It had been almost half of a year since the "death" of Axel. You still had nightmares about it. You could have stopped him, you tell yourself this all the time... You tried, but your emotions, your heart... you felt that day, and it's lasted with you for half of a year.

You never told anyone about Axel. You were too afraid. You feared that he would be caught and killed, and you as well, and quite possibly Demyx because he was the only other person you were willing to protect. Demyx was the only person worthprotecting any more.

Xemnas and yourself, as a couple, had slowly come apart at the seams for you. You felt every kiss, every touch, had lost its glow, the spark behind it was now a chilling wind that left you cold and disgusted. Every day you and Demyx became closer. You knew that he felt something for you, something real, something unlike Xemnas' "love."

But, still, Axel's secrets left you haunted. Once, you were out on a solo mission to track down Sora and his friends and to write a progress report: see about how many heartless he killed in a day, if he was anywhere close to finding you or the Organization, et cetera, et cetera. You had been out in the woods in Wonderland, trying to sniff out Sora's path, when you saw a rippling black coat and a streak of bright red from the corner of your eye.

Astonished, thinking maybe it was Axel, you chased after it, not daring call out in case any other person might have been near. But still, you chased and chased. You ripped away branches from your vision and tripped over roots, but it never deterred you from the possibility of seeing Axel again.

Stumbling, you made it to a large clearing, where you stopped, panting, trying to catch your breath and find where Axel went. You looked around, spotting very little clues as to where he had gone, but suddenly, he caught your eye. He just stood there, staring at you, cloak blowing with the wind. You ran forward, eager to see him.

"Axel! Axel!"

But just as you reached about fifty feet from him, you noticed his smile wasn't his, and a mischievous gleam took from his eyes, and... they were never blue before!

He disintegrated, and you found yourself staring at none other than the Cheshire Cat, who continued to smile, as if that was all he could do. He twirled in a little circle, and floated into the air above your head.

"My, my. Quite a believer in phantoms, are we not?"

You growled. "You dumb old bag of fleas! What the hell is your problem?"

He sighed a peculiar sigh and twisted in the air to be upside down. "My problem is a lack of entertainment these days." He touched one finger to your nose. "And what is yourproblem?"

You quickly snapped, "I don't have a problem."

"Oh, my my my! Temper, temper!" The cat twisted right-side-up and clucked his tongue. "Your problem, my dearie, is that you have ghosts of the past you refuse to chase down."

You crossed your arms. "And what ghosts of the past are you referring to?"

The cat smiled even wider. "Oh, don't play dumb-dumb with me. I took on the appearance of an old colleague of yours, who walks these woods often."

Your eyes widened, but you tried to hide it by quickly blanking your face. "Do you know where he is now?"

He played with a whisker, then began to disintegrate away. "I believe he said he would be in Hollow Bastion within a few days. Or was it the Beast's Castle...?" And with that, he was gone.

You decided it was time to tell Demyx about Axel.

For privacy, you and Demyx stole to his room after work. That's where you were usually, if you weren't in Twilight Town or some other world. After Axel left, the two of you had clung onto each other for dear life.

Both of you settling down on the bed together, Demyx holding his sitar, you nervously bit your thumbnail. Demyx looked up at you and asked, "What's wrong, _?" You got up and peered in the hallways outside of Demyx's room. No one out there. You pulled the door closed and locked it.

You climbed back on the bed and said in a very quiet voice, "Demyx, what I'm about to tell you is strictlybetween us. Have you got it?"

He just nodded and gulped.

"And you have to promise not to be loud. Be as quiet as possible, alright?"

He nodded again.

"Axel is alive."

He looked at you with furrowed brows. He set his sitar down and whispered, "No he's not, Rook. He's been gone for half a year. You saw him die."

You shook your head. "No, he's alive." You explained how he left and you had cried, and decided to tell everyone he was dead to protect him, and then what the cheshire cat had said today on your mission.

Demyx was speechless for a minute. When he found his voice, he said, "I can't believe it. Why didn't you...?"

"To protect you." You looked away. "Demyx, tomorrow, I'm leaving."

Demyx pulled his head up sharply and hissed, "Don't you dare, _."

"Demyx, I have to find him."

"And do what?"

You realized then that you had no idea. You blinked and thought for a minute. "Demyx, come with me. That way all three of us can be together again."

"But... the Superior. If he finds us, we're dead."

"We make sure he doesn't."

Demyx sighed. "It's just... it's not going to work, Rookie. We just can't."

