Sorry about the wait, guys! I got totally stuck. Now I'm not.

Chapter Twelve: Tonight Tonight

The first thing that came out of Roxas' mouth was an accusing, "You're not telling us everything," and he was right. Neither he nor Sora pressed the matter, however, so Riku just assumed that they either knew all of the blank spaces or were smart enough to fill them in. Some things, he figured, were best kept as secrets; Axel's tattoos, for one, because Axel never needed to know, Marluxia, for another, because no one ever needed to know. Some things they'd never even told each other, and secrets like that deserved to stay as skeletons in their closets, locked away in the dark, covered with dust and memories that didn't fit them anymore.f

Axel's fingers were tapping a staccato on his leg when he spoke, obviously itching for the comforting feel of a cigarette while his other hand was occupied with his lighter. He'd never really kicked the habit, Riku knew, just fought back the addiction with sheer force of will and took the long way home to avoid driving by the drugstore. "So?" he said, finally, his voice sounding a little harsh in the quiet, distracting them from the monotonous hum of tires on asphalt. "How'd you keep us out of jail, then?"

"Not you, exactly." Roxas twisted in his seat a little, looking back at them. "Just Riku and Kairi. Well, Demyx too," he added as an afterthought.

"Luxord," Riku realized, feeling a strange mix of emotions flicker to life in the pit of his stomach – anger and guilt just didn't mix well.

The blond nodded. "And the banks. It's amazing how little money it takes to make people forget."

Sora glanced back at them in the rearview mirror. "You did what you did to stay alive and keep your cover. Immunity was all we could give you after you gave up undercover work."

Axel shifted suddenly, switching his lighter to his other hand – meaning that fire was now precariously close to Riku – and throwing his other hand behind his head, elbow resting against the glass of the window. "Can you blame us? Three or four near-death experiences were plenty for me, thanks. What number are we on now anyway?"

"Six, I think," Kairi said. "If you count Riku's car exploding."

"That shouldn't count, we weren't in it." Riku suppressed a shudder at the thought, 'What if they had been?' "And anyway, when did we start keeping count?"

Axel shrugged. "We're not keeping count, really… We're keeping score. Us versus death."

"It's a good thing we're winning," Kairi added from Riku's other side. "Us, five; death, zip."

"Go us," Riku muttered. "So what's the plan?"

Roxas and Sora looked at each other, then shrugged. Sora flashed them a sheepish smile over his shoulder. "We, um, don't actually have one. With the whole 'being compromised' thing, we can't exactly call for back-up or anything, so…" He blew out a rush of air that jostled one of his spikes. "We're kind of… alone."

"What about Leon?" Kairi asked. "We can trust Leon, can't we?"

"We could if we knew he was still a-around the area," Roxas said. Riku didn't miss the falter in his voice, cataloging it away as another murder he could have caused. "We can't get a hold of him."

"He's probably just laying low." Confidence filled Kairi's tone, though the wrinkle between her eyebrows gave away her concern. "I mean, if whoever you people are have been found out, then he's probably not sure who he can trust right now either."

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave." Axel placed the hand holding the lighter over his heart.

Kairi reached across Riku and pinched him. "Shut up and focus, Axel."

Maturely, the redhead stuck his tongue out in return. Riku wondered if this was what a mother of two felt like on a regular basis. And then he wondered something else.

"What about Naminé?" he asked aloud.

There it was, that dark cast to Sora's features that morphed him from a dorky goofball to something far, far more dangerous. "Naminé…" He trailed off as Roxas let loose a heavy sigh, the blond's shoulders drooping a little.

"At this point," the blond said quietly, "we're just hoping to find her in one piece."

Kairi tensed beside Riku suddenly, her smaller hand flying to grip his arm, nails digging into his skin. He looked at her sharply.

"Sora," he said as she focused on him, eyes wide in horror and her other hand covering her mouth. "Sora, I think you'd better pull over."

"I'm okay!" Kairi insisted, though her voice sounded a little weak to Riku, as though she were in imminent danger of throwing up all over him, and wouldn't that just make his fucking month? "I'm okay, just…" She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Just give me a minute to sort this out…"

"Sort what out?" Axel asked.

