Oerba
The journey down from Taejin's heights was grim and uncomfortable, and that feeling had only grown as the group had passed through the crystal-dusted hills. The silence as they descended into the township was eerie, because unlike the rest of Pulse, Oerba had not continued on. There was no life, and none of the greenery that Lightning had expected from Vanille's wistful recollections. All that remained was the movement of cie'th as they flitted through the rusted and wrecked buildings around them.
Metal creaked in the wind, and Lightning tilted her head back to stare at the rusted windmill. She released a long breath, but felt no less uneasy. One last effort, she'd told herself, and they'd get to Oerba. Once they were there, then they could rest. So long as they made it to Oerba, they'd be able to do the impossible.
Now that they were here, Lightning felt her heart grow heavy. Anyone that could have helped them was long dead. Perhaps it was from the war, maybe it was by the fal'Cie. Eden, they could have even been destroyed by cie'th. The how didn't matter, anyway – she supposed she'd known that there would be no miracle cure, but the tangible goal had kept them going.
What now? Lightning could feel the question twisting in her mind, read it in Hope's face, in the way Sazh's shoulders had slumped, and in the tightness around Snow's eyes. She had no answers to give them.
From behind her, she heard the scuff of sandals and boots on the ruined concrete, and knew that the town's last inhabitants were taking in its empty shell. Lightning looked toward Fang, letting the glance linger for a half a moment. Fang had her arm around Vanille's shoulders, and she was saying something to her sister that Lightning couldn't catch. Fang's grip on Vanille's arm seemed gentle and reassuring, and all might have seemed well, but for the raw anguish in the woman's eyes and the set to her jaw.
Lightning looked away again, feeling like an intruder. A useless intruder, Lightning amended with a silent sigh. Fang and Vanille's home had been wiped out, their families lost, their world destroyed. Back before Palumpolum, Lightning had thought she'd lost Serah, and that pain had driven her to a near-suicidal desperation. To lose Bodhum, her home, her life, all in what must have seemed an instant…
The bitter, cynical part of Lightning's mind reminded her that if the group didn't pull off a miracle soon, she'd find out first-hand what Fang was feeling.
She stood by, silent as Sazh and Snow gave the orders for the group to explore the ghost town. By the time she looked around for Fang again, the woman was gone. Lightning fought her first impulse, to seek Fang out and demand the answers to all her questions, but she'd stand by the promise she'd made Fang up on Taejin's Tower.
Time and space, Lightning reminded herself as she nodded to something Vanille told her. She'd get her answers tonight.
In Fang's mind, it hadn't felt like five hundred years could have just up and passed her by. She supposed that up on Cocoon it had been easy to fool herself, that the world above was just alien, not because time had slipped through her fingers. Even when she'd finally made it home to Gran Pulse, she'd tried not to think of how things had changed. The calmness and natural law of the land had been a familiar comfort, even if everything else had screamed wrongness.
She'd always been good at lying to herself, at spinning the truth to ease the pain in her heart a little, and the past week had been no exception.
In Oerba, there was no escape from the truth. There, in the very room she'd slept in as a child, Fang was anything but calm and her head began to hurt. Everything was still there, just the way she remembered it, and yet everything was igone/i and she was the only one to blame for it. She swallowed, feeling hot and frozen and ill all at once.
Silent, Fang made a slow circuit of the achingly familiar room. There was that heap-of-junk robot Vanille had always carted around, the worn pots and pans used for cooking. Over in the corner was where Fang had argued with Vanille over who exactly owned the top bunk-bed, and out the window, she could see where she'd tripped and broken her arm.
Memories wailed for her attention, and Fang couldn't bring herself to examine them all with the care they deserved. After all the pain, all the betrayal – Fang feared that if she looked too hard, she'd shatter and then what good would she be to anyone?
Fang knelt by the window, her fingers brushing over a photo frame that could have fallen off the windowsill one year ago or five hundred. The glass was broken, the frame bent and cracked and showing signs of rust. The picture itself was faded, dry and fragile under her fingertips as she carefully brushed aside the crystal dust and glass.
Her gaze sharpened as she took in the image of two girls on Oerba's beach. Fang scarcely recognised Vanille, in all her unabashed delight just being alive. If not for the lance and sari, Fang would have barely recognised herself.
Back then, back before the war with Cocoon had hit its stride, things had been simple. Black and white, with nothing but herself and Vanille to consider. Things had changed quickly as the war had raged, moving from 'right' and 'wrong' to simply 'do' or 'die'. With the event of the Focus, Fang's desires had ceased to matter.
