Chapter Text
She knows she is doomed the second she wraps her armour around Terra’s body.
Aqua watches it as it flies far beyond her reach, no longer bogged down by her weight as well as Terra’s. The light flickers in the distance, the armour, body, and her keyblade passing through the portal. It blinks once, twice, and then disappears, without the slightest inkling of where it once was.
Not long now, she thinks. The floating is peaceful, the darkness around her quiet and observant. It will not last, she knows, it will not be long before she plunges into the icy cold of the realm of darkness, and all peace will be lost forever.
“I’m sorry, Ven. I’m not going to make it back as soon as I thought.”
Her words come out in a whisper, but it is so quiet, so calm, they’re as loud as a shout. Pressure begins to build in her ears as she falls downwards, and this is it, she knows it. Like throwing herself off a cliff into the ocean and seeing the sea rise to meet her, she braces herself for the impact, the inevitable breaking of the veil that awaits her.
Hm, no. That won’t do at all.
The words are as clear as a bell, though whether they are in her mind or spoken into the still air she cannot tell. She tries to turn, startled, but she is no longer sure which way is up.
The ocean of the realm of darkness rises up to greet her, her reflection in the glassy surface the only warning she has of its approach. She closes her eyes, ready for the pain, ready for the thunderous crash of her body hitting the water.
And then she collides with her bed, in her room in the Land of Departure.
Bolting upright so suddenly that the room begins to spin, Aqua has half a minute to wonder what on earth is going on before the vertigo hits. She reaches out for the trashcan next to her bed, and proceeds to vomit violently.
It’s the half-sandwich that she managed to force down at Yen Sid’s, two hours before she went to face off against the possessed Terra, which only reinforces that the last few days have not been a dream. But if it was not a dream, then where…?
The calendar on her wall marks the date, the red crosses an ominous countdown to her Mark of Mastery exam. She has not been able to update it, and so it remains marked as one day prior to her exam.
Bracing herself, Aqua calls her keyblade to her, and is briefly stunned to find Rainfell in her hands rather than Eraqus’ keyblade. She stands before the door to her room, momentarily torn between staying here and never leaving, knowing that outside the door lies either the realm of darkness, or the cruel twisted maze of a castle that she created from the ruins of the Land of Departure.
Taking a deep breath to steel herself, Aqua leaves her little safe haven before it can turn on her, slipping out the door as quietly as she can with her keyblade lowered but ready. She can barely open her eyes, unwilling to see what has become of her home, but slowly she does so, ready for either the desolation of the darkness or the sterile white walls of the castle…and instead opens them to familiar carpeted hallways and wood-panelled walls.
“What?” Her whisper is barely audible even to herself. She turns, expecting her door to disappear, but the white panelled wood is still there, and through it the sunlight still beams into her undisturbed bedroom. Beyond, through the window, she sees the trees swaying in the wind, but the world is as quiet as it has always been.
There is only one other door on this corridor, her private bathroom, as has always been the case. The Land of Departure creates rooms where they are needed, and Aqua had only moved into this wing when she turned sixteen and Eraqus decided that she needed her own wing and her own privacy, rather than having to risk running into him or Terra every time she left the bathroom after a shower. When Ventus had arrived he had initially been placed on this wing, before moving into the other one when he turned sixteen, and the door to his room disappeared.
As a test, she turns the knob on the bathroom door, edging it open with her keyblade. Inside, her bathroom remains as tidy as she had left it, flowery shampoo and sea-salt body wash still inside the shower, her towels hung on the radiator, her toothbrush in its little holder. Completely undisturbed.
Shaken, she makes her way quietly down the corridor, briefly debating if she should go down towards the dining room, before a familiar click down the east wing catches her attention. Decision made, she listens as the undeniable creak of Ventus’ door opening echoes down the corridor to her left. As cautiously as ever, she makes the turn onto the east wing, still decorated exactly as she remembers it, with paintings of Masters of Old on the walls.
And then she walks right into Ventus.
“Aqua!” He grabs her arms to steady himself, his smaller frame bouncing right off her own, and his embarrassed laugh echoes down the hallway. “What are you doing here?”
Aqua cannot help it: she surges forward, wrapping him tightly in her arms and squeezing, as if putting pressure on him will reassure her that he is real, and not a figment of her imagination come to torment her in the realm of darkness.
