Warnings, disclaimer, ect, ect, in chapter 1.

"There you two are! We've been looking all over for you!"

Olette and I both blinked at the sight of a rather angry Kairi standing in front of us with her hands on her hips. Selphie was just behind her, nodding her head seriously. The boys were off to the side and Sora, Wakka, and Tidus were looking at us as though they pitied us. Riku looked amused. There was no way this was going to end well.

"Sorry Kairi, we kidnapped them. Didn't mean to worry you," Axel said smoothly as he came around his car to stand next to the rest of us.

Kairi sighed, "It's alright. We were just worried that something happened to you."

"Like what?" I challenged.

"You could have been kidnapped or something!"

I want to state for the record that I tried really hard not to laugh at the thought of this island being more dangerous than the streets of Midgar. I really did. And I almost succeeded.

Almost.

I snorted at her then bit my lip since Olette giggling next to me was not helping me hold back my laughter. Demyx, Axel, and Zexion were all looking in different directions, trying to hold back their own laughter. We all knew it would be bad if we laughed at her, but really. It was a very funny thought.

Kairi blinked at us, "How is that funny? You could have been hurt! You could have gotten in a fight! You could-"

Whatever else we could have been was lost on us as all five of us burst out laughing. The other six blinked at us, obviously confused, but none of us cared. It was just too funny. There was no way that it was more dangerous to hang around a schoolyard here than in Midgar. And if someone did try and pick a fight? So what, I could kick their ass and if I couldn't I did have Olette with me and there was no way someone could take us both down.

"Thanks," I said to Kairi, once I regained my composure, "I needed a laugh."

Kairi frowned at me, but seemed to give up on her attempt to guilt trip us. In her defense, the last time they had seen us was at the beginning of lunch and now school was out so we had been MIA for quite a while.

"Well, at least you're alright," she said quietly.

"Hey, Rox, 'Lette, we'll check you two later," Axel said as he moved back to the driver's side of his car.

Zexion and Demyx waved as they got in. We waved back and watched them leave before turning back to the group in front of us.

"They're a bad crowd to be around, ya?" Wakka said after an awkward moment of silence.

"No," I countered, did he have to say 'ya' at the end of every sentence? "they're not a bad crowd."

"You don't know them like we do," Riku countered.

Olette rolled her eyes, "And you don't know us. We can take care of ourselves thank you very much!"

"If you could do that then you wouldn't be here," Tidus pointed out.

I shot him an annoyed look, "Don't pretend like you know anything, it makes you sound stupid. Look, they're not bad people. You just don't understand-"

"Understand what?" Selphie cut in.

"What it's like," Olette said before I could.

"Guys," Sora said softly, but everyone ignored him.

I noted that it was the first time he had spoken since they had found us. It was rather unlike him to be so quiet. I frowned to myself and made a mental note to ask him about it later.

"Just because you guys lived on the streets, doesn't mean that everyone who did is a good person," Kairi reasoned.

"Doesn't make them all bad either," I countered.

Kairi faltered and I continued, "Look, we've spent years deciding who is good and who is not. Our judgment of someone is probably more fair and accurate than anything you could possibly tell us. To survive as long as we did proves we have common sense. Hell, we're down right paranoid. But those three aren't bad. They have issues, but even Mr. Sunshine-and-rainbows has issues."

Sora sighed, "I told you not to call me that."

I waved it off, "I'm just making my point. Besides, you've talked to them. You really think they're bad?"

Everyone looked at Sora who shook his head, "No, they're actually fun to hang around with."

Selphie nodded her agreement, "Demyx is funny. Did you know he plays the sitar?"

"See?" Olette said, clearly thinking that the group would drop it if Selphie and Sora agreed.

Riku cut in again, "Sora likes everyone and Selphie is amused if you wave your arm around quickly enough to leave an after image."

"Hey!" Selphie interjected.

"I used to hang around with them, they're messed up! Axel smokes and gets drunk all the time, Demyx has MPD and Zexion's a cutter!" Riku continued, ignoring Selphie.

