Fic: Do I Dare Disturb the Universe? 4/?
Title: Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?
Author: frkmgnt1
Rating: PG-13 or T (Pick your poison.)
Chapter 4: Time Enough for You and Me
Pairing: Snow/Lightning, Snow/Serah
Word Count so far ~25,000
Description: Snow has something he needs to say. Lightning cannot hear it.
Genre: Angst angst and more angst. Romance (Oh my god! I wrote Romance. WTF?)
This started life as a one shot, and perhaps should have stayed that way. But the characters nagged me to continue the story and SOMEONE challenged me to write a story without a doomed Snow/Lightning pairing. That's not easy to do and I'm not sure I'll pull it off. But I'm sure as hell going to try it!
"Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?"
-Excerpt from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot
Time Enough for You and Me
"So I was thinking," Serah says as she sets the kettle on the stove to boil, "maybe we should try to go out and visit Sazh and Dajh." She smiles at the idea. A distraction seems like just what the doctor ordered. "And I know that Hope will be happy to see you!" She knows that Snow misses his friends--especially Hope, who came to mean so much to him on their journey (not that either of them would ever admit it.) Besides, all this idle nail biting is taking its toll on her. On them. Ever since Claire...she shakes her head. She can't think about her sister right now. It's too upsetting.
She catches her original train of thought.
"Sazh offered to pick us up whenever we want. I think he's still secretly pissed," or not so secretly, "that we didn't settled over here instead of near him. We could go after the storm settles. It shouldn't be more than another day or so." She hopes. It's been too long already. Too long and her sister out in it. She stalls the line of thought. She can't go there.
"And it's probably warmer by them," /wishful thinking, Serah/ "and his last message said he could use some help." She turns around, expecting an answer from her fiancé. Any answer will do.
Snow doesn't answer; he doesn't even look like he's heard a word she said. He just stares out the window at the mounting snowfall. He's chewing on the cuticle of his right thumb. She can see the blood welling on his other fingers where he's bitten them all ragged. It's the same position he's been in for days. He's peering out the window like he can stop the snow falling by force of will alone.
"Snow?"
He doesn't answer, doesn't even flinch. She can see the dark circles that are nearly bruises under his eyes. His entire body is rigid and stooped with exhaustion. She heaves a sigh.
This is getting old.
"Yeah, so then I'm moving back to Cocoon tomorrow. I thought it might be nice to go live in a giant shell. What do you think, babe?"
"Uh huh," he grunts. "Sounds good."
She shakes her head and smiles, but there's no humor in it. Unbelievable!
None of this is funny anymore. All traces of her usual humor are gone.
"I'm leaving tomorrow," she declares. She decides to be as ridiculous as the situation. "Sazh and I are going to elope. Wanna be best man?"
"Hmm, sure." She pauses there, waiting. Seconds tick off like eons. She watches his brow furrow in confusion as her words finally register with him. "Wait, what?" He turns towards her for an explanation.
She raises her eyebrow at him and he lets out a sigh. "I'm sorry, Serah. I didn't mean to..."
"Ignore me?" She says it with as little emotion as possible. This isn't an accusation, after all. Being distracted isn't a crime. Neither is being worried.
He opens his mouth to protest before conceding. "Yeah. I mean no. I'm just..." he turns to look back out the window. He can't take his eyes off the snowfall for more than a few seconds. Hasn't been able to for days.
Enough. It's enough. She can't watch this train wreck anymore. She heaves out a sigh bigger than she is.
"I can't do this anymore Snow." He turns to her looking panicked. She winces, realizes exactly what she said and how she said it. It came out wrong, for sure. She rephrases. "I can't watch you do this anymore."
"I don't...I'm just..." he stammers, trying to cover, searching for an explanation. She lets the moment expand, waits to see if he'll finish a sentence. The silence hangs until it strangles. Another minute, and it will start to stink. She decides to do something before that happens.
"You're just worrying about my sister," she finishes for him.
"What? No, that's not it." The denial is ridiculous and she actually barks out a laugh at him. Of course he's worrying about her sister. If he weren't worrying about her sister, she'd punch him in his face. Claire is out who-knows-where doing who-knows-what. She's worrying about her sister! She hasn't slept for her worry. Her eyes feel like someone poured sand into them after days of crying.
All she's done for her entire life, it seems, is worry about Claire. Claire is the most infuriating, loving, self destructive person Serah knows. If Claire isn't hiding, she's fighting. If she isn't fighting, she's running. Right now, it seems she's doing all those things. "Well, I mean, yeah, I don't want anything bad to happen to her." He tries to look and sound casual.
He fails.
"Please! Don't do that. Okay? Don't insult my intelligence." The kettle starts whistling and she shuts off the heat. She pours it into the mugs, smells the chocolate scent waft up and smiles. She can't look at him when she says, "I see what's going on."
Snow walks over to her and takes her arm, turns her around with such care. He's always so careful with her. So gentle. Like he's terrified he might break her in half. Not like with Claire. She's seen him spar with her sister as if she were a man his size--as if she were his equal. The thought rings true and she feels a sting at the knowledge. She is his equal. More than a match for him. After all, she's seen Claire kick his ass!
"Nothing is going on." He's adamant. "Nothing! I swear it on my life, Serah."
It's a relief, though she'll never admit it.
"I know." She believes him. The idea of duplicitous affairs between her sister and fiancé seems absurd. Neither one of them have it in them to do something that terrible. Not to her anyway.
She loves them and they love her. She has no doubts about it.
She sips her cocoa and it warms the cold place that's invading her heart and soul. She places her mug on the counter, adds more hot water, stirs the cocoa in both cups before handing him one. He looks at it like it's a poisonous snake, takes it, sniffs it, sips it, then sets it on the counter with a scowl. She blows on her cup again and says, "It would almost be easier if it were."
"Serah!" He's horrified and appalled. Good! It's about time he joined her in this conversation. It's about time he rejoined their life!
"I think I'd know what to do with infidelity," she keeps going. "I could...be mad. Feel betrayed. I could throw things. I could hate you and plan and plot vengeance. But this?" She waves her hand around to convey exactly what 'this' is. He still looks adorably confused. "This...broken pining." He opens his mouth to deny and she talks right over him. She can't hear his denials right now. "What do I do with that Snow?"
"Serah, please!" He looks so broken. She feels terrible for doing this to him when he's so frazzled. He hasn't slept in days. He's been struggling to be strong for her while hiding his own misery. He's been carrying a weight that she's only just now beginning to understand. She feels like a terrible person for adding to it right now but she steels herself and does it anyway. "It's nothing like that!"
Isn't it?
She spent days feeling the pain inside him, seeing it on his face. At first she thought it was for her benefit. It didn't take long to realize what was hurting him. Until this, she only had her suspicions. Things were strained and painful in ways that she couldn't understand. When she woke up, it seemed as if her sister and her lover had mended fences. They spent...a long time fighting back to back and side by side. The hostility that she remembered simply evaporated and left her with a family!
