Fic: Do I Dare Disturb the Universe: Chapter 14 Time to Murder & Create II: A Hundred Indecisions

[frkmgnt1]

Disclaimer: I own the plot, not the players.

"Man is the cruelest animal."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Chapter 14
Time to Murder and Create
Part II: A Hundred Indecisions

Original time: T minus 5 hours 45 minutes
New time: T plus 30 minutes


Within a few minutes of Lightning donning her disguise, Snow has dumped Jace's body into the dungeon, given another rundown to the hostages, and settled himself by the door to head out.

Lightning has been eager to get out of this camp since before she was escorted into it, but now that the moment of truth has arrived, she feels the stirrings of anxiety fluttering in her stomach. That's nothing unusual, nor is it a bad thing: overconfidence is far more likely to get them all killed than an abundance of caution (though hesitance can be just as hazardous to everyone's health as cockiness.)

But as she looks at Snow, a creeping horror fills her, whispering to her that she best take a good long look, because she will never again see him alive. The rational part of her understands that this feeling is a conjuration, born from the trauma of having found him just in time to nearly lose him for good. And then to yank him back from death, only to be forced to accept the impossibility of his continued survival, is a wound too raw and fresh to bandage, even temporarily.

Lightning feels an unbearable amount of guilt, not just for being the cause of Snow's pain and torment, but at the cruelty she'd purposely directed towards him after that night. She spent the entire journey through the blizzard thinking of him, and dreaming of him, all the while refusing to speak with him, and even going so far as to threaten to throw away her communicator if he continued to attempt to contact her. He'd been worried. He told her that, not that Snow is ever evasive about his motivations. Snow doesn't dissemble or mince words. After all, it was he that came to her about the previously unnamed thing between the two of them. He felt something, and had no interest in deception: self or otherwise.

But it's worse than her cruel dismissal of his feelings of both the love he confessed, and the concern that he expressed. When she was preparing for this insane mission, she'd left behind tokens for everyone, left nothing unsaid with anyone.

Except him.

She'd known it was cruel, even though she believed him to be safe at home with Serah. But when she called Serah, she wouldn't even let her sister mention Snow. Unlike her death march to Eden the previous year, Lightning every intention and expectation of surviving this mission. Still, she knew that there was a chance she wouldn't survive the night, and so, she made her goodbyes to everyone she loved, as best she could.

Everyone but Snow

Sure, she'd had her so-called reasons for her deliberate exclusion - their feelings were wrong, and a betrayal of Serah - but even as she was doing it, she knew she was being unjustifiably cruel. Of course, that had been the whole point. Snow needed to move on and forget about what he thought he felt about her, and what better way to convince him that he belonged with Serah, than by making him hate Lightning?

All she needed to do was remind him of why he didn't like her when they first met. How hard could that be?

She knows now that she grew too close to him, too dependent on him, during their time as l'Cie the previous year. It started out innocently enough. She'd felt adrift after losing Serah, and she cleaved to Snow - and he to her - in order to feel closer to their lost loved one. In her own grief, she failed to realize how vulnerable he was. All his bluster about being a Hero, saving the love of his life and getting his happily ever after, was intoxicating. In a time of misery and despair, Snow's unshakable optimism was addictive. The whole group counted on him.

It was an unfair burden to force him to bear, and Lightning is furious with herself and her behavior.

Snow was hurt and vulnerable, grieving for the lost love of his life, and in need of both comfort and purpose, but instead of offering him support as his soon-to-be sister - for fuck sake, he called her Sis for months, what's wrong with her? - she glommed onto him.

She doesn't believe she did it on purpose, even though she can't deny that she did start to notice him in a way she oughtn't. In retrospect, it seems obvious that his loss of Serah, and his desire to fix that loss, had caused him to fixate on Lightning. Of course he'd attach himself to her! She was the closest thing to Serah he could have, and the family resemblance couldn't have helped. Protecting Lightning was a chance to redeem himself for what he perceived as his failure to protect Serah.

Lightning should have seen it, and put a stop to it. She should have maintained the distance between them that was there from the moment they met. All she needed to do was refuse to relent when he batted his baby blues, smirked, and winked at her. Hell, she should have punched him. Kicked him. Shot him. Something!

But what did she do? She allowed his unflappable optimism to infect her and his good looks and good humor to charm her. Before she knew what was happening, she'd attached herself to him like some sort of leech, sucking up all his attention. And his grief, fear and loneliness made him vulnerable and needy.

