Please note this story is rated M and will contain explicit content. This chapter is NSFW.

For someone with so much experience being alone, I sure am bad at it.

I came to this realization, alone, in the middle of the night, my hand down my pants and a short scene of a woman fucking another woman with a rainbow dildo on my holopad. I liked this video; it was short, passionate. It was made by two women who looked for all the world like they enjoyed having sex with one another. It was a vicarious sort of voyeur-ship. As much as I enjoyed watching them, I wanted to be them. I wanted what they had, what I had never had, what I could never have.

I came down off the tail end of a shitty orgasm, barely strong enough to release the tension inside; and I felt dirty, guilty — for having watched such an intimate scene I felt I surely shouldn't have been allowed audience for.

I always felt like this, after masturbation, after watching some scenes to help edge me over. My imagination could never seem to get me there, the sounds never rich enough, the images never quite in my mind's eye. I wished they were, if only to allow me reprieve from the guilt. Sometimes I would go months without it — without release — biding my time until I knew I would give into the temptation again.

And ultimately, I would. The shape of two women coming together would always help me over the edge, and would always fill me with a sense of deep-seated dissatisfaction after the fact. My proclivity for videos of the nature would sometimes fill me with dread, knowing my patience was running low and my ultimate relapse into the behavior would find me: alone, wanting, in the middle of the night with no one but myself and a sad, shitty holopad.

It wasn't homophobia; at least, I don't think it was. No, it was something heavier than that. It was a self-hatred that went deeper than a simple fear, a simple explanation. I had no problem with my appreciation for other women. In fact, I cherished it. Coming out had been easy, if uneventful. But women, love, dating — they were things I was deeply unfamiliar with, and things I struggled to seek out or receive in turn.

The simple fact was that I had never been interested in someone, and it came down to the same thing every time someone showed interest in me: disinterest.

From the way I avoided dating, you'd think me asexual or celibate. Sometimes I wondered why I had even come out at all with how little it changed about my life. I had few acquaintances, fewer friends, and even fewer family. In fact, the only person who I had told at all had been my sister, Serah. Some time after I had turned twenty-three, she wouldn't stop pestering me about my single status, and so I had just been blunt about it and hoped she would stop. Unfortunately, nothing changed, and she kept right on about it.

She had been so happy, laughing like she had known all along, asking me who the lucky lady was. There was no lady. There was never a lady.

"Claire, don't you think she's pretty?" she had asked some weeks after I had told her, pointing to a slim woman in captain's fatigues near the fruit display at the grocery.

I sighed, trying not to roll my eyes because I knew my sister's intentions were good. "She's PSICOM," I said, simply, stopping at a small display with bags of oat bran.

"So?" Serah whined, tugging at my sleeve. "You're off duty. Go say hi!"

I held my tongue, my temper flaring at her persistence, and instead grabbed a bag of oats. I flashed my wristband at the scanner, the gil transferring automatically, then turned to go to the vegetables. The crops on display here were handled by separate vendors, so I walked up to a stall and asked for a basket for the roots.

Serah huffed. "You're never gonna find someone without approaching them!" she said, rather loudly.

I was about to snap at her when a voice interrupted us. "Excuse me?"

I turned around, nearly ready to throw a carrot into the stranger like a throwing knife. Then I realized it was the PSICOM captain, and I blanched like a boiled carrot instead.

"Hello!" Serah said excitedly. She clapped her hands with a look of gleeful mischievousness. "This is my sister, Claire!"

The woman looked amused at Serah, then turned her attention toward me. "Claire?" she asked.

I frowned deeply, trying to restrain my temper for this stranger's sake. "It's Lightning, actually," I said, shrugging.

Realization dawned on the captain's features, a look of deep thought passing briefly over her brow, before it settled and a formal detachedness took up residence. "I see. Lieutenant Commander." She nodded, then walked away beyond the fruit displays.

Serah gawked at the interaction, her head twisting back and forth between the woman and me.

"Enjoying your whiplash?" I asked, much more calm than I had been.

Serah stared for a little while longer, then smacked my arm. I arched a brow and gave her a side glance.

"No wonder you can't get women!" she said, crossing her arms as she puffed out her chest. "Your reputation must be awful!"

I smirked as I gathered a few onions, glad to have a distraction from my bratty sister. "On the contrary, if I'm unpopular by PSICOM standards, I must be doing something right."

Serah only grumpily muttered, arduously resigning herself to the gathering of vegetables.

