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059. Mercy

Butterflies in your stomach aren't usually a nice feeling. They're only ever nice when they're because you're anticipating something nice, or because you're walking next to the person you love. Otherwise, it may as well be hyperactive maggots crawling around your stomach for how it feels. Sickening, uncomfortable, and like you've caught a disease.

It was the second kind of butterflies that were in both Hope and Vanille's stomachs that night. The night before went to fight Orphan; the night they were camped in the very mouth of danger. The night that would change everything for them both, forever.

They were doing the rounds together, trying to make sure a behemoth didn't take them out before they even got a chance with Orphan. Neither of them had said a word since they'd begun patrolling, almost ten minutes again.

Hope looked over his shoulder.

"Fang's gone to sleep now."

Vanille sighed. It wasn't a characteristic sigh. "I know she doesn't mean it but... I'm not fifteen anymore."

She chewed her lip, a hand unconsciously going to her wand as they turned a corner into another pink, glowing corridor.

"She just cares about you. A lot."

Hope caught Vanille's eye, and their lips pulled into irresistible smiles, and then laughter. Like all the other times they'd laughed over Fang's protectiveness, it felt like nothing was wrong. Just for one instant, it felt like they were free. Not l'cie, not a Pulsian and a Cocoon boy. Just, free.

"Hope?"

He nodded wordlessly, catching her eye.

"What're you doing after all this? Snow's getting married, Sazh is getting Dajh back..."

"I'm going to go back to school, and forget all this." Hope insisted, inspecting the endlessly high ceilings above him. He'd given quite a bit of thought to this, in truth. What did someone do after something like this? Usually, whoever they were, they were already a hero. Already predisposed to be saving the world and everything. But Hope was just a normal kid. He wasn't a hero - and he didn't want to be.

"Whaddya mean?" Vanille had a habit of letting her accent get even thicker when she was just relaxing with them all. Sometimes it was so thick she felt like she was slurring her words.

"I was a normal kid. I still am a normal kid. I'll just go back to doing what I was doing." He shrugged, and was surprised by the frown she wore.

Vanille stopped, suddenly, aware of the shock that rose in her and surprised at her reactions. She thought she'd trained herself better than this by now. She thought she knew better than to get too mad.

"Hope, you're not just a normal kid, you're..."

Wonderful. Kind. Strong and intelligent. All the words she wanted to say, but never did.

"- if I'd been two rows back that day on the Purge, this never would've happened. I wouldn't even be here." Hope interrupted her, stopping to stand in front of her. He didn't know why, but he felt himself getting annoyed with her like never before.

"I'm sure you'd still be here, with us."

She couldn't tell if she was annoyed because he didn't seem to even think about her in their life after tomorrow, or because she knew that he was more than just normal.

"But I'm right. You volunteered, Snow was leading the resistance. Lightning was actively trying to get Serah back, and Sazh was following anyone who looked remotely like they could help him get his son back. You all chose this - I didn't! If it's been some other kid who's mom had died, you'd probably be having this same conversation with him."

Vanille gasped, and frowned, feeling her annoyance turn to anger. "Don't you... don't say that!"

"But I'm right! And I don't know what you keep on insisting that I'd be here with you, but I wouldn't."

"Because I want you here! I'm happy you're here! And I don't think you're just normal. I don't think you'll ever be normal again."

Hope took a deep breath. He tried not to take that in the way it sounded but the way she meant it. It didn't work. "But I want to be normal. I just want this all to go away."

His voice was almost steady, but it rocked like a volcano's top before the lava flooded through the cracks.

Vanille felt her eyes prick. There was so many things she wanted to say to him, but she couldn't. "You want us all to go away?"

"Yes! Well- no. I mean—"

Vanille hurried off, retracing their steps until the mouth of Orphan's Cradle was in sight; bright, shining, and hurting her stinging eyes.

"Vanille!" He shouted to her, a shout that was bound to reach the rest of everyone in the cradle.

Both of them hoped that everyone was sleeping deeply.

"Hope if you meant it then just say it!"

"Vanille, I swear— I swear, I didn't mean it like that!"

She looked into his eyes. She took a deep, long look into his eyes. Open and honest, and full of raw emotion.

She stepped down a few of the stairs she'd been marching up when he called her name.

"Alright. I just... I think you've changed so much - we all have. Nothing's gonna be 'normal', Hope."

One of our worlds is going to be crushed. The words she wanted to add, and that hovered in the air between them.

He sighed. She just didn't understand. "It's a highly pressurised situation. We all change to adapt to the situation. And then you bounce back."

"Really?"

"Yes!"

She looked at him with those sad eyes he knew meant that she was viewing him like the boy he once was.

"You're looking at me like him fourteen again."

"You're still looking at me like the eighteen-year-old you looked up to."

His body seemed to tense up in a second and he let out a spluttering sound halfway between a scoff and a denial.

"I haven't done that for a long time now."

Her eyes narrowed, an action that just didn't look right on her. "I wonder."

Hope took a deep breath. "Vanille, we all change when we're under pressure. It's just what happens. It's human nature."

"We all change, then?"

"Yeah. And do crazy things. Form bonds we'd never otherwise form - human stuff!"

"Crazy things, Huh?"

"Yeah! I'd never have talked to Light if I hadn't met her here!" His admission came as a slight shock to himself, too. "But then we all go back to normal after the pressure's gone."

"So..." she didn't know why she did it, but the anger that hit her like a tonne of bricks seemed to force her to ask. "Did you ever actually like me? Or is it just because of the 'pressure'." Even as she heard her voice say the words it sounded as though they were underwater.

Hope took a step backwards.

"Is this a joke? I've been in love with you for months now!"

His admission, and the passion with which he said it hung in the air between them. He, panting, looked at her, who gaped back at him.

"Hope, I..."

"Don't say it!" He begged her. "I love you. I've known it for a while now. I'd do anything to see you smile, and I get butterflies in my stomach when I walk next to you, and I'd die if it would save you!" He looked away from her, couldn't take the tears running down her face. "So please, don't tell me you don't love me too. Don't tell me it was all just because it was convenient."

A silence hung between them, punctuated only by Vanille's muffled sobs behind her hands. A hint of sickening realisation hung in the air for one of them, but both of them felt those crawling maggots back in their stomachs. She steadied herself, and looked at him. And all she could do was stand with her mouth hung open.

"Come here."

It wasn't Vanille. It was Fang.

"Got yourself hurt?" Vanille shuffled over at first, then made a show of actually walking over. She shook her head, still wordless. Fang didn't say anything for a moment. "Come on. We'll get you some peace and quiet."

Fang steered Vanille away, and Hope watched them go. He tried to catch her eyes, but she wouldn't look at him.

Hope looked back up at the endless ceilings. The anger still seethed somewhere in his heart, deep below the sadness and the pain and the untold scars.

He couldn't wait to be free of this damned place.

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