Warnings: Mentions of rape and suicide

Lightning looked around the room as Hope worked with Caius Ballad's computer. The office was just as fancy and old-fashioned as the rest of the floor. How old is this guy? she wondered, letting her hand wander over the spines of the books in the mahogany bookcases. Every piece of furniture in the room looked like it was at least half a century old.

"Damn it," Hope muttered from the desk. "I need a password."

"Have you tried his date of birth?"

"Not yet." He typed something on the keyboard. "Nope, wrong password."

Lightning walked over to his side. "Is he married?"

"No."

"Kids?"

"Nope."

"Siblings?"

Hope furrowed his brow. "He had a foster sister once. I think her name was Yeul. She's dead now, though."

Lightning pushed his hands away from the keyboard and entered the foster sister's name. The computer played a happy little melody and gave them access to Caius' account.

"Alright." Hope looked up at her. "How much time do I have?"

She glanced at her wristwatch. "Eight and a half minutes."

He nodded and opened up the command prompt. "I think I can make it."

"You better."

She continued to look around the room. There was something strange about it but she couldn't put her finger on it. Something about the furnishing just didn't seem right.

"I can't believe this!" Hope suddenly exclaimed. "There's literally nothing in here. Nothing. Damn that technophobic bastard." He sighed. "He told me to send my blueprints to his personal fax machine, so I guess he keeps a lot of important information at home. If we want to find proof, we're going to have to sneak into his house. He's got a lot of security, but I'm sure you could pull it off." He paused for a moment. "Light, what are you looking at?"

Lightning took a step towards the area between two of the bookcases. All the other walls had paintings on them, but the wall in front of her was completely bare. She tilted her head to the side. Her feelings of wrongness were definitely coming from the gap between the bookcases. She grabbed one of the bookcases and tried to pull it to the side. It didn't move. She did the same with the other bookcase, and this time, it actually worked. The bookcase moved out of the way, and behind it, a door appeared.

"Wow," Hope said, getting up from the computer. "How the hell did you find that?"

She shrugged and tried to open the door. It was locked, but thankfully, it was the kind of lock she could easily pick in her sleep. She pulled out her lock picks from her backpack, and seconds later, the door was unlocked.

"So that's how you managed to get into my basement," Hope commented.

She shrugged again. "You should have used a better lock."

They walked through the door. She ran her hand along the wall until she found the lamp switch.

Hope snorted. "So it's my fault, is that what you're saying? Way to blame the victim . . ." He fell silent as the lamp lit up the small room.

"Is this proof enough?" she asked, hoping she didn't sound as shocked as she actually felt. The room did not speak well of Caius Ballad's level of sanity. There were newspaper clippings all over the walls, overlapping one another like a wallpaper of madness. They all seemed to cover the same story.

"Court frees rapist, victim commits suicide," Hope mumbled, reading one of the headlines out loud. "I remember this. A high school senior was raped, but when she tried to get the guy convicted, the whole school turned against her. Students, parents, teachers, everyone. When the Supreme Court freed the guy of all charges, the girl killed herself." He swallowed hard. "I had no idea. I knew his foster sister died a couple of years ago, but . . . I had no idea about this."

Lightning walked up to a different part of the wall, where a map over Washington D.C. had been pinned to the wall. Circles of different sizes covered the city, the biggest one covering almost the entire map.

"Does this mean what I think it means?" she asked Hope.

He walked up to her side. "Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit."

"I'm going to take that as a yes."

"A bomb like this would level the inner city to the ground, and the rest of Washington D.C. would be nothing but ruins." His face went pale, and he looked like he was about to throw up. "Millions of innocents would die. The bomb would take out the Supreme Court, the CIA, the Pentagon, the White House . . . this whole country would collapse. Why? Why would he do this?"

"I think this is the reason." Lightning pointed at a photograph nailed to the door, picturing a tall, purple-haired man and a petite, blue-haired girl. Right beneath the photo, someone—Caius, most likely—had left a message with a marker pen.

They will pay for what they did.

"Revenge? He's doing all of this for revenge?" Hope ran his fingers through his hair. "He's not just blowing up the Supreme Court or anything, no, he's seriously planning to nuke an entire city. He's insane. He's actually insane."

