Battle Stance, Kingdom Hearts fanwork: Armory Challenge by RoseOfADifferentColor, written by Raberba girl

Stepsiblings: Soul Eater (theme 20) [rough draft]

Summary: Unforgiveness eats away at the soul.

A/N: If you don't already know, I changed the name of Axel's mother in Stepsiblings to Eleanor (which she hates, so everyone calls her Norrie or Lenore).

This is far in the future, Axel's POV. Axel is roughly 34 and married to Alice, who's about 24.

o.o.o

I've never been able to bring myself to tell her that I don't like it.

...I lied to her about it, too. I told her I got it in a fight when I was a wild teenager, and she's always just assumed that was the truth.

...Maybe she keeps touching it like this because she can sense somehow that I'm lying.

We're in bed, it's dark and late, and it feels good to hold her in my arms but the sensation of her fingertips on my scar is slowly killing my buzz. The other scars, I don't mind, she's welcome to fondle them as much as she wants; but the one under my eye...the one that's supposed to be hidden, that she keeps going for like it's an Alice-magnet...

I finally take her hand and kiss it, relieved at the touch of cold air on my face and nothing else.

She's not fooled by my affectionate gesture. "Why don't you like when I touch it?" she murmurs curiously.

"Baby, you can touch whatever you want~"

She sits up. Dang it, I was nervous and forgot she doesn't like that particular flirtation style. "You know what I mean, Axel," and dang it now it's not just an idle brush of the fingers, she's pressing her thumb right on it. It doesn't technically hurt, but I don't like it at all.

"Alice...it just kind of hurts, so I dunno, can you, like, not touch it?" Two lies in less than two minutes. I'm really on a roll, aren't I.

"I was just curious." She's always curious. Usually it's cute. "Is that story going to be in the book?"

...The book. Crap. Sometimes I get why Saix is scared to death of publishing this thing. There's a lot of chapters I've managed to hide from Alice so far, but of course she's going to read them all once the book comes out.

...She's not the only one who's going to read it, either.

"Um...no. The story about...how I fought off a mugger and got my face cut...isn't gonna be in the book." Because it never happened.

The silence stretches out until she understands, then she lies down with me again, her hand now caressing the side of my neck rather than the scar. "Axel, dear."

"I'm not ready to tell you," I whisper. "I will...soon. But not yet."

She kisses me and cuddles closer, and within minutes, she's asleep. I wish I could sleep, too, but my thoughts won't cooperate.

o.o.o.o.o

It's weeks before I stop procrastinating, but finally I go over to Mom's house with a packet of papers in tow. She opens the door and it's all the usual smiles and greetings, come on in let me get you something to drink how are you blah blah blah. Even now I still procrastinate, letting the chat go on and on for over half an hour.

Finally she brings it up herself. "What's that you've got there?"

I look at the chapter lying beside me on the couch.

"Ohhhhh, is that for the book?" She hasn't read much of the book yet, but of course our whole family's heard about it by now.

"Yeah...yeah, it's...for the book." I pause. "Mom, I...think you probably ought to read at least some of it before it comes out."

"Oh. Well, let me see it, then!" She holds out her hand for the pages.

"...Mom, listen. Saix, really, really doesn't wanna publish the book. He only started writing it for fun, or to get it off his chest or whatever; it's me and Xion and Roxas, and the aunts and uncles and cousins and stuff, who keep pushing for it. Aunt Ella says she thinks it'll be inspirational to other people or whatever, Uncle Zack says it'll probably be a good career move for Saix since he's getting tired of teaching, Jaq and Gippal are just curious to know what it was like for us growing up, and Riku and Xigbar have some weird idea that it might be useful for alien-hunting or something, I don't even know..."

I take a deep breath. "Look, Mom. Saix didn't write this chapter to spite you or make you look bad or anything stupid like that, all right? Half of it he wrote for himself, and half of it he wrote because I asked him to - because it happened. And I've kept it bottled up inside for all these years, but it has to come out sometime, and this is me warning you, okay? Because I'm nice."

