Trust and Understanding

"General, what's the situation?"

"Estheim, Farron." Amodar greeted them hastily between ordering certain personnel around the operations center, "Where the hell have you two been?" He then noticed Fang and Vanille standing in the doorway, taking in the room with hesitant interest. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking between them and the two officers that had reached the operations table.

"Yeah, our thoughts exactly-"

"What's going on, Amodar." Lightning cut the First Lieutenant off, already reviewing the information displayed above the table. Amodar and Hope shared a brief look before the General cleared his throat.

"A little over an hour ago a series of quakes hit the city—hard." He pulled up a layout of the city, visualizing his explanation, "During the quakes, unidentified creatures started breaking out of the ground-" A few recordings of some of the creatures popped up, "Each one takes at least two squads to take down. We've already lost three squads." He looked at the two officers, lowing his voice, "These things look like-"

"Cie'th." Lightning finished the statement, "That's because they are."

"What?" Amodar hissed, "Farron, Cie'th haven't been around for years, they disappeared with the Fal'cie-"

"Apparently they didn't." Lightning shot back hotly, shooting a glare at the General. When Amodar looked over at Hope, the First Lieutenant just gave him an apologetic look. Turning back to the pinkette, Amodar motioned past her towards the doors.

"Does this have anything to do with them?" Neither Hope nor Lightning answered right away.

"We don't know." Hope answered eventually. He looked over at the two Oerbans who were attracting attention with their lack of uniform—lack of any clothing for that matter. Both of their outfits looked more than worse for wear, "Light, maybe you should take Fang and Vanille away from here. Grab them a change of clothes or something, maybe a meal?" He noticed the pinkette tense up, "They're probably more tired and confused than we are." Lightning stared hard at him but he forced himself to hold her gaze.

Eventually the pinkette sighed and stepped away, saluting quickly. With a last look between Amodar and Hope, she turned and made her way to the two women standing against the doorway. Lightning cursed at how well Hope had learned to read her. Ever since all hell had broken loose, she'd slowly begun losing her head. And the Control and Operations Center was no place for an officer losing her head. As she met the taller Oerban's eyes, still hard and steely, she silently cursed again. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

"Come with me." She beckoned with her hand and led them out of the room and down the hall. As they made their way through the building, the silence felt like a growing weight on Lightning's shoulders and she swore she could feel Fang's eyes on her back, burning into her.

The three of them eventually came across a medical center. It was particularly hectic with frantic medics running around attending wounded soldiers. Lightning almost regret cutting through the medical center to get to their destination.

"Oh! It's her!" Vanille's voice managed to cut through the chaos of the area. Lightning turned and saw Vanille looking down another hallway, Fang next to her with a sour look on her face. The pinkette walked quickly back to them. Upon looking down the relatively empty hall she saw a rather distraught-looking DeFluo pacing back and forth outside a room. That's right, this medical center was the nearest one from the shuttle bay where they'd landed earlier. Her sister must have been treated here.

"Whoa there, where do you think you're going?" Vanille had started toward the Lance corporal only to be stopped by her taller companion. The smaller of the two looked between Fang and Lightning.

"I want to talk to her, explain what happened."

"Vanille, she tried to hurt you!"

"Because she misunderstood what happened to Alva." Vanille replied uncharacteristically calmly to Fang's panicked protest.

"Alva?"

"The girl that got hurt." Vanille continued to explain. A spark of curiosity hit Lightning. How was it Vanille knew DeFluo's sister? "Please." The smaller Oerban continued, looking now at Lightning. The pinkette hesitated for a long while before realizing that if Vanille knew DeFluo's sister, she must have had a pretty good explanation. She also realized that as much as the taller Oerban probably wanted to be, Fang being around DeFluo would do more harm than good.

"Fang, come on," Lightning spoke up, already turning back down the previous hall, "We'll get you a change of clothes and bring something back for Vanille."

"What? I ain't leaving Vanille with her!"

"Fang, please-"

"No! I'll be damned if I let you anywhere near her without me-"

"Fang," Lightning chose to step in, her patience draining ever so slightly, "Anybody who knows you, knows how much you care about Vanille," She stated the truth. The words were intended to be understanding but actually ended up sounding eerily empty, "So trust her-"

"I do trust her." Fang said in a low, almost offended voice.

"Then trust that she can handle the situation herself." Lightning said with an air of finality, "The locker room is three doors down, we'll be gone ten minutes, max." She added over her shoulder as she continued down the hall. She counted half a dozen steps before she heard Fang's footsteps hurriedly catching up to her own. As she had said, the third door on the right of the hall revealed a large locker room that also served as a storage area.