Then, like a thief, she'd stolen away his affections from her sister. She didn't mean to do it, but intentions don't mean shit. It's irrelevant that she hadn't meant to break anyone's heart. And since someone's heart has to break, Lightning figured it was only fair if it was hers. She's at fault; she's the interloper.

And so, she tried to undo last year's error of stealing Snow's affections. What better way to stop him from loving her than to make him hate her? And so, she was cruel to him. She knows she hurt him over the past few weeks. Hell, she may have been hurting him all year by avoiding him like the plague due to her discomfort. While any hurt she caused then had been unintentional, it still worked in her favor.

Of course, the only way she could continue being cruel, was by being angry with him. Hell, anger is Lightning's go to emotional response to everything. Anger is comforting and familiar. She knows how to deal with anger. Longing? Heartbreak? No clue whatsoever.

Anger? Hello, my old friend. Come in, have a seat. Can I get you a drink or twelve?

So, yeah. When he blindsided her and upended her life that night, she got angry. She doubts he was even a little surprised by her reaction.

Except for the running away part, that is. No one could've seen that coming, including her.

So, she got angry and nasty, figuring that he'd tuck tail and go home to her sweet as pie sister. But what did he do? He followed her, and got himself killed. Not nearly killed; actually fucking dead, all because of her. What happened to him is her fault as surely as if she'd done it to him herself.

She doesn't want to make the same mistake again. She doesn't want him to get hurt again, not by or for her. And she doesn't think it's fair for him to think she has no feelings for him. Not when he freely offers her so many unreciprocated tender little morsels of grace, over and over again. She doesn't want to leave anything unsaid.

Just in case.

"Light?" By the concern underpinning his tone, Lightning can tell it's not the first time he's called her name. "Lightning? Are you okay?"

She shakes her head and walks to the other side of the room, listening to his trailing footsteps. His fingers hook onto her arm, and he says, "Come here for a minute."

He tugs her over to the far corner, takes a quick glance back to the door and his charges before whispering, "What's going on? It's not like you to be this distracted before a mission. If there's a problem, you have to tell me. I can't fix it if you won't tell me what's wrong."

He sounds desperate, and Lightning realizes that she's still hurting him, despite her best intentions. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" Confused. Frustrated. Afraid.

She looks into his eyes only to watch them widen in shock. Shaking his head, Snow cups her cheeks in both hands, erases the small distance between them and says, "No. Come on. Please, don't!"

Snow's thumbs vanquish the tears that she hadn't even realized were falling. This isn't going the way she intended for it to go. "What's the matter, Light? Please, tell me."

"This is my fault," she says. His brow furrows in confusion. She knows she's not making any sense, and she can see that Snow is worried, heading towards panicked. She needs to get herself under control right now.

"What's your fault? I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

"You shouldn't be here." Snow shakes his head, starts protesting immediately. She ignores the protests, and says, "It's my fault this happened to you."

"No, it's not!" His voice is firm, almost angry. "Why would you say that? Don't say that. Don't even think that!"

"Of course, you won't blame me. But it doesn't change the fact that you shouldn't be here at all. That you were so badly hurt because I was terrible to you."

"Stop it! You didn't do this." He pauses for a long moment, and it's obvious he's considering and reconsidering his next words. "Okay, look, if you hadn't left, would we be here? No. Probably not. But if I didn't show up at your house, then you wouldn't have left. So, if it's anyone's fault, it's mine."

"That's ridiculous!"

"Oh, that's ridiculous, but you being responsible for what these fucking monsters did to me…that makes sense?" Snow snorts and shakes his head; he softens and says, "Come on, Light. You didn't do anything wrong. You came in here to save these women. Don't apologize for that."

Her laugh is a bitter thing. "Even now, you're defending me."

"I will always defend you. How can you not know that?"

She does know that, even though she hadn't realized she knew. What she can't do, is understand it. He drives her crazy. "You shouldn't."

He just chuckles. "I do a lot of things I shouldn't do, but this isn't one of them. I told you, I would do anything for you."

"I know." The words are all breath, barely able to squeak past the lump in her throat. He smiles and nods at her.

"Are we good, then?"

She shakes her head. None of this has gone the way she planned. Telling him is vital, and he's making it impossible, what with his eyes, and hands, and whole self all up in her space. Looking at her.

