Roxas sat on his bed after his second day of school, staring at the seashell. The classes, conversation, everything had gone by in a depressed blur.
'Roxas, your memories haven't been suppressed by trauma. They were erased, forcefully.
'Your memories may never return. Ever.'
His memories may never return. He may never know who he is, where he is from.
He knew this shouldn't get him down so much—he was happy here, as far as he could feel the sensation, and he was around people who could help with this—, but it just felt so...frustrating. Like, in the back of his head somewhere, he knew he had been missing something before, but couldn't remember what it was, or what he had lost this time, and...
Argh!
He clutched his head as a spear shot through his mind. Again with the brain pain! Every time he tried to remember, it happened, and he lost what he was trying to remember—.
"Headaches?"
Roxas was startled, but stayed in his position, head clutched between his hands and doubled over. A moment passed, and he recognised who was there. Not by the voice, but from the presence.
"X23." He greeted. He righted himself, making eye contact with his guest.
"Well?"
"Oh," He stammered, realising he was supposed to say something, "I thought you were being reta...retorec...uh..."
"Rhetorical?"
"Yeah."
X23 shifted her weight, folding her arms a little tighter. Roxas suddenly felt...what was it? He'd read a description of it not four hours ago. Weird? No, that wasn't...awkward! Yes, that's it!
Awkward.
It wasn't pleasant.
He felt like he should say something. What? How about;
"I've seen you watching me around the school."
There was a sudden roar of laughter throughout the dormitory. X23's face suddenly changed shades twice, first pink then red.
Roxas looked back and forth from X23 and the door in panicked bewilderment. What did he do? Why was everyone laughing?
Was it something I said?
X23 turned and left, her feet causing a frightening thump with each step.
"I can't believe you said that!" Someone shouted.
"What?" Roxas shouted back. "What did I say?"
"Epic fail!" Shouted someone else.
Roxas sat silently staring out the doorway. He had never felt so confused. What had just happened? What was she upset about?
"Could someone please tell me what's going on?"
There were only chuckles this time, whatever joke it was going around finally getting old. He heard someone step out into the hall and approach his room. The person poked his head around; Kurt, without his disguise activated, blue fur and pointed ears visible with the biggest smile he had seen.
"Look, just go apologise to her. You'll figure it out later, trust me."
Roxas stayed staring as Kurt disappeared from his doorway. After a moment, he regained some sense of function in the moment. He should go apologise for whatever he just did. He shuffled over to the end of the bed and reached for his walker.
He hesitated. He looked at the walker. He looked down at his legs. Then back at the walker.
He had a...feeling...that he knew exactly what to do...
X23 was stomping around on the front yard, halfway between the fountain and the forest grounds. Normally she would be...hesitant to stay outside at night, especially on her own, for fear—concern that S.H.I.E.L.D, G.U.N, or someone else might try to steal her away in the night, but right now, she was too furious to give a damn.
How could he have just...just...said that? Seriously? How?
She screamed and kicked the air in front of her. Then again. Before she knew it, she was outright attacking the atmosphere with everything she had, claws and all. She let loose as days, weeks, of frustrations boiled over; why was this guy so...so...
"Argghh!"
She just didn't know! She felt so tense around him, on her guard, and she didn't know why! When she had started watching him, she couldn't stop. When she moved to question him about anything, she hesitated and...retreated. That's what she was doing! Her! Retreating! From him!
What.
The hell.
Was going on?
Her rage subsided, the confusion fuelling it spent. She stood there. She retracted her claws, feeling the faint sensation of healing through the numbed nerves in her forearms and feet. She belatedly noticed the similarity between the sensation in her extremities and the feeling inside herself, or rather, the lack thereof. She felt numb. had resorted to fighting, lashing out, and it had done nothing.
Just like when she was being forged into the new Weapon X.
She hated this. Hated it. No control over herself, what she thought or felt. These were the moments in her life when she had wanted to cry, wanted so desperately to do something instead of dwell on how she felt. So...stuck? Helpless?
She felt her eyes water. She hated this.
She hated him.
