Author's Note:

First of all, everyone that left a review, favorited me and put this story on their alert, deserve immense and profuse thanks. 15 reviews just for the prologue! I was stunned! You guys seriously had me in tears over how much love this story has already recieved. I'm happy beyond comprehension that so many of you are enjoying what I've created. You make me so proud to be an author. That being said, I would love to hear some feedback on how you like the first official chapter of this fic. A bunch of stuff happens in this chapter, so I'm excited to see what everyone thinks! Also, from now on, this fic will be in Lightning's POV, just so there isn't any confusion.

Once again, my brilliant beta, H-thar, deserves boat loads of praise and adoration. Her last minute editing suggestions for this chapter were a HUGE help and ended up making it 10X better.

Anyways, happy reading everyone!

Chapter 1

Loud As a Whisper

The dreams were fantastic.

I had never before experienced lucid dreaming and was left astounded by how I could control and command the events as I saw fit. My dreams almost seemed like a sentient being, the scene before me morphing as soon as it detected that I was starting to lose interest. A handful of my past experiences were thrown in as well. High school, family vacations, childhood memories with Serah, and even monotonous, everyday tasks that I had found so meaningless at the time became the things I cherished the most. Seeing my parents' faces again after so long and hearing their voices… I had no words to describe how amazing it felt.

After a while, the feel of all those wonderful dreams shifted, but I couldn't articulate an explanation for what was going on, and that left me unsettled.

I was aware, on some unconscious level, that I was in crystal stasis, though. Normal dreams could never be so vivid – so real.

The familiar tingling sensation I had come to associate with a dream shift crawled across my skin, and I was suddenly running through a lush, green forest with tall trees scattered all around me. They were so tall, in fact, that I couldn't see the top most branches. The forest was alive around me. Squirrels chattered as they jumped through the canopy overhead, rabbits and mice scurried out of my way as I ran past, and birds of varying sizes and colors flitted through the air, chirping happily. Various scattered thoughts floated through my mind as I ran and listened to the activity surrounding me – trivial things, like how soft the grass was beneath my bare feet and the beauty of the patterns the sun's rays created as they shone down through the leaves. Out of nowhere, wonderings about how long I had been here made me stop running, and I scanned the dream forest with my eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

I don't think I've been running for very long. I'm hardly out of breath, I thought absently. A pricking in the back of my mind told me that wasn't the reason I had those thoughts to begin with.

Before I consciously made the decision, my legs began carrying me forward once more, but I immediately skidded to a halt, staring down at my feet like they had somehow betrayed me. When I looked back up, I suddenly felt an overwhelming powerful need to get out of this forest. It felt as though some unseen force was both pushing and pulling me, prodding me to continue, and I had no choice but to obey it. I had never experienced this sensation before in any of my other dreams, so I was at a total loss. I continued running, unsure of where I was being led, for what felt like hours until I unexpectedly broke through the trees and stumbled out onto a white, sandy beach.

The landscape looked so much like Bodhum's shoreline that I felt my chest constrict around my pounding heart like a vice. Will I ever see my home again? I thought as I slowly scanned the horizon.

"Lightning!"

I hadn't heard my moniker in so long that I almost didn't answer to it. I had become accustomed to hearing my real name in all the memories that I had relived, so the time it took me to respond was longer than it should have been. When I finally turned my head, I almost fell down out of pure shock at the sight of Vanille running toward me. At first, I thought it was a hallucination or even a part of my dream, so I rubbed my eyes, thinking she would disappear. When I pulled my hands away from my face she was still there, running right at me and smiling brightly.

Alright, get it together. She's real, I thought, breathing a sigh of relief.

Vanille danced up to me and threw her arms around my neck, squeezing me tightly. I grunted as I caught her, staggering back a couple of steps in the deep sand before regaining my balance. "It's so good to see you, Lightning!" she exclaimed, her voice bubbling over with mirth.

I smiled as I hugged her back. "It's good to see you, too," I replied, stepping out of her embrace a second later. "What are you doing here?"

She smiled and backed a few paces away then folded her hands behind her. "I came to wake you up," she answered simply, like she went around waking people up from crystal stasis on a regular basis.

I felt my throat dry up as the only question I cared to ask burned in my mind. "How long have I been asleep?" I asked, a heavy feeling settling into the pit of my stomach. I knew the probability that I wasn't going to like her answer was high.

A mischievous expression appeared on her face then, and I knew that my instincts were right. "I can't tell you that. You'll find out when you get back. Now go on! Get going!" She ran up to me and turned me around, then began pushing me forward.

I looked back at her, a half smile pulling my mouth up, despite feeling more confusion than anything. "I'll wake up if I go this way? How?"

"No more questions!" she ordered, giving me one last shove. "Just keep going!"