A few weeks into their new lives, she realized that she preferred the hostility; she knew how to deal with that. But averted glances, stilted conversation and weighted silences were beyond her ken. She couldn't figure out what the hell was going on around her. Everything was so anxious. Claire retreated so far into herself that Serah couldn't find a hint of her. In fact, she could barely find any trace of Lightning anymore. She was more like a ghost haunting that crappy house than the vibrant woman that she used to be. Serah was terrified that she was going to lose her sister even as her sister was standing right in front of her.
Then she did lose her. Claire just...left.
The wounds from that abandonment are still bleeding even now. But one good thing came from it: Claire leaving distilled everything; boiled it down and revealed to Serah all the answers she couldn't quite place.
She would thank her sister if she didn't want to smack her across the face for this stunt.
"Please what?" She asks. She's trying to keep her cool here. She keeps reminding herself that he didn't cause what is happening. She is not angry with him. "I can't compete with this yearning you have. And I don't want to."
"There's no competition," he insists. She feels the irritation explode out of her.
"Of course there isn't! Because the competition up and disappeared, didn't she?" He recoils like she just stabbed him in the chest. His whole body sags and bows under the weight of his secrets and self deprecation. She blows out a breath, takes another one to steady herself. This isn't the way she wants to do this. She doesn't want to blame her sister. It's not fair. And it's not the real problem either.
Claire being here wasn't the problem, and her being gone didn't solve it. Blaming her for any of this would be easy, but incorrect. The truth is much simpler and more complicated than her sister attracting her lover's attention. The truth is that she and Snow are different people now than they were when they fell in love. The things he saw and did changed him; the time she lost and missed changed her.
Not their fault, but miserable all the same. She needs to let Snow off the hook here though. Being mad at him might feel good, but it's wrong.
"Baby, I know that you're not the same person you were before Cocoon fell. I'm not either. I don't blame you for that. It's not your fault. It's not my fault. And it's not Claire's fault either." She puts her hand against Snow's face and watches his eyes close. "We're all damaged and different. We saw and lived through terrible things." She just stagnated through them, and maybe that's the real problem here. She DIDN'T see those things. They're all stories to her. "Maybe we were stupid trying to pretend everything was the same when nothing ever could be."
He withdraws from her. He looks like he's going to fall over any minute--like he can no longer hold himself up under this growing weight. He sits at their table, head in his hands, long legs spread. So miserable and injured, it breaks her heart.
"I love you Serah," he whispers to the tabletop. It's terrible and wonderful to hear it.
"Oh, I know you do Snow." She sinks into the chair next to him. "I never believed otherwise. I love you too. And maybe that's why I tried so hard to ignore what was happening. I figured it would go away and things could go back to the way they were." She wants to touch him, to comfort him, but she needs to stay her course here. She watches him wring his hands together. She lays her hand over his to still the movement. "But we can never go back, and all the wishing in the world won't make a damn bit of difference." She takes a deep breath and whispers, "The heart wants what it wants."
His eyes are threaded through with red when they meet hers. "I never wanted to hurt you. I hate myself for it." His words are like razor blades because she knows they're true. She hates the idea of him punishing himself for things that aren't his fault. "I swore it. And I thought..."
"You didn't. Okay? You haven't." She sighs. He tries to pull his hands out from under hers and she clings to him. How can she say this so he'll believe her? "I'm not saying it feels good," she says and watches him collapse a bit more. She continues with, "but you didn't hurt me." He doesn't believe her, but she can see he wants to. "You've hurt yourself though, haven't you?" You hurt my sister.
He shakes his head in denial. His eyes flicker to hers and then nail themselves to the table top again. He picks at his scabbing cuticles and she tightens her grip on his hands to stop the ruination. His fingers twitch beneath her hands, but he stops hurting himself. She can feel him trembling beneath her hands.
"So, it was the night you went for a walk, right?" She wondered what the hell got into him that would drive him out into the cold dark night. But he said he couldn't sleep, just needed to burn off some excess energy. Things had been so tense under the blanket of silence in their home that she was happy to have the reprieve. It never occurred to her that he would go to her sister. She thought that perhaps he was lost in memories of fighting. The 'war' had never been an easy subject for Snow or her sister, and Serah never pushed for answers. She suspected that he was wrestling with something enormous. It turns out, she was right. She just didn't realize how desperate he'd become. "I guess I really am dense," she chuckles.
His eyes snap up to hers, rounded and horrified. "Don't ever say that about yourself," he declares. "Never. You're...you're everything." There's a feeling like warm honey pouring through her. Still her hero, even now in the face of this ruin. It would be so easy to let this all go and try and force things back to normal.
No. That's not an option. She needs to get on track.
"Okay. You went to my sister's house and you finally told her..." she finds she's not brave enough to say it aloud for all her bravado. He looks away from her again. "You came home with some interesting bruises." She should have known. She should have seen it. He snorts a humorless laugh, but looks ill. She knows he never wanted to talk to her about this issue. She knows that if it were up to him (and Claire), Serah would never know any of the ugly things in the world.
She loves them and hates them for that. She's not sure which feeling is dominant anymore.
"And then she left the next day," Serah finishes.
"Nothing happened. I swear it." Well, that's not really true. But he's not talking about admissions and fighting. He's not talking about two people ripping each other to shreds to save a third. He's talking about sex. She already knows that never happened. If he'd had sex with her sister, she would have known it the moment he walked back into their home. Maybe before.
"Oh, I know that Snow. You don't have a mean or deceptive bone in your body." She stands up because she needs to do something. She hadn't expected this to be easy, but it's harder than she dreamed by a factor of ten. She pours out his cocoa, pours him out three fingers of bourbon instead. She places it on the table in front of him. He grasps it but doesn't drink. He won't look at her. She sinks back into her chair. "And my sister would never hurt me."
The words are bitter and angry. Serah wishes Claire were here right now so she could smack her upside her stubborn head. Claire ran away rather than face this problem. A woman who squared off against the most powerful beings on two worlds, who stared death in the eye and then spat in said eye, was actually a coward at heart. She ran from her little sister--a woman who makes her fiancé kill spiders in the bathroom. What the hell is wrong with this picture?
Oh, Serah already knows what Claire will say. She'll claim she didn't want to hurt Serah, and Serah knows that she'll mean that with all her heart. But Serah would like to know what the hell Claire thought she did when she disappeared without a word? When she went haring off on some idiotic self-sacrificing mission into a blizzard.
Serah's going to have words with Claire when she sees her again. If she sees her again. She slams the brakes on that line of thought. It won't do her any good to think such horrible things.
"It's not your fault Snow. I thought it was the battles. The war," she hates calling it that, but that's what it was. It was a war for the survival of humankind. And she SLEPT through all of it! "Or maybe that we'd just grown apart because of the time that we lost." Time that they stole from us. Time that my sister got to have with you. She closes her eyes. "But it wasn't any of that."
Snow shakes his head. "I still wanted you Serah. After everything, I wanted our life together."
