[Fic] KH2, "Sixteen"
A-ahahaha, Sora birthday fic is COMPLETE~ yes, I know I already have a fic ongoing with one of the boys' birthdays as a plot point, shush :<
Set about mid-KH2. Which might actually be a bit early, but. >_>
(There is no way Sora was still only fifteen by the end of this game. None.)
Title: Sixteen
Words: 3,938
Rating: G
Summary: Time flies, when you're saving the world.
The little table in the cabin looked suffocated under all the papers that had been strewn across its surface, papers that were in turn covered with messy pencil scrawls. They'd been at this for what felt like hours, and it was only one of many sessions they'd devoted to the task.
Sora laced his fingers together and stretched until his joints popped, reaching back with a groan to rub his shoulders. This was exactly why he'd never liked long essay assignments.
Somewhere among the mess of scrap paper, Jiminy looked up and gave him a sympathetic smile. "It's hard work, isn't it?"
"Ungh. I think I'm getting an idea of what it's like to be you, Jiminy," Sora said. Shaking his wrists to loosen them up, he finally picked up his pencil and went back to his notes.
One thing that Sora had come to realize in his travels was that the people in other worlds seemed to be essentially similar everywhere you went, carrying the same kind of hopes and dreams in their hearts, and all people were connected. It was a pleasant, soothing kind of knowledge, and it appealed to Sora's optimistic nature. No matter what, wherever you went, there was someone you could be friends with, whose life you could touch and be touched by for the better. It was reassuring.
What he had learned from this exercise was that that same constancy did not apply to different worlds' timekeeping methods.
It had sounded like a simple enough question when he'd approached Jiminy with it. Donald and Goofy didn't seem to be bothered by it, but it had been nagging at Sora for weeks. Or what felt like weeks. Seemed like weeks. Which, really, was the problem.
Sora had gotten tired of feeling lost.
"Can you tell me what date it is, Jiminy?"
It was supposed to be an easy question, damn it. Sora had been expecting a simple answer. Maybe not right away, after all, Jiminy had been asleep too, but he hadn't thought it would be this hard to come up with a simple number. He had definitely not been prepared when Jiminy had calmly and seriously told him that different worlds had different calendars, and what might be the seventh of July in one world could well be the eighteenth of some completely different month. Dates were relative.
He probably should have taken the hint then and withdrawn his question. Or just picked one of the various calendars they were now familiar with and started going by that date. That would have been easier; it would have done wonders for the feeling of being time-lost, if nothing else.
But...
But it had been creeping up on him since his first day in Traverse Town, since the locking of Kingdom Hearts, intensifying with every reminder of Kairi and every time he heard "Riku? No, I haven't seen him." It ambushed him at unexpected times, gnawed at his heart and made him feel weak with grief.
Sora was homesick.
Keeping track of time by Hollow Bastion's days would have been easy, but not what Sora wanted.
And so he and Jiminy had begun retiring early to the cabin, handing the ship's controls over to Donald as they tried to build a calendar from scratch. Sora had had to recite the months he knew and the number of days in each, and struggle to recall specific dates and what days of the week they'd fallen on. Jiminy had taken the scraps Sora could muster for him and slowly, slowly reconstructed years on paper.
That had provided them with a reference point, when they finished it at last, but it was by no means the whole of the task. While Sora could point to the exact day on their calendar that had been his last on Destiny Islands, that still didn't tell them exactly how much time had passed since then. Leon and the others had turned out to be invaluable, when Sora had turned to Cid in desperation; it turned out they'd undertaken a similar project to identify their own time, and had gladly donated notes and advice for the cause. The old Traverse Town calendars that Leon had "never gotten around" to throwing away (Aerith had said this with a faint smile, and Leon had coughed once and suddenly found Cid's diagrams very interesting) had been particularly useful. If they could just identify the day when Sora had landed in Traverse Town, they could line that up with their Destiny Islands calendar, and from there they could convert Hollow Bastion's date to the one they were looking for.
It was an attainable goal, Jiminy hastened to assure Sora whenever he caught the young hero's morale flagging, and getting closer all the time; but even the chronicler could not deny that it was anything but riveting.
Sora was starting to have dreams about swimming in the ocean, his island in sight - except that the sea was made of months and weeks and days, and sweeping him away.
He kept telling himself that it would all be worth it in the end. There were easier ways than this - but none of them could give him that tiny link to home.
-
"Hey, you guys!"
Sora groaned to himself and slouched further against the wall. Beside him, Goofy heaved himself up from the bench and put on a weary smile, waving in greeting as Yuffie approached with Leon in tow. "Hey there, Yuffie, Leon! How ya doin'?"
"Pretty peachy! How 'bout you guys?"
"I want to crawl in a hole and die," Sora said. He did manage an apologetic grin, though. It wasn't fair subjecting everyone to the fallout of his exhaustion.
