Jake Hallows: Those are some good guesses! We'll find out this chapter!

Wings of Avalon: I'm glad the two minute reunion was worth it to you!

coolmegan123: Yeah, escaping into a dark corridor at the first sign of nervousness is pretty much Meli's MO. I'm glad Sora and the gang getting back together made you happy! And yes, they def know Sora way too well.

I really like this chapter for whatever reason. Hope you guys enjoy it, too!

Chapter 16

Perspective – Meli

Even before we came out of our hiding places with bows drawn, I knew that this encounter was something significant. These four people – these humans – were like me. I understood that I was a human, had known it ever since waking up here, but I didn't know how I knew that because I had yet to see any others. Until now. Not only that, they were fighting like me, using some of the very same moves that I did without knowing where I had learned them from, and shooting magic from their strange weapons. Weapons that I was inexplicably drawn to, my hand itching to hold one for myself.

I made myself ignore all of that, however, to follow Robin's orders and sneak up on the tall, silver-haired boy from behind, getting his attention with gentle pressure from the tip of my arrowhead so that he would put away his weapon and listen to our leader. The conversation was going well, the strangers staying calm and seeming to confirm Robin's initial assessment of them.

"You're right, the Heartless are bad." The silver-haired boy was speaking, and this statement in particular caught my attention, since I was the one to insist just that. "It's our job to get rid of them. We all...or, at least most of us, have special weapons to do just that. We travel around to...wherever the Heartless are, and fight them."

What if...what if I did that, too? What if that's why I can fight, and why I knew about the Heartless?

I was brought back to the present by Robin addressing me. "What about you, Lady M?"

My eyes flicked over to meet his, and I was just about to answer when I heard a whispered, "Meli?" and my world froze.

Meli. Meli. Meli. Meli. Meli.

That's me. Meli. That's my name...isn't it? But how do they know? Who are they?

I had inadvertently pulled back a little, loosening my pull on the bow, allowing the silver-haired boy to turn and face me. I looked up and was staring into the most brilliant blue eyes I had ever seen, except that wasn't completely true because I had dreamed about these eyes before, but that couldn't possibly be, because I didn't know him...did I?

"Meli. Meli!"

There was something shining in those eyes, emotions I remembered existing, that I could name, but that I had never actually experienced myself. Joy. Disbelief. Hope. Relief. But why? Why would he feel all those things for me, when he didn't know me? I don't know him. I don't know him!

He stepped forward and reached out as if to grab me, and I instinctively jerked backwards, clumsily tripping over a tree root in the process and landing with a jolt on my butt. My eyes snapped back up to his face immediately. "Who...? How...?" My mouth couldn't seem to form the words to ask who he was, my brain working too furiously to try to figure it out itself.

Bending down, he held my gaze, and it made me want to relax and shrink away into nothing all at once. "Do you...remember us?"

Remember. Am I supposed to remember? Does that mean I really do know him? All I could do was shake my head.

The girl, the one who had first spoken my name, had stepped up behind him and was giving me a kind, if tentative, smile. "We're your friends. We've been looking all over for you."

Friends? My eyes darted rapidly from her, to the other two boys who were lingering eagerly in the background, then back to the silver-haired boy. That could be true, I supposed. Maybe I had traveled much further from home than Robin and Little John had assumed, and these people had actually been looking for me this whole time. Something in me hesitated, though. I had already pretty much decided that my 'before' life hadn't been a good one, wasn't anything I would want to return to. But...friends? Four friends, who would drop everything and look all over for me? That didn't sound so bad after all.

If it was true, though...why couldn't I remember them?

"I don't..."

I didn't get to complete the sentence, because suddenly the forest disappeared, replaced by a moonlit beach. The silver-haired boy was there still, smiling down at me, sliding an arm around my shoulders and pulling me in close to him.

Then the scene changed, and he had longer hair and a blindfold, standing so near that our foreheads almost touched, gloved fingers tenderly grasping mine.

It changed again, and we were in a bedroom, tossing angry words back and forth.

Again, and the current version of him was leaning out from behind a giant bouquet of colorful flowers to kiss me.

Once more, and he was above me, tears streaming down his cheeks, and everything hurt, and it was so cold, and dark...

I snapped back to the present with a jerk and a quiet gasp. He was still there, watching me with concern, waiting for my response.

Grim.

I still didn't know who he was, for sure, but I knew that our relationship had been significant in some way. But was it a good way, or a bad way? The sudden influx of memories had left me with a headache, and I could feel more trying to force their way in, pounding at my skull. These people wanted me to say that I remembered them, but right then I couldn't even think, much less explain.

