After Unlocked, a sokeefe Fanfiction.

Secrets

He hadn't been himself for weeks, a month to be exact. And if you wanted to get technical it was one month, three hours and forteysix seconds, scratch that. Fifty seconds. Now fifty one... fifty two...

Wow Keefe, he thought to himself, scorning his thoughts. You're really at the point where you're counting the thousands of minutes and hundred of hours since you... since Foster...

"I'm sorry Keefe. I don't feel the same way."

The words echoed in his mind seeming almost unreal. But he supposed that was just the shock of it all, because somewhere, deep inside. He'd believed... he'd hoped... that she might have felt the same. Cause some tiny part of him believed that maybe, just maybe she might think of him as more than a friend.

It was a stupid hope.

As it always was.

We should take a break from each other.

He still remembered her tone, how she'd looked away as if she couldn't stand his sadness, his eyes that held back tears.

"Get up."

It took him a moment to realize whose voice that was.

"Kye?" He turned his head too look over at the impatient toddler with a startling look of fury in her eyes.

"Get up!" This time it was a shout, albeit a squeaky one. But this time she was tugging his arms and pulling his hair.

"Fine fine," He said and sat up from his bed. Blinking away drowsiness as Kye frowned at him, Ro watching from the door.

"Why haven't you come too see me in a week?"

Why?

Good question.

It was probably the fact that whenever he came to Sophie's house there was a noticeable silence, a gaping emptiness.

Because Sophie never came out of her room.

Ever.

At least not while he was around.

The first time he'd come to visit Kye he thought that maybe she might come say hi, or pass him in the hallway or... anything really.

But it was like she couldn't even stand the thought of being around him, because he never saw a glance or heard a word from her.

During his second visit he thought about knocking on her door, saying an awkward hello... but he'd been too afraid.

Cause what if she told him to leave.

After his third visit he did go upstairs, Edaline had glanced at him worriedly. As if she knew something about it, all of it maybe. But when he'd looked inside her room Sophie wasn't even there. His mind had compressed internally, sure that something had happened to her.

But maybe she was just with Fitz.

Perhaps he'd been wrong this whole time.

Maybe Fitz was the right person for Fos- for Sophie.

"Keefe! Snap out of your stupid face!" Kyes shrill voice ended his anxious thoughts.

"My face isn't stupid thank-you very much." Keefe said, offering a weak smile.

"It is when there's a frown on it when there shouldn't be." Kye said and blew out a long sigh.

He was quiet for a minute, not sure what he could say.

"So why haven't you visited me?"

"Because Sophie doesn't want me there." He said and Kyes face twisted in an indescribable way. She opened her mouth as if too protest but than closed it when she looked at him.

"What?" Keefe asked, she was acting a little off.

"Nothing." Kye mumbled, pursing her lips and shaking her head, a perplexing and indecisive look in her eyes.

"Okay. Something is up with you." Keefe said and Kye shook her head really fast.

"No! I mean yes. I mean... can I have some mallowmelt?" Kye said in protesting and he laughed at her squirminess that he'd never seen before.

"I'm not supposed to tell you." Kye said, an apology written in her eyes as Keefe's eyes narrowed.

What was she not supposed to tell him? And who had asked her not too...

"That's okay." He said and pulled her in for a hug and she returned it with a light squeeze. After the hug he stood up and stretched as Kye wandered around his room till she stood in front of the stuffed moonlark Elwin had handed him when he...

Huh.

When had he gotten that?

It wasn't when he lived at Splendor Plains, the only time he'd seen that was when Ro made the joke. So how had it made its way there? Almost like it had appeared on its own.

All by itself.

"The moonlark is because of Foster right?" Kye asked, voicing his own thoughts.

Elwin would've given it too him.

Maybe Kye had told him she was keeping the gulon, so it made sense for him to give Keefe the moonlark. So why didn't he remember it?

"I don't know. But wait, who told you Foster was the moonlark?" Keefe asked, searching his mind for memories of telling her story's that it may have come up.

"Foster did. She told me how she missed you while you were gone, how you make up silly nicknames for her, how she told you that she lo..." Kye paused again and Keefe stared at her waiting for her too go on.

"Kye?" He prodded her and she stared at him for an intense second.

"She um." Kye bit her lip and took a deep breath.

Keefe stared at her waiting and wondering what could make his crazy little sister so quiet.

"She loves you."