There! I didn't think that I'd get the second chapter out so quickly, honestly! Especially since I started writing another fic today! ^.^;;; This one's longer than the last chapter, I believe.

Once again, I shall state the disclaimer: I don't own any part of XIII or any part of the Final Fantasy franchise. -.-

It's raining, isn't it..? When Lightning awoke from her unfortunate slumber, she duly noted that she couldn't feel anything but the humid air of the rain-filled night gently caressing her face. As she surveyed her surroundings, she found it odd that she was surrounded by walls. The area designated for their make-shift campsite didn't have walls… She looked around, looking to see if she was alone. She saw Vanille curled up at Fang's back with the chocobo chick resting right next to her. Not too far from them was Sahz, who had fallen asleep sitting upright. He'd regret that in the morning… She didn't see Snow anywhere, and felt panic rising when she failed to find Hope.

She hissed at the pain that shot up her arm and back as she desperately attempted to sit up. She had to find Hope. It hurt so damn much, but she had to do it. Lightning jumped at the hand that landed on her shoulder, and found it hard to go against it as it gently pushed her back down. Her eyes darted to the owner of the hand, and she sighed a heavy sigh of relief. It was Hope. He was safe...

He looked at her with concerned eyes. Those beautiful, gorgeous eyes were filled with worry, and she couldn't seem to understand why. "Lightning..are you alright?" His voice matched his eyes. It hit her. The winged beast…the fight…and the fall. She sighed deeply as she recalled her battle. Hope began to panic when she didn't answer. "Light? Lightning? Are you okay?"

After a few quite moments passed by, she nodded. No, she wasn't really alright. But she couldn't let that stop her, or anyone else for that matter, from continuing on their journey. Despite her confirmation, Hope still seemed a little too concerned. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came to him. He had all sorts of questions to ask her… What happened? What was it that attacked her? Why did she confront it? Why didn't she call for help? They probably could have defeated it if they'd been there, but she attempted to destroy it all on her own. Why would she do that if she knew that the beast was too powerful for her to take on? None of it made any sense… He opened his mouth to speak once more, but was cut off by Lightning almost immediately.

"Don't worry about what happened, okay? It's not important, so don't even ask."

Hope certainly didn't like what he heard. "Bull freaking crap, Light! You almost die, and you seriously expect everyone to just go on without knowing anything at all? When Snow got back, he flipped his shit! He wouldn't stop trying to literally shake the answers out of me! What the hell happened up there, Light..?" He sounded angry as he spoke, but that was most certainly not the case. He was worried. He was confused. He was afraid. "You can tell me..you trust me, don't you..?"

"….fine, you win." She sighed in defeat. She had hoped that no one would really want the details of how she got hurt. "When I went up to the top of the cliff, I was ambushed by…something. It looked like an amphisbaena, but it was different. It was a lot more powerful, and dangerous. I knew I couldn't fight it by myself, but…" She paused, watching the expression on Hope's face grow more worried with each word she said. "If I had run, I knew it would have followed me, and most likely would have outrun me. I just had to defend myself…"

"Why didn't you call for help? You know we would have helped you out if you'd just-"

"I was caught off-guard, alright?" She watched Hope flinch at the sharpness of her words. She hadn't meant to snap at him, but… She was Lightning Farron. She wasn't supposed to let her guard down. "..I'm sorry…I shouldn't have snapped at you like that.."

"It's alright…I just don't get it… You said it was like an amphisbaena, but stronger? It could have been a zinirtra… Fang and Vanille told me about them after we found a couple of those Cieth Stones…"

"Ha…figures…damned beasts." She sighed, letting her eyes drift around the…wherever they were. "..hey Hope? Where are we? This wasn't where we made camp before…"

"Nah, it's not. Snow found an abandoned cavern not too far from where we were, so we just moved over there since…uhh, never mind."

"Ah, no. Since what?"

"…uhh, no, I don't think you want to know…though, it is what helped break your fall…"

"Did I land on someone?"

"No, not quite… You know that shelter we were building before you left? You kinda…broke it when you fell… But you would have been a lot worse off if you hadn't landed on that first! Besides, we found better shelter, so we can use that for something else instead." Judging by the less-than-amused expression on Lightning's face, he decided that it would be best to change the subject. Sort of. "Vanille was able to get whatever that dark stuff in your system was. Fang said it was some sort of poison I guess… That's why she thinks it was a zinirtra that attacked you. Anyway, You've got plenty of make-shift stitches now, and…" Hope wondered if now was the best time to be telling her all of this… Regardless, she needed to know. "And…your left wrist is broken, and you have a fracture in your right leg. At least, that's what Sahz thinks."

"…great." Great. This was exactly what she needed. Now they'd be stuck here for even longer. "Regardless of my condition, we're moving forward. We have to. With this supposed winter coming, we can't stay in one place until we know we'll be safe for the time being."

