paixaorpg | Memories, Where'd You Go? [Completed]

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Memories, Where'd You Go? [Completed]

Character(s): Roxas and Eleven
Content: After a short talk on the journals, Eleven decided that he wants to help Roxas with his memory problems
Setting: Niflheim, then Destiny Islands
Time: Midday
Warnings: This is probably going to get really depressing.

Roxas had gone straight to the Nifheim gate after talking with the Doctor. He had told him an hour, because that was all the time it would take to make it there himself. He couldn't help but feel nervous--or...not feel, however that worked. It still didn't make any sense to him, not even a month later. Each day, it only got worse, and each day, he felt less and less like he belonged with Sora and Ven. They were so much different from him, and even though he could act like he belonged, it got more and more obvious that he didn't. Sure, he could be like them sometimes--a lot like them--but...that was different. That ws because he was...part of Sora.

...Whatever that meant.

"Man, where is he?" he asked the air, looking around for any sign of the man whose picture the journal showed as he was talking to the Doctor. If he was there, he was really good at hiding. Either that, or Roxas was looking in only the wrong directions.

His mind drifted off again while he looked, and he found himself wondering about Axel and Xion. It didn't surprise him anymore than he couldn't remember anything about what it used to be like with them, even though he was sure now that the people he'd thought of when looking at that tree on the island had been the three of them. He found himself trying to imagine what it must have been like hanging out with those two. ...It must have been really great, considering how angry Axel was that Roxas couldn't remember him. Roxas had grown used to the bitterness that came with the empty void of his memories before waking up that day on the beach and meeting Naminé and Xion, so it didn't really bother him as much as it used to. Maybe being around Sora and Ven so much really was helping with that.

But that only made him more determined to get them back. He shouldn't have to feel bitter about them, right?

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When the Doctor had told Roxas he was at the Nifleheim gate "right now", he'd inadvertently lied. Being unfamiliar with this strange and beautiful new world and the way it worked, when he'd tried to send the TARDIS into the time vortex, he was dismayed to find he couldn't even do that much. A few re-wiring sessions and a couple dozen thrown shoes later, he decided to walk; he couldn't very well let the Master find out where the TARDIS was hidden.

It was a good thing, then, that he'd arrived just in time to hear Roxas wonder where he was. He was good with time; he'd always been good with time. "I'm right here," came the cheerful and not the least bit frustrated (no, not at all, not even a little) reply, the Eleventh adjusting his bow tie and trying not to appear terribly put out. "Hello, again. Good to see you."

Roxas turned his head to look in the direction of the Doctor. The voice was unmistakable.

"Are you always this late?" he asked with a wry grin, one he found himself using often when teasing Sora or Ven. The other two never really took it all that well, but Roxas would find himself poking fun at them once in a while anyway. He figured he must have done that with all his friends from before he forgot, too, though he really didn't have any idea.

"I'm never late," replied the Doctor, drawing himself up and looking rather stern, "and I'm never early. I arrive exactly when I want to." It was a lie, of course, and paraphrased from The Lord of the Rings (and wouldn't it be neat if Gandalf showed up?), but hopefully Roxas wouldn't know that. The Time Lord grinned, showing it was all in good fun, and ruffled Roxas' hair. Something about the boy was reminiscent of a lost puppy, and if the Doctor was good at anything, it was taking care of strays. Wait, that sounded insulting.

"Right!" he said, spinning on his heel and walking towards the exit, sticking his tongue out at the guards, "Castle floor, eenie-meenie-miney-moe, memories, then a nice cup of tea. Any complaints?"

"No, you're definitely late." Roxas tried to squirm away when the Doctor ruffled his hair. What was it with people and doing that to him? Did his hair have some kind of magnet in it or something?

"And no...nothing to complain about..." But worries? Those he had plenty of. If Naminé couldn't find anything, what would that mean for the Doctor? And what was the Doctor going to do if he did learn something?

The Doctor let him move away, striding towards St. Destino without any hint of a care in the world, malfunctioning TARDIS be damned. There was exploration to be had, knowledge to be learned, fish custard to be eaten. Maybe he could even introduce Roxas to some later. No sense in not sharing such a brilliant combination with the world.

"The stairs to reach the next floor are in the church, right?" He'd never been out of the city, not since meeting with his younger self. Surely there was no harm in asking.

"Yeah. And it's a pretty long walk to get there," Roxas answered, remembering that it had taken him, Naminé, and Xion a while to when they went there a few days before. And walking through all that grass was a lot different from walking in the city, too.

