Author's Note: Here we are, the sequel to So Starstruck! I'm actually glad to be writing about a place that I'm familiar with. Ivalice, I love you. xD Please don't be as confusing as Cocoon and Gran Pulse...

I dedicate this first chapter to Joshua Chung, my fellow lover of our wonderful leading man, Balthier. Here's to going through another story together! :)

B a d B r o m a n c e

Chapter One

Of Heroes and Thieves

As the hero, I'm meant to save anyone who needs me. But, what happens when that one person you need to save...is someone you can't remember?

Resting his head on the door to the house he shared with his newly-wedded wife, Serah, Snow cursed under his breath. After working the entire day with the rest of NORA to re-build the village of Oerba, his muscles were more than sore and all he wanted to do was sleep. But, as luck would have it, it would be a long time until he'd get a full night's sleep.

He pushed the door open and walked into the small kitchen, lazily waving a hand to the woman sitting on the counter-top. When she kicked the back of his head, he turned around and glared at her. "Light," he growled, watching as the pink-haired soldier raise an eyebrow at him. "Why are you here? I was expecting to be happily greeted by my Serah when I got home, not to be kicked in the damn head by her older sister!"

Lightning rolled her eyes, jumping off the counter-top and walking toward the living room across the hall. "Serah's out with her friends," she told him, "She told you that this morning, remember?"

"I, uh...I forgot. Sorry."

"Snow, when I gave my permission for you to marry my sister, I was hoping you'd have the brains to grow up." She turned her head away as she leaned against the window pane, watching the trees blow in the wind outside.

"I do have the brains to - Hey, wait a minute!" Snow turned around and faced her, scowling. "I am grown up, sis! I just have a lot on my mind lately, all right?"

Lightning sighed weakly, nodding her head. "You, too, huh?"

"Huh? Oh...Yeah." He awkwardly scratched the back of his head, glancing in the other direction. "You still haven't found your necklace, have you?"

"I already told you, Snow. I gave it away last year when we were with the others." Lightning folded her arms across her chest, and sighed heavily. "That man in my dreams. He's the one who has my necklace."

Snow turned toward her, about to say something, but Serah opened the door and walked into the house, only to stop in place when she saw both her sister and her husband already home. She blinked slowly a few times before smiling at them both. "Snow, Lightning! You're both here before me?" she asked, just before letting Snow wrap his arms around her as soon as she walked over to him.

"Actually, I've been here all afternoon," Lightning explained, standing up straight and heading toward the door. "But, I've got to go back to the base and help out there. I'll...talk with you two later." With that, she walked out the door and closed it behind her, not saying another word to the pair.

Serah frowned as she watched her sister leave, and then stepped away from Snow to look out the window. He walked up behind her, watching Lightning leave their house and walking down the dirt road. After a long pause, Serah pressed her hands up against the window's glass and frowned. "She seems so sad, lately," she muttered, sighing weakly. She then looked up at Snow, her eyes staring worriedly. "Maybe we should tell Hope to go visit her. He always knows how to cheer Claire up."

"You know," Snow answered, resting his arm around her shoulders and casting his eyes downward, "I don't think Hope's the one she's waiting for."

It had only been one year since the day Ragnarok was summoned and Cocoon had been crystallized, but Snow felt as if it had only been the day before. With their home unable to be lived on anymore, the people of Cocoon had begun life anew on Gran Pulse, and to that day they still continued to work on rebuilding what they'd lost. NORA had been re-formed as a 'Pulse Restoration' group, and the Sanctum had returned to its ways before the whole l'Cie and fal'Cie business. Things seemed to be changing for the better.

But after they'd reawakened from crystal stasis, him, Lightning, Sazh and Hope had felt that something - or someone - was missing. Serah didn't know anything, either, but occasionally she would get a distant look in her eyes whenever Snow mentioned it to her. After a while, all of them had given up on trying to remember what they'd forgotten.

However, a few months after they'd begun they new life on Gran Pulse, Lightning began talking about a man talking to her in her dreams, whispering in her ear and telling her that it's all right to move on with her life. And then, she would mention that he would be wearing her lightning-bolt necklace, the one she had lost when she awoken from crystal stasis. Snow wouldn't say anything about it, but he had silently made a promise to find that man for her. It seemed that she was, well...in love with him.

