A/N: Were you guys worried back there? Did you actually believe that Lightning's not gonna make it? Snow might be too stubborn to die, but Lightning's even more stubborn. That's what I think.

Serah is asleep out in the hallway, she's laying on a row of three chairs, with her legs curled up to her chest. The girl had fallen asleep in the middle of the night. It's about four in the morning, the sun is barely starting to break through the darkness.

Serah wakes up, a little. When awaken, she realizes that she has fallen asleep. Serah sits up on the chair, stretches her arms up in the air. After stretching, Serah stands up, then she goes into Lightning's room. Serah smiles a little, Lightning is peacefully asleep, still alive even.

Serah walks up to the windows, looking at the sunrise. It's very beautiful, she couldn't help but widen her smile. The sunrise just brings back happy memories, back when she and Lightning were kids. They use to sneak out of the house to go to the beach, before they're parents woke up. Every summer, they use to watch the sunrise together, it was the perfect moment for two little girls.

"I still remember." Lightning's voice was quiet, even so, Serah still heard it. She was surprised and turned. Serah can see Lightning's awake, a little.

"Remember what?" Serah asks, walking up to Lightning.

"I still remember...when we were kids." Serah sits on the chair beside Lightning. "We use to sneak out of the house. Went to the beach. And watch the sunrise."

Serah smiles a little. "Yeah. It always made you smile...In fact, I think it was the only thing that made you smile."

Lightning gives a single chuckle. "I miss those days, Serah."

"Yeah, I do too." Serah says. Serah looks out the window, even if it's on the other side of the room. "We can still have it right now. Even though you're in a bad condition."

"It's fine." Lightning tilts her head, as far as she could, and she and Serah watches the sunrise.

Even though it was only five minutes, the moment felt like it went on for hours. "Thank you, Serah."

"For what?" Serah asks.

"For being here." Lightning answers. Serah smiles, she thinks that's sweet for Lightning to say that. Lightning turns her head to the table next to her, and notices the roses. "Serah. Did you buy these?"

Serah looks at the roses then back at Lightning. "No. Hope did. By the way, he called. He wanted to make sure you were doing okay."

Lighting smiles. "That's real sweet of him."

Serah nods. "Yeah, Hope's a good kid, isn't he?"

Eight in the morning, Hope wakes up. He was able to get a good night sleep after what happened the earlier. He guesses Mr. Mog does help you get some sleep. He'll have to thank Serah for letting him borrow the moogle.

Hope gets up and out of bed. He takes a look around the house, but finds no trace of Lightning or Serah. He figured they're probably still at the hospital. Hope checks the phone, there are no messages. He puts his hand on the phone, but resists the urge to call the hospital, he doesn't want to sound too desperate to know how Lightning's doing, even through Serah would understand for him calling.

Hope decided to wait and see if Serah's gonna call. Suddenly, the door bell rings. Hope goes to answer it, behind the door is none other then Snow Villiers.

"Hey, short stuff." Snow walks right in. "Just thought I stop by to check on yea."

"Hey, Snow." Hope closes the door. "I'm...doing fine. I'm still worried about Lightning though."

"Yeah. So, you want to do anything?" Snow asks.

"Uh, well. I was gonna set up my room. Just to try and get Lightning off of my mind." Hope asks. "I could use help setting up the bed."

Snow pounds his fists together. "No problem, kiddo."

Snow and Hope gets to work on the packages that are hanging around in the living room. One-by-one, or three-by-three in Snow's case, they carry the boxes into the empty room down the hallway. Snow even had to carry the heavy dresser and nightstand for Hope. Most of the packages are for Hope's room, others are some antiques that are for having around the house.

When the packages are nearly done, Snow goes to work on putting the bed frame together. Hope unloads everything from the packages. When Snow was done with the bed frame, he goes downstairs. Hope spends the morning setting up his room.

After an hour of unloading, he takes a break and sits on the bed. Hope grabs the picture on the nightstand, takes a look at it. He goes deep into his thought. He misses his parents and Lightning's in the hospital.

Hope didn't even notice Vanille skipping into his new room. Vanille is actually amazed at Hope's room. All this time, she's heard that he's been sleeping in that tiny guest room. Vanille approaches Hope.

"Hi." Hope looks up, he's surprised to hear Vanille even though he doesn't show it. "What'ch doing?"

"Nothing. Just thinking." Hope says.

Vanille sits next to Hope, letting out a relaxing sigh. Vanille looks at Hope, then notices the picture in his hands. Vanille tilts her head as she looks at the picture, she sees Hope with two adults, a man and a woman.