"I...I don't...I can't..."

The silver-haired boy – Grim – was saying something again, but I was overwhelmed by the urgent need to get away from there, to be somewhere far away where I could think, and breathe, and process, and –

I blinked, and they were gone. Grim was gone, the girl was gone, the two boys and Robin and Little John were gone. Even the forest was gone, but it wasn't a flashback this time. The hard stone underneath my hands instead of grass and leaves confirmed that.

How did I...? Somehow, I seemed to have wished hard enough that I actually transported myself to a different place. A place that...I knew.

The memories came pouring in again – walking and laughing with a blond boy, buying bottles from a shop in the center of the town square, skulking in the shadows after a trio wearing black coats.

Gripping my head between my hands, I pulled my legs in toward myself and hunched over, groaning. Too much...it's all...too much... It was like once the gate had opened to let the first memories through, they just began to create an avalanche.

"Are you alright, dear?"

I didn't even look up at he woman who was now speaking to me, just in case it was someone who knew me and would send me into another round of remembering. Instead, I stumbled to my feet and ran. Ran blindly, trying my best not to pay attention to where I was, because remembering hurt and I couldn't handle any more right now.

Finally, I turned down an alley and found a shadowy corner to sink down into. Panting for breath, I let the cool air and the quiet calm my body as my headache began to recede.

I need to remember. Continuing to run away from my past was not going to do me any good. Yeah, maybe remembering hurt, and maybe it was a bit overwhelming, but if I didn't keep remembering I was just going to have more questions. What really was my relationship with Grim? Who were the other three to me? What were those moments I saw all about? Who was the blue-haired man I remembered before? How did I get to where Robin and Little John found me, with no recollection of the rest of my life?

With the peaceful orange glow of the town surrounding me, and no one there to pressure me, I relaxed and tried opening the gate just a little, allowing the memories to come trickling in.

Time was non-existent in that little hole. When I finally opened my eyes again, it felt like hours had passed, but the sun hadn't seemed to move at all. But, oh yeah, that's a thing here. I remembered that, too. I had remembered a lot of things. Nothing linear, not my whole life story by any means.

But I remembered the girl – Kairi. She was my sister. Maybe. It seemed like she was something else, also, but that escaped me still. Our memories together seemed to be mostly happy ones.

I remembered Kaj. He was an old friend, from when I was a kid, and he was also Grim's – no, Riku, his name is actually Riku – doppelganger. Because...he was from a parallel universe? And maybe I was, too. That part was a bit hazy.

I remembered Sora, the friend that I had traveled with, fighting Heartless, and I remembered that there was another boy, one that looked just like him. He was gone, though. I remembered him bleeding in my arms, recalled that it made me feel...sad? Yes, sad. That's the word. Very sad, in fact. I didn't feel sad now, though. It was just another memory.

Keyblade. I remembered that, too, the name of the weapon that three of them were using, and that I had used, myself, sometime in the past. I had paused in my remembering to try to call it to my hand, but was met with nothing but air. I supposed that a weapon like that required remembering a little more than just its existence to wield.

More memories of Riku had come to me, as well, and just like back in the forest, they seemed to be a mixture of good and bad. But even in the bad ones, he was usually right there, helping and holding me. It was obvious that we had been close, that we had...cared for each other, in some way.

Whenever I tried to remember more about the blue-haired man, however, all I got was a name – Saix – and the memory of pain and fear, before my brain seemed to act of its own volition and kick me straight out of the flashback and back into the alley.

Leaning my head back against the wall behind me, I stretched out my legs and adjusted my position. I had all these memories. So now what? What did I do with this semi-information about who I was...or at least, used to be? Should I go back, try to find Riku and the others again, go back and live whatever life it was that they expected of me? I wasn't sure that I even knew how to go back. The trip to Twilight Town had just sort of...happened. But regardless of that, if I went back to my old life, surely I would remember more. Surely I would fall into some sort of familiar pattern, and be able to adjust to the person that I was supposed to be. Most of what I had seen indicated a nice enough life.

At the same time, though, I had to stop and wonder...what if I didn't? What would happen then? I had a perfect chance to start over and make my life whatever I wanted it to be. But what did I want? To stay with Robin and Little John? To strike out on my own? I honestly had no idea. No one option seemed to appeal to me more than another, nothing was drawing me in. I chalked it up to not having enough information. How should I know if I wanted to return to a certain life, if that life was still basically foreign to me?

