Days 7-9
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From her corner of the room, Serah froze entirely.
"You are." Hope confirmed to himself quietly, keeping his gaze on the cut fabric. "He's the only one missing, right? Since he wasn't here at the beginning."
He looked up to see Serah's wide blue eyes staring at him. It had been a gamble to bring up the name, but the devastated expression on her face meant that he was right. Or even if he wasn't right on the assumption, then he was right about something else because he had dreamt this in hazy glimpses and they weren't just something from his coma because it was real.
He swallowed heavily, his mouth feeling exceptionally dry and his heart pounding heavily. "I'm right… aren't I?"
Serah stared at him for another moment, and then opened her mouth to respond before opting out of it and shaking her head. She must have reworded her thoughts in her head. "How did you — did someone tell you that name?"
"No." Instead, he had found Alyssa and she couldn't just be a figment of his imagination attached to a name he could have heard from somewhere, someone, else. She was from Palumpolum and she had been friends with Elida and.. "But you remember him. Do the others know? That you're waiting?"
Serah set down her material, and her expression twisted into one of grief. "...No. They… they don't remember him. Vanille almost does. She says his name sounds familiar, but… Lightning's the only other person who knows who he is. She knows, and she's trying to figure out…" She shook her head, pink wisps of hair flying into her face even as she brought up a hand to cover her eyes. "They don't remember. You're not supposed to remember, either. She said you wouldn't. I thought — especially when you walked into the room looking like—"
They had known. Serah, Lightning, Vanille… at least the three of them. Maybe more? But they had known and they hadn't told him anything and Hope thought he was going crazy this entire time except he wasn't and now he had proof but they had known and they purposely hadn't told him.
His heart was pounding at the discovery, and Hope breathed out a slow breath, not daring to say anything before that. Of course they hadn't told him. Serah was obviously in pain because the others didn't remember, and if they thought that he wouldn't remember either, then of course they wouldn't have brought it up.
His fingers were clenched tightly, and he had to consciously force them to relax.
"...We couldn't tell you." Serah told him quietly. "You were so badly hurt… we couldn't. I'm sorry, Hope. We should have. You would have. But no one was sure if you'd ever wake up, and then you did and it just — Lightning said you wouldn't remember. She didn't tell me why, but she said she was sure. We don't even know what happened. One minute we were all… one minute everything was different and then the next we were all back here."
Her voice broke off, and Hope would have told her that she could stop. Should have said something comforting then because it was obvious that Serah was having a hard time telling him this. He should have been better than the numbness he felt at that moment because he hadn't been dreaming.
Did that mean his nightmares were real?
"I died." He said, tone flat. "That's what I remembered. I don't remember the earthquake. I just…"
"I'm sorry." Serah burst out again, leaning forward in her seat and shaking her head. "That was why — none of us wanted you to remember that! It was all different for us, and." She cut off sharply, brows furrowed. "I… shouldn't say anything. Lightning would want to tell you. I know it."
"But what do you mean?" The tone was sharper than he meant for it to be.
"We wanted to save you." Serah's voice was barely above a whisper when she finally answered. "We just wanted to save your life. I'm sorry, Hope. I'm really sorry."
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They had fallen silent again by the time Vanille burst back into the room cheerfully, and Hope excused himself quickly, winding his way around the Pulsian girl before any questions could be asked. Maybe he had been too abrupt, but his mind was spinning. He didn't know enough. He needed to learn more. He hadn't meant for that conversation to happen — he just wanted to confirm with Serah that he wasn't crazy because that's how he was starting to feel lately.
Her words only brought up more questions: what happened? Why didn't the others remember? What did she remember, because Hope was certainly having trouble sorting out his own thoughts and memories? What else were they hiding from him?
He meandered down the hall toward the entrance, and wondered whether it was a good idea to head toward the room designated for him (bad idea, that would be the first place anyone would check if they wanted to find him) or if he wanted to thrown on his jacket and head outside to cool off (sounded great, but would probably be a worse idea because he didn't want to worry anyone — he just needed the space).
Lightning knew. She knew and she was out there trying to find answers and for some reason she had been sure that he wouldn't remember. Why?
He wasn't sure what he remembered (dreamt?). There was rain and bullets and buildings that stretched into the sky. He… he remembered a cheerful blond girl who would reassure him at times and unnerve him at others. He…
Outside, he decided. He needed the space to think without being interrupted by anyone else.
