"I'm not even sure where to start. So much has happened…it's hard to explain."

How did you even begin to describe time travel? He didn't even know how it had happened, let alone anything else. But the others were staring at him expectantly, and he had to start somewhere.

"I've done all of this before."

Gladio frowned, while Ignis raised his eyebrows. Prompto just kept staring at him intently, clearly waiting for him to explain further.

"I…I'm not even sure what happened, honestly. One minute I was dying, the next I was on the road with you guys. I felt like I was dreaming, but…I wasn't. It was real—all of this. I didn't understand what happened—I thought you knew, from the start, and you were just ignoring me, but I was wrong about that too, I just… All of this is so insane."

"Why don't you start from the beginning, Noct?" said Ignis, smiling kindly, but still with that intentness in his eyes. "You say you've done this before?"

Noctis took a deep breath. Right. That probably made no sense at all—from the beginning. He could do this. "Yes. All of this. It started out just the same. We left the city, and the next day Insomnia was gone. We were stranded with no way to Altissia, and no idea what we were doing. Or…I dunno, maybe that was just me."

"You remember doing this before then? Like a prophetic dream or something?" asked Gladio, still frowning.

"No," said Noctis, shaking his head in frustration, "like I lived it then somehow came back. I died. I remember dying. But now I'm alive again. All of this stuff," he made a vague gesture at the air, "was ages ago. Ages and ages ago. I died when I was thirty. I still remember all of it. It was like…I don't even know what it was like. I've never heard of anything like this before."

"So you're really thirty?" asked Prompto, looking at him incredulously. "You don't really act like it. No offence, dude."

"It's…complicated," sighed Noctis, resting his face in his hands. "I spent ten years in a kind of limbo, so I guess I'm still mentally about twenty, just…a lot of stuff happened, okay? A lot of people died. The world basically ended and it was kind of my fault. But all of that's still ahead—or it will be, if I don't do something."

"Wait, hold up, the world ended?" asked Prompto, his eyes now as wide as saucers. "I feel like you should have led with that."

Gladio folded his arms and frowned even more deeply. "I'm more concerned about this whole 'dying at thirty' thing. Why didn't I save you?"

"Give him a moment," said Ignis, irritably. "He can't answer ten questions at once."

Noctis glanced at Gladio, then Prompto. Prompto's would probably be the easiest (and least painful) to answer first.

"The days are getting shorter, you must have noticed it," he said, glancing up at the sky. Still a clear blue overhead. That wouldn't last long. "It's because of the Starscourge. It's spreading everywhere, and soon there'll be no sun at all. It'll be one long, unending night. And Ardyn's the one causing it."

He could see the questions in the eyes of his friends and decided to charge right on ahead rather than wait for them to ask.

"He's the source of the new daemons. He's been cursed to spread the Starscourge wherever he goes, which is why he could infect me with it in the first place. And I'm the one who has to stop him."

"Why you specifically, Noct?" asked Ignis, before the other two could get a word in.

Now this he did know the answer to. Almost painfully well. "There's a prophecy about it. That when the eternal night comes a king will be chosen to restore the light—and since my dad just died, that's kind of been left with me now."

"And you completed the prophecy, in this other world?" asked Gladio.

"Yeah." He didn't know if he could go on with the rest of it—it was all so massive, so...insurmountable. The weight of the prophecy was unlike any he'd ever known.

How could he just tell them he was going to die?

"But you died anyway?" Gladio prompted.

He was really going to have to do this, wasn't he?

"I don't think 'anyway' is the right word. More like...because of."

Gladio's frown became deeper, and both Ignis and Prompto leaned forwards slightly.

"It's part of the prophecy that I have to die to defeat Ardyn. My life to seal his away forever. My life…for the rest of the world. And I did it. I accepted that price—for the good of all of humanity. So...I guess it kind of surprised me when I suddenly wasn't dead anymore."

Ignis was now frowning too. "You're sure that was the prophecy, Noct? That you had to die?"

"I had it spelt out to me by Bahamut himself, so yeah, I'm pretty sure."