He had yet to tell Serah, but every now and then he'd have an odd dream about him promising to make sure that he'd help someone get back to their home, a world different than his own. But in his dreams, he'd never get to see the person's face.

To make sure he didn't have Serah worrying about him, Snow had taken up the habit of staying out all day working on re-building Oerba village, only to come home too tired to say anything about what was on his mind.

And so, there he was again. Tiring himself out just so he wouldn't have to have those dreams again.

"Hey, Snow," Lebreau yelled from across the roof once Snow had looked in her direction. "Why don't you take a break already? You're gonna kill yourself if you keep working so hard."

He smiled weakly at her, standing up and nodding. "Sorry," he answered, stretching out his arms. "I guess a quick break wouldn't hurt."

Just as he about to jump off the roof, the large plank Maqui and Yuj were attempting to carry swung when they turned around and whacked into the back of his head. It knocked him completely off the roof, and once he hit the dirt everything went dark.

The next thing he knew, he was sitting in the middle of a circular platform surrounded by odd looking statues. When Snow tried to speak, a voice interrupted him and spoke into his mind.

"Once a chosen l'Cie, now but a mere hume. Find our Chosen One, and you will return. Destroy the heretic, or all is for naught."

Snow tried to stand up and yell at the voice in his head, but darkness claimed his vision once again.

"Hey, you okay?"

Snow barely opened his eyes when he heard someone talking to him. It sounded a lot like Maqui, but the voice was a tad bit too nasally to be the young blond. Whoever it was hit the side of his face again, and that time he sat up completely and grabbed onto their arm.

The boy had short light blond hair, and wore the weirdest out fit Snow had ever seen in his life: a vest that was far too small, and gray pants that seemed too big. Blinking his eyes more to focus on his surroundings, he looked at the boy and simply asked, or demanded, "Who are you?"

"I'm Vaan," the boy answered, grabbing the tall man's arm and helping him stand up from the brick floor. "What's your name?"

"...I'm Snow," he said, raising an eyebrow. "Snow Villiers. Mind telling me where I am, Vaan?"

It was Vaan's turn to raise an eyebrow. "So you're not trying to break into the palace treasury like me, then?" He sighed with relief, but then he backed away all of the sudden. "Wait, then you must be an imperial! Aw, now I gave away my plan! Guess that means I'm not gonna get outta here without a fight..."

Without warning the boy punched, or at least tried to, Snow but missed when the blond man grabbed his fist and held him back. Vaan glared up at him, trying to pull his arm away.

"H-hey! Let go of me, will ya?"

"Listen, Vaan, I'm not some imperial or whatever you're talking about. I'm just Snow, got it?" Snow sternly told the boy, letting go of his arm and looking toward the trap drop in the corner of the small room. "I must be dreaming, or something. Where the hell am I?"

Vaan rubbed his sore hand and uneasily watched him. "You're in the Dalmascan Palace, in Ivalice," he answered, "You're not from here, or something?"

"I'm from Cocoon, I mean, Gran Pulse." It was still hard to get used to saying that, even after one year of living there. He stopped talking, staring down at the floor with a tense expression. Vaan had said Ivalice was where they were. But...why did that sound so familiar? "Hey, Vaan...You said you're trying to get into the 'palace treasury', right?"

Vaan nodded, folding his arms across his chest.

"I know this is gonna sound crazy, but...If I help you out, you need to help me find someone. I think...I think that's why I was sent here," he explained, barely remembering the voice he had had heard before he woke up in the small, golden walled room. But, who was he supposed to look for? 'Chosen One'? For some reason, the only person he could think of was the man with Lightning's necklace. He turned his eyes back to Vaan and finished his proposition, "I'm looking for a guy with a lightning-bolt necklace. That's...all I know, for now."

Vaan, being nothing but a young, naive teenager with some sort of thirst for treasure, quickly agreed. "All right, you've got a deal. But you gotta follow my lead, since you obviously...don't really know what's going on."