Hope made his way back to his bedroom and grabbed his coat and scarf, shoving his mittens into his pocket just as he left the room once again and quietly made his way as quick as possible toward the entrance, speed walking right past Yuj and telling him, "Going to go check out this snow — be back later!" all in a jumble of words.
He ducked his head at the questioning tone, cheeks flushing from just how childish his excuse sounded. Not only that, but the way he was behaving entirely… It was only when he struggled to open the door (it seemed to be a little stuck, and needed some desperate oiling of those old style hinges) and slipped out into the cold did he remember to put his mittens on again. The temperature difference between inside and outside of the house was striking, enough to make him catch his breath because it felt like ice down his lungs otherwise.
Hope pulled his jacket tighter around himself, zipping it all the way to the top. It hadn't been that cold just hours ago when he first got here. Either the warmth of the house really affected him, or the temperature had someone managed to drop even lower during those sunlit hours (and it was a possibility, especially seeing as the sun was about to set soon now that the days were growing shorter and shorter). It was still snowing, and the footprints on the beach looked shallower now, more filled in.
He took a step, crunching on the whiteness, and then stopped at the reminder that he would be leaving a very visible trail. Hope stared down for a moment, wondering just what he was doing. Running away? No, he just… needed to think. He wasn't sure he could confront the others right now. Not even Lightning. Maybe especially Lightning. No matter how well-intentioned they were… well, confrontation right now would be a bad idea until he worked things out.
He headed the direction of the mountains, stepping over the small perimeter fence easily and climbing up the rocks carefully. Nearly half a year ago, he might have been able to traverse the area easily, jumping from rock to rock, but that time was long over and he retained little of his l'Cie strength. Most of that likely wasn't l'Cie strength at all, but remnants of the training Lightning had put him through.
Still, in the snowy and unfamiliar terrain, Hope didn't want to take any more risks. For all he knew, the rocks could have iced over under the snowfall and one missed step would lead him to fall off the entire thing.
It didn't take too long until he felt too hot under the long scarf, even though his fingers were starting to numb from the cold. He took a break on one of the larger rocks, sitting down on the snow and bringing his hands up to blow warm breaths into the fabric, hoping that the warm moisture would seep through the thick material. The back of his neck felt gross as well, edges of his hair sticking to his skin where it was pressed down by his scarf. It was —
His breath caught as he gazed out onto the entirety of New Bodhum. If the view from the beach had been magic, what he could see mid-way up the sharp incline of the mountain was nothing short of breath-taking. The buildings were weighed down by untouched snow clinging to every surface it could, even to uneven ridges and paneling. Smoke was rising from the housing complex, dark and warm as it curled into the sky. Even the waves on the ocean looked whiter, brighter, added to the scenery.
Hope pulled his knees up where he sat, leaning forward as he continued to attempt to warm his hands through his mittens. He wondered if Cocoon would now experience natural snowfall as well, now that the fal'Cie weren't monitoring the weather so closely.
Yes, was the unexpected but adamant answer. Even the settlement in the wildlands, the one that would eventually grow to become a city, perhaps one of the capital cities on Pulse… He could see the winding roads in his mind, glistening spires stretching up into the sky…
Hope slouched forward, feeling tired. Maybe he had been too harsh on Serah. Maybe he was being too harsh on everyone else. He certainly couldn't remember things in concrete details, not yet at least, so maybe they were correct in his 'not remembering' anything. Even now, he couldn't yet name the city. He couldn't understand his dreams.
He really did die. The knowledge was bitter and heavy, confirmed by Serah's apologies. The feeling of darkness was real.
Hope shuddered, curling into a tighter ball.
He sat there for what could be minutes or hours, enjoying the quiet snowfall around him and willing his fingers and toes to stay warm. There was something hypnotising about the peaceful beach, about the quiet in contrast to the hustle and bustle inside the housing unit. It made his thoughts feel quiet as well, slow and calm enough for him to consider going back.
They would need the help with wedding preparations. Serah would still go through with the wedding soon unless Lightning came back with positive news. And even then… he wondered just how things would turn. Best case scenario… what?
He shivered involuntarily.
"So this is where you've been hiding yourself away."
There was a crunch of snow behind him, and Hope glanced in the direction of the familiar voice. Fang stood behind him, her lance raised and balanced over one shoulder as she looked out onto the town. She was wearing the same black and blue outfit he had seen her in earlier, her outfit black and skintight and foregoing gloves, the familiar sari wrapped tighter around her than in warmer weather to form a short tunic. The only real concession she gave to the weather was a pair of knee high brown leather boots lined with fur.