What was wrong with her? Fang knew that she was letting her past best her, but even her happiest memories of Oerba were starting to get lost in the filth and blood.
The past was no comfort any more, and the future was dark. The present wasn't exactly a walk along the beach, either.
It was never supposed to have ended up this way.
Fang's hold on the picture frame tightened, the warped metal digging into the palms of her hands as she stared into the hazy distance. Fang was never supposed to have scarred Cocoon, was never supposed to have slept in stasis, to have let everything get between her and Vanille. She shouldn't have woken up at all. She was never supposed to have fallen in love with a woman who would not love her back.
How did things get so complicated?
Fang caught a flash of white and red from over by the shore, and her mouth tightened. The fight atop Taejin's Tower loomed as yet another shadow in her mind, and Fang exhaled sharply. One moment of heady closeness and Fang's resolve had predictably broken.
In the instant she'd promised Lightning the truth, she'd been so certain. Now, she wasn't even sure what she hoped to achieve by confessing all of her well-intentioned sins.
Etro, there was nothing to be done for the situation! Was it the judgement that she craved, or simply the defiance? Fang's mouth twisted, and she traced Lightning and Hope's movements along the beach. Maybe Fang needed to see the respect fade from Lightning's eyes, for the strange affection they'd developed between themselves to sour and finally die. Maybe then Fang would finally have the guts to do what was needed.
Fang heard Snow slowly climbing the stairs up to the room, and she placed the old photograph on the shelving with a sigh. Her thoughts were scattered as he entered the room, and Fang tried to cast aside the black mood she'd found herself in. Today though, she had no time for Snow's rhetoric, well-meaning as she knew that it was.
As Fang made to push her way past Snow, he jerked to awareness. Snow seemed surprised by her presence, as if he hadn't even noticed her before now. He quickly regained his composure, but it was nowhere near fast enough. Fang hesitated, halfway out the door. In that one instant of unguarded honestly, she'd seen the stark worry in his eyes, and that was quite possibly more frightening than fighting Dahaka.
"Fang," Snow said, looking around the room with what seemed now to be a forced interest, no matter how casual he sounded. "What's up? Didn't uh... didn't expect to find you up here."
Fang was silent for a moment, observing him carefully as he moved to stand by the window. Had Fang not seen his worry for herself, she'd never have believed it had been there at all.
"Are you..." Fang hesitated again, suddenly feeling uncertain, her eyes flicking down to his exposed wrist and then up to his face just as quickly. The sight of the sprawling brand that spidered over his skin made her feel physically ill. "Are you all right?"
"Sure am."
Somehow, Snow was still smiling. He knewhow bad his brand was. She'd seen it in his eyes that he knew Oerba was the end of the line! How could he pretend that everything was going to be okay? It was all so tragically ludicrous that she almost wondered if Snow's whole goal was to martyr himself in a futile stand-off with the fal'Cie.
Her bitterness surged forth anew, and Fang turned away from him. The problem was, judging by the brand on his wrist...
You don't have long. None of you Cocoon fools do.
They were out of options, and Fang wasn't sure she could survive losing her family one more time.
Cocoon hung in its ancient orbit above them, the possibilities weighing heavily on Fang's mind. It was like the whole damn planet was waiting for the hammer to strike, as if it knew that Fang was half a decision away from tearing it down.
Barthandelus' words still stuck in her mind, plaguing her with doubts and whispered assurances that she could fix it all.
Without another word, Fang left Snow alone in her old home.
Fang would keep her word to Lightning, though. After that... Etro knew that it was time for Fang to take matters into her own hands and strike against the Cocoon fal'Cie. By the end of the night, Orphan would be dead, and her family would be saved.
The decision gave her no joy, because she knew they'd never forgive her for it.
Lightning and Hope found Snow in a run down building overlooking the wrecked Oerba beach. His hands were shoved deeply in his pockets as he stared out the window at the afternoon sky, and for once he seemed quiet. It seemed that Snow hadn't had luck finding a cure or a hint or anything either.
What now?
Snow turned around as she made their presence known, and he smiled as they approached. Hope made his way over to stand next to Snow, while Lightning contented herself with leaning against the wall nearby.
"You ever seen anything like this?" Snow asked, gesturing to the ruined township below them. "A week ago, who'd have figured we'd be on Pulse, rediscovering a lost past like this? It's one for the books, that's for sure."
