Waking up was like walking through a cloud. Foggy and confusing, but soft at the same time. The first thing she noticed was the blanket tucked around her, white and fluffy enough that the analogy seemed appropriate.

The second thing she noticed as she yawned her way into consciousness was the bitter taste in her mouth, like she hadn't brushed her teeth in ages. Even in the Realm of Darkness, she had managed to scrub them with water-diluted potion dregs while on night watch. She rarely missed a day, and certainly hadn't since returning to the Realm of Light. How long had she been asleep?

"Riku!" Lea elbowed him—what were they both doing sitting next to her bed?—until the silver-haired boy snorted awake. "She lives!"

"Oh." He grunted and rubbed his eyes. "You're up. Good. How do you feel?"

How did she feel? She blinked at the question. Her body had woken up, but her mind wasn't quite there yet.

"Um… tired?" She noticed the snack food wrappers and even a couple of plates scattered across her floor. "Have you two been camping in here?"

"Just for the past couple days." Lea shrugged. "You scared us there. We wanted to make sure you didn't hurt yourself again."

"Hurt myself…?" Aqua touched her forehead. She felt a little warm, which she expected was from the thick blankets rather than a fever, but otherwise she couldn't sense anything wrong. Other than the bone-deep exhaustion, anyway.

"Do you remember anything?" Riku asked, standing so he could talk to her more directly. Lea still leaned against the side of her bed, arms tucked behind his head.

"I…" She winced at the sharp pain that hit her like a blow to the head. So much for nothing being wrong. "What… should I be remembering?"

"Don't worry about it yet." He rested a hand on her shoulder. "We can talk about that after you've recovered. Do you want something to eat?"

She was rather hungry, she realized. She tried to swing her legs out of the bed, but it was like trying to wade through quicksand.

"Hey, take it easy," Lea said. "We can bring you something."

"No, I'm fine," she tried to assure them. It would have been much easier if her body agreed with her words; its sluggishness betrayed her.

"I can make a pretty mean soup. I'll be back before you can miss me." Lea grinned against her protest, then stood and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Aqua sighed and shook her head, even though soup actually didn't sound bad.

"I should probably make sure he doesn't burn down the whole Castle." Riku smiled. "Do you think you'll be alright for a little while?"

Panic flashed through her. She couldn't be alone. Not now. Why, she didn't know, but she couldn't. In desperation, she reached out for Riku's arm and clasped his wrist.

"Stay," she whispered. "Please."

He nodded and waited patiently for her to release his arm. Her breath came raggedly. What was wrong with her? Usually she couldn't get a moment to herself, between traveling with Van, enduring questions from Mickey and Riku and Lea, and Drizzle sticking to her side…

"Drizzle," she said. "Did you take him out to play?"

Riku frowned.

"No. We were so worried about you, we didn't realize he was missing until yesterday."

"Yesterday?" That couldn't be right. She remembered seeing him just yesterday. But what had Lea said? They'd been camping out here for… the past couple days? Her head swam. "How long have I been asleep?"

"Five days," he replied quietly.

"Five... days?" Well, it was no wonder that her mouth tasted disgusting, but that was the least of her worries. "What happened to me? Did I lose a battle?"

"We were hoping you could tell us. You were alone when it happened."

The sharp pain in her head had faded to a fuzzy ache, like it was stuffed full of cotton balls. Any mental exertion was beyond her for now.

"Hopefully it will come back to me soon. But I'm still confused. Where's Drizzle?" She felt that her unnatural fear of being left alone would subside if the Inversed were with her.

"...I think that's a subject we should save for when you're feeling better," he dodged awkwardly, which only made her more concerned.

"Why? Is he hurt?"

Riku remained silent.

"Please," she begged, reaching out for his arm again. Her limbs were still weak, and she barely caught the edge of his wrist brace. "I need to know."

He wouldn't meet her eyes when he answered.

"Mickey looked for him when we realized he was gone. So far there's been no sign of him."

"He's dead," Aqua whispered. The words felt like they came from someone else's mouth. As soon as she said them, though, she felt they were true. "Oh light, he's dead…"

"We don't know that," Riku tried to assure her, but she knew.

She remembered.

"He disappeared. He was about to tell me something, something important, and then he—he—" she choked. She'd thought she was too weak to cry, but the tears came anyway. Riku's concerned face was a blur through them.

"I'm sorry."

His words were sincere, but they were just words. Words wouldn't bring Drizzle back. They wouldn't bring Van back.

