This is set directly after Xion's death, maybe a few days or weeks after. I don't actually know when Roxas gets absorbed into Sora exactly... but hey, neither does Xion!

So this was a weird thought. I was getting all blubbery at Xion's death- again- I don't know why I keep watching that- and the mean part of me thought, Boy, Xion would have gotten the short end of the Winner stick if she just got stuck inside Sora. Like, she could still think, wasn't scattered- because Sora only needed his memories, her memories would still exist. As proven:

"Roxas, don't be sad. I came from you and Sora. I am you, the same way that I am Sora. You'll forget me, but the memories themselves will never go away. Memories of you and me will be together... forever, inside him."

But I digress- I don't need to bore you with story birth, just gotta bore you with the story!

Oh... I don't own Kingdom Hearts... otherwise, Sora would be absorbed by Roxas*cough*Die*cough* and Xion would come back. Oh, and the image belongs to semokan on deviantART... if you want me to take it off I will!

...

Why can't I be a Nobody again, with Roxas?

The thought bounced around the darkness like a gunshot, and Xion sighed as the question slipped through her mind again.

It was a wish that kept her sane in this ridiculous place. Xion sometimes could close her eyes and see him- Roxas, the Nobody who acted like a Somebody. His bright white smile and the way his hair exploded in the most improper way, like gravity didn't apply. His soft blue eyes, angry when Saix called her a puppet, happy when they sat on the top of the clocktower together, watching the forever sunset of Twilight Town and eating Sea Salt Ice cream.

Sea Salt Ice cream... what she wouldn't give to have one more bite. Xion could still taste it on what was left of her tongue. A memory. That's all she was now, Xion thought bitterly: Just memories. Not together, just a scattered consciousness of memories.

A tongue for the Sea Salt Ice cream. A hand for the keyblade, the other for Roxas' warmth. Hair for the memory of fussing with it the first day she decided to talk to Roxas and for the feeling of heat and annoyance when Axel ruffled it. Feet for running, shoulders for feeling sore after being ambushed by heartless, a mouth for smiling- and frowning, of course- eyes for crying and talking without speaking at all were some of the things she remembered. She was a compilation of everything she'd ever hated or loved, even trivial things like a leg for the shin she'd banged on a low table before getting used to existing.

Memories kept her alive, but they trapped her in Sora's heart. Those few precious memories of 351 days with Roxas and Axel, when she'd started becoming something more real than a blank face and black coat, those memories weren't Sora's. They were hers.

So she was stuck.

She contemplated often on Sora. What was he doing? Did he ever even wake up? Had he absorbed Roxas? Did Roxas free Kingdom Hearts... or had he forgotten their promise as well?

That hurt the most.

Memories of Roxas kept her alive.

Roxas wouldn't even remember her name.

She could scream if she wanted to- the memory of frustration after Riku left her, calling her keyblade a sham. She had screamed here often, asking for answers, crying(because she remembered tears too,) or just to remind herself that she still existed somehow. But Xion didn't want to anymore, because it didn't help and no one ever heard.

Another tormenting thought: Roxas.

Roxas, Roxas, Roxas.

Yes, she'd mentioned him before. But...

Did Sora... take him back?

Is... Is he stuck like me with 358 days of memories?

Or more? How long until he'd realized what he'd had to do, or had he even realized at all? Part of her hoped he hadn't, but all that was left for Roxas if he stayed was sadness. As much as she pretended Axel would keep his promise, the Organization left nothing for Roxas but a bleak future and Kingdom Hearts.

She supposed Roxas had already forgotten her, if he was alive. Maybe he was frustrated, because Xion knew Roxas was stubborn and probably remembered her somehow- a flicker of a thought, the outline of a girl, but either way he would forget. He would forget.

Axel had told her once that Roxas had told him the one thing he couldn't bear to lose was his memories of him and Xion. Those were all he had, of course. Not a penny or piece of clothing to his name. Just memories, and the keyblade. So of course Xion felt guilty for taking away the most important thing to him, but what was she supposed to do? Leave him to die because she couldn't stop from absorbing his powers?

"Why?"

Xion said miserably, because she had said that a lot of times in her 351 days of life.

