Forever and A Day

"Time won't fly it's like I'm paralyzed by it

I'd like to be my old self again
But I'm still trying to find it…"

- Taylor Swift, "All Too Well"

Chapter 1

Snow:

"We will see her again, right?" I said quietly, a loathsome quiver of uncertainty entering my voice as my downcast eyes lowered to the ground. Clutching Serah's fragile tear drop crystal inside my huge fist, I tried to cling to whatever was still left of her. She was here; I knew she was because I could feel her in my soul. But lately, she'd been growing further and further away, her presence inside of me going faint, dying out like phone static when two distant calls become disconnected. I could hardly feel her, like she really was gone…

Before I could take back my self-pitying comment, I was jolted alert by the fist firmly wedged into my back. I staggered forward slightly in surprise, trying to turn and look over my shoulder. But she held me steady, pressing her firm fist into my back with more force to prevent me from moving. From all the other times she has punched or slugged me, this aggressive touch seemed almost sincere.

"Don't go there," Lightning said darkly from behind me, her authoritative tone driving into me. Her fist tightened against my spin and I tried to uncomfortably rotate away from her. But she refused to let me off the hook. "No room for doubt."

Despite Lightning's fist still spearing into my back to hold me steady, the tension in my body filtered out of me as my shoulders sagged in defeat. "You're right," I agreed distantly, waiting for Lightning to finally release me. Instead, her voice lightened, becoming almost tranquil and kind.

"We'll see her again. And soon," Lightning said with such conviction that even I was caught off guard by such fortitude. Usually that was my line, consistently met with Lightning's ever prominent growling of disapproval and pessimistic reply. When had she and I changed roles? She dropped off for a long pause, and I was almost about to open my mouth to speak when I heard her voice rise up tentatively above the silence, "You convinced me of that…So stay strong."

Furrowing my expression, again I wished Lightning would lesson her grip. Not just to let me go, but so I could see her face, those eyes, when she spoke. All this time, we had met each other with so much animosity and frustration, resisting and fighting each other so hard like we were each other's one true enemy. But the truth was, we had always been on the same side. All this time, ever since the moment Serah entered my life, we had always been a team. No mattered how we differed on our ways of getting there, Serah was our one and only end goal. And that's all that should have mattered.

Inhaling deeply, I let the crisp Pulsian air fill my lungs as my eyes panned out across the golden horizon. The sky was an eerily pale orange, flushed with hues of blue and pink. Just above where we are standing was home, our Cocoon, adorning the sky as dusk fell around it.

"Don't worry," I said finally, "… We'll finish this, and then go see her together." It's all I can say to convince her, if not myself. Staring out at the translucent sunlight glittering over the untamed lands, I didn't notice that Lightning's fist was no longer pressing into my back until I realized that it had been replaced by something else. Something gentler. I hardly registered that she was even there anymore from her clandestine movements, like her presence was a secret. In a way, it really seemed as though she didn't want me to know she was there.

But she was here with me.

As real as anything I've felt in a long time, I felt Lighting's forehead resting into my back without even hardly touching me. Without glancing back, I knew that she has since stepped closer to me and her proximity sent trillions of shivers through my circuiting. It was oddly calming as my body responded to this novelty; that a person could cause another so much grief and fury while simultaneously blanketing them in an unattainably high level of reassurance and empathy. More than anything, it was just nice having her with me, without either of us saying a word. For once, it was like time had stopped moving and the weight of the world wasn't trying to crush us. It was as peaceful as it got for two people who were supposedly ticking time bombs.

Maybe if I were with anyone else, the silence would have been terribly unnerving and uncomfortable and I would have felt compelled to ruin it. But there was nothing uncomfortable about this. This was real. It wasn't polluted by unnecessary talk in order to feel comfortable, or the usual grandiose speeches about defying our destinies or about saving the world and freeing Serah. Because at the end of the day, as much as I tried to convince myself otherwise, all it ever really was was talk.

