Spoiler Warning::

This takes place sometime between when the party lands on Gran Pulse and the point where Hope gains access to his Eidolon.

The Hope of Tomorrow

Lightning Farron couldn't sleep again.

At this point in her life it was no surprise; it seemed like every night when she attempted to rest it was a 50/50 chance she wouldn't be able to drift off. She would always blame it on something like the hard ground she had to lay on, or the weather, but she knew the real reason. Between her fears of never seeing her sister again, to her concern over her fellow l'cie companions, she couldn't seem to tell her brain to shut up long enough for her to get some rest.

After what must have been her twentieth attempt at shifting positions on the thin field of grass she had decided to try to sleep on that night, she frustratedly sighed and stood up. Sleep wasn't coming tonight. Dusting herself off and wiping off some small artifacts of nature that had clung to her clothing and hair while she lay on the ground, she began to glance around the small area that her friends and she had decided to make their campsite for the night.

Lighting walked over to where they had set up a bonfire before and she noticed it was nearly completely extinguished. Only the slight hint of orange glow from the embers at the bottom of the pile of burned wood gave any indication that a fire had been made any time recently. Lighting considered trying to get it going again but soon relinquished the thought as she knew it would make too much noise and probably wake up everybody else. Besides, it wasn't even that cold on Gran Pulse at night. There was just something comforting about a fire to keep you warm.

Lighting half-shrugged to herself and turned around to look at her sleeping friends. Snow lay on his back with his left arm resting across his chest and his right on the ground near his head. He was lightly snoring which Lightning couldn't help but slightly grin at. Not far away, Vanille and Sazh were sleeping near each other on a ragged cloth blanket Vanille had been carrying in her pack. Vanille had crawled up next to Sazh so their backs were nearly touching, which Lightning also attributed to a 'comfort-by-warmth' decision. Neither of them seemed to be snoring.

Lightning turned her head over to the small patch of dirt next to the stack of firewood that Hope had chosen as his sleeping spot, but he was not there. Lightning's eyes widened a bit as she starting looking all around but he was nowhere to be seen.

She started to worry about the boy. Ever since they had spent time traveling together after landing in Lake Bresha, Lightning had grown fond of Hope and she was protective of him like a big sister would be. She began to worry that Hope had wandered off and gotten lost, or even worse, gotten hurt by one of the native creatures of Gran Pulse.

Lightning quickly walked over to where he had been sleeping and immediately saw a path of foot prints that must have been his; the shoe size seemed to be a lot smaller than anyone else's. She began following the trail which led out of the camp and into a small gathering of trees. It must have been 3 in the morning but the lack of any sort of electrical lighting on Gran Pulse made the moon illuminate the land so well that she could still Hope's footstep trail very clearly.

After walking through the trees she came to a small cliff that looked over a large plateau of the valley. It must have been about a 50-foot drop to the bottom, and Lightning's heart skipped a beat when she didn't see him anywhere, despite his footsteps continuing in the direction of the cliff's edge. She felt a moment of pure panic.

Did he...?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of...sniffling? Lightning thought that's what she heard anyway. She noticed a large rock, about 4 feet tall, lodged in the ground about 6 feet away from the edge of the cliff slightly to the right of where she was looking. She walked toward it and as she got close, she felt an instant rush of relief as she saw a head of silvery-blonde hair sticking out from the top of the rock.

Lighting slowed her pace as she realized Hope was sitting there and she rounded the rock, stopping at his side. Hope had both of his knees reclined and his feet flat on the ground, his elbows resting on his legs as his hands held his head. His gaze was locked to the ground. She knelt down and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder, "Hope?" she asked softly.

He must have not heard her coming because he nearly leaped out of his skin as she touched him, and he looked up at her with fear and sadness in his eyes.

"Oh, Light, sorry.. didn't mean to jump like that," he said, looking back to the ground and his voice shaking as he spoke. Seeing his face, Lightning could immediately tell he had been crying despite his attempt to quickly break eye contact with her. Lightning remained kneeling down on her left knee and looked down for a second as she gathered her thoughts.

"Hope, what's the matter?" she asked the boy, it was unusual for him to not sleep through the night, and it had been a while since she had seen him get so emotional about things. Ever since leaving his father's house in Palumpolum a week and a half before, Hope had seemed braver than anyone could have ever imagined him being. He was often the one who inspired the others with his inspirational hopefulness. Lightning mentally frowned at herself for making that lame pun.

