A/N

Quote is by Robert Goolrick. If the final scene reminds you of something - I took a page out of Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. Also a nod to the idea that Hope is always going to endure an assassination in 400 AF.


There is an ache in my heart for the imagined beauty of a life I haven't had, from which I had been locked out, and it never goes away.


They stand in single file on both sides of the corridor, impeccably dressed in their pastel colored uniforms with their heads bowed towards him, and he takes a deep breath, tasting but wistfulness and static in the air. He revels at how the Academy researchers almost resemble the silent stone pillars from the Paddrean archaeopolis: sunlight-kissed and ancient and solemn, witnesses of prophets too young for the future they have vowed to carry and see through. The departure ceremony showcases the sentinels' respect and promise. It has all the features of a funeral.

"Alyssa is waiting for you inside the containment room," one of many announces to him, and he wonders if this is the last time his heart will skip a beat like this, if he'll drown in a grave of his own design for centuries before they'll notice and deliver him like a stillborn. You've spent months designing and testing the prototype and the real thing, rationality argues sternly within his skull, somehow taking on the visage of his grey-haired father, don't lose faith in yourself now.

"The New Cocoon project…"

"All your files have been scanned and distributed," another assures him, voice sincere and earnest. "There will be new teams and continued research. Our next generation –"

"…Thank you." He doesn't really know what he's done to deserve their respect and love, but here, after the cancellation of the proto-Fal'Cie project and the departures of all his friends and family, the support and faith of his colleagues mean the world to him. They'll look after me as I sleep. And their children. And their grandchildren. A shiver runs down his spine as he tries to remember all their faces, even as he knows he will fail, and they will all be dead and dust the next time he encounters life and humanity. "I will do my best to honor this age. Honor what we all believe in and fight for." A pause. "Is there anything I should pass onto the Academy of 400 AF? Something we all think they should know?"

They look at each other before answering. The voice is clear and steady when it echoes. "Trust in Hope, and keep it alive." They're having too much fun with the pun. "Take care, Director."

There's nothing he can really say in response to that, so he slowly shakes hands with all of them – without his gloves, he wants to take the warmth with him into his endless night, to feel the truth in placing his life in the hands of every single last human – and walks into the light without looking back.


Alyssa's already lying within her capsule when he closes the door behind him, her lid pulled up so that only her blond head is visible; she turns towards him as he sighs and approaches his own pod, running his slightly feverish fingers over its sleek outer rim and refined circuitry. "Are you afraid, senpai?"

What if I won't understand the Thirteenth Ark at all? What if the Academy disintegrates in my absence? What if I'm dooming this timeline and everyone in it by attempting to travel in time without using a time gate? "Why are you doing this, Alyssa? You're popular, and everyone can see your talent as a mathematician. With me gone, you can easily become the next director of research, lead the Academy –"

The blue eyes that return his gaze are furtive but fiercely determined. He can't help but be reminded of another pair of purged eyes like these, hunted in the Vile Peaks, clinging to the one authority that seems to possess all the answers and the blessing of divinity. It's always unsettled him how similar Alyssa is to him – is that why he's always instinctively pushed her away, even though he has always appreciated her intellect and companionship?

"Why? Because I want the world to remember me," her answer comes out in the same daredevil lighthearted tone that he's grown used to, but somehow the syllables are impossibly heavy, and he takes a whole minute to process them, chewing through the consequences of each word on his tongue. "I want you to remember me."

"We could fail." His computational brain has already come up with more than a hundred paths to catastrophe in the past thirteen sleepless nights. These capsules could be their coffins; they are already the proof of their human hubris.

"Not with you," she insists, and he's suddenly almost touched to the point of tears – if still wary – of all her blind trust and faith. She'll be the only person I still know. We'll be sharing this air – pristine or burning – for the next five hundred years. "You won't. They won't let you…"

(Why does she also sound like she wants to cry?)

"And I won't, either."


In this floating cocoon of an artificial womb, he dreams of home and childhood.

