Title: Coalescence
Genre: Romance/Angst
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Lots of pathos. Strong adult content, occasional coarse language. Explores elements of PTSD. Contains spoilers from FFXIII trilogy and FFXIII: Reminiscence ~ Tracer of Memories.
Plot summary: A candid conversation between two broken people leads to something more than either expected. Older Hope/Lightning. Post LR. Three-shot.
A/N: I'm quite late to the LR party, it seems.
Back when I first thought up the premise for Misguidance (with only the first instalment of FFXIII to draw inspiration from), I could not conceive of any romantic fruition between Hope and Lightning, given that Lightning had practically adopted Hope as a surrogate sibling. So I wrote that emotional trainwreck as a way to vent my frustration. Now that canon had cemented the fact of Hope's romantic feelings towards Lightning, and set up the scene where they can interact as adults and equals, I wanted to re-explore their relationship.
In short, this tale is a thematic inversion – both perspective-wise and mood-wise – of Misguidance. I daresay Hope/Lightning fans will appreciate the ending better, however. I originally intended it to be a one-shot, but it grew so long that I ended up splitting it into three parts.
To avoid confusion, I'll state here that Hope has been reincarnated into his twenty-seven year old body, as per Tracer of Memories.
xxx
Part I – Collision
xxx
Ten minutes after his third voicemail went through to Lightning's inbox without a reply, Hope concluded that something was amiss.
She couldn't be upset about him being late, could she? He'd called her as soon as he left the lab and she'd taken his apology well enough, if her non-committal response – don't sweat it, stuff happens – was any indication. Punctuality was something he strove for in his meet-ups with Lightning, but neither he nor the former Saviour of the world were immune to the trappings of typical work life: unfinished projects and public transport delays. The latter was beyond his control, but it couldn't contain his nervous habit of drumming fingers against the windowpane, irritation mounting with every announcement. His train ride home should've only taken an hour, but it'd ballooned into two, verging on three.
Now Hope was filled with apprehension of a different kind. He thumbed through the call history screen on his phone, the conspicuous absence of Lightning's replies taunting him.
What if something had happened to her—?
It already galled him that he was late (what a fabulous luxury that was, to worry about lateness when once humanity's survival hung by a thread, but those days of l'Cie and falling planets and manipulative gods were behind him now) to their weekly dinner routine. Their initial exchange had confirmed that Lightning was waiting for him there, Chinese takeaway at the ready. One missed voicemail didn't matter – she could've been occupied at the time – but to ignore three messages within the span of two hours, especially when she was expecting him?
It was unlike her.
Hope sighed. There remained at least another twenty minutes of his journey, with no distraction save the rattling of carriages and complaints of fellow passengers. The view out the window – night-darkened suburbia – yielded no interest either. Invariably his mind wandered, turning over the puzzle of why Lightning was not answering him.
The most likely scenario(s) involved circumstances that prevented her from accessing her phone. Maybe there was a power outage that flat-lined reception? Or her phone broke? Or the battery died? Or she misplaced it? Or she suddenly decided to carry out an errand and didn't take her phone with her? The possibilities were endless, but ultimately trivial. Hope truly wished it amounted to no more than that.
He drummed his fingers against his knee, exploring alternative scenarios. It was improbable, but perhaps she'd injured herself? He'd always marvelled at how in tune she was in her environment, responding to changes with the fluidity of well-honed instincts. Meaning, she would sooner maim herself on some unidentified household hazard than he would relinquish his overanalysing ways, which was to say never. There were no monster threats – those were thankfully absent in this new world – and in the unlikely event that their home was robbed between now and two hours ago, Lightning knew how to handle human adversaries. All in all, there was little to concern himself over.
Could she have come down with a case of food poisoning? He wrinkled his nose at the thought of nursing a sick Lightning. Weakness tended to make her more prickly and stubborn than usual, prone to sabotaging her body's own efforts at recovery. There had been two occasions where he'd played nursemaid to her, neither of which he cared to repeat (granted, the first occasion had been a literal matter of life and death). Suffice it to say that his bedside manner was not up to par in dealing with her category of patient.