We were ordinary people with big dreams and real fears. We were not the heroes, and Lightning had known that all along. She had told me at every turn and obstacle, but I hadn't listened. And she had been right. It was almost strangely endearing, the way Lightning didn't put up with the world and all its bull shit. She was a fiercely independent woman who sought after the truth and had no time to fallacies and facades. When I think about most people, I think about how ignorant or eager we all are to bypass the truth when it is staring us straight in the face. Not to say Light wasn't ignorant like the rest of us, but she was strong enough to face reality for what it was worth and still have the strength to combat it head-on. She was strong, unbreakable…

….But just as human as the rest of us.

She must have thought she was hiding it pretty well, considering the fact that I hadn't responded at all, but I had known all along that she was crying. For the most part, they were silent tears she shed, but what gave her away were the slow, aching breaths that shivered out of her every so often. It physically pained me just to ignore her and pretend that she was fine. But every time I felt tempted to console her, pull her in my arms and tell her that everything would be alright, I thought about how furious and humiliated she would be if I did comfort her directly; how much she would hate me for seeing her at her weakest when she was trying so hard to stay strong. This was all the comfort and reassurance that she could handle getting from another person.

And so I let the silence hold, letting her cry and silently promises her my moral support when or if she ever desired it. For some reason, no matter how Lightning felt about me, in that moment I swore I would do anything for her to stop her pain, and be there long after she no longer wanted it. I would be whatever she needed me to be without asking for anything in return.

After what seemed like an eternity, Lightning stiffly pulled away. "We should head back to camp," she reported, her voice clear and unincriminating. I casually turned to face her for the first time to find her face just as unblemished as her voice. For some reason, I felt compelled to confront her and ask her if she was okay, ut I hesitated too long. Without waiting on my response, Lightning stoically pressed her body away from me as she assertively in the direction of camp.

I hesitate, glancing over my shoulder as I scan the last grains of daylight illuminating this world. When I turned towards Lightning again, I noticed that she has stopped and is watching me inquisitively.

"Give me a while longer, okay?" I called, grinning light-heartedly.

Lightning said nothing, and then turned away again. "Just don't get lost on your way back," she grumbled sarcastically as she walked off.

I laughed, "Will certainly try."

And just like that, I was standing alone again. Facing towards the nearly depleted horizon as the soft balmy breeze blew against my skin, I spread open my hand and gazed down at the small sapphire crystal than is cradled in my palm. The crystal that started the journey that had led me here.

A bittersweet smile tugged on my lips, and I couldn't help but chuckle aloud to myself. Closing my eyes, I bowed my head and tightened my hand around the crystal. For what it was worth, I was grateful. For everything. It wasn't like we were in the clear or anything, not even close. But even now, even if I ended up a Cie'th, there was not a single thing that I would to take or regret.

It's funny to actually think about how much one event can change the entire course of our life so greatly. At every turn, every choice that we make alters and determines what kind of person we will be. Its stuff like that that really makes me wonder about the multiple realities that delicately string together our very lives and existences, all the possible lives could have lived. Had none of this happened, had I done anything differently, what could have been my life? Would I have stayed relatively the same, just taking each day as it came at me and protecting Bodum with NORA? Would I have still married Serah one day and made a family with her had she not been made a L'Cie? And if I did marry Serah in an alternate universe, what kind of relationship would Lightning and I have? Would we still have been sworn enemies, bitter sibling-in-laws who always fought over Serah, had any of this never happened? Could we have ever been anything more than that?

At the end of the day though, they're just what ifs, and thinking about all the possibilities would just drive you crazy. I already had enough crazy in my life at the moment. Not that I minded too much.

Someday though. Someday, everything would prove to work itself out.

I was sure of it.

We had defeated Orphan, together, and as Cocoon began to fall, our bodies were all turning to crystal. All of it was happening so fast. Gazing across the way urgently, my eyes locked into Lightning's resolute aquamarine eyes to find a stable source to draw my strength. Without gravity holding us down, our bodies began to float and drift freely. Lighting reached out, gripping my hand fiercely as she watched our world crumbling around. Our bodies were still fading in color, shimmering with divine light as bit by bit patches of crystal replaced flesh. Just before we had risen too high, I suddenly realized that something was terribly wrong. It had registered in Lightning too as we both gazed down in horror to watch Fang and Vanille drifting further away from us. I wasn't entirely sure about what they were about to do, but the relentless stabbing at my heart told me that this was their goodbye to us. I screamed their names agonizingly, breaking my hand away from Lightning to reach out for them. But they were already gone and there was nothing I could do to save them. With nothing else that we could do for themto do, the rest of us continued to rise up as we watched the transformation take place. Fang and Vanille had joined hands and in a flash on brilliant light, their two bodies were bond into one: Ragnarok.

