Disclaimer - I don't own any of the characters in this fanfic, if I did it wouldn't be a fanfic

So, here's the next chapter, hope you guys like it.

R&R is appreciated.

"What?" Roxas felt as if his world was spinning around while he just stood there and watched it sway.

"Whoa," Axel moved to catch Roxas, but the younger male waved a hand at him dismissively. "Ar-are you okay? Roxas?"

A tingle ran through Roxas at the sound of his name being used by that voice, but he wan't sure if it was good or bad. The red head was still looking at him as he slowly steadied himself. When the blonde looked at the red-head, really looked at him, he noticed two tear dots, a bit like jokers' marks, that looked recently tattooed on.

"Yes," Roxas rubbed his hand over his eyes before continuing. "Wh-why are you here? What do you want?"

"I just wanted to apologize. I should have been there for my brother, but-."

"What?"

"Reno had been drinking the night before and when he came home and slept on it his headache was even worse so, being the idiot he was, he drank some more hoping that it would stop the headache, but . . . it didn't. I didn't know before anything happened, I was at work and angry at Reno so I only heard he tried to drive through one of his friends who ended up crashing at our place." Axel paused to see if Roxas was still listening before going on. "Roxas?"

The blonde was staring at the ground in furious anger. Now he knew who was to blame, now he knew what had happened. Anger burst like a balloon in his stomach and the next thing he knew he was throwing punches.

The first one took Axel by complete surprise, but with a really quick recovery, he was back on his feet and hit Roxas right against the mouth, a mirror image of what he'd been given.

"The hell's your problem man?" Axel screamed at the slight male, swiping a hand over his lips trying to wipe away some of the blood. Roxas spat out a glob of saliva and blood before he spoke.

"The hell's my problem? Your brother killed my family! The hell's your problem?" Roxas screamed, wiping at his mouth with his sleeve. Tifa might give him hell for it later, but this guy was worth it.

"I lost a brother to booze dude! At least you have someone to blame. The only person I can come up with is myself to blame!" Axel spat out some blood before huffing at Roxas, taking his helmet from up off the ground, and marching towards his motorcycle.

"Yeah! That's right asshole! RUN!" Roxas only got a loud 'fuck you' and the middle finger before the red head slipped his helmet over his head and sped off, leaving Roxas breathing heavily behind.

"Dammit." The teenager muttered, wishing he wasn't so emotional sometimes, especially when he was angery. With a heavy sigh Roxas turned to look down at the three graves that lay before him. The graves all read some similiar saying 'beloved', 'we will miss you', all the typical things, but when he saw his father's grave marker there were a different messages.

'There has been nothing I haven't treasured.'

was all that was listed on the area for messages.

"I know you did Dad. I know you did. I'm sorry." Roxas picked a couple of yellow flowers from a patch behind the head stones and placed them on each grave. With a deep sigh and quick wipe of his eye, Roxas turned around and started making his way out of the graveyard and back to the Leonhart residence.

"I'm home." Roxas called into the house. The descent back to the house from the graveyard had taken a little longer than he'd thought it would, so that when he finally reached the house it was a couple of hours into being dark.

"Roxas?" Kairi called from inside the kitchen.

"Yeah?"

"Oh, it is you. Do you want to come and have something to eat?" Tifa called.

"Uh, no thanks. I'm not very hungry right now." Roxas trudged up the stairs and into the guest room after hearing a slight 'oh' from one of the women.

"Yeah? Okay, where do you want to go? Oh, hold on Riku, my mom's calling me down. I'll be back real quick." Sora tossed the phone down on his bed before running down the stairs and into the kitchen. His mom and sister were chatting together from across the island while his dad was sitting at the table with a very worn book being flipped through.

"Yeah Mom?" Tifa looked up at her son and then a darted glance at Squall.

"Sora, could you take Roxas out tomorrow?"

"Huh?"

"Take Roxas out with you tomorrow. Okay? Make him feel as if he hasn't lost everyone." Tifa paused before continuing, taking in her son's face. "Ookay?"

"Yeah Mom. Sure thing." Sora gave his mom a big grin before bounding upstairs. He was actually kind of glad that he'd get to spend some more time with his cousin, maybe he'd stop looking so down in the dumps. The brunet flopped onto his bed and picked his cell phone up.

"Hey Riku," the grin was still plastered onto his face. "Do you think someone else can join us tomorrow?"