Kairi looked at Roxas, then to Sora, opening her mouth like she had all the answers – which she probably did. Then, she gave a shudder, and closed it again, motioning with one hand at the two in the front seat. "Explain," she said shortly, and took another deep breath. "I'll be okay."

"Explain?" Roxas asked incredulously. "Where are we supposed to start?"

"How about at the beginning?" Axel flipped his lighter shut and leaned forward as far as his seatbelt would allow, an echo of a smirk on his face. "Fuck, that was cliché. Pretend I said something cooler."

Roxas leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms, and seemingly taking the time to debate with himself. "Alright," he finally said, "but we never had this conversation, understand?"

"What if we did have this conversation?" Riku rolled his eyes. Only Axel would think to ask that question.

"Then you die a spiky virgin," Roxas said, and Axel promptly shut up. Kairi huffed impatiently beside Riku, and she still looked a little bit shaky to him when she motioned for the blond to get started. "This whole mess actually started a couple of years ago, when the Organization first started getting big. They used to be on the east coast, you know? They relocated to St. Louis after Sora made off with their yacht."

"The one you got caught-"

A loud, exasperated groan from Sora interrupted Riku's question. "Yes, damn it…"

Roxas shook his head and went on. "The stupid boat had everything we needed to put everybody away for a long time, but Zexion had wired the boat to detonate at any given time."

"Ugh, he's always been a stuck-up little bastard," Kairi threw in, and Riku figured that she was probably feeling better.

The blond nodded in agreement. "He's no Larxene, but he's smart enough to figure out how to blow shit up. He'd wired it to a cell phone, used a number for some pizza place as a trigger. We had everything scheduled down to the goddamned second, had only so much time to get everything to the rendezvous and off-loaded before they realized it was missing and blew us up."

"And then you got pulled over," Riku concluded. "Threw off your timing and you bailed, losing every bit of the evidence, right?"

Roxas nodded firmly. "And it was all Sora's fault."

"It was not! If you hadn't been all, 'Faster, Sora, go faster – '"

"Shut up, Axel," Riku hissed as the redhead smirked.

" – then I wouldn't have been speeding in the first place!"

"Oh, please!" Roxas rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "I didn't tell you to do twenty above the limit, did I?"

"Uh, yeah, you did!"

Kairi tapped Riku on the arm, watching the brothers bicker in the front seat, and leaned over to whisper, "Do Axel and I sound like this all the time?" Riku nodded with a shrug, and she pulled away thoughtfully. "Huh," she said, looking over at Axel. "We're kind of annoying."

Axel grinned. "Nah, I think we're kind of cute."

"I'm not cute," Roxas snapped. "Now do you want to know this or not?"

Riku was tempted to point out that they hadn't been the ones arguing, but Roxas was already talking again, and his window of opportunity to piss the blond off was gone.

"Anyway, they figured out we were onto them, blew up the boat, and moved the whole operation to St. Louis. I don't know how, but we lost track of them, and by the time we'd found them, they'd grown from five members to ten. They'd wised up to us, knew what we looked like and all, so…" He paused, tilting his head as though to look back at Kairi behind him through the seat. "…So we sent in one of our own."

"Demyx," Kairi confirmed, and Roxas twisted so that he could see her fully. "Don't worry!" She raised a hand to stop whatever bitching and moaning was about to come out of his mouth. "He didn't tell me, I figured it out. He's good. If he had wanted to catch you, he could have. And you two appearing at the restaurant right after he left was perfectly coordinated. I'm guessing he called to tell you to get me out of there, hm? And how else did he know we were at Leon's? Not to mention you being at the warehouse."

Axel was the first to speak in the silence that followed. "…Well, damn," he said. "I feel like an idiot."

"You are an idiot," Riku replied, simply because Axel had clearly set himself up for it and Riku wasn't one to let an opportunity like that just slide by – the earlier incident with Roxas notwithstanding. "But don't worry, I feel like one too," he added as an afterthought. Really, he should have known that. What the hell did he pay himself for? "Did you send him in to warn us too?"

"No," Kairi replied before Roxas or Sora could. "That was Xemnas' attempt to repay his debt. If we had accepted it, we'd have been able to move right along with our lives. As it is, I don't think he cares much about what anybody owes him anymore. All he cares about is that ledger."

