05/20/2016: Since this fic is about 4 years old now, I thought it would be a good time to rewrite and revamp the first five or so chapters of Nascent Requiem and repost them to greatly improve the experience of (re)meeting my characters since I've hit a major writer's (and editor's) block on my newer fics. (I've also been replaying the entire XIII series this summer which is definitely what inspired this) I'll probably update these chapters as I rewrite through them; I started out way back then as a pretty rusty writer and now seems a good as time as any to replace these with less cringe-inducing writing and some actual plot hole fillers.

I'd also like to thank everyone who's reviewed this fic since I completed it. Your support is very much appreciated and always brings a smile to my face.

Extra notes I preserved from the original author's note that still seem relevant:

While this fic is mainly action and explores some dark themes to the Fabula Nova Crystallis world, I also wanted to focus on Serah and Lightning's history before XIII. I know some of it is explored in Promise - Episode Zero but I also wanted to flush it out, and focus on Claire's transformation into Lightning.

I also completely ignore what happened in XIII-2. Probably for the better.

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy XIII is owned by Square Enix and is always happily returned at least partially intact.

Chapter 1: Winter Sleep

Six Years Previously:

Thunder crashed like cymbals in the dark sky. It was interwoven with a few flashes of lightning, momentarily illuminating the dark earth below. Flowers waved in the harsh spring breeze, relenting their delicate petals to the elements. But the brief reprise of light was not enough to brighten the dim hospital room. A slender pink haired girl sat beside the hospital bed, slim fingers curled around a pale, bony hand. Aqua eyes were narrowed to slits, and as tired as she was, never dared to close. Light snores came from a smaller girl with the same shade of pink hair in the corner, but apart from that and the incessant beeping of various machines, there was no sound in the room.

A bright flash lit the room as the door slid open, a mechanical whine on grooves. Noting the two young girls still next to their mother, the nurse in pale grey scrubs quickly stepped into the room.

"Hun, the visiting hours are over. If you're not eighteen, you'll have to go home."

Slowly, the taller of the two sisters stood up, slender hands curling into fists, trying to stop herself from shaking.

"No." Her voice was hard, and her turquoise eyes blazed with fire.

"I'm sorry honey, but rules are rules. I can't let you stay because of hospital protocol. If you insist on staying, I'll have to call security." She watched as the older sister went to her younger sister, gently shaking her awake.

"Honey, I hate to tear you away from your mother, but you really –"

"I know!" The girl's voice was suddenly harsh. "You don't have to tell me twice."

"Claire…" The younger girl's voice had a gentle tone of reproach to it, but her older sister ignored her.

"Serah, let's go." Dragging her younger sister by the hand, she brushed past the somewhat stunned nurse, and headed down the dimly lit hallway. Not hesitating at the entrance of the hospital, she stepped out into the rain, past caring about the deluge outside that showed no promises of stopping anytime soon. Tree branches bent in the gale, their leaves whipping in the spinning eddies as they were stripped off their branches.

"Claire, you're going to get sick…" Serah's voice trailed off at the look in her sister's eyes. Suddenly not sure if she knew her sister at all, Serah looked away from her blazing turquoise gaze, wondering if she had ever seen that desperation and frustration in them before.

Turning away from Serah, she let the rain wash the tears on her face away. She paused for just a heartbeat, enough to see the bright flash of light glistening through the raindrops before they fell from the leaves, immortal as they spun, carried by the wind, before they hit the earth. She vowed that this would be the last time she cried again. She knew her mother would die tonight – the doctors had predicted it, and she wasn't stupid – the nurse had driven them out because she hadn't wanted them to be there… for that moment.

And when the phone call had reached their house the following morning, she'd made Serah go away while she talked to the doctor as he confirmed her thoughts. While Serah had locked herself away in her room, crying, she went outside, standing in the unrelenting rain, watching the bright flashes of lightning carve jags of light in the grey skies. Even the skies looked like they were mourning for their mother. As the boom of thunder faded away, she looked down at her soaked clothes, the ones she hadn't bothered changing out of since last night. A bright flash lit up the silver pendant on her chest, and she looked up again.

That was the moment she decided on her new name. There would be no more "Claire" – Claire was a girl who had been scared of losing her mother, who had played happily with her younger sister, who had been her parent's "spoiled little girl".

Lightning.

It flashed bright, but only for a moment.

It can't protect, it only destroys.

Lightning.

New Bodhum, 0 AF

Lightning raked her hands through her pink hair, reaching for her omega weapon, and sliding it into the holster strapped behind her. She heard someone come up the stairs, and sighed. She knew who it was. Hearing something scrape at the keyhole in her door, she stalked over, and flung it open, staring angrily down into the surprised and playful look in her sister's face.

