The Future Was Late
by Meimi

Inspired by an incredibly depressing comic Ruaki did.

The seconds ticked by. Time lost. Chances withering away with every single movement of the mechanical hands. Assuming there were any chances left. But no, he wouldn't think like that. He wouldn't. Hope was still alive. He just had to find him. Noel grit his teeth as he vaulted over the side railing, taking the quick way down to the next street. The Academy people were trying to do their best; but unfortunately, their best had gotten Hope snatched right out from the very heart of their security. There had been nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing strange on their "monitors". One minute Hope had been there and the next he was gone. And not just gone either, the people who had taken him had left behind everything that could possibly have been traced, even most of his clothes. So nothing. Which meant an inside job. So perhaps it was just as well that they weren't having any luck, he wasn't sure he could've trusted any information they had to give.

But no, he wasn't being fair. The vast majority of the Academy, and even Academia at large, worshipped the ground Hope walked upon. They were desperate to find him. Especially with the looming deadline. Snow had said Hope would be assassinated in three days. He'd vanished halfway through the second. And now the morning hours of the third were slipping through his fingers. Time was running out. Time might have already run out. No. No more of that. Hope was still alive, that was the only possibility Noel would entertain. Nothing else mattered.

No leads, except the obvious ones. An inside job meant inside help. Someone wasn't what they appeared to be. Several someones, most likely, but he couldn't chase everyone down. There wasn't enough time for that. That narrowed the possible playing field down to a critical point; and if he was wrong with any of his choices today then Hope was as good as dead. But he didn't think he was wrong with this one. One overly helpful assistant among a bevy of others might not stand out in the grand scheme of things, but when their pleased smile reminded him alarmingly of Caius after he'd knocked him on his ass again... Well, that was something else altogether. He recognized smug pleasure perhaps a little too easily, but it was turning out to be a useful skill in this particular case. Especially since it seemed like the assistant in question was running late for work this morning. On the most perilous day for this entire fucking thing.

Noel sized up the door in front of him. This was definitely the address for the assistant's profile, and it did appear as if someone was home. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but something was definitely jangling at his nerves. And it sure as hell wasn't his own desperation fueling his unease this time around. He was on the right track. Thank god. Noel steeled himself as he reached forward and keyed open the door. It wasn't locked. What a surprise. The sound of a gun cocking (a sound he'd grown far too used to hearing of late) as he crossed the threshold was also equally unsurprising. For all the treachery they had utilized to spirit Hope away, these people didn't really come across as very smart.

"Figured I'd been made," the woman announced as Noel stepped further into the apartment, never once taking their eyes off each other. She appeared resolved, and was putting up a good front, but there had been an unmistakable tremor in her voice. Good. She damn well better be afraid of him. "Would've already vanished, but we're not allowed to leave any loose ends behind. Sorry about that."

Noel ducked down, the bullet piercing the air where his head had been mere milliseconds before. Definitely not smart. It was as if they didn't expect him to use magic or anything. There was no way he was going to walk straight into an obvious ambush without casting a few spells to push the odds back in his favor. Or was that it? They didn't expect him to use magic, did they? If so, that was definitely a point in his favor. Noel didn't bother drawing his blades as he slammed into her, knocking her to the floor. He needed her alive for information, weapons would just muck that up and increase the risk of killing her. This might be his only chance to find out where Hope was. He wouldn't screw it up.

The gun went off again, discharging into the ceiling, before he ripped it out of her grasp and tossed it across the floor. No more dangerous toys allowed. She struggled, but it was pretty obvious that she was no fighter. Just another Alyssa. A little too close to home there, but it fit. The easily impressionable - be it their personalities or their situations - would come off normal enough to fit right in with the rest of the super optimists trying to save the world. The whole wolf in sheep's clothing gambit, right? Except they were still ultimately sheep at their core, and he was a lot more dangerous than a wolf.

"Are you done yet?" Noel asked snidely as he roughly tossed her over onto her stomach and settled heavily atop her. The legs were still mostly free, but she had yet to use them at all during the fight. Definitely not a fighter then. Just another fool with a mind for murder but no will to actually carry it out. Figured. "Where. Is. Hope?" Noel ground out as he leaned hard against her back.