Hope looked at her like she was absolutely crazy. "You're kidding, right? We're waiting until you're better to keep going. We already talked about it."

"Don't I get any say in this? Just because I'm injured, that doesn't mean that we have to stop completely. If we do that, we'll die the way things are going. We have to migrate with the rest of those damned things, or we'll die!"

"Light, you can't move without being in pain! You've got some sort of pain killing herb in your system, and you're still in pain. Doesn't that tell you anything?" From her lack of response and lack of eye contact, Hope could tell that he had won, if only for the time being. "Look, Light…Most of your body's all stitched up right now…It won't take very long for those to heal a little more, and you'll be able to walk again around the same time…"

It wasn't until now that she had realized that she had been laying on her right side this entire time… She duly recalled just how many times the winged beast scratched and scraped her, and she sighed heavily in defeat. "We'll wait a few more days. But after that, we have to haul ass."

Hope smiled at her, and placed a warm hand on her shoulder. She was cooperating. _

"Alright, here's what we'll do for today." Snow said in that cheery hero voice he used all too often. "Vanille, you and Sahz will go look for more of those plant things that you found last night. Fang, I want you to scout ahead a bit and see what kind of terrain we're gonna be going through next. And if you found another empty cave or somethin', that'd be awesome. Hope, you stay here with Lightning. If you two stay inside the cavern, you'll be fine. Nothing will attack you in here. "

"What will you do, Snow?" Hope thought it was a legitimate question to ask.

"Your hero," he said with a wink. "will be running some simple errands for these Cieth stones."

"And getting more firewood, I hope. Don't completely massacre the trees like you did last time, okay?"

"Cram it, Fang. Your hero's got everything under control! Okay? Let's go!" No one other than Vanille and the chocobo chick seemed to share Snow's enthusiasm. "Haha! We'll meet back here at sundown, okay?" With everyone in agreement, they disbanded into their assigned groups to complete their tasks for the day.

Lightning sighed. She was getting tired of this, and fast. There wasn't anything she could do. "Damnit…this is ridiculous. I shouldn't be sitting here like a lazy ass." She angrily snapped the fire back to life with a quick fire spell. There. She did something. She would have kicked something in frustration if she could have. "Hope. Can you…no, never mind."

"What is it? Do you need me to get something for you? Are you hungry?"

"No. Forget it." She was hungry, though. Starving, even. But there was no way she could ask him something so embarrassing. After he asked again, she buried her face in her arm. "Can you…teach me how to…cook something..?" She was glad her face was hidden. Serah was the only one who'd ever known her failure at cooking, and she had originally intended for it to stay that way. Forever.

"You don't know how to cook?" Hope thought that Lightning could do anything. But apparently not..

"Of course I can. I never said I was decent at it. "

She has a point, Hope thought. Though…she asked him how to cook? Why wouldn't she have asked her sister? Hope had never met het, but from what he heard, she was one hell of a chef. "Sure, I can show you how to make a few things… It won't be as good as some other stuff, since we don't really have the best stuff for it… But still, it'll be a start. Now…I'll show you how to tell what the best parts of most meats are…"

After their lunch lesson was complete, Lightning sighed in content. Sure, she hadn't gotten to move forward like she wanted to, but she learned how to make a good meal made from some freshly caught beast. It was an…interesting learning experience, but sort of…fun. She had honestly thought that cooking was nothing but a troubled waste of her time.

She sighed, watching Hope clean the dirt and grime off of his trusty weapon. What were they going to do now? They had almost the entire day left to themselves, and nothing to do. She had a spark of curiosity in her eyes. She always had to wonder what went on in that beautiful boy's head. Wait...beautiful? …Yeah, beautiful… "Hope?"

He seemed to be brought back from his thoughts when he heard Light's almost angelic voice. "Hm? Are you alright, Light?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. What…Hope, what are you planning on doing after all of this l'cie stuff is over?"

Her question made him pause for a minute… What was he going to do after it was over? "Who knows?" There was no way of telling what their world would be like after all of it ended. He doubted anything would go back to the way it was before… No, that wasn't possible.

"Really?" She didn't really seem to believe him. "You were in school beforehand, right? What did you want to do then?"

"I didn't really know then, either. I was just kind of going along with it as it came."

"I see…" Lightning couldn't exactly say she understood… After their parents died, she at least had an idea of what needed to be done. Regardless of anything else she might have wanted to do, she joined the Guardian Corps to protect her sister.

"Well…what do you want to do when this is over?"