Crossing her arms, she tried not to sound exasperated. "Serah, why can't you knock on the door like everyone else? There's no need to pick the lock every time."

"But Claire, you never open the door when I knock," she whined, a petulant pout playing at the corner of her lips.

Lightning leveled a half hearted glare at her sister. "That's because you bring Snow in half the time. Excuse me if I don't want him poking around the inside of my room while you're not keeping a careful eye on him. Not to mention—"

But she didn't get to finish before the man in question lumbered up the stairs like an old bear, shouting for Serah at the top of his lungs. Shaking her head, she brushed past them impatiently: Snow was too loud for her in the morning. She couldn't deal with his exuberant speech even with a cup of coffee already downed, and she had no idea how Serah managed to make it through every day. He had an excessive amount of enthusiasm and sometimes she was almost tempted to compare him to the grunts she occasionally had to train. The face underneath the beanie and stubble screamed practically greener than grass and that got on her nerves. The old irritation gnawed briefly at her for a moment before she brushed it aside. Snow still wouldn't have been her first choice for her sister, but he made Serah happy and surely that was the most important thing he had going for him. He was well aware he'd never be her favourite person on the planet, but she could admit his loyalty to Serah had won her over.

As she passed Hope sitting at the table on her way to the refrigerating unit, she saw him mouth the words "so loud" at her along with his usual morning wave. Suppressing a snort, she tried to find something in the cooling section that didn't look like it was Snow's cooking. As she did so, she cast a sideways glance at Hope. Had it been right for her to offer him a place to stay after they weren't able to find his father? Those first weeks after the fall, it had almost seemed like he'd returned to the angry teenager she'd first met in the Hanging Edge. Closed off even from her, she had reasoned with herself that someone needed to keep an eye on him still. Even if there were unethical ramifications of her decision, she knew that at the end of the day there was still the underlying connection that kept them all close: even if she came to live another lifetime, Lightning had finally come to accept that those fateful thirteen days was not something she could forget.

As she made for the door before either Serah or Snow came downstairs for a "chat" that could end up making her late again, she heard loud, hurried footsteps on the stairs as the two of them came barreling down the steps, an OSD in her sister's hand. "Claire, before you go, do you mind giving this to Lebreau at her store?" Serah held it out in her hand, but Lightning waited a few heartbeats before taking it.

"What's on this?"

"Oh, I promised Lebreau some new recipes for her cooking a few days ago. She hasn't stopped by since, so I thought we'd give it to her instead since she must be busy with her store."

She resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. "Remind me why you can't send Snow again?"

Serah beamed back at her. "I need to pick up some groceries today, and I can't carry them by myself. He's already promised to go with me. And," she tacked on as an afterthought, "I don't want to send Hope by himself either."

Sighing, Lightning put the small device in her pocket. "You're going to make me late for work."

Passing through the gate at HQ barely three minutes before her shift was due to start, Lightning was utterly convinced that she would never do favours for her sister again. She'd always declined Snow's offer of going with him to Lebreau's store—mainly due to the fact that she couldn't stand his group of equally-as-loud friends—and she'd had absolutely no idea it was that far from headquarters. If I'd known, I wouldn't have agreed to this.

Deciding that she had just enough time to stop by her floor to drop off her things, she tried to ignore the looks she still got from some of the soldiers in her unit. It had been months. There was definitely curiousity in some of them, who hadn't known her well, or perhaps were lucky enough to not have any family members die in the fall, but there was hostility there too. She was used to their share of haters, and once upon a time she might've taken it on herself to set them straight. But after taking on the Sanctum, and fighting for something other than herself, she could understand it now. It had nothing to do with their ideology, hating her personally, or blaming the l'Cie for the fall of Cocoon. All it had to do with was that they'd lived under a fal'Cie leash for their entire lifetime, and when it was ripped away from them, they'd turned to finding the most convenient scapegoat there was... and there was absolutely nothing she could do about that.

Someone brushed by her from behind, bumping into her shoulder as she left the locker room, going into one of the main corridors. "You're living a beautiful dream. It's time to wake up." The voice was male, and not one she recognized, and by the time she whipped around, there were too many people reporting for shift to discern who it was in the crowd. It took her a few heartbeats to try to process the two sentences. A beautiful dream? The words splashed against her like ice water.

Perhaps she was being paranoid.

But the tumour of unease was already starting to grow in her abdomen and she tried to take a deep breath to relax it. She trusted her instincts; they'd been one of the things she knew she could absolutely rely on in their journey.

A beautiful dream.

The thing that haunted her most was that she didn't know what she was supposed to wake up to.

OSD (Optical Storage Device): a small portable data storage unit, the equivalent of a disk. Used to transfer data between two computers or handheld devices. (borrowed from the Mass Effect universe)