Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts

Chapter Two: Summer of New Acquaintances

For gunxpowder

The door opened, a dark haired nurse passing silently through the doorway looked around hesitantly. There was a startled look in her eyes, almost as if she knew that she was walking into a death chamber or something along those lines. Aerith knew she shouldn't interrupt sessions, but when it came to Aqua, it was urgent. That girl was always so rowdy and the only person who could calm her down was Dr Anselm. She felt sorry for all of them in a way but when Aqua first arrived she knew that she was only here so that she could find some way to get her parents attention. She was just a rich oil barons spoilt brat. Now that she had gotten so engrossed in her role she had lost her mind completely. He had that calming effect on almost anyone. Even the most reluctant of patients. She eyed the girl in the chair as she gently closed the door and made her way over to Dr Anselm. Trying to be as quick and quiet as possible. That was the best way to deal with things around here. Not gently or sensitively but quickly. The blonde haired man was patiently sitting in front of a young girl, his chin cupped in one hand and elbow resting on the knee. He almost looked like he was watching a sculpture or a painting that he was admiring. Trying to get his head around since it was so enigmatic. So...Hard to read that it needed more than the obvious in order to understand it.

The patient was sitting still and wordlessly in her seat. She knew she was being watched. She could see in her eyes that she hated, not only for what he was doing, she went further than that, she hated for that. Her eyes never leaving the floor. If it weren't for her slow and slight movements. The blink of an eye. The sway of a lock of hair. The nurse would've thought she was a dead body slumped into a chair. She hurriedly went to Dr Anselm. She was watching the other girl the entire time. She still didn't look up. She felt the room had been icy cold for a long time, since the moment that this session started. There was an eerie silence in the air as if she had entered a room where there was a dead body being kept inside. She leaned down and whispered in his ear. Her voice tickling against his neck as if she was calling him back from the land of dead that he had been so obviously been dwelling in for the past few minutes. Aqua had had another episode. Better come quickly. Dr Anselm was always able to bring Aqua to her senses. It was a gift. All he had to do was just calming speak to him and somehow he could just make people...almost better again. He nodded and told her that he would be another few minutes. He just had to finish off this one appointment.

Maybe get Dr Braig to handle it while he was dealing with this. The nurse nodded and turned back to the girl, sadness filling her eyes. She wasn't sure whether he would be able to help her. She didn't know whether she want any help and Dr Braig was never good with that kind of thing. She was only good with someone if they were at least half willing to have some help. Just before she left the girl suddenly cast her eyes upwards in her direction sending a chill down Aerith's spine. She looked at her in the same way someone would wish to if they were trying to find something. Something that could be your darkest secret. The kind of one that you would wish to take to your grave. Aerith froze on the spot for a moment unsure what to do in this situation but then snapped out of it and carried on walking and passed through the doorway not looking back. What sort of thing brought a person to such disturbance and despair. She knew from the way that she looked at her that she hated her more than anything. What caused a person to not have any wish to live at all? What horrible pain had been inflicted on this poor girl?

Dr Anselm, on the other hand, knew all about this girls history. He knew the reason as to why she hated the world. She didn't want to punish it or anyone in it. It was because she felt like it should have treated her better. She wished that maybe the world would have treated Xion a little better. She deserved more than the fate that she had...He knew what had happened in the past few weeks. What he needed to get his head around was why it distressed her to the point to wanting to kill herself. That was the point of being here after all. He knew what happened at Twilight Manor. Then again he didn't know what really happened. Not from her perspective anyway. What he could read on a piece of paper could be miles different to her view upon the matter. He wasn't here to sympathise though, he was here to help her. Make her better. Make all those awful things that had happened to her go away. Fade away like a distant memory from your childhood. A memory that was there but whenever you thought of it, it had a fuzzy picture. The problem was though, with some of these people was that there was actually a reason to why they were here. They were sad because something genuinely terrible happened to them and in some ways he had to make sure that they were able to make peace with what had happened opposed to putting it behind them.

"Theodora." He began. "Are you going to say anything?"