Still, he couldn't dismiss the possibility. Unpleasant though the consequences might be, he'd handled worse during the course of his overstretched lifetime.
It could always be worse – much worse.
Here, the tenuous hold he had over his thoughts slipped. Shutting his eyes, Hope felt himself descend into bleaker territory, one that he visited only in nightmares or when he'd forgone his antidepressants for too long. (Those, he took at the counsellor's recommendation, because try as he might, he couldn't scrub away Bhunivelze entirely from the insides of his skull. Medicating his way to normality was not his preferred course of action, but he would rather enlist the aid of mood-altering chemicals than leave the matter unattended.)
Unbidden, his mind cast back to the time he'd found Lightning in the Temple of the Goddess, entombed in silent, unmoving crystal upon Etro's throne. No matter how hard he'd pleaded and wept and pressed his fingers against the too-warm, glassy expanse of her cheek, she never replied.
He snapped his eyes open. What if the life they were living now was just a dream, like all the abandoned timelines he'd surely traversed but never did in his efforts to reach the true future? What if another intervention of fate had stolen Lightning away again, this time for good—?
No. Hope shook his head, and with a finality born of centuries of making difficult decisions, stilled that train of thought.
He couldn't – wouldn't – lose her again. Not after they'd fought so long and hard to win this chance at normal life together.
The bright flash from a passing lamppost made dots swim in his vision, and he found himself thinking of Cosmogenesis. After Bhunivelze's defeat, he and Lightning had held hands as they drifted in that starry abyss, awaiting their rebirth in the new world. We'll be together, she'd echoed his promise from earlier, then the light engulfed them. But when he awoke, he was alone. Even so, his heart was calm – somehow, he knew that she would come find him.
And she did, thirteen weeks later. He felt his lips curl upwards – now that was a memory he recalled with great fondness.
Lightning had stood on his doorstep, impossibly radiant in ordinary civilian clothes and the sun in her smile – a smile just for him. Time had frozen still for a moment while he drank in the sight of her, hardly daring to breathe for fear that it would shatter the illusion that she was actually here. Then it clicked that she was real and he'd rushed forward, crushing her to his chest and murmuring her name into her hair over and over. Several minutes passed before they pulled apart, and even her eyes were damp with emotion as she'd brushed away the tears from his face. When she'd remarked how he was taller than her – a fact that brought him no small amount of satisfaction – and added, mock-grumpily, that she needed to look up at him now, he'd laughed, the sound rich and joyous and truer than anything he'd expressed in centuries.
His smile turned wistful. Ever since that encounter, they'd been inseparable. On impulse, he'd dropped the suggestion, and within a week they'd moved in together into a new place of their picking. Now that he'd acquired the means to recreate his future – by Lightning's side – why waste time dilly-dallying around?
Lightning had agreed on the grounds of practicality: they were both single and unattached, rent could be shared, and she liked him enough to attempt coexistence on a day-to-day basis. But they both knew that it was more than that. Their brief time together as l'Cie had forged an inviolable bond of trust between them, one that carried them through time and destiny and full circle to normalcy. A thousand years may have separated them, but never once did they falter in their pact to look out for one another.
Not to mention that living together addressed his intense need to have her close. Somehow, being with her had become as natural and mandatory as breathing. It was as though he'd been drowning during all those centuries without her, and he was only now learning how to breathe again.
Distantly, Hope registered the squabbles of the middle-aged couple a few seats in front of him. Which brought him to his next line of thought: domestic life with Lightning.
