...I have no excuses. Well, nothing you haven't heard before, anyway: college, et al. Don't worry, though: I'm not going to up and quit this fic when it's so close to being done.

It was a peculiar feeling to Char, waking up with no idea of her location. Maybe she had just gotten used to her bed in Falcon's guest room that the sunlight drifting in at any other angle than directly into her retinas struck confusion into her, or maybe because her bed on the Gummi ship heralded misty, green light instead of blinding gold. Or maybe because, traveling with Sora and the others, they'd spent time trying to find any place to sleep they could and readily settling for it.

Regardless of the theories that swarmed her mind following the realization that she had no clue where she was, Char knew she hardly wanted to go to the trouble of actually opening her eyes and finding out what was happening.

However, her eyes flew open when she heard a quiet, distinctively masculine murmur emitting from somewhere slightly below her.

The redhead jolted up, only to groan and press the heel of her hand to her eyes at the bout of dizziness that blindsided her. Once the intermittent, multicolored flurries had finished their disorienting dance across her vision, Char lowered her hand to survey her surroundings. Only now did she notice that the sheets stretched out over her legs weren't the light gold of her bed in Merlin's house.

The navy fabric around her bunched up into her fists as she remembered last night. Warm arms enveloping her, and dark blue eyes staring into hers; and her not knowing how to adjust to the sudden addition of a pounding heart beating right next to her own.

Which, if she was in Sora's bed – the thought slipped from her mental restraint before Char could stop herself, and she instantly hated the heat that met her fingers as she pushed her bangs back – meant the murmuring noise had come from…

Almost against her own will, she peered over the side of the bed. True to her predictions, a pile of sapphire-colored sheets greeted her eyes. As she watched, wide-eyed, the pile shifted and drew her eyes to the cinnamon-tipped spikes poking up above the pile.

Of course; now Char remembered. She had come to his room last night intending to drop at least some sort of hint about Riku's connection to their final destination. After getting angry about her lack of participation in Jafar, Hades, and Xaldin's demises, she had all but blurted out what she knew about Riku. While what she knew basically entailed how he was going to meet her and Sora at the World That Never Was, it was more than what Riku wanted Sora to know about him just yet. For some reason, though, she couldn't bring herself to feel like she had betrayed Riku.

Only because right after you told Sora he was on the right track heading to take down the Organization, he basically tackled you down to the bed. You hopeless, lovesick moron.

The irritated voice – some remainder of her old, logic-toting self, no doubt – died down when the rest of last night played out in Char's mind. Sora had finally disentangled himself from her, though not without reluctance in the fingers he kept twined with hers; after a mildly uncomfortable moment's debate of whether or not to pull her hands back, she had finally relented.

They had stayed like that while Sora had told her everything else she had missed. She had felt mildly guilty at her own inability to extend the same courtesy, but fortunately, he was so caught up in his own stories that he left no blank spaces for her to insert hers. Whether he had done that on purpose, she didn't know, but such relief had washed over her because of it.

At some point, one of them had glanced up at the clock on the wall and pointed out how late it had gotten. It wasn't the first time such a phenomenon had occurred – plenty of times before, Donald and Goofy had joined the two teenagers and intermingled tales of their homes and pasts had both reversed and accelerated time's flow – but it was the first time since before Riku had kidnapped her that it had happened.

Either way, Char had known they all needed every minute of sleep they could glean in light of the next day's events. Although Sora's presence and his reminder that she wasn't alone fighting their greatest enemy alleviated yesterday's anxiety, Char still felt that fear stir in her belly now.

Rather than dwell on that, though, she thought on what had happened after the realization of how late it had gotten.

She had tried to get up from his bed to fall asleep in her own, but Sora had tugged her back by her wrist. Shockingly, he had asked her to stay with him. And in turn, she had demanded – more out of the nervous throbbing of her own heart than anything else, because gods help her, she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep alone either – how the situation would work with one bed. In a stroke of thought she would have once blamed on Roxas, he suggested her taking his bed while he put together a makeshift bed of blankets on the floor.

From the looks of things, that arrangement had worked out just fine.

For a moment, Char lay half-leaned over the side of the bed, elbow propped against an upraised knee and that elbow's fist propped against her jaw, and watched the pile of blankets that encased Sora. After a couple of seconds of rhythmic, all but hypnotizing movement, it suddenly heaved upward. Startled, Char all but scrambled back until the blankets shifted to the side a little and revealed the burden encased within them. Sora wiggled about a little more before settling on his side with his fingers curled into the blankets and his hair creating a wild, brown halo about his head.

She relaxed and wrinkled her nose at the sight of the boy now: savior of the worlds, friend to many, honorary member of the Restoration Committee… open-mouthed sleeper.

Ew, she thought as something glistening on the pillow next to him drew her eye, he's drooling.

Yet somehow, a sight that would have once incited disgust and nothing more sent additional affection into her chest. She had to force herself to tamp down her growing grin when the blue burrito on the floor burrowed his nose deeper into his pillow, as though savoring his sleep.

He's smiling in his sleep, too. What a dork. What does Sora even dream about?

Unbidden, her mind suddenly fixated on the mental image of the clock, and she whipped her head toward it. After a few seconds' confusion, she realized she was staring at where the clock was on the wall in her own room and fought a tiny twinge of frustration as she found the clock in Sora's room. It read 9:33, to her surprise.

When was the last time I even slept this late? she wondered, absent-mindedly rubbing the corner of one eye. Not only had Ansem's academic regimen given her a strict, early rising time that shaped her sleeping schedule even now, but over the last year, nightmares had forced her awake sometimes before the sun rose.

Over the last year, though, she had crawled into Riku's bed and found comfort in his warmth and the knowledge that he understood the dark pull the past could have on one's subconscious.

At least this isn't the first time I haven't woken up in my own bed, she reflected dryly.