"It's a good view, I'll give you that." She said lightly. "Sure beats all the noise down there."
Hope pursed his lips, the lower part of his face still covered by his scarf and the mittens he was breathing into. He wasn't sure if she was there on her volition or whether she had heard from Serah that something was wrong. He couldn't see why she would come out to look for him, but then again, Fang could have just been passing through.
She gave a nod at the beach and looked down at him, raising an eyebrow. "Well? If you don't get up soon, I'll be leaving you behind."
And with a single bound, she jumped onto a higher rock, leaving Hope scrambling to stand up and move limbs tingling from the cold. He slipped slightly on the rock, but caught himself in time long before he could fall over. He had expected her to go down, but…
"Haven't got all day here!" She called, and continued up.
Hope braced his arms in the snow of the higher rock, and pushed himself up. It took some effort, but he got his entire body up, before steadying himself up for the next stone up. It was times like this he missed his natural l'Cie resilience and strength. Even his balance had been better back then. It was all he could do but marvel at the ease Fang was scaling the mountain, her movements as smooth as it had been before the Fall. In contrast, he was barely trailing behind her, just as he had behind Lightning back in the Vile Peaks.
Like Lightning, Fang didn't turn back to lend him a hand, insteading continuing on her way in the assumption that Hope would follow her no matter how hard the obstacle before him.
She was right. Hope grit his teeth as he pushed himself up once again, his pace much faster than before when he had been climbing just to find a space to think. He braced himself against the next rock and jumped up, pushing his entire weight onto his arms as he struggled to brace his knee against the side of the rock and get up.
He looked up as he succeeded onto another stone, catching Fang staring down at him from nearly a dozen meters above him, expression unreadable.
Somehow, her casual stance (clearly waiting for him when she said she wouldn't), made him speed up in his efforts to get where she was.
It took nearly five minutes, and his arms were shaking with exhaustion even as his bangs stuck to his face when he struggled for breath by the time he reached the top, bent over double with his hands braced against his knees. His physical therapy hadn't been anywhere as strenuous, coupled with the rough and slippery surfaces and the cold that was now making him shiver as the wind picked up against the dampness of his exposed skin.
The cold stung his throat and lungs as he breathed in heavily through his mouth, bangs plastered to his face and dripping from perspiration and melted snow.
"Can't say I expected more." Fang commented, and twirled her lance before harnessing the weapon to her back as she usually carried it. "But it sure doesn't sound like you're doing too well there, kid."
"'m fine." Hope wheezed out, pushing himself to stand straight up again and willing his heartbeat to slow along with his breathing. "I'm fine now. Just needed a moment."
"Good. 'Cause I certainly ain't heading back just to hold your hand on the way down." She jerked her head toward where they had come up, the slope looking much steeper and even more dangerous from the top. "We don't come back until we bag ourselves something shiny."
"Shiny…?" Hope pushed his wet bangs back with a mitten, grimacing slightly at the way his skin prickled in the cold.
"We're hunting." Fang explained to him. "Creatures more elusive when it gets this cold. But a person's gotta eat, and there's always a need for the leather. So you do your part on keeping up, and I'll show you a thing or two them others won't let you take part in anymore."
The honesty of the words almost stung, but it was far more honest than the lies and omissions he had been struggling with before. The others had been overprotective the past few weeks. Vanille was always eager to hear about everything he might have to say, and before he moved to the settlement, had been around to accompany him for every little thing. Lightning kept more tabs on him than she had when they had been l'Cie, and even Snow hovered in the times they were together.
Hearing Fang speak so plaintively now made him stand up taller, his back straighter as he realized that at the very least, she wouldn't put the effort into babying. "Okay. Where do we start?"
Fang's grin was almost feral, her approval apparent.
"That's the spirit."
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Oerba Yun Fang was a hunter and a warrior, through and through. It was exhilarating just running to catch up with her footsteps, holding his breath in an effort to silence himself even if his movements felt loud and awkward compared to her silent steps and lithe form.
She hushed him when she determined was was being too loud, and would turn and glare when he stumbled, waiting until he composed himself again. Hope could feel his face grow warm with embarrassment every mistake that he made, yet Fang never ordered he go back or told him he was a hassle to deal with.