"Van!" She gasped. "He's—no… no…"

The lump in her throat suddenly felt suffocating. Her mouth tried to suck in air, but none of it seemed to reach her lungs. The shadows stretched around her; her fingers clutched at the sheets.

Breathe! He can't… he's fine! But…

No. He wasn't fine. She remembered. Drizzle fading, the darkness taking her. And then… she didn't know what had happened after that, or how she had ended up here. She was glad she didn't, though. The empty space where her memories should've been was filled to the brim with fear.

Riku perched on the edge of her bed. She still hadn't released his wrist brace, but he gently removed her fingers so he could hold her hand in a more comforting position.

"I know you're afraid," he said quietly, almost softer than the ragged gasps of her breath. "It's okay."

"Van is dead—it's not okay! How could you say that?" She nearly yanked her hand back.

"We don't know if that's true," he said carefully. "And I meant that it's okay to be afraid." Though his voice was soothing, his stiff posture betrayed his discomfort.

Here she was, weak and crying in front of someone she still barely knew. It was no wonder he was uncomfortable.

"Not for me," she said, a little too snappily. "I have to be stronger…"

"See, that's a common misconception about darkness. That if you're 'strong' enough, you can just ignore it, and it will go away. If that were the case, you wouldn't have this problem in the first place."

Van's words echoed back from those horrible days, when her heart had been so steeped in darkness that she had just wanted to crush the universe. His directions still didn't make sense. None of what anyone taught her about darkness did. But was fear darkness?

"Strength isn't everything." Riku smiled sadly. "Believe me, I learned that one the hard way."

Hadn't she learned that as well? Hadn't she worried for Terra, and his obsession with power? Hadn't she called him out, said that that would lead him to the darkness?

I'm such a hypocrite, she thought, not for the first time. Probably not for the last, either.

"Then what do I need?" Aqua begged. "You escaped the darkness, Riku. You're not afraid anymore."

He gave a hollow chuckle. "That's what I thought before I dove into your nightmare. I'm not sure the fear ever really goes away. You just learn how to face it."

"You'll control it. Show it that your will is stronger. By ignoring it, you're telling it that you're scared of it, and that it's welcome to do whatever it wants."

Riku's words, Van's words. They seemed to corroborate each other. Stand up to the fear, face it head-on. The thought made her want to crumble to dust.

"I don't think I can," she muttered. "I'm not sure… there's any point anymore."

The door swung open.

"Any point to what?" Lea asked as he waltzed in with a whole pot of soup.

Aqua shared a look with Riku before he answered for her.

"We'll talk later. All of us."

Her eyes widened at his answer. "I don't want—"

"You need help, Aqua," Riku said firmly, though not unkindly. Like the tone she'd once used to make Ven wash his hair. "You might have given up, but we haven't given up on you. You're not alone here."

Lea set the pot down in Aqua's lap, thankfully with a hot pad underneath it.

"For once, I gotta agree with Riku. We bring people back. It's what we do."

He grinned, and the light in his eyes was contagious. Aqua found an unexpected smile on her lips.

"...Alright. Thank you," she said. "Both of you."

XXX

Time drifted erratically, like a planet shaken from its orbit. Aqua would sleep for hours and wake up to find Riku or Lea napping against her bed, or playing some sort of card game, or sometimes just watching her with pity in their eyes. That look made her skin itch, and so she would pretend to fall asleep again. It was easy when so much of the time she did simply fall back asleep. Even when she did awaken fully, she barely had the energy to move. Thankfully whenever Lea replaced her tomato soup, he provided her with a straw.

Memories trickled in slowly. The nightmares pieced themselves back together, a shard at a time, until she could no longer forget. Sometimes they would try to replay in her sleep, but each time they began, Riku or Lea would shake her into consciousness and calm her down—Riku with soothing words that she began to suspect were quoted from someone, and Lea with jokes that were so bad they had to be original.

It helped a little. She wished it helped more, but what could she expect? What could they do when her enemy was inside her heart, her mind? While they could save her from the nightmares, they couldn't keep her from thinking. From worrying. From the ever-growing fear that Van was dead, that she had failed for the last time.

When she had the energy, she recorded those thoughts in her journal. Lea must have retrieved it from when she'd fallen, because she found it waiting on her nightstand. The angry gash where her gratitude list had been only reminded her of her failure to keep the darkness in check. She tried to create a new one, filling it with items like Lea's soup, Mickey's soft smile, Riku's near-endless patience. That helped a little too, but as soon as she put down her pen, the despair crept back.

