It was automatic. His feet, his heart, knew where they wanted to go.

Before he knew it, he was standing in front of the dingey curtain blocking off the space beneath the tram tracks.

The Usual Spot.

A bitter laugh built in the back of his throat. What a joke.

He hadn't told Aqua, or even Axel, yet. Those fake memories… that fake copy of this town… it still felt just as real as anything else. Aqua would probably use that as proof that he was crazy, that he couldn't trust his own heart.

(His own two hearts, if what she had said about keyblades was true.)

It didn't matter how many hearts he had—none of the connections he'd made in that world were real. He'd seen it fall apart at the seams: the world freeze-framing, Naminé and DiZ yanking him about on puppet strings. Walls glitching, shadows shifting, trains disappearing.

Hayner. Pence. Olette.

He pushed aside the curtain anyway.

The Usual Spot was empty, but not empty. Pence and Olette's favorite couch still had worn impressions on its cushions. The dartboard Hayner had been aiming for when he'd nearly taken Roxas's eye out hung crooked on the wall.

Had someone else nearly been stabbed with a dart, playing with the real Hayner? Whose memories had DiZ ripped off to give Roxas those specific details?

He shook his head. He doubted he'd get any answers to that. He should just be grateful that he had any memories of being Roxas at all—even if some of them were fake.

He fell back onto the couch, and a cloud of dust puffed out. It even smelled the same. Like dirt and sweat and salt. The only difference he could make out was a few drops of blue on the torn green upholstery.

Melted ice cream. The real Hayner, Pence, and Olette would take their dessert back here. The Clocktower was reserved for Roxas and Axel and—

(Someone else?)

His chest hurt. That wasn't really surprising, though. Everything hurt. His legs and his throat, his head and his eyes.

It didn't matter that he was crying here. The clear droplets on the cushion would be gone by the time Hayner Pence and Olette came back tomorrow.

Assuming they still came back. Was it summer vacation again? He had no idea. He hadn't been keeping track of the days since he'd been back. He had always been so good at that back in the Organization…

He needed a diary. He needed his diary. What had happened to it? He'd taken it with him when he'd left the Organization, but it hadn't made it into the fake Twilight Town. DiZ wouldn't have let him keep anything that would jog his memories.

A growl built in the back of his throat.

"Why doesn't anyone want me to remember?" he shouted at the air. As if DiZ was still listening in, even now.

He didn't know what had happened to DiZ. Maybe he was still around, watching. But this world couldn't be another simulation.

He was pretty sure a fake Aqua would be less stupid.

"Hello?"

Roxas jumped at the voice, dual keyblades flashing to his hands. (He still couldn't remember why he could do that, either.)

"Who's there?" he called.

It was a girl's voice. Not Aqua's, though, so there was probably no need for weapons. Still, it sounded strangely familiar.

The girl ducked in past the curtain, and he realized why.

"Kairi?"

She wore a pink dress, and her red hair was shorter than he remembered—well, shorter than when he'd last been alive, and longer than the scenes from Sora's memories. It was definitely her, though.

Would he still have recognized her without his connections to Sora?

"Roxas?" she gasped in reply.

"What are you doing here?" they both asked at once.

He took a second to process, and then he laughed. His keyblades disappeared.

"I guess no one would've told you I was alive, huh." He gave a grim smile, wiping his eyes on the back of his arm. "Not like I knew I was alive until today…"

Her brow furrowed.

"I just heard someone shout, and came to make sure no one was in trouble. I didn't mean to intrude."

"Heh. That's a first."

"What's that supposed to mean?" She frowned, and he shook his head.

"Sorry. It's not you. It's, uh… my big sister has been really clingy lately. I just came here to clear my head, I guess."

Not that it was helping much. He'd thought that remembering Axel would fix everything, but there were still gaps. He had no way of knowing if the remaining memories would ever come back.

"Oh." Kairi took a couple of tentative steps closer. "I… didn't know you had a sister?"

Roxas blinked before laughing again.

"It's a long story."