Once upon a time they had had a garden in Palumpolum – just that little quarter-circle outside the residence, Nora buying all the pots and him doodling the layout on a crumpled piece of paper with rainbow markers and crayons – and the scene had been breathtaking in spring and autumn, all the daffodils and chrysanthemums filling the lonely dwelling with a glowing sweetness. They had filled the vases and jars within the rooms with those flowers, his protests growing weaker as Nora pressed her index to his forehead and whispered to him they'll wither if you leave them alone, no beauty lasts forever – and he had held onto her like he'd held onto anything, wanting her to last forever, this hope that the light in her heart wouldn't ever go out, that there'd always be a flower field to return to.

She falls through the damp loam into hard concrete and the entire abyss underneath. He stands on top of the world with a hundred mechanical arms but no way to reach.

And then his father – his father whom he once hated because the man would always place the greater good in front of himself and his child, run from conflicts that he had no chance to resolve. For those first few years after the fall of Cocoon Bartholomew would always insist on picking him up after Academy classes and sitting next to him on the commute; the young researcher's toolboxes for the laboratory sessions were always full regardless of how fast he was going through his parts, and he knew Bartholomew was proud of him, always been proud of him, will be proud of him. He'll be proud of me even if I disappear. He's proud of me even though he has disappeared.

And then Vanille and Fang; Vanille's smile that is all sunshine and love and a hope that doesn't die with home or civilization or several hundred years of sleep, and he will be brave like her, he will have to be; he can almost hear Fang's laughter in his ears now, the force against his body as she shoves him this way and that and tells him this is nothing, try this other trial that I've cooked up just for you instead. Snow carries his unconscious form up all the perilous ladders of suburban Palumpolum and Sazh trusts him as he trusts his baby chocobo, trusts him to babysit Dajh of all people; and then there are Serah and Noel, stitching up the furious bleeding of the world even as they recount all the terrible jokes they've made and heard – he loves and he's loved, he screams with his hands and heart open even as his loved ones fade through time and memory one by one, he will find them, he will

He drowns in his own longing before he realizes it happening, and in the suspension, he sinks – to where and what he does not know, yet there's a touch of inevitability about how he's grown so heavy, so he allows destiny to take its course, just this once. He is a pebble dreaming to chart an indescribably dark and vast ocean; to explore is to be lost. He will risk being forgotten forever at the bottom of the chasm if it allows for the fantasy of a lighthouse somewhere down the line.

The falling is an endless cycle. He opens his eyes wide even as his body screams that he is dying. And suddenly – through all the grief and deep submerge and the currents of time – he hears her, and the entire ocean parts to give them space.


It's not premeditated, this meeting; her snowlike feathers cascade down onto him, envelop him, capture his being and gently reminds him to breathe. As he finally comes to a stop, gasping unceremoniously, she reaches for him and folds him into an impossibly warm embrace. He's taller now, learned the ways of adult courtesy and dignity, become strong enough for others to lean on – yet here he has to resist the urge to simply fall apart on her shoulders, revert back to the lost child he once was in her presence. She's real and she's here and she's sacred. She's come to him for an important purpose. He steadies himself – slowly inhales her gift of the living sky – and strains to listen.

Keep going, Hope. You are on the right path.

She sees all of time, from Valhalla; the knowledge gives an edge to her features even as it softens it with the understanding of tragedies and love that can never be. Her statement settles a rock in his stomach and eases the tension in his joints but washes up a whole new wave of disappointment – everything that has already happened is fixed and cannot be undone. He meets the Mwynn-blue of her eyes with the seafoam of his own and is reminded of just how unfair and strange everything is, from her fight through all of time to the fact that he knows he won't see her again until the end. Until we both win. Until everything ends. If he's been utterly alone with life and ignorance, she's been alone with death and truth. "Are you all right, Light?"

He almost expects a chuckle or some other kind of dismissal – she's the strongest woman he's ever known, now also servant of the goddess and draped from head to toe in divine grace – but her features are stoic and nostalgic, and he feels something almost die inside of him, the reawakening of all his invisible wounds and bruises. If he has any pains that he never mentions to anyone, she can only be covered in them.

I must serve the goddess to repent for my sins. I will help you fix the timeline, and Serah will eventually come to me.

