A/N: Lightning's doing well as we can see. Now it's Hopes turn to have some surgery. Mouth surgery. Hope has some wisdom teeth that's at the stage of being needed to be taken out. Yes, I'm aware the kid's fourteen. So what? My brother had his removed when he was thirteen.
Day 7
Serah wakes up early in the morning, she goes to check on Lightning. To her surprise, Hope is laying with Lightning, his head resting on her lap and her hand rested on his shoulder. Serah couldn't help but smile, she's never seen Lightning and Hope this close together. Well, once on Hope's first night, but it was never this cute.
The first night, Hope was scared and sad, while Lightning was comforting him. This moment, they were laying together, asleep. Without any hesitation, Serah goes for the camera, she has to get a picture of this, cause who knows? This might be a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Serah returns to the living room, aims the camera at Lightning and Hope and takes a picture. After taking the picture, Serah looks at it, it looked before then the real thing.
Hope starts waking up, and noticed Serah. He notices the camera. At first, he thought he was seeing things cause he's still a bit tired. But after a moment, he noticed it's a real camera.
"Serah?" Serah jumps a little hearing the name in a tired tone. She looks to see Hope is waking up. Serah sighs in relief noticing it's just him. "What are you doing?"
"Just getting a picture of you two together on the couch." Hope widens his eyes open hearing that. "You two looked so adorable."
Serah showed Hope the picture on the camera screen. He sees the position he and Lightning are at together. He's pretty embarrassed at the sight of it, his cheeks turn pinkish. Serah just giggles at his blushing.
Hope shoves the camera away and sits up. "I-I...I don't know what you're talking about." Hope stands up. He moans a bit painfully and puts his hands on his checks. "Ow."
"You okay?" Serah asks, a bit worried.
"My teeth ache." Hope asks.
"Where?" Serah asks.
"In the back, all places." Hope says. "I think it's my wisdom teeth."
"Okay, uh. I'll go call my dentist and we'll go get them checked." Serah rushes to the phone.
Hope sits down on the couch, waiting for Serah. Hope is a bit afraid that it could be time for his teeth to get ripped out. He just hopes that it isn't anything serious.
Serah dials the number on the phone for her dentist. Now Serah waits, listening to the waiting ring. She looks back at Hope in the living room, noticing the kid seems miserable on the couch with his hands on his cheeks and/or mouth. Lost to her thought, someone answered her call.
"Hello? Dr. Lloyd? Yes, hi. This is Serah. Listen, I need to make an appointment...no, it's not another cavity emergency. Listen, I have a friend here, and his teeth are hurting, his wisdom teeth...Hope Estheim...I don't know. Look, is there any possibility we can get them checked today? ...Thank you...yes, we'll be on our way."
Serah hangs up, she approaches to Hope. "I've made an appointment for right now. Let's go."
Hope stands up. "It's nothing serious, right? I mean, it could be just a tooth ache, right?"
Serah notices Hope's worries. "You scared?" Serah asks.
"No, I'm just...curious." Hope says. In truth, Hope is a little scared.
"Then let's go." Serah grabs Hope by the hand and drags him out of the house and into the car.
At the NORA cafe, the gang are sitting at the table, waiting. It's time for their weekly game of Poker, and they're waiting for their boss to arrive. Lebreau is just sitting, sliding her finger on the top of the glass cup. Gadot is waiting wither impatiently, Yuj and Maqui are just playing rock, papers, scissors.
Maqui and Yuj have played their little game like fifty times, and Maqui lost every round, as if Yuj can read his mind and knows wither he's using rock, paper or scissors.
"Yo man, where is he?" Gadot asks.
"Chillax, he'll be here." Lebreau says.
Maqui and Yuj does another round of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Maqui does paper and Yuj does rock. Seeing that, Yuj quickly pokes his two fingers out, turning his rock into scissors.
"Hey! That's cheating!" Maqui says.
"No it's not." Yuj says.
"Yes it is!" Maqui says.
Maqui and Yuj argues over and over, chatting "It's not" and "It's too." Lebreau and Gadot are look at the two boys like they're children. As they argue, Snow finally walks in.
"Hey." Team NORA looks at Snow when he calls at them. "What are you guys doing?"
"Waiting for you, man!" Gadot says.
Snow seems confused. "What for?" Snow asks.
Lebreau stand up, showing the deck of cards. "It's poker Sunday, Snow."