Gods, that sounded bad out of context.

A sound from below drew her eye to dual additions of dark blue to the blankets on the floor. Still wrapped up in the blankets, Sora stared groggily at her, and even though he was clearly still too sleepy to figure it out himself, Char abruptly realized she was still leaning over the side of the bed.

She all but fell onto her back moving away and tried to compose herself. "Morning," she muttered, without entirely knowing why. For one, she suddenly couldn't bring herself to even look at him anymore; for another, she thought her face had suddenly fallen victim to Hades' flames; and he was probably just sitting up in his sleep or something. After all, in Sora time, nine-thirty in the morning could probably pass for how Char felt about five-thirty in the morning.

His eyes had opened a little wider, as though the sunlight filtering in through the window next to his form had pulled back in its early-morning assault on his retinas. Now he was just staring at her, with the corners of his lips quirking upward.

Oh, crossed Char's mind fleetingly, so that's what Donald meant yesterday about Sora looking at girls he likes.

"Hi," he said, not wavering in that stupid smile.

What came out of Char's mouth could only be described as a grunt.

She tore her eyes away from him and focused unwaveringly on a point near the doorframe. Time's passage had worn on that particular corner, she noted; this room's disuse probably had eased that process along as well. However, any further dwelling she could have accomplished on that triviality halted when she heard fabric rustling behind her.

A tap on her shoulder alerted her to the fact that she had discarded her jacket sometime between going to bed last night and now, as well as shifted her attention behind her. Sora had stood up while she had been observing the doorframe, forcing her to look up to meet his eyes. He kept the finger he had used to get her attention lingering on her shoulder as he uncurled the fingers of his other hand to join them there; he had taken off his gloves last night, so even though his fingers were cold, the heat in his bare palm on her skin made up for it.

"You ready to take down the Organization?" were the first words out of his mouth.

As it turned out, it was entirely the wrong thing to bring up first thing in the morning: the unease that had died down to a churning simmer in Char's belly roared back up again and boiled up into her chest. Her emotions must have flashed across his face, for he pulled his hand back and had the nerve to look at least a little guilty.

Why are you so nervous? Char demanded of herself. This is only the event you were preparing for all of last year. The reason you agreed to go along with Sora in the first place.

Sora was still watching her. Waiting for her to say something, probably. His hand hovered, crooked fingers trembling slightly, and so much damned sympathy lurked in his eyes – no one should be able to muster that much emotion right after just waking up – that she suddenly had to fight the urge to throw her arms around him like he had done to her last night.

Instead, she sighed: a quaking, raspy sound that startled even her.

"As ready as I'll ever be," she announced.

In response, the grin returned to Sora's face, albeit much gentler than his all-but-goofy smile from moments before. "We'll be fine," he said. "You've got me, and Donald, and Goofy… And the King and Riku, too!" he added suddenly, eyes brightening. All at once, any trace of grogginess that might have lingered on his face evaporated at once, mere mist in the face of the sunlight that thinking of his best friend summoned.

Its brightness forced Char's chest to become tight, and she rolled her eyes to stave off the smile that threatened to appear. If Sora was that determined, then she knew they had nothing to worry about.

"I'm well aware of that," she said.

"I know," Sora laughed. He surveyed her a moment longer, the expression on his face familiar to her from watching Roxas in the virtual Twilight Town. It was the look of someone weighing two options in his mind, and trying to decide which would yield the least pain.

An instant later, Sora sated Char's curiosity as to why he looked like that. She couldn't hold back a tiny yelp of surprise as he surged toward her, wrapped one arm about her back, and tugged her forward into his chest. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted his arm shifting forward, only to hesitate – an odd choice now, since he'd already pulled her into a hug. Then something settled on the back of her neck and she realized it must be his free hand in her hair now.

Beneath the warm sleepiness drifting into her nostrils with every breath, her senses picked up something sweet: the same scent that she had detected when she had curled up next to his lion cub form in the Pride Lands. Back then, it had made sense considering her feline form's improved nose; now, though, she wondered at how she could place that paopu aroma with her comparably stunted senses.

And why was she dwelling on that when Sora's fingers were combing over the base of her scalp and she was finally understanding why people enjoyed having their hair played with?

Quickly, without entirely knowing why, she pulled back, bracing both hands against the sheets beneath her for balance. "We should meet the others," she said.

Sora looked vaguely disappointed, but he did slide his fingers out of her hair and unwind his arm from about her back. For some reason, the places where his hands had been felt starkly cold in comparison to the rest of her body. "Yeah," he said, disappointment forgotten. "The sooner we head out to the Organization's world, the better."

As the two of them stepped into the hallway, Char lagged behind Sora, to the point where she pressed back against the wall just to let him move ahead. Surprisingly, nervousness about today's task played no part in her decision; if anything, the echo of Yuffie's giggles and the image of Aerith's subdued grin pushed her back. Char could almost hear the Radiant Garden residents' reactions if she and Sora emerged from the same room together. Even though Sora might not understand – scratch that, she knew he wouldn't understand – her spine flared hot at what the others would think.

Sora didn't seem to notice her hesitation, instead bounding out in front of her. Artificial light illuminated his form as he fiddled with something on the back of his neck; the gesture confused her until a single chain's tinny jingling rang out, and she realized he was adjusting his crown necklace.

"We have to head to Twilight Town first," he was saying. "It'll be nice, because we can see Hayner, Pence, and Olette again –"

All at once, he stopped in his tracks, and Char only avoided crashing into him by the good grace of her paying attention.

"What?" she asked, warily. A couple of steps brought her to stand next to him, wall brushing against the back of her shoulders, so she could gauge his expression properly. Vacant, yet a vague spark of illumination, as though he were seeking out something just scratching at the edge of his thoughts.