There are a lot of things that he could have said – that you haven't sinned and I'll be here for you too and how did you just make that kind of decision about yourself, that's cursing yourself to a knight's purgatory for eternity, how many times have you fallen and broken your bones and chased until all you could hear was your heartbeat – but the utter empathy he feels for the young woman in front of him just overwhelms words and meaning, so he only pulls her close, wishing that this would mean something to her, a reminder for her that someone cares and that she's not and should never be alone. "…Everything will be fine, Light." Take care of yourself. I don't want you to lose yourself to make up for something in the worlds beyond. Your love and humanity is the best thing that's ever happened to me. "When you're done, come back to us safe and sound, okay?"

She doesn't promise; can't promise. He promises for her. She melts from his world slowly and even though he's dreamed of it a thousand times, he doesn't try to chase after her and keep her there. It goes against all the yearning in his bones, but there's a time and place and position to speak from and he knows how his role is to stay and devise. Her visit has been a privilege, her trust a mantra of truth; he will become creation if it would mean easing some of the weight on her shoulders.

(He gathers rose petals from the drowning waters of his soul and makes garlands to herald a new world's coming.)


The air is not the same when he becomes conscious of his own breathing again, on that first day in 400 AF.

A human voice greets him as he re-adjusts his eyes to focus; Lightning's (or were they Alyssa's) blue eyes are still vivid in his memory, and he recites Lightning's words quietly to himself, right path and fix the timeline and Serah. The interior of the time capsule has retained the same silver-and-blue sheen even as the atmosphere's become thinner and less suffused with crystal dust. I was in Palumpolum, he remembers, swerving his head around in a kind of wild wonder, but now –

"Just a moment, Mr. Estheim," the female voice reassures soothingly. The gravity effects have mostly faded away; time is no longer stretched thin, and he feels like a sabotaged Purge train coming abruptly to a stop at the Hanging Edge. I guess there's no more Light or Snow here to cushion my fall. I'll just have to hope the dizziness will go away. "We are just running a few more tests to make sure that you are ready…"

Ready for what? Admiration? Ostracizing? He had known the moment Alyssa proposed the plan that he'd always be simultaneously always and never ready. "Just tell me," he asks, with a voice that's more lighthearted than the truth, "do you think I'd enjoy whatever I'm getting ready for?"

"We have good reason to believe that you will," the woman chuckles, and then the capsule opens – he glimpses a shade of dandelion yellow on a sleeve, a heart-shaped face framed by dark curly hair, and what seems to be a porcelain cup of coffee. "Try to drink this entire cup for me. We are holding a banquet in your honor later tonight. Records from 13 AF suggest this is your favorite coffee flavor."

He rises awkwardly – somehow his back has managed to wake up and not screech in pain – and takes the warm cup slightly numbly into his hands and is amazed that the aroma is the same. I'm not a paradox, he repeats to himself, just a disoriented non-morning person trying to enjoy a cup of coffee. "This room and… building," he tries, "it has been moved and rebuilt, has it not?"

The smile on the woman's face grows just a shade softer as she passes you a new lab coat. "The Academy Headquarters was most recently expanded and renovated in 392 AF. Welcome to Academia, Mr. Estheim."


A lot of things have gone wrong during his slumber, but it seems like more things have gone right.

He stands on a pristine platform next to the Grand Avenue and surveys the city of Academia: Alyssa's been called to some kind of diversity conference, and he's strangely relieved that she's not leaning next to him or tugging on his sleeve. The city around him is grand and stately, rising from the rough reddish brown earth of Gran Pulse with floors upon floors of snowy concrete and marble. Expressways the color of the noon sky adorn the gaps between skyscrapers and serve as the city's lifelines, and there are young men and women laughing with each other as they dance across the streets, pointing to this sign or that. There are even some chocobos…

He'd be alright with just standing there and staring forever. There's a warm giddy pride in his chest that's filling him up from the inside even as it threatens to overflow and explode.

Do you see it, Rose? Your whole idea about the expressways serving as the arteries for a living city? Those are the Cocoon-style neon advertisement lights that Jeb's always missed, the aircars that were barely exploding prototypes in Gardenia's lab, and then there's the sheer scope of the city itself, I could swear that we once had an argument about the feasibility of a single human metropolis on Gran Pulse…

His eyes fall on the gigantic shape hovering just behind the twin spires of Academy headquarters, and a soft gasp involuntarily escapes his lips. And that's me.

The star, the God project, the plea that must save everything –

Bhunivelze.

