Author's Note: Well, it's finally here. The crossover you've all (and rar and I) have all been waiting for. It only took us completely overhauling the whole thing to account for people being different than we anticipated. Yep. I don't think I have anything else to say about it, honestly, not here in an author's note. Rar and I will probably spam the blogs about it though. Bear in mind, this is a four chapter ordeal :P This takes place after Axel ran into the Riku Replica in Hollow Bastion. I may post stupidtimeline details on the blog later.

It was peaceful that morning on Destiny Islands. Namine sat on the Paopu tree, drawing. Riku stood next to her, doing his best not to distract her because he knew how annoyed she got when her sketching was interrupted. Behind them, Sora and Kairi were training.

Namine heard someone hit the sand. She reached out with her mind to get a sense of who it was, though she knew looking up would actually be easier.

She was presented with three distinct images of someone getting a face full of sand as well as a picture of Vexen. She glanced up, frowning and then gasped. Riku, slightly worried, followed her gaze. He raised his eyebrows in shock. Kairi, also noticing something was up, paused, and Sora nearly hit her. Before he could apologize, she pointed and he turned, and then frowned.

Riku, or rather, the Riku Replica, was kneeling on the ground, clutching his shoulder.

The one Axel said he wrenched… Namine thought.

Slowly, Namine sat her sketchbook down and got off the tree. Within a few seconds, everyone else got the idea, and they all rushed over to the boy on the shore. Namine held up her hand to slow them down. He had just flashed into dark mode.

He looked up and his eyes latched onto hers. His look of confusion changed to a smile, but then he frowned again. His eyes went wide and he reached out…

Only to bring his arm back in again. He winced in pain. And then swore. Namine pursed her lips. At least everyone else had stopped keeping pace with her. They'd all stopped somewhere along the beach.

"Are you…" she began. But she didn't finish her question. She was mostly positive that he was not okay. She wasn't even reaching out towards his memories, but she could feel them pounding in her head. It was a familiar feeling. And one she very much didn't like.

She knelt down beside him. Well, beside was relative. There was about five feet between the two of them. Enough to give him space, but close enough that they could hold a relatively private conversation.

"Give me ten seconds," he said gruffly.

"I… okay."

She watched him mouth the numbers. He looked up at her.

Parallel universe.

His mind was screaming it. That and, Dammit Vexen.

Under other circumstances, Namine would have found that amusing.

"Do you need me to look at your arm?" Namine asked quietly. "Axel said you wrenched it."

He looked up at her, shocked. "He… he mentioned me?"

Namine nodded.

"Wha—what'd he say?"

"That you were fighting Heartless and you fell off a cliff. He was really proud of himself that he saved you. But, your shoulder…"

"It's fine," he said, almost automatically.

Namine raised an eyebrow. Sure, she thought. Of course it's fine…

Not.

"Did he say anything else?"

Namine shook her head. "There wasn't much to say, I don't think."

"Yeah…"

Namine repositioned herself so that she was sitting cross-legged in the sand. Pants had benefits. She stared off blankly into the ocean. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the other three. Riku stood in front of Sora and Kairi, a frown clearly evident on his face. Sora was trying to peer around him. Kairi stood patiently, her hands poised to cast… probably a Cure from the looks of it.

"I confess I already knew you were alive," she said quietly.

"How…?"

"I ended up in your Hollow Bastion once. Though, it was Sora's Shadow who was actually the one who made me realize who you were."

He looked right at her. "When?"

Namine frowned. Time was a weird thing and she knew that, so trying to pin it down to the month—or even the year—was pointless. "It was before your Kairi would have left the islands," she said.

"A month ago then, at least," he said.

Namine nodded. It had been about three since that point. Then she shuddered, reminded of the awful things the Shadow had said.

Riku walked over. Namine tensed. This could go one of several different ways…

But Riku was able to sit down right next to her and he said nothing.

Namine opened her mouth to say something—anything—but nothing came out.

"Oh please don't…" he began.