Seven months had passed since then, and they'd eased into a steady companionship. He'd learned numerous little things about her, like her curious fondness for classical music, how she preferred her coffee (black, one sugar), and that she was mercilessly tidy (woe betide the hapless housemate who left behind his mess of so-called organised chaos). She could be fussy one moment and apathetic the next, but he'd braved her peculiarities with good humour, relishing each new discovery he added to his mental scaffold of Lightning Farron. To be fair, she had to deal with his less endearing traits too: irritability, erratic sleeping habits and the need to shut himself in his room for long periods of time. (He hadn't been very present as of late either, but that was another matter of its own.)
Adjusting to life with another person was never easy, but little by little, they grew comfortable with each other. Now, seeing her smile – a grateful, content tug of her lips – when he passed her the daily pick-me-up each morning had made everything worth it.
This was their normal life now.
No, he wouldn't lose her again. They'd come too far for that.
It was on this thought that carriage doors slid open, signalling the end of his journey. Without preamble, Hope left his seat, exited the station and began the trek home, a brisk five minute affair.
Lightning had to be there, safe and sound. She had to be. He refused to believe otherwise.
Long strides carried him to the end of the street, where their shared unit seventy-eight resided. There was an unmistakeable glow of lights from within, and he couldn't help but sigh in relief upon catching notes from Beethoven's fifth symphony – Lightning liked to unwind to the tune of her favourite medley. A fumble of keys later, and he stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind him.
"Light, I'm home!"
"…Hope?" A bleary voice greeted him, originating from the mop of rose-coloured hair splayed over the top of the couch. Said mop shifted, and he found himself the target of a heavy-lidded, storm-blue gaze.
He put two and two together. "You fell asleep waiting for me?" he blurted, disbelieving.
Oh, this was rich. Here he was, burning through countless mental circuits in the fear that she'd been taken away from him again. But it transpired that she'd merely ignored his voicemails by virtue of dozing off. Of all scenarios, he hadn't accounted for this one. It was irrational to get worked up over something so petty, but it didn't prevent the annoyance that welled up inside him.
She waved a careless hand in his direction, yawning. "Must've been more tired than I thought. Your dinner's on the kitchen bench. I'm afraid it's probably stone cold by now. If you'd gotten home sooner—"
"I'd made it pretty clear I wouldn't be home before nine-thirty." There was an edge to his words.
"Oh." She sounded taken aback. "Didn't you leave a message?"
He stepped out of his shoes and socks, depositing them on a nearby rack as he approached her. "Three, in fact."
Frowning, she snatched her phone from the coffee table and flicked through it, her expression turning contrite as she arrived at the same conclusion that he had.
"I'm sorry, I didn't realise," she breathed, all traces of sleepiness gone. At this, his irritation evaporated, fast as it had come.
He shot her a smile, indicating that all was forgiven. "It's fine. Now, if you hadn't been so busy mimicking Sleeping Beauty," he teased, waggling his finger, "I wouldn't be in this situation. I don't even get so much as reheated leftovers."
She threw a cushion at him, eliciting a surprised oomph. "Would you rather I hadn't brought it home in the first place, you ungrateful oaf?"
"Point taken. After all, nothing says love more than cold takeaway."
Having anticipated her response, he ducked in time for another cushion to sail over his head. "Go microwave your dinner," she grumbled.
He sketched a mock-salute. "Yes, ma'am."
After picking up and restoring the abused cushions to their rightful place, Hope proceeded to the kitchen, where he spotted a white box containing the aforementioned takeaway. Dumping its congealed contents into a perspex container, he threw the lot into the microwave, and waited impatiently for the countdown to reach its end. Lightning had not moved from her position on the couch when he returned, steaming bowl of noodles in hand. He settled beside her, wasting no time in tucking into his meal.
"Seriously, Light," he said after swallowing his second mouthful of food, "when you didn't reply for the past two hours or so, it got me worried."
"I didn't mean to worry you," she muttered, contrite again.
He inclined his head, acknowledging her apology. "You know, it's strange for you to nod off before eleven."
"I've had a long day." She sank back into her seat, closing her eyes. "The music is relaxing."
"Yeah, it is," he agreed.
