a chaotic heart
Chapter 2
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She stares at him, and after a fashion, he at her. He manages to find his footing first, and he has to because he's not strong enough to drag her down by weight alone in youth and she doubts the academic he became in adulthood in the old world will do much better in that endeavour. So he straightens, and stares, and finally the puzzle that's puzzled him like he puzzled her clicks into place. 'L-lightning..?'
She wonders what clinched that realisation. The way she'd said his name, reminiscent of when she'd awoken after her crystal sleep and chased after Snow in Yusnan? Or was it the hair? The manner? The way she'd gripped his wrist. She doesn't remember having done so before, but with two life's memories and the timeless Valhala to recall, there is much forgotten. She's surprised she remembers how she'd addressed him that first day, until, reminiscent of her own words over a thousand years before, he'd said: "Call me Hope."
He seems to have forgotten that moment though. He's called her Lightning, not Light. Not Claire either, but none of the former l'Cie called her Claire, except sometimes Serah and that was because she'd been Claire for twelve years of Serah's life before things changed.
And she's Claire now, in her new life where the scraps of memories from the old world only know her as Lightning or Saviour and Claire Farron is a blessed anonymity. And she corrects him, even though it's just the two of them and she's sure to hear anyone too close to the door. 'Claire,' she corrects. Then, as the shock decides it wants to get a word in, she adds, yanking his wrist a tad: 'And what are you doing here? Like this? Where are your parents?'
Because she's positive they've been reborn. She even checked: three of the few people she does check on when her memories washed over her at twenty-one. Some coming of age that was, she'd thought at the time. Still does. And the whispers of Saviour that'd practically haunted her footsteps suddenly made sense. She still doesn't remember most of them. But the important people she seeks out, makes sure they're safe. Only Caius is missing and she knows why. So something's happened within the last two years to change things. And she wants to know what.
He bites his lip and looks anywhere but at her – as opposed to that scorching stare that wouldn't leave her alone before. 'Please let go.'
She's still holding his wrist. His fingers flex, then extend. Into a fist, then open and flat like a yoyo will bounce back into it. 'Answers first,' she orders. He's different. Very different. Like the child that had rubbed her the wrong way, those first few weeks as l'Cie. The kid who hid from battles, who ran away from memories. Except there's something wrong with that description as well and she can't quite put her finger on it.
He starts laughing before another pieces of the puzzle slips into place. A laugh that's all too familiar: that echoes in the backdrop of her nightmares, and it cuts off the moment she recognises it. With a thud. She's dropped the wrist in her surprise. Become slow.
He slips away from her before she can catch him again.
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She has ample time to think in her plain, one-room apartment. Serah describes it as a box when she visits, and it is. There are only two doors and one leads outside. The other separates the bathroom from the living space. But that's all she needs and it's fine for her: a place to smoulder through life until the fire finally catches light.
The wrong sort of fire, in this case. Bhunivelze should be deep in the unseen realm and yet that laugh had been distinctly his. His when he'd doused Hope's soul and stepped in: the perfect space-filling, ignorant God. She wonders if he was lying, sometimes, when he says he has no understanding of human emotions, of hearts, of souls – but she knows it's not a lie, ultimately, because a God blind to nothing and capable of all is impossible to fathom and impossible to defeat. A pinnacle of perfection that exceeds all natural laws, and it was only Bhunivelze's deficiency in understanding humankind that allows the miracle to prevail.
Or, perhaps in this quieter and tamer world, she's lost the power to fight such things and simply accepts them. There are lots of Gods, now, and lots of religions. She follows none of them herself but hears of them: knocking on her door, standing on the streets, streaming to their temples and churches and mosques and perhaps she's generalising there but they don't really concern her. Unless they grow as fanatical as the group in Luxion. Or their God happens to be Bhunivelze or Etro, or their Saviour the woman with rose-coloured hair.
Of course, all three of those exist. It frustrates her but Bhunivelze in particular has escaped true death – the sort where no-one recalls even a wisp of his name or being – but it's part of the choice they've all made and fought for, to remember their past and Bhunivelze is a part of that past. He's harmless as a belief that's drifted through from old memories, so long as his devout followers cause no trouble but Hope – Hope is an entirely different tale, and she's never even considered the possibility that she may not have separated the two as thoroughly as she'd hoped.
