth – not returning the tightness of his own grip, but instead choosing to let him do what he was doing without slapping his hand away. She figured that would be enough.
"Char!"
Jolted back to the present by the sound of Sora's voice, Char shook herself out of her remembrance-induced trance and looked to the brunette. "Goofy just said the pasta's ready," Sora explained, appraising her with a look of bemusement on his face. "Are you still hungry, or not?"
Char's eyebrows lifted just a bit; ten minutes had gone by rather quickly. She hesitated before realizing that the tantalizing scent of cooking food hung in the air like water vapor; at that perception, her stomach gave an encouraging, rather loud growl. Sora laughed as she ducked her head in embarrassment. "Guess that answers that question," he grinned. He rose from the bed and departed, stumbling slightly over the mask on the floor and casting a sheepish smile in her direction before his form vanished through the doorway. Char rolled her eyes and thought about calling out a barbed, subtle request for him to clean up so she didn't make that same mistake, but relented. Besides, food was looking a lot more attractive than lecturing right now.
She got up as well, keeping her eye on the half-covered floor to avoid tripping like he almost had; all the same, she still ended up catching her foot against the edge of something. A small snarl escaped her as she glared down, indignation rushing through her despite herself at the object that had impeded her path to lunch, but then she saw what it was. It pulled a small gasp out of her; the light caught off the star-shaped charm at the end of the chain, a charm that disturbingly resembled the talisman that Kairi had given Sora during his last journey.
Char bent down and picked up the Keychain, turning it over in her hand and examining it. Damn it all, but the charm even had that idiotic smiley face on it. Fighting to breathe against the sudden lump in her throat, Char pushed the Keychain into her jacket pocket, trying to push the thought of it out of her mind; however, she only belatedly remembered thinking about how her knack for that had made its exit over the last few weeks after thoughts of Sora's dedication to Kairi – not Char – failed to leave.
"Char, you'd better get out here right now!" Goofy suddenly called, urgency clear in his voice. The redhead started, her nerves still shaky due to her self-deprecation of moments before, and bolted for the door, damn near ripping it off its hinges in her haste.
She skidded to a clumsy stop in the middle of the kitchen, keeping one hand on the Keychain-shaped lump in her jacket pocket, and stared, wide-eyed, at the trio sitting at the table: Goofy at one end, his pair of chopsticks halfway to his mouth, a couple of long noodles dangling between said chopsticks and his mouth; Donald at the other, his own pair of chopsticks half-extended toward the untouched bowl between him and Sora; and Sora himself, slurping up his own food as though nothing had happened. The three of them looked up from their respective positions to look at Char.
"Uh… guys…?" Char raised one eyebrow, her nerves beginning to calm themselves down in favor of embarrassment that swept its way over her back in hot waves.
"Gawrsh, Char," Goofy said in bemusement, "I was just gonna tell ya Donald was fixin' to eat your share if you didn't come out here."
"I was not," the duck in question huffed indignantly, leaning back so his back was pressed against his own chair and folding his arms.
Char relaxed and went to sit in her own chair. "Never mind that that was what you were doing," she muttered. Amid Donald's annoyed yelps of rebuttal, she turned to Sora, only to lean away as the full extent of just how exaggeratedly he was eating became known. "Dammit, Key-boy, it's not going to jump out of your bowl."
"You don't know that!" Sora retorted through a mouthful of noodles.
Donald and Goofy snickered as they resumed their own meals. Even Char herself felt a smile appear on her face despite herself. Again, she restrained the urge to correct his actions and tamped down the remark of chewing your food never made your food make a faster escape, either that had been percolating on her tongue. Instead, she picked up her chopsticks and started on her own bowl. The seasoning that flared against her taste buds upon contact with them made her close her eyes in pleasure and made her grip on the all-but-forgotten Keychain in her pocket just a little more slack.
"Good?" Goofy asked, hopefully. Char remembered that he had cooked this.
She nodded, opening her eyes from where they had closed due to the intensity of the flavor and swallowing her mouthful of noodles before speaking. "Yeah. Wish I could cook this well," she murmured, dipping her chopsticks down to get more.
