Ignis tucked the last of his toiletries into the side pocket of his duffel, sitting back in satisfaction as it zipped closed perfectly with no tugging or strain. The snacks and dry ingredients were bundled neatly into bags on the counter, the eggs and milk secured in their new travel-sized cooler. Four sleeping bags and a small fire starter kit lined the wall near the caravan door. (Hauling it all out to the haven on foot was going to be something of an endeavor, but that was what they had Gladio for.) The remainder of their belongings—what was left after the Caem attack, anyhow—sat safely tucked away inside the Regalia's trunk in Cindy's garage. They were nearly ready to go, much to Ignis' surprise—and the morning sun had only just breached the horizon.

Granted, it was far too early to celebrate just yet. One task remained, and it wasn't likely to be a quick one.

Ignis studied the Noctis-shaped lump of blankets on the futon appraisingly, considering his options. As he pondered, Prompto stumbled out of the bathroom, his face rather pale.

"All yours, Gladio," he mumbled.

Gladio, standing patiently at the door, cast him a lingering look, but disappeared inside without comment.

Prompto dropped his duffel in the middle of the floor, nearly dislodging the shampoo bottle that was jutting haphazardly through a gap in the zipper in the process. A host of mismatched lumps bulged against the fabric from one end to the other, straining it to the limits of its endurance. Ignis winced, forcing his eyes away from this graphic abuse of tidiness and symmetry and onto Prompto himself.

"Prompto, I must say you're looking rather ill," he remarked. "I do hope it wasn't the three pancakes' worth of batter you ate from the mixing bowl last night."

"Not sick; just tired," Prompto wearily replied. "I had awful dreams. Feels like I barely slept."

"Ah," Ignis said. "What about? If you don't mind sharing."

Prompto squinted out the window for a moment, thinking, before finally shaking his head. "I dunno…it's mostly gone now. Just…weird images and a terrible, dark feeling. And…loss. I think there were daemons and stuff. The Royal Vessel might've been in there somewhere too." He shrugged, his shoulders slack.

"That is quite the mix," Ignis sympathized. "I'm only thankful it didn't become a full-blown episode."

"Yeah," Prompto replied, laughing weakly. "PTSD's a bitch, ain't it?"

"Speaking of…" Ignis said meaningfully, returning his gaze to Noct's blanket-shrouded form on the futon. He hadn't stirred, despite all the commotion of packing, showers, and loud conversation, and his eyes were twitching beneath their lids. "This may become a problem."

"Yeah, I'd say so," Prompto agreed. His face tightened in concern. "He looks pretty deep into it. If he still had his magic, you can bet your left butt cheek trying to wake him right now would turn you into an Armiger pincushion."

"Yes, I tend to agree," Ignis said. "It might be best simply to let him sleep, regardless of—well, now, he appears to be stirring."

"Noct?" Prompto ventured, leaning forward but not touching. "Hey buddy, it's time to rise and shine."

Noct twitched…then shot upright, his pillow tumbling off the futon. His eyes, clouded and unaware, darted rapidly around the room.

Ignis stiffened; beside him, Prompto tensed as well. They exchanged a quick glance, expressions strained.

Fixing his gaze on Noct's uncomprehending one, Ignis edged forward, his hands spread unthreateningly. "Noct. You're all right. We're in Hammerhead—you, myself, Prompto, and Gladio—and you are safe. Do you understand me?"

He kept his tone low and soothing, and perhaps a particle of his calm made it through. Noct stilled, eyes drifting toward his voice.

Then they landed on Prompto.

Noct's face filled with pure terror. It happened so very fast—one second he was sitting on the futon, tangled in blankets, and the next he was on his feet, stumbling backward down the hall, his horrified stare never leaving Prompto's face.

"Whoa!" Gladio exclaimed, emerging from the bathroom just in time for Noct to collide with his chest. Feeling arms close around his own, Noct jerked down and away, breaking the hold with a self-defense technique Gladio himself had taught him once upon a time. In an instant he was back beside the futon, his spine pressed against the wall. There he crouched, fingers clenched around a pen he'd snatched up off the counter, brandishing it as he would a knife. It could have been something of a comical sight, except that Ignis knew only too well how much damage a trained fighter trapped in a nightmare while holding anything could do.