She had the audacity to laugh at him. "You're too late. Your precious Director is already dead. Maybe you should've watched him better?" Quite the mistake on her part.

Noel frowned almost impassively as he yanked her right hand back and then twisted the entire arm back to its limit. "You're a terrible liar, so let's try this again. Where are your buddies keeping Hope Estheim?"

"He's dead."

Noel pushed further, feeling the muscles tear and the bones crack beneath his iron grip. He waited as she screamed it out before asking again. "Where. Is. He?"

The woman trembled beneath him, her breathing hard and pained. "Do your worst," she mumbled in an unsteady voice, "We've read your profile. You're no killer."

Ah, of course. They'd read his profile. And yet, failed to take half of his arsenal into consideration. Their mistake. Noel shrugged and cast a cure, the muscles and bones knitting back together beneath his touch. "I don't see what killing you has to do with anything. I can just keep hurting you and healing it and hurting you over and over again. Does that really sound like a good time to you or are you ready to tell me what I want to know?"

Silence was his answer and Noel couldn't help but smile viciously at it. No more bravado, that meant the implications were starting to sink in. Good. The sooner she understood what he could and would do to her, the better it would be for both of them. He didn't have time to be careful. She either told him where Hope was or he introduced her to a new definition of pain.

"Well Director, you're going to die today. How does it feel?"

They'd been taunting him since the early hours of the morning. They didn't seem to be in much of a hurry though, and perhaps they might not have been otherwise. But prophecies had a way of being self-fulfilling and Snow had said he'd die in three days. Everyone had to stick to the schedule, right? Hope grimaced as he gave the ropes another tug. He'd been working on them all night, and while the knots were almost professional, it was still just a bunch of rope in the end. The skin around his wrists were a minefield of searing pain, rubbed raw and no doubt bleeding by now, but he would not be deterred. Just because he was supposed to die on this specific day didn't mean he had to accept it. He hadn't ever before, he wasn't about to start now.

"We haven't decided just how we're going to do it yet, but don't you worry. We'll come up with something appropriate."

It would never cease to amaze him at how easily people would descend into unwarranted violent behavior. But then he'd recall the Pulse hatred from his far distant past and then it would sadly make sense again. How readily people shed their humanity when they had an already crafted framework to justify their behavior with. The l'Cie had been evil personified, so they had to be wiped off the face of existence. Hope was supposed to be assassinated today, and thus he had to die. No actual thought was ever put into it. Why think about an absolute, after all? Best to just follow the way of things than to ever risk it all going wrong. But thankfully, not everyone was like that. Academia proved that point. At least to him, anyway. People had worked together to make a better future, and were still working towards it. It had been nice to wake up and realize that the sentiment behind his name actually held some meaning for once. No, he was not going to die today. He refused.

"It has to be fitting, you know? You're an important guy, after all. You've gotta die just right."

They could decide all they liked. He had other ideas.

The information panned out. The relief Noel felt was still like a heavy pit of dread in his stomach, unfortunately. Just because he'd found where they were holding Hope didn't mean he was anywhere near being safe. Not yet. There were guards. They'd been smart enough for that. He still wasn't impressed though. Most of them didn't even have a chance to know what hit them when he took them down. These people still weren't fighters. He seriously doubted that whoever had come up with the plan to get Hope out of the Academy was even present. These guys were just thugs, and that was him being generous. In truth, they were just more murder minded fools with superiority complexes. Easy enough to deal with and get out of the way. Now all that was left was what lay within.

Noel was greeted by the sounds of a struggle as he slinked into the house. Well, looked like Hope had gotten tired of waiting on his tardy rescue. Couldn't blame him for that. Noel was pretty late. Shrugging to himself, Noel raced across the front room and threw open what was likely a bedroom door. A chair with ropes dangling from it set askew against the side wall, likely having been thrown there, one guy lay beside it, out like a light. Hope had always had excellent aim. Another burly dude had Hope pinned up against the back wall, but not for long. Hope kicked out, definitely hitting the guy square between the legs if the agonized roar was anything to go by, and shoved his attacker off of him.

And that's when everything went wrong.

