Disclaimer: Final Fantasy XIII does not belong to me.

Author's Note: The next two chapters will be uploaded one right after the other, and a bunch of questions I've received over the time I've been writing this, alongside some more I imagine people would have, will be answered by me in the very end of the last chapter. We're almost there.

The One With The Kid Names

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The first time Claire visits her mother's grave as a married woman is when she is twenty five with Hope at her side. It is, consequently, the tenth anniversary of her mother's death and the party consists of also Snow and Serah, all of them dressed in somber black with flowers in their hands.

The sisters lay carnations upon the stone, tracing the inscription that is carved on the jutting rock from the soil – the graveyard is all that remains of a slowly rebuilding Bodhum, the citizens of Cocoon wary of moving their homes to the picturesque seaside town. The shadow of the discovered Pulse fal'Cie and subsequent Purge still rests heavy over it despite the government's drive for re-population.

"Hi, Mom," Claire greets all that remains in the physical world of their mother, and Serah follows suit, and the Villiers brothers fall back a respectable distance to let the remaining Farron family have their privacy. The women draw them back in soon enough and the four spend time chatting amongst themselves and the woman they can remember in their memories, cracking jokes and laughing now that the time for grieving has settled deeper behind the happiness of now.

A private airship – a luxury affordable with Snow's cushy job as a high ranking officer in the Cavalry, and Hope's position as a tech-development aid within the Sanctum - waits for them on the premises some distance off and the family boards it when a decent amount of time has passed. The pilot's voice announces their departure over the com and with a small jolt, the ship lifts gracefully into the air and sets course for Eden.

"I still like Emily," Serah comments, stretching into the plush of the seat behind her. "You better have a girl first, Claire. I have all these ideas for the cutest baby clothes to buy, and no baby girl to dress her up in." A teasing smile is on her face as she says this, but in her eyes Claire can detect the slight hints of envy and melancholy – Serah absolutely adores kids, and adores her job as a pre-school teacher in Eden, but has yet to settle down and start a family of her own. Claire knows that that is all Serah has ever wanted – a family of her own.

Claire, on the other hand – her stomach churns uncomfortably as the discussion of baby names continues, carried over from the cemetery. It is joking, slowly edging into the area where both Snow and Serah are uncertain where the boundary is. Claire remains quiet as the two throw names at each other, each one more ridiculous than the last.

"I am not naming my kid Chocolina," Hope shoots down a suggestion of Snow's with a laugh, his hand finding Claire's next to his and rubbing his fingers against the sides of her palm in a gesture of comfort. The tension in her guts eases by the smallest of notches. A beat of silence passes, then he says in a voice carrying a tone more serious, more humble, "I like the name Vanille for a girl, myself."

Across from them Snow's grin turns softer. "I like that one too," he agrees, and Serah hums in agreement. "Or, if it's a boy, Noel. I've always liked Noel."

An echo of Snow's smile settles at the edges of Hope's lips. "Me too," he says, and the mood is suddenly too serious, too real – Claire jumps up.

"I need a drink," she announces to her surprised family and heads for the lounge at the front of the ship that houses the bar. Hope sends her a look – barely a second long as their eyes meet, a question in regards to company that she can read as easily as her own reflection – and she subtly shakes her head.

She plops down on a stool at the bar with a glass of light wine she'd found behind it with a heavy sigh. The wine is tart and fruity, tingling the back of her throat as she swallows. "How am I expected to be a mother," she mutters to the polished wood of the counter, "when I can barely remember my own?"

"And isn't that the million gil question," a wry voice comments behind her and she turns, startled to see a dark skinned man shrug at her once their eyes meet. "Couldn't help but overhear you," he says in an apologetic tone, an accent to his voice that belies his origins as one of Cocoon's smaller, more rural towns.

"Don't worry about it," Claire answers, caught off-guard at having been overheard. She eyes his pilot uniform as he rummages through the fridge behind the counter and emerges with a chilled bottle of water.

"Hope I'm not interrupting anything," the man continues as he settles on a stool several away from hers, uncapping the bottle and taking a quick swig. There's a grimace on his lips when he pulls away. "I'd stay in the cabin but my co-pilot had a very – well, let's just say he had a very interesting lunch and it's making itself known."

The implications hit Claire and she chuckles in sympathy after a second. "It's fine." She stretches out one hand to him. "Claire Farron."

The man bridges the distance between them, the skin of his hand rough and calloused against hers. "Sazh Katzroy. I'm Snow's personal pilot. He's talked about you plenty, but we've never had the chance to meet."

Claire regards the man with a look of surprise and he grins in reply. "I've learned that he's not one to take his work home with him. I'm not surprised he's never brought me up."

"How long have you been working for him?" She asks, always willing to learn more about Snow's job – his eagerness to speak of the few things the Cavalry did allow had never happened, even after her and Serah were no longer children.

"Past four years or so, I'd say." Sazh takes another drink from his bottle and Claire sips at her wine, nearly missing the dark look that flashes across his face as he speaks. "Good man, Snow. Found me when I was nearly ready to quit flying and brought me on. Wouldn't let up until I caved in."

