THEN

They were on another beach world, endless pale white sands stretching for miles and miles around a foamy, turquoise sea. The sun was out, the sand was warm, and it was as beautiful a day as any she'd ever had.

Kairi was beginning to sweat in her only outfit, a winter sweater without a shirt underneath and a pair of long pants that she'd bought back in a world in the middle of winter season. It was clearly mismatched for the current season on this world, on the cusp of summer.

She turned to Axel. "Can I borrow a shirt?"

As was typical, Axel had shucked his coat and his shirt and had his pants rolled up to the knees. Constant exposure over the months to him in various states of undress had reduced it's effect on her heart-rate, although there were times when the light hit the play of muscle along his back or the dips in his chest that had Kairi barely restraining from punching herself in the head.

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at her outstretched hand. "Why?"

Kairi rolled her eyes. Axel was surprisingly protective of his things. "Because I need something to wear."

For some reason, he looked even more hesitant. "You want to wear my shirt?"

She put her hands on her hips. "Obviously, Axel," she ground out. "Because you burned my other clothes and I don't feel like suffering from heat stroke today."

Keeping a proper change of clothes, as it turned out, was a previously underrated and unforeseen expensive of their time-traveling jaunt. It mattered less for Axel, who could wear what he wanted under his black coat and could care less about whether he stood out from a crowd. But for Kairi it was another matter, as she did not have the luxury of a trench coat of doom and did, despite his great annoyance, try to attempt to blend into the worlds they were visiting.

Traveling made for little options and little space. Over the course of the last months she'd purchased and then discarded several changes of perfectly good and sensible clothes for the practicality of having to carry it all with her when they changed camps. Even if they tried to stick to a single planet, which they did for as long as they could, there was the matter of seasons.

She and Axel got along most days by virtue of going through their own routines and ignoring each other, but clothing was a constant conversation and money drain between them. Even the mention of the words "world order" got Axel's hackles up.

When she returned home, Kairi would never again forget to appreciate the power and utility of a closet.

Axel opened his mouth, eyes flashing her up and down, then seemed to think better about what he was going to say and closed it with a click. Whatever it was, she had a feeling she wouldn't have liked it.

"Then we should go buy you something," he muttered and she rolled her eyes, because wow, suddenly he was all for spending his precious munnies? She understood he hated sharing, but seriously.

"We're all ready here. Come on, Axel." And then, just in case it worked, she clasped her hands at him in an imploring look. "Please?"

Axel's eyebrow ticked at that, but then he sighed and hiked over to their bags under the shade of a cluster of palm trees, Kairi following him. He rifled through his bag and held out to her what she had asked for-one of his spare dark shirts.

She sighed in relief, hot under her sweater just from the few minutes they'd stood there. "Thanks."

She went to find cover behind a large slab of rock in order to change, casting furtive glances about the empty beach. The island they'd found was uninhabited but it felt weird to undress without the cover of trees or under darkness.

She resisted the urge to throw her clothes as far from her as possible, instead folding them neatly and standing in her underclothes, the breeze wicking heat from her sweaty skin. Technically speaking, she wasn't any less dressed than a modern bathing suit-she shut that thought down instantly, flushing to her hairline and then slipped Axel's shirt over her head.

Another curse of traveling was the spontaneity of being able to wash their clothes. They made a point to stay at inns when they could, but on the whole there was far more camping then sleeping on beds. This shirt he'd worn recently and it was stiff with dried sweat. She was struck by his overwhelming scent as the fabric settled over her shoulders, so different from her own. Not bad necessarily, but it sent a tingle of foreign awareness through her. She cleared her throat and then looked down at herself. The shirt as she'd expected hit her about mid thigh and she winced, thinking it was hardly better than walking around naked. Maybe once she was in the water it would matter less. Maybe she would just not look at Axel at all for the next hour so she didn't have to see any reaction he might have neutral or otherwise, either prospect which sent anxiety through her.

If she hadn't noticed before, she was painfully aware now; Axel was older than her. She still didn't know exactly how old, but enough that their age gap sat heavy between them in her mind. Though he was sometimes a dick to her, he'd been a perfect gentleman in respect to that for months now. He'd never given her any inclination that he saw her as anything more than a brat he'd been unfortunately saddled with, but that didn't mean she didn't see him that way, infuriating as that was.