"I know you did. And I did too." Part of her still does, but she will never speak of that again. "I think that was the problem. We were trying so hard to get back what we'd lost, that we didn't take the time to consider if it was really what we still wanted. We just...picked up where we'd left off and didn't think to wonder if we really wanted to live a life together, or wanted the idea of living a life together.." She wraps her fingers around his hands again. "But I deserve better than being the runner up in my own life and home. Better than being some sort of consolation prize."
He twists his hands through hers and looks into her eyes. "You were never a runner up." He lifts her hand and kisses it. "And you were never the consolation prize." She stares at him for a long moment, sees the truth in his eyes and smiles.
"I know." That's a lie. She wasn't sure at all anymore. He was so distant over the months; and time only pushed him farther away. She watched him disappear and she had no idea how to stop it. Still, he doesn't need to know any of that ever. Her insecurities are her business and will stay hers, now and forever. "But it's nice to hear though."
"I don't ever want you to think that about yourself. I love you." He's so sincere it breaks her heart.
"I know you do." And isn't that the tragedy here? He loves her, she loves him and it's not enough for either of them anymore. "But you're in love with my sister." He flinches like she's burned him, relaxes his grip on her fingers but doesn't pull away. He wants to, but he doesn't. He's got more guts than her sister, that's for sure. He's here dealing with this mess while she's off doing who knows what. "I think I saw that before any of this started. Back on Cocoon, on her birthday."
"No..." he shakes his head. "I loved you more than anything. I couldn't even stand her..." he trails off, face paling. Horrified by his use of past tense, perhaps. Or maybe for insulting Claire. She considers for a moment. Even odds-no bet. She nods at him, acknowledging the truth in his words.
"Yes, I know. But she brought out such fire in you. A passion that I never could, no matter what I did." He snaps his mouth shut and furrows his brow. Considering. He's never even considered it. Interesting.
She needs to move the conversation along. She doesn't want to know if she's right; it's bad enough having the suspicion. She never wants it confirmed, because that would make everything a lie. It's one thing for proximity, situational stress and camaraderie to create one set of feelings while murdering another set, but to find out that she took a back seat from the beginning. That's too much to take, even for her. She keeps right on going. "What I didn't count on--what I never counted on--was her being in love with you too."
"She's not," he blurts and somehow pales even more. He's now the color of his namesake. Any whiter and he'll disappear. She feels her face twist up into a mockery of her smile. And here's the real problem.
"Oh, I beg to differ," she laughs, takes a sip of her cooling cocoa. "You see, because the Claire I know-- excuse me, the Lightning I know? See, that woman would have put you in traction and then come over here to tell me what lousy piece of crap I was about to marry if you'd showed up in the middle of the night on her doorstep." Saying and doing who knows what. She bites the words back. She doesn't want to know what Snow said or did. She may be strong, but she's not an island. She's not a stone. She's not...Lightning.
And isn't that the problem here?
"She probably would have killed you for daring to hurt me." He lets out a small laugh but shakes his head once in denial. "But what did she do?"
He shakes his head hard, picks up his drink and takes a long swallow. She pretends she doesn't notice him trembling. She pretends it doesn't hurt. He wipes a shaking hand across his mouth then presses thumb and forefinger hard into his closed eyes.
"She sent you home to me." The words are more bitter than she intends. She can see they hurt him, and she's not sure if it's her tone or the words themselves. Perhaps it's a mix of both. He loves them both, after all. And doesn't that just suck?
"And then she packed up her whole life," she feels the tears burn her eyes and sniffs them back, "and disappeared." She looks out the window into the raging blizzard. "And she's out there getting her stupid self killed." She sobs, feels the fear she's been trying to repress rattle her entire body. It hits her like a gut shot and she feels nauseated and dizzy at once.
Her sister is going to kill herself. She may already be dead. Claire may have sacrificed herself in order to spare Serah's feelings. It's sickening! Then, the tiniest part of Serah is angry about the fact that she may be trashing her life right now for a dead woman, and why is she bothering?
She feels like a terrible person.
She doubles over, feels pain like she's never known rattle through her. The tears clog her nose, turn everything inside to liquid that wants to run out of her body too. She reaches for a napkin and wipes her face and wonders why she can't be one of those women who look beautiful when they cry. Serah's face gets blotchy, her nose spreads, her eyes get swollen and hideous. Claire looks like a damn painting when she cries! Why does Serah have to look like she's been boxing with gods?
"Light will be fine, Serah." He's comforting her and lying to her when he's spent the past five days pacing holes in their floors and refusing to eat. He's been so distracted between worrying and trying to hide it that he hasn't even really noticed his own misery. Or his distraction. Their lives are so screwed.
She doesn't dignify the lie. She pulls herself together and upright in one move. She sniffs, blinks and gets to the agonizing point of this mess. "I want you to go after her."
He recoils, looks like he's considering bolting out of the house into the snow in his light shirt and bare feet rather than continue this discussion. "She would never want that," he assures.
"This isn't about what she wants." It's about what I want. I can't live this lie as monkey in the middle anymore. "It's about what she needs." Mostly. "She needs you to go after her."
He shakes his head and says with more bitterness than she's ever heard from him. "She needs me to stay away from her." Serah closes her eyes. He's probably right. Claire would not want him to come after her. She's getting angry now. Really angry.
It feels great!
Perhaps this is why Claire decided to bury herself inside the hard shell of 'Lightning.' Claire was a girl who ached and hurt, while Lightning is a woman who rages and fights. It's hard to hurt when wrapped in the embrace of red hot anger. She may have just gained new insight into her sister. She hopes she'll get the chance to tell her.
"Maybe she does. Alright, we'll try this a different way then." She speaks through gritted teeth. "I'm tired of my sister sacrificing things for me. She's been doing it since we were kids. She gave up her childhood to let me have one. She gave up a normal future to let me have one. I'm not letting her give up..." you! She leaves the last unsaid because, against her wishes, it still hurts. The idea of this man with anyone but her makes parts of her hurt that she's never acknowledged before.
They are the wrong parts though. The one that is most injured is her ego.
"I don't want it anymore. I don't need it anymore!" She yells the rest. "I'm a grown woman and I can take care of myself." The last is aimed at him as much as her sister.
These two people who won't acknowledge that she's not some fragile porcelain doll on a shelf. Won't realize that she's a grown woman with her own backbone and her own voice. She may not be able to kill something with her bare hands, but so what? What did that prove?
They may both be warriors, but they're cowards. She just proved she's the bravest one of them all. She just poured gasoline on her life and ignited the damn pyre!
"Your sister loves you," he defends. Snow defending her sister against her is surreal. As if that is any excuse!
"And I love her. And I've watched her give up one thing after the next so I could be happy. And I took it all. She gave up her childhood to become a mother. She got a job to give me a nice home. She never let me reciprocate. But I can now and neither one of you is going to stop me!" He looks away. He looks ashamed. She grabs his chin and forces him to look back at her. "You love her. So what are you going to do about it, Hero?"
