"I need to call everyone in for a meeting. Stat." The words are punctuated by the chop-chop of helicopter blades starting in the distance. A lightly bearded mouth hunches down lower into the mouthpiece of the burner phone. "This is a code white. I repeat. This is. A code. White. This is not a drill." With those mysterious words, the speaker hits the "END" button on his phone, then pockets it. Turning to the whirly bird lonely against a backdrop of a star-spangled summer night, he heads to the rendezvous point.
0400 HRS EST
The first people he sees upon entering the oasis cantina are Fang and Vanille, who are sitting together lounging on a chaise in the corner, framed in a gauzy canopy of light silk. Vanille has adopted the local dress, favoring the chains of beads that are popular in this region of the world. Fang looks alert, eyes fluid and focused like that of a wolf in her prime. Her outfit of choice would be practical out in the desert sands or in the jungles to the south, showing splotches of canvas and burlap in her wardrobe.
Vanille rises up from her position of comfort, arms unfolding loosely from her sparse frame. Her eyes convey more emotion, while Fang chooses to hold her cards closer to her chest.
The leader is now in full effect, unfurling to all of his height in the middle of the dimly lit, sparsely furnished room. "Where are the others." Though framed as a question, his voice enunciates a declaration instead.
Vanille opens her mouth, but it's Fang who answers. "Sarah and Snow are on their way. Noel and Yeul won't be touching down until tomorrow."
Movement to the left. "I'm here, and I can speak for myself."
Green eyes flick over to a hooded figure that arises from the shadows, and steps into a pool of light provided by a swinging lantern hanging from a chain suspended in the stucco ceiling. A bare, slim white leg gleams in the moving light, and the tip of a pert nose, with a single strand of rose-colored hair fringing across the bridge. "Reporting for duty. Sir."
Sazh moves in the background, the clacking of the beaded curtain strung across the entryway loudly signaling his arrival. Claire has silently moved back into the shadows once more, the light only betraying a rustle of fabric at the edge of the halo on the floor.
Hope bows his head, taking this moment to compose his thoughts and give silent thanks that in the time of great adversity, in spite of emotions riding high, they could gather once more at his command. He has called in this favor, and it's not something that he can ask for lightly. He doesn't know if he can call in this same meeting again in the future, so he has to make every moment count while it lasts.
"We will have to start soon, after Snow and Serah arrive. Noel and Yeul will have to be filled in later. There isn't time. I will explain more when the newlyweds come. Time is of the essence, and repeating myself doesn't condone efficiency." Hope looks and finds the bar empty, and grins to himself as he walks over to pour himself a shot.
He has no idea what he's doing, as he has never poured himself alcohol in his life-either of his lives. He just knows that he wants just a little something to take the edge off. He's seen sights he's never thought could be possible in this world-and just a few short months ago, he was told to believe that he was an Earth born teenage child.
It would drive any man to drink.
The others talk amongst themselves as Hope fumbles for a shot glass, allowing his hands to shake while they are out of sight behind the bar. When he places the glass on the counter, his actions are once again smooth and controlled, like the expression on his face. Eyes searching blindly for the closest bottle, he grabs something written in Arabic, with a dark, molten liquid swirling around inside. Twisting off the cork, he brings the bottle to his nose, and-yep, yep, it's definitely alcohol. Coughing, eyes stinging, he figures that whatever the stuff is, it would do for now. He brings the bottle up over the counter, but his glass is gone.
"Never trust an amateur to do a professional's job." A familiar friend is sitting a few stools down, toying with Hope's glass. "You're a smart guy, Hope, but you look completely lost behind that bar." His eyes quickly scan the bottle. "Also, you shouldn't have more than one shot of Bacardi right now. You're a small guy-and you need to think for whatever you brought us in here to talk about. Must be pretty important to call a code white right now." The newlywed rises, quick to his feet in spite of his large frame. He straightens his light Burberry coat, then addresses all in attendance.
"We'll all have a shot, and then, down to business." He spreads his arms wide. "My treat. I'll take orders." With a carefree movement, Snow vaults himself behind the counter, springing to his feet lightly on the other side. "Move outta my way, kid."
Hope bares his teeth, but then decides to shift his lips into a grin. "I'm glad you and Serah could make it. And, yeah, a drink would be pretty good right about now."
