Disclaimer: Irreversibly not mine.

A/N: This one took an embarrassingly long time to write. It was originally a request from Pixie Paramount on the LiveJournal community KH Request, but I found it so difficult, and took so long fulfilling it, that I actually got kicked off the community. Still, I've it's finally done. Pixie Paramount requested Marluxia/Naminé/Axel and the prompt 'rag doll'. I'm not sure whether this is exactly what she wanted, since it's not a proper threesome, but I tried my best to write something that would still make sense within canon.

Or, at least, within canon as it stood last August when I began writing. I know precious little of Xion or 358/2 Days, but what I have heard leads me to think that I've written here could be all bunkum now. That'd be just my luck. It fitted with canon when I started, honest!

Rag Dollies

© Scribbler, August 2008/June 2009.

'Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.' -- Mark Twain.

Naminé was not always such a wise girl, though she was always intelligent. Her wisdom came with age – a strangely speeded up process, condensed into a single year, in which she relearned all the things she'd forgotten by the time Marluxia found her washed up on a beach and brought her to the Organisation.

She really was a child then, with no language or knowledge beyond helpful hands and the cadence of a soothing voice compared to a harsh one. She learned to fear Xemnas early on, as a puppy learns to fear a cruel master, or just an indifferent one who leaves it tied up outside without food or water. Hearing Xemnas decree that she should be locked in a castle and guarded like a criminal, even though she couldn't understand his words at the time, left her shuddering and trying to hide behind the nicer man's coat. When Marluxia was the one set to guard her she learned that soothing helpfulness, though nice, sometimes wasn't enough.

That was her first lesson.

She relearned her words quickly, as though they were clamouring inside her just waiting to be released. She was introduced to her shining white bedroom, with the dresser and filigree headboard and fluffy rug. It was a spotless version of a little girl's ideal room. Marluxia left her there and came back an hour later to find her still standing in the middle. She hadn't moved a muscle, and didn't until he took her hand, led her to each item of furniture and painstakingly told her their names.

"Closet."

"Closet," she repeated, little blonde brows knitted seriously. "Clo. Set. Closet."

"Good." He didn't sound pleased with her, but nor did he sound bored.

He was diligent, never scolding or hurrying. It was through his efforts that she started to recover parts of herself as quickly as she did.

As time went on her tongue remembered what her conscious mind had forgotten, one word leading to another, and then another. Yet it wasn't until she saw him tending a potted flower in the kitchen one day that she could articulate how his treatment of her made her feel. He treated her with the same patience as he treated compost, or delicate roots being transferred from one container to another, or other horticultural things. She was a thing, to be tended and cultivated like the little white lily on the kitchen windowsill – something important, but still just a thing, not a person.

That hurt. It made her feel sad. It was also confusing. She'd heard the other people – other Nobodies, she corrected – who came to visit talk about how they didn't have hearts and so couldn't feel emotions. The word emotion blossomed into other thoughts in her mind. Happiness, anger, fear, betrayal, hatred, love – she had these, but apparently she wasn't meant to. Her words had returned, but her mind was still raw and young.

Every evening she and Marluxia would eat together. It was one of the many rituals they'd developed – he cooked because she still couldn't remember how to use appliances, and she sat with him. Sometimes she'd ask questions about the Organisation, or whatever else had occurred to her that day. He answered most in the same way he taught her words, apart from the questions about himself. Those he avoided, or just flatly refused to answer. It was the only thing he ever refused her.

When one day she didn't come down he went up to her room. He found her curled on the bed in a foetal position, her eyes screwed shut and fists bunched up against her chest.

"Naminé, what are you doing?"

"I'm trying to make them go away."

"What?"

"I'm not supposed to have emotions, so I'm trying to make them go away."

He was quiet for a long time when she said this. Finally he sat on the bed behind her, depressing the mattress with his greater weight. She bounced a little, but didn't turn over or open her eyes. He didn't place a comforting hand on her shoulder. Nor did he try to get her to look at him, though somewhere inside she though this was what usually happened in situations like this – with normal people.

"You're a Nobody, like me," he said matter-of-factly. "And yet you're not like me at all. You're a rose among thorns, Naminé – unique amongst those already marked out for their uniqueness between the worlds of Light and Darkness. You're a mismatching jigsaw piece amongst the cast-offs of other puzzles with only half their patterns on them."

"What?"

"Do you remember who your Other was?"

She had a jumble of images, but nothing concrete. Xemnas had said it would come in time. She wondered how much. "Not yet."

"All will become clear when you do."

"I don't understand. Can you make these feelings go away?"