Touching her.

What was she doing again? Oh, yeah. "There's something I need to tell you."

"No, not now."

"What?"

"Not now," he repeats. "Not like this. I don't want to hear anything from you that's going to sound like you saying goodbye to me. And whatever you want to say? It's going to sound like goodbye. I can't have that."

"But-"

"Listen to me. We're getting out of here. I refuse to accept any alternative. I'm not dying here, and I'm not losing you. That's just facts. We're going to get out of this nightmare, and then, I want to hear what you have to say to me." He leans close. "But don't say anything now that you're going to regret later, Light. It'll kill me if you say something, only to take it back once we're safe. And we are going to get out of here. Do you believe me?"

What can she say but, "Yes."

"Good." He presses a kiss to her forehead, lips lingering long enough to make his feelings unmistakable. "Right now, all that matters to me is getting you and these women out of here. I want you safe, Lightning. Everything else can wait."

"I want you safe, too."

"Hey, you know me. I'll be fine. I'm a Big Damn Hero."

"Hell yeah, you are." She believes it despite all her good sense and judgement.

He stares at her for a long moment before mumbling, "Ah, fuck it." Then his hands are in her hair and his lips are on hers, tongue slipping in to flick and tickle, daring her to give chase. Lightning accepts the challenge, opening her mouth wider to him, desperate to memorize the taste and feel of him.

He pulls back, thumb slipping along her bottom lip once, whispering, "Good god, Girl," before replacing his thumb with his lips. He nibbles her bottom lip until she sways into his embrace, desperate with need for both air and him. When he pulls back, he presses his forehead to hers and pants out, "To be continued. No goodbyes."

Oh, hell yeah, to be continued.

Nodding, she agrees, "No goodbyes." If he keeps kissing her like that, she'll agree to anything he wants. Hopefully, he'll never figure that shit out. He'll be insufferably smug if he does.

More insufferable. More smug. Smugger? Is that even a word? Wait, what was she doing again?

Oh, yeah.

Sexy, smug jerk.

"Good. Now put this shit out of your head. Just focus on getting into the garage, planting Sazh's bombs," he shakes his head, mumbling "for fuck sake" under his breath, "and getting out of there as quickly as possible. Okay?"

"Yeah."

"Be careful in that garage. Don't get got. Just do what needs to be done, and get the fuck out of there. No off mission plans, Light!"

"I'll be fine."

He raises an eyebrow at her, recognizing the dodge for what it is. "Not good enough. Promise me!"

"Fine. I promise. I won't get got."

"And?"

She huffs. "I won't go off mission." He holds her eyes, clearly not believing her and waiting for her to acquiesce. "I won't."

She will, and he knows it. Goddamn it.

"I know you want payback, Light. Now's not the time. I've got plenty of scores to settle myself, but they don't matter more than you or these women. They'll keep." When she doesn't say anything, he says, "Please. I can't leave you here if I can't trust you to be right behind me."

He knows her too well, and it's getting on her last nerve.

"Fine," she concedes with an eye-roll. "I won't go looking for payback. Today."

He smiles. "That's my girl. So, we're clear: no dicking around in there. You get in, do your thing and get out of there. Right?"

"I just said so, didn't I?" Any goodwill that kiss earned him is seriously starting to dwindle.

"Okay, so we're ready. There's nothing else we need to work out, is there?"

"Yeah, we're good. Just…" she reaches into her pocket and withdraws the bullet detonator. "Take this." He accepts the detonator, but looks confused. "It makes more sense for you to blow the bombs in the front when you need the distraction."

"But-"

"Don't worry. The bombs are on a sequential delay. They'll blow a few seconds apart, so everyone will be scrambling to figure out where the attackers are hiding outside the camp."

"So, why don't you just come with me?"

"The Skytank, Snow. We can't outrun it."

"Fuck."

"Okay, so when you get to the fence, blow the bombs in the front. That should get most of the attention to the North while you're slipping out the South fence."

"Gotcha… I hate this."

"I know."

"I don't think you do, but that's okay."

"Alright, let's go."

"Um. Hold up. This is a dead man's switch," Snow says, apropos of nothing. That strange look he gave her when pulling the detonator out of her cast makes more sense now. She didn't think he'd recognize the type of detonators she had. She really needs to stop underestimating him. After all, Snow was using hand grenades long before she'd met him. It's not too farfetched to assume that he knows his way around other types of explosives.