"I'll second that." Sazh raises a hand first, and plops himself into a seat. "As long as it ain't beer. I don't ever want to choke down that stuff like I had to do at your wedding again." He shudders. "I'll have a mojito. And don't forget the umbrella."
Hope moves out of Snow's way, as the big man rolls up his sleeves and starts to work. The rest of the crew slowly gather round and prostrate themselves in various states of repose around the bar, softly calling out their drink favorites. Snow nods and moves methodically, without looking up from behind the counter. His movements are precise and efficient.
"I had no idea you could read Arabic, Snow." Hope states after everyone has told Snow what they want, and there is a lull.
Snow doesn't miss a beat. "I don't, but I know the colors of Bacardi's brand, their logo, and how it should be bottled. Owning a club does make you learn things, no matter how hard you try not to learn anything or do any real work."
The gang has a laugh at this, but the laughter is tight, muted. Everyone is staying close to one another, and the easy conversation between them has ceased. The gang is quickly passed their drinks, with the necessary jibes thrown at Sazh for having the most feminine drink of them all. Sazh quickly retorts that his must taste the best by default, and that comment is quick to make them all go silent with consideration at this point. Fang is the first to raise her glass in silent appreciation of the deft maneuver to dodge criticism with logic, and the rest follow suit in toasting Sazh's dry wit and sense of humor in the face of adversity. Sazh just snorts, shrugs, and stirs his umbrella. After proclaiming that his fruity drink is in homage of the female senses, therefore being the tastiest drink at the bar, everyone leaves him alone in peace with his solid joke.
Hope is happy to see that everyone treats Fang and Vanille with respect, now that this is the first social gathering after formally announcing that they have been a couple. Not that he feared anyone would make them feel less welcome-he and the others have known for quite some time that the two have cared for each other much longer than they have all been a team-but the fact that he can enjoy seeing them with their arms around each other at the bar without anyone acting different at the open display of affection softens his heart. He remembers when Fang came back from an assignment a few weeks ago and told them, sand still in her hair, of how she felt. It was a touching moment, her stepping off the private elevator that led to that New York lab, and Vanille running up in concern. At the last moment, Vanille had stopped short of throwing her arms around seeing Fang return safe and sound. Fang had taken one look at Vanille stopping short, hand over her mouth to silence her kiss in front of the eyes in the room, and had taken all of two strides to get to her mate's side. Loudly, Fang had proclaimed, "I don't give a damn," and, with that being said, bent low to engulf Vanille in a passionate dip kiss. After a beat, the room had promptly exploded into whistles and applause, with shouts of "It's about time!" Coming from various corners of the room. After Vanille came up, breathless, from the kiss, redfaced and panting, she had lowered her eyes, but Fang tilted her chin up to see the faces in the room.
"Look around you, kid," Fang had said, and the tone of her voice was pitched for Vanille's ears, even though it could be heard over the din of raucous applause in the room. "You are home. There's nothing to fear anymore. I'm here, and we have fought our battles. You and I can be together now, and at peace. Except this time, we can be awake." It had been a short speech, but nonetheless, a powerful one. So very reminiscent of Fang herself, and so like her to say. Vanille, pink cheeked and stunned silent, had taken a moment to respond, but when she did, she characteristically had nodded just once. That had sealed the unspoken pact, and from that moment on, the two had been just as inseparable, but more comfortable with showing affection. Nothing had changed. Everyone had made sure, in the intervening weeks since, to convey in their own time and fashion to them both that they had known for quite a while that the two of them had shared romantic feelings for eons now. Their love had literally upheld Cocoon, and they should have no shame of it. After all this time, they deserved representation of how they felt, and Hope is glad that, no matter what should happen now in the future, they can at least feel comfortable enough around one another to express themselves. No one, especially in these desperate times, should have to feel muted or unsure of how to express love. They had long since earned the right to express their feelings, and now, in such a dark hour, they can be free.
Seeing them now helps give Hope the strength that he needs to address the topics that are on his mind. He doesn't have more than the one shot of Bacardi, and he finds that he needs a chaser to help him wash the vile stuff down. It's enough to calm his nerves somewhat, and seeing the two lanky females with their arms around each other at the other end of the bar cheers him.
There would never be another person, human or l'Cie, that could come between their bond. Their love literally had saved the world, and their love is poised to do the same again, on this world, like in the past.
Seeing them now, as always, fills Hope with…hope. His namesake is a curse. He will always be doomed to carry the fate of the world on his shoulders, it seems.
But he doesn't have to carry the burden alone.