"No." He sounded like he was about to say more, but instead he was very still and silent. Eventually Naminé rolled a little so she could see him. He had his hands folded in his lap and his head dipped slightly in thought. His bright pink hair was such a shocking contrast to the whiteness of their home that it always took a little of her breath away.

"Marluxia?"

"The Organisation's main goal is to understand and regain our lost hearts."

"I know. You told me that."

"Then you already know why you shouldn't be trying to suppress your impulses. Pruning and weeding aren't the same thing, Naminé."

"What? I don't understand."

"Your dinner is getting cold." He rose without another word and flowed out of the room. He never just walked. Marluxia slipped from place to pace and moment to moment, assessing everything with a small insincere smile that Naminé had nonetheless come to value – perhaps because it reminded her of things just out of her reach. These were fragments of other smiles, which she knew she was supposed to hang on to, but instead all she had was the faint curve of Marluxia's lips.

Thought she didn't know it at the time, that was her second lesson.

Not long after this, another Nobody came to live with them, upsetting their cosy routines and setting everything on its head. Larxene was rude and loud and didn't like being put on 'babysitting duty'. She called Naminé a 'little princess', and it was from her that Naminé learned that the rest of the Organisation called her 'witch'. She had no number, no proper codename; she was different than them, and because of that a lot of them didn't trust her. Larxene was one of them, but more than that, Larxene seemed to actively dislike her. She was brimming with things Naminé had never seen in Marluxia or Xemnas, and which fascinated her because it seemed like Larxene had feelings too.

She didn't, of course. Larxene was just incredibly good at pretending, and at trading on memories of emotions she no longer felt. Her Other must have been an excellent actress for that talent to have carried through. Naminé was frightened of Larxene's brashness and cruelty, but more frightened when she looked into her eyes and saw … nothing. Nothing except longing, which she covered up so sublimely that nobody else besides Naminé seemed to have noticed, and Larxene sometimes looked at her the way a school bully looks at a victim, and Naminé was too wary of that look to go telling anyone about the vulnerability beneath it.

For a long time Xemnas didn't tell Marluxia why Larxene had been sent to help guard Naminé. Larxene stalked the halls of the castle, and eventually Naminé took to staying in her room to avoid confrontation. She invented games to pass the time, and found things to do: crayoning appealed, thought sometimes it was like she'd never picked up a crayon before and sometimes she could sketch such wonderful things she stared at her own hands and wondered. She did other things, too – crochet and knitting and collages. She cut and glued and made beautiful artwork about the things she could remember: the beach, the castle, her room.

Larxene had her own room, but Naminé never saw inside it. She'd never seen inside Marluxia's either, but that was more a case of respect than fear. Marluxia's sanctuary wasn't his room at all, but it still felt wrong to go barging in whenever she felt like it, the way Larxene did.

Larxene wanted to argue. A lot. Naminé hid and Marluxia never rose to the bait. He greeted each of her attempts with cutting politeness, never so much as spilling his tea or lowering his pinkie, until eventually Larxene collapsed into a chair and drummed her fingers against her own arms, grudgingly accepting the situation for what it was.

"I'm trapped here because I'm a problem," she said one day at breakfast, glaring at her toast. "I don't fit in. I'm too unpredictable for them, so they stuck me out here where I can't jeopardise their missions. That's why you two are out here, too. They don't have any special plans for you, if that's what they've said. You're just here because they can't destroy you and they need to know where you are so they can keep track of your movements."

"We are what we are," Marluxia said mildly. Afterwards he excused himself and went into the garden while Naminé went about her task of clearing up.

It was always the same: he cooked, she tidied it all away and restored the purity of the whiteness. Larxene never did anything to help like that. Usually she'd just storm off, but today she narrowed her eyes and followed Marluxia out.

Naminé heard them talking through the window, but couldn't make out their words. She wasn't comforted when Larxene came back in wearing a smile that was just as insincere as Marluxia's, but far more portentous.

"Little witch," Larxene crooned after that. "Little white witch in her big white tower, with no Other or mother or father to her name – and no X in her name, either. How … significant. One might even say miraculous, that Xemnas didn't make you follow the rules. What other rules don't you follow, I wonder?"

Namine retreated to her bedroom, where she attempted to draw pictures, but everything came out as nebulous swirls to match the clouds clogging her head. In the end she threw down her crayons and sat quietly in her chair, eyes darting behind her closed lids as she tried not to cry, and also to figure out why she even wanted to cry in the first place.

Allies could be cruel. And allies could also be enemies. This was Naminé's third lesson.

