Fic: Do I Dare Disturb the Universe? 5/?
Title: Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?
Author: frkmgnt1
Rating: PG-13 or T (Pick your poison. No graphic anything as of Chapter 5)
Pairing: Snow/Lightning, Snow/Serah
Chapter 5: The Works and Days of Hands ~7,400 words
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!
"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision."
-Ayn Rand
The Works and Days of Hands
Hope's never seen this much snow in one place at one time before. Back on Cocoon, the weather, like everything else, was controlled by the fal'Cie. Every day was mild and pleasant. Rain could be turned on or off with a switch. There was no snow unless it was needed or wanted. Fang and Vanille told him that while the Pulse fal'Cie manipulated the environment to suit their needs, they didn't exert any real control over the weather. As a result, Gran Pulse ran the full gamut of weather, from scorching summers to brutal winters and everything in between.
Hope stares at the snow outside with an odd mixture of fascination and trepidation. The world looks beautiful wrapped in this icy shroud. But the temperature outside is dangerous, as is the fluffy, plush looking blanket covering the world.
"Hope? Why don't you come away from the window and have a look at these drawings?"
"Huh?" Hope turns from the window towards his father. Bartholomew sits at their table, surrounded by books and papers, scribbles and scraps. The fall of Cocoon handed humankind a tabula rasa of more than one type. No longer were they fal'Cie puppets; but the price of their freedom was, to put it simply, everything they'd ever known. Humans were starting from scratch with cursory knowledge and sparse resources.
They are at the end and beginning of all things.
"Would you like to see the plans for the irrigation system?" Bartholomew asks, raising an eyebrow.
A year ago Hope would have found the idea of looking at plans BORING! He'd have considered his father asking him some sort of secret punishment; a conspiracy by his parent to transform him into an automaton of epically yawn-tastic proportions. Now, he's more than interested in learning new things; he's fascinated by them.
When he thinks back he realizes that he always wondered how things worked. When he was a small child, he would sneak around and peek into drawers and closets, disassemble electronics and motors. He would sneak around in the underbelly of Palumpolum, crawl through the water and sewer system and stare at the fal'Cie Carbuncle.
Understanding the way things worked fascinated him. His mother called it a healthy curiosity and encouraged him on the sly. His father called him a busy-body and punished him for snooping. The punishments only forced him to get sneakier; they did little to discourage his explorations.
No, his father didn't kill his curiosity. That was the work of his classmates.
When Hope went to middle school, he found that being curious and interested in learning new things singled him out as an oddity among his peers. They called him names and picked on him. He was already small and a bit sheltered, and being mocked and teased felt like torture. So he abandoned his natural curiosities in favor of fitting in and being cool. He stopped exploring the city and started hanging around under the train trestle. He refused to look at the lattice work of the structure. Cool kids didn't care about how things worked or how they were put together. Cool kids didn't care about sewer systems, food supplies or infrastructure; they cared about fashion, hanging out, making out, and the latest video games. It didn't take long before Hope cared about those things too.
And it didn't hurt that his 'geeky' familiarity with the tunnels beneath the city gave all the teenagers new and more interesting places to hang out.
Now he's rediscovering his innate curiosity in a world where cool means precisely nothing. It's harder than he thinks, unlearning his forced apathy. But he's dedicated, and he forces himself to spend hours going over his father's plans. Sometimes he even works up plans of his own-designs for robots, computers or some other little creation.
Since his time as a l'Cie, Hope found that he has refined his mechanical skills. He can look at an item and see just how to make it work better. Sazh is even better at creating, visualizing and building than Hope. His friend's mechanical skills rival those of any inventor and between the two of them, they've put together some pretty cool things.
Despite his natural talents, curiosities and apparent usefulness, Hope is limited in how much he is permitted to do. He is restricted both by his age and his overprotective father. It doesn't help that Sazh agrees with his father, eliminating his only hope for an ally in his campaign to participate in this reconstruction.
He is, quite literally, trapped. Trapped in the body of a fifteen year old boy; trapped in his father's home.
He just wants to hurry up and grow up already! There are so many things he wants to do-things he knows he can do-that his father forbids based on his age. It's frustrating as hell. He helped save humanity. He walked with heroes and yet somehow he has a curfew again. It's absurd. He should be allowed to help fortify their community. He should not be relegated to the background, treated like some child with no mind or voice.
Hope's aggravated just thinking about it.
His father keeps saying, 'when you are older Hope, you may go with Sazh,' and 'when you are older Hope, you may go out into the wilds and protect the settlers.' When Hope balks at being treated as a child his father says, 'For now, you need to stay here and learn. Read. Muscle we have in spades! We need minds to help create what the muscle will build.'
The waiting rankles, but the worst part is that Hope knows his father is correct. If he wants to be a man, he must walk the path, not shove his fingers in his ears like a child and insist he be treated as a man. He must prove he's growing up by accepting that he's not a 'grown up.' He figures if he listens to his father, then maybe his father will listen to him too.
So he waits, and he learns; he reads and dreams.
He dreams of towers reaching toward the sky. He dreams of repairing, refurbishing and peopling the empty corners of Gran Pulse.
He dreams of Fang and Vanille returning to something a bit closer to the home they lost five hundred years before. He wants to create that for them. He wants to be the one to shine a light bright enough to abolish the shadows in Vanille's eyes and Fang's heart.
He misses them though they are right here: perfect and eternal.
He longs to rebuild Gran Pulse for them; he hopes that doing so will help them wake up. So whenever Bartholomew offers to show him plans, Hope fights the urge to roll his eyes and revolt in the manner of teenagers everywhere. Instead he sits and goes over every line and note on the drawings with his father.
He'll earn his father's respect, or kill them both trying, damn it.
And so he sits beside his father at the table now and stares at the newest drawings. Hope is surprised by the level of detail attained in the drawings, considering the archaic supplies at hand. They no longer have computers or datalogs to create digital drawings and three dimensional models. Now they have only parchments and graphite. In the summer they will press more flowers into pigments for drawings and paintings, and catch some fish and sea creatures that have natural ink sacs to vary the writing implements. But the winter killed all the flowers and the cold, snow and wind make any sort of fishing dangerous. The risk might be worth taking for food; a luxury like ink would never be worth the cost in lives.
So instead of color, he peruses the shades of gray drawn onto dingy white. Hope tries to visualize the designs as they will look once implemented while his father's hand skirts over the design. He tries to picture the piping, how they will excavate, what materials they will use. He tries to see in his mind's eye how the two dimensional drawings will translate into the three dimensional world. He envisions how the entire system will rely on gravity, running water from the stream and a series of water wheels, rather than depending on the scarce fuels and resources that they salvaged from Cocoon. Those scavenged items will only last so long and Hope knows his father's greatest fear is that they will run out of power before they've set up a suitable replacement power supply and infrastructure. People will descend into total chaos if no stability is provided before the last of the fuel is gone.
"This looks good," Hope says with total honesty. He looks up at his father and notes the pleased look on Bartholomew's face. "Will we use this to replace the crappy plumbing that we have now." He can't resist the dig, and he wonders why the hell he antagonizes his father all the time. His father frowns and sighs.
"Well, we'll have to develop a water treatment facility, and a sewage treatment plant as well. I'm afraid of what diseases might start tearing through the settlements if we don't take care of this soon." Bartholomew looks out the window. "We're running out of time."
Hope looks at his father for a moment realizing for the first time from where he inherited his instincts and sense of fatalism. Hope never believed he had anything in common with his father; now he wonders if their problem wasn't that they were too alike to get along. There's been too much to do for them to worry about their differences this past year. That might never change. Still, his mother was always the buffer between them, and now that she's gone, he wonders if they'll tear one another to shreds.
Thoughts of his mother always lead him to that fateful day on the Hanging Edge. If he hadn't been such a frightened child, his mother might still be alive right now. He cowered in his robe-a Sanctum supplied shroud-while his mother took up arms and fought PSICOM. She died protecting others: Snow, him. She was a hero and he was too angry at first to realize it. All he saw was that she was gone; that she sacrificed herself to save others didn't register. Once it did, he swore he would follow her example. He rubs at the sting in his eyes and swallows a lump in his throat.
He still misses her like an amputated limb. Almost a year later and it still hurts to think of her loss. He looks at his father and wonders if he misses her as much as Hope does. They haven't stopped moving for a year. They've been in crisis mode for so long-first he was a fugitive, then the world ended, now they're building a new society-that he wonders what will happen when things settle. Will they actually mourn his mom, or will her memory just disappear into the enormity of everything around them?
A shrill noise pulls him from his thoughts, startles him so badly that he almost falls off his chair.
"That's your communicator, Hope," his father says without even looking up.