She knew part of it was the circumstances, that they were living together without others-without her parents!-around. It was impossible not to think about him in that way when she'd never been alone this long around a guy before, never mind slept five feet from him most nights. The sum of her experiences with boys came from furtive interactions with the ones in her classes, letters or embarrassing whispers or the occasional dramatic Valentine's Day or White Day confession. That, or her friendships with the neighborhood boys, though Tidus and Wakka had usually hung out more with Selphie. As for Sora and Riku, their friendships had always dominated over the thread of anything more.

Axel was not a boy. When he ran his hands through his hair or got a particularly wicked crook to his grin, sometimes she'd forget to breath. Her thoughts might be full of Sora, but Sora was not here, and Axel was, and she told herself she was only human. His attractiveness would make any girl's palms sweaty and her heart race. Even a girl with barely any curves and hair that despite her best efforts with what she had, was still badly singed from being burned off.

Regardless, Kairi would die before she gave Axel even a single indication that she was some crushing school girl that didn't know how to handle the opposite sex. Her pride would never recover.

Steeling herself, Kairi broke from the rock cover and took off at a run for the surf.

The first wave hit her like a wall and she stumbled, nearly swept from her feet. Salt spray misted over, delightfully cool in comparison to the hot sun on the back of her neck. The second wave hit her at an angle and this time she did go down in a splash, a laugh bubbling up in her. Soon all she could smell was salt and sand and the ocean, a balm to her ruffled spirit, enveloping her without question or complaint.

By the time she slogged out of the water and went to sit next to Axel sitting in the sand, all her previous anxieties had washed away with the surf. For his part, he had not paid her any attention at all as far as she could tell, staring at the skyline over the ocean, looking like a cat basking in the sunshine. She plopped down beside him and then lay down, wiggling her arms in mimicry of a sand angel. The sand was going to be a pain getting off her skin and out of her hair but she felt like she was back on Destiny Islands again in the summer of her childhood, and not even practicality was going to take that from her.

"Having fun?" Axel drawled, not looking at her.

With a sigh, she sat up. "I know I should get started," she said regretfully, thinking about her training.

He shrugged. "I didn't say anything. I'm not filling out a report card on you, you can slack off once in a while."

She didn't respond, just got to her feet after a minute. They had come to this world just for her, after all.

She wandered away from him down the beach front, picking up half crack seashells and inspected the odd sea kelp until she found a spot right on the demarcation line between the wet sand and dry. She knelt down so that she faced away from the ocean and pushed her tangled, wet hair back from her face. For what she needed to do, she needed plenty of water nearby but not so close that the ocean could wash away her efforts. She took a breath, then put her hands in her lap palms up and closed her eyes.

Merlin had instructed her to build a sand castle, but with ice instead.

She did not have as fine of control with ice as Axel did with fire; could not conjure the ice equivalent of flames from the tips of her fingers. But her magic had naturally bloomed since coming into the past in a way her keyblade training had not. Merlin had suggested she lean into it, and if he said that then she guessed she should.

The ocean purred in her ear as she turned her thoughts to the cold.

Blue sparks flickered beyond her eyelids. She opened them slowly, finding her palms glowing blue, occasional snowflakes drifting into the air around her. The wet sand around her knees was glistening and hardening at her feet. Her salt-encrusted hair was beginning to crystallize.

She placed her hands on the ground.

Moisture converted to a mist of breath, like a kiss on the sand. Ice crystals building on themselves, layer by intricate layer. She thought of the chemistry lectures she sat through in her class back on Destiny Islands, vibrating molecules forming weak bonds, clicking into place like interlocking fingers with defined hollow spaces. As water moved from liquid to solid, it expanded and took shape. The ice was there, and her magic coaxed it into a mold with gentle strokes.

First was the base, the easiest part. When she, Sora and Riku would build sand castles when they were kids, they'd dig great holes, piling the sifting grains as tall as they could go. Once it was a suitable height, packed and prodded and cut into a cube by a blunt shovel, then came the hard part-building the towers and parapets. While Riku would focus on the surrounding walls and Sora would dig the moat, they left Kairi to do the intricate work. Packing sand into a bucket, wiping the top clean with a shovel, flipping it over. Hands on the structure smoothing the curves and the cracks. Patience was key. A single wayward kick could topple the whole thing over, but even if it did that was okay. All the materials were there at her feet, as long as she had the will to shape it again.

