Hope sat in the backseat of his father's car as they coasted down the road. He was leaving New Bodhum, his father found had found him a few days ago, and now he had to leave. He hated his father for it; he was leaving the people who had made him who he was... Snow, Sazh, Serah, Fang and Vanille even though they were in crystal stasis, and most of all, Lightning.
As the car was passing the reinstated Guardian Corps Headquarters of New Bodhum, he spoke up, "Dad! Stop the car! I need to do one last thing before we leave!"
His father pulled into the parking lot of the GC and turned around, "What is it, Hope?" His voice was soaked in irritation.
"I-I need to say goodbye to one more person. She's in the Guardian Corps."
He sighed, "Fine, but hurry."
Hope smiled, "Thanks!"
He hopped out of the car and darted for the intimidating fortress.
The guards were flowing in and out of the entrance and he struggled to keep up with the crowd. No wonder Lightning had always had such a swift stride.
He turned from side to side, "Excuse me, have you seen a Lightning Farron?" No one seemed to even notice him in the large crowd.
It was then he heard a familiar voice, "It's fine, Olias, just, be more careful. Don't pull out your weapon in the middle of the HQ like that."
Then he heard a door shut.
When everyone from Cocoon had come to Gran Pulse, the GC practically begged her to come back, and she was reinstated as a Sergeant, but soon, she was promoted to Captain to deal with the new recruits and the most dangerous missions.
He walked up to the door that read "Captain Farron" and slowly opened the door. There he saw his pink-haired mentor concentrating on paperwork and was obviously stressed to her limit.
She looked up, and a smile creeped over her face.
"Hope, what are you doing here?" She stood up, walking over to him.
"I-uh-we were driving by and I wanted to say goodbye one last time."
She laughed, "Of course you did."
"Lightning-I... wanted to say thank you for all that you've done for me. And don't say it was just because I was there and it was accidental, I know it wasn't. And I'm really really going to miss you."
Lightning smiled, and her face turned the lightest shade of pink.
"That's nice of you to say... really, I appreciated it. I'll miss you too. And I must say how much you've grown up in the time I've known you. You went from a whiny baby to a fine young man. Any girl would be lucky to have you."
Lightning reached behind her neck, unclasping her necklace.
"Look, I want you to have this Hope."
The metal was warm from where it had lied on her chest and Hope stared at it in his hand.
"Light, I can't take you necklace, you never take it off."
She laughed, "It's about time I did. My parents gave it to me on my thirteenth birthday when they told me that I had become an adult, a woman. And, I think it's appropriate I give it to you."
He narrowed his eyes, "I haven't become a woman, have I?"
Lightning burst out with laughter, "I surely hope not. No, I can say honestly you've changed in my eyes and the world's. When we first were in Lake Bresha I thought you were so annoying and whiny, but in those few months, you really grew up and learned to handle a lot of responsibility."
"T-Thank you, Claire."
She shook her head laughing, "Don't call me that, Claire's been gone for quite some time now."
She took the necklace from his hands, and wrapped it around his neck, clasping it.
She walked back around, "There you go perfect."
The pair were silent for a moment.
"Look, your dad's probably waiting on you, you should go. Plus I have so much paperwork to do."
"Yeah, I-uh, bye."
She smiled, and then leaned down and kissed him on the cheek.
"Yeah, bye. I'll see you later my whiny little solider."
Five years after the fall of Cocoon, things on Gran Pulse were calm. Snow and Serah lived together in Bodhum along with Lightning. After the fall of Cocoon, the government decided to recreate the towns of Cocoon to make the citizens more comfortable, that meant dropping the 'new' in front of Bodhum. After two years, Fang and Vanille had come out of crystal stasis and were reunited with the rest of the group. They lived just out of town in the wild; they could never be accustomed to the life in a city. Sazh worked as a pilot and came to visit every now and again.
But Hope had moved to the other side of the settled Gran Pulse. Lightning had been the last one of the group to see him since he left, and even then he was still just a kid that day he had come to the Headquarters.
Lightning sat in her living room when her crazed pregnant sister called her.
She picked up the phone, "Hello."
"Lightning! Happy Birthday!"
She let out a soft laugh, "Thank you, Serah."
