It was raining.
It was raining and Larxene was miserable. There was some sort of commotion going on downstairs - when was there not in this madhouse? Kairi, no doubt, was in the centre of it, laughing her innocent laugh as she sat by having her pot-belly rubbed by her loving boyfriend Sora, and all sorts of friends and relatives. The baby was kicking now, apparently, soon to add yet another screaming mouth to be fed in the family.
That wasn't why Larxene was miserable; she'd long since become accustomed to the manic hustle-and-bustle of her extended family. It was something else entirely, something that had eaten away at her so much that even Marluxia had noticed.
She'd been staring at the rain pattering on the roof for five minutes, perhaps, before she turned back to the computer screen where a bundle of messages, each more frantic than the last, were stacked up. Larxene? Larxene, you there? Larxene, come on, I have to go in ten minutes...
She sighed heavily, and tapped a reply before glancing up at the top of the chat screen, and the name emblazoned on the uppermost bar.
Naminé Traverson.
She fought back an unpleasant curl to her stomach, because it wasn't just any Naminé Traverson that she was chatting to, it was that Naminé Traverson, little sister of Marluxia, back before his surname was Carlisle. And sooner or later, one of them was going to have to know that Larxene knew both of them.
She was meeting Marluxia today at his apartment. But she knew that Marluxia didn't react well to things like that - and Vexen was also out today, and the last thing she wanted was for Marluxia to get miserable when he was all alone in his apartment.
Over the months, she'd become accustomed to Marluxia's fits of fear; he had them less now than he used to, but there were still certain situations that would send alarm bells in her mind ringing - when they were together and somebody would say something bad, or when Marluxia was alone and unhappy. So as much as she just wanted to curl up in bed with her laptop and Naminé's company, she promised herself that she would meet Marluxia.
It was only ten minutes or so's walk to Marluxia's place and although in that time Larxene's feet had become sodden, the walk wasn't so unpleasant and the look on Marluxia's face - pure, unadulterated glee at finally having company - was worth the walk by far. Larxene felt so sorry for him, bumbling around in a life that he didn't quite understand, so desperately trying to make up for the mistakes his previous life had borne. Marluxia had told her, eventually, about the girl on the roof, and the fire, and although she'd been horrified she understood, and she promised him that she'd never leave, no matter what happened. She was surprised when such a commitment slipped from her lips (she was never one for anything of the sort) but it made perfect sense to both of them, and so that was that.
They chatted amiably enough as Marluxia flung a towel at her head, introduced her to two new spider-plant babies that he'd given individual pots to last night (he had quite an impressive collection now), and shoved her onto the bed, laughing. But one epic pillowfight later, Marluxia was frowning.
"You're still wrong," He said accusingly as Larxene made herself comfortable in the bedding piled onto the spare mattress.
She swallowed thickly.
Marluxia deserved to know. Right?
"I... I've met somebody. On the internet."
Marluxia's expression turned to one of innocent curiosity.
"Don't tell me it's a paedophile?"
Larxene shook her head, bit her lip and replied;
"No. It's your sister."

No, it's your sister.
Marluxia couldn't quite believe what he had just heard, and for several minutes, it seemed, he couldn't quite summon any words, either.
"Na-Naminé?"
Larxene nodded guiltily.
"I didn't realise," She said apologetically, "I mean, I didn't realise that it was-"
"My Naminé?"
"Y... yeah."
Marluxia toyed with his lip between his teeth until it was raw, furiously blinking back tears.
"Does she know about me?" He finally whispered.
"No," Larxene replied truthfully. "I haven't told her yet."
Horror flared in Marluxia's stomach.
"Yet?" He asked incredulously. "You were going to tell her?"
"Well, it wouldn't really be fair not to, would it?" Larxene replied quietly.
Marluxia shook his head, curling in on himself.
"You can't tell her," He mumbled. "You can't... not her. She... she'll never forgive me. You can't let her know."
"Don't you think she deserves to know where you are?" Larxene said, reaching out to touch Marluxia. He froze like a deer in headlights and she quickly dropped her hand. "Don't you think she deserves to know that you got better? You're her brother, Marlu-"
"I'm not any more!" Marluxia replied harshly. "I failed her, Larxene. I don't deserve to have a sister any more."
His mind catching up with his sudden outburst, he recoiled visibly, cringing at himself.
"I- I mean-"
"I think you should see her," Larxene admitted quietly. Marluxia shook his head.
"I can't."
"Why not?" Larxene challenged. "Why not? You got better, Marluxia, don't you think she deserves to know that?"
"I don't deserve for her to know," Marluxia replied, his voice sounding thick and choked. He stood from the bed, scrambling over to the door. When Larxene followed he spun back and snapped - "Don't follow me!" and stormed away, out into the pouring night.

