"What color do you like best?" Aqua asked Naminé while standing next to the white curtains in the horrible, horrible white room.

Color? Like? Why was she asking her this? Why was she asking her anything at all?

Naminé squeezed herself tighter, feeling too warm in the half-finished black coat. This one only had one sleeve, and half of the bottom hem was shorter than the other, making her feel off-balance. Still, it was better than the white shift she'd worn the rest of her life.

Xion had gotten real clothes—cute ones, with neon hues and ribbons and glitter. Naminé tried not to feel jealous of that fact. She was fortunate enough that they'd given her anything at all.

"Pink? Blue?" Aqua suggested, a kind smile on her face. She didn't seem to mind that Naminé had barely spoken to her.

"Black?" Vanitas threw out. He was leaning against the wall near the door. Probably guarding the way to make sure she didn't run away.

As if she had anywhere to run to. There was the Datascape, but with DiZ's old computer and Data-Riku's constant monitoring, they would be able to find her again easily. Kairi had already dragged her out of there a few more times since she'd been "reborn."

She didn't feel reborn. She didn't feel any different than she had before, as a Nobody.

"We don't have to change any of the colors, if you don't want us to," Aqua said. "We can leave the walls blank. You can decorate them again however you like."

Naminé froze. No, no, she couldn't do that. Being stuck here was torture enough. Though she couldn't bring herself to ask for much, she needed at least a small change. Anything.

"Red," she blurted the first color that came to mind. It was the color of Vanitas's jacket.

"Bold. I like it." He nodded, and Aqua laughed.

Aqua pressed her hands to the wall, and a bright crimson flowed from her palms. She didn't even need a pencil or brush—it was as if she carried the color under her skin. As if it were her own blood.

Naminé gasped as the color spread in arcing patterns, dancing across paint and plaster beneath Naminé's old drawings, until every trace of white was consumed.

Naminé breathed a little easier, then. Even if the red was still a little bright—she would've preferred a cooler maroon—it no longer felt like a prison.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

"It's no trouble. It's always a pleasure to practice my color magic." Aqua smiled.

She seemed to mean it. Naminé was more confused than ever. Had the blue-haired woman gotten her confused with someone else? Someone who actually deserved kindness? Didn't she know what Naminé had done to Roxas, the one she called Ven?

"Beep beep! Comin' through!" Axel—no, Lea—called as he shuffled his way backwards into the room.

Vanitas slid out of the way, letting Lea and Riku heft a wooden bedframe through the doorway. It was so large, they had to carry it sideways.

"Oh, um, I think… you have the wrong room…" Naminé murmured.

Unless Lea or Riku were sharing with her? That would be… kind of weird. But maybe not bad? If it was Riku, anyway. She'd never shared a room with anyone. No one else would want to spend so much time near a heartless witch.

"It's for you," Aqua explained.

Naminé's eyes widened.

"Riku said you'd never had a bed before," Vanitas said. "We meant to have it up here before you got out of the computer, but we had to wait on these slackers."

"I was at work!" Lea protested. "You didn't have to wait for me!"

He and Riku set the bed down in the corner of the room nearest the window. The spot that had the best view of the woods. It was exactly where Naminé would've put it.

"Well, Aqua won't let me help. Even though I'm feeling tons better after getting all my bottled Unversed back." Vanitas gave her a pleading look.

"I saw you trip up the stairs," Aqua shot him down.

"Only because they're falling apart! You would've tripped too if Kairi hadn't fixed it afterwards!"

Riku hovered near Naminé while those two argued.

"Are you doing okay?" he asked her softly.

She nodded automatically.

"Of course. I'm happy to be here," she lied.

All of these people were connected to Sora in some way or another. Especially Vanitas, the strange one who shared his face. If she had to, she could probably twist their memories just enough to let her escape. But she'd never tried manipulating so many individuals' memories at once.

And, again, she had nowhere else to go.

Still, it was agonizing waiting for the other shoe to drop. When would these people realize that she was better off dead? How long did she have this time? Months? A year? Even if it was a more comfortable year than the last she'd spent in this mansion, it was bound to end eventually.

