Ok guys, I've posted a poll on my profile that I really would like you all to take if you could find the time. I just want to know where everyone stands on the Akuroku/or Vinroku.

I'm not saying that the outcome of the poll will in any way effect the story plot line but I am insanely curious to see what the majority thinks.

Go forth and VOTE!

I tossed and turned in my bed for hours after Demyx left me in my room. I tried to sleep, I really did but the sound of Vincent saying my name haunted my ears and now the look on his face when he heard my voice went right along with it.

I knew he was alive. It was all I had wanted, just proof of it, and now that proof was trying to kill me. I groaned and tossed my arm over my eyes. I just had to hope that they would find evidence in the tapes. A knock on my door had me glaring at the ceiling.

"What?" I snapped. The door opened and I turned my glare on Variedy.

"We need to talk." He said and closed the door behind him. I set up but didn't try to get up from the bed. If Variedy was here to kill me then I'd be dead, regardless of whether or not I was standing. He moved to stand a few feet from my bed, his arms crossed. "We recovered the data from the recording device that was stitched into your jeans." he said.

Well, here we go. I thought as I shifted my legs over till my feet were on the ground.

"Did you?" I asked. "Anything interesting while I was passed out?"

"Mostly it was just your cousin arguing on the phone with who we are assuming was Riku. He was very angry that he had to be the one to drug you, apparently the syringe he had was just back up in case something went wrong, when you tried to leave Sora panicked." He said, his eyes on my face.

"Hmm" I said. "Must have been traumatic for poor Sora." And my voice may have held a bit of anger in it.

"The really interesting part for me was why you tried to walk away in the first place." He said and I couldn't help that my eyes automatically left his and went for the floor. "The bug didn't really answer that question the first time we listened to it but then we paired the audio from the bug with the video surveillance of your stay with Axel and I think I finally got my answer." I shifted uncomfortably when he stopped talking, I wasn't sure what he expected me to say but after a moment he went on, his voice still perfectly calm like we were talking about the weather.

"You see, the first time through the audio I heard you say something about checking someone's pulse, it was confusing but I figured you were talking to someone or maybe you were delusional from the drugs but then the tape showed you were talking directly to the bug. I had Zexion clean up the audio." He showed me a small recording device in his hand before he hit play.

"I'm starting to wonder if I can trust anybody." My voice said from the small speaker."I don't know any more. Why would you check his pulse?"

I didn't say anything, just continued to stare just over Variedy's shoulder.

"I didn't understand at first, I had to think about it for a while but then I remembered that I had checked Vincent's pulse after he'd been 'shot'." he said and now my eyes met his and a thick silence fell between us. I licked my lips before I spoke.

"Why did you check his pulse?" I asked and I couldn't help that my heart was pounding. I couldn't help that my palms were sweating. I didn't think I could take another betrayal in my life.

"You think that I knew?" he asked and this time his face was slightly less blank with just a hint of anger.

"In the moment when I was going to entrust my rescue to you, in the moment I was letting you hand me over to Axel, Yes, I wondered if you had known. I wondered why you checked his pulse when he was shot through the head." Now I was starting to get angry. "and now that he's alive, I wonder what you felt when you checked his pulse."

"There was a time, not all that long ago, you wouldn't have dared to speak to me like that." He said as he glared down at me. I felt myself shrink back a little at the glare but I didn't back down.

"I deserve an answer." I said.

"I understand that terrible things have happened to you. I understand how drastically those things can change you. But doubting me is not going to get you very far." He said and when I kept up my glare he finally relented. "I checked his pulse because I was weak." He snapped, and he ran his hand through his hair, an action I had never seen him do up to this point.

"I don't understand." I said, my head tilted to the side.

"I didn't want to believe he was dead. I told you once that I don't have many friends, truthfully other then Phystie, Vincent is my only friend. When I saw the hole in his head I checked his pulse because I didn't want to see it, didn't want to face the truth. It was a moment of weakness that could have cost you or Phystie your lives. I should have gotten the both of you out of there a lot quicker then I did but I was being sentimental."

"Sentiment isn't always weakness. No matter how inhuman you may like to seem, your still have to answer to human emotions." I said, going for encouraging but probably not succeeding.

"I can count the number of times I've answered to human emotions on one hand." he said, his face blank once again. "And most involve Phystie."

"What about the ones that don't?" I asked, my curiosity peaked.

"The one that doesn't" He corrected me and I gave him the 'go on' face, to which he sighed. "When I was 12 years old I took the gun that my mother used to kill herself with and shot my father between the eyes while he begged for his life." I felt shock radiate down my spine, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end. I was reminded once again that I was talking to someone who had been much further into hell then I had ever even seen. Something must have shown on my face because he decided to continue.

