Disclaimer: Final Fantasy XIII is the property of Square Enix. No profit is being made from the circulation of this story.

Some One Must Get Hurt
Chapter 1

"Do you want something to drink?" Serah asked.

Lightning shook her head. Her sister shrugged and poured herself a glass of wine. It was slightly unnerving to watch Serah drink, but Lightning has decided years before that she would stop worrying about her. It was the day she watched Serah get married.

"So how is the monster hunting going?" Serah asked with a lopsided grin.

"It's going...well," Lightning said. "It's amazing how much some people will pay for the cats we catch. I guess it's the latest fad. I've heard that the rich private buyers want to breed them and raise huge ones to walk down the street like dogs. I guess people aren't so afraid of Gran Pulse this year."

"I can't imagine having one of those huge monsters," Serah said. "Snow watched to get a dog. I told him maybe a small one, or a medium one. Of course he wants a 'man's dog.' Something huge."

"Of course," Lightning chuckled. "How is Snow?"

"He's getting a promotion soon," Serah said. Lightning saw an honestly happy smile touch her lips. "They're going to make him a foreman."

"That's good for him, good for both of you," Lightning said. "Who would have thought that lazy ogre would have actually made something of himself?"

Serah laughed at the old joke. Lightning's insults no longer held any weight and hadn't for years. Snow had made good on his promise to take care of Serah, working to buy a house, a car, food, clothes, all of life's necessities and even quite a few of its luxuries. Lightning, perched on the stool of their breakfast nook, knew he was doing well from the state of their house every time she visited. Their kitchen had new marble counters that were cool against her bare arms.

"We were talking about having a baby," Serah said, a hint of a frown touching her normally soft brow. "No luck."

"You didn't tell me that," Lightning said. "How long have you been trying?"

Once upon a time, the news would have aggravated her to no end. The thought of her baby sister having her own baby would have been foreign and terrifying, but the girl Lightning had been had grown up. People had babies all around her, adults, making families. Serah had been an adult in Lightning's eyes for years now and it was a testament to that fact that she accepted it. Not that she wanted to hold it, or touch it, except maybe to hug it when it was old enough not to drool on her. It was just that Serah could have her own baby and Lightning would be happy for her.

"A while," Serah said wistfully.

Lightning frowned. "It'll happen, Serah."

"I hope so," she said. "He always wanted a big family, but we waited, because he wanted to give them everything. Now we have everything--and then some, and no baby. No...it's been a while...but you think it will happen, right?"

"Serah..." Lightning said. Her sister's happy tone had wavered. How long was a while? And why couldn't Lightning fix this for her?

"Hey, why don't you let me make you lunch?" Serah asked.

"Only if you're making lunch for yourself as well," Lightning said. Part of her was extremely relieved at the change of topic but the part that had worried endlessly over her sister, the part she had long since tried to rein in, stirred inside her. Lightning watched Serah begin to putter around the kitchen. Perhaps she was out of her league. She really had no control over giving her sister a baby. The only thing she could do was listen, to be there for Serah. It was the simplest thing she could do but it had always been the hardest not to fix something.

Serah seemed content to forget that she had brought it up as she made sandwiches and they ate them. She promised to take Lightning shopping and do city things that she missed out on in the jungles of Gran Pulse. Lightning cringed at most of it, but tried to do it while her sister was distracted and not looking. It has been impossible to go back to being a soldier after Orphan was destroyed but it had been equally impossible to adapt to a normal day job. Exploring Gran Pulse had been a perfect solution. So many people had been too afraid, but Lightning knew it held her future. Although she and Serah missed each other, it was an easier way to live.

She could keep herself in check if she only saw them once a year, and she would sooner willingly feed herself to ferocious monsters on Gran Pulse than separate her from him.

After lunch, they took tall glasses of lemonade and a bottle of sunscreen out to Serah's deck. Neither of them would ever tan, but Serah would sunburn into a fine imitation of a lobster. Lightning saw her fair share of sun these days, but enjoyed laying in it instead of crawling through the grass under it. Serah read her the newspaper's advertisements for theater shows playing while she was in town. They only did this once a year, but it was more familiar and comfortable than anything they used to do together, even as children.

"We could go see a drama this year," Serah said. "You don't always have to humor me by letting me pick comedies all the time."

Lightning crack one eye open at her beneath her tiny round sunglasses. "Hmm. Well, if you pick a drama."

"You're so unhelpful," Serah accused. "Fine, we should see The Taming of the Shrew."

"That's a comedy," Lightning said with a chuckle.

"Hardly," Serah said, her voice laced with slight annoyance. "It has a supposedly happy ending, yes, but what actually happens? They get married. And turned into obedient housewives."