It was hard to contain his bitterness over that point, because it shouldn't have been Bahamut that told him. His dad knew. Luna knew. And in almost fifteen years of knowing, neither of them had told him. That was why it took him so long to get out of the Crystal. That, in the end, was part of what doomed the world.

He pushed the bitter thoughts aside. There'd be time to deal with that later.

"That...seems rough," said Prompto, who looked more confused than anything else. "But what else happened? I mean, it couldn't have just happened, you know? What happened with us? With Lady Lunafreya?"

Noctis leant back in his seat, sighing and staring at the sky. So much had happened already—most of it quite different to the world he'd lived in before. Where to even begin? Should he gloss over what had already happened and focus on what was yet to come if he didn't do anything? Or should he take the time to explain why he'd been acting so strangely, all the things that went wrong, right from the very start? Six, this was complicated.

Maybe he should start with the most important thing—why they had to get to Altissia. What they had to do there.

"Luna died," he said, getting the words out as quickly as possible, so he didn't have to think about them. "In Altissia, after she summoned Leviathan she was stranded on the altar. I was so busy trying not to die I didn't notice when...when..." The words were stuck—he could see it so sharply in his mind, the blood pooling around her stomach, Ardyn's sadistic grin... He had to finish this though. He couldn't move on otherwise. "I didn't notice when…Ardyn stabbed her. She gave up the last of her strength to help me defeat Leviathan. When I woke up...she was gone."

Prompto squeezed his arm tightly. Noctis didn't look up at him. He didn't want anyone to see the tears beginning to build in his eyes.

"Noctis, I'm so sorry," said Ignis. Hearing those words from his mouth was almost agony in itself.

"You were blinded in the attack," he said quickly, trying to get everything out, trying to get it past them before they could judge him for it. "Your vision never recovered. Nothing was the same after that day. Everything went wrong…and there was nothing…nothing I could do to stop it…"

His throat was beginning to seal shut as tears choked him. This wasn't their fault. But he still felt the pain, still felt their judgement lying heavy on his shoulders, the train... He still hadn't forgiven them, not really. There hadn't been time. And later he hadn't had the chance—it felt wrong to bring it up ten years later. Even if it had felt like mere seconds to him.

"I can't let that happen again," he said, his voice trembling so much he could barely get the words out. "I won't."

There was a short silence. Noctis continued staring at the floor, not wanting to face them. Not wanting to see the looks of disappointment that must be on their faces.

Ignis was the one who broke the silence. "I see. This is why you were so eager for us to go on to Altissia."

"I don't know if it'll even change anything," said Noctis, pressing his numb hands together in an attempt not to think too hard about it. "But I have to try. You understand why, right?"

He finally glanced up at them again. Everyone seemed to be miserable somehow. A grim voice in his head whispered 'your fault.'

"I do," said Ignis, nodding slowly. "But what I don't understand is why you didn't tell us about this fore-knowledge of yours—if we'd have known what might happen to Lady Lunafreya, we wouldn't have argued with you, Noctis."

Noctis sighed, resting his face in his hands again. "I know, I just...I barely even understood what had happened to me, at the start. I thought I must be dreaming. I thought...I thought you knew too."

"How would we know?" asked Prompto, looking at him with curiosity.

"It sounds stupid now I say it, but...when I woke up you were wearing the same clothes you wore when I died. You were wearing the Kingsglaive uniform, so I thought you must have come back with me, but you didn't seem to notice it at all—I think there must have been some sort of glamour on it or something. All of the things that changed—none of you noticed. I was so confused back then—angry, even—I thought you were ignoring me deliberately or something."

This had everyone frowning with confusion.

"You mean the clothes we were wearing weren't the ones we thought we had on?" asked Gladio, glancing down at his own shirt, almost as if to check.

"I saw you wearing your Kingsglaive clothes. Sometimes you still wear bits and pieces of them, but since you never commented on it, and it got pretty obvious you didn't know anything about the future, I just assumed you couldn't see it." Like with his face, and his clothes. Probably best not to mention those scars just yet.