"Now, what kind of attitude is that?" Yuffie leaned down to poke Sora's nose, and he waved her hand away.
"What've you all been up to?" Leon asked, raising an eyebrow slightly in understated concern. "You two look ready to drop."
"We've been helpin' Mulan out in the Land of Dragons," Goofy explained. "They've been rebuildin' a village there, an' Sora reckoned we should go help 'em out a bit, a-hyuk!"
"And we ended up doing all the heavy lifting, since Mr. Magnega-Works-Better over there didn't wanna ruffle his feathers," Sora added, jabbing a thumb in Donald's direction. The wizard, who had finally finished his haggling for supplies, came into earshot just in time to hear that, and let out an indignant squawk.
"What's that supposed to mean! I did my fair share too, you know!"
"Yeah, well, I didn't see you helping out when we were roofing that house or mortaring that wall," Sora shot back.
"Are you saying I'm slacking off?!"
"Come on, fellas!" Goofy said desperately, raising his hands placatingly. "No need for fightin' - come on, I know we're all tired, but--"
"Don't forget the Heartless attack!"
"I got more of 'em with my magic than you got with your Keyblade!"
"Oh yeah? Well--"
"Calm down!"
Leon hardly had to raise his voice to achieve a note of undeniable command. Sora and Donald instantly stopped bickering, turning wide-eyed to Leon like chastened children, and Goofy heaved a sigh of relief.
"Sheesh. Cran-ky!" Yuffie declared, crossing her arms.
"Obviously you've all had a long day," said Leon, more soothingly this time.
"... Yeah," Sora admitted, grinning weakly. "Just a little."
"We were just pickin' up supplies," Goofy said. "Thought we'd maybe drop by for a bit, but then we were plannin' to turn in."
"Well, hey, why don't you all stay here tonight?" Yuffie's voice was so bright and cheerful that Sora might have wanted it dragged out and shot if she hadn't been suggesting such a wonderful thing. "Aerith's place is loaded with a bunch of spare beds, and nobody's staying there right now. Nobody'll bug you, I promise."
"... For real?"
"For real." Yuffie grinned.
Sora dragged himself upright. Overtaxed muscles whined at him with the movement, but he bit off a wince and ignored them. Sleep first. This was nothing a long night in a good bed wouldn't fix. "I'm gonna build an altar to you, Yuffie."
"I prefer monetary compensation," she said airily; Leon gave her a flat, warning look, and she waved a hand carelessly in the air. "Kidding, of course. C'mon, I'll show you the way!"
Sora's grateful smile was irrepressible. He and Goofy both looked pathetically weary; even Donald, for all of Sora's complaints, looked a little ragged as he gathered up the supply bags into his arms. Leon chuckled and held out a hand.
"Need some help with those?"
"No," Donald muttered, arranging the bags in his arms. "I've got it."
Leon had known these three long enough to have a general idea of whose buttons were located where. He nodded once and let the wizard have his pride.
"We'll see you later, Leon," Sora said, even in his state not too tired to grin and wave goodbye to a friend. "I'll be way better conversation tomorrow, promise."
"Lucky for that," Yuffie chirped. "You've got to pick up Leon's slack, after all."
"Hey," Leon said.
"See? Really, Sora, you've got to come around more often, he's made progress but man, I'm trying my best over here and he still--"
"Good night, Sora," Leon said over the ninja's prattle, and then rather pointedly, "Yuffie, why don't you go ahead and see them to Aerith's now."
"Okay, okay," Yuffie said, affecting a tone of long suffering, and started off towards the borough. With a last few tired waves and "see you"s, the three heroes turned and followed after her in slow, sleepy procession.
-
Yuffie hadn't been kidding about the beds. Almost every spare room in Aerith's house was devoted to them, lined up against the walls and separated by folding screens; where there were not beds, there were shelves full of assorted herbs and medicines, and where there were not shelves, there were pictures hung. There was a faint smell of sandalwood throughout. Aerith had made her house into the coziest hospital ever.
Sora felt guilty at first about taking up sick beds, then glad that they were the only ones who needed them right now - which segued nicely into exhausted apathy. He sat heavily on the first bed he came to and let himself fall backwards on the mattress, arms splayed and legs dangling off the edge, and closed his eyes in bliss. He felt like he could sleep a thousand years.
"Can we steal some of these for the gummi ship?" he asked, listening to the rustle of covers as Donald and Goofy settled in. The ship's beds were serviceable enough, but these were something else entirely.
"Now, that wouldn't be very nice, would it?" Goofy said jokingly from beyond a screen, followed by a long, loud yawn.
"'Course we'd ask first," Sora said sleepily, and then reluctantly hauled himself up again and started pulling off his shoes. The last time he'd slept in all his clothes, he'd somehow managed to roll over onto his necklace and had a lopsided crown imprinted on his face for the first half of the morning. "Kidding anyway..."