"I've got time." She froze guiltily, like she'd just been caught telling a secret. "I mean. I've got lots of important keyblade wielder stuff to do. But that can wait a little bit."

He raised his eyebrows. Kairi had a keyblade? Since when?

"Okay, so I don't really have anything important," she admitted sulkily. "Sora and Riku went to check the Sleeping Realm for Xehanorts. So I'm flying solo for now."

"That sounds pretty nice."

It was tempting to strike out on his own. He could support himself easily by fighting Heartless. But he still wanted to learn more about his past from Vanitas—and despite everything, he still didn't want to hurt Aqua.

"...You know, it kind of is, actually," she said almost to herself.

"Yeah?"

He scooted over, making room for her on the couch. It wasn't how he'd thought his evening would go, but Kairi didn't seem to expect anything from him. She didn't really know him as Ven or Roxas.

Finally, he could have the chance to be seen as just himself.

…Whoever that was.

"I've always hated being left behind." Kairi sat down, sinking into the cushion. "I always wanted Sora and Riku to take me with them on their adventures. I wanted to be able to help.

"But now I don't have to wait. I can summon my keyblade glider, finally. I can go anywhere I want."

"And you wanted to come here?" Roxas's brow furrowed. "I mean, I love Twilight Town, but it's not exactly a tourist spot. Unless someone told you about the ice cream."

Kairi laughed. Something about the sound slotted into the gaps in his memory, but he couldn't place why.

"I made some friends here, a while ago. Olette and her friends helped hide me the first time I escaped from Axel."

"Axel?" What had his best friend been doing while he was gone?

"It's okay! We're all good now." Her smile looked genuine. "It's kind of funny, actually. His whole plan was because he wanted to get you back. And now I'm the one who found you."

Roxas grimaced.

"Well, uh, actually…"

He summarized what had happened in as few words as he could. Sora and Vanitas bringing him back as Ven. Meeting Axel again and regaining Roxas's memories. It was easier than he expected, considering he'd technically lived four different lives, more or less.

"Oh! So that's how you have a sister." She nodded, as if it all made perfect sense.

"You're not… weirded out, or anything?" His head tilted.

"Why would I be?"

"I dunno. I guess… everyone seems to already know who I should be."

He pulled his knees up to his chest. Hopefully no one could tell if his boots got dirt on the couch.

"Hmm." Kairi nodded thoughtfully. "That sucks."

He let out a startled laugh.

"It does, huh?"

"I guess I have the opposite problem." She swung her legs back and forth. "No one has any expectations for me. They don't know what to do with me, I think."

"I think I'd like that," Roxas admitted.

"Well, I don't," she huffed. "I'm a keyblade wielder just like the rest of them. They're supposed to be my friends, and they still keep acting like I need coddling."

Roxas frowned. He knew how it felt to be left behind, if nothing else.

Maybe she was right. He didn't want to keep being left behind. He wanted to be respected, just like anyone else. But if he couldn't have that, being alone was the next best thing.

He didn't say any of that, though. Those wounds were too raw to keep digging into.

"I didn't know you had a keyblade. Before today, anyway," he said to change the subject. He must've missed out on a lot more than that in the year or so he'd been inside Sora.

"Oh yeah! You haven't seen it!" She leaped to her feet, raising her hand high above the air. An ornate, flowery keyblade appeared in her grip. "Ta-daaah!"

("I'd like to dedicate this Keyblade summoning to my good friends Roxas and Axel.")

Roxas gasped. His hand hovered over his heart, which was pounding like a drum.

(If he listened closely, he almost heard a second-off beat.)

"What?" Kairi frowned, her keyblade hanging at her side. "You didn't believe me, did you?"

"No! I did!" He waved his hands placatingly. "It was just…"

Kairi didn't know him. If there was anyone who wouldn't freak out from his revelation, it would probably be her.

"I've been having these… memories? If you can call them that. They come in these weird flashes. What you said just then… It reminded me of someone."

"Naminé?" Kairi's head tilted.