Larxene was followed by Vexen, a high-ranking Nobody in the Organisation. He hadn't been banished out here, but had come voluntarily to work on some project or other, away from the annoyance provided by whoever he'd left behind. He hid himself away as much as Naminé did, rarely emerging even to eat. Mostly he took his meals in the wing he'd turned into a laboratory. Marluxia allowed Naminé to test out her burgeoning cookery skills and take meals up there so Vexen wouldn't starve, which was how she saw the Replica for the first time.

He wasn't conscious. At first she thought he was a doll, propped up in a glass container by metal hooks under his arms and a band holding his head in place. She was admiring him so much that she didn't hear Vexen come up behind her.

"Beautiful, isn't he?"

Naminé squeaked, whirled, and bowed her head. She held out the plate of waffles and syrup like an offering to a priest (how did she know what a priest was when she'd never seen one?) and mumbled, "I – I brought you –"

"Never mind that." Vexen knocked her hands aside. "Isn't he remarkable? Obviously he still has some bugs in him, but really. A being composed of replicated DNA supplemented with pure darkness. Has there ever been such a miracle before?" He didn't wait for Naminé to answer. "Of course not! Only I could achieve something so phenomenal."

Naminé looked at the perfect curl of eyelash against the boy's cheek. She didn't know his name or anything about him, except that he was incredibly familiar, that Vexen had made him, and that humans weren't made the way this boy had been. The knowledge arrived in her mind fully-formed: humans had mothers who gave birth to them. The Nobodies had all been human once, or near enough, therefore they must have all had mothers and been born.

Even she, the Nobody whom nobody wanted, had once had a mother.

"Did you make him so you had some company?" she asked.

"Company?" Vexen said, as one might say 'dog dirt'. "Hardly. I made him as a challenge to the limitations set by science and alchemy. And magic. He truly is a work of art, and you don't make works of art for mere company."

That evening at supper, Naminé asked if she could have some wool, some cloth, and some old-fashioned clothes pegs.

"The wooden ones."

"Why?" Marluxia asked placidly, not saying no.

"I just need them for something."

"What?" Larxene wanted to know. Vexen wasn't there, as usual, and the three of them clustered around the kitchen table like some warped family unit.

"Just something."

Marluxia didn't agree or disagree, but by nightfall a wicker basket sat outside Naminé's room. Inside were balls of wool, scraps of many-coloured cloth, needles, thread, and a dozen wooden clothes pegs. She didn't ask how he'd had come by these things, just as she didn't question how they were able to eat every day when Marluxia refused to grow fruit trees in the garden.

She sat at her dresser until the early hours of the morning, not even yawning until five traditional clothes peg dollies sat in front of her mirror – one with pink woollen hair, two with yellow, one with white and the last with such a pale grey it was almost silver. They were crude things, but she'd decorated their faces with her paints, and her hands had once again been artist's hands. Five different expressions watched her undress and climb into bed, and five drawn-on eyes were still watching when she turned off the light.

Her new playmates felt friendlier than the real things; like little guardians watching over her in her darkened room. When she retreated there after breakfast she set them out like the play set of a child in a different, more normal world.

She considered it for a long time, as she constructed furniture for them and made alterations to their rudimentary costumes, and finally sat the dollies around a reasonable facsimile of the kitchen table. Would it be disrespectful?

She decided not, and played with them just like any regular child might. They were good company.

It was the dollies she told when she first discovered her power over memory – or remembered it. She was never quite sure which it was. Was this a new thing she'd never known before, or an old thing she'd recalled from her unknown Other's past? It was all very confusing. She told the Marluxia doll, stroking its pink hair, having first made sure the Larxene doll wasn't watching. She'd been too accurate with that doll's eyes, and though not as blank as the real Larxene's, they were still harsher than the others'.

She felt the Replica's scattered memories from all the way in Vexen's wing of the castle. She didn't know how she knew what they were, or what she could do, but it seemed perfectly natural to reach out with her mind and touch them. It was like touching something so hot it had looped around to cold again, and she snapped back to herself with the taste of saltwater and seaweed in her mouth, and warm sunshine on her back. Afterwards she found out that at that moment, when her mind had touched his, the Replica had opened his eyes and said her name. It was his first word.

"You really are a little witch," Larxene sang. "A memory witch. You called the real Riku's memories into the brain of his clone."

"No," Naminé replied timidly, conscious everyone was standing around her chair, watching her like a curiosity in a sideshow. "It's not like that. The memories were already there. I just … connected two of them."

"You can do that?" Vexen had asked, and plied her with questions better suited to scientific testing. He wanted to put her in controlled conditions and experiment with her and the Replica's memories, since he was expendable and he could easily make another. He wanted to poke and prod, to see what made her tick and what her limits were.

