Fic: Meeting Roxas

[splinteredstar]

Originally written on its own, it is now a late and tangentially arranged birthday present for the wonderful edmondia . Heavily inspired by hers and rayemars 's fic series Beyond the Ocean Beach. It is, however, not actually canon with said series. (If you haven't read it, do that first. It's much better.)

This will be a series once I edit the other two parts and figure out a title.


Meeting Roxas
Post KH2
Sora's mother isn't sure that he's her son anymore, except when she is.

He acts like nothing’s changed, but sometimes when the sun hits his hair and makes it shade gold, Sora looks like a stranger.

`

His mother sits up late, some nights, when the storms come close and she finds herself sneaking past Sora’s room to make sure he’s still there. The fourth time she does it in one night, even after the storm has passed, she sighs, acknowledges that she won’t be getting any more sleep tonight, and makes herself a cup of tea.

Sora was gone for so long, so long and she… forgot, somehow, or everyone forgot but she knew she had forgotten, knew it like an ache in the bottom of her heart. Then when she remembered she knew it, but no one else realized anything had been wrong at all. Maybe she had just…

There’s a sudden sound of footsteps from upstairs – she jolts, because that doesn’t sound like Sora coming down the stairs-

Past sunset there’s no justification for the gold streaks in his hair, and there was no wind to shift his spikes, though he had just woken up so maybe –

-but that half moment of suspicion that looked so out of place on Sora’s face –

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were up,” he mumbles, and Sora never mumbles, never walks so quietly, thudding steps and laughter ringing, but he’s shifting away so she swallows down sickness and says,

“Just having some tea.” She swallows down “what’s wrong” and “who are you” and says instead, “Would you like some?”

The pause before a response is new too, like he’s expecting a trap or a joke – if it weren’t for his height she might think she was dealing with Riku instead – and that thought, too, is bitter, but this boy steps closer with a half-hidden frailty in blue eyes and says, “Sure.”

She stands to make another cup, and her back prickles where the boy’s gaze lingers, watching her movements. Riku does that too now, really has done it for years, but this is the first time she wonders which one learned it first.

Riku has always been sharp and strange, even as he’s so much worse now, and maybe it’s the fact that Sora is her son that made her never see it before –

-but it isn’t all the time, just occasional moments when she doesn’t recognize her son, like right now as he hesitates before reaching for a mug as if he doesn’t quite remember where they are.

The kettle is still warm but she heats it up again anyway, before taking the mug from Sora with a tired smile. The boy fidgets but it’s nervous and not eager, and stares at the simple process of making tea with fascination, like he’s heard of it before but never seen it.

She bites the inside of her lip as she smiles, handing him a steaming cup of tea – and blinking as he sniffs it hesitantly, sips it far sooner than he should, and then jerks back, his tongue out because he’s obviously burned it. It’s a sight she hasn’t seen since he was a child drinking tea for the first time and it’s as comic as it is tragic. The boy glares at the tea suspiciously, then blows on it.

She sits at the table again, and Sora shifts awkwardly before settling at the table across from her. He doesn’t speak, not even to ask why she’s up, and the silence is unnatural from Sora.  She breaks the silence that should already be broken and asks, “Why are you awake? Did you have a nightmare?”

“Huh?” He jerks up from his contemplation of his mug of tea. “No, I just…” His mouth twists down, and he shrugs. “I like looking at the stars, sometimes.”

- and that makes her mouth tighten a little bit, memories rushing over each other with the smell of salt and the rock a boat and the heat of a body next to her. “Your father and I did that, sometimes,” She says, and the surprise and confusion in his eyes make her heart clench a little, enough to keep her talking. “We would take a boat out in the harbor at night to get away from the city lights.” She pauses, and looks at him before adding, “I could take out, sometime. If you want.”

The boy blinks, once, a sort of wary hope in his eyes. It’s both heartbreaking and encouraging - it feels like a connection, a way back into her son’s life after he came back recarved, rearranged and didn’t fit into the world the same way. She’s never had to try to connect with Sora before because Sora connected with everyone, his affection and cheer staining everything like the sunrise, his heart given easily and claiming hearts in return.

The boy swallows and says, “Yeah. I’d like that.”

“Good.” She sips the last of her tea to cover her expression. “It’s too late tonight, but there’s a new moon in a week or so. We can go then.”