"Some people handle grief better than others." She looked at the man in the photograph. He was smiling widely, like he didn't have a single care in the world. "Sometimes, you just want to watch others suffer the way your loved one did. You want justice."

He stared at her. "Killing millions of innocents isn't justice. It's mass murder."

She nodded. "Which is why we have to get those blueprints back. Are you sure they're at his place? He might have already forwarded them to his physicists."

"I don't think so. He hasn't been at work since Monday, and he's not the kind of guy who works at home. Besides, he's holding this big, fancy masquerade party tomorrow night. He's probably pretty preoccupied." He blinked. "Hey, isn't that a pretty good opening for us? It can't be too hard to sneak around in his home if we're wearing masks at a masquerade party, right?"

Lightning considered it for a moment. "It could work. We can't underestimate him, though. He might be preoccupied, but he still gave the order to have you killed less than a day after receiving the blueprints."

"Yeah." Hope lowered his eyes. "I can't believe he would do something like this. I knew there was something weird going on with Valhalla Corporation, but I never thought . . . not like this." He glanced at her. "I get why the CIA thinks I'm a terrorist, now. I still don't want to die, but . . . I guess I can't blame them for wanting me dead anymore."

Lightning looked at him. His eyes were still fixed on the parquet floor, and he almost looked like he was about to cry. She wasn't sure why, but a part of her wanted to comfort him. I won't be able to kill him, she suddenly realized. She wasn't sure exactly when it had happened, but somewhere along the way she'd begun to see him as a person instead of just a target. Executing him in cold blood simply wasn't an option anymore. I'm going to get fired again, she thought with a sigh. She'd thought she wanted to keep the job no matter the cost, but that didn't seem to be the case anymore. Befriending a target was a rookie mistake, but it was too late to change that now. Killing Hope was a price she was no longer willing to pay.

She glanced at her wristwatch. "In two minutes, this place is going to be crawling with security guards. We need to get out of here." She patted him on the back. "We'll get those blueprints back. Don't worry."

Hope nodded, but he still wouldn't look up from the ground. "And then you'll kill me. That's how it's got to be, right? I have nowhere to run. The CIA is going to find me eventually. I'm screwed."

Lightning began to walk towards the elevator. "I have a friend who can make people disappear. She'll make sure you get out of the country safely."

She could hear him hurry after her. "But what about your mission?"

"Fuck the mission. I don't care if they fire me. I'm not killing more innocents."

She came to a stop when Hope suddenly wrapped his arms around her. Her body automatically flinched, but she managed to stop herself from throwing him over her shoulder or punching him in the face.

"Thank you, Light," he said in a low voice. "Thank you so much."

Lightning's heart began to race. Her back was pressed against his chest, and his lips were only an inch away from her ear. She wasn't sure why, but she suddenly found it hard to think coherent thoughts.

"I'm sorry for hurting you," he murmured. "I promise I'll remove the cuff before the time runs out."

Lightning's mind immediately cleared up. "You're still not removing the cuff?" She laughed humorlessly. "I'm giving up my whole career for you, and you still won't give me the benefit of the doubt?"

Hope fell silent. Lightning took a step away from him, forcing him to release her. She turned around, and he quickly avoided her gaze. At least he has the decency to be ashamed of himself, she thought with a sigh.

She looked at him from head to toe, scanning his strengths and weaknesses. He was a slender man without any muscularity to speak of. His skin was pale, and the dark circles under his eyes told her how exhausted and overworked he was. He'd said he'd held a gun before, but she was certain he'd never pointed it at another human being before. It didn't really matter how smart he thought he was or how successful he used to be—as of this moment, he was completely defenseless. Forcing her to protect him really was his only way of survival. She sighed again. What would I have done in his situation?

"I don't like it but I get it," she said out loud. "I can't really blame you for it either. I would have done the same thing." She glanced down at her left arm, where the cuff was hidden beneath her leather jacket. "It's not dangerous or anything as long as you don't press that button, right?"

"Until the time runs out, it's completely harmless."

She nodded. "Okay, then. Here's what we're going to do. We make sure you've got everything you need to disappear, we get the blueprints from your boss, you remove the cuff and then we go our separate ways." She reached out her hand. "Deal?"

He gave her a surprised smile and shook her hand. "Deal."