Dr Anselm began to wonder if the girl had somehow gone deaf until her eyes slowly lifted up again. Like a flicker of a flame that was holding on for it's last moments. He noticed that she looked at Aerith directly into her eyes before she walked out. Speaking of which he needed to get going to Aqua. Hopefully it wouldn't take too long and he could just leave her here for a few minutes. It might do her a little good. Allow her to collect her thoughts. She might actually say something to him in this session. She needed to start talking eventually, otherwise it might only be a matter of time before she ended up like his past unsuccessful patients. She would begin to isolate herself more because she was past the point of being able to talk to someone, she would have missed her chance and then...Still, it was too early to worry about that. There was still a chance. It was something, but there was no hope to be found in this one small gesture. She was just telling him that a small part of her was still there...

~ (***) ~

A ray of sunshine blinded her vision for a moment. Theo blinked and stepped back a little to see who it was that came through the doorway by shielding her eyes. She blinked again when she saw who it was and her mind when completely blank. For some reason she felt like the rest of the world and everything else around them had gone grey. She froze on the spot not being able to move an inch. Theo just couldn't stop staring. The girl, standing in the doorway was probably the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She knew she was gay and she knew she had fallen in love with other girls before but not as instantly as this. Never was her attraction to another person so swift. She was about Theo's height or if not a little shorter. She had black, pixie short hair, bright blue eyes that reminded Theo of the Mediterranean sea and the smoothest looking skin. She was wearing a midnight blue, frilly skirt, black hoodie and black converse. Not many people could pull this off perfectly like she did. Namine, who could spot attraction on sight, beamed knowing that her plan had worked. She was her own little version of Emma Woodhouse and to be honest if she could be any Jane Austen character she would prefer to be her. Larxene glared at her younger sister for interfering, she knew on some level this was the last thing Theo needed.

"Theo, this is our friend, Xion. Xion, this is our cousin, Theo."

The other girl walked toward Theo and stretched out her arm, a friendly smile on her face. Theo suddenly felt warm and shivered all over at the same time. She hesitated for a moment once her mind had processed the next step in the general stages of a greeting between two strangers (along with reminded her of the typical social graces which were expected amongst most people in polite society, even if she wasn't part of that sort of social sect). Theo remained rooted to the ground and stood frozen. Even though she realised that she was continuing to seem like a mental asylum escapee. She couldn't move, think or even breathe. She was so transfixed by the girl she couldn't feel that it was getting colder, hear the sounds of others from inside the house or catch a glance of the incoming whack around the head.

"Hey, idiot!" Larxene scolded. Theo rubbed the back of her head, leaning away from Larxene slightly, her eyes wide in fear and surprise. "Say hello, or has the social leprosy made your social graces deteriorate?"

Xion tilted her head. "Huh?"

Namine decided to step in and explain. "Theo, came out about her sexuality but her friends totally rejected her, people at school made fun of her and everything. So she has no friends and she's been really sad for weeks and weeks and-"

"Alright, Namine. She gets the picture." Larxene sighed.

Xion put her hands on her hip and scowled. "Jeez, what sort of school did you go to? An uber-Christian one?"

Theo shrugged her shoulders. "Not really. Just ones with a lot of assholes...and conformists."

"Well I don't like either of those." She declared holding out her hand, giving Theo another chance to redeem herself. Now that she was awake she was able to do so.

When she did all she could think of that she was right. Everything was fine, not that she was here she was sure everything was going to be okay now. Sure, she missed the security of school since they were all into labels and once you settled into a certain social group you were at least half-way there to security and more likely to survive the shark-infested waters of High School. You just had it made if you hung out the with 'popular' crowd. When she jumped into a place like this she had to reinvent herself again, because lets face it, who you are in greatly defined by the people who you hung out with. Or at least partially. But she knew though, unlike high school, there was less pressure to conform to a certain stereotype. She also felt safe with her. Her skin was soft. Her eyes sparkled in the sun. The nicest thing about her was her smile. It reassured you that everything was going to be alright. She would hold your hand through all the hard times ahead. She smiled at you like she was welcoming you home after a long, treacherous journey.

"Hi." Theo croaked. Xion laughed, bringing her free hand to her mouth, still holding Theo's hand gently in hers.

"Wow, you haven't had that much practice with the living lately." She smiled. "I mean you're kind of talking a little bit like a...zombie."