"Well, I can." You stood up from the bed and began to exit. "If you care about me at all, don't tell anyone what I said. Axel being alive or me leaving. Got it?"

Demyx stood up as well. "_, you can't leave!"

"And why ever not, other than the fact that if Xemnas finds me I'm dead? Because that one won't work on me."

"Because if you leave, I'll lose someone close to me. Someone closer to me than I'll ever be able to admit. Please, stay here with me. You're doing just what Axel did, chasing the past and leaving us behind."

"I'm perfectly aware. I need to resolve this. And you should come along with me."

Demyx touched the sides of your face, and you felt the old, familiar feeling of your face burning with a bright red blush. His face was bright red as well, as it often had been. It made you think of that song he sang for you, the night you found the keyblade, and that first night Xemnas fooled you into believing he loved you.

You reached up and kissed him, missing - no, hoping to find - the feel of lips pressed warmly against yours that wanted to be there. The two of you moved together, no words were spoken, and before you knew it, your clothes were tumbling all around you, silently making a promise to go together in the morning. You left his bed and returned to your own later in the night.

In the morning, you woke up, and all was almost normal. Xemnas was gone, already hard at work. You gathered in a bag your emergency stash of Munny, plenty of non-perishable food items, potions, ethers, and anything else you thought might be useful on a journey. Then you set off for Demyx's room.

You were about to knock on your new lover's door when you heard the clunk of someone else's shoes on the cold floor. You looked around to locate a place to hide, but it was too late. You had been spotted.

"My, my. Little Rookie. Look how early it is, did you have a bad dream?"

"That's none of yourbusiness, Saix."

Saix looked you over once, and his eyes landed on the big bag on your back. "Are we going somewhere? Planning to go somewhere with your little plaything, XIV? Run off with Demyx? Because you know that's against the rules." He smiled sarcastically and summoned his claymore. "Your 'love' affair was heard last night. Now I suppose you two want to run off into the sunset and pretend to be happy for the rest of your miserable lives?"

You summoned your keyblade. As long as they didn't know about Axel, that was fine with you. But you had to protect Demyx. "Whoever said I was running away with Demyx? What if I'm running off on my own and just wanted to say goodbye? I'm not looking for a fight, Saix. You and I have managed to get along just fine for quite a while now, I don't want to start having regular tussles with you."

"Neither do I. That's why I was planning on killing you right here."

You clucked your tongue and held the keyblade up, ready for battle. "Then I guess we'll just see."

He smiled again. "Cheaters never prosper, you know that."

You ran stealthily forward and knocked him in the chest with your keyblade. When you went to hit him again while he was knocked back, he held up his claymore and defended himself. You simply smiled and said, "The best defense is a good offense."

You knocked each other up for a good five minutes, and when the grunting and name-calling became loud, Demyx stepped out of his bedroom, astonished to find you and Saix attempting to rip each other to ribbons. He yelled several times, "Stop!" before you'd pause to fill him in.

"Demyx, I was coming to say goodbye. Saix met me here," you grunted as you blocked a strike from Saix, "because he heard us last night. And now he's decided that we're going to run off together. But that's simply isn't true."

Demyx started, "But, Rook - "

You gritted your teeth. "Isn't that right? You said that home was here."

Demyx, realizing you were covering for him, nodded. You supposed he assumed the two of you would be able to overpower Saix. He grabbed his sitar from his room and yelled, "Dance water, dance!"

A dozen or so water clones rose up from out of nowhere and latched onto Saix. You stood back as Saix struggled to free himself from their grasp, and jumped when they all just fell flat to the ground, and you turned back to see that Zexion had restrained Demyx. He held him back, and Demyx screamed, "Get them off! Get them off!" You wondered if he'd gone off of the deep end until you saw that Zexion's mind was far off, and you knew he had captured Demyx in one of his illusions.

You turned back to Saix, who was recovering from the water clones. You sloshed through the ankle-deep water towards him and raised the keyblade, prepared to make a fatal blow to his head, when Saix unexpectedly flung his claymore towards you and hit you in the stomach.

You flew back and hit a wall. Weak, you stood up and wobbled slightly. You coughed up a bit of blood, and looked around to see the provisions you had packed in your bag were floating in the water. An apple bobbed past your ankle, a can of peaches sunk near Saix. The little cloud of blood twisted and turned its own little path out of the hallway to some other unknown part of the castle.