Hope swallowed audibly, looking ill again. His fist kept clenching and unclenching, as if against a phantom pain.
"I thought, if we could make it this far..." Lightning saw Hope wet his lips, saw him rub the brand through the handkerchief compulsively. "We'd find something. Anything. I can't..."
Lightning looked off to the side, unsure of what she could do at this point and hating herself for it. Hope could go cie'th, right there in the room, and she didn't even have a word of comfort to help stave it off. Eden, her own brand felt like it was strangling her, constricting her chest with every breath. It felt hot to the touch, and the fal'Cie magic felt like a thunder spell at her fingertips as she touched it through her sweater.
There was nothing here. Lightning felt like she would break under the weight of her own fear and despair, of lashing out and just giving in. Everything had been for nothing. With an effort, she kept her face impassive, forced her riot of emotions to obey. She couldn't voice her despair, not with everyone hanging on the brink. It had been an unspoken promise between herself and Snow, ever since Palumpolum. Keep everyone's hopes up. Get them to work towards a goal, no matter how insane that goal was.
Snow smiled, and though it looked strained, Lightning knew it was genuine. "Point is, kid, we don't know what tomorrow's gonna bring us. So, we keep looking, keep walking. That's all it takes."
Lightning made a small sound in her throat, torn between exasperation and a strange sense of approval. She supposed the same old denial was better than the sense of hollow pointlessness that had descended upon the group as the ghost town had swallowed them up.
As Lightning, Hope and Snow joined up with Sazh and Vanille in one of the old buildings they'd secured, Lightning felt little better about the whole situation. She lingered at the back of the room, watching Hope and Snow join Sazh and Vanille but feeling unable to join them. A quick scan of the dusty room told her that Fang was yet to see fit to rejoin the group, and Lightning exhaled slowly.
It felt like an eternity since Lightning had even lookedat Fang properly, without the same old fear that had all but strangled her since they'd arrived on Gran Pulse. Lingering awkwardness aside, Lightning no longer felt it necessary to deny the attraction she had with the other woman.
One wrong move tonight, and she could destroy whatever she had left with Fang. Did she really want to risk it all on a 'maybe'? Lightning knew that she could take no further action, and she was just as certain that Fang would allow it. Perhaps things would remain in stasis as an uncertain truce was struck between them.
Lightning didn't want the truce, though. She hadn't come all this way simply to give up at the end.
More time would be nice, Lightning told herself, watching the sombre interaction of the other l'Cie. But this thing with Fang is hardly going to wait, and I know that tomorrow will be just as bad for me as today.
Lightning wet her lips, trying to ignore the steady rawness of the brand again. There was so little time left, and Lightning knew that she'd never have another chance to make amends with the other woman. She couldn't let Fang become another regret in her past, another missed opportunity to help the ones she cared for. She had to do this – not just to help Fang, but for herself.
No more backing down, or hiding from what I want.
As the Pulsian sun finally began to set, Lightning quietly slipped away from the group and began to search. No matter what happened between them, no matter what Fang had to say, this whole mess was going to be done with by morning.
Lightning spent the better part of an hour scouring Oerba for Fang. The moonlight stained the deserted town in an eerie silver, and things that might have been cie'th or shadows flitted in the corner of her eye. Lightning had kept her weapon at hand while she searched, and her feeling of unease only grew stronger as the night had deepened. Being here at all felt like they'd cracked open a tomb to plunder the contents.
She wasn't sure what had finally drawn her attention to the shadowed interior of the old school building, but as she neared, she heard the scuff of shoes on concrete and the clink of bangles.
Bingo. Lightning hesitated, her eyes narrowed and apprehension beginning to rear its ugly head. She relaxed her shoulders then, trying to allow the tension in her chest to simply bleed away.
Grow the hell up, she told herself, before remarking aloud, "So this is where you've been hiding yourself."
Lightning stepped into the darkened building carefully and she could feel Fang nearby, could hear the sound of breathing over the movement of water. If she closed her eyes, she supposed it reminded her a little of Bodhum on a quiet night and less like an open grave.
"Hiding? Is that what you kids call it these days?" Fang sounded weary, her voice seeming to come from somewhere to Lightning's left.
Lightning's senses zeroed in, but she couldn't see anything but a faint outline, slumped low on the old staircase. Close, then. Closer than Lightning had allowed herself to get for the better part of a week.
"You did promise me an explanation," Lightning told her, pointedly steering the topic onwards.