"Oh. Yeah." Who the hell is calling? He left Lightning about six messages last week, but he doubts she's calling him. Something has been off with her and she refuses to talk to him about it yet. Hope hates the distance between them: both physical and emotional. He feels like he's losing her and he can't seem to stop it.
It feels familiar in the worst possible way.
He has dreams where he's back on the Hanging Edge, but instead of Snow holding his mother over the abyss, it's him holding Lightning. He swears he won't let go as he stares into her eyes, but she slips right through his fingers anyway.
Hope shakes himself from his stupor, wishes he could shake the dread as easily, grabs his communicator and checks the name of the caller.
Snow? What the...? Snow calling him can't be a good sign. Based on the frequency of calls between them, Hope would have guessed that Snow had no idea how to even work the communicators.
"Hello?" He asks, even though he already knows who's calling.
"Hey kid." Something in Snow's voice sets Hope's teeth on edge, makes his whole body tense.
"What's going on? Is everything alright?" Snow heaves a sigh in his ear and Hope feels his heartbeat accelerate. Something bad. Whatever it is, it's something bad. "Snow, what's going on?"
"Have you heard from Light?"
What? Heard from Lightning? Why would Snow ask something like that when he lives less than ten minutes from Lightning?
"Not in a few weeks. Why? What's happening?"
"Damn it!" Snow huffs. There's noise in the background, but Hope can't figure out what he's hearing.
"Snow? What's going on? And what's that noise?"
"Don't worry about the noise." Hope shoves a finger in his opposite ear in an effort to hear Snow through the din on the line. What-is Snow standing in a wind tunnel? "Lightning left and no one's heard from her in a few days now. I was hoping..."
"What do you mean she left?" Hope cuts him off. "Why would she leave?" It's a rhetorical question for Snow. Hope never expects him to have an answer. He expects Snow to mumble, 'how am I supposed to know?' or 'you think she tells me anything?' accompanied by some subsonic grumbling. But the silence on the other end of the phone speaks volumes to Hope.
"Why would she leave, Snow?" Hope repeats, now looking for an answer. "And where would she go?"
"She's heading towards you guys." Hope doesn't miss the fact that Snow skipped over the first part of his question but he lets that go for now in the wake of something far more pressing. Hope stares out the window at the raging storm outside.
"W...wait. Wait." He can't get his brain to engage here. He's trapped in some sort of loop, unable to get past the idea of Lightning travelling in this weather. "How...How was she getting here? I saw Sazh the other day and he didn't mention anything about picking her up."
Snow sighs in Hope's ear again and Hope holds his breath in anticipation of what he's about to hear. "She walked."
"No she didn't," he declares.
"What?" Snow sounds confused by the certainty in Hope's declaration. Not that confusing Snow has ever been a challenge, he thinks and immediately feels bad about it. Taking shots at Snow's intelligence-even privately-is neither nice nor fair. Snow is not stupid; he's just a simple guy.
"No, she couldn't have done that, because that's stupid. Lightning's not stupid."
Snow scoffs, and it's an ugly sound. "Well I hate to break it to you kid, but she's sure as hell not a genius either." Hope feels irritation creeping in at Snow's snarky comment. The desire to lash out at Snow's own dumb behavior bubbles up, but Hope represses the urge. It's not the point here. "Anyway, she did it. I spoke to her the day she left."
"She wouldn't...She wouldn't do that without telling me."
"Did you check your messages?" Hope's brow furrows in confusion. "She sent Serah a message the day she left. Said she sent one to you too. She didn't say where she was going in either though."
Wait. Back up! "But she told you?" There's so much more to this story and he's going to get to the bottom of it.
"Huh?" Either Snow is playing dumb, or Hope has been giving him too much credit this past year. He chooses to believe the former. For now.
"She messaged her sister, but she told you?" Snow doesn't respond and Hope wonders for the fifth time what the hell is going on here. "What the hell is going on Snow?"
"It's a long story." Hope rolls his eyes. "Look, kid. Just, uh...if...I mean when she gets there. Just let me know. Alright? We're worried. I mean, Serah's...Serah's worried." Snow's voice trails off and Hope's even more concerned now. Snow hasn't sounded this miserable since...Snow never sounded this miserable. What the hell is going on in Oerba (or whatever the hell they're calling it these days)? "Will you do that?"
Not if Lightning doesn't want me to, is his gut response. But Snow sounds so miserable and Hope knows that he's asking for more than just his own edification here. "I'll...I'll let you know. Okay?"
"Yeah." There's a pregnant pause and Hope wonders if Snow has something more to say.
"Don't...don't worry. Light...Light's the strongest person I know." Another laugh. "She'll be fine. " Stating it makes him feel better. Snow says nothing. "Bye, Snow."
"Bye, kid. Take it easy, alright?" He disconnects the call.
Hope stares at his communicator, then looks out the window at the raging storm again. He scans through messages and finds that he did, indeed, miss one from Lightning.
Taking a trip. Will be out of touch. Speak with you soon. - L.
"Crap," he mutters, irritated at himself for ignoring his communicator and missing Lightning's message. "You'd better be okay, Light," he whispers to the communicator.
"Did I hear you say your friend is coming to visit?"
Hope looks at his father, agog. He didn't think that Bartholomew would have the nerve to listen in on his personal call. "Yeah."
"She's not walking, is she?" Bartholomew looks up over the rims of his spectacles and Hope can hear the warning in his father's tone. Something icy travels the length of his spine.
"Yeah. She is. Why?"
"Damn it!" Bartholomew swears and stands, his chair clattering to the floor. His father never swears. It's enough to set Hope's heart hammering. "What would make her do something so foolish?"
Hope's hackles rise. It's instinct to defend Lightning, even when his father is right. "Don't call Lightning names!"
His father scoffs, then deflates. "I'm not. I'm just...I'm concerned for her well-being."
Hope feels like a jerk for snapping at his father. It's amazing how often he feels like a jerk these days. He wonders if he and his father will ever stop circling each other like wary dogs. "The storm is bad, but Lightning's a survivor." Saying it aloud makes Hope feel better. He knows it's true. If the fal'Cie and the Sanctum couldn't kill Lightning, a little crappy weather sure as hell isn't going to be able to take her out.
"It's not the weather," Bartholomew replies, and plunks back into his chair. The answer is the definition of unhelpful. Hope waits out his father, watching while he rubs at the bridge of his nose in what Hope has come to understand is a nervous gesture. The words are terrifying and vague; add to them his father's nervous tick and Hope feels panic start bubbling through him. Hope sits down across the table from his father, feels tremors in his gut radiating outwards into his limbs.
"What's going on dad?" He stares at his father and tries to extract the information by force of will alone.
"We've been trying to keep this information quiet to prevent panic." Bartholomew paces. "It looks like we've made a gross miscalculation."
"Who's we? And what are you talking about?" He's getting antsy and aggravated. If his father knows something that might impact Lightning's safety, then he needs to spill. Now. "Dad?" He prompts, tone clipped and angry.
His father doesn't seem to notice. "'We' meaning your friend Sazh and myself." No matter how much time Bartholomew spends with Sazh, he always refers to him as 'your friend Sazh,' so much so that Hope wonders if his father believes that is Sazh's full name. Hope is used to the oddity, but not so used to it that he doesn't notice that it is, in fact, odd. "We're not sure who they are... but there's a group of 'Marauders' that are roaming around and preying on people they catch out on Archylte Steppe."
Marauders? Gangs of people? His father is worried about PEOPLE? It sounds ludicrous in a world where the animals are as tall as mountains; where predators the size of aircrafts stalk the skies and menace civilians. A world where the weather shifts so quickly that a person can die of exposure in hours.
A world that has been called Hell-and rightly so!
"They're just people. Lightning can handle people. She fought the fal'Cie!" He's not sure who he's trying to convince.
"I understand why you would think that Hope, but I haven't told you the whole story."
"Well, why the hell haven't you?" Hope snaps. It's one thing for his father to hold him back and impose curfews on him, but withholding information is a violation of trust that infuriates him. He may not be a 'grown up' yet, but he sure as hell is not a child either!
"I thought we would have time, and there were important things to address..." Bartholomew trails off as if he realizes how lame his excuse is. "But you're right. We should have told you." He pauses and reconsiders: "I should have told you."
"So tell me now then." His father looks like he would rather eat glass than tell this story. It makes Hope even more nervous.
"These are not just people, Hope. From what we can tell, this is an organized group with some paramilitary characteristics." Bartholomew meets Hope's eyes and says, "These people are trained, Hope. Do you understand? They're trained and they're preying on small settlements. They are doing..." his father pauses and clenches his fists. "They're doing unspeakable things."
"I don't..." he gropes for the right word. "Understand," is what he settles on, but it seems weak somehow.