"No, not her." He was sure of that, if nothing else. He hadn't known Naminé until she and DiZ had messed with his memories. "I do think she was a girl, though? And… we were friends."

Good friends, she'd said. Assuming that fragment had been her voice.

Kairi dismissed her keyblade, plopping down next to him again.

"You'll find her," she assured him.

Roxas squinted at her in disbelief. "How do you know?"

"I forgot Sora, once. Remember?" She smiled at him. "That was the first time I met you. Or… sort of met you."

He nodded. Apparently that had been one of the few real things to happen inside the fake Twilight Town.

"You helped those memories come back," she said. "So I'd like to do the same for you."

"Really? You'd just… do that?"

She shrugged. "Nothing better to do, right?"

Her voice came out a bit bitter.

"Are you sure there's not somewhere you'd rather be?" he asked. "Like you said—you can go anywhere. And it sounds like people have kept you stuck for too long."

"Don't worry." She smiled wryly. "I'll let you know if you're being a ball and chain."

He laughed, half because she was funny, and half because he was relieved. He'd finally found someone who would talk to him honestly.

"Thank you, Kairi." He stood, smiling for real for the first time since his fight with Aqua. "I've got an idea of where to start."

"Well that was fast."

"It's a tradition that me and Axel had. If she was our friend too, she would've been there."

He held out his hand.

"How do you feel about sea-salt ice cream?"

XXX

Kairi spread her arms out wide, letting the wind wrap around her like a hug. She'd never been anywhere like this—high enough to see all of Twilight Town sprawling out below them. The dull ticking of the clock face beneath their ledge felt strangely reassuring. Like the steady beating of the town's heart.

"You like it?" Roxas asked, sitting with his legs hanging off the ledge.

There wasn't a shred of fear in his expression. How many times had he been up here? She guessed it wasn't any more dangerous than fighting Heartless, but she could only imagine what her parents would say if they saw her now.

She sat down next to Roxas. If she got vertigo, she could always summon her glider. She could take care of herself.

"It's beautiful," she said honestly.

"You haven't even had the best part." He grinned, pulling two bars of blue ice cream from a plastic shopping bag. "The icing on the cake."

She gave a giggling snort. He thought ice cream was better than this view?

"I don't think there's icing or cake in this." She grinned back as she accepted one.

"Well, that's what Axel called it."

Roxas looked content as he unwrapped the plastic from his ice cream bar. She hadn't realized he'd been holding so much tension while they were in Olette's hideout. Still, he hesitated, staring at the dessert rather than eating it.

"What's wrong? Did they change it since you were here last?"

"Nah, Margie perfected this recipe decades ago. I just… hope it tastes like I remember, I guess." He looked wistful.

"You did hype it up a lot," she said as she unwrapped her own treat. "You won't know until you try it though, right?"

"Heh. Yeah."

With unspoken agreement, they both bit into their ice creams at the same time.

It was salty. She'd known that—it was in the name—but tasting the combination of salt and vanilla was still an interesting experience. She couldn't decide if she liked it or not.

She was about to tell Roxas as much, when she saw his shoulders trembling.

"Roxas?" Her eyes widened.

He'd hunched forward enough that his bangs fell in front of his eyes, but there was no mistaking the sound of his breath hissing through his teeth, or the water dripping down his chin.

"It… wasn't that bad, was it?"

That probably wasn't the most sensitive remark. She'd picked up bad habits like that from Lea—but if Lea was Roxas's best friend, maybe that would be a good thing.

Roxas's sniffling escalated to sobbing. She winced.

"I, uh… your ice cream's going to melt."

Something that might've been a laugh was ground up between his sobs.

She didn't know Roxas. She didn't know what would help him. Heck, she never even knew how to comfort her own friends, considering she was never there when they needed it.

Still, she was going to try.

"Hey." She scooted closer to him. "Um. You can cry if you want. I don't mind. But if you want to talk about anything… It sounds like you've been through a lot. And I don't mind listening."

