Part 2: Elder Wisdom

[Age: 16] Morning of the doomed settlement test flight, aboard BARTHOLOMEW, prior to its crash in the commercial district square.

"Adamantoise herd on the move, just ahead," Hope declared, exerting all his will power to stamp down the enthusiasm in his voice. It wouldn't do to burst Sazh's eardrums over the headset. Still, his hands trembled on the sights. Every new view from the transport's height sent a surge of adrenaline through his frame.

Sazh chuckled into his mouthpiece. "Do ya, now? Well, I guess it's that time of year." His voice came through distinctly over their linked headsets, untouched by roaring air noise in the cockpit. "Didn't that bestiary volume I dug up last month cover migratory patterns?"

"Yeah, it mentioned the biggest herd movement happened in late spring and fall. They have some kind of stubborn instinct to find the deepest, darkest crevasses in the Steppe for mating," Hope explained, snorting briefly. "As if anything that gigantic could ever really hide. The sounds echo all over the canyons."

He remembered waking to the mournful bellowing a time or two in the night, during their l'Cie journey through the Archylte Steppe. He had wondered if the beasts were dying in agony. Of course, a later encounter had made the situation abundantly clear…

"Don't mock the poor things for tryin' to be halfway decent about it," Sazh said. "Got more self-awareness than you, boy."

His words held a slight edge, and Hope pulled back from the sights. He stared at Sazh in wide-eyed confusion. The pilot brought a gloved hand to his face, relaxed his rigid posture and wagged his head.

"Sorry 'bout that. Didn't mean to snap, but you could do with a little discretion, lately," he clarified. He turned dark, weary eyes on Hope. "I've just got to wonder... Don't you feel even the teeniest bit off about putting yourself in questionable situations? I mean, layin' one on your best friend? Sleeping right next to Serah? It's not exactly normal."

Hope shrugged, a tingle of heat creeping up his neck when he really considered the charges. He fidgeted with the headset cord.

"I don't think 'normal' is all it's cracked up to be," he muttered. "'Normal' would've kept me ignorant. It would've landed me in an orphanage, if I wasn't outright arrested and detained for being some abomination of a l'Cie. 'Normal' was my workaholic dad only showing me some attention when he got concerned that I wasn't behaving 'normally.'"

He clenched his fingers around the cord, frustrated that his nose was beginning to burn. "A shut-in, he called me. A waste of potential. Socially inept. He wasn't teasing me like Maqui, though – he meant it. And he didn't do one thing to help me improve, he just wanted to criticize. I've been forgiving him since we reunited, but I never want us to go back to that life…"

"Then you won't," Sazh said, the gruffness in his voice giving away how much the confession had bothered him. He cleared his throat and refocused on the controls. "You've got more family than you can handle now, son. I only meant to give you a little guidance, for your own good. Doesn't sound like you got much mentoring before, and now you're gettin' to be a young man. It's about time."

Hope sighed heavily into the headset mouthpiece. "Light was my mentor."

"Maybe in battle, but she wasn't about to give you any man-to-man life advice. Don't tell me she gave you the Talk," Sazh said, chuckling for a second at the words he'd spoken.

"The Talk?" Hope looked over at him as though he'd declared the sky was blue. "Sazh, I've lived through middle school. We all had basic sex ed presentations that make any old sugar-coated lectures obsolete. Most holes in my understanding were filled by Serah's anatomy book."

"Besides that," he said under his breath, "I kind of had an eyewitness experience with the wildlife on Pulse that definitely left a lasting impression."

He shrank back in his seat, shaking his head vigorously to dislodge the memory of moaning adamantoise that foamed at the mouth and created miniature earthquakes in their heated frenzy. Lightning had dragged him from the scene when the tremors knocked him off his feet near a bush.

For all his trouble, he'd been unable to eat the berries acquired.

Sazh's jaw had nearly dropped to the dash. He collected himself, sat up straight and spluttered, "What are they teaching kids these days? I swear."

"They're teaching us what's going on with our crazy bodies," Hope stated. "Before we do anything stupid."

"That may be," Sazh said, "But I highly doubt those classes are covering old-fashioned decency."

Hope laughed outright, rocking back and forth in his seat. He'd seen more than his fair share of propriety and its shamefully limited purpose in life.

"You know I had a very proper upbringing, right?" He grinned at the skeptical pilot like he was withholding a secret, but finally decided to just expound.

"My father was a Sanctum official, mom was just his wife, and I was just his son," Hope clarified, but Sazh only crossed his arms. He shook the pilot's elbow to reinforce his point. "I'm serious! That's all anyone cared about, and it came with a long list of expectations – high academic performance, attending dinner parties with stupidly complicated silverware, smiling at the right people at the right time and mostly keeping your mouth shut. But that's not the world we live in anymore. I stopped caring, just like everyone else."

"So you're not gonna concern yourself with manners?" Sazh asked, serious as the grave. "You'll just let your emotions run wild and do whatever you feel like?"

