Author's Note: Hey everyone, it's Guren. Before you all start complaining about how's little to no talking in here, this is only the first chapter. I'm obsessed with Claire Farron again, so, you'll see more chapters for this story. Probably not many, but still. I was just venting into Claire, basically. I can relate to her in more ways than one. But anyway, I'm not sure if this is going to be a romance or not. I mean look at the setting. Claire's struggling to hang on. I don't think I'm going to be able to put romance into this. I'll try. But don't count on it. I just quickly wrote this in like, an hour or two, so, sorry if there are mistakes. I hope you enjoy this.

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy XIII or Final Fantasy Versus XIII, unfortunately. I LOVE Claire Farron, to death! She rules. But, anyway, I don't own anything.

EDIT: I recently decided, like a few hours ago that this story will be my first crossover, only because I'm using Noctis and Stella for the Friendhip/Love Interest part. Yes, it's going to have romance in it. It isn't going to be a big thing though. But there will be romance. I love Lightis, so, Noctella fans, there'll be sprinkles, but not that many. Anyway, enjoy!

I was always vulnerable. Open to attack, defenseless. Well, that's what all humans are like. We're reliant on whoever is in charge of us, or whoever gave birth to our wretched existences. But then again, who's above them? Who do they serve? The army? The Primarch? No, they've got to serve a higher power. And who might that be? The damn Fal'Cie.

Those "gods" took everything away from me. My mother, my father, my life, my innocence. I was only fifteen. I couldn't fend for myself. I was poor little Claire Farron, the beautiful girl that all of the boys wanted, the one all of the parents thought was an angel. Why did it have to happen to me? Why me of all people? I never did anything to deserve my parents being wrenched out my life like a troublesome weed. Or rather, two troublesome weeds.

Yes, both of them. They're both dead in the ground, and I'm still broken. I'm still struggling to care for my younger sister, Serah, as I promised my mother on her deathbed only a year ago. I couldn't take it. Not like this. I was still too weak to fully grasp the fact that I'm the only one Serah had left. I'm the only one she has to rely on. I had to be strong.

Nothing was going to change unless I grew up. Nothing was going to get better unless I changed. Serah didn't have to do anything. She just had to keep smiling. I had to make things better, in order to keep her smiling. But how was I going to do that, if I was weak and vulnerable? I couldn't do anything in the state I was in. I had to rebuild, regroup, and grow the hell up. Fast.

I looked over at the counter, drawing my blue eyes away from the Physics I was working on, and settled my pained and exhausted irises on the unpaid bills, my right hand lifting up to cradle my face gently. Things weren't looking good for the house either. My job working at the clothing store down the street wasn't paying me enough to keep a roof over our heads. I had to think of something, and fast. Faster than growing up, that's for sure.

I sighed. So much to do, and too little time to do it. I was running all over the place, every second of everyday crammed with obligations. I barely had any time to sleep, eat, drink, relieve myself, breathe. I had no time to spend with Serah, at all. How could I when I was struggling to keep the house that we were living in from being taken from us? I was the only one out of the two of us that was old enough to get a job. Serah, being only 13, still was too young to get a job in order to help me out. She could do babysitting, to help put more money into the nearly empty bank account, but, I still hadn't told her about the situation we were in.

She still didn't know how bad things were. Neither did any of my classmates. I refused to tell them how bad everything was. They knew my parents had died, but they didn't know that Serah and I were living alone in our house planted in the seaside city of Bodhum. They had no clue. They had zero clue as to how horrible things were for Serah and me. We were barely hanging on, just by a thin thread. And things only got worse.

On top of the fact that we had no money at all, we also had close to no food. I could only pay for so much with my tiny paycheck. I only received minimum wage, which was only $8 an hour. And since I only worked like, 10 hours a week, I only got $320 a month. That was barely enough to pay for food. And what about the mortgage? Or the house bills? We had no money left over for the things that were important, like shelter. We were walking on thinner and thinner ice as the days passed.

I looked away from the month late bills, closing my eyes in shame. I couldn't do it all on my own. For all of my strength, the strength I'd prided myself for when my parents were alive, I could barely keep myself going. Let alone Serah. I was stretched so thin, so taut, that I flipped out at nearly everything that came my way. It didn't matter if you weren't the subject of my misfortune. You were as good as dead if you so much as even glanced in my direction. I wasn't stable.

I knew deep in my heart that I wasn't ever going to be whole or solid again. I was never going to be like those idle and happy kids in my classes that clung to me like deprived savages. They wanted to know everything, things I couldn't tell them. I was enigmatic, a mystery to them, one they wanted to open up like a book and read the pages of my mind and my heart. My life story. Everything I'm trying so hard to hide.

I couldn't bear the shame if I asked for help. Besides, who could I ask? The mailman? He makes less money than I do for crying out loud! Seriously. There was no answer to that question. No answer at all. I was on my own when it came to this issue. More like a problem if you think about it. It was seeping into everything like an overgrown garden steeped in wet dirt. It just kept growing. It kept getting worse and worse. The situation wasn't changing, or getting better.

