The next couple of days go by without any noteworthy event-Hope's family situation is the same, and he has some time to think. Vanille comes by to help him with the rebuilding of Bhakti each day, and the busywork done in the shop allows Hope to think about everything going on in his life. He gets the feeling that his parents think that Vanille is his new girlfriend, which amuses and suits Hope at the same time. If they think Vanille is a love interest, it will keep them off the scent of whom Hope is really after. Vanille is a convenient distraction for them to formulate opinions on. She works side by side with him, and sometimes they go for hours without speaking with each other, each content to be working on their own part of the machine. Nora walks into the shop from time to time, knocking on the door and bringing sandwiches and tea. She puts the food down and has a curious smile at the edge of her face, which inwardly makes Hope chuckle.
Both Alyssa and Claire have kept unusually silent. This makes Hope curious, but at the same time, he needs a little space from both of them to contemplate his next step. He thinks about the experience he had with Alyssa and, upon recollecting, a slight blush can be felt creeping up his cheeks. He liked what he felt with her, and wants to do it again-but maybe with someone else next time. And he wouldn't be too opposed to having a rematch with Alyssa either-truth be told. He hates to admit it, but she gave him a good time. There was something that he had been expecting that was missing with her, though, and he just can't place his finger on it. Everything that he had heard about sex between two people was supposed to be magical, and it was…but at the same time, devoid, somehow. There was so much between their bodies when they moved together-but that was it. Like they were participating in a dance neither one of them wanted to be doing. They were excellent dancers and looked beautiful at what they were doing, all of the steps were right…but the passion and zeal behind the moves wasn't there. Maybe he is wrong? After all, he doesn't know much about sex, and is beginning to question everything he had heard about it-either on this world, or the last. Maybe there were no "fireworks," after all, and people were just exaggerating the experience.
There was truly only one way to find out. All the speculating in the world wouldn't do Hope any good. He had to try this out with a new partner, see if it felt the same. Then he would know.
The day is Friday, and after tonight, Hope would only have two more days off to enjoy the pleasures of this world before he would be in that facility that Fang showed him. Or so Hope thought. He assumed that would become where he would "train" while taking classes at West Point.
Either way, that meant that he was running out of time to take care of his private matters before moving on to securing the safety of the world.
Time for drastic measures.
The key jiggles in the lock, and after a pause, the knob turns. A few muttered curses as the key is pulled from the lock, and then the woman enters her apartment, kicking the door closed behind her.
She walks past the lights, then sets her bag down on the kitchen counter, immediately tossing the sink faucet on to run cool water over her hands and neck.
The woman talks to herself. "It's hot under all those layers." Here she tugs at a scarf.
She leans her head back, closing her eyes, and then straightens, folding her arms under her chest and staring out the window at the apartment high-rise across from her.
The kitchen lights flick on. "Welcome home, Light." Hope's voice trails out behind her, and she smiles to herself.
"You think you can sneak up on an old warrior in her own home?" She sniffs. "Fat chance."
"I wasn't trying to sneak up on you. I was waiting for you to get home." Hope moves to the bag Claire has on the counter. "What's this, groceries? Let me help you put them up."
"How'd you get in?" Claire turns, piercing her gaze on the young man across from her, who is helping pull out groceries out of a paper bag.
"Fang let me in. You gave her a key." A bit of BBQ sauce trickles out of a plastic container as Hope sets it down, and Light watches him suck it off with a cool gaze.
"Figures." Claire snorts again, and begins to methodically put stuff in the fridge. There isn't much. "I should have never lent Fang a spare. But she really wanted to borrow something in my collection for practice, so I let her. She plays the 'injured' card, and she knows it works too well on me. I can't deny her because she hurt her leg, so if she says she wants to borrow a new type of weapon for practice and therapy, I look like an ass if I don't go along with it."
"Weapons collection?" Hope passes her a jug of OJ. "Sounds impressive."
"It is." Claire states quickly from inside the fridge. Once the groceries are put away, she crumbles up the bag, and tosses it in a recycling bin. "But none of this tells me why you are here, why you are acting kind of creepy hanging out in my living room, waiting for me to get home." She rounds on Hope, squinting her eyes. "On any world, that's just trespassing. And, like I said, kind of creepy."
"Sorry about that. I just really wanted to talk to you." Hope shrugs. "I thought if I was here, there was no way you could claim to be busy somewhere else."
"Next time, phone call." Claire makes the universal hand signal for a telephone, and cocks her head to pantomime picking up a phone. Hope nods once, then holds up a finger.
"In my defense, you were more likely to beg off, or not pick up, or straight out lie to be left alone."