Slowly, eyes drifting closed as she worked, Kairi built the ice castle of her memories. A moat carved by invisible hands. A circular rectangular wall with a space for a gate, child-like marks scratching its surface in mimicry of bricks. In the center was a castle like the one on Mickey's home-world of Disney: structures like chess rooks clustering around an imperious king, each dotted with many peaked roofs. At the top, a tower branching off the main body, like the leaning one that Yen Sid lived in. In a fit of spontaneity, she scraped the last of her magic from within and replaced the crescent moon normally positioned at its roof with a gigantic, ostentatious heart. She smiled faintly at the thought of the serious, no-nonsense wizard living in such a place.

Finally, she sat back on her heels, breath coming out in a cold mist, and looked at her creation.

She blinked, looking up, brushing her encrusted hair from her face. In her mind the castle was small enough for her to sculpt with careful hands, but in reality it stood above her head, the tip of the tallest tower some ten feet in the air, the walls wider than the span of her hands. It was not perfect by far-lumpy in places where her touch had been too light or hard as she shaped it. The roofs were not properly peaked and there was a gaping hole where the gate was missing. But it was solid and unmistakable, and even with the sun beating down above, her magic would not let it melt for a long while.

When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw that the icy sand had spread outward from her, forming a jagged pale cone with her at the tip, stretching down the beach to the waterline.

She looked back at the castle, a cold ice block under a balmy sky, and brought a hand to shield her face. Then she rubbed her arms, shivering from the after effects of the chill deep in her bones. It was pretty, she thought, as light refracted through it like stained glass.

She almost didn't notice Axel was close until he walked into her peripheral vision in silence. She watched as he approached her castle and placed a bare hand against one of the walls which came to his chest height. He squinted up at the castle with the gigantic heart on its top, mouth quirking briefly for a moment, before he shook his head and took a step back to stand beside where she kneeled, hands in his pant pockets. The beach breeze tugged at his long hair.

"You sure are something, Princess," he said lowly, contemplating the fruit of her efforts glinting crystalline and bright against the backdrop of a blue ocean and pale sand.

She cleared her throat with a faint flush, unexpectedly affected by the seriousness in his voice. To cover it, she joked, "Is that a good or bad thing?"

He looked down at her. His eyes glanced briefly from her face, down at her bare legs, and then back up again. Something she didn't catch flashed across his face, before he turned back to her castle and said cryptically, "Not sure yet."

NOW

Kairi woke with a start, shivering.

She was in her bedroom, faint strips of moonlight from the open blinds cutting across her bed spread. She sat up slowly, sheets falling into her lap, and the cold air of the apartment made her exposed skin prickle. She was still wearing her clothes from yesterday; her shirt askew and terribly wrinkled, her skirt bunched up to her hips, her scratchy stockings catching on the sheets. She didn't remember making it to the bed-Axel must have brought here in here.

The alarm on her bed stand read three in the morning.

The apartment was quiet. She slipped out of bed and trundled into the living room. The room was dark, the TV a black screen, the blanket on the couch folded in its usual place. She was about to move into the kitchen when she noticed that the corner window of her living room was cracked, a slight breeze stirring the curtains. She padded over to the window and looked out, her breath forming condensation on the cold glass.

The old metal fire escape shared in her building zigzagged down the stucco exterior and ended several feet above a small back alley. City regulations required stair access from the inside of all apartments in case of emergencies but they had never been used and most people left them alone. She'd seen the occasional teenager hanging out on the stairs when she walked home from work, so she usually kept this particular window locked tight.

It was easy to spot the red tip of a cigarette glowing like a firefly in the dark.

Kairi bit her lip, eying the open bars of the stairwell. Then she retreated to the hall to find her ratty slippers and the nearest sweater from the closet and returned, sliding the window open and scooting out onto the sill.

When Kairi crawled out awkwardly onto the platform and stood, Axel was leaning against the rail, a pack of Seven Stars brand cigarettes next to his elbow and a half used cigarette perched in his mouth. The wind immediately sliced through her skirt and stockings and the metal stairwell felt like ice. But by then Axel had noticed her, and so she shuffled over to stand next to him, rubbing her arms.

"Hey," she said.

Axel pulled the cigarette from his mouth with two fingers and propped his chin in his palm, looking at her. His green eyes reflected the cigarette light. "Hey."

Kairi looked around. "Didn't know you came out here."

He shrugged. "It's a nice view."

Kairi turned her gaze to the dark shadows of the apartments across the way. Between the gaps of the buildings, multicolored street lights winked under a yellow gibbous moon. Several tall famous skyscrapers glowed in the distance.

It was a nice view. Funny how she'd never have known, having never looked before.

They stood there in silence. It wasn't as awkward as she thought it would be. Axel had always been a creature of the night to her, right at home among the shadows and backlit stars. His eyes missed nothing. She felt safe.

