Wings of Avalon: What a description, I love it! Thank you!

Jake Hallows: Definitely more adorableness, along with some awkwardness and, of course, some angst coming up with this new version of Meli.

coolmegan123: Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!

So this chapter got quite long and I'm really hoping it's not boring...! I'm a sucker for scenes when a character's trauma gets explained and I tried not to go overboard with every single detail. There are definitely some important conversations happening here, too!

Also, there's an announcement in the end notes so be sure to read those...

TRIGGER WARNING FOR THIS CHAPTER!

Discussions of past domestic abuse and torture

Chapter 18

Perspective – Riku

I almost had a heart attack the next morning when I woke up and Meli wasn't there. Bolting upright, I heaved a sigh of relief. She was perched at the foot of the bed, watching me with something that fell just shy of amusement.

"Guess sharing a bed wasn't all that helpful, after all. You were dead to the world."

I rubbed a hand across my face, trying to knock away the remnants of sleep. "Yeah, kinda weird. Isn't that usually your job?"

Meli merely quirked an eyebrow at me as if to say, "I don't know, you tell me."

"I used to have to drag you out of bed every morning for training," I explained with a small smile. "You loved your sleep. Of course, that was before you started having nightmares..."

Trailing off, I stared at her for a moment, letting it sink in how peacefully she had slept that night. How peaceful she seemed overall. A bit dulled, perhaps, lacking all of the fire and spunk tha made her who she was, but...content. Not panicking, not depressed, not self-loathing, not any of all the other things that I had almost gotten used to her being lately, and also not having to use darkness to accomplish any of it. One could almost argue that losing her heart had been good for her, that maybe she would be better off not getting it back. If only she weren't so...blank.

"You must have gotten used to waking up early," I finally finished when I had broken out of my reverie.

She shrugged, not seeming bothered by my lapse in concentration. "I'm hungry. Are you?"

"Yeah." I reached for my jacket and pulled out my phone, checking the time. "We're supposed to be meeting Kairi and Kaj. Maybe we could do breakfast at the same time." My gaze darted up to assess her reaction. "That is, if you're okay with that. Meeting them."

"Sure." She turned away, gazing pensively at some spot across the room. "I want to remember. It didn't bother me before, not knowing where I came from. But now that I know parts of it...now that there are other people who know my past and I still don't...I want to know."

I nodded, even though she wasn't looking at me. "Alright. I'll tell them to meet us at the bistro."

Half an hour later, we approached the restaurant. The walk over had been mostly quiet and a little awkward, though we managed to make a little small talk here and there. It felt odd, walking next o her and not holding her hand, but even after the little bit of intimacy we had shared the night before, I didn't feel like she would be ready for me to do so.

Kairi and Kaj were already waiting at the same outdoor table where we usually sat, but they leapt to their feet as soon as we were in sight. Kairi looked like she was barely containing herself from rushing over and tackling Meli. I glanced over to see how she was holding up, still somehow expecting a Meli-like reaction out of her at some point, but she had the same empty expression that had been thre almost constantly.

Meli and I stopped just in front of the others, and there was a moment of awkward silence. Despite the fact that she was nearly trembling with pent-up elation, I could tell that Kairi had no idea how to broach a conversation, and Kaj was clenching his fists and staying back like he wasn't sure he wanted to be seen.

Finally Meli cleared her throat. "Hi."

"Hi," Kairi spat out breathlessly. "Oh my gosh, hi. You...you're here. I'm so glad...we're so glad...I can't believe it's actually you. Can I hug you?" Tears had welled up in her eyes and were threatening to spill over.

Meli looked a bit taken aback by the greeting, furrowing her brows in confusion, but shrugged nonetheless. "Um...I guess?"

Throwing her arms around her shoulders, Kairi clung to her as the tears began to make their escape. Meli automatically returned the hug with her own arms around Kairi's back, though her half of the embrace was certainly less tight.

"I don't even know if you remember me," Kairi whispered, "but I'm so happy that you're okay."

"Yeah, I remember...a little. You're...my sister, right?"

"Yes." I hadn't thought it was possible for Kairi's arms to go any tighter, but they somehow did. "Yes, I am."

When at last she was released, Meli looked to the so far silent member of the group. "And you're Kaj, right? You're...we were friends when we were kids."

Kaj smiled, and let his hands relax by his sides. "Yeah. That's me. It's good to have you back, Mel."