"Are those...your parents?" Vanille asked.

"Yeah." Hope says in a sad tone. "I really miss them. But...I'm more worried about Lightning."

"She's really that important to you, isn't she?" Vanille asks.

Hope looks at Vanille. "She is...I mean, when my mom died...Lightning, she took good care of me. Whenever I was scared or sad or upset, she was there for me. She helped me go through some tough spots. I guess...She felt like a sister to me. I don't know what I'll do without her, she's all that I have left."

Vanille kicks her feet. "Yeah, I know how you feel. I lost my parents when I was young, I was very young. We were taking a vacation in the Sunleth Waterscrape. I got lost when we were being chased by a horde of Wyvern's. When I was cornered, some hunters saved me, then they took me into Oerba, and that's when I met Fang."

"Did you ever found your parents?" Hope asks.

"Yea, but it was too late. They died." Vanille says, looking down in sorrow.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Hope says.

Vanille looks at Hope and smiles. "It's okay. Fang actually took care of me, even taught me how to survive in the wild."

"You are lucky to have someone like Fang." Hope says with a smile.

"Thanks." Vanille says with a giggle.

Hope and Vanille sets up Hope's room. Hope does feel a bit uncomfortable having Vanille around setting up his personal items. He felt embarrassed when she found his Songstress Yuna Akimura poster. Hope claims that he doesn't own it, that he's really holding it for a friend. Vanille thinks he's cute trying to hide his embarrassment.

By afternoon, Hope and Vanille hears a hover car arriving. They look out to see Serah getting out of it. Hope wonders what's going on, then notices she's heading to the passengers side. She opens the door, reaches in. To his surprise, it's Lightning who comes out, wearing her short black top and pajama pants.

Lightning has an arm wrapped around Serah's shoulders, leaning on her. Serah helps Lightning walk into the house. Hope is pretty excited to see Lightning's back, and that she's still alive.

Hope zooms off, rushing down the hallway and down the stairs. Vanille is surprised to see him bolt off like that, and she chases after him. Hope is right by the front door, and Vanille stands next to him. The door opens and Serah walks in with Lightning.

"Welcome home, Lightning." Hope says.

Lightning didn't bother to respond to Hope. Up close, Hope can see she's dazed. Serah looks at her sister. "Take it easy, Claire. We're almost there."

Serah walks to the living room. Hope and Vanille follows Serah as she lays Lightning on the couch. Serah turns to Hope. "The treatment worked well. The poison's out of her system. Lightning's going to be okay."

Hope smiles. "I'm glad to hear that." Hope turns to Lightning. "How are you feeling?"

Lightning lazily turns her head to face Hope. "I'm fine." Lightning tries to sit up. "I'm just glad that it's over." Lightning was halfway to sitting up, then she moans painfully.

Serah puts her hands on Lightning's shoulders and lays her back down. "No, no Claire. Remember what the doctor said." Serah reaches for the cover and lays it over Lightning's body. "You need to rest, take it easy. Or else you might damage your health."

Lightning lays back on the couch, she moans tiresome and puts a hand on her forehead. "Do you need anything?" Hope asks.

"Water would be nice." Lightning answers.

Hope walks into the kitchen. Serah makes her leave, heading back to the car. She went to get the roses Hope got for Lightning. Serah returns, placing the vase on the table beside the couch. Hope returns to Lightning with her glass of water.

"Thank you." Lightning takes the cup and drinks the water.

"You going to be okay?" Hope asks.

After drinking, Lightning sets the cup on the table. "Yeah. Just need some rest."

Lightning lays on her side, closing her eyes to get some sleep.

Lightning gets some rest to recover. Vanille helps out with taking care of Lightning. Serah constantly rests, the girl is tired looking after Lightning for the past 24-hours. Can you blame her? By evening, Serah was about to start on dinner, when she notices she hasn't seen Hope since she got home.

Serah looked all over the house, the kid is no where to be found. At first, Serah, worries, but she realizes there's one place she haven't checked. Serah leaves the house, making her way towards the beach.

There, she finds Hope, watching the sunset. Serah hardly see Hope here on his own, she wonders if the kid just wanted some alone time to think.

Serah approaches to Hope. "Hey." Hope turns with a surprised expression, he didn't expect Serah to come for him, or even heard she was approaching him from behind.

"Oh, hey." Hope says in a cool tone.

Serah walks up and sits next to Hope on the edge of the pier. There, she noticed the kid's got his feet in the water. "What are you doing here on your own?"

"Nothing. I was just relaxing." Hope says.

"I see Lightning shared her relaxation with you." Serah says.

