Xion said nothing. She sat very still and very straight, her hands motionless in her lap as she ignored the still unwrapped ice cream to look at Axel carefully.

What could it be? He was visibly uncomfortable beneath all his smiles and glib words and jokes, and for a moment she had a deep, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She'd felt it once before, a long time ago, in a vast empty castle with endless white walls and a myriad of questions that seemed to be without answers.

Maybe... this was how it would feel whenever she had to hear about Axel's future without her and Roxas. She knew he'd be okay, Axel was a fighter, a survivor; he was too smart and cunning to let anything really bad happen to him, even without his best friends to have his back. Still, there were no laws against wondering.