---

Marluxia had never felt so alone before. His whole life since he was eleven, people had known where he was, and even after he'd moved out with Vexen it was the same - he was either at home with Vexen, or at home without Vexen, at school or walking purposefully to school, or out with Larxene. Either way, Vexen always knew where he was. He fumbled with the electronic tag around his wrist that he always, always wore. He'd cracked the code to unlock it months ago, but only now did he put it to use, snapping the thing off and dropping it into some streaming gutter before continuing his aimless march into the darkness. How long was he walking for? He didn't know, didn't know until he reached the college, walking right up to the cast iron gates at the entrance. It was the only place he knew; his feet had taken him there entirely of their own accord. For the longest moment, he was staring in through the unyielding bars at the buildings behind, until his mind made him the one trapped on the inside, unable to escape into the world of the free. He imagined he saw Vexen, hair blackened by the rain, smiling lightly like nothing was wrong, and there was Larxene with the same expression. And Naminé...
He reached through between the bars as though to reach for the mirage, to take her hand and save himself from his past and conscience. Of course, his hand passed right through, and then there was nothing in the steady, driving rain, bar the occasional roar of a car driving past in what he felt to be a mockery of his situation.
Sinking to his knees, his arm still pressed up to his shoulder through the gate, he felt tears swim up inside him and mingle with the rain. The rational side of his mind told him to go home, go back to where Larxene, a towel and a warming mug of hot chocolate was waiting. Fuck that, argued his deranged, insane side. Make the most of your freedom. You're going to hell, why not drag a hundred people down with you?
But there was a third side, a little boy plagued by nightmares, fear and confusion, that glued him helplessly to the floor, unable to move even when the merciless cold soaked through his jeans, and the gravel dug painfully into his knees. He wondered, vaguely in the back of his mind, if Vexen was going to find him again like the saviour he was, or whether he'd blown his very last chance and this was it, he'd never escape again. And then he thought about Naminé, the beautiful little girl that he never thought he'd see again, and whether she'd ever forgive him the terrible things he'd done. He was less than convinced.

---

"Fuck."
Larxene had been standing in the open doorway, watching Marluxia disappear and slowly becoming splattered by stray raindrops infiltrating the house, for a few minutes before she realised that Marluxia had just done the worst thing possible: he'd run off by himself.
Not hesitating to fling her shoes or coat on, she grabbed the nearest set of keys to the apartment and flung herself out of the door, onto the metal staircase that led down to the ground and away where Marluxia had run. But he'd already turned a corner and disappeared. Swearing again, Larxene picked the most logical direction - the one leading to the park. As far as she knew, there were only three places where Marluxia would have gone; the park, the café where they often chatted, and the college. The park being the nearest (and dearest, Larxene thought sardonically), she set off at a run towards it.
It was empty, gates locked closed at this time of night. Larxene still climbed over the hedge with a practised ease, calling out Marluxia's name as she ran past the playground, the field, the pond with the bridge across it, the fancy gardens next to the church - he wasn't there. She climbed over the wall that they often walked along on the way to and from college, and ran up that same route, still calling Marluxia's name.

---

Marluxia had been thinking, and that was a bad thing.
I'm a murderer, he thought as he watched the rain fall in waves across the eerily silent college. I'm a murderer. What am I doing? I don't deserve this. I should be locked away. They should never have let me out.
He felt like the two halves of his mind were battling for domination with each other, and the longer he stayed kneeling on the floor with ghosts of recollections crossing his mind, the stronger the urges to kill, main and destroy became. He caught himself thinking those things completely by accident, and every time he did he swore and cursed himself like his madness would simply disappear, and even stronger would grow the flame of doubt in his heart that one day he wouldn't catch himself before it was too late, before there was blood in his hands and a body lying dead on the floor beside him.
He imagined that he heard his name being called from faraway, like some memory that hadn't quite remembered to stay in the past, and he felt his precious fragments of sanity slip away like a fluttering butterfly's wings pinned down by the merciless, merciless rain.
Clinging to his last shreds of rational thought like a lifeline, he climbed to his feet and began to walk.

---

Larxene reached the main gate of the school, panting, and there was nobody there. Here at midnight, the place looked wrong, like a freakish horror story - except this wasn't just a film with terrible acting and worse special effects, this was reality. Marluxia was alone, and angry, and Larxene found herself terrified at the realisation that she didn't know what he was going to do. Curl up into a corner and scream like he sometimes did at school? Knock on the door or some poor stranger, seeking help in his confused state of mind? Or, and Larxene felt horror fester in her stomach as her mind maliciously formed the word, kill? She imagined him, bent over some bloody corpse, laughing...
The thought, morbid as it was, spurred her on. She picked up her pace again, down the stretch of housing that ran along the college, and turned the corner to the other entrance gate to the school. Nothing.
"Fuck."
Marluxia was, well and truly, gone. Larxene began to walk, trying to regain her breath, and debated what to do. She could call the police, or her parents, but what would she say? She half wished that she had Vexen's number, or that Marluxia had his own phone so that she could talk to him. There was only one place left to look, and that was the café. Larxene felt as though she was simply pulling at straws, but she had nowhere else to look so she diverted her course to the high street and began once again to jog, pulling out her phone as she did so.
"Mum? Is that you? I have a problem. Yeah... it's Marluxia. He's disappeared."