Unable to bear it yet unable to look away, I watched on helplessly and gripped Lightning's hand to hold me steady. The weight of my hand must have been crushing around hers, but I just couldn't let her go. I couldn't lose her too. Not now. Not after we had come so far together.

But when we immerged from our crystal stasis, Lightning was nowhere to be found. Panicked, I looked around at who was left; it was just me, Hope, and Sazh. Stumbling forward in dismay, I gawked up at Cocoon, still piercing the sky with a pillar of incredible crystal holding it up. They had actually done it; Fang and Vanille had saved Cocoon and Pulse.

…And Lightning too.

I shook my head in furious protest as I stared from Sazh to Hope. They looked just as dumbfounded and lost as I. My heart pounding in my chest, I stared forward at the crystalized Cocoon. For the life of my I couldn't recall a single thing from before we turned to crystal, and it made me feel sick. Lightning had been right there, her hand in mine. I had made so sure to hold on as tightly as I could. How had she just slipped through my fingers? How had I just let her go?! We had already lost Fang and Vanille. A fresh wave of nausea nearly shook me down to my knees. Had Lightning sacrificed herself as well?!

No... No, she wouldn't. She couldn't. We had worked so hard to save Cocoon. To save Serah. She wouldn't have just sacrificed herself without seeing Serah. She loved Serah more than anything. She wouldn't have thrown that all away.

When Serah finally appeared, my aching heart rose for a moment in pure bliss as I spun her around in painful longing and held her as tightly as I could. But as the spinning stopped and the magic of initial union faded, there was nothing that could ease the blow of no Lightning there to greet her. I had failed them both. I had promised Lightning to never make Serah cry or let her down, and I had promised Serah to reunite her with her sister. And already, I couldn't keep my promises to either of them.

Serah collapsed down, tears cringing down her face as she howled out in protest, claiming that she had seen Lightning and that Lightning had been standing here with all of them. The sobs were suffocating her, and I covered her with my body protectively against the world.

"Serah, I'm so sorry," I whispered, and I despise how inadequate my words are. I held onto her, pressing my forehead against hers as she choked out heavier sobs. "Baby, I'm so sorry." I had tried so hard to fight my way back to her, to prove to Serah that everything would be alright. I had seen the future with all of us, including Fang and Vanille, and Lightning too. We had all been together and happy, free from our curse. I had even seen Lightning smiling, seen how it softened and brightened her entire face. She had looked my way with approval and gratitude, and I could practically still hear her voice ringing over and over in my head when I had thought all hope was gone:

"You've been a total idiot… but still, it saved me."

Now who would be there to remind me of being so hothead and reckless? To tell it to me exactly how it was without any reservations? To challenge me on everything I was and believed in and encouraged me to be better? Without Lightning, who would I fight with pettily with? Who would be there to push me to the very edge, and be there to pick me up when I had fallen to pieces? What would I do without my biggest pain in the ass, the infuriatingly detached and anal-retentive woman who was the one person whom I admired and respected like no-one else?

Days turned into weeks, and later years. Life went on like it was supposed to, and we did the same. Hope and Sazh eventually traveled away, and Serah and I settled into our very own life together. With the help of my old NORA buddies, we rebuilt home, New Bodum, by the ocean front. It took well over a year, but soon it became the home of many others; before our eyes, a community was born.

But even as we tried to make the most of it, nothing was ever the same.

Whenever it came to the topic of Lightning, it would be the one thing that Serah and I avoided at all costs. In the first few months, we would always talk about her, trying to keep her memory alive, as well as keeping alive the hope that one day Lightning, Fang, and Vanille would be free of their charge of holding up Cocoon. But with the passage of time, it became evident that talking about Lightning was only making it harder on the both of us. After a while, it seemed best that the only time to talk about Lightning was when Serah herself brought Lightning up. Serah tried her hardest to be brave, busying herself with her work as her dreams of being a teacher finally came true. She became driven by other things, trying to be stronger like her sister, but life hadn't fully been able to move on since the Fall of Cocoon. In a way, it was as though we were still in crystal stasis; conscious, yet unable to speak or do anything really.

