Hey all! I thought I'd finish this chapter and get it to you guys. I'm done with my first year of college/finals, but I don't start working full-time till June. So I figured I'd be nice and get this to y'all before adulthood bitch-slaps me. You're welcome.
But... I promised myself I'd keep new chapters below 10k words. Obviously, this chapter did not meet that goal. DX
I DID put everything I wanted to put in this chapter, though! Hopefully the next one will come a little more easily.
Enjoy!
Simba's worried brown eyes followed the Scar-shaped shadows in their path. The breeze that had once tugged so playfully at the grass now tore relentlessly at the grass' roots, threatening to rend them free of their foundation as the darkness roared past it.
Hot at Simba's heels, Sora watched with no small amount of worry percolating in his chest; the Scar ghosts had made him shudder on their own, but somehow, the sight of what they were becoming concerned him even more.
"What's going on?" Donald shouted, rather unnecessarily. Even with the ghosts' haste to combine, their union was silent. Almost the instant that question escaped his lips, the dark, trembling mass before them began to shift into another, distinctively reptilian form.
"I don't know, but it doesn't look good." Well no kidding, Sora, Char snorted in the back of his mind, since when has anything involving Scar or Heartless looked "good?"
Rather than inject fresh determination into his veins, though, the echo of her already-familiar voice made him tense. Phantoms. Everything had shrunk down to ghosts and memories of what they had been. Scar, Riku, Kairi, his parents, Char… even the Organization, whose origin lay twined so deeply with hers.
Thinking of the Organization, he risked a glance over at Axel. The Nobody was staring out at the spectacle before them, acid eyes narrowed and fur bristling along his shoulders. Sora surveyed with new suspicion that feline expression, that countenance whose infernal grace and aloofness matched his current form almost completely.
No, the Roxas inside Sora whispered. He almost toppled over with the force of his surprise at his Nobody stirring. Rather than indignation, or anything Sora would have felt at someone accusing Riku of creating a foe like this, Roxas' voice was quietly firm. Axel couldn't have done something like this even if he wanted to.
So then who's responsible for this? Sora demanded in his head. The fury toward Axel, the protectiveness toward Kairi – those feelings wore his mental voice ragged and raw. Xehanort's dead Heartless?
No. Maybe just the uncertainty in Simba's heart.
Suddenly Donald squawked and pointed with one wing. Following the duck's gaze, Sora caught one last glimpse of the dark cocoon dissolving in wisps of shadow, revealing what Scar's final remnants had condensed into.
Simba gasped and took a step back. "It's huge!" he whispered.
Huge, as it turned out, was a gross understatement. The Heartless lowered its horned head to glare down at its prey, trees along its back swaying as it did so. It almost looked like the behemoth had risen up from the ground, taking a strip of the grass and trees and donning them as its cloak in its ascent.
At first the copse of trees along the small of the Heartless' back shifting confused Sora, until two fists detached from the mass of green. Fiery light began to shine through the gaps between those massive fingers; it reminded him all too strongly of Jafar and Genie's clash.
Before any exhaustion at the memory could slip loose of its confines, Sora's determination slammed itself down on it. They'd taken out Scar before, and they could do it again no matter what form he took.
Still, Sora felt a quiver begin to shake through his legs at the Heartless' size and the crackling force between the fingers on its spine. Not for the first time today, he found himself wishing for his true, human form, if only because the increased height would bring him more courage.
That, and he was used to fighting as a boy. As a lion…
Adrenaline and necessity had allowed him to again grow accustomed to the increased speed, the four legs, the lack of thumbs and the bloody tang that forced its way past the barrier of his teeth into his mouth. But he hadn't mastered the art of jumping, which he'd need to defeat an opponent this massive; the hundreds of muscles required for his haunches to bunch and propel him up into the air was a beast even he hadn't tamed just yet.
"Sora!"
He jolted and turned to see Axel staring urgently at him. "Are you waiting for it to make you a pancake or something?" he demanded. He swung out one already-flaming paw and narrowed his eyes even more fiercely. "Hop to it!"
Donald started, and swung his head around to glare at the red lion. "Don't tell him what to –!"
The Heartless lifted its head to the sky and shrieked, a cacophony that penetrated into their sensitive ear drums. Donald curled himself inward, Goofy pulled himself into his shell, and even Axel flinched. Sora flung his forelegs over his head, and Simba, snapped out of his terrified trance, hunched his shoulders as well. An instant later, the ground rippled beneath their feet, followed by dual cries of pain.
Cries that had grown very familiar over the year and a half Sora had spent fighting alongside their owners.
Sora jerked his legs back down and glanced frantically over his shoulder. What he saw made his heart stutter in his chest and his eyes widen in horror: Donald slumped against the underside of Pride Rock, skinny frame of this form all the smaller-looking in his unconscious state. Beside him, Goofy lay prone as well, the miniature earthquake having knocked his limbs out from where he'd pulled them inside his shell.
Thump, thump, thump, went his heart in his ears, and then an insistent thumpthumpthump at the red puddle beginning to spread under both their bodies.
He heard Simba shout his longtime comrades' names, but registered through only the waterfall of his roaring heartbeat screening him from the outside world.
Dimly, he knew what had happened: the Heartless had taken a step, and the shocks that single, deadly foot had created had knocked Goofy back into Donald, where Pride Rock had broken both of their falls.
Dimly, he knew that the two of them had taken much worse blows than just a knock to the back of their heads: Goofy's miraculous return to them in Hollow Bastion, along with what all they'd survived on their last journey, told him that much.
Vividly, he knew he didn't care.
The blood from his friends' bodies was seeping into his vision, permeating everything in a thin layer of fury. Suddenly the waterfall in his ears was drying up and he was swinging around, propelling himself forward, heedless of Simba and Axel screaming for him to wait.
The Heartless lifted its foot again, clearly trying to complete its job and take out the Keyblade wielder. Only the shadow darkening the blood red to maroon snapped him out of his charge – but it was too little, too late, it seemed; gravity, or maybe just the malice of fate, tugged the instrument of his demise down.
Then something sharp penetrated through his thick, brown fur and into his skin, snagging on an area just next to his spine. As it turned out, Jafar had aimed one of his platforms at that part of Sora's body only an hour or so earlier.
Sora didn't realize how raw the wound still felt until claws were practically tearing it open again and he howled. The sound grated on his ears, which, after the ordeal his enemy's scream and his own roaring heartbeat had inflicted on them, he hadn't thought possible.
Then his center of gravity tilted sideways and he landed, hard, on the ground. Something stronger than mere physics pushed into him from above, effectively keeping him pinned. For a moment, Sora thought the Heartless had extended its claws and succeeded where its massive foot had failed; only a moment's writhing later, though, he twisted upward and saw his assailant.