She's glaring at me suspiciously now. "What's this book about, again? Isn't it Saix's autobiography or something?"

"...All of us, Mom. He's been working on it for years now, and it keeps getting bigger and bigger because all of us keep giving him stuff to write. Me, Roxas, Xion; Riku, Namine, Sora, the aunts and uncles; heck, even Van, even Larxene, freaking Xigbar keeps popping in with stuff...everyone's given him something. It's our story. Our whole family. And you're part of our family, so you're in it, and you're not gonna like it."

She snatches up the chapter and starts reading, and I watch her and try to stay calm. At first she gives a sort of dark, disbelieving chuckle, then her face drains of color. Then she looks angry, then scared. At first I think she's reacting to the first part with me and her, but then I realize she was still just reading Saix's part and hadn't even gotten to mine, because she reads some more and then suddenly she's like, "You told him this?! About what a horrible brat you used to be?!"

'I.e., about how I'd push your buttons until you spanked my butt red, just so I could have a few minutes of your attention? Yes, Mom, I told him.' She's not even thinking about the gazillion people who are eventually gonna read this, she's talking about just Saix. That I obviously told him this story so he could write it down. And she hasn't even gotten to the part where she bashed my face in yet.

"Mom, I tell Saix everything."

"What?!"

She's never gotten it, that Saix is practically my twin, that he's kind of my soul mate except that I have a wife so I guess she's my soul mate too and I don't really know how that works... But I trust Saix more than I probably trust anyone else, even Alice. Saix is the one I can bare my soul to and don't even remember to hesitate or feel scared about it, the one I never have to be careful around or hide from, the one who knows me so well that I never have to write my stories for him, I just tell him and then he writes me better than I write myself, understands things about me that I never realized. Of course I told him.

"Mom. You abused me when I was growing up." This kind of shocked silence hangs between us for a second, because we've never said anything like that to each other before. Never called it what it was. "You didn't just spank me, you beat me, because you were angry and had no self-control."

"You-!"

"Not just once, a lot. You hit me, you called me names, you did things to me that no parent should ever do to their child-"

"Don't you dare accuse me things like that when-!"

Calm, calm, calm, keep calm, no expression, no yelling, stay calm. "I used to hurt you on purpose. I did, okay, Mom? I hurt you on purpose, because I-"

"Exactly! It's like you were trying to make me angry, trying to-"

"I WASN'T FINISHED, Mom."

She glares at me.

I try to breathe deep and stay calm, calm, calm. "But no matter what I did, you still shouldn't have treated me like that."

"I-!"

"VEN never treated me like that."

There's another silence, and both of us are about to either blow up at each other or cry, but somehow we hang on.

"V-Ven...Dad...I did horrible things to him, too, just as bad as I did to you - but he never, never abused me. Do you understand, Mom? He never lost control, he never retaliated, and when he did get mad at me once in a blue moon - always because I provoked him, by the way - he'd apologize afterward. He was never afraid to..." To show weakness, I suddenly realize. Dad was never afraid of being weak, even though Mom and I were both terrified of it. And the reason he wasn't afraid of being weak was because he wasn't weak. It probably took more guts to stay calm and keep being nice to an awful kid like me when he did probably want to punch me right in my bratty little face. I wouldn't have blamed him if he had, I'd even expected him to and couldn't understand why he wouldn't, but...he'd always treated me so well. And I'd usually treated him like dirt, and there is nothing else I regret more in my life.

"I know that Ven was perfect," Mom says bitterly. "You don't have to keep reminding me over and over and over again that I lost the person I love most."

Reminding her? I barely ever mention Dad. "Look, Mom, the point is that you abused me when I was a kid-"

"I didn't-!"

"YOU ABUSED ME. That's what everyone calls it, because that's what it is, so that's what I'm calling it, too."