"Oh, I know," replied the Doctor, grinning. He didn't mind long walks; in fact, he rather liked them. However, being reminded, however accidentally, that his ship (his ship!) wasn't flying terribly well at the moment set him off again, and before he knew it, he was stalking through increasingly tall grasses, muttering to himself a bit in spite of the other's presence. "Mess with my TARDIS, will they..."

Thoughts of the other day with Naminé and Xion occupied Roxas as they walked, so he didn't mind much that the Doctor wasn't saying a lot. It didn't take too long for them to get there, and it almost seemed like it was a lot faster than it had been the other day.

The Nobody was drawn back into the real world as the old building loomed on the horizon, and he swallowed hard. He hadn't realized how nervous he was about this until now.

"And here we are!" The Doctor practically shouted, all gleeful anticipation. He rubbed his hands together as they approached the door of the church. "Now," he told Roxas, "I've never done this before, and we might quite possibly die. But look on the bright side - we get to do Eenie, meenie, miney moe!"

As he opened the door to the church, excited as he'd ever been to explore a new place, he stopped short at the scene that stretched out before him. "Blimey," he gulped, whirling around and walking backwards into the building. It was certainly impressive, despite appearing as though it had been abandoned for years. "Did we just walk onto the set of a horror movie, or is it just me?" He kept grinning, indicating that such a derelict building wasn't a bother to him at all.

"It's just dusty..." Roxas said, walking in behind the Doctor. That was after being here just he other day though, so he wasn't as surprised by how it looked inside.

"But...how could we die?" The thought was enough to make anyone get worried. Though...Roxas still couldn't make any sense of the fact he shouldn't be able to feel worried.

"Dusty suggests abandoned. Abandoned suggests that something happened here." The Doctor looked about himself attentively, taking it all in. The building didn't seem to be in nearly as bad of a shape as he'd been expecting, but there was definitely an odd air about the place. Something hidden and forgotten, perhaps, or else forbidden.

Frankly, the Doctor was loving this. He laughed at Roxas' question. "Don't be silly. Anyone could die at any given moment. Hit by a bus, choke on a mint, get eaten by a hippo. It's an everyday occurrence, nothing to be scared of. But," and here the Doctor's tone and expression became quite gentle, "I will not let anything happen to you while you're with me."

That made Roxas think about some of the things he'd seen. Nothing? That would be asking for a lot.

"The door to get higher up is over here." He decided not to comment out loud on what the Doctor had just said, but instead was looking over toward a staircase. The door to the next floor of the castle was at the top of it.

First things first; he needed to check out the door. The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned it quickly, looking at it curiously as the results came up - and the results were not at all what he expected.

"What?" he cried out, baffled. "No, you silly thing, that can't be it." He continued to mutter to himself, brow furrowing at his screwdriver. Maybe the landing here had messed it up; it had been acting strangely lately.

Roxas looked at the...thing the Doctor pulled out. "What is that thing?" he asked as the Doctor turned it on and pointed it around the doorframe. "And what is it saying?"

The Doctor was silent for a few minutes as he gaped at his screwdriver. "It can't identify the door," he told Roxas at last. "It's says it's magic." He stared again, studying his screwdriver, sure one of them was getting it wrong. "But there's no such thing as magic."

"Why can't it be magic?" Roxas couldn't use any himself, but he'd seen Sora and Ven using it before. And Axel's fire magic, too.

"Because!" came the frustrated (And a little petulant) reply. "Because magic doesn't exist!" Sure, there were the Carrionites, but they'd used DNA replication and the like to achieve their effects. This door was absolutely nothing like that. "I can't scan it properly."

"Huh? Why are you saying that? I see magic all the time. My friends use it a lot." Didn't Timon say that a lot? That magic didn't exist? How could he say that when he knew they lived in a castle?

The Doctor stared at this revelation. Really, several hundred years of time and space and biscuits; one would think he'd be used to this by now. He walked up to Roxas, eyes shining with curiosity. "Really?" he asked, smiling down at the boy. "How does it work? Why does it work? But at least I've learned something; this is definitely an alternate universe." He paused. "Maybe not, maybe it's the same universe. Or a bubble universe; I like bubbles. D'you?" Spinning on his heel, he walked up to the door again, examining it and giving it a lick while he waited for Roxas to answer.

"I don't know, I've never tried to use it," Roxas answered. He backed up a step as the Doctor loomed over him, but his eyes followed the movement back to the door.

"...Bubbles?" The Nobody shook his head, totally lost. "Why are you...licking it?"