It only took a couple of seconds for her to place his mien's cause. The trio of names he had just spoken carried a connection to Roxas, after all. Yet even though she easily figured out Sora's problem, it worried her; perhaps because Roxas' memories hadn't incapacitated him since before she had told him Roxas' identity.

Before she could say anything, though – or act on the suddenly-overwhelming urge to grasp his hand, or his shoulder, or do something to snap him out of this trance – a familiar voice sliced into the tension.

"I'll go see if they're awake," Goofy called. Only now did Char realize that another buzz of voices entirely had enveloped her and Sora: a buzz that had receded into silence. Into that silence there intruded the scrape of a chair along the floor, then a series of footsteps whose tap-tap-tap gained a heavier quality due to the oversized shoes creating them.

An instant later, Goofy's lanky form appeared in front of them. Cordiality transformed into concern as he looked from leader to girl and back again. "G'morning," he greeted at last, effectively ripping the gauzy trance that had wrapped about the two of them.

Char opened her mouth to speak, but Sora, who had apparently snapped out of his reverie, beat her to it. "Hey Goofy," he said with a smile.

Goofy seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, but ultimately decided not to press the issue of just why the Keybearer had looked the way he had. "Cid made eggs and bacon for breakfast," he announced, turning around and ambling back into the main room. The promise of food spurred Sora forward hot at Goofy's heels, and Char followed at the sudden stir in her own belly.

The hallway opened up into the room the past month had familiarized her with: Merlin's desk, situated atop a platform made of the same gray brick as outside's marketplace; blueprints and maps whose plans all but covered the walls and floor, which made Char wonder if Merlin was angry at Cid for such disorganization; the bright lines of code strewn across the computer screen; and finally the table where the Restoration Committee had gathered to eat dinner last night.

True to form, the motley group of defenders had returned for today's breakfast. Cid stood at the stove with his back to them, and when he brought up one hand to scratch the back of his neck, it shifted Char's attention to the knotted strings under which he pushed his nails. The grizzled man wearing an apron to cook made her muffle a snicker, while Sora uttered a tiny chuckle of his own. At the table, Yuffie sat hunched over her plate, working rapidly on her meal, as though afraid the food would return to its former state and leap from her plate. Probably something about how great ninjas don't let their prey escape, Char thought wryly.

Movement from next to the dark-clad girl drew their gaze to Leon, who was leaning ever-so-subtly away from the human vacuum his fellow committee member had become. Though disgust lingered in trace amounts on his face, one corner of his lips quirked upward enough to give away his amusement. The plate in front of him held only white bits of egg, which almost blended into the china.

Aerith was chatting quietly with Donald and Merlin. Her soft voice, which had gone all but unheard earlier, rang out harmoniously as ever, yet the way she carried even Donald's attention reminded Char irresistibly of how the healer had silenced Leon yesterday.

As Goofy recovered his spot at the table and resumed eating, he turned toward Merlin and said something with his head tilted to the side. He must have asked what the three of them were discussing; when Donald waved a dismissive hand, Goofy's ears drooped visibly, to which the duck immediately began squawking in an odd attempt to soothe his friend's disappointment.

Watching all of them, Char felt a sudden tightness in her chest that channeled upward and solidified in the middle of her throat. If anyone had approached her the first time she had followed Sora into Merlin's home – allowed the echoes of her derision toward Merlin's offer to teach her magic to spiral into silence – and asked how she regarded the Restoration Committee, she would have laughed in their face. Mustered up more scorn and thrust it into the open and clarified her indifference toward them.

But that was a month ago, and so much had happened, and a tingling sensation began its slow burn at the back of her eyes when it hit her that along the way, the committee had become something like family.

Well yeah, the contemptuous part of her piped up, fighting at someone's side tends to make you bond pretty damn fast.

She and the others needed to succeed in defeating the Organization and closing the paths along which they sent Heartless to each world. That goal took precedence over any petty shadow of missing someone.

Still, it hurt to think she might never see these people again.

Not until now did she regard Sora's tendency to interrupt her reveries with so much gratefulness. That boyish voice stroked across the surface of her consciousness and sent ripples into its formerly undisturbed surface, forcing her to return to the far less turbulent reality before her.

"Morning, everybody," Sora greeted.

Leon looked up first; whether that attentiveness came from his natural tendency to stay alert or not, Char thought the jerk of his head away from Yuffie contained just a bit too much haste. "Good morning, you two," he answered. As his gaze swept over both of them in turn, it settled for just half a second too long on Char, who couldn't hold back a flinch at the expression on his face. Maybe she had been right to be concerned about how the committee would react to them walking out together.

Beneath hot embarrassment, defiance tunneled its way up inside her, and she raised one eyebrow at Leon. In response, he slid his attention back to Sora, lips giving off the barest hint of a twitch upward. It's his own little way of mocking me, I guess. "I heard you're ready to fight the Organization today," the Gunblade wielder said.

"I sure hope so," Donald interjected from Leon's other side. He leaned over the table, the orange of his webbed feet flashing as they pressed against his chair, and fixed a beady glare on the two of them. "You guys slept long enough."

Sora gave off a surprised grunt. Char took it upon herself to swoop in and save him the humiliation of a half-baked explanation. "We were tired," she told Donald curtly, before moving to the nearest empty chair. Which, thank the gods, was situated next to Goofy and not Donald.

After a few moments, during which she could almost feel the others' stares burning into her with the heat of any Heartless-fueled blaze, she whipped her head toward Cid. "So I heard we're eating eggs and bacon," she said, hating how loud her own voice sounded. "Any left?"

Yuffie guffawed around a mouthful of eggs on the other side of the table. Char's face burned.

The four of them stood in front of the Gummi ship – a myriad of bright colors that stole every glimmer of sunlight beating down on Radiant Garden's marketplace and washed the concrete and bricks around them an even paler gray. The Restoration Committee fanned out in a semicircle in front of them: almost protectively, Char thought.