But that wasn't the only thing that had grown stagnant. Where there should have been the undeniable excitement of finally being together after so much keeping Serah and me apart, there was nothing. We spent all of our time together at first, seeking support in one another while we tried build the life we had always wanted. Back then, I had just assumed the vacancy in our romance was to be expected due to the terrible circumstances, and so I never thought anything of it. I hoped with time, things would heal and get better. We became busy in our own schedules without either of us really noticing, and it never bothered me in the ways it should have

It was one night a year or so after the fall that what had been bothering me along came at me in full force. I had woken up in terror from a nightmare, jolting upright, sweaty and breathless with the crumpled sheets tossed off. Serah, who had been sleeping just as uneasily beside me, had sat up and dutifully encircled her arms around me as she rubbed my back in slow circles. Her gesture of warmth and affection was meant to be calming, but it had no effect on me. I was restless and perpetually anxious, lost in a place that Serah could not reach. It was exactly the same feeling as when I was on Gran Pulse gazing up at Cocoon and wondering where she was, a time when the two of us were literally two worlds apart. But now, here we were. Now, our bodies couldn't have been closer, and yet we as people couldn't have been further apart.

It was then that I finally realized that what I had been trying so fervently to recapture had never been there to begin with. Or if it had been there, somewhere along the way it had disappeared.

And for the life of me, I couldn't understand why.

All wild passionate romances eventually simmer and become domesticated with companionate love. I knew that, or at least, I knew and had just hoped we would be the lucky ones and that our spark of passion would never go out. But this wasn't the case here. This was… something else entirely. And whatever it was killed me.

Every day I forced myself to endure was a torture as we went through the motions like nothing was wrong or missing. Serah and I were falling apart, and yet neither of us had the courage to admit it. There were so many things I wanted to say to her, but I never seemed to find the right words. The problem was though, there were no right words. There wasn't any way that I could tell Serah, a girl who I still loved achingly, that I was no longer in love with her…

For two years, every day that I woke up beside her and gazed upon her face physically pained me. Every kiss we shared was a meaningless formality, every conversation just words to fill the void. As the days went on, I lost track of the last time that I had been able to get a full night of sleep. Nobody ever noticed because I hid it so well under my usual jovial disposition. On the outside, I was everything everyone needed me to be; their leader, their fiancé, their friend, their moral support, their motivational speaker. But to be completely honest, it was exhausting doing that all the time, all the while living an enormous lie.

For so long, I had been so convinced that everything would go back to normal once we had saved Serah and Cocoon; that Serah and I would get married, have that big happy family, and the rest of our lives would just fall into place the way I had always hoped. So desperately I clung to that vision of the future, and that was the faith that had pushed me through. But my journey to revive Serah had changed me. For the better? I'm not quite sure. But it had changed the very person I was, and now, going back wasn't even an option.

Who really knew though. Maybe I was the same mindless idiot sputtering on about being a hero and helping everyone. Everyone else thought so at least. "You never change, Snow." That was what they told me as they chuckled fondly with nostalgia.

But if I hadn't changed, what had?

"Hello Snow."

It took me almost too long to register whose voice it was addressing me as my groggy mind came to attention. My eyes widened in shock. I couldn't believe, after all this time, that it was really her.

"Lightning?" I called out, my voice echoing all around us as if it came from a different source other than my mouth. Before she could respond, I closed the distance between us anxiously, only then gazing around in confusion. We were back on the grassy cliff-side on Gran Pulse with the dandelions blowing all around us. It was exactly how I remembered it; the lightning, the warm dusk colors raked across the sky, the subtle heat warming our skin to fight the oncoming chill of night.

Laughing out loud and listening to the sound fill the atmosphere, I gazed upon my old ally with wonder and a little bemusement. I smiled genuinely and wondered how long it'd been that I've felt this relaxed. I've missed this.