"Kid more quietly," Donald mumbled, already curled deeply into the blankets in the bed across from Sora's. Sora grinned and set his necklace on the bed's small nightstand.
When his jacket hit the floor, there was a small chuckle from underneath, and Jiminy wriggled out from inside the hood. "Well, it looks like the good news will have to wait until tomorrow, then."
"Huh?" Sora paused in sliding off his belts. "What good news?"
Jiminy hopped up onto the nightstand, smiling. Sora gave the cricket his full attention; his body was still pleading for sleep, but for the moment curiosity superceded it. "I've been working on the calendar today while you three were busy," he said. "And, what do you know, I think I've finished it!"
"Really?" Sora blurted out, too loud; Donald quacked irritably and Sora forced his voice down near to a whisper as he went on, "why didn't you tell me earlier?"
Jiminy pulled out his journal and paged through it. "Well, I only finished it up a little while ago," he said. "I was still at it when you were talking to Leon. But I'm sure I've got it now."
"So, tell me!" Sora leaned close to the nightstand, an irrepressible grin stretching over his face. "What day is it back home? Do you have it written down there? Can I see?"
"Now, slow down there," Jiminy said, smiling, and handed the little book up to Sora. "If you want to look for yourself, here you go."
Beaming, Sora brought the journal close to his face, squinting at the tiny writing. The word "July" was just visible over a miniscule grid, and an 'X' was slashed in broad, definite strokes across the fifteenth. The number of the year was scrawled in the corner. Sora stared blankly at the page, the information slowly sinking in.
He knew it was showing on his face as soon as he heard Jiminy's voice calling his name, but he couldn't quite muster a reply just yet. He felt sort of paralyzed, staring at the last digit of the year, willing it to be a different number, not that one, it couldn't be that one... And with that day...
Jiminy landed on his shoulder and gently tapped him with the handle of his umbrella. "Sora? Hey, Sora, what's the matter?"
Sora shut his eyes fiercely against a sudden treacherous moistness. Now that was just foolish. It was only expected that he should have been gone such a long time, you didn't put on six inches overnight, and he was just far too tired right now. That was all.
But he'd been fourteen when he lost his home with nothing but a key in his hand, and it was all supposed to have been okay when he found Riku and Kairi again but Riku was still out there maybe alive or dead and Kairi was waiting at home and lonely and they'd made so many plans but destiny got in the way and then and then and then--
He bit down on his lip and gathered control of his hitching breath.
"Please, Sora! What's wrong?"
"It-- It's nothing," Sora shuddered, and handed back the book to Jiminy. He wasn't going to cry, he wasn't going to cry. He was going to grin and bear it and go to sleep and it would be better in the morning. Tomorrow was another day. He'd be fine. "It's just..."
Two years away from home, and they used to talk about how they'd spend their future birthdays, childish silly plans they'd forget about when the time came, except now he realized they'd never had that choice, and it wasn't supposed to happen like this, growing up without Riku and Kairi...
"Well, I... I guess I'm all grown up now, huh?" Sora said with a tiny laugh, putting on his biggest smile. "I'm already sixteen... Looks like my birthday was last week. Time flies, huh?"
Jiminy hesitated for a moment, and then tried a smile in return. "You have come a long way, Sora," he said, in a tone that could have been either encouraging or sympathetic, Sora wasn't sure. Then, "Now, I guess I'd really better let you get some sleep, huh? You look completely tuckered out."
"Yeah..." Sora said. "G'night, Jiminy."
"Goodnight, Sora," Jiminy said gently, and hopped back to the nightstand as Sora wriggled under the covers, dragging them up to his ears, and buried his face in the pillow.
-
If Sora had heard the whispering that transpired less than half an hour later, the muffled sound of careful footsteps, or the creak of the door, he might have been suspicious. But he was out like a light, and blissfully unaware, which was really all for the better.
-
The first thing that struck Sora when he woke up was the quiet.
On a journey like this, when it was them against the odds, the most important thing was to stick close to your comrades. Okay, there'd been that thing in the Deep Jungle, and the whole mess here in Hollow Bastion that one time - but they were exceptions that proved the rule, and they hadn't been longer than a day in any case. Sora was well accustomed to waking up at more or less the same time as the others, usually at the hands of Donald, but sometimes just from the noise of conversation. To wake up to silence was unusual.
Yawning, he dragged himself up and out of bed, taking a long, luxurious stretch, and bent down to grab his jacket from the floor, tossing a grin over his shoulder as he put it on. The angle of the light from the window on the far wall indicated afternoon - which wasn't unusual for his preferred sleeping habits, but for Donald and Goofy not to be up by now was ridiculous. They must've really worn themselves out yesterday. "Hey, guys, you gonna sleep all day? C'mon, if I'm awake before y--"
The beds were empty.
Sora blinked.