The dude seemed to collapse in on himself from the pain, but then shot up a second later with something gleaming in his hand. Shit! Recognizing the very obvious threat, Hope tried to get away, but there was a wall at his back. Noel was moving before he even knew it. The knife cut deeply into Hope's arm as he deflected what would likely have been a fatal stab, Noel didn't even think as he impaled the guy with his short sword, but it was much too late. Hope's attacker had already decided on an easier target and his last jerky slice left a long, gaping wound across Hope's neck.

The main sword slid out of Noel's grasp, clattering loudly against the floor as he caught Hope in mid-collapse. Too late. Blood sprayed out from the severed artery as Hope clasped helplessly at his throat. Too deep. Noel gently lay Hope down on the floor, his hands already glowing green with healing magic as he shoved them beneath Hope's fluttering fingers. Serah was a much better healer than him, but she wasn't here this time. God, did he wish she were here right now. The skin beneath his hands was slick with far too much blood and he could feel the muscles pulsing haphazardly for a breath they couldn't take.

"It's all right. I've got you and I can fix this. You're not going to die," Noel muttered, not even really paying attention to what he was saying. Fingers wrapped around his wrist as Hope gave him a weak smile. The idiot was probably trying to comfort him while he lay there dying. "Just hold on." Noel could sense things knitting back together deep within, but the main wound remained the same. Hope was going to die if he didn't step it up. Spot danced before his eyes as Noel pushed more power into the spell, but he ignored them. If he collapsed later on from sheer exhaustion, then so be it. Just so long as Hope lived, it didn't matter what happened to him.

This was taking too long.

Hope's fingers tightened around his wrist, then slid away limp. Noel jerked his head up, but Hope's eyes were closed, the lids tinted dark. "No no no, not another one. I can't do this again. I won't," Noel almost sobbed as he poured even more magic into the wound. Just a little more. He wasn't too late. Not yet. Just a little more time. And then there was nothing more. The magic just hung there in the air, unable to follow his commands and unsure of what to do next. Noel desperately wiped the blood away, smearing it more than not, but that was definitely unblemished skin under his fingertips. Good. That was good. Now he just needed to get Hope breathing again.

He could do this. Not gone forever. Not yet. Noel leaned over, bracing himself against the floor with one hand as he nearly collapsed across Hope. Crap. Too much energy spent, he was on the fast track to passing out. But Hope came first, damnit. Noel tilted Hope's head back slightly for a better angle, levered his jaw open, took a deep breath, and then released it into Hope's mouth. He'd never had to do this before, but he could recall the process. Breathe into them, and pump the chest to encourage the heart to beat or something like that? Okay, so he couldn't remember the particulars. But he'd watched it being done enough back in his own time to follow the procedure. Of course, back then it had failed more often than not, but it would be different this time. Hope wasn't going to die. "Please." Breathe. "Wake up." Pump the chest. "I can't lose you too." Another breath. "I can't." More chest compressions and then Hope was blessedly jerking against him.

Red dotted his lips as Hope coughed up blood that was no doubt choking him. Wincing at how horrible the hacking sounded, Noel helped Hope onto his side and rubbed his back soothingly as Hope coughed up and spat out a seemingly endless stream of blood. Had to be terrible, but he was alive, and that's what mattered most. Letting out a long, weary breath, Noel rest his forehead down against Hope's shoulder and wept in relief.

He was alive.

Waking was difficult. The black nothingness clung to him like thick cobwebs, holding him back, keeping him safe. Something told him that he shouldn't be waking up at all, and Hope felt an uneasy truth in that. Something terrible had happened and then... Noel had been there. Noel had been there looking absolutely horrified about whatever had happened. Well, that did it then. He should at least wake up and make sure that Noel was okay. The task was a lot easier said than done. Everything felt heavy, as if he was being held down by a great weight that centered over his throat. It was difficult to breathe and his lungs felt wrong. What in the world happened?

It was a struggle to pry open his eyelids, and even when he finally managed it, his vision refused to focus. Everything was blurred and indistinct. But it looked... kind of like the ceiling in his bedroom? What was he doing back here? Hadn't he been somewhere else? ...Abduction...he'd been...

"Welcome back."