"Hear ye, hear ye." The young man taps his glass and clears his throat. The conversation around the U-shaped bar is so muted that he doesn't have to pitch his voice very loud at all to be heard over the din. They are all expecting this moment, have all been primed for months for this moment.
The very first day that Hope started in the New York facility, his cage and his home, they had went over the signal. Before any of them had broken up to fly to various hotspots across the world, they had agreed on the one word that would be strong enough to call them back from assignment. Only one entity could bring them back together in the melee of working for the U.S. government, and one person had decided what the signal would be.
It was Vanille who came up with the name for the system.
They knew that they had to have a channel that they would be listening to, an A.M. signal broadcast that they could tap in to, no matter where they were, across the globe before they went to sleep each night. The code word would be broadcast on that signal, for all ears to hear, each night until they met up…but only the Bodhum crew would understand what that signal would mean.
The rendezvous point would have to be a safe place in U.S. controlled lands, but not a place indigenous to the continental States. Once they met up, they may or may not be considered going rogue if they had abandoned their posts in order to meet up. Risking a dishonorable discharge meant that the signal had to be serious, life-threatening, and had to be used only if there appeared irrefutable proof that Bhunivelze had once again found a way to influence their world. Only after they receive the undeniable proof that they are looking for, would they consider what absconding their posts abroad would mean to coming back home.
They all had fake passports and I.D.'s for this exact reason, a backup plan to live on the run for the rest of their natural lives if their call to arms within the group meant leaving their bond with the government. It had to be something that could be used only once, because upon hearing it, they couldn't go back to the lives they created for themselves again. They would be considered fugitives, enemies of the state, if they heard the signal and came to the secret spot they found in the middle of the desert for themselves. Their cover for working for the government in the guise of keeping America's sovereign position in the space race would be blown, and they'd have to live a completely different life from that next morning, going forward.
Vanille had decided the word that would decide their unknown fate.
"We should use the word that was once used against us." After a long pause in New York, where they had all gathered in that lab for the last time, Vanille had looked up from staring at her hands that had been folded in her lap. All eyes had turned to her, Hope remembers, as she batted her long lashes and, chin up, looked back at all the questioning faces.
"We use the code word that had been developed for us, so long ago. We use that word for us, not against us." She characteristically had brought her fist up to her chest, and turned her chin to address each person in turn.
"What do you mean." Light had said, matter of fact and hard. Her head had been hurting that day, and her tone had been more short than normal. Hope had remembered how much he had wanted to reach out and touch her, hearing the pain that had been in her voice that day.
"We become the agents of destruction. We become the people that turn the tide. We call in a code White." After a pause, Sazh had clapped his hands together once sharply.
"Ha, ha! I like the way you think, Vanille." The two of them had had a longer history together than everyone in the room except for Fang, and at times, it showed. Sazh and Vanille could read each other more quickly than the rest of them could catch on, due to the fact they had fought at each other's side so many times in the past. The knee-jerk reactions and quick thinking that led to them being able to stand at each other's back in times past still showed on another planet, an eon into the future. A bond like that couldn't easily be denied or forgotten.
Vanille had turned to Sazh, eyes crinkled up slightly at the corners. "You know what I'm thinking, Sazh. Why don't you say it, so the others can understand." Fang laid a hand on her leg quietly, a silent show of solidarity, but said nothing, allowing Sazh to speak as Vanille wished.
Sazh had noted the physical gesture, but said nothing. Hope could read the minuscule twitch in the deep brown eyes before he spoke. "Right. She means to use the enemies' old tactics against them. The day the rest of you showed up to save Vanille and I on the Palamecia, Barthandelus revealed himself to us in the eleventh hour in a sign of desperation. He called this last move a 'code white.' That's what Vanille is saying we should use against the enemy in case of a reveal. Just like Barthandelus revealed his true fal'Cie nature to us on board that ship, we use the Code White only in the case that Bhunivelze reveals himself to us on this planet. It's a plot twist, and one that all of us can understand."
The rest had immediately agreed, and the details of what should happen after the broadcast had quickly been laid out in that top floor laboratory room. Shortly thereafter, they all had split, each person on their separate government mission.
That was the last time Hope had seen most of his old friends in person, other than daily check-ins and Skype. Tonight is the first night since then that they had all gathered together, at great risk to their careers and lives.