But the bliss is short-lived, because it is then that I remembered where we are, and where I should be.

"This is a dream, right?" I asked, almost expecting to get hit for so such an obvious question.

But Lighting's blow never came. Instead, she stared at me wordlessly, her face and eyes giving nothing away.

I cracked a light-hearted smile and made an open gesture with my arms, chuckling at myself slightly. "Aw come on, Sis. I made that too easy for you." I watched her for a moment, smirking again. "What, no snarky comebacks?"

Still, Lightning regarded me blankly, brushing past me as she walked by. Frowning, I rotated my body in her direction and followed her with my eyes to where she stopped. With her back to me, she finally spoke up again.

"I'm sorry for leaving you all and abandoning Serah."

Automatically, I shook my head in dismissal. "Light, don't be." I frowned slightly, unsure for words. Awkwardly, I rubbed the back of my neck, letting my arm swing back down to my side as I strode forward to Lightning. "I guess really though, I'm just confused." I exhaled loudly with frustration, glancing to Lighting once I was standing beside her. Her stoic gaze lowered, like she was avoiding me, as a look of discomfort came over her. Again, I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. "What happened to you Light?"

Lightning lifted her head slightly towards the horizon, still refusing to meet my gaze as she spoke. "After the Fall of Cocoon, when Fang and Vanille sacrificed themselves to save it, the Goddess Etro opened up a gate from Valhalla. Freeing us from our crystal stasis was her blessing to all of us, but that gate opened up a dark rift of Chaos in the space time continuum that dragged me inside all the way to Valhalla. There was nothing I could do. It wrote me out of history so that everyone would assume that I hadn't made it and was trapped inside Cocoon's pillar… In Valhalla, Etro declared me as her knight to protect her against the dark powers threatening to destroy her and time for good."

"…Geez…" I gasped, bewildered by what Lightning said. I knew that this was all a dream, but a strange sensation had come over me during Lightning's tale, like everything that Lightning had said was true. And I believed her without any hesitation. "So everything that Serah said, about seeing you there with us when she woke up, was that true?"

Lightning nodded somberly, finally meeting my eyes. "Two alternate timelines overlapped then when the Chaos swept me away. Only Serah can remember that alternate paradox."

"Oh." I rubbed the back of my neck again, holding my hand there as my gaze scanned the horizon. So many thoughts flooded through my mind then, so many things that I had thought to be true in the past two years suddenly challenged by this new revelation. When I looked back towards Lightning, suddenly it occurred to me how much she too had changed in the past two years. There were certainly bits and pieces of her old self still there, but for the most part, everything about her had changed. I felt Etro's divine power radiating from inside of her. It was beautiful and dangerous, and as gazed upon her familiar face, I found more of a deity than the human solider she had once been.

"Etro is fading away," Lighting explained earnestly, as if reading directly from my mind. "When she called out to me, she infused her powers with me to make me stronger. I still am human… but by how much, I can't be sure."

"Light…" My heart pounded against my ribcage, making it hard to talk. I moved towards her, gazing down upon her. She didn't move, allowing me to critically stare into her eyes. I shook my head, laughing at how stupid and unprepared I was. "I really don't know what I can say—"

"You don't have to," Lightning cut in sharply, her gaze and voice sharpening with harshness. She lowered her voice, making it more sincere. "It's what you can do to help me."

I nodded, my expression however knotted with perplexing confliction. "Um, sure." Quickly, I nodded again and then shook my head. "How can I help you?"

Lightning said nothing at first, holding my gaze as if determining whether or not she could rely on me for whatever she had in mind. "The paradoxes. There's a man named Caius who has been traveling through time and warping events in history to bring about the destruction of Cocoon and the end of time."

"Cocoon?!" I repeated in dismay and alarm. "Why Cocoon?"

"Because if Cocoon collided with Pulse, think of all the deaths that would cause. The flood gates to Valhalla would burst open to guide the souls of the dead over to the other side, which would also allow enough of the chaos of Valhalla to escape into the human world. I'm not entirely sure what it is that Caius is after, but from how it looks, I think he is trying to replicate a version of Valhalla in the human world where time no longer exists."