"Can you show us, Noct?" asked Ignis. "I confess I'm curious as to this glamour theory of yours. If it is, there are ways of breaking such things."

"Um, sure," Noctis said awkwardly. "You wanna get a suitcase and I'll see? I'd do it myself but I'm not really up to walking very far right now."

"I'll do it," said Gladio, rising from his seat. "I figure we all need kind of a break anyway. Anyone want a drink or something?"

"Water would be nice," said Noctis. His throat was getting incredibly dry what with all the talking. And crying.

"Same for me," said Prompto.

"Some Ebony, if you please," said Ignis.

Gladio nodded and strode away, leaving the three of them alone.

"So, you knew all of this from the start, huh?" asked Prompto, who had finally released his arm. "No wonder you acting so weirdly—no offence, dude."

"No, I knew I was probably acting pretty strange to you guys. But I didn't feel like I could explain it, so I just kind of...kept going."

Ignis gave him a sharp look.

"Oh come on," said Noctis, defensively, "what was I supposed to say? 'Sorry I was being so mean before, I thought you'd time travelled with me and were being really awful about it?' What a great lead-in that would have been."

"You could have said something, Noctis," said Ignis, still looking disapproving.

"Alright, how about this—you know the exact moment I realised you couldn't have come back with me? When I attacked Ardyn at Galdin Quay. Kind of hard to give a decent explanation after that, right?"

Ignis sighed deeply and rested his face in his hand, while Prompto just looked uncomfortable.

"I confess, I have wondered about that for some time," said Ignis, glancing up again. "Of course, it makes more sense with your story, but..."

"Do you seriously think you'd have believed me if I'd said that at the time?" he asked, mostly rhetorically, since he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

Ignis refused to look at him, more or less confirming his thoughts.

"I'm sorry about not telling you, but I felt like I didn't have a choice."

"You guys discussing stuff without me?" asked Gladio, making Noctis jump as he returned into view. He had a large suitcase in his right hand, and the drinks in the other.

"Not much," said Noctis, pulling himself together. "Just why I didn't think I could tell you at the start."

Gladio placed the suitcase on the seat next to him and began passing around the drinks to everyone. "Any why was that?"

Noctis could barely feel the icy cold of the water with the numbness of his hands. "Mostly because I thought I'd look even more crazy than I already do."

"That's fair," said Gladio, taking his seat again. "Now you gonna show us the deal with these clothes?"

Right. Hopefully this would work—it'd be a point for him not being insane at the very least. "I'll try," he said.

He reached over and unclasped the lid. There was a lot of clothing laid out inside, but the Kingsglaive uniform was distinctive enough that it was easy enough to spot, even in amongst all this other rubbish. He pulled it out and laid it out on top of the suitcase.

"What does this look like to you?" he asked the others.

They all stared at him uncomprehendingly.

"Just looks like Gladio's jacket to me, dude," said Prompto, leaning around him to look at it.

"Agreed," said Ignis.

"Same here," said Gladio, glancing down at the jacket he was wearing as if to check it was the same.

"…Not what it looks like to me." Was the glamour really so strong as all that? Of course it must be, that they hadn't realised it for this long already, but still... "Can't you see the buttons?" he asked, pointing to them. "How long it is?" He lifted up the bottom to demonstrate.

"Ugh," hissed Prompto, massaging his forehead. "Stop that, you're giving me a headache."

Ha, it was working! "Why would it be giving you a headache if it wasn't a glamour of some kind?"

Prompto's eyes widened slightly.

"I'm having much the same problem," said Ignis, taking his glasses off and squinting at the jacket. "Now you point it out, it is quite hard to look at properly. There must be some sort of illusion about it."

"I'm telling you—it's a Kingsglaive jacket."

With those words, they all flinched back in unison. Prompto hissed and hid his eyes completely, Ignis just closed his while Gladio immediately turned back to the jacket, squinting strongly.

"You're right," he muttered. "I can see it now. How...how did that even happen?"