He turns, stares up at the Cocoon in the sky – and salutes all the scientists in the past who's kept him safe and brought him here. And for you I'll send that planet into the sky.


During the first week, they give him several different tours of the city, showing him around the new factories, letting him browse through the (now historical) records, and introducing him to various people. It's at the end of the thirteenth day when a group of senior researchers finally lead him to an elaborately designed and decorated room on the top floor, sit him down, and ask him what he'd really like to do.

He supposes that they are nervous; he is the only son of the co-founder of the institution, after all, and a previous director in his own right, their only link to the time-traveling servants of the gods and likely their only hope to survive the upcoming calamity. He's no longer Hope Estheim the ex-l'Cie prodigal scientist, the one that binds research and society together with sheer brilliance in a time when everything has just fallen apart and no one can even recognize all the edges of the broken pieces. He has, instead, really become the Academy's origin and continuum; he marks where the journey begins and how it will end. The scientists of the Academy, through their collective choice to let him live and arrive at 400 AF, have made him something like a god and lost their power to argue against him. To fight against him now would mean to fight against all the might of the alpha timeline.

Am I already in control, regardless of whether I want it or not? He asks himself ironically, trying to rationalize the chain of events. Could there even be a timeline where I get here but don't get to do anything?

"I'm here for the Thirteenth Ark," he says, processing his own words as they leave his lips, careful, matter-of-fact and value neutral. "From what I've read, there hasn't been any tangible progress on that case. I may have… an idea, something to investigate. But I'll need a team."

He hasn't been sure about being so direct – academics and researchers are notorious for bristling like gurangatches when others bring up their lack of progress on a project – but he blinks as he notes resigned smiling faces instead. "Are you really just an one-in-a-million genius, Hope Estheim? We've had hundreds of people staring at that thing for years before you woke up."

"… Hm." He supposes that he should have realized that, yet for some reason the praise of others no longer affect him nearly as much as it did before his sleep. I don't know if I'm older, more mature, more arrogant, or just… more of a cosmic device and less human. He remembers what he's read of Paddra Nsu Yeul, of how she has lived through hundreds of celebrated lives yet never let her vast knowledge get to her head. Am I actually a genius or do I just know where to look? It can't be a coincidence that nearly every time I've seen something, it's ended up being relevant to our journey. "Does that mean I can get a team? I just need a small group, maybe five to ten researchers, people with experience in material science and structural engineering preferred… I'll talk to Alyssa to see if she's interested."

"You won't need to. She's already expressed a wish to work with you no matter what." Even four hundred years later, it's obvious that everyone thinks Alyssa has a thing for him. It's worse because just like last time, they're also always smiling as if they understand.

A swirling cloud of unease is building in his stomach. Everything's falling into place too neatly. He's even seen a few time gates that he's sure Serah and Noel would eventually pop out of. His guts sense that he's being manipulated all over again, because nothing can be this smooth and forgiving and perfect. Maybe if he just closes his eyes he'll drop through the marble tiles all the way to the surface of Gran Pulse and again, or falling endlessly through Eden –

"Mr. Estheim? Would you like to work without her, then?"

His eyes flutter open. The Academy leaders are still there. The world is unflinchingly real. "I'll… talk to Alyssa." Didn't she express an interest a day or so ago on investigating the new time gates? He can't quite remember. In any case, she has been noticeably more irritable since their arrival, and he's been meaning to talk to her. She gave up far more than me to get here. From the point of view of everyone, she's here just for me. "Just give me the people and the resources, and let me know if any time travelers arrive through a gate. I have a lingering suspicion that we will need their help."

"Fair enough. We will assign several personal armed guards as well, just in case. If you haven't learned already, it hasn't exactly been all smooth sailing to get the Academy here from 13 AF." The woman responds, sipping her cup of tea thoughtfully. "We are not about to keep you around for 400 years just to let something happen to you now."

The smile remains plastered on his face. They're right. Maybe I was destined to get here, but now that I am here, the timeline can diverge again, and who's to say I won't just doom this world tomorrow? "I appreciate the concern. Is there anything else you want from me?"