Well, that didn't necessarily mean anything. This was Aerith's house, after all, they might be getting breakfast. Maybe they'd just gotten up really quietly. He pulled on the rest of his clothes. He'd just go find them, and--
His hand stopped in the middle of grabbing his necklace. A folded note had been tucked underneath. Okay, maybe that meant something.
He unfolded the note with one hand, putting his necklace on with the other as he scanned the writing on the paper.
'Sora,
Meet us at Merlin's.
~Donald, Goofy, Jiminy'
Sora stared at it for a little while.
A few minutes later he was out the door. This part of the borough was a little unfamiliar to him, but the castle was a useful landmark he could orient himself by as he wended his way through the streets. Besides, he thought to himself, Merlin's house was pretty distinctive once you got close enough - and there it was, just ahead of him. Score one for Sora's sense of direction.
The door clicked shut just as he came into view of it. At this, he stopped and frowned. Something was definitely up. There was deliberate sneakiness at work here. And from the looks of things, Donald and Goofy had teamed up with Leon and the others for it. That was doubly suspicious.
"Okay, I'm here," he called loudly as he stepped up to the door. Whatever they were trying to pull, best to get it over with. With a certain amount of determined resolve, he opened the door.
... It was not strictly accurate to say that Cid's computer screen was the first thing he saw, because the moment the door opened, Yuffie's arm was around his neck, and he saw only a momentary flash of oddly bright colors before the floor suddenly swung up to dominate his vision while a set of gloved knuckles scrubbed relentlessly in his hair.
"Yuffie!" he yelled, squirming wildly to get away. Or trying to. Yuffie wasn't a ninja for nothing. And he'd thought Riku's noogies were bad. "Lemme go!"
"Gotta start the party off right!" she chirped, and Sora was just starting to sputter out the question of just what she meant by that when she released him. Rubbing his head, he straightened up, and--
The room was an explosion of color. Oddly glimmering streamers hung from the ceiling, from every wall and every corner, from bookshelves and the computer and Merlin's devices. Clouds of shining fairy-lights drifted all through the air. The group - the entire group - was gathered in a semicircle in front of the door, wearing smiles of various sizes. The monitor of Cid's computer, visible over Aerith's shoulder, was clear of its ever-present, neverending scroll of numbers, and had been set to display the words HAPPY BIRTHDAY SORA in huge, colorful letters.
"Wha-- you guys--" Sora started, but the breath was driven out of him as Goofy threw his arms around him enthusiastically.
"Happy birthday, Sora!"
"Bu--" Donald hit him at waist level before Goofy had even released him. Struggling to stay upright, Sora laughed despite himself. "But you guys, today's not..."
And now Jiminy was on his shoulder again. "Well, no, but it didn't seem right to just let it pass by now that we knew about it."
"These three came by right before sundown and told us everything," Yuffie said cheerfully, draping her arm over Sora's shoulder as Goofy and Donald let him go. "So we set up a party for you!"
"We all know what it's like to be lost like that," Aerith said gently.
"You're our friend," Leon added. "You've helped us more than you know."
"Least we could do," Cid gruffed.
"But - you all have your own stuff to worry about! And, hey! Donald? Goofy?" He put his hands on his hips as he faced the royal knight and wizard. "You guys needed your sleep too!"
"Aw, phooey," Donald said, crossing his arms.
"We got plenty 'a sleep," Goofy reassured, smiling. "We just needed ta make sure we got things started first!"
"You guys..." Sora wobbled a little. He didn't know what to say. He'd thought the occasion had come and gone, and had been full ready to roll out of bed and head out into the stars again today. The realization that his friends would do this for him so readily... that the entire Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee would take time out from their goals on a moment's notice...
There was a brightness welling up inside him, his chest feeling hot and tight with the effort of containing it. He was grinning, so broadly his cheeks hurt.
Everywhere he went, there was someone he could be friends with, a new connection that could be made and old ones he'd never forgotten. With that, and with friends always by his side and at his back, always looking forward, he'd never been able to stay discouraged for long, not when there was always something he could smile about, someone he could reach out to. But here, with just this, just now, something this simple and this great - he realized he was happy, really happy, more than he'd been for months.
"Thanks, you guys..."
-
And nothing had changed, not really. The years had still passed by, turning a fourteen-year-old boy into a sixteen-year-old young man. Riku was still out in the far-flung cosmos, maybe far away and maybe very near and just outside of Sora's reach, and Kairi was still waiting for them to return together, all of them growing up far apart...
But it would be okay in the end, Sora knew. Riku had King Mickey at his side, and Kairi had all their friends back home, and Sora had Donald and Goofy and Jiminy, and they'd be okay. Their hearts were connected, Sora's and Riku's and Kairi's and everyone they knew who loved them, who fought beside them or gave them comfort or just thought of them now and again; strung together with shimmering, unbreakable threads all across the worlds, in defiance of time or distance.
