Disclaimer: Lightning Returns does not belong to me. Lyrics are from Heart of Stone by Iko which I had on repeat for close to an hour while writing this.

Author's Note: Inspired by the hoperai week on tumblr and the prompt 'space'. Drabble-ish. Leave a review? I absolutely love it when you guys do.

Galaxy of the Lost

Honey you're a shipwreck
with your heart of stone

o

She dreams of space and being surrounded by a sea of stars. She turns her eyes and the new world sits there in the distance, pulsing with life and the promises of new beginnings. She wonders if she could touch it, were she to reach out.

Someone speaks her name in the absolute silence of space and she turns; a boy stands there, watching her. No, she closes her eyes and opens them again – a young man is in his place, silver locks brushing against a face that she is so familiar with.

"We are dreaming, Light," he speaks to her again and her lips tug into a frown – she sees him and he seems too far away from her, or perhaps it is the other way around and she is the one who is not close enough to him. She thinks this and finds herself situated right where she wants to be – he reaches out and grabs her hand.

His own hand is warm. Familiar. It seems bigger than before.

He must have caught the miniscule change in her expression, because he tightens his fingers around hers and shrugs with a bashful smile. "I grew up a long time ago, you know. The only thing holding me back was Bhunivelze. And he's not here anymore."

She churns this information over in her head, trying to assemble enough pieces to form a proper train of thought. All she can think of are the pulsing stars and the new world, calling to her. His hand tightens this time, painfully, and she realizes that she is pulling away. "That's not a good idea," he tells her, his eyes shadowed with something she can't discern. "We never stopped being something more than human, Light. Even after we were reborn. I guess killing a God does that to you."

He doesn't make any sense, she thinks – she knows him and he calls her by a name that's not her own but feels more right than Claire ever has. The stars pulse all around them and she has yet to speak. She grows irritated – how can she speak when she can't even think? Her whole damn head is a mess. Her body is beginning to hurt.

The man's face grows alarmed, his other hand shooting out to curl around the bones of her shoulder. "No, Light, don't fight it – it's worse if you do, it'll come to you on its own time, I promise…" He continues to speak but all she can focus on now is the warmth of his grip on her skin, the heat of it spreading throughout the rest of her body. It is infuriatingly distracting and she wants to do something about it – she feels that Light would absolutely hate to be in her position. Her head hurts even more.

She knows things she shouldn't, like the name Bhunivelze and the fact that all of humanity died once, not too long ago, before they were alive again. She knows that the planet calling to her was not there when she was born. But most of all she knows this man and his name is on the tip of her tongue – if only she could open her damn mouth – and all she wants to do is to loose herself in his embrace. She wishes she could move her limbs without feeling like she's fighting an uphill battle.

"Lightning?" The man asks and her eyes snap to his – sea foam green. She knew what color they were all this time. His worried expression does funny things to her heart. The sea foam green reminds her of an ashen beach and an ocean.

"…Etro," the word slips out past her lips in what is barely a murmur, eyes losing themselves in the stars beyond him – something there calls to her, tugs at her soul. She has to go.

"No!" The intensity of the man's shout surprises her. She glances back to him, something entirely new inside of her beginning to hurt at the stricken expression on his face. "No, Light, not Etro – Light, Lightning, you're Lightning…"

"…Lightning," she slowly repeats after him, tasting the name on her tongue. It drips with regret and despair. She doesn't know if she likes it.

The man's hands drop away from her body for a brief moment that feels like a hellish eternity. Instead he slowly moves to touch her face, his palms settling over her cheeks. His nose bumps against hers, the breath from his lips moving against her skin. "Yes, you're Lightning Farron," he whispers in a voice that speaks of agony and the spark Snow has in his eyes whenever he looks at her younger sister. "And I'm Hope. Estheim. We're partners. Remember? We never stopped being partners, Light, not even in the last one thousand years. And we're not about to stop now, not when we're both finally together."

His voice breaks. She tilts her face forward.

His lips taste like sadness and comfort – comfort that Claire Farron doesn't know, sadness that she could never handle. The mask slips away, and Claire Farron dies.

A train. A God. A crystal. A throne. A floating Ark in the sky. She is overwhelmed by the images that come to her, a cacophony of noise and feelings that threaten to destroy her from the inside out – she anchors herself to the man kissing her and fights to stay afloat in the torrent of memories. She presses herself closer into him.

They don't breathe in space. She doesn't know how long they stay together for, only that when they pull apart her lips feel swollen and his eyes are suspiciously bright. The pulsation of the stars has stopped; the only draw she feels is towards him.

"Claire never fit me well, anyway," she says softly after a moment, tightening her embrace on him. The warmth of his body seeps into hers, setting her entire being alight. He chuckles and bumps his forehead against hers – she closes her eyes and wishes to never wake up.

"Welcome back, Light."