"Be careful out there, all right?" Leon said. He had his arms folded across his chest in a deceptively dismissive stance, but the expression on his face as his eyes lingered on Sora told another tale. "No telling what the Organization can do in its own territory."

"We've fought a couple of them already," Sora pointed out, pounding one fist into the opposite palm. "I think we can handle it."

Wow, Key-boy, overconfident much?

Leon narrowed his eyes. "Don't get too cocky," he echoed Char's mind. "It's fine to feel confident, but it sounds like you already know what they can do. Keep that in mind when you're fighting them."

Although mussed dirty-blonde hair and the flash of magical light off deadly, moving waterfalls darted across Char's thoughts, Donald and Goofy were clearly thinking of another battle entirely. They let out dual murmurs and brought their hands to their sides, as though reminded of grievous wounds there. Char wondered about their reactions for a couple of seconds, before Sora's words from last night floated back to her.

Of course. The trio had gone up against Dilan – Xaldin – not long after Riku had taken her away. If that opponent had proven difficult enough to make Donald and Goofy cringe, then Char understood their hesitation to remember. Back in their apprentice days, Dilan had helped train her in wielding her dual swords, and he hadn't allowed her any mercy just because she was a girl who lived with him. The phantom pressure of lances bashing into her ribs and arms made her copy the others' actions and put one hand against her already-bruised ribcage with a muted wince. Blunted though their points had been, even that pressure had hurt.

Sora's face had begun to fall, so Yuffie quickly cut in with her own, much more direct brand of reassurance. "Don't worry," she told Sora, clapping his shoulder. "You'll knock 'em dead. Literally."

In the face of what they were about to go up against, Char felt her eyes straining to roll in their sockets at Yuffie's cheerful tone. Said cheerfulness didn't mark anything unusual, yet this time it sounded more feigned to her than ever.

Goofy's voice halted that desire to express her derision in even that silent way, though. He sounded a little shaky, but determination overrode any anxiety that might have caused that tremor. "Y'know what, Yuffie? You're right. Why, I bet if we all fight together, there's nothing we can't do!" he added to Char and the others.

While Donald chose to eschew self-control and rolled his eyes, Sora bobbed his head up and down in agreement. "See, Goofy's got the right idea," he said, hiking one thumb over his shoulder at the knight in question.

Leon still looked a little disbelieving, though for perhaps the thousandth time that morning, a tiny smile brushed at his lips. "Well, with that kind of confidence, I guess you guys have it in the bag," he dismissed them with a wave of his hand.

Aerith had remained silent up till now, merely clutching the bag of healing items she had purchased yesterday; the brightening sunlight swirled together with the Potion's sparkling green liquid and practically forced Char to squint against the newfound glare. "Somehow I can't tell if you're joking or not, Leon," she teased. Somehow, even that quiet admonishment held so much playfulness that it drew out laughter from everyone watching.

Just as Sora's chuckles began to fade, he glanced over at Char. Oddly, even though her countenance barred everything short of anxiety and fear, his grin widened at the sight of her. It made no sense that he would draw strength from her frayed nerves now – especially considering she was sure she resembled someone trying to hold back the urge to vomit. It wasn't far from the truth, actually.

But the admittedly-magnificent bacon and eggs did not tumble about under fear's palm just because of who they were fighting. Char had readied herself for this inevitable showdown practically since the moment she had realized her resentment toward Twilight Town's dilapidated mansion and every bit of evidence toward its crumbling foundation under her feet.

No, her feelings were because of this farewell, right after she had acknowledged her friendship toward the people of whose existence she had only just become aware.

In her mind's eye, the mental image of a recent goodbye floated back to her attention's forefront: except that time, the sun had had to battle ample foliage for purchase on the ground, and she had been painfully aware that her departure was the only event to break the tension since the blade on Copperhead's scythe had first flashed in the Shadowed Desert's woods.

Last time it had been more picturesque. Romantic, even. A dramatic farewell in the forest, punctuated by an embrace from one who would never have initiated it three days before, struck the heart more powerfully than a near-cordial goodbye surrounded by construction and bricks.

But Char had buried any romantic part of her long ago. That goodbye had just hurt.

Both times, she knew the people to whom she was bidding farewell would go on fighting – would go on living, even though Falcon had so desperately fought it. And both times, she cursed the weight that settled in her chest at the thought of never seeing these people again.

She couldn't fight it, though: despite her knowledge that she couldn't blame every burst of softness she had on Sora, the fact remained that he had instilled that ability in her in the first place. Taught her to feel, if she wanted to get sappy about it.

Gods, when did I get so overdramatic?

Probably at the same time Sora had come to draw strength from her, as well as her from him.

Looking around at the people in front of them – at other friends from whom Sora, Donald, and Goofy drew their resolve, at people she had come to fight alongside as well – Char finally found her voice again. Ripped it away from its comfortable rooting in a dark corner of her heart and buoyed it back to its vantage point again.

"You know," she said, drawing everyone's eye – and she tried not to recoil beneath the weight of all their stares – "when we fight the Organization, I've got some idea of what their weaknesses are." When her words met with surprised stares turned blank with confusion, and mild suspicion in Donald's case, she sighed in partially feigned exasperation. "I trained with them when we were all apprentices together."

Yuffie's eyes lit up. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot you guys grew up together. You know, before –" A swiftly-delivered stare from Aerith stopped her before she could mention the other apprentices' fates, a demand for silence that Char wholeheartedly appreciated.

Leon nodded slowly, as though turning Char's revelation over in his mind for every logical point. "You're right. You'll be a good asset for the fight then."

"Like I haven't been the whole time?" Char couldn't help asking, with a playfully quirked eyebrow. "And anyway," she went on before anyone could interject, before she could lose her nerve, "this is Sora we're talking about. The Keyblade chose him for a reason."

