a chaotic heart
Chapter 6

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She remembers in the late hours of the morning, after she's wasted her night off staring at black and fallen asleep in the false dawn. But Snow's name is blearing in her head and she calls his number before she can chicken out – because she just doesn't ask Snow for help for things that don't relate to Serah: Snow offers or she does without. But that hadn't always been true. At one point in their travels, in their tenure as l'Cie, she'd asked for his help with Hope. And that's what I'm doing now. Even if it's no longer about being unable to admit to needing something from an oaf like him.

Oaf is more affectionate nowadays than anything. Just like "Sis" is no longer a teasing tone.

'Hey Sis,' he answers, along with a roar of wind. Driving out in the countryside again, she muses. A far stretch from Yusnan, but that's what calls him there.

'I need a ride,' she says abruptly. 'And some information.'

'Now?' He's surprised. Abruptness is a second nature to her but the demand for something is not and they both know it.

'Soon,' she amends. 'I guess you'll want breakfast.' She knows from Serah that Snow tends to drive around for a bit before coming home for a late bite, rather than eating with Serah before she rushes off to school before eight.

'An hour?' he volunteers. 'But where to?'

She gives him the address. 'We might be there for a few hours,' she adds. 'And yes, you too.'

He doesn't ask why. He'll ask eventually. Once, he'd have asked straight away and she's starting to miss his spontaneity, now that he's mellowed out a bit – or a lot.

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'Estheim?' Snow repeats, over the roar of the engine and the wind. 'Has something happened with the kid?'

That's another thing Claire finds herself missing: the humour Snow would throw anywhere and everywhere and often inappropriately. The question is too matter of fact now. Too raw. But she can't blame him for it at all. He did have to sit and watch while everyone he cared about slipped away.

And he's the only person Hope slipped away from, instead of the other way around. Though the opposite is also true. Hero wanders into a time portal and disappears for four hundred years, only to pop back into existence with omens of an impending assassination. But he was still the old Snow back then. She saw it from Valhalla. Many times, with the warning coming at many times: too early, too late, just on time…

'Short story is Hope is…' What was the short version? '…in a bad way, and his parents want to know what happened in the past so they can understand what's going on now.'

The motorcycle skids a bit before Snow straightens it out. 'In a bad way how?' he exclaims, before coughing and looking straight ahead, eyes burning into the stretched out road.

She's shocked him, and she wonders why, whether it's her lack of people skills again or something deeper she's skimmed over or simply not recognised. 'I saw him a few days ago,' she begins, 'but didn't recognise him. He'd switched his hair and eye colours: dye and contacts. Saw him again in the bar I work at, wiping down the tables. One night, one of his contacts fell out, and…'

'Hope has pretty memorable eyes,' Snow finishes for her, voice weighed down. 'No mistaking them.'

'Yep.' She sighs as well, a sigh that's swallowed by the wind. Except it is possible to mistake them. With Bhunivelze's eyes, equally green. 'I cornered him in the bathroom, but he – manages to slip away.' She doesn't say why. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

He doesn't ask; as unusual as it is for someone to slip past her, Hope had always stood the best chance.

'I looked around for him after work,' she continued, after a moment to collect the strands of her tale. 'Couldn't find him. Called his parents. Found out they haven't seen him for weeks.'

Snow's head whips around again, before snapping back to the road. 'He ran away from home?!'

'Not exactly,' she admits. 'It's a bit more complicated. Bartholomew said this has happened before. Several times. And he winds up coming back after a month or so. And…a few other things.' There's too much. The Estheims can explain better than her. 'Seems like all that time with Bhunivelze's messed with him.'

She's forgotten Snow doesn't know the tale, that no-one does, except Claire and Hope and Bhunivelze, and all the others know is that Hope disappeared a hundred and sixty-nine years before the end of the world, only to appear as a conduit on the Ark for the Saviour in the last thirteen days.

But Snow doesn't ask this time, and the rest of the drive is silent.

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Claire realises after Snow's parked his motorcycle that she hasn't given Bartholomew a time to expect them, but he opens for the door when they knock and isn't too surprised to see the extra person. 'Snow, was it?' he checks.

Snow nods, and the father invites them both inside. 'Nora!' he calls. And Nora comes hurrying out and Claire almost crashes into Snow because he's frozen in the foyer, staring at her. Remembering her death in the old world, no doubt. He's killed a bunch of monsters and PSICOM soldiers since, but the innocent are always, and especially to heroes, more memorable.

But he collects himself at their concerned looks and they sit on the couches in the living room together.

And then silence, because none of them really know where to start.