They made their way down a snowy terrain, leaving heavy footprints in the snow until Hope slowly learned the movement of Fang's steps and quiet the tread of his boots more. It wasn't something she could have taught him verbally, he found, even as he attempted imitate her movements more. There was just something to be learned from watching, from being there, that couldn't have possibly been translate through a textbook or a lecture.
"You have a weapon on you?" She asked as they leaned upon the trunk of a skeletal tree, its thin branches blackened and weighed down with snow and icicles.
He nodded, and reached into the pouch he always carried with him (and he was so glad that he always took it with him now, always there until it was second nature to strap the bag to his belt when he first dressed in the morning and then unstrap it when he would get ready for bed.
The weight of his boomerang was familiar and yet not, the grip worn smooth from how much he used it. The colors were starting to dull and it would soon need polishing, but the Airwing would hold up for now even if his mittens made the hold clumsy.
Hope had long packed away the boomerang he ended up using during the end of their l'Cie journey, the very same one crafted up on the fly on Gran Pulse before they decided to head back to Eden and face their Focus. Nue was too large to carry safely, almost as tall as he was when completely unfolded, thick and heavy and packed with as much magic as he had been able to shove into an item back then. He hadn't cared what it looked like at the time, focusing more on the fact that he needed the weapon to help him be strong, be ibetter/i... the result had been a nearly monstrous thing that looked more wicked and threatening than any boomerang should look.
That he had stuffed on the very bottom of his boxes, safe from prying eyes. It was a private thing, reminding him of times he wasn't sure he wanted anyone else to know about. It reminded him of his despair back then, his desperation and his terror. It was also a symbol of his strength and conviction, one formed from desperation and pushing limits he hadn't even know he had back then.
He snapped his wrist down to unfurl the boomerang, the click like the warmth of memories.
"Good." Fang approved with a nod. "Now, I'd have Vanille nagging at me if you come back bloody, but I shouldn't have to tell you what to do. Stay out of the way, help when you can."
Hope nodded in assent, and Fang placed a finger on her lips to quiet him. He followed her lead when she crouched down low, and then slunk out from around the tree trunk. He couldn't see anything out beyond the tree, but if she instructed him to be quiet, then there must have been something out there he couldn't sense but he could.
Her lance was out and ready, gripped tightly and at a even height with her elbow. Her foots moved silent across the snow despite how each step sunk her foot down to the ankle in the white field. Hope went slower, stepping where she stepped mostly to reduce the amount of sounds he made. He hadn't mastered how to move silent across the snow, and most likely wouldn't be able to for a long time considering the crunching sound every time he stepped down, but he figured out how to at least lessen the noise so far.
It was around an edge of stones when Fang stopped and signalled for him to stop as well. Hope held his breath as he came up behind her, muscles tense despite the ache from climbing the mountain. She jerked her head forward, not making a sound, and Hope glanced in that direction to see a small pack of Leyaks fluttering around.
There were perhaps four of them in total, and while they weren't the strongest of monsters on Gran Pulse (perhaps some of the weakest), it was always a challenge to fight them due to the fact that they could summon much stronger allies if given the time to fight back.
Fang held out four fingers below her, and then three, two, one…
Her attack was silent and smooth, leaping out from their hiding spot and in one fell swoop cutting down one of the Leyaks and injuring another that was standing too close to that one.
Hope braced himself, taking a split second to calculate the distance, arc, and strength needed for the throw before launching his boomerang with all his might, jumping slightly in the snow as the weapon left his hand. The boomerang flew up high and then arced down, hitting one of the Leyaks hard before bouncing up and flying to the next one, and then the last, before it came back to his hands.
Alerted of their presence too late, the Leyaks took a second too long to realize that they were being attacked — just enough time for Fang to launch another attack at the Leyak she previously injured, spearing her lance through the creature entirely and then pulling her lance out, the Leyak dropping down.
Two more, and one of them was already flapping tiny wings furiously as they jumped in a circle, a movement Hope was far too familiar. He aimed another throw at the Leyak that was summoning, ignoring the other one even as it raced toward him, having deemed him a lesser threat than Fang.
"Is that all you got?" Fang taunted, laughing as she whirled back and then slashed forward, aiming for the summoning Leyak as well. The damage was lessor this time due to the summons, but there was still significant damage, especially when combined with Hope's attack landing at the same time.
Hope jumped up to catch his boomerang as he arced back toward him, and then took off in a run as the last Leyak made its way toward him, sliding dangerously on the snow as he got closer to the battle than he should, but couldn't avoid.