Sora would see them again. It had been a long time, and it might still be a long time more, but one day he'd stand on those sunny beaches again with Riku and Kairi, their hands and hearts linked--
Until then, none of them would have to be alone.
Set about mid-KH2. Which might actually be a bit early, but. >_>
(There is no way Sora was still only fifteen by the end of this game. None.)
Title: Sixteen
Words: 3,938
Rating: G
Summary: Time flies, when you're saving the world.
The little table in the cabin looked suffocated under all the papers that had been strewn across its surface, papers that were in turn covered with messy pencil scrawls. They'd been at this for what felt like hours, and it was only one of many sessions they'd devoted to the task.
Sora laced his fingers together and stretched until his joints popped, reaching back with a groan to rub his shoulders. This was exactly why he'd never liked long essay assignments.
Somewhere among the mess of scrap paper, Jiminy looked up and gave him a sympathetic smile. "It's hard work, isn't it?"
"Ungh. I think I'm getting an idea of what it's like to be you, Jiminy," Sora said. Shaking his wrists to loosen them up, he finally picked up his pencil and went back to his notes.
One thing that Sora had come to realize in his travels was that the people in other worlds seemed to be essentially similar everywhere you went, carrying the same kind of hopes and dreams in their hearts, and all people were connected. It was a pleasant, soothing kind of knowledge, and it appealed to Sora's optimistic nature. No matter what, wherever you went, there was someone you could be friends with, whose life you could touch and be touched by for the better. It was reassuring.
What he had learned from this exercise was that that same constancy did not apply to different worlds' timekeeping methods.
It had sounded like a simple enough question when he'd approached Jiminy with it. Donald and Goofy didn't seem to be bothered by it, but it had been nagging at Sora for weeks. Or what felt like weeks. Seemed like weeks. Which, really, was the problem.
Sora had gotten tired of feeling lost.
"Can you tell me what date it is, Jiminy?"
It was supposed to be an easy question, damn it. Sora had been expecting a simple answer. Maybe not right away, after all, Jiminy had been asleep too, but he hadn't thought it would be this hard to come up with a simple number. He had definitely not been prepared when Jiminy had calmly and seriously told him that different worlds had different calendars, and what might be the seventh of July in one world could well be the eighteenth of some completely different month. Dates were relative.
He probably should have taken the hint then and withdrawn his question. Or just picked one of the various calendars they were now familiar with and started going by that date. That would have been easier; it would have done wonders for the feeling of being time-lost, if nothing else.
But...
But it had been creeping up on him since his first day in Traverse Town, since the locking of Kingdom Hearts, intensifying with every reminder of Kairi and every time he heard "Riku? No, I haven't seen him." It ambushed him at unexpected times, gnawed at his heart and made him feel weak with grief.
Sora was homesick.
Keeping track of time by Hollow Bastion's days would have been easy, but not what Sora wanted.
And so he and Jiminy had begun retiring early to the cabin, handing the ship's controls over to Donald as they tried to build a calendar from scratch. Sora had had to recite the months he knew and the number of days in each, and struggle to recall specific dates and what days of the week they'd fallen on. Jiminy had taken the scraps Sora could muster for him and slowly, slowly reconstructed years on paper.
That had provided them with a reference point, when they finished it at last, but it was by no means the whole of the task. While Sora could point to the exact day on their calendar that had been his last on Destiny Islands, that still didn't tell them exactly how much time had passed since then. Leon and the others had turned out to be invaluable, when Sora had turned to Cid in desperation; it turned out they'd undertaken a similar project to identify their own time, and had gladly donated notes and advice for the cause. The old Traverse Town calendars that Leon had "never gotten around" to throwing away (Aerith had said this with a faint smile, and Leon had coughed once and suddenly found Cid's diagrams very interesting) had been particularly useful. If they could just identify the day when Sora had landed in Traverse Town, they could line that up with their Destiny Islands calendar, and from there they could convert Hollow Bastion's date to the one they were looking for.
It was an attainable goal, Jiminy hastened to assure Sora whenever he caught the young hero's morale flagging, and getting closer all the time; but even the chronicler could not deny that it was anything but riveting.
Sora was starting to have dreams about swimming in the ocean, his island in sight - except that the sea was made of months and weeks and days, and sweeping him away.
He kept telling himself that it would all be worth it in the end. There were easier ways than this - but none of them could give him that tiny link to home.
-
"Hey, you guys!"
Sora groaned to himself and slouched further against the wall. Beside him, Goofy heaved himself up from the bench and put on a weary smile, waving in greeting as Yuffie approached with Leon in tow. "Hey there, Yuffie, Leon! How ya doin'?"
"Pretty peachy! How 'bout you guys?"
"I want to crawl in a hole and die," Sora said. He did manage an apologetic grin, though. It wasn't fair subjecting everyone to the fallout of his exhaustion.
"Now, what kind of attitude is that?" Yuffie leaned down to poke Sora's nose, and he waved her hand away.