"Why me? Why him?"

But she knew: Sora.

It all came back to Sora.

She still didn't know who Sora was, except for Roxas' Somebody. Xion was literally Sora's memory of Kairi, just as Roxas was a mirror of Sora, so Xion fancied that if Roxas came from Sora, then Sora had to be a decent guy. Roxas was happy even though he was angry, helpful even when he was confused and tormented.

Poor Roxas...

She couldn't forget about Axel. Axel, who helped in her own demise by bringing her back to Roxas, Axel who had to be feeling mixed up. Roxas would be distant or gone inside Sora as a part of him. Axel wouldn't have any more best friends. Did he still go to the clocktower alone, or was it Roxas that would do that? If Xion had a heart she would say it ached for them.

Axel didn't like things to be complicated, and now they were so, so complicated because the Organization wasn't, actually, the good guy. They were bad and would only hurt Roxas in the future. Or, had her last wish, if he hadn't forgotten it, killed him? Or perhaps he was turned into a dusk for attempting to release Kingdom Hearts.

Xion was forced to think here, but she was only memories so she could only think on memories. She wanted answers, but even though she was in Sora's heart she knew absolutely nothing. When did non-existence get so complicated?

But now, it was so complicated, because she could never have sea salt ice cream again, and Roxas was possibly dead, or absorbed into Sora, or a dusk or depressed; and Axel was either confused or miserable and probably stayed away from the clocktower, leaving Roxas to brood and cry the way he had been doing when Xion made him defeat her, if he still existed. She wanted it to be like before, when all they had was a bad recon and Saix to bring them down.

Things were easier then, when Roxas would just smile and hand her an ice-cream, and Axel would ruffle her hair and laugh, and Xion would feel stupid that she had ever thought she had a problem. Then they would watch the sunset and eat their ice-cream and not care that they were so high up, and then she would laugh and they would laugh and the trio wouldn't care that they were so high up because things were simple, not complicated, and wouldn't it complicate things to fall off the clocktower?

Or maybe that would have simplified things, Xion mused. If I had fallen off, none of this would have happened at all.

So confusing.

Why can't I be a Nobody again, with Roxas?

Darn that stupid question! But she had never been a Nobody in the first place, had she? Xion thought on this almost as often as she wished she had been a Nobody, that she was still a Nobody. Not a Nobody. Just a puppet.

"She's not a puppet! She's a person!"

Roxas materialized out of the darkness to scream before fading away like all the other memories did. Even tears were just the memory of tears and they faded as quickly as they came, so crying was useless, but Xion cried nonetheless. She remembered the way they slid down her face, the way they slid down his face as he struggled to remember her name...

She wouldn't scream because that was pointless, but she could cry because if there was one thing she remembered about crying, it was that you couldn't control it.

At least she didn't have Sora's face. That went back to his memory, to his heart. Another part of his heart, which was surprisingly dark for someone picked by the keyblade. Xion kept her face in memory. Dark, ravenette hair slung over one eye, almost as blue as Roxas' but a different shade, just barely.

Roxas, Axel, Xion. The best friend trio, the ice-cream aholics.

Roxas, the naïve boy with spiky blond hair that always smiled at her, especially when she said his name or laughed. He looked good in black but better in earth tones, not like she had ever seen it... just against backgrounds. Roxas protected her. He turned scary when she needed him to, but was otherwise sweet, if not a little oblivious.

Axel, the pyromaniac with fiery hair and a smirk to beat them all, who first introduced Roxas to ice-cream, who always brought Xion back when she ran away but let her go when he knew it was the right thing to do. Xion knew he hid something... bigger than any acceptable secret between 'best friends' but she knew he had his reasons.

Xion, just a puppet with a face she wasn't supposed to have, who stayed closed off for fear of tainting others, was protected by Roxas and looked over by Axel. She laughed and smiled, and betrayed her best friends when they needed her most.

Just thinking about them pieced color around her like pixels in the dark, swirling and solidifying with a hiss like falling sand around her. Light orange and deep red seeped into the dark, coloring it as the picture came into focus over a horizon clipped by buildings so, so far down below her hanging feet.

Xion found herself watching the sunset.