I stopped momentarily and looked back at her, knowing in my heart that this would be the last time I would see her. "Thank you, Vanille."

The young Pulsian girl smiled sadly, her eyes glistening. "Don't mention it. I'm going to miss everyone. Tell them hi for me." She brought a hand up near her face and waved good-bye.

I nodded. "Tell Fang hi when you see her." I turned around and began walking away before she said anything else.

"I will!" she shouted back. "Goodbye, Light!"

As I continued walking down the endless expanse of beach, something strange began to happen. The sensation that I was wading through water instead of walking across the sand made me glance down, perplexed. The feeling slowly traveled up my body, making it progressively harder for me to move forward. Before long, I was struggling to take even the smallest shuffling step. Then, to add insult to injury, my vision began gradually darkening, like some unseen force was dimming the light of the sun, until I could no longer see. Soon after that, I was floating through the void of inky blackness, the gentle rocking motion sending me into a state of content unconsciousness.

I opened my eyes what seemed like only seconds later and blinked a few times to clear my blurry vision. The sky above me was a brilliant blue with thick puffs of clouds drifting by lazily on the wind, and, as I lay there trying to figure out where I was, I caught sight of something hanging in the sky. My entire body went rigid when I realized what that object was exactly.

It was Cocoon…and it was crystallized.

My jaw slackened, eyes widening as I tried to remember how to move, this discovery shaking me to my core. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Nothing about what I was seeing made sense. I blinked my eyes rapidly, thinking I was merely experiencing a side effect of being in crystal stasis, but after a long stretch of breathless silence, the scene before me remained unchanged and I knew what I was seeing was real. Cocoon's shell had been turned to crystal and was now suspended in the air by a mountainous spire.

I gradually pushed myself up onto my elbows, refusing to look away from Cocoon, the shock being slowly replaced with awe. I frowned as I recalled those final moments before I had been put into crystal stasis. After we defeated Orphan, all of us were floating through the air together – until Fang and Vanille broke away and turned into Ragnarok. I also remembered looking over at Hope, who had my hand in a vice like grip. After that, I couldn't recall anything but the dreams. I took in a sudden breath, not realizing that I had been holding it, and my frown deepened when I looked down at myself, confounded by what I was lying in.

Flowers? Why am I surrounded by flowers?

That's when I pushed myself up into a sitting position and gasped, receiving yet another shock that left me frozen in place. I was positive that the town in front of me was Oerba; I recognized the aged brick of a few of the buildings and the rusted windmills, but the Oerba that was displayed in front of me was…huge. It had to have been three, maybe four times larger than what I remembered. There was no telling how long such development might have taken. My ribcage constricted painfully around my heart when the thought that the rest of my friends – and even worse, my sister – were quite possibly long gone.

I rose unsteadily to my feet, the desire to know exactly how long I had slept at the forefront of my mind. I instinctively reached back and wrapped my hand around the hilt of my gunblade, the Omega Weapon, and pulled it out of the scabbard. I flicked my wrist, exposing the blade and admired the scythe-like curve of it, the black and silver metal that caught the sunlight just right. In facing whatever this new world had to offer, I would at least have a decent means of defense. I flicked my wrist once more, folding the weapon back into its gun form and returned it to the scabbard.

When I looked back up and spotted a man standing about ten feet away from me, I just barely saved myself from jumping straight into attack mode. The fact that he had gotten so close without me noticing was alarming. I breathed in deeply and quickly appraised him, wondering if he was military or not. Even though he was wearing civilian clothing that didn't really tell me anything. "Um, hello," I began, putting my hands up in the air so he could see them. I was a little nervous, unsure if I would still be feared and hated as a Pulse l'Cie. "Can you help me?"

The man was deathly silent as he stared at me with wide eyes. I moved to approach him, but, before I could make any forward progress, he turned tail and ran back toward Oerba. "She's awake!" he shouted. "Lightning's awake!" He continued to yell those two sentences all the way into town, until I could no longer hear him.

I stood there in the silence, staring at the space the man had been occupying just moments ago, with confusion painted all over my face. I had been expecting him to scream in terror and run away calling me a l'Cie, if anything. Had the people of this town – or perhaps city was a better word for it – been waiting for me to wake up? My mind instantly went to my brand and I unzipped the neck of my uniform with shaking fingers, apprehensive about what I would or wouldn't see. I tucked my chin into my chest to get a clear view, and my mouth would have fallen open if it wasn't being held closed. My skin was completely unmarred. No trace of my l'Cie brand was anywhere to be seen. I rubbed my fingers over the spot where it used to be, thinking that I was somehow imagining it, but nothing changed. In spite of the glorious realization that I was free, my heart sank as I finally realized that I no longer felt Odin's presence in my mind. He had been a part of me for so long that the void he left felt like a chasm. I was going to miss him.