Cold air stabbed at her sinuses, a shooting sensation that caused her to press the sides of her nose out of reflex. She held the feeling, almost savouring it. She took as a cue to head back in—an excuse to move forward out of the moment. She turned around and walked to the front doors. She noticed that she was looking at the ground as she walked.
She clenched her fists.
She was a fighter. She would not hang her head. She would have her head high and alert.
Those few words of determination in her mind brought back the fight in her, the heat and aggression in her chest. She inhaled, puffing out her chest with pride and raising her head to scan the area with all her razor sharp, super human senses.
She saw a blonde boy crawling on his knees across the grass.
"Roxas!" She ran over to him, faster than she intended. "What are you doing?"
Roxas stopped. He fell back on his legs, sitting in a slumped position on the grass. X23 grabbed him by his shoulders before taking his face in her hands. He looked whiter than a sheet of paper, and he looked like he was ready to drop dead from getting out here.
Wait, where was his...?
"Where's your walker?"
"...didn't...need it..."
What?
"You idiot!" She rose her head to the upper floor windows. "Logan!" She screamed. "Logan!"
"...tell you..."
"What?" X23 looked down at Roxas who was starting to lose even more colour in his face; he was burning up with a fever and his cheeks felt like ice.
"...I...wanted to...tell..."
"Will you shut up?"
"What's going on out here?"
Ororo, Logan, and Scott ran out to them, Logan grabbing Roxas up off the ground and running him inside without a word.
"What was he doing out here?" Scott asked.
"I don't know. He was..." The reason hit her. "He was trying to say sorry."
"What?"
X23 didn't get it either. Why didn't he just tell her later? It was halfway through autumn, the air was hypothermic. Stepping out at night in his condition was stupid.
Ororo went back inside after a moment, and Scott took a step to follow. "Come on," He said. "It's late, and Logan might need some help."
X23 stood where she was a moment longer in her confusion. She shook her head, a physical idiom to dispel a mental impediment, and marched inside. She remembered her earlier resolve, holding her head up, and decided to take up Scott's suggestion that Logan might need help with the stupid kid.
Roxas had lost consciousness not soon after Logan picked him up. He had come close to practically freezing out there, the cold air having hit him harder than was first thought. Though out of danger of further elemental exposure, it was still possible he might develop a sickness from this, even pneumonia.
X23 had taken to keeping an eye on Roxas' condition while Logan and Scott dispersed the crowd of students that had gathered outside the first-aid room. Afterward, both Scott and Logan were called away by Professor Xavier, for whatever reason. That was ten minutes ago. She had since stopped with her monitoring and gone back to what she did when he was first in this room. Watching him turn in his sleep.
The first thing she had noticed was that he was a lot healthier now. He had gained weight, though he was still underweight for his size, and his wounds had healed fully after having being properly cleaned and bandaged, leaving only a few minor scars where he was hit the worst.
Roxas stirred and muttered something. It was so quiet that it barely came out as more than a breath. She could read his lips to see that he had whispered that word again; Xion. Xavier asked about that the first time he woke, but as is the cliché, he didn't remember anything about it, whatever dreams that were in his head fading back into his subconscious.
She hoped this time would be different, that he would be able to shed some light on himself and who he was before coming here. It seemed more appealing to trying to understand why he had just done this.
The other students thought he just an idiot, which she agreed with on the surface, but what he had said, about apologising, told her it was a little more than that. She had asked Logan, but he put it off as a stupid mistake as well. The other teachers said he must have overreacted to how he humiliated her, the news of what was said in the boys dorm reaching their ears surprisingly fast.
Either way, she had to know. It was too confusing not to have an explanation. Although she had noted she wasn't thinking so much about how off-put she felt when he was awake.
She picked up a sound coming from a few halls away. Logan's distinct footfall. How he pulled off stealth, she had no idea. He got to the first-aid room after a minute and walked through the door.
"Any change?"
"No." She answered in a soldier's tone. "Any luck on finding out who put him up to this?" Logan had a suspicion that this wasn't entirely Roxas idea, but X23 didn't believe it. Anyone stupid enough to say that to anyone...