Fang sighed, and the stairs creaked as she shifted. "That I did."
Fang didn't seem inclined to answer just yet – if ever – and the growing silence only became more uncomfortable. Lightning tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach - it was as if Fang no longer cared. That was perhaps the outcome Lightning had dreaded the most – that it would be too late to salvage whatever it was that they'd once had, and that things were too far gone to ever be the same.
"I'm not leaving until I get my answers."
Fang snorted, telling Lightning exactly what the woman thought of that particular ultimatum. "What if I've up and changed my mind?"
Lightning couldn't tell if the woman was serious or not, but she was not going to take any chances.
"You know that's not good enough, Fang," Lightning said, carefully controlling her tone. Too harsh, and Fang would freeze over. Too friendly, and she might as well give in now.
"Calling the shots now, are we?" Fang laughed, and it still sounded so strained. There were a few beats of silence, and Lightning waited. "...that's just like you. You've got no idea what you're asking, but you'll demand it all anyhow. Cocoon-bred, through and through."
Lightning wasn't sure if that was meant to be an insult, or if it was some sort of backhanded compliment. Knowing Fang, it could well be both.
"You keep making this about me," Lightning told her, her frustration mounting in spite of her best efforts. She pinched the bridge of her nose and took a steadying breath. "This isn't about me. I need you to try to talk to me, because this? Keeping whatever it is all to yourself is bringing you nothing but pain, and I-" Lightning cut herself off stubbornly. I can't stand watching it any more, she added silently, and she heard Fang suck in a deep breath.
"I realise, you living up there in your fal'Cie paradise..." Fang's voice was deceptively mild, like the calm before a storm. Lightning tensed. "You don't get it, much as I wish that you would."
"Fang..."
"And I know that you'll never really get it, not until you-" Fang cut off, muttering a few choice curses under her breath before she continued. "I miss it. All of it. This was my home, in all of its run-down glory and it's nothing but a shell, now."
There was something building in Fang's voice. It was an edge of anger and anguish that was fast slipping free of the mask of stoicism that Fang had tried so hard to maintain over the past few days.
Lightning wanted to reach out to her, but right now, she was unsure how Fang would react. Would the woman flinch away, or perhaps lash out? Lightning didn't know anymore. Fang had been hurting so badly, and Lightning had actively turned a blind eye to it all. Lightning's jaw tightened, and she felt a rawness begin in her throat.
She could feel the tension bleeding off Fang, now, but there was nothing she could do for the woman but wait. The silence stretched into minutes, and it was just as Lightning had resolved to gently prompt Fang again that she heard Fang take another unsteady breath.
"And you know what, Farron?" Fang's voice was harsh and wavering, as if it was taking all of her effort just to grind the words out from between her clenched teeth. "I've only myself to blame for this whole thing."
Let her get to the point, Lightning told herself, her lips compressed in a flat line. Don't interrupt. But Eden, where is this going?
"For one stupid moment, I thought I could save everything. Thought I could have everything. Just like you lot." Barely restrained anger made Fang's words shake, made her breath come in short, ragged bursts. "Because of that, Oerba is destroyed, Gran Pulse is... this, and the whole sorry mess with Anima began again. I gambled everything on myself and I lost. Do you even get how that feels?"
Lightning held steady even as her mind struggled to make sense of everything Fang was telling her.
"What did you do?" The words left Lightning's mouth before she stopped to think. Lightning didn't dare regret them now, because she needed to know. Without that information, she couldn't even begin to understand what drove Fang like this, let alone begin to help her.
If you can help her. The thought was grim and practical and very much not the way Lightning wanted to approach the issue.
"I was Ragnarok, for Vanille. All those years ago, in trying to wipe our your world, I wiped out my own. Feel free to hate me for being the bogeyman of Cocoon lore. It's not gonna change anything, now."
Well. Lightning took a long breath, reeling on the inside and desperately trying not to react badly. That was not what I expected.
What the hell was she supposed to do about this? Lightning felt as if time had slowed, but every shaky breath she delayed her reaction would be another nail in... what, exactly? Lightning knew she had to react, to say something.
No more time to plan. Just go with how you feel, and hope to the fal'Cie you don't make things worse.
There was no reaction from the other woman, and the darkness seemed to make the silence all the more damning. Fang's worst fears had been proven right, but she'd expected more fireworks than this. Fang ran a shaky hand through her hair, caught halfway between laughing hysterically and simply lashing out. Fang had had enough of Lightning's bizarre mix of apathy and passion – the woman seemed absolutely indifferent toward Fang's own feelings and yet she would support Snow's misguided goals and rhetoric.
