Namine's POV

The continuous staccato of Axel's foot tapping impatiently against the concrete ground wasn't helping my nerves.

"Come on Roxas, you have to at least make an effort!" I pleaded, starting to feel desperate. Roxas just stared at me with lifeless eyes before shutting them again.

The window was open now, and it was our only option of escape, because every so often someone would walk down the hall.

Our current problem was that Roxas had pretty much just shut down. He stopped talking, his breathing sounded even more ragged than it had before and his stomach was making really freaky noises.

"Please can you just try?" I asked him quietly.

Roxas didn't move an inch.

"What am I going to do Axel?" I shriek-whispered, clawing my fingers though my hair in hysteria.

"Phone a friend?"

Stare.

Stare.

MOTHER OF ALL DEATH STARES.

Axel crossed his arms in thought, then suddenly slid his hand into the pocket of his jeans and smirked.

"Hey Roxas?" He asked slyly.

Roxas sniffed in recognition but didn't make any eye contact.

"You don't like chocolate, do you?"

No.

He doesn't like it.

He loves it so damn much that he'd probably consider jumping in front of a train to get it.

"What?" Roxas mumbled and looked up.

"I have some of a candy bar here, and I'll give it to you, IF, you climb out of the window and keep quiet"

"I wanna see" Roxas frowned.

"See what?" I asked.

"The candy bar"

For the love of god.

How Roxas managed to function in normal society with his four-year-old mind still managed to amaze me to no end.

"Ta-daa" Axel sang, holding it up.

It was what was left of the one that he confiscated from Demyx in the van a few hours ago.

"Those are goodddd" Roxas slurred.

Personally, I couldn't think of anything less appetizing than a half-eaten chocolate bar, but that was just me.

"Sure they are" Axel replied matter-of-factly. "Now move"

Roxas stood up, wavered slightly, then climbed out of the open window like some sort of human monkey.

"Jeez. He never did anything that impressive in gym class" Axel stated thoughtfully. "But then again, it's Larxene's fault that he thinks I'm a creep"

I could help but feel slightly annoyed that Roxas was capable of doing something like this all along, but then again-

My train of thought was interrupted by a loud thump from outside the window.

"Roxas!" I squealed and climbed out after him, almost landing on my head as my foot got kind of stuck.

I found him lying sprawled on the ground.

Uh-oh.

"Roxas?" I kneeled down next to him.

He blinked.

Ok, he was still alive.

"Ow!" I shrieked, as something hard hit the back of my head.

"Sorry!" I heard Axel snicker from inside. His smart-alecky personality was starting to get on my nerves.

It was the only the candy bar that had hit me.

I bit my lip so that I didn't swear at the tall pyromaniac inside and unwrapped the chocolate, shoving it into Roxas' mouth.

Roxas practically inhaled it. Sora would have been impressed.

Suddenly, as though I'd given him some sort of miracle vitamin instead of food with a questionable hygiene factor, colour sprang back into Roxas' face.

"Yummmmm that was so goo - Namine!" Roxas, out of nowhere, tackle-hugged me to the ground, sending my poor heart into another fit, only this time it wasn't from fright.

"Namine" he whispered, stroking my messy hair. "Namine..."

I blinked back tears and hugged him back. It felt like centuries ago that we'd touched each other like this.

I felt like I was about to go into shock from his sudden embrace. It just felt so perfect.

"I-I'm so s-s-sorry...Roxas..." my voice wavered so much that I didn't even know if my words were intelligible or not "Roxas, I'm so, so sorry for what I said to you...it's-"

Suddenly, Ven appeared right in front of me, with an expression on his face that made my stomach drop. "She's coming!" He whispered frantically, before running off again.

I knew who he meant, and it wasn't good.

Roxas must have heard him too, because he turned around and asked who I was talking to.

"Never mind, we just need to get out of here" I replied quickly. We didn't have time for Ven and him to have some sort of brotherly reunion or whatever.

Roxas helped me up off the ground.

"Uh, why are we here?" he asked innocently, running his hand through his hair.

"I'll tell you later" I hissed back, looking frantically for somewhere to hide before my mother could make her unwanted debut.

I could hardly see anything because it was so dark. All of the bushes looked like potential hideouts for Death Element members, so I didn't know where a safe place to hide for the time being would be.

"Can't you tell me now? And whyare you dressed like that? Was I just talking to Axel? W-"

"Roxas" I started in a slightly irritated tone, starting to feel my brain throb. "I'll tell you later, okay? This isn't the time"

"Fine" he replied curtly.

I felt like the biggest bitch in the universe.

"Listen...I-"

"Namineeee!" I heard Demyx's ever-cheerful-sing-song voice call out my name.

I looked around frantically for him.

"Up hereeee!" he called in the same melodic tone. I looked up and saw him hanging upside down by his legs off one of the branches of a nearby tree, holding onto his beloved crowbar.

"Oooh and you have, um-" he snapped his fingers "That…guy you were talking about!" he grinned and pointed his crowbar at Roxas.

"Who is he?" Roxas whispered to me, eyeing Demyx as though he had grown a second head.

"He's-"

"Wheee - crap!" Demyx cut me off. "Namine can you get my beanie? It fell off cos I started swinging"

"His name is Demyx" I whispered back to Roxas "He's a really nice guy, but he's kind of..."

There was no word I could think of.

"Bubbly?" Roxas suggested in a monotone.

"I guess you could say that" I replied.

I led Roxas over to the tree that Demyx was hanging from and handed him his beanie.

"Where Zexion and the others?" I asked my upside-down friend.