I suddenly heard hushed whispering and snapped my head back up, quickly zipping my uniform shirt in the process. This was the second time in the past five minutes that these people had managed to sneak up on me, which was a bit disturbing. I spotted a small group of people gathered by the town's entrance, huddling next to the aged brick wall and peeking around it with wide eyes. I found it odd that I couldn't detect any fear coming from them, only curiosity, and a couple of them were even smiling as though they were excited to see me. As soon as they noticed me looking at them, their voices immediately hushed and they froze in place. I wasn't exactly sure what to do, so I lifted a hand and waved at them, opening my mouth to repeat my last question, but they disappeared before I could get a single word out, their hurried footsteps scattering.

I huffed in frustration and shook my head as I followed, confounded by the strange behavior of these people. I just want to find out how long I was asleep, I thought. Then find my sister.

I paused momentarily by the brick wall to see if anyone else was approaching, but the path was entirely deserted and unnaturally quiet, another thing I found very odd. Once again, I was amazed by the amount of growth that Oerba had gone through. It reminded me vaguely of Bodhum. My mind tried to dredge up the chilling fact that I might be alone in this new world, but I forcefully pushed it away. I didn't need to be thinking about that right now. I'd worry about it later.

Just when I was getting ready to turn the corner towards the town proper, I heard someone scream my name – my real name. There was only one person alive that was permitted to call me by my real name, and the jolt that shot through me just then left me rooted in place, glancing about wildly. I knew that voice. I lurched around the corner, forcefully reanimating my body, and hoped that I was going in the right direction. I heard her call my name again and gasped when she came into sight. A wide smile was stretched across her face, but I could clearly see the glisten of tears in her eyes as she sprinted up the cobbled street.

"Serah!" I shouted, the plethora of emotions that suddenly surged inside me twisting my stomach into a dozen painful knots as I took off toward her.

She jumped into the air, launching herself at me once there was only a short stretch of space left between us. I caught her easily and swung her around in a wide circle, crushing her to my chest as I firmly planted her feet back on the ground. I felt my eyes burn with unshed tears, but grit my teeth against them, refusing to let myself cry. Then, before I could even register what was going on, I was suddenly surrounded on all sides by three other pairs of arms. I didn't really care about the others at the moment; I was only concerned about my sister. She was here and, most importantly, she was alive.

I pulled her away from me and gripped her face with my hands. She looked older, but I couldn't determine exactly how much. I was hoping it had only been a few years. I could feel more tears pricking at the edge of my vision when I looked into her eyes that looked so much like my own.

"I thought I would never see you again," she sobbed, touching my hair and face with trembling fingers. "I thought you were never going to wake up."

I captured her hands and clutched them tightly in front of my chest, locking my eyes on hers. "How long was I in crystal stasis? How long, Serah?" I asked, my heart beginning to race.

Her throat convulsed as she swallowed and she sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, breathing in deeply through her nose. "Seven years," she replied, her voice small.

My mouth dropped open in shock. "What?" All the air in my lungs whooshed out, leaving me feeling as though I had just been punched in the stomach.

That was seven years of time with my sister that I had missed, time with my friends that I would never get back. I straightened and took an unsteady step away from Serah, not believing that so much time had passed. I remembered the battle with Dysley and the slaying of Orphan like it had happened hours before. The fact that our struggle to save Cocoon had been over seven years ago left me thunderstruck.

The hands that I had forgotten about during my reunion with Serah tightened around me as I wavered unsteadily on me feet. Sazh, Dajh and Snow were surrounding me, smiling widely. Sazh even had tears in his eyes. I was shocked by how much older he looked. He hadn't been very young during his time as a l'Cie, but seeing flecks of grey in his jet black afro was unnerving. Dajh had turned into a very handsome youth. The boy's head came up to his father's shoulders now. Snow was…well, Snow was Snow. Like my sister, he didn't look that different. If anything, he was probably an inch or so taller. As if he wasn't tall enough already.

A flicker of movement down near Snow's legs caught my attention and what I saw made me sink to my knees in awe. A little girl that looked barely four years old was staring up at me with excitement shining in her bright blue eyes. Her curly blonde hair fell to her shoulders and, if I looked close enough, I could see a faint pink tinge coloring the silky strands.

"You're Auntie Cwaire," she whispered, the corners of her mouth twitching as she fought the smile that wanted to spread across her face.

I nodded and stayed silent, not trusting my voice at the moment, hesitantly opening my arms and hoping she would feel comfortable with coming to me. She stared at me warily with half of her face hiding behind Snow's leg, clutching the material of his pants in her small fist. After a few seconds of careful contemplation, her grin widened and she jumped into my arms, hugging me tightly. As I gently hugged her back, the tears that I had been holding in threatened to spill from my eyes.