"What've you all been up to?" Leon asked, raising an eyebrow slightly in understated concern. "You two look ready to drop."
"We've been helpin' Mulan out in the Land of Dragons," Goofy explained. "They've been rebuildin' a village there, an' Sora reckoned we should go help 'em out a bit, a-hyuk!"
"And we ended up doing all the heavy lifting, since Mr. Magnega-Works-Better over there didn't wanna ruffle his feathers," Sora added, jabbing a thumb in Donald's direction. The wizard, who had finally finished his haggling for supplies, came into earshot just in time to hear that, and let out an indignant squawk.
"What's that supposed to mean! I did my fair share too, you know!"
"Yeah, well, I didn't see you helping out when we were roofing that house or mortaring that wall," Sora shot back.
"Are you saying I'm slacking off?!"
"Come on, fellas!" Goofy said desperately, raising his hands placatingly. "No need for fightin' - come on, I know we're all tired, but--"
"Don't forget the Heartless attack!"
"I got more of 'em with my magic than you got with your Keyblade!"
"Oh yeah? Well--"
"Calm down!"
Leon hardly had to raise his voice to achieve a note of undeniable command. Sora and Donald instantly stopped bickering, turning wide-eyed to Leon like chastened children, and Goofy heaved a sigh of relief.
"Sheesh. Cran-ky!" Yuffie declared, crossing her arms.
"Obviously you've all had a long day," said Leon, more soothingly this time.
"... Yeah," Sora admitted, grinning weakly. "Just a little."
"We were just pickin' up supplies," Goofy said. "Thought we'd maybe drop by for a bit, but then we were plannin' to turn in."
"Well, hey, why don't you all stay here tonight?" Yuffie's voice was so bright and cheerful that Sora might have wanted it dragged out and shot if she hadn't been suggesting such a wonderful thing. "Aerith's place is loaded with a bunch of spare beds, and nobody's staying there right now. Nobody'll bug you, I promise."
"... For real?"
"For real." Yuffie grinned.
Sora dragged himself upright. Overtaxed muscles whined at him with the movement, but he bit off a wince and ignored them. Sleep first. This was nothing a long night in a good bed wouldn't fix. "I'm gonna build an altar to you, Yuffie."
"I prefer monetary compensation," she said airily; Leon gave her a flat, warning look, and she waved a hand carelessly in the air. "Kidding, of course. C'mon, I'll show you the way!"
Sora's grateful smile was irrepressible. He and Goofy both looked pathetically weary; even Donald, for all of Sora's complaints, looked a little ragged as he gathered up the supply bags into his arms. Leon chuckled and held out a hand.
"Need some help with those?"
"No," Donald muttered, arranging the bags in his arms. "I've got it."
Leon had known these three long enough to have a general idea of whose buttons were located where. He nodded once and let the wizard have his pride.
"We'll see you later, Leon," Sora said, even in his state not too tired to grin and wave goodbye to a friend. "I'll be way better conversation tomorrow, promise."
"Lucky for that," Yuffie chirped. "You've got to pick up Leon's slack, after all."
"Hey," Leon said.
"See? Really, Sora, you've got to come around more often, he's made progress but man, I'm trying my best over here and he still--"
"Good night, Sora," Leon said over the ninja's prattle, and then rather pointedly, "Yuffie, why don't you go ahead and see them to Aerith's now."
"Okay, okay," Yuffie said, affecting a tone of long suffering, and started off towards the borough. With a last few tired waves and "see you"s, the three heroes turned and followed after her in slow, sleepy procession.
-
Yuffie hadn't been kidding about the beds. Almost every spare room in Aerith's house was devoted to them, lined up against the walls and separated by folding screens; where there were not beds, there were shelves full of assorted herbs and medicines, and where there were not shelves, there were pictures hung. There was a faint smell of sandalwood throughout. Aerith had made her house into the coziest hospital ever.
Sora felt guilty at first about taking up sick beds, then glad that they were the only ones who needed them right now - which segued nicely into exhausted apathy. He sat heavily on the first bed he came to and let himself fall backwards on the mattress, arms splayed and legs dangling off the edge, and closed his eyes in bliss. He felt like he could sleep a thousand years.
"Can we steal some of these for the gummi ship?" he asked, listening to the rustle of covers as Donald and Goofy settled in. The ship's beds were serviceable enough, but these were something else entirely.
"Now, that wouldn't be very nice, would it?" Goofy said jokingly from beyond a screen, followed by a long, loud yawn.
"'Course we'd ask first," Sora said sleepily, and then reluctantly hauled himself up again and started pulling off his shoes. The last time he'd slept in all his clothes, he'd somehow managed to roll over onto his necklace and had a lopsided crown imprinted on his face for the first half of the morning. "Kidding anyway..."
"Kid more quietly," Donald mumbled, already curled deeply into the blankets in the bed across from Sora's. Sora grinned and set his necklace on the bed's small nightstand.