"There should be some spare uniforms in those lockers," Lightning motioned to a row of vertical storage units lining one of the walls, "It should be easy for you to find something that fits you." She moved to the opposite wall to some flat storage bins, "It might be a little harder to find something for Vanille." While she sifted through some of the older, smaller uniforms, the pinkette heard Fang opening and shuffling through the lockers she'd directed her to.

"I trust Vanille completely," The Oerban stated after a few seconds of silence, obviously attempting to continue the conversation from before, "You trust that kid not to hurt her?" The immediate answer that popped into Lightning's head was 'yes' and she couldn't explain why—though she couldn't immediately relay it aloud either.

"Her name is DeFluo," Lightning decided, carefully choosing her words, "And I trust that she'll listen to Vanille."

"You mean how she listened back when she found this... Alva girl?"

"Fang-" Lightning started, sighing, but stopped when she saw the Oerban had already decided on a change of clothes and was presently in the process of peeling off her current ones. The pinkette spun back around, praying to Etro the other woman hadn't seen her, "If you don't believe in my trust in DeFluo, at least trust that I don't want to see Vanille hurt."

There was another silence, with only the shuffling of Fang slipping into her new set of clothes. Lightning carefully checked to see if the other woman had finished changing. In seeing that she had, the pinkette found herself surprised at the choice of attire Fang had made. The Oerban warrior had slipped on a plain white, sleeveless training shirt and a loose, maintenance jumpsuit. She'd tied the top half of the jumpsuit around her waist and was slipping on a pair of standard military combat boots. Lightning couldn't recall seeing Fang in anything but her Sari. Granted, Fang's sari had as much character as the woman wearing it but even in the simpler—and let's be honest, slightly more practical—outfit, Fang still remained as sexy as ever. Lightning looked away, forcibly disregarding the last thought.

"Well, I'm glad I can trust you at least have Vanille's back" Fang's voice brought Lightning's gaze back toward her.

"What's that's supposed to-"

"You put your gun in my face, Light." Fang clarified harshly. The statement of fact hit Lightning like a slap to the face. As if she didn't regret the reflexive decision enough already.

"And I apologized." The hard, logical Sergeant Major took over the pinkette's brain, "But you were as ready as DeFluo was to throw down, and if that happened you and I both know she wouldn't have stood a chance." While Lightning spoke nothing but what she felt was the truth, the words still felt... wrong.

"I was protecting Vanille!" Fang defended fiercely, her voice raising in volume, "I was protecting my friend—my family-!"

"So was DeFluo." Lightning answered, her voice no louder, but just as heated as Fang's, "Alva is DeFluo's younger sister." She explained. She caught the slight retreat of the indignation in Fang's eyes, "If it were Vanille laying on the ground, bleeding out of her side with DeFluo kneeling over her with a weapon, could you honestly say you would've reacted any different?" Fang didn't reply. The silence provided its own answer.

Settling on a training uniform that she thought was the closest fit for Vanille, Lightning moved back toward the doorway. She caught the distraught look Fang was attempting to hide and decided it didn't suit her. She hadn't wanted to argue with Fang—she didn't know what she wanted to do with Fang. She was still trying to process the fact that Fang was around to argue with.

"Look, Fang, I'm not defending what DeFluo did; she acted irrationally, disobeyed direct orders, put a civilian at risk and she will be reprimanded for it." Lightning remained standing in the doorway as the door slid open, "I don't condone her actions but I understand the reason behind them." The pinkette then turned to meet Fang's eyes once more, "I just... I think maybe you could too." Fang only frowned but she didn't continue to argue, "As if sharing your looks weren't enough..." The Sergeant Major added quickly and quietly as she exited the locker room.

Fang remained still for another few moments before following. Lightning hadn't intended for her last comment to reach Fang's ears but they had. The Oerban couldn't deny that she'd noticed the physical similarities between herself and DeFluo. It'd been something that imperceptibly irked her the moment she realized this. However, the moment she heard DeFluo speak, her voice commanding a distinct authoritative—almost domineering tone—all she thought of was Lightning.

A/N:

Heh, more like distrust and misunderstanding...

I had a dream last night that someone was cutting off the tips of of my fingers, one by one.
I woke up and found I'd slept on my hand-and couldn't feel it o_0

Scary...

...just thought I'd share...