Donald made a sound of triumph. "Aha!" he crowed. "Another thing you can't do. Let's add it to the list: doing magic, driving, cooking…"
Char rolled her eyes and elbowed the duck gently in the ribs, not wanting to jar him so badly he scattered his noodles everywhere; as she was sitting next to him, it was easy to do, and the mage reared back with a flinch. "I never said I couldn't cook, duck boy," she pointed out. "Just that I can't cook as well as this." With that being said, she pushed more noodles into her mouth, chewing and swallowing before continuing. "In fact, back in the day, I sometimes had to fix meals for me and the other researchers." She couldn't help but cast a sidelong glance toward Sora as she spoke; to his credit, he wasn't exactly leaning right in her face in silent demand for more, but as far as she could see, she did have his undivided attention now.
Donald rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he grumbled.
Sora continued to watch her; even without looking right at him, Char could feel the anticipation in his gaze burning into the side of her face, and felt annoyance flare within her. Seriously, Sora – you have your secrets, and I'll have mine. "Anyway, we should eat this before it gets cold. And don't we have to leave soon?" she added pointedly. Hopefully before Hayner and the others notice a huge eye-burning vessel in the alleyway?
"Yup," Goofy agreed, and resumed eating his own pasta. With a final glower and incriminating mutter toward Char under his breath, Donald followed suit.
Char gave Sora one last sidelong glance before returning to her meal, praying to every god there was that he would let the matter lie. She thought she saw the brunette's eyes narrow very slightly, but being that his mouth was full of noodles and he didn't want to annoy her, he said nothing. Eventually, he, too, went back to thoroughly demolishing his meal.
The redhead returned her full attention to eating, relishing the newfound silence but for the brunette's slurping up his own pasta. At the same time, though, she felt guilt tracing its way throughout her body at everything she wasn't telling him. The hand that wasn't clutching the chopsticks went to the Keychain in her pocket again, the one that reminded her so much of Kairi's good-luck charm and everything Sora had been fighting for up till now.
You care for Kairi, right? she thought, and couldn't repress a soft sigh at the next thought. Then show me how much. Please, just show me, before I lose it and do something I regret.
Falcon arrives at school the day after Dyme's funeral with a heavy burden in her chest, half welcoming the return to normalcy and yet half forsaking the fact that life can go on after the death of one of her best friends. That normalcy is tainted almost beyond repair, however, when she fails to see Copperhead at school. It's strange; normally she's the last one out of the locker room after fencing practice in the afternoon – not due to her own vanity, or lack thereof, but because she's always loved the sound and feel of the quiet hallways in her high school, devoid of the hustle and bustle that marks it during the day. She's always adored the way she can only hear the sound of her and Copperhead's voices, as well as their shoes tapping against the tile as they head for the gates. Now, though, his voice's absence marks the silence with a distinctively eerie aura, with the knowledge that something is definitely off.
She lingers just outside the doorway, almost holding her breath in anticipation, her gaze searching the empty hallways, only for her shoulders to slump visibly with the aftermath of hope denied. I should have expected this, she tells herself. His brother and only family just died; I should have expected that he'd take a day off.
It doesn't explain the inexplicable, nagging concern at the back of her mind, though – something that's telling her Copperhead's absence has an underlying motive behind the obvious.
In the end, though, she shakes it off and sets off down the hallway for home, painfully aware of the sound of her footsteps against the tile in the silence. The fact that she now has to take on the Heartless on her own doesn't help matters.
A week later, Falcon only has to take a step outside the locker room before her eyes, trained by four days worth of exhaustion and diminishing optimism, find that familiar masculine shape. To his credit, he moves his entire head to look over at her, and he straightens from where he's leaning against the wall with a faint attempt at a smile. "Hey," he says. She nearly winces, because the quality of his voice – almost as though he hasn't used it in a while, or maybe used it too much – is a mocking echo of the boy who used to bounce up to her and loudly announce the details of his day every afternoon.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that her best friend is here, after a week of worry and growing despair on her part, and so she can't help but let that little detail slide. "Copperhead," she greets, a little breathless in her relief. She adjusts her book bag's strap on her shoulder and smiles in what she hopes is an encouraging manner at him. "Where… where have you been?" She's careful to speak carefully, not wanting to sound accusing but at the same time trying to convey her sense of urgency. "You kind of just up and vanished off the face of the planet for a week."
