vatheon | (no subject)

Roxas waited in the plaza with Xion, trying to think things over. If he had met her again before his experiences in the fake Twilight Town, he wasn't sure that he would have been as accepting. But having forgotten Axel, his best friend, it made it all a lot more believable. He knew he still had gaps in his memory--true, he hadn't thought any of them were this big, but it wasn't as big of a shock.

He just hoped Axel wouldn't freak out about it too much.

Axel took his time making it over to the plaza despite being in a Dark Corridor. He just needed a couple seconds more to process just what was going on exactly. Well, this person was wearing an Organization coat, she knew both Axel and Roxas, but they didn't know her from what he'd gathered from both of their conversations. For Axel that was reason to raise a red flag. Had their memories been corrupted? Or was this even a real memory at all?

A minute later there was the familiar sound of Darkness ripping through the air in front of the two and soon Axel stepped out, shutting the Corridor behind him with a simple wave of his hand afterward.

Arms crossed, he tilted his head at the two, switching glances between them. Well?

Xion can't help but let herself smile when she first sees him, considering the nature of their last encounter-- from her perspective, kanyway. The smile is still obviously tempered by nervousness. She's trying to remember when it became so difficult for her to just talk to her friends.

She takes a step toward him to steel herself.

"I guess I'll begin like I did with Roxas. Where do you want to me to start from?"

Roxas didn't say anything just yet. It was Axel's turn to hear everything, although as what he'd heard sunk in more, he was realizing he was still missing something important--when they'd forgotten her. How long had she been their friend? And why had she decided to leave?

But they'd get to that, eventually. Axel would want to know, too. For now he just looked back at Axel and made a slight, placating gesture, silently asking him to hear her out.

Axel caught that gesture from Roxas shortly after Xion spoke up and after considering it he glanced back to her once more. Where would be the best place to start? He wanted to ask what she was, who she was, but more importantly--

"Timeline. Which one are you from?" If she was really from their World, then that question might have explained a few of his questions all at once.

Her expression shifts to one one of confusion. She wasn't sure what had happened after she was gone to prompt that kind of question, but she'd so her best.

"I didn't know there was even more than one to pick from. I have an idea of when, at least."

Xion doesn't see that being a very reassuring answer, but she's not sure what she could say that would be.

"Not everybody comes here from the same time," Roxas explained. "It- seems like you'd be in our past, though."

She definitely had to be, with the way she'd been talking about disappearing, and her not knowing he'd gone back to Sora. But he didn't like saying it.

Axel nodded towards Roxas' explanation. "What's your idea?"

"I know I'd have to be from your pasts. The two of you would remember me otherwise."

She looks to Roxas still, however, interested in what he might have to say about it.

Roxas shook his head, not sure why she was looking to him. "I just- figure we were all still with the Organization then. But besides that..." Beyond that, he didn't know. He still couldn't remember anything about knowing this girl.

Their pasts. Which part, though? Axel shut his eyes and tried to think back to the Organization, namely before Roxas' departure, but he couldn't come up with anything. He couldn't remember her, he couldn't see her anywhere, and that was both frustrating and concerning.

He opened his eyes again to look at Xion. "What happened before you came here?"

Xion looks away for a moment. She isn't exactly sure how to simplify one of the hardest things she's ever had to do, but she promised herself she'd be honest. With that in mind, she looks back to Axel.

"I lost a fight. It was one I intended to lose and it ended with me... I don't want to say dying since it was closer to what returning to your Other would be like, I suppose."

Roxas's expression tightened. Returning to your Other... Maybe it wasn't the same thing as dying, but the result was the same; it meant the end of an existence.

"You're here now. Not gone." All of them were.

Axel considered her words very carefully. Had her fading away had some effect on his and Roxas' memories? He wondered if anyone else in the Organization knew her, or anyone else from their World for that matter. Many things ran through his mind. What name would hers rearrange to? Had he met her Other before? Did she hold any resemblance to someone he might have seen? ...Why would she want to lose a fight to be forgotten?

Maybe he was just thinking too much. But that was what happened when Axel dealt with displaced memories. As a Nobody, he needed memories to function, and forgetting just wasn't an option.

He tilted his head at her towards Roxas' words, wondering how she would have reacted. Then, quieter, "You said that you were friends with Roxas." Yes, he eavesdropped on the conversation between you two.

"And you, too."

Xion feels like it's the only time she's been able to look him in the eye since this little meeting began. The friendship between the three of them was really the only thing she missed, and she feels much more confident in her answers to those than ones about her existence. She knows this is only a lead in to more questions, however, and that's okay with her.

Roxas' statement brings the briefest of scowls to her face. She understands the underlying sentiment, but it just reminds her that she has plenty of her own quests about why she's here. She doesn't see any answers in sight, and it bothers her.