It was really the cutter remark that made my eyes narrow and my anger bubble up. Olette seemed to know it 'cuz she grabbed my arm to keep me from doing something stupid, even though I could feel the anger coming off of her too.

"You got a problem with cutters?" I asked lowly.

Kairi and Selphie took a few steps back from us whereas Sora took a few forward, "Roxas, he didn't mean anything by it. Did you Riku?"

He turned to look at the silver haired boy for conformation, but sadly didn't get it. Riku scoffed and moved forward.

"Well yeah, if you really hate yourself that much then why not cut properly?"

Olette was the one who screamed at him before I could so much as open my mouth, "Cutters don't cut to kill themselves dumb shit! They do it because the pain makes them feel alive and keeps them from completely losing their minds!"

"Well that's stupid now isn't it? Why would you need-"

"Shut the fuck up Riku or I will break your jaw, do you understand me? You don't know shit. You've never been there. You've lived on a goddamn island your whole life. You wouldn't last ten minutes in Midgar. You may think you're the shit here, but you're not. You're nothing compared to the people who will fuck you up in the city. You remember that if you know what's good for you."

Silence followed my outburst, as I had known it would. I made a disgusted noise and turned, taking Olette with me as we stormed away from the group in the parking lot.

We were a few houses away from my cousins' house when Olette spoke again, "You really think Zexion's a cutter?"

I gave a small shrug, "He could be. Why?"

"I just hope that Axel and Demyx watch him if he is. I would be very sad if what happened to Hayner happened to him."

"They'll take care of him," I replied as I walked into the house, "Cloud?"

Silence met my call and I looked around. There was a note on the fridge and I moved forward to read it.

Sora and Roxas,

I have to go out of town for a few days for a delivery. I'll be back by Monday. Roxas, you have to go down to the school tomorrow and take placement tests. Just go with Sora and then go to the office. They'll be expecting you. Sora, there's money in the jar, get a pizza or something for tonight then save the rest in case of emergency.

Don't kill each other or burn down the house.

Cloud

"Oh goody," I said as I finished reading the note, "Nearly a whole week alone with Sora. Here's hoping he goes to Riku's instead of bringing Riku here."

"He didn't know what he was saying Roxas," Olette said quietly.

"That doesn't make it ok."

"No, it doesn't."

The door opened behind us and we turned to see Sora walk in. He looked up at us and he had that same look that he had, had in the parking lot.

"Hey," he said, again, quietly.

I frowned a little at his tone, again making a mental note to inquire about it later, "Cloud's out of town, he'll be back on Monday. He says to order a pizza."

Sora took the note and read it for himself, nodding slightly before heading up the stairs. I looked at Olette who nodded and headed toward the door. We waved bye and I went to go see what was so wrong with my usually bouncy, happy cousin.

He was lying across his bed, apparently deep in thought since he jumped a little when I knocked on the doorframe.

"Yeah?" he asked.

I walked in and sat backwards on the desk chair, "What's wrong?"

"Where's Olette?" he countered.

"She went home, now what's wrong?"

He sighed and looked up at the ceiling, "Listen, I know that you don't like Riku, but could you please not threaten him? He's my best friend and I doubt you'd like it if I was threatening your best friend."

I looked away, "No, I wouldn't, and that's why I threatened Riku."

He blinked, once, twice, three times, "What?"

"My best friend was a cutter."

Silence then a quiet, "Oh," followed quickly by, "Was?"

I nodded, "We made him stop. We…" I stopped; none of us had ever spoken about it directly. It was always, 'that day' or 'what happened', never 'Hayner accidentally cut too deep and by the time we found him he was almost dead'.

I closed my eyes, "We almost lost him. He scared us so bad that we took turns keeping watch over him so he couldn't do it again. It was an accident; his hand slipped."

Sora was watching me with wide eyes so I decided to change the subject, "That's not what's wrong though."

"What makes you say that?"

"You were quiet in the parking lot."