Fast forward to the cantina in the desert once more, at an undisclosed location, in the wee hours of the morning. Time is of the essence, and Hope is speaking once more.
"As you know, I could have only called all of you here tonight because of one thing-absolute proof that Bhunivelze is once again stirring, and has found us on Earth. And this time, I have Sazh here with me to back me up. He can corroborate everything that I'm about to say." He looks at each face in turn, allowing each of his friends to see the grit in his eyes as he speaks.
"As of tonight, Bhunivelze had found another host. We…meaning Sazh…had captured a suspect that spoke of the old God during an interrogation a few months ago."
Heads turn to Sazh, who wipes his mouth with the back of his hand following a long drink. "It's true. As you know, I was stationed to Kabul due to stirrings of insurgent unrest there. We created a false lead with the meteor showers being sighted in this region, and I came to the town. Under the guise of finding unusual size space rocks, I had time to talk to the locals. Long story short, they pointed me to this hideout a few clicks from the province. Went out there, and there was this guy acting as a leader. He was recruiting young people on the premise that they need to return to the old religion of the One True God." Sazh shakes his head.
"Let me guess." Fang picks up here, taking the lull in conversation to drop a theory. "The young folk in the area took that to mean that there was a new leader trying to incite based on the teachings of radical Islam, and Jihad. But, in reality, the man was using their de facto religion to make them believe what they wanted to hear. This…man, wasn't meaning an offshoot of a normally peaceful religion of Islam. He was meaning something more sinister. The teachings of the old God were those of Bhunivelze."
"Yes, his speeches that he gave were purposefully vague, to gain momentum and influence on the local population, while at the same time, dropping the right lines here and there to gain attention in a completely different way. Our attention." Sazh takes the conversation back under his control once more. "He said just enough to attract our gaze. When he mispronounced certain words in Arabic that could just be taken as a slip of the tongue, to the right ear, what he was saying were the words 'Bhuni' and 'Velze,' throughout his speeches, over and over again. With the way the media is so keen on the Middle East, and is a shameless panderer of any sort of incendiary speech, they were quick to get snippets of this man's new revolutionary dialogue over to the Western ears. That was exactly what this man had wanted, and had bargained for. All of his…crimes, were simply acts to get himself recognized by the right people. And by 'right people,' I don't mean NATO or the attention of his government. No, I mean specifically those of us who remember their previous lives on Gran Pulse and Cocoon. I detained him, but I didn't mean for the detention to last so long."
"I made the decision to meet this man, face to face, tonight." Hope picks up here, after Sazh dejectedly looks into his glass when thinking of the nearly two months that spanned between the time he threw him into that cell, and when they were able to come back again today. He places a hand on Sazh's shoulder, then confidently addresses the room when they murmur amongst themselves.
"Hope, you shouldn't have left your base in New York." Vanille bites her lip and wrings her hands. "I thought we all were clear. We had our missions. You were to stay put, we were to go out and bring back-"
"He knew what his role was." Claire speaks up here, and at the sound of her voice, all murmurings cease. She looks up from her crossed arms. "And frankly, I was wondering why it had taken this long for him to try to escape his prison. It was about damned time." She narrows her eyes at the gasps and mutterings in the room, and when she speaks again, she is addressing them all, but her eyes only train on Hope's face.
"He was living in a cage. He couldn't leave the city. Working all those hours by himself-I'd be driven out of my mind. None of us here could do what he did for as long as he did. He had to sit and watch all of us out in the field why he lived alone and solitary. We all worked hard-none harder than Hope-to have freedom in this world, and out of all of us, he has had the least since coming here. He had to start all over again as a child, and then grew up in anguish for eighteen years, still remembering bits and pieces. His mind is shattered-he can't remember everything. All of us can. He has been robbed. I won't stand for any of you telling him to stay put like a good boy, when Hope is a man." Claire's voice changes at this last sentence, and the way she says Hope is a man sounds like it comes painfully from her. Her eyes cut to Vanille, who nods once under her scrutinizing gaze, as if daring the girl to challenge Claire's authority on Hope having the shit end of the stick for so long. Fang lays a gentle, consoling hand on Vanille's thigh, but stays silent. Claire flicks her eyes back to Hope again, who is standing open-mouthed at this outburst. "Keep going, Hope. I want to hear what you have to say, what you did. I reserve judgement."