"Hey, Xion, eat your ice cream!" Roxas laughed from beside her, and blue, cold liquid dripped onto her hand and seeped through her glove, and Xion was shocked to see her fist clutched around a stick.

She supposed she shouldn't be, since the memories often forced themselves upon her, but that first bite always startled her: salty and sweet.

"Aw, c'mon, Roxy." Axel sang from beside her. "Let the girl daydream. She does it so often, she might be destroying heartless with her mind!"

"Oh, shut up, Axel," Xion sighed and grinned as the shadow of a memory fell over her and she got lost in it. Roxas laughed behind his hand and Axel made a small noise of protest before Xion bit down again on her ice cream because it wasn't often her memories forced happy on her and she just wanted to taste Sea Salt Ice cream again.

"Oh, shoot!" Roxas mumbled and Xion looked down to see a popsicle stick floating down to the ground so, so far away, and it still had ice-cream on it. Xion laughed and Axel guffawed while Roxas moaned in despair as his ice cream fell. The sunset spilled it's last rays across her face.

"How'd you even drop that?"

"I dunno," he said. "It just slipped!"

"The world is cruel," Xion said mock-seriously and put a hand on Roxas' shoulder. "Sometimes, ice cream must be sacrificed."

This made Roxas laugh and he shrugged with a dramatic brave face. "I suppose. But it will be missed. That ice cream was honorable!"

"Honorable to your tongue, maybe," Axel snorted. "Not so honorable to the person it just glopped in the face."

Xion and Roxas gasped and looked down. Sure enough, one of the girls- Olette? -stood so, so far away underneath them, looking around in outrage with blue, salty liquid pooling in her hair and down her face. Her yellow shirt stained and she glanced up. Even though there was no way she could see them from all the way to the bottom, the three of them still flinched backward and crashed onto their backs.

"Ow..."

"Yowtch!"

"Kuf!"

Xion jolted with the landing and as if the fall had cracked the surface of the illusion, their weight putting so much strain on her memory, the vivid colors of the sunset burning Roxas' hair and making Axel's look even more like it was on fire faded, the sky above her shattered and rained down soft white fragments of a memory, and the memory she grasped onto crumbled beneath her, dissolving into black as laughter rang around her one last time.

All was quiet. All was black. She was alone, deaf like a mute, or maybe there just wasn't any sound.

Xion lied.

Xion screamed in frustration and anguish, arcing her back and tilting her face up to cry out to Sora, to Roxas, to Kingdom Hearts and to Saix and Kairi and Namine and Axel and everyone she had ever met, even the heartless, because in a way this was their fault for existing to be collected from. The organization wouldn't even have existed, she screamed to no one, if their weren't any hearts to collect. Roxas would be okay. Axel would be okay. Sora would be okay. Xion wouldn't exist, but that was better than this.

When her voice turned hoarse she stopped, knowing it would wear off soon as she forgot what it felt like. Her body slumped against nothing; the darkness held her up. Xion felt dizzy, ready to falter, like that last day alive...

"Who are you... again?"

Xion wanted to scream again as the ground materialized under her knees and she wobbled. But she couldn't scream, because now she remembered being so tired... Roxas shook his head, holding it, like he might dislodge a memory and catch it.

"It's weird. I feel like I'm forgetting something really important." The confession sounded like it was partway a question, but it also seemed like an apology. There was an unspoken 'forgetting you' tacked onto the end of that sentence, hanging in the air.

"You'll be... better off now... Roxas." Xion could barely get the words out, and then, energy depleted, she collapsed. Before she hit the ground, the hard ground under her knees, she heard a gasp and warm arms encircled her, caught her, and she was eased into a position on Roxas' lap. He held her up.

"Am I... the one who did this to you?" his voice was confused and almost sad, like he wanted to be sad about her pain but didn't know why. A small trail of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, and he looked battered; exhausted, and Xion felt terrible.

"No." Xion shook her head slightly and tried to focus on Roxas. She needed him to know that this wasn't his fault, it was all planned... but her words escaped her. He looked so confused. "It was my choice... to go away now."