"No one can understand this sort of madness and desecration. Not even after all the horrible things we've seen." There's a long, pregnant pause where Hope's worst imaginings spin out through his head in full Technicolor. He has no idea what to say. How can this be true? Why did his father hide the information? How many people have been attacked? How many casualties have they suffered?
How long had this been going on?
"Where did they come from?" is the first question he asks aloud. It's probably the least important, but he finds he must know. From the look on his father's face, Hope guesses it's the one question he doesn't want to answer.
"We don't know. But your friend Sazh did a bit of digging and based on his findings we've hypothesized that these men may have been left behind in prisons and such on Cocoon."
"Prisons?"
"Yes. In all the madness of our escape it seems that no one thought to save the prisoners. They were left behind, locked up, with no one to care for them. So every one of them was given a death sentence no matter how petty their infraction." The full meaning of his father's statement sinks in. They'd left people behind, locked up, unable to care for themselves. Hope tries to imagine the horror of being shut away on a dying world, abandoned and left to starve and die by those who were supposed to keep charge of them.
It is a horrifying and inhuman thought.
He realizes that his father has been speaking the entire time he's been meandering through the horrors of his imagination. "...until someone let them out, organized them and set them loose on the rest of us. And I believe they have quite the axe to grind."
"Who let them out?"
"We're not sure. We're not even sure if that's who they really are. But what we do know is that they are dangerous and organized. We assume they have military leadership. Possibly some sadistic faction in PSICOM who have found themselves unaccountable and unmonitored. Those sorts of persons would be like metaphorical children in candy stores in this new world."
"Why do you think it's soldiers?" Hope knows all about the sadism present in PSICOM. His father seems to forget that Hope was present during the massacre known as 'The Purge.'
"Sadists are present through all walks of life, Hope..."
Great! His dad is gearing up for a lecture when all Hope wanted was to know if the presence of soldiers is speculation or fact. Hope rolls his eyes but keeps his mouth shut and lets his father continue.
"...but not all of them have such specific training. The attacks look well coordinate despite their brutality. The hits come at sundown or sunrise. No one escapes them. Not one person. People are being systematically rounded up and..." he watches his father pale, feels himself go cold. Bartholomew shakes his head. "Never mind."
"So they're killing people." Hope knows it sounds lame and stupid, but he just can't seem to get his head around the idea that with so few humans left alive on two worlds that anyone would just destroy even more life. From the look on his father's face as he nods, Hope can tell there's yet more that Bartholomew isn't telling him.
"To be accurate, they're killing men." The word killing has an edge to it that tells Hope more than his father ever would. More is happening here than simple murder. His voice is grave and his eyes are serious when he says: "They're taking the women."
Hope feels sick to his stomach. He considers calling Snow back immediately to demand that he go out and hunt for Lightning right now. He stomps on the idea, realizing the absurdity in the notion of Lightning needing to be rescued. He looks out the window, pictures Lightning out on the Steppe alone, in this snow, surrounded by monsters and enemies and now predatory men. Alone and uninformed...
"I need to go!" He declares and looks at his father, preparing himself for a fight.
Bartholomew shakes his head, then rests his elbows on the table and buries his face in his hands. "I know," he whispers and Hope nearly falls over in shock
"You do?" He does? Hope expected a battle, not...understanding. It doesn't make sense.
Bartholomew stands up and walks over to Hope, puts his hand on his shoulder. "I don't want you to go. I want you here. I want you safe. But you're your mother's son."
The mention of his mother feels like a knife in his chest. He feels his eyes burn and feels ashamed at his weakness. Wasn't he just trying to be a man? Men don't cry! Hope wipes away the tear and sniffs, then looks back at his father.
His father pulls off his glasses and wipes his eyes.
"I see her every day in you, you know." Bartholomew walks to the sink and pours himself a glass of water. He takes two big gulps, wipes a hand across the back of his mouth. "Sometimes I can't bear it," he admits. Hope feels his face heat and his fists clench. "I loved her so much, and seeing her in you is...incredible. You're all I have left of her and the idea of losing you..." Bartholomew clears his throat and sits back down.
"Your mother was never one to sit back if others needed help. She wouldn't have been her if she hadn't taken up arms during The Purge." Hope can't look at his father anymore. He can't watch his father tremble as he speaks of a lost love; a lost wife. How could Hope have doubted this man's love for his mother? Or himself, for that matter? He looks out over the frozen world beyond the window, holds his breath in anticipation of his father's next words. "And I know you can't just sit here either. So go ahead and find your friend, and bring her home safely."
Hope is moving before his father finishes his sentence. "HOPE!" his father calls as he makes it to the threshold of his bedroom. He stops but refuses to turn from his intended path. He needs to get to Sazh, get the aircraft and go search. "Be careful and come home."
"I will," Hope agrees as he pulls his empty pack from under his bed and starts to fill it. He finishes quickly and layers his clothing. He pauses to take stock of his room, spots the box on his dresser and lifts it with shaking hands. He takes the key from around his neck and unlocks the box. He lifts the bandana from within and unfolds it to reveal the crystal within.
Alexander.
Hope knows that the Eidolon will not respond to him anymore, assuming it even exists. The crystal is more like a good luck charm. He wraps it back up and slips it into his pocket.
He grabs his pack and slings it on. He looks out the window towards the nearby Cocoon. The storm conceals it, but he knows it's there.
He knows they're there. Always there, waiting. Hope swallows.
He's lost too much already. He refuses to lose Lightning too.
The walk to Sazh's house usually takes thirty minutes. The snow, cold and wind triple the duration and by the time Hope catches sight of Sazh's house, he's frozen nearly through. His feet burn and throb in his boots. He looks down at them, spots the black laces flailing around in the storm like a shredded flag. He bends at the waist, nearly topples face first into the snow when the weight on his back shifts higher on his shoulders and falls victim to gravity. He bends his knees, regains his balance and barks out a loud curse that would make Fang blush. He exhales a white breath and reaches for his laces. He's ham-fisted, fingers refusing to bend inside his gloves. It takes three tries to get the laces tied, and that is only after he gives up on traditional bows and went with the 'bunny ear' technique. He feels like a five year old again, his mother making a big ear and a small one, and saying 'the bunny goes around the tree, into the burrow and...pull Hope.' He sniffles at the memory even as he follows the instructions and ties a perfect bow with his frozen fingers.
He stands upright; the weight on his back shifts again, falling hard enough to nearly jerk him onto his ass in the snow. He shakes off the embarrassment, balls up memories of his mother and focuses on moving forward. Every part of him feels frozen and heavy and he wonders what the hell Lightning could possibly be thinking trying to journey across the world in this weather when he can't even make it across his town.
She is the bravest, stupidest person he knows.
He reaches Sazh's door and thumps on it with a swollen hand. He underestimated the dangers of the storm. He's going to need to reassess his gear if he's going to live through this journey. Of course in order to do any of that, he needs to get inside and get warm. He pulls both hands to him and sticks them in his armpits, and kicks at the door gently with one club foot, then rests his head against the wood and wonders if it's possible that Sazh is away. He wonders if he'll make it back home before he loses feeling in all his extremities.
Or, you know, dies. Whatever.
The door disappears and Hope topples forward like a felled tree. He doesn't even pull his hands out from under his arms to brace himself. He's too cold to move and figures his face will break his fall nicely, thank you very much.
Hands snatch him mid-fall and Hope decides he'll be relieved later. He's too cold to feel anything right now.
"Hey now!" Sazh exclaims. He pulls Hope up and in and kicks the door shut behind him. He turns Hope around to look at him and says, "Hope?"
"Hey Sazh!" Hope gasps through chattering teeth before choking on the words. The cold air seems to have aggravated his lungs. And everything else!
"Kid, what are you doing here?" Sazh takes Hope's hat off, reaches for a towel and throws it over Hope's soaked hair. "You're damn near frozen through!"
"Tell me about it."
"Get out of that coat and those boots!" Sazh walks over to the sink, fills a kettle and sets it on the stove to boil. Hope uses his teeth to peel his gloves off and gets his first look at his reddish-purple fingers. Sazh turns around and says, "Damn it!"
He storms over to Hope and works the buttons on his coat, then the laces on his boots. He yanks the first boot off before Hope is ready and nearly sends Hope backwards through the front door. Hope is more prepared for the second one and uses his aching hands to brace himself. Then Sazh yanks off his pack and coat with more force than necessary.
"OW!" Hope yells, though the entire episode is more hurtful to his ego than his body. Sazh seems to know it too because he doesn't miss a beat filling a bowl with warm water and setting it on the table.
"Sit down, shut up and put your hands in that water." Hope follows the instructions. He winces and flinches away.
"That's hot!"