"Yeah, man. We've been waiting for you all morning." Maqui says.
Snow slams his hand on his forehead. "Damn it! I'm sorry, guys. I forgot!"
"Well, can we now get started?" Gadot asks.
Snow takes a seat, next to Gadot and Yuj. Lebreau takes the deck of cards on the center of the table, and passes them out, five for each person, and the game begins. Just as it does, Snows phone starts ringing.
NORA looks at Snow with disappointed looks, they don't like having their little game interrupted, especially having to wait so long. Snow sighs, reaching into his pocket. He takes out the phone, he reads the caller ID to see it's Serah. Snow can tell from his teams looks that they want to get on with the game.
"Just a minute, let me see what Serah wants." Snow opens the phone. "Hey, baby. What do you need?"
"Hi, Snow. I'm at the dentist with Hope, so I was wondering if you could take care of Lightning." Serah says.
"Really?" Snow looks at his group, one at a time. "Uh...I would but I just started poker day with my friends...plus, Lightning doesn't even like me, so..."
"Oh come on, please?" Serah says with her pleading voice.
Snow sighs. "Oh all right. I'll check on her in a moment." Snow closes his phone. "Okay, we'll play one game, then I'll have to go check on Lightning."
"Then let's hope you'll be the first to lose and the game goes on for minutes." Lebreau says.
Snow was offended by that comment. "Hey!"
So team NORA and Snow continue with they're little poker game. Thirty minutes have passed and Snow, Lebreau and Maqui at the only ones playing now. Snow is suddenly wishing he did lose at the beginning since the first round was taking quite a while.
Yuj and Gadot are just standing by, watching the game and drinking some beer. The betting pile is pretty large, it's about five-thousand Gil. The three of them looks at each other, for any signs of worry or hesitation. Snow is worried, but not about the game, he's worried about the fact he's suppose to go check on Lightning, under Serah's demand.
Lebreau places her deck on the table. "Straight clubs!"
Snow looks at his hand, pair of twos and a three. He lost. "I fold." Snow throws his cards in the air then stands up. "I'm gonna go check on Lightning."
Snow makes his leave. Everyone watches him leave, then Lebreau faces Maqui. "What about you? You folding?"
"Not really." Maqui lays down his deck. "Royal flush."
Lebreau is shocked to see the kings and queens. Gadot and Yuj both grumbled, even though they already lost moments ago. Maqui reaches for his winnings and pulls them towards him. "Hey, don't hate me cause I'm lucky."
"I'm not. I'm upset we're stuck waiting for Snow again." Gadot says. "Yo, pass me some wine."
Serah and Hope are at the dentist. Hope is laying on the chair while Dr. Lloyd is making a phone call to Hope's dentist. Hope had his teeth checked, taken some X-rays and all. Dr. Lloyd wants to double check, get some information with someone who's known Hope very well.
Serah is reading a magazine while waiting for the dentist. Hope is a bit nervous, but can hardly show it since the pain in his mouth is worse.
Dr. Lloyd hangs up the phone, then he approaches to Hope and Serah. "Well." Serah puts down the magazine and looks up when she hears the doctor. "I've made a call to Dr. Fritz. And apparently, you were scheduled for your wisdom teeth to be removed, young Estheim."
Hope widens his eyes open. "Really?" Serah turns to face Hope. "You've never said anything about an appointment being made."
"I-I, well..." Hope shutters with his words. "My mom did made an appointment, but it was for when got back from vacation."
"Well, from what I see. It looks like the infection is pretty bad. We're gonna need to make an immediate mouth surgery." Dr. Lloyd says.
Hope is suddenly nervous hearing that. "Can we do it right now?" Serah asks.
"Really? R-right now?" Hope asks.
Serah notices Hope's trembling voice. "Are you scared, Hope?"
"Uh...I...I am, I mean. This is going to hurt, right?" Hope asks.
"Oh yeah." The doctor says with a chuckle. "This will hurt like hell!" Hope jerks his face at the doctor, looking at him, breathing heavily with worry and sweating. Serah looks at the doctor with a mean look, she knows that was rude. "Relax, kid. I'm joking. We're going to put you under during the surgery. You won't feel a thing."
The doctor makes his leave. Even after being clear at what'll happen, Hope doesn't relax. Serah places a hand on Hope's hand. "Hey, you okay?"
"I'm really scared, Serah." Hope says.
