The World that Never Was, Tuesday Evening - Reunions

[palestshadow]

Naminé was holding onto Kairi's hand, and focusing.

She had to focus. Reality was trying to reassert itself, somewhat obstinately. There was a strange windy noise, and her image kept shimmering. Focus, Naminé. Focus.



Sokka ran faster when he noticed the flickering. "That looks bad!" he muttered to himself, as he tried to catch up to the other Fandomites. "Someone... Someone ought to get them away from each other!"



Dojima looked over and barely stifled a scream. "Kuso! Witchcraft! We have to get out of here, now." Maybe it would stop, once they were back in Fandom. It had to.



Kairi looked over at the blonde girl, somewhat terrified now. "Are you all right?"

She wasn't. She couldn't be. They should stop here and fix what was wrong with her, and maybe someone could tell her what was going on?

The girl couldn't be hurt, Kairi thought in a panic. She wouldn't allow it.



"Nammie?" Jamie asked looking worried. "What's going on?"



Valentine's heart caught in his throat as she flickered some more.

"Keep moving," he decided. "Keep moving, and the sooner this is over with, the sooner we can get her out of here and this can be finished."

Not a disaster. This was not a disaster.

"Stop stopping."



"I'm all right," Naminé said quickly. "I'll be fine in a moment. Please, there's no time."

She tugged lightly on Kairi's hand, before realizing that the other girl had stopped for a very different reason.



A tall black-cloaked figure flickered into view, two Berserkers on either side of him.

"Naminé," he said smoothly. "There you are."

He had wondered who had stolen his prize. Interesting. He hadn't realized Naminé was the type for a daring rescue.

He would re-adjust his plans accordingly. For now, both were going to be his captives again, so it was perhaps a moot point.



"Naminé?" Kairi asked, looking over. In all this confusion, she hadn't realized that the blonde girl hadn't introduced herself.

She'd never heard it before. But she knew that name, somehow. Weird.



Naminé continued to glare, trembling. Not him. Not here.



Saix switched tacks. "Kairi." He held an arm out. "I'm afraid leaving is not an option."



Sokka ran up, with his boomerang drawn. "No, I'm afraid YOU is not an option!!!"



"I'll deal with you later," Saix said. He did not, in fact, seem that intimidated by Sokka or his boomerang.

He beckoned to Kairi. "I'll take you to see Sora," he offered.



"Hey, onna tarashi!" Dojima called, bringing her gun back up. "The lady doesn't need your help, kusoyarou. Move. Now."



"Such bold talk." Saix smiled, coldly. "Do you think it would be hard to destroy you?"

His eyes returned to Kairi's. "It's your choice. Listen to these fools, or come with me."



Was this guy a complete idiot? He was the one who locked her in the stupid cage to begin with! Now he was going to threaten the people who rescued her? Yeah, right.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Kairi snapped, raising her fists.



Naminé raised her hands, instinctively, to match.

Like hell he was dragging Kairi off again.



Sokka nodded, and threw his boomerang at Saix's face.



Jamie had no boomerang but he wasn't going to let that stop him.

So he threw Pluto.



Well, now. This was going to get interesting, wasn't it?

Saix jumped back to dodge the boomerang and smirked, turning his lance sideways and holding it out, shaking once t---

That's when he got nailed in the face by the dog.



"Back home we call that the fastball special... Bitch," Jamie said with a smirk.



Pluto bounced happily on top of Saix a few times before running back to Jamie, wagging his tail. He flew! He wanted to fly again!



"Madrox, stop that!" Dojima scolded. "You're going to get us arrested for animal cruelty, and I don't need that on my record. Let's just stick with the basic B&E and destruction of property, okay?"

"Although I could be tempted to add assault to the list," she mused idly, clicking off her safety. "He thinks I'm bold now, he should see how forward I get after a few rounds."



Saix stood up again, frowning. He extended his claymore again, turning it sideways and shaking it, hard, so the spikes appeared.

"Naminé, your new friends are so amusing," he glared. "If I had a heart, this would be where I die of laughter."

As if these children stood a chance against one of the Organization.



Valentine stepped backward, gritting his teeth, looking between the Organization member, and Naminé, and Kairi. And, yet again, back to Naminé.

He couldn't fight. They couldn't fight. This was insane and impossible and her flickering had him terrified even more than the claymore did, and the best he could do was grab a ball from his pocket and lob it at the imposing Nobody with all the accuracy of a juggler and all the gusto of... a very terrified man.

"I find nothing amusing about this."



"Of course you don't," Saix smirked. "You're the ones who are about to die."



"Then allow me to salute you," Jamie growled.

Of course what he did wasn't exactly a salute and only involved one finger.



"Oh, you HAVE a heart," Sokka muttered. "You just won't for very LONG."





There was a metallic clang, and one of the berserkers next to Saix crumpled to the ground.

Standing behind was another cloaked figure, with a long blue-and-red blade in his hands.



"You," Saix said, turning to face the interloper. His mood was getting steadily worse. "Didn't Roxas take care of you?"



Naminé drew the first steady breath she'd had since opening the portal. It would all be all right, now. She'd done it. They'd done it. Kairi was safe.