“Ven! You’re awake!”
As easy as he is with affection, Ventus does not question her exuberant greeting, only returns it with a slightly confused laugh before he extracts himself from her arms.
“Yeah, sorry, turned my alarm clock off again.” He rubs at the back of his neck sheepishly. “Did they send you to come get me? I hope I’ve not missed breakfast!”
The confusion tumbles back down, settling over Aqua like a heavy cloak.
“Breakfast? Ven, no, you… you were asleep, I couldn’t…” The vertigo hits her again, a sour taste in the back of her throat, and she reaches out a hand to steady herself on his shoulder. He leans into her, happy to take her weight.
“Whoa, you ok Aqua? You can’t be coming down with something now, it’s your big day tomorrow!”
Of the three of them, Aqua has always been the smartest, the quick-witted one with the fastest ability to put two and two together, to pull all the individual threads of a puzzle and create the clear picture.
The voice in her mind, telling her that her fall into the darkness will not do. The calendar in her room, marked one day before her exam. Ventus, as cheerful as always, worrying that his friend is sick when she has an exam coming up. The castle remaining as it has always been, as though she didn’t turn its burned and ruined husk into a gleaming white castle intended to make everyone inside feel like they were in a never-ending maze, where up is down and down is up.
This is not a twisted recreation of the day before her exam. It is the day before.
Has she been dreaming?
Aqua enters the dining room with Ventus two steps ahead of her, eager as always for his breakfast. Eraqus and Terra stop midway through their conversation, Eraqus with a shake of his head in their direction and Terra with an arched eyebrow and a playful smirk on his lips.
“What time do you call this?” Terra asks as she slides into the chair next to him. Eraqus watches them from the head of the table as Ventus takes the seat on his right and digs in, directly opposite Terra.
“I slept through my alarm.” Ventus mumbles around a mouthful of scrambled eggs, and Aqua clucks her tongue at him as she takes a grapefruit from the centre of the table, too nauseous to even look at her toast.
“And your excuse?” Terra elbows her gently in the ribs, but Aqua can’t turn to look at him, cutting her grapefruit in half with unnecessary precision.
“Bad dream.” Her smile is tight, a million thoughts racing through her mind as she tries to figure out what is going on. Could it all have been a dream?
Terra gives her a concerned glance before he returns to his conversation with Eraqus.
“I’m sorry, Master, you were saying?”
“I have a guest arriving in the morning, an old friend who will be judging your exam with me. I expect you all will treat him with the greatest courtesy.”
Aqua’s spoon comes down hard on her grapefruit segment in surprise, missing it entirely and clinking the spoon loudly off the plate. The sudden movement sends the grapefruit spinning off her plate and across the table where it lands in Ventus’ breakfast. Ventus stares at it, fork raised and utterly stunned, as if there could be no rational explanation for a grapefruit appearing in the middle of his eggs on toast.
She does not need to look up to know that Eraqus and Terra are staring at her. She cannot look up, because her terror will be written all over her face, because this is the exact same conversation they had three weeks ago, the day before the exam.
Clearing her throat, she leans over and plucks her breakfast out of Ventus’. “Apologies. The spoon slipped.”
Ventus snorts out a laugh, as Eraqus frowns and Terra stares at her. And then Ventus frowns, cocking his head and squinting at her to get a better look.
“Aqua, what happened to your throat?” His voice is alarmed, and next to her Terra also startles, reaching out to push her hair away from her neck, and she can’t help the instinctive flinch that comes over her even as she feels her face begin to pale. She stands up, moving over to the mirror mounted on the far wall, and has the strong and sudden urge to throw up again at the circle of purple bruises underneath her jaw. She knows they will find their match in Terra’s hand, from where he had lifted her up by her throat in Radiant Garden and squeezed. With a frown, she runs her fingers along them, green healing magic seeping into them and lightening them to a pale yellow.
At the table, Eraqus throws Terra an accusing look that leaves the younger man red faced and stuttering, a rare sight indeed.
“We had this conversation when you were sixteen, did we not, about appropriate behaviour-“
“Master, I didn’t- that’s not - Aqua?” Terra throws out her name like it’s a cry for help, as Ventus is torn between laughter and concern. The woman in question returns to her seat, picking up her fruit once more and refusing to look up even as she forces down her blush.
