Chapter One: Pressing On

"Mornin', buddy."

Prompto yawned, stretching his arms over his head as he stepped onto the Citadel's observation deck and leaned against the outer rail. It was probably too early for this. Wait, strike that—it was definitely too early for this. The sun was barely peeking above the distant wall, sending some stray beams of light shooting through the gloom that covered the majority of Insomnia below. Even the birds weren't up yet, not that there were many of them around these days; that made their presence all the more noticeable, though, and they were nowhere to be found right now. They weren't the only ones: like nature itself, the palace hadn't begun to stir for the most part. The guard rotations were another hour off, and if it weren't for the fact that this was basically his daily routine, Prompto would have expected a few suspicious glances at his sneaking through the corridors when hardly anyone else had opened their eyes. Still, this was his only free time, and it wasn't like he could go back to sleep anyway. Not today.

So, he hadn't bothered trying. He hadn't listened to Gladio's voice in his head, telling him that he should really give up this stupid habit of his when it wasn't going to help; he had waved off the memory of Ignis's insistence that there were healthier ways of coping, none of which he could ever seem to suggest when asked. Those two could do whatever floated their boats. Prompto had no qualms at all about simply taking the elevator up to the higher levels of the palace like he did every morning. If he was going to change things up or give their advice a shot, he'd do it another day. Maybe.

Probably not.

For now, he settled with smiling at his best friend where the latter was waiting before him and wryly observed, "Y'know, dude, it's pretty impressive that you're up this early too. Ignis would be proud if he didn't die of shock first."

No response, but he never expected one anyway. Although it was possible that he was losing a few of the marbles he had left, he didn't think he was that far gone. At least, not yet.

That notion didn't quite ease the embarrassment that had him rubbing the back of his neck in awkward awareness of how silly he'd look to anyone else, yet it wasn't enough to stop him either. Ultimately, no one's opinion mattered out here—no one's but his and Noct's. It was a good thing he didn't need any input to tease his best friend a bit, then. He had too many years of practice under his belt for that.

"Or not. I mean, seriously, you've got a lotta time to make up for him dragging your ass outta bed. Pretty sure all the early mornings in the world won't keep him off your back now."

That much was true. Regardless of what they had been through in the last eleven years, Ignis was as well-oiled a machine as ever; there was something to be said for the way he managed to juggle what was going on in the Citadel with everything else. After all, Insomnia wasn't even the tip of the iceberg when it came to the mess they were tasked with cleaning up. Someone had to keep them on point, and Prompto couldn't think of anyone better than the former advisor to the last king of Lucis.

Those were the sorts of topics Prompto steered clear of when he came to see Noct, however, so he stopped himself before he could ramble on about how far they'd come. What was the point? His best friend had given his life so that they could put the world back together, not him. He'd made the ultimate sacrifice, the one that they never would have thought possible when they were young and naïve and stupidly believed that they'd survive Ardyn's plans without losing more than they had when they left Insomnia that first day. Okay, so maybe that wasn't completely true: Ignis had known, as if that was any surprise. He hadn't said a word about it until after all was said and done, but apparently he'd gotten a divine heads up. Prompto didn't envy him at all: it had been difficult enough to lose Noct to begin with. To spend ten years with that image in his head, reliving what would happen repeatedly like someone as overanalytical as Ignis totally would? No, thanks. He'd pass on that.

In the grand scheme of things, though, predicting the end of their road wasn't that important. Noct had gone to his death fully aware of what he was doing—he'd even had a smile on his face the last time they saw him. For a guy who used to idly complain about all the little stuff that didn't matter to anybody, himself least of all, he hadn't railed against his fate even for a second. As such, Prompto was more than willing to leave the boring news back in his room where it belonged. Noct didn't need to be burdened with everything that was going on in the world, not when he'd already done the heavy lifting and put them on the right track. Mentioning it would sound too much like whining, and when push came to shove, none of them had a damn thing to whine about.

They were alive. They were together. That was more than he could say for a lot of people.

Besides, their plans were coming along, even if Prompto chose not to dump their mingled accomplishments and worries on Noct's shoulders. When the sun had risen again for the first time in ten years, it really was the beginning of a new world. Lucis and her people had to move on despite losing the last member of their royal family, the person they'd hoped would be telling them what to do in the aftermath. It was more than slightly intimidating, but they'd coped pretty well: they had gotten used to living without a government, after all. Well, a formal government. Besides the hunters and the odd Kingsglaive or Crownsguard operative still hanging around, they mostly fended for themselves in what had become popularly known as the Long Night.