"What's your name, sweetie?" I asked her, my voice quavering.

"Aven," she replied, nuzzling her face into my neck.

I looked up at my sister, smiling through my tears. "She's beautiful, Serah."

I reluctantly pulled her away from me and returned her to Snow's side before standing up, nonchalantly wiping my eyes and taking a deep breath, while I fought to regain my composure. As I flicked my eyes between Snow and Sazh, my mind had finally slowed down enough to notice that one member of our group was missing. I frowned at Serah as I brought my gaze back to her and she frowned back at me, tilting her head slightly to one side.

"Where's Hope?" I asked, a heavy feeling churning in the pit of my stomach.

Serah's eyes immediately lit up and she smiled, totally abolishing those bad feelings I was experiencing. "He lives in Paddra with his father. They moved there right after Bartholomew became Mayor."

I nodded, relieved that both Hope and his father were alright. The fact that he hadn't been left alone in the aftermath was extremely reassuring. I witnessed the turmoil first hand that he had gone through after he lost his mother and the revenge against Snow that had been his driving force for so long. At the time, his need for vengeance had been the only way for him to express his grief. To think that I had been the one to put that misguided thought into his impressionable fourteen year old brain.

I could still see the look on his face when I told him that Operation Nora was over. It was like I had betrayed him, and I knew that I had in a small way. Denying him that vengeance had practically left him with nothing. I had hated myself for breaking his spirit like that, but I didn't want his grief to destroy him. Seeing him so broken had reminded me of what I had gone through when I lost my parents. I had felt just as lost as he did. I never wanted to see him like that again.

I was actually kind of glad that he wasn't there with the others, just then. In my mind, Hope was still that bright-eyed fourteen year old boy; I knew I wasn't ready to see him grown up yet. If I had been in crystal stasis for seven years he would be twenty-one now, the same age as me.

This is going to be awkward. I just know it, I thought. I was still assimilating the information that I was seven years behind everyone else. I didn't even know my own niece yet and I couldn't help but feel a little left out.

Serah's voice hooked my attention as she looped one of her arms around mine and began walking. "We'll all go see him tomorrow. He's going to be so excited that you're finally awake! Before he moved to Paddra, he was visiting you every day. After that he could only come a couple of times a month."

The frown that I had become so familiar with since my awakening came back as I looked over at my sister. "Really?" I said, only a little surprised by her words. I knew that Hope idolized me during our journey, but I had no idea about the depth of his admiration until now.

Serah nodded and a smile curled the corners of her lips up. "Yep."

I averted my eyes from her and my gaze settled on Cocoon. I was, once again, shocked by the sight. I glanced at Serah out of the corner of my eye as she continued to lead me through Oerba, deciding that now would be a good time to start chipping away at my mountain of questions. "So, what happened to Cocoon?" I asked, nodding my head toward the object in question.

"From what Snow and everyone else told me, Fang and Vanille became Ragnarok, and then, instead of destroying Cocoon, they crystallized it. Now they're in crystal stasis together," she replied, slowing down just enough to gaze up at our former home.

"What happened then? I mean, how did you guys get to this point?" I swept my hand through the air around me, indicating the newly restored Oerba.

"I'm so glad you weren't awake for that. It was a mess the first year. So many people refused to believe that Pulse was their new home – thousands of survivors all over Cocoon wouldn't even leave their houses. Eventually the soldiers had to forcibly take the people down to Pulse. All the fal'Cie were dead; Cocoon was practically uninhabitable, but no one understood that. The soldiers did what they had to do to protect them." Serah paused and took a deep breath. "Just know that it took forever for everyone to start working together."

My hand twitched as a pair of PSICOM soldiers turned the corner and began to walk towards us. I instinctively reached for my nonexistent l'Cie magic before I even realized what I was doing. That was when the two men waved at our group. In those few seconds, Cocoon could have fallen out of the sky and I wouldn't have noticed. What startled me even more was when my sister waved back at them! They passed us without speaking a word and I followed them with my eyes, my jaw unhinged.

Serah looked back at me and snorted, gleaning my thoughts off of my expression. "Yeah, it took PSICOM even longer to believe us about our brands. They came up with so many different stories about us it was hard to keep track of them al. It took every single one of us standing in a room stark naked in front of a dozen PSICOM officers for them to start believing us, and even then a few of them thought we were playing tricks on them. I think they still blame us for what happened to Cocoon," she said, sighing as she remembered everything they had gone through.

I scoffed, infuriated by the Sanctum's idiocy. "They would have blamed us if Cocoon had been destroyed, too. We wouldn't have been able to win either way. Have they given any of you trouble recently?"

