Axel dragged his heavy suitcase off the carousel with one hand, the other holding his carry-on bag while trying to balance his garment bag on his shoulder. Legs still slightly stiff from his flight, he made his way through the nearest set of sliding doors out of the gummi garage to hail a taxi. This wasn't a difficult task, as dozens of the garish yellow-and-blue vehicles were stationed against the curb, waiting for passengers. Axel made his way to the nearest available car, where the trunk was popped open for him before the driver, a bulky man with a dark tan and large teeth, came around to help him load his luggage. He climbed into the back seat as the driver replaced himself behind the wheel.

"Where to, man?"

"The Paopu Grand Hotel." Axel winced as his leg muscles complained about being cramped up again so soon. "And fast, please."

"No problem," the driver replied as he moved the car over, merging into the traffic heading deeper into the island city. "So you had a good flight, ya?"

"As good a flight as you can have in those winged tin cans."

The other man laughed. "I know what you mean. If man were meant to fly, he'd have been born with wings, ya?"

"Something like."

"Is this your first trip to Destiny Island?"

"Nah," Axel replied, shifting in an attempt to get slightly more comfortable. "I lived here one summer when I was about ten."

"I can guarantee a lot's changed since then. That gummi garage probably wasn't even around then."

Axel shook his head. "That was the entire reason we were here. My parents are considered the best gummi mechanics in the country."

The driver glanced back at him in the rearview mirror, though he didn't seem too fazed by the statement. "You're the Highwinds' kid then? And you hate flying?"

"Yeah, I'm kind of a disappointment."

"What'd you do while your parents were working? I remember the papers saying they were coming here, but I don't remember anyone ever saying the Highwinds had a kid."

Axel shrugged. "Hung around our place, watching TV. I wandered around every once in a while, checking out the shops, stopping at one playground or another. I didn't go out too much, though, since Mom was afraid I'd jump in the sea and drown or something. Sometimes I'd help in the garage, if Dad was welding."

"So are you here on business for them now?"

"No, I'm in real estate. I'm here for that thing about the hospital."

"Well, here we are," the driver said, bringing the pleasant conversation to a halt at the same time as the car. "Do you need any help with your luggage?"

Axel shook his head as he reached for his wallet. "Thanks for the lift…" he glanced at the taxi licence on the dash, "Wakka. I'll be fine."

"No problem, Mr. Highwind. Have fun during your stay, ya?"

He swiped the company card through the cab's machine, keying in an amount of munny that covered both the cost and a decent tip, and hauled his luggage towards the front doors of the colossal hotel.

It was obvious that money had been no object when the Shinra family had expanded their hotel chain from their home country of Midgar into Eisner. A Grand Hotel had been erected in each of the fourteen city-states that made up the country of Eisner, and it was hard to say which of them was the most lavish. Each of the hotels had its own distinctive style befitting its location, just like the variation in the names. At the Paopu Grand, the crisp, clean uniforms of the staff were aqua and beige, with the black Shinra logo monogrammed in its usual place to match the flag flying out front. A woman wearing this uniform checked him into his room, sliding the company credit card through and wishing him a pleasant stay. The uniform was also worn by the man who then took Axel's luggage from him and placed it on a cart, following the redhead into the mirrored elevators and up to his room on the twelfth floor.

Axel smiled to himself as he hung the garment bag in the closet and looked around the room. Man, he loved staying in executive class. His suite was laid out so that all of the rooms connected to one another through varnished wooden doors. The first was the office and sitting area, with what Axel assumed was a sofa that could be unfolded into an additional bed, and curtains that opened to a magnificent view of one of Destiny Island's many beaches. To the extreme right was the bathroom, wherein a custom-designed shower stall was raised off the floor; one of the stall's doors opened into the general bathroom area, while the other opened so that the occupant could step into the Jacuzzi tub positioned next to it. The bathroom itself had a second door which led to the bedroom; Axel grinned before flopping happily face-first into the plush aqua duvet covering the king-size bed.

He rested there for a few minutes, stretching out his limbs and cracking various joints. Raising his head slightly, he looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table. According to the glowing red numbers, there were still four hours until cocktails were served at six. Axel pushed himself off the bed and went to retrieve his suitcase from the entranceway. Screw what Xemnas had said; he was going to tan, dammit!