Copperhead eyes her for a moment. Then her words seem to sink in and he sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, Dyme's job was our main source of income. Y'know, for the house and everything." He hesitates, and Falcon's eyes widen as she takes in just how weary he looks. "I've… kinda been discussing my options with the landlord. Unless I get a job myself, I'm getting evicted." He meets her eyes at last and attempts a grin. What results is so pathetic that Falcon feels a pang of sympathy. "And unless one of the twenty thousand places I've applied to gets back to me in, like, three hours, then I'm gonna have to find a new place to live."
Watching her best friend, Falcon can't help but think of everything he has done for her in the past year or so. He has kept her Keyblade a secret; helped her with the Heartless infestation; gently coaxed her into joining the fencing club to keep her skills sharp; and the most obvious, the one that still makes her blush to think about. And before she can stop herself, the words tumble out.
"Why don't you come live with me, then?"
Copperhead blinks. Oddly, he looks like he had caught her words loud and clear right then and there. "I, uh… Seriously?" he says, a grin spreading across his face and his eyes brightening considerably. Falcon barely restrains a smile herself; his voice had cracked on the last word, but he was beginning to look like the man she knew again.
"Yeah," she confirms. Certainty begins to move throughout her body in a warm flood, and she finds herself thinking aloud in her response to him. "I can ask my parents tonight; I'm sure they'll be okay with it as long as we promise to sleep in separate bedrooms."
"Aw, but I don't really like that condition." Copperhead mock-pouts. When she laughs, unable to hold it back, his grin dies down to become a more sedate smile. "Thanks, Fal," he murmurs, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around her.
Her lips quirk upward against his shoulder. "You're welcome," she mumbles in reply.
"Is all your stuff ready?"
The blond boy rolls his eyes playfully as he hoists his single bag up onto his shoulder. "Geez Fal, what're you, my mom?" he teases. "Of course."
Falcon narrows her eyes at the other, more conspicuous burden strapped across his back, a burden that extends to either side beyond his backpack and one end of which ends in a curved blade. "And the big-ass scythe you're carrying into our house?" she prompts, only slightly playful. "I'm sure my parents won't ask about that."
"Oh, that." Copperhead's pupils shift conspiratorially from left to right. "Uh, well, if all else fails, we'll just tell them it's for a project or something. On, uh… weapons."
A smile tugs at Falcon's lips at the flustered look on his face. "Weapons," she drawls, folding her arms. "Right. While we're at it, why don't we explain what their daughter's been doing that she comes home limping almost every night?" Despite herself, an icy edge creeps into her words, accompanied by a slight ache in her heart. She hates secrets now, and the fact that she is keeping such a huge one from her parents still hurts.
Copperhead sighs, his amusement fading. He reaches forward and lightly strokes her hair with one hand. "Hey, come on now. We'll be fine. You'll be fine," he adds for emphasis, though even he doesn't sound like he believes it. He lowers his hand and turns away. "C'mon. Let's start for your house."
"Right." Falcon forces herself to begin moving forward; the sound of footsteps against dirt behind her signifies that he is following. She tries not to look back at the now-empty house behind her, tries not to register the soft sigh from behind her, afraid that if she recognizes the crumbling of even Copperhead's blithe mask she too will fall apart. Instead, she tries to lighten the mood, even as light begins filtering down from green leaves overhead and his house vanishes into the foliage behind them. "This'll be fun, won't it?" she asks, not daring to look back but still smiling. Even though he can't see it, she feels sure he can hear it in her voice and might feel better. "Us, living together?"
Abruptly, the sound of shoes crunching through dead leaves halts. Falcon stops as well and turns on her heel, her head tilting to the side. "What's wrong?" she asks obligatorily, even as the gravity of what she has just said hits her. Not surprisingly, the desire to toss her Keychain aside and throw herself in front of the nearest Heartless follows that revelation.
Copperhead appraises her with dark fury on his face. "Oh yeah, sure," he responds, his voice growing tight with suppressed emotion. "'Fun.' Hey, Fal, remember why I have to move in with you in the first place?"
The anger in his voice slices through her with the force of a blade, and Falcon recoils instinctively. "S-sorry," she tries lamely. "I guess I just…"
"You just what?" the other snaps. For a moment of tense silence, it seems as though he will reach behind him and unsheathe his scythe, and Falcon's hand inches toward the Azure Ice Keychain in her pocket. Distrust and vitriol flares in the air between them, and suddenly she can't breathe with the force of it.