She shook her head. "No, and I'm actually surprised about that. I never thought I would see the day when the rest of us lived peacefully alongside the Sanctum. It's been almost three years now since we've had any confrontation with them."

I nodded, appeased for the time being, and turned my head to stare at the backs of the retreating PSICOM soldiers. My eyes narrowed suspiciously, and I couldn't shake the feeling we hadn't seen the last of the trouble from them.

Sazh and Dajh parted ways with us a few blocks later, promising to join us in the morning on the trip to visit Hope. Serah and Snow took me on quick tour, showing me a few of the important points, which included a fitness gym, park, grocery store, shopping mall and airship dock. As I followed my sister, brother-in-law and niece through town, I couldn't help but notice all the people that were stopping to stare at me. I glanced uncomfortably in Serah's direction when a little boy began bouncing and up and down excitedly, jabbing his finger at me and looking at his parents. My sister's eyes briefly settled on the boy, but she refrained from commenting, so I followed suit and ignored them, intending to ask her about it later.

When we passed by a clearly marked military base, I paused. "Is Lieutenant Amodar still with the Guardian Corps?" I asked, interrupting her explanation about the transportation system.

Her brow creased in thought as she broke off mid-sentence and looked at the base. "Yes, actually. Only he's not a Lieutenant anymore. Last I heard he was a Colonel."

"Where can I find him, then?" I asked as we continued walking again. In the back of my mind, I knew I'd be returning to work before long.

"Oh, he lives in Paddra on the main GC base. You can stop by and talk to him tomorrow before we see Hope."

I nodded and tried listening to the rest of her explanations as we made our way to their home, but my mind was a confusing whir of activity. We eventually reached a residential district on the outskirts of Oerba near the shoreline, which only made me think of Bodhum even more. They led me to a nice ground level home that looked just right for their small family, and I noticed how different the architecture was compared to what I remembered on Cocoon. I paused a few paces behind my sister as Snow pulled his keys out of his pocket to unlock the front door, when Serah suddenly jumped and gasped.

"Oh, I almost forgot!" she announced. "Snow, we have to show her the surprise!"

Snow looked over his shoulder at her and his blue eyes widened in realization, a huge smile stretching across his mouth. "Yeah, that's right. We did forget, didn't we?" he replied, glancing down at his daughter where she was standing beside him and winking. Aven nodded and covered her mouth to hold in her giggles.

My eyebrows knit together in bewilderment as I looked at all three of them in turn. "What surprise?"

"Come with me! I'll be right back, Snow! Start dinner, please!" Serah exclaimed, grabbing my hand and pulling me away with her. "I can't believe I forgot! I've been waiting for five years to show you this and I almost forget about it!"

I didn't bother asking her what she meant and just nodded, even though she couldn't see it.

We continued down the road for about three hundred meters before she turned a corner and stopped abruptly. "Surprise!" she exclaimed with a smile, throwing her arms into the air.

I recognized the structure laid out before me immediately. The familiar and unnatural shape of my house was shining in the Pulsian sunlight not a hundred meters away, and a few of Snow's comments about the shape of it rang in my ears as I stared at it, completely dumbfounded. I forcibly tore my eyes away from it and met my sister's anticipated gaze. She was smiling at me, waiting for my reaction.

"How?" I asked incredulously.

"It's actually a really long story, but we reconstructed an exact replica of the house you had in Bodhum. Snow wanted to transport the original down here, but the time and resources it would have taken were just too unrealistic. We did manage to salvage as much on the inside as we could, like your furniture and clothing. Anyways, you want to go inside?" she asked, grinning while she dangled a silver key in front of my face.

I watched the object swing back and forth a few times before quickly snatching it out of her grasp and wasting no time in power walking toward the front door. I could hear my sister's footsteps echoing behind me as I went, my eyes focused intensely on my house. After we had become l'Cie, I was convinced I would never see it again, and my mind scrambled as I wondered if it would look the same as the original. After coming to a stop in front of the door, I fumbled with the lock, my hands refusing to do what I wanted them to and nearly ended up dropping the key twice. I took a deep breath, calming my racing heart, then tried again. The lock opened with an audible click and I pushed the door open, peering inside with trepidation.

Serah curled her hand around my shoulder and gently prodded me forward. "Go on," she whispered.

My feet moved mechanically as I passed the threshold, my eyes slowly scanning the floors, the walls, the windows and even the ceiling, soaking all of it in. I casually walked into the kitchen, running my fingers across the polished wood of the table, and felt the corners of my mouth twitch. If I didn't know better, I could swear that this was my original house. I was going to be in debt to my sister for the rest of my life.

"Snow and I agreed that you needed something familiar once you woke up," she explained, following me inside. "We thought it might make your transition a little easier."