I gestured toward the abandoned table. "Why don't we all sit down and order some food? I'm starving. Maybe Meli can tell us what else she remembers while we're waiting."

That, as it turned out, wasn't much. Mostly just the basics of who we all were, and some disjointed moments here and there that she had no context for. We tried filling in some of the blanks for her, but the explanations ended up all out of order and she seemed almost more confused by the end of the meal than she had when we started.

"May I make a suggestion?" Kairi wiped her mouth with her napkin and dropped it onto her empty plate. "There are...a few other people who are eager to see you again, too. I definitely think that we need to sit down and try to talk through the last year or so from start to finish, not only for your sake, but for everybody's."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Really?"

She tilted her head toward me in a gesture of uncertainty. "I know some of it may be...private. Which is why it's totally up to you," she added, turning back to Meli. "I just feel like there's a lot about you that they still don't know, and there were a lot of confusing moments happening last year that maybe not everyone has gotten to hear the full story of yet." Raising her hand in a half-shrug, she cut her eyes over to me. "I know it was helpful for me to be able to talk to the other people who were involved in everything. I just want Meli to have the same opportunity."

I drew in a breath and held it, considering, then blew it out with a nod. "Okay. That's fine with me if it's fine with Meli." Her only response was an apathetic shrug of consent. "Sora's not gonna be happy about being left out of this, though."

"Maybe we could FaceTime him, if he's not busy," Kaj suggested.

"Face...time?" Kairi repeated, wrinkling her nose.

Kaj scratched his head. "Uh, you know, like...like a video chat? You guys have that on your phones, right?"

"Oh, right! That's a good idea." Pulling out her phone, Kairi began tapping the screen. "I'm gonna text him now and let him know so maybe he can take a break."

"I'll text Lea and tell him what's happening."

Lea and the others invited us over to their apartment for the impromptu meeting. On the way over, Sora called, excited about getting to speak to Meli before it got too crowded, though of course her reaction to his enthusiastic greeting was as subdued as ever. When we arrived, both Roxas and Xion answered the door, wide smiles on their faces.

"Hey, Meli! It's good to see you again!"

There was a sharp intake of breath beside me, and one of Meli's hands flew to her forehead. Automatically I placed a hand on her upper back. "You okay?"

"Uh-oh." Xion's eyes were wide with guilt. "That's our fault. We shouldn't have both showed up at the same time."

"Yeah. I definitely know that look." Roxas waved us inside and toward the couch. "Been there a couple of times myself – too many memories at once. Come on and sit down."

"I'll make myself scarce for a few minutes," Xion near whispered, already inching toward the kitchen. "I don't know if it'll help at this point, but at least she'll be able to process just one of us at a time."

I rubbed little circles on Meli's back as she dropped her hand and gave a slight shake of her head. "I'm okay. Sorry. I just have to give it all a minute to filter through."

"You don't have to apologize," I assured her. "So...you remember Roxas?"

She nodded. "I remembered you a little when I first got to town. But there's more now. You were the reason for the blue ice cream, weren't you?"

He laughed lightly. "Yeah, that's me. Well, me and Axel and Xion."

"Xion, right. Where did she go?"

The black-haired girl peeked around the corner with a shy smile. "Right here. Sorry we overwhelmed you."

Lea strolled into the room past her, clearly not worried about such a problem. "Well, she's already seen me once, so I'm gonna sit down." He spun one of the kitchen chairs that had been pulled into the room around and straddled it. "Hi there."

Meli narrowed her eyes at him, and I found myself waiting for a typical snarky comment that, of course, didn't come. "You...I know that you're Axel. You're friends with Roxas and Xion, and you use a Keyblade. But...for some reason I keep getting flashes of someone else. Somebody who looks like you, but with shorter hair, and...a different personality."

"You're thinking of Aiden," Kaj said quietly.

I sighed. "And...I guess that might as well be our cue to start."

Everyone settled in as comfortably as they could in the small space, with Kairi's phone propped up on the coffee table so that Sora could see at least those of us sitting on the couch. He cleared his throat, craning his head from side to side as if he could see beyond the reaches of his screen.

"Is, um...you-know-who there, too?"

I glanced up at Lea, but he didn't seem bothered. "Isa's around, if that's who you're talking about. He's just hanging out elsewhere in the apartment."

I honestly had forgotten that he was living here now, too. I wasn't sure which was more strange, knowing that the person who had been an enemy for so long was so near, or knowing that he was being forced into hiding in his own home and feeling a bit sorry for him.

