Roxas: *eating cake in the kitchen at 2 AM*

Author: *walks in* "Roxas, WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING?"

Roxas: *slowly puts the cake down on the counter* "I'm eating. What does it look like?"

Author: *shakes her head* "well, whatever. Just hurry up- we're starting the chapter soon."

Roxas: *eyes widen in shock* "at 2 AM? THIS EARLY?"

Author: "yes this early. Now haul some ass!"*goes to the workstation*

Roxas: *continues eating cake* "ha, she has no idea I'm eating her slice..."

Author: "NOW, ROXAS!"

Roxas: "coming!"

Xion stepped through the dark portal and into the grey area, and smiled when she found that it was empty. She had just returned from her mission to agrabah; luckily for her she got to do recon, and in a nice cool cave. What wasn't fun though was the fact that the portal she had used to get to the world put her right in front of the palace doors; which just happened to be the furthest away from the cave you could get. On top of that, she had to trek all the way across the desert to get there in the beating sun AND a black coat.

Roxas was right- agrabah was far too hot and sandy for her taste either.

Closing the portal behind her, she walked towards the grey couch on the left side of the room and sat down, pulling out her water bottle.

Taking a sip, she sighed, lowering her head in thought. Roxas hadn't showed up to the clock tower today, and she was hoping to have ice cream with him. This was strange; Roxas went to the clock tower almost every day, and very rarely would he not show up. 'Now that I think about it, he wasn't here this morning either...' she thought, starting to worry. This wasn't like him; Roxas wasn't the kind of person to just disappear and not talk to anybody. 'Maybe he's sick.' she ventured. It was possible that he could have picked something up last night while they were on the balcony- it was kind of cold out there.

Standing up, Xion decided to go check up on him. There wasn't any hurt in making sure he was okay, and besides; she wanted to visit him anyway.

Raising her hand, she summoned a dark portal and walked through it. When she came out on the other side, she was standing in front of Roxas' door. Everything was quiet- nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. 'Maybe I'm just being paranoid.' She thought. For some reason though, she couldn't shake the feeling that something bad had happened. She'd always had a kind of premonition for bad things. That was why the day that they had faced the darkside together, she took her hood down. If there was any chance of her being able to tell what was going to happen, it would have been easier for Roxas to believe her if she was showing her face. Ever since then, she felt like she had another one, another premonition, about something evil. This disturbed her greatly. Whenever she had had one, whatever it was that was supposed to happen happened within half a day.

This one however had lasted for 48 hours, and she still had it. This was definitely not a good sign.

Sighing, she shook her head. She probably WAS just being paranoid.

Going over to the door, she knocked on it several times to get his attention and waited a moment for him to respond. When he didn't, she knocked on the door again.

"Roxas? It's me Xion. Open up."

No response. Now she was worried.

"C'mon Roxas, answer me!"

Still nothing.

She frowned. "Okay then, I'm coming in!"

Xion turned the handle on the door and was surprised to find it unlocked. 'Strange...' she thought, and stepped inside.

His room was a mess- there were clothes piled everywhere and she gingerly took another step forward, avoiding a wrist band that looked suspiciously like the one he had worn the night before. She scanned the room for sighs of Roxas, and stifled a gasp when she saw a dark shape curled up on the couch.

"Roxas is that you?" she said quietly, making her way towards the couch. Looking over the right armrest, she saw that sure enough it was him, laying there unconscious. He was still in his clothes from last night, and some of the fabric on the left shoulder of his hoodie was ripped.

'Why is he sleeping on the sofa?' she thought, nudging his arm gently. "Are you okay rox?"

He moaned, opening his eyes a sliver. "Xion... is that you?" he mumbled. His voice sounded hoarse.

"Yes, it's me. Are you sick? Do you want me to go get Vexen?"

He weakly shook his head. "No... All I need... is some sleep... and I'll be fine."

"Not on this couch you're not." She said, slowly helping him sit up. "You're going back to bed- whether you like it or not."

"I'm not... in much of a position... to argue." He said, putting his right arm over her shoulder. Xion helped him up off the couch, gently guiding him to his bed and laying him down.