Half an hour of laying on a lounge chair, and Axel was already in need of assistance in fending off women. He was also already slightly burnt. Truth be told, Axel couldn't understand why females felt the urge to flock to him while he was half-naked. In a suit, sure; he was hot stuff in well-tailored pinstripes – which happened to be a description of the only good suit he owned – but he always felt slightly insecure about his almost-too-thin body when it was uncovered like this. Not that he would ever let on that he was anything less than completely confident.

"Incoming!"

Evidently the crowd around Axel had heard this panicked warning call before, and appropriately ran away screaming from the direction of the voice. The redhead, however, sat up to look for the source of the trouble just in time to be smacked upside the head with a large ball.

"Ow! Sonuvabitch!" If there was one thing that Axel could claim he'd inherited from his father, it was his foul language. "Damn, that hurt!" He looked for the cause of his pain and saw the blue and white offender near his feet. He reached for it, feeling the spike-like ridges on the surface as he turned it over in his hands.

"Hey, sorry about that. Are you okay?"

He gingerly touched the back of his head before nodding to the kid who'd come running. "I'll be fine. Hurts less than hitting your head off a gummi engine, anyway."

The kid grinned, choppy dark blond hair flopping slightly into his eyes as he caught the ball Axel tossed his way. "You must be from out of town. Everybody around here knows to duck and run from a stray blitzball." Axel snorted, but the kid continued. "So yeah, I'm really sorry. But if you're okay, then I'm gonna head back to my game." He took off and Axel shook his head at the back of the yellow jersey with 'Tidus' emblazoned on it.

Deciding that it wasn't worth his possible demise to stay here any longer, he packed his bag up and began the short trek back to the hotel. He glanced at the other beach-goers as he passed, smiling slightly at the sight of one in particular. Bare feet stuck out into the sand from light-coloured pants and elbows were propped up on the lawn chair's armrests to hold a book up. The boy – Axel assumed it was a boy, but he supposed it could have been a tomboy-ish girl, since the sitting position obscured every major telling factor and he figured it might be a bit creepy to look more closely – reminded him of what Zexion would probably be like at the beach, which in turn reminded him that he should call Demyx later to let him know that he'd arrived safely. He made a mental note to do so after he'd showered all the sand off his body, and gotten some ice and aspirin for his head.

Cocktails were finishing up, and it had just been announced that dinner would be served in the Gold Room in a few minutes. This meant, by Axel's calculations, that he'd been standing in this corner, casually sipping at the same glass of champagne he'd grabbed from a tray when he'd arrived, for almost an hour. He'd picked a prime spot, though. Barely anyone had come up to him to make small talk, but he wasn't so far out of the way that anyone could tell he was actively avoiding the gathering. Briefly he wondered if his parents were donating to the hospital and, if so, who they'd sent on this awful job. He saw what he thought was a familiar head of dark hair running about in a short green dress and cringed, praying to be saved from a potential run-in with his parents' most annoying mechanic.

Axel's thoughts were interrupted by the announcement that dinner was served, and caught himself up warily in the queue to enter the doors. When he gave his name to the woman at the entrance, she told him that he was seated at table seventeen and gestured in the vague direction of the table. As he sat down after finding the table with the card labeled 'seventeen' on it, as well as his own place setting, a staff member bustled over to fill the wine glasses with what he assumed was an excellent vintage, if he cared about those things. There were five other places at the small round table, and they were filled over the next few minutes by an exotic-looking couple with deep tans and baggy clothing to his left, an old woman with a cat brooch accompanied by an equally old man with the annoying habit of singing nonsense under his breath across from him, and a man with unruly blond spikes who had, after quickly surveying the other members of the circle, introduced himself to Axel as Cloud Strife.

Since the exotic couple was busy talking to one another and neither of them wanted to brave the musical old man and, by association, his partner, the two young men turned to one another for conversation over the various courses of the meal.

"So you're a Highwind. Are you here on behalf of your parents?"

Axel took a sip of his wine before answering, mentally rolling his eyes at the often-asked question. "No, actually I don't work for my parents. I'm here on behalf of my boss."

"You're a corporate donor, then. So does your boss have a connection to the hospital, or is this purely promotional? If you don't mind my asking."

