a chaotic heart
Chapter 8

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'I guess,' Bartholomew begins, after a false start, 'it began as soon as Hope was born. He was fussy like all babies, but…strange.'

'As in he'd have moods,' Nora explains, 'happy one moment, sad the next. Normal I suppose for young children, but it continued – still continues. And now it's more than the difference between screaming and crying, and happy gurgles.'

'We didn't think much of it at first,' Bartholomew admits. 'We were first time parents – as far as we remembered – and children are different to adults. But sometimes he frightened us. The way he laughed. The way he was terrified of nothing at all. And when he started talking, he babbled about souls and chaos and being saved – or not being saved, or both.'

Claire's expression tightens. From then. Snow frowns. The problem is starting to come together, but he stares at Claire anyway. Stares because he wonders how they've wound up here, here where they're necessary in putting this puzzling puzzle together.

'And when he's…about two years old, we set up play dates and things,' Nora continues, 'to get him used to other kids before he starts school. Except he used to hide in a corner and watch them silently…and then cry when they weren't there. We just didn't know what to do, and we worried about what would happen when he started school. But school seemed okay.'

'We did get comments from the teachers,' Bartholomew adds. 'How he doesn't participate in group activities. How he's so quiet. But there's no wild laughing or wild crying. Maybe because he was busy learning? Enjoying it? We have no idea. But then he got older, and classes became more…sedentary, I guess. And kids became crueller.'

'Bullies,' says Snow, and his lips curl into a fairly good imitation of Claire's own sneers. 'Like growing up isn't hard enough.'

Bartholomew shrugs. 'We fear the different, and the unknown, I suppose. In any case, Hope starts to stay late after school. Not really participating in sports or clubs, but watching them. We set ground rules. Make sure we know when he plans to stay back, so we can pick him up. At some point it becomes every day and we debate on putting our foot down, but…we allow it. As for friends, he hasn't really made any in this world. Sometimes people try. They give up after awhile. Except…except Alyssa. But she's less of a friend and more of a worried classmate. She brings the homework he misses, and things like that. Like she feels guilty.'

'Maybe it's her way of atoning for something she couldn't control,' says Nora. 'In any case, we're grateful for her. She hasn't seen Hope himself for a couple of years now, but she still brings his homework for him, every week. And small snacks and things too.'

Snow mutters something. They allow it. Noel probably feels the same way about her.

'And, sometimes,' Bartholomew closes his eyes, 'when he's alone, or just with us, he acts…different.'

Clare stiffens. Snow just blinks. 'How do you mean?' he asks.

'It depends,' Bartholomew hedges. Nora grasps his hand, intertwining their fingers, and their warmth. 'Sometimes, he's scratching at himself. Drawing blood. When he got a bit older – entered high school – he started using other objects too. Rulers. Pens. A kitchen knife a couple of times. We put a lock on the door.'

Snow bites his lip. Draws blood. Claire wonders how she didn't see this tale in those scars. Do they heal better? Are they hidden better? What else can't she see? What else can he – Hope – take?

'Other times, he's…' He falters again. Nora's knuckles are white in his grip and so are his. 'So distant, like he's someone else. Talks to use, talks to others – but it's like he's talking about somebody else. Like those things mean nothing to him. Even…Nora's death. When he remembered. Some time after his fourteenth birthday.'

That surprises them both. Even the twenty-seven year old Academy Director hadn't been able to keep the emotion out of his voice when he spoke about his mother. And both of them, better than anyone, had seen the depth of the grief he'd held for her.

And, to Claire especially, it's frightening. It's the Hope in the Ark. Not the boy they'd travelled with as l'Cie. Not the man who became the future of humanity – a burden that always had been too much for one person, and yet he'd shouldered it without complaint and for as long as he could.

'We took him to doctors.' Nora picks up the explanation. 'They diagnosed him with a few things. They kept changing their minds.' She shakes her head. 'Something about the guidelines being…inexact. Anxiety and depression. Schizophrenia and bipolar. They said psychiatric…problems overlap, their boundaries all muddled up and they can't place a name on it because they can't really understand.'

