Fear

Hope's scream woke Lightning up in the dead of the night. It jolted her awake suddenly, and she automatically reached for her gunblade that she always placed within an arm's reach before falling asleep.

"Hope?" she quickly got up and moved towards his sleeping area.

They were on Pulse, and had taken shelter in some ruins for their makeshift camp for the night, figuring it would be safer from monsters. Naturally though, an unexpected monster attack was her first thought for Hope's sudden scream. This was Pulse after all, they were crawling everywhere…

Fang and Vanille hadn't stirred from the noise, and she could tell from Snow and Sazh's loud obnoxious snoring from their room that they hadn't either. However, when she poked her head inside to make sure Hope was alright, she saw that he wasn't there.

"Hope?" she continued down the hall looking for him.

He didn't answer, but she found him huddled in a dark corner, knees to his chest and arms tightly around them as he shivered with fear.

"Everything alright?" lowering her weapon.

There were no monsters in sight like she had expected, and while he appeared to be unharmed clearly, something was bothering him.

"I-I'm fine."

He didn't glance up at her at all.

Lightning flashed outside, followed by a loud clap of thunder, causing him to flinch and whimper. She glanced towards the storm outside, not having noticed it before, then back to Hope. It was clear to her now.

"You're afraid?"

"Lightning terrifies me…" he muttered, still not glancing up at her. "I know it's stupid but its-"Another flash outside, another flinch and whimper. "It's always been that way."

"It's not stupid."

She calmly approached him and sat beside him. "Everyone has their fears."

She knew how much the poor kid had gone through so recently. Losing his mother in the purge, then suddenly being swept up in the l'Cie mess with the rest of them and having to fight and kill others to survive. A simple fear of thunderstorms was nothing compared to that, but she could tell it still bothered him just as much as everything else.

"It's natural to be scared of things that can only destroy."

She hesitated, but then put her arm around him to try and comfort him.

She remembered she too had been afraid of storms like this when she was a child. She had been much younger than him at the time, but she was still as frightened as he was. She had gotten over it by the time she decided to change her name, for lightning couldn't hurt her if she was lightning herself.

"But why 'Lightning'?" Serah had asked after she had asked her to call her by that name. "You're name's fine Claire."

Lightning had flashed bright, while Claire had faded away…

"That's not true…" Hope said softly, finally lifting his head and making eye contact with her.

More lightning and thunder from outside. He still winced, but didn't whimper.

"The Lightning out there may only destroy, but you can protect, I know you can."

"Don't be ridiculous," She muttered as she gently pulled her arm away and turned away from him.

She couldn't save Serah, she hadn't even listened to her when she tried to tell her what was wrong. It had been on her mind ever since she had watched her poor helpless little sister turn to crystal, she couldn't wonder if everything would be different now if she had listened to her…

"But you've protected me before." He reminded her, and she had.

First from Odin, then the PSICOM army in Palumpolum. She hadn't just protected him, but guiding him, taught him how to be strong and how to fight. She knew he looked up to her from the start.

"You've proven that lightning can't only destroy, l'Cie, soldier, or not, you care and protect others."

It sounded childish to her, but yet at the same time she knew he was right. She had protected him, helpless kid or not. Maybe it was because she couldn't save Serah, like she was trying to make up for it…

"You should try and get some sleep." Was all she had to say.

She started to get up, but Hope quickly grabbed ahold of her sleeve to stop her.

"Can you stay with me?" he asked, flinching at yet another thunderclap. "I'm not as scared when you're with me…"

"Alright." Relaxing as she sat by him, leaning back on the wall.

Sighing, he pulled away and gave her some personal space, then closed his eyes hoping to get some sleep like she suggested.

In the morning, he awoke to find that he had fallen asleep on her shoulder. Blushing, he quickly pulled away and watched her stir as she slowly woke up as well.

"Morning." he muttered head down so she couldn't see his red face.

She didn't know how she felt about him, how beautiful he thought she was and how much her kindness towards him really meant. He blamed it on his teenage hormones, and kept it to himself. After all it wasn't the time to be thinking about such things, when their Ceith clocks were all ticking.

However, he told himself that one day, if they happened to survive the mess that they had been forced into and his feelings still remained, then maybe, just maybe he would tell her how he felt when he was older…

Author's Notes

This was an accidental inspiration from my girlfriend. I don't remember how, but we ended up talking about something that some how led to her mentioning that she had a fear of lightning and thunder, and I thought it was kind of ironic since I cosplay Lightning and next year she's gonna be Hope for me (And I will be a very happy Lightning ^_^) sooo I just had to do something with that. Oh, and naturally when I started writing this…A storm started XD

Thank you PSPGamerGirl for betaing ^_^