She watches his horror fade into indecision then into resolution. He smiles at her--a pale imitation of his usual grin, but progress all the same. She leans forward and kisses him, soft and lingering. His lips are dry and familiar and so, so warm. She holds the kiss longer, moves her lips over his to memorize the feel of them. She'll always love him, even if it no longer feels the same. Even if it feels hollow now.
"I'll always love you," he whispers. She giggles against his lips. He always was a smooth talker, and he knows her so damn well. She'll regret what they've lost, but she's not going to cling to the corpse of their love to the detriment of everything. She slides her palm over his face, feels the scruff of an extra two days worth of stubble. He's been so distracted that he hasn't even shaved.
"And I'll always love you too. Nothing will change that." She traces a thumb over his eyebrow, watches him close his eyes and lean into her touch. "You'll always be my first love. And my hero," she adds, because it's the truth. He sniffles, rubs his knuckles into his eye. "You came after me and saved me."
He swoops forward and gives her a deeper, longer kiss. He tastes of chocolate and bourbon, sorrow and memory. He breaks the kiss after a long moment, whispers against her lips and into her mouth: "We saved each other."
"Damn right we did. And now it's time to save Claire." He presses his forehead to hers and nods. "We always knew we were going to be family. We just got it a little backwards is all."
"I never deserved you." The words are breath brushing her lips.
"No you never did," she quips, annoyed at herself for the tears she can't stop. He kisses one away. She's not hurt or angry; not by him or her sister. They no more wanted to betray her than they wanted to destroy Cocoon. They both turned themselves inside out to make her happy and it didn't work.
Still, this ending is heartbreaking all the same. Something that has been a huge part of her life for years is dying. It's the end of her childhood. The end of her innocence. It's her first real sacrifice and the cut is deep and bloody. She's a woman now, sacrificing something dear to her for the sake of something precious. It's the right thing and it's a tragedy. It's unfair and beautiful. "But you might deserve Lightning." She sniffs and sits back, sips at her cooling cocoa.
Snow gives her a small smirk, nods and gets up from the table. She listens to him as he tears through their house, throwing together essentials into his pack. She walks back to her stove and lights the burner. The water in the kettle is still warm enough that it only takes a minute to boil. She pours herself another cup of cocoa, wraps her fingers around the mug and listens to her life unravel.
This home was never perfect, but it was hers. It was theirs. They built it to house their love, their family and it is lovely despite the sadness inside it. It will be lonely here for a time. Then it will be filled with shades and shadows. Eventually though, it will just be a place. A nice home by the sea.
Snow stomps into the living room and throws his pack onto the couch. He's shaking out the heavy coat Serah sewed for him during the cooling autumn. She smiles as he shrugs it on, knows that the fur lined leather will keep him warm. She lined his gloves too, and made him a hat that complimented his fashion sense.
Snow's a handsome man. What's more is he is very aware of it. It's one of the first things that she learned about him. She always found vanity unattractive and off-putting, but it looked different on him somehow. Perhaps because it lacked the usual condescension and arrogance. Snow believed himself stupid and unskilled. He treated his good looks as and big muscles as his only attributes.
He never gives a thought to his generous heart or unending loyalty. He never thinks that protecting people should count for anything.
He always sells himself so short.
So much like Claire. The thought never occurred to her before. She's always seen Snow and Claire as opposites, but perhaps they are mirror images. Two sides of the same coin.
She smiles around the sting of the thought. It'll take time, but she'll get used to it. She feels her lip quiver, and sucks in a hard breath. Takes a sip of her cocoa.
He sits and laces up his heavy boots. He glances over at her and stops moving. All the fierce determination leeches out of him as quickly as the color in his face. "Serah..."
She shakes her head at him. She can't waver here. It won't do any of them any good for her to cave into what's comfortable and easy. "You need to go."
"I don't..."
"Don't say anything. Alright? Just go." He stands, glances from the pack to her and back again. "You have to go now." He runs a hand roughly over his head. Shakes it once and looks back at her. Still her Hero, sacrificing his heart to protect his soul.
She loves him.
And that is why she must let him go. She loves him too much to settle. Or perhaps the truth is that she loves the man who proposed to her, and that person is gone now. This man is no more that Snow than Lightning is her sister 'Claire.' Both of those people are gone. Their trials as l'Cie took them from her as surely as death took her parents. The difference here is that her parents had the decency to stay dead. The war left behind these bodies to taunt and torment her.
Sometimes she wonders why she had to awaken.
She shakes off the encroaching depression. Such ingratitude is beneath her, and she doesn't really mean it anyway. She's just feeling sorry for herself, but there'll be time enough for that after Snow is gone.
Time enough...
She raises an eyebrow at him. "Put your hat on."
He does so without comment. Then he pulls on his gloves. He walks over to her and kneels before her.
"Swear to me that this is what you want. That you mean this. I love our life and I don't want to hurt you."
Translation: I'll settle for this life if it will make you happy.
She considers the question. There's damage to her pride, for sure. No one likes to know that someone has fallen out of love with them. But if she's honest, Snow's not the only one. They both tried very hard to carve out a future together from the wreckage of their lives. They held onto their dreams so hard that they didn't realize that dreams were all they were. The reality never quite measured up, though she would have been happy spending her life trying to make reality match her fantasy.
But she's not going to stay with a man who loves another woman--who loves her sister! And she won't remake a man that her sister loves as he is just to suit herself. She wants to be happy, but not if that happiness comes at such a steep cost.
And she deserves far better, damn it! She deserves to be the leading lady in her own life.
"You haven't. But staying with me and living a lie...that would have hurt me. I didn't deserve that just to preserve my delicate feelings." It cuts that they both thought her too fragile to handle the truth.
"That was never..."
"You're both idiots," she barks and he flinches. It feels good to lash out at him, but it's not how she wants this to end. She gentles her tone and her humor. "But I'll forgive that because I love you so dearly." She tugs his hat down over his ears and straightens the collars of his coat. "Now you go. Bring my sister home safe. Promise me!"
He nods, places his hand over his heart and says, "I swear on my life."
She remembers aching with love for this man. Remembers wanting everything two people could ever have and give. She wishes...
It doesn't matter what she wishes.
He stands up and she follows suit. She reaches up and pulls his hat tighter over his ears. He gives a pale, sad smile.He walks to his pack and slings it on and heads toward the door. She catches his hand when he reaches it and he turns around to face her. "You be careful." He nods and bends down and pulls her into another kiss. This one is bitter. And sweet. This one is farewell. He walks out the door into the blizzard. The air is frigid enough to burn on contact and she shuts the door behind him. She leans her forehead against it.
Please save her. She doesn't know what the hell they're going to do if they lose Claire.
TBC...
Now, I don't know what you'll think of my Serah. I don't like the idea of some stupid little girl being Lightning's sister. If Lightning is strong enough to give up everything for her sister, shouldn't her sister have some measure of that strength as well?
