Okay this is definitely the last part. I hope it’s okay! Thanks for all the reviews :)

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Riku, who had been musing silently for a while now, suddenly had a thought that ended his sleep charade. He sat up and found his younger friends sitting just ahead of the tide, the water washing over their feet. Riku got up and walked over. Sora and Kairi heard his approach, greeting him cheerfully. He pretended not to notice that Sora’s hand rested on Kairi’s. He figured teasing the new couple could come later.

So Riku stayed focused. “I’ve had a thought.”

Sora rolled his eyes. “You really need to work on lightening up.”

Riku ignored the comment. “We’re stuck here. There aren’t any boats.”

Sora and Kairi looked, saw that their elder was right and stood up (without holding hands). “What do we do?” Kairi asked. “Wait ‘til someone comes?” But she knew no one had come over to this island in quite a while. “But that’s probably going to be a long wait…”

As if to disagree with anything involving a wait, Sora’s stomach gave a loud, slow grumble of hunger. He clamped his hands to his stomach and laughed nervously. “Oops.”

“Wait around with him making that much noise? I don’t think so.” Riku assumed his musing posture. “Maybe we could… build… a… raft.”

The trio looked at one another. There were three seconds of silence. Count them. One, two, three – a second for each teenager. Then, in chorus, they all broke into laughter. The hysterics sent all of them crashing to the sand, where they sat helplessly consumed with giggles and guffaws (Riku and Sora wouldn’t appreciate being labelled as gigglers). It took a long time to calm down, mostly because if one managed to calm down, the others set them off again.

Build a raft! Ha!

Eventually they had to stop laughing, their ribs aching from all the amusement. A few stray snorts were batted around but eventually calm returned.

“So, what are we gonna do?” Kairi asked. “Because building a…”

“Don’t say that word Kairi!” Riku warned.

“Okay sorry. Any other ideas?”

Sora, amazingly, came up with the plan. “No worries! Hakuna Matata! I got it!”

“Got what? A loose screw?”

Sora smirked. “Yeah, that too Riku. Anyway, don’t worry about it! I’ll swim to the mainland, grab a boat without anyone seeing me and bring it back here. We’ll be back home in time for breakfast!” His stomach gargled merrily at the promise.

“You can’t swim all that way,” Riku replied. “It’s a pretty long distance.” He stood up. “I’ll go.”

Sora leapt up as well. “No way!” He glared at Riku with all his might, summoning a rather stern visage. “You got a bad injury yesterday and that’s my fault…”

“No, it wasn’t. It was…”

“You’re not going Riku and that’s final. You’re staying here.” He turned to Kairi. “You’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything silly, right?”

“Definitely.”

“Look kids…”

“You’re not pulling age on us,” Sora said, silencing Riku sharply. He glowered until his friend backed down. Grinning triumphantly, Sora added: “Trust me, I can take care of this. The mainland isn’t that far and I’m a good swimmer. You and Kairi stay here. I’ll be back before you know it.”

For a moment, Riku looked as though he was going to argue. He stayed quiet though, because he was older and wiser now and knew better than to push himself even if he did feel fine. So he said, “Fine, we’ll wait here. Just get back here before the sun sets, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Should we build a raft in case you wind up on the wrong island?” Kairi asked sweetly.

Sora stuck out his tongue. “I think I’ll manage.” He pulled his boots off, placing them neatly on the sand. Then he removed his gloves, stuffing them into his shoes. Finally, he pulled his hoodie off, placing it over his boots. “They probably smell,” he explained. He stretched his arms, made sure the items in his pockets were secure and strolled down to the sea. “So, see you guys in an hour or so!”

“Be careful!” Kairi called as he waded into the deeper water.

“If you get tired, float on your back for a while!” Riku advised.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine!”

Sora was soon swimming through the sea, the water feeling wonderful against his body. He could feel his strained muscles relaxing, feel the stress and worry just floating away. No Heartless, no Organization XIII and no missing or troubled friends. Life was suddenly so simple.

Sora was tempted to tap into his clothes’ magic and transform into a merman but decided that swimming in human form would be just fine. He hadn’t had a chance to swim like this in too long. Still, he’d definitely have to transform one day and see if all that pirate treasure he, Riku and Kairi had daydreamed about really existed at the bottom of the ocean.

Swimming was a really nice change to running… and swimming with legswhile resulting in a loss of underwater breathing ability, required less concentration. Sora was able to relax, flipping onto his back and closing his eyes to the sun. It felt so good to feel the sun and the sea of his world again. He’d been to places beyond even his imagination and always managed to find something about each new world to love but he’d always longed to see his own world again. After all, he had always wanted to come back here. Even when he’d only been dreaming of seeing new worlds, at the end of the dream he always came home to share his adventures.

“And we’ve got sea-salt ice cream here too Roxas,” Sora said. “I’ll get one for you later. I gotta go see Mom first.”

Seeing Mom. He swallowed hard. Now there was a thought that opened a can of worms in his belly.

Flipping onto his front, Sora began swimming a little faster. Nerves were twirling in his empty stomach, making him hungrier than before. Or maybe he was feeling sick. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? Coming home meant there was another reunion to be had, this one far more nerve-wracking than any other. His Mom… what would she think of him?

He was doing that thinking thing again.