Please don't cry, Namine finished in her head.

"Do you want me to leave?" he asked.

"Not before I…" Namine began, but her voice caught. She cursed internally.

"Namine…" Riku began.

"No! I have to say this and it will get said, now!"

Both of them looked at her.

She took a deep breath.

"There are things, that I wish I could have told you, back in Castle Oblivion," she said, looking at him.

He didn't want to meet her gaze. No real surprise.

"Your feelings," she began. "About how you…" Loved, cared, was willing to die to protect me… "Loved me. They were real."

Now he made eye contact with her.

"I'm not trying to start something now. But I want you to know, that they weren't lies like Larxene said. They were real."

"But you said they weren't real," he argued.

"I lied." The irony of that statement hurt. "I had to tell you otherwise, that you didn't, couldn't, love me because it would only end badly for both of us. You have to realize that."

He said nothing.

Namine sighed. "I cared about you," she continued. "So much. I wanted to protect you but," she paused, nearly laughing. "But you were so quick to protect me that I never got a chance. And I wished you wouldn't be so determined! Every time you got in trouble, I couldn't help but think just how expendable you were to them. And…"

And she wasn't. But she couldn't even say it. It was too much.

The look he gave her was one mixed with shock and disbelief.

She could feel Riku behind her, but he sat there, silent and still. Waiting. Assessing. Like he always did.

"No… you didn't… you couldn't have…"

"I cared about you," she repeated.

"But did you love me?"

Namine winced.

"My answer is 'no', but hear me out on why. At the time, I was a Nobody. I had no heart. I had… I had no emotions. Well… okay, that's a lie, I had enough emotions to care about you and be upset every time Larxene…"

Her voice caught again. Oh. There were so many things that Larxene had done…

He grunted.

"But I didn't have the capacity to love. Not like that. You, however, did. You were a Replica, created from the data of someone who did have the capacity to love like that. Vexen never intended those sorts of emotions to happen, but they did."

"Did you love Sora?" he asked, furrowing his brows.

Namine shook her head. "No," she said, chuckling. "Again, I had no heart."

"Did he love you?"

"Oh, he thought he did," Namine said.

Namine heard a sharp intake of breath that was definitely Riku's.

"They made me. She made me. I had no choice. But I set that right again when I had the chance. It took me a whole damn year but I did it. Sora has no recollection of Castle Oblivion and he's very happy with Kairi…"

She looked over at them with the corner of her eye. They were sitting halfway down the beach, sort of looking at them. And by 'sort of', Namine meant that Sora was staring and Kairi was probably telling him repeatedly not to be rude.

He snorted. "Sora and Kairi…" he muttered, shaking his head. Then he frowned. "A… year?"

"We have reason to believe this universe runs faster than the one you went to," Namine said. "And I think we've just proven it more. How long has it been?"

"Nine months," he said, almost uncertainly. "Time passes weird in Castle Oblivion."

Namine snorted.

"One last thing," she said. "That I have to say. And then you can go."

He raised an eyebrow.

"When you and him," she said, nodding her head at Riku. "Went off to fight, I secretly wished that both of you could somehow make it. And I am glad you did."

"Me too," he said, his voice almost wistful now.

"Are you happy?" she asked before she could stop herself.

"Yeah," he said, stuttering a little. "Are you?"

She chuckled. "Yeah." After a moment, she added. "You can leave now, I suppose. If you don't want to stay here."

He raised an eyebrow. "Do you want me to leave?"

She shrugged. "Whatever you want to do."

"No, I-I think I'll stay. Vexen dragged me here for some stupid reason and I might as well let him get whatever it is he wanted to do out of the way so this doesn't happen again."

Namine snorted.

He looked around. "Where'd he go, anyway? I want to… I don't know. Punch him in the face or something. I was in the middle of something when he decided he was going to drag me here."

Riku snorted that time.

"They can come and sit down, you know," he said, looking over at Sora and Kairi. "I'm not going to hurt anyone." Almost as if to prove it, he phased back out of dark mode.