It wasn't all for lack of trying, though. I wanted to be in love. I wanted to be with someone. Yet every time I was offered that opportunity, it felt cheap and unwarranted. It felt like, if I was to be with someone, shouldn't it feel special? The very few times I did allow myself a brief romance — for I had caved into that chasm of loneliness — it would last just long enough to ease the pain of that heavy burden and then fill me with guilt.

I would end it then, before things got too serious. It seemed unfair, like I was wasting both her time and mine with a relationship going nowhere. I could hardly open up to my own sister, let alone a stranger.

I knew at the onset that our time together would be brief, and I hated myself for it. I often wondered how people could do it — how they could enter into relationships they knew would end, sooner or later, and be fine with the result. The idea of it bothered me so. Others have often accused me of being an ice queen, but I actually think I was too romantic for my own good.

One can become accustomed to a great many things in life. Humans have a sort of resilience in them, allowing for the endurance of so much suffering, pain, heartache. Sometimes a story would reach me about the depraved state of the world and humanity's unwavering predilection for the infliction of suffering. The strife of those less fortunate — it always shocked me, filled me with an empathy I didn't know what to do with and couldn't find action for. And yet they kept living, and in conditions as bad as theirs, I wondered if I could do the same.

Comparing my heartache to theirs — it was an act so petulant, I hated myself for even the notion. It was arrogant, selfish, and I thought about it more often than not regardless. I thought about the human struggle that is loneliness in nearly every waking hour, and then sometimes even in my dreams. Sometimes the loneliness would creep up on me, fill me with its heavy sedation and drag me under, and then it would leave me all at once and I was to continue functioning along, a mindless drone in an endless sea of starving souls. If I wasn't lonely in some quiet and peaceful moment, I knew my respite was only brief, for it would return to me in some dark hour when my heart was most susceptible. Loneliness was my lover, it seemed, and she found me often, and she found me wanting.

It's difficult, in a time when your every breath feels labored and unwelcome, to feel as if anything could ever be different from your day-to-day. Every morning I would awaken, perform my morning ritual, work, come home, sleep, and repeat. Perhaps it was a fault of my own making, a certain propensity for melancholy that had been with me for as long as I can remember. My nature has always been one of solitude, a lonesomeness etched into the very core of who I am as a human being. I wonder often how one can be wired in such a way, how one can crave companionship and yet avoid it with such vehemence.

I rarely let myself wonder what it would be like to not have loneliness with me. Sometimes, I think, I avoided relationships — friendships and romances — simply because I had become too enamored with being alone. I was drunk with it, stuck with it, in love with it, and I hated it. Gods, I hated loneliness, but I hated the idea of not having it more. I would only part with it if she was the one. I couldn't let myself part with it if I wasn't sure. I was weak; I couldn't handle the pain. I knew that if I left it and it wasn't for good, I'd come crawling back, and it'd be worse than before.

In that way, I guess loneliness is like an abusive lover. She cuts you off from your friends, your family, yourself. She becomes your dependence, your only well from which to drink. She leads you into fantasies so much richer than real life; she makes you fear ever leaving her, to find out nothing can compare to her and her delusions. And when she's done with you, when she's taken everything she can and all that's left of you is a shell of what you once were, she kills you.

And you thank her for it.

I was so in love with loneliness, my routine was built around her. I shopped at odd hours, when the least amount of people would be about. I never dined in, only ever ate takeout or delivery. Sometimes I would go long periods of time without getting a haircut, simply because I couldn't be faced with having to interact with another person in such an intimate setting for so long.

In time, it became less about coping and more about suffering. For a long while, I justified my behavior as a way to avoid difficult emotions. The few times I had allowed someone to get close to me, they had hurt me. They always seemed to leave.

The difficult emotions were just that: difficult. I didn't like who I was with someone else. At least by myself, I would never say the wrong thing or do the wrong action. Hurting myself was easy; it came natural. I would never require an apology from myself. I would never need to make sacrifices for myself, or compromise with myself, or love myself. I could never lose myself; I was always with me. I would take all of my abuse and I would deal with it, and it would never hurt anyone else other than me.

I think some of the excuses I made to myself that kept me lonely were justifiable. I still don't see the purpose of going into a relationship when one knows it won't work. Some say they do so for the experience, for the opportunity to be with that person, at least for a little while, at least until the fantasy expires. Some say they never think about it that way. They enter into the relationship to live in the moment, and nothing else.