Running forward, you prepared to hit Saix, who had since reclaimed his claymore. The two of you clashed and friction between the keyblade and the claymore held you together for a single moment, like the dramatic pause in a ballet for the opera of death, two little souls dancing to the music of destiny, manipulated by the hand of fate, forced to play out their drama in a stage for the whole world to see.

You noticed the water began to thin out by your ankles, and you hoped it was because Demyx was using it to attack Zexion, or at least fight whatever he thought was on him off.

Saix pulled back and knocked you into the wall, your head hitting hard. You landed on your feet, but your head felt worse than before, and you held it with one hand while the other had a loose grasp on the keyblade. Still, you focused as much as you could, and screamed, "Why can't anyone just let me be happy!"

Saix stood back and gripped the claymore like a walking stick, though he stood erect. "Why must you pretend to have a heart? Because you don't. You've never come to terms with that, have you, _?" He brought the claymore up and bounced it in one hand as a police officer might bounce a nightstick to seem intimidating.

You screamed as you ran forward for another attack. Saix jumped backwards and the keyblade hit the floor with a clang. You heard Zexion yell once, and a few splashes, then the water came flooding back to your ankles. There were more splashes as Demyx sloshed his way around the corner to see what had happened. You could tell he was spent. You looked back at him once and said, "Stay out, I've got this under control."

Saix jumped in the air, and you pulled the keyblade up to defend yourself. He hit it, and it knocked into your throbbing face, and you cried out. He took the opportunity to knock you several times in several places, ultimately throwing you on the ground. You looked up at him once before he clubbed your stomach, and you coughed up more blood beside of you.

"STOP! YOU'RE KILLING HER, YOU BASTARD!"

Saix looked up once and remained stoic. Your vision was fading, and you felt your head spinning. Around your point of view, a dark veil was starting to show and tunnel what you could see. Far away, you heard the echoes of Demyx splashing water to run over and see you.

You were being picked up, put in his lap. He touched your face and said something, though it sounded muffled. "Don't go, please, _... Don't go..."

Clear as a bell, you heard Saix say, "Why must you always be so stupid and pretend to have hearts? The two of you sicken me. Where is myheart?"

You weakly tried to sit up and look at Saix, but you plopped right back down. Your head hurt, and all you could see was Demyx. He held you close, and while you were there, you smiled and said softly, "Oh, we do too have hearts. Don't be mad."

You felt Demyx shaking. Something warm and wet was being leaked into your hair... Tears. He said to himself, "So we do." Then, he said to you loudly, "Stay with me, Rookie! C'mon. Please. You can't leave me!"

"I already told you I was leaving. I suppose this just means you can't follow me."

You felt your body going limp. You saw Demyx crying, tears falling out of his eyes uncontrollably, and wisps of darkness floating up from your body. All around you, an icy castle established itself, until you couldn't feel anything, you couldn't move but to cough up more blood. Just opening your eyes got harder and harder as time passed.

"Demyx."

He choked, "Yeah?"

"I'm leaving without you. I'm sorry. This..." You struggled for a breath. "This is goodbye."

Demyx cried harder. "No, this isn't goodbye. You're not leaving me. You can't leave me."

Saix snorted, "She can do what she wants."

Demyx snapped up and yelled at him, "You bastard! How dareyou, you're the one who killed her! This wasn't her choosing!"

Saix replied flatly, "It was her choosing when she decided to become a traitor."

Demyx looked back down at you, ignoring Saix. A few of his warm tears plinked on your face, and you didn't have enough strength to wipe them off. You felt a few of your own forming as well. "You can't leave me, _. I love you too much."

"I love..." You couldn't move. You struggled to keep your eyes open. It was the end, and you knew it.

"_...! No! No!" Demyx grabbed you one more time and you felt yourself lose the battle to keep your eyes open. The last thing you saw was all of the swirling darkness coming off of your body become stronger. You felt yourself dissolve in Demyx's hands, and you were gone.

Demyx stood up and wiped away a few of his tears. Eventually the water in the hallways would drain, so he didn't bother to clean it up.

"Now, IX, since XIV is dead, and you haven't been proven to be any kind of traitor, you may go along as normal. Unless, of course, you'd like to say anything." Saix clanked his claymore against the floor. A little blood was still left on it. "Please, do know, that if you're a traitor, I'll have to do the same thing to you as I did to _."

Demyx still stared at the spot you'd been. He heard Zexion grunt and get up from around the corner.