There was a brilliant light as the summoning continued, and Fang continued to attack the Leyak even as Hope moved to put some distance between himself and the last imp, which seemed intent on attacking him. He threw his boomerang one more time, not at his pursuer but at the summoner, and then raced faster to get to the projected location where his boomerang could arc afterward.
Fang let out a battle cry as she gave one final attack on the summoning imp, slashing twice with her lance before jumping high into the air, her movements triggering a mechanic on her weapon which separated it into two, allowing her to attack with both hands, movements furious and swift to use both ends of her lance.
Hope's Airwing came down with Fang's blows, adding its own damage, however meager, before turning back toward Hope. As Fang's succession of blows came to an end, the summoning ended as well — luckily for the two of them, because they had managed to take that Leyak out before it could finish the summon.
Hope struggled to force down his triumphant grin, and the nearly lost his balance as he slid on a large patch of ice.
Fang's lance (once again complete) came close to skewering him as it flew right by, inches away from his face as he fell, and he rolled away the moment he hit the ice, the breath knocked out of him but still aware that he was being chased by the last imp. As he rolled to his back and looked up, his arm raised in a position to throw his weapon, he finally saw the last of the Leyaks impaled on Fang's lance against the side of the rocks, still struggling slightly before its movements finally slowed and eventually stopped.
It was silent for a moment before Fang started laughing. Hope's eyes were wide, and he lowered his boomerang, using his elbows to push himself up into a sitting position before he smiled as well. Within seconds, they were both laughing at the exhilaration of battle.
It was the first time in months Hope felt like he had accomplished something.
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They stumbled back to the housing unit in New Bodhum long after it was already dark, Fang's steps triumphant as several carcasses hung from her lance in a hastily tried net, and Hope trailing behind her with his new clothes scraped and dirtied and a bruise across his cheek (not from any of the fights, but from banging his face against the rocks in the dark as they climbed back down again) and his mittens shoved back into his pockets again, his fingers red from cold and scraped of skin on several knuckles, but more steady than they had been in days.
It was Vanille who greeted them first, expression tight and disapproving as she saw the state of them. Her lips tightened into a thin line, but she didn't protest when Fang gifted her with the spoils and pulled her into an embrace. She didn't say anything even when the older woman shook half melted snow onto her hair and clothes.
"I'm going to get cleaned up." Fang declared once she freed herself from the monster carcasses. "Give me a shout first before anyone joins me, yeah?"
She laughed at her own joke before making her way down the hall, giving a wave but not looking back.
Hope felt his earlier adrenaline start to wear off as Vanille gave him a wide-eyed pout, half disappointment and half hurt.
"I, uh." He stammered, shifting uneasily under the weight of her disapproval. "I told Yuj earlier that I'd come back."
That seemed to be all it took for Vanille to finally burst out, "You just left! Serah told me what you said, and she didn't know what to say or what to do and I didn't know either but I tried to look for you and I didn't even know you left until I panicked and Lebreau had to tell me that you were outside. And then I tried to follow your footsteps but Snow said you'd come back on your own terms and I didn't want to leave you alone but he said you needed space and you were gone for hours —"
"I'm sorry." Hope murmured, wide-eyed in the face of her hurt. The cold was starting to wear off already, and it felt too warm under his coat, too warm inside at all house and it made his skin tingle and almost hurt.
Vanille looked like she was going to say something else for a second, but seemed to decide against it as she let out an explosive breath instead and stepped forward to envelope him into a tight hug.
"I was really worried." She told him quietly after several seconds, and he could barely dare to nod, much less reach to hug her back. "I'm sorry, too. You must have been so confused. I wanted to tell you, but Lightning said you wouldn't remember…"
There it was again, and Hope wondered just how Lightning would have known that.
"I don't, not really," he admitted into her shoulder. "It's all… it's a blur. Like a dream. But there were things that just didn't feel right, and I didn't know why. Like — how are you and Fang here? After the fall, I thought… I thought you and Fang and Light were gone forever. That I'd never see you guys again."
Vanille tensed up for a moment, and Hope was starting to regret his question before she pulled back suddenly, holding him tightly in arms' length, both hands kneading into his shoulder as she gave him a serious look.
"I don't know how to explain it." She said. "We should wait for Lightning to come back. But then we'll tell you. We'll tell you everything we know, okay? It's just… it's hard. To say it out loud."