It's almost too much for Hope. What is she saying, she 'reserves judgement?' What is she talking about? Is she talking about him leaving America to come secretly out to the desert, or is she talking about something more…something that Hope did with Alyssa so long ago? Hope nods, and just picks up where he left off, not understanding if what he heard was Claire's silent way of assuring him about something more.
"Uh…thank you. Anyway, um, I left. For reasons of my own. Sazh is the only one of us who knew where this hostage was held, so naturally, he was my guide, my accomplice…and my witness. The first thing that we found was a pocket of Chaos."
"A pocket of Chaos?" Snow's voice sounds worried, and if Snow sounded worried, that usually meant big trouble. The happy-go-lucky guy was chronically narcissistic. "How could you tell?"
"I knew exactly what it was the moment I ran into it, and walked through it. Sazh felt the same thing. There was a faint…music that played, I remember, when I came up to the wall. It felt as if the air tried to give around me when I pressed into it, and it wasn't static. The pocket of Chaos moved, like a curtain. It breathed, in a sense. Everything felt weird on the other side."
"It was a pocket of Chaos, all right." Claire confirms, and she knows more than anyone gathered what that would be like. She re-folds her arms. "A bad sign. Go on."
"We encountered the hostage. Still alive. Barely. He knew my name, he called out my name before he even saw me. He knew I was coming. He said…" Here, Hope feels angry, and starts shaking. Out of their entire conversation, it's the part that made him the most upset. "He said that our meeting was fate. That I wasn't in control of coming out to meet him. That I didn't possess free will. That he'd waited down in that hole for the two months, waiting for me to show up, and that it had been pre-ordained. I was proof to him of Bhunivelze existing."
"Yeah, he went into some typical fundamentalist rant about being jealous that he wasn't the 'chosen one' or something like that." Sazh speaks for all assembled to hear, but talks into his glass as well, so his voice sounds muffled.
Hope shakes his head. "That part really didn't matter. He died, down there in that little cell, laughing manically at me."
"Why was he laughing." Claire asks the question, but it comes out more of a statement, and she is looking off into the distance, her jaw locked in anger.
"Here's the weird part." Hope tries to soften the blow of what he has to say, but realizes after he tries to buffer his news that it's pointless to try to reason what happened to any of them. There is no logical excuse for what happened down there under the earth.
"Oh, there's a weird part now?" Serah tilts her head and rests her chin on her finger. "I thought this entire story had been weird up until this point. I'm almost scared to hear what you're about to say next."
"Good, because you should be." Hope wrings his hands, breathes deep, and on his exhalation, just decides to throw the truth out there. "I threw my hands up against the bars of his cell, and they just disappeared. The entire row of cell bars. Just. Disappeared. Into thin air. As if they never were. The welded joints on the stone where they had been attached to the roof and the floor-everything. Even the stones were smooth."
"Gone, just like that?" Serah snaps her fingers to demonstrate, and Hope nods.
"Yes. No force against my palms, no additional music in the air or pixie dust-just…one moment, there was a prison cell, just like all of the others in that underground penitentiary, and the next-gone. Like it was an open holding cell."
"Magic." Vanille states, and everyone turns to look at her as she lifts her head, blinking at the pairs of eyes settling onto her. "It was magic."
"Yes. I believe that's exactly what it was." Hope agrees, and the room is silent for a few moments. You could hear a pin drop in that room. No one moves, everyone just ponders the implications of magic on a world where there is no magic. Hope feels like he should continue, so he does. "That's the point where the prisoner started laughing, when he saw my face after throwing my hands up in frustration to slam the bars, and found them instead gone. I remember looking at my palms for some sort of explanation, but of course, there was none. His weakened state left him unable to continue after exerting himself like that, so he just died on the floor. I couldn't ask him any further questions. How he got knowledge of Bhunivelze, how they talked…all of the useful information I could have asked of him died with him at that moment. It was a waste. I only left that underground bunker with more questions than I had before entering, when my entire objective was to find answers."
"You forgot to mention one very important factor." Sazh finishes his drink now, and starts to play with this token umbrella, twirling it in his fingers as he speaks. "Tell them what else happened when we were down there, Hope."
Ah, yes, he just as well might have said, 'Hope, tell them the most uncomfortable detail. Reveal to everyone your pain, and your mistakes.' Hope looks at Claire, who is still gazing off into the distance, visibly grinding her jaw from across the room. He exhales deeply, knowing that there is someone here as a witness, so he has no choice but to convey the truth.
"Claire and Alyssa were down there with us as well."