"Serah…" I began, leaning against the table and turning around to look at her. My words got caught in my throat when my eyes met hers. The memory of her standing on the other end of this same table, confessing her fate as a l'Cie came rushing back to me and I realized that I had never apologized for not believing her. "I'm sorry."

She frowned and came to stand in front of me, crossing her arms lightly over her stomach. "What do you mean?"

"About not believing you when you told me that you were a l'Cie. I realize now that I never should have shunned you like that."

"Sis, that was a long time ago," she said, smiling delicately at me.

"Not for me it wasn't. I know that I hurt you, and I'm sorry."

Her smile widened and she crossed the small space between us to hug me tightly. "It's alright," she whispered soothingly. "I forgave you for that before I even went into crystal stasis."

I welcomed her embrace, once again relieved that my crystal slumber hadn't lasted for hundreds of years. "Thank you…for everything."

"It was nothing."

We stood like that for a few moments longer, just relishing each other's company, before I pulled away and looked at her, a myriad of different things that I wanted to say to her hanging off my tongue, but my mind refused to let me articulate any of them.

"Let's go back to my house," Serah said, breaking the silence. "I'm sure you have a bunch of questions. We can talk over dinner."

I simply nodded and moved to follow her out, casting one last lingering look at the interior of my house.

I didn't realize how hungry I was until I smelled what was coming out of the kitchen, and my stomach churned in anticipation. Once I remembered that it was Snow who was doing the cooking, though, I suddenly wasn't so sure if I wanted to eat anymore. "You actually trust him in the kitchen?" I asked my sister with one eyebrow raised.

She hid a giggle behind her hand as she closed the front door behind me. "I've had seven years to get him trained, remember? He's gotten better, but he still prefers cooking on the grill. He should actually be getting the hamburgers ready right about now."

She led me into the kitchen and approached the stove where a couple of pots were stationed, steam rising from both. Serah examined them, taking a spoon and stirring the contents of one while I went to stand by the dining room table. I turned my head to look out the sliding glass doors leading to the backyard, spotting Snow standing in front of a huge grill amidst a cloud of smoke, and Aven running around barefoot in the grass beyond him. I sat down at the dining room table as my sister crossed to the doors and stuck her head outside to talk to Snow.

"We're having mashed potatoes with the hamburgers?" she asked, sounding like that hadn't been the original plan.

"Aven said that's what she wanted," he called over his shoulder. "I'm helpless to her powers of persuasion."

Serah chuckled as she closed the door. "She's had him wrapped around her little finger ever since the day she was born." She paused as she continued to stir the contents of both pots, then changed the subject. "So, I'm sure you noticed all those people staring at you while we were showing you around, right?" she asked, looking back at me with a knowing smile.

I nodded. "There were a few people that saw me after I woke up as well. They acted the same way."

"The survivors of Cocoon wanted someone to idolize after things startled settling down. They tried making celebrities out of all of us, Bartholomew included, but we didn't want any part of it. We just wanted everything to go back to some sort of normalcy," she explained, tasting the mashed potatoes then adding a few shakes of pepper. "You were in crystal stasis, so they started treating you like some sort of martyr, like you had chosen to stay crystallized or something. Believe me, it wasn't my idea to put you on that hilltop."

One corner of my mouth curled up at her remark. I wasn't really concerned about that. Now that I knew the exact reason behind their gawking, I could take care of it myself. There was actually something a little more pressing on my mind. "Serah?" I said, hoping that she would spare me any silly responses and just help me out once I made my unusual response known.

"Yeah, Sis?" she replied, turning her head to give me her attention.

I sighed and looked down at my hands for a split second. "Do you have any pictures of Hope? I need to see what he looks like now so I don't make a fool of myself tomorrow." I looked away from her, kind of regretting blurting that out at first. I meant it, though. I didn't want to be unprepared when I saw him.

I heard her giggle then brought my gaze back to her. She stirred the contents of the pots a couple more times before setting the spoon down on the counter. "I made sure to take tons of pictures of everything, for when you woke up! You've got seven years of scrapbooks to go through!" she announced as she danced out of the room.

I rolled my eyes and groaned, letting my forehead smack the surface of the dining room table. Now I really regretted opening my mouth about the pictures. When she was a teenager she had one of those blasted cameras glued onto her face day and night, insisting on making sure our lives were properly documented. Scrapbooking had turned into her favorite hobby practically overnight. I probably spent a couple thousand gil buying her all the materials she needed. She kept reminding me that it was what our parents would have wanted and I bought that excuse every time she fed it to me.

I quickly straightened up when she jogged back into the kitchen, carrying seven very large and very thick scrapbooks. She placed them carefully on the table and grabbed the one on the top before handing it to me. "This is the most recent one. You can go through the other ones at your leisure after we come back home tomorrow."

