A/N: I have never really watched any CSI shows…so I apologise for any discrepancies.

Five.

"So…what have we got here?"

"Just ye ol' run-of-the-mill murder suicide. Nothing to write home about," Kairi murmured, flashing Axel a wry grin before snapping on a pair of gloves and grabbing up her blood collection kit.

Axel lifted his own kit from the floor, and followed her into the apartment, both of them making a beeline for the bathroom down the hallway on the left. Axel had already gotten the gist of the situation from the responding officer, Riku, downstairs. It really was just a classic murder suicide as horribly blasé as that sounded.

The Police had been called to the apartment building around three in the morning with multiple reports coming in of a domestic in progress. They'd responded too late, arriving just fifteen minutes later to find the 26 year old male stabbed to death in the shower. The person responsible, who happened to be the male's de facto partner, was found slumped over the toilet seat next to him.

"It's not pretty," Kairi threw over her shoulder as she pushed the bathroom door open. "It looks like she snuck up on him while he was showering. Stabbed him in the back a few times, then turned the knife on herself."

She stepped into the small, garishly blue bathroom, and moved to the side to let Axel enter too. It definitely wasn't pretty. The male was slumped on the tiled floor of the shower, his back facing them, and Axel could already roughly calculate eight, maybe nine, gaping stab wounds along the man's neck, shoulders and ribs. Someone had obviously shut the shower water off long ago, but there was still a lot of blood and water pooling around his still form. Axel noted the man's blond hair had already started to dry into a tangled, spiky mess.

To the left of the shower was the toilet, and draped over the seat like a broken marionette, sat a woman, her head lolled back on the cistern. She'd slit her own throat, and her hands and feet were both covered in blood. This was most definitely the male's blood, as the short work she'd done on herself was actually quite neat in comparison to what she had done to her partner. There was a large carving knife lying by her bare feet, its handle and blade stained dark with thick, congealed blood.

Axel wondered what had gone on here. What had possessed this woman to snap?

Practically reading his thoughts, Kairi didn't leave him in suspense. "It's a closed case. The male's laptop wasn't password protected and Riku already went through it, including his search history. He was looking for someone almost obsessively online. The girlfriend's gone, 'classic jealous psycho' when she's found out about it, and done him in. The police report also mentions her screaming about 'cheating', and 'latent homosexuality'. Sounds like a real piece of work."

"You're telling me," Axel nodded, setting down his evidence collection kit. He'd already taken care of two similar investigations earlier today, and he was feeling pretty tired and hungry, and frankly, just a little bit bored.

"Seems all pretty straight forward. Let's get this done. After the day I've had, I'll be needing a drink."

"Oh?' Kairi questioned, moving over to the woman and carefully placing a little yellow marker with a number '1' on it next to the carving knife. "Trouble in paradise?"

Axel grimaced as he dug out a pair of disposable gloves and tugged them on. He sighed heavily. "Just the usual, you know? …Everything's got to be a drama."

Kairi smiled and said nothing, moving a few more numbered markers next to some blood splatter on the far wall and floor.

Axel retrieved his digital camera and began clicking, focussing on the scene at large, then zooming into the stab wounds on the male's back.

"Don't get me wrong, Saix is a nice enough guy when he's not stressed out, but…since he's a chef – he's pretty much always stressed out."

He shuffled closer, careful not to disturb the blood on the floor as he took some close up shots of each individual stab wound. They really were rough. The crazy chick must've really taken him by surprise.

"That sounds about right," Kairi answered distractedly as she was busy swabbing blood off the floor, the woman's hands and feet, and of course, the carving knife. "He's pretty lucky to have you. I don't know why you put up with that."

Axel shrugged, even though he knew Kairi couldn't see it. "Familiarity makes people do crazy things." Wasn't that the understatement of the century…

Kairi just snorted in response.

"You done over there or what? You ready to move this guy?" Axel continued, finishing up with the photographs and putting his camera away.

"Yep! All done. Just let me grab a couple of body bags."

While Kairi hurried out of the room to go retrieve the bags, Axel fiddled with the zipper on his white examiner suit, and stared over at the crumpled body of the man. For some reason his eyes were just continuously drawn there, and not to the stab wounds either.

Maybe it was something about the curve of his jawline, or perhaps the unruly blond hair, but the guy seemed awfully familiar. Axel turned and looked at the woman more closely, too.

…Oddly enough, she was familiar, too.

"Got them!" Kairi sang, hefting one of the bags into the hallway and through the bathroom door. She looked over at the woman, and then at the man. "She'll be easy. Let's get blondie here out of the way."

Moving forward, Axel stepped into the crime scene and gently pulled the man away from the wall, intent on laying him down flat. Dulled, blue eyes stared blankly up at him and Axel jerked to a stop, his heart thudding hard against his ribs.

"…No way…"

"What is it? Do you know him?" Kairi was peering over his shoulder now, looking down into the young man's lifeless face.

Axel paused, collecting his thoughts as he told himself to remember to breathe.

"I…knew him once." He laughed bitterly. "Literally a lifetime ago…."

He couldn't believe it – he seriously could not believe it. Ever since he was 16, he'd been looking for a boy named Roxas – Number XIII. He knew who he'd been in a life that was no longer his own, and he knew about the promise his other self and this boy had made each other – that they would meet again…in the next life. He looked over at the woman draped over the toilet and he realised with a shock that it was Xion. Her hair was a little different, her face horribly distorted in death, but there was no mistaking it was her…so then, if these two had found each other again in this life….why then, had Xion killed Roxas, and then herself?

"Hey Kairi? Who was this guy searching for online? Was there a name?"

Kairi gave him an odd look, her expression turning wary. "Yeah there was, it was…'Axel'. He was just searching for 'Axel' over and over. Through Google, Facebook, Instagram – everywhere. Never any last names if I remember right."

He turned to look up at her from his position still kneeling on the floor. Kairi looked troubled now, her mouth set into a grim, hard line. "…You don't think he was looking for you, do you?"

Axel met the eyes of the woman who he remembered kidnapping in a life that hadn't been his own and offered her a pained smile. He briefly wondered what she'd think about that if he were to tell her. "He might have been. We'll never know for sure."

Later that night when Axel finally made his way home and found himself tuning out Saix' constant grumbling, his thoughts wandered back to Roxas and Xion. They'd been his best friends, Roxas especially being his everything. He'd come to the only conclusion that seemed to make the most sense. Roxas had obviously recovered some of his past life's memories – searching for Axel proved that…but Xion…

She had killed Roxas in a jealous rage, before ending her life shortly after. The Xion he had known would never do something like that…so it was obvious she hadn't remembered.

He sighed into his bowl of fried rice. Saix hadn't even noticed he wasn't listening.

Was it okay to mourn people who you had never had the chance of knowing in your present life, but had loved and treasured in a past life? Axel supposed he'd never know. Because Xion had believed Roxas was going to cheat on her, and had done what she did – they'd all lost the chance of finding each other again.