A/N: written on a prompt for a friend and because I'm actually a huge fan of Axel/Kairi. One-shot, though I might write an AU somethingsomething later.

Kairi had never been scared of the dark. She could always fall asleep knowing that she could crawl over to her window and see the stars, or peek into her corner and see her tiny glowing night light.

Even on the darkest nights she knew that the light was still there, just hidden, tucked away. Just like her grandmother always told her. She never, ever gave up believing that. Not even when she was swallowed up by a darkness more absolute than anything she'd ever known.

Axel was never gentle or kind to her. But neither was he cruel, or even very harsh. He just dragged her into places so suffocating in their nothingness Kairi sometimes wondered, briefly, if she was even still alive, or if something had gone wrong and she'd just drifted off into an endless black space.

Axel never hurt her, either. He'd grab at her wrists and yank her along, glaring with an anger that startled her, eyes always narrowed into venomous green slits.

He said very little. He'd drag her through darkness, leave her there, summon those creepy white creatures that seemed to flow and send them scurrying while he vanished. Come back later fuming or strangely quiet and grab her wrist and off they'd go again.

She tried to talk to him. The first time did not go well.

"... excuse me?"

He'd stopped dead in his tracks, spine rigid and shoulders tight. It had taken him a moment to even look at her, and the sheer contempt in the look he cast her almost made her flinch.

"I just .. wanted to know who you are."

"I'm no one you care about, princess."

The calm blankness in his tone, so different from the heat in his eyes, left her feeling disoriented. But just hearing a voice, any voice, after so much silence for so long left Kairi desperate for more. For anything.

"But you care about me. Or ... you care about taking me somewhere. Why?"

"None of your business." He was smiling now, a little, arms crossed over his chest. Kairi, realizing she'd shrunk back from his odd, contradictory manner and the constant threat always lurking beneath, made herself stand tall.

"I think it is my business! You're just – dragging me through all this dark and doing all these strange things.. what do you want me for? Why?"

"Kairi, Kairi. Do you always ask questions you don't want to know the answer to?" He'd leaned down, slowly, and smiled like a cat. "That seems like a dangerous habit."

"I want to know!" Now or never, Kairi. "Tell me what you're doing with me!"

"I'm not doing anything," he said easily. "It's Sora who'll be doing everything. Everything that I need him to do."

Kairi's blood had run cold. Axel hadn't said anything more, no matter how much she pestered him. Just laughed and tugged at a lock of her hair, just hard enough for it to hurt. Then he'd dragged her into the dark again.

More than anything else, Kairi wished she had a way to keep time. She thought it was probably a strange wish. But in the darkness, time seemed to go on forever. Or maybe it never passed at all. Had it been a week since Axel had taken her from Twilight Town? Had it been a month? Maybe it had only been a day.

Though she was never cold, Kairi very sorely missed feeling warm. And she never felt warm, in the darkness.

She'd tried talking again, one day. All she could do was keep trying, right?

"What's your name?"

The look he'd given her almost made her laugh. She couldn't even help the tiny, shaky smile that burst across her lips at the sheer confusion on his face.

"... Axel."

"Axel," she echoed thoughtfully. She was curled up on what she thought was the ground, knees pulled tight to her chest as she watched the much taller man pace about like a tiger in a cage. "It fits you."

"... if you say so."

He'd tried to ignore her, then, but Kairi's curiosity got the better of her.

"How do you make those .. portals?"

"They're not portals. They're-" Axel stopped, sighing heavy with frustration at his slip of tongue. She didn't need to know anything. She was going to-

Whatever. Give the doomed their dying wish.

"They're darkness corridors. I use 'em to get around."

"But we've never left this place once! Have we even moved at all?"

Axel regarded her with the same mild inquisitiveness a zoo patron might direct towards a particularly curious bird before sitting down cross-legged in front of her. "Yes, we have. I'm kind of on the run."

"From what?" The genuine curiosity in her voice made Axel pause again, almost uncertain. Uncertainty being a very unfamiliar thing to him, he frowned and bit off a lie.

"Nightmares."

Kairi was silent for a long moment, eyebrows oh so slowly drawing together. Just what was he trying to say?

"I used to have nightmares when I was little," she murmured abruptly. Startled by her own admission, she dove ahead before Axel could stop her. "Of falling. I used to have nightmares that I was falling from the sky. I always woke up before I hit the ground, but I would always be so scared I'd have to run to an adult for a hug..."