“They’re bruises, normal bruises. I didn’t catch my keyblade in time yesterday when I was practicing strike raid.”
Her expression is so neutral that neither Ventus or Terra dare to mention that she does not, and never will, practice strike raid.
Later, in her room, Aqua barricades the door shut and proceeds to have the meltdown of her life.
How can this all be possible? She would be certain it was all a dream if not for the bruises on her neck, a sharp reminder of the outcome of the very exam she is about to sit. Is the realm of darkness playing tricks on her? Is there something she is meant to change? What is the point of it all?
She wonders where she went wrong, tries to pinpoint the moments where she lost her friends, first to bitterness and then to darkness.
What needs to change? What happens if she fails again?
The answer to the first question, she finds, is this: do not hope to lie to Terra.
Having him find out she was sent to spy on him in Radiant Garden had been bad enough the first time around, splintering their trio almost to the point where it could not be recovered. His pain at the betrayal had run deep, fuelling the bitterness and hurt within him, and had directly been responsible for most of their following misunderstandings.
Lying to him about it, and letting him find out from Xehanort that she had, in fact, been sent to spy on him, is even more catastrophic. The hurt wars with the indignity and fury of being outright lied to, shattering the very foundations of their friendship and pushing him so far out of her reach that she cannot hope to save him. It also pushes Ventus further away, for he too feels the sting of being lied to by proxy.
The answer to the second question, she discovers when she once again is left floating through the darkness, is this: the voice hums in disapproval, and Aqua wakes up again in her bed in the Land of Departure.
Lesson learned, Aqua rushes down to the dining room the moment she awakens in her bed, taking her seat next to Terra just as he sits down. Eraqus is already seated, smiling at her as he butters a slice of toast.
“Good morning, Aqua.”
“Good morning Master, Terra.”
Had Terra smiled at her that way the first time? She barely has a moment to return it, eyes on her plate as she tries to think of another plan, another way to go about things. The thoughts consume her, so much so that she doesn’t say a word until Ventus bounds in ten minutes later.
“Sorry! Overshot my alarm!”
Aqua stares at the frittata on his plate. After a moment of shovelling as much of it as he can down his throat, Ventus notices and grins.
“Want some?”
Pulled from her thoughts, she shakes her head just as Eraqus speaks.
“I have a guest arriving in the morning, an old friend who will be judging your exam with me. I expect you all will treat him with the greatest courtesy.”
Something within her snaps, whether it is frustration or anxiety or just outright desperation.
“Master, do we need another person to judge us for our exam?” The grapefruit stings her fingers, but it is easily ignored when Eraqus frowns at her.
“No, but it is best practice to have another master present, if only to dissuade accusations of favouritism, or bias.”
“If he is your friend, then won’t that assist accusations of bias?”
Eraqus places his knife on the table far too loudly, as Ventus and Terra stare at her as though she has woken up and left her sanity in her bedroom.
“Aqua, do you have any concerns about bias or favouritism?”
“I think maybe there’s someone more suitable than Master Xehanort. Yen Sid, for example.” That touches a nerve, she can tell almost immediately, but she quickly realises that it has more to do with the fact that Eraqus has not mentioned Xehanort's name yet, and she should not be familiar enough with Yen Sid to offer him up as an alternative examiner.
Eraqus straightens in his seat, and silence falls for a moment too long before he stands, eyes on Ventus and Terra.
“I will see you both in the training grounds in an hour. Aqua, come with me.”
Aqua reluctantly leaves her chair, feeling rather like the naughty child of the group rather than a twenty-one year old woman with perfectly valid concerns that she cannot even voice. Was this how Terra felt growing up, always in trouble for silly comments and childish rebellions, whilst she was too busy being the good student? She feels the eyes of her best friends on her as she leaves, following Eraqus with her gaze fixed on the floor. This is not a nice feeling: she is suddenly very glad to have been a teacher’s pet growing up.
Eraqus takes her into his office, a large open room on the second floor, and it makes her feel even worse. The only other time she had been in this room was that time when she was eleven and Terra was ten, and he had told her the reason she was told to work with magic was because she was too girly and weak to wield a keyblade. It had been one torment too many, and she had bust his nose open right there in the garden. They had been getting along perfectly fine until that point, but it was only after that incident that they really became friends.
