A few hours later, Riku awoke to the sound of arguing coming all the way from the kitchen. Riku yawned, smoothed out his hair a little bit, got out of bed, and walked out of the room. Riku walked all the way downstairs, very slowly, and went to the kitchen. There, he found Hurky, Ryo, and Alexa standing in the kitchen, arguing with each other.

"You take it off the crock pot with oven mitts!" Alexa said to Hurky.

"Well, we think you should use pot holders!" Hurky said, crossing her arms.

"But Hurky, with the pot holders, you have a greater chance of burning yourself with-" Alexa protested until Riku cleared his throat.

All the girls turned to the doorway and saw Riku standing there. Ryo's mouth turned into a smile as she ran to Riku and threw her arms around him.

"RIKU!!" she screamed happily. "YOU'RE HOME!"

"Mup, mi mam!" Riku said through Ryo's muffled hug. He was saying, "Yup, I am!"

Hurky and Alexa, now with huge grins across their faces, all threw their arms around Riku. They were holding on for a good thirty seconds until Alexa said, "Uh, you guys? I think Riku needs some air!"

"Oh!" Ryo said, realizing she was suffocating Riku. "Sorry!"

They all let go and Hurky ushered Riku to the dining room, where she made him sit down.

"What's this all about?" he asked.

"We made you some soup, silly!" Ryo said. "Alexa made you some soup before you went into the hospital, but you didn't eat it and your mom had to throw it out. So, now that you're back, we made you some fresh soup and we want you to eat it!"

Riku smiled. "You guys didn't have to do that," he said. "Really!"

"But we wanted to!" said Hurky, setting down steaming bowls of the chicken soup on the table while Ryo put down some silverware and some napkins, and Alexa poured some lemonade into glasses. "Now sit down, eat, and shut up!"

Ryo smacked Hurky on the arm. Alexa put the glasses of lemonade on the table and then sat down. "Come on, guys, sit down!" she said to Hurky and Ryo.

The two each pulled a chair and sat down. Riku picked up a spoon and began to dig in. The soup tasted very good. He forgot how good Alexa's soup tasted. He once tried Hurky's older sister's soup when she came over to Hurky's house and made chicken noodle soup. She put so much pepper and parsley in it that it nearly burned his throat. There was a lot of water consumed that day. Everyone was trying to be nice and not say anything to Teri, but Hurky flat out told her sister the soup sucked. She just ate some more, smiled, and said, "What can I say? I'm addicted to pepper."

"This soup is WAY better than my sister's!" Hurky joked, wiping her mouth with a napkin.

"Anything is better than your sister's cooking!" Ryo joked, sipping on some of the liquid on her spoon. "I'll bet a moogle could cook better than her!"

"You know, it's not nice to make fun of someone who was nice enough to cook for us," Riku said quietly.

Hurky turned to Riku and gave him a WTF look. Riku would normally NEVER say something like that. He encourages making fun of other people and what they do.

"I know what you guys are thinking," Riku said, picking up his lemonade glass. "I normally make insults, but I think being sick made me think differently about things." Then, he took a sip from the glass.

Ryo nodded. Maybe this has changed Riku for better or for worse? Ryo didn't like it when Riku made a snide remark at someone and she wished he could get better at addressing people, but then she realized that she kind of missed it. Riku sometimes got his comedy from others' misfortune and making fools out of them.

"I think the fever fried your brain," said a voice identical to Riku's.

Everyone turned around to find Rep, standing in the doorway to the dining room. He walked in and sat down next to his brother.

"I've heard that fevers can mess up people's minds," Rep said. "I'm still doing some research on that. I think mainly it happens to young children."

Everyone was silent. The only sounds that were being made were the clinking of silverware against the porcelain bowls. Riku just pulled out a chair. "You wanna sit with us?" he asked.

Rep smiled. "Okay!" he said. He sat in the chair and pushed himself in.

Meanwhile, Sora and Kairi went over to the secret place, to meet someone. This mystery woman called both of them up and told them to meet her at the secret place. No one knew what was going on.

"Did she say who she was?" Kairi asked as she and Sora trudged through the sand.

Sora shook his head. "She asked us to come over to the secret place at five o'clock." he replied. "She wanted to tell us a few things."

Kairi snorted. "A few things?" she asked. "Anything specific?"

"No. She said to come together to the secret place." Sora replied. "How did she know about the secret place?"

Kairi shrugged and didn't say anything. They didn't say anything else until they got to the secret place. Sora crawled in, following Kairi. There, they found a woman wearing a long, white cloak. She was staring at the picture on the wall of Sora and Kairi that they had drawn, giving each other paopu fruits.

"Um, excuse me?" Kairi muttered.

The woman turned around and bowed her head respectively. "Sora, Kairi," she said.

"How do you know our names?" Sora demanded, clenching a fist.

"I know a lot of things." the woman said. "My name is Marxene Philips. My daughter is Larxene. She's number XII of the Organization XIII."

"We know who your daughter is!" Kairi interrupted, summoning her keyblade. Sora followed suit.

"Please," Marxene said, holding up her hands, showing she had no weapons. "Hear me out. I'm not against you. I want to tell you something about your friend Riku and his brother, Rep."

"Well, we know you're that old hag who messed them up!" Sora said, causing his keyblade to go away. Riku had told them about the evil potion he and Rep drank years ago.

"That's the thing I wanted to talk to you about." Marxene explained. "I did some research on that potion. I learned that it wears off. Even if Rep had taken a full dose, the evil it causes will fade. Rep is losing his evil."

"What about the smarts?" Kairi asked.

"That stays." Marxene continued. "Riku himself is smart, considering the fact that he only drank less than half. He was only evil for a short time a few years ago. That had faded, and now the evil in Rep is going away."

"Prove it!" Sora said. He didn't know whether to trust this woman. For all he knew, she could have been making things up. After all, her daughter was a member of the Organization XIII.

"Near the end of Riku's time in the hospital, Rep was starting to worry about his brother." Marxene said. "He started doing odd jobs for extra money. He wants to surprise Riku with a video game. Something to do with a guitar. Recently, he has come to the realization of what he did."

Sora shrugged. He didn't know what else to say other than, "Well, Kairi and I have to go. We want to go see Riku,"

Marxene nodded. "I just wanted to get this information to you," she continued. She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "I feel terrible for what I did years ago. I don't know what came over me."

Sora and Kairi didn't say anything. They crawled out of the secret place and never looked back.