"Hey, it's not my story; I don't care who knows it. It's complicated, but here's the short version: Xemnas, my boss, is the son of this guy named Xehanort. Except Xehanort was actually born as Terra. He grew up, realized he was gay, married a dude named Ventus." Cloud didn't object to hearing about gay males, as other had done when this story was told by the media years ago, so Axel continued. "They adopt Xemnas, who looks freakishly like Xehanort, but there's no record of strange scientific experiments proving differently, so we accept it and move on. Anyway, a few years later, Ven goes on a ski trip with a friend of theirs, Aqua. They get stuck in a snowstorm, get hypothermia, and die. Xehanort goes nuts, this is the point where he actually changes his name, and drags Xemnas all around Eisner until he becomes a little too kooky and lands himself in the hospital. This hospital. He died a few years ago."

Cloud blinked, processing all the information the redhead had just fed him. "That was the short version?"

"The longer version goes into detail about Ven and Terra's wedded bliss, and their happiness as a family with Xemnas before Ven's tragic untimely demise. I heard it once, and trust me, I wouldn't wish that one anyone."

"Oh."

There were only sounds of indistinct chatter around them and knives gently hitting plates for a moment. "So what about you? Are you a corporate donor or private?"

Cloud nodded as he finished chewing the bite of chicken he'd just taken. "Both, actually." He smiled when Axel's eyebrows raised in slight shock. "I'm not usually this open or talkative, but since we're sharing stories… I'm the owner of Strife Delivery, so I'm making a donation to the hospital through my business, since they use it for so many of their shipments." Axel nodded; his own parents, as well as the Organization, frequently used the highly successful shipping company. "I'm also giving a personal donation on behalf of my sons. They're probably around your age."

Axel gaped openly at the blond man, sputtering in disbelief. "How are you old enough to have kids that old?"

Cloud laughed. "I'm a bit older than I look, I promise you. But that's where the story comes in; they're not biologically mine. They were born to friends of mine, right out of high school, when I was sixteen. Their mother died in childbirth, something about internal bleeding, in this hospital – the twins came early while they were on vacation. I helped raise them after that, which is why they were left in my care according to Zack's will when he also died after a fatal injury at work when a reactor blew. At age twenty-two I suddenly found myself the father of twin six-year old boys."

"Wow. I remember hearing about that accident, actually. It was in Midgar, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, in a town called Niebelheim, not far from the border. I moved myself and the twins out here a couple years later. I thought the environment would be better for them."

Axel bit his lip thoughtfully. "Mom and Dad were worried for a few days after it was on the news. We've got family out there."

Cloud studied Axel carefully for a moment, which, truth be told, made Axel slightly nervous, before the blond man broke out in a grin. "Reno. You've got to be related to Reno. The resemblance is too uncanny."

"He's my second cousin or something. You know him?"

"We went to school together. He's a pain in the ass, and a troublemaker, but a good friend to have at your back."

The rest of dinner and the unveiling ceremony went by rather pleasantly, Axel and Cloud successfully avoiding everyone else as they exchanged questions and stories. Axel discovered that the blond hated social functions as much as the redhead did, perhaps even more so. He also decided that, while the man may not have been biologically related to his sons, he was in every other way the stereotypical proud father.

"My sons – you know, I keep talking about them, I should show you a picture. I know I have one somewhere in my wallet… Here it is. It's a bit old, probably at least five years ago, but…" Axel took the photograph, looking down at a beaming brunet about twelve years old with his arm slung around the shoulders of a shyly smiling blond. Both boys had glowing blue eyes, and the young man felt slightly guilty about thinking how attractive those eyes were. "That's Sora, and the other is Roxas. They're heading to university this fall; both of them were accepted to Sunset University in Twilight Town. Since you said you're in the business, I was actually wondering if you might be interested in helping us get a property over there. I don't necessarily need to be in Destiny Island, since I have offices in a few of the city-states, and I'd like to stay with the twins as long as I can, you know?"

Axel assured the man that he would love to represent them as their real estate agent. They exchanged business cards, and the redhead excused himself for the night. When he returned to his room, he flipped open his cell, dialing Xemnas' office number to leave a message on his voicemail. "Hey, Superior. I think I may have just found you a buyer for the old Mansion property…"

End Notes: So, that was a lot of backstory to get through, but congratulations, you made it! The only thing

in this chapter that was pre-planned was Axel's conversation with Cloud about the twins. I didn't even know that Axel was Cid and Shera's kid until this morning.

The Xehanort/Terra theory is something that I've developed over the past few months from seeing different trailers and Mix and Mix+ videos. If you really want to know, ask me about it. I can go on for hours pointing out little tiny insignificant things. My roommate can testify.

To anyone who can point out every reference/allusion made in this chapter: you have no life. Welcome to the club.

Review!