It was his turn to look away, "I don't like it when they talk about Axel, Demyx, and Zexion that way. You're right, they are good people, they just have some issues. Riku… he had a falling out with them and he's been rather cold to them ever since. Tidus and Wakka avoid anyone who gets in trouble like that like the plague. Kairi is kind of in between. She doesn't hate them but she doesn't like them either. She's civil to them at least."

"Well, say something then."

He looked at me again, "I did, they all waved it off like Riku did today."

Silence again before Sora spoke, "What were your parents really like? I've heard so many stories, but none of it seems possible."

I sat there for a moment; I really didn't like talking about my parents, but I knew Sora and I had to patch things up or there would be a big rift between us, which would suck since we're currently sharing a room and Cloud's out of town.

"I'll tell you, if you tell me what happened to your parents," I offered.

I watched him mull it over and was actually glad he hadn't shot me down right off the bat. He nodded after a moment and I sighed.

"Well… my parents… they're a real piece of work. I donno why they ever had a kid, they were always so busy with work and so worried about their image that nothing else mattered. I was ignored unless I did something wrong and when I did something wrong, I was punished."

His eyes were so wide that I wondered if it hurt to do that, "Punishments were never fun. Dad always did it while mom lectured me. They wanted the perfect kid, and I was anything but. After I got in a fistfight in Junior High they disowned me. Kicked me out of the house and played it off to everyone else that I had gotten sick and died. Huge publicity and lots of condolences for their non-dead son whom they were pretending to mourn."

He looked away, "I'm sorry."

He was the first person outside of Olette, Hayner, Naminé, and Pence who I had ever told. And he was the first one to ever say those words and sound like he meant them. I looked up at him and saw that he was crying. I was confused. Why? Why was he crying? Was it something I did?

"Why are you crying?" I asked, my curiosity killing me.

"Because," he said quietly, "that's horrible. I can't believe that those stories were true and that you're the one who was supposed to be dead."

Wait, what? The whole family who my parents were estranged from had thought that I was dead too?

He kept going, "Years ago, aunt and uncle showed up and said that they were so sorry for never coming to see us and that they were sorry to tell us that our cousin had died of an illness. They sat on our couches and cried over you. My parents told them how sorry they were and how they could come to us if they ever needed anything."

He went silent for a moment and I had been about to say something when he kept talking, "They left and my mom was found dead the next morning."

I felt my insides turn cold, so very, very cold, "What happened?"

"Doctors say that she OD'd and Cloud found that the glass she had been drinking from the night before had residue from crushed pills. Everyone says that it was a suicide; dad always said that it was aunt and uncle who had put the pills in the drink. He thought maybe mom had drunk from the wrong glass on accident. We never found out though, three days later Cloud and I came home to find dad hanging by his tie from the railing."

I closed my eyes, trying to keep down the guilt that was bubbling up. If I hadn't broken that kid's jaw for calling me Roxy, Sora's parents would still be alive.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly, "it's all my fault."

"No it's not," Sora said quietly, "it was all your parent's fault. They did this to all of us, they're the ones to blame."

"Sora?"

"Hm?"

"What if your parents' death wasn't an accident?"

He sighed and looked down at his bed, "I've thought about that. What if mom was poisoned, what if dad's death was staged. But… there's no proof…"

"Sora," he looked up at me again, "they were mourning my false death. If the police learn about that, they'll blow this case wide open."

The next morning I found myself being led to the office by Sora. We had stayed up half the night talking about going down to the police station and asking them to reopen the case of Sora's parents' death. It had taken some convincing on my part but Sora was all for our plan. Now we just had to gather witnesses, something I planned to do while Sora was at school. I sat in the office taking tests for about two hours before they sent me on my way.

First order of business; find Olette.

I walked around the school grounds for a while and didn't find her. Having thought that this could happen, I had, had Sora give me directions to Selphie's house from the school. I followed them and walked up to a cheerful, yellow house. I knocked on the door and was more than a little relived when Olette answered it.

"Roxas, what are you doing here?"

"Common, I need to talk to you," I said pulling her away from the house.