"Yeah. They're all modified Dead Man's Switches." He tilts his head, waiting for an explanation. "Extra insurance, Snow. Nothing about these guys indicates that they'd be willing to sacrifice themselves for anything."

"So?"

"So…I figured they'd be less likely to shoot me if it meant they'd blow themselves up for their trouble." Snow covers his eyes with his hands, shakes his head once and exhales a frustrated sigh.

"Words," Snow says, looking in her eyes and pocketing the detonator. "So many words, we're going to have."

"I can only reiterate, 'won't that be fun.'"

He smirks at her, leans in and whispers in her ear: "Oh, I'll make it fun for you, Girl." She shivers at the promise in his words and tone. Heading to the door, he says, "I can't promise the same for Sazh, though."

He really needs to get over his problem with Sazh; it's both pointless and ridiculous.

"Okay, Ladies. Let's blow this joint, so Light and Sazh can, you know, blow this joint." He gives them an easy smile and winks at them. One of the women starts sobbing, and Snow's whole face scrunches up in dismay. "Look, I know you're scared, but just remember the plan. Just stay together, keep moving and you'll be fine. I swear, I won't let anyone hurt you. Do you believe me?"

"Lightning believes you, so I believe you, too," Viola says, then she shocks everyone by wrapping her arms around Snow's waist. His hands hover over her for a moment. Then he relaxes, smiles, and pats her back. Into his chest, she says, "Neither one of you has to be here, but you both risked yourselves to save us. So, I believe you when you say you'll get us home."

Snow hates crying himself even more than he hates seeing women cry. Lightning can count the number of times she's seen Snow tear up on both hands, but from Snow's rapid blinking and furrowed brow, Lightning thinks she may need to also use some toes in the future.

Snow smiles, pats Viola's head. "All right, then." All the sobbing resolves into quiet sniffles. One by one, the hostages nod at him.

Snow amazes and enthralls her. Everything he just said to these women should've come across like arrogant bullshit from a conceited, egocentric LARPer, but instead, he managed to reassure, calm and soothe a group of terrified and terrorized hostages.

Is it any wonder why Snow has his very own merry band of idiots hanging on his every word, willing to follow him around and help him find his happily ever after? The only surprise to Lightning is that Snow no longer has a gaggle of giggling groupies following him around as if were a rock star, praying he'll pay them some attention.

He may be a big dumb blond, but he's also a big damn hero, and a charming one to boot.

Lightning knows now that never stood a chance.

To prove her point, Snow gives her a secret, lopsided smirk. His eyes go soft, and she feels her heartbeat kick up just the tiniest bit.

The jerk.

He clears his throat to make sure his voice doesn't betray him. "Okay, everyone. I'm going to count you all as we head out, and Viola here is going to help me make sure that we have the same count at all times." After he counts and recounts, Snow turns to her one last time and declares, "I'll see you in fifteen minutes."

"Fifteen minutes."

He throws her a wink, and then they're outside and he's gone around the back of the building, and she's making her way through the icy, packed snow towards the garage. She didn't get to say what she'd wanted to say, but she feels better all the same. Besides, she knows he knows; just because it was left unsaid, doesn't mean they didn't tell each other.

Setting aside all thoughts of anything except for her mission, Lightning heads away from Snow and the hostages, determined to survive and reunite with him sixteen minutes from right now.

Original Time: T minus 6 hours 45 minutes
New time: T minus 30 minutes

Hope boggles at the door to Sazh's workshop for a long moment, before jumping out of his chair and chasing after his friend. The events of the day still feel surreal, like he's recalling the events of a dream.

Or nightmare.

Hope follows Sazh's footprints through the hardened snowpack, amazed at how much ground his friend managed to cover during his short head start. There is something all too familiar about Sazh's single-minded, vengeful focus, and Hope's mind turns to Lightning.

The last time he'd charged headlong toward danger, he'd been racing after a furious Lightning. She'd been a tornado of grief and rage, and she swept him up, and dragged him along, and together, they'd cut a swath of devastation that spanned the distance from the Hanging Edge all the way to the heart of Cocoon.