Hope held still and looked down at the floor beneath his boots, the which had clung onto the waterproof material starting to melt and drip onto the mat at the door, rivets of water running down the side of his boots. He thought for a moment on his wording.
"Serah said," he paused, and then swallowed down the lump in his throat, his fingers tensing and untensing. They were starting to hurt from the warmth in the room. "She said something about — about… saving me."
The echo of rain and cold and pain made him shudder. I died.
It was a strange thing to know.
The resounding silence was loud enough to pound against his ears. When he looked up again, there was an unreadable expression on Vanille's face, more closed off than he had ever seen her before.
"Okay." She said simply after a few tense moments of silence. "I'll find a way to explain. You deserve to know what's going on."
Her hands slipped from his shoulders down to clasp his fingers, and then she startled as if she had just realized it.
"Your hands are freezing!" She cupped both of his hands, bringing them up to blow at them. Her touch was scorching against his skin, but he didn't have the heart to protest. "Didn't you bring gloves with you? We need to get you warmed up, and quickly!"
Fang didn't wear gloves either, though. And mittens were a hassle when he need a steady grip in the midst of battle. However cold he might have felt at the beginning faded away quickly the longer he stayed out, the more Fang slowly started teaching him about the finer points of hunting prey: of setting traps and fighting and skinning animals and using the snow to preserve the meat.
They had continued long after the sun set, Fang declaring the light unnecessary especially in the colder months when daylight was already so scarce.
"Bath." Vanille decided for him with a determined nod. "You need a warm bath. That'll warm you up the quickest!"
She started pushing him toward the hall, and Hope panicked. "But wait, Fang's getting cleaned up, isn't she?"
Vanille laughed under her breath. "There's more than one bath, you know. Not that Fang isn't used to sharing."
"Not what I wanted to know!" Hope yelped at another shove.
Vanille only laughed at him.
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Nearly an hour later, Lightning came home.
It was entirely unceremonious given that she gave in silently and no one even noticed she was back until they saw the trail of winter accessories leading to her room. Apparently she meant to sleep first thing before greeting everyone in the morning, but Vanille had been sitting with Hope in his room for the past half hour, the two of them finding more and more topics of light conversation to cover. Serah had retreated to her room after confirming that Fang and Hope were back, and was slowly continuing her wedding dress at a more subdued pace.
Fang had crashed on the couch after telling them to wake her up once Vanille was ready to head back.
Snow… well, Hope hadn't seen where Snow might have gone.
"I wouldn't know how to explain it." Vanille told him each time he asked her directly for an explanation. "Lightning would be able to tell the story better. She knows more, I think."
It was Serah who first greeted her sister quietly, sitting at Lightning's bedside to tell her that Hope was there, and moreover, that he knew.
And it was Vanille who held onto Hope's hand when Lightning marched to his room with Serah in tow, eyes hard as steel and expression unreadable and fierce.
"What tales did they tell you?" She demanded, arms crossed under her chest as she loomed in the doorway. She looked as fierce as she did during the Purge when she had been chasing after Serah into the Pulse Vestige, unafraid of whatever the world could throw at her.
The sheer presence made Hope swallow heavily, slinking backward where he was sitting on the bed, ready to protest whatever his involvement might have been. I didn't do it!
Except he had. He had been the one to confront Serah because there was something wrong and she knew it just as he did.
"We didn't tell him any tales." Vanille protested next to him, breaking his chain of thought. "I said we should wait for you to come back, and he figured everything out all by himself. He remembers."
Lightning's steel blue eyes flickered to Vanille for a moment, her jaw tightening before she looked back to Hope, expecting an answer from him.
He swallowed thickly, and breathed in deep to gather his courage. "I dream about — things. Different things. It's like everyone else left and I'm the only one here and I don't know if my dreams are right or if I'm just dreaming right now." Because there were days when he wasn't sure if the others were real. Didn't know why he felt so utterly alone even when Vanille's chipper voice spoke to him over the phone.
Serah said they just wanted to save him. He had to know. Clenching his hands tightly, one entwined with Vanille's and the other grasping a handful of the blankets, he blurted, "I need to know. Was it real?"
"Dreams are just dreams, Hope." Lightning's voice was tight. "This is real. Right now. You need to learn to ignore the dreams."
