A/N: So yeah, this isn't more mafia. (That's still coming, I swear.) This is a little thing for my darling Jo and Jasper, the Axel and Roxas to my Naminé, because we are OT3 and we are madcap awesome. (Though the awesome? Is mostly them. No joke.) Read and review if you like; it's fun!
Whisper
Axel can't stop remembering it. He only speaks about the incident in whispers because he's gone, he's really gone.
He comes to her and asks for a hopeless favor, asks for her to rip the memories to pieces. Because if he doesn't remember Roxas, then he won't care that he's gone.
She says it's going to be okay. That just because he said he's left forever doesn't mean he's really left forever.
"You don't want to forget him," she reminds him, quietly. "Forgetting hurts more than remembering."
And when nobody else watches she puts her hand in his. She puts her hands in his and kisses him, quietly, on the cheek.
"Don't worry. It will be okay."
It's a pretty lie he wants to believe. But he can't, so he swallows her words with quiet kisses on the mouth that she does not protest to.
---
They do not see each other for many days. Their reunions don't come prepackaged with schedules and other conveniences; She comes to see Axel later, because she was promised that she could meet Roxas when Axel found him again. But if, only if she was on her best behavior and was keeping Sora safe.
"Have you found him yet?" she says with a small small smile.
He says nothing. He only reaches down to pull her close. She knows what he needs, knows what he wants.
She brushes her hair back, exposes her neck and lets him cling too tightly to her, now that the boy's been taken prisoner.
And all she can say is sorry sorry I'm so sorry he's still gone until he places a quiet hand over her mouth.
She is not so stupid as to try to keep apologizing. She lets the words fall away because they are in this secret place. A secret place where it's dangerous to speak above whispers.
---
The man who calls himself DiZ for a reason she does not know tells her one day that he has a surprise for her.
He opens the door, shoves her into the white room roughly, barks out orders, and locks her into the room with her surprise.
It is a boy.
But not just any boy. A boy with blond hair and about her size, in a coat very much like Axel's.
"Roxas?" she whispers presumably. She has only heard of him; she has not been fortunate enough to meet him yet.
She is bold enough to press a hand to his cheek, to press her lips to his clammy forehead.
He does not respond. His skin is cold to the touch.
She begins to work.
---
You will erase everything he is, Naminé.
"I'm so sorry," she whispers.
He needs another personality to throw off his pursuers.
When she erases his memories, the paper's crinkled wet with her tears.
You want Sora to wake up faster, don't you?
She holds them all close to her, and when she feels his chains go weak, she feels sick.
Then you will do as I say.
All she can think of is how sorry she is.
Do it correctly. Or I'll see to it that Sora never sees you again.
And when Riku-who-is-not-really-Riku comes to take him away, she lets him go only after Riku pries her fingers off him.
---
Naminé is recruited to make Roxas' room herself.
She enters in combinations of 1s and 0s to make a pretty place for Roxas to stay. The whole time she knows it's a prison. It may not have bars or locks like the cage she used to have.
But it's still a prison.
Because if he steps one foot outside, he will die.
She tries not to think about it too much, and instead she puts little reminders of who he used to be: stars in his lamps, to remind him of the way Axel's eyes look; moons in his windows, to remind him of the color of her dress; the fish, swimming in the bright blue sea, the same color of Roxas' eyes.
"Us, all of us," she whispers to him, even when he can't hear her, "we're together again. We're here."
In the walls, she thinks, and in the doorway. And with you.
"Look close," she murmurs. "We're not really gone. We're still here."
---
She comes when the world is stopped. It is only then that she can walk without having to lie extensively about who she is and where she's from and who she knows.
She smiles as sweetly as she can.
"Hello, Roxas."
"Hi…"
She looks around for DiZ's puppet-cronies, specifically designed to give their master a closer look at the prisoner. She sees none, and smiles.
Roxas has a question. "And you are…?"
She cuts him off with a hug, with her arms around him. This is real, this is real, she promises silently to him, this pretty boy with arms limp at his sides and a cold stranger-girl against him.
"I wanted to see you," she whispers lightly into his ear. "At least once."
"Me?" he asks, shocked.
She pulls away and smiles prettily. This is the most she's smiled in days, weeks, months.
"Yes," she says simply. "You."
"But…why?"
She starts with a simple because and the truth is hard like a pearl under her tongue. "Because. You're special, Roxas. Very special."
"Oh," says the boy. She remembers: he's heard it before, in his old memories. Now, with this new personality, it's news to him. "Thanks?"
"Not just to me," she promises. "But to someone else, too."
"Who else?"
She smiles, very vaguely this time, and says, "You'll see."
Says only that and walks away when the world starts again around her, without her.
---
She doesn't understand what she's doing wrong. The memories are there, exactly the way DiZ ordered them removed. Axel and Roxas and everything they did: it's written out in primal pantomime, dictated clear as anything.
She has been trying to write them into Roxas' memory again.
But he's not remembering Axel. And she doesn't understand why until she looks at the pod again.
Of course.
Roxas is remembering Sora's memories. It's quite a lot to remember.
They are quite a lot of memories that don't even rightfully belong to Roxas (or do they?).
Quite a lot of memories which do not include Axel.
There's simply too much to remember.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know this would happen," she whispers to Axel.
Axel, who is not there, and who will not hear her.
---
It seems like forever until she sees Axel again. But the world is dangerous, and he's been trying to find ways in that won't incriminate her.
When he comes to see her again when her door is tightly locked, eyes sharp and lips pinched, she knows what she must do.
"Follow me," she says, and she brings him down to the computer-room that she should not have access to.
He takes hold of her hands, feels the bitten skin around her nails.
He smiles. She's just too precious for words.
"You're nervous."
"I-I'm not," she stutter-lies.
He looks at her with bright absinthe eyes.
She purses her lips and finds words. "It's just that…what if he catches you?"
"I hope he does," he snarls angrily. "Someone has to put him in his place."
"Please—" Her voice breaks and she looks down and away from him.
He lets her hands go and starts to walk past her, but he feels her arms clinging around him, stopping him.
She murmurs something quiet, something like please be careful, don't be hurt.
He can't make a promise that he will.
He only turns around, presses a kiss to her forehead before he dives into Roxas' digital prison.
---
Suddenly she thinks she knows what a war bride's life must be like.
It involves a lot of running. She is running, running, running, trying to speed along the process of Roxas'-and-Sora's memories, to make room for Roxas' real memories of Axel.
It involves a lot of lying. She can't even tell the truth to Axel anymore, who may be the only person she thinks deserves it. She hates doing it but knows that she has little other choices, because there is so much that needs to be done. And there's not enough time to do it.
It involves a lot of cheating. She's throwing down plans and improvising new ones faster than she can think, and very soon she has no idea what she's doing anymore. All she knows is she's breaking every rule DiZ has laid out for her.
It involves a lot of running on the last day. This happens when Axel hijacks in too late, when he's stopped time, when he leads Roxas to the mansion to become a little less nothing, to become a little more something.
It involves a lot of running and Axel's hand in hers when they run, run, run somewhere, anywhere safe.
Safe from the people who want them dead.
---
The day she leaves him is both far off and very near.
The day she leaves him is the day he takes Kairi, to lure Sora in, to lure Roxas in.
She will fade too if he stays, and then she will not be able to help him.
Their separation is bittersweet, short, hardly prolonged.
They're Nobodies, first and foremost. They haven't time for long goodbyes that they can't really feel.
She whispers goodbye, but what she doesn't know is that it's goodbye to both Axel and Roxas because she won't see either of them again.
Not for a long, long while.
---