Standing abruptly, I shoved all those thoughts to the side for the time being. I don't have to decide my future right this second. Right now, I need food. I set off back the direction I had come from, trusting my newly returned memories to lead me to something good to eat. Eventually I wandered past a shop that pinged at my mind, and I swerved to go inside. Sushi. Do I like sushi? I must, if this place was so familiar to me. I had a vague recollection of coming here by myself before heading to some kind of important meeting.

After ordering a few things that jumped out at me, I took my food back out into the streets, eating as I walked. Now that images weren't being pounded painfully into my head, it was kind nice, finding familiarity around me, even though there were still just as many questions as answers. That cafe...I've been in there before. I think I ate a cherry tart. But then...why does it also make me think of blue ice cream?

I tossed my empty container into a trash can as I passed, then rounded the corner into the town square. The tram was rumbling by, so I stopped, letting my gaze travel over the store fronts and meandering townspeople.

"Oh my g–...Meli?"

My attention snapped to the right, half expecting to see one of the four I left in the forest, but instead I found a gangly redhead with vivid green eyes gaping at me. Immediately the images started flickering through my mind, of yelling, of fists swinging, of a broom handle coming down hard, but...no, that's not right. Something's not right here. It was him, but it wasn't him. Could this possibly be another case of a doppelganger?

"You...you're here!" The flabbergasted look never left his face. "You're alive! And you're here! And...where have you been?"

A new stream of memories started up as he spoke. This time, a cocky smirk with a finger on his temple, a sheepish grin as he picked himself and his Keyblade up off the ground. "Axel."

His face lit up a little more. "You remember?"

Tilting my head, I lifted one shoulder slightly. "I'm starting to."

He opened his mouth to speak again, but my attention was yanked away by another arrival. The blue-haired man. Saix. I stared openly at him, brow furrowed, curiosity overriding any other thoughts I might have had. Who is this guy? What did he do to me? Why won't my brain let me remember?

For his part, Saix had frozen like a deer in headlight, something that I might have ventured to label as abject terror on his face. Axel had gone stiff, as well, only his head turning to look back and forth between the two of us. He looked rather scared, too.

"You're him," I finally stated. "Saix."

He gulped visibly, but left it up to Axel to answer for him. "You...uh...you remember him, too, huh?"

I raised one eyebrow. "I remembered him first. Kinda hard not to, when I've got this to remind me." Paying no attention to who else might be around, I grabbed the hem of my dress and pulled it up above my leggings, exposing the lightning-shaped scars.

Both men went completely white. More noticeable, though, was the way that Saix's chest had started heaving rapidly, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. I found myself mesmerized by the movement. That, that right there, was familiar, possibly more familiar than anything else that I had seen the entire day. I knew those motions. I knew the tightness that was pulling at his chest right now.

"I'm...I'm sorr–" Saix finally spoke, his words breathless and barely audible from the distance that we were standing. "I'm so...I can't. I have to..." He backed away slowly, one hand pressed to his chest, head bowed forward. After panting a few more labored breaths, he looked up again, though he didn't meet my gaze. The wildness had not disappeared from his eyes. "I'm so sorry." Then he stumbled away as quickly as he could seem to go, back around the corner he had appeared from.

I turned to Axel, waiting to see what his reaction would be. He seemed to still be stuck in place, watching his friend go, then turning to me and staring some more, his eyes frequently dropping down to my stomach, though the scars were no longer visible. His mouth opened, closed, and opened again.

"What exactly did he...?" Shaking his head, he gathered himself a little more. "Never mind. Um...I'm sorry? For...um...whatever, I just...I need to...go, and...yeah. Have you seen Riku yet? Or anybody? Do they...know...? You know what, don't worry about it, I'm just gonna...call them...and... You should...you should stick around town...for a while. Maybe we'll...run into each other again. But, yeah, um...I should go...now...and check on him. So..."

I scrunched my eyebrows together as I watched him run off after Saix, unsure of what to make of that whole exchange. Their reactions had been confusing, at best, and I still hadn't gotten any more answers as to who exactly Saix was and what he had to do with my scars and memories of pain.

Stick around town for a while, he said. Maybe I would. I wasn't sure if I could leave if I wanted to, and besides, if I wanted to unlock more of my past in order to decide my future, this town seemed like a good place to start. Having made up my mind, I allowed my hazy memories to steer me to the edge of town and out toward a place where I could stay.

A/N: So many reunions in just a couple of chapters! This one I had in my head for quite a while before writing it. Maybe that's why I like this chapter.

Have a great weekend, everyone!