"Alyssa is real!" He didn't even care that he was shouting now, because Hope wanted to have a civil conversation, wanted to just ask Lightning a real question and get a real answer but no one was telling him anything and he had been waiting hours and hours while Serah and Vanille remained tight-lipped. "She's real, and Noel is real too — I'm not just going to forget them and say that — that they're nothing but dreams when they're not!"
He didn't give her a chance to respond, instead shaking off Vanille's hand in his frustration. "What are you guys hiding from me? I'm not a kid, I don't need to be protected—"
"Don't." Lightning's tone was razor sharp, cutting through even Hope's shouting.
"Hope, you can't say that." Vanille was pale. "Of course we're going to protect you. You're really important to us, okay?"
But none of it was them telling him anything important. He might have been alright with them hiding things from him, but not when it was about him in the first place. The room felt too small as he seethed, unable to shake off the anger he wanted to work through just earlier that day. He shouldn't have come back. He should have stayed out with Fang and built a fire in the night. He should have gone straight to sleep after his bath and pushed it all off until the next day. Maybe it wouldn't have felt as sharp and painful as it did right now.
He just couldn't untense his shoulders, couldn't bring himself to think about things rationally at that moment.
"You do need to be protected." And this time, it was Serah who spoke up, her voice clear and strong. She stood up taller from where she had been hiding behind her sister before. Lightning turned to give her a sharp look, but it didn't deter her. "Not just because we all care about you. Not just because you nearly died recently."
"Serah."
"He deserves to know, doesn't him?" Serah protested, and then turned her eyes toward Hope. She looked remarkably like her sister at that moment, strong and defiant. "We didn't mean to never tell you. We just wanted you to get better first."
Vanille nodded hesitantly in agreement besides him.
"The day of the earthquake," Serah said. "We all came back. All of us, all from different places. It wasn't just an earthquake that day. That was the last of the time gates closing. And we — all of us: even Fang and Snow and Sazh — we all came from different futures. All of them different, but with just a few things in common."
She paused, darting her eyes over to gauge her sister's reaction. Lightning, however, did not look inclined to stop her younger sister's words, even though she looked furious.
"In every timeline we came from, you were dead. And the future was in shambles."
Rain. Cold. Pain. Darkness.
Hope's throat felt painfully dry suddenly.
"Where I came from, there was a tower." And here, Serah's voice dropped from the strong tone to something a lot more lost. "You built it, do you know? At least ten years in the future, you started a project that… well, you wanted to save all of humanity. You built a tower to support an artificial intelligence that would solve all of humanity's problems. Except there was a problem and your creations turned on you — they ambushed you. I saw the footage and…" she trailed off, looking down even as she brought a hand to her heart. "Noel and I tried to at the very least avenge you. Because you died there, four hundred years in the future everyone was ruled by a fal'Cie that was turning people Cie'th left and right."
Hope inhaled sharply. What? No, that wasn't what he remembered. He didn't know anything about that! How could that be possible? How could she know what it would look like in four hundred years? Those time gates she spoke of…
"We didn't want to tell you because… how do you tell someone that he's died? And not once, but from every timeline we could recall?"
"Snow and Sazh have their own stories as well." Serah admitted. "But… I won't tell their side for them. I can't. You have to ask them about it if you really want to know. I don't think either of them want to think about what they saw."
No, that wasn't right. None of it felt right.
"Fang and I were in crystal stasis the entire time." Vanille spoke quietly from beside him. "When we woke up, the world was — it was just darkness. The skies were black and there was nothing living. Not animals, not plants. There was nothing left. Nothing at all. All I wanted… I just wanted to see you guys again. I wanted to be with everyone again."
Lightning stayed silent.
"And when we came back—" Vanille shook her head, her curls catching on the beads of her necklaces. "It was chaos. But it was beautiful somehow because there were people and color again, except I saw you fall and I thought I came at the last moment. I thought I'd got my wish granted, except I would come back just to watch you die. You — I don't ever want to see that, okay, Hope? You gotta promise me I won't ever have to see you die."
"Vanille." He still couldn't reconcile the future Serah described, but the raw pain in Vanille's voice forced him out of his thoughts, his instinctive reaction to reach out for her. "I'm…"
"Don't. Don't say you're sorry. I caught you from that fall, but I thought you were going to die anyway. If you want to make it up to me for having to go through all of that, then you've got to stay okay from now. And not complain just because we're trying to protect you. I almost saw you die, but everyone else all watched you die, you know? Let us be protective, okay? You're really important to us. And to the whole world. You can't even argue with me on that because every future without you has been terrible.