"Kairi—" Axel's tone was less than pleased. Kairi raised her voice and interrupted him, determined to finish.

"One day, I dreamed I hit the ground. After falling so far for so many nights, I finally hit the ground… and it didn't hurt. I woke up and just stared at my ceiling until the sun came up. After that, I never had that nightmare again."

And Axel was silent for a long time.

"You're lucky it was a dream, Kairi. You got to wake up, afterwards."

Still, Kairi was nothing if not a very determined girl.

"How bad is the nightmare we're trying to run from?"

"Oh, bad. Very, very bad. The worst kind of nightmare."

Exasperated with the metaphor, Kairi heaved a sigh and kept it going anyway, knowing she'd get no information from him otherwise. "Are there monsters in this nightmare?"

"Yeah. Big monsters in black cloaks." His grin was insane and sharp and nothing Kairi hadn't seen before, but now there was something almost haunting about it. It was emptier than usual. "See, there's something I want, Kairi. And if this nightmare catches up with me, I'll never get it."

"... what do you want, Axel?"

She had such big blue eyes. Such familiar big blue eyes.

"That's for me to know, princess."

And for me to find out, she'd finished in thought. And she was going to find out. Because as more and more time passed, the more Kairi became curious about Axel.

She still had no idea how much time had passed, of course. The idea of time was starting to matter less and less, though. What did time matter, in darkness like this? All time meant was more moments spent with this strange, unhappy man.

Because he was unhappy. Desperately unhappy. Kairi had started to see the tautness of the lines around his mouth, the stiff set of his shoulders, the rigid way he carried himself. It was always a little worse every time he looked her in the eyes. But sometimes he'd look at her and smile. The first time he'd smiled at her – smiled in a way that seemed almost real, almost warm – a strange thrill had run through Kairi, up her spine and down her chest to thrum low in her belly.

She'd made him laugh. They'd settled into one of their halting, metaphorical conversations and she'd abruptly burst out with a so what?! so impassioned Axel had actually cracked up. That's when he'd smiled. That's when Kairi knew she wanted to get to know this person, kidnapper or not. There was more here than was meeting the eye.

One day, there was light.

It took what felt like a very long time for Kairi's eyes to adjust to the sudden explosion of light and color after having spent so long in the dark. After five minutes of wincing and rubbing at her watering eyes she was finally able to look up ...

... and found herself on a beach.

For just one aching second her heart leaped into her throat and she thought, maybe, maybe he'd had pity—

Then she felt a hand on her shoulder, and her heart fell right back down into her stomach.

"I thought you might need a break."

He didn't look at her as he dropped his hand and took a step forward, staring mutely out over the water. A second glance around told Kairi that no, this was not her beloved home. Just a beach. Just another world.

But the sun felt so good on her skin. Before she knew it her feet were moving, taking her steadily out towards the water. And with a sudden shout she hadn't heard from herself since she was just a kid, she splashed right into the ocean, laughing loud and long at the feel of the foam and the sea spray painting her whole body with dark flecks of water.

Axel just stood on the beach and watched.

The sun had started to sink in the sky before Kairi finally came out of the water, soaked to the skin and more refreshed than she'd felt in a very long time. Or had it been that long? Kairi had completely stopped trying to keep track of the time that had passed since Axel got a hold of her. All she knew was that the sun was warm, the sea perfectly cool, and there was wind. The sense of freedom, however fake, sent a euphoric rush pounding through her limbs.

She wanted to run. To flee. To finally escape this strange man and his cryptic smiles and find Sora and Riku and fight.

Instead she collapsed on the beach, not minding the sand that clung to her skin, and shut her eyes.

She could run, but Axel would catch her. There had to be other ways to escape.

"Feel a little better?"

Kairi cracked open an eye to see Axel standing over her, pose severe, but expression almost surprisingly soft. There was no emotion in it, just a lack of hardness that Kairi found strangely comforting. She sat up and patted the sand beside her. After a pause, Axel folded himself up on the ground next to her.

"You look like a drowned rat," he commented blandly.

"And you look like a crazy matchstick," she countered instantly, wringing a bit of the sea water from her hair. "So what?"