Hope resisted the flinch those sudden, quiet words elicited in him. It wasn't hard to pull off, he was much too tired to do much of anything at the moment. That did sound like Noel though. Hope carefully rolled his head slightly to the side, and went no further as his throat spasmed painfully from the movement. What was that about? A blob of something shifted over where his reading chair would be if this really was his bedroom. And then it headed towards him. Well, this was either a very blurry Noel or he was about to die horribly to some unknown monster.

...die... Wait... that was...

The blob settled next to him on the bed, an appendage reaching out to run soothing fingers across his forehead and then down his cheek. Most certainly Noel. Then that definitely meant he was back home. Somehow. In spite of the sense that he shouldn't be here right now. What happened? "Try not to move around too much," Noel admonished him softly. Why was he being so quiet? "I healed everything up, but we both know that magic doesn't take away all of the pain. And you had a crapload of blood down in your lungs, they're concerned that you might develop an infection."

Hope blinked blankly at the avalanche of information Noel was inadvertently providing. But no matter how he looked at it, it all refused to fit together in his mind. Reaching up with a shaky hand, Hope wrapped his fingers around Noel's wrist and blinked again. Familiar. There was something stuck in his arm too. It was connected to a cable or wire or something... No, that was... an IV. Why was-

Noel's fingers flexed against his cheek and then he was leaning over Hope, their faces so close now that he could feel Noel's breath puffing across his skin. With such a short distance to focus on, his eyes seemed to have an easier time of it. Didn't take long at all for the dark, blue eyes gazing down at his to become clear. "You were kidnapped," Noel explained. Oh, so that's why. He'd figured out the source of Hope's confusion. "I tracked you down, though you almost didn't need my help." Noel gave him a tiny smile. "You made quick work of one guy, but the last one pulled a knife on you." Hope froze. Oh. That was- "I killed him, but he still managed to slit your throat open." Hope tightened his grip around Noel's wrist. No wonder he'd looked so horrified. "I healed it up... somehow. But you still died on me." Noel shifted up a little and pressed his lips against Hope's forehead. "You weren't breathing or anything. I wasn't sure whether you were going to make it or not." Hope winced and slid his arms up around Noel. That must have been terrible to go through.

Noel huffed out a laugh at the embrace before drawing back up. "You smiled at me while you were dying, you know. As if that would make it better." He shook his head, but didn't lose the fond smile that had crept across his face. "I don't need you to comfort me, okay? I just need you to get better." Hope frowned up at him, but nodded his understanding. "No no, none of that." Noel ran steady fingers under Hope's chin, holding him still. "Just rest and get some more sleep. You're still way too weak to be up."

Hope pouted, but then relented and mouthed out an "Okay". Noel was right. He was exhausted. And no wonder. He couldn't quite remember all of it, probably his mind keeping him safe for the time being. He was likely too weak to handle the memories right now. His throat ached terribly and his vision refused to focus on anything other than Noel. Sleep was probably his best bet.

Noel held his own breath as Hope's eyelids slid shut, but he kept on breathing, and thus, so did he. It was going to take him awhile to get over this, but that was okay. As long as Hope was alive, everything would be okay. Lowering himself down carefully, Noel stretched out beside Hope and watched him fall asleep. It didn't take long. No surprise there. The rise and fall of his chest was mesmerizing though. He might never get tired of watching Hope just breathe from now on.

But there were worse things to have hangups about. Noel grimaced at the clothes he was wearing, crap hobbled up by the Academy staff. His own had been drenched in blood and in need of extensive cleaning. He'd have to call down about that soon. He also needed to inform the doctor about Hope's progress. This calling crap was going to be so annoying, but it was their best idea at keeping Hope safe while he was in such a fragile state. Hope's place was already on a high security level, so clearing everything out hadn't been too difficult. No one came up unless Noel called for them to. And if anyone did show up unannounced, well, they'd get a swift introduction to his swords. It wasn't a foolproof plan, but it would work for the time being. Noel would have to come up with something better later on, of course; but for now all that mattered was Hope staying safe and getting better. Everything else was a far distant second to him.

Hope was alive. And he would get better. He... hadn't lost someone else. Noel blinked hard against the stinging in his eyes. So ridiculous. He'd already had his cry earlier, didn't need to have another session. Hope was fine. Sort of. He was totally fine. And they'd both stay that way. That was...

That was good.