When his jacket hit the floor, there was a small chuckle from underneath, and Jiminy wriggled out from inside the hood. "Well, it looks like the good news will have to wait until tomorrow, then."
"Huh?" Sora paused in sliding off his belts. "What good news?"
Jiminy hopped up onto the nightstand, smiling. Sora gave the cricket his full attention; his body was still pleading for sleep, but for the moment curiosity superceded it. "I've been working on the calendar today while you three were busy," he said. "And, what do you know, I think I've finished it!"
"Really?" Sora blurted out, too loud; Donald quacked irritably and Sora forced his voice down near to a whisper as he went on, "why didn't you tell me earlier?"
Jiminy pulled out his journal and paged through it. "Well, I only finished it up a little while ago," he said. "I was still at it when you were talking to Leon. But I'm sure I've got it now."
"So, tell me!" Sora leaned close to the nightstand, an irrepressible grin stretching over his face. "What day is it back home? Do you have it written down there? Can I see?"
"Now, slow down there," Jiminy said, smiling, and handed the little book up to Sora. "If you want to look for yourself, here you go."
Beaming, Sora brought the journal close to his face, squinting at the tiny writing. The word "July" was just visible over a miniscule grid, and an 'X' was slashed in broad, definite strokes across the fifteenth. The number of the year was scrawled in the corner. Sora stared blankly at the page, the information slowly sinking in.
He knew it was showing on his face as soon as he heard Jiminy's voice calling his name, but he couldn't quite muster a reply just yet. He felt sort of paralyzed, staring at the last digit of the year, willing it to be a different number, not that one, it couldn't be that one... And with that day...
Jiminy landed on his shoulder and gently tapped him with the handle of his umbrella. "Sora? Hey, Sora, what's the matter?"
Sora shut his eyes fiercely against a sudden treacherous moistness. Now that was just foolish. It was only expected that he should have been gone such a long time, you didn't put on six inches overnight, and he was just far too tired right now. That was all.
But he'd been fourteen when he lost his home with nothing but a key in his hand, and it was all supposed to have been okay when he found Riku and Kairi again but Riku was still out there maybe alive or dead and Kairi was waiting at home and lonely and they'd made so many plans but destiny got in the way and then and then and then--
He bit down on his lip and gathered control of his hitching breath.
"Please, Sora! What's wrong?"
"It-- It's nothing," Sora shuddered, and handed back the book to Jiminy. He wasn't going to cry, he wasn't going to cry. He was going to grin and bear it and go to sleep and it would be better in the morning. Tomorrow was another day. He'd be fine. "It's just..."
Two years away from home, and they used to talk about how they'd spend their future birthdays, childish silly plans they'd forget about when the time came, except now he realized they'd never had that choice, and it wasn't supposed to happen like this, growing up without Riku and Kairi...
"Well, I... I guess I'm all grown up now, huh?" Sora said with a tiny laugh, putting on his biggest smile. "I'm already sixteen... Looks like my birthday was last week. Time flies, huh?"
Jiminy hesitated for a moment, and then tried a smile in return. "You have come a long way, Sora," he said, in a tone that could have been either encouraging or sympathetic, Sora wasn't sure. Then, "Now, I guess I'd really better let you get some sleep, huh? You look completely tuckered out."
"Yeah..." Sora said. "G'night, Jiminy."
"Goodnight, Sora," Jiminy said gently, and hopped back to the nightstand as Sora wriggled under the covers, dragging them up to his ears, and buried his face in the pillow.
-
If Sora had heard the whispering that transpired less than half an hour later, the muffled sound of careful footsteps, or the creak of the door, he might have been suspicious. But he was out like a light, and blissfully unaware, which was really all for the better.
-
The first thing that struck Sora when he woke up was the quiet.
On a journey like this, when it was them against the odds, the most important thing was to stick close to your comrades. Okay, there'd been that thing in the Deep Jungle, and the whole mess here in Hollow Bastion that one time - but they were exceptions that proved the rule, and they hadn't been longer than a day in any case. Sora was well accustomed to waking up at more or less the same time as the others, usually at the hands of Donald, but sometimes just from the noise of conversation. To wake up to silence was unusual.
Yawning, he dragged himself up and out of bed, taking a long, luxurious stretch, and bent down to grab his jacket from the floor, tossing a grin over his shoulder as he put it on. The angle of the light from the window on the far wall indicated afternoon - which wasn't unusual for his preferred sleeping habits, but for Donald and Goofy not to be up by now was ridiculous. They must've really worn themselves out yesterday. "Hey, guys, you gonna sleep all day? C'mon, if I'm awake before y--"
The beds were empty.
Sora blinked.
Well, that didn't necessarily mean anything. This was Aerith's house, after all, they might be getting breakfast. Maybe they'd just gotten up really quietly. He pulled on the rest of his clothes. He'd just go find them, and--
His hand stopped in the middle of grabbing his necklace. A folded note had been tucked underneath. Okay, maybe that meant something.