Fortunately, Axel had retracted his fire before pushing Sora away from the attack. However, his powers seemed to have channeled every bit of their blaze into his furious glare. "When I said hop to it, that wasn't what I meant!" he seethed. "Were you trying to get yourself killed?"
Sora bared his fangs, even though he knew Axel's anger had a point. At the same time, though, he couldn't help thinking why wouldn't he want that thing to finish me, Roxas would come out if I'd gotten squashed.
Axel whirled back to the towering figure overhead. The Heartless was blotting out even the weakest rays of sun now, while Simba dashed frantically around it, apparently trying to find a spot to attack.
"A little help here, guys!" the king shouted, voice straining to overtake the Heartless' roar.
Axel looked at Sora. His claws slid free of Sora's flesh, allowing the Keybearer to leap to his paws. A wave of frustration filled him, that even at his fullest, four-legged height, he barely reached the shoulder of the sitting Nobody.
"If you want to help your friend," Axel hissed, "then now's the best time to do it."
Sora nodded, albeit with a hint of reluctance to admit Axel's rationality. Ironic, that a man – Nobody, he had to remind himself – a Nobody who controlled fire could summon up the mental fortitude to cast the conflagration of fury aside, if only for now.
For now…
"You really do remember me this time? I'm so FLATTERED!"
He shook his head with a grimace and a wrinkle of his nose. These phantom memories couldn't get the best of him.
Not now. Not now that he was so close to finding Kairi and Riku and Char again.
Only the foe before them, who was drawing back one flame-engulfed foot again, stood in his way of answers.
With a snarl, he hefted the Decisive Pumpkin and dashed forward.
Sora instinctively leaped back when the beast controlling the Heartless lost its balance and tumbled onto the savannah. Its body crashing onto the ground sent a very tangible tremor through the three lions standing there; Simba stumbled at the impact, but Axel lent him a steadying paw. The king gave Axel an incredulous look, though doubt marred that skepticism at the Nobody's support.
Sora caught his grin before it could fully manifest. Part of him had a past with Axel, a fact that hung all too prominently in the forefront of his thoughts – in fact, the way it permeated his mind right now easily paralleled his desire to find his friends – but he knew he had yet to fully accept it. No matter how much it annoyed him that part of him could call a Nobody, his enemy, a friend.
Honestly, it kind of made him want to scream a bit.
Rather than succumb to his growing migraine and emotional conflict on the matter, he lifted his head and watched the Heartless disappear. The same darkness that had wrought its existence wreathed around his enemy's body, and he shifted on his sore paws as those shadows consumed the gargantuan feet last.
Triumph washed over him, despite the tingling ache in his wounds. The place where Axel had snagged his claws in his fur throbbed the hardest, and every blazing strike that the Heartless' mount had thrown in his direction resonated deep in Sora's fur. However, he tried not to focus on the distinctive oozing sensation along his back and flanks.
"Are you guys okay?" he asked, glancing at Axel and Simba.
It was an obligatory question, but not one with an obvious answer. Simba's fervor to take out the last manifestation of his demons was dying down on his face and exhausted eyes, but relief gleamed there as well. Blood shone in the weak sunlight all along his pelt, and Sora quickly lifted a paw to channel his remaining mana into healing Simba's lighter injuries. The king didn't rebuff Sora's help, only murmured his thanks as Cura's green light spread calming tendrils into his skin.
Very reluctantly, Sora faced Axel. The Nobody had endured more than a few blows from the Heartless' lethal feet; seeing Axel lose his sinuous grace had amused Sora far more than he'd like to admit. Not surprisingly, their foe's fiery attacks had glanced off Axel's pelt, merely creating a sizzling noise at the contact with his thick, red fur. Despite the Heartless employing its own flames against him, his own blazing claws had raked down its body and left trails of light and heat in their wake.
Seeing Axel's reaction as he'd set the copse-like set of trees on the Heartless' back aflame… Sora shivered at the memory of only minutes before. He'd been running on the ground, trying to distract the Heartless' path so Axel and Simba could focus on taking down the shaman mount on its back. However, he'd quickly stopped in his tracks when sadistic laughter had floated down to him from below.
The Heartless had roared in agony, had bucked furiously in a vain attempt to eradicate its twin burdens. Even far below, Axel's glee was unmistakable.
Fortunately, Sora's trance of horror hadn't affected Simba. An instant after Sora had caught the initial remnants of what Axel had done, the king must have finished it off, for the Heartless' writhing had suddenly frozen.
And that left them here now: all three of them standing there, with the dark, viscous fluid on Simba's back drying to an unappealing crust. Axel looking ruffled, but not bleeding in the slightest.
Seeing that, more than anything, brought Sora back to reality. Of course he doesn't bleed. No heart, remember? He'd picked up at least that much from the scant times he had been awake in biology class. For blood to exist, it had to be circulating. And for that, a heart was necessary.
He drew himself up just as Axel answered his question. "A little tired, but yeah, I'll get over it." The red lion glanced at Simba. "Not bad, Your Majesty. Safe to say they won't call you a do-nothing king now."
Simba's shoulders dropped. "If Scar doesn't come back now, that's all that matters."
Sora nodded. Something in his heart pushed his frustration aside and found it in itself to let happiness for Simba stir. Because he did feel relieved for his friend – relieved that at least one of them had resolved their phantoms. "I don't think he will," he said, feeling a smile spread across his face. "If he does, we'll be ready for him."
Axel turned his head just slightly so he could fully regard Sora. Feeling that acid gaze on him, Sora fought the suddenly-powerful urge to glare defiantly back at him. I'm not Roxas, he wanted to say, you're wasting your time, but kept that firmly locked in his throat's confines as well.
Besides, he suspected Axel knew that already.
Suddenly, he remembered Donald and Goofy.
"Oh, no!" He whirled around and raced toward the two forms still slumped against the underside of Pride Rock.
In his haste, he accidentally sloshed through the pool of blood on the ground; he winced at the discomfort of his friends' life staining his paws and the white fur on his chest, but tried desperately to ignore the dash of red now glaring up at him from the bottom of his vision.
A shade of red that reminded him of Char.
Before further despondency could take him, he veered to the side so he wouldn't be crouching in the blood on the ground. Quickly, with adrenaline from the battle taking on a different nature entirely as it thrummed in his chest, he scanned his fallen comrades. Goofy was on his back, limbs flung out as if to stop himself; with how he'd flown back into Donald, he probably had – had probably tried to shield Donald from the still-inevitable blow. As for Donald, he lay on the ground, completely still, with red seeping into his white feathers and staining them.
It was a sight Sora had seen before. Again, he had to remind himself that they had fought worse battles and had taken worse hits than a blow to the back of the head – the concrete-like, white floor and violet sea of the End of the World surrounded his memories – but that same fear wouldn't leave him.