It was that morning in Caem all over again, back when Noct had first woken from his death. When it had taken him days just to stop being afraid of them.

Gladio was creeping cautiously into the living area. "Hey, hey, easy now," he soothed, as if calming a spooked animal. He held up his hands placatingly. "It's just us. You're safe, Noct. Okay?"

"We're your friends," Ignis added, keeping his voice low, almost melodic—much as he had done back when they were children, when he would still read his charge to sleep every night. "We would never hurt you, Noct. Never."

Noct's stare settled on his face, straining to read his eyes. A hint of recognition flickered somewhere within.

And just like that, he came back.

"Ig—Prompto," he breathed, dropping the pen from suddenly nerveless fingers. "Sorry…I'm so sorry."

He fell back into the wall, scrubbing an arm across his sweaty face. Ignis marked the trembling in his hand; Noct noticed too and quickly folded his arms. "I couldn't…Prompto, I'm sorry."

"Hey, no harm done," Prompto assured him. His bright blue eyes were steady and unfazed—and Ignis saw, with a little rush of pride in his friend, that he meant it. "Ask Gladio about the time I totally almost broke his wrist after he decided to slap a mosquito to death next to my head while I was asleep."

"Truth," Gladio replied. Stepping forward, he steered Noct smoothly over to the futon, his hands resting lightly on his back and arm. "Why don't you sit a minute."

"You don't have to baby me," Noct protested, his face a mix of disquiet and chagrin. He sat anyway. "It was just a bad dream. I'm fine now."

Gladio snorted softly, parking himself alongside him on the cushion. Ignis perched gingerly across the way, while Prompto leaned back into the couch's creaky armrest, crossing his ankles and tucking his hands beneath his arms.

"Will you tell us about it?" Ignis asked.

Noct frowned—but it was in concentration, and with none of the resistance Ignis had expected.

"It's…hard to remember," he eventually replied. Absently, he wiped his sleeve across his face, staring off into the middle distance. "I…I don't know; it's gone now. All that fuss and I can't even tell you what it was about." He laughed self-deprecatingly.

"Hey, Noct," Prompto said seriously. "You know it's nothing to be ashamed of, right? We all four came out of the Long Night with enough baggage to send everyone in Lucis on vacation, plus some of the Niffs. And that's totally okay."

Ignis glanced up at the blond beside him, surprised and rather impressed. But Prompto was continuing.

"Look, I know you let Gladio in on a lot of the ugly details of what really happened to you in Reflection. And that Gladio told some of it to Ignis. I personally don't know anything more than what Gentiana spilled, and I'm not asking you to tell me now. But I'll be here when you're ready, and not any time before. And so will these two chuckleheads—I promise." He leaned forward and grabbed Noct's hand, looking intently into his eyes. "We'll all get each other through this, Noct. Deal?"

For a moment, Ignis thought he saw an expression of utter devastation ghost across Noct's face. But it was gone so fast his brain didn't even have time to unfurl its well-worn collection of red flags. He frowned. More likely it was his imagination running a tad on the wild side in the wake of all their near-crises.

"Thanks," Noct said, his voice strained. "That means...that means everything."

Abruptly he stood, the old, stretched springs creaking beneath him, and headed for the door.

"I'm just gonna get some air." He flashed them a small, quick smile over his shoulder. "I'll be right outside, so all you mother chocobos can unruffle your feathers already."

With that, he jogged down the stairs and disappeared out the door. Ignis watched him through the window as he half-collapsed into a plastic chair. Leaning forward, he rested his head in his hands, shoulders hunched, as if holding up the weight of the world.

Gladio sighed and muttered beneath his breath. "Shit."

xxx

They did eventually manage a successful relocation to Cotisse Haven, though it took several trips. By the time they'd returned to the wastes for good, their newest hunt in hand, they were already so filthy that Ignis didn't bat an eye when a sabertusk tackled him facedown into a sage bush, followed immediately by a dust storm that had them clearing mud from their sinuses until dinner.