However, Marluxia raised his hand. He hadn't taken his eyes off Naminé the whole time, and he hadn't put on his insincere smile. "Naminé?" he said when she kept her eyes lowered. Every Nobody had a power all their own, usually linked to their Other's talents or method of fighting.

"I … I still don't … remember my Other."

Marluxia nodded and sent Vexen and Larxene away, though they both fought him until he suggested Larxene should help awaken the Replica further. The moment Vexen mentioned pain receptors, Larxene was sold and practically dragged him out of there by his long white hair.

After they were gone, Marluxia stood behind Naminé with his hands on her shoulders. It didn't feel threatening, but neither was it kindly. It wasn't even like he was trying to keep her in place. His touch was light and she could easily have slipped away from him. "Can you sense my memories?" he asked quietly.

Naminé thought about it. The answer came without doubt. "I could."

"Do it."

She reached out again. It was easier the second time, though it hadn't exactly been difficult the first. She felt the shape of Marluxia's mind, standing right behind her, dipped into it and found pulsing, nebulous masses floating around. These were his thoughts and memories. They weren't ordered, but were more like scattered seeds growing wherever they'd fallen, twining in and out of each other.

She touched one and saw herself, drenched and tiny, as she'd been when he found her. She touched another and heard Xemnas's voice giving an order to someone else, whom she'd never heard before. The person answered impudently, but Marluxia had been watching Xemnas at the time and so she couldn't see the speaker's face. She touched a third and found herself swamped by the memory of cherry blossoms. They carpeted the ground and swirled around her, peppering the air like fireflies – like a girl in a ruffled frock pirouetting so her skirts flared. In amongst the petals was a figure; precious but surrounded by oncoming shadows. Panic suffused her. She kicked up waves of pink trying to get there fast enough, but didn't seem to be moving. She'd give up her own life to preserve that person's – would rip open anyone who tried to get in her way or damage that precious thing – if only she could get there … fast … enough …

Naminé fell back into herself, all elbows and knees and other sharps angles that reminded her she had a physical body. She'd started to meld with the memory, becoming a part of it. Her chest heaved when she pulled out and realised it wasn't actually hers.

Marluxia's hands gripped her shoulders tightly, but when she turned to look up at him his face was a mask of serenity.

"They're like … like links," she said. "From a chain."

"And you can join them together, like you did for Vexen's puppet?"

She frowned at the word 'puppet', but she was still so full of what Marluxia's Other had felt like that she didn't dwell on it. How could a man so full of passion have become someone so hollow? And how had she escaped such a terrible transformation when she became a Nobody?

"I can make patterns with them," she told him. "I can make different chains – put the links together in different ways, or … or …" She frowned again.

"Or?"

"Marluxia, why did you want me to look at your memories?"

"Or?" he prompted.

She dropped her chin onto her chest. "Or break them apart," she said dully.

"I see."

But he didn't see at all.

None of them did. They all thought she could just cut and stick memories like pieces of a collage, but it was more than that. She could insert herself into other people's memories at will, but whatever she touched became a part of her, even if she destroyed it. When she lingered too long in one mind, she felt herself beginning to merge with what was there, like milk poured into tea. She became practised at holding herself together when sifting through someone else's memories, but even at the peak of her powers she felt like she was fraying at the edges the longer she stayed.

She had to repair the Riku Replica's memories often. Vexen was interested in testing his combat limits, having some larger plan in mind for his creation than anything like a parent and child relationship.

Larxene was only too happy to oblige, but she often got carried away. Then it was up to Naminé to fix whatever mental damage had been done. She learned how to leave in place the fundamental lessons he'd learned without the memories that had incurred them. Naminé had never experienced real hatred or pity until she saw some of what had been done to the Replica, or the kind of intense sadness that sometimes overwhelmed her when he declared she was his reason for living, and that he wanted nothing more than to protect her.

Marluxia and Vexen talked behind closed doors, but Marluxia and Larxene talked more. They were planning something, but Naminé wasn't permitted to know what it was. She was summoned to mess with the Replica's mind, but other than that she was ignored. She would sit in her room with her art, or her collages, or her peg dolls. She didn't feel a scrap of guilt when she took the Vexen and Larxene dolls outside and stuck them headfirst into the ground. She didn't go into Marluxia's garden, so the ground was hard, but she worked at it with her fingers and left them there, hidden amongst the roots of an old tree.