Then he huffs and strides past her. "C'mon, let's go," he mutters without slowing down in the slightest. After a moment, Falcon realizes she should follow, and hurriedly does so, still shaking very slightly from what she'd felt from him.
The next few days pass in a blur. She can't figure out why the incident is still bothering him, because the Copperhead from before would have just waved it off in his typical manner and let it become part of the endlessly-flowing past. But the Copperhead of now brushes her off when she tries to talk to him; walks back to their normal training spot by himself; disposes of the Heartless in their path with icy cold efficiency, as though remembering that these creatures had killed his brother; eats meals at the table with Falcon's family and gives only monosyllabic quips when prompted; immediately heads for his room after dinner at night. Falcon's parents have noticed something is wrong with him, and they have tried asking her about it, but she's as lost as they are as to the reason why.
Unfortunately, the possibility that maybe his brother's death has affected him more than she had anticipated does not occur to her until it is too late.
She comes home from fencing practice one day to find that no one greets her announcement of having arrived. Confusion roils through her as she steps over the threshold and into the empty house, scanning the kitchen for even the slightest sign of life. Her search turns out to be futile in the end, though.
"That's weird," she mutters aloud at last, moving to place her book bag on the table. "I thought my parents said they had today off…"
She doesn't know what tide of theories would have come on the heels of that remark, but it halts instantly when she sees the note on the table.
The town is all but empty tonight, but if anyone were present, they would most likely stop in their respective actions and eye the dark-haired girl sprinting through the streets with more than a hint of bemusement. The half-light catches off the iridescent cerulean of her Keyblade as she leaves the city behind and vanishes into the forest, her heart pounding to the point where it should impede her stride. In the end, though, the thought of what the note had said spurs her on.
"Come to the top of the citadel tonight, alone. Also, don't forget to look at the moon. If it's heart-shaped, then you might want to hurry.
"I'm sorry."
It hadn't had a signature, but Falcon would recognize that chicken scratch anywhere. Her heart clenches just thinking about the identity of the writer.
On a whim, she glances up at the sky, not once slowing in her stride. The sight that her seemingly-innocent action yields to her makes the breath catch in her throat and the impending tears tremble in her eyes. Suddenly, she knows the reason why the moonlight cast has not a silver pallor, but a pink-and-gold color.
Her feet begin to pound a little more consistently on the ground now.
What she finds when she arrives at the apex of the citadel is not unexpected, but it still hurts to see. She comes to a stop at the top of the stairs, panting in a way that becomes more pronounced as the way her sprint had carried her the entire way here – through the forest, into the broken doorway, through the ruined foyer, and up the spiraling flight of stairs – finally seems to crash down upon her. In front of her, a broad, blond-haired shape stands with its back to her, and she finds herself choking on a sob as she recognizes it.
She would know her best friend anywhere.
Then her head tilts to the side as she takes in the dark-clad man standing next to Copperhead. The taller of the two has his hood up, so she can't even tell if she would have recognized him from town; this is a small world, after all.
Abruptly, she shakes it off, bringing her gaze down to the floor. What she sees – a reflection of herself, wind-blown and half-sweating with exhaustion and the run here and already about to cry – nearly pushes her over the edge, and she has to look back up at the men in front of her to avoid looking at her own reflection in the glass.
"Copperhead," she says. Her voice comes out surprisingly strong, and the smaller man turns, his eyes widening even as she steps forward. The look on his face would be almost comical under any other circumstances, but she forces herself to stop thinking about those other circumstances. This is happening here and now.
"Fal," he begins, and then she cuts him off.
"Where the hell are my parents?" she grits out.
Silence permeates the air between them, during which Falcon finds herself holding her breath, hoping so fervently that her vision of the boy staring at her becomes blurry that her intuition is wrong, that he'll just laugh and say something along the lines of they went out a while ago, they had some stuff they needed to do in town.
And then his shoulders slump and her eyes widen and her heart plummets and he steps aside.