"We're so happy to have you," Aqua told her, apparently paying attention again. "I'm going to help bring up your mattress and blankets, okay? If there's anything else you need, let any of us know."

"Except me, apparently," Vanitas sighed.

"Except him. Unless it's something light and not breakable."

"Ugh, you trip up the stairs one time…" Vanitas muttered.

Lea shook his head and followed the two of them out. Leaving Naminé and Riku alone for the time being.

She didn't relax once they were gone, exactly. But it was easier to keep track of her surroundings when there was only one other person around.

"So… uh. Red?" Riku asked awkwardly.

He didn't seem to know what to say any more than she did, even though they'd been attending Bad-Anon together in the back of Tapper's for a few weeks now. Not that she ever said much there, either.

She nodded.

"It's… a color," she said.

He nodded back, leaning against the (her?) bedframe's footboard. It creaked loudly at the motion, and he winced.

"Um. Sorry it sounds like that. And, uh, sorry it took so long. To get you a place to sleep."

Naminé's brow scrunched. Why was he apologizing?

"It's okay. I haven't been sleeping here anyway," she said, even though he should already know that. Despite owning a physical body, she'd spent every night in Hero's Duty since she'd been reborn.

They'd tried bringing her to Roxas's (and Aqua's, and Vanitas's, and Lea's, and Isa's, and Xion's) apartment at first, but it had quickly become overwhelming having so many people in such a small space. She'd fled back to the mansion's computer the second all of them were asleep.

"No, I mean—before. You know." He gestured to the room. "When we were… with DiZ. I never thought about it…"

"You only had a sleeping bag." Naminé remembered walking into the attic alcove he'd marked as his space by accident once.

"Well, you didn't even have that," he countered. Determined to feel guilty.

She supposed she understood the feeling.

"Where did this bed come from?" she asked to change the subject.

He looked away, face a little red. Or maybe that was just the light reflecting off of the walls.

"Uh. It, actually… used to be mine?" he cringed a little, his head retreating into his shoulders. "I hope that's not weird."

Naminé blinked. "You had a bed? But where are you…?"

"It's from my home world. I barely stay there anymore; Mom didn't even mind," he said quickly. "I sleep on the Gummi Ship most of the time when we're not camping."

"But—it's your bed." Her chest ached at the thought of returning the gift, but that selfishness was just another sign that she didn't deserve it. "You need it more than I do."

"I told you, I wasn't using it anyway—"

"Wait, this is your bed?" Aqua gaped when she and Lea returned with the mattress. Vanitas was carrying the sheets wrapped around his shoulders like a cape. "Riku, I could have bought a bed!"

"Kairi told me you guys are tight on money—"

"Only because Scrooge was sucking it all out of us," Vanitas said. "That's why we're moving here."

"No more rent, baby. We're off the grid." Lea grinned. "Though hey, if Riku had sentimental reasons for giving Naminé his bed, that's fine, right?"

"Lea," Aqua glared at him.

"Please shut up." Riku paled. The 'please' seemed directed at Aqua, and the 'shut up' at Lea.

Naminé had no idea what they were talking about, but that was a pretty normal occurrence.

Lea and Aqua deposited the mattress on the bedframe, and Vanitas began spreading out the sheets until Aqua took over. They were a dark gray, with a blue comforter patterned with waves on the top.

"You can change the colors of those too, if you want. I don't care," Riku said.

Naminé shook her head.

"They're nice. Thank you, Riku."

Some of the color returned to his face. She hoped that was a good thing.

XXX

"So," Aqua asked Vanitas while he stirred a pot of vadouvan curry, "what do you think of Naminé?"

Vanitas hummed. He had plenty of thoughts, but when Aqua used that tone, he knew the question was loaded.

"Are you looking for a right answer, or an honest one?"

"I don't know what you mean." She stuck a finger in the curry and licked it.

"Germs." He swatted her hand with the spoon, flicking yellow-orange sauce at the wall by accident. And after all the work his Inversed had done to get the backsplash clean, too. "And stop lying."