A companionable silence fell between them, broken only by the sounds of him eating. The background soundtrack changed to a piece Hope didn't recognise, the low, mournful rumble of the cello creating an atmosphere of wistfulness. Fishing out the last morsel from his bowl, which he set down together with his chopsticks on the coffee table, he turned to the woman beside him. Lightning's relaxed posture indicated a state of rest, but there was ever so slight a knit to her brow, unnoticeable unless one were to look closely.
Was something bothering her?
"Light, are you alright?" he probed. "You seem... subdued tonight."
Her eyes flicked open, but she did not look at him. "There's a lot on my mind lately."
"Gil, no dollar—" he offered, remembering to use the new world currency, "—for your thoughts?"
"Actually, I've been thinking about you."
This admission surprised him. "Oh?"
Her mood, already sombre, descended into full-blown melancholy. "Hope," she began, turning clouded storm-blue eyes onto him, "do you ever feel lonely?"
He contemplated her question for a moment. Loneliness had been a central theme of his life, both during the years between the first and second Cocoonfall and the Chaos-infested centuries afterwards. Initially, it was because he'd been left behind by everyone he'd ever loved that he climbed the ranks of the Academy, front-lining research in the hopes that he could reunite with them. Later, as the Chaos tore apart everything he'd worked so hard to build, he'd found the mantle of humanity's sole leader almost too much to bear. Many a time he'd stood on the precipice of the abandoned Ark, wondering if jumping to his death would absolve him of his colossal responsibility.
Yes, Hope Estheim had lived a very lonely existence in the old world. But Lightning was asking if he felt lonely now. His new lease on life had stripped away his title and duty: no longer was he the unreachable Academy Director, lone bearer of the burden of humanity's survival. He was a mere civilian now, albeit with a promising and fulfilling career in research. Moreover, his deepest, most desperate wishes had been granted: he'd gained a second chance with his prematurely departed parents, his friends lived close by, and he'd found his way back to the person he held dearest to his heart – her.
Time and hardship may have ravaged his ancient soul, but he was no longer alone.
"No," he finally replied. "But why do you ask?"
Lightning looked uncertain. "Because, after all this time, you haven't—" she cut herself off, visibly rethinking her words. "Well, I've yet to see you bring someone home."
Hope frowned, both at the fact that she'd changed her sentence midway and the new implications it carried. "Somehow, I don't think you'd appreciate that."
"Please," she scoffed, "we're both adults here. I can make myself scarce for one night."
"It's not an issue," he dismissed her argument with a shake of his head, "as I haven't met anyone who's caught my attention." Not when you've always held it. "And I'm honestly surprised that of all things, you'd choose my love life – or lack thereof – as a topic of discussion." The ball was in her court for that one; surely they'd danced around each other long enough for Lightning to realise that it was her whom he wanted.
There was a desperate gleam in her eyes that he couldn't puzzle out. "Listen, Hope. We got our new world – we're supposed to be happy now. But I haven't seen you move on, embracing the new things in this life. I wouldn't want you holding yourself back on my account."
"What makes you think I'm holding back?"
She lowered her gaze. "I—I've noticed things about you," she admitted, tugging on a stray lock of hair – an unconscious, vulnerable habit of hers. "You've been distant lately. You eat too little; you're too thin. You work long hours and sleep poorly." Her eyes snapped back to his, accusation flashing in their storm-blue depths. "And don't think I haven't seen those pills."
Lightning knew about the antidepressants? This set off alarm bells in his head. He kept those in a drawer in this desk, and while she was no stranger to his room, it would require conscious effort on her part to find them. This could only mean one thing: she'd been snooping.
He'd been naïve to trust that she wouldn't, indeed.
"So you think romance is the cure to my problems?" he shot back with more harshness than necessary, overtaken by a great, ugly spike of betrayal.
She reared back at his question, before folding her hands into her lap, biting her lower lip. "I don't know! But I'm aware of how important it is, the effect it has on people. Seeing Serah and Snow together – they're so happy that it's... ridiculous. In a good way." Her voice then took on a hard, determined quality, even as the look she gave him was heart-wrenchingly earnest. "You deserve that same happiness. And I don't want to be in your way."