He didn't expect her to react quite that way; he'd meant it to be reassuring. True, he didn't know why any of them were here, but he was glad they were. Even if he didn't remember Xion, but she'd been their friend. Both of theirs.

He glanced at Axel. Roxas had been in this position before, of forgetting a friend, but he didn't think Axel had. He was glad the redhead was taking it calmly, considering everything, but all the same he wasn't really sure what his friend was thinking. Did he believe it yet? Maybe Roxas didn't remember anything, but there was still a something, maybe a feeling of loss, that made him believe Xion wasn't lying to them.

He suspected that with the way she was open and at least somewhat comfortable with speaking with him. This of course didn't mean that Axel necessarily believed her. It was just in his nature to question all the time, especially when it came to members of the Organization, past or present. He'd dealt with all the traitors, tried his best to weave his way through the ranks without so much as a scratch, only in the end to be targeted and eliminated.

Who was to say that Xion wasn't actually targeting himself or worse, Roxas? After all, what would the Organization really need with another member? Xemnas had been set once Roxas joined the ranks. But her appearance, that resemblance to a girl he had known very well before--

His eyes narrowed a bit in speculation. "So why would you purposely disappear, both from the World and our memories, if we were really friends?"

"I had to go away because it was the right thing to do. I hated that everyone would forget, but there was nothing I could do about that. The way it was explained to me was that because I'm just a replica based on Sora's memories, when I disappeared and he got those memories back there wasn't anything of me left to save. Not even a memory."

She remembers Naminè's explanations thoroughly. Aside from what she'd discovered digging around in the Organization's computers It was really all she knew about why no one knew who she was anymore. Xion wants to say that it wouldn't have changed her decision; that it wasn't right to keep Sora asleep just because she wanted a few more days, but the look Axel is giving her kills the words.

For Roxas, this was hitting too close to home now, too close to things he'd experienced that still made him angry. He liked Sora, he knew the guy was hero material, but did that make him special enough that anyone had to disappear for his sake? Roxas didn't think so.

"That's stupid," he said, looking away. "No one should have to choose that."

It didn't even make sense. Obviously she was more than just Sora's memories.

...Axel had to process quite a bit of information from what Xion had said. Replica, Sora's memories, disappeared--What did that all amount to? And when? How? In his past Axel had dealt with quite a few replicas from Vexen's hand, and had dealt one-on-one with Riku's for the short while it was alive, fighting with its existence, and from that experience alone he'd been left disturbed, though he wouldn't have called it that at the time. Because he was a Nobody, because he had been shallow and still so tied to the belief that he was empty, he hadn't thought much about using that puppet at his disposal, along with everyone else in the barren white halls of that castle.

...Had she been the same way? Had Axel used her just as he had with the Riku replica? And if they were friends--if they were friends then did that mean that he and Roxas had to see her go through all of that? How had the Organization used them?

Before he realized it, there were memories of anger flowing in his body from his chest outward, making him tighten his fingers on his arms as he kept them crossed over his chest. But as much as he might have liked to ask more questions, Axel only knew that they would lead him down a dark road. More questions would arise and less and less answers at that. And the main point that he had to realize here, what they all needed to realize, was simple.

"The past," he muttered as he turned his back to the two of them. "None of that will matter here now."

She watches their reactions carefully. Roxas has become considerably less and less thirilled each time she brings up her own fate, and she's come to the conclusion that when he rejoined with Sora it wasn't the most plesant experience for him. She refuses to pry, however. At one point in time he would have told her on his own, but they're starting from scratch now. She doesn't want to overstep her bounds.

Axel had been given a large chunk of onformation to process, she knew. She's well aware that the Replica program originated from Castle Oblivion's labs. She's curious as to what he might know as he wasn't ever forthcoming with that information Even before, anyway. She noitices when he tenses, and she know better than to think he'd believe her so quickly, but she hopes that she's cleared herself of some suspicion, at least.

His last statement though leves her smiling despite everything. A second chance. That is what she would have to make this. She looks between them both, thinking of what memories they've lost and what could have happened to them in the time between her disappearance and now. All of them had stories to tell, and they all now had the opportunity to make new memories together.

"Thank you. Both of you."

Roxas blinked at Axel's remark and watched his back for a moment. For Nobodies--and for Xion, too--memories were everything. He'd come to feel that even the worst of them were something to cling to. As much as he wished he hadn't made the mistakes he had, he'd never wish to forget about any of them.

But, Axel had a point. These memories were already lost, and so were the things they had led to. They couldn't remember Xion being their friend, but neither had she really disappeared; she was here. Dwelling on whatever had happened before wouldn't change that now. They just had to start over. Maybe, eventually, they'd start to remember, as Roxas's other memories had returned, or maybe they wouldn't.

He still felt bad for forgetting her, but if they'd been friends before then they could be again. They would be again. Maybe he couldn't hold on to the memories, but he could hold on to that.