Sora’s smile is hesitant and snow-fragile and totally unfamiliar on Sora’s face, but it’s enough to ease her heart. So she finishes her tea and stands, pats the boy on his shoulder and there’s only a tiny moment of hesitation about leaving a stranger in her house before she says,

“Good night, Sora.”

`

The next morning Sora bounds down from his room and grins, waving and shouting "I love you gotta go bye!" as he rushes out the front door to meet Riku and Kairi for school.

She watches him and frowns. But she doesn't mention it, doesn’t call him back, because nights are different, quiet unfamiliar times. And besides, Sora’s already around the street corner.

 

`

The boat rocks under them, the sunset glittering its last rays against the ocean. Sora is too still in the boat next to her, staring at the sunset instead of batting at fish or laughing at the birds that swoop too close to his hair. His expression turns soft and sad as the sunset turns his hair gold and then red-gold.

 

She swallows down the questions and points out the first star in the sky. It's one of the brightest in the sky, lingering close to the top of the sky at all times. "That's the loadstar," she says, "Sailors use it to navigate." Sora should know this, should have learned it at some point - maybe his father forgot to tell him, and after...

 

Sora tilts his head up and stares at it. "What's that one?" He points to another early bright star near the horizon.

 

"The seabird." Sora blinks at her, confused at the name, "It moves across the horizon through the year." Things he should know, stories he should remember, but maybe their tale of amnesia holds some water - or maybe - so she tells them again, pointing as stars as they appear, giving them names and telling the stories she can remember - the sky ship and its anchor, the scales, the sea serpent. The boy listens intently, like he hasn't since he was a child, like he's never heard the stories before. Maybe he hasn't.

 

It's a new moon, which is why she chose tonight - the sea and the sky are dark but for the stars above them, but the boy beside her seems to glow, very faintly in the gloom. His eyes are bright blue and his hair is gold, too gold.

 

She'd wondered - but perhaps the truth is stranger - or -

 

She looks up at the stars, the familiar backdrop of her life. Her father had taught the stories to her, and she and her then-boyfriend snuggled in a boat and compared versions and laughingly argued which one had it right. There seems to be more stars, now, than there used to be.  She’s not sure of much these days.

 

She thinks about asking, about sounding insane - but it's what she's thought, ever since he came back, every since he walked through her door with sun-shaded hair. It's late and Sora is a vivid dreamer - she can pretend, later, that it never happened. Let him see how it feels, she thinks spitefully and then regrets it. Still, the words tumble out like the surf on the shore.

 

"You're not Sora."

 

Her jerks - but no denial or confusion tumble out. Instead he sighs and folds into himself, crosses his arms over his knees and mumbles, "Is it that obvious?"

 

She blinks - and for a half second over laid Sora's familiar body is another boy, similar in face and form but in white and black, blond hair in a sweep of spikes like waves against rock. He looks up at her, and really, that expression doesn't look like Sora at all.

 

She swallows back how and why for now, and asks - "Where is Sora?" Because if... whatever this is had killed her child, stolen his face for some reason...

 

"Asleep." That -  isn't the answer she expected. "He said I could have tonight." His expression turned bitter, so strange on Sora's face. "He lets me have the nights, usually."

 

She blinks - oh. Oh. "You're both..." 

 

Sora - or whomever - shrugs. "While he was gone, he got... splintered." He recoils into himself again, his glow dimming. "I broke off. Or something. We're... not really sure how it happened."

 

She forgot her son’s name and his face, his whole existence, once. She has no right to comment, to disbelieve him. She’s not sure what’s possible or not anymore. So she just nods once to herself, and asks instead,

 

"Do you have your own name?"

 

The boy blinks black, and that brush of wariness again crosses his expression. "...Roxas." He says, and after a pause he awkwardly offers his hand, like he knows that's what people are supposed to do when introducing themselves but hasn't had much practice.

 

"Roxas." She takes his hand. There are rough callouses on the fingertips that she’d never noticed before. Maybe Sora has them as well. "You are a part of Sora.” He nods. “I suppose that makes me your mother?"

 

-and the shocked glitter of tears in his eyes is enough to confirm it, because he's a part of Sora and that’s what matters, so she lets go of his hand and hugs him instead, making the boat rock beneath them. He’s a bit stiff, but his arms wrap around her awkwardly anyway.

 

"Home?"

 

He half smiles. "Okay."