He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. His ice cream stuck to his bangs.

"S-sorry," he finally got out in a murmur. "The ice cream's… good."

"Then you should probably eat it instead of feeding it to your hair."

An out-of-breath laugh escaped him. He pulled his hair free of his sticky ice cream.

"Thanks, Kai—"

He cut off abruptly, his gaze snapping towards something below. She followed his line of sight towards a burst of light magic, but she couldn't make out any Heartless. She squinted harder.

Wait. Was that—?

"Are you kidding me." Roxas clutched his ice cream so tightly, she thought the stick might snap. "Can't I go two seconds without my family trying to kill each other?"

Then she wasn't mistaken. That was Lea and Aqua, brawling in the middle of the streets.

"This is—this is why I had to get away," Roxas said, taking an angry bite of ice cream. "They want me to choose between them. I know it. I bet that's why they're fighting now."

"Choose between…? Aren't Aqua and Lea friends?"

He let out a bitter laugh.

"If they are, I'd hate to see their enemies."

Kairi frowned. She knew Aqua had some problems with darkness in the past. And Lea, well—she'd been there for some of his dark past. But she'd thought they'd both gotten better.

"I'm not giving Axel enough credit," he admitted a little more glumly. "He's trying. He's not hiding stuff from me, anymore, and I think he's even okay with me being Ven. But…"

Kairi waited, watching his expression contort through several different emotions.

"He lives with Saix," he finally finished.

"Oh. Yeah." She nodded in solidarity. "Saix was an even worse kidnapper than Axel."

Roxas made a noise somewhere between a growl and a groan.

"See? I just don't—it doesn't make sense. I can get Aqua and Vanitas, but I thought Axel had higher standards than that. I mean, Saix was such a jerk to me and Xion—"

His breath caught. His ice cream slipped from his hand, tumbling over and over, before finally splatting on the paving stones far below.

"Xion," Kairi repeated. It wasn't a name she recognized. "Is that… is she the girl you were trying to remember?"

"Xion!" Roxas sprang to his feet. His face was still soaked with tears, but he was beaming as brightly as the sun. "She's Xion. She's Xion!"

He pulled Kairi to her feet, and spun her around in a crushing hug.

No, crushing was the wrong word. The hug was tight, but she felt better for it—like she was filling up more space, rather than less.

Like that was a space where she was wanted.

"Thank you, Kairi," Roxas said, his breath warm near her ear. "Thank you."

She hugged him back, grateful that he couldn't see her flush.

"A-anytime."

XXX

There was some more crying after that. A lot more crying. But Roxas didn't care, and Kairi hadn't called him a "ball and chain," so she probably didn't care either.

She gave him the rest of her ice cream. She said he probably needed it more than she did.

It tasted like heaven.

He wished they could stay up on the Clocktower longer. Forever, maybe, if it meant not having to go back down and clean up the remnants of his family's fallout.

But the sun always set eventually. The bells rang nine o'clock, scattering the perching crows to the wind.

"You… said you were going to stay with Olette, right?" Roxas asked.

"I haven't exactly asked yet," she admitted. "And it's pretty late now. I'll probably just camp out tonight."

"You can camp out with us!" he said quickly. Probably too quickly, but he couldn't be alone with Aqua and Vanitas again. Even staying with Axel and Saix would be better.

Maybe. Probably. Ugh.

"Great!" She beamed. "It's a sleepover!"

He grinned back in relief.

"Yeah!"

They took their gliders down to the street, then headed in the direction of the earlier fight. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled the closer they got.

"You don't have to do this, you know," Kairi said quietly. She was looking straight ahead, not at him, and he almost wondered if she was talking to herself. "You don't have to go back yet. If you don't want to. If you need more time."

He sighed.

"I know. This isn't the first time I've run away."

There was no winning arguments with Aqua. She was too stubborn, no matter how many times he proved her wrong. Running had been the only escape.

But with a friend by his side, he felt like maybe, he didn't need to win. He just needed to stand his ground. Hopefully, Axel would help with that, too—if he didn't hate Roxas for taking off again.