She believed that she was an obstacle to his happiness? Surely she couldn't be that dense; the very opposite was true! He harboured no delusions about a happily-ever-after – his soul was too damaged, too broken – but he'd found some measure of contentment in this life, which was more than he'd bargained for. Lightning's presence alone soothed his wounds. Only she had the capacity to do that: not his parents, not his friends, and definitely not some random stranger. Perhaps he was hopelessly (and unhealthily) fixated on her, but the notion that he'd fall in love with someone else – let alone have said hypothetical relationship culminate in a fairytale ending – was absurd. Impossible.
"Light, I am happy," he said fiercely, taking her smaller hand into the cradle of his own. "Here with you."
She stared at their joined hands, her posture rigid. "Are you, really?"
"I wouldn't say that if it weren't true. I'm happier than I've ever been in centuries."
Her breath came out in a huff. "That's bullshit, Hope."
He raised an eyebrow at the sudden vulgarity. "Are you claiming to know my emotions better than I do?"
"I'm not. But the pills you keep trying to hide from me do."
He flinched. Why did she have to pick out the one aspect of his life that he had no control over?
"I can't help that!" he cried, tearing through his hair in frustration. "Bhunivelze left deep scars in me. You already know this! They're not going to go away on their own." He took her hand again, shaking it. "The pills are a temporary aid, something to clear my mind while I sort things out."
"What if you can't?"
Oddly, her expression of doubt calmed him. "It's not a question of can or can't," he asserted, repeating the rhetoric that had formed the cornerstone of their partnership a thousand years ago. "I will get through this. I'll keep on fighting." He gave her palm a firm squeeze.
Instead of having the effect he'd intended, his gestures only drew out an agitated noise from her. She wrenched her hand from his grasp; both of hers had curled into fists by her sides.
"Hope, this is the reason why I fought," she growled, "so that you wouldn't have to! We beat Bhunivelze, tossed him into the abyss. We won our second chance at life!" She paused for a moment, and he saw that her hands were shaking, fingers clenched so tight that her knuckles flashed white. "But you're still suffering. Even now I can't protect you, not from him." Self-loathing bled from every syllable that left her lips, and he felt his chest constrict in response.
It became clear to him now. Guilt formed the crux of her dilemma: she felt responsible for his pain. Playing the martyr was one of her more stubborn flaws, but he needed to make her realise that she was not accountable for his actions – nor those of the malevolent God of Light.
"You can't shoulder the blame for that, Light," he said gently.
Unsurprisingly, his words failed to sway her. "Then who will?" she demanded. "Hope, we're partners. I swore I would keep you safe, damn it!" She punctuated her statement with a thump of her fist against the couch.
"And you have!" he returned emphatically. "Light, don't you see? It's because you're here now that I can look forward to the future at all."
"Is this the future you've envisioned?" she spat. "Where you're still eaten up by the ghosts of the past?"
Her words blindsided him, and for the first time since he'd become an accomplished politician in the old world, he found himself speechless.
She must have caught the agony in his expression, for she immediately looked apologetic. "Hope, I'm sorry. There's nothing more I want than for you to be happy. But Bhunivelze still has his claws in you, and he's not letting go any time soon. I just hate that I can't do a single fucking thing about it," she added bitterly.
"That's where you're mistaken, Light. You can."
She latched onto his words like a lifeline. "Tell me, then!" she pleaded, breathless with desperation. "What can I do?"
Storm-blue eyes shone up at him, so vulnerable that it made his heart ache. In that moment, their roles were reversed: suddenly, he was no more a fourteen-year-old than a world-weary adult, and she'd morphed from the determined, stoic guardian into a lost child seeking answers. The irony was not lost on him.
He reclaimed her hand, drawing circles around the callused knuckles with his thumb. "Stay with me. It's that simple."