Though Noct seemed a bit more reticent than usual, he perked up significantly as the day drew on. Sunshine, companionship, and a few good old-fashioned, rough-and-tumble battles seemed to free him from the remnants of his nightmare. Around lunchtime they stopped to rest beneath the eaves of a partially collapsed barn, drowsing in the relative coolness of the shade. Ignis pulled a stack of sandwiches from his bag and passed them around; and despite their simplicity, the exertion of the morning transformed the basic layers of bread, meat, and cheese into the most satisfying meal they'd eaten all week.

Finally, as dusk lit the sky in a spread of flame-washed gray, they returned to camp. Hot and dirty and relaxed, a fresh payout rattling in their pockets, they clambered up onto the sunwarmed stone, tugging off their boots and laughing in easy companionship as they recounted the day's adventures. Gladio began kindling the fire while Noct settled down to clean his blade, a mid-grade, mass-produced thing he'd picked up from the weapons vendor at Hammerhead. Ignis gathered the vegetables he'd pre-diced that morning while he'd still had a kitchen counter at his disposal, then lined the potatoes up to wrap and bake. Prompto helped, heating water in a sturdy pot for the soup. The dusktime breezes began gusting from the south, blowing in the smells of sunbaked earth.

Without a tent and all their usual gear, there wasn't much to do after that but wait. Noct and Prompto burrowed halfway into their sleeping bags and began a perfunctory game of blackjack, while Gladio grunted through his nightly burpees at the edge of the haven stone. Ignis settled down by the fire with his well-worn recipe notes, jotting down various culinary improvements he had conceived of over the years but had never had the time (or eyesight) to record.

Finally, with the sun gone and stars strewn all across the sky, the soup was ready, its savory aroma floating across the desert on arid nighttime winds. Noct left his game to help Ignis dish it into tin mugs. They accompanied it with the potatoes and a (nearly) fresh loaf of crusty bread, supplementing it all with butter packets they'd hoarded from Takka's diner. It was humble fare overall, cobbled together from leftovers and rife with shortcuts that would have had Young Ignis feeling rather faint. But older Ignis knew there was a time for a perfectly turned-out Dualhorn Wellington and the mountain of dishes that accompanied it, and there was also a time for coal-baked potatoes and an evening relaxing around a campfire with one's friends. Tonight, he would make sure it was the latter.

Once dinner was finished and the dishes cleared away, they drifted back to the fire, just as they always had. The flames popped and crackled, the nighttime breezes curling them toward Insomnia—as if reaching for something lost. Ignis glanced at Noct and noticed how the light reflected brightly off his eyes, even as the rest of his face remained mired in shadow.

A memory surfaced, jarringly, of another time, another campfire. Only then, they had been saying goodbye.

He shook his head, banishing the incongruously dark thought. This day had been a much-needed calm amongst the storms, and he wasn't about to ruin it by dwelling in the past.

"How's your Silence holding up?" Gladio asked, settling down next to Noct. "The big pissy rock giving you any more headaches?"

"Nope," Noct replied. His arms were crossed behind his head as he and Prompto lay back in their sleeping bags, gazing up into the blue-tinted spill of stars. "All's quiet on the Astral front."

"Good," Gladio grunted. "With any luck we'll have the Regalia back by tomorrow evening and can get you over to the old Malmalan witch before it wears off."

Noct hummed in affirmation, curling his sleeping bag-clad toes toward the fire.

"So do you think we actually managed to throw Cor off our scent?" Prompto dubiously asked, waving a leg restlessly back and forth. "Cuz it kinda seems to me like he's not exactly a dummy and would figure out that we're over here camping just a couple miles away in, like, two seconds."

"I don't think our purpose was geared toward tricking Cor so much as avoiding reminders of our existence to the maximum extent possible," Ignis replied, settling down between the blond and Noct. Their circle was lopsided tonight, the four of them bunched tightly together on one side of the fire, much like a tipped box of takeout. Nobody seemed to mind. "Another confrontation is inevitable, but we'd prefer them to remain few and far between until he can both remember and accept Noct's decision to abdicate."

"Oh, okay. That makes sense," Prompto said. "Sorta. What a weird life we live now."

"And I wouldn't trade it for the world," Noct said softly.

Ignis smiled at him, warmed, even as a strange glimmer of uneasiness ghosted along the peripheral of his mind. But the odd little flicker he'd thought he'd seen pass across his friend's face hardly needed to be assigned any special significance. Perhaps the darkness of the night was taking him back to the morning's dreams. Astrals only knew there were plenty of times Ignis had failed to shake off his own so easily.