I find it difficult to come to terms with intentionally brief relationships. Losing people is not easy for me, even if I had willingly cut ties with most of the people in my life.

Putting an expiration date on a person felt wrong. So I refused to take anyone off the shelf at all, so to speak. I was a romantic in the most self-aggrandizing sort of way. It's not that I felt I was better than anyone else exactly, only that I didn't know how to feel like anyone else.

Being a spectator of your own life becomes exhausting. I often felt like I was a puppet master and the woman I inhabited was the puppet. I simply pulled some strings, guiding her to mimic the behaviors of a regular person. I was wooden, unfeeling, apathetic. Life was simple this way; it was predictable. I never had to worry about how others felt, or how I felt, or how their actions affected me or mine: them. My only concerns in life were that of my work and that of my responsibilities.

My work preoccupied most of my life. It helped — to be busy. Idle hands and all that. Loneliness would find me in my still moments, so I rarely allowed myself a still moment.

Looking at me, one could hardly see a struggling individual. I was in my top form, the best at my craft. Others looked to me for leadership, and I offered my expertise readily. I think for some people, work becomes a lover. For most of my life, it was a decent surrogate, and I hardly expected anything else for myself. One can hardly yearn for a sweet dessert they'd never tasted.

I was twenty-six at the time and already a commander of the Bodhum Security Regiment. It was hardly indicative of a lonesome soul. Really, it was indicative of a dedicated assiduousness. The youngest commander in the history of the Guardian Corps: a title I held pridefully in front of my heart. And I was proud, of course. Who wouldn't be? My pride wore itself with aplomb in the three solid stripes upon my shoulder. In all my years of dedicated service against the savage wastelands of Gran Pulse, I had never garnered reputation off counterfeit accomplishment. I was a steadfast soldier, sans pareil in my field. When one looked upon me, they didn't see an individual being crushed under the weight of her own inhibitions. No, they saw an individual abundant in skill and self-discipline.

Well, everyone except my sister. I didn't give Serah enough credit, I think, back then. She had seen through me since my burgeoning days as an ensign. I had joined the Corps while I was still in high school, at fifteen, right after Mother had died. Technically, one was supposed to be sixteen before they could join, but my circumstances were unique and my superior sympathetic.

He was a kindly man, heavyset in the waste but nonetheless broad in his shoulders and possessing of a quiet strength in his stature and demeanor. I took to Lieutenant Commander Amodar like the lost child I was, regarded him like a father as I trained to impress him. He took me under his command immediately, promised to help me provide for Serah, and guided me with the stern hand only a father can provide. Sometimes, I think if circumstances had been different, he would have tried to adopt us. Circumstances being that I was me, I doubt I would have let him, and I assume that's why he never did.

Serah had been only twelve when our mother died. She was so young, so impressionable. And my mother's death had been so prolonged and painful; and not only painful for her to endure, but painful for us to watch.

She died for four years. The condition came on quickly, seemingly all at once, though I know now that mustn't have been the case. She was fine, and then she wasn't. It almost mirrored my transition into adulthood: One day I was a child, and the next I wasn't. I couldn't be, not anymore. Serah couldn't depend upon a child, and neither could my mother.

I think she knew, in that way only mothers could, that her eldest had experienced that shift inside. She spoke to me in her temporary bouts of strength in this calming voice about the nature of the world. I think she intended to impart me with all the wisdom she could in the time she had left. She taught me the finer details of life: how to handle money, how to manage the household, how to retain custody of Serah in her passing. But she also tried to teach me about love, and about loss, and about inner strength. I think I held onto that last teaching more than her others.

Serah resented me for a large portion of our lives together after that. When Mother passed, she saw me try to fill that role and step out of the sister one. I didn't understand back then why the distinction mattered. It felt necessary that I step up into that position, even though I was hardly qualified.

When she turned eighteen, she left me for a lug of a man named Snow. I'm still not sure if she really loved him at the time, or if she did it out of spite, or both. It took several months for me to calm down enough to talk to her after that. Those months were some of the worst I've ever lived through, including those many, many long months of watching my own mother slowly recede from the world.

She approached me while I was on duty. I had been promoted the day before, to lieutenant — the youngest lieutenant in the Corps at only twenty-one. She walked up to me while I was standing guard at the annual fireworks display. It was a calm and easy job, supposedly a reward to go with my promotion. I suspected Amodar had pulled some strings as a way of giving me a birthday present since he knew I would never accept anything else. The humor in the fact that he had ordered me to attend my own gift wasn't lost on me, and the small, somber smile that found my lips remained for most of the night, up until she was in front of me.