Under any other circumstances, the sight of two shadow Heartless like the ones in front of her would cause her instinct to kick in and take them out with a couple of swings of her Keyblade. But – and nausea suddenly rises within her at the thought – these Heartless are…
Are…
Her Keyblade falls with a clatter and she drops to her knees on the floor. Being forced to face her reflection doesn't help, and she screws her eyes shut. This is all just a dream, she tells herself, completely contradicting her previous assurance of her own resolve. This is all just a stupid nightmare, and when I open my eyes, I'll be in my own bed. Mom will be waiting downstairs with a plate of pancakes, and I'll tell them about this idiotic dream I had last night, and Dad will smile and Mom will laugh and say nothing's wrong and tell me Copperhead's waiting outside to take me to school, and on the way there Copperhead will tell me about something stupid Dyme did last night –
She opens her eyes. Her doppelganger's still there, on its elbows and knees, staring back at her with growing horror on its countenance and its emerald eyes obtaining a telltale glisten.
"A pity, isn't it?" a deep voice, unmistakably not that of Copperhead, sounds. Falcon dares to look up and sees the dark-bedizened shape next to Copperhead reach up to the hood covering his face. The hood is flicked aside with a deft wave of the hand, revealing a dark-skinned face, long hair the color of the storm clouds gathering overhead, and smug amber eyes. Standing beside the other man, Copperhead stares at the ground.
"You told me this Keybearer's parents would make excellent recruits for our cause," the gray-haired man in the cloak goes on in a slow drawl, "and yet using the dark Keyblade on them failed to produce even Dusks." His eyebrows draw down over his eyes and a dark smirk contorts his face, as though in eager anticipation of Falcon's reaction to what he will say next. "I suppose their hearts just weren't strong enough."
At his words, something within Falcon snaps.
She bolts to her feet, ignoring the dizziness that assails her at such an abrupt shift of movement, and summons her Keyblade back into her hand. The dark-clad man turns at the sound of her snarl with a look of distinctively amused indifference as she charges toward him.
"Bastard!" she shrieks, driving the Azure Ice as hard as she can toward his smug face. In an instant, however, she's blinking in the sudden light cast by the dual blades the man just summoned, seemingly out of nowhere, to block her attack. The surprise does not last long in the wake of her anger, however, and soon she is back on the offensive, trying to break the man's guard even as he smirks and dances backward across the floor, parrying her attacks effortlessly. She chokes on the lump in her throat and blinks the furious tears out of her eyes. "What gave you the right to – why –"
"If you truly desire an answer to that," the man answers calmly, "perhaps you should ask your friend." The moment he finishes speaking, he suddenly drives one lightsaber toward her. She tries to draw back, but she still catches the brunt of the blow along her belly, just beneath her ribs. As she falls, just managing to catch herself by propping her Keyblade against the floor, the agony of the sword's impact sears along her abdomen and creates a feeling of heat there. She doesn't have to look down to see that there is blood.
Panting, she looks up and sees Copperhead, still standing next to the two Heartless that were once her parents. His eyes remain on the ground, staring at his own reflection, probably finding condemnation there just as she had.
"You're… you're kidding, right, Copperhead?" Falcon asks, her voice breaking. He doesn't respond, and her jaw tightens with both the wound's pain as well as her growing sorrow. "Answer me!" she snarls.
He just shakes his head and mutters something under his breath. She barely catches a single phrase, but that phrase, three seemingly innocent words, shatters the dam behind her eyes anyway.
"Jealous of me?" she repeats incredulously. Her breathing intensifies as, using her Keyblade as a crutch, she gets to her feet and withdraws it from the ground. "You mean you kidnapped and killed my parents because you were jealous of me? Are you freaking serious?" By the end of her words, her voice's volume nearly matches that of the thunder sounding just outside the room.
Copperhead raises his head then, meets her eyes with some effort. The fact that tears roll down his own cheeks fails to produce any response from her except for fury, and suddenly the urge to cry is reborn within her again at knowing that before now, she would have given anything to make his pain stop. "Xemnas told me he could bring Dyme back," he says in a rush, gesturing to the gray-haired man behind him. The blond hesitates before continuing, sounding as though every word catches against the inside of his throat. "He said he could bring my brother back if… if I brought him new recruits for his Organization."
"Which involves turning them into Heartless, I'm assuming." Falcon stares at him incredulously before shaking her head. For some incredibly stupid reason, laughter bubbles up within her, and issues out into the air before she can stop it. "You are such an idiot, Copperhead," she chuckles. "So you're basically saying you kidnapped and murdered your best friend's parents because you were jealous of my happy fun family and you wanted your brother back." It is not a question so much as an indictment.
