She'd not slept for more than a few hours a night for the last month.
Travelling from site to site was exhausting.
Eating camp food was disgusting.
Peace and quiet, along with the complete darkness she liked to sleep in, was non-existant.
Sharing facilities with other officers was invasive.
And the vague briefings – too short and too simple; often confusing – were nigh unacceptable.
The only thing she knew was that she had been somewhere remote for the last month; overseeing a group of scientists while they collected samples Lightning knew nothing about. To make it worse, the scientists reported to their own commander that Lightning didn't have any contact with unless there was a security situation.
She felt like a glorified bodyguard.
Still, Lightning's mission was completed the way it was rolled out to her, and she even received a pat on the back from one of the higher-ups on what a 'good job' she did.
Good job, my ass.
She might have done something about it if she had more pull within the ranks, but she was on a need to know basis and she, as they say, didn't need to know. That much was obvious. Even Amodar's usually big mouth was tight-lipped. There was something going on; the very idea that she was the left hand and had no idea what the right one was up to, made her uneasy. The last time something like that had happened, she and a motley crew of civilians had been thrust into the middle of a conflict none of them should have had anything to do with.
Except for one of them, of course.
The one that got them all into that mess in the first place.
Lightning twisted, throwing herself over onto her stomach, balling the corner of her pillow beneath her chin, slipping her arm under its coolness.
Snow Villiers. That bastard.
Him and his little group of misfits; NORA.
On top of that, he drug her sister into life-threatening conflict all in the name of puppy love accompanied by a severe lack of good sense.
And then, Serah chose him over her. It had taken Lightning by surprise, but it really shouldn't have.
Even still... Lightning would never forgive him.
It had been some time since all of their lives had changed. Once close, the friends were all now scattered to the wind; most living on Pulse; or so she thought. Honestly, she hadn't kept as close touch as she really should have, friends or not.
Unable to recall the details, Lightning knew all she had to do was browse the databanks and files of her once brothers-in-arms, and all would be refreshed; the intelligence of the government always top notch. It was important to the Neo-Sanctum to keep tabs on the people the most involved; herself included.
Even though she had heard about the intentions of the reforming government the people cried for, she found herself unable to visualize what her life might be like if she wasn't a soldier. There would always be puppets, and always someone to tug the strings.
That's how it was.
Besides, she told herself that if she was the one peeping in on the personal lives of her friends from time to time, it wasn't was bad as it sounded. Maybe it could have even been construed as protecting them from afar, even if that's not what it really was.
She'd been surprised the Neo-Sanctum had taken her back on after all that had happened, but it was for the better. This way, she had always been kept in the know, and had access to the latest intelligence when it came to related matters.
But lately...
She couldn't sleep; her mind racing and lethargic all at the same time. Not sharp; dull and slow witted behind sandpaper eyes.
Rubbing her temples, she sat up in bed and looked at the clock. She saw the little red light beside the time; she'd set her alarm to go off just before Serah was due to call her, but at the rate her mind was working, she knew she'd not have need of an alarm. And it wasn't just late anymore, it was early.
Besides, it was too quiet, and too dark for her to sleep anyway. Her natural rhythms were messed up; she woke to the sound of a pin drop, and slept with a knife under her pillow, on edge more than she was ever relaxed, all thanks to the jarring lifestyle of a soldier.
Flinging her legs over the side of the bed, she dropped her head between her knees, hands on the back of her head. She felt disconnected from everything except how pissed off she was at arriving home to a full up voicemail box and the last person on Pulse she wanted to talk to.
After speaking to Snow, having practically just having walked in the door, Lightning hadn't felt like unpacking anything before she crashed. She must have dozed off at some point, having an hour or two unaccounted for in her memory, she was too agitated now to even try again.
Padding barefoot out of her room, she made her way into the kitchen of the Farron family home. Flipping on the overhead lighting, she sat down at the island, resting her head on her hand and surveyed the only kitchen she'd ever sat in for the long years of her life.
The fact that everything was the same and had been since her parents died was somewhat comforting.
Well, mostly everything.
A brown, shrivelled houseplant sat on the windowsill by the kitchen sink.
"Ah shit."
Approaching the sad sight, she stuck a fingertip into its bone-dry soil, and sighed.
Grabbing a glass from the side cabinet, she filled it with tap water and carefully poured it into the plastic pot. But, to her dismay, the water simply ran through the pot like a sieve, flooding the sill; some dripping into the sink below.
Unconcerned with the mess, she took the pot in hand and lowered it to the faucet.
She'd heard somewhere that sometimes a good soaking is what houseplants needed. So that's what she did.
"I hope it's not dead..." she muttered under the judgemental hiss of water.
She'd been so careful with it up until now. What had she been thinking this time? Lightning's dispatch missions were never usually longer than a week.
So what did she to expect to find after being gone for a whole month with no one to tend to it?
The vibrations from simply holding the drab plastic pot caused the plant to shudder, every single leaf dropping off it; whispered crackles as they landed in the porcelain sink and were washed into the drain.
Once green and pretty, all that was left was bare twigs.
Lightning sighed as she set it down and turned off the water.
Rubbing a dry, tiny end between her fingers, she stared dejectedly.
She hadn't even said a proper good-bye...
She wanted a chance to do it again...
"Get it together, Farron..." she warned herself, raking her hands over her face.
Unceremoniously picking up the too-light plastic pot, she toted it to the trash, stepped on the lid lever... and hesitated.
Serah had left this plant behind when Snow took her to Pulse.
No bones about it, Lightning had been hard on Serah; their last words were not kind, nor were they many. She told Serah to take all her stuff – to 'empty your room and leave if that's the way you want it' if she recalled correctly. Looking back on it, she realized that she'd been angry; and, as usual, she'd said something she regretted.
She felt as though Serah had abandoned her; gave up on her... after all Lightning had done; took care of her, made sure she ate and went to school, studied and got good grades... and all Serah did was leave in the end.
With him.
Lightning put the pathetic, leafless mass of twigs back on the windowsill and just stood there; her hopelessness reflected in the dark window pane.
In a way, this dried up little plant was the last thing she had of her little sister... and she'd killed it.
Maybe... it was an omen.
Maybe... it was the way it should be.
Maybe Lightning should do them a favour and leave them alone; change her name, change her number and take some remote post somewhere to live out the rest of her miserable life.
Because that's all she was.
Miserable.
What good was she to anyone now?