AN: My first time posing fic for my new hyperfixation! The only thing I've done for months is play the entirety of Kingdom Hearts and I wrote this a couple hours after finishing the game at the request of my sister. This trio always made me cry way too many times during the course of the series.

I hope you like it, and please leave a comment!

It was a long hug. Longer than Axel had ever experienced, probably, but he couldn't bring himself to let go of them.

His friends. His tiny, passionate friends, as close as little siblings as he would ever get and they were there again, alive again, every memory of all three of them-three-together came back to him and he tried not getting weepy, tried holding it together for their sakes, but he couldn't do it.

After years of not experiencing anything, his happiness and relief at this moment was too much to even comprehend.

When the hug broke, he wasn't sure what to do, but he didn't have to wait long to figure out.

Xion was still weeping, tears streaking towards the hard dirt as sobs wracked her body. Roxas had grabbed her hand tightly, eyes full of concern.

"Xion?"

One massive sob hit her and she buried her face in her tiny hands, pulling away from Roxas and crying out. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I tried to hurt you, both of you, tried to kill you, and I might have done it and I'm so sorry-"

Axel couldn't stand to watch it.

"Hey." He put a hand firmly on her shoulder and Xion looked up at him with big, sad, baby blue eyes, and he could feel his new heart breaking. "Come here." And he could feel her resolve breaking as she threw her arms around him, head buried into his chest.

He slowly stroked Xion's hair and gave the nervously hovering Roxas a reassuring look. "You didn't know what you were doing for some of that. That's what Xemnas - what Xehanort - does to people. And before that we- we all had a lot of terrible moments. Decisions we wished we hadn't made. There were any right choices." He let out a sigh and pulled her closer to him. "Hell, I did worse to both of you a couple of times, and you're still here and kicking."

Xion slowly pulled away from him, wiping her red cheeks with gloved hands, and turned to look at Roxas, who smiled gently at her.

"Of course I forgive you," he said, taking both of her hands in his. "It was never even a question."

Xion took a deep breath and Axel let out one he didn't realize he'd been holding. They'd all been through hell. It was easy to forget just how bad it was.

"I'm gonna need to stay back a minute to heal," he admitted, and Xion cast him an apologetic look before he held up a hand to her. "I promise it's okay. Normal wear and tear. It's all part of the job." He muttered a quick incantation under his breath and watched as his wounds started to glow green, and swore a bit from the pain of it. "In the meantime, you two probably need to be caught up to speed."

Roxas and Xion exchanged a look and nodded at him resolutely, and Axel plunged into the (abbreviated) story of how they got to be there in the barren wasteland of the Keyblade Graveyard, about the Guardians of Light and Xehanort's plan and Sora and Ven (he'd have to explain that in more detail later.) And through it all, the two of them listened with a grim determination he knew they shouldn't have to face at their age, but he knew they'd end up okay.

With the three of them back together, there was never any question.