A/N: So… it has been, what, years?, since I have written… anything; so I may be a little rusty. However for the first time in what seems to be 7 bloody years I can think clearly, so that might make things a little better! I apologize for any spelling, grammatical and nonsensical mistakes I might make.
ANYWAY… back to the fic. I originally came up with the idea for this fic during the cutscene when lightning remembers Lt. Amodar warning her against interfering in P.S.I.C.O.M business. I will be writing as I progress into the story so at the end of the day this will be following the overall plot of FFXIII… hope I don't disappoint!
Disclaimer: the worlds of the collective FF games and all people, monsters and documented adventures therein are property of the guys (and possibly girls) of Square Enix (previously Squaresoft).
Day Twelve – Purge
Lightning gazed at the ceiling, still, unmoving; thoughts heavy on the Purge. Her eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep and her only companion in the house was her blade, which she not knowingly caressed, seeking comfort in the coldness of the steel.
She had many mixed emotions; grief at the loss of her sister, guilt for having not acted on her initial instinct to board the purge train in an attempt to "rescue" her… and shame for having not believed her in the first place.
There was a sudden ringing at the door, interrupting her thoughts. She sped to the door, not taking time to put anything on her feet and opened it. There was a large jovial man standing in the door's frame, a man she called lieutenant… a man she called friend.
"Lt. Amodar, sir…" she said with a hasty bow.
"At ease, Farron…" he said as he poked her forehead affectionately with a small chuckle "…the Guardian Corps: "Bodhum Security Regiment" has been momentarily discharged until the higher-ups figure out what to do with us…" he continued with a hint of sorrow, reminded of the fact that his beloved Bodhum had been reduced to a ghost town.
"Then… why are you here, sir?" Lightning asked, trying to avoid eye contact with her superior officer.
The man's face bore a solemn look. "I wanted to see how you're holding up… you ok?" he asked, concern evident in his voice.
She chuckled bitterly before voicing her response. "I am healthy, sir" she said, maintaining a cold expression.
"What about up here?" the lieutenant asked, tapping his head with his index finger.
Lightning stiffened "I don't understa-…" she began, but a 'cut the crap' look from Amodar made her rephrase her response "… I've survived worse" She stated with a coldness that only a soldier could muster. She then realized that her superior officer was standing outside and she hadn't had the decency of inviting him in. "Would you like to enter?" she asked while stepping aside, allowing room for her lieutenant to pass.
"Yes, thank you..." he stepped into the entrance room of her house and looked around "… lovely place you got here."
"Thank you, sir… would you like a cup of tea? I'm not good at that stuff but I'll try." She felt embarrassed for only being able to offer tea, a beer would have been more appropriate for the veteran, but she had drunk whatever cans she had the night before in depresson.
"Yes, I would like that… oh, err… the kitchen?" asked Amodar, confused. It was the first time he had been inside the young soldier's house.
"Down the corridor, strait on." She stated, closing her front door in the process.
Amodar made his way through a narrow corridor with various photos on the wall; all of them had Lightning and her younger sister, Serah. He found it amusing that in most of them, Lightning looked just as grumpy as she always looked on duty. Indeed, the young soldier rarely ever smiled, but, when she did, it was probably the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.
As he made his way into the kitchen he noticed how everything seemed to be in pairs: Two chairs, two napkins, two silver cups put next to the sink in order to be washed, two plates neatly placed on top of one another ready to be used… Truly this was the house of his favorite subordinate; only enough room for her and her sister, no friends or acquaintances and definitely no lovers.
"Sorry for the mess, sir." Lightning said as she rushed into the room and threw several pieces of torn wrapping paper into the waste bin, followed by several empty beer cans.
Amodar took notice of both. He knew that it was her birthday the day before, which justified the wrapping paper, but the cans were excessive. He also noticed that, on the table, there was a beautifully crafted survival knife; neither a scratch nor a smudge on it.