She smiled, standing up straight again.

"You can take it from here, Riku."



"Riku?" Kairi echoed, eyes growing wide.

Riku? Here? She had sensed him, just out of reach, ever since Axel had appeared and she'd followed Pluto to Twilight Town. But she hadn't dared to believe it, not entirely. She hadn't seen him since that terrible night their island had been destroyed; it had to be nearly two years ago, now.

Could it really be him?



Jamie blinked.

"Rikku? Did we do genderswapping again and no one told me?"



"Nono, Rikku's blonde," Valentine insisted. "Riku's this rather large fellow. Distinctly not Rikku. Or blonde."



"Well you can understand the confusion."



"I'm not entirely certain." Valentine looked at Riku for a moment, and then shrugged back at Jamie. "I'd be more worried about my wallet, if I heard someone mention 'Rikku' around here."

What, nobody else could hear the lack of an extra K?

Valentine really just figured that the extra few feet and the total lack of orange, yellow, or blinding green was something of a dead giveaway.



"Ohhhhhhkay. Different Rikku. But what I want to know is, why's he dressed like an Organizationeer?"



"Maybe they go to the same tailor?" Jamie suggested.



"What better disguise, than a cloak just like theirs?" Naminé asked, smiling faintly. "If you're going to track them down, then it's perfect."



Kairi shook her head. There was talking and she hadn't heard most of it, and she hadn't followed the bits she had heard.

"Excuse me, I have to --" She looked at all of them quickly, hoping her brief smile was okay enough as an apology.

If she didn't run down there now, Riku would find a way to leave again, and it would be another two years until she saw him. And then she would have to smack him.



"Go," Dojima said, waving the girl down the ramp. "Don't worry, Rescues R Us will wait right here, and we'll keep any eye out for any more poorly dressed idiots."





At the base of the ramp, the two cloaked figures were still fighting.

Riku dashed forward, grabbing the front of Saix's cloak and shoving him into the wall.



Saix smirked, slipping one hand free to press against the wall.

A moment later, a large portal flickered into place, and Saix backed through it.



Riku hesitated - no telling where the portal might lead, or what Saix might be up to - before straightening his shoulders and stepping forward.



"Wait!"

Kairi still didn't know most of what was going on. What the blonde girl (Naminé??) and her friends were doing here, why the girl was shimmering like that, or who those jerks in the black cloaks were.

But Naminé had called him Riku, and every bone in her body screamed that Naminé was right.

She ran down the ramp, terrified he was about to step through that portal and out of her life again.



Riku stood, equally terrified, for very different reasons.

Kairi. He had held her lifeless body and begged Maleficent for a way to save her. He had stood on the other side of the Door to Darkness and helped Sora seal it. He had conquered the Darkness in his own heart - only to allow it to escape again, when that was the only way to save Sora. He had taken the form of Darkness, of Ansem, the man who had opened the Door. He was trapped in this body, possibly forever. He looked nothing like the childhood friend she knew him as.

He couldn't let her see him like this. Better to walk away now, than to ever let her know how far he'd fallen.

He stepped forward again.



Pluto galloped down the ramp, double speed. Riku! Riku!

He knew Riku! Riku was a friend of The King's! Hello, Riku! It was him!

He barked happily, wagging his tail expectantly. Riku! Riku!



Riku backed up, stepping away from Pluto as if he didn't know him. Not now, please, not now ...

He didn't realize that would leave him face-to-face with Kairi.



"Riku." She walked over to him, smiling as she shook her head in disbelief. "You're really here?"

She stood up on her tiptoes and pulled the hood away from his face.



He was powerless to stop her. At least now it would be over. She would gasp, or scream, or run away. He could protect her, from just out of sight, until she found Sora again. He would get them home, back to the island where they belonged, and fade quietly back into the Darkness where he belonged.

Maybe she would think it wasn't him at all. Another Nobody clinging to a half-life here in the Darkness.

Riku dropped his eyes to the floor and waited.



His view was somewhat obstructed by Kairi, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing with all her might.

"I thought I'd never see you again," she said, fighting the urge to sniffle.

Okay, later she needed to ask him why he looked like that Ansem guy now. That was going on the list of things that were confusing the crap out of her, like who Naminé was and why he'd been about to leave and why they'd all forgotten about Sora for a few months there. Someone seriously needed to catch her up on what she'd missed. And then he and Sora were getting lectured about going off adventuring without her.

First, a good solid hug.



He was fighting a few sniffles of his own as he hugged back, which he would not admit under penalty of death.

Some day, he would stop underestimating Kairi.





Naminé was still flickering as she closed her eyes, breathing a deep sigh of relief.

They'd done it. She'd done it. Kairi was in Riku's hands now. She was safe.

It was over.



"Good, excellent, wonderful, job well done," Valentine said, clapping his hands together as he stepped up to Naminé. "Now can we please get out of here? Home seems like a wonderful idea, doesn't it?"

And the sooner they left here, the sooner she could stop blurring and fading and he could breathe again, and wouldn't that be amazing?