Of course, Claire thinks. The doctors know nothing of the past to be able to understand.

'They put him on medications. Different sorts. Some work for a bit. Others don't work at all. Most of the time, he's either too quiet or too…not. So many times he's thrown the pills away and we can't force him because they're not helping. They're just tipping the see-saw – ' She cuts herself off, swallowing dryly.

'And then he turned fourteen,' says Bartholomew, after a floundering pause. 'Turned fourteen and remembered – some things. I'm not sure how much. Nora's death. Bhunivelze. The Saviour. Somebody failing.'

'Me,' Claire admits, after another pause. 'He means I failed to save him. He's said as much when I saw him.'

Nora's free hand reaches over the coffee table between them, and Claire accepts it. 'You have saved him,' she says, softly. 'I don't recall any of this but still, I know it's the truth. And you have saved our son. Many times. More than we, his parents, can ever hope to repay.' Her tone is earnest. Slightly louder when their volumes have fallen over the course of the puzzle they piece together. And her hand, though shaking, is warm.

'Thank you.' But she can't really accept that, and she lets go after a bit. 'But I spent thirteen days with the Hope in the Ark and not even realising there was something wrong.' And worse, I didn't trust him – no matter the Hope on the final day said it was the right thing I did.

'You also woke up thirteen days before the end of the world,' Snow points out, 'and we – Noel and me especially – don't exactly make your job easy. Easy enough to get distracted.'

'I shouldn't have been,' she counters, fingers curling into fists. 'I saw Hope every day, after all. Talked to him. Thought about all the odd things he said, and how he never even tried to leave the Ark – just said he couldn't. And why? I never bothered asking.' The words tumble out of her. Words she's never said aloud, barely allowed herself to even think. 'And the second last day, he asks me what's going to happen to his soul when Vanille does the Soulsong and I don't have the brains to figure out what he even means.'

Snow's reached over and grabbed her wrists before she can hit her temples. She glares at him. He grimaces. 'That glare of yours has lost its touch, Sis.'

'I blame Lumina,' she mumbles.

'Huh?'

'Not relevant.' But nobody knows the truth about Lumina, except for her. Serah might have worked it out, if she'd borne witness to the times. But she hadn't, and it was Serah's absence that had bred much of that despair or is that just another excuse of hers, and even Serah couldn't have stopped Etro's champion from crossing into Bhunivelze's hands instead.

Then again, maybe Lumina is relevant. 'Lumina was a child who appeared a little before the end of the world,' she explains, turning away from Snow. 'Generally up to mischief, though she does do a few good and bad things as well. Helps Sazh out. Also betrays Fang and gives Vanille everything she needs to complete the Soulsong.'

'Works out in the end,' Snow reminds her. 'We destroy the box and Vanille sends the dead here.'

'Of course.' She closes her eyes. 'No-one understood, at first. Children couldn't be born since Chaos infected the world, and Lumina wasn't there before. I thought, sometimes, she was Serah – Serah's spirit. But she wasn't. She was me: the weak and childish part of myself I'd cut away of my own free will, to become strong so I could protect Serah. The part of myself I refused to acknowledge – and I would be in the Unseen Realm as the new goddess of death if I hadn't, in that final moment. And if Hope hadn't turned his back on the chance to reunite with you two and come back for me.' She twists herself out of Snow's grip. 'Stupid kid.'

'That's my line,' says Snow, and his lips twitch, but don't form a smile. 'But there's also no guarantee we'd have defeated Bhunivelze if he hadn't done that. And he came back anyway.'

She shrugs. 'Did he really?' she wonders. 'He can't decide whether he's Bhunivelze or his puppet, and…I really don't know either,' she confesses.

Her eyes are still dry. Maybe it's not Lumina who'd taken that ability to cry from her.