I won't lose any more friends. I can't.
He nearly lifted a paw to heal them before remembering he had spent all his magic helping Simba.
"Please be okay, please be okay…" someone whispered. It took him a moment to realize he had said it.
He was dimly aware of Simba and Axel stepping up on either side of him. The former's concern, he could understand; but Axel…
At that moment, a groan resounded from below. Sora leaped up so quickly that his battered body screaming in protest almost wound itself into audibility. Two things happened at once: something soft and furry pressed into his back to keep him from falling, and the white-and-red shape shifted.
"My head…" Donald groaned, lifting into a sitting position as best he could. He brought one wing to his head and rubbed, only to squawk and pull it back when he saw just how much he had bled. "Gonna have to wash that off," he grumbled.
"That's what you're worried about?" Simba asked incredulously. He shook his head with a laugh through his nose. "You'll be just fine."
"Did we win?" Goofy warbled, his limbs twitching. He paused, then groaned aloud, as if just realizing he had taken his dog-turtle form and was currently on his back.
"Oh, get up, you big palooka!" Donald pushed off the ground – or tried to, anyway. "Ow."
An uncontrollable grin, shaky and ridiculously face-splitting on his lion face as it was, pulled Sora's lips back. In the wake of the previous battle, the relief inside him felt euphoric.
"Sora, are you – wak!" Donald nearly fell onto his back again as Sora flung himself forward and wrapped his forelegs around them as best he could. The hug was far more clumsy than he would have liked, considering the trio's current appearance and the fact that Goofy did not stand upright.
"I'm so glad you guys are okay," was muffled, as Sora had buried his nose in his own fur. Another liquid entirely was beginning to soak his cheeks.
"Gawrsh, Sora, didn't I tell ya before?" Goofy said, though Sora could feel his smile against his elbow's equivalent. "I get bumped on the head all the time."
"Thank goodness you're all okay!"
Nala's voice made him look up. The lioness was descending to the foot of Pride Rock, with both the incline and concern for Simba hastening her stride. Close behind, a baboon loped along with a coconut-tipped cane for support.
Oh yeah, that's Rafiki, Sora recalled the ape's name, along with how Rafiki had dismissed him as suitable royalty. He almost frowned at the memory, but somehow, couldn't bring himself to succumb to spite and let it knit his brow together.
Quickly, he drew back. He heard Axel utter a low chuckle behind him and had to fight the deluge of embarrassment that threatened to flatten his ears.
"So, the king has returned!" Rafiki said, coming to a halt in front of them. Donald righted himself immediately, albeit with a visible tremor in his wings at the abrupt shift in gravity; however, he did not fall again, even though his head injury would have justified that lapse in dignity. He reached out with one wing and, after a moment's struggle, managed to pull Goofy upright.
Amid the murmured gratitude from the dog-turtle, Sora glanced to Simba. "Think you'll be all right now?"
Like his earlier question about Simba's status, this was an obligatory one; however, this time, grudging worry did not temper his true concern. After the Heartless had taken advantage of Simba's lingering doubts, Sora had to make sure his friend wouldn't yield to those fears again.
Besides, Heartless aside, fear could be a much more decisive finishing blow than any enemy's claws. Sora's encounters with Riku on his last journey – seeing how the darkness had twisted his best friend into little more than a bitter man whose taunts had gained some true fire – told him that much.
Simba hesitated, then smiled, gaze lifting up to the sky. The expression of rueful nostalgia on his face was familiar; it reminded Sora of when Mufasa's regal presence had pushed the clouds aside and added an extra shade of gold to the rising sun. He couldn't help wondering if Simba was seeing his father in the clouds now. "You know what, Sora?" he said at last. "I think I will."
Nala sighed and nuzzled him gratefully, as if recognizing that her love spoke the truth. That the Scar-shaped demon prowling around in his thoughts had disappeared.
"Yes, the Pride Lands will not forget King Simba's courage." Sora tilted his head to the side as Rafiki spoke. The baboon had followed Simba's gaze with just as much fervor, like the weight of his eyes could also coax forth the old king.
"Well," a rough voice suddenly said, "as touching as this all is, I've got somewhere to be."
Just with those brusque words, Sora remembered Axel, and the relief that had left him near-delirious and shaky on his paws evaporated.
Simba untangled himself from Nala's embrace to narrow his eyes at the Nobody. "I suppose I should thank you for your help." When Nala nudged him in his ribs, he winced, as if she had unintentionally jabbed one of his wounds. "I mean, um… thank you. Axel."
Axel had already turned around and begun to walk away. No, Sora realized suddenly; walk was a grossly inappropriate term when it came to the Nobody. Saunter and stride seemed more fitting. Hearing Simba's grudging gratefulness, though, he stopped in his tracks. One paw lifted, pad up, and became an extension of red to his lithe form. "Don't mention it. Seriously, don't," he added. "Got a reputation to keep, y'know?"
Reputation. Sora thought of the cackling beast he had heard more than seen in the battle.
Without another word, Axel turned with a flick of his tail and strode past the animals still standing there. In spite of himself, Sora found his eyes trailing after the red lion as he passed. A forepaw aligned with Sora's sitting form before Axel's pupils slid toward him. Even in that sidelong glance, the Roxas inside him found a myriad of emotions in that acid vat's visible sliver. Nostalgia, annoyance, resignation…
Fear?
More than that, though, Sora himself picked up a subtle air of expectation.
But then that fire-tipped tail disappeared around Pride Rock's thorn structure.
After a couple of seconds, Sora became aware of another pair of eyes. He glanced over, only to blink in surprise. Rafiki was staring intensely at where Axel had gone.
Does Rafiki know who… what Axel is? It wouldn't have surprised Sora.
"We should get going too," Goofy pointed out. Whether his suggestion arose from Axel's departure or true haste, Sora didn't know.
"Do you think your journey will ever be over?" Nala asked. It was an honest question, and one that made sense, what with how many times Sora and his friends had merely passed through here; nonetheless, Sora's shoulders tensed.
Donald stared down at the ground under his beating wings. Goofy hesitated.
It was strange. For the briefest of moments, Sora found himself looking around, thinking maybe Char will explain instead of me.
He looked up at Nala, forming the words slowly as he spoke them. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "I think… as long as I wield the Keyblade, I'll have to keep going."
"Your struggle never ends," Rafiki said.
"Never, ever?" Goofy's eyes widened.
But the baboon shook his head. "Your journey continues," he explained, raising his cane to the sky. The coconut atop it shook and created a peculiar background rhythm to his following words. "Even if you find what you are looking for, another journey begins as soon as your first one ends. It is all a part of the circle of life."