"No it's not! Your skin is frozen. Put your damn hands in the damn water!" Sazh stoops and pulls off Hope's socks. Hope looks down at his feet and is happy to see that they look pale.
"Damn it! Sazh slides another basin beneath his feet. "Put your feet in that now!" Sazh stands up looking angrier than Hope can ever remember seeing him. He looks like steam is going to shoot out of his ears. Sazh opens his mouth to yell some more...
The kettle whistle interrupts.
Sazh marches over to the kettle and shuts off the heat. He grabs a mug and spoons something into it before pouring in the water. Hope smiles at the thought of hot cocoa. No one has made him a cup of cocoa since his mom. He smiles at Sazh when he places the mug in front of Hope. Hope stares into the mug at what appears to be cloudy water. He frowns.
"What's that?"
"Hot water and sugar. The breakfast of champions."
"Pass."
"Drink it. This isn't a debate. That's frostbite genius! You need warmth, fluid and sugar and this is the fastest delivery system I have for all three." Sazh gives him the hairy eyeball. "You don't drink it and I'll hold you down and pour it down your throat. And don't think I won't do it either!" Hope scowls at the threat.
Hope lifts his hand out of the cooling water and takes a sip of the sugar water. It's too sweet and he flinches at the taste, but Sazh is shooting him a death glare. He takes another sip, finds the taste far less offensive the second time. Sazh changes the water in the bowl and places it back in front of Hope.
"Wanna explain to me what the hell you're doing wandering around in this storm? I thought you had more sense than that."
"I do. And I'm not 'wandering.'" Hope finishes the atrocious drink and scowls at the dregs on the bottom. "Lightning is."
"Make sense, kid! What are you talking about?"
"Lightning is on her way here. Now. In this."
Sazh stands up and walks to the counter. He leans against it and stares through the sidelights on the door. "And you know this how?"
"Snow called me. He's...concerned." Terrified is more like it, but Hope keeps his judgments to himself.
"Well he sure as hell should be!" Sazh barks. Then he mumbles, "Crazy woman. What can you be thinking?" Sazh's posture radiates tension.
"We need to find her," Hope declares.
"Hope, you got frostbitten walking to my house. How are you going to walk across the Archylte Steppe?"
Hope doesn't miss Sazh's omission of himself from the scenario. A lead weight settles in Hope's gut. It never occurred to him that Sazh would refuse to help him save Lightning. "I was hoping that we'd fly," he mumbles.
"Not in this weather we won't."
Hope feels desperation kick in. He can't do this on his own! "But..."
"No buts," Sazh snaps and then turns to the window. "Getting ourselves killed won't do anyone a damn bit of good." He heaves an enormous sigh and smacks his forehead into the cold glass before him. Hope keeps quiet, knows that Sazh is considering his options and to talk right now might tip the scales in the wrong direction. Sazh murmurs, "Damn it, Soldier." Hope watches the words fog the glass and then disappear. He needs to say something.
"Please," he barely recognizes the small voice but it seems to get Sazh's attention. He turns and faces Hope. "Please Sazh. I can't...I can't lose Lightning." Hope feels his lip tremble and his face heat. He's supposed to be a man now. Men don't blubber and babble. Men fight for what they want. But he doesn't feel strong right now. He feels like the same terrified boy on that catwalk on the Hanging Edge, watching his mother die.
"Haven't we lost enough?" Haven't I lost enough? "How can we lose her too?" Sazh flinches. "I mean, we just watched..."
"I know it, Kid." Sazh walks over and sits heavily in the chair next to him. He puts his head in his hands. "I miss them too." Sazh looks out the window, stares into the storm in the vague direction of Cocoon, Fang and Vanille. "Don't think I forgot it. They saved us all and I can't help but be pissed at them for it. How's that for gratitude?"
Hope feels like he's balanced on a precipice. Sazh hasn't sounded this bitter since the Sanctum took Dajh from him.
"Alright, kid." Sazh acquiesces. "You're right. I'm done losing the people I love. We can't fly, but I've been working on something that we can use." Hope tries to jump up. "Hey now, wait a minute!" Hope looks down at the basin he's standing in and looks back at Sazh. "Put your ass back in that chair. It's going to take me some time to get ready and pack up Dajh to drop at your dad's house. And you need to thaw out."
"We don't have..."
"Time? We have as much time as we need. The Soldier is tough. She's got a better chance surviving this mess than we do, that's for damn sure."
Sazh moves like a whirlwind through the house. Hope hears Dajh's quiet protests to being yanked from sleep. Sazh's voice is a melodious murmur. He speaks too softly for Hope to catch words, but the cadence lulls him, reminds him of their travels a year ago. Whenever he couldn't sleep, he'd eavesdrop on conversations between his friends. His snooping gave him insight into Sazh's hopes, Snow's fears and Lightning's sadness. They discussed topics with one another that they never would have broached with him. He was the 'Kid' and was shielded from ugly truths and fears.
It pissed him off then. It still pisses him off now.
Sazh enters the room bundled up like a mummy and slips out the door without a word. Hope stammers and curses. Giggling from the corner startles him.
"Ooh! You said a bad word!" Dajh says, pointing at him, eyes round as saucers and lips quirked up in a small smile.
Crap! How did he not notice Dajh? Hope blushes to the roots of his hair. "Uh," he rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah. Sorry. I shouldn't have said it and I'm sorry. It's our secret, okay?" The last thing Hope needs is a lecture from Sazh about swearing within earshot of his son.
Dajh smiles at him and says, "Okay Hope." Dajh walks over and sits on the floor to tie his boot laces. Hope notes him looping the laces like bunny ears and he smiles, feels the sting in his eyes. "Don't worry. Daddy says bad words all the time when he thinks I can't hear him." Dajh gives Hope a devious smirk and Hope feels his own shock smearing across his face.
He bursts out laughing as Sazh comes back into the house.
"What's so funny?" Sazh looks at Hope and over at Dajh. Dajh shrugs at his father and Hope only laughs harder. "Have you lost your mind kid?" Sazh walks over and drops two pairs of socks and another sweater next to Hope on the table. "Put all that on. We're going to be in the Snow Kat-that's what I call my newest creation-but it's still colder than a witch's..." he glances at his son mid-sentence. "Well anyway, it's cold. And you can't afford to let that skin refreeze."
Hope laughs even harder, thinking of Dajh's confession about his father's bad words. Sazh gives him the stink eye for a minute before turning towards his son. "Dajh, do you have your things?"
"Yes, dad."
"You're a good kid, you know that?"
"Yes dad!" Dajh agrees.
"And humble too," Hope mumbles. Sazh smacks Hope upside his head without missing a beat and continues talking to his son.
"Would you mind helping me out here and putting this bowl in the sink?" Dajh rushes over and grabs the bowl. "Careful not to spill the water!" Hope watches Sazh watch his son and finds himself missing his mother all over again.
Hope loves his father but it takes effort and work to talk with him, whereas everything between his mother and him was natural and unforced. Like Sazh and Dajh.
Hope shakes his head, dries his foot off with the towel Sazh gave him and slips the sock on. The soft material feels like sandpaper and he can barely stifle the yelp at the pain of contact.
"That hurts?"
"Yeah." Sazh disappears for a minute and comes back with a roll of gauze.
"Wrap them first." Hope starts winding the gauze around his feet and Sazh watches before saying, "Just so you know, the pain is actually a good sign. It means you still have feeling." Sazh pulls out some bizarre contraption that looks like the bastard love child of a datalog and microwave.
"What's that?" Hope asks as he winds gauze around his other foot then pulls the sock over it.
"This? This is a locator." Sazh fiddles with a knob that Hope thinks he may have stolen from a Hoplite corpse.
"What the hell..." Sazh shoots him a glare and Hope realizes that Dajh is giggling away on the other side of the room. Hope winces. "I mean...what's a locator?"
Sazh heaves a sigh and fiddles with the knob some more. He taps the screen with a fingernail and the furrow in his brow melts into a smile. "You know those communicators that I built?"
"Yeah." Hope rolls his eyes. He helped Sazh build them but does he ever get any credit? NO-O!
"Well, I added a feature to them that I never told anyone about." He turns the screen towards Hope and points at a flashing red light. "So that we could find anyone who might get lost."
"That's Lightning?" Hope asks, feeling optimistic for the first time in hours.
"That's Lightning!" Sazh sounds pleased. "Or it's her communicator at any rate. And it gives us a starting point." Sazh stands up and walks over to Dajh, scoops up the boy and gives Hope a baleful look. "Hurry up. We need to get our asses moving if we want to reach the soldier before sunrise." Hope is out of his chair and in his coat before Sazh finishes his sentence. "And I'm going to give that woman a piece of my mind, let me tell you!"
Hope is looking forward to that particular lecture.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
TBC...
