All Nobodies remembered their origins. Some were slow to come around, but even Demyx, who'd had the most puzzling time trying to recall, had finally remembered his other self from Atlantica. Luxord however, couldn't remember anything. Not a slip. Not a sliver. Nothing.

He'd hid this secret from the others with twisted words and sly grins, playing around the subject like it was no more a game than the card he played with. But memories or not, once holding a firm grip over their powers, each of the Organization's Nobodies received their first mission orders.

It was from these missions, that Luxord tried to create himself a life.

Trying to formulate his other's back story--all clever little lie, Luxord first considered telling the others that his Somebody once hailed from the Deep Jungle. The naturalists there spoke with accents as he did. But...no...the jungle was not his cup or tea. Neverland as well came to mind, but not all was smooth sailing with his decision-making, as Luxord never wanted o be associated with Hook's idiocy or Pan's tom-foolery.

In the end--his lie, well crafted and sculpted to his liking, told the others he'd been from Port Royal. Yes, he noticed that the realm and Neverland shared pirates, but Port Royal's were nothing like the juvenile lunacy that ran amok in Neverland. Port Royal pirates were cunning and fierce, cut-throat and merciless. Also, he'd never seen a spot of good drink in Neverland--not once. Port Royal held more than its fair share or rum, wine, and brandy--but what Luxord was really after...was the tea.

And between the romance (in the classical coinage) of the Port, and now the tea, Luxord was sure he'd found the perfect place to hang his hat (proverbially).

Then came Rocket Town...

Axel had introduced him to the world--a backwater world called Gaia, struggling to rebuild itself after its brush with destruction at the hands of some wayward meteor. The people had enough trouble dealing with monsters of their world without the Heartless mucking about, but while they did not exactly thrive, they got by well enough. Well proven by this point were the people of Midgar, of Junon, of Wutai...

Luxord discovered a town of his own--never quite explained to him by Axel, a town as backwater as the world itself; Rocket Town.

Now, Rocket Town was not easily missed, what with the two structures towering over the tree line--the first, an older rocket, defunct now and nothing more than an over sized lawn ornament. The second was an odd building nearby, its construction so outstandingly different from the others in the area.

The people of the area attributed ownership of both monuments to the Captain--a man who acted as as an in-and-out mayor of the town. They told stories of his triumphs and fallouts at the hands of the Shin-Ra corporation, and finally his victory and launch into space. Though while that explained the old rocket (which was indeed the rocket from their tales, the pieces refitted and put together again), they could never really explain the building next to it.

"Space travel--" she'd explained to Luxord, as the man finally found a cup of tea worth dying for.

"--but he's a real spitfire, that man." she explained, changing the subject. "But he's worth it all. Done a lot of good for this town--kept us all going, that's for sure." Shera--as she'd introduced herself, was a charming woman and the tea--that glorious tea, was apparently of her own recipe. The shock came when Luxord found that she was a live-in with the Captain--the lucky dog.

Now while everyone spoke often and highly of the Captain, then man was surprisingly absent from the town.

"Now, where is that dear brother of mine, anyway?" Luxord asked, mulling contently over a hot cup of tea, provided by the lovely live-in.

He'd seen a photograph of the man in the hall, hanging from the wall. The Captain, by name of Cid Highwind, stood off to the side, gloves on his hands, goggles on his head, and a smile on his face. The man was a blonde, the color a close shade to Luxord's. And a lie to an unsuspecting woman would not hurt. He was only there for the tea after all, and the good Captain Highwind was not around to prove him otherwise.

"His brother?" she smiles, eyes lighting up. Apparently Captain Highwind never spoke of his family.

"Black sheep of the family," Luxord explained. "I've been off since I was a young man--I felt it was about time to find and make amends with my brother."

It was a charmed and sickeningly sweet conversation that followed, wherein Luxord realized that Cid really, really never spoke of his family.

Come sundown, Shera washed the dishes dirtied by their tea-drinking and cake-eating, and just as Luxord stood from the kitchen table, ready to stroll off and disappear into the falling darkness, she insisted he stay the night. She told him that it wasn't right to leave so soon, what with the Captain so soon to return (within the next two days, she'd said). She'd also promised a fresh pot of tea with breakfast.