"Nothing's wrong, just couldn't sleep," Hope answered flatly without looking at her. He grabbed a small rock no bigger than one of his fingers and tossed it over the nearby cliff, staring at the horizon before him intently as if waiting for the stone to make a sound upon landing on the grass below.

"Insomnia doesn't usually make people this upset," Lightning half-mused, trying to get a smile out of the normally cheerful boy but it did nothing to change his solemn expression.

Lightning frowned.

"C'mon Hope, don't do this. What's the matter?" Lightning pressed forward with her attempts to get him to open up to her. It surprised her; normally, it would have been the other way around. She was usually the one who pent up her thoughts and he had been the one who made her try to improve on it.

Finally Hope sighed and looked to her. His eyes were shimmering in the reflection from the moonlight from his tears and they were bloodshot red.

"I just.. I don't know if I can do this, Light," he said bluntly. Lightning's eyes widened again as she heard that, what did that mean exactly?

"Hope, I--"

Hope cut her off by continuing to speak.

"I'm the weakest person here, everyone has to watch out for me all the time and I'm just slowing everyone down," he said in a helpless voice, "I'm just a burden to everyone else, it's not fair to you all."

Lightning blinked a few times but didn't know what to say. She shifted her position from kneeling and sat down next to him with her back to the rock, facing the cliffside. Her legs sat straight out in front of her.

"Hope, you aren't a burden on any of us. Nobody is complaining that you are here with us. You are stronger than you think," she said, and she meant it. He had constantly impressed her with his fighting capabilities since they met, despite being only fourteen years old.

Hope let out a sharp exhale, like he had been waiting to hear an answer without breathing. He glanced down to his wrist and pulled down the yellow cloth covering his l'cie brand, fully revealing it.

"It all just seems pointless.. you know? We've been here for over a week and we haven't found anything that can help us get these brands off, and we still don't know what to do about our focus.." Hope said, his voice getting a little higher in the octave range as he continued to speak.

Lightning looked at Hope's brand and for the first time really noticed how different it looked than when they had first become l'cie. The edges had become a lot more filled out and the crimson eye in the middle of the brand was about halfway-opened at this point. If what Fang had told her back in Palumpolum was true, once that eye opened all the way, they would become c'ieth.

Lightning opened her mouth to try to reassure him but closed it after she couldn't think of anything that would help. She had to admit, at this point she really had begun to worry about their "borrowed time" as Sazh liked to say. They hadn't been able to find anything of use or relevance since landing on Gran Pulse, and there never seemed to be anything on the horizon that looked promising.

Instead, Lightning leaned back against the rock and put her arm around Hope, bringing him next to her in a warm embrace. In silence they simply watched the vast field past the cliff in front of them and looked at the stars in the sky, as well their old home of the floating planet of Cocoon. In a few minutes both of them fell asleep, still huddled next to each other.

The next morning Lightning was awoken by a poking at her left arm. She opened her eyes and rubbed them to get rid of the blur in her vision to see a grinning Snow standing before her.

"Hey, we're getting ready to move out, you two should wake up," he said with an amused tone to his voice. Lightning then realized Hope was still asleep next to her, his head resting on her right shoulder. Snow started walking back to the campsite and Lightning softly shook Hope's arm to wake him up.

By the next hour the six of them were on their way to the next destination, wherever that may be. Hope was more talkative than ever that day as he lightheartedly conversed with Snow and Vanille about what they should eat that day. Lightning grinned to herself as they walked.

Sometimes a good night of sleep is all you need.

::A/N::

Hey all.

I took a little break from my other story 'Reach Up to the Stars' to write this little one-shot. Some feedback I've gotten from reviews and private messages has made me start to second-guess myself, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that story. It seems to be quite boring to as many people who said they liked it, and I'm not sure how to fix it at this point.

So in the meantime, I hope this was a little more interesting. My own little attempt at a Hope/Lightning scene. :)

Leave a review and let me know what you thought about it. :)

-kp

Edit 03/21:

Some of my reviewers pointed out that I forgot to mention Fang in this story. Sorry, Fang fans! It was an unintentional oversight. :) I'll live up to my mistake though, and leave it the way it is.