Prompto couldn't help rolling his eyes at the mere thought of that stupid title. Seriously, how hard would it have been to pick a cooler name? There were so many to choose from!

Then again, did they really want to waste their creativity on something Ardyn was to blame for?

Hell no.

If it was left up to Prompto, he'd just drop the whole subject and forget it happened. That way, when people looked back and tried to learn about their past hundreds of years from now, they would never find that creepy chancellor from Niflheim who ended up being far more than they ever could have imagined. Of all the candidates most undeserving of being remembered by history, Ardyn Izunia—Ardyn Lucis Caelum, rather—had to be at the top of the list.

It admittedly helped that he hadn't attempted to reign over Lucis while he sat on the throne all those years. In hindsight, they could guess his reasons: why bother when his entire endgame had involved Noct dying as the king he was meant to be? It wasn't worth it, and for a decade they had lived in trepidation only for him to never make a move. Ardyn hadn't tried to impose his will on them apart from the obvious darkening of the skies and gathering of the daemons in places where humans had once roamed freely. Prompto wouldn't give him an inch, but he had to give the guy that much. He'd call it a centimeter.

…A millimeter. Yeah, a millimeter.

Whatever he called it, the reality of the situation was that people were used to handling things on their own by now, so Noct's loss didn't hit them the way it had gutted Prompto. Their focus was elsewhere, like how the hell they were going to put the world back together when money was meaningless and there was no one in charge to guide the reconstruction along.

That potential for chaos hadn't lasted more than a few days, luckily. They hadn't let it last, especially not when they had Cor the Immortal on their side. He'd proven to be just as invulnerable as always during the Long Night, hunting down daemons and safeguarding Lestallum until not even Gladio could keep up with the guy. If anybody was going to stand up and hand out the orders, he couldn't think of anyone more fit for the task. In fact, part of him wondered if that had been King Regis's idea all along when he'd sent Cor away from Insomnia before the treaty signing. He seemed to have predicted everything that was going to happen, right down to his own demise; it really wouldn't have been much of a shock to find out that he'd done that on purpose too. Back then, Noct had needed someone to guide him, someone who had known him forever and wielded authority that he respected. Cor was perfect for the job when the king couldn't do it himself.

It only made sense, then, that he was the right person to lead them into what was beginning to resemble civilized life. Gone were the daemon lights and the ramshackle former outposts that lined the roads of Lucis like ghost towns, waiting for people to wander in so that they could share some dark secrets that nobody actually needed to hear since they had so many of their own. Gone were the piles of rubble that they'd used to build walls and fences; gone were the empty clothes strewn here and there, all that remained of friends and relatives they would never get to bury. In their places were temporary shelters and construction equipment, or what passed for it when they weren't exactly swimming in resources here. With Cor at the head of their new council, however, they made do: old cranes that were rusting with age had been unearthed from warehouses that had closed their doors a decade ago, and they were repurposing a lot of the detritus to rebuild what they could and tear down the rest of what they couldn't. In the last few months alone, the city had transformed from a nightmare to something more reminiscent of their home. None of them were going to stop until all the work was done. It would take years, but it would be so worth the effort.

That was what they kept telling themselves. Every day, every hour, sometimes every minute, Prompto superimposed the Insomnia he recognized over the one that he didn't so that he could bask in the satisfaction that they weren't doing all this for nothing. It paid to stay positive, what with the seemingly endless task ahead of them, and the sun had become a constant reminder that things could be a hell of a lot worse.

They'd seen that sentiment echoed by Accordo and the former imperial territories as well, which was comforting to say the least. Altissia had been a work-in-progress almost as soon as they were able to get the boats up and running again, the refugees that had flocked to Lestallum heading back to gauge just how bad the damage was. From what Prompto had heard, it was even worse than what they were dealing with in Lucis. While Ardyn had been almost singularly obsessed with destroying every bit of their home that he possibly could before the end, Altissia hadn't finished dealing with the damage from Leviathan before the Long Night fell. That being the case, they definitely had a long road ahead of them—longer than Prompto wanted to think about. Cartanica, Tenebrae, and all of Niflheim's other acquisitions were doing the same with varying degrees of success.