Terra, on the other hand, has been in here plenty of times during his mid-teenage years, and even Ventus has been sent in a few times, though that is more to do with his ridiculous love of pranks than any attitude problems.
“Sit, Aqua.”
She does, lowering herself into the cream wooden chair that had so haunted her fears in her childhood.
“Do you have anything you wish to tell me?”
Aqua can’t help the tears that prick at her eyes, and the whole story comes out before she can stop it.
“Today is the third time that I’ve lived through this day, Master. Tomorrow, Master Xehanort will lead Terra down the road to darkness, and I keep losing you, Ven and Terra. I tried to stop it, but I woke up back here, and it keeps happening.” She can’t articulate it, barely knows how to wrap her head around it, never mind recount it all to someone else. Eraqus gets up from his seat on the other side of the desk, laying a gentle but firm hand on her shoulder.
“Aqua, I know preparing for the exam has been difficult. Stress can affect you in strange ways.”
Aqua shakes her head vehemently.
“It is not stress, Master.” She pulls down the halter neck of her vest, revealing another ring of purple bruises. “Xehanort possessed Terra’s body, and he gave me these a few hours ago, in Radiant Garden, when he was trying to kill me.”
Eraqus stares at them, and she knows what he is thinking. The handspan of the bruises is too large to be her own, and Ventus has smaller hands than she does.
“Aqua…” He sounds wary, which she decides to take as a sign he could be believing her. “Why would Master Xehanort want to possess Terra?”
“He said he wanted a new body, for when he’d used Ventus to forge the x blade?” It’s hard to remember it all clearly, since for the first battle she was unconscious for the forging of the blade, and the second time around she had been so busy trying to avoid Vanitas that she missed the monologuing entirely.
Despite all that, it seems those are exactly the right words to say. Eraqus grips the desk as though his life depends on it.
“Why does it always come back to the x blade?” His words are a harsh whisper, but in the quiet of the room she hears them clearly. Without a word to her he turns on his heel and storms to the office door, locking it and casting a reflect spell over the room to foil any potential eavesdropping by her fellow apprentices.
“Aqua, you must try to tell me everything you remember.”
For a time, she thinks it might work. Terra still fails his exam the next morning, but Eraqus sends him off with a strict warning not to trust anything Xehanort may tell him.
When Ventus runs off after Terra, Eraqus follows, sending Aqua to keep an eye on Terra. It seems to go well, with Terra being more wary of those he comes across and less trusting of their motivations. He still slips, trusting Maleficent and allowing himself to be lured to the Badlands, but Aqua keeps her hope front and centre and trusts that Eraqus can fix this.
And then it goes wrong.
Aqua had not known about Braig’s earlier meeting with Terra, did not account for him in her plans. She only stumbles across their fight when she is trying to keep a close eye on Terra, and hears the distinctive ring of a keyblade being used in battle.
With no trust in Xehanort, Terra does not listen to his goading or give in to the darkness. Aqua arrives too late, only just managing to fight off the gunslinger, but not before he leaves Terra with a vicious bullet wound in his ribs. It is not fatal, but it is painful, and Aqua is too busy trying to heal it to come up with a lie when Terra asks how she knew he needed help.
In pain, with his trust in Aqua and Eraqus shattered, Terra arrives at the Keyblade Graveyard a lost and wandering soul. Still suffering from his earlier wound from battling Braig, he is nowhere near his full strength when he faces Xehanort, and Aqua is not able to get to the summit in time to save him.
Below, Vanitas falls to Eraqus, but not before he mortally wounds Ventus in an attempt to force the forging of the x blade.
When the battle is over, Aqua finds herself standing there, staring at the face of her master if only to avoid having to look at Ventus’ pale face. With her heart in tatters, she finds herself desperately wishing, hoping, that time will loop again.
Aqua puts up very little of a fight when she tracks down the possessed Terra in Radiant Garden that evening. When she falls, that never ending weightlessness as the darkness approaches is almost comforting, and she closes her eyes as the ocean rises up once more.
And then her bed is beneath her, sheets cool, and she almost breathes out a sigh in relief.