Logan sighed and stood beside her. "You don't have to stay here. It wasn't your fault."
"I know that." She snapped. "It's just..."
"You're worried. That's what happens when someone gets hurt doing something for you. Don't let it get you down, but don't shut it out either."
She didn't answer. He made sense, but she didn't want to leave.
"It's not a suspicion, is it?"
"What?"
Logan was looking at her seriously. "It's more than that."
She suddenly felt her stomach lurch. What did he mean? What was he about to say?
"You think he got just as bad as what we did."
She felt relief at that. She didn't know why, but she did. "Yeah." She hadn't thought of that at all, but now that he had brought it up; he shows up with no memory, badly injured. He could have been experimented on like the two of them.
"Don't worry." He assured her. "He's in the right place. No one can get to him. Not here." He gave her a nudge. "Not with you watchin' him."
She softly fisted his arm. She smiled. Logan always made her smile.
"I'm going on a mission." He turned to face her. "Me and the others are leaving tonight."
"What's the mission?" She asked, turning to him. "Magneto again?"
"No. Rogue mutants, but not the usual kind."
"Fugitives." She knew from personal experience that they were difficult to help. She was one, once. "I should go with you."
"No. S.H.I.E.L.D might jump on the chance, those G.U.N guys as well. You stay here."
She nodded. She still wanted to go, but he was right. It was too risky.
Logan nodded back and walked out. She watched him go before turning back to Roxas. He was better than stable now, but wasn't going to wake for a while, though, so she had to find something to pass her time other than watching him. Hell, she could sculpt his face from clay at this point.
She walked over to the small bedside table, upon which was a notebook and two pens, one black the other blue. She remembered the forest on the school grounds. Perhaps now would be a good time to start...but what to paint—well, draw, this time—first?
She looked around, avoiding looking at the blonde imbecile on the bed, and spotted a small stack of books.
That would do.
She took the notebook and the black pen, and sat in the chair next to the bed and settled her body into a comfortable position, so she wouldn't shift around too much, and then put pen to paper. She made a few lines each time before looking up at the stack of books, quickly examining the part she was going to sketch next.
"...why did...it choose..."
She looked up at him from her sketching. No tears this time, just more turning in his sleep. She decided to begin ignoring what he said in his sleep, as nothing new could come from it that Xavier couldn't find out through telepathy.
She sat there, drawing, as the hours passed.
"Your mind's made up?"
There were dark streets, buildings with lights switched on for a populace that didn't exist, a city that bustled with inactivity. He was leaving that place.
"Why did the Keyblade choose me?"
He was atop a tower, fighting an armoured foe. Then in a gloomy sinkhole, then a tearoom, then a cave. He was fighting for his life.
"Xion! Stop this! Please!"
He stood at the base of the tower, looking at the seashell. He saw water falling to the ground, and he felt a pain in his throat and a heat in his eyes.
"Xion..."
He stood across from another boy, with silver grey hair and a blindfold. He hated him. It was his fault. And for what? For who?
"Sora! Sora! Sora! Enough about Sora!"
Then he stood over the blindfolded boy, who stared up at him, the anger in his eyes burning through the cloth and into him.
"Why? Why do you have the Keyblade?"
Why? Because he was the Nobody of the all-important Keyblade wielder? Because the Keyblade wielder was too busy elsewhere to hold it himself?
Because she was a puppet that pulled its own strings in the end?
Because she sacrificed her everything for his nothing...
"Roxas...don't be sad..."
Okay, I know I said the Keyblade might show up soon, and I tried and tried to fit it into this chapter, and the next one, but it completely screwed with everything; it needs to be a situation where he would reflexively bring it out, instead of on a whim. I've gone through a few scenarios, but I'm leaning very close to saying, "screw-this-he-gets-it-when-Magneto-gets-his-arse-kicked-for-the-first-time!". *sigh*
Oh, well...I can't promise anything, other than he'll be using the Oblivion and Oath Keeper.
Also, last bit about Xion is a small tribute to 'The Puppets Were Free', by Ultimate Black Ace. Check it out if you like, it has an interesting alternate veiw on the roles of the characters of 358/2 Days.