"I'll take your silence as a, 'No, Saix, I am perfectly innocent, and do not want to fight you and your mighty power that just struck down my lover and my Superior's girlfriend.'" His sarcasm stung Demyx, a few tears continuing to roll down his face, giving Saix a feeling of satisfaction. "Speaking of which, the four of us will need to hold counsel on this matter, seeing as the Superior will want the full story. We'll report to him later in the morning, after everyone else has gone out." Saix called out, "That means you will be joining us as well, Zexion."

Zexion walked slowly from around the corner, rubbing his head. A few strands of wet hair clung to his face. He moaned and nodded.

"Now, Demyx," Saix said, "I would suggest you go and prepare for the day."

Demyx nodded and returned to his room, where he sat and cried for a good hour before getting himself ready for his meeting with the Superior.

The four men sat in the tall white chairs. Demyx had his hood up to disguise the fact that he'd been crying. Zexion stared intently at him, but he did his best to ignore him and continue looking at the Superior.

Saix, the last to go, had just finished giving his viewpoint on XIV's death, including the affair with Demyx. Demyx had already admitted to it, but it was still embarrassing to have someone else speaking of the love he's shared less than 24 hours ago with his boss, the man she had been cheating on.

The Superior looked at all three of them. "Do you hear me when I say no one must know about this? One traitor can lead to others. We're lucky Demyx didn't have to be eliminated." He looked towards Saix. "You had told me you had a feeling she would try and defect soon. I'm glad you caught up with her before she could make her escape. It's a shame she had to be eliminated. Kingdom Hearts can use all of the help it can get."

Demyx finally spoke up. "Aren't you sad that she's gone? Aren't you going to miss her?"

Xemnas looked at him sternly. "I won't keep the facade up any longer. I cannot feel, and neither can you. What happened last night was something of lust and that is the only reason why I do not kill you where you sit. I recommend you come back to terms that you do not have a heart, and until we finish Kingdom Hearts, you will not develop a new one of your own."

Demyx pulled his hood down to show to the other three in the room his red, puffy eyes, and one single tear that slid down his cheek. "Then what is this, Superior? Because I feel sad that _ died. That is what causes my tears. Not because of pain from the minor tussle I had with Zexion outside of my doorway, or anything else. This is emotion. This is a heart."

"Would you dare challenge me, IX? Because I don't have any major inclination to keep you here other than to be reminded of XIV."

This silenced Demyx, who pulled his hood back up.

Xemnas looked at all of them. "You are free to spread that XIV died, but do not give the cause. This may cause new chaos. Now that she's gone, hopefully we'll be able to pull ourselves together. We've been in shreds since she was created. You are dismissed."

Demyx was the first to leave.

Upon returning to his room, he picked up his sitar and strummed a few chords, trying to calm himself down. He had lost all will to fight. He didn't feel like fighting for anything anymore. He'd lost the only thing to fight for.

Suddenly, he struck a chord that reminded him of that song he'd written so long ago, he'd played once while she had been asleep. He let out one painful sob and continued playing.

After a while of that, he found he'd lost inspiration. So, instead, he pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and began to write a letter:

Dear Rook,

I'm falling apart back here. I want nothing more than just some more time with you. I miss you. I want to see you again. It's been only a few hours since you died and it already feels like an eternity of hell. I miss you. I love you.

It turns out Axel was right. Xemnas had just been using you. He can't feel. He claims that I can't feel. But it's like you said, we do too have hearts.

I don't know what the point of writing this to you is. It's not like you're ever going to get it. It helps myself, I suppose, and I guess from somewhere, wherever you went, either to Kingdom Hearts or some weird afterlife, or maybe you're going to be reincarnated, I think you're looking down on me.

I don't have much else to say. I love you. I miss you. It's hell down here.

Love,
Demyx

He read it once over, and looked out of his window. He could see part of Kingdom Hearts, and it gave him an idea. He folded the letter the way he'd seen some other people doing it once, to make a little airplane. He opened the window and stuck the top half of his body outside of it to stare at Kingdom Hearts.

He took aim, and then threw the airplane. He watched it glide in the air, and get caught by some merciful wind and get carried farther and farther away until Demyx couldn't see it anymore. He climbed back in his room, not necessarily satisfied, but feeling better than before.

He returned to the sitar and strummed a few chords. After a while, he realized that he'd been right. He'd never had the courage to tell her just how much she meant to him. He broke down sobbing, clutching his sitar, letting the tears drop and create vibrations on the taut strings.