"My parents had a very unhealthy relationship that I was forced to watch as I grew up. My father was both mentally and physically abusive to both my mother and me. When I was 10 my mother was coerced by my father into killing herself. I was bound and gagged on the kitchen floor, a normal occurrence in our household, when my mother decided she'd had enough. She pulled out a gun that she'd taken from our neighbors and held it to her head. She threatened to kill herself unless he untied me and left us alone. He laughed at her, told her what a loser she was and a coward until she finally pulled the trigger. Two years later, I took the same gun and killed my father." he said, all of which was stated in a way that mad it seem like it wasn't anything unusual.

I was at a loss for words. Next to his life story mine looked like a cake walk and made me seem like a whiny bitch.

"I'm sorry." I said finally. "For doubting you, for everything you've been through."

"It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I ran after I killed my father and found my mothers daughter, my half sister, from a previous marriage. She was 23 at the time and a model living on the west coast. She took me in until I moved out on my own at 16 and started taking hit jobs. I was good but needed official training, I was recruited into a branch of the military that I cannot disclose to you for several years where I was trained. If I hadn't killed my father I never would have known I was good at it."

"Silver lining in everything." I said, but it sounded weak, even to me.

"I am what I am and I have come to terms with that. Your the one who needs to figure out where all this is going." he said.

"What do you mean?" I asked but I was only feigning ignorance this time.

"If we get Vincent back, then what? You run off with him and live happy ever after? Or will he want revenge on Axel? Will you both spend the rest of your lives running around trying to seek revenge until one, or all of you are killed? What if Axel comes begging for you back some day? You've proven in the past that Axel is more important to you then anything else."

"Whoa, hold up." I said, my glare back at full force. "I think I've learned my lesson as far as Axel is concerned, once I get Vincent away from him, I'm done with him. As far as me and Vincent go, I don't know and I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. At this moment, I am just concerned with getting him away from Axel in one piece."

"We'll try for one piece but at this point we're just going for alive." he said. "We've pulled up the video of when they took him from the room. Are you up to see it?"

"Sure, will you get this IV out of me?" I asked, raising up my arm. He smirked and reached down and ripped the needle from my arm. I hissed but said nothing as I pressed my thumb over the small drop of blood that had welled up. He turned and headed for the door but paused for a moment.

"Also, the information about my past isn't common knowledge. It doesn't leave this room." he said and I couldn't help roll my eyes.

"Please Variedy, I want to live. I know better then to spill your secrets." I said as I stood from the bed and followed him out of the room.

"Well sometimes your self preservation is thin." he said and I could just hear the smirk in his voice. "I'd hate to have to be the one who finally fulfilled your death wish."

"My self preservation may be lacking some days but I do not have a death wish." I grumbled as we made our way down the hallway toward the main room.

"Ah, but you forget that I was there when you tried to start a fight with Axel while he was surrounded by his elite. Do you recall that morning? After the bathroom incident? If I hadn't been there it probably would have been your last morning on this Earth." He said and I just rolled my eyes again but said nothing. I couldn't argue his point so I kept my mouth closed.

We entered the main room to find Phystie passed out on the couch. Zexion was at his work station, going from one computer screen to the next with Demyx behind him making comments as they went. Variedy headed over to the two at the computers.

"How's it coming along?" He asked them. I jumped up and sat on the desk next to one of the computers my legs crossed up on the desk as well. Zexion glared at me but made no comment on my seat choice.

"We've managed to piece together quite a bit of film here." He said as he clicked away.

"Lets see it." I said and turned a little so I could see the main computer screen (that was actually a TV). Zexion hit a button and the screen went black before it started moving again. I was looking at the same room as earlier, Vincent hanging from the chains still. Axel was in the room with him, the door was closed now. A few moments passed of Axel just standing in front of Vincent, talking.

"No audio I'm guessing?" I asked as I squinted at the screen.

"No." Zexion said. "That would be too easy." After a few moments the door opened and two men came in.

"Leon and Cloud." I said once I recognized them. They went over to Vincent and undid his wrist from the chains, he sagged between them but they kept him from falling completely. Axel reached out and grabbed a hand full of Vincent's hair and jerked his head up. He said something and then Vincent and Cloud were moving him out of the room. The camera switched to the hallway outside the room. There was another person, passed out and cuffed being held by Riku.

"Is that me?" I asked, my heart pounding, "They moved me at the same time they moved Vincent?" As we watched Riku led the way down the hall, followed by Leon, Cloud and Vincent. The camera switched again and this time it was the garage. Off in the distance you could see a van waiting, a few moments and Cloud, Leon, Vincent and Riku appear. Riku dumps me into the back of the van and then they put Vincent in as well. They close the door, Cloud gets in the front passengers seat and Leon must have got into the drivers. The van pulls out and Riku goes back inside. "Vincent wasn't cuffed." I said, my voice soft.

And then I was no longer sitting on Zexion's desk, I was grogy, tired, my eyes were heavy. I could hear the ground moving beneath me. "He wasn't cuffed." I whispered again as another flash of memory hit me.