"Now you know. You're not going crazy. But things will be different now. We're all here in this together now."
Vanille tried to insert some cheer into her words, but Hope could feel the burn of Lightning's gaze on him, seeking something he didn't know the answer to.
He didn't dare look at her now, didn't dare ask exactly what she had seen. He still couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that they had all come from different futures. Futures where he hadn't made it out alive and that somehow affected the outcome for others.
But what had Lightning seen? What made her so sure that he wouldn't remember?
He couldn't ask. Maybe he was too scared.
"I guess…" Vanille continued, sounding cautious. "I guess we wanted to protect you from that, too. We're here now. We're going to take care of things, so you shouldn't worry yourself about all those futures. You just need to stay alive, and then all those terrible things won't happen."
Somehow, it felt like there was more to it.
What was so important about him? They must have had it wrong. Maybe it was just a coincidence. There could be incidents where he and a great number of other people died, and that might affect things. It wouldn't just be him, though.
"Is that what you remember?" Lightning asked him, and he flinched back at the harshness of her words. She sounded so different from all those time she called him to check on what he was doing. She sounded fond and amused during those calls, content and relaxed. Here, she was… "Did your dreams include what Serah said? What Vanille said?"
He couldn't lie. He just couldn't, not when the others were being so honest.
He turned his eyes to meet Lightning's gaze, trying to stay steady. She deserved that. Vanille and Serah deserved every ounce of strength he could find right now.
"No."
.
.
The rain was glistening on the walkways, was causing a rainbow effect on the windows of the buildings surrounding him and it should have been beautiful, should have been mesmerizing and maybe he should have taken the time to admire the effect, except he was running and running and he could barely breathe because he couldn't stop.
Everything had gone wrong wrong wrong and now he was at this dead end. Snow had said he was going to die, except that the end could be circumvented and oh but Hope had thought he managed to change things. He was supposed to have the upper hand, was supposed to have seen this coming.
His hand was warm. Warm and aching, grasped too tightly be someone else. Someone was dragging him along when his feet faltered under him, and he wasn't sure who it was.
There was shouting behind them and sharp explosive sounds that made his ears ring, echoing with his footfalls in the rainy path, splashing the water up against his pant legs.
He was running, and running, and then there was an invisible force like a silent explosion, the shockwave pushing him off balance right over a railing.
He fell.
Hope jerked awake with a start, shoving himself up from bed with a gasp and pushing at the blankets constricting his limbs. Tied up — he was tied up! He was tied up and trapped and —
As reality slowly set in, he took the deepest breath he could and held it even as his lungs burned from how much air it was storing. He raised shaking hands to his head, brushing away damp bangs as he took stock of his surroundings all the while holding his breath.
Unfamiliar room, but he knew where this was. Unfamiliar sheets and unfamiliar blanket, but at the same time.
I'm in New Bodhum, his brain told him tiredly.
He was in New Bodhum, where Serah and Vanille revealed to him the mystery of how they came to be there; of how he died in numerous timelines. Except Lightning hadn't revealed anything on their part, and their answers only brought about more questions for him.
Like his recurring dream.
I died.
They had told him that, of course. But the reality of it was different. The dreams were different. He could feel everything in the dreams, could feel his pulse slow and his body growing cold. Could feel the panic and cold oblivion imminent on the horizon.
But the cityscape was unfamiliar. The method wasn't one described by Vanille or Serah. It was something he should know, except he didn't have a clue what was going on. He hadn't gotten the answers he wanted, but instead was only beginning to understand that everything he knew, everything he could contribute, was nothing more than another piece to the puzzle.
Hope let out the breath slowly, and pulled his legs up underneath the blankets to press his forehead against his knees.
Come find me.
Yes. He believed. Alyssa and Noel existed, and furthermore, so did many many people he must have met before. Just because he was fourteen again, just because everyone else was back and safe and sound, didn't negate their existence. All the names and faces he must have forgotten, all those people were real.
Come find me.
Come find me.
.
.
.
.
This is actually only the amount of two days' worth of writing, oops! But I was super busy this weekend so I'd get two hours free a day if I was very, very lucky. So I'm cheating a little, I'm sorry. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday has followed in the busy schedule so far so I'm going to just take Sunday off and hopefully return fully to writing this come the new week. It's already starting to go a little beyond my planning, though, so it may take me a little longer to write transition scenes for the vague notes I have from here on out. So you guys get this a little early right now.