"I want to go back," he said firmly. "I love my family. They may suck a lot of the time, but they're trying. They're mine."

He took a deep breath.

"And… I've lost too many friends, before."

"Oh." Kairi's voice was quiet.

He didn't expect her to understand. He didn't know if anyone could understand the amount of friends and family he'd lost.

Four lifetimes.

He felt too old to be just sixteen.

Something brushed his hand, and he startled. But it was just Kairi, her palm facing up, her jaw set like she was about to go into battle.

Maybe she didn't understand, but she was here for him anyway. That was enough.

He took her hand.

XXX

"Roxas!"

"Roxas!"

"Kairi?"

"Vanitas," Vanitas chimed in as Aqua and Lea ran towards Roxas and Kairi.

Lea was faster than her. He flew at Roxas in a hug, leaving her standing awkwardly behind.

Roxas wouldn't want a hug from her, anyway.

"Hey," Roxas said with a tentative smile at Lea. He didn't glance her way yet.

"Hey yourself." Lea let go, clapping him on the back instead.

Aqua noticed that despite the impact of Lea's hug, Roxas hadn't let go of Kairi's hand. Hmm.

"And hey to you, too!" Lea grinned at Kairi. "Long time no see!"

"I hope you're staying out of trouble without me," she teased.

"Don't worry. I've got Isa keeping me from doing anything too stupid."

Roxas and Kairi stiffened, looking past Aqua to where Vanitas and Isa were hanging behind. Guiltily, Aqua felt relieved that she wasn't the only one Roxas didn't trust.

Roxas cleared his throat.

"Uh, that reminds me. Do you remember us having a friend named Xion?"

Xion? Aqua hadn't even heard that name before.

But Lea clutched at his chest, stumbling as if he'd been shot.

"Xion," he said the name deliberately, almost breathlessly. "That's her. How did we forget—what happened to her?"

Roxas's expression hardened with determination.

"I don't know. But we're going to find out."

Maybe that was why he'd taken so long to come back. Because he was trying to save his friend. Not because he hated her.

The argument sounded weak, even in her head.

"That's what I want to do." This time, Roxas faced her. His eyes didn't flinch away. "I'm going to find Xion. You can come with me, or not."

Aqua's heart froze over. This was it. An ultimatum.

"What... what about Terra?" she asked breathlessly. "I... we... still want to save him, right?"

"Of course I do. You know where he is, though—inside Xemnas. We'll face him sooner or later."

He had a point. And, truthfully, she hadn't been searching for Xemnas as hard as she should have. She had been so desperate to keep Ven from leaving… and so afraid of what Xemnas could do if her heart wasn't strong enough.

Her heart was so weak. There were barely any bonds holding it together.

"I'm invited too, right?" Lea asked. "Xion was my friend, too. I don't care if I have to quit my crappy Starbucks job."

"Isa might care," Aqua pointed out. She knew they were roommates. She didn't know if Isa could afford the rent on his own.

Lea winced.

"I can handle myself," Isa said as he approached. "Our current financial situation appears untenable, anyway. Perhaps housing here might be more affordable."

"You think so?" Lea asked. "The only reason we were sticking around Radiant Garden was for my training, but Merlin might be here for a while… unless Sora came back with you?" he asked Kairi.

She shook her head.

"I'm on my own for a bit. Unless you'd like me to join you, too."

"The more the merrier, right?"

Lea grinned, but his gaze turned to Aqua. That smile looked sharp enough to cut.

Van, I could use some backup right now, she tried to beg him silently. He was standing by Isa, already talking about possible places to live in Twilight Town.

"I… yes." She restrained a sigh. "Of course."

The outcome could've been far worse, considering she'd attacked Lea just hours ago. She should just be grateful he'd forgiven her quickly. Any other concerns she wanted to bring up would have to wait until tensions had died down.

Her fault. Again.

As her friends excitedly made plans for the night, she wondered if she would ever feel at home with them again.