A/N: Oneshot. Just a character study based on my theory of nobodies and their fate. Probably a little stale. Not the most original idea in the multiverse. Hope you enjoy none the less! Mentions of Akuroku and Soriku. I do not own Kingdom Hearts II, much to my dismay.
Safe on destiny islands, Sora waited to be left alone. Not because he was unhappy with being back safely, with both his friends in tow, both apparently happy and whole, but because he had something to discuss. With himself. Kind of. Fortunately, due to a high concentration of 'island ADD,' as Kairi called it, she and Riku quickly ended up, as ever, discussing bizarre plans on how best to answer the king's summons. As they wandered away, talking, Sora heard the word 'raft' mentioned, and smiled to himself as they took off, squealing with laughter at the in-joke that seemed years away. That was years away, in fact.
His soft, happy smile faded quickly, because he probably wouldn't get another chance for a while, if things went as he planned them to, and he needed to get something off his chest. He closed his eyes to the striking image of sand and palm trees that his perch offered, the drifting sounds of Riku and Kairi's laughter just reaching him. He wasn't a master in matters of the heart—he left that to Yen Sid and King Mickey, but even he could tell he wasn't what they had thought he would be. He let out a long breath.
"Roxas," he breathed softly, calling out to his other half. Part of him swelled a little at the mention, like a wave considering cresting at the beach. As he had always thought it would, it felt salty as the ocean he so adored, a bitter flavor for his empty other self.
'What?' he was answered in his mind. The voice was the same, calm, slightly flat one he had spoken with before following Xemnas to their final confrontation. Sora could almost see the bleach-blonde hair and twin blue eyes staring straight through him. He refused to let himself shiver, but it was tempting. He drew in a deep breath of sea air, listening for a moment to the gulls calling to him.
"I never said sorry," he said carefully, unsure of the water he was treading, "for Axel. You were... friends, right?" There was a long silence filled with the roar of a distant ocean and the far-off sounds of play, and then the voice he was speaking with scoffed lightly. Even without seeing him, Sora could read the narrowing of his eyes as if it were his own. Maybe it was.
'Don't be sorry. The two of us, we weren't really friends. It was a game.' Sora frowned to himself. 'We wanted... to believe we could be whole without our others, and we decided to try with each other. Maybe he thought he missed me, maybe not, but it doesn't change the fact that we were never friends. I just didn't have the heart to tell him.' Sora's brow furrowed.
"But..." he started.
'You can feel me, right Sora?' Roxas's voice intoned carefully. 'I cried when we left Twilight Town, because that was my dream. The friendship was Axel's. I was just playing along. I didn't cry when he died, did I?' Sora opened his eyes to stare over the sea and swallowed.
"I know you had hearts," he said softly, and his conversational partner went suddenly silent. "I know Yen Sid was just trying to protect me from what I had to do by telling me you didn't. He knew I'd have to fight to kill, and that I'd hesitate if I knew..." he broke off, because he had to, and took a long breath. Roxas remained silent. The bitter swell inside him churned uncomfortably.
"I figured it out after I talked to you," Sora forced himself to whisper. "Before we went after Xemnas. And Yen Sid was right. I couldn't... couldn't fight him at full strength knowing that. Riku got hurt because I couldn't." He let out a long breath, bowing his head against his chest and gazing blankly at the grass. Roxas still said nothing. The only boy really sitting there on the bent paopu tree gave a hollow chuckle and shook his head.
"Demyx even tried to tell me," he whispered hollowly, "and I wouldn't listen. Now I can't get... get their screams out of my head. But you knew that part, huh. I thought they were just nightmares at first, but..." He lifted his gaze once more, as though Roxas was in front of him instead of within.
"I'm not a kid anymore. And I know Axel was important to you."
'No. You don't.' Roxas argued stubbornly, and with a heavy sigh, Sora conjured up the memories that haunted him, of Axel's desperate last stand, feeling something inside him quiver at the image of his already stooped posture, and the weary, strained look in his piercing green eyes. Sora only felt a little guilty as he relived the battle—remembered the catch of the redhead's voice in the empty landscape, and how pleased he had been to have an ally on his side, even if that ally wasn't real. That was where he'd really started to realize the nobodies were more than puppets, but he hadn't had time to think.
'Stop,' Roxas's voice ordered. 'I don't care. You're only making yourself upset, Sora.' The brunette didn't stop. He remembered every moment of that battle—how little he thought of it when he heard his unexpected companion grunt in pain, and how certain he had been that he would win. The smile on Axel's face as he smugly told him to back off. The light in his eyes that seemed to say he knew exactly what was coming for him, though Sora wasn't sure if that had really been there, or if it was the color of memory adding the impression.
'Stop, Sora,' Roxas hissed again, and Sora could feel the bitterness churning and swirling inside of him, like a whirlpool. He smiled to himself, sadly, and forced the memory to finish. Forced himself to remember how Axel had smiled—had given his last power, and last words to Sora, because that was the only way he could give them to Roxas. In retrospect, he knew he should have reached out to the man—comforted him, or offered him some peace. He hadn't. He had knelt there, at his side, to stunned and confused by the apparently heart-felt speech to do anything. He gasped hollowly in pain and raised a hand to his chest. Roxas, it seemed, was not happy.