Roxas threw up his hands, exchanging a disbelieving look with Sora. "Well, what the hell do you need us for?"

"Confirmation," Kairi went on. "I've got a couple of hunches."

"Go ahead," Sora said, with a small grin, apparently amused by her.

The redhead shifted, crossing her legs and kicking Riku in the process. "Alright. You've been watching us. Leon gave me the laptop, I have the pictures and transcripts copied in places you wouldn't even dream of looking, so don't even try." In truth, she really only had the copies saved to her jump drive, but sometimes a little bluff went a long way, and Kairi had a hell of a poker face. "I'm going to say that you either don't trust us or you want something else for us."

"Wrong!" Sora chimed semi-cheerfully – and Riku briefly wondered about the state of their situation if Sora couldn't muster up some fake-cheer – as Roxas shot him a warning glance.

"Sora, I swear to God, if you say anything else…"

"Someone's a little bit obsessed with someone else," the brunet finished, cocking his head meaningfully at Roxas.

Kairi gave Axel an odd look. "…Well, that explains the pictures," she said finally.

"What pictures?" Riku and Axel said together, though Riku looked vaguely disturbed, while Axel looked more than a little interested.

"Those were taken in the name of surveillance!" Roxas insisted, though he was rapidly turning a red to rival a tomato.

"Aw, you've been stalking me, Roxy?" Axel cooed, looking much too pleased with himself. Really, Riku thought, the whole situation was a little bit creepy.

"No! I was not, and don't call me Roxy, damn it!" Roxas huffed and slid down in his seat, apparently content to sulk over the whole matter. He couldn't, it seemed, resist taking revenge. "…Sora stalked Riku," he muttered, in a way that briefly reminded Riku of being eight again.

And then Riku realized that Sora had been stalking him, and he suddenly got why Axel was grinning. He smirked and caught Sora's eye in the rearview mirror, delighting in the blush that spread across the brunet's cheeks.

Kairi cleared her throat.

"That doesn't explain anything but the naked pictures of Axel," she said.

Roxas overcame his pouting enough to reply. "It really was for your own safety," he said, "as well as surveillance."

"The naked pictures were just a perk of the job?"

"Shut up, Axel. We were worried that the Organization would be targeting you, but we only ever saw Demyx around."

Kairi frowned. "The only time I saw him was when he came in to warn us about the hit," she said quietly, as though simply thinking aloud.

Roxas shrugged. "He's good at not being seen. He did a lot of watching out for you."

A silence passed that none of them really knew what to make of, as Kairi brushed her hair back and graced some far-off thought with a sweet smile. "So," she said finally, "what about the disc?"

It took a moment for Roxas to answer. "…This is the part of conversation that we never had," he said carefully. "I'm actually starting to get – God help me – fond of you three, and I'd hate to have to kill you now."

"Very fond, apparently," Axel threw in, leering at Roxas like they weren't talking about potential death.

"Shut up, Axel," Roxas hissed, though to Riku, he was starting to sound less venomous and more put-upon than anything. "The disc is… We got information from Demyx that they were shipping something important to a contact in L.A. We don't know who exactly, but we've got a couple of leads-"

"And that's a whole different case altogether, and doesn't involve you guys at all," Sora said with a half-hearted smile.

"Whatever. The point is that the disc has everything." Roxas motioned to the black bag on the floor between Axel's legs. "What's in there will put the entire Organization away for life. Possibly longer. So we moved in and I got a job at the shipping company to keep an eye out for it. When it came through, I grabbed it and we ran."

"You know," Axel said, "you guys do a lot of theft for being good guys."

Roxas smirked a little at that, but it just wasn't the same as usual. "We're kind of… outside the law. We work in shades of gray."

"We thought…" Sora trailed off. "We thought we'd have more time to move Naminé out, but then she went to you guys. Next thing we knew, she was just… gone." He paused another moment. "…Anyway, the disc is encrypted, most of it. The only thing we really made sense of was the ledger, and from that, we can guess at what the rest of it is… and it really should just stay hidden."

"Must be a hell of a drug to rack up prices that high," Axel mused.