That won her another of his rare smiles, a half cocked, half-amused thing that belied how relaxed he actually was. With a start Kairi noticed the lack of tension in his shoulders, the missing rigidity in his spine – even though he'd looked her right in the face. Maybe he was finally getting used to her.

"So it's not very becoming of a princess. You should clean up before the sea gulls come after you."

"Like you care!" She couldn't help the grin that was creeping across her features. "You'd probably laugh if they did."

"Probably," he agreed with a chuckle. "But I need you whole. And preferably not sea gull food."

"Then find me a towel," she suggested very reasonably.

It was much to her shock that moments later a towel was dumped unceremoniously on her head.

As the sun went down and twilight crept over the beach, Kairi huddled into her towel and stared at the fading sky. Light. Beautiful, warm light. After so much darkness, she'd forgotten how lovely it was. She wanted to stay here forever and never return to those dark places Axel seemed so fond of.

"I'm looking for a person."

He said it so quietly, so abruptly, that Kairi thought she'd imagined it, for just a moment. But when she looked over and saw his expression, so serious and so – so pained – she sat up ramrod straight.

"... who, Axel?"

"A kid." His smile was very strained. "Just some stupid kid. My only friend."

Kairi felt a sudden tug at her heart. "I know what it's like, to miss someone like that," she said. "It's hard."

His bark of a laugh was not as harsh as it might have been just a little while ago. "Yeah."

Then that brittle silence descended, the silence Kairi had become so used to in the dark. After a day full of the sound of her own laughter, of his sarcastic quips, of the wind moving over the water and the waves crashing against the beach, Kairi found she could not stand the quiet.

"Where did he go?"

"Somewhere I don't think I can reach him," came Axel's faint, immediate answer. "Can you blame me, Kairi?" He looked at her, suddenly, and Kairi felt as if he was really looking at her for the first time. Really taking in her presence and realizing she was real, a girl, and not just a means to an end. "People like me, we don't have a lot. He was all that I had, and he got taken from me. I want him back."

The words slipped out before she could stop them. "I'm sorry, Axel." Then: "I hope you find him."

The silence descended again, only now it was stunned. Axel's eyes were a very pale green, in this light. It was very strange. Kairi had to lean in a little further to get a really good look at their strange, sad color. It brought them just a little closer together.

"You really want that, Kairi? You want me to find him?"

"Of course I do." Her voice was quiet, as sympathetic as the sad crease between her brows. "I know how hard it can be to lose a friend. I'd do anything to find them. I know how you feel."

He smiled, then, but it wasn't one of his rare, warm smiles. It wasn't a wicked smile, or an insane smile, or even one of those bland smiles he was so fond of. It was the most pained smile Kairi had ever seen, and it left a bitter pang in her chest.

"Sure you do, Kairi. Sure you do."

Then:

"Thanks."

Kairi almost shivered at the warm, strange thrill that went through her body, just like the first time he'd smiled. "For what?"

He only stood and dragged her back into the dark.

They spent much less time in the darkness after that. Axel, apparently feeling very daring, started taking her out of the darkness to more and more worlds. Wild, incredible places, always new, always different, and always very exciting. She met ghouls and vampires in a town themed after Halloween and learned how to cackle from a witch. She drank tea with a little man in a top hat in a world where upside down was right side up and not much at all made sense. A dashing pirate captain gave her a wink as he passed, running from a pair of very irritated guards. A shy tea cup in a very big castle said hello.

All the while Kairi carried a certain hollowness in her heart. The knowledge that she wasn't home, still wasn't with her friends, still was technically Axel's prisoner, sat in a grey space in her heart that kept her from smiling too much.

But so much time was passing. Had it been weeks? Maybe months, now? Time had so little meaning. The rise and set of the sun meant only more or less warmth, more or less light. The wheeling of the stars overhead only meant different constellations to draw on the sky.

It was as if her whole life had been put in stasis.

And through it all, Axel warmed up to her in ways she would not have thought possible. But then, she had never expected to warm up to him, either.

He laughed uproariously when she tripped and fell right into a rotten pumpkin, courtesy of a prank-playing skeleton. He'd taken a perverse sort of glee in teasing and taunting the White Rabbit by snatching his watch and dangling it high above his head, much to Kairi's mixed amusement and dismay as she helped the poor rabbit try to get it back. They'd sported very similar amused smiles when a candelabra had bowed very formally before them.