Fang had to wonder if it was really possible to hate someone with such intensity and care for them so deeply all at once, or if she was simply going mad. It was Lightning's fault that it had even come to this, Fang told herself angrily, and the sooner this was tied up, the better.
"I was Ragnarok. Weren't you even listening?" Fang snapped, her emotions reaching a fever-pitch as she tried to get some sort of proper reaction out of Lightning. Her brand hurt so badly, like cracks were growing in the crystal and spidering out into flesh and bone.
Fang hated that her hands felt like they were were shaking – how could she be afraid now, after all she'd vowed and all she'd lost?
"I heard you." Lightning's voice was level and steady. It was as almost as if Fang hadn't just confided her darkest secret. "You were Ragnarok. So what?"
"So what? You're just going to dismiss my past like it-" Fang cut herself off, incredulous fury wiping all rational thought for a few moments as she struggled to process exactly what Lightning had just said to her. To say that Ragnarok did not matter was a lie and an insult. Any fool could look around and see what the beast had done to Gran Pulse. Any idiot looking hard enough could see how Ragnarok and everything leading up to it had shaped Fang herself.
"Not exactly. But what you did in the past..." Lightning sounded like she was struggling in deciding whatever bullheaded line she was going to feed Fang next. Good.
"You don't understand. You don't get anything!" Fang threw it out as an accusation, wondering if her words made Lightning flinch. At this point though, Fang felt unable to do anything but let all of her anger, bitterness and seething hatred take control.
"I only knowwhat you've decided to tell me!" Lightning's voice sounded tight, maybe a little frustrated now. "You and Vanille with your damn secrets – what did you expect? That I would somehow read your mind and just know what was going on?"
"Because it's none of your business," Fang snapped, rising to her feet. "This is my issue and-"
"It's not just your issue," Lightning said, crossing the darkened space between them before Fang could react. Lightning placed a firm but gentle hand on Fang's shoulder, and the touch seemed was at odds with the steely defensiveness in her voice. "What concerns you, concerns us. If Ragnarok and your past is what's been hurting you so much, then..."
They were meant to be like family. That's what Fang had said to Vanille, back at the fissure. That had been what Fang had been trying to tell herself all this time. They were family, and it killed her to hurt them all like this. On the flip side, Fang wouldn't be able to live with herself if she just up and lost them to the fal'Cie. It was a choice between one pain and another.
Nobody understood that, not even Vanille.
"Just leave me be," Fang told Lightning, unable to stomach dealing with it all. Lightning had gotten what she'd wanted. The truth had been told, and it had been far from uplifting.
"Why push us away? The springs, the tower... it's all been one great act of manipulation." Lightning sounded disappointed, maybe a little hurt. Fang still couldn't bring herself to look at Lightning, or to answer the accusation Lightning had laid at her feet. It was true, yes, but it was another thing entirely to just up and admit to it.
The tense silence stretched onwards, and Fang's jaw clenched stubbornly. Finally, Lightning exhaled, long and low.
"...you're scared, then. We can't hurt you if you hurt us first. Is that it?" Lightning didn't sound angry, and it made all the recriminations seem more real, more personal. They were no longer something she could just dismiss as insults hurled in the heat of the argument. It made Fang feel more tired than she'd been in years, and she could no longer keep up with the lie.
"And what if it is?" Fang asked, fingers trailing absent patterns on the step she sat on, listening with every fibre of her being and dreading everything all the same.
Lightning made a small, disbelieving sound in her throat. "Why?"
Why, indeed. Because they were from Cocoon. Because there was no real reason for them to stand by her. Because she deserved it.
"Because I can't imagine it going any other way," Fang finally said. It was a struggle to keep her voice level, but somehow Fang managed to keep the emotion from straying into her voice and crippling her ability to make her point. "I can't even forgive myself, let alone think about what it's going to take for you lot to do it, too."
"Fang-"
"Maybe it's something else, too," Fang continued, mercilessly cutting across whatever argument Lightning was about to make. "Maybe I just want to save you lot the pain of my betrayal when I say 'shove the miracle bullshit'. Maybe I don't want you all to be hurt when I turn Ragnarok again to save your arses."
Some vague part of Fang's mind likened her behaviour to that of a cornered behemoth, but she wasn't even sure she knew how to stop. It was all Lightning's damn fault anyway. Why couldn't she have just left well-enough alone?