"Maybe that should tell you something. Like, that I want to be left alone, perhaps?" Light shrugs, then brushes past Hope to the living room, where she plops down on a couch, booted foot crunching nonchalantly on the coffee table.
Hope winces at the snow flaking off on the furniture, but quickly smoothes his expression. "Yes, it tells me something, but not something I understand. Why do you keep putting off all of your old friends?"
"What? Don't be ridiculous." Claire rolls her eyes more than any of Hope's friends on this new world. "I just told you that I help Fang out whenever she wants."
"Have you talked to Sazh? Or Vanille? Or Snow?" Claire goes to interject here, but Hope beats her before she can speak. "I mean, BEFORE you had to be at the wedding." Claire's open mouth snaps shut, and she turns her head with a sniff. Hope barely restrains the urge to smile at knowing what she would say.
"Sazh is on detail right now. We aren't expecting to hear from him in a while." Claire mumbles this, grinding her heel into the low-lying coffee table.
Hope leans forward in his chair, fingers touching. "Sounds like some top-secret stuff."
"It is, unfortunately." Claire nods. "I will debrief you when you receive the clearance."
These words are biting to Hope, and he sees his window of opportunity with her closing with every passing word. "Claire, are you still the soldier here? Where is the girl that was left on Bodhum? At this point, I'd even settle for Lightning, while you were still in the Guardian Corps. I know that Lumina and you are reunited, but it sure doesn't feel like it." A pause. "You don't know how to cope with the emotions, do you? You're so used to not having feelings bottled up inside you, that you don't know what to do with them, once you get them again."
"That's not true." Here Claire turns to him, whipping her head back round and jostling her icy pink tresses. "I feel things…all the time." She cocks her head, squinting her eyes. "And if I remember correctly, I believe you were deprived of your feelings for a while there, too. You know what it's like. To jump in that icy river of feeling again." She shivers. "How…how did you manage?"
"For me, it was easier." Hope stands up, and starts the nervous pacing. His hands wring each other. "I was born a baby onto this world, remember? So I grew into them the way that any normal human being does. You weren't…given that opportunity, right? You just came here, fully formed as an adult, but possessing all the weight of your memories and feelings within you since…since…"
"Since my parents died, on Cocoon, in another world, a lifetime ago." Claire bows her head, and to Hope's shock and amazement, a little tear springs up out of the corner of her eye. She makes no move to wipe it away. Hope stands still in this moment, holding his hands and bowing his head. Violently, she jerks her head up, and spins her neck to look at him.
"I need you, Hope Estheim."
"Wh-what?" Those are the LAST words Hope expects to hear at that moment, but nonetheless welcome. His heart starts thudding in his chest. Everything slows down, but the blood pounds so loudly in his ears.
"Whaddya mean, you, you need me?" He studies Claire, unsure, not wanting to believe.
"I need you because you do things to me that I need, that are good." She places a hand on her heart. "You make me remember things I would otherwise choose to forget. You make me feel things that I need to feel. You help me remember that it's okay to feel sad, and that it's alright to not know my place yet in this world."
Hope wants to be as candid with her as she is with him, so he walks over to the couch where she's sitting, slowly. Never taking their gazes from one another, he rounds to the front of her. Unbidden, soundlessly, Claire's boot falls off the table, little puffs of snow fluttering to the floor with her movement.
She leans back, blinking once, and looks up at Hope. Her elbows touch the back of the couch, and her eyes widen slightly at his approach. Her lips part.
Hope's gaze locks down into hers. "I'm glad you said that, Claire. But you also need to learn not to take advantage of people if they are trying to help you. You can't hold all of that in. You need to show people that you are thankful, and that you are listening."
Claire blinks again, her eyes narrowing slightly. "I hope you know that you are the only person alive that could dare to say those words to me, and not be eating the floor."
Hope cocks his head, fingers lightly running across the back of his knuckles. "Is that a threat, Ms. Farron?" His green eyes twinkle with mischief.
Claire shakes her head once to the side, not turning away her gaze. "No, just a statement." Her voice, so dark, speaks softly. She closes her lips, then opens them again. "How can you feel such confidence when you've been living as a child for eighteen years?"
Hope leans down, almost pantherlike in his movements, placing a gloved hand next to her, and pushing it in to the back of the couch to prop himself up. His face moves inches from hers.
"Because you know very well that I'm not a boy under my surface." A pause. "I'm going to kiss you now, and I'm going to let you decide if that's okay."
"How can you do both at onc-" Claire's question is silenced as Hope's lips draw near, and he hovers a fraction over hers. He puts the brakes on at the last second; their hair, silver and rose, tangles together overhead.
Claire exhales, hoods her eyes, and tilts her head up just the slightest fraction to meet Hope's lips.