Xion looked away for a second, eyes trailing over everything she would never see again, before looking back at Roxas. She wanted to remember his face, wanted to remember him wherever in Sora's heart she would end up, because Roxas was her best friend and to forget him would kill her. So she memorized the curves and angles of his face, his small nose, the shape of his eyes, blond of his hair.

But, of course...

"Better that, than to do nothing... and let Xemnas have his way."

... Roxas would forget her...

"I belong with Sora," she said, and knew it was true even if her entire being told her she belonged with Roxas. Xion was meant to be Roxas' best friend, Roxas' Kairi, but Fate was cruel. Meant to be best friends, but being near Roxas would kill him. And it would be Xion's fault. "And now, I am going back... to be with him."

Roxas looked at her, pleading, wondering where she was hurt, but the crystals of memory scattered above her and it was obvious that she was going to disappear. They were so pretty, and Xion held onto that. So pretty...

"Roxas... I need you... to do me a favor."

He looked at her, startled, but said nothing.

"All those hearts that I've captured..." she trailed and thought over all that she'd done, all the problems she'd caused. Xion wished she could do it herself, but she knew Roxas was the stronger one.

"Kingdom Hearts," she said slowly, like she was saying it for the first time. "Set them free."

A look of alarm and shock swept over his features, along with another sweep of confusion. Kingdom Hearts was all he had ever known. Xion knew that asking him to destroy it, to set it free, was practically blasphemy to Roxas, but she needed him to understand...

"Kingdom Hearts... Set it free?"

... he was the only one who could.

Roxas gasped and glanced down to her feet, which were numb, and her legs were unfeeling the longer time went on. Xion wondered briefly what disappearing looked like, and saw tiny crystal flakes of what could only be her, could only be Memory. "It's too late... for me to undo my mistakes." Xion forced out. Her tongue felt like lead and her legs, they were dead or gone already. "But you can't let Xemnas... have Kingdom Hearts." She looked him in the eye. "You can't."

She sighed, a tiny, fluttering gasp that only she heard. Xion wouldn't be able to speak much longer...

"Good-bye, Roxas." His eyes flicked back to Xion as she spoke, and she smiled softly, sadly. Peacefully as she accepted her fate. "See you again." A deep breath. "I'm glad... I got to meet you."

His eyes twitched slightly, and she could tell Roxas was trying so hard to remember who she was. "Oh... and of course, Axel, too. You're both my best friends."

This was it. With her last bit of strength, she managed to lift her hand up and touch his face gently, the first time she had touched it. He was warm, so warm, and Xion struggled to stay awake. "Never forget... That's the truth."

His eyes searched hers as they glassed over and her head started to loll. Then, as if her words struck a chord somewhere deep within his memory, they widened suddenly and his mouth parted as the last of her strength failed her and her hand slipped away from his face. He caught it in a tight grip, eyes frantic.

"Xion! Who else will I have ice cream with?" his voice trembled. The flakes of blue-white intensified and she watched them out of the corner of her eyes before finally letting her head fall to the side. Xion let go.

Xion smiled, because at least he remembered her name before she...

Who..?

Before Xi...

Xion...

What was...

happening..?

Her vision turned white as snow and heaven, and Xion could no longer feel Roxas' hand holding hers. She felt weightless, tired... Xion stopped feeling.

Xion had made sure to bring the Thalassa shell in her pocket so that he might remember. Selfish as she was, she wanted him to remember even if she knew he couldn't. It would just torment him, but she hadn't been able to help herself. Xion also had to admit that the Thalassa shell comforted her; warm in her pocket through her last moments.

Tears welled in his eyes when she was gone, but the floating crystals that had yet to shimmer out of existence, they saw through fragmented vision, that first tear slipping down as Roxas stared at his empty hand and the shell clattering to the ground.

"Xion."

"Stop it!" Xion cried with a shuddering sob. "Stop it, stop! I don't... want... to... s-see it anymore..."

EDIT TWO.

Ohh, you guyyssss! So many readers... One person from Germany read this four times! X3 So I showed this to my friend Sam- who loves Kingdom hearts- also who has never read any of my crap- and after ranting about what a terrible person I was he said, "Goddammit Lexi, now I gotta draw that!"

So I'm curious about that...

and after he's done I'll post it to deviantART!