after unlocked: a sokeefe fanfic

Chapter 4-Keefe

It was dark when he heard her voice. The moon hid behind the thick clouds, and the only light visible were the tiny lights threaded through the wood of the treehouse.

"I saw you today."

Keefe's eyes flicked open, his brain still fuddled from sleep.

That voice. Who was that voice? Keefe knew that voice. Somehow, somewhere. He searched his brain, looking for any memory of it.

"I looked out my window. And there you were. You were sitting under the Panakes tree."

That word hit his consciousness like knives. Panakes. Unbidden, memories flashed across his mind.

A gnome, with a long green plaited braid. A tree covered in sweet-smelling flowers. Brown eyes flecked with gold.

"And then you looked up at me. And you smiled. You smiled so wide."

"And somehow, I could hear you, and you said, 'Everything's going to be okay, Foster.'"

Keefe almost groaned in the pain of the images flashing through his mind.

Sophie Foster.

Those brown eyes.

"I could never hate you."

"I'm hardly mysterious."

"Probably because I'm wondering if I should strangle you or beat you with a shoe!"

"How can you join them after everything they've done?"

"Of course, I trust you,"

"You have a lot of people who care about you, Keefe."

"How many times do I have to tell you-I will never hate you!"

"Uh, except I wasn't a baby alicorn—and I'd be very careful with the next joke you make, Smirking Boy, because if it has the words 'horse girl' in it, I'm not giving you your present."

"I'll be with you the whole time. I won't let anything bad happen to you."

"So, when this goes down, I'll be right here with you. And I'm not going to let you lose YOU. Trust the Telepath. My other abilities may let me down sometimes, but this one always comes through."

"Trust the Telepath,"

"Embrace the change, Keefe. I won't let you lose yourself."

"I ran down the stairs to see you. To touch you, to know that you were back. Here with me." It took Keefe a second to realize that she was transmitting to him.

"But you were gone. You had disappeared, and I cried. Because your eyes won't leave my brain. That shade of blue, it just can't calm me."

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"What I would give just to see your eyes. To see you smile. Really smile. Not just your smirk. Your genuinely happy smile that you gave me when I gave you the E.L. Fudges. Just to see you smiling at some stupid joke. At me, tripping over my own feet.

"Please, Keefe. Please just come back."

His stomach clenched as the anguish drifted through his mind. His breathing grew rapid. Labored.

Don't give in.

Don't.

Give.

In.