An endless journey… Rafiki's words, while seemingly convoluted, held more than a little truth. After all, nearly the moment Sora's last journey had ended, he had found himself on this one.
Simba laughed and shook his head. "You told me the exact same thing when I was a cub," he said. His voice gained a rueful heaviness. "I laughed at you, then. But now… after my father's death and what Scar did, I understand."
"Ah! You see?" Rafiki turned to Sora, and his grin made the Keybearer blink. "Not just a crazy old baboon. Unless the king – he is crazy, too."
"I wouldn't put it past you," Donald muttered. The words barely rose above the sudden increase in the breeze, and Sora suddenly had to fight back a grin of his own.
Rafiki strode forward then and extended his cane in the trio's direction. His gesture would have seemed like an amiable farewell, almost a blessing, if he hadn't suddenly begun shaking it furiously at them. Donald barely dodged the coconut as it swung past his fast, and Goofy nearly ducked his head into his shell.
"Now go on, get out, go on, go on!" Rafiki shrieked, pressing them toward the back of Pride Rock.
"Rafiki!" Simba chided him. Nala simply narrowed her eyes disapprovingly.
"All right, we're going! Geez!" Sora backed up, away from the swinging cane.
"You want to give us another head injury?" Donald demanded, but even his stubbornness acknowledged his own head injury long enough to follow his leader.
The three of them turned tail and made a beeline toward the stretch of grass behind Pride Rock. Sora didn't stop in his flight until the thorn-shaped rock was at his back.
"What the heck was that about?" Donald spat. He rubbed his head, only to wince. Whether his pained expression came from true agony or the unappealing red crust that crumbled onto one wing, Sora wasn't sure.
"You guys, he had a point," Goofy said. "We do kinda need to go."
Sora sighed. "Well, yeah…"
"Go where?" Donald asked. His fury died down into uncertainty. "Remember the last time we came here? No other worlds came up on the map."
Sora's eyes widened. Only a paltry "oh" escaped him. He remembered now – the initial optimism as he had glanced at the Gummi ship's map, the raw dread and horror at no new places, the knowledge that Riku and Kairi could be anywhere the map wasn't showing to them…
And the suggestions of the two chipmunks who helped pilot the vessel.
"But Chip and Dale told us to go to Twilight Town." Goofy filled in the silence with Sora's unspoken thoughts. "I guess we could go back…"
"That's not a bad theory, turtle-boy."
They looked over and saw Axel standing in front of Pride Rock, watching them with a slowly waving tail. Somehow, the languid air with which he surveyed the trio reminded Sora of when he'd shown up in Hollow Bastion.
And suddenly, the hope that had lain all but dormant inside him when Axel had first shoved himself into their group was clawing at the inside of his chest, crying to be satisfied.
"What about Twilight Town?" he urged.
The Nobody narrowed his eyes. The red path of his tail stilled in its twitching.
Unbidden, Sora's imagination set on what must have happened when this Nobody had taken Kairi. Hayner and Pence throwing futile punches at him, Axel striding up and dragging her off, Kairi struggling defiantly but to no avail…
Sora couldn't imagine Kairi not putting up a fight.
"Please, Axel!" he begged. "I need to know how to get to the Organization's world!"
Axel surveyed him a moment longer. The internal conflict on his countenance didn't arise from his loyalty to the Organization: he'd surrendered that the moment he had decided he wanted his best friend back. No, this struggle fractured his façade of brashness and playful apathy for a different reason entirely.
Even without Roxas, Sora knew why. He had experienced the same fear just after discovering Riku's alliance with the darkness. In Neverland, too, when Riku had stepped aside to reveal Kairi's comatose body lying on Captain Hook's deck.
It was the fear that, even if he and his two best friends united, time and endless battles and eternal war would leave a scar too great and disfiguring for things to be the same again.
That fear had only plagued Sora for a little while, though. Not long after he and Riku had closed the door to darkness – in fact, right before that infuriating year-long gap in his memory – seeing both Riku and Kairi again had put his fears to rest.
Take care of her, Riku had said, and even though that sad smile spoke of giving everything up and cut Sora to the core, Sora had realized they had forgiven each other.
I know you will! Kairi had said in response to Sora's promise to return, and even though Sora's heart ached at the thought of never seeing her again, he had taken comfort from the fact that she would be safe.
Axel's two best friends weren't safe, though. Gods only knew where Anxclof had gone after their encounter in the Underworld. And Roxas…
Suddenly that frustration inside him was fighting a losing battle with sympathy.
Things were so much better, he thought in a final attempt to spur frustration's victory, when they were black and white.
Things aren't black and white anymore, though, Char scoffed. Then again, gray has never really been your color.
For a moment, green and blue eyes alike were locked, with each lion grappling with their own emotions. Donald beat his wings in the air for a moment longer before he descended to the ground, while Goofy glanced nervously from one lion to the other.
At long last, Axel sighed. He pushed one paw through the rambunctious spikes that served as his mane. So much resignation packed itself into that gesture.
The man who had roared with sadistic laughter at his foe's pain seemed a million years ago now.
"Just… go to Twilight Town," he said heavily. "You'll find your answers there.
"And," he added, "for what it's worth… I'm sorry about Kairi."
He opened a portal and trotted into the darkness.
The sky had grown almost unnervingly dark by the time Char and Riku trudged up the steps to Falcon's door. Although the sun hadn't quite dipped below the horizon yet, its vibrant golden disc had receded just enough to taint the few clouds and leave the sky dull.
Riku paused just before making the last step. Their surroundings were unnervingly quiet, to the point where he almost wished a few Heartless would pop up just so he and Char could have a distraction. As a result of the unsettling stillness, his foot landing on the top step created a thud that ricocheted within the trees' perimeter.
Still, the echo was a hell of a lot better than Copperhead's tale bouncing around in Riku's mind.
"Well," Char said after a moment, rubbing her bare arms. He glanced over his shoulder at her. With the departure of the sun's heat, it felt like the Shadowed Desert's formerly-pleasant breeze swept forth with a new bite. That was one good thing about the Organization coat: it kept him warm in early evening weather. "I guess we are going back inside…?" She trailed off in obvious uncertainty.
"Of course we are," Riku confirmed. "We need a place to stay until we find what we're looking for, remember?"
His explanation garnered about the reaction he'd expected: Char opened her mouth to speak, only to close it and gaze down at the ground. He couldn't see her eyes, but knew exactly what he would find if he could: bitterness, anger, longing. They were emotions he had come to anticipate when he mentioned their little mission.
Mission. Was that even the word for it anymore? It's just the old man sending us out to do his dirty work. Not even trusting us beyond this. Hell, Char is basically his heir and he didn't even trust her.