"You okay?" He ventured at last.

She contemplated the question as she stared at the shadows in the alley below. Then Kairi untucked her fingers from the warm nest of her pocket and tapped the box at his elbow. "Can I have one?"

He stilled, glancing at her. She thought he might be surprised, although it was hard to say under the dark and his scrutiny. "...How old are you?" He asked.

She barked a laugh as she opened the box, pulling a stick out. "I can legally smoke, if that's what you're asking. Can legally drink too. Lighter?"

This time she did catch the flash of surprise in his face as she put the stick in the corner of her mouth. But all he said was, "No lighter. Don't need one."

Right. She rubbed her hands together to warm them then held one palm up, fingers flexing. A few feeble red sparks harmlessly smoldered from her hand and she frowned. She'd never been good at fine control. She'd also never been good with fire. She had a feeling that if she tried to conjure a flame, it was going to either do nothing or blast off in her face like a firecracker.

She turned to him, eyes hopeful.

Axel grimaced, then rubbed the back of his head. "Smoking is bad for you." When she gave him a pointed stare to the cigarette in his hand, he shrugged. "Do as I say not as I do, or whatever."

With a roll of her eyes, Kairi leaned in to him, arm slipping under his as she plucked his lit cigarette from his hand. He didn't move or resist, just watched her without much expression as she took a long drag, holding it in her lungs, and then let it out through her nose. Her eyelids half-lidded as the hit of nicotine washed over her in tingling awareness down to her toes. She held out the unlit stick to him, which he took after a pause.

He brought it to his own lips, lighting the tip with a pinch of a finger. She marveled at that control, concentrated heat at the tips of his fingers and through his gloves. "Not your first time," he observed.

She shrugged. "Is that surprising? I'm an adult now." A slight wince from him as she leaned against the rail, cigarette dangling between her fingers.

"So you are," he muttered, taking a drag of his new cigarette.

They lapsed into silence, the sound of cars whizzing by on the streets below. The wind kicked up through the bars of the fire escape, tugging on her clothes again, and she shivered.

Axel glanced at her. "Cold?"

She nodded, turning away. "I'll go grab a better jacket."

"Here."

She paused, turning back to see Axel zip down his Organization XIII cloak. Underneath he wore a simple long black t-shirt and dark slacks. She drifted back to him as he shrugged out of the coat sleeves while juggling his cigarette, then held the coat out to her.

She took it. The black leather was heavy and warm in her hands. "You don't need it?"

He leaned his elbows on the rail. One of his hands snapped and flames licked up his finger tips. "I run hot," he said with humor.

She nodded, then shrugged into the coat. It still dwarfed her completely, the sleeves hanging to her knees, the material pooling on the dirty stairwell. Axel didn't seem to mind, though she did catch him looking at her thoughtfully as she fumbled with the zipper.

She paused, feeling awkward as it occurred to her what he was probably thinking. In the dark, her red hair might be mistaken for black. And with the organization XIII cloak on..."Uhh...do you want it back?"

He made a face. "I gave it to you, didn't I?" Her expression must have been skeptical cause he rolled his eyes and reached over to ruffle her hair. "Not that it bothers me either way, but you know that replica bodies don't age, right?" he said.

She shook her head warily, unsure where he was going.

"You can ask Even. Scratch that, ask Ienzo. Ienzo won't stop yammering if you get him talking about ion particles or digital networks , but he's less of a dick." Kairi rolled her eyes. Axel quirked a grin at her before continuing, "Replica's reflect the image of the strongest memories around them. For those with particularly strong wills, their image of themselves are the strongest."

"So..."

"So Xion is Xion." The look in his eye was kind. "She looks like a fourteen year old you. But you don't look like her anymore."

Kairi's ears burned. It was unfair how he seemed to know the under current of her thoughts before she could process it herself. She wished he was as stupid as he acted, it would be far more kind to her ego. But the words did their magic. Her shoulders relaxed and she dropped the coat sleeves across the rail bar and laid her cheek against them.

Replicas, Ienzo, Vexen. She hadn't thought about any of that in a long while.

"I didn't realize," she admitted. "We message each other, but it's been several years since I've seen Xion in person." She peered at him from under the hood. "Have you? Seen Xion and Roxas?"

Axel nodded, taking another drag. "I saw them before I came here. I got an earful for going off alone and not checking in."

Kairi snorted. "I'll bet." He seemed to hesitate. "What?"

