Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of the characters/laces that appear in the Kingdom Hearts universe. I will one day soon though. I already have an amazing plot to gain the rights to the entire series, just need to run to the hardware shop and pick up some super glue, a roll of heavy-duty tape and a hacksaw!

Authors Note: I had the Zexion made the Winnie the Pooh book idea a while back, and this originally started as a Demyx POV fic. It kind of mutated at some point in my brain and became this. It's taken me a while to actually get around to writing it but I needed something to take the edge off of writing the second chapter of White Blood so voila! Many, many thanks go to my amazing beta-san Smooshy because she did a lot of beta work for this fic (especially considering how much I kept changing things). Hope you all enjoy!

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

e.e. cummings

They call me Zexion. They say I have no heart. I have a heart. I am not Zexion. I am Ienzo.

The halls of The Castle That Never Was are empty; the dusks have been vanquished and the other members of the Organisation have been vanquished and the halls are quiet. It is the first time in memory I can remember it being this way. I used to hate the noise and the activity, used to wish it would all go away.

I wish it were back now. The silence unsettles me.

Rooms of the castle stand as though their occupants have only just departed, and were it not for the thin layer of dust that coats everything I would wonder if I were really the only one here despite knowing already what happened; Sora came with his keyblade and they fell by his hand one by one. I doubt I would have fared better against the keyblade master though. My powers let me trick him into thinking I was dead, but Axel was nothing like Sora.

Demyx's room is untidy as ever. Things are scattered around haphazardly and it is hard to walk. I always threatened never to come back unless he tidied, but he never did and I always did anyway.

We were so different. He was impulsive and untidy and he never thought things through. He never stuck with a decision for any length of time and he was loud. I am quiet and collected, I plan ahead and no matter the situation I pride myself on always acting accordingly. The difference wasn't a barrier though. I think it kept our friendship alive.

I don't know how I notice it among the clutter, but for some reason it catches my eye: Demyx's diary lying on the floor. It is open and lying face down atop an empty bottle and one of the pages is bent, as though it had been thrown there, which makes no sense. I gave Demyx the diary and, though it surprised me, he loved it. Whenever I saw him in the halls of the castle he would be carrying it.

The pages are crumpled, a sign of wear. I don't intend to read it; these thoughts belong to Demyx and alive or dead I would never break his confidence as he never broke mine. I see the pages though as I go to put it down. They are black.

The writing has been blacked out, scribbled out heavily; in places the pages have torn from the pressure put on it and only small collections of letters are visible. Every page I flip through is destroyed, Demyx's words lost beneath the darkness. I am more than halfway through the book before I find a page intact. Beneath the date it only has four words.

Today I became Demyx.

But the date doesn't match. Demyx was named so by the Superior long before, almost two years in fact. He joined the Organization long before this, and I don't understand. That is the last entry, the book is empty thereafter but for the last page. Tucked carefully into the very back of the diary is a folded sheet of paper that makes me pause.

The paper is mine. I made it. I don't need to take it out to know what it is because it's a part of me. I discovered my abilities when I was young, long before I became Zexion, back when I was Ienzo. I've always been able to travel in and out of books, to take others with me. That was the first book I ever created; it was nothing like the Lexicon. I was a child and I was carefree and the book was a work of pure fantasy; Tales of the Hundred Acre Wood filled with animals that talk and a bouncing Tigger.

It takes me a while to enter the page. It's harder to enter a single page than an entire book. I'm standing in a clearing. It's sunny and it smells fresh and the grass is greener than anything I've laid eyes on in an age. Only a sign and a tree stand in the clearing that will forever be empty now; without the rest of the book the characters can never come here again. They'll forget its existence before long. They'll have forgotten me by now.

I walk past the sign, smiling a bit at the messy backwards letters that spell out "Ienzo's Reading Tree". It's been a while since I was last here; I had access to the book for a while after becoming Zexion, when it was whole and I was not. I spent so long in the clearing in both my lives it almost feels like coming home.

The tree is practically as I remember it; there is a patch in the grass that looks worn so the dirt is almost showing through where I used to sit and read. The tree casts a perfect shadow on the ground, the shade just wrapping around my spot so the sun won't blind me. I stand there to read the writing on my tree that I carved there myself.

They call me Zexion. They say I have no heart. I have a heart. I am not Zexion. I am Ienzo. In here I am Ienzo. In here I have a heart. I created this world with my heart, and it holds it.

Underneath my flowing, perfect script there is more writing not of my hand. It is rough and untidy and it runs at a slope. The letters are hard to distinguish, as if cut into the wood with a rock.

I was Myde. They said I have no heart and called me Demyx. I did have a heart. He was my heart. Today my heart died. I am Demyx.

I think I see him now, the shadow of my Demyx as he gouges the letters out in the tree, tears running down his face all the while. Whether it is an imprint left within the page or an illusion brought forth by my subconscious I do not know, but I watch him and it hurts and I cry. His screams of frustration do not meet my ears as he hammers hard to write in the words already marked upon the trunk. When he is finished he collapses in the spot I used to sit and cries.

I lie with him.

And my heart breaks.

Hope you enjoyed. I'm actually happy with this fic, which is shocking for me!

Demyxion