The Doctor smacked his lips and made a face. The door tasted perfectly ordinary to him; nothing out of place. Unfortunately, in a building - in a world -like this, that could only mean that something was wrong. "Dunno," he said lightly, glancing over at Roxas. "I do a lot of things. I think a lot, too. Sometimes, it gets hard to keep track." He grinned at the boy, clapping his hands together. "Right! Welcome to Team Doctor." He made a face. "Wait, no, it's not Team Doctor, that's rubbish. Maybe mates? No, forget mates. Anyway," he continued, not put off in the least, "Don't wander off and don't ask stupid questions. Also, try to keep up."

And with that odd and at least slightly mad admonition, he opened the door and stepped through.

Roxas was waiting for the weird feeling of being in the castle hallway to wash over him again, and that was exactly what happened. He stopped walking once he was all the way through the door, then shook his head and kept going. The feeling wasn't going to go away until he was out of the hallway. The black sphere they used to warp to the Pride Lands was over in the corner, just like it was in every one of these hallways. He hoped the Doctor wouldn't stop to look at it, but he knew that was going to happen anyway.

The Doctor, of course, immediately went over to the sphere and examined it. "Now, that's interesting," he noted. "It almost appears to be a spatio-temporal hyperlink, but not quite." He took his screwdriver out of his jacket and began to scan, frowning a little as it shorted out intermittently. "Oh, this old thing," he grumbled. "It's never been the same since I crashed." The Time Lord was anything but dissuaded regarding the matter, however; he couldn't rest until he'd poked everything in the vicinity with a stick.

Possibly twice. "Come on, you," he murmured, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Let's see what you're about."

"Uh...can we go now? It's not going anywhere..." The warp sphere was definitely attached pretty solidly, and it wasn't moving on its own anytime soon.

"I...kind of wanna get this thing over with."

Oh. Right. The Doctor looked somewhat guilty as he reluctantly turned his attention over to Roxas, rather like a little boy having been caught with his hand on the cookie jar. "Right," he mumbled, shifting a little before quickly covering it up with another smile. "So, then, where are we going? There must be somewhere you have in mind." He put his screwdriver away for now, making a mental note to poke the sphere again once this was over with.

"The next floor here felt really familiar when I went there last time. Maybe you could help me figure out why." Roxas tried to ignore the look on the Doctor's face. It kind of reminded him of the look Timon got when Pumbaa scolded him, or when someone scolded Sora or Ven for something.

"If there's one thing I'm good at," said the Doctor, "it's figuring things out. Maybe. I haven't figured it out yet." Ignoring or perhaps unaware of the fact that such a thing might not have been the best thing to say under the circumstances, the older man strode forward and upward, eager to help the poor boy with his amnesia.

"It's just up here." Roxas took the Doctor up the small stairs to the next room with the big door. Ascending the small flight of stairs, he lightly touched his fingers to the door handle before turning it, a pit forming in his stomach. Was he feeling...scared?

The door opened out onto the beach, but Roxas didn't step over the threshold yet.

"Oh!" Exclaimed the Doctor as he fearlessly stepped over the threshold, looking about himself in joyous wonder. "It's a beach! Love a beach. And it doesn't make any sense, either! I love it when that happens." Well, he did for a while, and then it got annoying. Or even more intriguing, he couldn't tell. Maybe it was both. The strange man looked down at the sand contemplatively. "Now I wish I'd brought a bathing suit." From the looks of it, i was a normal enough beach; nothing immediately caught his eye except for the fact that this, and perhaps the entire world, was in a room in a castle. He was used to bigger on the inside, but this was positively impossible, which meant he only loved it more.

"So, Roxas," he said, looking back at the boy, "what's got you so scared of this place?"

"I already told you," Roxas answered, finally crossing through the doorway, "I can't figure out why it feels so familiar." He knew that important things had happened here, he knew that, but he couldn't even figure out if they were good things, or bad things.

The Doctor nodded, if a bit impatiently. "So, not quite memories that are not quite right," he said, stepping closer. "And here I am to help." His tone grew soft, as he sat on the ground, looking up so he could see Roxas' face. "You're gonna have to trust me. I know you're scared, but I can help." He gestured for Roxas to sit in front of him. "I can look into your head and see what's wrong with your memories, but it's your choice whether or not to let me do it."

Naminé had tried that once, so Roxas didn't see what could it could hurt. He sat down on the sand in front of the Doctor, and tried to steady his shallow breaths. It didn't do him any good, he couldn't get himself to calm down.

"What...do I have to do?" He didn't know why, but the thought of knowing the things he should remember had his hands shaking. He really was a Nobody, right? Had what they told him about his feelings really been true? And if it was...then what was this now? Was he faking it?