Silence. Yuffie gagged on an imaginary spit take, and Leon just blinked a couple times, while Aerith tilted her head to the side and smiled. Donald squawked in surprise. Goofy just stifled a laugh behind his hand. Sora actually spun toward her, arms flung out to the side as if to contain the weight of his surprise.

"Did you just…" he began, voice cracking on the second word.

"…directly praise Sora?" Donald finished just as incredulously.

"Maybe I did," Char answered, unable to keep a defensive edge out of her voice. "Is that a problem?"

"Well, it only took you a month to do it," Leon muttered, brushing a piece of brown hair out of his eyes. Char narrowed her eyes at him, but restrained the mighty urge to tell him to shut his mouth. Somehow, she figured that wouldn't go over well with the stoic Gunblade wielder.

Goofy lowered his hand from his mouth, whose amused smile gained a gentler form. "Y'know, you guys helped us out a lot," he told the members of the Restoration Committee. "I just wanted to say thanks."

Yuffie grinned wider, while Leon rolled his eyes, though the set of his jaw softened considerably. Aerith clasped her hands in front of her. "What are friends for?" she said.

Sora shook his head. The shock of Char's unexpected kindness had worn off, leaving him only with a quiet little smile. So different from his normal uncontrollable grins. "No, Goofy's right," he insisted. "Thanks for everything. We need to say that much to you, since we might never see each other again."

"Oh, come on," Yuffie argued. "What was it you said, Squall?"

Leon's eye twitched. Before he could launch into his typical protest as to her prolonged use of his given name, she lifted one half-gloved hand and curled her fingers against her forehead. Just as Sora had done the first time they had reunited. "We may never meet again," she intoned in an exaggeratedly deep tone, "but we'll never forget each other." She laughed, voice regaining its high-pitched timbre. "Geez, you are the king of cheesy lines."

"Better than constantly forgetting someone's name," Leon replied without missing a beat. Aerith chuckled to herself.

"Don't we need to leave soon?" The squawk from next to Char made them all turn, then look down. Donald had his arms crossed and one webbed foot tapping, eyes narrowed into a squint. Yet his stance's brusqueness faltered when he shifted his weight from one skinny leg to the other, almost as though he had kept himself in that particular pose for the conversation's majority, and Char discerned a quiver there.

She considered, for about a fraction of a second, teasing Donald about his reluctance to say goodbye to the friends who had helped them for so long. Ultimately, though, she relented.

Because watching Sora shrug and step forward to tap his knuckle against Leon's, watching the Gunblade wielder return the gesture with a small grin, watching Aerith change the angle of her healing items' glare as she passed off the bag containing the Potions to Goofy, watching Yuffie pout only briefly at Leon's jab before deciding to smile again, Char knew she had no room to mock Donald's reticence.

The next thing she knew, the blurred view of Radiant Garden's ruined marketplace – blurred, wait, when had Char begun holding back tears? – traded in slate gray for bright pink, and she blinked to accommodate the change. Unfortunately, that blink also meant loosening the invisible floodgates behind her eyes by the tiniest iota: not enough to release their humiliating contents, but enough to sting Char's pride.

"Look after them, all right?" Aerith said, holding out her arms. "I know the boys can handle themselves, but they still need you."

Char blinked again, this time in confusion. "Need me?" she echoed, like a parrot. Somewhere in her mind, in the part where common sense still retained its hold, she knew she should step forward and return the embrace Aerith was offering; but Char also knew she had to clarify that first. If anything, she needed Sora and the others more than the opposite.

Aerith nodded patiently, lowering her arms back to her sides. "You're their friend," she reminded the stunned redhead. "They'll always need you."

Even though she was a healer and shouldn't have possessed her companions' warrior-like reflexes, Aerith immediately responded when Char moved forward and pressed her face into her bare shoulder.

The sound of the Gummi ship's door sliding closed behind them had never sounded so loud.

"So," Char said to Sora, "why Twilight Town?"

Even as she asked the question, she found herself partially dreading his answer. While he couldn't possibly know about Twilight Town's virtual replica – Roxas' memories of his days in the dusk-wrapped world extended only to the friendships he had forged there, it seemed – Char wondered where Sora had acquired the information he toted around.

Then again, Twilight Town was the most probable culprit for hiding an entrance to the World That Never Was. When Ansem had designed Roxas' prison and Namine rehabilitated Sora's memories, the man had announced his certainty of that prison's lack of weaknesses; yet Axel had managed to sneak past those apparently impenetrable defenses, along with his lesser Nobodies and Dusks. If he, a member of the Organization if only in title, had slipped into the virtual Twilight Town, it only made sense for Sora and his companions to utilize that weakness and exploit it for themselves.

Really, it made Char suspicious about the source of Sora's information.

Sora froze in his seat before finding the map less accusatory than her gaze. He raised and lowered one shoulder, at the same time scanning the room, as though trying to find Donald and Goofy for support. They had both gone to prepare themselves for the flight to Twilight Town, though, so he found nothing.

Dark-clad shoulders slumped in defeat before he looked back at her, with an entirely-too-fake smile on his face. "I just thought we should see Hayner, Pence, and Olette again," he explained.

Char frowned. Lies. "And?" she pressed. She was aware of her own hypocrisy in her growing annoyance at Sora lying – or at least omitting some of the truth – but his reluctance offended her anyway.

Still, he hesitated, choosing to card a hand over his brown spikes rather than meet her eyes. As she gradually realized that her normal tactics would fail to summon the information she wanted, an odd glaze came over his eyes – almost as though he were remembering something he felt an unwilling, but powerful, attachment to.

It was the exact same expression that had seized him in the hallway of Merlin's house.

Before she could think on it, though – before anything besides maybe this was why he just stopped and stood there and scared me so much could cross the barrier between abstract emotion and solid thought – a hoarse voice called out to them, grew closer as its source waddled out from his room.