The others opened their eyes too.

"Woah," whispered Prompto.

"That is powerful magic," said Ignis, replacing his glasses on his nose as he stared at it. "No mortal could have done this—it must be the work of the Gods."

"But you believe me, right?" asked Noctis, putting the jacket back down. "This couldn't be here if what happened hadn't happened."

"Well, I don't remember picking that thing up anywhere, so yeah, I believe you," said Gladio, blinking a few times. "Still think it's crazy, but I can't really argue with physical proof, can I?"

"I wouldn't recommend it," said Noctis, the faintest bubble of relief rising in his chest. He might actually be able to do this.

"Yes, I think that's proof enough of what happened," said Ignis, still looking a bit shaken. "You say that your last memory was of dying, Noct? What happened in-between there and Altissia? If we're to change what happened, it is imperative we know what happened first."

"Right." This definitely wasn't going to be easy. He didn't even want to tell them half of it, the shame still burning through his veins as though it was yesterday, but if he wanted to change the future he might have no choice. No—he'd decided now. He was doing this. No matter the cost. "I suppose there are a couple of things you need to know first. Without Luna, the Starscourge began to spread everywhere, and over in Niflheim there was a mass outbreak as the MTs started going berserk—I think Ardyn was the one who caused it."

"That makes sense," said Gladio, nodding, "he'd be in the best tactical position to cause it—right hand of the Emperor and everything."

"But the MTs are already going crazy here," said Prompto, "did that happen too?"

Noctis shook his head. "I think Ardyn's speeding things up because of how I was acting towards him. Before we kind of just...let him help us out?"

"The Chancellor of Niflheim?" asked Gladio, looking disgusted.

"Hey, we were alone in a country we'd basically never been in before, and he was offering to help us out." Noctis shrugged, feeling the need to defend his past self, even if he did think he'd been an idiot. "I don't think we even realised who he was until we met the second time. Anyway—he obviously didn't think we were a threat. I've...kind of ruined that this time."

"There's little we can do about that now," said Ignis, shaking his head. "Go on, Noct."

Where was he? Right—the Starscourge.

"Because there was no one around to heal the Starscourge, more and more daemons started popping up, until the light began to fade completely. By the time we reached Gralea the sun wasn't coming up at all. Everywhere was trapped in eternal darkness."

"Daemons can do that?" asked Prompto, looking horrified.

"If there's enough of them, yeah. And given the entirety of Niflheim and most of Tenebrae got turned into them all at once, there were plenty of them."

"I'm sorry, did you say 'turned into them'?" asked Ignis, raising his eyebrows.

Right, they wouldn't know about that. This...was not going to be pleasant. "That's what the Starscourge does. It's not a deadly disease, in the traditional sense. The reason it's called a 'vanishing sickness' is because once it takes you over completely...you turn into a daemon. Practically every daemon was once a human or animal of some kind."

Ignis drew in his breath sharply. Gladio eyes went wide. Prompto just looked like he was going to be sick.

"Then, you could..." whispered Prompto.

"Yeah." He tried not to think about how hard it was getting to breathe. It was just anxiety. He was sure of it. "Just another reason I need to get to Luna as soon as possible."

Ignis nodded. "We must get you treated as soon as we come ashore."

"We're going as fast as we can," said Gladio.

As though he'd expected any less. Next…next. Noctis sighed. He wasn't sure whether he should mention this part, but it was definitely something he didn't want to happen again, so he supposed he had to.

"There's one last thing you should know about Ardyn. He can make himself look like other people—kind of like with those clothes." He gestured to the uniform. "On the train on the way to Gralea...he used it to kidnap you, Prompto."

"What?" asked Prompto, his eyes going wide. "Why me? What did he want with me?"

Noctis took a deep breath. He was right about this not being easy. Six, he didn't want to talk about this. "He tortured you. Just because he knew it would get to me. I'm so sorry, I was...so stupid..."