On the way back to the school I explained to Olette what Sora had told me the night before.

"So you think that your parents killed your aunt and uncle?" she asked once I had finished.

"At the very least my aunt," I agreed.

"Why? What good would it do?" she asked, confused.

"I know my parents, everything they do boils down to their image. My aunt and uncle must have been doing something that they thought would reflect badly on them."

"I think you're jumping to conclusions, but alright, what do you want us to do?"

"First, we need to find Axel."

"Why?"

"He said that he, Demyx, and Zexion came from the other islands, right? So who better to take us to them?"

"Take us to- why do we need to go to the other islands?"

"To find the others. We're going to need witnesses and you all saw my parents and know how they act toward me. If we have witnesses and go to the police station and show that my parents lied about my death we think they might reopen the case since they were the last ones to see Sora's mom alive."

Olette's eyes widened in understanding and she nodded, "Alright, we'll look for the others. But how are we going to get to the other islands? We don't have any-"

"Money?" I asked, holding up a couple of twenties.

Her jaw dropped, "Where did you get that?"

"Sora and I didn't order that pizza," I replied with a grin.

"Pizzas don't cost that much Roxas."

"I grabbed some extra just in case," I admitted, "don't want to end up stranded on some random island."

She nodded in understanding and I spotted Axel. The red head was leaning against his car smoking. Olette and I ran over to him and he looked at us as he heard us approach.

"Aw, miss me already?" Axel asked jokingly.

"I need a favor," I said and I watched his face turn serious. Street kids never asked for favors; it went against our pride and stubbornness.

"What's going on?" He asked, cautiously.

I let out a quiet sigh, how many times was I going to tell this story, "Long story short, Sora's parents were killed less than twelve hours after being with my parents and I think they may have killed them and I want to find my gang and have them as witnesses when we go to the police about it."

Axel raised his eyebrows at me, "That's the short version? Get in and explain to me how on earth you're a street kid if your parents are still around."

"You'll take us to the other islands?" Olette asked, clearly surprised.

He shot her a grin as he slid into his car with us right behind him, "We gotta look out for each other. 'Sides, Sora's a good kid. He deserves to know what really happened to his parents."

He drove out of the parking lot and made his way toward the docks where we were going to ferry to the next island.

"Man, this island's even smaller than the other one," I said, mostly to myself, as we parked the car in a shopping district.

"Yup," Axel said as he got out, "which is why it'll be a good one to start with."

I let out a breath, wishing I had any idea of where to start, "Alright, we should check around the school first-"

Axel cut me off, "You two look around here, you know them by sight. Give me names and basic descriptions and I'll go ask the school if any of them are enrolled there."

We gave him their names and hair/eye color before we started walking along the street. Twenty minutes later we were successful.

"Roxas! Olette!"

We both turned to see Naminé heading toward us, Axel right behind her. She threw her arms around both of us before taking a step back.

"Axel explained what's going on. I wish I could tell you where Pence and Hayner are, but I really don't know," the blonde said in her usual quiet voice.

"Don't worry about it Nam, we'll find them," I said sounding more confident than I felt.

"That means they're on a different island so we should head back to the ferry," Olette said.

We led Naminé back to Axel's car and the blonde pointed out that we were looking for two more people and only had one more seat.

"Don't worry about it kid," Axel said, removing his newly lit cigarette from his mouth, "you or Olette can sit on someone's lap. Islands are small, we won't be going too far."

Axel made his way back to the ferry and the next island in the island chain.

"This is the main island," Axel supplied.

That meant it was the biggest island and was going to be the hardest to search. We split up, Olette and Axel going one way and Naminé and myself going the other. We had agreed to meet back at the car in an hour.

"How have you been Nam?" I asked as we walked.

"Alright, my new family has a rather hyper daughter. She's older than us though so she's only home on the weekends. She's in college."

I nodded, "Yeah, the girl Olette lives with is hyper."

The blonde giggled quietly as we continued our fast paced walk through the streets, searching for a familiar face. Oddly enough, the familiar face found us first.

