Sorry I didn't update last weekend guys! There were two factors to that. One, my mom and siblings arrived from out of state so there was a lot of hustle and bustle about the house trying to make room for everybody, and the (literally) hundreds of Christmas presents. And the second part was that this chapter is a very happy and funny chapter and just perfect for Christmas time. The following chapters are not. So in my desire to give you a happy and funny Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanza/Yalda/Winter Solstice present, I reserved this chapter for today!

Last chapter had not a whole lot going on. But man, do I love that chapter. I'm sure a lot of you are concerned that the story is going to lean toward the possible blooming relationship between Saïx and Naminé, but don't worry. They're still minor characters and it won't be much more than a mention. I recognize that not everyone is a fan of NamSaï like I am so I'll spare you all.

This chapter is very fun. VERY fun. And it was a lot of fun to write. Its a bit on the outrageous side, but only a small bit. And I figured I should get a few laughs in there before I go all "doom and gloom" on you all. Yeah, I'm not even going to try and hide it anymore. You all know by now my stories never have more than a bitter-sweet ending AT BEST.

So, about this chapter. Its just ridiculous. But I love it. And I hope you'll love it too. I can't say much else. Please enjoy and Happy Holidays!

"This is not going to work out!" Saïx fought against his brother and Roxas as the two dragged him off of the bus they took to get to the church. "Don't do this to me! I don't want to go in there!"

"Don't be such a big baby! Just do what we do." Axel growled and pulled his brother onto the sidewalk as the annoyed looking bus driver shut the doors and pulled off. "See? Too late to turn back now!"

"Like hell. I'll walk home!" Saïx cast a scowl at his brother before calming down and shaking out the suit that he wore. "I feel like a damned fucking monkey in this suit."

"You look good." Axel said and licked his thumb to scrub off a dirty spot on Saïx's cheek that he'd likely obtained from putting up such a fight. He took a spare hair tie from around his wrist and forced his brother to turn around. "Here, let's tie your hair back into a pony tail. Chicks dig guys with pony tails."

Saïx hissed and grumbled. "Oh, like you would know!"

Axel cocked an offended eyebrow. "What's that? You want to sit alone in the back pew while Roxas and I sit closer to the front?"

"N-no…" Saïx sighed and crossed his arms. "I'm just…"

"Oh my gosh, I know you, don't I?" Naminé said quietly as she approached Roxas and Axel and their new companion. "Are you here with these two?" She giggled cutely. "What do you know? It is a small world after all."

Saïx stared at the blonde girl before him in awe. She hadn't changed, not a bit. Of course, it had really only been a few months since he last saw her at their graduation but it felt like it had been years. "Y-yeah."

Naminé smiled brightly and held her hands behind her back. "So, are you friends with Roxas and Axel?"

"I uh… I" Saïx cleared his throat and kicked himself inwardly for being so klutzy with his words. "Axel is my brother and Roxas is our roommate. We're kinda like friends, yeah."

"I'm glad. Its good to have friends, especially ones you can go to church with. And God is such an important person to have in our lives, its wonderful that you can share him with friends." Naminé reached out and grabbed Saïx's hand delicately in her own. "Forgive me, I don't remember your name."

Saïx could feel his eyes bulge at the contact of flesh to flesh and the heat was already rising in his cheeks. "Its Saïx."

"That's right." Naminé smiled and nodded slowly. "I knew that actually. I just couldn't seem to remember. My name is Naminé."

"I know." Saïx bit his tongue. How could he be so stupid to admit that? He needed to stay calm. "I mean, you know, we graduated not too long ago and the dean read off everybody's names. I've got a pretty good memory so…"

"You know, Naminé…" Axel grinned widely and glanced to Roxas. "We were hoping that you were free to go to lunch with us today after church. Nothing too big, just the restaurant down the street or something."

"Yeah." Roxas nodded and smirked as Saïx gave them both a warning glare. "We'd like to become friends with you but its hard if we only see you in church. Its a place to pray, not converse."

Naminé smiled brightly. "That is true! I'll have to ask my uncle and see what he says. How exciting! Hopefully I won't have to bring my guards with me."