"I want a you answer," she clarified, leaning against the counter. "Normally you would've told me what you think by now without me asking."

Vanitas sighed. He knew her well, but she had just as much knowledge of him. He couldn't lie, either.

"I'm worried about her, sure. Don't know too much about her except that she's related to Kairi and got some scary memory powers. And she's good at biting."

"She hasn't bitten anyone," Aqua replied in a long-suffering tone. "Kairi doesn't count. Naminé was possessed by Xehanort then."

Vanitas shrugged. He knew the face of someone who was one wrong push away from biting. He'd been that someone.

"All I'm saying is, she seems a lot like I used to be. Just a bit better at hiding it, maybe."

Aqua's brow furrowed.

"What makes you say that?"

"Practically born yesterday. Isolated from everyone else. Never had a bed." He listed off the reasons with each stir of the spiced onion-and-garlic sauce. "I don't smell any darkness on her, but you don't need darkness to be desperate."

He couldn't pinpoint exactly why she seemed so desperate, but maybe she didn't need a reason. She could just be acting on habit and instinct, the way he had when he'd first decided to terrorize Aqua.

"So what are you saying? We shouldn't trust her?" Aqua asked defensively.

Vanitas snorted. He turned down the stove's gas before the bottom of the pot could burn.

An Inversed Tank Toppler kept the mansion's natural gas topped off, and he could make enough Yellow Mustards to keep a steady flow of electricity. It was much more efficient than the brutal way the Organization had powered the place before, burning canisters of condensed Unversed alive for fuel.

"Hardly. Should you not trust me, either?" he countered. "I just mean you can't expect her to be like a replacement Ven. You're gonna be disappointed."

"I'm not—!" She cut herself off, slumping. "Was it that obvious?"

"Probably just to me. And maybe Ven himself. Everyone else probably thinks you just baby every little blonde like that. Can you cut up the okra?"

"The—what?"

"Bottom drawer of the fridge. Looks kinda like a wrinkly pepper." He paused, looking up from deglazing the pot. "You don't know what okra is?"

"It didn't grow in the Land of Departure! Not all of us work in a fancy restaurant." The excuse didn't stop her from flushing with embarrassment.

Vanitas grinned. It was practically a once-in-a-lifetime event to know something Aqua didn't. It was almost enough to keep him from wincing at the sound of the knife on the cutting board. (He'd asked Sora to cut up the onion and garlic, earlier. Sora wasn't very good at it, but the work was passable when it was all getting blended up anyway.)

"I know Naminé isn't Ven," Aqua said, her back to him as she worked on the island counter. "Just because she's run away before—I'm not trying to chase after her, or anything. I just… want her to feel at home. Make a good first impression. Especially since she has such a complicated history with everyone else."

Vanitas nodded.

"When you put it like that, I guess I feel the same way. She seems alright with Riku, but it's not like we can trust Ven or Kairi to give her the kind of welcome that won't make her wanna run and hide."

And he knew how that felt, too. He couldn't forget his first encounter with Lea, how much of a mess he'd made of things.

"I just… hope we can all get along." Aqua sighed.

Vanitas laughed. He got a big whiff of cumin at the same time, and it turned into a hacking cough. He made sure to point his face away from the food.

"What?" Aqua demanded, even as she filled him a chipped glass of water. He downed it gratefully.

"You don't need me to explain how funny that is, coming from you." He smirked.

"I'm doing better," she huffed. "At least… I hope I am. I'm trying."

"I know." Vanitas set down the glass and stretched up to kiss her cheek. "And you are. Doing better, I think. I mean, not that you need me of all people to judge you there."

"You've been doing great too, Van. I'm… a little jealous, honestly." She sighed.

"It's only 'cause I've got nothing to lose. Besides you, but that's not gonna happen."

"What do you mean?"

"You've got Ven, and you were worried about losing him. That's the only reason you were so prickly before, right?"

"I don't know if it was the only reason…"

He set down his wooden spoon so he could hug her from behind. She was still taller than him by a little bit, but he could rest his chin on her shoulder if he stretched.