All except the capital itself. Zegnautus Keep, Gralea, those magitek production facilities—every last one of them had been razed to the ground the moment the leftover Niffs got a chance. Cor hadn't argued when the evacuees from the empire had made that suggestion, and Prompto had a feeling that the former marshal probably liked the idea that they had finally won the war, if a bit too late for it to mean a whole lot. Of course, there was more to worry about than poetic justice and retribution, which was why no one was even slightly heartbroken when it all came crashing down. That was where their living hell had begun: the experiments, the daemons, the whacked-out MTs, and the other stuff of nightmares that had been mobilized to defeat Lucis for good once upon a time. Scouring the place to make sure it was safe and cleaned up was far more work than anyone was willing to put in. It was better to simply start fresh rather than risk finding some fun surprises hidden in the bowels of the imperial capital. That was the theory, anyway. They hadn't really gotten around to building anything to replace it; Prompto got the distinct impression that the Niffs weren't in a rush, and that was only if they actually planned on doing it at all. The place had some seriously bad mojo.

As far as Prompto was concerned, they could keep it. He'd made a solemn vow basically the second he'd pulled himself out of his funk at the production facility (with a little help from Pryna and Aranea): he'd never be going back no matter what they built there. One visit was enough for a lifetime.

Prompto shuddered at the memory, his fingers digging into the smooth stone rail in front of him as he bounced absently on his heels. Yeah, they had made a lot of progress, whether they were rebuilding or merely getting rid of the evidence of what their lives had been for the last ten years. It was amazing, really, to watch everything come back together. Much of Lucis had been restored, and with the exception of some obviously leaning buildings, most of the Crown City was either in one piece or pretty damn close. The outposts were well on their way, as were their neighboring kingdoms…

The only thing missing was the one that meant more than any of it.

"It's… It's been a year today," he sighed to the sunrise, forcing a smile even though there was no joy in admitting it. "Hard to believe, right? Time sure does fly when you're busy."

Noct didn't answer, but Prompto thought he knew what he would say if he could: you're starting to sound like Ignis. And okay, maybe he was, but that was only because he spent so much time around the guy. It was sort of necessary when you were on the council responsible for governing Lucis back into some semblance of order.

"It's your fault, you know."

How's that? Noct would have snorted, already shaking his head as if Prompto was simply throwing around excuses. This time, he had a super good one, thank you very much!

"Man, you're the one who left me here with those two," huffed Prompto with a smirk when there was no response forthcoming. Sensing his opening to nab the upper hand, he pressed on, "Couldn't wait for us. Nope, you just had to plow right in. Like always."

Well, what else was I going to do? he would have asked.

Shrugging, a bit of Prompto's humor bled away when he shot back, "I don't know. You… You could've stayed. We already knew you were gonna go, but you didn't have to go go. Seriously, what the hell, dude?"

Noct didn't have a response for that, and Prompto couldn't say he blamed him. Chances were that he had no idea himself.

Honestly, Prompto had been wondering about it almost daily since the second they got to the throne room and found that there was no body waiting for them. They'd been smacked in the face with plenty of surprises over the years, but that one had thrown him for a loop more than any other. For a split second, he'd desperately hoped that perhaps they were merely in the wrong place; maybe Noct's fate had been decided somewhere else in the Citadel and they had stopped at the wrong room. It could happen, right?

Wrong. They were definitely in the right place: King Regis's sword sticking out of the back of the throne had been pretty indicative of what had happened there. (If they thought Ardyn had a thing for poetic irony, he had nothing on the former kings of Lucis.) The seat itself, however, had been as empty as the hole in Prompto's heart that used to be filled with his best friend's presence. It had once been bursting with jokes and video games and all kinds of pranks they had loved pulling as kids; in that cavity had once existed a wealth of sarcastic barbs and witty retorts.

Now, it was barren. Prompto could sometimes feel the jagged edges of it, especially first thing in the morning after that recurring dream of his that Noct was somehow still here. With each breath he drew, it was like his skin was being pulled taut over that sharp, ever present wound. There was an ache deep down inside that never seemed to go away no matter how much distance he put between himself and that day a year ago when their entire world had ended in a different way than the decade prior. And why shouldn't it? They hadn't exactly gotten any closure after the fact. At least, that was what Ignis said the problem was. According to him, it would be easier if they'd had a body to bury or seen with their own eyes that Noct's chest wasn't rising and falling like it was supposed to be. According to him, moving on would have been simpler if they had a physical manifestation of what they knew to be true.

Or something like that. It was Ignis—there was only so much space Prompto could dedicate in his brain to remembering the words he used.