Axel's face fell and he and the other two boys looked between themselves with the same dumbfounded gaze on their faces. Finally Axel looked back to Naminé and raised an eyebrow. "You have guards?"

Naminé smiled and shrugged. "Yeah, well, you know. Even though I don't participate in the family business I still get treated like I need to be protected from people who might want to do me harm because I come from such a powerful family. I suppose it makes sense so its probably for the best if they do come along. Not that I think you boys would try to hurt me though. Just, you know. Just in case."

"Family business?" Axel stared at the girl quietly before nabbing Roxas and his brother by their sleeves. "Excuse us for a second Naminé, we need to talk." Axel pulled the two away from the cute blond and stared at them with a pale face. "Ok, seriously? Only you would fall for a damned Mafiosa!"

Saïx growled and shook his head. "Don't start getting shitty with me! And she's not a Mafiosa! She said she wasn't involved in the family business. I doubt she even knows what they do!"

Axel groaned and looked sickly toward Naminé who was smiling cutely and waving. "I knew that uncle of hers was too damn creepy looking to be just a priest. I bet they run their organization out of this church! And I'm willing to bet that he wasn't trying to hook you up with his niece after all! He took one look at a young punk kid like you and saw a foot soldier. Snaky bastard is using his pretty little niece to lure in grunt workers. That's low and dirty!"

Roxas rolled his eyes. "I really doubt that Axel. You've just seen one too many movies. That's all." Roxas turned to glance at Naminé who was now talking excitedly to her uncle. "I'm sure he was just in the Korean war or something and that's why he's all scarred up like that. I mean, Larxene knew him from birth. Don't you think she would have bragged to us about knowing a member of the Mafia?"

"Not if she didn't know. Its not like they want to make it common knowledge of what they do." Axel looked to Naminé nervously. Her uncle was now looking over at them and he seemed angry. "Oh great, he's gonna kill us."

"He's not." Roxas sighed and watched as the priest sauntered over toward them. He smiled kindly at the man and waved. "Good morning, father."

"Cut the crap kid." Xigbar glared down at the blond and crossed his arms. "What do you think you're doing inviting my niece to lunch with you?"

Axel forced a smile and put his hands on Roxas' shoulders to pull the boy away. "We didn't mean any harm sir. Honest. Naminé is a very sweet girl. We just wanted to treat her to lunch to get better acquainted."

"My ass." Xigbar turned his deadly gaze to the redhead. "You know, a couple young punks like you… I doubt anybody would miss you."

Roxas cocked an eyebrow to counter the man's hostile tone. "Look, I don't know what you think you know about us, but you're wrong. Naminé needs friends. You can't just keep her sheltered her whole life! If you do that, eventually she'll get a taste of the outside world and she'll go wild. I know, its happened to me. We don't mean any harm to her. Go ahead and have her guards come with her, we don't mind. We just want to be her friends."

Xigbar shook his head. "Over my dead body."

"Then she'll hate you forever." Roxas glanced around the priest to see the blond girl sitting on the steps of the church looking somewhat distraught. "You already told her no, didn't you? And look at her. Look at how sad she is."

Xigbar glanced back at his niece before returning his gaze to the boys before him. He huffed and turned on heel to walk away. "I have to prepare for mass. Excuse me."

Axel watched the priest retreat before clutching Roxas' shoulders. "Holy shit, are you insane!? Standing up to a Mafioso like that!?"

Roxas groaned and looked up at Axel. "He's not a Mafioso, Axel. He's just an overprotective uncle that wants what is best for his niece. The only problem is that he doesn't realize what he's doing is the exact opposite of what is best. Naminé needs friends, and its obvious the poor girl has none."

Axel looked at Roxas skeptically. "That's why you're talking back to a Mafioso priest?"

"Well, that." Roxas grinned and winked at his lover. "And I really wanna get her and Saïx together. No more love sick hearts in the apartment allowed. We're doing this thing even if it kills us."