"…I…I don't know either… Whenever I thought about it before, I usually just dismissed the thought entirely and kept fighting." She thought about what life would be like after everything was over… Serah would be there with Snow, no doubt…They'd be married with their big, happy family… Sahz would spend his time raising Dahj and their chocobo… Fang and Vanille would most likely stay on Gran Pulse. After all, it was what they were trying to do to begin with. Hope would live with his father, now that they were on better terms… And Lightning? What would she do? She'd be alone, wouldn't she…? She frowned at the thought. She wouldn't permit herself to invade on her sister's happy family… Maybe she could get a somewhat normal job for a change…

She jumped when she felt a hand land on her shoulder. "Light?" She turned to face the one who had snapped her out of her depressing train of thought. He was so close… She hadn't even noticed that he'd moved… "Are you alright?" She could feel his breath tickle her soft, now rose-colored cheeks. How did her get this close without her noticing? "You look a little flushed…I hope you aren't coming down with a fever…"

"N-no, I'm fine…" Once again, she was caught off-guard. Though…she didn't seem to mind when it was him… "Uh..I…here." Reaching into her red bag, she pulled out a survival knife and thrust it into Hope's hands.

He looked it over, noticing the worn details on the handle. It was beautiful, from what he could tell. The handle was stained a deep burgundy with the swirling intricate details etched in with soft silver. He could see some faint, faded black swirls that had been almost completely worn off. He removed the brown leather casing only to find that the blade, though scratched in several places, somehow managed to look brand new and sharp as ever. "Light…thank you, but I don't need-"

"Those are for more than revenge, Hope. That was the first one I ever had… It was a present from Serah, kind of like the one before. She gave it to me after we lost our parents… I tried to give one to Serah to keep her safe, but she wouldn't accept one. She said that I should protect her, not some knife…"

Hope smiled. Maybe he could use this to protect Lightning. "Thank you, Light… I'll take good care of it, I promise!"

There was that boyish charm he had… Lightning felt a certain flutter in her heart. It was quite a bit stronger than it had been before… Whenever she felt this…flutter, it was light and reminiscent of an elementary school girl's crush or something to that effect. But now…now this feeling was overpowering. She felt like she couldn't breathe when he was so close to her… Normally if someone got that close, they would meet the knuckles of her fist. But Hope…how did Hope manage to get past those barriers? And somehow…she didn't mind. She preferred that Hope were this close to her, both emotionally andphysically. She felt safe when he was with her… She could remember when it started…

"This isn't working…" She was fed up with this. She was fed up with him. No matter where she went or how difficult her path was, he always ended up right behind her. She was done babysitting some little kid. No matter how much he complained, she would absolutely not allow him to keep following after her. If he wanted to take the same path, fine, just as long as he stayed out of her way. But no, he had to slow her down with his weak, innocent self.

It was then that her Eidolon chose to strike. It was then that she had to choose life or death. She didn't know why, but she found herself blocking Odin's attempt to strike Hope down forever. If he was such a nuisance, then why did she bother risking her life to protect him?

It was after that battle that she felt the first flutter.

After that day, she began feeling more and more of these feelings… It would happen when he looked at her a certain way, or when their hands brushed together for the slightest of seconds… Those feelings only kept growing…only…now, Hope would look at her with much more intensity in her eyes. It was a soft, loving look…like… It was a lot like the looks Snow would give to Serah… When he would give her those loving eyes, she would wrap her arms around his waist and tell him "I love you"…

Her heart seemed to leap at the thought. Did she…love…Hope? She certainly knew she liked him… A lot, in fact. She could practically hear her sister giggling in merriment at Lightning's…feelings. If she were here, she'd intervene, no doubt about it. Serah would badger her to tell Hope every day, saying that it would be better if he knew. But Serah wouldn't know how Hope would react. What if he felt the complete opposite about Light? What if he only liked her as a big sister? Or liked her because she reminded him of his mother…? She couldn't tell him. She wouldn't tell him. Now wasn't the time for it anyway.

She hadn't noticed that he had moved to sit next to her, and softly ran his hand through her silky pink hair. His touch was so soft…so comforting… She closed her eyes, letting her mind wander. What if…what if Hope reciprocated her feelings? That would be pure bliss… They could have something… They could have a nice little get-away between themselves throughout all of the crap they always seemed to be pushed into. They could hold onto each other in times of distress and know that at the end of the day, they'd still have each other, and that would be all that mattered. And once everything was over, they could live in a quaint, little house with a small flower garden out front and lovely shaded porch where they could rest in each others' arms at the end of the day… They'd have a gorgeous, trustworthy dog to keep them company until…

Lightning hadn't realized that her thoughts had traveled so far. Upon that realization, she hid her face in the excess of Hope's pants. There was something off, though… Something was missing. She snuck a glance upward to see that Hope had dozed off, his hand resting gently on the crook of her neck. He looked so peaceful when he slept… Perhaps he wouldn't mind if she used his leg as a pillow…