Bartholomew does, eventually. 'This is Lightning – I mean, Claire Farron, and Snow Villiers,' he explains to his wife. 'They were very good friends of Hope's in the old world. Almost like his parents.' And there's a fond little smile at the end of that statement that catches them both off guard. Them, parents? And Snow is Serah's wife to boot.

'I think I'm just the annoying uncle,' Snow coughs, after a moment.

'Nonsense,' says Bartholomew crisply. 'It takes a man of great courage and character to do what you did for us.'

And he doesn't know the half of it, Claire thinks. Doesn't know how she'd given Hope her survival knife and encouraged him on his vendetta for revenge. Doesn't know how close Hope was with following through with it. Doesn't know exactly how Snow got hurt that badly. Why Hope had been in a situation that sent him flying off the bridge from an explosion to begin with.

Nora is nodding and offering small smiles to the both of them. 'I don't remember.' Claire knows this. Snow doesn't. 'But I'm grateful nonetheless, for what you've done for my husband and son in the other world, and for coming all the way here today as well. And… and for taking the time to call us and let us know our son is safe…'

Safe? Claire wonders. An underage child in a bar is not safe at all, in her opinion.

'We should start from the beginning,' says Bartholomew, and then stops. Where is the beginning? 'Well, neither Hope nor I remembered the other world initially. We both remembered bits soon after he turned fourteen, and I've remembered a bit more since then. Mostly about Rygdea and the cavalry, and making plans to build a government-free research institute.'

'The Academy,' says Snow. 'It eventually becomes Academia, the capital city and foundation of Gran Pulse. And Hope becomes the Director after you retire in 10AF.' No-one speaks, and so he continues. 'He's researching paradoxes mostly – do you remember anything about paradoxes?' Bartholomew shakes his head. Snow gestures at Claire, who sighs.

'We defeated Orphan, freeing the people of Cocoon from the rule of the Fal'Cie,' she begins, mostly for Nora's benefit. 'Fang and Vanille become the crystal piller that stops Cocoon from crashing down onto Gran Pulse and destroying every living thing. Soon after that though, I'm swept into chaos and forgotten. The world thinks I was in that pillar too.'

'Our memories changed,' Snow clarifies. 'Only Serah – my wife and Sis's sister – remembered that she'd been on the plains of Gran Pulse with us after Orphan's defeat.'

'This is a paradox,' Claire finishes. 'The most difficult of them. Others pop up, some after others have been solved, and the true timeline was buried in them. I was outside time, by that point. In a place called Valhalla, or the Unseen Realm. And I was fighting the man responsible for these paradoxes: a man called Caius. Busy with him, I needed someone else to correct the paradoxes. The only other person who could see them. The only person I thought I could trust. Serah. So I send her with Noel, the last human alive – from 700AF, who's somehow stumbled into Valhala – to gates through time to fix them.'

'I've already set off,' Snow continues. 'Serah was the only one who remembered Sis but I trusted my…fiancé, at the time. I went searching for her. Stumbled into a few time gates, got my l'Cie powers back, tried to prevent the crystal pillar from collapsing – ' The Estheims start, and Snow realises that needs explanation too.

'The crystal pillar.' Claire sighs again. Why am I doing the hard work? 'It's prophesised to collapse in 500AF, in the original time and even with most of the distortions. A few speed up the process, but those are the first ones straightened out. There are various reasons, some due to the paradox, and others not. It was impossible to stop Cocoon falling anyway. I don't know what happens then though. I was…in crystal stasis again.'

'Cocoon falls,' says Snow. 'But Hope and the Academy manage to make a whole new Cocoon and shoot it into the sky – without the Fal'Cie!'

'Amazing,' Bartholomew breaths. 'That would have been considered impossible, back then.'

'Was impossible,' Snow grins. 'Wouldn't have been possible without time travelling. What happens with that is that Hope becomes the Director in 10AF while continuing research into the paradox and adding on the disappearance of all his friends – Sis, then me, then Sazh and Dajh, then Serah… you get the idea.' He throws up his arms. 'We've all stumbled into time gates and wound up elsewhere, but the kid's still in his time and wondering what the hells is going on. Then Serah and Noel stumble into him at some ruins in 10AF. Twice, actually, because the first time was a paradox that they resolve.'

'But Hope does travel in time, in the end?' Nora asks. 'To be in 500AF…'

'He does that himself,' says Claire with a bit of a snort. 'Builds a time capsule or something. Completely scientific while the rest of us are tossed around with magic mumbo jumbo.'

'Amazing,' says Bartholomew again, and they realise how far they've wandered off track.