I was looking across the street when Naminé made a startled noise. I spun around, fully ready to kick some ass, when I saw Naminé hug the person standing behind her. I shifted a little and saw that it was Pence.

"Rox, Nam! What are you two doing here?" Pence asked, hitting his fist to mine.

"Looking for the gang. Have you seen Hayner at all?" I asked him.

Pence nodded, "Yeah, common I'll take you to him."

We followed Pence through the streets and stumbled upon Olette and Axel who had Hayner with them.

Hayner put his arm into the air and made a fist. I mirrored him and we hit our fists to each other, both of us grinning.

Pence waved to Olette who hugged him and Naminé hugged Hayner. After introducing Pence to Axel we explained, once again, what was going on. The other two agreed to come with us and we all went back to Axel's car.

I gave Axel directions to my house as soon as the ferry docked on our island. Luckily the ferry hadn't cost as much as I had thought it would so Cloud would never know that we took the money to use on other things. Naminé was in my lap in the front seat and the other three were in the back. I had spent the trip back explaining everything in detail so that everyone was up to speed.

Axel let out a whistle, "Congrats Rox, I think you have more issues than me and that's saying something."

I shot him a look, but really couldn't be too angry since a) it was true and b) he had helped us a lot today. He pulled up in front of the house and we all got out. I asked Axel if he wanted to join us but he had said he needed to get back to school and find Dem and Zex. We waved bye and thanked him again before heading into the house.

I glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that school was indeed out, "Sora?"

"Hang on," his voice echoed down to me followed by footsteps.

He hit the last stair and grinned at us, "You actually did it?"

I smirked, "You doubted me?"

He shook his head ever so slightly and headed into the kitchen. I followed and motioned for the others to do the same. Sora and I sat on the counter while the others sat around the kitchen table, each of us had a drink and we did quick introductions.

"So, you really think they'd do that Rox?" Hayner asked, "I mean, I know they're horrible people, but to go as far as to kill someone…"

"You know what they said that day Hayner," I said quietly and the room fell silent.

"Well," Pence said after a moment, "when do you want to go to the police about this?"

I looked at Sora who had once again been oddly quiet and he nodded slightly before answering, "Cloud comes back next Monday. It's Monday so that gives us seven days, if you count today, to take action. Once Cloud gets home we're going to be in so much trouble that it's not even funny. We need to move before he gets home and have this too far for it to stop."

"Cloud?" Naminé echoed.

"My older brother," Sora offered.

"Why will he be angry?" Hayner asked.

"Because he likes to burry things and live them buried," Sora answered and we all nodded in understanding.

"Well, that and the whole we went behind his back, spent money in ways we weren't supposed to, more or less kidnapped you guys, and ran around town with someone most of our school considers dangerous," I said in an offhanded manner.

Olette giggled, "Yeah, that might be it."

"Maybe," Sora agreed with a grin, then turned to me, "Do you have to start school tomorrow?"

I paused, thinking back to what I was told earlier today, "No… they'll have my results from the testing tomorrow."

He nodded, "Good, you guys can go down tomorrow then."

There was a sudden ringing that sent us all jumping out of our skin and Hayner dug through his pockets and pulled out a cell phone. We all stared at him and he muttered something about over protective adults before answering.

"What now?"

A loud voice came from the other end and Hayner moved the phone away from his ear. The rest of us snickered as he apologized, then proceeded to explain where he was and that no, he was not coming home tonight and yes, he was fine.

Naminé looked over at us, "We should call our families as well. They'll be wondering where we went to."

Sora hopped off the counter and grabbed the house phone, bringing it to her. The phone was passed around the room and it was settled that they were all staying here tonight.

"Too bad we used that pizza money," I said, mostly to myself.

Sora scoffed and went to the fridge, "What, you think Cloud and I only eat pizza?"

"You know how to cook?" I asked, surprised.

"Someone has to and with Cloud randomly disappearing for jobs like he did this week that someone ended up being me."

He had a good point. I grinned and turned back to the others. We caught up with one another while Sora made dinner.