Lightning put a pot of water to boil and opened up her cupboards franticly taking out jars, cans, flasks and containers, checking them and tossing them aside. She was deep in thought and had no idea what she was doing; which would explain the way she was haphazardly throwing things around.
The lieutenant made his way over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "You sure you're ok?" he asked with worry laced to every syllable.
The pink haired soldier paused. "Yeah, never better."
"Then how come…" Amodar grabbed a jar of blackish-brown powder "… you've picked up the tea and put it down four times now?"
Lightning took the jar from her superior's hand and started pouring the tea into a large metallic jug with a filter on the top. Once the water had boiled she emptied the contents of the pot into the jug and stirred it around with spoon she had cleaned. She then turned around, washed the two silver cups next to the sink and served the tea into each of them.
There was a silence, cold and unsettling, that pervaded in the room. Lightning brought the tea with shaky hands. "Here… sir" her voice was strained and tired.
"Thank you…" the large man took one of the cups from his subordinate and sat down at the table "… I saw that survival knife, it's beautiful." He stated, trying to initiate conversation.
Lightning looked at the tool in question and was bombarded by the memory of the day before. "It was my birthday present from Serah and that idiot she made the mistake of getting engaged to." The memory of Snow confessing his proposal angered her to no end.
Amodar was surprised. "Serah got engaged? To whom?" he didn't know the younger Farron that well, but from the few times he had seen her he gathered that she was the shy and timid sort.
"That idiot, Snow Villiers…" stated Lightning with a cold, bitter laugh "… what a joke!" she was still furious.
He was too bad an influence on Serah; always coming home late, if at all, stinking of alcohol, with the excuse that she was helping the NORA gang close shop at the bar. Lightning could only hope that her sister wouldn't turn up pregnant at her doorstep, or worse, that Snow would come over and impregnate Serah just down the corridor from her room!
"Snow Villiers, eh?" the lieutenant rubbed his chin between his index and his thumb, shaking his head slightly. "A shame that they'll never get married on Cocoon…" he then looked at Lightning, who was simply staring at her reflection in the tea "… the Purge must be hard on you.
"What do you mean, sir?" she asked in her icy tone of voice as she continued to stare into the black liquid in her cup. "I lost no one to the Purge…"
A wave of disbelief hit Amodar as he heard her state those last seven words. "What about your sister? Is she "no one"?"
Lightning's gaze lifted to meet Amodar's. There wasn't a hint of a tear; they weren't puffy nor red, just cold and lifeless. "I already lost her to the Fal'Cie…"
Amodar's eyes widened. "What…?" he had heard stories from the PSICOM officers that a few civilians had become l'Cie, accursed creatures doomed to a fate similar to death, or a fate worse than death; but he never really believed them… "Serah became…?"
"Yup… she told me yesterday, even showed me the brand…" she chugged down the entire cup of smoldering hot liquid in a single gulp, unaffected by the pain it caused "… but I didn't believe her… not that I wanted to." She continued in her icy tone.
Amodar placed his right hand on Lightning's left one. "Farron… you have no need to hide your emotions in front of me; you're like a daughter to me, y'know?" his voice was sincere and his tone, gentle.
The younger soldier could feel all of the emotional barriers she had erected begin to crumble. She hadn't displayed much emotion since her parents died and left her and her sister all alone. And now, after hours upon hours of wallowing in her misery, she finally had somebody to talk to, but no idea how to. She could only hope that she could keep whatever she had to say coherent.
"I…" she started, tightening her grip on the silvery object "… feel so… goddamned useless!" she yelled as she tossed the cup across the room. It landed with a mighty crashing sound and then started spinning uncontrollably on the floor. "I couldn't keep her away from the Fal'Cie, couldn't keep her away from Snow, couldn't even believe her when she opened up to me! I just… couldn't…" she balled her fists and clenched her jaw at her uselessness. "I even had a mind to board the purge train and try to rescue her from the Vestige… but I never attempted it."