"No, I'm too introverted for that," Hope said, and he laughed again. He added more quietly, "I like my privacy, and I've figured out how to keep certain… things under control. I doubt they cover the added benefit to lone showers in the traditional Talk – not that it's all that interesting."

Sazh face-palmed with an audible smack. "Hope, for the love of all that's holy… Is this the years of repression talkin', or just your hyper curiosity?"

"Well, I know my biology," he answered innocently. "Humans, and some other species, just do things that feel good and relieve stress. I'm sure that goes for females, too, but I'm not so sure how." His brow wrinkled in thought, and it was a full minute later before he noticed that Sazh was still in a mode of stoic concentration, likely puzzling out the least awkward way to approach the subject. It made him snort.

"Is that explained in the Talk?" Hope asked. "Because I really don't know much about girls beyond the basic anatomy and menstrual cycle bits. Serah thinks I don't notice, but she gets really cranky about mid-month and takes a lot of anti-inflammatory pills. Oh, and I obviously know where babies come from." At that, he rolled his eyes.

Sazh had narrowed his eyes, either trying to find some speck of insecurity in the boy next to him, or in open disapproval of its absence.

"Well then, Mr. Expert, I take it you've seen it all. Must've walked in on your parents or somethin'," he said, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, that's obviously where you came from. Bet you've even seen a live birth, too. Am I right?"

Hope first paled and then burned with embarrassment, staring pointedly at the dash. His confidence shriveled to raisin proportions. "N-no, I'd rather not think about my parents that way. And I don't think I'd want to see a live human birth. The neighbor's dog had puppies once – that was traumatizing enough. She made this awful noise."

"Yeah, well, that's a mite better than your own beloved wife wailing and nearly breakin' your hand," Sazh said, completely unfazed as he adjusted their course by about twenty degrees to begin a return track. "My son came into the world quiet as a mouse, but you wouldn't know it from how he torpedoed out o' there. My wife had more bruises down south than a prize fighter's face and maybe a dozen stitches, and little Dajh had to get his lungs suctioned. Not to mention the placenta got dished up like a raw steak. I nearly passed out on the spot."

A choked sound escaped Hope, and he slipped off the headset, cowering in his seat. He covered his ears for good measure. None of it could prevent his stomach from clawing its way up his throat as they continued to turn.

It didn't help matters when he thought about someone like Serah in that predicament. Hope honestly feared for her life. Snow was such a giant compared to her – to anyone, really, but the thought made his head spin. And wasn't he always bragging about how they'd have this huge family together?

Easy for him to say.

Sazh roared with laughter, then, and Lucil popped her head into the cockpit to investigate the commotion.

"What's going on up here?" she shouted over the air noise, looking back and forth between the pilot in hysterics and his co-pilot trying to shut off all his senses from reality.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, Sazh smirked back at her. "Eh, I just took him down a notch. Smarty-pants here thought he didn't need the Talk."

"Oh, damn." She ran a hand over her face, then stared at the dash in thoughtful silence. A few moments later, she reached out to prod Hope's arm.

He jolted in his seat and shifted away, horrified gaze unable to focus on her face. The soldier looked back at him with guarded sympathy.

"You know, it's probably not as bad as you're thinking, right now," she tried, and he covered his mouth.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," he choked, shrinking down into the seat and praying it would swallow him. He couldn't shut out the grisly images conjured by his own imagination any more than he could stop the ship's rattling in the crosswinds. By his mind's account, Serah would surely die a bloody and painful death by childbirth.

Lucil sighed and pulled a paper bag from under his seat. As she handed it off, she tacked on a last-ditch attempt at comfort. "Look, you really shouldn't sweat it. Girls get the short end of the stick in this deal. Always."

Sazh snickered to himself again, and Hope heaved into the bag.

"What the hell did I say?" she asked, slamming one hand on Sazh's armrest and narrowing suspicious eyes at the pilot.

He tapped a finger on the display, still smirking to himself.

"Let's just say he knows where babies come from, and how they make that grand entrance into our lives."

Hope heaved into the bag a second time, scrunching his eyes shut.

Lucil grumbled a few curses. Hope was only vaguely aware of her presence beyond the brown paper in his hands, so he jumped at the sensation of his harness being undone. She pulled him up from the seat slowly, backing out of the cockpit entrance in a huff.

"Just shut up and fly, old man," she called in parting to Sazh.

Hope collapsed into the nearest bucket seat.

"Did you take anything for airsickness?" Lucil asked, strapping in next to him.

He shook his head. He didn't trust words to come out of his mouth if he opened it just yet.

"Guess you've learned that lesson," Lucil remarked. She crossed her arms over her chest and sat in the noisy silence for a long minute.

"You do know pregnancy isn't a foregone conclusion, right?" she ventured. When he didn't respond, she continued, "Didn't you get the spiel on contraception?"

He nodded, barely finding his voice. "Back in school. It didn't sound all that reliable."

"Not just condoms," Lucil sighed, rubbing at the wrinkle forming between her eyebrows. "Women have plenty of options to protect ourselves. Pills, shots, intra-uterine devices, implants… You name it. It's standard issue for military, too. Just look."