Chapter 6
Author: frkmgnt1
Rating: PG-13 or T (Pick your poison. No graphic anything as of Chapter 5)
Pairing: Snow/Lightning, Snow/Serah
Chapter 5: The Works and Days of Hands ~7,400 words
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!
"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision."
-Ayn Rand
The Works and Days of Hands
Hope's never seen this much snow in one place at one time before. Back on Cocoon, the weather, like everything else, was controlled by the fal'Cie. Every day was mild and pleasant. Rain could be turned on or off with a switch. There was no snow unless it was needed or wanted. Fang and Vanille told him that while the Pulse fal'Cie manipulated the environment to suit their needs, they didn't exert any real control over the weather. As a result, Gran Pulse ran the full gamut of weather, from scorching summers to brutal winters and everything in between.
Hope stares at the snow outside with an odd mixture of fascination and trepidation. The world looks beautiful wrapped in this icy shroud. But the temperature outside is dangerous, as is the fluffy, plush looking blanket covering the world.
"Hope? Why don't you come away from the window and have a look at these drawings?"
"Huh?" Hope turns from the window towards his father. Bartholomew sits at their table, surrounded by books and papers, scribbles and scraps. The fall of Cocoon handed humankind a tabula rasa of more than one type. No longer were they fal'Cie puppets; but the price of their freedom was, to put it simply, everything they'd ever known. Humans were starting from scratch with cursory knowledge and sparse resources.
They are at the end and beginning of all things.
"Would you like to see the plans for the irrigation system?" Bartholomew asks, raising an eyebrow.
A year ago Hope would have found the idea of looking at plans BORING! He'd have considered his father asking him some sort of secret punishment; a conspiracy by his parent to transform him into an automaton of epically yawn-tastic proportions. Now, he's more than interested in learning new things; he's fascinated by them.
When he thinks back he realizes that he always wondered how things worked. When he was a small child, he would sneak around and peek into drawers and closets, disassemble electronics and motors. He would sneak around in the underbelly of Palumpolum, crawl through the water and sewer system and stare at the fal'Cie Carbuncle.
Understanding the way things worked fascinated him. His mother called it a healthy curiosity and encouraged him on the sly. His father called him a busy-body and punished him for snooping. The punishments only forced him to get sneakier; they did little to discourage his explorations.
No, his father didn't kill his curiosity. That was the work of his classmates.
When Hope went to middle school, he found that being curious and interested in learning new things singled him out as an oddity among his peers. They called him names and picked on him. He was already small and a bit sheltered, and being mocked and teased felt like torture. So he abandoned his natural curiosities in favor of fitting in and being cool. He stopped exploring the city and started hanging around under the train trestle. He refused to look at the lattice work of the structure. Cool kids didn't care about how things worked or how they were put together. Cool kids didn't care about sewer systems, food supplies or infrastructure; they cared about fashion, hanging out, making out, and the latest video games. It didn't take long before Hope cared about those things too.
And it didn't hurt that his 'geeky' familiarity with the tunnels beneath the city gave all the teenagers new and more interesting places to hang out.
Now he's rediscovering his innate curiosity in a world where cool means precisely nothing. It's harder than he thinks, unlearning his forced apathy. But he's dedicated, and he forces himself to spend hours going over his father's plans. Sometimes he even works up plans of his own-designs for robots, computers or some other little creation.
Since his time as a l'Cie, Hope found that he has refined his mechanical skills. He can look at an item and see just how to make it work better. Sazh is even better at creating, visualizing and building than Hope. His friend's mechanical skills rival those of any inventor and between the two of them, they've put together some pretty cool things.
Despite his natural talents, curiosities and apparent usefulness, Hope is limited in how much he is permitted to do. He is restricted both by his age and his overprotective father. It doesn't help that Sazh agrees with his father, eliminating his only hope for an ally in his campaign to participate in this reconstruction.
He is, quite literally, trapped. Trapped in the body of a fifteen year old boy; trapped in his father's home.
He just wants to hurry up and grow up already! There are so many things he wants to do-things he knows he can do-that his father forbids based on his age. It's frustrating as hell. He helped save humanity. He walked with heroes and yet somehow he has a curfew again. It's absurd. He should be allowed to help fortify their community. He should not be relegated to the background, treated like some child with no mind or voice.
Hope's aggravated just thinking about it.
His father keeps saying, 'when you are older Hope, you may go with Sazh,' and 'when you are older Hope, you may go out into the wilds and protect the settlers.' When Hope balks at being treated as a child his father says, 'For now, you need to stay here and learn. Read. Muscle we have in spades! We need minds to help create what the muscle will build.'
The waiting rankles, but the worst part is that Hope knows his father is correct. If he wants to be a man, he must walk the path, not shove his fingers in his ears like a child and insist he be treated as a man. He must prove he's growing up by accepting that he's not a 'grown up.' He figures if he listens to his father, then maybe his father will listen to him too.
So he waits, and he learns; he reads and dreams.
He dreams of towers reaching toward the sky. He dreams of repairing, refurbishing and peopling the empty corners of Gran Pulse.
He dreams of Fang and Vanille returning to something a bit closer to the home they lost five hundred years before. He wants to create that for them. He wants to be the one to shine a light bright enough to abolish the shadows in Vanille's eyes and Fang's heart.
He misses them though they are right here: perfect and eternal.
He longs to rebuild Gran Pulse for them; he hopes that doing so will help them wake up. So whenever Bartholomew offers to show him plans, Hope fights the urge to roll his eyes and revolt in the manner of teenagers everywhere. Instead he sits and goes over every line and note on the drawings with his father.
He'll earn his father's respect, or kill them both trying, damn it.
And so he sits beside his father at the table now and stares at the newest drawings. Hope is surprised by the level of detail attained in the drawings, considering the archaic supplies at hand. They no longer have computers or datalogs to create digital drawings and three dimensional models. Now they have only parchments and graphite. In the summer they will press more flowers into pigments for drawings and paintings, and catch some fish and sea creatures that have natural ink sacs to vary the writing implements. But the winter killed all the flowers and the cold, snow and wind make any sort of fishing dangerous. The risk might be worth taking for food; a luxury like ink would never be worth the cost in lives.
So instead of color, he peruses the shades of gray drawn onto dingy white. Hope tries to visualize the designs as they will look once implemented while his father's hand skirts over the design. He tries to picture the piping, how they will excavate, what materials they will use. He tries to see in his mind's eye how the two dimensional drawings will translate into the three dimensional world. He envisions how the entire system will rely on gravity, running water from the stream and a series of water wheels, rather than depending on the scarce fuels and resources that they salvaged from Cocoon. Those scavenged items will only last so long and Hope knows his father's greatest fear is that they will run out of power before they've set up a suitable replacement power supply and infrastructure. People will descend into total chaos if no stability is provided before the last of the fuel is gone.
"This looks good," Hope says with total honesty. He looks up at his father and notes the pleased look on Bartholomew's face. "Will we use this to replace the crappy plumbing that we have now." He can't resist the dig, and he wonders why the hell he antagonizes his father all the time. His father frowns and sighs.
"Well, we'll have to develop a water treatment facility, and a sewage treatment plant as well. I'm afraid of what diseases might start tearing through the settlements if we don't take care of this soon." Bartholomew looks out the window. "We're running out of time."
Hope looks at his father for a moment realizing for the first time from where he inherited his instincts and sense of fatalism. Hope never believed he had anything in common with his father; now he wonders if their problem wasn't that they were too alike to get along. There's been too much to do for them to worry about their differences this past year. That might never change. Still, his mother was always the buffer between them, and now that she's gone, he wonders if they'll tear one another to shreds.
Thoughts of his mother always lead him to that fateful day on the Hanging Edge. If he hadn't been such a frightened child, his mother might still be alive right now. He cowered in his robe-a Sanctum supplied shroud-while his mother took up arms and fought PSICOM. She died protecting others: Snow, him. She was a hero and he was too angry at first to realize it. All he saw was that she was gone; that she sacrificed herself to save others didn't register. Once it did, he swore he would follow her example. He rubs at the sting in his eyes and swallows a lump in his throat.
He still misses her like an amputated limb. Almost a year later and it still hurts to think of her loss. He looks at his father and wonders if he misses her as much as Hope does. They haven't stopped moving for a year. They've been in crisis mode for so long-first he was a fugitive, then the world ended, now they're building a new society-that he wonders what will happen when things settle. Will they actually mourn his mom, or will her memory just disappear into the enormity of everything around them?
A shrill noise pulls him from his thoughts, startles him so badly that he almost falls off his chair.
"That's your communicator, Hope," his father says without even looking up.