She looked mournful, eyes downcast and posture turned in toward herself, hands behind her back. She didn't speak for a long time as I gazed at her. I could feel the anger rolling off me in waves, but the longer she stood there, the weaker the waves became, until all that was left was a cool tide of a deep abject stillness.

"Happy birthday, Claire," she had said. She pulled a small parcel out from behind herself, clutched firmly in both hands as she presented it to me. She stood for an uncomfortable time as I regarded her, until I finally took pity and gently removed the item from her hands.

"What is this?" I asked, looking down at the little bundle.

Serah smiled, unshed tears making her eyes shine each time an explosion came from the sky. "Your present, silly." She looked away, then quickly looked back toward me. "I'm sorry I missed your birthday."

I turned the parcel around in my hands, then unwrapped it with a moderate pace that belied my inner turmoil. Seeing her here had brought all my residual anger bubbling up my throat with a bit of acid reflux. Then, as quickly as it came on, it passed. My little sister had sought me out where she knew I couldn't run away from her, just to give me a present for my birthday. If nothing else, I appreciated how cunning she had grown up to be.

I heard her gasp, and I looked up from my job, half done. "Claire!" she exclaimed, reaching toward me with a restrained look of awe. "You got promoted!"

I glanced toward my shoulder, where her hand was hovering just so over the bright gold double bars. "Yesterday," I said, glancing back toward her as she continued to stare at my shoulder. "Amodar said they had to wait until I was at least twenty-one. Any younger and it would have seemed insulting to regulation."

Serah smiled brightly. "I'm so proud of you!" She rushed forward, arms encircling my waist even as I awkwardly held the partially unwrapped box in my hands. She pulled back, hands on my arms below my shoulder pauldrons. She looked sad then, regretful. "I'm so sorry, Claire," she started. "I meant to call yesterday, but I got so busy, and then I worried you wouldn't want to hear from me, and then I spoke with Amodar and he said you would be here tonight and I decided I would come and see you to give you this in person and —"

I cut her off gently, laying a hand on her shoulder as I said, "I'm glad to see you."

The tears fell then, quietly and with all the grace my little sister could manage. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then motioned toward the gift still unopened in my other hand. "Open it, will you?"

I backed away from Serah, turning the parcel over in my hands slowly, then removed the remaining gift paper.

"How practical." I dropped the lid of the box onto the pavement at my feet as I removed the knife and tapped the mechanism to release the blade. It popped up in an instant, the sharp tip gleaming with blue, red, then orange in the light of the display still going off in front of us.

Serah smiled. "I'm glad you like it." I looked at her, wondering how she read me so easily.

"Yeah," I said, pushing the blade back down. "It's nice." I tucked the knife into the pouch at my thigh and reached down to gather the trash I had let drop below.

"I'll take that. I know you're not supposed to leave your position unless you have to." Serah grabbed the box and gift wrap from my hands, then stood for a few seconds, looking unsure. Slowly, she seemed to gather her thoughts, then looked up into my eyes. "The wedding is in the spring, next year." She looked away, fearing the emotion that would flash in my eyes. "I wanted to let you know, so you can plan for it."

It was more than a year away, and yet it felt like it was happening tomorrow. I couldn't tell what I was feeling. Maybe it was anger, but mostly it felt like nausea. I didn't say anything as I slowly crossed my arms over my chest. I was preparing the barrier to the assault that was surely to come from my defensive maneuver.

"Go."

Serah didn't seem shocked, but the tears came all the same. "Claire," she said, a long pause filled with the bright and thunderous cacophony of beautiful fireworks.

"Serah," I said. Then, shortly, "Go."

The sobs came strong then, and she turned from me and ran. I saw him standing off to the side, ready to comfort her: Snow Villiers, the good-for-nothing blight on my sister's life.

I ignored them as they left, the weight of Serah's gift heavy in my satchel.

Hello, I want to provide some quick information about the setting that may be hard to pick up on.

I am basing the Corps ranks off the U.S. Navy, and PSICOM off the U.S. Officer ranks for the army, air force, and marines. Usually a U.S. Navy Commander must have served at least fifteen years, but Lightning was promoted after only eleven years of service.