Title: Last Train
Author: nikki_ntm
Beta reader: Shattered Apocalypse
Chapters: 17/20
Genre: Drama/Adventure/Suspense
Rating: M for language, violence and disturbing themes such as bullying, crime and disease.
Characters: Axel, Saïx, Larxene and Marluxia amongst others (Lea, Isa, Seifer and Org. 13).
Pairings: Implied past/present/future pairings, mainly past Axel/Larxene, current Leon/Arlene, and implied one-sided Isa/Lea.
Setting: Modern Japan (yakuza-themed)

x

Chapter 17: Further From You

The sky was clear and the night was warm. They had stopped at a lonely rest stop with nothing but a restroom and a few vending machines. There weren't even any functioning lamp posts and so the stars shone even brighter. Axel lay on the hood of the car, his hands behind his head as he looked up at the stars.

It was too warm to sleep in the car. That, and he didn't want to fall asleep with Arlene there. It would feel weird sleeping under the same roof after so many years. Besides, someone had to be on guard. With Axel gone, Saïx didn't have a reason not to contact the family and Axel feared that they could show up at any moment to silence them forever.

They had waited for Naminé to show up and give them a clue as to where they should be going next, but in the two days they had been on the road there had been no sign of her anywhere. Just some glimpses of the same old nightmares, as if Axel didn't have them memorized by now.

Arlene jumped up on the other side of the hood and lay down next to Axel. She had been quite pleasant to hang out with these past two days, not that they had been talking much. She was silent most of the time and only asked him general questions. Axel hadn't tried to initiate conversation either, it just felt weird being on the road with her after all this time, and yet he felt more relaxed than he had done with Saïx.

"Are you angry?" She asked, keeping her attention on the sky above them.

"No. Are you?"

"A little, yes."

"You sure you don't need a chocolate bar or something?"

"Funny."

"I thought you'd think so."

Axel wondered how long they could keep this up, dancing around their unsolved past and ignore it completely while they were forced to cooperate. Arlene disliked him enough already, it wasn't like she could dislike him more for bringing up touchy subjects.

"Were you happy?"

"Axel..."

"It's a simple question. Yes or no. You don't have to elaborate."

She sighed and glared at him from the corner of her eye briefly, "Yes."

"Was he?"

"I think so."

"Was he better than me?"

Arlene sat up and shook her head in disbelief, "I'm not answering that question."

"Why not?"

"Because you can't compare, Axel. And my relationship with Leon is none of your business." She jumped off the hood and crossed her arms, keeping her back to Axel.

"You made it my business when you asked me for help."

"Alright, you wanna know?" She turned around to face him, "Yes, he was better than you. In everything. Mainly because he didn't ditch me for no reason at all. He respected me and I even came to feel like I mattered."

Axel sat up, an incredulous look on his face, "No reason at all? My reasons were far more legit than any reasons he'll ever have. I was in prison, Arlene. Not because I got a kick out of it, but because I was –"

"You chose Saïx over me, Axel. That's what happened. You filled my head with these stupid ideas of freedom and a normal life and when I needed you the most you left me hanging. Don't piss me off by sugarcoating it," she sighed. "Let's not talk about this anymore, we'll just end up fighting. It's like you said, it doesn't matter anymore."

"...I wouldn't have done it if I'd known."

She smiled at him, it was the first time he had seen her smile in years, and it was ridden with regret and resentment. He knew that he was responsible for most of it. He couldn't imagine what heartbreak he had caused her for always putting her second and he would probably never know it either.

"Axel, you did know," she said in a soft voice. She put an end to their conversation there; she got into the backseat and slammed the door shut, leaving Axel out on the hood of the car by himself.

There was no escaping his past. He should know that by now. He lay back down, watching the stars, it was a good thing that it was still warm outside or he would be freezing his ass off during the night. Arlene would probably not let him in the car, or maybe she would, but she would find a way to show him that she was still discontent with all the choices he had ever made.

He stuck one hand into his left pocket in his pants and found a small leftover paper of one of the chocolate bars Saïx had nicked from that gas station. Maybe he should call and make sure that Cloud was okay - Saïx had been really strange when he last called. He pulled out the cell phone Zack had given him and he stared at it.