"Oh. Yeah." Who the hell is calling? He left Lightning about six messages last week, but he doubts she's calling him. Something has been off with her and she refuses to talk to him about it yet. Hope hates the distance between them: both physical and emotional. He feels like he's losing her and he can't seem to stop it.
It feels familiar in the worst possible way.
He has dreams where he's back on the Hanging Edge, but instead of Snow holding his mother over the abyss, it's him holding Lightning. He swears he won't let go as he stares into her eyes, but she slips right through his fingers anyway.
Hope shakes himself from his stupor, wishes he could shake the dread as easily, grabs his communicator and checks the name of the caller.
Snow? What the...? Snow calling him can't be a good sign. Based on the frequency of calls between them, Hope would have guessed that Snow had no idea how to even work the communicators.
"Hello?" He asks, even though he already knows who's calling.
"Hey kid." Something in Snow's voice sets Hope's teeth on edge, makes his whole body tense.
"What's going on? Is everything alright?" Snow heaves a sigh in his ear and Hope feels his heartbeat accelerate. Something bad. Whatever it is, it's something bad. "Snow, what's going on?"
"Have you heard from Light?"
What? Heard from Lightning? Why would Snow ask something like that when he lives less than ten minutes from Lightning?
"Not in a few weeks. Why? What's happening?"
"Damn it!" Snow huffs. There's noise in the background, but Hope can't figure out what he's hearing.
"Snow? What's going on? And what's that noise?"
"Don't worry about the noise." Hope shoves a finger in his opposite ear in an effort to hear Snow through the din on the line. What-is Snow standing in a wind tunnel? "Lightning left and no one's heard from her in a few days now. I was hoping..."
"What do you mean she left?" Hope cuts him off. "Why would she leave?" It's a rhetorical question for Snow. Hope never expects him to have an answer. He expects Snow to mumble, 'how am I supposed to know?' or 'you think she tells me anything?' accompanied by some subsonic grumbling. But the silence on the other end of the phone speaks volumes to Hope.
"Why would she leave, Snow?" Hope repeats, now looking for an answer. "And where would she go?"
"She's heading towards you guys." Hope doesn't miss the fact that Snow skipped over the first part of his question but he lets that go for now in the wake of something far more pressing. Hope stares out the window at the raging storm outside.
"W...wait. Wait." He can't get his brain to engage here. He's trapped in some sort of loop, unable to get past the idea of Lightning travelling in this weather. "How...How was she getting here? I saw Sazh the other day and he didn't mention anything about picking her up."
Snow sighs in Hope's ear again and Hope holds his breath in anticipation of what he's about to hear. "She walked."
"No she didn't," he declares.
"What?" Snow sounds confused by the certainty in Hope's declaration. Not that confusing Snow has ever been a challenge, he thinks and immediately feels bad about it. Taking shots at Snow's intelligence-even privately-is neither nice nor fair. Snow is not stupid; he's just a simple guy.
"No, she couldn't have done that, because that's stupid. Lightning's not stupid."
Snow scoffs, and it's an ugly sound. "Well I hate to break it to you kid, but she's sure as hell not a genius either." Hope feels irritation creeping in at Snow's snarky comment. The desire to lash out at Snow's own dumb behavior bubbles up, but Hope represses the urge. It's not the point here. "Anyway, she did it. I spoke to her the day she left."
"She wouldn't...She wouldn't do that without telling me."
"Did you check your messages?" Hope's brow furrows in confusion. "She sent Serah a message the day she left. Said she sent one to you too. She didn't say where she was going in either though."
Wait. Back up! "But she told you?" There's so much more to this story and he's going to get to the bottom of it.
"Huh?" Either Snow is playing dumb, or Hope has been giving him too much credit this past year. He chooses to believe the former. For now.
"She messaged her sister, but she told you?" Snow doesn't respond and Hope wonders for the fifth time what the hell is going on here. "What the hell is going on Snow?"
"It's a long story." Hope rolls his eyes. "Look, kid. Just, uh...if...I mean when she gets there. Just let me know. Alright? We're worried. I mean, Serah's...Serah's worried." Snow's voice trails off and Hope's even more concerned now. Snow hasn't sounded this miserable since...Snow never sounded this miserable. What the hell is going on in Oerba (or whatever the hell they're calling it these days)? "Will you do that?"
Not if Lightning doesn't want me to, is his gut response. But Snow sounds so miserable and Hope knows that he's asking for more than just his own edification here. "I'll...I'll let you know. Okay?"
"Yeah." There's a pregnant pause and Hope wonders if Snow has something more to say.
"Don't...don't worry. Light...Light's the strongest person I know." Another laugh. "She'll be fine. " Stating it makes him feel better. Snow says nothing. "Bye, Snow."
"Bye, kid. Take it easy, alright?" He disconnects the call.
Hope stares at his communicator, then looks out the window at the raging storm again. He scans through messages and finds that he did, indeed, miss one from Lightning.
Taking a trip. Will be out of touch. Speak with you soon. - L.
"Crap," he mutters, irritated at himself for ignoring his communicator and missing Lightning's message. "You'd better be okay, Light," he whispers to the communicator.
"Did I hear you say your friend is coming to visit?"
Hope looks at his father, agog. He didn't think that Bartholomew would have the nerve to listen in on his personal call. "Yeah."
"She's not walking, is she?" Bartholomew looks up over the rims of his spectacles and Hope can hear the warning in his father's tone. Something icy travels the length of his spine.
"Yeah. She is. Why?"
"Damn it!" Bartholomew swears and stands, his chair clattering to the floor. His father never swears. It's enough to set Hope's heart hammering. "What would make her do something so foolish?"
Hope's hackles rise. It's instinct to defend Lightning, even when his father is right. "Don't call Lightning names!"
His father scoffs, then deflates. "I'm not. I'm just...I'm concerned for her well-being."
Hope feels like a jerk for snapping at his father. It's amazing how often he feels like a jerk these days. He wonders if he and his father will ever stop circling each other like wary dogs. "The storm is bad, but Lightning's a survivor." Saying it aloud makes Hope feel better. He knows it's true. If the fal'Cie and the Sanctum couldn't kill Lightning, a little crappy weather sure as hell isn't going to be able to take her out.
"It's not the weather," Bartholomew replies, and plunks back into his chair. The answer is the definition of unhelpful. Hope waits out his father, watching while he rubs at the bridge of his nose in what Hope has come to understand is a nervous gesture. The words are terrifying and vague; add to them his father's nervous tick and Hope feels panic start bubbling through him. Hope sits down across the table from his father, feels tremors in his gut radiating outwards into his limbs.
"What's going on dad?" He stares at his father and tries to extract the information by force of will alone.
"We've been trying to keep this information quiet to prevent panic." Bartholomew paces. "It looks like we've made a gross miscalculation."
"Who's we? And what are you talking about?" He's getting antsy and aggravated. If his father knows something that might impact Lightning's safety, then he needs to spill. Now. "Dad?" He prompts, tone clipped and angry.
His father doesn't seem to notice. "'We' meaning your friend Sazh and myself." No matter how much time Bartholomew spends with Sazh, he always refers to him as 'your friend Sazh,' so much so that Hope wonders if his father believes that is Sazh's full name. Hope is used to the oddity, but not so used to it that he doesn't notice that it is, in fact, odd. "We're not sure who they are... but there's a group of 'Marauders' that are roaming around and preying on people they catch out on Archylte Steppe."
Marauders? Gangs of people? His father is worried about PEOPLE? It sounds ludicrous in a world where the animals are as tall as mountains; where predators the size of aircrafts stalk the skies and menace civilians. A world where the weather shifts so quickly that a person can die of exposure in hours.
A world that has been called Hell-and rightly so!
"They're just people. Lightning can handle people. She fought the fal'Cie!" He's not sure who he's trying to convince.
"I understand why you would think that Hope, but I haven't told you the whole story."
"Well, why the hell haven't you?" Hope snaps. It's one thing for his father to hold him back and impose curfews on him, but withholding information is a violation of trust that infuriates him. He may not be a 'grown up' yet, but he sure as hell is not a child either!
"I thought we would have time, and there were important things to address..." Bartholomew trails off as if he realizes how lame his excuse is. "But you're right. We should have told you." He pauses and reconsiders: "I should have told you."
"So tell me now then." His father looks like he would rather eat glass than tell this story. It makes Hope even more nervous.
"These are not just people, Hope. From what we can tell, this is an organized group with some paramilitary characteristics." Bartholomew meets Hope's eyes and says, "These people are trained, Hope. Do you understand? They're trained and they're preying on small settlements. They are doing..." his father pauses and clenches his fists. "They're doing unspeakable things."
"I don't..." he gropes for the right word. "Understand," is what he settles on, but it seems weak somehow.