He still has nightmares about their death march to Eden. In the long, dark hours of the night, Hope wonders how the hell he and Lightning survived that suicide mission, because that's what it was. Their focused rage may have destroyed everything that was unfortunate enough to get between them and Eden, but it couldn't overcome the ambush once they reached the capital. Oh no! They were caught and done for, with no possible escape. Lightning told him to live, and was prepared to die to make that happen, but Hope knew he had no more chance of surviving than she had. They were both going to die, and there was nothing they could do about it.

Then Snow appeared out of nowhere - wearing a shit eating grin, and riding a frigging motorcycle of all things - and saved all their asses that day.

And today, Hope is going to return the favor.

Sazh may believe that Snow is beyond help, but Hope knows better. Snow is far too stubborn to die. There's no way he'd survive the war last year, save all humanity, and then let a bunch of cowards - who sneak up on and murder sleeping, unarmed civilians; who kidnap women and murder children - take him out. Oh no! Snow is still alive, and Hope has every intention of making sure that big jerk stays that way.

Then he's going to strangle him.

Hope catches up to Sazh at The Oerban Lady's gangway. Sazh keys in the security code to open the hatch as Hope skids to a halt beside him, panting out, "Hey, wait a minute. You can't just take off and leave me behind!"

"I'm still here, aren't I?"

"Barely," Hope grumbles. When the gangway extends, Sazh marches up it without a backward glance, and Hope's frustration boils over. "I don't have my gear, Sazh!"

Sazh finally turns to look at him, but the look in his eyes is colder than the subzero winter air. "Cold weather gear is on board. Not that you're getting off the ship, mind you."

Not getting off the-

"I need my weapon!" Hope shouts, angry and frustrated by Sazh's unreasonable attitude. This behavior is so out of character for Sazh that Hope is starting to have serious reservations about this mission.

Sazh is one of the least impulsive people that Hope has ever met, but right now, he's behaving more like Lightning.

Or, even worse, Snow.

Lightning is methodical about many things, but her training has taught her the value of following her gut, and the dangers inherent in hesitation. That leads her to make snap decisions that can and have blindsided her companions. Still, Hope spent months learning to trust Lightning and follow her lead, even when her behavior seemed erratic and downright suicidal.

On the other hand, Snow lacks Lightning's discipline, cares little for tactics, and, as Lightning once put it, leads with his balls rather than his brains more often than not. Snow's special brand of impulsive tends to put him between his allies and imminent danger, and Hope can admit that it works more often than not.

Okay, so it works. Somehow, it always works.

Jerk.

So, while Lightning and Snow are capable and dependable, they lack the comforting predictability of Sazh, or hell, even Fang.

The last thing that Hope needs tonight is a surprise.

As if reading his mind and deciding to play a cosmic joke on him, Sazh reaches into the bag at his feet and shoves something into Hope's hands. "You don't need to go anywhere. Here, Kid."

Hope fumbles for a moment, completely confused as to how Sazh may have gotten his hands on Hope's Airwing, before he realizes what it is that he's actually holding.

Lightning's Edged Carbine.

"But… What? Why? No!" Hope has no idea how to even use this weapon. Lightning let him try it once last year, and he could barely level the thing.

Sazh throws him an irritated look. "Don't try to use the blade. Stick with the gun. Trust me: it fires beautifully."

Hope tries lifting the Edged Carbine and once again finds himself wondering how the hell Lightning can wield this thing one-handed. Hope needs to use both hands just to keep it steady when firing the gun.

"There's no shame in using two hands, Hope," Sazh says, once again, weirding Hope out by practically reading his mind. "The Soldier has been using that weapon for years. Don't try to use it the way she uses it. Use it the way you use it."

"Why are you giving this to me?"

"She wanted you to have it. When we get her out of there, I'm sure she'll be thrilled when you return it to her."

Original time: T minus 5 hours 39 minutes
New time: T plus 36 minutes

Lightning once again finds herself longing for the comfortable familiarity of her Edged Carbine. She feels naked and exposed without it, even armed as she is with a rifle, and disguised as one of the terrorists.

As soon as Snow is out of sight, Lightning puts him and the hostages from her mind. She trusts Snow to do his part, and the fact that he walked away from her with barely a backward glance indicates that he trusts her to do hers.

She balls up her anxiety over the state of Snow's health - both mental and physical - and buries it deep within herself. If they survive tonight, she wants to be able to pull those issues back out to deal with, rather than toss them away, or worse, allow them to fester and rot in some hidden corner of her mind.