"So, what are you doing tonight? Maybe got some hot date."
"Serah! No, for your information, I don't. I'm sitting in my living room trying to enjoy my book."
"A book? You're turning twenty-six, and you're reading?"
Lighting sighed, "Yes, Serah, I am."
"Look, put that collection of dusty pages away and come over! There is no way I am letting my older sister sit at home on her birthday!"
"Really, Serah, it's fin-"
"NOW."
Lightning shook, "Fine, fine, I'll be there in like ten minutes."
"And don't you dare come in you're Guardian Corps uniform."
"Goodbye, Serah."
Lightning hung up the phone, now she had to spend her birthday with her sister, and the not so likable Snow Villers.
Lightning rang the doorbell and Snow opened the door.
He laughed, "You came. Good thinking, Serah was going to walk to your house and drag you by your feet if you didn't."
Lightning just shook her head, "Sounds like her."
She walked in, and her sister immediately hugged her. She was just beginning to show in her pregnancy, but to Snow and Lightning, she might as well be eight months pregnant.
"Wow Lightning, you have really learned to dress yourself."
She wore black off the shoulder shirt, a pair of dark tight jeans, and a pair of converse sneakers she had pulled out of the back of her closet as all the other ones had been covered in dirt. So in reality, she had really only put on the acceptable clothing she owned and Serah believed she had picked it all out by hand.
Snow laughed, "She's right. You look much more like a girl than you do in that uniform; you look like a prison guard."
His answer to his comment was a fist slamming into his shoulder. He just laughed, but truthfully, it had hurt.
"Don't push your luck, Villers. I let you have my sister, right? Don't make me regret that choice."
The three were sitting together in the kitchen when the doorbell rang.
Lightning raised an eyebrow, "Who's that Serah?"
She giggled (that was never good), "I just invited a few people. Hope you don't mind."
As she left the room, Lightning bit her remark to her, "You know very well that I care!"
As it turned out, she hadn't cared. Serah had only invited Vanille, Fang, and Sazh because she was scared to invite anyone else in fear that Lighting would actually kill her.
The six sat around the table, celebrating Lightning's birthday.
They even humiliated her by making her wear a hat and blow out her candles, something she hadn't done since her parents had died.
As Serah brought out the cut pieces of cake, Lightning began to talk to Sazh.
"So, Sazh, where have you been lately on your plane flights?"
He looked at the wall in thought, "Well I went over to Eden for a bit, and then Nautilus and actually I just got in from Paumpolum this morning."
The ache in Lightning's heart increased. Hope had moved to Palumpolum when he left, and it was so far away that she never had the time to go there to see him. She never spoke of Hope as she couldn't bring herself to think of him. She wondered what he looked like, sounded like, had he changed? Or was he the same old Hope? She always thought about this before she went to sleep, but when her rare free time came and she went to buy a ticket to Palumpolum, her body stiffened and she couldn't will herself to go. It scared her. If he had changed, she didn't want to think of him in a different light.
She wanted to ask Sazh about Hope, because Sazh might have gone to see him, but she held herself back.
Lightning yawned as she came into her office the next morning. She and Snow had had a bit too much to drink and fought in the Viller's back yard, much to Serah's distaste.
She sat down at her desk, and just as she did, her communicator buzzed. She sighed, back to work.
She picked up the small radio device, speaking to the other line.
"Captain Farron, speaking."
"Yes, Farron, I need you to come up to my office, I have a mission I need to speak with you about."
She strode quickly to Colonel Armodar's office. She opened the door to find the jolly man who had made her what she was today sitting at his desk.
"Hi, there Light. Sorry for the formalities on the radio, you know how ticked off Johnson gets."
She laughed, "It's fine, really. So what's the mission?"
"Well it's actually not for you, but I can't decide which men to send on this mission."
"Well what is it?"
"A missing officer over in Palumpolum."
"Really? What rank?"
"He is a... wow, a private. Those idiots over there send a private on a Gran Pulse mission. The idiots!"
"A private? Are you serious? That's outrageous! Whose the kid anyways?"
"Erm... A Mr. Hope Bartholomew Esthiem."
As Lightning sipped her coffee, it went all over her uniform.
"H-Hope?"