Feedback is love
Author: frkmgnt1
Rating: PG-13 or T (Pick your poison.)
Chapter 4: Time Enough for You and Me
Pairing: Snow/Lightning, Snow/Serah
Word Count so far ~25,000
Description: Snow has something he needs to say. Lightning cannot hear it.
Genre: Angst angst and more angst. Romance (Oh my god! I wrote Romance. WTF?)
This started life as a one shot, and perhaps should have stayed that way. But the characters nagged me to continue the story and SOMEONE challenged me to write a story without a doomed Snow/Lightning pairing. That's not easy to do and I'm not sure I'll pull it off. But I'm sure as hell going to try it!
"Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?"
-Excerpt from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot
Time Enough for You and Me
"So I was thinking," Serah says as she sets the kettle on the stove to boil, "maybe we should try to go out and visit Sazh and Dajh." She smiles at the idea. A distraction seems like just what the doctor ordered. "And I know that Hope will be happy to see you!" She knows that Snow misses his friends--especially Hope, who came to mean so much to him on their journey (not that either of them would ever admit it.) Besides, all this idle nail biting is taking its toll on her. On them. Ever since Claire...she shakes her head. She can't think about her sister right now. It's too upsetting.
She catches her original train of thought.
"Sazh offered to pick us up whenever we want. I think he's still secretly pissed," or not so secretly, "that we didn't settled over here instead of near him. We could go after the storm settles. It shouldn't be more than another day or so." She hopes. It's been too long already. Too long and her sister out in it. She stalls the line of thought. She can't go there.
"And it's probably warmer by them," /wishful thinking, Serah/ "and his last message said he could use some help." She turns around, expecting an answer from her fiancé. Any answer will do.
Snow doesn't answer; he doesn't even look like he's heard a word she said. He just stares out the window at the mounting snowfall. He's chewing on the cuticle of his right thumb. She can see the blood welling on his other fingers where he's bitten them all ragged. It's the same position he's been in for days. He's peering out the window like he can stop the snow falling by force of will alone.
"Snow?"
He doesn't answer, doesn't even flinch. She can see the dark circles that are nearly bruises under his eyes. His entire body is rigid and stooped with exhaustion. She heaves a sigh.
This is getting old.
"Yeah, so then I'm moving back to Cocoon tomorrow. I thought it might be nice to go live in a giant shell. What do you think, babe?"
"Uh huh," he grunts. "Sounds good."
She shakes her head and smiles, but there's no humor in it. Unbelievable!
None of this is funny anymore. All traces of her usual humor are gone.
"I'm leaving tomorrow," she declares. She decides to be as ridiculous as the situation. "Sazh and I are going to elope. Wanna be best man?"
"Hmm, sure." She pauses there, waiting. Seconds tick off like eons. She watches his brow furrow in confusion as her words finally register with him. "Wait, what?" He turns towards her for an explanation.
She raises her eyebrow at him and he lets out a sigh. "I'm sorry, Serah. I didn't mean to..."
"Ignore me?" She says it with as little emotion as possible. This isn't an accusation, after all. Being distracted isn't a crime. Neither is being worried.
He opens his mouth to protest before conceding. "Yeah. I mean no. I'm just..." he turns to look back out the window. He can't take his eyes off the snowfall for more than a few seconds. Hasn't been able to for days.
Enough. It's enough. She can't watch this train wreck anymore. She heaves out a sigh bigger than she is.
"I can't do this anymore Snow." He turns to her looking panicked. She winces, realizes exactly what she said and how she said it. It came out wrong, for sure. She rephrases. "I can't watch you do this anymore."
"I don't...I'm just..." he stammers, trying to cover, searching for an explanation. She lets the moment expand, waits to see if he'll finish a sentence. The silence hangs until it strangles. Another minute, and it will start to stink. She decides to do something before that happens.
"You're just worrying about my sister," she finishes for him.
"What? No, that's not it." The denial is ridiculous and she actually barks out a laugh at him. Of course he's worrying about her sister. If he weren't worrying about her sister, she'd punch him in his face. Claire is out who-knows-where doing who-knows-what. She's worrying about her sister! She hasn't slept for her worry. Her eyes feel like someone poured sand into them after days of crying.
All she's done for her entire life, it seems, is worry about Claire. Claire is the most infuriating, loving, self destructive person Serah knows. If Claire isn't hiding, she's fighting. If she isn't fighting, she's running. Right now, it seems she's doing all those things. "Well, I mean, yeah, I don't want anything bad to happen to her." He tries to look and sound casual.
He fails.
"Please! Don't do that. Okay? Don't insult my intelligence." The kettle starts whistling and she shuts off the heat. She pours it into the mugs, smells the chocolate scent waft up and smiles. She can't look at him when she says, "I see what's going on."
Snow walks over to her and takes her arm, turns her around with such care. He's always so careful with her. So gentle. Like he's terrified he might break her in half. Not like with Claire. She's seen him spar with her sister as if she were a man his size--as if she were his equal. The thought rings true and she feels a sting at the knowledge. She is his equal. More than a match for him. After all, she's seen Claire kick his ass!
"Nothing is going on." He's adamant. "Nothing! I swear it on my life, Serah."
It's a relief, though she'll never admit it.
"I know." She believes him. The idea of duplicitous affairs between her sister and fiancé seems absurd. Neither one of them have it in them to do something that terrible. Not to her anyway.
She loves them and they love her. She has no doubts about it.
She sips her cocoa and it warms the cold place that's invading her heart and soul. She places her mug on the counter, adds more hot water, stirs the cocoa in both cups before handing him one. He looks at it like it's a poisonous snake, takes it, sniffs it, sips it, then sets it on the counter with a scowl. She blows on her cup again and says, "It would almost be easier if it were."
"Serah!" He's horrified and appalled. Good! It's about time he joined her in this conversation. It's about time he rejoined their life!
"I think I'd know what to do with infidelity," she keeps going. "I could...be mad. Feel betrayed. I could throw things. I could hate you and plan and plot vengeance. But this?" She waves her hand around to convey exactly what 'this' is. He still looks adorably confused. "This...broken pining." He opens his mouth to deny and she talks right over him. She can't hear his denials right now. "What do I do with that Snow?"
"Serah, please!" He looks so broken. She feels terrible for doing this to him when he's so frazzled. He hasn't slept in days. He's been struggling to be strong for her while hiding his own misery. He's been carrying a weight that she's only just now beginning to understand. She feels like a terrible person for adding to it right now but she steels herself and does it anyway. "It's nothing like that!"
Isn't it?
She spent days feeling the pain inside him, seeing it on his face. At first she thought it was for her benefit. It didn't take long to realize what was hurting him. Until this, she only had her suspicions. Things were strained and painful in ways that she couldn't understand. When she woke up, it seemed as if her sister and her lover had mended fences. They spent...a long time fighting back to back and side by side. The hostility that she remembered simply evaporated and left her with a family!