'He didn't mean anything to me,' Roxas hissed.
"Yes, Roxas," Sora breathed, feeling it now in his other half. "He did. I'm so sorry." Because he did feel it now. They hadn't been friends. They had been much more than that. He looked up the beach to see Riku and Kairi returning, both of them with dripping-wet hair and relaxed smiles on their faces, and knew exactly what it must have been like, except he had gotten them back. Roxas was silent, and faded once more into the back of Sora's mind, but if he had been asked, Sora would not have been able to tell whose tears were on his cheeks. He stared blankly ahead for a long while, until a hand closed on his shoulder.
"Sora?" Riku called, his deep voice still strange to Sora's ears, but always welcome. He bowed his head, biting his lip to hold back a sob. He wished he had been wrong, but Roxas's silence was all the answer he needed.
"Riku? Sora? What's wrong?" Kairi's voice called across the small spit of land. Sora tried to summon a smile, so he could tell her nothing was wrong, and found himself completely empty of the ability to do so.
"Give us a minute, Kairi?" Riku requested, and she answered easily with a soft agreement. It was heartening to Sora that his friends still trusted each other so thoroughly, but it shouldn't have surprised him. After all, Kairi had been the one to find Riku behind Ansem's face. He shuddered fiercely at the memory of the Castle that Never Was. For a place that should never have existed, he had too many memories of it.
"Sora," Riku said softly, and Sora felt his best friend's hand tighten on his shoulder before he knelt before him, bringing him into the brunette's watery view. For a long time, they were both silent, save for Sora's soft, muffled sobs. Then Riku touched his hair carefully and tugged on a messy spike.
"Don't do this to yourself," he said firmly, his voice only a notch less imperious than it had once been. "They'd have killed you in a heartbeat. Most of them tried more than once." Sora shook his head a little, and tried to answer, failing instantly. Riku studied him grimly.
"Roxas?" he queried cautiously. Sora nodded, knowing that even if Riku didn't understand he wouldn't turn his back on him. Kairi and Namine seemed to have had no problems becoming the same person, but Riku had noticed after only a couple days back home together that his friend was not only older, but perhaps a little too different. Not to say that Kairi was unobservant. She just hadn't been trained the way Sora and Riku had—hadn't been forced into learning her own heart so thoroughly she could tell every time it changed.
"I think," Sora said softly, "we'll never be whole, Riku." It broke his heart to say it. It killed him to say it. Because he couldn't let Roxas go. Maybe after becoming a heartless he had managed to come back incomplete, but to split himself again would be fatal. Possibly to both of his halves. Riku was staring at him with even, grim eyes.
"Why not, Sora? You started out the same person." Riku didn't bother saying that Roxas didn't really have a heart. He had probably always known what Sora had only recently come to understand.
"He and Axel," Sora started, and found he couldn't finish. He wasn't sure if it was himself or Roxas that stopped the words from leaving his mouth. It was almost a fear that kept him from it—fear that speaking it aloud would make it real. Riku clamped a hand on Sora's shoulder again in support.
"Don't," he said firmly. "I know it's hard. For both of you. But Axel made his choice, and it was the right one—the same one any of us would have made." he looked dead into Sora's eyes, and the brunette knew Riku's piercing blue eyes were looking through him, to the shadow of another heart inside him. "And since he had a heart, that means nothing's over. I've been inside there, Roxas."
Sora felt the surge of bitterness subside a little at the words, and words left his lips without even entering his mind.
"Will he..." his lips said without his consent. Riku only nodded.
"He'll be waiting, if he wants to. And I think he will. So take your time. Sora has carried other people's hearts inside him before." The hand on Sora's shoulder tightened, letting him know he wasn't forgotten, and a shadow of regret was in his eyes. Sora lifted a hand to his arm, a little confused, still about who was handling which part of his body. Then, with a sensation like something clicking into place, it was just him again, with the stains of tears on his cheeks and a hand gripping Riku's forearm. He hoped the watery smile he gave his best friend conveyed the utter relief he felt, and the faint joy that had filled him through his other part's sorrow.
"Thank you," he said softly, knowing it wasn't enough. Riku only shook his head, tighten his hand, then stood up.
"C'mon, Sora," he said smoothly. "Kairi's waiting."
That evening, as they sat around the bonfire they had built themselves on the beach (Kairi and Riku gathered the wood, and Sora used his magic to set it ablaze) looking up at the stars, each of which might be another world they would one day visit, Sora knew without a doubt that someday the extra heart he carried inside himself would leave him once more. It might take time, and they might not get it right the very next time, but Sora had looked into the depths of Kingdom Hearts, and now that he remembered it, past all the darkness, there had been light. Eventually, Roxas and Axel would get their second chance together. For now, though, he just tilted his head back, let out a long breath of air, and smiled as Kairi scolded Riku for setting a marshmallow on fire.
It would be okay eventually.