Fast on the heels of those spiteful thoughts came a surge of defiant rage. The notion of disobeying Ansem, of sending Char back now and finishing this assignment – now that he'd thought of how much he abhorred the term, just thinking mission made a foul taste permeate his mouth – flickered briefly in the back of his mind.
In the end, for some reason, he relented and stifled that urge. If anything, he needed all the help he could get. In about ten minutes, he might lose Falcon's help. It was unlikely, what with her feelings for him, but she might find condemnation in the fact that he and Char had failed to avenge her parents.
Gods, it still felt weird to think Copperhead had just as much blood on his hands as Riku himself did. The obnoxious, philandering scythe-swinger that Riku had first met had fairly fallen apart in his mind.
It wasn't him, though. Just the front he tossed at the world.
He heard someone clear their throat and quickly found the source: Char had lifted her head and was staring expectantly at him. Impatience warred with nervousness on her face, and, following the flicker of movement to her tapping foot, he could've sworn her legs were trembling a bit.
Before he could stop himself, a breath of laughter had escaped his nostrils. Char immediately bristled. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing," he answered. At that moment he remembered his hand still resting on the doorknob and let it drop back to his side. For some reason, just like that, the thick tension in the air dissipated just a bit. Even Char's shoulders fell slightly slack. "Just… you seem really nervous, considering how Falcon's treated you."
"You mean like an obstacle?" Char chuckled wryly. "You know what's weird, Riku?" She paused – no, hesitated would fit the air around the break in speech better. Like the last word substitution, this one made Riku balk. Despite how Sora had changed her, he had counted on at least a show of unwavering confidence.
"I think we got a kind of truce going, this morning," she confessed. "I know she didn't like me very much. Because I was so close to you. At first I thought it was kind of stupid, but then I remembered… how much I resented Kairi for being so close to Sora."
Riku's breath caught. Char's unexpected explanation was beginning to sound so very familiar. Every word of that last part resonated in his mind, only with the two names reversed.
"So I understood her a little more than I would've liked," Char went on. Her tone grew less and less tentative as she spoke, as if she'd kept this hidden for the last few days. Riku got the distinct feeling that she had sounded – had looked, even, with her gradually relaxed stance – like this when she had told Sora about her origins.
For how had she gone a month without spilling her truths to the boy she professed to love, when only a few days bottling up her growing sympathy for Falcon and Copperhead clearly weighed so much on her?
Sora taught her honesty, too.
Despite this, Char's formerly secretive nature made one last stand, flitting across her face in the form of one last decision to keep going. "Anyway," she said, shrugging and putting her foot on the first step, "we're almost something like friends now. If not that, then grudging allies. And… I don't know, I don't want that newfound trust to die because her boyfriend's a murderous ass."
Riku let out a sharp bark of laughter, before remembering Falcon waited past the door's barrier and calming down. A grin twitched across the redhead's face.
It was a testament to how good the break in anxiety felt, that she didn't look the least bit uncomfortable at Xehanort's face showing amusement.
He turned back to the door and placed his hand back on the knob. "We're going in, then?"
Char angled her head sardonically to the side at him. "No, actually, we're gonna sleep outside and hope the machine falls out of a tree into our laps."
Riku smiled and shook his head. "The sarcasm is not appreciated."
"Noted."
With that, with that one last bantering comment ringing out, he opened the door and stepped inside.
Only when disappointment twisted the corner of his mouth did he realize that before he'd even opened the door, he had readied himself to spot Falcon right away. At least then, he reasoned to himself, he could gauge her reaction immediately and know that his friend hadn't…
Then he paused in his mental tracks, because he didn't really know what exactly he had anticipated her to do. From what Char had told him, Falcon's admission to Copperhead's little transgression had been wrought with tears and desperation.
However, Riku did know her well enough to understand the intensity of that desperation. She could only dam up so much latent frustration behind her self-imposed walls, the walls that her best friend's betrayal had served to build. A year and a half's worth of loneliness and horrified curiosity and hollow apathy would have to have left her full.
And today, that all spilled over.
His eyes swept over the floor, and suddenly he found himself grinding his teeth together and repressing thoughts and theories of his own. Only the light of the lamp sitting next to the couch lit the room; should have cast the ridges of every waiting gauze roll and bathed the boxes of bandages in its yellow light. But the floor was clear.
Somehow, even the absence of the very little mess Falcon could accumulate cut Riku to the core.
He looked at Char. She was eyeing the living room with a furrowed brow and narrowed eyes, leaning back slightly on one leg. Despite the situation, he couldn't help noticing she almost seemed like she was trying to keep her weight off the other leg. The position looked familiar; after a moment's digging, he realized she had done much the same thing when they had left Falcon's house to find Copperhead a few days before.
She didn't look near as pained as she had before, though. So that eliminated the possibility of that Xemnas lookalike having hurt her leg.
Riku shook the newborn interest out of his mind – along with the migraine inherent in Copperhead knowing the real Xemnas – just as Char noticed his eyes on her and faced him. "You don't think…?" she began, only to decide she couldn't finish.
"I'm in here."
Very few things had startled Riku in a while, to the point where the last time he'd been surprised wavered hazily in his memory. Last time, though, Falcon had caused it. A few weeks or so after he had sent Char off, after he'd unwillingly set her emotional compass into the magnetic field known as Sora's influence, he had gotten bored with the virtual Twilight Town. With both Namine and Char gone, both because of him, he had no one to talk to.
He had stopped by the Shadowed Desert to see if Falcon had a new bounty. If he didn't flex his fighting muscles soon, he knew he would eventually collapse into a puddle of pure boredom. It's possible! he remembered arguing with himself.
Just as he had arrived in the town square, he had collided with something much shorter. Because of its dark color, he had nearly summoned the Soul Eater, only to relax when he saw Falcon had just walked into him. Her snickering at the obvious indignation on his face had escalated into full-on laughter as she had realized what had happened.
Now, a week later, she caused the jolt in his spine and the near-whiplash of turning his head toward her presence again. Except this time, no laughter marked her; her voice sounded thin and exhausted, as if she hadn't used it in a while.
With a deep breath, Riku strode in the direction of her voice. He was aware of the pause before another set of footsteps sounded unevenly alongside his; in the half-darkness, he could almost delude himself into predicting Char's tread – thump thump, sounded his, and then the thud thud of hers – but like before, her footsteps sounded arrhythmic even against the backdrop of his.
His feet were taking him in a direction he had never taken in Falcon's house before: the hallway leading to the stairs was familiar to him, but he had never gone into the room from which he traced Falcon's voice. On the very first night that he and Char had stayed here, right after Char had dragged her bitter, angry body upstairs, Falcon had told him quite firmly that this particular room was forbidden.
Back then, he had reluctantly accepted that stipulation. But now she was allowing them inside. Like the lack of medicinal supplies scattered about, this change unsettled Riku.
