All right, here's the next 3! Once this series is done, I'll probably actual attempt something longer with more complicated. I love time travel stuff.

It was too soon when Serah and Noel left again. Hope put on a brave face, but he wasn't ready. He wasn't sure if he could ever be ready to be alone again. While he knew that they were the best chance to fix things. He also knew, that they were also the worst people to fix things. Noel and Serah had no care to save the world. They were messing with the timeline for selfish reasons.

Serah wanted Lighting back, was willing to risk everyone else to get her sister back. Including Snow if one were to really be honest. And Noel wanted to save Yeul. It was ridiculous he thought to have such a narrow reason for doing something so big. When he had been a l'cie and they had all been lost. Saving Cocoon had been their reason.

And well, Hope knew he was somewhat throwing stones from his own glass house. If he could, he would damn the world if it meant saving Light, Fang, Vanille and his mother. He knew it was stupid that at 27, he still missed his mother, still wanted her back. But it was his own selfishness. His lifeline.

But he knew that unlike Serah and Noel he had a line in the sand, he could not sacrifice the people that he had been willing to save when his life was forfeit. When he had heard of Noel and Serah's time traveling he knew that he couldn't have really changed anything. He was sure that he couldn't save his mother. It was a desire. A wish. Mostly what he wanted to do was to go back before The Purge and show his mother that he would grow up. That he would be okay. Not perfect, not completely happy... but okay.

Which was something he wasn't. He'd taken to sleeping less. No one else really understood him here. He was the great scientist, more like a magician really. He'd pioneered so many things. Thought up 1o new impossible things a day and completed at least 20 impossible things a week. He was the architect of the new Cocoon even if he'd had several different people over several different centuries doing most of the work, development and understanding.

The human mind was vast yes, but there was only so much one man could do. After all, before this, such a thing had been done by Fal'cie, beings who could think things into creation, a vast different type of archetype from him. And also a devastating one as he remembered that Bartandulus was bound to his own 'focus' unable to challenge it. Thinking of Baratndulus in any sort of sympathetic light probably meant he was sleep deprived. But he couldn't help it.

He couldn't sleep. Sleep meant remembering the assassination attempts more vividly then he already did. He could still sometimes feel Alyssa on top of him, the gun pressed to his chest. The wild look of pain in her eyes. She hated him, she hated him in a way that was more cutting and definitely deeper then when the villagers had looked upon him with rage and fear in Palumpolum.

It was strange. Sometimes he asked himself what she hated about him. Was it that he was alive? A l'cie? Was it that he wanted to change the future? Or was it that he was willing to sacrifice her, even unknowingly, to accomplish his goals? Hope knew that what he wanted was a pipe dream. He was ready to die for his dreams.

He'd assumed that he'd die alone back in the first century after the fall. All his friends had left. The few he had gained left after terrorist incident. Whether because he chased them away or such was the way of things, he hadn't really known or cared. People hated him. That was what was important.

Even once they had came back to Pulse it wasn't as if they were safe from Fal'cie. Pulse fal'cie had other reasons to make l'cie. And with most people still believing the Cocoon Fal'cie poisoning it hadn't been easy. Sometimes, people sought out the fal'cie. For strength, to do whatever stupid thing. Or Fal'cie sought out people to do their bidding.

Hope pulled himself from his musing and stared down at his brand. He stroked his fingers over it idly. His mind conjuring up the feeling of Noel's hand pressed over it again. He closed his eyes and tried not to cry. For the first time, he fervently wished that he was the one who had disappeared and not Alyssa.