"Who's Isa?" Meli asked innocently.

I swallowed. "Um...that's...you would know him as Saix."

"Oh. He didn't want to be in here?" Everyone looked to her in surprise. "Is it because of what happened last time?"

Now it was Lea's turn to give an awkward explanation. "Uh, kinda. He just...didn't figure he would be...welcome."

Meli turned to look at the others of us on the couch. "Do you guys not like him or something?" Without waiting for a response, she continued with a shrug. "All I know is that he was involved with something bad that happened to me, that gave me scars. It's kinda driving me crazy not knowing what it was."

"Don't worry about it," I replied a bit too quickly. "You're better off not remembering those details." She'll remember someday. You can't keep it from her forever. I gritted my teeth. That doesn't mean I can't put it off for now. Let her have a little more peace while she can.

"Maybe he should be in here." The whispered words came from Kairi, and I stared at her in disbelief. She focused on her hands that lay on her lap. "I don't know, just...maybe all of this would be good for him to hear, too."

A part of me didn't think he deserved to hear all the private details of Meli's life. Another part of me wanted him to hear all about how innocent she had been, and how he had completely ruined her life. In the end, I agreed simply because everyone else seemed in favor, and there wasn't really a good enough reason to refuse.

Lea slipped back into the bedroom area and returned several long minutes later with Isa literally in tow – his hand gripping tightly to the other man's wrist. I had a feeling that if I could have seen Isa's face, he would have looked terrified, but he kept it hidden behind a curtain of blue hair. Even when Lea deposited him to lean against the wall on the opposite side of the room, whispering a few more encouraging words before returning to his seat, he kept his head ducked and his arms crossed protectively across his chest.

"So," I began nervously, rubbing one hand over the knuckles of the other. Telling my girlfriend about her own past wasn't something I ever thought I'd find myself doing, and I suddenly felt put on the spot. "I guess technically Aiden isn't the beginning. I guess we should start with your childhood, which...to be honest, we don't know a whole lot about."

"Neither of us remember anything before we were eight," Kairi broke in. "So you never have actually known your birth parents."

"Right. You were in foster care, and...from what you told me, it doesn't sound like it was the greatest of experiences." So far, Meli's expression remained predictably blank, but the three former Nobodies across from us were listening with concerned interest. "You hinted to me that you ran away from the group home."

"Yeah, she did." Kaj leaned forward to see Meli better. "You and I had already lost touch by that point. My fault, not yours. But, um...that's what I gathered from Aiden, anyway. He always said..." He faltered, seeming to reconsider his words for a moment. "Well, he said that you were 'a runaway that he picked up out of the gutter'. I think that was just his crass way of saying that you were homeless."

Lea huffed and leaned back, crossing his arms. "Okay, I already don't like this guy."

"Oh trust me, he wasn't likable, at least once you got past his smooth-talking facade. The only reason I hung around him was because of..." Kaj's attention suddenly snapped to Isa. "Because of Chander. They were buddies, for some reason."

Apparently Lea immediately caught onto Kaj's drift, because he twisted around to face Isa. "Hear that, Isa? Even in some parallel universe you and I were still hanging out together. Except somehow it seems that you were the more likable one...weird, right?"

Isa's only response was to turn his head toward the adjacent wall, shooting a barely visible glare at Lea in the process.

Unperturbed, Lea returned his attention to the rest of the group. "Okay, I'm hooked now. So who was my doppelganger to Meli, exactly?"

Squelching my slight irritation at him for treating this almost like a fictional story, I cleared my throat and glanced at Kaj. He was staring back at me dubiously, in a way that said, "I've already been threatened for trying to reveal this information once. You're on your own."

"Um..." Exhaling, I kept my gaze purposefully away from Meli's. Normal Meli would not want this. But Now Meli does, and... I thought about the former relationship between Meli and Lea, all of the tension and misunderstandings stemming from this one bit of information that had been kept secret. Maybe they both need this. "He was her boyfriend."

"Oh." Lea's face registered his dumbfounded surprise. He blinked, and it morphed into a more mischievous kind of surprise. "Oh." Then his brow furrowed, and he seemed to be putting all of the pieces together – why Meli had always reacted to him the way she had. "Ohhh."

"Yeah. It wasn't a good relationship." I finally spared a glance at Meli. She was chewing on the inside of her lip thoughtfully, as if the memories she had seen were starting to make sense. "I mean I think it probably started out fine, but..."