"Yeah and if it doesn't kill us, her uncle and the mounds of goons at his disposal will." Axel sighed and untied his hair, refixing it into a pony tail as was his normal nervous habit. He watched as members of the church began to flood in the doors. This was their cue to enter. "Come on, let's get a seat in the back and maybe we can leave real fast before that creepy old man can sick his henchmen on us."

"No way! We're sitting near Naminé. That was the plan." Roxas caught Axel by the sleeve and pulled the man into the church. They followed protocol, instructing Saïx when to sign and when to kneel and where he would have to pray. Finally they took a seat in a pew three rows back from the little blonde girl and mass soon began.

Saïx sat through the service in silence. His eyes kept drifting to Naminé but every so often they'd flicker to the priest in anger. This was his one chance to reach out and form some sort of acquaintanceship with the girl he'd longed to be near since high school, and that ass hole was screwing it up. Time flew by swiftly though and before he knew it, mass was over.

"Alright." Axel stood quickly and ushered his brother and lover out of the pew. "Let's just get going so we can keep our heads."

Roxas sighed and rolled his eyes. "Relax Axel. Even if he was a mobster, he wouldn't kill us in a church."

"He wouldn't kill us at all. He'd have his goons do it." Axel rushed toward the exit of the church but stopped as he felt a hand on his shoulder holding him back. He flinched, instantly assuming it was the priest, but as he glanced back he saw that it was just Roxas. "What?"

"Wait up. Naminé stopped your brother to talk." Roxas watched the two from the small distance and sighed. "Poor girl. She looks so sad. Did you see the way her eyes lit up when we invited her to come along with us? I bet she doesn't have a friend in the world."

Axel looked at the two sadly. "What do you suppose they're talking about?"

Roxas shrugged. "Does it matter? They're talking. That's more than Saïx could have ever hoped for beforehand."

"I guess you're right." Axel wrapped his arm around Roxas' shoulder and smiled. "Isn't budding romance so wonderful, even though our lives are at stake?"

Roxas groaned. "Will you let it go already? The man is a priest, not a Mafioso!"

"Actually, I prefer the term business associate." Xigbar said as he stepped up behind the two boys. He leaned down and stuck his head between them. "Don't you know it is a sin to spread gossip in a church?"

Axel froze and a bolt of fear struck through him. He couldn't bring himself to glance at the man without fear of wetting himself. "Please don't kill us."

Xigbar laughed and put a hand on each boy's shoulder. "Don't be ridiculous! I'm a man of the cloth. I can't kill. I'm pretty much useless actually." He grinned and pointed a few feet away to two massive men still sitting in a pew. "Those two though, they're not hindered by moral obligations."

Roxas turned to look at the priest in utter shock. "Are you serious? So you're really from a crime family? Is nothing sacred anymore? How does that even happen?"

Xigbar stepped from behind the two to the front of them. "I come from a very well respected, wealthy and powerful family. The means by which we obtain our respect, wealth and power are no concern of yours. However, every family needs a least one holy man, am I right? So here I stand. Who else can my family confess their sins to? Some priests these days…" Xigbar made a tsk sound and shook his head. "Some of them you just can't trust. To think, some men would break an oath to God to keep things in confidence, it is sickening."

"So, basically they confess their sins through you. And they have no fear of being turned over to the police." Roxas cocked an eyebrow. "I never thought I'd see the day that corruption reached the church."

Xigbar scoffed and grinned down at the blond. "Then you have a lot to learn about the great thing you call religion. Its nothing but corruption and greed down to the very end."

Axel put his hands on Roxas' shoulders and looked to Xigbar nervously. "Look, we're sorry. We just want to be on our way. We didn't mean to stir up trouble."

"Be on your way? But you can't leave." Xigbar smirked widely and snapped his fingers bringing the two thugs in the pew to attention. "You asked my niece to accompany you two boys to lunch, did you not?"

Roxas nodded slowly. "Yeah. But you told her no."

"Let's just say I had a change of heart." Xigbar turned and looked to his niece. "Nami, I believe these boys are waiting on you to get something to eat."