"Fang, shut up and listen -"
"No." Fang knocked Lightning's hand from her shoulder and she shoved Lightning back, hard against the wall. She could feel her blood pounding in her ears and every nerve felt like a livewire buried under her skin. She could feel Lightning's startled breath on her cheek, and aside from half a moment on top of Taejin's Tower, it was the closest she'd been to Lightning since the subterra.
Fang sensed Lightning's body go rigid – was she finally getting in under the soldier's prized control?
"You lot have blinded yourselves to the truth," Fang told Lightning, keeping her voice low and harsh and hoping that somehow she'd finally get the point across. "There is nothing that's going to save you from ending up like those cie'th out there. You can kick and you can scream all you like, but it won't change anything in the end. I know that from personal experience. Don't you get it? It has to be me, now."
Fang swallowed her unhappiness and self-loathing, her heart still pounding and her anger slowing to a simmer again. She clenched her jaw and gripped Lightning's shoulder, hoping that maybe Lightning wouldn't feel the tremble that had begun in her hands.
"Because you won't save yourselves. Not you, not Vanille, not Snow and you've taken Hope and Sazh along for the ride. You'll all die, I'm going to be alone. That's why I have to do it. Ragnarok must rise, and Cocoon's gotta fall. That's the way it is." Fang took a deep, unsteady breath, and pushed away from Lightning to slump again on the steps, suddenly feeling as if she hadn't slept in a week.
"You're all so fucking selfish," Fang murmured, folding her arms around her knees and wishing it would all just go away. There was a moment of silence that lasted a few heartbeats too long, and then there was a sigh.
"Are you done?" Lightning asked, her voice flat and unforgiving. Fang's head snapped up, her anger beginning to bubble unsteadily again. Lightning had said she wanted to understand what Fang's issue was. Now that she knew, she just up and dismissed it?
"Selfish it might be, but who died and made you the Primarch?" Lightning demanded, and Fang wished she could read Lightning's expression. "What gives you the right to decide our fate for us?"
Fang laughed, unbelieving and resigned all at once. Even now, even after she'd made it clear, Lightning was still doing this? She had to hate and admire that valley-wide stubborn streak.
"It's my job to make the hard calls," Fang snapped, her hands reflexively clenching into fists, and she rose to her feet unsteadily again. "Quit getting in my way, because like it or not, this is how the dice have landed. You made your choice, and I've made mine. You don't get the right to strip that from me."
Lightning advanced, and if felt like the woman was unbearably close now.
"Then quit your whining and do it already," Lightning told her, and Fang blinked in mild surprise. "Get on with it. I'm going to be right here, waiting to stop you. I can't let you just do this to yourself. Or to the world."
It was just as Fang had predicted back at the Palisades. Of course Lightning would try to stop her plan – knowing it in advance certainly didn't make it easier, though. Her brand felt unbearable, searing into her mind and the edge of pain spurred her on.
"You think you can take me, when I get serious?" Fang feigned a chuckle, lashing out and seizing Lightning's open collar. Fang drew her close and up, forcing the other woman off balance as she growled by Lightning's ear, "You really think you can take Ragnarok?"
Lightning didn't flinch, and if Fang wasn't close enough to feel how unsteady her breathing was, she might have been fooled into thinking Lightning was perfectly calm.
"You really think I won't try?" Lightning asked, and the answer was obvious. Of course she'd try. She wouldn't be Lightning bloody Farron if she didn't try, but Fang realised with a jolt that she hadn't even drawn her weapon. Fang had made blatant threats against Lightning, and still Lightning hadn't moved to defend herself.
Etro. Why?
Lightning was either very stupid, or very certain of herself – certain of Fang, and certain that Fang was not going to hurt her. It was suddenly very difficult to breath, to think through the pounding on blood in her ears.
You choose to trust me tonight? Fang made a noise in throat that could have been a scoff or a sob and loosened her hold on Lightning's collar. The fire in her brand had eased and all but winked out, and she shook her head violently. This wasn't going to plan, Lightning wasn't supposed to make her feel like this. Lightning wasn't supposed to trust her!Hurting Lightning wasn't what she wanted, for all her anger and despair.
She couldn't do it, Fang realised with an abrupt clarity. Her weakness had done it again and rendered her unable to do what was needed. Fang loathed and loved Lightning all at once with a sudden intensity, and it was almost more than she could bear.