"No one can understand this sort of madness and desecration. Not even after all the horrible things we've seen." There's a long, pregnant pause where Hope's worst imaginings spin out through his head in full Technicolor. He has no idea what to say. How can this be true? Why did his father hide the information? How many people have been attacked? How many casualties have they suffered?
How long had this been going on?
"Where did they come from?" is the first question he asks aloud. It's probably the least important, but he finds he must know. From the look on his father's face, Hope guesses it's the one question he doesn't want to answer.
"We don't know. But your friend Sazh did a bit of digging and based on his findings we've hypothesized that these men may have been left behind in prisons and such on Cocoon."
"Prisons?"
"Yes. In all the madness of our escape it seems that no one thought to save the prisoners. They were left behind, locked up, with no one to care for them. So every one of them was given a death sentence no matter how petty their infraction." The full meaning of his father's statement sinks in. They'd left people behind, locked up, unable to care for themselves. Hope tries to imagine the horror of being shut away on a dying world, abandoned and left to starve and die by those who were supposed to keep charge of them.
It is a horrifying and inhuman thought.
He realizes that his father has been speaking the entire time he's been meandering through the horrors of his imagination. "...until someone let them out, organized them and set them loose on the rest of us. And I believe they have quite the axe to grind."
"Who let them out?"
"We're not sure. We're not even sure if that's who they really are. But what we do know is that they are dangerous and organized. We assume they have military leadership. Possibly some sadistic faction in PSICOM who have found themselves unaccountable and unmonitored. Those sorts of persons would be like metaphorical children in candy stores in this new world."
"Why do you think it's soldiers?" Hope knows all about the sadism present in PSICOM. His father seems to forget that Hope was present during the massacre known as 'The Purge.'
"Sadists are present through all walks of life, Hope..."
Great! His dad is gearing up for a lecture when all Hope wanted was to know if the presence of soldiers is speculation or fact. Hope rolls his eyes but keeps his mouth shut and lets his father continue.
"...but not all of them have such specific training. The attacks look well coordinate despite their brutality. The hits come at sundown or sunrise. No one escapes them. Not one person. People are being systematically rounded up and..." he watches his father pale, feels himself go cold. Bartholomew shakes his head. "Never mind."
"So they're killing people." Hope knows it sounds lame and stupid, but he just can't seem to get his head around the idea that with so few humans left alive on two worlds that anyone would just destroy even more life. From the look on his father's face as he nods, Hope can tell there's yet more that Bartholomew isn't telling him.
"To be accurate, they're killing men." The word killing has an edge to it that tells Hope more than his father ever would. More is happening here than simple murder. His voice is grave and his eyes are serious when he says: "They're taking the women."
Hope feels sick to his stomach. He considers calling Snow back immediately to demand that he go out and hunt for Lightning right now. He stomps on the idea, realizing the absurdity in the notion of Lightning needing to be rescued. He looks out the window, pictures Lightning out on the Steppe alone, in this snow, surrounded by monsters and enemies and now predatory men. Alone and uninformed...
"I need to go!" He declares and looks at his father, preparing himself for a fight.
Bartholomew shakes his head, then rests his elbows on the table and buries his face in his hands. "I know," he whispers and Hope nearly falls over in shock
"You do?" He does? Hope expected a battle, not...understanding. It doesn't make sense.
Bartholomew stands up and walks over to Hope, puts his hand on his shoulder. "I don't want you to go. I want you here. I want you safe. But you're your mother's son."
The mention of his mother feels like a knife in his chest. He feels his eyes burn and feels ashamed at his weakness. Wasn't he just trying to be a man? Men don't cry! Hope wipes away the tear and sniffs, then looks back at his father.
His father pulls off his glasses and wipes his eyes.
"I see her every day in you, you know." Bartholomew walks to the sink and pours himself a glass of water. He takes two big gulps, wipes a hand across the back of his mouth. "Sometimes I can't bear it," he admits. Hope feels his face heat and his fists clench. "I loved her so much, and seeing her in you is...incredible. You're all I have left of her and the idea of losing you..." Bartholomew clears his throat and sits back down.
"Your mother was never one to sit back if others needed help. She wouldn't have been her if she hadn't taken up arms during The Purge." Hope can't look at his father anymore. He can't watch his father tremble as he speaks of a lost love; a lost wife. How could Hope have doubted this man's love for his mother? Or himself, for that matter? He looks out over the frozen world beyond the window, holds his breath in anticipation of his father's next words. "And I know you can't just sit here either. So go ahead and find your friend, and bring her home safely."
Hope is moving before his father finishes his sentence. "HOPE!" his father calls as he makes it to the threshold of his bedroom. He stops but refuses to turn from his intended path. He needs to get to Sazh, get the aircraft and go search. "Be careful and come home."
"I will," Hope agrees as he pulls his empty pack from under his bed and starts to fill it. He finishes quickly and layers his clothing. He pauses to take stock of his room, spots the box on his dresser and lifts it with shaking hands. He takes the key from around his neck and unlocks the box. He lifts the bandana from within and unfolds it to reveal the crystal within.
Alexander.
Hope knows that the Eidolon will not respond to him anymore, assuming it even exists. The crystal is more like a good luck charm. He wraps it back up and slips it into his pocket.
He grabs his pack and slings it on. He looks out the window towards the nearby Cocoon. The storm conceals it, but he knows it's there.
He knows they're there. Always there, waiting. Hope swallows.
He's lost too much already. He refuses to lose Lightning too.
The walk to Sazh's house usually takes thirty minutes. The snow, cold and wind triple the duration and by the time Hope catches sight of Sazh's house, he's frozen nearly through. His feet burn and throb in his boots. He looks down at them, spots the black laces flailing around in the storm like a shredded flag. He bends at the waist, nearly topples face first into the snow when the weight on his back shifts higher on his shoulders and falls victim to gravity. He bends his knees, regains his balance and barks out a loud curse that would make Fang blush. He exhales a white breath and reaches for his laces. He's ham-fisted, fingers refusing to bend inside his gloves. It takes three tries to get the laces tied, and that is only after he gives up on traditional bows and went with the 'bunny ear' technique. He feels like a five year old again, his mother making a big ear and a small one, and saying 'the bunny goes around the tree, into the burrow and...pull Hope.' He sniffles at the memory even as he follows the instructions and ties a perfect bow with his frozen fingers.
He stands upright; the weight on his back shifts again, falling hard enough to nearly jerk him onto his ass in the snow. He shakes off the embarrassment, balls up memories of his mother and focuses on moving forward. Every part of him feels frozen and heavy and he wonders what the hell Lightning could possibly be thinking trying to journey across the world in this weather when he can't even make it across his town.
She is the bravest, stupidest person he knows.
He reaches Sazh's door and thumps on it with a swollen hand. He underestimated the dangers of the storm. He's going to need to reassess his gear if he's going to live through this journey. Of course in order to do any of that, he needs to get inside and get warm. He pulls both hands to him and sticks them in his armpits, and kicks at the door gently with one club foot, then rests his head against the wood and wonders if it's possible that Sazh is away. He wonders if he'll make it back home before he loses feeling in all his extremities.
Or, you know, dies. Whatever.
The door disappears and Hope topples forward like a felled tree. He doesn't even pull his hands out from under his arms to brace himself. He's too cold to move and figures his face will break his fall nicely, thank you very much.
Hands snatch him mid-fall and Hope decides he'll be relieved later. He's too cold to feel anything right now.
"Hey now!" Sazh exclaims. He pulls Hope up and in and kicks the door shut behind him. He turns Hope around to look at him and says, "Hope?"
"Hey Sazh!" Hope gasps through chattering teeth before choking on the words. The cold air seems to have aggravated his lungs. And everything else!
"Kid, what are you doing here?" Sazh takes Hope's hat off, reaches for a towel and throws it over Hope's soaked hair. "You're damn near frozen through!"
"Tell me about it."
"Get out of that coat and those boots!" Sazh walks over to the sink, fills a kettle and sets it on the stove to boil. Hope uses his teeth to peel his gloves off and gets his first look at his reddish-purple fingers. Sazh turns around and says, "Damn it!"
He storms over to Hope and works the buttons on his coat, then the laces on his boots. He yanks the first boot off before Hope is ready and nearly sends Hope backwards through the front door. Hope is more prepared for the second one and uses his aching hands to brace himself. Then Sazh yanks off his pack and coat with more force than necessary.
"OW!" Hope yells, though the entire episode is more hurtful to his ego than his body. Sazh seems to know it too because he doesn't miss a beat filling a bowl with warm water and setting it on the table.
"Sit down, shut up and put your hands in that water." Hope follows the instructions. He winces and flinches away.
"That's hot!"
