KH AU: fanfic100 -- "The Garden of Everything," yellow

[sincere]

For those who aren't aware, libekory and I have a very big AU based off a very simple premise: Instead of Roxas getting pulled into Sora at the end of the Six Days, Sora was pulled into Roxas. Oddly, KH2 mostly continues as scheduled.

But one noticeable difference is that Roxas, lacking a home, finds a place for himself (and Axel and Namine with him) in Hollow Bastion, along with a household full of assorted riffraff, a patchwork family quilt that could take a few more patches...

And we decided to do fanfic100 based on the happy home that can't quite be explored in the Another Side canon, given that Roxas needs to be off saving worlds and not so much at Merlin's House having fluff with Yuffie and Leon. Unfortunately, fanfic100 does not allow you to share challenges, so we decided to do the Hollow Bastion household privately instead of "officially."

013: Yellow
The Garden of Everything
Aerith and Namine
(no spoilers for AS)

"Hey, LP, my main duck," she overheard. People in this house seemed so free with their discussions; it still felt strange to Namine, startling. In Castle Oblivion, and in Twilight Town, conversations had been held in low voices, and her presence would invariably end them -- even mid-sentence.

She still wasn't quite comfortable with it, and so she tried not to listen. That, at least, was familiar... A simple matter of narrowing her awareness to the toy in her hands.

Until Cid tapped her on the shoulder. Then she jumped and turned around, wide-eyed. The older man waved the phone in his hand and told her, "Launchpad just called on business. I'm not a people person, so business doesn't mean me. You want to go find Aerith and Leon and get them to give him a call back?"

"Okay," Namine said quickly, getting to her feet. Anything to be useful.

"One sec." Cid chewed on his cigarette and frowned at her. "Is that-- What the fuck is that?"

Namine blinked at him, and then glanced down at the shimmering toy in her hand again. "It's a puzzle," she said, smiling. "Merlin gave it to me."

At least she knew how to end a conversation with Cid fast if she ever needed to; the man scowled to himself and turned away without another word.

It sounded like Aerith's territory. Namine had noticed slowly that each of them seemed to have their specialties. Cid tinkers, Merlin conjures; Aerith deliberates, Leon risks, and Yuffie protects. Even Roxas and Axel fell into place smoothly, staying by one another as if they feared drowning in this new environment, and they had a place in this house easily. Roxas was so comfortable with everyone, those who in another life would have been old friends of his; even Axel could banter or talk with Cid, with Leon.

Equals. They were all equals.

Except her. She was no one's equal -- she didn't know how to be. She'd never been equal with anyone before.

Namine drifted up the stairs to the room Aerith and Yuffie shared in the small house, but it was empty. Leon and Cid's room was empty as well, and Namine knew better than to think the older woman would venture into the new rooms that belonged to Namine and Roxas and Axel -- they were, for whatever reason, off-limits. The kitchen was empty, thank goodness. I don't know how Roxas can eat her food, I haven't lived in the dark nearly long enough to lose that much sense of taste...

She ventured outside then, and followed the winding path she had seen Aerith take sometimes. It led to a decaying house, falling apart at all the broken edges, and Namine did not expect what she saw when she moved into the doorway. Her breath caught, surprise and wonder and memory freezing her in her steps.

The house, so dreary and untouched on the outside, was full of blossoming life on the inside. Every broken floorboard seemed peeled back to give birth to a patch of orchids, every hole in the wall only let in a tangle of vines. Aerith was coaxing a rosebush in the corner where the walls had crumbled, for a moment like she didn't know Namine had approached.

It smells like Marluxia's garden, she thought, feeling dizzy, and then there were those memories, dizzying in a different way. The unique despair of helplessness -- knowing that to fight was to invite worse, that to submit was to give up hope -- every impersonal touch, every smoothly graceful jab, every hurt she'd ever known in her short existence. How desperately she had wanted to do something, anything for the boy who had forgiven her for what she'd done to him, and how terribly she had failed. Would Marluxia laugh at her? Consider it a fitting end to her willfulness, and simply nod with that cruel smile of his?

"Namine?" Aerith was looking up, smiling at her faintly. "Did you come to see my garden?"

She was going to be sick. Namine shook her head wordlessly. She felt the long-moot dilemma closing in again on her: should Roxas's existence be sacrificed for Sora's well-being? can a Nobody deserve to live? who is worth more? Marluxia's hand would be heavy on her shoulder any moment; she shied away from it, curling in on herself.

Instead, there was only Aerith, saying to the rosebush, "This was my house when I was a little girl. Ten years ago, my parents and I lived here."

That brought her out of herself somewhat -- Namine tried to imagine Aerith as a girl, tried to imagine what this house might have looked like then. For some reason, the past always felt very far away with Aerith; maybe as if all tragedies had been erased.

"My mother was a botanist," the brunette woman continued, gently curving fingers around the petals of a rose. "There were flowers everywhere in our house... She loved them so. I think sometimes that as long as I make sure there are always flowers in her home, she'll be happy."

A garden with only sweet memories, Namine thought. It must be nice. Impossible to compare Marluxia to Aerith, impossible to even think about having their motivations in the same breath -- it simply wasn't fair to Aerith. Still, an uneasy part of her mind couldn't help the association. She managed to say, "Cid said... Someone called for you. Launchpad, I think."

Aerith only sighed, pushing herself upright and brushing off her skirts. "No doubt on a favor for Drake. I still don't have any answer for them on the schoolhouse... I wish they'd believe me when I say we're doing our best to make it safe."

"It must be hard," Namine murmured, and was surprised when the young woman smiled at her and plucked a flower from the rosebush, then drifted over to her.

"I have to confess, it's not entirely unselfish," Aerith said. "This place is a part of me, too, you know. Every little inch we make safe from the Heartless is a part of my childhood reclaimed. And that's something I do for myself -- something I owe all of us for."

She offered the rose, adding, "You know what a yellow rose symbolizes?"

Namine shivered a little and hesitated. She had never seen yellow roses in Marluxia's garden; only red, or stark black or white. "No," she admitted.

"It's for friendship." Aerith smiled, placing it in Namine's hand. "Every now and then I need to remind myself to thank you for helping."

Aerith headed back up to Merlin's house, but Namine lingered there for a while, turning the rose back and forth in her hands until the memories threatened to slip out of her control, the scents and the sights of the garden too similar to other times, other places. She put the flower on the broken endtable near the door and fled then.

Maybe tomorrow she would come back and stay for a while again, and then again, until she could stay all day, or however long she felt like staying. Then maybe she would bring the rose back -- put it in her room, in a vase.

Then maybe she would finally be someone's equal.