She considered taking the pink-haired doll out there as well, but ended up tucking it back into its box and leaving it and the Replica doll aside while she made more. She made a Xemnas doll, and a Saïx doll, because they were the Nobodies who visited most often. She painted on Saïx's criss-cross scar in red, but that made it look like an eternally fresh wound. She made a Zexion doll, but no matter how hard she tried his face always felt flatter than the real thing. She made dolls for each of the Organisation as they 'dropped by' the castle to inspect her and the Replica.

She didn't make an Axel doll for some time, though. He was one of the last she ever made.

When she finally met him, his voice struck her first. He was the impudent speaker who'd talked back to Xemnas in Marluxia's memories, and his face matched that voice – confident, disrespectful, presumptuous, but somehow … fascinating. Axel could captivate anyone because he was unpredictable. Watching him was far more entertaining than it ought to be.

He chucked Naminé under her chin when they first met, like she was some little kid, and then leaned on her head with his elbow while he talked to Vexen. She squeaked and tried to push him off, and he laughed at her. Though she'd long since learned not to hope there were other Nobodies who felt things the way she did, if she could've believed anyone had emotions, it was Axel.

His partner was less effusive, but Roxas only came by once. He was never left alone with Naminé. Marluxia seemed intent on keeping them apart, but she still caught a glimpse of upswept blond hair and a determined blankness that hinted at things beneath. Roxas didn't bother with insincere smiles or flamboyant gestures. He didn't need to. Something inside her flared, like a candle flame in a darkened room, or when you recognise a single face in a teeming crowd.

And then he was gone. She overheard Vexen and Marluxia talking about it, and the Replica filled in the blanks when she saw him. They didn't bother covering up what they were talking about around him. He thought it was a snub, but she knew it was because they didn't see him as anything more than a tool, so it didn't even occur to them to treat him as anything else.

Only the Replica believed he was the real Riku after her meddling. Naminé learned what regret was when he came to her, smiling shyly, not knowing that the last time she saw him he'd been screaming because Larxene had told him the truth as she slid the sharp tip of a kunai along his exposed belly. Vexen fixed his body while Naminé fixed his mind, and the whole process began over again.

The Replica was one of the hardest lessons Naminé ever had to learn.

"Number Thirteen has deserted the Organisation," he told her, his head in her lap and her fingers combing his fringe in and out of his eyes. His real hair was so much nicer than wool. "It was supposed to be impossible, but he's done it anyway."

"Why?"

"None of them know."

"Not even Marluxia?"

The Replica stiffened. "Not even your precious Assassin."

He always called Marluxia by his codename, though Naminé didn't know why until one day she was told to modify his memories and she found a kernel of love buried inside him, which glowed brighter than the memories of the real Riku's affection for his friends. She wouldn't see him for three days after that, too ashamed to face him knowing what she'd done. Since he didn't know what she'd done to him, her behaviour just made him confused, sad and angry. He didn't understand that she could never love him back, and that knowing he'd love her anyway, whether or not she returned it, was the most painful thought she'd ever had that was all her own

Naminé learned about the Keyblade Master after Roxas left, and also learned of the role she was supposed to play in his downfall. He'd be coming to the castle, Marluxia told her. She had to be ready to do what was necessary when he did.

"What's 'necessary'?" she repeated, not understanding.

"You already remembered your words."

"That's not what I meant –"

"Look inside yourself, Naminé. You'll see," Marluxia said with complete faith in her abilities. And in her. Naminé wondered why that scared her so much.

Axel was sent to live at the castle not long after Roxas left. He wasn't as vibrant as he used to be, though he was still more animated than the others. Marluxia and Larxene kept themselves locked away more than ever now, and Vexen was so obsessed with the Replica he barely emerged from his chambers unless going to a meeting with Xemnas. Axel arrived in a splash of primary colour that stood out especially against the white walls – red for danger, red for love, red for everything a Nobody wasn't supposed to be.

"Hell, this place is boring," he said on his second day. "What do you guys do for fun around here?"

Naminé felt weird about saying she drew pictures or played with dolls. Axel made her want to act more grown-up, especially when she said something silly and childish, and he gave her a funny sidelong look, as though she reminded him of someone and that wasn't a good thing. She started wearing shorter dresses instead of the puffy-sleeved, ruffled things Marluxia always put her in. She stopped carrying her parasol. She cast aside her bonnet when she went outside, instead letting her hair blow in the slight breeze and revelling in the tangles until Marluxia insisted on combing them out.

She couldn't suggest anything grown-up to do for fun though.

"Hey there, Marls."