She needed to move. To get out of this white prison box. How long had it been? Lea said three days had passed since she'd first awoken, but it felt like an eternity. Her strength was returning, but not quickly enough.

Or had it already returned, and this feeling of helplessness was all in her head?

Since Lea was the more lax of her two "babysitters"—that was how it felt when she could hardly take care of herself; they even had to walk her to the bathroom—she asked him to take her for a walk outside. Not just outside the room, outside the Castle.

"Eh, sure. Why not?" He shrugged. "Light knows I started to go crazy when I was cooped up here on missions too."

"Thank you, Lea." She smiled.

He had to support her the whole way there, his arm under one of her shoulders, but the embarrassment was worth it for the fresh air. She couldn't help looking up at the Castle though, how its dull brown walls and angular shapes pierced the black sky. Vaulting architecture that had once been regal was now twisted, menacing.

"Even my home has fallen to darkness," she murmured. "Why should I be any different?"

"You're just a big old ray of sunshine, aren't you?" Lea sighed, and she scowled at him.

"I apologize if I'm depressing you," she said sarcastically, but he just chuckled.

"Sorry, Aqua. It's just, you're so like Riku. That's what Kairi says he used to be like, anyway—he's been getting better lately." He shrugged, making her bob up and down a little. "I don't know why Mickey trusts us both to keep an eye on you. We're probably the least qualified babysitters ever."

In spite of wanting to slap him just a moment ago, she had to hide a laugh. So he felt like he was on babysitting duty, too.

"I think you're both doing a good job."

"Heh. Well, we have both had a little practice, so maybe we're not so bad at the regular stuff. We've been talking, though. We don't know how we're supposed to help you."

She looked up and saw him ruffling his hair self-consciously.

"What do you mean?"

"Riku's been drowning in his own angst-pit forever. I was a heartless killer up until last year. If you're looking for light to rub off on you, you've come to the wrong place."

"I don't know," she replied thoughtfully. "I've learned a lot from you two."

Just like she'd learned a lot from Van. Maybe their light didn't rub off in a traditional way, but they certainly weren't to blame for her darkness.

Are they? No, that was the nightmare talking. Lea was here. Riku was here. They cared. Van wasn't here, but he cared, too—or he would, if he was… if he was...

"Like what?" Lea asked, shaking her from her thoughts. "How to tick off everyone in the worlds and get away with it?"

"No," she replied honestly. And she remembered what she had learned. "How to keep going, even when it seems hopeless. To look for the light even when it seems it's gone out."

For the first time in a while, her hand found her Wayfinder. It felt surprisingly warm to the touch, as if it had been sitting near a fire.

Lea laughed, a loud burst that shocked the smile off of her. "You really are just like Riku. He gave a cheesy monologue like that while you were knocked out."

Aqua's face reddened—not from embarrassment at his words, but from annoyance. Maybe he wasn't kidding about having ticked off everyone in the words. Just as she was about to reply, though, the Castle's giant doors opened.

"Don't listen to him," Riku said as he stepped out. "He's only jealous because he still hasn't learned how to speak from his heart yet."

"Ouch, bro." Lea put a hand over his chest. "That's a low one, even for me. How'd you hear me from in there, anyway?"

"Besides the fact that you talk loud enough to hear a world away? I've had a lot of practice."

"Right, the whole blindfold deal... " Lea sighed. "Whatever. What do you want?"

"I just thought I'd join you two." He sat down on the dusty ground.

It was only then that Aqua realized how much of her energy she'd used. She took a seat too, thankful that dirt didn't cling well to her suit.

"Probably trying to babysit both of us," Lea stage-whispered from the back of his hand.

Aqua laughed for a moment, and then reality set in. How could she laugh so easily? Drizzle was gone; Van was probably dead. A sober look took over her face.

"I can guess what you're thinking about," Riku said quietly, breaking the moment of awkward silence. Apparently his eyes were just as keen as his ears, for all the talk of him having lived a year with a blindfold. "You're worried for Van. I get that. We can't do anything for him until you're back to full health."

"We might not be able to do anything for him at all," Aqua burst in exasperation. "He might be dead, Riku. If it's true… I don't know how I'll live with myself."

"The same way we all do," Lea said. She was half-expecting another blithe remark, but his voice was subdued. "You take one breath. Then you take another. And you don't stop until either your lungs break or there's no more air to breathe in."

There was a moment of silence. Then Riku raised an eyebrow, and Lea huffed loudly.

"What? You guys spout all sorts of fluffy crap, and you're going to make fun of me for that?"

"No one said anything, Lea," he replied.