What would he say? Would he tell them to tell Saïx that he had run off because Saïx was a liar who did nothing but lead him behind the light, and that he should be ashamed of the monster that he was, and that he should look out for himself and stay away from the family to not end up in harm's way?

"Saïx, what the hell are you doing?" Axel mumbled.

What was the point of having power of the family when all they did was make other people suffer? Axel figured that he had become too comfortable with the life he had been living, he had forgotten how it had been living in the slums, working at the fishery, counting each nickel to make it through the month – as it was now he couldn't understand why anyone would want to be a part of their family.

Had that been what Saïx had felt before he was forced to join?

Arlene was right in a way. He did let Saïx manipulate him, he knew that he shouldn't expect Arlene to understand, he wasn't sure he understood it himself. He just knew that he never wanted to see that look of complete resignation in Saïx's eyes again; he preferred him angry rather than hurt. Saïx was much stronger when angry.

His eyelids were feeling heavy. He thought that he would just doze off and wake up as soon as his nightmares began, but they didn't. For the first time in months, he wasn't haunted by the same nightmare, he saw something else. He was back in his neighborhood in Kobe, calling for Isa from down the street. He looked up at the window and waved at him when Isa's mother tried to pull him back in with a scold on her face.

Isa stepped away from the window, but he waited because he knew that Isa was running down the stairs to meet up with him. "Don't worry about my mom, she'll be mad for a while, but I think that she kinda likes you for hanging around," Isa would say whenever he knew that Lea had seen that scold on her face.

He felt genuinely happy when he saw Isa through the long window on the door. How old had they been when Isa had colored his hair blue for him? Thirteen?

Lea ran his fingers through his own fiery red hair absentmindedly when he realized what time this was, and how that sense of anxiety vanished when Isa tried to be different with him, even if it angered his mother.

"If the Fire Rat were ever to take on a human form, it would look like you."

Isa opened the door and stopped to hold it up when the grumpy landlord walked up to him, mumbling under his breath like he always did.

"Isa!"

He knew Isa could hear him, he turned around to face him and he smiled, but he shrugged and looked down. Naminé had taken him by the hand and she was pulling him away. It didn't look threatening; the shining sun, the soft breeze, the blooming flowers in the small flower beds hanging from the windowsills made it all look so peaceful.

Naminé turned to face him and her giggle echoed throughout his dream, "I tried to show you, Axel. But you were too afraid of the demons."

Axel woke up with a gasp.

It was morning, the birds were chirping and he saw a car drive off the parking lot and back onto the road. Arlene stood by him, her hand on his arm to calm him down.

"It was just a dream," she said gently. She didn't stay close for long; she held up a deep plastic plate with food from one of the vending machines and pulled off the lid. "Are you hungry?"

"No, I'm fine."

Arlene sat down next to him to eat her breakfast. She didn't seem to be angry anymore, but Axel couldn't care less about that now. He had that sickening feeling in his gut again, the same feeling he got when he knew that he had done something terribly wrong. He felt an urge to get in the car and drive back to Cloud and Zack as fast as he could and bring Saïx with him to that laboratory in Kyoto.

Naminé must have meant the safe. Axel hadn't let Saïx open the safe because he had been afraid that he was letting out more of those monsters.

What if the answer to all of this had been in that safe?

"You should at least eat something. We won't be able to stop during daylight."

"You're talking to me now?"

"I just thought it would be best to get along. At least while we're trying to find Aqua and Leon. I know that I've been difficult to deal with, it's just that it's so easy to fall back into old habits when I'm around you. What happened back then was for the best, for the both of us, I guess. We just have to find a way to put it behind us when we're here, in the present."

Leon had to mean a lot to her to want to 'get along'. He couldn't remember her having problems with keeping a grudge before, and last night she seemed more than willing to hang onto the grudge she had against him for all she was worth.

"Fine."

He rubbed his eyes and stretched his arms wide. He slid off the hood to stretch his legs, but just as he was about to step away he felt Arlene's hand on his right hand and he looked down at it to see that she was looking at what he had left of his pinky finger. He never thought of it much, he didn't even bother to hide it even though his missing pinky was more evidence of his choice of lifestyle than any tattoo he could ever flaunt.

"Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore."

"Do you remember why you were punished?"

A small smile played on his lips. Yeah, he remembered. He knew Arlene did too. She was the first one he had gone to after it had been done. She had taken him to the doctor's office to make sure that it wasn't infected. She hadn't scolded him, she had sheltered him when he didn't want to go home or face Isa.

"Yeah, I got in a fight with Seifer. He was forcing Saïx to join. I needed to be disciplined for putting someone outside the family first."

"If I remember correctly you beat the shit out of Seifer. Last time I saw him he still had a crooked nose."

"When did you last see him?"

She tensed at the question, but she shook it off fast enough to keep Axel from noticing, "At the train station. On the night that I escaped."

"It always comes back to that, doesn't it?" Axel sighed.

"Yeah..."

"We're like a broken record on an endless loop. Tell you what, whoever mentions our past in the future owes the other one a hundred yen. The penalty fee goes up a hundred for each time anyone of us mentions it."

"Our past in general?"

"...well, we're allowed to mention the good parts."

"There were good parts?" Arlene crossed her arms and frowned, pretending to think hard about her past to see if there had been anything good to remember.

"Also, distasteful jokes will cost you 200 yen, and it will duplicate for each joke."

"In that case you better have a fortune in your pockets."

"Same to you." Axel stuck his tongue out and stretched again, "You have any of that food left?" He walked around the car to get the plate, but Arlene hurried away from him with a smile on her lips.

"Oh, so now you're hungry?"

"I can't eat when I'm upset, Arlene. Give it."

"You'll have to come and get it." She laughed when he reached his hand out and tried to grab the plate as she backed away with a mischievous look on her face.

Axel chased her around the car and suddenly they were both eighteen again, running down the small patches of beach by the many harbors in Kobe, building castles in the sand that the sea soon came to claim. It had been their haven away from reality once upon a time. It had been dearly missed when they realized that it had been destroyed, the ruins of it was now enough in this small space of time out in the middle of nowhere this far up north.

"Ugh, forget it. It's not worth it." Axel breathed and stopped.

"What is it, old man? Tired already?"

"Twenty-eight is not old. For a man."

Arlene gaped, "I think you owe me 200 yen."

"Come and get it, and make sure not to break your hip."

"That's 400."

Axel laughed and furthered the distance between them, he backed up until he suddenly bumped into someone. He gulped and turned around quickly. His trail of thoughts came into a halt when he saw Kairi stand there, looking up at him with a smile. He glanced at Arlene and saw that she was seeing her too. At least he wasn't losing his mind.

"K-Kairi, what are you doing here? How did you find me?"

"Did you have a fight with Saïx?"

"What?"

"Who is she, Axel?"

"You're running out of time, Axel. You have eleven days."

"Eleven days? But Dr. Even said seven months."

Kairi suddenly flickered between herself and Naminé. Axel stepped back and watched Kairi slowly return to looking like herself.

"Forty-nine days. Seven weeks. You have eleven days left. Xemnas is breaking into the system. He will undo the marking and it will destroy you." Her voice broke and she made a metallic white noise that suddenly disappeared as she flickered again, "Akashi Tsuchiyama Hospital. They have him."

Akashi Tsuchiyama Hospital. He had heard of that place, he must have passed it by or heard it mentioned somewhere. He repeated the name in his head over and over to not forget it. His body felt heavy as he looked at Kairi who shifted between her two shells.

"Who do they have?" He heard Arlene ask.

"He tried to show you the nest. The demons had to be released without breaking the wall." Kairi smiled again and hummed, "Gogo ichi ni..."

She was gone within the blink of an eye, not leaving as much as footprints on the humid soil she had stood on. His chest clenched with panic, he had to lean against the car to not sink down to the ground and close his eyes to stop everything from spinning.

"Axel..."

"Shut up, I need to think."

It had been almost forty days since he kidnapped Saïx, thirty-eight days ago to be exact. That was Naminé's point of reference because this wasn't just about him, it wasn't even about Aqua. Axel was shaking, his hands had gone cold and he was breathing heavy like he had been running miles and miles on end.

"He took something from me too, and I need to know what it was."

