The weekend is my best time to get a chapter in it would seem. That being said, this one is a bit late to be posted, but it was done, I swear. My router has been giving out on me lately, really should pick up a new one. But enough about that.
In retrospect, the coffee was probably not a good idea. Serah had been jittery enough without the extra caffeine, even if she had hardly touched the mug. Now, it was all she could do to keep from pacing through the house. Hope was still passed out on the couch and she didn't want to disturb the boy. She settled for bouncing her heels restlessly in her seat.
Last night, she had clung to some foolish hope that her sister would come marching in through the front door, disturbing her fitful sleep. She had prayed her sister would return, safe and sound, and her life would not be further shattered. Etro, it would seem, did not care to hear the prayers of the living.
Serah had known it the moment her eyes opened. It was one of those mornings, that felt a bit off, just ran a little too smooth. She hadn't felt groggy when she woke, in fact, her eyes had shot open, and her mind was working at full speed. Rather than being tired from the restless night, she rose from the couch, carefully so as not to wake Hope, and started for the kitchen. She must have switched on to auto-pilot after that, everything was a blur until she found herself seated at the kitchen table, half-full cup of java cooling in front of her.
'It shouldn't be this quiet.'
She should be sipping her coffee right now, while Lightning floated into the kitchen as she did every morning. Graceless, soundless, you wouldn't even notice she had come and gone unless your were watching. So contrary to the thundering footfalls that signaled the coming of Snow. Not that he lacked grace of sorts, or couldn't be sneaky if needed, he was always simply careless in the mornings. She had liked that. His comfort with the living arrangements. There was no tension with Snow, at least, not with her.
The relationship between her love and her sister had totally simmered. Lightning didn't object to them any longer, not openly anyways, and she gave him some slack on his other. . . blunders, so that had been nice. However, there had been plenty of other things to argue about, if their morning interactions had anything to say.
That had been before. . . that. . . though. She preferred to avoid the thought entirely if she could. The day he had been snatched away from her.
And now this. Now this terrible gut-wrenching fear that her sister would be taken away too. Serah had begged her not to go on this mission. She had that terrible dread that she felt before Snow had gone out on a similar duty. Some irrational fear that wouldn't leave her. If monsters came, they came, and could be dealt with when that happened, there was no reason to go.
Of course that hadn't convinced Lightning to stay. Nothing would have, save for maybe a terrible accident ending with her in a full body cast.
'She'd probably insist on being wheeled onto the carrier anyways.' Serah laughed bitterly. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes as the soldier's face swam into mind. Serah bit her lip and shuddered with a sudden sob.
"Serah. . ." She jumped a little at the sound of her name. She took a moment to steel herself before she answered the whisper.
"Good morning, Hope." She attempted a smile, but it even felt forced. She had no doubts it looks equally so when Hope grimaced.
"Umm. . . Good morning." He wanted to say more, she could tell. She just didn't know if she wanted to talk about what he had to say.
Guilt came on in waves at that thought. It was so selfish. He had lost just as much as her in all of this. First his father back in the PSICOM attack. And Snow had been his close friend, his family even, as well. And now Lightning was missing. She would have been a fool not to see how much he admired her. Even if Lightning said nothing about it, she knew they spoke almost daily on the communicators since 'The Fall', and the day they had parted ways, the way he struggled through parting with her. . .
Serah might even be so bold as to say there might be even more on his end, even if LIghtning remained as unreadable as ever.
"You should eat."
Hope looked shocked at her comment, like his mind had been some other place. After recovering a bit, he glanced back down at his hardly touched cereal before pushing it away.
"I'm not hungry." The silence that followed was as thick as Cocoon's crystal pillar. Serah made herself busy with dumping out their dishes and cleaning them. She wanted Hope to wander off really. To go be glum in some other corner.
'That's awful.' She scolded herself for the thought. She should be helping him right now. He was a boy, barely fifteen, who, within a year, had lost both his parents and many of his closest friends, and she was standing here wishing he would go away.
'Yeah, and you're nineteen. Why's it your responsibility to watch out for him?' That dark bit of her mind butted in. 'It was Lightning that wanted him here. She brought him in, why is he your problem?' Serah huffed and slammed the just cleaned mug down on the counter, and a cry bubbled from her throat as the ceramic shattered on impact.
Her legs suddenly felt boneless and she sank to her knees, pulling on fistfuls of tangled hair. Of course, Hope was at her side in a second, worrying over her, fretting about what was wrong.
'If only he could have heard my thoughts a minute ago.' More guilt weighed on her as Hope did anything he could to give comfort. She flung her arms around his slender frame and pulled him close.
"Serah, I. . . please, don't cry. . I. . ." He trailed off, fighting tears of his own. He could feel his throat tighten as he tried to force out the words he wanted her to hear. The words he wanted to hear. Wanted to believe, but there was no way to know, no way to back any of his hollow reassurances up. In the end, Lightning was still out there, in Etro knows what kind of condition, Snow and his father were still buried in the ground, and not a single thing he could say would change any of that.
Hope decided the best thing he could do was let her cry it out on his shoulder, and try to free some of his own burdens as well.
Well, as Hope and Serah are kind of in the same boat, I figured I would do a sort of back and forth with their chapters or even mesh some. Anyways, I hope you all are enjoying the story and I guess I'll keep writing it xP!