"See that? You won't do it. You won't hurt me." Unbelievably, Lightning hadn't moved away, and Fang allowed herself to be pulled into the other woman's arms. It felt awkward and hesitant, and Lightning was no expert in hugs, but it was close and it was enough.
Fang drew a shaky breath, momentarily lulled by the sent of roses and battle and Lightning.
"Don't underestimate me. I depopulated a whole world," Fang insisted, but the fight had fled her. She heard Lightning sigh and felt a gentle hand press against the small of her back.
"You don't even know that's for sure," Lightning argued – the fact that she was even arguing the point gave Fang an odd sense of comfort. "Think. All you remember is failing to take down Cocoon! You know that the Gran Pulse fal'Cie were in on this Door to Light bullshit. Who's to say that the War of Transgression was not the last war they started? Picking off the survivors with impossible, vague or meaningless Focuses would have been far too easy."
The cie'th stones that Snow seemed so hellbent on helping out loomed in Fang's mind, but she shook her head, too stubborn to believe it.
"It's so easy for you to say all this. You're on the outside, looking in."
Lightning made a small sound before disentangling herself from the hug. She stayed close, though. "The rest of us ceased to be 'on the outside' when we got the Ragnarok Focus. We're your family, Fang."
"...that's the problem," Fang said softly. She leaned against the wall, crossing her arms against her chest. Everything she'd hidden, every weakness she'd been so ashamed seemed to be bleeding out. "I can't – I don't think I can go through it again. I won't go through it again." Fang shook her head and ran her fingers restlessly through her hair.
Now, more than ever, time always seemed to flee from her, and the good times slipped away until there was nothing but hollowness and misery.
"Fang."
Fang raised her head, studying Lightning's outline. She could make the other woman out a little better, now, but it wasn't enough.
"It doesn't have to be that way. You're not alone, you've gotta understand that." Fang heard Lightning sigh. "I know what you did in the past, I accept that. Eden, I might have done the same thing too! In a war like that… who could blame you for losing hope? But we think we have a choice, and we've got to hold onto that or we're going to lose to them. I'll ask you, one last time. Please. Stand with us."
Fang wanted to open her mouth and shout down the delusion. She wanted to scream that they were wrong, that they were just making it all worse, that there was nothing to be gained.
"I need you with us, not against us. Not for group unity or for the Focus or -" Lightning hesitated, as if trying to order her thoughts. Fang heard Lightning's head thump back against the wooden wall gently, heard her take a steadying breath. "Point is, I want it for me. I want you with me at the end. I want us to face it together."
It all made Fang's head ache unbearably, made her throat raw with creeping anguish. Damn Lightning.
"…you just have to go and do it, don't you? Every single time." Fang's voice was shaking and she couldn't hold it back any more, and she slammed her fist into the old wooden wall behind her. She wiped her eyes with a curse. "I find my resolve to do whatever it takes, and then you saunter in and make my convictions turn to dust. Why the hell do you keep doing this to me? How can you do this, building my hope when there is nothing in the future?"
"I'm sorry." Lightning sure as hell didn't seem sorry, Fang noted. "But I can't stand by and let someone I love hurt themselves. Even if they have some serious obsession with becoming a martyr." Lightning's voice became a little wry, then, and Fang had to laugh at the blatant hypocrisy.
"You're one to talk. Snow really made a true believer out of you, huh?" Fang's humour faded quickly though, and for a while they were silent, listening to the movement of water beneath the old school room.
Fang shivered slightly from the cold, wrapping her arms around herself tighter. Lightning had said... Fang almost didn't dare to hope. Maybe she misunderstood Lightning's meaning, but if there was a chance that things could be resolved between them, then Fang was taking it whole-heartedly because there wasn't enough time for uncertainty now.
"But..." Fang murmured. "That was a real odd way to say 'I love you'. Could that have been any more backhanded?"
Lightning made a sound that Fang chose to interpret as a small laugh, and Fang heard the wall behind her creak as Lightning leaned next to her.
"Think what you want. The sentiment still stands," Lightning told her softly, and a part of Fang's stomach seemed to unclench at the open admission of affection. No tricks, no grudging qualifiers, no hesitation. It felt good, it felt normal. Things almost felt all right between them now, but it didn't blind Fang the troubles that would only grow worse tomorrow.
"Why now? Why tell me this, at the very end?"
"I… I don't want you to become another one of my regrets. Because at the rate things are going…" Lightning faltered then, and in the dark Fang could hear her swallow loudly.