She shook her head, aghast. "There's gotta be more than that. There has to. I can't just sit around while you continue to scream in your sleep. I can't." Her eyes scrunched shut, and he could see anguish writ into the faint lines of her face. "It hurts watching you go through that."
He froze, releasing her hand. The fact Hope had persistent nightmares remained a delicate subject between them. While he recalled little from those episodes – courtesy of subconscious repression, no doubt – he'd remember waking to a warm presence shaking his shoulders, and hear Lightning's voice calling his name. She'd approached him about it three times, and the first two times he'd thanked her before deflecting her with as much civility as he could manage. (Loathe as he was to admit it, he'd lost his temper with her in the third instance.)
The knowledge that she'd comfort him in his weakest moments was enough for him. There was no need to delve into the particulars: namely, that his nightmares revolved around rose-coloured hair and storm-blue eyes – belonging to a fake, warped version of her.
No, best he kept that to himself.
"I know you'd rather not talk about it," she persisted when he did not respond. "But I need to understand you, Hope. Why is it that when you wake, you'd look at me with this awful... fear in your eyes?"
She was treading on very dangerous territory. Even so, he couldn't bring himself to lie to her. "Maybe because I'm afraid you'd disappear," he admitted quietly, still not looking at her.
"Disappear – like a phantom?"
Dread closed around his chest in an icy vicegrip. "I don't recall mentioning that," he said automatically.
"You didn't. I wouldn't know if it weren't for Snow."
His eyes snapped back to hers. "He told you, did he?" he asked in a low, tense voice, feeling a pang of betrayal towards the man whom he regarded as his best friend.
As though she'd read his mind, Lightning gave a sharp shake of her head, words tumbling out of her in a rush, "Snow didn't betray you. I practically had to wrest the information out of him."
She sighed. "Hope, I've been worried about you for months. Snow knew you best in the old world; naturally, I turned to him for answers. We met up two days ago, and we talked. About what happened to you during my long sleep." He watched as she wrapped a lock of hair around her index finger and gave a firm tug. "He mentioned you had visions of someone who looked and sounded like me."
Trust Snow to bring that up. During their vigil over the dying world, Hope had shared several drinks with his old comrade-turned-wingman. As the number of beer glasses piled up, he'd let his mouth run about the apparition with Lightning's face and voice, ignoring Snow's increasingly worried looks. "I see."
"When I probed further," Lightning went on, still fiddling with her hair, "he simply said that I should ask you myself."
Now it was Hope's turn to sigh.
The sound made her go still, like a chocobo caught in headlights. "Look Hope," she back-pedalled, "I don't want to force you—"
"You've brought it out into the open now," he interrupted her, resigned. "There's no point hiding it any more. I'll tell you – everything."
She pursed her lips, her expression a mix of apprehension and curiosity. "Okay."
He took a deep breath, summoning the relevant memories. "It started off with my research team disappearing," he explained, voice blank with practised detachment. "They'd just discovered a breakthrough, a way to combat the Chaos that had consumed our old world. I'd banked my hopes – and the hopes of all remaining humanity – on them. When they vanished one by one, until there was no one left, I was overcome with despair.
"That's when my mind cracked, and I began seeing the phantom. I'd catch a glimpse of rose-coloured hair at the edges of my vision, or the silver flash of a blade, or a hand reaching out to me. These glimpses grew in frequency, until one day, you appeared in whole to me, just as I remembered you from our l'Cie days.
"Then you – she – started talking to me. Told me everything I wanted to hear, and more. She smiled at me. I was..." he hesitated, searching for the right turn of phrase, "hopelessly captivated."
"I knew she wasn't real. The real you was locked away in the Temple of the Goddess; I'd even visited your crystal on several occasions. But I couldn't help myself. After waiting for so long to see you again, I would have you back in any capacity – even if it was all a lie.