"All right," Donald announced, pawing at the sparkling green vials to keep them from spilling forth. "I found some Potions and Ethers in the drawer in my room, and I don't even want to know how long they've been there, but –" He stopped immediately, free hand stilling in its attempts to retain his grip on his burden, and glanced from one teenager to the other with eyes gradually narrowing.

It must have been an incriminating picture, Char thought with an internal cringe she only just remembered to suppress: her leaning across the Gummi ship dashboard, perched atop one elbow, and basically squinting at Sora; Sora himself fidgeting in the pilot seat, eyes trained on the map, and tapping his stubby nails against the steering wheel in a way that the leather muted.

"What's going on?" Donald finally asked. He crossed the room to the ship console, let his healing items drop on the dashboard; the ensuing clatter of glass containers on glass casing made all three of them wince, albeit less obviously with the duck. He wedged himself into the chair next to Char and trained his glare on her, and even though he remained silent, he might as well have screamed what did you do?

"I just wanted to know how you guys got the idea to head to Twilight Town," Char said, at the same time fighting a sudden battle to keep her voice level. Both out of annoyance and fear. For gods' sake, we just got over all this suspicion and tiptoeing around each other. "Sora fed me some nonsense about wanting to see the Twilight Town gang one last time." As she spoke of what Sora had said, the boy's shoulders jerked in a flinch, making her next query tremble a little. "Is there actually a weak point in that world we can use to get to the Organization, or not?"

"Of course there is!" Donald shot back immediately, only to stop and look startled, as though he had no idea why he had said that.

"And how do you know that for sure?" Char demanded, slamming her palms against the console and glowering at him. "Now we're right back to the original question: who told you to go to Twilight –"

"Char, calm down!" Sora finally found his voice and spoke, much more strongly than Char had expected after he had avoided looking at her. Char stopped, let her fingers relax on the glass panel, and slowly, reluctantly, turned to face him, almost fearing what she would find.

Once upon a time, she might have found the way his eyebrows drew together over annoyed blue eyes and the cast over his face amusing. Now, though, the fact that he was actually allowing himself to express rage startled her: both because he reminded her irresistibly of Roxas that night when he and Riku had fought, and because he seemed so different from the boy who had held her close and stroked her hair this morning.

Seeing her shock, Sora sighed, closed his eyes, let his face soften. "Seeing Hayner, Pence, and Olette again is only part of it." He opened his eyes again and looked from Char to Donald as he continued. "The reason we know for sure to go to Twilight Town is because –"

"Gawrsh, guys, what's all the yellin' about?"

Goofy's question ringing out from the direction of the Gummi ship's rooms should not have made Char jolt like it did. Out of the four of them, he was the only one who had yet to join the argument; yet his lanky form ambling out of the hallway coaxed surprised reactions out of all three of said altercation's participants. Donald whirled around, all but falling off his chair with the movement's force but still managing to hang on by the armrests; Sora jerked in his chair before relaxing, though not without what Char placed as guilt on his face.

Which bewildered her, because she could not fathom why Sora would look contrite at Goofy's appearance.

She followed Sora's gaze, trying to puzzle out his emotions. Both pairs of eyes landed on Goofy's gloved, bulky hand, which had come up to rub against the back of his head. Really, a more fitting word for what Goofy was doing was grazing, as just the tiniest amount of contact with the dark fur along his skull induced a wince.

Now that I think about it, she thought, Sora did say Goofy took a big hit to the back of the head in the Pride Lands yesterday.

Before she could do much more than remember the last time Goofy had sustained such a near-fatal injury, though, the knight lowered his hand, as though realizing how vulnerable it made him look. He glanced from one friend to the other before speaking.

"We're goin' to Twilight Town because of that photo we got, right?" he asked.

Char's eyes widened. Although she couldn't ignore how Donald immediately hopped forward and clung to the back of his chair with a series of enthusiastic nods – a sure sign that Goofy was lying too, however unintentionally – she dismissed any resentment at knowing the trio's lies to her. If Goofy had prolonged the discussion about their unknown advisor, her rapidly calming temper might have flared back up to the surface; his changing the subject to something she remembered being around to see only helped her forget her annoyance entirely.

Blackness had surrounded the group – an environment to which Maleficent's timely intervention had whisked them away – shapeless and unbreakable but for a single box lying in its midst. Within the box they had found a bar of that accursed sea-salt ice cream, and a photo, likely taken by a bystander in the virtual Twilight Town, of the Twilight Town gang, plus Roxas.

Thinking of the foursome like that felt wrong, for some reason: like Roxas' additional memories of Hayner, Pence, and Olette were as false as the people he had come to know. The trio plus one. It was like an equation, a formula that Ansem had put together to stall for time.

However fabricated Roxas' surroundings had been, the friendships he had forged with them were real, if Sora's strange reactions of wistfulness and unjustified camaraderie around the Twilight Town trio indicated anything. No matter how much Char denied the Key of Destiny's humanity, she found it in herself to admit that at least the personality he had donned in the virtual world had been shaped by his friends there.

So Char banished that line of thinking just as Sora blinked owlishly. "Photo?" he echoed, cementing Char's knowledge that they were still withholding something from her.

Goofy nodded, ears bouncing with the movement. Right after they settled, his face tightened in what looked like repression of a wince: an action whose echo Sora did not bother concealing. "The picture of Roxas with the Twilight Town gang," he explained.

Donald leaned farther into the back of his chair. If the Gummi ship manufacturers had not bolted the chairs to the floor, Char felt certain he would have toppled it over with his feigned enthusiasm. "Yeah, Sora," he agreed, turning to the Keybearer. "I kind of wondered why your –" He stopped, seemed to choke on the term; Char felt an irrational surge of rage stir within her belly at his reticence. Just say it, she wanted to tell him. Sora has a Nobody. It doesn't make him any less of your leader or friend.