Marluxia didn't like Axel. It was clear from the outset that they were poles apart. Even the way they carried themselves was different – Marluxia kept himself straight-backed and elegant, while Axel sprawled everywhere, not caring what anyone thought of him. Introvert and extrovert, it was unlikely they'd ever be friends, or seal themselves away for deep conversations like Marluxia and Larxene. Naminé couldn't explain why this disappointed her.

"Don't call me Marls."

"Marluxia, then. What do you guys do all the time in this dump?"

"We are here to guard Naminé and prepare her for the Keyblade Master's arrival."

Axel frowned when he heard this, but he wiped the expression away quickly. "Yeah, but not all the time. What do you do when she's taking care of herself, or when she's sleeping?"

"We prepare ourselves for the Keyblade Master's arrival."

"Bo-ring."

Marluxia sniffed and went off to his garden. Naminé followed and lurked at the edge, watching him crouch beneath the cherry tree to tend a clutch of tiny blue flowers she didn't know the names of. 'Lobelia' popped into her head, along with the memory of the best season and soil to plant them. Marluxia's head snapped around as if he'd been struck, making her squeak and back away.

He frowned at her dress. However, he held out his hand, inviting her into his sanctuary. She crept forward and put her hand in his, allowing him to guide her to the ornate bench and sit beside him. Each kept their hands in their lap and their eyes fixed ahead. It was the most grown-up Naminé had ever felt. Part of her wished Axel could see her now. Another part wondered why she wanted that.

"The task ahead is a difficult one, Naminé."

"I know."

"A lot will rest on your shoulders."

"I know that too."

"Your skills are unparalleled. Not even the Keyblade Master can withstand them. With you, we will be able to manipulate him to do whatever we want."

She'd heard a lot about this 'Keyblade Master' recently. She knew he was called Sora, and that the real Riku knew and cared for him, though the Replica's thoughts had been pruned to resent him. She knew Sora had done marvellous things – miraculous things no one person should've been able to accomplish. She knew that he fought for the Light, and that the Organisation didn't see him as an enemy, but as a tool, just like they saw the Replica. Just like they saw herself.

But it wasn't until she was sitting there in Marluxia's garden, her hands in her lap and her ankles crossed delicately beneath the bench, that she remembered him.

Marluxia was still talking when someone chuckled nearby, and Naminé saw Axel leaning backwards against one of his precious cherry trees.

"Oh man, you guys are priceless. 'Manipulate him to do whatever we want'? Ha! You have no idea what Sora's capable of. Or what he will be capable of, I should say."

"You're not welcome here, Axel."

"Bite me, Marls. You're going to send this lil' niblet to face off against the Keyblade Master? Give me a break. She's just a baby. Yeah, yeah, she's the Nobody of a Princess of the Heart, but that means diddly squat when it comes to that Sora kid. He's special – hey, whoa, what's up with her?"

Naminé's hands had flown to her mouth. She stared wildly at Axel. His words had acted like a key; unlocking a flood of things in his mind that she could never learn, or relearn, only remember on her own. Suddenly the answers that had eluded her for months were there in her head, sprouting like speeded-up mushrooms, but they came so thick and fast that they threatened to overwhelm her.

A Princess of the Heart.

The Keyblade Master.

Sora.

Riku.

Kairi.

"Kairi…" Naminé whispered, leaning back against the bench and holding her head between her hands. She could influence the memories of others, but she had no power over her own. These were so insistently uncontrollable that they had to be hers. Or at least her Other's. Kairi's. "Kai … Kair … ri…"

"Naminé!" Marluxia's voice cut through the melee. She felt gloves against her lower jaw and blinked into his eyes, her own filling with tears.

"I remember my Other," she whispered.

Marluxia stared at her tears. Then his eyes ticked upwards, and she knew he was looking at Axel.

After that, she didn't think she could do this anymore. Kairi was good and pure. Kairi would never have hacked up a devoted boy's mind and left behind a resentful shell, even if he wasn't a real human. Kairi would've stood up for herself, not stayed here in Castle Oblivion playing with dolls instead of making her escape. Kairi was so much better than Naminé, the washed out version of a girl who belonged in the world. Kairi was vibrant, confident, sweet-natured and … kind-hearted.

Because Kairi was an Other, so Kairi had a heart.

Naminé saw her in her mind's eye. The shapes of their faces were similar, and they both had blue eyes, but where Naminé's hair was blonde, Kairi was a redhead. Where Naminé wore pale colours, Kairi loved purple and pink. Where Naminé was content to play with dolls, Kairi went out to the beach and made a wooden sword, even though the boys told her she couldn't join in their games.