"Okay. What's the other reason?" he asked, swaying back and forth slightly.

"Bold of you to assume there's only one." She laughed a little, but there was a sad lilt to it. "I just worry…"

"That's nothing new," he interrupted, and her laugh got a little brighter.

"I worry that I'm not… that I'm not good for anything but fighting."

Vanitas bit the inside of his cheek. It took all his self-control to keep from laughing, and even then, an amused Yellow Mustard almost broke free.

"Shut up," Aqua mumbled, bonking the side of her head against his.

"'M not laughing," he said with a grin.

"I can feel you holding it in."

He let it out, even though he felt a little bad about it.

"Van…"

"If you want me to stop laughing, stop being funny." He poked her cheek, disrupting her pout. "You'd laugh if you were me, too. I spent my whole life training to be a weapon. I wasn't good for anything but fighting."

"I know. Why do you think I almost didn't tell you?" She leaned back against him. "I know you had it worse, but…"

"But your old man pushed you pretty hard, too," Vanitas realized.

He'd never thought about it too much before. Aqua didn't talk about her old Master, not since early on in the Realm of Darkness when he'd used Eraqus's memory to torment her. The thought made him wince.

"It wasn't his fault," she said quietly. "We wanted to be Keyblade Masters. Training was essential. I just… I don't know. I don't know."

"You are a Keyblade Master. Of course you've gotta be good at fighting." He spun her slightly towards the stove, so he could stir the sauce without letting her go. "Doesn't mean you can't be good at other stuff, too."

"But I'm not good at 'other stuff.' Even you're good at cooking. I'm… I don't have anything else."

"Pfft, you're kidding. What about all your arts and crafts?" He wiggled her again. "If you're really worried about it, you can always show me the project you're working on and I can tell you how awesome it is."

"You think you're so sneaky, don't you? Not a chance." She took another fingertip of sauce just to mess with him.

"It was worth a shot." He let go for a minute so he could dump the okra into the sauce.

"Do you really think that's enough, though? Being able to make things?"

"Not really sure what you mean by 'enough.' There some kind of test for being enough of a person?"

Maybe there was. Not like he'd know one way or another.

"That's not what I… oh, whatever. I can't tell if you're being serious or not."

"Whatever answer makes you stop worrying about it." He kissed her cheek again. "You're more of a person than most of us here. Like, scientifically, or whatever."

She snorted. "You're impossible, you know that?"

"I do my best."

If there was a right answer, that was it, because she twisted in arms until she could kiss him.

XXX

Naminé didn't complain that the curry was burnt. Then again, Naminé didn't complain about anything. Aqua kind of wished that she would. At least then she'd know what the girl was actually thinking.

She told Van that the food was good. She thanked Aqua for inviting her to dinner. She avoided looking at anywhere but her bowl, and she fled back to her room as soon as it was empty.

"Huh, didn't know Naminé could eat that fast," Lea commented off-handedly once she was gone. He sat next to Isa and Ven at the long dining room table, which she'd manage to patch back together with a creative application of Frost Shards and Bind spells. The blue crystals created glowing lines that contrasted with the dark wood, rhythmic in a way that could be mistaken as intentional.

Maybe Van was right. Maybe she did have some talents that weren't violent.

But fixing a broken table was much different than fixing a broken girl.

"Maybe she just wanted to get rid of it as fast as she could," Ven said. He'd barely poked at his own food.

"Hey, if you're gonna complain, you can cook your own dinner." Van glared.

"Be nice, Roxas." Xion smacked Ven lightly.

"I am nice! I didn't tell him it tastes like Axel helped."

"Hey!" Lea pouted.

Aqua giggled behind her hand. At least everyone else seemed to be settling into their new home without issue.

Sora, Riku, and Kairi sat on the opposite side of the table from Lea's family. They were having an animated conversation about Attraction Flow—the strange summon technique Sora was teaching them. Maybe it would benefit Aqua to learn that, too. She hadn't expected the newer generation of keyblade wielders to have so many abilities she'd never heard of.