It was all over. Naminé exhaled, closing her eyes for a moment to fight back a stray tear. She flickered again, harder. Okay. No crying, crying made it harder to focus. She was so tired. Not much longer, now.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice breaking. "I'm so sorry."



Valentine's mouth was suddenly very dry.

"There's nothing to be sorry for." Funny how he had no difficulty saying that word, now. "We just make a portal, go through it, and we'll be back home, and everything will be fine. What is there to be sorry for?"



"I didn't know," she said, and now her eyes were blurring, and it was too hard to keep the tears at bay; concentrating on that made her phase out entirely for a half-second, and that was too scary to think about. Fine. Concentrate on concentrating, then, and let the tears take care of themselves. "I d-didn't realize. I'm sorry."



It was hitting Valentine full-force in the chest now, like the flash through the portal, and it was all so very wrong, and he had to hold her. Put his arms around her and pull her to his chest and hold her and maybe if he refused to let go... maybe she wouldn't disappear entirely.

He couldn't breathe. Not through the knot that was so tightly tied in his chest that it was strangling him.

"Don't be. Don't be sorry. Don't be..."



Naminé was holding on as best she could, but she was blurring and shifting in his arms. She murmured something against the front of his shirt - his purple t-shirt. Had she ever fallen asleep in this one? Woken up wearing it, snuggled deeper against him and decided to spend the morning in bed?

DiZ was wrong. She had a heart. That was what was breaking.

"I can't go home with you."



He couldn't answer that. He just couldn't. There weren't words. What do you say to, 'I'm sorry, I have to stop existing now?'

What do you say when your entire world is flickering away in your arms?

Valentine didn't have an answer. So he held her close and tried not to cry. She wouldn't want to see him crying, would she?



Sokka blinked at Naminé in confusion. "What do you mean? Why not?"



Dojima looked back and forth between Valentine and Naminé, and felt her heart grow cold. "Hey, onee-san, are you feeling sick?" she asked quietly, kneeling next to Valentine. "Next time we'll just take a commercial portal, if this is going to wear you out so much."

Please let this be temporary, a symptom from the strain of jumping between worlds. Please please please.



She was flickering harder now, phasing in and then out again rapidly. Hold it together, for now. Please?

Naminé shook her head, reluctantly stepping out of Valentine's arms. "I ... I'm afraid I just ran out of time," she said softly.



"You... NO! No! No you didn't! We'll fix it!"



"What he said," Jamie said shaking his head. "Naminé... c'mon. This isn't how it ends. I told you that."



Naminé looked at both of them, shaking her head, and let herself blur out for a full second.

"It's already happened," she said. "The flash of light, when we touched hands."

She had felt the strangest pull, and then all of the pieces had rearranged themselves. They had been she, for one glowing second, before Naminé had panicked. The portal. Her friends. Getting Kairi out safely. She had pulled herself out again by sheer force of will, made herself seem separate. But the cracks were showing, and she couldn't keep this up much longer.

"I'm holding myself out b-because I had to s-say ..."

She squeezed her eyes shut. The word 'good-bye' wouldn't come.



Had to say... Had to say... But there still weren't words.

It felt like his heart was being torn away along with her when she had stepped out of his arms like that.

Of course she hadn't. She wasn't going to leave. This was all just a nasty, nasty dream and he'd wake up in the morning and she'd be curled next to him, wearing one of his purple t-shirts and none of this was real. It couldn't be.

Except for his heart, following her out of his chest and feeling like it was flickering away as well.

"I love you," he answered... Because there still weren't words. Perhaps those ones would have to do.



Naminé threw her arms around Valentine's neck, and she had damn well better not be phasing out, now, not when his lips were moving over hers and they were taking one last second together. The world owed her that much, didn't it? To be real and solid in his arms while she kissed him good-bye.

"I l-love you, too," she managed, choking on it. The tears were falling, now, and that was destroying her control. "I'll keep my promises." Every last one. No matter what it took.

She stepped back, looking at them all through blurry eyes. "Thank you. All of you. So much. I --" Love you. Miss you already. Am grateful to have been part of your lives.

The words wouldn't come.

"I have to go," she said.

She turned and ran the rest of the way down the ramp.





Naminé swiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand as she ran to Kairi and Riku. She hated to interrupt their happy reunion, but there was one of her own that couldn't wait.

"Kairi?" she said gently.



"Naminé," Kairi said, turning to the other girl with a smile. "How did you know it was Riku? He --"

Her eyes widened. "Is something wrong?"



"Nothing's wrong," she said softly. "It's time. Give me your hands."

She held her own out in front of her.



Time for what?

Will someone please tell me what's going on?

Who are you, anyway?

Why do you keep blinking like that?

Are you okay?

What do you need my hands for?

Some deeper part of Kairi understood, and reached to take Naminé's hands in her own.



Both figures glowed with a warm, golden light.

And then Naminé was gone.

(OOC: preplayed with the keysmashingly incredible sarcasm_guy, dojima_hime, multi_madrox, and importantman, and special thanks to ltcolkirk who helped me code this beast. One more post to come tonight. NFI, NFB, but OOC is massive love.)