Roxas watched with a smile as Naminé let out a tiny squeak and her face lit up. His gaze then returned to the priest standing before him. "Thank you. She'll really appreciate this."

"Yeah, yeah." Xigbar crossed his arms and narrowed his gaze on the two boys before him. "Just keep in mind, you are being followed. And should anything go wrong, we already know where you live."

Axel forced a smiled and rubbed the back of his neck briskly. "C-comforting thought, eh Rox?"

--

Naminé smiled and sipped on her soda happily. "I'm so glad my uncle changed his mind."

Axel laughed nervously as he glanced back at the two massive men sitting a few booths away from them. "Y-yeah, us too."

"Its stupid that he has to have me followed though." Naminé pursed her lips in annoyance. "I'm a grown woman now for goodness sake!"

"Wait, so you know you're being tailed?" Roxas furrowed his brow and glanced back at the goons trying to pretend they were invisible.

Naminé shrugged. "Yeah, I get followed everywhere I go. It really bugs me."

"Why don't you tell him?" Roxas picked up a french-fry and popped it in his mouth. "I always thought my parents were over protective but this is a bit much."

"Oh, I have my ways of getting around it. I have a bit of a dark side." Naminé smiled cutely and opened up her purse to reveal a blond wig. "I usually pay a woman to wear this wig and put on my dress to lure Tweedledum and Tweedledee away from wherever I might be for a couple hours. Then we usually meet back up and I give her the money and I get my stuff back. It hasn't failed yet, of course my uncle's associates aren't exactly the brightest men around."

Axel stared at the girl in awe with a strange feeling of disappointment shadowing it. "Y-you're not really sweet and innocent."

Naminé shook her head vigorously. "Nope! And one time I even met some boys who gave me a sip of…" She leaned in closer to the blond and redhead across the table and whispered. "Beer."

Axel gasped and stared at the girl mortified. "Oh no! No, I thought you were an angel!"

Naminé giggled and shook her head. "Nope, I'm a rebel!"

Roxas couldn't fight back the chuckle at his lover's horrified reaction. The girl was hardly a sinner in anyone's book and her actions were so minimal that they didn't even show up as a blip on any form of delinquency meter yet Axel was acting like it was the end of the world because she wasn't entirely pure. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and shook his head at the blond girl. "Naminé, you've got a long way to go before you can even consider yourself a rebel."

"Roxas!" Axel hissed and nudged the blond boy beside him. "Don't encourage that kind of behavior in our perfect, pretty little Naminé! She's fragile!"

Naminé scowled and crossed her arms. "I'm not fragile! And I am so a rebel!"

Roxas grinned and leaned forward. "Have you ever kissed anybody Naminé? Taken drugs? Gone to a punk show and just let loose in the mosh pit? Said to hell with what everybody else thinks and just lived life the way you want to? Because until you've really let loose, you're nothing but a wanna be."

Naminé huffed and reached across the table to grab Roxas' arm. "Come with me! Right now!"

Roxas let himself be yanked up and dragged away toward the restrooms. He was shocked when Naminé pulled him into the women's restroom and pinned him up against the door. "Whoa, wait. Look, I'm not…"

"Hold this." Naminé shoved her purse into Roxas' hands and began sliding out of her dress. "You're going to wear the wig and lure my guards away while I make my escape!"

"Wh-what!?" Roxas shook his head in protest. "I'm not putting on a dress!"

"You're the only one convincing enough! You kinda look like a girl anyway." Naminé slipped out of her dress and handed it into Roxas' arms. "Hurry, switch me clothes."

Roxas fumbled with the dress and scowled. "No way!"

"Do it now or I'll tell those guards that you tried to kiss me!" Naminé shuffled through her purse until she found another wig. It was a short pink one. She tucked her hair underneath it and smiled as she looked at herself in the mirror. "I should just get an A-line cut. It looks too cute on me."

Roxas groaned and began stripping his clothes off. He kicked them over to the girl who stood in her bra and panties and began slipping into her dress. "Naminé, I don't have breasts."

"That's ok." Naminé shrugged and pointed to her chest as she began dressing in the boy's clothes. "Neither do I."