At Xion's thank you, he awkwardly ran a hand through his hair, not sure how to respond. "It's nothing."

Axel didn't like forgetting and he didn't like that he might not get those memories back, but he didn't particularly like dwelling on those thoughts either. What good would that ever do? How could he ever know if she's telling the truth or not, anyway? He could only wait and hope for the best between the three of them.

He hadn't expected Xion's response and with a small twitch he fell silent, unsure and awkward.

...Maybe they had a chance, if they really were friends before.

So he nodded and then glanced over his shoulder at the two of them, his expression calmer than it had been moments before. "I haven't heard everything from you," he said to Xion, though his tone was less stern than it had been, "but that can wait for now. ...It's a lot to process, after all, you know?" He looked over to Roxas then with something of a smirk on his lips.

"Man. What're you getting all flustered about?"

She can see that neither of them know what to do with her thanks, but it's okay. She may be starting from scratch with the two of them but she's confident they can rebuild. Nothing would be the same, she knew, but this was already more than she could've ever asked for.

She looks to Axel when he addresses her and says, "I know. A lot happened in that year." She pauses, briefly thinking over everything she had yet to tell them, "It's a lot of information and I don't have any way to prove it. All I could do is hope you'd both be willing to listen."

She switches her focus to Roxas, "That's not nothing. At least, not to me."

Roxas shot Axel a look back. "I'm not flustered." It just didn't seem quite right, being thanked by someone he'd forgotten. Uncomfortable wasn't the same as flustered.

He looked to Xion. How much more was there that she had to tell them? he wondered. Surely they'd gotten all the important things out of the way.

"Well, we've got time," he said. At least, he hoped they had time. Supposedly any one of them could be gone from this place any day, but... he wanted to think they were here to stay.

Axel supposed that he could wait a little while before he would hear the rest of Xion's story. Maybe bits and pieces here and there so that he wouldn't get an overload of information at one time, too.

So he looked between the two of them again, arms once again crossed, before he glanced up at the "sky."

"So, what happens now?" Between the three of them, that was.

She looks up at the bubble with him, staring at no point in particular. Most of what she had left to say was deltail. Granted, they were some rather important details but it was nothing that couldn't wait. Ehat she'd said so far would need time to sink in before any of it would be believable.

"We could start again. If you want."

She isn't going to hold out for some miracle that brings their memory back, but they were friends once and she knows they can be again, if they tried.

Roxas looked from his best friend to the friend he had forgotten. Well, the best way to start again would be...

"There're places to get ice cream around here," he said.

It was, after all, a staple of friendship, and if by some fluke they had never introduced her to it before, that would have to be remedied.

Axel figured that starting again would be the best thing, that way he would get to know more about her before he could really tell if she was the real deal or not. He might not have been the most enthusiastic about the idea from what it seemed like, but he'd follow through with it, because it was an option; because his memories still depended on it.

Selfish, yes, and hypocritical to what he'd said earlier, but the two of them didn't really have to know about that.

He chuckled towards Roxas' response. Typical. That was all he'd ever known of friendship back when they were still in the Organization. "Yeah, but is there the right kind?" And both of them should have known what that kind was.

"I think I'd be pretty disappointed if they didn't have any sea salt ice-cream here."

The tone of her voice seems lighter, now. Not just because the conversation has moved into easy territory, but because things had been so complicated before her arrival. She won't make the assumption that things are going to be incredibly simple from here on out, because they aren't, but the freeing feeling that comes with this honesty makes her feel much better about their current situation. Memory loss and all.

Roxas raised both eyebrows at Axel. "You've been here for months and you've never bothered to check it out?" How lax of him. "They have sea-salt."

It would be pretty sad if a city under the ocean didn't have sea-salt ice cream.

His expression had relaxed into a small smile. Sure, by now he knew there was a lot more to friendship than ice cream, but it was still a familiar and comforting... tradition, he guessed was the word. They could probably use something like that after all this confusion Xion had thrown at them. And it seemed like it was familiar to her, too.

At least they knew their stuff. Axel taught you both well. Or brainwashed you. Either way, you have ice cream on the brain!

He scoffed. "I just haven't had the craving for one since I've been here," he said. An odd statement coming from him, but--It never would have tasted the same if he ate one alone anyway, right? After a beat he turned back to Xion.

"...Are you up for that?" Ice cream, that was, and maybe on a high place.

Xion cannot get enough of the familiarity now that they're just talking about ice-cream. For the longest time all she wanted was to always be able to spend the end of they day with them, but those last few days made it seem almost impossible.

And getting that chance again may just make all this 'kidnapped mid-death by a giant coral' business worth it.

"I'd love that!"

"Well, c'mon then," he said, turning to lead the way to the ice cream stand in question.

To be honest, he hadn't had any yet himself either. He had scoped the place out, and considered it, but it was true that it didn't taste as good when you ate it alone, somehow.