Disclaimer: Final Fantasy XIII and all characters within are not mine. This saddens me greatly. I want a Lightning.
A/N: Just a drabble on the Farron family...sorta. I don't really know what this is. It just kind of typed itself, as these things are wont to do. Also, I'm not entirely certain if the Farron parents died at the same time or not, but...for the sake of drabbles that type themselves, it at least seems that way to Serah. If you like the drabbly drabble in all its drabbletastic drabbliness, please review!
Family Dynamics
Serah would never tell her, because it would break her heart—and she had one, Serah knew this more than anyone, she had just locked it carefully away, but then again, burying wounds isn't the same as healing them, and Lightning had long allowed hers to fester.
But Serah would never tell Lightning that she had lost three people that day.
Her mother.
Her father.
And Claire.
It would break Lightning's heart to hear that, to understand that in her honest efforts to make everything better, in some twisted way she had only managed to make it worse. Even young as she was, Serah had never expected her sister to replace her mother and father, never expected her to assume the mantle of parenthood. Serah had expected to retain an older sister, a confidant and a friend, so that in that aspect, at least, life would continue on as it had, unaltered and unaffected by the turbulence of loss.
Lightning apparently had believed differently.
So she had lost Claire to Lightning, to a girl who couldn't figure out how to soothe or heal and thusly defaulted to protect. Claire had always watched out for her, and Claire had always been quiet, but Lightning was often distant to the point of aloof and never, ever laughed over the trivialities. Trivialities, in fact, seemed to anger her, as if she were offended by their presence in this world which no longer seemed so innocent and bright, no matter how much Eden shined overhead.
Lightning thought that maybe, if she managed to fix the entire world, then maybe she would, by proxy, manage to fix their private corner of it. That if all of Cocoon were safe and happy, then by some transitive property of applied mathematics, Serah would also be safe and happy.
Serah understood that. She was an intuitive girl, and she understood.
But sometimes—often—she wanted Claire back.
She missed her sister.
She wondered if Lightning ever missed Claire, too.