"But Aiden was a manipulative hothead who knew exactly how to get everyone under his thumb, and blew up at the drop of a hat when he didn't get his way." I didn't expect how bitter Kaj sounded about it. I hadn't ever thought about the connection between him and Aiden before.

"A manipulative hothead, huh?" Lea muttered uncomfortably. "Haven't heard that one before."

"He used to hit me a lot." Meli's out of the blue contribution took everyone by surprise. "That's mostly what I remember about him. Anger. Hitting, choking, throwing things. Cigarettes. He used to...bring me flowers...and promise to never do it again." Kairi threw her arms around her sister's shoulders and pulled her in tight.

He used to bring me flowers. I was suddenly taken back to her birthday in January, when she had reacted strangely to the bouquet of flowers I had gotten for her. Maybe that was the problem.

Lea seemed to be caught up in his own thoughts and realizations, his expression solemn and faraway. "No wonder you always hated me," he finally murmured.

Meli's forehead creased. "But you're not him. I could tell that even with most of my memories missing."

He gave a wry laugh. "That didn't seem to sway you before. Not that I blame you, now that I know. I mean, it sounds like I had plenty enough in common with him for you to mistrust me."

Sora spoke up for the first time since the meeting had begun. "Maybe it's actually easier, without the memories. The memories – and the emotions that are attached to them – are what was causing the problem in the first place. Now that those are out of the way, you're able to look at Axel objectively and see that he's different from Aiden."

"That could be true." I wonder if that will change once she gets her heart back.

"So whatever happened to Aiden, anyway?" Meli asked.

Lea scratched the back of his neck. "Uh...you told me you killed him."

Kairi laughed, and even I had to give a chuckle at the nervous expression on his face. "Is that what she told you?" She elbowed Meli playfully. "Well, I mean it's technically true, if by 'him' you mean 'his Heartless'. He somehow found us back on our homeworld, and after Meli gave him a spectacular speech about how he didn't scare her anymore he turned all dark and fireball-throwing on us. Meli kicked his butt."

"Hey, don't forget about us!" I hadn't even realized that Donald and Goofy were listening in from Sora's end until the duck spoke up. "We helped kick his butt!"

Kairi smiled. "Right. How could I forget about you guys?"

"Okay." I leaned back into the couch cushions, happy to be past that particular sticking point. "Let's get back to chronological order."

We went through Meli's entrance into our lives, stopping to discuss some details about parallel universes and portals for not only Meli's sake, but Lea, Roxas, and Xion's, as well. She had already come up with a good bit of what came after on her own, and just needed Roxas and me to get a few things filled in a straightened out. Which naturally came with a few interruptions and rabbit trails where everyone else figured out where they had been at that point in the story.

"Then, um..." My palms had grown a bit sweaty, and I rubbed them up and down my thighs. So far we hadn't gone into detail on everything that had been happening with the Organization, just focusing more on personal matters to keep things less confusing, so I didn't think I needed to bring up my altercation with Roxas. I purposefully avoided looking in his direction, regardless. However, there was another little plot point that I wasn't going to be able to get around.

"You and I had a fight." Tell her you'll talk about it later. There's no need to go into what happened here. It's private, between the two of you. It made sense, it really did. Neither of us had ever told anyone else what our fight had been about before now. But somehow it didn't sit right with me. All of Meli's secrets were being aired out for everyone to hear, so why couldn't I share just one of mine? No more secrets. They had done nothing but tear us apart in the past.

"I...let a dark part of me come out to...accomplish a task..." Now I was definitely avoiding looking at Roxas. "And for a few minutes, that part of me was in control. And...I hit you." Everyone in the room had gone very still, listening. "More like knocked you out of the way, really, but...it was still violent, and it broke the promise I had made to you. So you left."

"But I forgave you."

Startled, I looked up into her blue eyes. "Yeah. Later, you did." I smiled softly. "It took a little while for me to get your trust back, but by the time we all made it back home, you were ready to give us a shot."

"I tackled you in the water and kissed you." The statement was so matter-of-fact that I almost laughed. Instead, I cleared my throat against the blush that was rising in to my cheeks.

"Yeah, that you did."

"Okay, I think that's my cue to take over!" Sora proclaimed a little too loudly over the phone's speaker. He, Donald and Goofy launched into a way too long and embellished recounting of their travels, frequently talking over one another and finishing each other's sentences. After being encouraged several times to speed it up and condense the story, they finally reached the Land of Dragons and the next awkward moment.

