I lay on the bed.

I felt sick.

Mr Slater sat on the edge of the bed, head hanging, not looking at me. I couldn't see his face, and I was allowing myself to remain oblivious to sound, so anything he said was irrelevant.

I'd been so stupid. I'd blindly followed my heart. Well. I'd managed that without a heart. No wonder I'd lost it. Maybe I was so stupid I didn't deserve it. I'd thrown away all I had, all I could have with the Organization.

I kept trying to summon portals, just to check it wasn't one of Luxord's tricks. Luxord was right. Mr Slater was a liar. Loving him was a mistake.

It was like one of our meetings in the boutique in reverse. We didn't talk. My loathing for Mr Slater immersed me as each second took an eternity of pain. I had no option but to stay, or talk to Mr Slater. Eventually, he turned around to face me, but didn't have much luck. The fragment of a moment when I saw his tear-stricken face and once-perfect fringe, I closed my eyes, and rolled onto my side.

"Demyx… look at me." I ignored him. "Demyx?" He tugged at my shirt gently. I pulled away, still not looking.

"I want to go." I said. My voice was hollow. I did not turn around.

"The Organization is still after you! Where would you go?" He beseeched me. I didn't answer the question.

"I want to go." I repeated.

"Please, Demyx, just listen to-"

"Let me go!" I shouted, looking at him for the first time. My sickly refined hair was now sticking up wildly in places and my blue eyes were an ocean tempest, and as I locked onto him, he looked away.

"I don't want you to go." He said, quietly.

"Pathetic!" I roared, standing up, and looking down on him. "You promised me you'd always be there, you promised me you cared!" He stood up, too, and glared at me back.

"I am here! I do care!" He yelled back.

"You promised me I had a…" I couldn't hold in the tears, and they erupted down my cheeks. I fell back upon the bed; face down, hitting the sheets with my fist like a child in a tantrum.

"I have never, ever, said you had a heart." He said. He wasn't shouting. He sat back onto the bed, and stroked my hair. I stopped my anger, but didn't respond in any other way, other than to pull my head from his reach. After a few minutes, I sat back up, next to him. We weren't speaking, again. He put his arm around me. I let him, but neither returned nor reacted to the gesture. After a minute, he took his arm back. His hands lay somewhere in his lap. I was biting my nails. The suit jackets and ties lay in ugly lumps on the floor. I couldn't have been bothered to unlace my shoes, but it seemed that Mr Slater couldn't get round his habit of neatness where they were concerned. I was staring down into my own lap, and couldn't see the man's face.

Time crawled by. No matter how many times he tried to hug me, or kiss me, he drew blank each attempt. I couldn't understand: why if I had no heart, did I have to endure this hatred for the man next to me?

"Let me go." I said, looking at him again, bringing my feet onto the bed, and huddling in a ball. I was inexplicably cold. He looked at my shoes on the bed distastefully, but I didn't care, and he didn't complain.

"Demyx… I will not let you kill yourself, and leaving will do just that…"

"What have I to live for, if not to chance getting my heart back?"

"Maybe me?" he asked. He wasn't sarcastic or rude. It was a question.

"Maybe."

"Let me go. Please. Mr Slater. Let me go." There were no pleas about it. It was a command. He was about to open his mouth, when we were interrupted. A portal, just like any summoned by Organization XIII, started to manifest very slowly in the centre of the room. A voice emerged.

"Your time's up! We kept this portal open, so, by means of physics, we can still march right in there. Demyx: surrender, or be fried with your sweetheart. Choose: now!" A black figure that I knew to be Luxord stepped from the portal. A small Nobody army, made of Xaldin's Dragoons, dusks, and Xigbar's Archers trampled through behind him. Once in, the teleported, jumped, or slithered their way to the side of the room, or remained by the portal to guard it. "Portals are henceforth unemployable…"

"But that one-" I insisted, pointing to the shadowy vortex, still remaining in the centre, its black smoke billowing before fading to nothing.

"-is being held open by Xigbar. Now: make your choice. What say you to returning to us, or being destroyed along with 'Mr Slater'?"