Roxas sighed as he finally got the snug dress around his hips. He then put the wig on quickly and adjusted it to look just like the blonde girl's hair. "Ok, now what?"

"Now you and Axel need to lure my guards away while I make a break for it." Naminé hummed quietly as she adjusted the tie around her neck. The suit was a little too big on her but it would do its job. "Meet me back here in five hours."

"Five!?" Roxas stared at the girl in disbelief. "I thought you said you only do this sort of thing for a couple hours!"

"Yeah, well I have to have time to do all those things you said would make me a rebel." Naminé slipped into Roxas' too large for her shoes and smiled. "You ready? You've got to be good at evading your trackers."

"Look, you don't have to do all those things. Those things can be really dangerous." Roxas looked to the girl but it was clear she wasn't listening. "Just, I dunno, just take Saïx with you. He can protect you while still showing you what its really like to be a rebel." Roxas stepped out of the bathroom quickly and back to the booth. He did his best to keep his face hidden from the two goons across the room. "Axel, come with me now."

Axel blinked up at the figure before him curiously. "Roxas?"

Roxas grumbled as he heard a laugh begin to rise from Saïx's throat. He cast the other teen a deadly glare. "Look, I'm doing this for you alright! The least you could do is keep your damn mouth shut and be grateful!" He turned his eyes back to Axel and grabbed the man's arm. "Come on, we need to go and we need to go fast and make sure they don't get a good look at me or we're busted."

"A-alright." Axel stood quickly and wrapped an arm around Roxas. He lead the boy swiftly out the door to the restaurant and sure enough, the guards were quick to follow. He picked up his pace and ducked into an alleyway. "Come on! If they catch us I'm pretty much dead before they even realize you're not her! Why are you even doing this!?"

"That girl is crazy! She threatened to tell her guards that I tried to kiss her if I didn't do this! Besides, I wanted Saïx to be able to have some alone time with her." Roxas grunted as he stumbled trying to run in her too tight for him slip on shoes. "Seeing the way he acted when he was talking about her, and the happiness on his face when he finally saw her this morning; It reminded me of you when we first started exploring our boundaries with each other. I want them to be happy like us."

"Yeah, me too." Axel smiled as he tugged Roxas to the left and rushed into a store. He stood heaving slowly waiting to see the two goons pass by but they appeared to have been lost long ago. He tugged off his jacket and wrapped it around Roxas' shoulders. "You must be freezing. And take off that wig."

Roxas grinned and pulled off the mass of hair. "Maybe you should wear it. They're looking for a tall, lanky redhead too."

"Yeah, don't remind me." Axel groaned grabbed the wig, considering putting it on. "Geeze, I'm gonna have the whole Mafia after me now."

"Not if we just explain to Father Xigbar what happened." Roxas sighed and buttoned up the coat as the cashier in the store gave him a funny look about the dress. "Of course, then we run the risk of getting Naminé into serious trouble. I don't want that."

"She'll be in serious trouble either way. Once those goons tell captain creepy that she ran off she'll be in deep trouble." Axel bit his lip nervously. "And that means us too."

Roxas shook his head slowly. "No, I don't think so. Remember, Naminé said she does this sort of thing all the time. If her uncle got wind of it, I really doubt he'd let her keep going off. No, I think her guards are too scared to say anything to him. Its not just our skins if something happens to her. Its theirs too. They'll probably just keep searching and searching till they find her."

"That means its only a matter of time before they find us. We need to go some place safe. But we can't go home, they know where we live and that's the first place they'll look. I just shutter to think what it will look like when we get back there." Axel tapped his foot in thought. "Hmm, a safe place…" He froze and then turned his eyes to Roxas. "Ah damn it. I know where we could go, but I don't think you'll like it."

Roxas' face fell into a look of perturbment. "Oh no! Why the hell would we go there?"

"Because Dem doesn't need this stress right now and Zex and Lex probably have school work they have to do." Axel nodded quickly. "Come on, you know its our only choice!"

Roxas growled and crossed his arms. "Fine, but I don't like it."