And then she had to stop and do a mental double take, because just a month ago a thought that even vaguely failed to insult Nobodies would never have crossed her mind.

The duck gave a minute shake of his head, as though shaking off excess droplets of water, before continuing. "Anyway, I wondered why Roxas would be with the guys from Twilight – are you okay?"

He sounded genuinely concerned, and that startled Char into leaning away from him to try and gauge Sora's expression. The boy had the heel of his hand pressed into the meat of his cheek and his head angled toward the floor, as though trying to find answers in the dust time and a lack of cleaning had scrawled across the tile. When Donald veered the conversation away from Roxas' choice in friendships and toward Sora's emotional state, though, the brunette jerked in his seat. His hand darted downward toward the control panel, fingers twitching. He glanced over at the others.

"Yeah, Donald, I'm fine," he said, a clearly feigned smile on his face.

Char narrowed her eyes. "Sora," she growled, curling her fingers around her armrest and leaning toward him. "No one looks the way you just did and feels fine."

"You can tell us what's botherin' ya," Goofy added. He placed one hand on top of Donald's chair and gave a nod. "Is it about the Organization?"

Sora sighed, shook his head, rubbed beneath his nose with his index finger. "Not exactly." He paused; Char could almost hear him wavering on whether or not to exaggerate the illusion further with something determined like I already know we're gonna pummel those guys.

Even though he left that remark unspoken, though, its silence cut into her chest as deeply as if he had decided to lie further. Because he won't do that. He knows we know there's something wrong.

"Then what is it?" Donald demanded, harshly. Any vitriol, good-intentioned or not, blazed to a standstill when Char drove her elbow toward his ribs in a silent order to calm down.

Sora shrugged. "I just… Goofy, your head still hurts from when that Heartless in the Pride Lands hit you," he blurted.

The knight reared back a little, blinked a couple of times. His hand brushed over the back of his head in what seemed like an unconscious action; though he couldn't have intended it to have that result, the action made Sora wince alongside him. "Gawrsh, Sora, it ain't that bad," he protested. "Donald can heal me before we go fight the Organization, and I can still wallop the Nobodies." On the last part, he put up his fists and gave the boy an encouraging grin.

"Yeah," Donald added, but he was blustering, and Char could hear as much. "C'mon, Sora, if that's all you're worried about –"

"It's not," Sora interrupted, so abruptly that Donald's bill snapped shut with an audible clack. Silence enveloped the room in a thick, suffocating haze, a fog that, strangely, only the sound of the others breathing could penetrate. Char could practically see Donald and Goofy struggling with themselves on whether to press Sora, or just encourage him without entirely knowing why.

She inhaled, exhaled, repeated the process while muffling a sigh. Just wait. He'll say it eventually.

Sure enough, within moments, Sora spoke up. "You guys have stuck with me for so long," he admitted in a near-whisper. "I just realized I never really thanked you for it."

Char fell back in her seat. "You have to be kidding me," escaped her before she could stop it.

Donald rounded on her immediately. "Char –"

"No, duck-boy, he needs to hear this," she cut him off, without taking her eyes off Sora. The Keybearer had met her sudden interjection with a near-jolt off his seat and wide eyes, but as he calmed down, he stared at her with his mouth slightly open and clenching fists. It occurred to her that he was anticipating every thought heaving for release at the tip of her tongue, but she found herself disregarding any concern of what he might say and barging forward anyway.

"Donald and Goofy first came to you because their king told them to," she said. "It was an order. Find some dumb-looking kid with a giant key and follow him around; simple enough. If that was really all it was – duty to a monarch – then they would have left you the minute His Majesty disappeared into the realm of darkness."

From next to her, Donald and Goofy exchanged glances; Char was aware of this only because of the dual shifts of black and white in her periphery, so she could not see the exact emotions in their eyes when they did so. As a result of that inability, fear lanced briefly through her chest that perhaps she was revealing too much of what she knew of Sora's past – an old fear whose claws tugging at the old memories threatened to tear.

"She's right," Goofy said. Char waited for Donald to chime in, but he had apparently taken her vitriol to heart and was staying silent.

"They've fought with you this whole time both because of their king and because they want to protect you," she went on, with her heart suddenly threatening to free itself from her chest. Nevertheless, she ignored it, even though breath came to her only in her voice. "The way I see it, you've proven yourself more than worthy of such allies. Time and again, you've also proven yourself worthy of hauling that Keyblade around."

With the newfound rapidness in her pulse came more words, words whose desire to encourage channeled its way through her entire body and made her fingers tremble. It wouldn't have left Riku and gone back to you in Hollow Bastion if you weren't good enough, you said your friends are your power and that hasn't changed.

But that would have definitely given away that she knew more about him than she let on – information that nights on the Gummi ship relating the past had not yielded to her – so she stuffed them back down inside her heart and let different words flow forth.

"You don't need to thank them. Or me," she added. Oh gods, the tremble had worked its way into her voice now; fantastic indeed. "You've given that to us just by fighting alongside us in battle and being concerned about us. And stuff." And now my vocabulary has flown out the window, good job, Nightblaze, that's a good encouraging monologue right there.

Sora had almost become a mirror of her at this point: jaw dropped slightly to draw in more air, both hands gripping his armrests as though to anchor himself to the reality she was pressing upon him. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she glimpsed his fingers twitching against the leather; but not once did she surface from the perfect, glossy blue of her eye contact with him.

However, he did: looked away from her and tilted his head toward Donald and Goofy. A not-so-subtle shift from surprise to anxiety marked his features, but after a second, during which Char imagined their other two companions giving nods of approval, his focus slid back to her.

"We wouldn't fight for you if we weren't your friends," Goofy said. "And it's like Char said, you stickin' by us is thanks enough."