Axel walked around the car and opened the door to the driver's seat, "Get in the car."

"Not until you tell me what the hell that was about."

"Get in the fucking car or I'll leave without you." He slammed the door shut and got the car going. Arlene tossed the plate she had in her hand in the bin and hurried into the car. She had barely closed the door when Axel stepped on the gas pedal and drove back onto the road.

"Axel, where are we going?" Arlene reached for the safety belt and buckled up as she felt herself sink into the seat of the car when Axel sped up.

"Akashi Tsuchiyama Hospital."

"How do you know that she can be trusted? She said herself that Xemnas was breaking into the system. What if Saïx is helping Xemnas to break it so that you can lead them to Aqua? You can't just – "

"Will you shut up for just one second?" He sighed loudly, "It's not him. It's not Saïx. I'm fucking stupid." He gripped the wheel so tight that his knuckles were turning white.

It would take hours to get to Kobe. They were close to the northern city Akita, they had planned on going to Sapporo and lay low while trying to search for answers. That was when Axel thought that he had months left. He glanced at the clock above the radio – 11:30 a.m. If nothing came in their way and if they didn't get stuck in any traffic jams they would be in Kobe by the middle of the night.

Axel could only pray that it wasn't Marluxia who had found Saïx first. Saïx knew how to control most of the members of the family and many members of the family knew better than to mess with Xemnas' handpicked vice chief – Marluxia, however, cared for neither.

~ooo~

Dr. Even walked down a long corridor on the second floor of Xemnas' mansion. This had become a home over the years, there had been a time when these walls had been empty, and it had lacked the warmth that it had even now. He passed by family pictures, pictures of travels, memories that had become real but built on a breakable lie, and they founded the life of their Superior.

He stopped by the beautifully patterned paper-door that stood ajar. Xemnas sat by the bed where his beloved lay, as unresponsive as she had been these past two weeks. He held her hand and talked to her so that she wouldn't miss a day of this nearly perfect existence that he had created for her.

It had been four years now since Aqua last had broken down. She hadn't rejected the false memory of Terra and she still had memories of her old life, although they had been slightly altered with the help of Saïx's memories and experiences. The work he had done on the psychological barrier and the precautions he had taken in changing the physiology of Saïx's brain were two things Dr. Even took much pride in. His work would have been flawless if it hadn't been for Axel meddling and Ansem's constant fear of the punishment from a God that didn't exist.

The sirens had worked as well, but he had forgotten to count on one little variable that had rendered his system useless; the brutes.

Marluxia had nearly ruined what was left to salvage, but Xaldin's loyalty had been proven useful. Both Xaldin and Demyx had kept Marluxia's mouth shut while they escorted Saïx back to Kobe, and much to Marluxia's misfortune, Xigbar had been the one to wait for them. Xaldin hadn't waited long to tell Xigbar all about Marluxia's plans.

Dr. Even lowered his head and pulled the door aside and took one step in.

"Sir, Saïx has been taken to Akashi Tsuchiyama Hospital as you requested. I have made the preparations necessary to assist you in the re-establishing of the foreign brain tissue as well as for the psychological training afterward. Your spouse will be back to her normal self in no time."

"How is he?"

"Well, all things considered. He has suffered from spontaneous bleeding, nausea, and he has been falling in and out of consciousness. However, he has shown improvement these past twenty-four hours. I believe that he is reacting to the familiarity of this environment, but he is mentally frail and he has damaged the foreign brain tissue around hippocampus."

"And Axel?"

"According to the collected data from Ansem's hologram, he is on his way over here. He should be here in approximately three hours. Should I tell Xigbar to have them taken care of?"

Xemnas leaned over Aqua to give her a peck on her forehead, standing up and giving her one last look before turning around to face Dr. Even. He was wearing a black tailored suit, it was nothing out of the ordinary and yet he looked strangely powerful.

"No. Let him come. Larxene is with him, isn't she?"

"Yes, sir. She is."

"You can tell Xigbar to let Marluxia be and get him to gather his men. I'm sure Marluxia will know how to torture them both enough for them to get an idea of what they have put me through this past month."