Anyway, the point was that it wasn't easy. It hadn't been simple to ascend the steps to the throne and stare down at it in utter bafflement. If anything, it was one of the most difficult trials he had ever endured, and he was speaking as someone who had gone from being a total nobody to training for the Crownsguard. That paled in comparison to the sensation in his gut when he'd stood there, the shattered remains of the Crystal crunching beneath his boots while he'd scanned the throne room as if Noct might jump out and tell them that the whole thing was a joke. But he hadn't, and in that instant, it had felt like the world cracked in two. It wasn't solely because he was gone, either; it wasn't just because he had left them behind with a sense of finality they hadn't gotten on the last occasion when the gods had taken him away. Contrary to what Prompto had thought during the Long Night, it was far worse than that: there was no escaping the realization that they'd never see him again. It hadn't occurred to him when they said goodbye, but it did when all that met them was a vacant seat and shimmering dust. That moment on the steps, that fleeting second before Noct walked tall into his destiny, was the last time they would ever catch a glimpse of his face outside the plethora of photos he couldn't bring himself to delete from the camera he no longer carried around. (He kept it in his room and used a new one that he definitely didn't take from a shop window in the city.) From then on, all they would have was the past—their memories, nothing more.

And their shards of the Crystal, of course. There was no forgetting those. None of them had been there when everything went down, but whatever happened at the end had to have been really something to crack the Crystal into billions of microscopic pieces the way it had. They were so small that they looked more like specks of glitter than anything else. Only three shards were large enough to take with them; only three were large enough to poke holes in and wear on chains around their necks in constant remembrance of what that stupid rock had cost them. They couldn't give Noct the burial he deserved, but if all they had of him was the stone Prompto fingered at the base of his throat, then that would have to do. And hey, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing. There were even times when Prompto thought of his like a talisman, an amulet to keep close to his heart as though Noct would be with him if he did. Yeah, he knew it was dumb—that was impossible no matter how much he wished otherwise. Still, he couldn't feel too bad about it when Gladio and Ignis were just as reluctant to be parted from theirs. Sure, it was probably childish or insane or a little bit weird, but that was fine! After all these years, he figured they'd earned the right to be kind of weird.

Plus, he had taken to reminding himself that this setup was purely temporary when moods like this gripped him. This separation, this grief, this emptiness—it was a passing thing. Eventually, once he had lived out his usefulness and his life as his best friend had wanted, they would meet again. This world would fade away, and he would leave it to join one where Noct was waiting for them. They all would. On that day, they wouldn't have to be apart anymore. They wouldn't have to go through the motions of pretending everything was all right when they were simply struggling to figure out which foot to put forward next. The four of them would be brothers once more, and although he was well aware that his grief was doing the talking, he had to admit that a part of him couldn't wait for that day to come.

That was what he hoped would happen when it did, anyway. The Six couldn't be so heartless as to make them go to separate after…whatevers, could they?

Scratch that. At this point, he didn't even want to know.

Debating the lofty question of what happened after death wasn't what he'd come up here for, though. That was more of a conversation to have with Ignis, if he was ever feeling gutsy enough to broach it with him. Odds were, he would have no less than thirty-seven different theories, all of which were contingent on so many variables that they would probably make Prompto's head spin. That wasn't exactly his cup of tea, so he'd save it for when they were old and decrepit and had nothing better to do with the rest of their lives than ponder the inevitable. That time hadn't come yet—thankfully—and Noct was waiting for him to stop being an idiot anyway.

Come on, Prompto. Pull it together.

Speaking of pulling things together, he scoffed at himself when he realized that he'd had a pretty special surprise planned for the one-year anniversary of the end of the world and hadn't bothered mentioning it yet. Sheesh, maybe Gladio had a point about him needing to keep his eyes open and his mouth shut. He thought he'd gotten good at that, but it looked like he could still use a little work.

"Soooooo, got some big news for ya," Prompto announced, his grin more genuine this time for a few different reasons. "Got the Regalia back from Cid last night. The old girl really needed some work after Aranea brought her here from Gralea, but between the two of them, Cid and Cindy got her up and running again. She looks good as new! Even Ignis couldn't tell how bad it was."

Prompto could practically feel the weight of Noct's scrutiny and chuckled under his breath. Okay, that one could definitely use some elaborating.

"By touch, dude. By touch. You should've seen his face when he got a load of what it was like before they worked their magic on her."

Should've was as far as he was willing to go with that explanation. Prompto wouldn't live long enough to forget the way Ignis's face had fallen in dismay before he was able to shore up his professionally honed defenses or how his fingers had trembled increasingly the more they felt just how bad the damage had been. The last thing he wanted to do—now or ever—was describe it to Noct.