Lightning raised as eyebrow at her, both eyes now open. "I wouldn't have counted on all of that being such a bad thing to someone like you."

The way her sister's eyes flashed made her think that Serah wasn't happy with that remark. She snapped her newspaper shut and threw it on the low table between their lounge chairs, crossing her arms over her chest. Lightning waited patiently, and Serah didn't meet her eyes, fuming about whatever injustice disturbed her so about the play.

"I'm not unhappy," Serah said. "I just think it's sad that they still advertise a comedy about objectifying women as being perfectly funny."

"It's certainly dated, yes," Lightning said. "But you're a housewife yourself."

"I'm just myself," Serah retorted. "I'm not made of glass. Sometimes I just want to do something radical to show that to everyone. You never let me visit you. You always come visit me. Do you think I can't handle Gran Pulse?"

"That's not it at all," Lightning said, surprised. It didn't catch her well enough off-guard to make her tell the truth though. "I know you've asked me a few times over the years," she began carefully, "but I do like coming to see you, Serah."

"That's laughable," Serah scoffed. "You hate all the things we do together. You don't like to shop, you don't like the theater, you don't like coming to the salon, and you don't like my friends. You make fun of them every time we go out with them. All you seem to like is laying out here on the deck and the poker game you have with the boys, and I'm not allowed to come to that."

"I like the theater," Lightning said. "And I like the poker game because I always win back the money I spend shopping."

"You just use it to buy the beer and pizza," Serah said.

"And your friends are kind of spoiled," Lightning continued as if she hadn't heard. "It's not a wonder why I don't get along with them."

"I'm tired of excuses," Serah said. "I want..."

"Serah, what's really wrong?" Lightning asked.

Serah kept her arms crossed, pulling them tighter over her body. It was eating at her but she didn't want to admit it, and perhaps not just to her sister but to herself. Lightning wasn't quite sure that she wanted to know if Serah wasn't sure. She wasn't the best equipped to deal with problems outside of her realm of experience, like problems that plagued Serah's charmed life. Lightning and Snow had, each in turn, worked hard to give her everything she wanted. She was supposed to be happy.

It had taken a long time to forgive herself for pushing her sister away so many times after their parents' deaths. When she believed she was doing it for Serah's own good and protection, it had been easy to be a cold mercenary, a flicker of light in the sky.

"I thought you wanted to stop treating me like a little girl years ago," Serah said. "I get enough of that from Snow now. This is nice, isn't it Light? It's nice being friends."

"Oh, Serah," Lightning said. "It's very nice, it's my favorite thing. My...issues don't have anything to do with protecting you anymore." She fondly leaned over in her chair and smiled and Serah looked at her, puzzled. "I just don't think visiting me where I work is a fun vacation, but maybe we can make a vacation on Gran Pulse. You really haven't seen much outside of Cocoon, I forget that sometimes, I think because it's a different Cocoon now than it was when we were growing up. It's completely changed, you know, I just think of it as a big city, not an oasis."

"Oh," Serah said. "I thought that would be harder."

Lightning chuckled. "I'm not completely unreasonable."

"Sometimes I guess I forget," Serah sighed. "Sorry."

"No, it's alright," Lightning said. She sat back in her chair and closed her eyes again. Serah quietly picked up her lemonade and sipped it. Despite a gnawing feeling growing in her stomach, Lightning found she did want to share a more adventurous side with her sister. Distance made it easy to ignore what she couldn't have for herself these days. She knew a vacation with Serah would be a vacation with Snow as well, just as this one was. He worked most of the time she visited, but he was still there, around every corner of his home, in every nook and cranny. Would it be possible to keep herself in check if she was out in the wild world with him again?

After all the years gone by, she should have been able to still the flutter of her heart and the quickening of her breath when she heard his footsteps in the doorway. The fact that she couldn't kept her away—and brought her back. It wasn't only that she endured tormenting herself to be near Serah, but that she took what she could get for free. The jokes, the laughter, the card games, the glances, it was a poor substitute for what she truly desired, a substitute for what would destroy her sister. Lightning couldn't live without knowing him.

The thought snapped her out of her mind's dangerous wandering and she grabbed her own glass of lemonade. The vacation to Gran Pulse would wait until after hers to Cocoon. She could and would still enjoy Serah's company. With a short glance at her sister from under her sunglasses, Lightning reaffirmed that she could hold on to the moment and not fall through her tangled thoughts until she went mad. Serah was there and beautiful, her cheeks slightly pink. It reminded Lightning of her mother, such a lovely and delicate woman. Serah was everyone's future, a hope for life to continue. Lightning had to marvel at that thought as it occurred to her. Life was precious.

To Be Continued.