So having already carried out his assigned duties and reported earlier to the Superior on his progress, Luxord told himself that he'd earned a break, and took the old sleep clothes Shera handed to him (the Captain's own--what an honor). Though while she'd promised him tea, she'd not prior mentioned that the guest room was really the sitting room, and that the guest bed was really the couch. It was a little lumpy and smelt of cigarettes(the smell he really couldn't catch from anywhere else in the house), but Luxord noted that there were worse things he could be sleeping on...like gorilla nests or swaying pirate ships.

With the house and surrounding landscape buried in the pitch of night and still silence that accompanied, it was no surprise that Luxord stirred awake when the sounds of footsteps and hushed voices trickled through the house.

Luxord blinked, eyes focusing in the dark room, curled up to keep his toes covered under the blanket Shera had lent to him. There was no reason to be alarmed, as by their chatter, the people awake at this unholy hour were obviously not burglars.

"Shouldn'ta shut off the headlights like that--s'fuckin hard to see when it's so dark!" One voice hissed.

"You can't keep the other worlds a secret if you go around flashing those gummi ships of yours to the whole of Rocket Town." a smoother, calmer one replied, a soft chuckle trailing his words.

The first grumbled off, swearing under his breath. It falls quiet for a moment, before he muttered up something more. "G'damnit...I swear ta' god, I'm puttin on weight..."

"And I'm proud of every pound." You can hear the smirk. "You quit smoking. That's a big feat."

The first man bristled. "I'm gunna hit you so hard, Vinnie--"

"In the bedroom, then. Let me get undressed first--" he chuckled, their voices growing fainter as they moved further away into the house.

Luxord groaned, grateful for the quiet of night again. He gave up on attempting to sleep while covering all extremities with the blanket and wound up passing out sprawled out, an arm over the one of the couch's own, a leg off the side, and the blanket rumpled half-twisted under his hips.

Luxord woke earlier than he'd have liked. For ages, he'd tried to learn to sleep in, but as long as he'd remembered, he'd never had the ability. Really...all the time in the world, and he couldn't squander a little on sleep...what a waste.

But there were morning wake-up sounds in the house--the sort of thing heard when people are getting dressed and mussing about in the kitchen. Sitting up, Luxord stretched and rubbed his eyes. Figuring Shera must be cooking, he left to take a breather outside, more than ready to breath in something that wasn't a musty, smoky old couch.

Outside, it was dim, the sun just barely peaking over the horizon. The morning dew still clung stubbornly to the grass, now wet under his bare feet, as he wandered out onto the lawn. The town lay under a thick gray fog, slowly unmasking the simple green landscape around the house, as the sun slowly crept up in the sky. These colors...the forest and pale greens...the gray scale...it was far too familiar for coincidence. They were the colors in Luxord's room, far away in the castle of the World that Never Was. Soft gray walls...a dark wooden bed with deep green sheets...

But there was little time to contemplate further.

"Git offa my property."

Luxord turned, expecting one of the nice folk from the town, and a conversation to match.

What he got was the business end of a spear to his neck, and an angry, angry Highwind on the other--his sharp blue eyes glaring as sharp as the end of the spear.

But the spear lowered as each met the other's gaze.

"You--"

Had the Captain said any more, Luxord missed it. A picture could show him a man's face, but did little more. But to meet the man and stare him down...to see him close and look into his eyes... When the poets described the windows to the soul, they weren't kidding.

Luxord remembered.

"Who tha' hell are you?"

Luxord's stomach twisted. Shin-Ra. The rocket. The scrubbed mission. Cloud. Sephiroth. The WEAPONS. Meteor. Holy. Vincent...

The spear raised again, as did the voice of the man carrying it, "I said, who tha' hell are you?!"

Gummi ships. Hollow Bastion. Merlin. Leon. The Heartless...the Darkness...

And he remembered the sharp pain as darkness was torn from a body--no longer his...and recalled waking, breath labored--head in the lap of a man in red, his dark hair falling over his shoulders--a woman in pink nearby, worried, crying out--asking if it had worked. The dark haired man had nodded then, lips moving, trying to speak a name that his voice would not bring.

"Cid..."

I think I'm you...