Nonetheless, his concern for his friend overrode any discomfort. So, without even turning around to ensure he wasn't alone in his anxiety, he pushed the already-ajar door open.
For something Falcon had emphasized as being so special, the room was not very large or extravagant. It contained a bed, a dresser against the opposite wall, and a lamp from which light emanated. None of these drew Riku's attention as much as the shape sitting on the bed, the girl whose form the lamplight outlined in a sickly, despondent yellow.
Falcon's back was to them, and she sat slightly hunched over. That ill yellow in the lamplight almost seeped into her; it created a haze about her that Riku almost feared he couldn't break.
If it wasn't for Kairi, he thought, maybe I could have liked you back. If you didn't have all your baggage –
Almost without knowing, he lifted one hand, curled it into a fist, and knocked on the doorframe. Gently. Once, twice, three times, to tell Falcon of his presence.
Her shoulders twitched, then that same stillness settled its heavy shawl on her again. A moment's silence, then, "So he told you?"
The words should have sounded defiant. Angry. To Riku, though, the question sounded listless.
Char ended up answering, after looking over at him and realizing he wasn't going to make things easier. She took a deep breath and confirmed it. "Yeah. He did."
The silence that followed could have throttled a Behemoth.
So long did it take Falcon to respond that Riku almost thought he would have to reach forward and shake her. The lamplight sent dozens of tiny daggers into his eyes, which had grown used to the near-darkness setting outside, and her reticence gave his worry enough time to obtain a desperate edge. He wanted to tell her not to give up now, that they still had a job to do and a mission to carry out.
He risked a glance over at Char. To her credit, once she noticed someone else looking at her, she stopped tapping her finger against one folded arm, calming the show of impatience. That, more than anything, reminded him of how much she had changed: the Char he had first met would have increased the rhythm of her annoyed tapping just to spite both of them.
Finally, a ragged sigh floated up from Falcon's direction and she turned her head toward them. Even in the faint yellow light against her back, Riku could see the marks on her cheeks and the prominence of red veins in one dry eye.
"Well," she said, voice shaking a little. "Is he still going to help us?"
Riku tensed at how quickly she had cut to the true question. The first one Char had asked after Copperhead had finished his story. Blunt and awkwardly placed as it was, she had ended up speaking when Riku's semblance of tact had left him mute.
Copperhead had taken a couple of moments to respond. Recounting his story, reliving the sins of his past in every word, had added an emotional tiredness to his physical one, and it showed in his face.
I need some time to think, he had admitted at last. Give me till tomorrow. If I know Falcon… she'll really never want to see me again after knowing that you guys know.
"He's not sure," Char said, tentatively. "He's supposed to tell us tomorrow morning if he'll still help out." Falcon's quiet calmness balanced on the tip of a needle; any time, that needle could overbalance and make her as frenzied as when Copperhead had dragged her out of the tunnels.
Apparently, Falcon had wanted to die. Char had told Riku that much on the walk back here. Neither he nor Char could imagine that kind of pure emptiness – giving up, throwing everything away and not fighting with every last drop of blood to keep it.
A multitude of emotions crossed Falcon's face then, just like it had when Riku had told her just who would be helping them find the machine. Fury, desperation, fervent hope that he would leave her alone for good: all warred and clashed and tripped over themselves in the set of her jaw before finally acceptance stepped out of the wreckage.
"All right," she murmured. "I… I think I can deal with that."
"Good." Char sounded relieved. After a moment's hesitation, she reached forward and awkwardly patted the older girl's shoulder. Falcon twitched under the touch at first, but then seemed to calm down; Riku thought he heard a tiny sigh come from her.
"Are you gonna sleep in here tonight?" The question escaped him before he could rein it back in. Admittedly, his decision to speak up surprised even him, but he managed to keep his face relatively neutral.
"Maybe." A glimmer of the old emotions that his presence unearthed from some buried part of her sent a final blade into his exhausted eyes. He fought back a sigh. Sorry, Fal.
Before he could speak – to say what, he wondered suddenly, fiercely; give some paltry reassurance about how everything would be okay? – Falcon beat him to it. "This was my parents' room."
His amber eyes widened. That explained her refusal to allow anyone else in here, at least.
Now that she had mentioned it, he could see that this room's original owners had been obvious the whole time. A movement on the dresser drew his eye to dust tumbling on its surface, but he could still detect something about this room that was so distinctively that of a grown-up. The bed had been meticulously arranged, with only its distraught burden wrinkling the comforter; the floor was the ridiculous clean that only Riku's father had ever demanded from his son.
"I haven't been in here since…" Falcon stopped, then shook her head and continued fairly smoothly. "After today, though, I wanted to see if anything had changed."
Of course it didn't, Riku thought. From the expression on Char's face, she was thinking the exact same thing.
"Anyway," Falcon suddenly said, "it's late. You guys should try and get some sleep." When her abrupt brusqueness made both dark boy and seventh apprentice appraise her bemusedly, she rolled her eyes. "The machine isn't gonna find itself tomorrow."
"Falcon," Char began.
"Are you going to be okay?" Riku asked.
She didn't respond – verbally, at least. She did gaze down at the ground, fingers knotting in the covers. If her mother had spent the morning of her final day fixing the covers, her daughter had destroyed her efforts.
Something tugged on his sleeve, fingers clumsily seizing around the leather. Riku looked down to see Char giving him an insistent stare. "Let's go," she mouthed.
He couldn't help glancing over his shoulder more than once.
Never before had a couch felt so uncomfortable.
Riku shifted uneasily on his makeshift bed. The soft surface rubbed against his cheek and bare arms; he had cast off the heavy Organization coat not an hour earlier, as he had every night before now. It wasn't so much because of the extra body heat it trapped, but the evenings since he had taken Xehanort's form contained many times when his longer limbs had tangled up in the hem. So it hung, innocuous as any other coat when empty of its burden, on the coat hanger atop the door.
Riku found himself glaring at the vague dark shape, which barely distinguished itself from the nighttime shadows. Not an hour before, he had turned off the lamp and settled in for the night, fully intending to let exhaustion overtake him and offer at least a temporary reprieve from the events of today. A good night's sleep almost never eradicated the problem – really, Copperhead's transgressions and Falcon's brokenness would feel more raw and jagged than they had today – but at least he wanted a break.
Which, of course, he couldn't even have.
He curled tighter in on himself, a sleeping position he loathed, but that his increased height forced him to adopt. The black, sleeveless top he wore beneath his coat lifted up as he did so, and he fought back a growl as he forced it back down. Ordinarily, when the hair spreading out over the bare part of his shoulder blades was tinted silver and the glare he sent at the wall again was more like the sea than fire, Riku would have spread his body out over the couch. Would have let his feet dangle over the edge.