With more effort that it should've taken, Hope turned his head. Lucil pointed to a location on her inner left arm.

"I don't think Serah would use anything like that," he croaked. "She loves kids about as much as Snow wants them. She'll probably be permanently pregnant once he comes back."

"So this is about Serah."

He nodded.

"Well, for starters, women have been having babies for a really long time," she ventured, and Hope curled up around his knees in the seat.

Lucil poked his shoulder, handing off a canteen for him to drink. "Seriously. Modern medicine makes the whole thing pretty safe. They can surgically remove babies with a C-section if they're too big or something's just not going right. And believe me, I can put two and two together about her choice of fiancé being problematic."

Hope snorted in spite of himself, a little of the water he was drinking burning its way up his nose.

"Thanks for that, Lucil."

"You know," she said after the comfortable silence had settled again, "I don't exactly understand why Katzroy the Wise decided to use scare tactics on you. What the hell did you say?"

Hope shrugged. "Careless things. I thought I could outsmart him. Plain and simple." He rubbed anxiously at his arm. "Honestly, I've never dealt with 'fatherly' confrontation beyond shutting down and backing off, before. And with Snow, I completely exploded. It's just easier to talk to Serah, like it was with Mom. I already trust her, you know."

Light was the same, once I got to know her.

"You trust me, then?" Lucil asked.

"Well, yeah," he laughed. "With my life, right? It's in your job description."

"True," she said, utterly without inflection. "I meant as a friend."

Hope got the distinct impression that he had pushed a wrong button. He smiled and tugged her sleeve until she stopped sitting there at stiff attention and looked at him.

"Hey, I trust you," he said. "Do you trust me back?"

"Not a chance."

His smile crumpled and he tried not to let it become a pout, largely without success. "Why not?"

"Don't take it personally," Lucil began, averting her gaze to stare at the empty seats across the cabin. She busied herself with tucking a loose section of her bun into place. "I don't trust anyone. When you trust people, you start to depend on them, and ultimately you've opened yourself up to a world of hurt when they let you down."

"So… I shouldn't trust you?"

She shrugged. "It's your choice. You're kind of a hopeful person in general – corny as that sounds. I don't really hope for the best in people, anymore."

"I can't help it. Still trying to figure out what I was named for," Hope muttered to himself, reliving another one of Lightning's near-impossible imperatives.

"Survive," she'd demanded. "Find the hope you were named for."

It reminded him of the moment he had almost given up.

"Hey, Lucil?" he said suddenly, waiting for her to meet his eyes. "I got some pretty good advice on that front when we were being hunted down. At one point, I didn't have any hope for the future, or people, or anything. I said I didn't need it to keep fighting.

"But I got told off. Light said it was no way to live – just a way to die. That stuck with me."

"Light, huh," Lucil said, more to herself than him. "Sergeant Farron, then."

"Yeah." A shadow descended on the cabin, and for a few fleeting moments, Hope was sure he no longer saw the familiar bucket seats and metal hull, but the glassy leaves of the Gapra Whitewood before his eyes. He still saw her smiling and urging him forward. He saw his father being led away from the wreckage of their home, and his friends chatting around a campfire in the wilds of Pulse.

He tried not to think of how desperately he hoped for everyone's return.

"You're not exactly wrong, though," he said. The tears rushed in and dropped over the ledge of his eyes to a silent death. "It hurts like hell, sometimes."

Lucil cracked a sad smile. She dug around in one of her pouches and pulled out a rag – the one she kept for gunblade polishing. She tossed it at his face.

"At least I can help clean up the mess, right?" she teased.

"You shouldn't have to," Hope said, wiping off his face as best he could. He took a cleansing breath. "I've got to keep it together for Serah and everyone else."

Lucil shook her head. "You can't hide it from everyone all the time," she warned. "That's unrealistic. And kind of unhealthy."

"I know," Hope sighed, and his mouth turned up into a self-deprecating smile. "I slip up plenty. And I don't really hide anything from you or Maq."

"Guess not," she muttered. "But why us?"

Hope sat for several seconds trying to puzzle out his own reasoning. In the end, he just scratched his head and took a stab at explaining it aloud.

"I don't know," he said, smiling crookedly, "Maybe I trust you guys like I trust the sun to come up. I'm grateful for that."

"You know we're not immortal, right?" Lucil said, quirking an eyebrow.

Hope tossed the damp rag back to her. "I'll take my chances."

Endnote: Beta-roomie's fun continues (a little bit).

As Hope thinks back on his run-in with the mating adamantoise: Yep, because wildlife mating habits are definitely the basis you want for human relationships. "Oh do you like that girl? JUST GO MOUNT HER. DISPLAY YOUR DOMINANCE."

After Sazh's description of Dajh's birth: Dude, I've seen a live childbirth and this is one of the most disgusting descriptions I've ever read. Wtf Sazh. Go back to being a conservative-minded prude. Ew.

When Hope eventually pukes: I'd say that this is a huge overreaction on Hope's part, but Sazh's description was really gross, so. :/