She tightened her grip on his hand. "And you're never, ever tasering me again. Do you understand?"

He nodded frenetically. "I understand. Please let go of my hand."

"Good." She released him, and Hope immediately pulled his hand away from her. She smirked. "Come on. We've got things to do."


About twenty seconds after they had left the building, the security guards arrived. Hope watched as they swarmed the ground floor, his feelings of guilt intensifying. The janitor would without a doubt be the one who got the blame for their little break-in.

"We need to get back to the van," Lightning said, walking away from the building without looking back. "Let's go."

Hope followed in her tracks. He wasn't sure how it was possible, but her walking pace always forced him to half-jog to keep up. Considering their height difference, he should be the one with the longer stride length.

When he'd hugged her, he'd noticed that he was actually several inches taller than her. The revelation had surprised him a little. When she'd taken on the men in his basement, she'd seemed bigger. More frightening. In his arms, she'd seemed a lot smaller. Softer. For a moment, she'd almost seemed vulnerable. Don't be stupid, he thought to himself, shaking his head. That woman is anything but vulnerable.

"Who's that friend you were talking about?" he asked her as they entered the van, slightly out of breath from the walk. "What exactly does 'making people disappear' mean?"

"She erases them from the system," she replied. "I don't know how she does it, but she's good. Really good. She can make it look like a person never even existed in the first place."

"Okay." He glanced at her. "How did you get to know a person like that? I mean, you're a CIA agent. Isn't identity fraud a serious crime?"

Her body tensed up. "That's none of your business."

Hope rolled his eyes but didn't push her any further. Her reaction told him that there was something personal about that story—something she definitely wouldn't tell him about.

About twenty minutes later, Lightning parked the van in an empty parking garage.

"I need to check your file again," she said, holding out her hand.

Hope opened the glove compartment and handed her the folder that covered his entire life. When he'd made sure that Lightning was completely concentrated on the file, he decided to give the glove compartment a closer look. After looting through heaps of candy wrappers, he found a photograph. He carefully pulled it out in the open. The photo pictured two pink-haired girls, standing side by side on a beach. Judging by their similarity, they had to be sisters. The older one was frowning at the photographer while the younger smiled brightly, holding on to her sister's hand. Hope gave the older girl a closer look and then glanced at Lightning. Yeah, he thought, I recognize that frown. Smiling a little to himself, he turned the photograph over.

July 2005: Serah and Claire, 8 and 11 years old, someone had written on the backside of the photograph.

"How old are you?" he asked Lightning.

"Twenty-four," she answered without looking up from the file. "Why?"

"Just wondering."

Hope looked at the photograph again. He could have sworn the older sister was Lightning, but the age didn't fit. I guess they're both her younger sisters.

"Fang is going to have to go really deep to make you disappear," Lightning sighed. "And you're going to have to dye your hair or something. After winning all those awards, there are going to be science nerds who recognize you wherever you . . ." She stopped as she noticed what he was looking at. Her eyes widened. "Where did you get that? Give me that!"

She snatched the photo from his hands and quickly hid it in her pocket. Hope couldn't completely decipher the look on her face, but it looked like a combination of embarrassment and fury.

"Are those girls your sisters?" he asked carefully.

"That's none of your business," she snapped. "My personal belongings are none of your business. My life is none of your business. Do you understand?"

He sighed. "Is it really that strange that I want to get to know you? You saved my life, and now you're giving up your job for me. You know literally everything there is to know about me, while I know nothing about you. We're stuck together until we've found those blueprints. Would it really be so awful to let me get to know you a little?"

"I'm agent Lightning Farron, former sergeant of the U.S. Army. That's all you need to know about me." She lowered her eyes. "That's all there is to know about me."

Before Hope could say anything, she'd already left the van. He hurried after her but didn't say anything. She had a familiar look in her eyes—the look of someone who knew they would never be good enough. He recognized it, because it was the look he always saw in his own eyes every time he looked himself in the mirror. He wanted to comfort her, but he didn't know what to say. She was still a complete stranger to him. He had no idea what a woman like her could possibly feel insecure about.

They entered a staircase and descended several flights of stairs.

"Is your friend expecting you?" Hope asked as they walked through a chilly corridor in the basement. "It's four in the morning. Most people would already be asleep by now."