Lea just huffed again.

"I think I understand what you mean." Aqua smiled a little, even though it was difficult. "I wish it were that simple."

"Isn't it?" Lea asked. "What else are you going to do besides live? Go off and get yourself killed?"

"Lea," Riku crossed his arms at his tone.

"It doesn't hurt to ask," he muttered. "She wouldn't be the first friend of mine to do that."

"I'm not going to hurt myself," Aqua assured him, wondering in the back of her mind who was the first. "...At least, not on purpose." She winced.

"Good." He nodded. "You're not the only one trying to keep a friend alive, you know. We were worried about you."

"I'm sorry," she apologized out of habit, a few moments before the true realization sunk in. She saw it on their faces, in spite of both of their efforts to play it cool—she was the friend they were trying to keep alive right now. They really did care.

But why? I've only been a burden to them. Haven't I?

But wouldn't she do the same if someone she knew was hurting? Wouldn't she take care of them out of kindness, not obligation?

Lea shrugged. "No need to apologize. That's what friends are for, right, Riku?"

"Right." He smiled a little. "If you want us to be your friends, Aqua."

Her eyes widened. Had she never called them her friends out loud? No, of course she hadn't. She had been too focused on herself, on the friends she had lost, to put real effort into making new ones.

"Of course I do." She gave her most sincere smile since waking up from the nightmare. "You're both my friends already. I'm sorry I haven't shown it enough."

"Hey, what did I say about apologizing?" Lea elbowed her arm with a grin.

"Should I apologize for apologizing?" She raised her eyebrows, but it didn't have quite the same effect when paired with her smile.

Riku cleared his throat.

"I'm glad everyone's feeling better, but we've still got some questions to answer. If you're feeling up to it." He inclined his head towards Aqua, who nodded.

"I am. You want to know what we're going to do next, right?"

They both looked at her expectantly. She still couldn't handle the weight of their gaze; her eyes fell to her lap. To her Wayfinder, which she unconsciously held there.

An unbreakable connection, she had told her friends.

Unbreakable. Like she had once thought herself to be. She had been humbled since then. The question was, was their bond made of sturdier material than she was on her own? Would she keep having faith in it, having faith in the three of them, even when all she could see ahead was darkness?

She cupped the glass charm in her palms. The fire was gone; it felt cool to the touch. Maybe she had imagined it earlier.

Had her friends' lights gone out, like that warmth? Probably. But, as Riku had been quick to remind her earlier, it wasn't certain. More importantly, had her own light gone out? Would she let it fade while there was still a chance, however small it might be?

"I've never been able to use the spell Faith," she spoke the thought that came to mind. "My light was never strong enough for that, even before. But faith is more than a spell. It's believing in something even when you can't see it."

Her fingers closed over the cold Wayfinder.

"That's what I'm going to do. I'm not giving up—not while I'm still breathing." She smiled at Lea, expecting a comment about her sappiness. Instead, he threw an arm around her shoulder for a quick side-hug.

"See, now that's a decent monologue." He cracked a grin. "You better keep that one memorized."

Riku rolled his eyes, but he cautiously clapped Aqua on the back from her other side.

"For once, I agree with Lea. It won't be easy. You'll need to be able to remember that, even when the darkness seems unbearable."

"It doesn't go away, does it?" she asked, though she felt she knew the answer. "From what you and Lea, and even Van and Yen Sid have told me—I think I finally understand." As she spoke it, the pieces she hadn't been able to line up before finally fell into place. "You really do just keep going. Keep trying to be better, keep believing it can be better. There really is no secret, is there?"

Riku smiled sadly. "That's right. There's no secret."

There was no easy answer: that was the answer. All she could do was live, and try, and hope. And see the good in herself, the light in the darkness, like she had with Van.

She took a deep breath, and then let it out.

"Then I guess I'll just have to have faith in myself, too." She smiled. "Come on. I haven't had real food in days. I'd like to eat something before we get in the Gummi Ship again."

"What do you mean you haven't had real food? My soup is totally real food!"

Riku ignored him and grinned. "I think we can arrange that."

The two boys helped her to her feet; she was still weaker than she'd like to be. In spite of the physical frailty, though, she felt the best she had in days. She had found two new friends. They weren't Ven, or Terra, and they sure as light weren't Van. Thank goodness. She was sure the worlds could hardly handle one of him, much less two.

And there will still be one Van, she told herself. He survived dying once. I wouldn't put it past him to do it again.

As Riku and Lea assisted her inside, her Wayfinder gave a flickering glow.