"Speaking of Titan and Silencing," Prompto said, "how'd you guys ever come up with that idea, anyway? If I'd had that dude blasting god-tongue straight into my head the way he does, I probably would've just curled up into a ball and cried."

"Basically what I did," Noct replied. "Gladio was the one who thought of it. Because he's smart and graduated top of his class."

"Hey, hey, no need for spite," Gladio soothed, near brimming with patronizing graciousness. "You're very special too, in your own way."

The big man grinned, easily blocking the elbow Noct jabbed at him. Prompto rolled to his side; propping his head up on a hand, he peered over Ignis to stare at them with incredulity.

"Dude. Top of your class? Really? A whole generation of skinny valedictorian wannabes who're too busy studying to ever go to the gym just keeled over in crippling despair, and they don't even know why."

"Not my fault," Gladio breezed. "Born this way, can't get mad." His grin stretched even wider. "Hey, did I ever tell you guys what really clued me in to the fact that Noct was spinning us a line with the whole sleeping in the crystal thing?"

Noct eyed him nervously. "I thought you said it was the airspeed…"

"Nope," Gladio replied, reclining back into his arms. The firelight cast quavering shadows over an expression of supreme satisfaction. "That was just the last nail in the coffin, so to speak. It was actually the fish."

"The fish," Noct repeated, flatly.

"Yep." The big man rolled his head sideways, resting it in the crook of his elbow as he addressed Ignis and Prompto. "Back in the cave Noct caught us a couple of 'em for dinner and…are you ready for this, Iggy? He cleaned them. Like he'd been doing it his whole godsdamned life. Prince My Hands Are Okay For Stabbing Things and Videogames But Way Too Royal For Fish Guts would never have deigned to."

"I cleaned fish back then!" Noct protested, offended.

"HA!" Ignis interjected, startling Prompto, who recoiled from him with a look of wonder. "Oh dear, did I say that out loud?" He sounded far less concerned than the question implied.

"You guys suck," Noct declared. "Just so you know, it was me and my fish that saved this big idiot's life the other day."

"Okay, yeah, this one I've gotta hear," Prompto said. Poking a foot out of his bag, he nudged a rogue log toward the flames before quickly zipping himself back in. "How come none of this came out when we were back playing catch-up at the caravan?"

"I suppose we were all rather distracted with the plethora of new problems at hand and neglected certain very important details," Ignis replied. "Well, Noct?"

"Hang on, hang on," Gladio interrupted. "Before we kick this off…Noct: Are you sure you wanna go there?"

"Yes," Noct retorted, then wavered. "Maybe?"

"Well, you heard him," Gladio said, failing to hide his glee. Ignis didn't think he'd ever seen the big man enjoy himself quite as much as he was right now. He wondered if he should be responsible and put a stop to it.

Settling back, Ignis folded his arms and waited. "I'm not getting any younger."

"At the moment, anyway," Prompto noted.

"Right, I think I'll tell this one too," Gladio said, steamrolling Noct's protests. "The gist of it is that while I was dying painfully between the aisles of some backwater, godsforsaken, seedy little gas station, Noct was swapping fishhooks with the shopkeeper like they were the newest grade school trend. Meanwhile, I'm lying there on the floor like a forgotten bag of trash."

"I was bartering for your life. And they're lures, not fishhooks," Noct sniffed. "As you well know. Plus it's not like I was having a good time either."

"You were singing the Moogle House theme song."

"I was drunk on Prompto's kupoberry-flavored pisswater, okay? It wasn't my fault."

"That's where those went," Prompto whined, looking aggrieved.

"Look, it was the only way to get the guy to give me an antidote," Noct complained, sounding very close to exasperation. "I would never actually put your life in danger for fish, okay? At the time, anyway." He trailed off in an ominous mutter. "But I'm always open for reconsideration..."

There was a short silence—one in which Prompto appeared to be weighing a selection of talking points, several of them potentially hazardous. He opened his mouth. "Actually..."

Noct lurched upright, his eyes narrowing. "Prom, don't you dare."

"There was this one time with a sahagin..."