A few weeks into their new lives, she realized that she preferred the hostility; she knew how to deal with that. But averted glances, stilted conversation and weighted silences were beyond her ken. She couldn't figure out what the hell was going on around her. Everything was so anxious. Claire retreated so far into herself that Serah couldn't find a hint of her. In fact, she could barely find any trace of Lightning anymore. She was more like a ghost haunting that crappy house than the vibrant woman that she used to be. Serah was terrified that she was going to lose her sister even as her sister was standing right in front of her.
Then she did lose her. Claire just...left.
The wounds from that abandonment are still bleeding even now. But one good thing came from it: Claire leaving distilled everything; boiled it down and revealed to Serah all the answers she couldn't quite place.
She would thank her sister if she didn't want to smack her across the face for this stunt.
"Please what?" She asks. She's trying to keep her cool here. She keeps reminding herself that he didn't cause what is happening. She is not angry with him. "I can't compete with this yearning you have. And I don't want to."
"There's no competition," he insists. She feels the irritation explode out of her.
"Of course there isn't! Because the competition up and disappeared, didn't she?" He recoils like she just stabbed him in the chest. His whole body sags and bows under the weight of his secrets and self deprecation. She blows out a breath, takes another one to steady herself. This isn't the way she wants to do this. She doesn't want to blame her sister. It's not fair. And it's not the real problem either.
Claire being here wasn't the problem, and her being gone didn't solve it. Blaming her for any of this would be easy, but incorrect. The truth is much simpler and more complicated than her sister attracting her lover's attention. The truth is that she and Snow are different people now than they were when they fell in love. The things he saw and did changed him; the time she lost and missed changed her.
Not their fault, but miserable all the same. She needs to let Snow off the hook here though. Being mad at him might feel good, but it's wrong.
"Baby, I know that you're not the same person you were before Cocoon fell. I'm not either. I don't blame you for that. It's not your fault. It's not my fault. And it's not Claire's fault either." She puts her hand against Snow's face and watches his eyes close. "We're all damaged and different. We saw and lived through terrible things." She just stagnated through them, and maybe that's the real problem here. She DIDN'T see those things. They're all stories to her. "Maybe we were stupid trying to pretend everything was the same when nothing ever could be."
He withdraws from her. He looks like he's going to fall over any minute--like he can no longer hold himself up under this growing weight. He sits at their table, head in his hands, long legs spread. So miserable and injured, it breaks her heart.
"I love you Serah," he whispers to the tabletop. It's terrible and wonderful to hear it.
"Oh, I know you do Snow." She sinks into the chair next to him. "I never believed otherwise. I love you too. And maybe that's why I tried so hard to ignore what was happening. I figured it would go away and things could go back to the way they were." She wants to touch him, to comfort him, but she needs to stay her course here. She watches him wring his hands together. She lays her hand over his to still the movement. "But we can never go back, and all the wishing in the world won't make a damn bit of difference." She takes a deep breath and whispers, "The heart wants what it wants."
His eyes are threaded through with red when they meet hers. "I never wanted to hurt you. I hate myself for it." His words are like razor blades because she knows they're true. She hates the idea of him punishing himself for things that aren't his fault. "I swore it. And I thought..."
"You didn't. Okay? You haven't." She sighs. He tries to pull his hands out from under hers and she clings to him. How can she say this so he'll believe her? "I'm not saying it feels good," she says and watches him collapse a bit more. She continues with, "but you didn't hurt me." He doesn't believe her, but she can see he wants to. "You've hurt yourself though, haven't you?" You hurt my sister.
He shakes his head in denial. His eyes flicker to hers and then nail themselves to the table top again. He picks at his scabbing cuticles and she tightens her grip on his hands to stop the ruination. His fingers twitch beneath her hands, but he stops hurting himself. She can feel him trembling beneath her hands.
"So, it was the night you went for a walk, right?" She wondered what the hell got into him that would drive him out into the cold dark night. But he said he couldn't sleep, just needed to burn off some excess energy. Things had been so tense under the blanket of silence in their home that she was happy to have the reprieve. It never occurred to her that he would go to her sister. She thought that perhaps he was lost in memories of fighting. The 'war' had never been an easy subject for Snow or her sister, and Serah never pushed for answers. She suspected that he was wrestling with something enormous. It turns out, she was right. She just didn't realize how desperate he'd become. "I guess I really am dense," she chuckles.
His eyes snap up to hers, rounded and horrified. "Don't ever say that about yourself," he declares. "Never. You're...you're everything." There's a feeling like warm honey pouring through her. Still her hero, even now in the face of this ruin. It would be so easy to let this all go and try and force things back to normal.
No. That's not an option. She needs to get on track.
"Okay. You went to my sister's house and you finally told her..." she finds she's not brave enough to say it aloud for all her bravado. He looks away from her again. "You came home with some interesting bruises." She should have known. She should have seen it. He snorts a humorless laugh, but looks ill. She knows he never wanted to talk to her about this issue. She knows that if it were up to him (and Claire), Serah would never know any of the ugly things in the world.
She loves them and hates them for that. She's not sure which feeling is dominant anymore.
"And then she left the next day," Serah finishes.
"Nothing happened. I swear it." Well, that's not really true. But he's not talking about admissions and fighting. He's not talking about two people ripping each other to shreds to save a third. He's talking about sex. She already knows that never happened. If he'd had sex with her sister, she would have known it the moment he walked back into their home. Maybe before.
"Oh, I know that Snow. You don't have a mean or deceptive bone in your body." She stands up because she needs to do something. She hadn't expected this to be easy, but it's harder than she dreamed by a factor of ten. She pours out his cocoa, pours him out three fingers of bourbon instead. She places it on the table in front of him. He grasps it but doesn't drink. He won't look at her. She sinks back into her chair. "And my sister would never hurt me."
The words are bitter and angry. Serah wishes Claire were here right now so she could smack her upside her stubborn head. Claire ran away rather than face this problem. A woman who squared off against the most powerful beings on two worlds, who stared death in the eye and then spat in said eye, was actually a coward at heart. She ran from her little sister--a woman who makes her fiancé kill spiders in the bathroom. What the hell is wrong with this picture?
Oh, Serah already knows what Claire will say. She'll claim she didn't want to hurt Serah, and Serah knows that she'll mean that with all her heart. But Serah would like to know what the hell Claire thought she did when she disappeared without a word? When she went haring off on some idiotic self-sacrificing mission into a blizzard.
Serah's going to have words with Claire when she sees her again. If she sees her again. She slams the brakes on that line of thought. It won't do her any good to think such horrible things.
"It's not your fault Snow. I thought it was the battles. The war," she hates calling it that, but that's what it was. It was a war for the survival of humankind. And she SLEPT through all of it! "Or maybe that we'd just grown apart because of the time that we lost." Time that they stole from us. Time that my sister got to have with you. She closes her eyes. "But it wasn't any of that."
Snow shakes his head. "I still wanted you Serah. After everything, I wanted our life together."