In her mind, a singular warning that is eerily familiar.
Destiny cannot be left to chance. The pieces on the board have been determined. All that matters is where you place them.
Aqua tries again.
She fails.
And again, and again, and again.
She tries every variation she can think of. In Radiant Garden she shoves her keyblade through Vanitas’ chest when he is laying on the floor, defeated, and wipes him from existence. Another time, in Neverland, she does the same again. Ventus lives, but she loses Terra.
She fails her exam twice in the hopes it unites them, but the outcome remains unchanged. She defeats Braig before he can get to Terra. In the Keyblade Graveyard, she fights Xehanort alongside him, but the risk to her only sends Terra reaching for the darkness much sooner.
Eraqus is told on only two occasions, and one time she does manage to keep them both alive, but once again, she fails.
The thirteenth time, Aqua is half hysterical but does an incredible job of hiding it. No one notices anything off about her composure until she reaches the throne room on the second day and promptly stabs Xehanort through the throat with her keyblade.
She is not sure what to expect, whether it is three weeks of nothingness until the timer resets itself, or if she has succeeded and is now due to spend the rest of her life in a dungeon. She does not expect to be bodily pulled into nothingness and left to fall for what feels like hours.
Eventually, the voice in her head appears again, and she’s not sure how a disembodied voice can sound disappointed, but this one has it down.
No.
Sometime after, Aqua can no longer remember the number of the cycles, she drags Terra and Ventus into the gardens after dinner the day before the exam and tells them everything.
The telling of it takes an hour, even though she only knows pieces of their individual stories, adventures that have not happened yet and which she hopes will never happen.
“I know I sound crazy, but please, you both have to believe me.”
Before her, Ventus looks stunned, and Terra defeated.
“How long has this been going on, Aqua?” Ventus asks, a look on his face that tells her he expects her to deliver the punchline sometime soon.
“I don’t know, it’s been so long. A year or two? Nothing I do seems to work.”
Next to her, Terra lifts his hand and slowly reaches out for her. Aqua tenses, causing him to flinch, but he presses forward and lightly places his hand over her neck. It is all too easy to see how his fingers line up perfectly with the four bruises on the left side of her neck, his thumb matching the one on her right. He yanks his hand back in horror, and the look on his face breaks her heart.
“How, I wouldn’t, could never-“ At his words she reaches out and takes his hand, holding it tightly between both of hers and shaking her head vehemently.
“No, Terra, it wasn’t you. It’s never you.”
“Do I fall to the darkness? Every time?” Aqua does not answer his question, but the answer is plain on her face. He gets to his feet, pacing in front of the bench and dragging his fingers through his hair.
“Terra, don’t you see? Whatever magic this is, I think it will be broken if I manage to save you and Ventus. I just need to figure out how.” But Aqua’s words do not seem to breaking through to him.
“But I can’t seem to resist it on my own?” His eyes flicker down to her neck. “I do that to you?”
“Xehanort does this to me.” She tries to reach out to grab his arm, but he flinches out of her way and turns to look out over the mountains.
“If I hurt you or Ven, then I’m too far gone to be saved. After everything we’ve ever been taught..” His voice quietens until it trails off, and Aqua cannot help but sympathise.
Their entire lives, Eraqus had instilled in them that light was the only way, that darkness is a path almost certain to lead to their doom. The idea that either of them could stray from the light had been enough to send them careening off in disastrous directions, and Aqua has seen it happen in almost every cycle.
Knowing he risks giving in to the darkness is something that sends Terra spinning each time, and neither of them can undo ten years of morality lessons in one day. It gives Aqua a crisis of faith, causes Terra to be lost as he fumbles to try to find the path back to light, and has given the both of them the complete inability to see the shades of grey in between.
“There has to be a way to save you. I won’t give up on you, either of you.”
“Have you ever just, disappeared?” Ventus asks, curious, an idea forming in his mind.
“I’ve locked myself, you, Terra in a room, all at once, one at a time, it hasn’t worked yet.” Aqua leans across and gives his shoulder a squeeze, which he leans into as he thinks.
“Yeah, but have we ever just got up and left? Refused to participate in Xehanort’s game?” Terra turns to look at them as Ventus speaks, and both can see the cogs turning in the younger boy’s mind.