"Hmmmm..." Demyx frowned. "I think Larxene went to go find Axel, which was good cos she kept yelling at me" he scratched his head, reminding me of a monkey. "And Zexy and Riku and Xi-"

"Riku and Xion are here?" Roxas asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yep" Demyx answered, popping the 'p'. "I think they went with Larxene too so that she didn't kill anyone, cos she gets really mad sometimes and-"

Roxas closed his eyes and groaned. "Can you guys please, just explain to me what the hell is going on?"

"Sure!" Demyx sang before I got a chance. "Well, Namine told Axel that this guy who looked almost exactly the same you was pretending to be you, and then-"

"What?" Roxas shook his head.

"How about I tell him instead, Demyx?" I volunteered, before Demyx forgot what he was talking about and ended up telling us some sort of fairy tail instead.

"But I like telling stories!"

I ignored him.

"Demyx, well just be over here. Keep yourself hidden" I took Roxas' hand and led him to what seemed to be a safe bush, while Demyx was left saying something possums. (I don't know).

We sat down facing each other silently.

"Roxas" I took a deep breath "I'll tell you about what has happened. I'll tell you from the very beginning, but you have to promise that you won't say anything until I'm finished, okay?" I asked.

"Okay" he replied seriously.

And so I started. I told him about Selphie and the party, his eyes growing wide and his mouth twisting with anger as I told him what Selphie and Ven did. He went to say something, but I stopped him. "You promised that you'd let me explain everything" I reminded him. I kept going, telling him about how after that I ran away and how Xion and I got attacked by Seifer's gang, and then how Axel and his friends saved us, and how Xion and I had to sleep at his house (Roxas looked like he could have puked when I told him that, but I remembered to add that Axel wasn't actually a creep, and that he had an insane girlfriend who got a cheap laugh out of him freaking people out, and if it wasn't for Axel, then he'd would still probably be trapped here), and finally I told him about how Ven told me that he was Roxas' brother and that my mom was the most evil bitch in the world and paid Ven to do what he had done.

Roxas was silent for a few moments before he finally spoke. It certainly was a lot for one person to take in. I had enough trouble recounting it myself.

"That explains everything" Roxas mumbled numbly, staring at the ground. "Everything" he repeated.

"Huh?" I asked. What exactly did he mean by that?
"The guy running past me when I woke up in the forest...was...Ven…" Roxas seemed like he was talking to himself rather than to me. "But I thought that he was dead..."

Dead?

"He's here right now, Roxas. He's hiding from my mom, like we are right now" I told him gently, putting my hand on his arm.

Roxas finally made eye contact with me. "The reason I was being such a zombie before my birthday was because mom told Sora and I that we had another brother, Ven, and that died when he was born"

Oh.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I cried. "I was so worried about you! You shouldn't just bottle up your emotions like that, Roxas!"
"I don't know why I didn't tell you" he replied sadly. "I guess I just didn't want to talk about it. I'm so sorry. I'm such an idiot"

"But-" I stopped myself before I said something stupid. I realised that I wasn't being fair. I knew that Roxas trusted me, there was no issue of trust between us, but I realised that I'd treated Roxas badly. I'd made things ten times worse for him when he was already going through a rough time (which was the understatement of the century).

"When you came into my room and-" I choked up at the horrible memory of me telling Roxas that I didn't want to see him any more. I ignored the flood of tears that just started to pour down my cheeks. I had to get it out.

"When you came into my room, and I said that I didn't want to see you any more-" we both flinched as I said that but I kept going. "I wasn't being fair. I didn't look at the situation in detail. I'm the idiot Roxas! Not you!"

Neither of us said anything for a few seconds.

"How about we're both idiots" Roxas smiled sadly and pulled my into a gentle hug. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and cried all over his shirt while he stroked my back. I noticed that a small tear had tumbled from his eye and was rolling slowly down his cheek.

After what could have been either minutes or hours, we finally pulled ourselves together and decided that we needed to get out of here.

"Come, I'll go find Demyx and we'll tell him that we're going" I said, holding Roxas' hand.

"Where are we going anyway?" Roxas asked.

"Good question"

We both spun around, to see Axel, Larxene, Zexion, Riku and Xion. They were all panting as though they'd been deprived from water for ten years.

"We got fucking spotted" Larxene growled. She looked so furious that I could have sworn I saw an electric spark appear in her eyes. "They know who we are and fucking everything!"

"How?" I shrieked. This was a disaster.

"Because our tall, smartass fried here, Axel-" Larxene turned towards him and gave him a glare that could have pinned him to the ground "Gave us away!"
"I didn't mean to!" Axel cut in. "I can't help saying 'Got it memorized?' its habit, you know?"

"Selphie heard him say it, then she spazzed out and started screaming out that we were here. Now they're coming after us" Riku added, while Larxene just seethed with anger.

"You guys can all run fast, right?" Axel looked nervously around at everyone. "I mean, I am a pretty awesome PE teacher, if I do say so myself"

"Not the time Axel" Zexion hissed.

"THERE THEY ARE!" Seifer's voice suddenly cut the freezing air.

We were caught.

Author Note:

FIRSTLY: Thank you so much to everyone that wished me well last time I posted a chapter, it was so kind of you guys ;w; and thanks to everyone who reviewed! I love you all.

FINALLY I've finished school for the year, so no more exams and other pointless crap to distract me from finishing this story :D /determined
Sorry for not updating in like…wow…forever? You can be mad, cos I know I would be lol.

Expect Axel's POV in the next chapter, and some stuff to actually happen, cos I kinda need to make them escape from this place already hurhur. Ohya and sorry that this chapter wasn't really that funny. It's kinda too intense atm, but it'll get more humorous soon ;)

Please review! It'll help the next chapter come along faster ;)

-Claudii