"Roxas, roxas, roxas." My eyes slid open, almost against their will but the sharp pain to my face was hard to ignore.

"Stop." I slurred at whoever was slapping me.

"Roxas you have to listen to what I'm saying." the person said they sounded hoarse, like they hadn't spoken in a while, their voice cracked a few times.

"Vincent..drugged." I muttered.

"Yes, I'm here and I know." he said and this time the hand on my face was gentle "Roxas try to listen, they're going to move me and I think I know..

"Roxas?!" Someone shouted and I was pulled out of the memory with a nasty jerk. I set up, I was on the ground some how.

"I remember the ride in the van." I said, my eyes wide, my face pale as I searched my memory, trying to bring it back up. "Vincent tried to wake me up from the drugs, tried to tell me something."

"Alright, everyone back up." Variedy said and there was only one set of hands on me now. I racked my fingers through my hair.

"He touched my face." I whispered. "He was trying to tell me something... the drugs make everything blurry, distant."

"Just concentrate Roxas." Variedy said. "You were in the van, laying on the floor of it, it probably stunk like feet and body fluids, Vincent was with you, he would have been conscious but severally injured. Both of his wrist would have been sprained if not broken so touching your face would have hurt him quite a bit."

"He slapped me to try and wake me." I whispered. I could feel the slaps and the small intake of breath from whoever was slapping me, pained noises. I squeezed my eyes shut. "There was an awful smell in the van, one that I can't place. Vincent is laying next to me, but he's repositioned himself, my head isn't on the van floor, its on his stomach..." I trailed off. "He's whispering something to me, over and over again..."

"What is it Roxas?" Variedy says and the words are on the tip of my tongue.

"Roxas remember 62295, 62295, 62295." I said and my eyes flashed opened, and met red and gold eyes. "62295! Does that mean something?" I looked over to Zexion who immediately went to his computer and started typing. "He told me they were moving him and he thought he knew where too, then he repeated those numbers to me until I passed out again."

"It's got to be an address." Variedy said. "Run it against all of Axel's properties. He knew that Roxas wouldn't be able to remember much with the drugs in his system, so he gave him the numbers of the place he thought they might take him. Vincent ran Axel's elite for a long time, he knows they're moves better then they do. If anyone would know where they were taking him it'd be him." He helped me to my feet and Demyx brought me a rolling chair. I sat and watched Zexion work.

"Nothing so far." He muttered as he typed away at the keyboard.

"Wait." Demyx said all of a sudden. "Let me see." He pushed Zexion out of the way and started in on the keyboard. "Ha!" He said as he stood up. "62295 is the area code for Valmeyer, Illinois!"

"Axel have any property over there?" Variedy asked. Zexion gave Demyx a shove and went back to typing.

"No." he said after a moment. I frowned.

"What about Larxene?" Phystie spoke up from the other side of the couch. Everyone looked over to him, his head popped up from the couch. "It's just as likely." he said with a shrug as he stood and stretched.

"That will take a while, I'll have to check her married name and her family name. Give me a bit." he said.

"Okay, So at this point Demyx," I said and he turned his attention to me. "If you were still working for Axel, and Vincent was still in charge. What would be the next move for a prisoner who wasn't talking and had broken through the brainwashing whatever." I waved my hand to show I didn't care what it was actually called.

"Well, normally at this point Vincent would take over. He'd move the prisoner to a location that only him and Cloud or Leon would know about. Axel would be told later and escorted to the new location once things were set up."

"So it's safe to say that Cloud and Leon are the only ones who know where Vincent is right now?" Variedy asked. Demyx thought for a moment.

"I would think so." he said.

"Add Cloud and Leon's name to the property search." I said to Zexion who nodded.

"Might as well add Vincent's as well." Phystie said as he came over and cuddled up to Variedy's side. I almost looked away, it was like they were making out instead of just a slight side hug. It was almost vulgar for Variedy as far as PDA went.

"Why Vincent?" Demyx asked.

"Because if he was the one who would normally be in charge at this point then its safe to assume that whatever property that they used in that area code could just as easily belong to Vincent." he said and Variedy kissed his forehead. Phystie beamed up at the taller man and I felt a little vomit come up. I looked away.

"Be sure to try all his known alias's as well." Variedy said. Zexion shot us a glare.

"Any thing else?" He snarled. "Demyx, come start searching on the other computer." he snapped at his boyfriend who gave a mock salute. I got up and gave him back his chair and they both got to work. I moved across the room to the couch that Phystie had vacated and plopped down, my arm across my eyes.

Maybe now I could get some sleep.

Alright, I know this is short but I really wanted to get this to you guys because I've got a lot going on this week and probably won't have time to make this any longer but I want you to have this.

Also, please take the poll for me. Thanks!

Review!