V of V. Minnie Mouse

He was a father to her, in all things. A father, a dreamer, a doer.

He believed in doors and windows and potential. He believed in the future.

Minnie finally understands that future, and it's more bitter and somber than anything else she knows. Walt's talk of future things was never anything but wonderful, and still, eyeing the name engraved across his headstone, it is an unfair thing to make sense of… even knowing what she knows, having lost what she has forever lost. It seems silly that he should have to go.

Silly enough to send her into Kairi's arms, tears crawling down each cheek. Silly enough to stop her heart, to beat it senseless and raw with its horrible truth, even after Daisy has held her and gone to mourn her own loss.

It all comes back to that foolish thing her father so loved: the future. A foolish, fantastic idea – a time, he promised, of savor and promise and brilliance. A place he promised her, set aside for her; a place he will never know, but a place he waited for and dreamed of. What a strange idea. But it's still so breathtakingly beautiful, and so very, very sad. Minnie's breath hitches at the contradiction of it all, at both the possibility and the hurting.

She releases Kairi, and considers the girl for a moment.

Minnie doesn't like the itchy fabric of the girl's black dress, but her perfume, something floral, is pleasant and comforting. And then realizes everything all over again, like for a moment the world had gone quiet and none of this sorry business had come to pass.

She remembers every moment as sharply and intensely as before. It winds her, but she squares her shoulders and lifts her chin like a proper queen, despite the tears.

Kairi looks to Minnie. "I'm so sorry."

Minnie believes her, but remains quiet, regarding the girl with a sideways glance.

Someday, somewhere in the future, someone will be sorry for Kairi. For Sora, for Riku, for so many of their new friends. Minnie can't help but know that they'll be gone someday in the future. In that beautiful, promising place, they will simply stop existing. These will not be the last of her tears.

Why must they all leave? Why did she have to love such a wonderful, and such a finite, father? Such strong, momentary friends?

Minnie is so very tired, swallowed up with the weight and wonder of the future.

"I'm sorry," Kairi says again, a wobble in her voice.

"Don't be," Minnie says, watching Riku and Mickey across the lawn.

Mickey holds onto Riku's shoulder as he, the king to an entire realm of light, cries like the sun will never rise another day.

Kairi's face registers surprise, but she listens, then and later when there are no words left to say.

"He wouldn't have wanted that," Minnie says and really believes it, too. "And to be sorry he died is to be sorry for the future. To be sorry that he lived at all."

She thinks of her father, so intelligent and so good. Finite, yet infinite.