Copperhead winces and looks away. "It made a lot more sense in my head," he says, strained playfulness in his voice.
Falcon cackles suddenly, causing the boy to give a start and whip his head back around to stare at her. "Well, isn't that great for you?" she snarls. "Now we've got a dead brother and two dead parents here and nothing came of it. Isn't that great? Don't you feel better now that you've dragged me down with you?"
Xemnas has remained silent up till now, but now he speaks, and his words make Falcon turn with an acrimonious remark on the tip of her tongue.
"There is a way to bring them back."
"Really?" Falcon drawls. She sways on her feet as she takes a challenging step closer and the still-fresh injury on her belly flares up. Oh, but that hurts. "Do tell, do tell."
Xemnas narrows his eyes almost imperceptibly, but he reaches within his pocket and tosses something to her. Falcon reaches up and catches it in her free hand, clenching a fist around it. When she opens that fist to see its new burden, her brow crinkles in confusion.
It's a Keychain.
Xemnas continues. "Sacrificing your own heart may be enough of a jarring force."
That, more than anything, seems to jar Copperhead. He turns toward Xemnas, and though Falcon cannot see him due to her eyes being on the black-and-red Keychain in her hand, she can hear the shock and horror and dread in his voice and almost see his wide violet eyes. "Xemnas, you don't mean –"
"You know what?" Falcon says, a resigned smile appearing on her face. "I don't care anymore. If this will bring them back…" She brings the dark Keyblade to point at her own chest and eyes Copperhead with a sort of bitter acceptance. "Then I'll do it."
"Fal, wait, it won't –" Copperhead begins, already running toward her; but it's too late.
Just before darkness oozes over her vision and overtakes it entirely, Falcon just catches a blur of red light through the air and the sound of Copperhead's voice. Is that mine? she has time to wonder as she stares at the heart weaving its way up, up, up. It sails through the ceiling, into the storm clouds, free from everything.
And then darkness pulls her away from this world and she knows no more.
When she wakes from the trance that seemed to have taken over her after driving the Keyblade into her chest, the first thing she knows is warmth, and the scent of coffee wafting its way into her nostrils. She dares to look up and finds herself looking into violet eyes.
"Fal," Copperhead says breathlessly, a smile growing on his face. "Thank the gods you didn't… he didn't…" He trails off. For the first time Falcon notices his arms have made their way securely around her torso and her own hands are placed against his biceps.
The reality of what has just transpired – that Keyblade had released her heart, but somehow Copperhead brought her back – has yet to sink in, and so Falcon's intrinsic reaction of delivering a well-deserved punch to Copperhead's jaw does not activate right away. Instead, she tightens her grip on his arms. "My parents," she says, rasping out the words. Losing her heart clearly took a toll on her ability to speak. "Are… are they…"
Copperhead hesitates, looks away. She doesn't need to hear any more. Instead, she pushes him away as hard as she can, and, while he's lying there staring wide-eyed at her, moves her hand back and slaps him as hard as she can across the face.
With a gasp, Anxclof jolted up, panting hard from the force of the emotion Falcon had felt. She brought up one hand to massage her forehead, pushing her fingertips against her temples in an attempt to soothe her sudden migraine. Naturally, it didn't help.
Groaning, the Nobody closed her eyes, allowing the chain of memories to replay themselves against the backdrop of the inside of her eyelids. Despite her lack of heart, she felt a distinctive pain in the place where it should have been, an echo of what Falcon had experienced that night at the top of the Shadowed Desert's citadel. Having witnessed the scene that had resulted in her birth, Anxclof couldn't help but feel more sickened than enlightened, especially now that she knew the reason why she had hated Xemnas so much during her Organization days. She found herself praying to whatever gods existed out there that this sequence of flashbacks to her Other's life would be the last. I'm not sure how much more of this I can take.
Seeing as how it had ended with Falcon losing her heart, though, Anxclof doubted that the other female Keybearer would appear in her dreams anymore. The thought should have filled her with some sense of comfort, however hollow, but strangely, it brought tears to Anxclof's still-closed eyes. Just thinking of how Falcon's best friend had betrayed her caused the part of her that still harbored parts of her Other to summon forth that main sign of sadness to her eyes.