Swallowing hard, Prompto chuckled nervously and evaded, "Anyway, she's a sight for sore eyes. We got her parked in the garage in the usual spot next to…next to yours…"

Well, so much for not making it awkward.

Admittedly, that had been one find none of them had expected to make. Throughout their journey, Prompto had never considered what happened to Noct's car in all the chaos, not when his best friend's heart had always been more attached to his dad's. The day they'd first checked to see if any wheels were left, it had only been a few hours since they hadn't found Noct in the throne room; his final birthday gift from the king hadn't been Prompto's most pressing concern at that point. So, it had taken a couple of weeks after they returned home for him to register that the Star of Lucis—the most spectacular coming-of-age present a father could have given his son, in his opinion—was nowhere to be seen. Even then, it was by no brilliant deduction of his own: someone had had to stumble across it at the edge of the city near the West Gate and report it for him to realize. Fortunately for them, it was one of the few Crownsguard members left, and they'd driven it back to the Citadel instead of making off with it the way most people would have. After all, it was a car fit for royalty.

Or it had been. These days, it was a car fit for a permanent parking spot. It was nauseating just thinking about driving it, let alone actually sitting behind the wheel. Hell, even Cid had looked like it pained him to roll the Regalia into the garage the night before. He hadn't been willing to let anyone else do it, yet there was a sense of wrongness about the whole thing that left all of them silent and solemn in the aftermath. By the time they'd closed the doors, leaving both King Regis's trusty steed and Noct's barely broken-in one behind them, Prompto would have thought they'd just come from a funeral. In a sense, that was sort of accurate: they'd lost something else that they weren't going to get back, one of many somethings. Holding a service for a couple of cars would have been going a little too far into crazy territory, but he wouldn't deny that it was the least they could do to pay their respects all the same.

To himself. Only to himself.

It wasn't that he didn't think he could talk to Ignis and Gladio about it. With or without Noct, they were still brothers. That was difficult to remember some days, especially when they spent so many of them handling their business separately, but he forced himself to believe that it was the truth nevertheless. Even so, the others were just as thrown off their game as he was, which was actually kind of startling. Of the three of them, he was the one who hadn't been planning for this sort of thing practically since birth; he hadn't been raised to expect the worst and deal with it when it came. Of the three of them, he would say that he was the least equipped to handle what they'd endured, not that he would ever admit that aloud. Instead of proving him right, though, Ignis and Gladio constantly thwarted his expectations. The former seemed normal enough on the surface, but anytime he wasn't entrenched in one duty or another, he was…quiet. Not normal Ignis-levels of quiet either. His subtle, terrible puns had been noticeably absent for a year now, and he threw himself into his work with the fervor of someone who was desperately trying not to think about his personal life. Maybe that was part of the Citadel training they'd received, because Gladio was basically the same. When he wasn't visiting Iris or helping out with the council, he was buzzing around Insomnia and Lucis just looking for stuff to do to keep his hands (and probably his mind) busy. In fact, it wasn't often that they saw much of him. Prompto did his fair share of traveling to gather photos Cor could use to determine what their next priority would be, but it was nothing compared to Gladio. Prompto wasn't gone for weeks at a time, nor did he forget to check in with updates. Then again, Prompto couldn't compare their situations: it had to be rough, losing the position you'd inherited from countless generations before you. He could only imagine how unmoored Gladio had to feel, a big tough guy who'd dedicated his life to protecting someone he was never destined to save. While that wasn't something Ignis shared entirely, both of them were almost wholly focused on tasks that would distract them from dwelling on who they'd been and who they were supposed to be now that those roles didn't exist anymore.

They also shared a certain sense of disdain for Prompto's morning ritual, even if they stopped bringing it up months ago. Whether they agreed with it or not, every day found him on the Citadel's observation deck regardless, talking to Noct as if he was a few feet away and not…well, elsewhere. Neither of them ever joined him, not once. They knew where he spent that time, of course; he wasn't trying to hide it or anything. Still, they chose to keep their distance. For all Prompto knew, they had their own slightly embarrassing ways of coping, and they were apparently so not about to share them anytime soon.

Maybe that was for the best. He really didn't need to find out exactly how Gladio mourned. Something told him he'd either grimace until his face fell off or die laughing—there was no other alternative.

And to be honest, Prompto took comfort from that. However they chose to handle the situation, however they went about managing their grief, however they approached discovering where they fit in this new and sort of scary world, at least they could agree on one thing.

Leaning forward against the stone rail, Prompto smiled mistily at the rising sun and whispered, "Not sure what we're gonna do without ya, buddy."