To Riku's surprise, Kairi blanched again and took a deep breath. "It's not drugs, Axel," she said quietly, a look of disgust crossing her face. "It's… Do you know how much a good kidney will go for on the black market?"

Silence followed her statement. Axel's hand stopped moving on his lighter and he simply stared at her, mouth partly open in a look of horror as what she had said sunk in. Riku closed his eyes and grimaced, feeling his stomach rebel at the barrage of thoughts and mental images, and forced himself to think of something else for a moment – Chubchub and Honey Smacks, his crappy kitchen, and his to-do list to fix up his apartment. Finally, with his mind a little bit clearer, he opened his eyes again.

"My god," Axel muttered. "Shit. Fucking sick bastards. Those poor…" He stopped, and a look of pain crossed his face as he looked at Roxas and Sora.

"They kept it hidden from us," Kairi said, sounding a little bit shaky again. "It was running while we were in, but we never got in enough to learn about it."

"Thank God for small favors," Riku replied quietly, allowing a small shudder to ripple through him as he thought of Naminé and her quiet smile. "Well?" He lifted his head and looked at the two in the front seat and the road past them. "What now?"

Roxas shrugged again, looking to Sora. "We find a hotel and some food," the brunet said, his shoulders squaring. "After that, we get some sleep."

"And tomorrow?" Kairi asked.

"Tomorrow," Sora went on. "…I'm not sure yet. But whatever it is, we can't do it hungry and tired. We can figure the rest out later, but somehow, we've got to get you guys somewhere safe."

Food didn't sound too appealing to Riku at the moment, but by the time they found an interstate town, it probably would be. Sleep sounded good. Safety sounded even better.

The hotel wasn't as crappy as the last, but it was no Holiday Inn. There was a gas station next door that advertised Krispy Kremes in the window, and Riku didn't say anything at first when Axel returned with a baker's dozen in one hand and a pack of Marlboros in the other.

"Those things will kill you, Axel," Kairi sighed, but she took the donuts as a sort of peace offering. Riku got a strange feeling of déjà vu.

"If I'm lucky, they'll hurry up about it."

Axel kept his silence, but offered an apologetic smirk as he lit one and strolled out the door with a little wave, clearly intent on either finding the bar downstairs, Roxas, or both. Kairi rolled her eyes after him and flopped down onto the bed with her donuts and the laptop that she had been granted tentative access to.

"You want my phone?" Riku asked.

She shook her head and opened the laptop. "Don't worry about me," she said, waving him away. "Go make out with Sora and leave me to my donuts and codes. I'll be fine. Oh!" The box of donuts was thrust at him. "Take one for the road, I can't really eat all thirteen by myself."

"Just twelve, huh?" Riku took one and laid the phone on the bed beside her – just in case.

"I'll save one for Axel." Kairi smiled and waved him away again. He closed the door behind him and set off down the hall for the room that Sora and Roxas were sharing, passing Roxas along the way.

"Axel's at the bar," Riku told him, because he obviously wasn't with Roxas, and if he wasn't about to go to Sora, Riku would be drinking too. Roxas nodded and changed directions, walking toward the stairs, and looked slightly embarrassed at having been caught in the act of searching out the redhead.

Roxas paused as Riku lifted a hand to knock on the door separating him from Sora. "Hey," he called down the hall, and Riku looked over. "He's…" Roxas blew out a sigh and ran a hand through his hair. "He's not happy. Cheer him up, and if you make it worse, I'll kill you." He turned and took the stairs two at a time, and that was that.

Riku knocked, and the door opened to reveal a Sora that didn't look very… Sora-ish. "Hi," the brunet said and mustered up a smile, though it was clear to see that he wasn't in the mood for anything that even resembled happiness.

"Hey," Riku replied, walking in when Sora stood aside to let him pass. He sat down on the edge of one of the beds, lifting an eyebrow at the four laptops plugged into the same surge protector and fighting for space on top of the small table.

"Those don't exist," Sora said, waving at the laptops, and Riku decided that he didn't see them.

"What doesn't exist?" Riku didn't get the smile that he had hoped for, but he did get Sora sitting on the bed beside him. He was close enough that Riku could reach over and pull him into a one-armed embrace – because Riku was too manly to cuddle, of course – and Sora let out a sigh before leaning against the detective fully, burying his face in Riku's shoulder. "…Sora?"