"No it's not! Your skin is frozen. Put your damn hands in the damn water!" Sazh stoops and pulls off Hope's socks. Hope looks down at his feet and is happy to see that they look pale.
"Damn it! Sazh slides another basin beneath his feet. "Put your feet in that now!" Sazh stands up looking angrier than Hope can ever remember seeing him. He looks like steam is going to shoot out of his ears. Sazh opens his mouth to yell some more...
The kettle whistle interrupts.
Sazh marches over to the kettle and shuts off the heat. He grabs a mug and spoons something into it before pouring in the water. Hope smiles at the thought of hot cocoa. No one has made him a cup of cocoa since his mom. He smiles at Sazh when he places the mug in front of Hope. Hope stares into the mug at what appears to be cloudy water. He frowns.
"What's that?"
"Hot water and sugar. The breakfast of champions."
"Pass."
"Drink it. This isn't a debate. That's frostbite genius! You need warmth, fluid and sugar and this is the fastest delivery system I have for all three." Sazh gives him the hairy eyeball. "You don't drink it and I'll hold you down and pour it down your throat. And don't think I won't do it either!" Hope scowls at the threat.
Hope lifts his hand out of the cooling water and takes a sip of the sugar water. It's too sweet and he flinches at the taste, but Sazh is shooting him a death glare. He takes another sip, finds the taste far less offensive the second time. Sazh changes the water in the bowl and places it back in front of Hope.
"Wanna explain to me what the hell you're doing wandering around in this storm? I thought you had more sense than that."
"I do. And I'm not 'wandering.'" Hope finishes the atrocious drink and scowls at the dregs on the bottom. "Lightning is."
"Make sense, kid! What are you talking about?"
"Lightning is on her way here. Now. In this."
Sazh stands up and walks to the counter. He leans against it and stares through the sidelights on the door. "And you know this how?"
"Snow called me. He's...concerned." Terrified is more like it, but Hope keeps his judgments to himself.
"Well he sure as hell should be!" Sazh barks. Then he mumbles, "Crazy woman. What can you be thinking?" Sazh's posture radiates tension.
"We need to find her," Hope declares.
"Hope, you got frostbitten walking to my house. How are you going to walk across the Archylte Steppe?"
Hope doesn't miss Sazh's omission of himself from the scenario. A lead weight settles in Hope's gut. It never occurred to him that Sazh would refuse to help him save Lightning. "I was hoping that we'd fly," he mumbles.
"Not in this weather we won't."
Hope feels desperation kick in. He can't do this on his own! "But..."
"No buts," Sazh snaps and then turns to the window. "Getting ourselves killed won't do anyone a damn bit of good." He heaves an enormous sigh and smacks his forehead into the cold glass before him. Hope keeps quiet, knows that Sazh is considering his options and to talk right now might tip the scales in the wrong direction. Sazh murmurs, "Damn it, Soldier." Hope watches the words fog the glass and then disappear. He needs to say something.
"Please," he barely recognizes the small voice but it seems to get Sazh's attention. He turns and faces Hope. "Please Sazh. I can't...I can't lose Lightning." Hope feels his lip tremble and his face heat. He's supposed to be a man now. Men don't blubber and babble. Men fight for what they want. But he doesn't feel strong right now. He feels like the same terrified boy on that catwalk on the Hanging Edge, watching his mother die.
"Haven't we lost enough?" Haven't I lost enough? "How can we lose her too?" Sazh flinches. "I mean, we just watched..."
"I know it, Kid." Sazh walks over and sits heavily in the chair next to him. He puts his head in his hands. "I miss them too." Sazh looks out the window, stares into the storm in the vague direction of Cocoon, Fang and Vanille. "Don't think I forgot it. They saved us all and I can't help but be pissed at them for it. How's that for gratitude?"
Hope feels like he's balanced on a precipice. Sazh hasn't sounded this bitter since the Sanctum took Dajh from him.
"Alright, kid." Sazh acquiesces. "You're right. I'm done losing the people I love. We can't fly, but I've been working on something that we can use." Hope tries to jump up. "Hey now, wait a minute!" Hope looks down at the basin he's standing in and looks back at Sazh. "Put your ass back in that chair. It's going to take me some time to get ready and pack up Dajh to drop at your dad's house. And you need to thaw out."
"We don't have..."
"Time? We have as much time as we need. The Soldier is tough. She's got a better chance surviving this mess than we do, that's for damn sure."
Sazh moves like a whirlwind through the house. Hope hears Dajh's quiet protests to being yanked from sleep. Sazh's voice is a melodious murmur. He speaks too softly for Hope to catch words, but the cadence lulls him, reminds him of their travels a year ago. Whenever he couldn't sleep, he'd eavesdrop on conversations between his friends. His snooping gave him insight into Sazh's hopes, Snow's fears and Lightning's sadness. They discussed topics with one another that they never would have broached with him. He was the 'Kid' and was shielded from ugly truths and fears.
It pissed him off then. It still pisses him off now.
Sazh enters the room bundled up like a mummy and slips out the door without a word. Hope stammers and curses. Giggling from the corner startles him.
"Ooh! You said a bad word!" Dajh says, pointing at him, eyes round as saucers and lips quirked up in a small smile.
Crap! How did he not notice Dajh? Hope blushes to the roots of his hair. "Uh," he rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah. Sorry. I shouldn't have said it and I'm sorry. It's our secret, okay?" The last thing Hope needs is a lecture from Sazh about swearing within earshot of his son.
Dajh smiles at him and says, "Okay Hope." Dajh walks over and sits on the floor to tie his boot laces. Hope notes him looping the laces like bunny ears and he smiles, feels the sting in his eyes. "Don't worry. Daddy says bad words all the time when he thinks I can't hear him." Dajh gives Hope a devious smirk and Hope feels his own shock smearing across his face.
He bursts out laughing as Sazh comes back into the house.
"What's so funny?" Sazh looks at Hope and over at Dajh. Dajh shrugs at his father and Hope only laughs harder. "Have you lost your mind kid?" Sazh walks over and drops two pairs of socks and another sweater next to Hope on the table. "Put all that on. We're going to be in the Snow Kat-that's what I call my newest creation-but it's still colder than a witch's..." he glances at his son mid-sentence. "Well anyway, it's cold. And you can't afford to let that skin refreeze."
Hope laughs even harder, thinking of Dajh's confession about his father's bad words. Sazh gives him the stink eye for a minute before turning towards his son. "Dajh, do you have your things?"
"Yes, dad."
"You're a good kid, you know that?"
"Yes dad!" Dajh agrees.
"And humble too," Hope mumbles. Sazh smacks Hope upside his head without missing a beat and continues talking to his son.
"Would you mind helping me out here and putting this bowl in the sink?" Dajh rushes over and grabs the bowl. "Careful not to spill the water!" Hope watches Sazh watch his son and finds himself missing his mother all over again.
Hope loves his father but it takes effort and work to talk with him, whereas everything between his mother and him was natural and unforced. Like Sazh and Dajh.
Hope shakes his head, dries his foot off with the towel Sazh gave him and slips the sock on. The soft material feels like sandpaper and he can barely stifle the yelp at the pain of contact.
"That hurts?"
"Yeah." Sazh disappears for a minute and comes back with a roll of gauze.
"Wrap them first." Hope starts winding the gauze around his feet and Sazh watches before saying, "Just so you know, the pain is actually a good sign. It means you still have feeling." Sazh pulls out some bizarre contraption that looks like the bastard love child of a datalog and microwave.
"What's that?" Hope asks as he winds gauze around his other foot then pulls the sock over it.
"This? This is a locator." Sazh fiddles with a knob that Hope thinks he may have stolen from a Hoplite corpse.
"What the hell..." Sazh shoots him a glare and Hope realizes that Dajh is giggling away on the other side of the room. Hope winces. "I mean...what's a locator?"
Sazh heaves a sigh and fiddles with the knob some more. He taps the screen with a fingernail and the furrow in his brow melts into a smile. "You know those communicators that I built?"
"Yeah." Hope rolls his eyes. He helped Sazh build them but does he ever get any credit? NO-O!
"Well, I added a feature to them that I never told anyone about." He turns the screen towards Hope and points at a flashing red light. "So that we could find anyone who might get lost."
"That's Lightning?" Hope asks, feeling optimistic for the first time in hours.
"That's Lightning!" Sazh sounds pleased. "Or it's her communicator at any rate. And it gives us a starting point." Sazh stands up and walks over to Dajh, scoops up the boy and gives Hope a baleful look. "Hurry up. We need to get our asses moving if we want to reach the soldier before sunrise." Hope is out of his chair and in his coat before Sazh finishes his sentence. "And I'm going to give that woman a piece of my mind, let me tell you!"
Hope is looking forward to that particular lecture.
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TBC...
Chapter 6