Disclaimer: Final Fantasy XIII does not belong to me.

Author's Note: This will be entirely written from Claire's perspective, and so the first few chapters where she is a child take a bit to get through. Bear with me. Also, please drop me a review if you enjoy this!

The One Where Crafty Is Not About Arts & Crafts

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Claire first tries Snow's attempt at cooking not even a full week later, opening the door to come face to face with Hope Villiers.

He stares at her. He seems to do it a lot. She wonders if he is sick, and somehow can't help it. "Hi."

She stares back at him. "Hello." Her eyes are level with the plastic covered tray he's holding in his hands, his knuckles stark white at where he's gripping it. An enticing smell wafts out from underneath the cover, of chocolate and something burnt. "What's that?"

Hope's eyes glance down to follow her question and his hands clench around the metal tray he's holding, almost as if he had forgotten he had been holding it in the first place. Claire sends him a weird look - who would forget about chocolate treats? "Oh, right, well - Snow decided he wanted to try baking, so he made some cookies for you guys. They might, um, not be completely edible. I don't think he's all that good at baking, to be honest."

Cookies! Claire loves cookies. Especially ones with chocolate. Their giant new neighbour seems to be getting less and less scary every time she interacts with him (or his cookies. He made them cookies!) "Thank you!" She beams out at Hope (who she still doesn't like, because teenage boys are mean, and he won't stop staring like there's something funny on her face).

Which he seems to be doing again. Claire really wants to try these cookies, so she doesn't demand from him as to what's so funny about her. She'll get around to it next time, when he's not holding chocolate goods in his hands. "Here, I guess." The cookies change hands and safely into her grasp. She can smell them even better now - even the part that suggests they're burnt to some degree. Which is okay, because Serah likes it when they're crispy.

She shifts on her feet, anxious to go back inside and try them before her mother notices and tells her "not before dinner", but her mother taught her to be polite and the boy on her front porch isn't leaving. Shutting the door in his face would result in one long lecture from her mother, if she were around to witness it. So Claire keeps the door propped open, cookies in hand, and stares at the weird boy staring at her.

He clears his throat. "So..." Claire's brow furrows. Usually when boys were about to be mean to her, they had ugly smiles on their faces and did not stand around silent with lost looks on their faces. Maybe this one was just even more weird than all the other ones she's met.

"So, what do you like to do, Claire?" Claire's brows furrow even further. Teenage boys did NOT ask her questions about what she liked to do, unless they wanted to have something to tease her about with (other than the color of her hair). Maybe this boy wasn't weird as much as crafty - that's a word they learned in class last week. It did not have anything to do with arts and crafts, either.

"I like to draw," she finally says, to which Hope makes a surprised noise as if he hadn't expected that answer. Claire immediately feels defensive - she happened to be good at drawing, even her teacher had said so!

"Drawing, huh?" Claire hopes he feels stupid under the look she's giving him. She JUST said she liked drawing, he didn't have to repeat it and sound so amazed by it. "What do you like to draw?"

Claire examines him - the way he shifts on his feet as if nervous, his hands back in his pocket now that he's no longer holding her cookies. What did he have to be nervous about? He was the bully here, not her, with all his weird staring and questions. Teenage boys were certainly crafty. "Chocobos," she decides to answer after a few moments of silence. "And Moogles." Granted, the only Moogles she had ever seen were in mythology books, but they were cute and almost as fun to draw as chocobos.

Hope's mouth lifts into a small smile. "Moogles, huh?" He's smiling like he knows something she doesn't. Claire doesn't like it.

"Do you know what Moogles are?" She asks, a bit snootily like some of the girls at her school who go up to her and ask her where her father is. They usually back off when she tells them he's dead, taken by a sickness not even the fal'Cie could cure. She doesn't ask Hope where his and Snow's parents are for this reason, even though she really wants to know. She hasn't seen anyone but Snow Hope come and go in the next house over.

"Yes, I do. They're very cute." The answer pacifies her, though she wishes just a bit that he had said no so that she could have told him. Claire is very proud that she knows things some other kids her age don't.

"Oh." She wonders if Serah and her mother are awake yet. Their mother had gotten home later than usual from work last night, and Serah had insisted that she take an afternoon nap with her. Claire hadn't felt sleepy, and that turned out nicely because now she had cookies. Which she really wanted to eat before dinner.

"So..." She drags out the word, much like he had just done, caught between being polite and eating her cookies. "What do you like to do?"

Hope tilts his head to the side, the silver of his hair catching in the sun. Claire tries not to giggle - his hair was even weirder than hers, but she knows how much it hurts to be teased about it. "I like to build things," he says.

He liked to build things? What kind of answer was that? "What do you like to build? Like... Robots?" Claire likes robots. Whenever they go somewhere that has service robots, the robots are always nice to her. The robots are nicer than some people. She could maybe like Hope, if he also liked robots. Especially if he knew how to build them.

Her question makes him pause, and much like his brother, he reaches up to rub at the back of his head. "Uh, I guess robots would fall in that category, yeah. I like to work on things that help people…" He trails off, and Claire feels as if he thinks she wouldn't be able to understand whatever "teenager" words he is about to say. But still, he liked robots. Claire feels conflicted.

And then she hears her mother calling her name from the back of the house, and realizes with a sinking feeling in her stomach that she won't be able to eat the cookies before dinner, after all. All because this boy would not leave her front porch and forced her to be polite to him.

Claire hated teenage boys. Especially crafty ones, like Hope Villiers.