Maybe one of them would be a better Master for Naminé…

"Is it really that bad?" Van murmured to her, and she startled.

"Huh?"

"The vadouvan. I know we got a little distracted cooking…"

She blushed, resisting the urge to shush him, which would only make the others listen more closely. If they found out she was the reason he'd burned dinner, she'd never hear the end of it.

"No, no, it's good." She wasn't lying; a little char couldn't ruin Van's cooking. She took a few quick bites to prove it. "I was just staring into space. Sorry."

"Worried about Naminé again?" he asked.

"Mm-hm…" She bit her lip.

"Why don't we take her out for something fun?" Van suggested. "She still needs some new clothes. You said girls like shopping, right?"

"Stereotypically, yes…" Mostly she just knew that Terra and Ven didn't like shopping, which wasn't exactly the same thing.

Light, she wished Terra was here. Not that he would know anything else about girls, but…

"Good enough." Van nodded.

It was probably a ploy to make her feel better, too. He knew how excited she got about picking out new clothes after so long of wearing hand-me-downs from ancient keyblade wielders she'd never met. Van was funny in that even though he'd been excited to have the opportunity to wear more than one outfit, he'd defaulted back to a rotation of about four pairs of shirts and pants, besides the special darkness-proof outfit the fairies had made for him.

Naminé, on account of having been hiding for the past few weeks, still only had the half-finished black coat they'd found in the pod room when she'd woken up. She'd also refused to accept any of the clothes Kairi had tried to gift her, despite being the same size. Aqua tried not to get her hopes up that Naminé would treat her own offer any differently.

So her heart warmed when Naminé looked actually excited to go to the mall. Or, well, as excited as Aqua had seen Naminé—her mouth slightly open, her eyes wide with wonder.

"There's… so many stores…" she looked down, as if embarrassed to be caught gaping.

"Weird, huh?" Van smiled. He leaned against Aqua for support—even with his Unversed back, he was still having a bit of trouble walking longer distances. "Crazy to think that you can just go up and take any of it."

"You have to pay for it," Aqua reminded him.

"You can go up and take any of it by just handing over some paper."

They'd traded munny from her Heartless-fighting field trips to a moogle for some Twilight Town currency, which was much flimsier, but drew less attention than paying with munny directly.

"I… hope it's not too much trouble…" Naminé clasped her hands in front of her waist.

"It's no trouble at all," Aqua reassured her, stopping short before ruffling the girl's hair. Naminé didn't seem quite comfortable with touching. "Where do you want to go first?"

"Um…" She looked to Van, as if he'd give her a hint on what answer Aqua was looking for.

Aqua tried not to show her exasperation. Did everyone think she was that hard to please?

"You wanna stick with dresses, or try out pants?" Van asked.

A good call, it seemed. Naminé seemed a little less lost at being asked a question with only two options.

"Um… pants?"

"Alright." Van nodded. "So we can skip these couple of stores…"

Naminé stayed close to him and Aqua as he led them through the main corridor of the mall. It was pretty empty this late on a weekday, so there weren't many strangers to stare at Naminé's odd outfit. Aqua positioned herself between the girl and anyone who did stare, meeting their gazes coldly.

The mall got even emptier after that.

"What about here?"

He stopped them in front of a store that looked… well, like Van. Full of black and reds and belts and chains.

"Is this really what you think she'll like?" Aqua whispered to him.

"She wanted a red room." He shrugged.

Naminé didn't look any more intimidated by the store—"Nightmare*Dance," the window sign said—than she did by the rest of the mall.

"It looks nice." She nodded.

Was she just saying that?

"Are you just saying that?" Van asked. Using his words. Light, she needed his bluntness.

"H-huh?"

"You don't have to go in there. I don't care," Van clarified, not unkindly.

"Then… should I not…?" Naminé shrunk into herself.

"You're allowed to make choices, Naminé," Aqua told her, hoping to balance out Van's direct energy with something a little… softer.

She could be soft. She could do this.

(Light, why was talking to a teenager more of a struggle than facing down hoards of Heartless?)