"Morning Roxas," Sora called out to his blond cousin as the guy stumbled down the stairs.

"Hey Roxas." Kairi and Tifa called over to the teen as he wandered into the kitchen. The two were making pancakes on the stove top while Sora and Leon were sitting at the table. Leon only glanced up from his newspaper as the third teenager to live in his house came in.

"Mornin'," the man muttered. He flicked to the next page of the newspaper.

Sora was reading the comics and scarfing down a pancake drenched in syrup while Roxas slowly took a seat across from him. Most of them were in their pajamas still, but Sora looked ready to head out of the house. He had on a red, short-sleeved sweatshirt and a pair of khaki shorts.

"Where are you going?" Roxas asked, buttering up a chocolate chip pancake. The brunet looked up from his comics and glanced at his dad for a moment.

"Uh, Riku and I were going to head out on the town. Do you want to come along? We're going to meet up with some of our friends later, too, so you wouldn't be stuck with just us." A hopeful look was glimmering in the boys eyes and a tentative smile played with his lips.

"Sure, I guess. Where are we going to go?" Roxas heard a collective sigh escape Kairi and his aunt. His Uncle Leon only looked up at his nephew for a moment before glancing back down at his newspaper with a bit of a surprised 'huh'.

Tifa and Kairi both came over to sit down as Sora told them where he and Riku were planning on going. First was going to be some window shopping and then they were going to meet up with Zexion and Tidus at a cafe.

"There's this movie called 'How to Train Your Dragon' that me and Tidus have been wanting to see. It looks pretty fun, have you seen the commercials?" Sora was bubbling over with happiness that his cousin would be joining him and his friends, maybe even get to know them well enough to be friends themselves.

"Sora, you can tell him all about it later, let him go get changed." Tifa broke her son's ranting. Though she loved him, the kid could sure talk people's ears off.

"Oh, yeah, sorry about that. Uh, I'll tell you about it when you're done." Sora waved to Roxas as he walked back upstairs and into the guest room. The little room was still bare of anything that showed that it was occupied except for a suitcase filled with Roxas' clothes. He grabbed a pair of jeans, a white sweatshirt, black t-shirt, and boxers before walking into the bathroom that was across the hall.

Ten minutes passed and Roxas went down the stairs trying to flick his hair dry, knowing he couldn't fix it in any way even if he wanted to. Riku had already shown up and Sora was sitting close to him on the couch. The two of them didn't look too worried about wasting some time, but Leon looked up from his newspaper with a look. Roxas leaned against the post at the end of the stairs, trying to decide what he should do when Leon coughed into his fist, shattering Sora and Riku's little world.

"Oh, Roxas!" Sora yelped like a little puppy when he saw his cousin standing off to the side. He popped up off the couch and rushed over. He smiled up at Roxas and grabbed his hand, dragging him over to where Riku now stood.

"Roxas, meet Riku. Riku, meet my cousin Roxas." Sora grinned at both of them while he brought their hands together in a hand shake. The silveret wore a light teal t-shirt and a pair of white wash jeans that covered his sneakers.

"Nice to meet you Roxas." Riku seemed all right from what Roxas had seen of the guy. He grinned about as much as Sora did, but his was smaller and a bit like he knew a private joke.

"Nice to meet you too Riku. Thanks for coming to the funeral yesterday." Sora's smile seemed a bit forced at that moment, but Riku just smiled and nodded.

"No problem. I'm glad I could make it." They released their hands and the tension Roxas had felt from Sora dropped off a bit. "So, shall we get going?"

"Sure!" Sora's bubbly nature returned as he and Riku left out the front door. Roxas followed at a much slower pace, not wanting to invade the couple's privacy, but when he was about to shut the door Leon called out to him.

"Roxas."

"Yeah Uncle Leon?"

"Just Leon." He stopped a moment as if surprised that had been his automatic reaction. "Huh . . . ah, have fun today." Leon looked up from his newspaper at his sister's son, his eyes furrowing as he looked over at the boy.

"Sure thing Leon." And Roxas slowly shut the door, but not so quick that Leon didn't notice the faint smile he had on his face. Leon chuckled a moment before returning to his newspaper.

"Kids these days. He sure acts like his dad did."

There it is. Um . . . there's nothing I want to say here so just read and review, please and thank you.