"So this Caius is the unlucky son of a bitch that's decided to mess with us, huh" I muttered with a dangerous grin illuminating my face, already feeling the adrenaline of a fight igniting in my bloodstream. Nobody messed with my friends and home and got away with it. Especially after we had worked so hard to keep it safe.

A slight frown of disproval appeared on Lightning's face. "I'm handling him away in Valhalla and keeping that dimension safe."

"What, hogging all the fun? That's not fair," I teased, but her expression proved she was not in any mood for our old kind of banter from way back when.

"Snow, listen to me. I need you here in this dimension to undo the contradictions to the timeline while I fight Caius in Valhalla. I need you to protect Cocoon and make sure it doesn't fall like Caius wants. Do you understand me?"

I nodded, "So this is like a divide and conquer strategy."

"More or less."

I smiled, chuckling in my throat. "Well I'm in." My smile grew across my face as I laughed out loud jovially. "Then again, I can't exactly say no when the Knight of Etro herself entrusts me with a job like this. That's how I know it's important."

Lightning exhaled, looking fatigued and beaten down. As I watched her, my face warmed and I couldn't fight another grin.

"See, you can't even deny it," I declared, a teasing laugh rising in my voice, "The fact that you actually called out for help proves that this is something even you're not afraid to admit is too much to handle by yourself. What I can't believe is that you'd actually ask me of all people. That must have really cost the Knight of Etro some of her pride."

"Do you have any other flavor besides arrogant?" Lightning grumbled, a flicker of mock anger flashing in her eyes as she pressed her lips together in a thin line of annoyance.

I grinned, "Of course, but I show this side more just for your personal benefit."

Lightning rolled her eyes, crossing her arms across her chest as looked off into the distance. "Right…"

As my laughter gave out, I let the silence hold for a while, letting it waft comfortably around us. "You know, it's never been the same without you," I admitted finally, keeping my eyes trained out on the horizon. "We kept hoping that maybe one day you'd come back…The only one who was convinced you were still alive was Serah."

Lightning nodded stoically. "I know. From Valhalla, I can see the entire span of time." She paused, turning her eyes on me as I did the same. She looked away again as she spoke, "I never wanted to put Serah through that much pain." I could hear the pain and disappointment unmistakably in her voice. It even caused a ripple of guilt to tremor inside of me as well.

Pushing through my own self-loathing, I came closer to her and rested my huge hand on her shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Light, she loves you more than anyone else. If I know Serah, she would not want you to be blaming yourself. Trust me on this one alright. In her own way, Serah knew all along that if you were able to be with her you would have. But once I tell her you are alive and where you are, she can stop worrying. Everything will be fine now Light."

But Lightning shook her head. "You can't tell Serah about any of this."

"What?"

Lightning turned to meet my bewildered gaze. "I mean it Snow. Telling Serah would only make things worse right now. Maybe in the future, but not now. Asking for her help is my very last resort, and until then, I want to keep her safe and away from this."

I knew Lightning was right, per usual, but I didn't have to agree with her method. When had I ever? "Doesn't your sister deserve to know you're alive and that you're trying to get back to us?"

Lightning shook her head stoically. "No. And there's no guarantee that I can ever come back."

"No!" I shouted at her in protest, getting in her face angrily. "How can you say that Lightning. We need you—!"

"I made a vow," Lightning snapped. Her voice was strict and eerily calm, her eyes piercing through me. "I made my vow to Etro, and I will never stop fighting to protect this world from collapsing."

I balled my hand into a fist in frustration. "And you want Serah to be left wondering to the end of time where her sister went?! Dammit, Lightning." This wasn't fair. None of this made any sense.

"It's not about fairness," Lightning admonished, as if my thoughts were written on my face. "The people of this world deserve a future where they can all live freely. The happiness of few is not going to determine the fate of all mankind. That would be true unfairness." Her aquatic eyes burned into me with smoldering rage, "Do you honestly think I want to be doing this to her? She's my sister! I'd never want to hurt her for anything in the world."

"And withholding the truth from her wouldn't?!" I opened my mouth again to retort more, when my own words slapped me upside the head. Stunned, I silenced myself in the shame of my hypocrisy. In my own withdrawal of the truth, I had been essentially doing exactly what Lightning was doing now to protect Serah from getting hurt.

