When Axel woke up, suffocating in a cocoon of blankets, he was confused to find his pillow damp. Mind reawakening, a flicker of something made him stop, body half risen in the pale light of morning. Brow wrinkling in concentration, Axel thought that perhaps Larxene had put something in his drink last night, whatever drink he must have had, because the static in his brain put words in his mouth and being high accounted for the memory of his chest collapsing in on itself when a cloaked figure walked away from him and disappeared in the rain.

A week after tracking down Number 12, who didn't hesitate to point her knives at him when he cautiously asked if she had meddled with his food, the collapsed feeling returned.

Axel was on his way back from a meeting with the Superior when, instead of turning left to go to his room, he turned right. Reaching the end of the hallway, he absentmindedly reached for the doorknob and grasped at the impeccably white wall. Hand outstretched, Axel stared at the wall. Standing in that hallway for what felt like hours, a quiet whoosh of air made him turn away, alerting him to a nobody messenger who handed him the details of his next mission. Dismissing the dusk, Axel opened a portal to leave, trying to ignore the insistent voice telling him that there used to be a door there.

He didn't bother to think about the ache beneath his ribs.

The mission took him to Twilight Town and Axel relished the soft glow of the ever-setting sun. He walked to the sandlot, spying the mass of black soldiers twitching and swaying as one.

On autopilot, Axel stretched his arms out to summon his chakrams and grinned at the familiar burst of heat. Mind blank, he destroyed the soldiers in a matter of minutes. He was about to leave when the sound of metal came from behind him. Axel turned and found one heartless that he didn't finish off. With a seemingly careless throw, his chakram sliced through the darkness and it faded.

As the trapped heart was released though, Axel lunged towards it before it floated out of reach. Grasping desperately for it, his hand simply passed through the shimmering organ as it ascended to the sky. Panting from the battle, Axel tried to figure out why he had moved when he did, but the only answer he got was a memory of blue eyes.

Back at Castle Oblivion, Axel steadfastly avoided the hallway that was home to the imaginary door. Teleporting straight into his room, he stumbled into bed and into sleep before removing his dirty coat, damp with sweat as it was.

With a deep panicked gasp, Axel awoke after what felt like years. His eyes flicked from the ceiling to the floor and everywhere in between, vision blurry. Trembling with something, Axel closed his eyes, swallowing to dislodge the lump that suddenly appeared.

He remembered.

Unable to fall back asleep, Axel summoned the darkness and calmly walked through it to the top of the clock tower, caught off guard for a few seconds by the bright color of the sky. Golden and red, of course, because light is made up of all sorts of colors...and out of those "red" can reach further than any other. An echo of feeling smug and smiling at Roxas swam around Axel's thoughts as he sat down on the edge of the tower, followed by a distant craving for sea-salt ice cream.

I shouldn't even like the sea, Axel thought, but there was no denying that Roxas had jumped at the chance to go to Atlantica whenever possible. The collection of seashells in the nonexistent Number 13 room. Axel remembers wrapping his arms around Roxas, putting his ear to his chest in search for a heartbeat and hearing the ocean instead.

For weeks after the memories returned, Axel wandered to where the thirteenth room used to be when he couldn't sleep or when he was restless from a mission.

More than once, he leaned against the wall, hoping to hear Roxas moving about, just beyond his reach.

A few times, he was convinced he heard someone whisper.

Find Sora.

Sora, it turned out, was causing havoc and destruction to the Organization. Somehow, Axel couldn't bring himself to care about Zexion's or Marluxia's demise. But Namine was still here and she was taunting him.

Not so fucking innocent, are you witch?Axel questioned her for hours about how to get Roxas back and she just kept drawing those pictures, unaware of Axel's longing to burn them all until they were ash. Maybe everything would go back to normal if he did. Everyone's memories in the right place again.

One night, Axel dreamt that Namine tore up a drawing. One of him. Just him. And when he woke up, he knew Roxas had forgotten him.

His mission to the alternate Twilight Town nearly destroyed him. Roxas, sweet Roxas, had glared at him, looked into his eyes and said that he didn't know who Axel was. He looked brighter without the Organization cloak wrapped around him, without the hood pulled up around his face, and Axel ached for those quiet moments when it had been just the two of them.

Afterwards, when he finally escaped from Saix's insufferable interrogation, Axel ran to the corridor where Roxas's room used to be. Shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs because he couldn't cry, right? couldn't feel?Axel tore at the wall with his chakrams. He dug the spikes into the wall, plaster confetti raining down. Once his arms gave out, Axel scratched at the remaining layer until his fingers were bleeding.

Namine found him pounding his fist on the marble floor, knuckles broken, stars twinkling through a ragged hole beside him.

The end came, somewhat unsurprisingly, in between worlds. In a space that didn't really exist, watching hundreds of swaying Dusks burn and disappear, Axel thought well this is fitting.

He imagined that he could see through the ground to the blackness below, knowing that if Sora wasn't careful, he would get lost in the corridor of shadows searching for a light that would never appear.

He said something to Sora, lying on the non-floor surrounded by a lingering heat from his attack, before he felt himself start to dissolve. Dying wasn't quite like he thought it would be. Instead of gasping in pain or feeling suddenly at peace, Axel felt a pulsing around him, the space thrumming against him, filling up the space between his joints, until he couldn't do anything but fade away.

the end

a/n: I'm not sure if I actually like this or not. Reviews/thoughts/comments highly appreciated.