After all, it's her unwillingness and inability to cope with uncomfortable truths about herself that led both Snow and her to this place and time. If Lightning had any sort of healthy coping skills, she wouldn't have reacted to Snow's impromptu declarations of affection by grabbing everything she could carry and running scared from her home in the middle of the coldest, most dangerous winter weather conditions she's ever experienced, in an attempt to put half a world between herself and Snow.

All right, so that's an exaggeration. New Eden isn't actually on the opposite side of Grand Pulse. It is, however, the farthest inhabited settlement from Oerba, and the New Oerban Resistance Area (NORA, because Snow's merry band of mouth-breathers are nothing if not consistently unoriginal). The journey across the Steppe is both long and dangerous enough - what with the lack of any cover or protection from the roving packs of large carnivorous predators, potential stampedes from grazing Adamantoise herds, and the Amphisbaena nests secreted away high up on the cliffs - that attempting to cross it on foot during snowmageddon in order to avoid Snow and his feelings wasn't only reckless, but downright suicidal.

So, yeah: Lightning sucks at dealing with emotions, but at least she's now willing to acknowledge that flaw, and admit that it's one of her worst personality traits.

Progress!

The wind is gusty, blowing snow and ice under the sleeves of her stolen coat. She looks up at the sky, and sees that she was right when she'd thought the weather was threatening to dump more snow onto them. There's a light precipitation just barely starting to fall. If it follows the pattern that she's used to, the small, barely visible droplets of mixed frozen precipitation will start clumping into a chunks of heavy, wet snow, and come down, hard and fast, before the temperatures drop enough that the snow will turn powdery, and fall in steady sheets.

This will be both a problem and a blessing for them. A blessing in that it will give them additional cover, concealing them and burying their tracks quickly enough to make discovery and pursuit a bigger challenge; it's a problem for obvious reasons: descending temperatures, gusting winds, reduced visibility leading to increased chances of getting lost, separated, turned around, and succumbing to exposure to the elements.

Nothing to be done for it. They'll just have to hurry towards shelter in Mah'Habara. Snow knows the caverns better than most, since he and his groupies spent several months exploring and mapping them for Sazh and Bartholomew. There's really no one better equipped to get those hostages to safety than him, even playing as injured as he is.

Lightning does a fast circuit of the camp in order to get a lay of the land. It appears as if the watch itself is minimal, and the majority of the men are bunked down, hopefully after having imbibed an excessive amount of alcohol or some other intoxicant. A group of sleepy drunks will be much easier to evade or eliminate.

Of course, to count on such ideal circumstances would be foolish, so Lightning operates on the assumption that every person in the camp is awake, trained, competent, dangerous, and therefore, a deadly threat.

Lightning moves through the camp with casual purpose: too fast, and she'll appear suspicious and/or draw heightened attention and security measures; too slow and/or aimless, and she may instigate a confrontation. As Snow said, her disguise will buy her a couple of seconds at most, and if she wastes them before she even approaches her ultimate target - the garage and Skytank - she will lose the opportunity altogether.

One of the best pieces of advice Snow ever gave Lightning is, that no matter what you are doing, to always act like you're supposed to be doing exactly that thing. If you walk right through the front door of a building and head past the front desk like you own the joint, most observers will assume that you are supposed to be there. If you act shady, sneaking and constantly looking around - in other words, behaving as though you're doing something wrong - people will notice, and assume that you are, in fact, doing something wrong. Then he demonstrated his point by strolling into a restricted area on the Lindblum, grabbing a datalog, and walking back out, grinning and laughing, like he hadn't just committed espionage in front of a member of the Guardian Corp.

She shook her head at him, called him an idiot, and confiscated the intel. If he'd been caught, they would've executed him. Of course, he hadn't been caught, which was his entire point. He acted like he was supposed to retrieve that datalog from that restricted area, and no one challenged him.

Snow had impressed her, though she'd have sooner swallowed her own tongue than admit to such a thing back then. Still, she took the lesson on board, and has found that it suits her far better than sneaking or subterfuge.

She figures that it works for her and Snow so well because they're confident in their abilities, and more than a little bit reckless, both attributes being vital to successfully hiding in plain sight.

So, Lightning does her best to act like she's authorized to enter the garage. She finds the door, turns the knob and isn't shocked to find it locked. But she has one key left, and she slides it into the lock, turns it, and unbelievably, it actually works.

She slips through the door, locks it behind her, and finds herself only a few feet from the Skytank.