This kid seemed all right, but I wondered if there were things that he wasn't telling me. Either I was walking right into danger, or I was welcoming it with open arms.

Snow nodded, and followed the boy out the door that led to some sort of cellar. As they walked past the servants of the palace, the two of them, mostly Snow, received questioning looks from the people. He guessed that the main reason was because of how much Snow seemed to tower over Vaan, or it was because of the clothes he wore. He'd only noticed it just then, but no longer was he wearing bright, some-what cheerful colors. The trench-coat he wore was all black, and both his loose pants and tank-top were a dark gray color. His boots, however, remained the same as they were back on Gran Pulse. Touching the top of his head, he was glad to find that he still had his signature bandanna.

"Great, there's imperials," Vaan murmured when the two of them reached an open area. There were two armored men standing guard in front of a stair way, and judging by the swords they held they're weren't very friendly.

"Okay, so why don't we just nicely ask them to let us go on up?" Snow asked, sheepishly shrugging his shoulders.

"And have them try to kill us? Don't you know how to deal with the bad guys where you're from?"

He would have answered that, but a pig-like creature walked toward them, and he inched behind Vaan and backed away from the creature. "Trying to go upstairs, ain't you?" it asked, and Snow was surprised that it could even talk. "I know, yer hungry! I don't blame you. An empty stomach'd make me want to crash the fete, too! No use tryin' to hide it! Look here, I'll help you out."

While the pig-creature explained how to sneak past the guards to Vaan, Snow took the time to look around at their surroundings and think about what he'd gotten himself into. Either this was a really bad dream, or he was really in some other world. And what about Serah? If he wasn't back around the time he usually was, she'd get worried and call for Lightning. And when Lightning was angry, people were killed.

Vaan pulled Snow away from where the rest of the servants stood, and then watched as the pig-creature distracted the guards for them. The two of them dashed up the stairs and ran into another room, shutting the door behind them. Snow nearly bumped into Vaan when the two of them peered around the corner into what seemed like a maze.

"What was it Old Dalan said?" Vaan asked, more than likely talking to himself. "'The signet yearns for sunstone's strength, to light the clouded way'. But there was more...Oh, yeah! 'Once in the palace, you'll find the signet tile. Give to it the sun's power, and it will light your path'." He turned around, facing Snow. "Looks like we've got a signet to find."

The pair walked out into one of the halls and looked around the corner, only to see more imperials standing guard. Before he could stop the boy, Vaan stepped right into their view.

"Hey, bucket-heads!" he called out, waving a hand to them.

Snow pulled him back by grabbing his arm, and the two of them ran off into one of the others hallways. Once the guards stopped chasing them, he faced the young thief with an annoyed look on his face. "What were you thinking?" he asked, "If we're caught, who knows what'll happen!"

"But we got them away from where we're supposed to go!" Vaan answered with a wide grin.

Despite the feeling that they weren't doing the right thing, Snow followed Vaan around the halls until they reached the signet they were looking for. Out of the corner of his eye, there was a small green light behind one of the gates. They snuck over there when the imperials weren't looking, and walked into what seemed like a hidden passageway. Snow thought he heard someone following them once the door shut behind them, but all his worries seemed to wash away when he saw the treasury.

There was gold everywhere. Never in his life had he seen so much gold and jewels, but that was only because he'd grown up on the streets of Cocoon until he formed the gang NORA. He wondered if there was something in that place that he could take and give to Serah, to apologize for leaving her behind without saying good-bye. Just as he reached for one of the boxes, Vaan walked toward a statue that seemed to be glowing. The boy reached for a stone in the statue's face, and as soon as he held it in his hands, both of them turned around as a door opened.

"Quite a performance," the man said as he walked out of the shadows. Snow took a step to hide behind the statue he and Vaan were standing by, watching as their intruder showed his face. Then, the blond's eyes widened as he saw the charm hanging from the man's neck.

It was the lightning-bolt necklace. Lightning's necklace.

I am cruel. Right when our favorite sky pirate shows up, I end the chapter. ;D

Yes, Snow takes up the role of 'leading man' and narrator for this story. But don't fret, Balthier won't let him keep the limelight for the entire time!