Hope looks at Serah, surprised. "You knew about that?"

Serah smiles with a giggle. "Of course. Lightning does come here all the time after work. Being a Guardian Corp is pretty stressful, even for Lightning."

"That I believe." Hope says.

After a moment, Serah removes her shoes, then those black stockings, and then sticks her feet in the water. Serah doesn't deny doing this is wrong, she knows it's very relaxing. Lightning has some good tastes of relaxation you might say.

"This is nice." Serah says. Serah closed her eyes and slowly inhales in sweet ocean breeze through her nose.

"It is isn't it." Hope says. Serah and Hope sit together in silence, after a few minutes, Hope breaks the silence. "How's Lightning doing?"

"She's doing fine, still resting." Serah looks at Hope. "You seemed real fond with Lightning. I mean, back when we first met, you were pretty shy."

"Yeah, well. That's mostly because you were all strangers." Hope says. Serah feels a little hurt, but she knows that's true. "But..." Hope looks back at the view. He doesn't say anything for a moment.

"What is it?" Serah asks.

"It's just...When my mom died, Lightning...She took me in. I was all sad and hurt, broken even. She gave me so much strength. When we were first out here before her birthday...I realized, she means a lot to me." Serah seems surprised to hear this. "When she got poisoned, was I really scared. Lightning...she's all I have left. If she's gone...I don't know what to do."

Serah wraps an arm around Hope, resting her hand on his shoulder as she pulls him close to her. "I know how you feel. Lightning is also all I have left. She's my sister, my only family. I don't know what to do if anything happened to her." Hope doesn't say anything after that. "But, even if she's gone, everything will be okay. I mean, we still have each other, and Snow and Vanille. We can still have a family. After all, family is related by love."

Hope looks at Serah, noticing that smile on her face. He knows what she says is true. After all, he did made a new family with Serah and Lightning, even before he decided to stay with them, before he signed those papers.

Hope smiles and nods. "Yeah."

After their moment of relaxation, Serah and Hope head back home. Serah gets to work on dinner, she figured she should make some soup, would probably help Lightning feel better. Hope is also in the kitchen, making some tea.

Lightning rests on the couch as she watches some soap opera movie. She's not really watching, she's just flipping through channels trying to find something interesting, and this movie showed some interest for the first three minutes, then lost it.

Lightning turns her attention away from the TV when Hope walks in with a cup of tea for her. Hope hands her the tea. "Here, this should help you."

Lightning takes the tea. She takes a sip, then looks at Hope with a smile. "It's good."

Hope smiles, he's glad she enjoys it. "It's my mothers special recipe. She was a wiz at making teas."

"Well, looks like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." Lightning takes another sip of the tea.

"Thanks...I guess?" Hope asks with some confusion.

Lightning enjoys her tea. By the time she's finished, she's feeling a little better, she can now sit up without feeling weak or in pain. Serah had dinner ready, some chicken and crab soup. Serah, Vanille, Hope and Snow eats on the table while Lightning eats on the couch, watching her movie.

When Hope was done, he sits with Lightning on the couch, watching the movie. Lightning and Hope were able to get some alone time together at this moment. After dinner, Vanille and Snow went home and Serah goes to her fathers study to do some reading.

"Hey." Hope looks at Lightning. "Thank you for the roses. They're lovely."

Hope smiles. "You're welcome. Serah told me roses were you favorite."

"They are." Lightning says, picking a rose form the vase. She holds it close and sniffs in the sweet scent.

"By the way, why are they your favorite?" Hope asks.

"Oh, I don't know. I like the color, the smell, the way it blossoms." Lightning goes silent for a moment, thinking deep into her thought. "Also...roses make me feel lucky." Hope seems a bit confused hearing that. "Whenever I'm out on the battlefield, I see rose petals, dancing in the air. Flowing through the wind of my movement." Hope doesn't say anything. Lightning puts the rose down. "I know, it sounds pretty stupid."

Hope shook his head. "No, no. It's not stupid at all. I think it's really neat." Hope says. "I've never heard of anything like that. It's amazing."

Lightning smiles, she reaches to the boy and ruffles his hair. "You're cute, kid."

Hope chuckles at Lightning's touch.

The night went by well. Serah goes straight to bed. During the movie, Hope fell asleep, resting on Lightnings lap. After the movie, Lightning looks down at the sleeping Hope. He looks so peaceful, it melts her heart. Normally, Lightning would carry the boy into his room, but she's in no condition to do so, under doctor's orders.

Lightning decided to let the boy stay, he has done so much for her when she was in trouble in the past two days, he at least deserves this.