Noct made to dive over Ignis' legs, but was pulled up short as Gladio hooked the top of his sleeping bag and hauled him backward, one-handed. Pulling the drawstring tight with the other, he effectively trapped Noct inside. "Go on, Prompto, we're all ears."

Noct squirmed in Gladio's hold. "Prompto, friendly reminder that this story isn't going to end well for either you or me—"

"Sorry buddy, I'm pretty much committed now," Prompto said with a fatalistic little shrug. "So! This one time Noct and I were fishing up by Callatein's Plunge while you guys were off—I dunno, doing your book club or something, when a sahagin comes along and chomps this carp Noct's been trying to land all afternoon—"

"It wasn't a book club; we were simply engaging in animated discussion regarding which works may be considered true classics and which are mere popular trash masquerading as such," Ignis said, vaguely recalling the instance Prompto was referencing and feeling it important to clarify.

"As I was saying. You two were in the middle of your 'which of us has read the smartest things' pissing contest, and Noct is sitting there trying to land this fish, but now there's a sahagin on the end of his line too. But instead of just letting go, he hangs on for all he's worth. The thing drags him off into the water, rod and all, and I'm left there on the dock, holding onto his ankle while the rest of him's bumping around in the rapids."

Looking askance at the growing intensity of Noct's evil eye, Prompto plunged on. "Meanwhile, this other sahagin comes after me. Noct totally sees the danger, but he still doesn't let go, just kind of yell-gurgles that I 'still have a free hand, just punch it in the eye.' Long story short, we eventually stagger back to camp with one less potion, no fish, and sahagin marks in my favorite jeans."

"It wasn't about the fish," Noct grumbled through Gladio's loud guffawing. "It had my lure."

"I rather think Prompto is somewhat less replaceable than a lure," Ignis remarked, poorly disguising his own amusement. "Though I do believe I saw a passable substitute in the Souvenir Emporium once."

"Yeah," Gladio added. "Our Prompto's getting a little scruffy. Might be time for one with a few less dents and bangs."

"I hate you guys so much," Prompto cheerfully replied.

"So what lure did this thing take, anyway?" Gladio asked. "Had to have been diamond-encrusted at the very least. You make it out of the crown jewels or something?"

Noct mumbled something.

"What was that?" Rather than exerting the effort to lean in to hear, Gladio simply dragged Noct's sleeping bag closer.

"I said, it was one of Ignis' vintage corn cob holders," Noct said, glaring. "There, now he's gonna kill me and bury me in a shallow grave in the desert and the sabertusks will dig me up and eat my bones. Hope you're happy, Prom."

"You used...one of my antique, hand-crafted, heirloom corn skewers...as a fishing lure," Ignis stated, in conspicuously conversational tones. Something abruptly occurred to him. "And where, pray tell, did the rest go?"

"Um...also into fish," Noct replied.

Ignis sighed, long and despairingly. "And here I assumed they had been lost to the armiger."

"Yeah. I know," Noct said, staring meaningfully at Prompto.

"Hey, look on the bright side, Ig," Prompto said. "Now you have a chance of finding them again someday. All you have to do is catch and eat fish every evening for the rest of your life, which is actually part of a very healthy diet."

"Yeah, Specs…only thinking of you…" Noct tried.

"Better not push your luck," Gladio advised. "I can protect you against Iggy's wrath up to a point, but the moment the glasses come off, I'm tapping out."

"Some Shield you are. Hey, anybody else wanna volunteer to be the punchline for a while? Or is 'persecuting Noct' the flavor of the night?"

His tone was indignant, but Ignis detected no resentment in it. In fact, he could see by the firelight the tiniest of fond smiles playing around the corners of his friend's lips. There was something else in that expression, too…something that again gave Ignis pause. But he couldn't quite put his finger on it, and the long day combined with the murmuring of the fire was making him drowsy.

"Hey man, we've all had our turn," Prompto was saying. "Remember how I had to sit through Gladio spilling all my secrets about the time I got Confused by an Imp? And Iggy's Ranger Joe alter ego is here to stay. That guy's gonna live forever." He rolled onto his back and scooted closer to Ignis, pulling the sleeping bag up to his chin. "And if you're looking for a little bit of bonus humiliation: Cor watched me fight a Yojimbo the other day in pajamas and bright yellow rain boots. All his other memories in relation to us might be wiped, but I guarantee you that one wasn't. If only 'cause I'm just not that lucky."