"You told-?! WHO DID YOU TELL?!"

"EVERYONE. Just assume the WHOLE WORLD knows, okay? They know-" I grab her before she can do whatever violent thing she'd been about to do.

"Let me go!"

I have to. This is not what I came here for. "Okay, but-"

"Let me go!"

"I will, but Mom, listen, don't hurt me when I do."

"Let GO!"

"You can't say you never hurt me, and then hit me the second I let you go!"

She stops struggling as much, and when I let her go, I see that she's crying a little. "How could you tell them?! Who?! Aqua? Ella?"

"All of them, Mom," I say, suddenly tired. Then, before she can panic, "They've known for ages. Mom, I told them when I was a teenager."

She gapes at me.

"I told them how you'd hit me when you were mad, and then I told them not to do anything about it, because I said you'd never hurt Roxas; but they were still gonna do something, so I lied and said that Ven had cured you or whatever and you hadn't hurt me since we met him. I lied for you, Mom. Again."

She's still staring, and she's shaking now.

"But of course they've been reading the drafts, and they know the whole truth now; but Mom, it doesn't matter. I'm an adult now, I've got my own life, you haven't touched me in ages. It's fine. Whatever you're afraid of, getting arrested, losing Roxas who's all grown up now anyway, it's not gonna happen."

"I'm not...afraid...of anything," she says tightly. Which is just as much a lie as when I used to say it. "I can't believe you would do this."

"Because it's the truth, and I got tired of keeping it to myself. Because no matter what ugly things my family keeps finding out about me, they still love me, and I don't have anything to hide anymore. And..." It's hard to say it, because I feel like she doesn't deserve to hear it. "It's the same for you. People who love you...will still love you. No matter what."

"I wasn't as bad as Saix's mother," she hisses. "She blinded him? She's the monster for doing that to her son, not me!"

All this, and she's barely even started the second part of the chapter. "Look, Mom, just finish reading the draft. Read it. Because it's all going into print eventually, and I need you to come to terms with it before then."

"You can't print it. This is libel. I'll sue him," she mutters, but her eyes are dropping back to the pages and she's skimming through it again. She winces, probably skips a lot, then her face smoothes and she gets to another Saix part. "Look...look, his mother is completely creepy... She's the one who made those big ugly scars, isn't she? She did that to him, and you're making up all those lies about me just because I spanked you when you were little?"

I roll my eyes and don't point out that a lot of the stuff she did to me wasn't 'spanking.'

"I can't believe this...every time, every single time, I-" She breaks off and suddenly stands up. She's staring at me with this wild, terrified look I recognize, and even after all this time, it sends a chill through me. She'll hurt me, just like when I was a kid, unless I'm quick. It's so weird how different we are now, but how just a few pieces of paper can turn us back into what we used to be all those years ago.

I stand up and catch her wrists before she can touch me. "Yeah. They know how I got this scar, too."

"How could you," she whispers.

"Because. It. Happened. I was mad and scared, you were mad and scared, you hurt me, everyone knows, no one did anything, it's done. They know, but they haven't come after you, have they? Even Roxas knows."

I'm not expecting her to suddenly collapse on the couch and burst into tears. All I want to do right now is just leave, but I make myself sit down and hold her. I have nothing but scorn and disgust for the heartbreak in her voice, but I try to comfort her anyway. "Roxas...?" she moans.

"He found out," I say. The memory hurts. "We were going to tell him anyway, but he and Xion found out. By the way, that's what was up with him, back when he was avoiding you and ignoring your calls and stuff for a while." Her sobs get louder. "He got over it. Geez. That was ages ago. He talks to you just fine now, doesn't he?"

"How could you tell him?" she wails. "How, how could you tell him...?"

It occurs to me that she might not be thinking of Roxas as Roxas...what if she's thinking of Roxas as Dad? We pretended to Dad for almost as long as we knew him; after he died, she treated Roxas almost as if he was a replacement for Dad, someone perfect who would always love her as long as she could pretend to him that she was lovable. Thinking of Roxas knowing her secrets is probably as bad as if Dad had found out her secrets.