Lightning didn't seem to notice, using my silence to her advantage. "I trust Serah more than anyone else and when the time is right I will make my presence known to her. I know she will understand my reasoning. You just have to trust that I know what I'm doing."

Grudgingly, I kicked at the earth. I sighed, shaking my head, "Yeah. I guess so." After a long pause, I then added, "Dammit, you better be right."

Lightning nodded stoically, keeping her gaze solemn and low. "I'll do my best on my front. And I'll do my best to give you as much guidance as I can."

When I finally looked her way again, I caught her just in time to see her beginning to walk away.

"You're leaving?"

Lightning turned around to face me again, her expression unreadable. "I can't stay here forever. Eventually I need to go back."

I frowned thoughtfully, "Are you the real Lightning?"

She shook her head. "A projected image from my mind. The real me is always fighting in Valhalla. But all of these thoughts and the things I've said are real."

I smirked sadly, "A day's work is never done, eh?"

Strangely enough, my poor joke evoked a slight chuckle from her. "It would certainly appear that way."

Following, there was a long hindrance of silence, dragged out by the reluctance to leave and the unwillingness to admit that there were no words that could ever get her to stay.

"For what it's worth, it really does mean a lot to me that you're trusting me to help you," I swallowed, giving her an earnest smile. "I mean that from the bottom of my heart." When she said nothing, I laughed a little to myself, "I mean, for all intents and purposes, you did kind of hate me. And I probably deserved it too no doubt, so I'm sorry."

Lightning frowned, shifting her weight as she held my eyes critically. Finally, she looked down, shaking her head albeit sheepishly. "Snow… I," she looked back up intently. "I never hated you."

Even though a part of me knew she was being serious, I couldn't help but chuckle. "Really? You sure about that?" I laughed more, "Because from the way I remembered it you literally wanted to punch me senseless for being with your sister."

"That'd be saying you had any sense to begin with," Lighting retorted, her wit just as sharp and fast as her namesake.

"See what I mean," I laughed good-naturedly, closing the distance between us again as I nudged her childishly.

Lightning rolled her eyes, and for a split second, I could have sworn I saw a smile twitch on her lips. "You just make it too easy for me."

I grinned shamelessly. "Maybe, huh."

Gazing down at her then, I realized that I had never really noticed how many colors were in her eyes. For the most part they were blue like Serah's, but in Lightning's I saw piercing shards of blue, green, and gold all swirled together in an ever changing kaleidoscope of colors.

I smiled sadly, exhaling slowly. "I missed you, Light."

Lightning said nothing, her face vacant of any emotions even as my hand came up to stroke her taut jaw. I lowered my hand back down to my side, my eyes still locked in hers. Lightning relaxed visibly once I was no longer touching her.

"I'm sure you've moved along just fine, Hero," Lightning deflected sarcastically.

Ignoring her, I raised a hand and gently caressed Lightning's cheek again, feeling the velvety softness of her skin against the pads of my fingertips. Lightning continued to stare into my eyes unblinking, her expression cautious and guarded. Only this close, could I see the pure dread and terror glowing in her eyes, feel the tension building in her body against my faintest touch. She was paralyzed, taut as stone.

Slowly, each motion a tentative step of inquiry, I dusted her long rose-colored hair from her spellbinding eyes, brushing it behind an ear as I let my hand gently glide down the length of her silky hair, my eyes never leaving hers.

As my touch fell away again, a whoosh of air expel from Lighting's mouth softly as she forcibly pressed her hand against my sternum, trying to wedge space in-between us. Her eyes flickered up into mine with unyielding defiance, a menacing glower that looked like pure hatred. But she did not intimidate me. Not anymore.

Daringly holding her gaze, I stared back at her with just as much defiance, electric shocks of emotion rushing through my veins like fire in my blood. And I knew that she felt it too as her lips parted invitingly and her insolent eyes became hooded with desire.

We stared on breathlessly, masochistically letting the excruciating tension hold until our lips finally crashed together in the pull of the instinctive, irrepressible desires that had been denied all this time.

And in that moment, we had crossed the point of no return.