They come together as partners, as warriors, as children. Their closed mouthed kiss is so simple, a meeting. Hope cracks his eyes open, and feels gladness overwhelm him as Claire lets her guard down to close her eyes all the way. Once he sees that she has closed her eyes completely, he does the same.
The kiss is only a few moments, respectful, but lingers as the two silently promise the other of more to come. Hope breaks away first, since he initiated, and rises up. Their lips don't seem to want to part-they peel away slowly.
"Thank you." Hope says. Claire opens her eyes slowly at his voice, blinks, then sits back again.
Claire studies him, eyes wide, and brings her fingers to the corner of her bottom lip. "I've only been kissed a handful of times before."
Hope nods to acknowledge the honesty of the statement, then gestures to the cushion next to her. "May I?"
Claire waves him next to her, scooting over for him, as she is mostly in the middle.
"You haven't learned how to live yet for yourself." Hope speaks quietly. He tucks a knee underneath him, smooths his forelocks behind his ears, and turns so he is facing Claire. "I understand. But just because I understand you, doesn't mean that I'm not still frustrated by your actions."
"You're sounding extremely patronizing right now." Claire throws up a wall, and shrugs a shoulder. "Sorry, you just are."
Hope laughs. "It must sound weird coming out of a boy's mouth."
Claire grins, and a blush creeps up her cheeks. "Speaking of mouths…you have a nice one. I thought I'd let you know. I…I've always wanted, to, to…I hoped that it would be you. My first kiss." The words come out in a rush, and the moment is visibly awkward for both parties. They muddle through.
Hope laughs uncomfortably. "Well, can I ask? Am I?"
Claire shakes her head, chuckling dryly. "No. There were…a couple of nights at the bars outside of base. Nights where I wanted to get shitfaced drunk. I didn't want to think. We were…we were arguing. About you. We had just found you, you see." As Claire remembers, warming up to her story, she gets more loose. She turns just the slightest bit toward Hope, her body language changing just the same. Hope sits still, quietly appraising how her body language is more angled.
"You were this kid. At an age that none of us remembered seeing you in. Your parents, they found us, you see. They told us what they had decided." Claire looks up at him. "That must've been crazy, by the way. Being a child but still retaining all those memories from a place that no one believed you had lived in. What was THAT like?"
"Hell." Hope doesn't shy around his answer. Claire's eyes widen at the clipped response, but she simply nods in acknowledgement. She can see that Hope doesn't want the conversation to be turned toward him, so she clears her throat and continues.
"Anyway…ah…yeah. We were debating on what to do. As we had told you earlier, I was the only one out of all of us who had thought to let you alone. Let you decide to come try to find us once you had moved out on your own. You were deserving of a little more time. You were about to turn 18, after all, and was at the age to try to figure things out without your parents' influence. See what you would decide…whether you would keep true to your memories, or accept this one life that you were told that you should be living." She shrugs again here. "Just seemed to make sense to me."
"You were distraught. You didn't like fighting with your sister and Snow. You remembered that the last time you fought with them, it was one of the steps that led us down the path to where we are now. So you had to fight your gut feeling and your friends and family. You took off at night to drink away your pain." Hope fills in the blanks for Claire. "Hmm." He scratches the back of his neck.
"So…you understand." Claire confirms. "You get why I was trying to not think. Wow, I thought it was going to be a longer story than all of that."
Hope laughs. "Why'd you think that? All of what you explained is textbook Claire Farron, from the woman I knew. And it's also the same thinking that a LOT of personality types take in this world, too. It's actually a story that's very common in this world, Claire, you'll see. More people than you know exhibit the same behavior for similar reasons." Here, he turns more solemn. "A lot of people spend their entire lives trying to escape each night. They never escape. They can never figure out that they can't run away." He looks up then, and the two share a soulful look between them. Without locking gazes, Hope reaches out his gloved hand to lightly rest it on top of Claire's. She looks down, hesitant, but doesn't pull away, even though Hope has only a feather touch on the backs of her knuckles. She stays put, allowing the touch, then looks back up at him.
"What I'm more concerned about, is what made you decide to turn back to the group. What made you visit me on the beach that night. Why you chose to return to the light. Pun intended." Hope adds the last sentence with a wry little smirk, and Claire laughs a little.
"Fang. And Serah. They cornered me. Assholes." The two laugh a little at the statement, but then Claire shakes her head. "No, seriously though. They did. Corner me, that is. They set my ass straight. Something about how I didn't need to give up on you. Or myself. That I should be the one, based on my differing opinion, to ask you whether or not you wanted to follow me the night of your birthday or not. That was the compromise. They said that, because we were…close, that I should be the one to walk out of the shadows. To be the one to set the choice in front of you. At least you wouldn't think you were crazy for the rest of your life if you saw my face on this world. Then, you could follow me down the rabbit hole, or stay on the straight and narrow. You still had a choice, but I forced your hand by being the one to give it to you, instead of waiting around for you to make it on your own."