I sigh and try to make my voice soft. "Can't you just apologize? Can't you just stop protecting yourself for one second and say you're sorry for hurting me? Please, Mom." I hadn't meant to say the 'please.' It just slipped out, and now a few tears are sliding down my own face, too. So annoying.

"How could you DO this to me?!"

As if she's the victim here. "Mom, get your head out of your own selfishness and think. I didn't come here to accuse you of stuff, I didn't come here to get you in trouble, I just...!"

We don't get very far, and I finally just give up and storm out.

o.o.o.o.o

"How did she take it?" Saix asks when I'm at his house that night for another revision session.

"How do you think?"

He sighs.

"This thing on my face that'll never go away, I hide it with the tattoos but it's still there, it's not even the only one, it's just the most noticeable... After all that, she won't even apologize."

"She probably has her own share of stories to contribute to this ridiculous book," Saix mutters.

It takes me a minute to get it. "What are you, making excuses for her?! She hurt me, Saix! She doesn't deserve you feeling sorry for her!"

"I do not in the least feel sorry for her. Yet there's also the fact that..." He eyes me in this weird, hesitant way. "I myself have hurt you quite a bit, Axel, yet you don't seem to have a problem spending time with me."

"Geez, you never hurt me, I-"

"I've pushed you away more times than I can count. I've insulted you, deliberately provoked your weaknesses, abandoned you, betrayed you; I've been cruel, most of the sympathy I express for your troubles is feigned, I've taken advantage of you-"

"Shut up." I don't know what to say, because it's...kind of true. It just...doesn't feel like it. Maybe because most of that was a long time ago and right now, he's softly doomgazing love at me on top of lots of sad things that just make me love him more, so I feel...I don't know. I don't know what's different about it, all the pain Saix has caused me and all the pain Mom caused me. ...Maybe the only difference is that Saix is with me right now, being sorry for everything he did, whereas Mom is who-knows-where, refusing to believe that she even hurt me at all. "...I wish I could doomgaze sometimes."

He lays a hand on my arm for a moment and says quietly, "You don't have to."

"...I love you, Saix."

"I said you don't have to," he says, a little irritated and embarrassed now, and I laugh.

Then the front door bangs open and someone comes stomping and yelling toward us. I just sit there for a second, unable to believe that it's really her and she's actually doing this, but Saix gets up perfectly calmly and says, "Hello, Lenore. I would appreciate it if you entered my home more politely so that I could treat you like a proper guest."

She doesn't even hear him, she's too busy yelling. "Get out of the way! Move!" She comes storming into the study, and for some reason Aunt Ella's at her heels looking distressed, and I haven't even recovered from my first shock and outrage when Mom starts grabbing stacks of papers and ripping them up.

"HEY!" I yell.

"You have no right!" Mom's yelling at Saix, ignoring Aunt Ella pleading with her to stop. "How dare you write these lies! I won't let you publish this, you can't!"

"Kindly step away from my belongings," he thunders, doomgazing her so hard that she reels back as if he hit her. But just as I'm about to be relieved, he suddenly turns away, like someone flipped the Off switch on his doomgaze.

"I don't want these to exist!" Mom shouts, snatching up a handful of papers and trying to smash them into a wad.

"Saix!" Why isn't he still doomgazing?! Then I realize it's because he doesn't want the freaking book published, either, and he's just gonna stand aside and let Mom tear up all our notes unless I do something. "STOP, Mom!" I grab her arm, she fights back and hits me, and this sudden huge rage rises up in me and I'm about to deck her, but Saix catches my wrist before I can. "LET GO!" Now I'm trying to hit Saix, I guess because I know in the back of my mind that it's wrong to hit my mom and that Saix can take it better.