Kairi had joined in anyway. She couldn't best either of them, but she kept on trying. They felt bad about knocking her onto her butt, until she got up and smacked their thighs and arms with the flat of her sword, then demanded to know where in the rules it said she couldn't fight that way. Her tenacity had eventually made her matter to them. They'd latched onto her like she latched onto them when she first arrived at the Destiny Islands, and they pulled her out of the bay because she couldn't remember how to swim.

Kairi had started out without any memories either.

"So," Axel said, leaning against her doorway. "I get the feeling I sparked something big in that little head of yours."

Naminé looked up from her drawing pad, automatically flipping down the pages to cover what she'd been drawing. Going into other people's memories so often had made her protective of her own now she had them. "A feeling?"

He shrugged. "Turn of phrase." Then his eyes narrowed. He had very green eyes. They stood out far more than they should have – which made them perfect for him, she supposed. "Except for you."

Naminé curled in on herself, as if she was also a notebook and could flip down pages to hide her secrets.

"Little memory witch in her big white castle," Axel said, crossing the room. "Like a princess in a tower, just waiting to be rescued. But is the Keyblade Master your handsome prince, or something else?"

"You sound like Larxene."

He barked a laugh. "Man, just kill me now."

Naminé raised her eyes to him. "What do you want? Everybody who comes to see me wants me to do something for them, so what is it for you?" For the first time ever, she heard resentment in her voice.

Fleetingly, Axel seemed surprised. "What the hell would I want from you?"

"You tell me." Axel was the reason she remembered Kairi. He was the reason she knew, beyond all doubt, how awful she was in comparison. The Replica had taught her she was a terrible person, but Axel had taught her why.

She'd never be able to measure up. She could do hundred good deeds, and she'd still never be able to make up for what she'd done. What she would do, when the Keyblade Master arrived here.

Sora …

Axel frowned. "Could you pull memories from someone who'd forgotten them?"

Naminé blinked. "I've never tried that before. I usually make them go away, or join them together differently. But …" She pondered this. "I guess so. The memories don't vanish forever, they just … go away."

Could she pull back Kairi's memories from before she was six? The question popped into her mind like something combustible. Stupid. Ridiculous. Impossible.

Right?

Axel was still frowning at her. "No wonder they kept you two apart," he muttered.

"What?" Mind still fraught with thoughts of Kairi, Sora and the real Riku, Naminé wasn't truly listening to him anymore.

Axel glanced around as if expecting someone else to be there, listening to them. Naminé didn't bother. No-one else wanted anything from her right now, so of course they'd left her alone. She fingered her notebook, slipping her fingers between the pages as if she could feel the things she'd drawn as more than smooth paper.

Axel grabbed it.

She cried out – in shock, anger, like a bullied kid pushed close to the edge. "Give that back!"

He held it up, flipping through the pages. "These are from your memories?"

Naminé faltered. How had he guessed –?

"Fuck," Axel cursed, stopping at one page. "They really do look alike."

She stood up and peered at the drawing: Sora smiling, the exact curve of his mouth and erratic spikes of his hair set down as if it was a photograph. She was able to draw accurately far more often these days, though sometimes unintelligible scribbles appeared when she tried to capture one of her memories so she'd never, ever forget them again.

Perhaps the scribble was a memory in itself. Perhaps that was some piece of darkness given shape, as much a part of her as the white of Sora's smile, the aqua blue of Riku's eyes, Tidus's yelps and Wakka's laugh as Selphie chased them for throwing seaweed, the feel of melted ice-cream on her wrist, the crash of waves –

"But he never smiled like that. Would it have made a difference if you'd gotten into his head?" Axel said speculatively, snapping her back to the present. He wasn't really talking to her, but she answered anyway.

"Number Thirteen?"

"His name was Roxas," Axel snapped, but it was the snap of a soggy twig you'd toss aside for kindling because it just wouldn't burn.

Naminé stared at him. Nobodies couldn't feel emotions. They could mimic, or draw on their memories of them, but they couldn't feel anything new. They were hollow inside – inside their chests, inside their minds, and inside their souls, because what was a soul without a heart –?

Naminé made a surprised noise as Axel bent down suddenly and pressed his face into hers. Their noses were almost touching. She could smell his breath, a little like smoke and a little like what they'd had for dinner. It was hot against her face. She could see herself reflected in his too-green eyes.

"He used to look at me like that, too."

"Wh-what?"

"Like I pissed him off and confused the hell out of him. And kind of scared him a little, I guess. I was his pal, but maybe not. You can't trust Nobodies, right? Work together and save each other's hides every day, but trust each other? No way. Not that he'd ever admit any of his own shit. He thought I didn't know what was in here." Axel jabbed a finger into her chest, making her stumble backwards and sit back down onto her painted white chair. It took her below the level of his face, and she blinked as if stepping into a bright room after walking along a dark street at night. "He wasn't that good an actor."