I'd lie awake at night praying to whoever was the higher power for salvation, for help, or for something in my horrible life to go right. I prayed for me to suddenly gain strength, the strength to keep going, to never give up. Never give up…I'd heard the phrase many times, but that was only on the soccer field back when I was in middle school. Back when I wasn't cold and bitter. Back when…They were still here. I was broken and shattered and falling apart. I was like a tool that was cast aside into the reject pile. I couldn't hold myself up anymore. I was at the end of my rope, the last bit of strength having left my body months ago, the last shred of hope having faded away the instant my mother left me, alone to look after my 13 year old sister. My heart was cold and dead, just a wasted muscle in my frozen chest, barely able to keep my exhausted body alive.

I lifted my head up, and looked out the window above the sink, the plaid curtains billowing into the crystal clear glass fervently, been encouraged by the salty wind that wafted through the thin glass door to my right. It was sunny outside, a typical day on the beach. You could hear children playing in the surf, oblivious to the outside world, mothers watching over them protectively. The things I longed for. I longed for comfort, I longed for stability. I wanted my family back. I wanted my life back. I wanted myself back. I wanted to be strong again. I wanted to be beautiful again.

I stared directly into the window, my reflection just barely able to be made out. I could see the slope of my nose, my pink hair that framed my face generously, my bangs that hung into my powder blue eyes, my jawbone, cheekbones, my chin. My entire face in general was what I considered beautiful. What the boys in my school considered beautiful. What the girls in my school considered gorgeous. I was beautiful. My body wasn't all that bad, I guess. I had long legs, and was graced with an average bust for my age, not too big, not too small. Not that I cared. I wasn't skinny like skin and bones, not yet anyway. I wasn't all that bad looking.

I sighed. But beautiful doesn't get you anywhere in this cruel world. It didn't matter that I had the face of a model, or the body of an athlete. I was still poor, walking on thin ice, and still bitter. And I wasn't going to change anytime soon. I more than likely was going to stay like this for the rest of my life. A cold, and bitter individual with nothing better to do than work her sorry ass off in order to get some money to support her inept sister. Not that I blamed Serah or anything, but sometimes it was a drag to have to take care of another person. If it was just me, I'd be fine. But, Serah, I love her to death, but she was a liability. A necessary liability.

Having to look after Serah was making me grow up. It was teaching me to not care solely about myself and only myself. Having to be a "motherly" figure to my little sister was teaching me how to care for others on a different level than I already had been. Sure, I hugged, loved, held, and played with Serah, don't get me wrong. But this…This was different. Way different. This was on a whole other level. This was on a different wavelength than what I had already done.

I stood up, lifting my butt from the stool I had been sitting on and dusted my miniskirt off, carefully lifting my textbook, notebook, and pencil off of the marble countertop and crossing the room to open the door to walk outside. After I turned the knob of the door delicately, opening the glass access just a crack, my face was buffeted by salty sea air, the smell surging into my nose. I snorted the water filled wind out of my windpipe angrily, and shoved open the door, savagely stepping through it before letting it slam behind me.

I took a few steps away from the door onto my porch, looking out at the beach, the shimmering water in the distance. The blue ripples in the sea, the white capped waves that gently lapped at the water's edge, reaching further and further up the sandy cove, trying to get all the way up to the path that was set in the ground only a few feet from the surf. It was these things I enjoyed.

I slid my feet out of my sandals, and stepped down the stairs carefully, wary of the splinters that could dig themselves into my vulnerable soles. Once that hurdle was cleared, I clutched my books against my chest tighter, and started jogging toward the surf, toward the water that had captured my attention like a moth to a flame. I jogged in between people, some of them knew me, or knew me because of my deceased mother and father, and uttered a subtle greeting, which I politely returned with a fake smile, the best fake smile I could muster. It wasn't a very good one, that's for sure.

It wasn't meant to be good. It wasn't meant to leave them star struck. It was meant to get them off of my back. Or to think I actually had a functioning "heart". What was a heart anyway? Was it something that was the source of all emotion, thoughts, and feelings? If so, then mine was gone, ripped out of me, the gaping hole being the only thing left to prove its once joyous existence. I didn't have a "heart" anymore. I didn't have a soul. I'd had that torn out of me too. I was just a broken doll.

I made it to the surf, stopping midstride, my feet coming down right when the water lapped at the spot my heels hit, small tiny pieces of spray coming up to plaster themselves to my calves and thighs. I smiled. It felt good. I relaxed as the steady rhythm of the water soothed my aching nerves, my taut mind, heart. I could relax now. I could lose myself in this little piece of heaven called the beach. It had always had that effect on me. It always left me like this. Relaxed, calm, placid. Just like when my parents were alive. It all kept coming back to that, didn't it?

"Claire! Claire! I need to talk to you about something! Can you come inside?" I smiled as the wind blew my pink hair around my face, my chin lifting upward as my blue eyes closed, the sunlight warm and gentle against my eyelids.

"Coming Serah…Just give me a few minutes. I'm finally happy."