"I descended into madness. Fantasy and reality blurred together until I could no longer tell them apart. I'd wile away countless days, weeks, even months, waiting for the phantom to return. Everything else ceased to matter. I was drunk on the sight of your smile, the sound of your voice.
"When she finally... touched me, I knew it was over."
As soon as those words left his mouth, Hope couldn't maintain the façade of detachment any longer. Unable to look at Lightning and the horror in her eyes, he bowed his head, shame and guilt tearing at him.
There was no doubt what he'd meant. Wracked with longing, he'd given in to the phantom's advances, letting her trail her too-familiar fingers down his face and bring his mouth to hers. Even as he tasted the overwhelming wrongness on her lips, he'd pulled her closer, too far gone to care.
He felt a hand clutch his shoulder, the grip firm and reassuring. With that simple motion, Lightning had anchored him back to the present. Taking a few deep breaths to steady himself, he resumed his story.
"I followed her into the Ark shortly after that. When I realised where I'd gone, I came to myself for a moment, enough to send Snow a final warning. 'Lightning will return as the Saviour, but beware the fake Lightning', I told him. Then Bhunivelze's light swallowed me, and I knew nothing for a very long time."
Silence blanketed them, heavy with unspoken implications. A full minute went by before he heard Lightning's voice once more, tremulous like she was on the verge of realising something important.
"So it's true then. Bhunivelze exploited your feelings for me to trap you."
"Yes."
Hearing this affirmation seemed to break a dam inside her. "Oh, Hope," she cried; not once in the entirety of his millennium-old lifespan had he heard someone call out his name with so much emotion.
She released his shoulder, prompting him to meet her gaze. The storm-blue irises that greeted him were a veritable tempest now, swirling with awe, sorrow, affection and above all, regret.
"You never should've chosen me! You suffered so much for my sake."
So, she finally acknowledged the fact that he loved her. While he hadn't stated his feelings outright – save that one date where he'd nearly kissed her – he'd communicated them in the form of constant messages, lingering touches, and the small, everyday things he'd do for her. Knowing that this revelation came with such terrible anguish for her curbed any sense of satisfaction, however.
Seeking a means to reassure her, he relived a moment in the distant past, where a gorgeous, aloof soldier had extended her hand in aid to his scared teenaged self. "How could any man not choose you, were he in my shoes?"
"You're insane, Hope!" Lightning burst out, incredulous. Her right hand tightened into a fist, and her body visibly shook when she spoke again. "I've only caused you pain."
"Then I guess that makes me a masochist as well," he offered, giving her a sad smile.
She looked away. "Why me? I'm a wreck. I'm not feminine, I push people away, I only know how to fight. I barely even feel human—"
"You're the most beautiful person I've ever known," he cut her off, taking her chin into his hand and turning her face back towards his. "I'm sorry Light, but you may have permanently ruined me for other women since you entered my life."
"Have you been waiting for me all along?" she breathed, arrested by his gaze. "For these past thousand years?"
"Yes." He tucked a stray lock of rose-coloured hair behind her ear, eliciting a shiver from her. "And I would go through it all over again, just to be with you."
She screwed her eyes shut, and he caught the tell-tale sparkle of tears on her lashes. "Gods, Hope."
"This is my choice, Lightning," he went on, willing her to understand. "I don't regret a thing. All the decisions I've made, the ordeals I've undergone – they've brought us to where we are today." A crease had formed between her brows, and he brushed his thumb soothingly over it. "We're together now, you and I. Just like I've promised."
Her eyes snapped back open, bright with unshed tears. If he'd thought that they were tumultuous before, it didn't compare to the wildfire that he was seeing now. She reached out to caress his cheek, her fingertips burning against his skin.
"Hope," she choked out, her face close – much too close, "you are a remarkable man. I don't deserve you."
Before he had a chance to register what was happening, Lightning had closed the small gap between them, her lips on his.
A/N: Normally I'd apologise for ending on a cliffhanger, but since the 2nd chapter is already published, this shouldn't be a problem. Reviews are appreciated!