He knew he was on the verge of tears, which was hardly fair, because this was all his fault anyway and he didn't want Prompto to feel any worse, but he couldn't stop them as they rolled down his cheeks. He wiped frantically at his face, trying to ignore them.

"Hey, I don't blame you, buddy," said Prompto, squeezing his shoulder. "It wasn't your fault."

"How can you say that?" he cried. "Of course it was my fault! I was the target—he did all of it, all of it just because he thought it would hurt me! You didn't do anything wrong at all—it was all my fault—"

"No," said Gladio, cutting him off. "The person who's fault it is is Ardyn's. He's the bastard who's been doing all this, not you. You can't take responsibility for what he's done."

Noctis felt as though his world was being horribly upended and twisted around and around. Was this Gladio speaking? He'd said almost the opposite on the train...why?

"But I'm the King," said Noctis, weakly. "I have to take responsibility—that's my job—"

"Not for people like Ardyn," said Gladio, shaking his head. "It was his fault and I'll stand by that."

"I don't... Fine," he breathed, still not quite able to wrap his head around all this. "Fine, if you're okay with it, then it's...fine."

He took a few deep breaths, trying to get his mind on track. Okay.

"When we finally got to Gralea there was no one left there. Daemons had taken over and when we got into the city proper we got separated. Worse, they had magical blockers set up all around the city so I couldn't use the Royal Arms at all. I had to rely on the Ring to fight my way into the building where they were keeping the Crystal."

"Do you think the blockers will be there when we reach Niflheim this time?" asked Ignis.

"Almost certainly."

"Then we shall have to be careful. We don't want to be caught unawares like then. We should have some weapons outside the Armiger, just in case."

Noctis nodded. He hadn't even thought that far ahead in the plan.

"Eventually I found you guys again, and you, Prompto, though...you weren't exactly in fighting form after everything that had happened."

Prompto nodded, looking a little ill.

"Then...we got cornered by Ravus."

"He wasn't on our side that time, huh?" said Gladio, frowning.

Noctis shook his head. "No, I think it's more complicated than that. He wasn't really in control of his actions. Ardyn killed him, then reanimated him with the Starscourge and forced him to fight us."

The look of disgust on Gladio's face at that was going to stay with him for some years to come.

"How?" asked Prompto, looking equally disturbed.

"You know what? Ideally that won't happen this time, so I'll spare you the horror of describing it," said Noctis, trying vainly to purge the image from his own mind.

Prompto looked a little embarrassed. "Right."

"Anyway, after we killed him, Ardyn kept summoning more and more daemons, until I was forced to run on ahead to get to the Crystal. I...had to abandon you."

He could feel tears brimming in his eyes again, even though he knew they hadn't actually died. He took a moment to get his breath back.

"We thought the Crystal might be able to fight off the daemons and bring back the light itself—it had always repelled them in Insomnia, so we figured it would work the same again if I reached it. Probably should have guessed by the amount of daemons in the Keep that wasn't going to work."

Ignis looked surprised. "The Crystal did nothing?"

Noctis shook his head. "It did something alright. When I went up to it, hoping for it to give me its power it...began pulling me inside. To get its power I had to sleep in there for ten years—I couldn't get out until I'd accepted that I had to die to save the world. That was the price."

He could see they were still processing this knowledge, so he decided to go on ahead and finish before he was interrupted again.

"By the time I got out, the world was in ruins. You guys were still alive but I don't think a lot of people survived it. We went to what was left of Insomnia and fought our way through to Ardyn. Then I killed him, and...myself. And that was it. Until I woke up with the car broken down on the road again... I don't remember anything else."

Ignis frowned and nodded slowly, clearly still trying to process what had happened. Gladio still looked a little dazed.

"There was no in-between or anything then?" asked Prompto, looking almost as confused as the other two. "You just died then came back?"

Noctis tried to think about it. He remembered come back only in bits and pieces, his memory foggy in places where it should have been clear. Cold blue crystal, then the warm heat of Leide—one transitioning into the other seamlessly, and he hadn't been afraid. It was only when he opened his eyes, came out of the trance, that that certainty faded away and the world span out of shape before him. Why had he come back? Why had he been so calm at the start, as he felt himself slipping away?