"LET GO!" Mom's screaming at the same time. She's struggling with Aunt Ella.

"Hey!" I forget about Saix, and I swear all I was going to do was try to pull them apart.

Mom jerks free before I can reach them and strikes out wildly - her nails catch Aunt Ella right in the face. Ella lets out a cry of pain and stumbles back, falling into Saix's arms. There's a second where we're all utterly silent. Mom looks horrified, and I don't think it's just because she's afraid of what will happen if Uncle Terra finds out. She's just horrified, like she should be, that she hit Ella.

Saix looks white-faced and shaky, too, even though none of this is his fault at all, and Ella's gasping as she tries to find her balance again, "I'm all right...really, I am, I'm all right..."

"You hit my aunt Ella," I say flatly.

"I didn't mean it," Mom begs, and for once she sounds like she's telling the truth.

"I'm quite all right, I just..." Aunt Ella winces and touches the side of her face where the red scratches are.

"Come," Saix says, and his eyes are Shielded up tight as he very gently takes her arm and tries to lead her away to get bandaged up.

"W-Wait-" she says.

Mom turns away and heads straight for the door.

"Wait! Please!" Aunt Ella pulls free of Saix and manages to catch up to Mom in the front hall.

Mom's crying. "I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..."

"It's all right, Lenore, dear, please look at me, I-" Ella's so tender and earnest, I don't know how she does it but now Mom's crying in her arms and Ella's soothing her as if she's a little girl.

"Get her out of this house," I tell Saix. "Get her out."

Saix goes over there, but he doesn't touch them and I don't hear him say a word. Mom tries to pull away from Ella and is mumbling something too low for me to hear, edging away from Saix, dragging Aunt Ella with her because Ella won't let go, then Saix actually steps back, but before I can get mad again, Ella's gently steering Mom outside. Saix watches for a while, then finally closes the door in a very careful way.

He turns to me, then says in such a toneless voice, and with his eyes still Shielded, so that I have no idea what he's feeling, "This is just one reason why I don't want that book to ever see the light of day."

"...It's better if it's published. Please, Saix."

"Your aunt is injured."

I hate to defend my mom, but... "Dad...used to do stuff like that all the time. It was like he didn't even care if he got hurt, as long as he could help whoever needed help. Aunt Ella would probably get mad at you for helping her if it meant leaving Mom alone." I scrub my hands through my hair in frustration. "I hate people like that! Are they superhuman or something?! How can they be like that?!"

"I don't know, and at the moment, I don't care. We have work to do." He looks distracted, with this strange look on his face.

"What's that look for?"

"I just...nothing, I just...can well believe that your father was that sort of person."

"Huh?"

"One of Van's stories..." He shakes his head. "Never mind."

"What do you mean, one of Van's stories?"

"It's confidential," Saix snaps. "Not all of the stories I've been given will be published in this book, and that story in particular is to be kept secret until Van is ready to share it with the rest of the family. I'm not going to betray his trust, and I expect you to respect that."

"...Fine," I say, still taken aback. I know that Saix and Van seem to have gotten along a bit better ever since Xion's wedding, but I had no idea they already trust each other that much. "Hand me a packet, then; let's get started..."

Mom's flaming mad at me for weeks; or at least, she ignores me a lot, or sends me angry text messages and doesn't respond to my replies. After a while I just don't hear from her at all. Xion and Saix say they've been able to get in touch with her, but I don't care anymore.

One night, I'm at Saix's for more revisions, but I'm so tired that I'm pretty much just dozing on his couch as he types a lot and occasionally pokes me awake long enough for me to answer questions. There's a knock at the door, but I don't care who it is until Saix comes back in and whoever's with him kneels down beside the couch. I crack my eyes open just in time to see her reaching for my face. It jolts me awake and I can't help flinching, but all she does is stroke her hand gently through my hair. "Axel..."