He unfolded the note with one hand, putting his necklace on with the other as he scanned the writing on the paper.
'Sora,
Meet us at Merlin's.
~Donald, Goofy, Jiminy'
Sora stared at it for a little while.
A few minutes later he was out the door. This part of the borough was a little unfamiliar to him, but the castle was a useful landmark he could orient himself by as he wended his way through the streets. Besides, he thought to himself, Merlin's house was pretty distinctive once you got close enough - and there it was, just ahead of him. Score one for Sora's sense of direction.
The door clicked shut just as he came into view of it. At this, he stopped and frowned. Something was definitely up. There was deliberate sneakiness at work here. And from the looks of things, Donald and Goofy had teamed up with Leon and the others for it. That was doubly suspicious.
"Okay, I'm here," he called loudly as he stepped up to the door. Whatever they were trying to pull, best to get it over with. With a certain amount of determined resolve, he opened the door.
... It was not strictly accurate to say that Cid's computer screen was the first thing he saw, because the moment the door opened, Yuffie's arm was around his neck, and he saw only a momentary flash of oddly bright colors before the floor suddenly swung up to dominate his vision while a set of gloved knuckles scrubbed relentlessly in his hair.
"Yuffie!" he yelled, squirming wildly to get away. Or trying to. Yuffie wasn't a ninja for nothing. And he'd thought Riku's noogies were bad. "Lemme go!"
"Gotta start the party off right!" she chirped, and Sora was just starting to sputter out the question of just what she meant by that when she released him. Rubbing his head, he straightened up, and--
The room was an explosion of color. Oddly glimmering streamers hung from the ceiling, from every wall and every corner, from bookshelves and the computer and Merlin's devices. Clouds of shining fairy-lights drifted all through the air. The group - the entire group - was gathered in a semicircle in front of the door, wearing smiles of various sizes. The monitor of Cid's computer, visible over Aerith's shoulder, was clear of its ever-present, neverending scroll of numbers, and had been set to display the words HAPPY BIRTHDAY SORA in huge, colorful letters.
"Wha-- you guys--" Sora started, but the breath was driven out of him as Goofy threw his arms around him enthusiastically.
"Happy birthday, Sora!"
"Bu--" Donald hit him at waist level before Goofy had even released him. Struggling to stay upright, Sora laughed despite himself. "But you guys, today's not..."
And now Jiminy was on his shoulder again. "Well, no, but it didn't seem right to just let it pass by now that we knew about it."
"These three came by right before sundown and told us everything," Yuffie said cheerfully, draping her arm over Sora's shoulder as Goofy and Donald let him go. "So we set up a party for you!"
"We all know what it's like to be lost like that," Aerith said gently.
"You're our friend," Leon added. "You've helped us more than you know."
"Least we could do," Cid gruffed.
"But - you all have your own stuff to worry about! And, hey! Donald? Goofy?" He put his hands on his hips as he faced the royal knight and wizard. "You guys needed your sleep too!"
"Aw, phooey," Donald said, crossing his arms.
"We got plenty 'a sleep," Goofy reassured, smiling. "We just needed ta make sure we got things started first!"
"You guys..." Sora wobbled a little. He didn't know what to say. He'd thought the occasion had come and gone, and had been full ready to roll out of bed and head out into the stars again today. The realization that his friends would do this for him so readily... that the entire Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee would take time out from their goals on a moment's notice...
There was a brightness welling up inside him, his chest feeling hot and tight with the effort of containing it. He was grinning, so broadly his cheeks hurt.
Everywhere he went, there was someone he could be friends with, a new connection that could be made and old ones he'd never forgotten. With that, and with friends always by his side and at his back, always looking forward, he'd never been able to stay discouraged for long, not when there was always something he could smile about, someone he could reach out to. But here, with just this, just now, something this simple and this great - he realized he was happy, really happy, more than he'd been for months.
"Thanks, you guys..."
-
And nothing had changed, not really. The years had still passed by, turning a fourteen-year-old boy into a sixteen-year-old young man. Riku was still out in the far-flung cosmos, maybe far away and maybe very near and just outside of Sora's reach, and Kairi was still waiting for them to return together, all of them growing up far apart...
But it would be okay in the end, Sora knew. Riku had King Mickey at his side, and Kairi had all their friends back home, and Sora had Donald and Goofy and Jiminy, and they'd be okay. Their hearts were connected, Sora's and Riku's and Kairi's and everyone they knew who loved them, who fought beside them or gave them comfort or just thought of them now and again; strung together with shimmering, unbreakable threads all across the worlds, in defiance of time or distance.
Sora would see them again. It had been a long time, and it might still be a long time more, but one day he'd stand on those sunny beaches again with Riku and Kairi, their hands and hearts linked--
Until then, none of them would have to be alone.