"Huh," Noct said. "Funny how Gladio seems to be the only one to have escaped the list."

"That's cause I'm clearly just beyond reproach," Gladio replied. He yawned and closed his eyes, his lips stretched in a smile of self-satisfaction.

"Yeah, like ten percent that, ninety percent because you can kick our asses into orbit," Prompto remarked.

"If it makes you feel any better, Noct," Ignis said, settling deeper into his own bedroll, "I once watched Gladio storm through the middle of the Glaive training yard wearing nothing but his latest mystery novel while your father and Clarus and a delegation from Ulwaat were in the midst of a grounds tour, the Glaives all lined up in their dress blacks for inspection. Iris was rather young and precocious at the time and angry at him for blowing her off during what was supposed to be quality sibling time. So she screamed bloody murder while he was in the shower, locked the gymnasium doors as he ran out to save her, and…well, I'm sure you can imagine the rest."

Noct laughed, and even Gladio chuckled drowsily at the memory. "Yeah, we weren't on speaking terms for a while after that. Dating life suddenly improved, though." He opened his eyes just long enough to waggle his eyebrows suggestively.

"We talking, like, stratosphere to exosphere improvement, here?" Prompto asked. He rolled onto his stomach and buried his face in his arms, yawning sleepily. "Because I seem to remember it already being pretty absurdly successful. BTW, those valedictorian wannabes called; they want all the pieces of their hopes and dreams back."

Ignis didn't hear Gladio's reply; reality was already melting away, the low, throaty sound of the fire luring him toward blissful unconsciousness. It had been a good day. They'd laughed and badgered each other, their conversation easy and light. It had been so much like old times, before the Night.

Then why was he so unsettled?

The fire spit and popped, its ashes drifting toward Insomnia, seeming to whisper of a night not long past in an hour yet to come. Within the flames, Ignis noted how shapes and images appeared to form and dissolve and re-form, like thunderheads on a stormy afternoon. He imagined they could tell of both times gone and futures unwritten, if anybody cared to listen.

They all lapsed into silence, the hushed desert sounds drawing them ever closer to dreams. Ignis tipped his head in a final reflexive check on his oldest friend, still—and always—his king. Noct's eyes were glinting brightly in the firelight, the rest of him bathed in darkness. Ignis' eyelids sagged.

"Hey," he thought he caught Noct saying softly, just before sleep claimed him fully. "I love you guys."

Ignis heard a deep, deep sadness in his voice. He heard it and he knew it, but he couldn't seem to make himself comprehend it. His ability to reason was in pieces. Sleep was an ocean, now, vast and inescapable.

"And we you, Noct," he slurred in reply, shuffling his bag closer.

"Love you too, man," Prompto murmured, roused briefly from the beginnings of a snore. Gladio merely grunted, shifting to throw a heavy arm around Noct's sleeping bag-cocooned form.

Then Ignis could drag his awareness no further, and succumbed to the night.

xxx

A/N: Sorry for:

The late update

The short chapter

The cliffhanger (again)

For the record, though, I've been writing furiously trying to finish up the last few chapters in hopes of releasing them in a (slightly) more timely manner, without everybody having to wait long stretches to find out what's going to happen. Admittedly, I'm having questionable success with the timely part (that Life, always such a glutton for attention). Your amazing encouragement and support helps a LOT, though – I really can't stress enough how grateful I am to those of you who have reviewed/reached out on Tumblr.

xxx

A/N #2: Some Chapter 25 replies to my lovely guests:

To Guest 1: Oh Guest 1, I wish you had an account so I could give you better replies. You leave me such amazing reviews that get me through my writing slumps and encourage me to keep going. Thank you; you are wonderful, and I'm so happy you're enjoying it, and thanks for the validation with the bros and the dialogue because their tomfoolery is my favorite thing to write. :)

To my newest Guest: Don't worry, you're not being "that" person at all! I understand how annoying it can be to wait around with no idea when the next update will arrive. Feel free to ask either here or over on Tumblr – I'm happy to share how things are progressing! Or to just say hi – I'm totally down with that too. :)

(And thanks again to Heiro and Mizu! Always appreciate you!)