He didn't think he had slept like that since the day he had first left Destiny Island.
Riku stifled a sigh. This was why he hated insomnia; the past crept up much more easily on him, dragged as light and taunting a talon down his face as Maleficent's nails ever had, in this darkness. Nonetheless, the worry and desperation and latent pain all came oozing back, as deadly in nature as any deep wound.
Sora could forgive him for what he'd done. That had always amazed Riku about his best friend – hell, about Kairi, too, if he was being honest: their capacity to forgive and accept others. He had always envied that in the both of them: that light and optimism from which his darkness and realism could only cower away and with which they could only hope to find tandem.
Sora and Kairi could forgive him. The question remained as to whether Riku could forgive himself.
He knew the current answer. It was why he had rescued Falcon, that first day he had opened up a dark portal with no damn clue where to go except just how bored he was without Char. That day he had stepped into the forest with the worlds and his friends heavy on his mind, with the knowledge of how he had sent not only Sora, but Char away.
You never sent them away, though. They went willingly, remember? Sora took the Keyblade where your pride couldn't. Took up the burden your darkness wouldn't let you take up. And Char agreed to go with Sora.
Repelling his friends notwithstanding… Riku tucked himself a little tighter into the couch's confines. It made him feel a little like a can of sardines. The comparison almost coaxed a chuckle out of him, before he remembered Char and Falcon had gone to sleep a while ago.
"Psst."
Well… at least one of them had.
Riku twitched. All at once, every reason as to why sleep eluded either girl rushed into his mind: Falcon knew they knew her secret; Char was worried for Falcon; Falcon had spent all day being emotionally exhausted; Char was more physically exhausted than anything else.
And for a moment, he considered closing his eyes and pretending that the very repose he sought did, in fact, control his every move.
Who the hell am I kidding?
"Quit pretending to be asleep. I know you're not."
That cemented his companion's identity as Char's.
He sat up and barely avoided clipping the couch's armrests with his feet as he swung his legs down. She stood in front of him, outline visible only by virtue of a shadowy break in the murky darkness.
Memories of nights like this flashed through his mind: except in those days, he'd been staying with her, Ansem, and Namine in Twilight Town, and the surface beneath his splayed palms had felt softer in his smaller grasp.
Because of those mental images, he found himself rigid with uncertainty; and because of those mental images, his mind put a grudgingly fearful expression on her face even though he could barely see it. As many days had passed since she had come in search of comfort, he grappled between his desire to just sleep tonight and the need to shoulder this burden of worry with someone else.
In the end, the latter won out, but not because of him. It was because Char's hand gestured to the other side of the couch. "Do you mind if I sit?"
He guessed she was remembering those same nights in Twilight Town, from the meticulous wording and her words not trailing off. After all, her heart pointed her toward one boy – man – alone; she couldn't afford to throw any double meanings around with Riku.
Dutifully, he scooted over to the very edge of the couch. She could definitely see that drastic movement, because she trotted over and sat down. In the vague half-darkness, he saw her fingers tapping against her legs and the way she stared down at the ground, as if she had something to say.
"You couldn't sleep either, huh?" he asked, as much in an effort to draw out her pensiveness' source as to soothe his own.
One bare shoulder raised and lowered. She'd probably taken her jacket off for the same reason he had, yet when she finally raised her head to properly talk to him her voice sounded accusing. "You're not wearing the coat."
"What, a guy can't not look like the biggest assholes in the worlds when he sleeps?" Riku asked, quirking a playful eyebrow before remembering she probably couldn't see it. He did, however, hear a muffled snicker from her direction and knew his joking hadn't gone totally lost on her. "It just gets hot when I sleep, is all. Anyway, you're avoiding the question."
Char shrugged again, head turning to look at the wall. He caught a muttered "and you don't?" and narrowed his eyes.
Then she spoke. "I was just worried about Falcon."
Oh. It was almost shameful, how quickly Riku relaxed when he heard that. As one of the firsthand witnesses to how horribly Char's nightmares could affect her, he had assumed the worst when she had come downstairs to talk to him.
Unfortunately, her confession rerouted the course of his concern, away from one of his closest friends and to the girl who had felt far too jagged and broken to ever truly touch. Char had been like that, too, though; the realization slammed into him, and for the first time he thought Char's similarity to Falcon had some truth to it.
Sora fixed her, though. That much is obvious.
Fixed. Such a simple word. If only things were ever that easy.
"Me, too," he said to Char, before he could start blaming himself for Falcon's current condition. "And…"
He hesitated, before wondering with a sudden fierceness why he was. After all, he had longed so much to remove the one obstacle between him and a good night's sleep; and admitting to his worries was the first step to that.
"I was thinking about the past." Well, he assured himself, you didn't completely sound like you didn't want to say that.
Char's entire body straightened, before her shoulders shook in a bitter laugh. Riku blinked. "What?"
"Do we share a hive mind, or something?" she queried almost derisively. "Because I was, too. Not the past past," she added, "not like with the other apprentices and all. But… with Sora."
Her voice struggled over that final name, as it had multiple times in the last few days. Now, though, Riku found himself honestly examining the inflection in that struggle. It held multiple emotions, balanced precariously in the two syllables that symbolized the boy who held life and light in the exact same way: like a leaf filled with water, ready to spill at any minute. Fear and nostalgia and longing warred in Sora's name.
Really, they were much the same emotions that Riku's thoughts of his best friend contained.
"I know we're on a mission." Char misinterpreted his silence as a scornful one. "But I'm allowed to miss him, right? Gods help me," she chuckled in a self-deprecating way, "I even miss Donald and Goofy. Little stupid angry duck. And Goofy was always trying to psychoanalyze me. Which you wouldn't think, right, because he doesn't even know how to use the words 'is not' properly? But the goofball's got some intelligence in that silly head of his."
Once she had started about Sora's two allies, her voice sounded almost uncontrollable, as if the one fragment of resolve she had wedged between her rationale and the raw feeling of missing someone had dislodged somehow. Riku let her talk, not interrupting. Embarrassingly, he thought of the first time since their initial separation that he had met up with Sora again.
In Traverse Town, he had watched Donald argue with Sora about how they couldn't take Riku with them to look for Kairi. Goofy hadn't even intervened, just watched uncertainly. His head had swung from one speaker to the next, almost like he was watching a tennis match. And a sudden, irrational tongue of fiery anger had swept across his heart.
Who are they, he had thought furiously, to say whether I should have a hand in finding her again?
Spurred by that anger, he had darted into the nearest alley instead of waiting to hear the argument's end. Maleficent had been waiting there and had readily agreed to take him back.
Now, a year and a half later, Riku thought of Donald and Goofy and what Char was saying about them. He'd known he was wrong for a while now, but her comments almost reinforced it.