It didn't help that, thanks to the way Falcon's past had come more disjointedly to her in the past, Anxclof knew how this ended: Falcon running off crying into the rain, and Copperhead staring after her. The former Number XIV chuckled sardonically at the thought. Nobodies like her couldn't summon forth happy endings even in their dreams, it seemed.
She opened her eyes, only to bark in surprise and scoot backward against the gray brick wall when a pair of large green orbs appeared suddenly in her vision.
"The hell?" she managed, staring at the owner of those eyes.
The small, blond-haired pixie tilted her head to the side, a distinctive look of fascination on her tiny features. Then she turned around and called to someone out of Anxclof's vision, "Yuna, Paine! I think she's awake!"
"You think?" the Nobody growled, recovering from her start enough to glower at the orange-clad fairy. "I'm only here snarling obscenities at you."
A flash of light made her put one arm over her eyes; when it faded, she lowered her arm just in time to see a black-bedizened fairy turn to her blue-wearing companion. Oh, joy, more pixies, she mentally grumbled.
"You think she's with the Restoration Committee?" the dark fairy was saying, doubt clear in her voice. The blue-clad pixie looked at Anxclof, but said nothing.
The blond one was still eyeing Anxclof curiously. Suddenly, she flew in closer, putting one hand under her chin thoughtfully and letting out an exaggerated "Hmmmm…"
Anxclof raised one eyebrow. "What?" she asked warily.
The blue fairy exchanged a glance with her dark companion; then she nodded and took the aerial equivalent of a few steps closer to Anxclof, though not nearly violating the Nobody's personal space as much as the lighter pixie was. Now that she was closer, however, Anxclof could see round, curious blue eyes and brown hair that was tugged gently by the wind in the Postern. "Do you know Squall Leonhart?" the fairy asked politely.
"Huh?" Anxclof asked intelligently.
The dark pixie sighed. "I told you she wouldn't know who he was," she grumbled to her companions.
The light fairy sat back in midair and let out a melodramatic groan of disappointment. "I was so sure we had the right person this time… Maleficent is gonna be sooooo mad…"
Anxclof frowned, her curiosity piqued. "Maleficent?"
Immediately, the black fairy swooped forward and shoved her hand against the blond's mouth. "Don't mind Rikku," she said, giving the aforementioned pixie a hard stare. "She's just running her mouth off."
"We need to go report this," the brunette pixie pointed out, putting her hands on her blue-clad hips.
Rikku nodded mutely; after a moment, the dark pixie sighed again and dropped her hand. "Guess so."
"Wait," Anxclof growled, getting ready to summon her Keyblade. "What's –"
But then the same light that had flashed earlier, albeit accompanied by a violet flash, appeared again, forcing Anxclof to shut her eyes against the brightness. When she opened her eyes again, the pixies were gone.
"Dammit," she mumbled under her breath, and pushed herself up into a sitting position. She looked around the Postern, her fist clenching when she remembered that Char used to live and work here. If only she was still here now; I'd take her out, and then Sora would be more vulnerable. And then I'd have Roxas back…
Her thoughts cut themselves off when a burst of light from the sky caught her eye and sent confusion surging through her. She knew the Heartless were here in full force – most likely due to Xemnas' influence, a thought that made her lip curl distastefully in the aftermath of discovering what he had done to her Other – but she didn't think the Organization was sending any more in anytime soon…
When she saw the source of the light, though, her confusion was immediately eclipsed by a sense of triumph. A smirk curled her lips now, and a few chuckles oozed up from deep within her as she watched the multicolored vessel descend a few miles away. The golden Keyblade she carried appeared in her grasp in a flash of light, and her fist clenched around it as she imagined tearing into Char's flesh with it.
She was so close… the least she could do was take the bitch who had kidnapped Roxas down.
Yeah... Anxclof kind of hates Char, in case it wasn't obvious.
Also, the Keyblade Fal uses to release her heart is, incidentally, the Soul Eater (I think that's its name in canon? I'm a bit fuzzy on that) Keyblade that Riku uses in KH1, and that Sora used to release Kairi's heart. How did Mansex get ahold of it? Uh... he went by after all the shit in HB in KH1 went down and picked it up? XD;
I have a question for you readers out there. Do you think the thing with Falcon and Copperhead's pasts crosses over into Mary Sue territory? I feel like it does, but the problem is that I can't really edit it out of the fic. It kind of becomes important later.