"I know you did. And I did too." Part of her still does, but she will never speak of that again. "I think that was the problem. We were trying so hard to get back what we'd lost, that we didn't take the time to consider if it was really what we still wanted. We just...picked up where we'd left off and didn't think to wonder if we really wanted to live a life together, or wanted the idea of living a life together.." She wraps her fingers around his hands again. "But I deserve better than being the runner up in my own life and home. Better than being some sort of consolation prize."
He twists his hands through hers and looks into her eyes. "You were never a runner up." He lifts her hand and kisses it. "And you were never the consolation prize." She stares at him for a long moment, sees the truth in his eyes and smiles.
"I know." That's a lie. She wasn't sure at all anymore. He was so distant over the months; and time only pushed him farther away. She watched him disappear and she had no idea how to stop it. Still, he doesn't need to know any of that ever. Her insecurities are her business and will stay hers, now and forever. "But it's nice to hear though."
"I don't ever want you to think that about yourself. I love you." He's so sincere it breaks her heart.
"I know you do." And isn't that the tragedy here? He loves her, she loves him and it's not enough for either of them anymore. "But you're in love with my sister." He flinches like she's burned him, relaxes his grip on her fingers but doesn't pull away. He wants to, but he doesn't. He's got more guts than her sister, that's for sure. He's here dealing with this mess while she's off doing who knows what. "I think I saw that before any of this started. Back on Cocoon, on her birthday."
"No..." he shakes his head. "I loved you more than anything. I couldn't even stand her..." he trails off, face paling. Horrified by his use of past tense, perhaps. Or maybe for insulting Claire. She considers for a moment. Even odds-no bet. She nods at him, acknowledging the truth in his words.
"Yes, I know. But she brought out such fire in you. A passion that I never could, no matter what I did." He snaps his mouth shut and furrows his brow. Considering. He's never even considered it. Interesting.
She needs to move the conversation along. She doesn't want to know if she's right; it's bad enough having the suspicion. She never wants it confirmed, because that would make everything a lie. It's one thing for proximity, situational stress and camaraderie to create one set of feelings while murdering another set, but to find out that she took a back seat from the beginning. That's too much to take, even for her. She keeps right on going. "What I didn't count on--what I never counted on--was her being in love with you too."
"She's not," he blurts and somehow pales even more. He's now the color of his namesake. Any whiter and he'll disappear. She feels her face twist up into a mockery of her smile. And here's the real problem.
"Oh, I beg to differ," she laughs, takes a sip of her cooling cocoa. "You see, because the Claire I know-- excuse me, the Lightning I know? See, that woman would have put you in traction and then come over here to tell me what lousy piece of crap I was about to marry if you'd showed up in the middle of the night on her doorstep." Saying and doing who knows what. She bites the words back. She doesn't want to know what Snow said or did. She may be strong, but she's not an island. She's not a stone. She's not...Lightning.
And isn't that the problem here?
"She probably would have killed you for daring to hurt me." He lets out a small laugh but shakes his head once in denial. "But what did she do?"
He shakes his head hard, picks up his drink and takes a long swallow. She pretends she doesn't notice him trembling. She pretends it doesn't hurt. He wipes a shaking hand across his mouth then presses thumb and forefinger hard into his closed eyes.
"She sent you home to me." The words are more bitter than she intends. She can see they hurt him, and she's not sure if it's her tone or the words themselves. Perhaps it's a mix of both. He loves them both, after all. And doesn't that just suck?
"And then she packed up her whole life," she feels the tears burn her eyes and sniffs them back, "and disappeared." She looks out the window into the raging blizzard. "And she's out there getting her stupid self killed." She sobs, feels the fear she's been trying to repress rattle her entire body. It hits her like a gut shot and she feels nauseated and dizzy at once.
Her sister is going to kill herself. She may already be dead. Claire may have sacrificed herself in order to spare Serah's feelings. It's sickening! Then, the tiniest part of Serah is angry about the fact that she may be trashing her life right now for a dead woman, and why is she bothering?
She feels like a terrible person.
She doubles over, feels pain like she's never known rattle through her. The tears clog her nose, turn everything inside to liquid that wants to run out of her body too. She reaches for a napkin and wipes her face and wonders why she can't be one of those women who look beautiful when they cry. Serah's face gets blotchy, her nose spreads, her eyes get swollen and hideous. Claire looks like a damn painting when she cries! Why does Serah have to look like she's been boxing with gods?
"Light will be fine, Serah." He's comforting her and lying to her when he's spent the past five days pacing holes in their floors and refusing to eat. He's been so distracted between worrying and trying to hide it that he hasn't even really noticed his own misery. Or his distraction. Their lives are so screwed.
She doesn't dignify the lie. She pulls herself together and upright in one move. She sniffs, blinks and gets to the agonizing point of this mess. "I want you to go after her."
He recoils, looks like he's considering bolting out of the house into the snow in his light shirt and bare feet rather than continue this discussion. "She would never want that," he assures.
"This isn't about what she wants." It's about what I want. I can't live this lie as monkey in the middle anymore. "It's about what she needs." Mostly. "She needs you to go after her."
He shakes his head and says with more bitterness than she's ever heard from him. "She needs me to stay away from her." Serah closes her eyes. He's probably right. Claire would not want him to come after her. She's getting angry now. Really angry.
It feels great!
Perhaps this is why Claire decided to bury herself inside the hard shell of 'Lightning.' Claire was a girl who ached and hurt, while Lightning is a woman who rages and fights. It's hard to hurt when wrapped in the embrace of red hot anger. She may have just gained new insight into her sister. She hopes she'll get the chance to tell her.
"Maybe she does. Alright, we'll try this a different way then." She speaks through gritted teeth. "I'm tired of my sister sacrificing things for me. She's been doing it since we were kids. She gave up her childhood to let me have one. She gave up a normal future to let me have one. I'm not letting her give up..." you! She leaves the last unsaid because, against her wishes, it still hurts. The idea of this man with anyone but her makes parts of her hurt that she's never acknowledged before.
They are the wrong parts though. The one that is most injured is her ego.
"I don't want it anymore. I don't need it anymore!" She yells the rest. "I'm a grown woman and I can take care of myself." The last is aimed at him as much as her sister.
These two people who won't acknowledge that she's not some fragile porcelain doll on a shelf. Won't realize that she's a grown woman with her own backbone and her own voice. She may not be able to kill something with her bare hands, but so what? What did that prove?
They may both be warriors, but they're cowards. She just proved she's the bravest one of them all. She just poured gasoline on her life and ignited the damn pyre!
"Your sister loves you," he defends. Snow defending her sister against her is surreal. As if that is any excuse!
"And I love her. And I've watched her give up one thing after the next so I could be happy. And I took it all. She gave up her childhood to become a mother. She got a job to give me a nice home. She never let me reciprocate. But I can now and neither one of you is going to stop me!" He looks away. He looks ashamed. She grabs his chin and forces him to look back at her. "You love her. So what are you going to do about it, Hero?"