The woman sets down her cup daintily. Despite her obvious expertise in science – he's heard that she's designed Bhunivelze's heating system all on her own – there's something about her that strangely reminds him of Sazh and Vanille's descriptions of Jihl Nabaat. I'll do politics if I ever have to, he thinks fiercely, but not now. Not when we're running out of time. I'm needed in this time as a technician. "Do you want anything from us, Hope Estheim?"

"Let everyone call me Hope. I miss the intimacy from my first years here, and surely it'd raise morale if people can believe I'm just one of them." Has he fallen so low that he'll use the sacred camaraderie between scientists for his own ends? He just needs more popular support and more time. Every second he spends here is another second on the doomsday clock. "Thank you so much for your hospitality and understanding."


His team sets up shop in the HQ and soon the world is reduced to two colors, dull obsidian black and glowing neon green. The team members are all the more conspicuous floating in their pods, specks of hope and light against a tense and gloomy universe. Although he enjoys taking small walks outside in the morning, he appreciates the long, often meditative hours cooped up inside, surrounded only by the colors of his eyes and the faint shadows of circles around those eyes. The space reminds him of the dark smoke-and-code crapsack world that had been the first decade AF, and although he won't ever admit it, that had been home.

"Hope?" Elise calls softly through the intercom, her voice still just a little reverent and low when she utters his name. He looks up from his simulation on the screen, calculations of the number of Bhunivelze homes they'd be able to build and maintain with full utilities. We are going to need more waste processing plants. "I have the numbers. I want you to take a look at them, but from what I can tell, it confirms your hypothesis."

"Thank you, Elise. Is Alyssa still working on the graviton core force profile?"

"She told me to remind you to go up there sometime."

"So that she can show off her stuff. Yes. Is the work done, though?"

It's a relief to him that research culture hasn't revolutionized itself during the time that he was gone; if the way scientists worked and presented their work had changed nearly as often as the layout and execution of Cocoon eidolon and grand prix shows, he would have had to spend at least ten years learning how to get through all the loops before even getting to a single file of data. As it is, they still share a morning coffee, still laugh at each other's ten-minute brainstorm ideas, and still prioritize the delivery of goals and products above all else – prestige and genius have not made the Academy stop questioning some of his worse ideas, and although he's both the captain and the sail of the ship, the crew's still a democracy.

He's done his part; stayed up his nights to watch the waves and stars, thrown down his anchor over the open ocean. He can only hope that Noel and Serah would grace him like mermaids and lead him to the treasure at the bottom of the sea. How long has it been? Three years, or three hundred and eighty-seven?

What kind of scientist bases their humanity evacuation plan on the paradox-solving prowess of a grade school teacher and a teenage behemoth hunter, anyway?

"Draft a request for more resources to the HQ," he instructs the bureaucrat boy sitting by his side, sighing softly but amusedly to himself. "We might eventually need to look for those cores in regions with paradoxes… but don't submit that request just yet. Give it… another day."


He wants to keep Serah and Noel for a few days when they finally arrive – there are so many things he wants to ask or tell them, so many weapons and accessories that he can craft for them, so many tests that he could potentially run on them (he's better than that, he swears weakly to himself) – but Noel's fidgety energy and Serah's subtle wistfulness remind him again of just how different and desperate they have become, so he backs off respectfully, instead only doing all he can to make sure that they're safe and well cared for while they are around. Serah apologizes for shouting at him and he thanks her for saving his life. The trade does not feel even, but perhaps cosmically it's never been and never will be, so he just lets it go, chugging it all down with another bittersweet cup of caffeine.

"The graviton cores," he remarks one drizzly night to Alyssa, who seems lost in thought as she runs her own model simulations on the force interactions between the graviton cores as they are locked into place, not even looking up at him as she rapidly types on the keyboard to alter this variable and that, "They had taken way less time than expected to deliver them all."

"Perhaps we'll have too much time as opposed to too little." Her smile is cryptic, crooked. She's gotten a lot more enigmatic with him recently, and he doesn't like what that might mean. Her little farewell speech to Serah and Noel just outside their gate… at least it doesn't feel like anyone in the office knows about it. "Have you seen more oracle drives recently?"

"Me? No," he responds, perplexed. "You know I'd show it to you, if anything like that ever comes around again."