Any idiot could see that Roxas was scared. Fortunately, the Doctor wasn't just any idiot, he was an intergalactic one, as well. And a genius, which helped. He gently placed his hands on either side of the Nobody's face. "Just open your mind. It can be as much or as little as you want to, and if you don't want me to see something of yours, just imagine the door to that particular memory closing and I won't look into it." He gently reached out to touch the other's mind and closed his eyes. "Trust me," he told him gently, trying to be as reassuring as he could, "I'm the Doctor."

[ooc: This got really long, lemme know if you want me to split it up instead of having it all at once like this.]

The Doctor's touch made Roxas gasp, but after just a moment he relaxed, and let himself look into the Doctor's eyes. He tried to calm himself again, but it wasn't doing anything. How could he be calm with something like this at stake?

When the Doctor closed his eyes, Roxas closed his own as well. At first, there wasn't anything, just the darkness behind his eyelids. The images that formed were fuzzy at first, wispy forms and colors mixing together with no real shape or substance. As they crystallized, Roxas knew the scene easily. That was him, Namine, Xion, and Sora on top of the clock tower at the Central Station. He watched as he summoned his Keyblade, and then Sora summoned his, and Xion hers.

"I just want to know who I am."
Roxas' question pleading question lingered in the silent air, the power of it echoing through the haze of his memory.
"You're...You're my Nobody, Roxas."
Sora's answer faded away with the picture, leaving nothing but the backs of his eyelids for a moment.

Roxas tensed up as Maleficent appeared, holding that scepter, and making a deal with him for his memories. His rage and anger from that day turned the scene red, so red that it almost seemed to catch fire--creating an image of Axel that replaced the one of Maleficent. Axel's angry fire engulfed Roxas and threw him backward, a gout of flame from the chakrams exploding from their impact against Roxas' Keyblade, the first time he'd remembered how to summon it. The fight continued, until finally Axel stopped. Roxas had clutched his head in pain from something...he still didn't even know what it was that made that happen. But they had parted ways after that. Roxas had never kept the promise he'd made to meet with his friend again. He hadn't talked to Axel, or even seen him since then.

The next scene was Roxas and Sora meeting for the first time. Sora had just run into him, which had gotten Roxas in a bad mood--one that wasn't improved by the fact Sora'd known who he was, but wouldn't say anything to him.

Next was Roxas eating ice cream with everyone from the apartment. It was before Pumbaa had shown up, and Laharl's mom and Flonne. Simba, Timon, and Roxas had even started singing, and gotten Xion and Namine to join in. Vyers had just been acting like a spoilsport though. That had been the best day so far...

Finally they were on the beach, with Roxas waking up and meeting Xion and Namine. They took him back to Vyers' apartment after learning that he'd lost his memories, and it had been his first dose of what had happened what felt like countless times since then--a lot of people seemed to know more about him than he did, but they were scared to tell him.

Before that, there was nothing but darkness. Darkness...and pain. There were no memories attached to it, but the pain was there nonetheless. Pain so intense that it made his heart race, made his breathing ragged. He couldn't see what had happened, he couldn't hear any of it, he couldn't...even feel it. All he knew was that the longer he thought about it, the angrier he got, and the sadder he felt. It was like the feelings from this missing memory were trying to tear him apart. He started sweating, and wanted nothing more than to just scream and let it all out.

He slammed that door shut. Hard. So hard that it kicked him back into reality, where he was now gsping to catch his breath. Whatever it was, he didn't want it to come back. The waves were still crashing against the shore, seagulls were still calling to each other, the wind still whispered through the palm trees. Nothing had changed...nothing had happened. But there were tears streaming down Roxas' cheeks.

Roxas was scared. Of course he was; anyone would be scared. The Doctor said nothing for the moment, simply watching and listening to the memories that played themselves out in front of him. He couldn't help but feel pity for the poor boy; it couldn't be easy, learning one was essentially not something generally considered to be real. He maintained his focus, trying to puzzle out just what had caused the memory loss, until...

Until the (lack of) memory of darkness and pain appeared. Oh. Whoever - whatever had done this, they'd done a thorough enough job of erasing as to leave a big black hole in the middle of it all, but not so good they could erase the emotions associated with it, as the Doctor discovered when he found himself back outside of Roxas' mind. The door-slamming had hurt, but not nearly as much as the look on Roxas' face. Without further ado, and without saying a word, the Doctor embraced Roxas, holding him like a child.

Roxas' body was wracked with sobbing as the Doctor held him. He had never thought that anything could ever hurt so much. Fighting Axel had been hard, and learning he was a Nobody wasn't easy, but...what could have happened that had done that to him? He put a hand to either of his temples.