He rubbed the back of his head, choosing his words carefully. "They spend most of their time at the Land of Departure, training under Aqua to become masters." He glanced at her, seeing her wince. "I was surprised when they mentioned you dropped out."

Her cigarette was almost out, just a few puffs left. Kairi stared at the stub. "That was almost four years ago."

He shrugged. "Not for me. I think I was gone for about a year."

She started, gaze snapping to him. "I thought you said you didn't keep track."

"I said I was bad at it, not that I didn't at least try." The cigarette tip burned bright as he took another drag. "They're coming up on the end of their second year in their world. Two and a half years I was gone for them, so I thought it would have been around the same time for you." His mouth twisted down. "Apparently not."

Kairi stared at him stupidly, feeling a sinking pit in her stomach.

If Axel had been gone for five years because of the chaotic threads of time between worlds, was it really so surprising that it would have affected the others too? Had it only been two years for them? She thought about the messages on her gummy phone. Sure at first she'd heard from Roxas or Mickey or even Aerith on a regular basis. But it was also true that as the years went by, the gap between her messaging and them responding had gotten longer and longer.

She felt a chill down her spine.

Axel was looking at her carefully. "I take it you haven't kept in regular touch."

Kairi shook her head slowly. "I had some but when I left it was...awkward. I needed time to think and I think they wanted to give me space. But I never thought..." she trailed off.

"What about Riku?"

She thought about the gummy phone in her nightstand. She swallowed, feeling something sharp sting her heart. "We do. He comes home for long stretches when he can. I..." She cleared her throat, voice small. "I haven't heard from him in a while."

She felt doubt stir within her. How had it taken so long for her to realize this? It was one thing for Axel to not know, given he'd never visited before. But Riku? How was it possible that Riku did not know? A sharp stab of anger, and then she rubbed her face with her hand, irritated with herself. It had been a horrible day. She wasn't fit for company, not even her own.

She stubbed out the cigarette on the rail, watching the ash tumble over the edge into the alley below. She used to smoke more because Selphie and her office mates did, before she'd started working out. Like alcohol, it helped to pass the time. Sometimes it even temporarily took out the sting of all the things that she was unhappy about with her life. But it was too much to ask tonight. Nothing was going to abate the festering, uneasy thing starting to roil in her stomach, except maybe not thinking about it. Or going to bed.

"I'm sorry," Axel said suddenly. She looked up at him. "About earlier, with your ex. You asked me to mind my own business, and I didn't. I should haven't opened the door."

Probably. She didn't say it out loud, though her voice came out a little flat as she said, "It's fine. I knew he was starting to ask about me again, and it was going to happen at some point." Then she sighed, admitting, "Reno and I were too different. Sometimes I wonder why I even dated him."

"...How did that happen?"

Kairi shot him a look, but his expression gave her no clue to his thoughts. He did sound vaguely curious.

At least talking about Reno compared to the peculiarities of space-time was almost trivial.

"I dunno," she said slowly, turning to stare across the street. "We met at a weird time for me. I'd just moved into this apartment, my first time living alone and away from my parents. I was..." she trailed off, a slow realization growing within her. When Axel shifted beside her, she blinked, continuing as if she was talking about someone else, "I was...probably lonely. And it was kinda nice to go on dates and have someone to talk to other than Selphie."

She thought about the first time she'd met Reno at the bar near her work. She'd been sitting with Selphie and he'd walked in with his work partners. She'd thought for a second it was Lea, until she realized how short he was. Warm and more than a little nostalgic from her second beer, she'd found herself curiously looking back at him several times, until Rude had nudged him and they'd locked eyes. He'd beelined straight for her.

He'd been outrageously flirty such that Selphie had constantly cringed around him but Kairi had found it funny, even flattering. And later, when they started to actually date and Reno would stay over at her place, there had been nothing fake about the way he'd looked at her, about the desire in his eyes. She'd felt seen.

Perhaps she had grown addicted to that feeling. He didn't know her past, her baggage. Perhaps that was where the clinginess that eventually drove him away had come from.

"How long were you together?" Axel asked softly.

Too long, as far as she was concerned. Her heart squeezed, tight and painful. "Does it matter? He ended up leaving," she muttered, and then before she realized the words were leaving her mouth, "Just like everyone else."

She stiffened a second later, realizing she'd said too much and to one of the last people she wanted to hear it. She felt Axel's gaze on her face, though she refused to meet it, afraid of what she'd find there. "Princess," he said, voice soft and imploring.