Xemnas was a man who always got what he wanted. The woman he had wedded was proof of that. Once Xemnas had set his eyes on something or someone, it was only a matter of time before he got his way and it was strangely exhilarating for Dr. Even to have the chance to observe how Xemnas used all of his means to reach the goal he had decided on.

Neither Axel nor Arlene had much of a chance now, although given Marluxia's past they might be able to outwit him. Marluxia was intelligent from what Dr. Even had seen but he was easily consumed by jealousy, and it made him weak.

"The car will be ready in a half hour. Would you like me to send two assistants to fetch her or would you rather bring her to the car yourself?"

"I'll take her to the car. We were going downstairs now, anyway." Xemnas picked her up in his arms gently and walked past Dr. Even with certain steps.

They made the perfect couple, Dr. Even mused. The humble woman next door had the most powerful man in Japan wrapped around her little finger and she was completely oblivious to it, and he would step over carcasses to keep her as a part of his life. It baffled Dr. Even that Aqua would have said no to that. She had been set on fulfilling her dream of becoming a well-respected politician, one of the few women in the Diet, but to achieve it she couldn't be spending time with 'a petty boss from some criminal organization'.

Life sure worked in mysterious ways, he thought as he walked after Xemnas. He watched him place Aqua on a comfortable armchair and then he pulled aside a thicker door to reveal their beautiful garden.

Dr. Even reached for the cell phone he had in his lab coat and he called Xigbar.

"Yeah?"

Dr. Even wrinkled his nose in distaste at the heavy breathing from Xigbar, "Xemnas wants you to leave Marluxia alone. He is going to be at the hospital when Axel gets there and he needs to be conscious and not all bruised up."

"But I was just getting started."

"I'm sure that's plenty. You might want to save up some of that for later, Larxene is with Axel and Xemnas wants Marluxia to take care of them both while we restore Saïx. Have you understood the orders?"

Xigbar mumbled profanities under his breath while he surely glared at Marluxia, "Yeah. Understood. Catch ya later, four-eyes."

Dr. Even hung up with an undignified snort and stepped outside to get some fresh air before his second grandest achievement in science took place.

~ooo~

"Axel, are you sure about this?"

They were still in the car, looking at the Akashi Tsuchiyama Hospital from afar. They were waiting for some kind of movement, something suspicious that would confirm that something strange was going on. If Saïx was as important as he had heard many claim then there should at least be five bodyguards in the vicinity.

"You don't think your boyfriend's in there?"

"No, I don't."

A black car drove past them and they both sank down in their seat to avoid being seen. It stopped by the entrance to the big main house and as it did, two men in white lab coats stepped out to greet the men that stepped out of the car.

"Shit..." Axel couldn't believe his eyes, Xaldin and Lexaeus were the ones to step out of the car. They pulled out someone out of the backseat in a big white cloak. Could it be Saïx? Axel tried to catch a glimpse of the person in the white cloak but they disappeared into the house before he could do anything.

The black car drove off and they were once again sitting in silence. Xemnas wasn't going to leave anything to chance it seemed. He hadn't even brought in low ranks to do the supervision.

"Stay here. I'll find Saïx and come back out as soon as I can." Axel unbuckled the seat belt and reached for the lock on the door.

"You can't just leave me here. I'm going with you."

"No, you won't. Did you just see who walked in there? Xaldin and Lex, they will both kill you in the blink of an eye if they see you."

"Right, and they'll welcome you with open arms."

"No, but I know that I can outrun them. Xigbar is the only one in the family who would even consider putting his neck out for you, Arlene, and if this is Xemnas' pet project, he won't batter an eye if Xemnas decides to off you. If they catch me..."

"...Saïx will vouch for you." Arlene finished for him.

"If I get caught, call 'home' on this cell phone." Axel reached her the cell phone he had in his pocket, "It's the number to the doctors who took care of you. Go back there, they'll know what to do."

"Don't get caught, Axel."

He got out of the car and closed the door softly. With one last look at Arlene he headed into the main building of the hospital, hoping that he would find Saïx quickly so that he could take him away from here. It never once occurred to him that the family was already onto him and that maybe he should have turned around one more time to see Demyx walk out of the shadows and towards the car where Arlene was waiting.