"He does have a tendency to be pretty stubborn," Claire agrees with a small, fond smile and the two lapse into a not quite awkward, not quite companionable silence.

"Hey," he interrupts it after several moments, and his dark eyes meet hers as she glances towards him. "That thing you're worried about – don't drive yourself crazy over it. If you want kids, then go for it. You'll never be prepared enough, and never as prepared as you think you are."

There is still tension in Claire's stomach, the sort that won't go away with alcohol and stems from pure fear – it trembles at his words, and she grimaces. "That's not very reassuring."

Sazh laughs and Claire is mature enough to detect the undertones of cynicism that color it. "Parenthood ain't all sunshine rainbows, and it ain't an easy decision, so don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise." His eyes linger on the bottles of whisky lining the wall before them, his lips pulled downwards in a grimace. "But," he continues after a moment, and the lines of his face smooth themselves out as the grimace turns into the barest hint of a smile, "if parenthood is what you want, then kids are a blessing. A scary one, of course, but a blessing nonetheless. You think you know all there is about the world and then they come along and bam, it's almost like you never lived at all."

Claire's mind flashes to Hope and her fingers around her wineglass tighten, her shoulders easing some of her tension away. "Yeah, I've experienced something like that before," she says, and hesitates before continuing – she almost imagines something linking her to this stranger; not the alcohol, but something beyond her, and Claire believes in souls and so she puts it towards a tugging at her entire being, almost as if she is calling out to an old friend. "How can you ever be ready for something like that? That's an entire person suddenly depending entirely on you." She downs what remains of her wine, and as it warms the inside of her throat she thinks briefly, as she sometimes does – would that have been me and Serah, if Snow and Hope weren't there? If I had no choice but to protect Serah? What would I have done? Would I have even succeeded?

"They become your entire world," the pilot agrees with her, rotating the bottle in his hands as he does so. His eyes stare beyond their surroundings now, and she can tell from the look on his face that he is seeing something she cannot. "It's not that hard to make them happy when they do."

"And if something happens to them?" Claire asks, her voice catching in her throat – that fear inside of her growls, the remnants of her mother's death a creeping darkness that colors any potential motherhood with fright. She remembers the grieving on her end; she cannot imagine it from the other side.

Sazh is silent, and when he speaks his voice is quiet and sounds like her fears put to light. "If they get torn away from you, your entire world disappears… but every moment with them leading up to it is worth the possible pain, because they love you like no other person ever has. And you love them like no other person in the world. There is no experience that can make up for that."

Claire does not know the grief of losing a child, but she knows the grief of losing a mother. The mood between them is one of stillness and pain, of nostalgia. Claire stares at the bottom of her glass, where the last few drops of wine remain sparkling under the artificial light. "Thank you, Sazh."

"Don't worry 'bout it," the man replies and when she looks up at him he has an amused smile on his face. "Never been one for heavy talks with a stranger, but there's something about you that made is so damn easy." He chuckles in a self-deprecating manner and reaches up to rub at the back of his head. "Hope I didn't ruin your expectations of parenthood too much for you."

He hadn't, Claire realizes; somewhere during their conversation, even though the physical fear remained, her mind had been eased. "You didn't," she tells him. They fall into silence again, this one more companionable than awkward now, and if Claire believed in other lives, she would have said this man and her may have been friends there.

"You don't regret it," she breaks it at last, and her words are a statement and not a question.

"I had a little boy," Sazh confirms and without looking at him, she knows he's wearing the bittersweet look of love lost that she's sported more than once after the loss of her mother. Familiar, but not quite the same, too. "I wouldn't change it for the world. If given the chance, I would do it all over again."

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Their first daughter is born to them when Claire is twenty seven and comes out with a shock of fluffy pink hair and Hope's green eyes, and Hope cries a little when he sees her and Snow's first gift to the newborn is a miniature fishing rod (Hope cries a little to that too, but with more laughter, and Claire and Serah just exchange confused looks together).

They name her Vanille, as per Hope's wish years ago, and sometimes Claire catches him looking at their daughter the same way her mother used to look at the portrait of their dead father in the living room. Always alone, as if he is afraid to share the burden that hunches his shoulders and lingers behind his eyes.

She asks him about it once, about the way he'll softly hold their daughter and hum an unfamiliar lullaby as she slumbers. He doesn't exactly answer the question, just embraces her and confesses into her hair, "I'm afraid of seeing her get lost in this world. I'm afraid of not being able to protect her when she needs it."

Claire's arms tighten around his torso. "Me, too," she whispers and her words get caught in his shirt, her heart trembling at the thought of the small girl sleeping inside her cot beside them ever coming to harm. "But we'll protect her. I promise."

"I promise," Hope echoes her and then so quietly that she almost doesn't catch it –

"I'll protect you both, this time."

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I'll protect you both, this time, her husband's words haunt her in her sleep and the dreamscape ground beneath her feet trembles. A voice in the wind calls her name, reedy and distant yet all encompassing.

Claire Farron, it bids – a force of nature against her humanity, whipping her this way and that as the ground falls away and she descends through a grey sky.

Bring me the truth, Claire Farron, and destroy that which ends us.