More risky, and more bearable, a thought was that it was simply memory – muscle memory – at play. A hundred and sixty-nine years as Bhunivelze's puppet, and the years before that she'd slept in crystal stasis for… They were all different, in this new world. All carrying the scars of the past they'd refused to leave behind. She's seen Snow's scars more prominently than Serah's, and whether that's because Snow had five hundred years on her sister or because he's always worn his heart on his sleeve is anyone's guess, and an unnecessary thing to puzzle over to boot.
Hope is an entirely other matter. She'd been so sure she'd saved him. Still wanted to believe she had. But the hope she'd met: clearly hiding from something and willing to go so far to do it – it might be unrelated to the past, some present she can't grasp without more information. It might on the other hand be that past, and either way, she has to see him again, and know.
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She is surprised to see no Hope in the bar that night. The manager simply shrugs and mutters something about kids drifting till they find a more permanent place to settle down. She reads that more deeply. She has to, because what else can have prompted him to leave except their little confrontation in the bathroom? And it frustrates her that she's waited until her shift to check, for simple ease, and now she has to work till seven the next morning before she can look for him again.
She's fairly sure that, if she just explains the situation, the manager will give her the night off. Still, she doesn't. She waits the shift through instead. Leaves less bruises than normal because she's distracted by thoughts: thoughts of Hope, thoughts of Bhunivelze, thoughts of her own nightmares…
The men mutter about the wild waitress of the bar being a little tamer and think they can get a collar over her head this night. They forget waitresses have always been off limits, whether it's the person themselves or the bouncer, and they forget she has an eternity of combat experience under her belt. Her distraction is no loss to her safety, though the feeling of their hands on her bare thighs makes her skin crawl when she finally recognises it, after the screams of pain and profanities and the demands for a noose around her neck. And maybe she's gone too far, too. She'll find out tomorrow because she can't wait a second longer than the end of her shift and she's out the door before the clean-up is thrown at anyone – or her.
She's still not sure where to start searching, or what she'll do with the answers she's searching for. She wanders aimlessly for a bit, staring at the missing people posters more diligently than she ever has before and not spotting one with his face on it – but why would she? They're miles from where she knows the Estheims to live and Hope's not the hope of mankind any more.
She can only imagine Snow's reaction to all this when he finds out. And she doesn't doubt he will. If not from her directly, then from Serah. The cost of her distraction is control and no way she's going to slip past her sister like this.
It's too bad Hope did manage to slip past her. Or Bhunivelze – and she brushes that unwelcome thought aside because it's a nightmare and that's all. False. For both of them, and the shock is her fault for not considering, for not even thinking of how the others handled the onslaught of memories of their past. There was only Serah, and Snow. And the others…she'd looked them up, confirmed they were alive, and then just left it at that. And they've all done the same, not seeking out each other – except Snow. He found Serah and this time they're married but they're not the cute happy couple from Bodhum before the Pulse fal'Cie had butted in, and it's depressing to watch them sometimes because she wants him to be the idiot he always was and wants her to be the sweet, innocent little girl that needs protection and maybe she's been thinking of Hope like that as well, the scared boy who'd lost his mother and trailed after her like a lost kitten trying to sharpen its claws.
It's her mistake. Again. Serah wouldn't have become a l'Cie if they hadn't argued about Snow. Snow wouldn't have become one for chasing after her, and Hope wouldn't have had to chase after Snow and be swept up in it as well. Of course, she knows Hope would still be on the Purge train, with his mother. They'd fall off Hanging Edge to their deaths, or be sent to Pulse for a slightly better fate. He'd have Airwing with him, probably – actually, she wasn't sure but boomerangs weren't exactly common and the fact that he'd actually known how to throw it to some effect meant he'd had some experience with it, so logic dictates he'd brought Airwing from Palumpolum. In any case, there was no guarantee he'd have survived.
She sighs. That was a thousand years ago. Mistakes she can no longer regret because she's seen the ripple of change up and down the timelines, thanks to Serah and Noel and Caius and Yuel and Snow, and even Hope. Trying to keep the guy alive when every other paradox seems to end in him dead. But that's all over too. Echoes of a past that've dug their roots in deep and she's a fool to let someone else's scars shake her when she's got scars too.
Still. That laugh. Bhunivelze. Nightmare incarnate. And until she can irrevocably convince herself of the truth, it'll haunt her.