"A-and you are?" She tried for that resentful note again, but something must have gone wrong this time, because Axel just gave another barking laugh.

"We all are. Except you. And him. Because you're special." He looked down at her. Or was it on her?

She turned her face away. "I'd rather not be."

"Yeah. That was his problem too." The barest amount of bitterness was in his voice, like the there-and-gone glint of an assassin palming a knife.

Naminé heard the door click shut behind him.

She hadn't moved from the chair when Marluxia came in later. He paused when he saw the notebook on the floor, its spine twisted and its pages crumpled beneath it. He picked it up and held it out to her, but she wouldn't take it. Rather than open it to see what she's been jealously guarding up to now, he seemed to respect her privacy and placed it on the dresser. Then he went to sit on the bed and sat with his hands demurely in his lap again.

"Axel came to see you."

She nodded.

"He's a wild card in our plans."

She didn't nod, but she didn't shake her head, either.

"Naminé?"

"Why are Nobodies born?"

"You know why."

"No, I know what you've told me. I know how they're born, but not why. Why are some people chosen but not others? Is it better to be a Nobody, or to just … die when your heart is taken?"

She felt his frown curl into the room like the scent of honeysuckle when you jiggled the vine.

She sighed. "Never mind. It doesn't matter."

"Come here."

For a moment she thought about refusing. Then she got up and went to perch beside him on the mattress, mimicking his posture like always.

Marluxia was straight-backed and proper, but there was always an edge of … something to him. He never tied back his hair, not even when it got in his way while he was tending his garden. He never looked washed out, like a pale imitation. Even the monotone of his voice held a current in it that hinted at roots going deep into the dark earth where no-one could see them.

When he pulled her sideways, so her head rested in his lap, and started stroking her hair, she didn't resist. Nobodies couldn't feel emotions, she told herself. This was just an elaborate display to put her at her ease and make her more biddable, or something.

Except that Marluxia had never done anything like that before. That meant something, right? Except that she'd never had her own memories before, either, so maybe not. Except that her having them or not shouldn't have mattered. Except that it did, so much …

It was all very confusing.

Marluxia's fingers ran deftly across her scalp. He could plant seedlings with those hands and not damage a single thready root, or he could summon his scythe and lay waste to the whole castle. She didn't doubt he was that powerful.

Would Axel win a fight between them?

She blinked. Where had that thought come from?

"Things are coming to an end soon, Naminé," Marluxia said softly. "One way or another, they will end here."

"I know." Her hands curled into helpless little fists, like the ones she'd painted onto the side of the peg dolly with yellow hair and a white dress. She kept that doll hidden away from the others. It seemed a fitting thing to do. That doll looked demure and girly, apart from those two tiny fists, and they were hidden beneath the white fabric where nobody could see them. "I'll be ready."

Marluxia nodded. "As will I."

"Axel is …" she stopped.

"Is what?" Was that interest in his tone? Probably not. Probably she just wanted there to be.

"He'll be important."

Marluxia said nothing for a long time. His fingers kept working at her hair, but absently now, the way she stroked the Replica's hair in and out of his eyes when he was staring so adoringly at her that she had to turn her thoughts elsewhere. They were both tools, she and the Replica, but he had been created for that specific purpose, while she … had a choice?

Kairi would have chosen. She wouldn't have just gone along to get along. Kairi had her own mind and her own precious people, whom she cared about above all else. She would have done anything to keep them safe and happy.

"Sora… Riku…"

Was that the memory of Kairi's voice in her head? Was that what her Other had sounded like?

Nobodies had no emotions. They couldn't care about anyone. Not really.

But I'm not like other Nobodies. I'm special.

It was the first thing she'd learned, the last one, and the most important, which had snaked in and out of each lesson without her ever realising just how important it was.

Until now.

Marluxia's head jerked up. He pushed at her shoulders to raise her into a sitting position, got to his feet and went to the door. She blinked at the sudden change in him.

"Ready yourself, Naminé. The Keyblade Master is on his way."

Naminé opened her mouth, struck by sudden alarm. It was too soon, she wasn't ready, hadn't decided yet, she couldn't – but Marluxia was already gone. The door shut behind him, just as it had behind Axel. The click sounded inordinately loud in the stark white openness of her room.

Naminé waited. Then she fetched her notebook. Took up her scattered crayons. Started to draw using the pink, red and yellow.

And waited.

Fin.