"What do you want?" I say, struggling to sit up. I wish I could doomgaze 'Why the heck did you let her in?' at Saix, but even if I could, it doesn't matter because he went over to the kitchen and is being unnecessarily noisy making tea. 'I kind of need you here, bro.'

"I...I just..." She takes a deep breath, and grips my hands. I want to yank my hands out of hers and slap her, but I force myself to stay still. "I...wanted to...apologize."

No way. "I don't care. Go talk to Saix for research notes; I don't care, I don't need you and I don't want to see you." I stand up. "I was leaving, anyway."

She's still kneeling there, grasping a fold of my pants now. Why?

"Axel...please."

"What do you want?"

She slowly stands up. She can't look me in the eyes, but I can tell she's been crying. I don't care. I don't care.

"I've been...thinking about it. And...you're right." Her voice gets more and more shaky. "I did...mistreat you...when you were young. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry, Axel."

What does she want? Why is she doing this now, when I want absolutely nothing to do with her?

"Please forgive me," she whispers.

No. No.

But then I look up and Saix is leaning out of the kitchen, doomgazing "Accept her apology or you will regret it" at me. Not in a threatening way, but as if he really does know I'll regret it if I don't.

'I don't want to!' I try to doomgaze back, but then he starts sending love, love at me and I hate him because he's making me cry when I don't want to cry. I don't want Mom to see, so I hug her, and she starts crying into my shoulder, and I guess I do forgive her and it didn't matter that I tried to hide it from her because I'm crying enough now for her to tell. This is what I'd wanted, isn't it? To have her begging for forgiveness? It's such a relief, but at the same time it feels so unsatisfactory, like nothing she can ever, ever say will ever make up for what she did to me, but at the same time I'd hate her if she didn't do this...

It's hard to nurse grudges against anyone when Saix is still doomgazing pure love at me, so I finally give up trying.

Mom sounds all choked up as she tries to talk. "I'm so scared...of what they'll think of me...they'll find out all the horrible things I did, and they'll..."

"They can't think any worse of you than they already do," I mutter, which makes her cry harder.

Saix edges back into the room and sets a tray down on the coffee table. "There's tea," he mutters awkwardly, and goes back to his computer. Mom and I finally sit back down; she pours herself a cup of tea and spills a bunch, and I've crossed my arms and am trying to sulk. We're all quiet for a long time.

"H-Has Xem read this book?" Mom finally asks.

Xem? Why would she care?

"Parts of it," Saix mutters.

"Has he...read...the story about me?"

"If you're referring to that particular story Axel brought to you a few weeks ago, yes, that is one of the chapters he's read."

I can sense Mom trembling. "Wh...What did he say about me?"

"About you? Nothing."

Mom and I are both surprised. "What?"

"Nothing?"

"He gave no indication that he'd even read the parts from Axel's perspective. Most of his attention seemed to be caught up in...having a better understanding of what his first wife's relationship with his son was like."

This is the first I've heard of it. "When was this?!"

"It doesn't matter," Saix mumbles.

He's hiding. I go over and pull the keyboard out of his reach and put my hand on his shoulder so he'll look at me. Sure enough, he's upset. "Saix...why didn't you tell me you were gonna let your dad read it?"

"He was given the wrong story. I'd meant to get his feedback on a different chapter."

"Are you okay?"

"Yes."

"No, you're not."

"...I've never seen my father weep before. It was...uncomfortable."

"He cried?!"

"Just a little. Not about me, you understand. He still misses my mother, and he was...dismayed to find how little she'd trusted him."

"What is wrong with this family..."

Mom's voice surprises me a little. "You two...really are brothers, aren't you." She's watching us, how close we're sitting, my hand on his arm to comfort him and the way he's leaning toward me.

"We've been saying that for years."

"I just...I just never really understood before now." She takes a deep breath. "No matter what happens, you can always depend on each other."

"We trust each other, and we care about each other," Saix says. "We are family."

"I'll be brave, then," Mom whispers. "I...I always thought I was alone, but...I'm not, am I."