She thinks back to the last one she encountered. It was during the war, outside Hope's house in Felix Heights. Snow marched outside wearing nothing but his pants and some bandages. He'd barely regained consciousness from his earlier injuries, but still felt obligated to stare down a Havoc Skytank and talk shit to the Sanctum, PSICOM, and the entire population of Cocoon. She shakes her head and smiles at the memory.

If the Havoc Skytank is impressive from far away, it's terrifying up close. The main cannon is longer than Snow is tall, and she knows from experience that it packs enough of a wallop that the concussive force of a near miss is enough to kill a person. Looking at this thing, she can't quite believe that she, Fang and Hope managed to not only survive a direct assault from one, but actually destroy it.

Once again, she finds herself lamenting her lack of magic. Not that she would actually want to go back. It's just that magic really did come in handy in life and death situations.

Like this one, for example.

She needs to think strategically about placing these bombs because the tank's armor is thick enough to stop most high caliber ammo, and withstand significant explosive forces. Whether the people inside would survive is a different story.

Maybe that's the answer. Put the bombs inside and blow up the interior. The tank is armored on the outside, but a single explosive inside the tank would destroy the controls and kill everyone on board.

Lightning drops beneath the tank, searching for a secondary hatch. She crawls along the floor, searching the undercarriage for a cargo or ammo hatch. It's slow going in the dark, but Lightning can't chance turning on a light. She's not supposed to be in the garage, after all.

Time is ticking down, she knows. She wants to plant the bombs before Snow cuts the fence and detonates the explosives, but she's not sure she's going to make it. Once those explosions go off, things are going to get much more intense inside this camp. She'd like to use the chaos as cover for her escape, but if she can't plant these bombs, she's going to be stuck in this camp with the entire group awake, and on the hunt for the attacker or saboteur.

Not to mention that Snow is planning to come back into the camp. If she sticks out like a sore thumb, what exactly does he think he's going to do? With his boots on, he's almost exactly six and half feet tall, and Lightning has a feeling that everyone in this place will recognize him. If the hostages were forced to watch, she can only assume everyone here either saw or participated in whatever horrors Snow suffered. He won't be able to hide in plain sight the way she just did.

At the midpoint of the tank's undercarriage, Lightning's hand comes down on something small and metallic. It rolls a bit when the heel of her hand hits it, and Lightning almost faceplants onto the cold concrete floor. She closes her hand around the offending object, intent on tossing it out of her way before she gets a look at what she's holding.

It's an awl.

The handle is tacky with what she assumes to be oil or tar or some other garage-type fluid, and she's about to pitch it aside and move on. Then she notices the smell, and she goes cold and still.

Blood.

For a moment, she figures her brain is playing tricks on her. After all, her cast was soaked in Snow's blood earlier. Of course, Snow peeled off the top layers of her cast, and there's no blood to be found anywhere on it right now.

Feeling both apprehensive and stupid, she sniffs the awl. Definitely blood. Then her eyes land on a dark spot on the concrete near at the front end of the Skytank.

She stares at the (blood)stain on the floor, then glances back at the awl in her hand. It clatters to the ground before she realizes that she'd let it go. Her hands fly up to muffle and contain the sounds coming out of her mouth.

Snow's words from earlier bang around in her head like a pinball. 'Be careful in that garage…. Just do what needs to be done, and get the fuck out of there. No off mission plans, Light!' And then there was what she'd considered the most obvious and innocuous part of his warning: Don't get got.

She wouldn't think anything of it if it weren't for what he'd said to her while they were arguing earlier: 'Anyone can get got, Light. All it takes is one bad day. No. One bad moment.'

They tortured him here, in this garage, and He. Didn't. Tell. Her.

Everything makes a kind of terrible sense now. Snow's wide-eyed look of horror at her mention of the garage; his immediate and irrational rejection of her plan; his repetitive refusal to countenance the idea of letting her infiltrate the garage, despite the fact that she was armed and well trained in military tactics.

The way he begged her on his hands and knees.

The way he trembled in her arms.

He'd made her promise him that she wouldn't go off mission-

/ No off mission plans, Light! ….no dicking around in there. You get in, do your thing and get out of there. /

-that she wouldn't snoop around and find out any more about every horror he'd endured-

/ '…you can't ask me to do this. You don't understand. You can't know. I don't want you to know. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? /

Even the fifteen minutes was meant to help prevent her finding what she'd just found.