She grimaced, wishing she'd kept her mouth shut. Tiredness had gotten the best of her, pulling on old regrets that she normally kept buried under the veneer of normal life. It wouldn't do to burden him with things that couldn't change. "It's fine, Axel. I know it's no one's fault. It's unrealistic to expect things would stay the same, especially when I'm the one that left." She took a steadying breath. "And I'm fine. I have a life now and everyone else has theirs. I'm a responsible member of society and everything."

A hand on her shoulder, urging her to turn towards him. She resisted at first, then begrudgingly turned, eyes averted. A touch of his fingers on her jaw had her finally glancing up to find his green eyes searching hers. What he found there made his brow furrow, a frown tugging at his lips.

"What happened to you?" He asked at a last, and her heart stopped. She knew instantly he wasn't asking about Reno or the break up. He wasn't even asking about what had happened in his five year absence, though that would obviously play into it.

He was asking what had happened to her, to the person she had been before he left.

Kairi felt numbness creep into her face.

Had she changed so much?

Kairi's mouth twisted as her eyes dropped to his chest, contempt at herself burning through her at such a stupid question. Of course she'd changed.

Sora had died.

Her breath shuddered, a tightness in her chest that even after five years made it difficult to breathe.

There had been a time after the battle against Xehanort where she'd held onto the hope of fixing everything that had gone wrong, of figuring out how to save Sora from his fate. When, like Roxas and Xion, she'd undergone training at the Land of Departure to try and catch up to Riku, who by then was traveling the worlds over. But despite a near grim determination to push forward, her training had been beset from the beginning.

What she'd told Axel was true; she could use a keyblade, but could not summon one on her own. Destiny's Embrace did not heed her call, either damaged or lost in the Graveyard where it had fallen. She'd been unable to make herself return to that terrible place to go look for it. Aqua had told her gently that these things sometimes happened to keyblade wielders who underwent trauma and that in time another keyblade would come to her; but every temporary blade Aqua had found for her seemed only to reinforce what was missing. That she was missing something.

Kairi hung on for a year, quietly trudging forward, quietly despairing. Towards the end, she'd found herself looking around and wondering why she was even there. What she could even do to help when it was clear that though Sora had stitched her heart back together again, it had returned to her fragile and unrecognizable. And the heart was the only thing that mattered for a keyblade wielder.

Even a Princess of the Heart, former or otherwise, was not above the wretched process of grief.

Aqua had understood. Everyone had understood. Even Yen Sid had suggested that she take time to reflect on what she wanted to do first with her life-

(with this second chance Sora had given everything for, he'd phrased in his dark tower, never one to shy away from harsh truths even as he said it gently, and she'd tried not to cry or worse, resent him for verbalizing it, because he was her master, not her friend.

Because he was right.

How did she reconcile such sacrifice?)

-and that the door to keyblade mastery would be open for her should she ever wish to return.

So she'd returned home.

The mess with her parents was complicated-during her kidnapping the year prior she'd been missing for months, and during her extended stay in other worlds, Merlin had concocted a facsimile exchange program to convince her parents she could leave. But when she'd come home, her mother had thrown her arms around her and wept, asking her why she was pushing herself so hard when she'd been through so much, and Kairi had nothing to say to that. Her mother didn't truly know the half of it. So she'd returned to normal life, enrolled in college, got a job. And while she busied herself with not grieving or reflecting, time had gotten away from her, hadn't it?

Truth was, Kairi had known. She'd been waiting for this question since the moment she had seen Axel standing in that dark street, flames flickering behind him and grinning like he had never left. Axel, who had never let her run without catching her first.

There was a shuffle, and then she felt Axel gently pull her towards him. She didn't resist. His arms curled around her shoulders, one hand on the crown of her head, warm and heavy. A hug like he might have given Roxas or Xion, a hug like the ones Riku gave her when he was able to make it home.

Kairi's face crumpled, eyes immediately beginning to sting. She hung her head, afraid he would see how much the simple act cut at her.

Truth was, Kairi was sick of being a coward. But the thought of talking about why she had left, which meant inevitably talking about Sora, after all that had happened last night and all the revelations of this morning, tearing at old scars that had never fully healed in the first place...

She didn't want to lash out at Axel, not when he was being so gentle with her. When it had been so long since someone besides Selphie had even touched her really, even just a hand on her shoulder. So long since someone had looked at her and asked if she was okay.

Her voice cracked. "I can't, Axel. Not tonight." Her hands fisted slowly in his shirt. "It's too much."

"Okay." He sighed, stroking her hair. "Sorry, it's been a rough night. Let's go inside."