---

The police station lights were still on, just one on duty police officer lounging at the desk, reading a newspaper with a cup of tea in one hand. When Marluxia stumbled in he didn't seem concerned enough, simply folding up the paper and walking over to where Marluxia had collapsed in one of the chairs, half panting, half sobbing.
"Can I help you, sir?"
"Lock me up," Marluxia demanded fiercely, swallowing thickly and running a hand through his sodden hair. "I'm a murderer. Nobody's safe unless I'm behind bars."
"Is this some kind of joke?"
Before Marluxia knew what he was doing he'd grabbed the officer's collar, easily pushing him up against the opposite wall.
"No!" He screamed. "This is not a joke! I could kill you, right now, and I swear if I stop concentrating for a single second that's exactly what I'm going to do!"
He realised that he was shaking, and dropped the officer from his toes, stumbling backwards.
"Arrest me," He begged. "Tie me up, please. I can't trust myself."
"I'm sorry, I can't do that without a valid reason," The officer said apologetically, and Marluxia hissed angrily.
"I'm a murderer! I've killed people, isn't that enough of a reason for you? I'm turning myself in. Just do the sensible thing and lock me away."
The officer, for a moment, seemed at a loss as to what to do, but he soon collected himself to take a professional approach to the situation.
"What's your name?"
Marluxia dug out from the depths of his past a name that he'd been trying to forget about for a long time.
"Marluxia," He said. "Marluxia Traverston."
The officer tapped the name into his computer and frowned a little at the results.
"There isn't a Marluxia Traverston." He stated blankly. Hearing his old name again, Marluxia found himself agitatedly biting his lip.
"Try Carlisle."
"Age?"
"Eighteen."
"And what are you turning yourself in for?"
"Murder," Marluxia repeated as he fiddled with the hem of his sodden t-shirt.
"Can you give me any more specifics?"
Marluxia, battling a new wave of tears, shook his head. It was too painful to remember.
"Follow me."
The officer led him to one of the temporary cells in the police station and he obediently walked inside.
"Wait here."
The door clicked closed with a comforting familiarity, and as a dull sort of warmth began to fill Marluxia's bones, his mind began to clear. It was okay, he could control himself. He'd managed it this time, hadn't he? He just needed to get the officer to call Vexen who would take him home and everything would be okay again. He pulled off his soaking shirt, ringing it out onto the plain faux-tiled floor. Then he thought that maybe he should call Larxene instead; after all, Vexen was busy all night and if he fixed everything without his help he'd be ever so proud of himself. So when the officer returned with a collegue in tow, he straightened out and calmly requested a phone with which to make a call.

---

When Larxene had checked the café and still found no sign of Marluxia, she returned to Vexen's apartment - not there either - and then the railway station - nothing - before going back to the park for a more thorough search. Sora and Roxas, her identical twin brothers, joined her halfway through but it was to no avail that they checked every nook and cranny, screaming Marluxia's name into the depths of the early morning night. Eventually, even they had to admit that wherever Marluxia had run off to, it wasn't anywhere that they were going to find through logic and reasoning.
"We should call the police," Roxas was saying as they stood around in the town centre, alone and looking lost, when Larxene's phone rang.
"It's not a registered contact," She said as she picked up. "Hello?"
"Larxene! It's me. Marluxia."
"You! Where the fuck are you?! Do you know how long we've been-"
"I'm at the police station," Marluxia interrupted. Larxene's stomach sank.
"You didn't do anything, did you?" She asked, trying to stop her voice from wobbling. Oh God, what if Marluxia had hurt somebody? It would have been her fault...
"Oh, no, I just turned myself in," Marluxia said a little sheepishly. "Can you come and get me, please?"
"You moron," Larxene muttered, by which she meant Thank God you're okay. "Why couldn't you just have gone home? What did you tell them?"
"I think I told them I was a murderer or something," Marluxia said nervously and Larxene could easily tell from his tone of voice - he was never nervous - that he was lying. She understood; if the officers suspected that he actually was the murderer he'd accused himself of being, then they probably wouldn't let him go at all.
"I'll be right over," She promised. "Do you want me to try to get hold of Vexen?"
"No," Marluxia replied after considering this. "I'm fine. I don't want to bother him."
"Okay."
She hung up and turned to Roxas and Sora.
"Right. Time for a trip to the police."