“We can’t play his game if we remove ourselves from the board.” Terra adds, recognising the point Ventus is trying to make. Aqua shakes her head, shoulders slumped.
“No, we’ve never tried that, but I don’t know if it would work.”
“All we can do is try, right?” There’s a pleading tone to Ventus’ voice that never fails to get through to Aqua. It works, and she smiles as she reaches out to ruffle his hair.
“It’s worth a shot.”
“Great! Let’s just get up and go, we can leave now.”
Terra frowns at him.
“We can’t leave unless the master unlocks the Lanes, remember?”
“He unlocks them after the exam, tomorrow.” Aqua sounds exhausted, and frankly it breaks their hearts.
“Okay, so you guys do the exam, and then we all leave just like you said we did the first time, and then we pick a world to meet up on?” Ventus could be either panicked or eager, it’s hard to tell, but there’s a breathlessness to him as he proposes the plan.
“It could work.” Terra adds in support, wanting, hoping, to do anything to lift that weight they can see that bears her down. Her smile is soft, careful, and he can tell immediately she has no hope of it truly working.
“Yeah, you’re right. We can give it a try.”
They decide on Portorosso, if only because it seems busy enough that they can blend in, and because none of them have even studied it in any of their lessons. Eraqus knows them, knows that Terra does not like to be faced with unfamiliar situations, that Aqua is meticulous in her research and therefore unlikely to visit a place she has not studied unless she has a solid reason for it. This little world tucked away at the edge of the Lanes is not the obvious choice if one were to try and track them down by following their habits.
Of course, that all depends on if anyone even notices they have deviated. Terra and Aqua have been given permission to leave, after all, and if Aqua does not check in then the reasonable assumption is that she is still chasing Ventus.
So they arrive, send their keyblades away on arrival and refuse to reach out for their magic, find lodgings down by the ocean, and hope to ride it out.
Truthfully, it could almost be considered the most peaceful three weeks of her life. They spend their days down by the ocean, setting up camp in a cave with only one entrance and no visitors. They put their heads together to try and find a solution, should this one not work, exploring all potential avenues and trying to figure out the riddle left behind after Aqua’s third attempt.
It works to calm her mind, to pull her out of the monotony and frustration of living through the same three weeks without an end in sight, a break from the emotional trauma of repeatedly watching her friends and her master die in various different ways, each of her actions never enough to save them. Even if this does not work, which she is beginning to suspect it won’t, she has still gained treasured memories in this place.
They are limited in what they can do, unable to use their magic lest it draw the attention of Yen Sid, refusing to summon their keyblades lest Master Xehanort use them to track down Terra and Ventus. It makes something shift in their friendship, spending their evenings together doing something that for once does not revolve around the keyblade or their lives in the Land of Departure. It offers a certain amount of freedom to both Terra and Ventus, with Terra seemingly able to step out from under the shadow of his responsibilities, and Ventus able to openly depend on them in a way he cannot at home, where as the youngest he feels the need to appear more mature and capable.
Here, they are three friends on a work-trip-turned-vacation, and the difference is astounding. Terra remarks on it one afternoon as they make their way across the rocks at the bottom of the bluff. It is a short break from the days of discussing Aqua’s story with critical eyes, trying to find a find the answer. Ventus runs ahead of them, equipped with a net and an unhealthy fascination with the rock pools.
“This trip has been good for him.” Terra nods in Ventus’ direction, fond smirk on his lips. He looks a sight, trousers rolled up into a ridiculously baggy pair of shorts, hair fully tied up to keep it off his face as they stumble across the rocks. Aqua has ditched the long swishes of fabric that make up her skirt, walking along with one hand hooked in Terra’s elbow to keep herself from slipping. He is warm beneath her hands, but not uncomfortable, though he had raised his brows and looked at her as though he were challenging her when he offered his arm.
When was the last time he allowed even the brushing of their skin outside of their training sessions? She has a vivid recollection of Christmas Town three years earlier, one of their off-world training sites in a difficult environment. She remembers one evening when their training was over and they had been free to explore, his fingers brushing around the back of her neck and down the column of her throat as he tied his scarf around her neck to stop her shivering.