A small voice in her mind - likely Odin - whispers that the promises and time limit are about protecting her, not from the truth of his experiences, but from getting caught and being subjected to the same, or possibly even worse, treatment.

She tells that voice to shut up. She knows that Snow wants to protect her. Snow's heart is in his eyes every time he looks at her,

She looks at the awl in her hand and knows that she can't just plant the bombs and leave. Not now that she's found this awl, and the bloodstained concrete around a drain in the floor, which these demons used to catch and siphon away Snow's blood.

Wouldn't want to leave a standing pool of blood. Someone might slip and hurt themselves, after all, and with all the sharp objects in this garage, that person might get hurt. Make sure to post the Caution: Wet Floor signs once you hose the place down after torturing and murdering someone.

Safety first, people.

Lightning feels like she's losing it. Maybe she ought to just put the bombs on the fuel tank and get the hell out of here before she sees something she'll never be able to unsee. She knows that she'll never ask Snow to detail what he endured, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't need to know, right now, how much repayment she and Odin will be extracting, and from whom.

Decision made, Lightning approaches the drain and bloodstain. Her hands and legs are steady, but her insides are quaking, and her breath is shallow and shaky. Her mind shies away from the reality of what looms over the drain, so instead she examines the table beside it.

There are bloody tools on the table - she can't bear to look at them, so she doesn't - but there are also some personal items of Snow's. His scarf. His communicator. His pack. His gloves.

Her hat.

What in the-?

Lightning had completely forgotten about her hat until right now; for the life of her, she can't figure why she'd forgotten it. She left home with it and wore it the whole first leg of her journey to New Eden, and yet, she knows she wasn't wearing it when Sazh and Hope pulled her from the snow. Did she have it after Mah'Habara?

Yes. She's certain she did, which means she lost it on the Archylte Steppe. But how did these terrorists find-

It hits her with the force of an Adamantoise foot. "Snow found it. Snow found it on the Steppe, probably somewhere near the caravan's trail. That's why he-", thought I was in the camp. She can't finish the thought aloud, it's too unspeakable to utter. If she's right, then Snow was strapped to this upright metal rack wired by jumper cables to an electrical panel, suspended over a drain, beside a tray of blood-stained tools, knives, and one ruined, blood-soaked cat o' nine tails, all because of a hat.

They electrocuted him.

These motherfuckers stabbed, whipped, cut, kicked, stomped and fucking electrocuted him, all because he found her hat in the snow somewhere out on the Archylte Steppe.

She gags, and bends double, hand over her mouth, shaking her head and trying desperately not to throw up all over the place. She breathes through her mouth - the whole place reeks of blood, piss, and vomit - and waits for the nausea to pass.

As she stands there, breathing and trying to swallow back her rising gorge, her eyes land on a pistol. It sits beside the torture tray, next to the torture rack, in the torture garage - not to be confused with the torture dungeon that she just escaped, what the actual fuck - and she grabs it. Muscle memory takes over, and the familiar practices and motions of checking the balance, the ammo, the clip, the chamber, and looking down the sites, comforts her enough to regain control of herself. The clip is full, but the chamber is empty. She chambers a round, then adds another round from the box to the clip.

She slips the box of ammo into her pack along with Snow's communicator, pack, scarf and gloves. She clips the holster to the back of her waistband, hidden under her poncho and stolen coat just as all hell breaks loose in the camp outside.

The first explosion from the north rattles the rack next to her like a metal maraca, and she knows that she's only got five seconds before-

The second explosion is closer, and the ground shakes beneath her feet. That can't be right. The third explosion sounds like it hit the roof of the building.

There's no way-

The fourth and fifth hit almost simultaneously. Wait! Fourth and fifth? She didn't plant five bombs! She planted three bombs. What is happening?

"Fuck!" She needs to move, now.

The lights in the garage come on, and she slithers under the Skytank, hoping to slink out of here. She's out of time and luck, and she has no idea what is going on outside. Did Sazh start dropping bombs already? There's no way it's time yet. Why would he carpet bomb the camp before her time is up? What the hell is happening?

And most importantly, is Snow okay?

Lightning crawls away from the footsteps, desperate to reach the door so she can see what the hell is going on outside. Her hand lands on the awl again as something clamps around her ankle, yanking her off her knees, onto her face, and dragging her back towards the rack.

To be continued...

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