"I understand, but you don't have to be afraid. It'll be all right." Serah tells Hope.
Hope slowly nods. He knows that Serah wouldn't lie to him, she's too nice. So the doctor returns with some other people to help out with the surgery. Serah was ordered to leave the room, but she suggests she should stay until the boy is put under, since she figured her presence would help relax him.
The doctors put a breathing mask on Hope's nose, and injected a needle tube connected to the IV drip in the kid's arm. Serah just sits next to Hope, holding on to his hand and smiling.
Hope does feel better to have Serah with him. Either he is or it's really the numbing fluids that's relaxing him. Hope starts to lose consciousness, as his body goes numb. The doctors are about to start surgery, and they needed Serah to wait outside.
The last thing he sees, before his world went black, was Serah leaving him.
Lightning is just leaving the bathroom. Her strength is starting to return, but she's not feel any better. Lightning is now sick. She must have caught something in the middle of the night, while her system was weak from the poison.
So far, the Farron girl is having headaches, coughing and sneezing, nausea. It ain't pretty. Lightning was able to walk around, but not so such. With being sick and her strength recovering, she could only get up and weak to go to the bathroom, and to the closet next door to get a bucket.
Lightning lays back on the couch, more like crash into it. Lightning groans in misery, then annoyance when she hears a knock on the door. Lightning plants her hands on her face. Could things get any worse? Turns out, it did. Cause the person that was knocking...was Snow.
Snow walks in to see Lightning. "Hey, sis."
Lightning looks at Snow with a glare. "I! Am not! Your sister! You big jerk!" Lightning's voice was hoarse but still hostile and cold.
"You don't sound good. You doing okay?" Snow asks.
"I feel terrible...cause you're here. I was fine before you came in." Lightning says. "What are you doing here anyways?"
"Serah asked me to check on you. And it's a good thing she did." Snow says.
Lightning grabs a pillow and buries her face in it. Just tine, Vanille and Fang walks right in. "Helloooo." Vanille says in a singing tone.
Lightning removes the pillow from her face, laying it fall on the ground. "More guests? Great!"
Vanille and Fang walks into the living room, to find the sick Lightning. "Oh, Lightning. What happened?" Vanille asks, worried.
"I'll say, you look terrible, love." Fang says.
"Thanks, captain obvious." Lightning says, shooting Fang a cold glare, then coughing. "What are you two doing here?"
"I was wondering if Hope was around." Vanille says. "Where is he?"
"He's with Serah at the dentist." Snow says.
Lightning's surprised to hear that. "Serah's at the dentist? Did she eat those licky-sticks again?"
"I don't think Serah's the one seeing the dentist." Snow says.
"He has a point. If she was, why would she bring Hope? I think he's the one seeing the dentist." Fang says.
Vanille holds her hands in front of her, her index and pinky fingers out and touching each other. "Guess it's just the three of us." Vanille looks down at Lightning. "There anything you need?"
Lightning glares at Snow. "Just this idiot out of my house."
Fang chuckles at Lightning's little demanding. "Well, we need to do something to help you feel better." Vanille says.
"I know. How about a nice hot bath." Everyone gives Fang a look of both confusion and it's a terrible idea. "What? Best thing for sick people, right?"
"Yeah, but Lightning's still recovering from what happened back in Palumpolum." Snow says. "If she's going have to take a bath, one of us is gonna have to give her one."
Lightning squints her eyes angrily at Snow, she doesn't like the idea of being given a bath like she's a toddler. It'll be even worse if he's the one giving her the bath, not cause he's a boy, but she hates him. She would wither have Hope give her the bath instead of him. It's still uncomfortable, but it's better then Snow.
"So...who's gonna bath the girl?" Fang asks.
No one really volunteers. Just stays silent. "Geez, I wish I could...but I just remembered...I have to do..." Vanille runs out the door. Fang notices Vanille leaving and chases after her.
"You get back here, young lady!" Fang shouts.
Just like that, Fang and Vanille are long gone. Snow just watches the two leave until they're gone, then he looks back at Lightning. "Well. Guess it's just you and me." Snow carries Lightning, lifts her and lays her over his shoulder. "Come on, sis."
Snow walks off, about to give Lightning that bath. "I'm not your sister!" Lightning shouts as loud as her rough, sore voice could. She also kicks her feet and bangs her fists on Snows back. "Put me down you big dork!"