Theo laughed at the joke but was mentally kicking herself in the backside for acting like such an idiot. She was right, she was staring her like she was an extra on Resident Evil or some major zombie franchise movie. She needed to start articulating herself a little more at the moment otherwise she would end up being labelled as the 'weird one'. She was sure that none of her cousins friends were going to be as reductive as the people at her school but she didn't want to blow it here either. First she stared at the girl which was rude and just plain weird. And now she could barely squeeze a word out of her mouth. Her signs of a social reject were beginning to show. Maybe Larxene maybe she should go to some class like elocution or something. Just to bring her up to speed or make her stop acting like an escapee from a mental asylum.

Well done, Theo. Good job. Now give yourself a pat on the back for making such a show of yourself.

"Don't worry." She assured her. "You're going to have plenty of practice over the summer. You're hardly going to have a moment to yourself while you're here."

"No thanks to Namine." Larxene growled, staring daggers at her younger sister.

"Hey! Ever heard the phrase 'the more the merrier'?"

"Yeah, but I try to avoid following that phrase that at all costs." Larxene retorted.

Namine pouted. "It's not my fault you're so anti-social."

As they continued to banter, Theo leaned close to Xion, whispering in her ear. "Are they always like this?"

She didn't want to earn another hit from Larxene. Especially in the same day, getting hit twice by your professional boxer cousin was not the right way to start your summer vacation. Period. Xion glanced at them for a moment and then turned back to Theo with a mock-serious look in her eyes and nodded knowingly. Theo sniggered and covered her mouth so that her laughter was not all that audible to those who she was laughing at. She didn't want to tempt fate, or more tempt Larxene to hit her again. Family relationships didn't seem to be an obstacle for her in terms of who became her momentary punching bag. She then narrowed her eyes at Theo for a reason she couldn't quite pin down. A second later, a thought and the obvious reason for this just occurred to her making her blushed uncontrollably, thinking that she was quite close to her face. She could almost feel Xion's breath brushing against her skin.

You. Are. Such. An. Idiot. Theo. Not all girls appreciate having other girls being so close to their face. Just look at your old friends.

"Wouldn't you know about this kind of thing?" Xion questioned. "As I recall, you are their cousin."

Theo thought about this. Strike...Five? She had lost count of how many times she had earned herself another point towards the Dumb as...Award for the end of the summer. She was pretty sure at the moment though that she was in the lead and she hadn't even met the rest of the other 'housemates' for the summer let alone had she heard about what had been going on in her house before she arrived to concur or contradict this. She should know about this sort of thing, but then again she never really saw her cousins that often. They had lived with their other family after their parents died, who refused to allow them to see their 'poorer' relatives. She was the Jane Eyre to the Reed family without being an orphan. Actually it was the other way round...So the number of times they had even meet up were scarce, it was only until 5 years ago when Larxene was able to regain contact with her paternal aunt. She had never had such a warm and affectionate greeting from a relative-stranger (Namine). Nor had she ever been so terrified by one (Larxene).

"I met them for the first time 5 years ago." Theo explained. "Larxene had her job and rehab stuff to go through. Namine was at a boarding school with strict holidays and guidelines for visitors. So it's been quite a rare opportunity to actually meet up with them. My parent's have quite busy lives too."

"Really, what do they do?" Xion asked.

Theo looked at her to see how much detail she should actually go into about her parents lives. For a strange reason this girl looked genuinely interested.

"Er...my Mom's an artist and my Dad is a writer." She answered.

"Really, what sort of stuff do they do?" She asked beaming.

"Well, my Mom's into actual painting. I like to think her style in like Van Gogh meets Monet. A mixed up but beautiful dream which still captures something in every day like. Just makes it more...interesting."

Xion was watching her with a small smile on her face. Theo felt more self-conscious than those last few weeks at high school when she was looking at her like that. She wasn't sure whether she was making fun of her in her head or whether there was perhaps another reason why she was smiling at her like that...Her eyes were attentive but looked like they were falling asleep. Almost in the same way that you did when there was someone you were gazing at across from the other side of the table. Or that was what Theo thought at first. It was actually that she felt calm and peaceful when she watched Theo talk. She looked like she knew what she was really talking about, that was passionate about it. That was passionate about life.

"What about your father? What does he write?"

"Well...he's kind of like Mom. He likes to capture the everyday life, but make it extraordinary without having anything James Bond-esque happen to the characters. I think he just wants to show that the most interesting things can be found in real life."

"They sound like surrealists."

"Yeah." Theo laughed. "I guess they are."