In Port Royal, she'd insisted on some munny to buy Axel a pirate hat, which she'd promptly placed on his head and adjusted it so it managed to perch on top of his spikes. She'd broken down in gales of laughter when he struck a gallant pose, because only Axel could look so dashing yet so ridiculous with a pirate hat on that unruly red hair of his.

And one day, he said Kairi, you're not so bad.

She said Well, neither are you.

"I'm sorry."

Kairi looked up from her meal and blinked curiously at him. They were back in the dark, these days, and they'd been spending more time in here than usual. Kairi had guessed something was up, but had known better than to ask. Nowadays, if Axel wanted to talk, he would, and Kairi would listen.

"What for?"

Axel simply looked at her for a long, quiet moment. That strange warm thrill went rushing through Kairi for the third time in her life and in a sudden unhappy realization she finally knew what it was. She would have said something – anything – but couldn't, with Axel's finger pressed gently over her lips.

"Remember what I said about nightmares chasing us? Well .. I wasn't entirely lying."

The strange warm thrill in her chest went cold.

"... what's happening, Axel?"

"I've been found." Suddenly full of nervous energy he practically sprang to his feet, raking hands through his hair as he paced. "Saix knows I have you. He wants to- wants to-" He gestured uselessly, frustrated, thwarted at the last. "He wants to kidnap you!"

"Like you did?" she reminded him faintly.

"That's besides the point!" Axel was suddenly fuming, angrier than she'd seen him so far. But it wasn't the dark, twisted anger she'd seen once or twice. It was a clean anger, like fire, raging and burning and bright. "Saix is- you don't know Saix like I do! He'll do something horrible to you!"

The first pricklings of fear stirred in Kairi's gut. But she kept still, held herself straight, and took a deep breath. "Can we get away from him?"

"No," Axel moaned, abruptly flopping back down next to her. "He'll find us. I can't keep you safe from him, Kairi."

His eyes went a little wide after that statement, and the startled, sideways look her shot her told Kairi all she needed to know. With surprising ease she circled her arms around one of his, hugging his arm to her chest and resting her cheek on his shoulder.

"If something happens to me, can you still find your friend?"

She couldn't see his face, but she didn't need to. The break in his voice in the middle of his short response told her everything she needed to know. "I don't know."

"It's okay, Axel," she said. It wasn't. "It's okay. I'll be okay. Sora will find me."

"But that's what Saix wants." His voice was raw. "That's what I wanted."

"You wanted to find your friend. I don't blame you for anything, Axel." She sighed again, steeling herself for what she knew would be a bad time, a scary time. "How much time do you think we have until he finds us?"

"Who knows. Who cares. Either way, it's not enough."

Kairi wasn't sure what they were talking about anymore.

"Axel? .. how long have we been .. doing this? How long have I been with you?"

The gentle fingers under her chin surprised her and prompted her to look up with a questioning blink. He was watching her with a very strange expression, like she was a curious bird he'd thought he knew but still surprised him anyway. "You know, I don't know."

They'd sat like that for a long time. Eventually Kairi huffed and shifted herself into his lap so she could lean back against his chest. He'd willingly wrapped his arms around her middle, though he was awkward at first, as if he didn't quite know what to do with his body. But they'd settled like that into a calm silence. Axel rested his chin on her head and for the first time since Twilight Town, Kairi knew peace.

Then the darkness had turned cold. Axel had started to his feet, shouted something, something like her name, but then a slow laugh filled her head and before she knew it Axel's warmth was gone.

"My name is Saix," the coldness had said. "And you're coming with me, little girl."

It wasn't until later, much later, that Kairi found out just how much time she'd spent with Axel. She wished she'd never found out. She didn't want to frame that time, to put it in a box and say, I spent this many hours, this many days, and this many weeks with a very special person. She'd wanted it to remain intangible, unnameable, a strange and perfect part of her life that could never be tamed or duplicated.

When Sora told her Axel had died to save him – that his parting words to Sora had been Kairi's location, had been an exhortation to save her – she'd burst into tears and not stopped crying for a long time. Sora, being Sora, had simply hugged her tight and stroked her hair until she stopped crying.

"He was good," she'd choked out between sobs.

"I know," said Sora, with something like wistfulness. "For a Nobody, he was the best."