The boundaries had been easier to establish back then. The knowledge that the flames of attraction and desire could only lead to burns had been enough to pink their cheeks, but from that moment on it seemed to run beneath their interactions, steadfastly ignored and unacknowledged, neither of them daring to risk the sting of rejection. Both had their reasons: Terra would broker no distractions whilst training to be a keyblade master, and Aqua would never dare devote her time to anything other than study.
But it had led to a complete lack of physical closeness between them, both well aware that looking over the edge could lead to leaping right off it. Here, on the rocky shore of the riviera, it is nice to feel the comfort and the warmth of a good friend, easily offered and happily taken.
“If I had known it was this easy to keep him happy, I would have bought him a net for the mountain pools years ago.” Aqua’s smile feels lighter than it has in a while, though it still feels weighed down. She is trying so hard not to look at her two boys as though they are dead men walking, but that is a task easier said than done given all that she has been through.
“If you fix this… when you find a way to fix this, bring us back here.”
Her responding smile is sad.
“I don’t think you or Ven will want that, after everything you go through.” At her words, Terra turns to her, coming to a stop.
“I know you said it was… the things I’m going to do, I think I may just need this. We’ll be okay, if we’ve got you.” He places his hand over hers where it is still curled around his elbow, and Aqua feels her heart begin to speed up as he traces his fingers lightly over her skin.
“Terra…” She begins, feeling the weight of her feelings building up inside of her. It feels like standing at the precipice of a moment, and what could be the harm? If time loops once more, at least she can know, can discover if these years of ignoring the feelings between them have been for naught. If he does not feel the same, she can restart without any of the awkwardness and learn to push her own feelings aside. She goes to speak, but Terra adjusts his hold on her hand, threading her fingers through his.
“Have we…talked about this before?” The full weight of his gaze is on her, and she does not need to ask to know what he means. Aqua shakes her head, unable to miss the worry in his words, or the way he almost seems relieved at her negative answer.
“Never, we-“
“Then don’t, not now. The first time we have that conversation, I want us both to remember it.” It is a simple, easy request, but one that knocks the air from the her lungs and threatens to bring the sting of tears to her eyes. How is she to know when that will be, she wants to ask, when nothing she does seems to be the right solution to this mess? Nevertheless, she agrees.
“Okay.” There is little else she can say, but Terra’s small smile warms her more than the sun beating down on her ever could. It gives her a little hope.
The sound of Ventus’ shoes on the rocks draws their attention, as he approaches with something distinctly blue in his net. His eyes fall on their joined hands a half-second before Aqua yanks hers back, but his smile is knowing and delighted.
“You guys have got to see the size of these crabs!”
Her eyes connect with Terra’s over Ventus’ head, and for first time in a long time, she laughs.
In the end, they do not come up with answers, only a dozen possible ideas of how to try and fix things without any certainty on if they will work.
It is disheartening for her friends, but Aqua does not consider this a completely wasted go of it, happy enough to have been able to spend some time away from the persistent looming threat of darkness and death. How long has it been since they spent time together, the three of them, enjoying each others’ company? Perhaps for them it has not been long at all, but for her it is starting to feel like a long time.
They sit now on the little steps that lead to the inlet that forms the ocean entrance to the town, the tide so far in that the waves lap at their feet, and the tiny beach has all but disappeared into the waves. The air is warm even this early in the morning, feeling like a comforting caress as it slips in the gaps between them. Aqua sits in the centre, Terra on her left and Ventus on her right, her arms looped through theirs as they lean back against the step behind them.
It’s an uncomfortable position.
She never wants to leave.
There’s not long left, she knows. She has always fought the possessed Terra in the very early hours of the morning in Radiant Garden, barely half an hour after the sun had risen and given her light to see by. From what she can gather, that time is roughly the same here, though this world does not have its sunrise until a few hours later.
And so they wait, Ventus and Terra refusing to sleep in the vain hope that if they’re all awake and present when the time comes, perhaps it just might work. It’s a beautiful night, and the sky in this world gives all the stars a beautiful purple and pink hue, like a jagged slash across the sky. Combined with the soft lights behind them from the houses on the square, the rushing of the water in the fountain and the gentle lapping of the waves on the stone steps, it’s almost idyllic. Tears sting her eyes once more, and it takes all she has to push them down.