"All for one, one for all," Donald interjected.

Sora nodded, and relief stirred in Char's chest as the grin from this morning made an illustrious return. "You're right. You're all right," he added, even though Char had done nothing to indicate indignation at his not explicitly including her. "We've gone this far together. We might as well finish what we've started."

He leveled his gaze back to Char's as he spoke the last part. For the first time since they had taken down that giant Heartless in the realm between – since the Gummi ship's missiles had found their mark in their foe's vulnerable center and mapped bright, destructive fireworks across the sky – the desire to pull him toward her surfaced and tickled at her fingertips.

Like before, she tamped it down, though this time she knew she could not dismiss it as her hormones projecting and leave it at that. A different time, a different place.

When this is over, at Sora's island?

But that was definitely a thought best left untouched for the gut-stirring, heart-accelerating anxiety it brought, so she nudged the impulse to kiss him over to leave room for any notions of the future beyond the Organization's demise in the back of her mind.

Donald's triumphant squawk emitting from behind her made her turn around for the first time in a few minutes. The duck stood on his chair, still at a point where the top of his head just reached the top of the sitting Sora's, and curled his hands into determined fists. "The Organization won't know what hit 'em when I'm done," he declared. Though his enthusiasm still sounded awkward, at least this time it seemed genuine.

Especially when he swung one fist at the air and Goofy ducked away in surprise.

The dog straightened again, his startled expression ebbing away into one of determination. "Yeah, that's the spirit, Donald," he said. "And while we're at it, we'll find the King and Riku there, too."

"We'll be there with you, too!" piped up a tiny voice from beneath the Gummi dashboard.

Sora glanced down and smiled at the two chipmunks who leaped into view. "Of course you guys will help too," he said, reaching forward and ruffling the top of Chip's head with one fingertip.

The dark-nosed pilot danced back, startled, into a guffawing Dale's waiting grasp. As the red-nosed chipmunk nudged his companion upright again, he beamed a buck-toothed grin of his own at the four of them. "I reckon you'll give the Organization what for," he predicted.

"And find your friends while you're at it," Chip recovered long enough to say.

Char tilted her head to the side. The chipmunks had tagged along for this long, helping steer the ship through the worst of its situations – massive Heartless, her lack of driving skills and all – and handling it all as gracefully as creatures of their physical caliber could be expected. If the gateway to the World That Never Was really was tucked into Twilight Town, though, the flight to the dusk-wrapped world would be the last time the chipmunks accompanied the group.

"You know," she began – and almost flinched at the way everyone turned toward her; expecting another long-winded, inspirational speech, no doubt. Nevertheless, she ignored their stares and continued. "If we go to Twilight Town and stop the Organization from there… this will be the last trip we make on the Gummi ship."

Dale gasped and clapped one tiny hand over his mouth. "Gosh, Char, I didn't even think of that!"

"So when we drop you guys off at Twilight Town, it's goodbye?" Chip's high-pitched voice threatened to crack further.

"Yeah, that does make sense," Donald mused. "We won't need the vessel if we can trust…" Suddenly he trailed off, shot a glance at Char as if to confirm whether she was listening, and quickly clamped his beak shut. The redhead sighed internally. Guess I'll find out the source of their information later.

Still, in the face of yet another goodbye, she didn't want to dwell on the secret whose revelation, however ugly and unpleasant, Goofy's interruption had let them evade. The chipmunks, clad in their fitted pilot outfits, were staring at her with overly bright, dark eyes; if she hadn't known any better, she would have caught herself searching for spite there.

But they weren't her fellow apprentices, tainted by bitterness and knowledge of darkness – for the gods' sake, Chip and Dale were talking chipmunks, and the fact that she could delude herself into thinking they could muster anger now said a lot about her own paranoia. She had just reminded them that they had to leave each other, yet they seemed more sad than angry about it.

The lack of time she had spent actually in the driver's seat had not acquainted her well enough with them. In fact, she distinctly recalled the one time she had been allowed to drive glancing down occasionally to see furry brown backs quivering in terror. She had to give them credit: their flying skills far surpassed any of the group's, but they had the good grace to let Sora or Donald take control of the Gummi ship time and again.

Chip and Dale's faces looked void of anything vaguely resembling that of a hardened pilot now.

"You guys can still fly us up to Twilight Town," Goofy told them. Their stubby tails twitched and their ears pricked at that. "But then you gotta take the vessel back to the castle."

"And tell the queen we've got everything covered," Donald said, puffing out his chest.

Dale nodded. "You're absolutely right, Donald, old boy." The last part made Char blink; she had never heard that nickname applied to the duck before. Honestly, she half expected him to bristle and snarl at the chipmunk for the overt familiarity.

Again, though, surprise stirred within her because of the pilots. Donald just let out a long-suffering sigh and rolled his eyes. "I told you to stop calling me that," he grumbled.

His half-hearted indignation met with dual guffaws from Sora and Goofy alike. The former's amusement subsided long enough for him to address the chipmunks. "Well, as much as I want to tease Donald about this –" which met with a freshly annoyed growl from the mage in question – "we've got an organization to fight and friends to find."

Hearing his affirmation of his goal coaxed a smile onto Char's face, a smile that she did not bother trying to suppress. He's going to be fine, she thought.

"Would you like to do the honors?" she asked Sora, sweeping one hand out toward the steering wheel.

"Right," he agreed, and flicked a couple of switches. Char wasn't familiar enough to know what that particular combination signified, but a tangible shift beneath her feet told her that the Gummi ship was finally lifting off from the ground. The Keybearer flexed his fingers on the steering wheel, even as Chip and Dale jumped back into their cockpit and his friends all settled into their respective chairs.

"Full speed ahead to Twilight Town!" Goofy cheered.

Not much else to say besides my typical request for reviews. So... you know the drill.