His mind came up against a wall. He could resolve it into no answers. Just the same pain and bitterness that was always lurking at the back of his thoughts—that the Gods had betrayed him—that in some way he'd failed the last time he did this. That he was lost.

"No, there was nothing," he murmured, trying to ignore the thoughts clamouring in his mind. "I had no idea what happened, or why. I felt like...I'd failed..."

All at once the memories of the beginning that he'd repressed for so long came rushing back to him.

The sun blazed down on his face, the heat of the pavement beneath him scorching his skin. He opened his eyes to a brilliant blue sky, fluffy clouds flying high above him. This couldn't be real. Could it?

Someone lightly tapped his shoulder, and he heard the words even before they were spoken.

'C'mon, car isn't gonna move itself.'

His heart stuttered in his chest. It was hard to breathe. He was back. This was wrong.

He remained silent as he put his whole weight behind pushing the car, his head spinning.

How was this possible?

Had the Gods done this?

Was this a punishment?

Why was no one else talking to him—they had their uniforms on for goodness sake!

He tried desperately to think back to his last moments, to try and find an answer in the mist. He had killed Ardyn—he'd seen it, felt it. He'd brought the light back, hadn't he? So why was he here now? Why, whenever he thought of the past, did the overwhelming shadow of death seem to cloak him? Why did he feel like he was walking beside ghosts?

Ignis's voice suddenly interrupted his memories. "Failed at what, exactly?"

Darkness choked out the sky, ashes eternally falling from the heavens, cloaking the landscape in a thick layer of dust. A shrivelled tree stood next to the garage. Sunken, weary faces looking at him, their eyes glazed, no sign of recognition on their features. So this was the end.

"Saving the world," he said, finally forcing himself out of those grim visions of the past. "You don't know what it was like after I woke up. The world was dying. Everywhere was dark and almost everyone had been turned into daemons. It seemed...so hopeless."

Prompto put his hand on his arm again.

"We won't let that happen again," said Gladio. "There has to be a way of stopping it."

"I hope so," sighed Noctis. His head was beginning to ache as the pressure and weight of all he'd told them was finally abating, leaving him feeling oddly light-headed and off-centre. "There has to be some way."

"Are you alright, Noct?" asked Ignis. His discomfort must have been showing more than he'd thought it had.

"Bit dizzy," he said, massaging his forehead. "I feel...strange."

"You've told us a lot—it must have been hard on you, not to mention the Starscourge. Do you want to go back to bed?"

He didn't, not really, not after having told them all of that, but his head was pounding so much he didn't really have a choice.

"That might be best," he said, shuffling forwards, to the edge of the seat.

He tried to stand up on his own, but his legs began trembling instantly, and the next second they fell out from underneath him, and he would have fallen face-first onto the ground if Prompto hadn't shot up and grabbed him.

"Woah there!" he said, holding Noctis tightly by the shoulders. "I'll help you back, don't stretch yourself."

Noctis just nodded, suddenly feeling too tired to speak. He let Prompto guide him back to his room, and fell onto the bed without a second glance. He closed his eyes in an attempt to get his headache to cease. Darkness crept in, then light, as he drifted slowly away.

Okay, so, behind the author's screen for a moment here—I wrote this chapter no less than three times. I have three different versions of varying lengths sitting in my drafts at the moment (so you can imagine how stressed I am), but I've settled on this one because I thought it kept the evenest balance between the reactions of the bros and exposition from Noct. Exactly how much they know of what happened the first time has kind of varied as a result (and means a whole lot more editing for me, wooo) but I think this keeps us mostly in the clear knowledge-wise without getting too bogged down in the details?

As you can probably tell, this was by far the most stressful chapter of the fic for me to write because...my god I've been leading up to this point for like...two years? More or less? There's a lot riding on this thing! So I hope I've met your expectations with this one—goodness knows I spent enough time on it haha! I hope all of you enjoyed it, and thank you so much for reading!