They came to a stop outside a thick door with a sign hanging over it. Pulse, Hope thought as he read it. I've never even heard of this place.

"She's not most people," Lightning replied before knocking on the door. The sound echoed between the bare stone walls. "She's . . . special."

The door opened and a young woman with red pigtails stuck out her head.

"Hello, and welcome to Pulse!" she chirped, smiling brightly. "What can I . . . hey!" She gasped in surprise when she noticed Lightning, her eyes filling up with tears. "Lightning! You're back!" She threw her arms around Lightning's shoulders, hugging her tightly. "We thought . . . we were afraid you were never coming home."

"Hi, Vanille. It's been a long time." Lightning patted her awkwardly on the back. "I've been home for one and a half years, actually. I'm sorry, I should have called."

Vanille took a step back, pouting her lips. "Yes, you really should have. Do you have any idea how worried we were?"

Lightning crossed her arms, avoiding the red-head's eyes. "I'm sorry. I just . . . I was preoccupied. I'm sorry."

Vanille sighed and patted her on the shoulder. "I'm just happy you're okay."

"Hey, Vanille, what's taking so long?" asked a deep alto with a thick Australian accent.

"It's Light!" Vanille replied. "Light is back!"

She left the door wide open and took a step back, motioning for them to come inside. Lightning stepped through the door, and Hope quickly followed her. He wasn't used to being completely ignored like that, and he was afraid the young woman would close the door in his face if he didn't keep up.

They entered a room that looked like an unusually small lobby. A worn-out couch and two armchairs took up about one half of the room, and a tall, wooden counter took up the rest. A tall woman with wild hair and bronze-colored skin stood behind the counter, eying them curiously. That has to be Fang, Hope thought. It surprised him a little how young she was. When he'd heard Lightning talk about her and her skills, he'd expected someone older. This woman looked like she was about the same age as Lightning.

"It sure is nice to see you again, sunshine," Fang said, smiling warmly at Lightning. "Who's the guy?"

"His name is Hope," Lightning answered. "Valhalla Corporation and the CIA want him dead. He needs to disappear."

Fang raised her eyebrows. "Who's paying?"

"He is."

Fang grinned. "That's my girl." She gracefully jumped over the counter and approached them, discreetly putting her blue sari back in place. "I'm Fang. Nice to meet you."

She reached out her hand and Hope shook it. "I'm Hope. Nice to meet you too."

Fang threw her head back and laughed heartily. "You won't say that when you've seen my price list, love. Come on. Let's go and delete you from the world."

She grabbed his arm and began to pull him towards a door behind the counter. He nervously glanced back at Lightning over his shoulder. She only gave him a thumbs up.

"I hope you're ready to start your life over from scratch," Fang said. "There's not going to be a single thing left on your record after I'm done with you. Education, jobs, experiences, I'm deleting all of it. Are you ready for that?"

"Not really," he replied, "but I don't think I have a choice. Losing everything is better than getting killed."

She grinned and patted him hard on the back. "I like the attitude. Alright, let's get this thing started. We have a long night ahead of us."

She walked through the door without waiting for an answer. Hope stopped right outside and took a deep breath. It was strange, knowing that everything about him was about to be erased. What was even stranger was that the thought didn't really bother him all that much. Deleting his past meant that he'd most likely never introduce inertial confinement fusion to the modern world, and it meant that he'd most likely never receive that Nobel prize. He'd be an ordinary person with an ordinary job and an ordinary life—and it didn't sound all that bad. No more pressure, he thought. No more impossible expectations.

He smiled to himself as he walked through the door. Starting over from scratch might not be such a bad thing after all.

A/N: I hesitated a really long time before giving Caius (and Yeul) this kind of backstory, since I know it's a really sensitive topic for a lot of people. In the end I chose to go with it anyway, because I think the only way for Caius to become a person who feels no remorse about killing innocents in an AU like this is to make something unforgivable happen to Yeul while the rest of the world just stands idly by. For me, rape is probably the most unforgivable thing you can do to another person. Every time I see the rest of the world blame the victim, I kind of feel like going on a rampage of mass destruction too. That's why I chose to write their backstory like this.

A big thanks to all of you who leave reviews. It's really encouraging.

Love,
Cecilia