Amodar had listened to every pain filled word she had let out and took a few seconds to calculate his response. "What made you change your mind?" he finally asked.
Lightning looked to the ground. "It was… what you told me, the night of the fireworks…" she admitted "… "Nothing will come out of looking into PSICOM affairs… nothing but grief"… I had figured that by executing my plan, I would have put in danger the lives of countless civilians; all to save someone who is beyond saving." That last sentence came with a wave of hopelessness. She looked up at her lieutenant. "Did I do the right thing, sir? Should I have gone and endangered the lives of innocents in order to have a chance of saving my sister?" there was desperation in her voice, something very uncharacteristic for the soldier.
Amodar probed his thoughts for a suitable answer until he finally found it in the form of a painful memory. "Farron…" he started, clearing his throat "… do you know why I joined the Corps?"
Lightning looked at him, confused, and shook her head. "No, sir… you never told me."
The lieutenant gathered his words together. "When I was young… my father used to abuse my mother and me. He would often shout and insult us, and, sometimes, he would resort to physical violence…" he looked towards Lightning who nodded in recognition to what he just said "… that continued until I was around… thirteen. By then we all lived in fear of my father and I spent as much time as I could away from home, to get away from him…" once again he looked at Lightning, who gave him the same gesture as before "… well, one day, returning from school, I found him standing over my mother… drenched in her blood; he had beaten her to death."
Lightning had paid close attention to her commanding officer's tragic tale and felt neither grief nor pity, for she knew he was above that, and simply tried to understand what kind of trauma that could have left. "What did you do?" she asked with curiosity.
The lieutenant chuckled with slight bitterness. "I fell to my knees and cried like a babe… I guess I was lucky that he spared me and simply ran off towards the sunset…" there was pain in the man's eyes. Pain he hadn't shared with anyone until now.
"Did you go after him?" Lightning asked, leaning on the edge of her seat.
The lieutenant shook his head slowly. "I thought about it… I could have grabbed a kitchen knife my mother hid in the draws and gone after my old man; but ultimately, where would that get me? I mean, he beat my mother to death with his bare hands, a scrawny kid like I was would have no chance…" he could feel Lightning's gaze intensify as her curiosity grew and decided to continue "… so, I called the Guardian Corps and pointed them in the direction that he ran in…" a smug smile graced his lips "… they found him within hours and gunned him down where he stood. Afterwards I joined up with the Corps and dedicated my life to squelching similar injustices." He ended with a hearty laugh.
"Thank you, sir, for sharing your story but…" she gave a confused look once again "… what has that got to do with me and my situation?" she just couldn't relate the two experiences.
Amodar looked at his subordinate with a piercing stare. "Basically, you ditched the idea to run after your sister in a futile attempt to rescue her, knowing it would only lead to civilian deaths and had a small if not zero percent chance of success… you know what they say about the l'Cie… just like I stopped myself from going after my father in a stupid attempt to bring him down, knowing it would only lead to my death and, possibly, the deaths of others." After finishing his story and his tea, he rose from his chair. "Now… I've taken advantage of your hospitality long enough, I see that it would be best if you took a nap; you look ready to drop." He stated with a jovial smile.
Lightning arose from her seat as well. "Not at all, sir; I was glad to have this conversation and I…" she paused as she lost balance "… I might just take you up on that, sir" she gave a half smile, many thoughts in her mind being cleared by her commanding officer's words.
"Take care of yourself, Farron." Amodar said as he walked out.
She bowed in respect as he left 'you too, sir' she thought. She then headed upstairs, to her bedroom, in an attempt to give her body the rest it needed.
A/N: So? What do you think? I know that it is rather uneventful and that Lightning was a bit ooc, but I felt that a good place to start was at the beginning, right? Feel free to leave a review and stuff… I'll begin work on another chapter in due course.