Saix is nicer than me. "There have always been people who care about you and wish the best for you, Lenore." He doesn't say that me and him aren't among them.

"I wish I'd known that before now..."

It's her own fault for not seeing.

"Saix," she asks, "could I please...read more of the stories?"

"You're not going to like most of them."

"I know. Please. I need to see them."

"So you can rip them up," I mutter, but Saix goes to get a folder for her, and Mom reads the whole thing that same night. She's upset and crying long before the end, but when we tell her we're not going to take them out of the book, she doesn't fight us. It's weird seeing her like that, like she's given up but in a good way. I don't understand how she can seem so miserable and so relieved at the same time.

She even hugs Saix before she leaves. "Thank you," she whispers, then walks out the door.

I stare at Saix, but he doesn't seem particularly creeped out. "Better late than never, I suppose," he murmurs.

"Saix, Mom hugged you. Of her own free will."

"It's convenient that she doesn't seem to hate me anymore."

"What do you mean, 'convenient'?! It's not freaky?! Annoying?!"

He sighs. "Axel, I will never like your mother, but it is a relief to have her finally treating me civilly."

"I mean, I guess, but... Saix?"

"Yes?"

"...I can't forgive her."

He waits.

"I mean...I tried...but I just can't. I hate her too much. One apology can't just erase everything she did to me as if it never happened."

"No one is expecting you to forget, Axel. The important thing is simply to let go of it."

"Like it's so easy."

"It's not. I know it's not. But I keep trying anyway, over and over again, until I can think of it without darkness clouding the memories."

Darkness...like poison. Darkness that can take you over, turn you into something else... We've seen it happen literally, and even now, the thought still frightens me.

"You don't ever have to like her," he says, "but try to not hate her."

"Fine...I'll keep trying..." There are so many people I care about, I'll just try to love them so much that I have no more time to be angry.

A week later, I notice a new folder in Saix's study, in the file cabinet with the rest of our project. It's got Mom's name on it, so I don't look at it, but... "She really did give you some chapters?"

"Yes."

"And I bet you feel all sorry for her now and don't blame her for a thing."

"Of course not."

"...Fine, you still blame her, but you do feel sorry for her."

"Read the file yourself if you're so curious," he snaps.

"I think I'll pass."

"Then stop pestering me about it. Make yourself useful and translate Roxas's chicken scratch for me."

"Heh, shouldn't you be used to it by now, after teaching for twelve years?"

"Teaching for twelve years is what made me lose all patience for poor handwriting..."

o.o.o.o.o

One night, Alice and I are falling asleep together when I realize that her hand's on my face. She's touching my scar again, and I hadn't even noticed. How many times since I first started forgiving Mom, since I told Alice the truth, has she caressed it without bothering me? At least three times. Or four. Maybe more, I don't even know; I haven't remembered to count.

"Alice," I whisper.

"Hmm...?"

"I love you."

"Love you...too...Axel dear..."

I kiss her hair. "Thanks for being patient."

"Mm...go to sleep..."

I squeeze her in a little hug, then close my eyes and fall asleep within minutes.

o.o.o

Author's Notes: I get kind of tired just thinking about all the obligatory author's notes I probably ought to put on here. Basically...use your common sense, guys. It is not okay to hurt people; and the way things are handled depends on the individual circumstances. And I guess I should add specifically that Axel should not have lied to protect his mother - I was hoping it was clear enough that I wasn't condoning that course of action.

I got the idea for this when YAJJ left a review on Scars, and I decided I wanted to see Axel reconcile at least somewhat with his mother. I actually once, a looooong time ago, considered Axel/Norrie reconciliation for an AU "What if?" story, but I'm glad that it turned out to actually happen after all. It also happened to help with some other subplots and things.

I had more OTP feels than I expected while writing this. ^^; I don't think Saix (or Ella) were even in my mental outline.

Complete: 4/100