“I feel like we should have figured this out by now.” Ventus breaks the comforting silence that has descended on them, and he sounds dejected. Aqua gives his hand a squeeze, unsure on what to say.
“You’ve only known about this for three weeks. I’ve been trying to figure it out for longer than that, and I’m no closer to the answer than you are.” She tries not to let herself sound like a defeatist, but there is little she can do. Aqua wonders if she knew, when Ventus proposed this idea in the gardens, that it would never work. Beside her she can feel Terra shift as he leans over slightly, angling towards them so he can look at them.
“I think we’re missing the obvious.” He says, contemplative, and Ventus frowns.
“Which is?”
“I don’t know, I’m not good with this sort of thing. But that phrase you said you were told, it sounds like a riddle.”
Aqua smiles across at him, because she knows he has always been the mathematical one of them all, able to plot the distances between worlds and to narrow down travel times to within minutes, but he is also too literal for his own good. He has little patience for riddles and double-meanings.
“All that matters is where you place them. But what does that mean?” Ventus sounds as frustrated as she used to feel the first few go-arounds after she had first heard those words. “What are the pieces?”
“Must be us.” Terra comments off-handedly, eyes on the ocean as he sits up properly to match Ventus. Aqua is still reclined between them, the step digging into her shoulder blades, but she now holds their hands instead.
“I tried that already, making sure you or Ven weren’t there, keeping you both behind, saving the Master and letting him come with us. It never works. I’ve killed Vanitas, Master Xehanort, that guard from Radiant Garden.”
Ventus turns to her, blue eyes blinking slowly.
“But if it’s a riddle…who died, the first time?”
“Just the Master.” It’s a testament to how many times she’s done this that she can say it so easily, as though she hadn’t spent several successive goes of it trying to make sure he survived, to pull Terra back from the darkness where she could not.
“I think everyone who was there the first time can be the only ones there.” Ventus’ face is scrunched up as he thinks, and the furrow to his brow that was once so unfamiliar no longer looks out of place. “Think about it, the pieces have been determined. You can’t change who is there.”
“No.” Aqua shakes her head. “That can’t be the solution. Because that means-“ She cuts herself off, heart hammering in her chest. “No.”
“Because it means I will give in to the darkness, and murder our Master.” Terra’s voice is quiet, but whilst Aqua only shakes her head, Ventus looks grim.
“No. You were protecting Ven, every time. You’re a good person, I can’t let you give in to the darkness.”
Terra’s hand tightens around her own, and though he has that defeated look in his eyes again, he looks certain. “I don’t think you have a choice.”
“No!” Aqua tries to pull her hand back but he holds firm. “The darkness is bad, and you’re good. I know you are.”
Terra looks like he wants to argue it further, but she pulls them both in to her in an awkwardly-angled hug, her grip on them almost painful.
“I won’t let one mistake define you.” Her voice is a whisper, hesitant as though she daren’t even say it aloud.
“It doesn’t have to define me, Aqua.” And she wants to believe that, she truly does, but it goes against everything she has ever known, has ever been told. Perhaps the fault lies with Eraqus and his rigid sense of morality, or perhaps it lies with her, standing so firmly in the worlds of black and white that the shades in between have become invisible to her.
They speak no more on it, though it clearly sits on her mind as they lean back onto the steps and Aqua stares at the stars. They take her hands again, and the tightness of their holds is grounding, no matter how warm and sweaty their grip in the warmth of the early morning. Ventus occasionally yawns, but his grip never slackens, and she can see in the corner of her eye that Terra has turned his head so he can see them both.
Every heartbeat feels like the ominous ticking of a clock.
“I love you both.” Aqua closes her eyes, blocking out the fading purples of the sky as the night begins its departure. “So much. I will do everything I can to save you.” She adds, feeling the urge to say it. And she means it, with every fibre of her being.
They both tighten their grip to the point that it is painful, and they don’t need to repeat her words back to her, would both probably die of embarrassment due to each other’s presence if they did, but she doesn’t need to hear them to know.
Aqua tightens her grip, struggling to breathe as the panic kicks in, the fear of failing and losing them, and the clock ticks down, down, down.
Her hands hold nothing but air.
The steps disappear beneath her, and Aqua falls.