I couldn't help the sigh of relief that escaped my lungs. If she had made me start with the first one and work my way through, I might have found myself wishing to still be in crystal stasis. I drummed my fingers on the cover of the scrapbook that Serah had placed in front of me, a feeling of anxiety sneaking up on me. I tried to imagine what Hope would look like now, but the image of him as a fourteen year old that just lost his mother wouldn't leave my mind. I closed my eyes and quieted my racing thoughts, reminding myself that this wasn't that big of a deal.

I flipped open the front page, expecting to see a picture of twenty-one year old Hope staring me in the face, but all I saw was an index with everyone's name next to page numbers. My eyes slowly scanned down each name. Aven was first, followed by Serah and Snow, and then I saw Hope Montgomery Estheim written in Serah's curvy handwriting. My fingers twitched as I flipped the pages, the anxiety I felt earlier coming back full force. I sucked in a deep breath when I got to the correct page. His full name was scrawled across the top of the paper, but my eyes refused to move away from it. I was instantly perplexed. I really did want to see the pictures, so I didn't understand why I was being this reluctant.

I forced my eyes to move down to the first picture on the page and my jaw slackened, hardly even recognizing the person looking back at me. The only things that were the same were his hair and his eyes. His face was leaner, and, from what I saw in the other pictures dotted across the page, he was tall. I could tell that he was much taller than I was now. Looking up to him was going to feel very weird. I clamped my teeth together and pushed the scrapbook away from me, quickly grabbing another one. The person I had just seen was totally unfamiliar to me and I needed to look through all of the books to feel like I sort of knew him again.

Alright, I take back what I said earlier about wanting to stay in crystal stasis, I thought as I continued flipping through the scrapbooks.

Besides seeing the pictures of Hope and everyone else, I noticed a few pictures of me as well. The photos of my crystal were only in the first scrapbook, something that was understandable. My sister wanted to document the changes that she and all of our friends had gone through in the last seven years; my crystal didn't change. The one picture that caught my eye, though, had been taken in the morning when the sun was just beginning to rise above the hills that surrounded me. The glare of the sun was directly in the camera's sights, creating a halation of light around my crystal that encompassed the entire top half of the photo. It was hauntingly beautiful.

Serah appeared next to me a while later and closed the scrapbook I was currently looking at, replacing it with a plate of food before I even had a chance to protest. She quickly cleared the table of the cumbersome books before gathering her daughter and husband to join us at the table for dinner. I was surprised to see the sky outside had darkened considerably. Had I really been sitting there looking at those scrapbooks for that long?

"So, Sis, what do you think of Hope?" Snow asked before taking a huge bite out of his burger. I felt my right eye twitch at his use of the nickname he had coined for me that I absolutely abhorred, but I was, in fact, technically his sister now.

I'm going to have to put up with it, I thought with disdain.

I swirled my spoon around in my small mound of mashed potatoes, attempting to put my thoughts into words. I wasn't exactly sure what I thought of him. I knew that I was probably going to have to get to know him all over again. Seven years was a long time. A person could go through half a million changes in seven years if they wanted to. Meeting him again suddenly made me feel apprehensive. Would I like the person he was now, seven years later? Would there even be a shred of his fourteen year old self left that I would recognize? Those were questions I wouldn't be able to answer until I saw him.

"I'm not sure yet," I finally answered after many long moments. "I'll let you know after I see him tomorrow."

"Who?" Aven asked, looking back and forth between Snow and me with a curious expression.

"We're gonna see Uncle Hope tomorrow," Snow replied as he ruffled her hair.

Her blue eyes lit up and an adorable smile stretched across her small face. "Weally?"

"Really, really," he answered.

Aven turned her intelligent eyes to me then. "Have you met Unca Hope, Auntie Cwaire?"

I couldn't help the smirk that curled up one corner of my mouth. "I have. I knew Hope before you were even born."

Her eyes widened so much that I thought they were going to pop out of her skull. "Wow," she whispered, before going back to her dinner.

The conversation died then and we concentrated on our food, sitting in companionable semi-silence. The only sounds that could be heard were the clinks of the silver against the porcelain plates and Aven's humming. After we finished eating, I helped Serah clean up the kitchen while Snow got Aven ready for bed. Serah was chatting about random things as we washed the dishes when a small tugging on the corner of my cape made me stop and look down.

Aven was staring up at me with her big, innocent doe eyes. "Wiwl you wead me a stowy?" she asked, smiling as she rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet.

I looked toward my sister, wondering what I was supposed to do. "Go ahead, Sis," she said, handing me a towel so I could dry my hands. "I'll still be here when you get back, then we can go sit in the living room for a while."