"So, that was the other time that I caught up with you and we...talked. Argued. Whatever you want to call it. Then right after that...you were kidnapped. By...by Saix."

Meli looked up at Isa, who had returned to studying the floor, but said nothing.

"I had already been kidnapped at that point, by this guy." Kairi jabbed her thumb at Lea, and Meli frowned. "Oh yeah, did we forget to mention that he used to be a bad guy?"

"Guilty." Lea threw up both of his hands. "The short story there is, when we were Axel and Saix, we were on the wrong side. Now that we're back to being Lea and Isa, we've changed."

"Anyway, Axel kidnapped me, then Saix kidnapped me from him, and you and I both ended up in the Realm of Darkness in a dungeon together."

Meli nodded. "I remember that. I remember the dungeon, and you, and I remember being...tired and...sick. I just...can't remember what else happened there."

"I tortured you."

Every eye in the room turned to Isa. He never raised his head, but his fingers were beginning to turn white from how hard he was gripping his arms, and his voice wavered. "I used a...a device created by Vexen to hurt you until you did what I wanted. What...what Xemnas wanted. Which was to take me into your universe, so that I could go on some ridiculous scavenger hunt for his idiotic pet project."

For a moment the only sound was his labored breathing. "The whole thing ended in failure. Not that putting you through all of that would have been worth it, anyway. I was cruel. I tormented you endlessly, and I...I took pleasure in it."

By the end, his whole body was trembling. My hands were shaking, as well, remembering the scenes I had witnessed inside Meli's heart. Cruel almost seemed like too soft of a word to use. I knew that technically, the man in those memories and this man in front of me were not the same, but it was so hard to separate the two in my mind.

Standing, Lea crossed the room and gingerly laid a hand on his friend's shoulder. "No. I don't think you took pleasure in it. I think Xemnas did."

Taking a deep breath, he let his gaze travel over all of us. "You guys remember how Saix had the yellow eyes, right? Just like everyone in the second version of the Organization who had a piece of Xehanort's heart in them. I didn't realize it at the time, but Xemnas – aka Xehanort – was controlling Saix for a huge portion of the time that we were Nobodies. Ever since..." He hesitated, cutting his eyes over to Isa. "Well, ever since he marked him."

Marked him. With Xehanort's obsession with the recusant's sigil, I had no doubt he had to be referring to the scar across the bridge of Isa's nose. I had thought it a strange coincidence in the past. I would have never dreamed that it was something so sinister.

"I wasn't a mindless drone," Isa countered quietly. "I made plenty of my own choices, Lea."

"Yeah, I know. We both did, and most of them were stupid." Lea's hand moved to clasp the back of Isa's neck. "But even without a heart, the Isa – or Saix – that I know wouldn't enjoy torturing someone."

There was silence as everyone processed what we had just been told. For me, it was yet another piece of truth about Isa that I wasn't sure I was quite ready to accept yet. Right now my head was too full of thoughts about how to help Meli to linger too long on any other subject, anyway.

"I'm sorry," Isa spoke up again. "That's...all I can really say, and I understand that it is far from enough. Most of the time I cannot separate in my mind when I was in control versus Xemnas, so I...I take full responsibility. I make no excuses. Just know that I am truly, very sorry." He fidgeted against the wall. "I think I should...I should go now." After a final squeeze on the shoulder from Lea, he fled back into the bedrooms.

"Maybe we should all take a break," Kairi murmured.

Sora nodded. "Yeah. This, um...this has gotten pretty heavy."

"And the rest of the story isn't gonna be much easier," I sighed, trying to shake off what had just transpired. "I agree. Let's finish this another time."

A/N: Okay here's the announcement, so listen up! Today at 6 pm EDT I will be posting a Bad Things Happen Bingo card on my Tumblr and Instagram! (same username - actress4Him) You guys are getting a heads up about it because you're my main Kingdom Hearts followers. The majority of my followers on Tumblr are there for Voltron and they will probably snatch up a bunch of the prompts rather quickly, so if any of you want any prompts to be filled for Kingdom Hearts (Meli being included is optional!), you'll need to do it ASAP! You can make requests on Tumblr via ask, dm, or comment on the post (I'm pretty sure you can send anonymous asks without an account), on Instagram via comment or dm, or here on FFN via dm. I'll post the finished prompts here and on Tumblr and Ao3!