So much wasted time. Fang looked down at her hands and felt them clench into fists. The brands. The damn brands. It felt like she was going to lose Lightning just as soon as she'd gained her. Fang clenched her jaw, the old bitterness roaring back like a bonfire. Etro, but she'd never hated the fal'Cie quite so much as at this moment.
Lightning pushed off from the wall again, and Fang's eyes tracked the pale blur in the darkness. Lightning seemed to debate something, muttering something underneath her breath, before she leaned in close. Lightning haltingly reached out, placing a cool hand against Fang's cheek. The touch was light at first, as if Lightning had been convinced that Fang would have rejected the gesture, but it quickly became more certain as Fang allowed herself to lean into it.
"I know I've been giving off some conflicting signals." Lightning's voice was still low, low enough that Fang had to focus her attention but she close enough that Fang could feel warm breath on her neck. She blinked, trying to remember how to breathe.
"No kidding," Fang heard herself reply, and then she silently cursed herself for failing to come up with something more witty. 'No kidding'? Really? Lightning hadn't seemed to mind, though, because the mood hadn't been broken and she hadn't pulled away.
"Then I hope this clarifies my position."
Lightning's fingers caught in Fang's sari, tugging her down and closer and with a sudden fierceness, Lightning claimed her lips in a kiss. The kiss was breathless, sweet and more than slightly awkward, but it was also warming and humanising and everything that Fang had needed. Fang unsuccessfully tried to stifle a whimper, and she threaded her fingers through Lightning's hair and over her skin.
Lightning pulled away far too soon for Fang's liking, bracing herself against the wall with an arm that seemed a little too unsteady but still pressed close. Fang closed her eyes, suddenly feeling very warm despite the chill in the air, and she let her hand trail lazily down Lightning's side to rest on her hip. Fang's lips quirked in a smile as she felt Lightning shiver at the touch.
"Better?" Lightning asked, still sounding out of breath and hoarse and eager.
Fang hesitated. There were still other things to talk about – of Ragnarok and Fang's plan just to get them started – butFang's breath caught a little as Lightning's lips brushed the side of her neck, teasing and Etro the way the Lightning had pressed up against her made the message clear. How long had this been on Lightning's mind? They'd only just made up, barely survived the last week and already the boundaries of their relationship were being pushed.
Fang felt a thrill go through her. She couldn't say she minded, but it was too much, too fast and she really didn't want to screw this up -
Lightning's teeth scraped along Fang's lower lip, and Fang couldn't help the unsteady moan slip free. Lightning wanted everything, all of Fang, despite Ragnarok and her failure and everything she'd done to push them all away this past week. The pent up fierceness, the buried lust, the relief and the affection all bubbled free and Fang was helpless to stop it. She didn't want to stop it, either, and losing control the way Lightning seemed to want seemed like a wonderful idea.
Lightning wanted everything? Fang could give her that, and intended to take everything in return. Lightning didn't seem worried by the full onslaught of Fang's long-dormant lust – if anything she seemed to thrive under it, grow more confident in her touches and her kisses. There was no sign of an end any time soon, and from the feel of Lightning's warm body, pliant against her own, Lightning didn't want to stop.
Fang had to ask, though. She had to be certain. Fang pulled back, breathless and hot, enjoying the way Lightning's lips trailed across the hollow of her throat, loving the way Lightning's fingers ran along the arch of Fang's spine.
"You're really certain of this?" Fang asked, her fingers tracing lazily through Lightning's spikes.
"Yeah," Lightning replied, pushing Fang's sari down over her shoulder to emphasise her point. Ragnarok and Orphan could wait until tomorrow, Fang decided, and she kissed Lightning again.
So finally the story can move along, now that these two have... kissed and made up, so to speak. My apologies again for the delay in posting this chapter – sometimes I forget that I'm only writing fanfiction and not high art, that imperfections are okay and that I really shouldn't stress about it.
Fortunately, now that The Big Misunderstanding Caused By Unreliable Narrators and Why Can't They Read Minds Gawd Is Now Over, I can move things along.
On a side note, most of my new work is being archived on AO3, which is a relatively new fanfic archive with some pretty fabulous functions (kudos function? Story download functions? Pairing tags? Yes plz). I'll continue to post SWHN to completion here, but if the possible sequel eventuates it will be posted on AO3 exclusively. Same with the sequel to Worst Birthday Ever that is in the works.
If you want to see what new stuff I've posted on AO3, just visit http : / / archiveofourown . Org / users / Zerrat / works (minus the spaces of course).