I nodded, then awkwardly leaned down and picked Aven up. The tiny girl was extremely light; it hardly felt like I was holding a child at all. I carried her into her room and she wiggled out of my arms when I paused in front of her bed, scampering over to a bookcase that was crammed with every kind of children's book imaginable. She spent less than five seconds choosing which one she wanted me to read to her before shoving it into my hands and dashing into bed. She lay there staring at me with an expectant look on her cherub like face and pointing to a very comfortable looking rocking chair stationed at her bedside.

"You have a lot of books," I remarked as I sat down in the rocking chair.

"I wuv books," she replied. "Momma or daddy wead to me evewy night."

I nodded, humming a response as I opened the book to the first page. "Are you ready?" I asked, glancing at her briefly.

She nodded her head, pulling her blankets up under her chin, and locked her eyes on me. I cleared my throat and began reading, my own voice suddenly sounding strange, but if Aven noticed she didn't say anything. The story she had picked out was about the tragic love between a commoner and a princess, something I didn't really think a four year old should be concerned with, but I wasn't about to comment on it. As I read, though, I was impressed by the author's ability to translate such a subject in a way that a small child would understand, and by the time I reached the end, I thought it was actually rather charming.

I lifted my eyes off the page as I closed the book, pausing when I saw Aven fast asleep, snuggled beneath her blankets, and I couldn't help but sit there and watch her for a moment as she slept. She looked so much like Serah did when she was a little girl that the likeness was uncanny. After a few minutes of sitting in the calm silence, listening to her soft breathing, I carefully placed the book down on the small bedside table and crept out of her room, gently closing the door behind me.

Serah smiled, greeting me with a glass of red wine when I came back into the kitchen, and I accompanied her into the living room. Snow was watching a velocycle race on the television and didn't look up when we walked past him, his eyes focused on the screen.

"Don't mind him," Serah said, tucking her legs beneath her as she sat down on the couch. "He'll be entertained with that for a while. So, do you want to stay here for a few nights while you get adjusted, or do you want to stay at your house?"

I sat down next to her and took a small sip of my wine as I contemplated her question. I didn't really want to be alone quite yet and I was willing to bet that Serah didn't want me to leave either. "I'll stay here." I paused momentarily and shot her a sideways glance. "But I think you'd probably make me stay here, regardless."

She nodded, giggling softly. "You're right, there. I'm sure you're going to be diving right back into your solider duties as soon as you can, so I want you staying here for a few days at least."

I nodded, staring at the wine in my glass and watching as the light played through the crimson liquid. "We'll see. I'm probably going to wait for a while."

"I'm fine with whatever you decide. Talk with Amodar tomorrow and go from there."

We didn't go to bed for almost another hour. We sat there together and just talked about a number of different things, none of which were related. Serah was mainly the one talking. She told me about her pregnancy, the odd little things Aven would do when she was a baby, and her own misadventures trying to figure out the classes she wanted to take at the local college. The serenity of just sitting there with her, hearing her tell me about the last seven years of her life, almost felt like a privilege.

Once our wine glasses were empty and we finally noticed the late hour, Serah showed me to the guest bedroom and left so I could get settled by myself. I was grateful she hadn't decided to stay and hover. Sometimes I had the feeling that she knew me better than I knew myself and I knew I probably wouldn't ever experience anything like that with anybody else.

The guest room was small and possessed a vast amount of her unique touches, reminding me of what her room had looked like when we were teenagers. I found a majority of my clothes in the closet and dresser, including three of my extra uniforms. I quirked an eyebrow, wondering how long my clothes had been here, but decided in the end that I didn't really want to know. All I knew was that she had missed me and if keeping my clothes here was a way for her to stay close to me, then I wasn't going to question it.

Serah came to collect the uniform that I had been crystallized in after I had changed out of it. Before she said good night, she mentioned wanting to get an early start to Paddra the next morning. "I can't remember if Hope has to work tomorrow, so we should go see him before his shift starts," she said, folding my uniform over her arm.

I lazily dragged my fingers through my hair, yawning widely as I sunk onto the mattress, surprised I was even tired. "What does he do?" I asked, praying to the Maker that he hadn't decided to become a soldier.

Serah took a breath and opened her mouth, but quickly clamped it shut a second later, a mischievous smile pulling the corners of her lips up. "That's for him to tell you. He's been waiting seven years to talk to you again, and if I stole any of his thunder he would never forgive me."

I couldn't help the half-hearted grin that spread across my face as I bobbed my head a few times. The strange feeling that began crawling through my chest just then was impossible for me to fight off. "Good night, Serah. See you in the morning."

"Sweet dreams, Claire," she said, closing the door behind her.

I lay awake, staring up at the ceiling for close to half an hour before my mind finally succumbed to sleep.