"And Sora!" Her ensuing laugh stifled itself halfway through, as though she had just remembered Falcon slept one room over. At least, Riku wanted to think the dark-haired girl had found that reprieve from her grief and sorrow. That, or she was too emotionally exhausted to stay awake.
Somehow, the second option seemed much worse.
"He didn't know where to draw the line," Char continued, voice growing into more and more of a fierce whisper. "Kept trying to get secrets out of me and be nice to me. Nice! Even though I didn't deserve it! And I tried to stay unbiased, I tried to keep an eye on that light at the end of the tunnel, but he just kept worming his way past my defenses and I didn't even realize he was doing it until –"
At that point, she seemed to notice the very revealing direction her confession was taking and her jaw snapped shut.
"Until you realized you liked him?" Riku prompted. Surprisingly, the neutrality to his query was genuine. Hey – it hadn't taken very long for him to get used to Sora and Char liking each other. That was progress.
Char twitched visibly. "Yeah." Apparently like wasn't the word she had used.
He must have unconsciously spoken the thought aloud, because the next moment she swung her head defiantly toward him. "So? When did you realize you loved Kairi?"
Riku raised one eyebrow. That had come out of nowhere.
When his initial bemusement faded, embarrassment immediately replaced it. Because, like Char, the day he had first put a name to his feelings for Kairi, that name had also rhymed a lot with dove.
He had had the stupid idea of making a bonfire on the play island beach. Sora and Kairi had agreed readily enough, the latter of which had made him warm and tingly and made the carbonation in his belly fizz even higher. And then Sora had inhaled too much smoke and Kairi had yelled at Riku for it. He had laughed at her rage in order to hide his discomfort at how accursedly cute he had thought she was.
That was when, at the tender age of thirteen, he had thought I think I love her.
Some amount of shame must have shown in his stance. Char folded her arms and sat back. "That's what I thought."
Her smugness made him angle his head down expectantly at her. "I told you my story. You owe me."
He found her entire body slumping as the smugness left her way too satisfying.
"No," she said, "I really don't."
"Come on," he sang, leaning toward her with his hands on his knees. "When did you realize you loved Sora?" Again, the statement of what exactly Sora meant to hear flowed forth a little too easily for the day or so since he had first heard it.
Char huffed, folding her arms in surrender. "We were in the Pride Lands. Donald's staff messed up – well, actually, his old one broke in Agrabah so he had to steal one off a Heartless. It was a miracle it even sent us down to the worlds in one piece. But, um…" She paused.
"If you're too embarrassed to say, just tell me," Riku said, prodding her side.
"It's not that!" she barked back, before covering her mouth. Recovering herself, she sighed and continued. "His staff ended up splitting Roxas from Sora."
Riku's eyes widened. Well… that put a spin on things. "So…?"
"So Sora knew about Roxas' existence. We just had an extra yellow lion following us in that world. And…" Char's head angled down to the ground again. "I may or may not have told him he had a Nobody."
"What?" was all Riku could manage. This conversation had taken a completely different turn.
"Hey, I was telling a story, remember?" Char hedged. Riku set his jaw, considered pursuing this topic further. Maybe the exhaustion was talking, but he ended up relenting.
Visibly relieved, Char went on. "Anyway, so Roxas was there. He kept poking at me… saying how I knew Sora felt the same way about me I did about him. Naturally, I denied it. And then it just sort of hit me."
Riku sat back, folded his arms. Thought on the things it had taken for the both of them, normally so emotionally taciturn but for their bursts of fire, to admit what they felt. A bonfire, a Nobody, endless poking and prodding from their friends.
"Geez," he muttered. "We're a pair, aren't we?"
Char laughed at the self-deprecation in his words, but her voice shook a bit. For that, Riku found his arm snaking around her shoulders and pulling her close, just like he had at the mayor's party last night.
And just like before, Char stiffened briefly before relaxing and resting her head against his bicep, the closest she could get to his shoulder.
They sat there in silence a few moments longer, sides flush together and gazing out into the shadows. Riku, who sat closest to the hallway leading to where Falcon slept, kept his eye on that hallway. Gods only knew with his luck, Falcon would come shuffling out into the living room to find the source of the noise.
He wasn't blind. He knew that bringing Char here had only driven a stake into his budding friendship with Falcon. With how she felt about him, and how long it had taken for him to overcome her lack of trust, Char's extra catalyst had only pulled Falcon's walls back up again.
At that moment, he felt the shaky breaths dragging themselves out against his chest gain a vibration. He swore he was imagining it, until it resounded again, this time with a distinct slant of pain to it.
"You okay?" he asked Char.
She tensed up. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just… my leg got hurt today."
Riku narrowed his eyes, easily detecting the lie. "And you hurt it two days ago, too?" When he earned no verbal response, he went on almost belligerently. "What happened?"
Her eyelashes lowered against his bare arm as she furrowed her brow. "Nothing. The first time I saved Sora's stupid ass coming back to bite mine, I guess."
The first time?
It was Riku's turn to look away. For some reason, the Organization jacket hanging on the door caught his eye. Char had fought at first for revenge against the Organization, and then, as time went on, Sora's motivation had become her own. They had twined so easily together even without a paopu fruit to aid them.
And he had torn her away from that because of the old man's orders.
Maybe it was one final surge of anger at Ansem's lack of foresight. Maybe it was one last need to redeem one of the many ways in which Riku had screwed up in the last year.
But he heard himself speak.
"I think… tomorrow, I'll take you back to Sora."
Char's response was instantaneous: her entire body perked up, and she leaned back in the confines of his one-armed hold. "What?" she whispered, disbelieving.
"I said, I'll take you back," Riku repeated, the burden in his chest suddenly much less heavy. "I shouldn't have dragged you off in the first place. Unless you want to stay and help me."
The last part came only partly out of his sense of duty: he knew more than anything how terrifying love could be, even if it was reciprocated. Especially if it was reciprocated.
But Char shook her head. "No. Even without the whole 'love' thing," Riku's lips curved up in tandem with her own smile forming against his arm, "I made you a promise, remember? That I'd stick with Sora until the end."
Oh yeah, Riku remembered belatedly; she had said that.
Her tone reminded him so much of her old self, the one he had grown to care for over the year they had spent in Twilight Town waiting for his best friend to rise from the ashes of his sleep. Faced with that final kernel of what he knew as truth – that final kernel of her, the core of her that could never disappear – he found himself clutching her closer.
It only took a few moments for both of them to succumb to fatigue and the relief of their hearts lightening.
I can just hear you all going "FINALLY!"
Funnily enough, when I wrote the line "But he heard himself speak," the song "Miracles Happen" from The Princess Diaries soundtrack came on my iPod. Fitting, right? XD