It was starting to dawn on him; just how much he would have to face now he was home. His Mom, who he hadn’t seen in a year, was going to be at home when he got there. He realised that he hadn’t spent much time worrying about her… but that was because she was his Mom and no matter what happened, she was always fine. He caught a cold and she was invincible. He was upset and she calmed him down. If he’d had a bad day, she’d baked cookies to cheer him up (well once. But that was a good memory). So when their world got destroyed, there was no chance she’d wind up a Heartless or worse. But now that he was here, not far from seeing her again, he was under assault from countless ‘what-if’ scenarios, even though he knew in his heart that everything was fine. Had he ever been this nervous about something? No, definitely not. He had always loved his independence, relishing freedom from Mother’s Authority (dubbed that by Mom herself). But sometimes, over the past year, he really had missed his normal, calm life –although he forgot again as soon as something exciting or dangerous happened. He knew he hadn’t thought about his mom as much as he should’ve done… maybe he felt guilty about that. Maybe he thought she’d realise that he hadn’t been worrying about her, and feel sad and unloved...

Or perhaps he knew he’d get hugged so tightly his ribs would crack. The thought made him grin. Cracked ribs were better than an unhappy mom.

A strengthening tide came between Sora and his thoughts. He had to focus harder so he could swim against the tide. He stopped to tread water, wanting to see how much further he had to go. Sora was surprised to see the mainland already. He’d been swimming for longer than he thought, so lost in thought that he’d lost track of distance. The sun was higher now too, the air warming up and making the water more refreshing. Sora eased under the surface, diving down and finding himself among schools of darting, silver fish. He sank down a little more, feeling the water chill around him. He looked up, the sun glimmering above the water. Wasn’t this familiar?

But he had to get on. Riku and Kairi were waiting, as was breakfast. Sora kicked himself back to the surface and finished the swim without any further trains of thought, reaching the mainland’s beach a good half hour after leaving the other island. His feet touched the sand and Sora waded onto the beach. Once on dry sand, he sank to his knees breathlessly. “Phew!” He gasped, more exhausted then he expected. While catching his breath, Sora grabbed a handful of sand in one hand. It had already been warmed by the sun. Destiny Islands sand… It was real…

…And it was sticking to his hands and feet and any other part of his soaked body it could get in contact with. Sora shook his head, chuckling to himself. Maybe this was his world’s way of welcoming him home – showering him in damp sand. He stood up, washed himself off in the sea and then returned to the sand, this time staying on his feet. Leaving a trail of footprints in the sand, Sora hurried over to the harbour. It was still early in the morning but the fishing boats were already out. That left small boats and Sora made sure to pick one with a motor. He had no desire to row all the way to and from the island after that swim.

Soon aboard the good ship Salty Dog, Sora got the motor started and shot out the harbour, his brain desperately trying to dredge up the memory of how to control a boat with an engine. He remembered eventually, steering the boat towards the island at a rapid pace. He grinned as the boat bounced over the water, enjoying the speed. The wind rushing past dried him out a little bit too, so towards the end of the journey Sora was no longer making puddles. And then he was back on the island, cutting the engine and pulling up to the pier. Riku and Kairi hurried over.

“You can pick up your boots,” Riku said as he stepped onboard, pointing to where Sora’s things waited. “You’re right. They stink.”

Kairi gave Sora a helping hand up onto the pier. “You okay?”

He smiled and nodded. “Fine. A little tired maybe, but fine.” He turned back to Riku. “You can steer us home.” And he hurried off to retrieve his things.

Kairi hopped down into the boat. “I still can’t figure out where he gets all that energy,” she said as she sat down.

“Kairi, if we knew the answer to that we’d all be like him,” Riku replied calmly.

Both of them thought for a moment. Sora returned to find them both laughing. “What’s so funny?” He asked as he got onto the boat.

“We were just imagining how we’d be if we were energetic like you,” Kairi said, taking his hand and making him sit next to her. “Then I pictured Riku trying to smile like you and…”

Sora paused to consider it. Riku with a big, cheesy grin. Sora fell backwards, laughing hysterically. “It’d…it’d be…like…like he was… on… a sugar high!”

And poor Riku, expression nowhere close to a grin, found himself being laughed at all the way back to the mainland. Sora and Kairi didn’t quieten down until the boat pulled back into the harbour.

Sora was silent as he stepped off the boat, his mood completely different from before. Pulling his boots and hoodie back on, he pushed his gloves into his pocket and took a calming breath before following Riku and Kairi out of the harbour and onto the main street. This was it. They were heading up the hill to where their homes waited. No one spoke and for that Sora was glad. He didn’t think he stood much of a chance of hiding his nerves if he was made to say something.

When they went their separate ways, they still didn’t speak. Sora left Riku and Kairi at a run, suddenly desperate to get home. When arrived outside his house, he didn’t give himself a chance to stand there and think. He went straight to the front door. His heart pounded so much his whole body was shaking. For a moment he considered using the Keyblade to open the door. Then he decided that barging in probably wasn’t the wisest idea and opted to knock instead.

One, two, three raps on the door. His arm fell back to his side. His knees were quivering. Why? It was Mom he was about to face, not a Heartless or a Nobody or a cursed pirate or…

The door opened. She saw her son. The colour drained from her face. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. She clutched the door as if it were the only thing keeping her standing. He tried to smile but it got lost on the way.

“Hi Mom.”

He was a little worried that she was going to faint.

“Sora?”

He nodded. “I’m home.”

With a sob, she stumbled out of the house. She wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly even as she cried.

“I’m home,” he said again.

Finally, it was starting to sink in.

The End.

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