She watches his horror fade into indecision then into resolution. He smiles at her--a pale imitation of his usual grin, but progress all the same. She leans forward and kisses him, soft and lingering. His lips are dry and familiar and so, so warm. She holds the kiss longer, moves her lips over his to memorize the feel of them. She'll always love him, even if it no longer feels the same. Even if it feels hollow now.
"I'll always love you," he whispers. She giggles against his lips. He always was a smooth talker, and he knows her so damn well. She'll regret what they've lost, but she's not going to cling to the corpse of their love to the detriment of everything. She slides her palm over his face, feels the scruff of an extra two days worth of stubble. He's been so distracted that he hasn't even shaved.
"And I'll always love you too. Nothing will change that." She traces a thumb over his eyebrow, watches him close his eyes and lean into her touch. "You'll always be my first love. And my hero," she adds, because it's the truth. He sniffles, rubs his knuckles into his eye. "You came after me and saved me."
He swoops forward and gives her a deeper, longer kiss. He tastes of chocolate and bourbon, sorrow and memory. He breaks the kiss after a long moment, whispers against her lips and into her mouth: "We saved each other."
"Damn right we did. And now it's time to save Claire." He presses his forehead to hers and nods. "We always knew we were going to be family. We just got it a little backwards is all."
"I never deserved you." The words are breath brushing her lips.
"No you never did," she quips, annoyed at herself for the tears she can't stop. He kisses one away. She's not hurt or angry; not by him or her sister. They no more wanted to betray her than they wanted to destroy Cocoon. They both turned themselves inside out to make her happy and it didn't work.
Still, this ending is heartbreaking all the same. Something that has been a huge part of her life for years is dying. It's the end of her childhood. The end of her innocence. It's her first real sacrifice and the cut is deep and bloody. She's a woman now, sacrificing something dear to her for the sake of something precious. It's the right thing and it's a tragedy. It's unfair and beautiful. "But you might deserve Lightning." She sniffs and sits back, sips at her cooling cocoa.
Snow gives her a small smirk, nods and gets up from the table. She listens to him as he tears through their house, throwing together essentials into his pack. She walks back to her stove and lights the burner. The water in the kettle is still warm enough that it only takes a minute to boil. She pours herself another cup of cocoa, wraps her fingers around the mug and listens to her life unravel.
This home was never perfect, but it was hers. It was theirs. They built it to house their love, their family and it is lovely despite the sadness inside it. It will be lonely here for a time. Then it will be filled with shades and shadows. Eventually though, it will just be a place. A nice home by the sea.
Snow stomps into the living room and throws his pack onto the couch. He's shaking out the heavy coat Serah sewed for him during the cooling autumn. She smiles as he shrugs it on, knows that the fur lined leather will keep him warm. She lined his gloves too, and made him a hat that complimented his fashion sense.
Snow's a handsome man. What's more is he is very aware of it. It's one of the first things that she learned about him. She always found vanity unattractive and off-putting, but it looked different on him somehow. Perhaps because it lacked the usual condescension and arrogance. Snow believed himself stupid and unskilled. He treated his good looks as and big muscles as his only attributes.
He never gives a thought to his generous heart or unending loyalty. He never thinks that protecting people should count for anything.
He always sells himself so short.
So much like Claire. The thought never occurred to her before. She's always seen Snow and Claire as opposites, but perhaps they are mirror images. Two sides of the same coin.
She smiles around the sting of the thought. It'll take time, but she'll get used to it. She feels her lip quiver, and sucks in a hard breath. Takes a sip of her cocoa.
He sits and laces up his heavy boots. He glances over at her and stops moving. All the fierce determination leeches out of him as quickly as the color in his face. "Serah..."
She shakes her head at him. She can't waver here. It won't do any of them any good for her to cave into what's comfortable and easy. "You need to go."
"I don't..."
"Don't say anything. Alright? Just go." He stands, glances from the pack to her and back again. "You have to go now." He runs a hand roughly over his head. Shakes it once and looks back at her. Still her Hero, sacrificing his heart to protect his soul.
She loves him.
And that is why she must let him go. She loves him too much to settle. Or perhaps the truth is that she loves the man who proposed to her, and that person is gone now. This man is no more that Snow than Lightning is her sister 'Claire.' Both of those people are gone. Their trials as l'Cie took them from her as surely as death took her parents. The difference here is that her parents had the decency to stay dead. The war left behind these bodies to taunt and torment her.
Sometimes she wonders why she had to awaken.
She shakes off the encroaching depression. Such ingratitude is beneath her, and she doesn't really mean it anyway. She's just feeling sorry for herself, but there'll be time enough for that after Snow is gone.
Time enough...
She raises an eyebrow at him. "Put your hat on."
He does so without comment. Then he pulls on his gloves. He walks over to her and kneels before her.
"Swear to me that this is what you want. That you mean this. I love our life and I don't want to hurt you."
Translation: I'll settle for this life if it will make you happy.
She considers the question. There's damage to her pride, for sure. No one likes to know that someone has fallen out of love with them. But if she's honest, Snow's not the only one. They both tried very hard to carve out a future together from the wreckage of their lives. They held onto their dreams so hard that they didn't realize that dreams were all they were. The reality never quite measured up, though she would have been happy spending her life trying to make reality match her fantasy.
But she's not going to stay with a man who loves another woman--who loves her sister! And she won't remake a man that her sister loves as he is just to suit herself. She wants to be happy, but not if that happiness comes at such a steep cost.
And she deserves far better, damn it! She deserves to be the leading lady in her own life.
"You haven't. But staying with me and living a lie...that would have hurt me. I didn't deserve that just to preserve my delicate feelings." It cuts that they both thought her too fragile to handle the truth.
"That was never..."
"You're both idiots," she barks and he flinches. It feels good to lash out at him, but it's not how she wants this to end. She gentles her tone and her humor. "But I'll forgive that because I love you so dearly." She tugs his hat down over his ears and straightens the collars of his coat. "Now you go. Bring my sister home safe. Promise me!"
He nods, places his hand over his heart and says, "I swear on my life."
She remembers aching with love for this man. Remembers wanting everything two people could ever have and give. She wishes...
It doesn't matter what she wishes.
He stands up and she follows suit. She reaches up and pulls his hat tighter over his ears. He gives a pale, sad smile.He walks to his pack and slings it on and heads toward the door. She catches his hand when he reaches it and he turns around to face her. "You be careful." He nods and bends down and pulls her into another kiss. This one is bitter. And sweet. This one is farewell. He walks out the door into the blizzard. The air is frigid enough to burn on contact and she shuts the door behind him. She leans her forehead against it.
Please save her. She doesn't know what the hell they're going to do if they lose Claire.
TBC...
Now, I don't know what you'll think of my Serah. I don't like the idea of some stupid little girl being Lightning's sister. If Lightning is strong enough to give up everything for her sister, shouldn't her sister have some measure of that strength as well?
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