"They made the right choice, then." Hope scratches his jaw, reminiscing. "Remind me to thank Fang and Serah the next time I see them."
"What for." The words are a whisper, and the raspy tone snatches Hope's attention once more to land directly on Claire's face once again. She is poised for his response, he can read it in the tension she carries in her shoulders. Her eyes are downcast, and she is staring at his hand resting lightly on top of hers. Her words were so quiet that they couldn't be said in the form of a question, they came out instead as a whispered statement.
Hope smiles, then straightens his expression when he takes his other hand to tilt her chin up to look at him. He waits until he has her gaze once more, then speaks. "For showing me that you can be in my life again. That you weren't just another rose-haired phantom. That I could have the happiness I once longed for a world away in this lifetime. They just didn't know it yet. None of us did. But, with your permission, maybe I can. It's up to you, Claire." He says her name so softly, his tongue falling lightly from the roof of his mouth when he says her name. "It's always been you. I know that now. I've always been waiting. I will wait more…because that's what I've spent several lifetimes doing. It's my duty to wait. Just like it's your duty to save me from my life that I expected to live with my parents. I met you, twice, when I was just a boy. And both times, you reached out and have led me from the mundane. And all the good and bad that has come with it. In a thousand lifetimes, I will wait for you. And in a thousand lifetimes, we will teach each other the good and the bad, the hard times and the good that can be found in each incarnation. As long as you need, Claire, I will give you. We will both live our separate lives and be independent souls, but eternally intertwined. I will wait for you, and you the same, and other people we care about will come and go in our waiting. But in the end, it will be us, with the vast expanse of the universe stretching around our hands."
A single tear slides unchecked down Claire's face. "That is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard."
Hope smiles, and cups her face with his hands, using a thumb to gently brush off Claire's teardrop.
"It's the truth."
"I never knew that Hope Estheim was such a great giver of speeches." Claire moves away from his light touch, brushing off another tear that falls from her opposite eye.
"I had to give several to a great many starving people." Flashes of huddled masses standing in the rain jolt behind his eyes, and he knows that he gets a faraway look in them when he tries to pull at the memory. His heart shrinks away at the reminder of the grim life he had to lead without Claire being with him, though, and the memory skitters away into darkness.
Claire respects the pause, and allows the silence between them after the heavy statement to draw out for a moment before speaking. "I…heard about how it was after I…was taken to Valhalla. Back on Cocoon, I mean. With you. Leading." She pulls a knee up to her chest, and leans her chin on it. "You'll have to tell me how you managed."
"I will, I intend to, once I have all the memories sorted. It's…hard to try to keep up with it all. I guess a lifetime of repressing your past and thinking you were crazy for so long can really warp your brain after a while. I'm…having to dredge up feelings I had thought belonged to a crazy person."
"I wish I could take away your pain." Claire clenches a fist, and her teeth. "I wish I could carry your load for you. Take away some of the hurt."
Hope smiles. "And that's why everyone loves you, Claire. The fact that you're literally willing to save the world for the next person. That's what drew me to you-your passion to protect. To try harder. I wanted to be like you for so long, you know."
"And then?" Claire picks at a thread on her sweater's inside wrist, flicking a look at Hope when she thinks he isn't looking. He sees her searching gaze, however, and smiles to himself. She really cares how I look at her. It's important to her that I see her in a good light.
"…and then I realized that I was enough. I needed to be me, just work things out in my own fashion. That's where I turned to science. You had the brawn and the will to fight, I had the will to persevere and think of solutions around a problem. Both are good traits. Both can keep you alive."
A pause. "I remember giving a speech to a young boy similar to that, once. A speech about keeping yourself alive." She looks up. "I guess that young boy listened. Here you sit."
Hope smiles. "I want to LIVE now, Claire, not just simply survive. I won't let anything from the past ruin what I've fought so hard to have. Trust on that, Claire, even if you can't quite trust in me yet, because of…you know…what's been happening recently. Trust that I want this life more than I will allow myself to become a victim again."
"I do." Claire nods, her hair brushing into her face. "I DO trust the fact that you are who you've always wanted to become, and not the product of a dead god. I just hope that it will always stay that way."
"You don't have to worry. I'm not going to leave you." Hope snorts. "After all this time? All that we've been through? It's going have to take more than the force of a god to keep me away from all that we've fought for."
Claire smiles, then looks away, her grin slowly turning down into a frown. "I just hope you're right."