"I… I don't know…" Naminé started to tremble.

This was a horrible idea. Aqua should have just picked out something in Kairi's size—multiple somethings, so Naminé could choose in the comfort and privacy of her own room. This all must be too overwhelming for her.

(Or else Aqua herself was too overwhelming.)

"It's okay." Aqua crouched, trying to make herself smaller, too.

"Hey, it's just clothes." Van mirrored her. "You don't like 'em, you don't have to wear 'em. Uh. I mean. You have to wear some clothes, but you can always get different ones. Not a big deal."

"Not a big…" Naminé gasped a little, as if she was having trouble breathing. "Right. Right. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…"

"There's nothing to apologize for," Aqua said.

Naminé practically ran into the store, like she was trying to escape among the dark cloaks and corsets. Aqua wanted to rush after her, but forced herself to keep a respectful distance. Naminé could pick out her own clothes.

…Could she? Aqua had barely known how to understand the size labels, herself. And some of these garments weren't exactly intuitive…

"You okay?" Van asked her, squeezing her hand.

"Just—overthinking." She rubbed the bridge of her nose.

The loud music in this store was already giving her a headache. It had to be even more overstimulating for Naminé.

"Y'know, I might've been wrong," Van commented, idly flipping through a rack of shirts.

Most of them had words in graffiti-like block letters or cartoonish characters she didn't recognize. She did catch a few that said "Dog Street," which was Pence's favorite band, so maybe some of the other gibberish words were musicians, too.

"You? Wrong about what?" Aqua raised her eyebrows. Van was wrong about plenty of things—the proper footwork for casting single-volley shotlocks, for example—but it was rare for him to admit it.

"Maybe Naminé's more like you than me." He held up a black t-shirt with a screaming face on it.

"Please don't get that."

He chuckled and put it back. Likely he'd only been eyeing it to annoy her. It looked too close to fit comfortably under his favorite jacket.

"Why do you say that, anyway?" She looked around for Naminé, and caught her in the back corner of the store, touching a leopard-print pair of leggings. "You made a pretty convincing argument otherwise, earlier."

"You both overthink simple stuff. And maybe you've got different ways of showing it, but I think you're both pretty desperate for people to like you."

Aqua stopped short at that. Was that what it was? Was Naminé just desperate to be liked? Then why was she pushing everyone away?

Like you were so easy to be around when you came back from the Realm of Darkness, she thought with a grim frown.

"Then maybe I'm not the right person to help her," Aqua said as quietly as she could while still being heard over the heavy music. At least Naminé wasn't likely to overhear them from around the belt display.

"Huh?" Van's brows furrowed. "Wouldn't that make you the perfect person to help her?"

"But—I don't even know how to fix those problems in myself…"

"You know how to live with them, though. I don't know how to fix either of those things, 'cause I've never really had to deal with them in the first place." He poked at the spikes on one of the belts, a thick one with a bulky silver buckle. "I mean, I didn't want everyone to think I was a monster, but I dunno if that's the same."

Aqua frowned. She was doing it again—overthinking. Van made it sound so simple.

"It's not like you're the only person who's gonna help Naminé, either. You're getting my help, whether you want it or not." Van smirked and held up a bright purple belt with gold studs. "Even if I wear something like this. You're stuck with me."

"That one's actually not bad. It would bring out your eyes."

"Really?" Van blinked. "Huh."

He ended up buying it. Naminé ended up with a stack of dark-colored shirts, shorts, pants, and leggings, after some slow and careful coaxing from the two of them. Aqua wasn't sure if any of the pieces she'd picked out would match each other, but she didn't point that out.

In the mall bathroom, Naminé put on an outfit of her choosing for the first time. She stepped out of the largest stall in a fuzzy black sweater with a bird embroidered on it, maroon leggings, and forest green boots.

"Does it… look okay…?" Naminé asked, hiding her hands within the long sleeves.

"It looks great," Aqua beamed. "It suits you."

By the time they left the mall, Aqua carrying most of their bags, the sun had set. Despite the dark clothes and darker night, Naminé looked a little brighter.