"Oh, but some futures only have you in it," she says airily, waving her hands with a smirk, "you wouldn't need me –"

"Don't say that," he snaps, his voice suddenly rising an octave, and the strain in his voice surprises both of them. Oh. He drops the volume as quickly as he drops Serah's hands in Yaschas Massif. "… I mean, Alyssa, please don't depreciate yourself like that. I truly do value your work and your presence here with me. If you ever need anything, I'll be more than willing to –"

"You worry too much, senpai! Worry about yourself. Didn't you hear from Serah and the others that a lot of people wanted to kill you?"

"People and things."

"Yeah, things," Alyssa mimics his tone just enough that all the blood in his body goes cold – and Serah and Noel are gone, aren't they, they had left two days ago – and packs up for the night. She pulls him into a tight hug before she leaves, though, stretching on her tiptoes and wrapping her arms around him so hard it nearly hurt, and he just can't shake off the feeling that something is wrong.

"But they're gone, aren't they? Wiped out from existence. Do you even still remember anything from that project? Focus on the planet instead. That'll stick around even after we're long gone."

"The new planet isn't everything," he mumbles, and her chime-like phantom laugh follows him all the way into every road and dwelling of New Cocoon.


That night, he decides to experiment with the 400 AF shower.

Unlike the showers he had grown up with, the 400 AF shower is light on water use, but the technology's matured enough that whatever touches his skin still instantaneously releases the tension under it, and he finds himself almost wanting to fall asleep in that state of pure visceral bliss. Okay, I'll play with decadence, if just for distraction purposes, he thinks ironically to himself as he tentatively turns the array of knobs under the water knob and feels himself get absolutely buried by everything from pearly white bubbles to moonlight glitter, or on second thought… maybe not.

The glitter's made of some kind of interesting new material and he can't get it out of his hair. It makes him look like some kind of otherworldly creature.

He stares at the mirror moodily for a few seconds – he'll get swamped by female colleagues on the way to work tomorrow – and then settles to dry himself as he ponders the idea of jumping ahead again to 500 AF. Yes, he's basically promised Serah and Noel that he'll be there, yes, he's literally done everything so far so that 500 AF will be correct and possible, no

No, he won't ever see all the friends he's just made again, and no, he doesn't think Alyssa will take it well.

It's a mistake to let her come with me, he reflects, it's a mistake to work with her. Perhaps they are the greatest researcher duo in all of human history, but he can never tell just exactly what she wants from him, except that he cannot possibly provide it.

Is it worth it, he rubs his temple before moving the towel down to his eyes, to keep making these kinds of sacrifices for a glimpse of a new world?

The doorbell rings.

He reaches for the closest control panel in the bathroom as he throws a clean shirt over his head. Connect audio. Turn up the volume. "Hello, this is Hope Estheim, Academia HQ unit 131427. I'm unfortunately currently occup –"

"Hope," a familiar voice growls, "Let me in."

His mouth falls open; a half-paralyzed hand takes a few good long seconds to find the button that says zoom and Alyssa's blond head floats into the monitor. She looks wrecked. There is something – blood? – on her grey shirt collar.

"Alyssa?" He cries, scrambling to get up and put on the rest of his uniform. "Where have you been? Are you alright?"

"You have no idea," Alyssa says, and her voice is strangely muffled. "Now open your door and let me in."

"What happened? Was it an attack? Did someone target the headquarters? You have to –"

"The headquarters is safe, nobody in the team is hurt, but I have a few injuries. Now stop fucking the dog and let me in."

Hope takes out his boomerang. Then he punches in the code for the door. He shrinks back and to the side; all the hairs on his arms are standing up. Time eventually leaves everyone behind; it simply marches on.

The door swings open.

Alyssa's white uniform and yellow sleeves are splattered with redbrown. There are burn marks on her tie and her legs, and she's standing above a field of carnage, nearly a dozen bodies strewn about haphazardly in a dimly lit Academy corridor. The entire floor is dead silent, as if they are the only ones still alive behind the airlock.

As Hope watches, frozen with disbelief, Alyssa lowers the smoking gun in her hands. She turns towards him, direct and unsmiling, her eyes the blue of the goddess of death.

"They wanted to kill you, so I killed them instead."

He says nothing in reply.

"Come with me. We need to go to the Augusta Tower."