Namine looked over at the other two. Kairi nudged Sora and the two of them came over and joined them. Sora kept looking like he was going to say something, but no question actually came out. Kairi just looked content to listen for the moment.

He sighed. "I was having such a nice day," he muttered.

Namine wanted to ask him what that was about, but her mind was having trouble forming more coherent thoughts.

"So… what happened to you?" Riku asked.

"Well, you killed me," he began. "Except, you didn't kill me. Some guy showed up, saved my life, told me he'd drop me off in a parallel universe and I'd get a 'second chance at life' and all that poetic stuff…"

"Do you know who it was?" Sora asked.

"No clue. Never mentioned a name. And I saw him maybe once after that—and the subject of his name never did come up. He might've been avoiding it. Anyway. He dropped me in a parallel universe. I met Sora and Kairi there, we became good friends. No surprise."

"Heh, no surprise," Sora agreed.

Riku nodded.

He continued his story. The events of Castle Oblivion that he recounted sounded oddly similar to the events of Castle Oblivion that Namine remembered. Though there were subtle differences.

"I almost wish I hadn't killed their Vexen," he mused. "The Replica Program went over to Saix when he died. And that didn't end well."

Namine thought about mentioning that they already knew how that ended, seeing as they'd ran into Joseph a couple of times. But she didn't want to interrupt.

"Wait, what about Lexaeus?" Riku asked.

So much for not interrupting.

He frowned. "Huh. I… never saw him. Haven't seen him. Ever. I have no clue where he is—all I've seen is a few Replicas. And, ah, ahem, killed a few of his Replicas."

"That's weird," Riku mused. "You'd think the Organization would be keeping better track of him."

He shrugged. "He could've just not been in Castle Oblivion. I haven't seen everyone from the Organization. I don't think I've run into Luxord yet. Or Xaldin. Or Demyx. So, it's entirely possible I just haven't seen him."

"Organization members aside, what happened next?" Sora prodded.

Namine chuckled. Oh, Sora.

He thought for a moment, then grinned. "Namine."

And she was presented with images of herself. Except they weren't her. This was his Namine. She smiled.

He'd already begun his story about how Marluxia thought it would have been a good idea to convince him to work for them by using Namine as leverage. About how she was created from Riku's memories.

Namine found the whole situation incredibly ironic.

"What's she like?" she asked, tentatively. She had an idea, but she wanted to know.

"Namine?"

"Who else!"

"Oh, well, uh. Uhm. She's… she's different than you. She—uh. She talks more." His face flushed red. "Though, maybe that's not a good example… because. You talk. Obviously. I just—you didn't use to… talk… ah…much." He licked his lips nervously. "I… uh… don't know. She's nice! I like spending time with her."

Sora and Kairi started flat-out snickering.

"What?" he asked, looking right at them.

Sora started to say something, but Kairi stopped him. He responded by shoving Riku into Namine.

"Hello," Riku said gruffly, steadying himself.

"Hi," Namine replied, holding onto his arm.

He laughed a little. "You two? Are—" He laughed again. "Well… uh… good… good for you."

Though Namine could tell that his mind was reeling. She was itching to draw roughly five pictures at once at that exact moment. But she'd left her sketchbook and pencils by the Paopu tree.

Almost as if Kairi had picked up on that thought, she asked: "Does she draw?"

He nodded enthusiastically. "Yes! Of course she does. She's very good at it, but… not like that's really a surprise."

He thought for a moment. "I can't think of anything else about her… I mean…"

Sora laughed.

"Hey!" he frowned. "You try and explain Kairi to me and then try laughing again."

Sora frowned. "Well, uh. You see, she's… my girlfriend."

"Sora!" Kairi argued. "Is that all you can think of?"

"What?" Sora asked, grinning now. "I mean, it was the first thing that came to mind. Oh hey, Riku." He didn't stumble over the name, Namine noticed. "Are you and Namine... like… I dunno…"

"He's trying to ask if you two are together, I think," Kairi finished.