"Water..." Roxas mumbled, looking up at Xion with eyes glowing with fever.

She nodded, and went into his bathroom to get it. 'At least it's clean in here...' she thought, pulling a glass out of the cabinet above the sink, and running it under the tap. When there was enough water in the glass, she turned the tap off and left the bathroom. She walked over to Roxas, handing him the glass. Downing the water quickly, he put the empty cup on his bedside table and laid back. She noticed that his face was flushed, and small beads of sweat were running down his forehead.

"You look kind of warm Roxas." She said, peeling of her right glove and placing the back of her hand on his cheek.

Xion recoiled, pulling her hand back. His face felt like it was on fire!

"You are not okay." She said slowly, reaching for his sweater.

"w-what are... you doing?" he rasped, giving her a confused look.

"You have a fever, and it's a bad one." She said, unzipping it. "We have to get it down, or you could get even worse."

"Oh, okay then." He said, shouldering out of his hoodie.

Taking it out from under him, she tossed onto the couch behind her. Roxas had been wearing a white button up T shirt underneath and now she could see that it was covered with sweat. 'Looks like I'm going to have to take that off too...' Xion thought, blushing slightly. When she went to remove his shirt, Roxas didn't protest, and glancing back to his face she found that he was asleep.

'Good,' she thought, taking his shirt and tossing it on top of the hoodie. 'The more he sleeps the sooner he'll get better.' When she turned back towards him however, something caught her eye. Tiny, dark brown marks were sitting just above his left collar bone, and they were dangerously close to his neck.

Her eyes narrowed in confusion. 'Where did he get those?' she thought, looking closer. The wounds were closed, healed over, and they looked like they were a week old, even though she knew that Roxas hadn't been injured that badly since the 'accident.' That wasn't the strangest thing though. The strangest thing was the fact that there was actual fur growing out of the wounds.

"Why is...?" she trailed off. Xion had the sudden urge to touch the fur and make sure that it was real.

Reaching foreword, she gently brushed the marks and found that they were not only real, but the fur was very soft as well.

"These look like bite marks..." she mumbled. Had Roxas been bitten by some sort of animal? And if he had, is that where he got those marks and sickness from?

She closed her eyes. Why was it that Roxas was always the one that got hurt? Why couldn't he just stay safe for once? She worried about him when he came back to the castle with torn clothes, cuts, and bruises. She didn't want to lose him again.

Her eyes snapped open. His sweater was ripped.

'No, that's impossible...' she thought, going back over to the couch. Picking up the hoodie again, she took a closer look at the shoulder.

There were large holes in the fabric that matched the marks on Roxas' shoulder, and she stuck her fingers through them, staring in wonder at how tears this big could account for such small marks.

'This doesn't make sense.' She thought. 'Roxas was wearing this last night and the sweater wasn't ripped- that means that he had to have gotten those marks after I went to bed.'

Xion sighed. There were still so many questions left unanswered, and she was determined to get to the bottom of this. Walking over to his computer desk, she pulled out the computer chair and wheeled it over to Roxas' bed.

Sitting down on the chair, she leaned back and closed her eyes. When Roxas woke up, he would have a lot of explaining to do.

Author: "Roxas come here you have to see this!"

Roxas: *walks in* "what?"

Author: "this! *points to screen* Look how many we got!"

Roxas: "holy cow that's a lot!"

Author: "I know right? This is amazing! That the most we've gotten in one week!"

Roxas: "hey can I list them?"

Author: "go ahead rox!"

Roxas: "okay then. Thank you to:

SettingSunRisingMoon, Ennicx, NexarkXIII, and the anonymous reviewers: evilblueberries, storm damin, the existence of darkness, sky angle, damin.r, and lycan.b!"

Author: "thank you all for the reviews, and I hope you all continue to read!"

Roxas: "keep in mind though, that the next chapter might take a while, she has exams."

Author: "unfortunately."

Roxas: "heh, see you next time!"

"AND REVIEW! I'll give you a cookie."