"What..." he wheezed through his panting, "What...was that? How could...how could something I can't see...be so...sad?"

The Doctor continued to hold Roxas as he cried and put his hands to his head. He'd dealt with memory interference before, but something about this whole situation was all kinds of wrong and bad and very not good. "They erased your memory, Roxas," he replied, "but they didn't erase the emotions that came with it." He kept hugging the Nobody for now, not willing to let him feel or be alone, not like this.

Finally getting a hold of himself, Roxas let his hands fall. He wasn't sure why, but he did trust what the Doctor said.

"But...you saw what they told me. How can I have emotions to erase when I don't have a heart? I shouldn't be able to feel anything to start with." The pain was still pulling at his chest, but its hold over him was steadily weakening.

"Don't be stupid," Eleven told him, gently, still hugging him. "You're so much more than a Nobody, Roxas. Not having a heart doesn't mean you don't feel anything. It means you lack a pulse. The emotions that supposedly come with it are something completely different." Granted, Roxas was only the second Nobody he'd encountered, and Luxord hadn't asked the Doctor to look inside his head, but he knew, instinctively, that Roxas was quite different from Luxord. "If you were Nobody, truly Nobody, then you wouldn't exist. The fact that you exist when you shouldn't... that's extraordinary." He smiled at the boy a little. "You've done the impossible. You've kept going when gods and demons and legends have failed, and that makes you incredible."

His smile widened. "That makes you amazing."

All Roxas could do was laugh, and it wasn't a happy one. He didn't feel amazing at all. He felt...empty. How could someone who wasn't even a whole person be amazing, or incredible, or any of those things? The Doctor was just saying that.

"I don't want to be anything special. I just...want to be me. But I don't even know who that is." Other than someone who...apparently...had something terrible happen to him. Something so bad that even when the memory was gone it still was haunting him. Was this what he felt every time he tried too hard to remember something?

"Oi!" said the Doctor, a bit put out that the other obviously wasn't believing what he said. "When I say things like that, I mean it, otherwise I wouldn't say it. I'm not in the business of making people feel better about themselves when they shouldn't... I'm not actually in any businesses." This was getting away from what the Doctor meant to say originally, so he changed the subject a bit. "If you don't know who that is - and believe me, I'm still figuring out who I am - then wander around a bit. Get into scrapes! Eat food you never thought you'd like and spit it out when it turns out you still don't! Just because your past is gone for now doesn't mean you don't have a future."

Roxas was quiet while he let that sink in. Being around Sora and Ven, and Namine and Xion, he'd always had fun, right? But...even though he did...

"But I can't stop thinking about the stuff I don't remember. Even if I'm having a lot of fun with my friends."

"There's nothing wrong with that," reassured the Doctor, "nothing. Something's missing with you, and it's not just the obvious. It's only natural that it would be on your mind." Still, it was good that Roxas mentioned fun, especially since he seemed badly in need of some of it right now. "Tell you what. I like fun, you like fun. Let's go and have some right now." Maybe getting his mind off of things was exactly what Roxas needed. And who knew? Taking a step back for awhile might help him find some answers.

Roxas could already tell that he would have a hard time getting his mind off of this, no matter what it was they did for the rest of the day.

"I think...I just want to go home. Maybe some other day."

The Doctor nodded, pulling back at last and standing up, offering a hand to pull Roxas to his feet. "I understand," he told him, a little sadly. "But you listen to me: if you need help, if you need anything, contact me. Or one of your friends. You aren't alone." It wasn't one of his lift-up, raise-the-world speeches, but with the look on the poor boy's face he doubted today would be a particularly good day for inspiration.

Roxas stood up, feeling blood rush to his head. His heart was only now slowing down. "I will..." he said, though he didn't sound very sure.

"Sorry we're not getting tea like I promised..." This whole thing...it was supposed to help, wasn't it? How had it turned out like this? He hadn't meant for it to...

"Good, because I'll hold you to that," came the reply. The Doctor laid a hand on the boy's shoulder and smiled, in spite of how he really felt. "We can get tea later. I will contact you over the message boards if I have to, Roxas." He led the way out, not pausing to examine the odd sphere as he'd intended; right now, it looked like Roxas needed to get home, and a distraction wouldn't help.

"All right." Roxas looked at the hand on his shoulder, a bit surprised at first. He couldn't help but think that the Doctor reminded him a little of Timon. They both were kind of silly, but they were really nice to him...well, most of the time, anyway.

He followed the Doctor out solemnly, not really sure what he was going to do now.

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Memories, Where'd You Go? [Completed]

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