"I'm sorry," the brunet said, his words barely audible through Riku's shoulder. "It's all my fault, Riku, I'm so sorry…"

He wasn't crying, but by the sound of his voice, he was close. Very close, and that was bad. Riku didn't do well with crying, and he was pretty sure that he'd just suck royally with a crying Sora. "Hey, it's okay," he said, because that's what Axel said to Kairi, and Axel was good with crying, though he really wasn't sure if it was okay after all.

"No, it's not!"

Apparently, it wasn't okay.

Sora's face turned so that his voice was clearer, but his breath was hot on Riku's neck. "If I hadn't lost the yacht," he said, his voice still choked, and shit, what would Axel do if it were Roxas about to cry? "If I hadn't lost the yacht, they'd all be in jail. You never would have even heard of the Organization. You'd be safe, we'd be safe, and Naminé would be fucking alive, Riku…"

Riku had once considered becoming an architect, a long time ago, when he couldn't decide which college to go to and what to study. He'd had talent, they'd told him, he would have been good at it. Kairi had once thought about going into teaching; she was good with kids. Axel had always thought he'd wind up working in a tattoo parlor or living on Riku's couch. But Riku had wanted to make a difference somewhere. Kairi loved computers. Axel was an adrenaline junkie at heart.

If it were Roxas about to cry on Axel's shoulder, Axel would probably say the right thing, something romantic and cheesy that would make it all better in a flash. That was how Axel was. "Then I wouldn't have met you," or something like that.

Riku wasn't Axel.

"Sora," he said, and lay back on the bed, pulling Sora with him and leaving their legs dangling off the edge. "We could have done things differently. We could be safe, and things could be different. I could be designing buildings somewhere in New York. You could be halfway across the world, and Naminé could be home, doing whatever it is she does. But we're not. We didn't do things differently."

Sora's weight was heavy against his side, and the brunet's arm curled across his chest, fingers splayed across his shirt just beneath his throat. Brown hair tickled his neck and a sigh ghosted across his skin.

"I killed someone, Sora. I robbed banks, and I shot good people, and I did many things that I'm not proud of. I can't change it. I want to, but I can't, and there's nothing I can do about it now." The brunet's fingers clenched in his shirt, gripping the material tightly. "I could have done something else, but I didn't. And I can either sit here and wish for the invention of a time machine or I can move on and deal with what I have now, and maybe make the right choice this time, you know? We need to work with what we've got."

Sora was silent for a long time, but he wasn't crying. He simply lay next to Riku and breathed, fingers still curled into the material of Riku's t-shirt, and Riku let him be. Finally, he shifted, pressing a small kiss to the side of Riku's neck. "I get it," he said. "We'll be okay."

Riku smiled and rubbed his hand down Sora's back, and for a brief moment, it really did seem like everything was going to be okay.

The knock came some time after midnight. Riku jolted awake to a pounding on the hotel door, Kairi stirring beside him with a mumbled protest, and Axel rolled off the bed and came up ready to shoot. Kairi sat up and turned on the lamp on the side table, looking between the two of them. The pounding ceased for a brief moment before starting up again a moment later with a vengeance.

Axel was the first to move, checking out the peephole in the door before throwing open the door and pulling the man inside. Kairi was across the room before Axel even got the door closed and locked again, her face buried in Demyx's neck, holding him tightly enough that the man had to be having trouble breathing. The blond was a mess, dried blood in his hair and his clothing ripped in places.

"We've got to move now," he said. "Larxene figured me out; Zexion's been tracing the calls." He ran his fingers through Kairi's hair and looked from Axel to Riku. "Get Sora and Roxas and I'll meet you in the parking lot."

There was no time to pack. Demyx was out the door with Kairi and Axel and Riku were after their own significant others, running down opposite ends of the hallway. Axel reached it first and slammed his shoulder against it, forcing the door open with frightening ease – they really needed to start looking for safer hotels.

"Roxas!" he yelled as Riku called out for Sora, reaching for the light switch.

He flipped it and found himself face-to-face with Larxene's gun. "Evening, boys."