A/N: It's been a long time coming. Life has been insane, and now I've managed to PCS, so yay for a spare moment of down time! INFINITE thank you's to the many who have read my stories and left your wonderful thoughts; several new readers have left reviews lately that really gave me that extra push to make sure I (somehow) found time to get this wrapped up. It's been an amazing seven years of writing FFXIII fics – actually, there's still a little oneshot in the works that I'm doing for a tumblr challenge. Anyway, please let me know what you all thought of this final installment. I wrote the segments of this chapter from several different perspectives.

You're all the best readers in the world!

It Fades (Epilogue)

- Many miles from the Cavalry Field Base, in an unnamed canyon -

Boing!

Noel's eyes shot open at the odd springing sound echoing around the canyon. He had barely caught a power nap after two days of no luck – not one peep beyond the occasional howling lobo – but he wasn't about to sleep now. This was the culmination of his stakeout efforts. He scanned the area through the brush patch he'd sheltered under and inclined his ear, hoping to catch another telltale sign of the rare cactuar lurking somewhere in this frigid, god-forsaken crevice of Pulse.

Ten minutes passed with nothing. That did not faze him. His limbs were stiff and dusted with frost, yet he barely dared to shiver. His nose itched, though. A small branch continued to tickle it, and soon enough he feared a sneeze was in the works. He began to inch his hand toward his face to push at the foliage…

Boing boing!

A shower of rocky debris tumbled down the cliff face opposite his hiding place, directly above one of his many traps. Noel spied a flash of green amidst the dust cloud and smirked.

Boing boing boing! BOING!

The cartoonish green creature bounced around in every direction, trying to break his thermal net without success.

Noel got to his feet and crept in for the kill. He drew his sword and separated its parts with a barely audible click.

He could see the fixed expression of shock on the frantic cactuar from ten meters out, even as it ricocheted in all directions within its restraints. It looked downright ridiculous.

This is the tiny terror that Fang sent me after? More like a stuffed toy than a monster.

Noel closed in and poked it through the net with his short sword, snorting in spite of himself when the cactuar made a high-pitched squeak of outrage. The hide was tougher than he expected, and he barely left a mark. He repeated a series of quick jabs wherever he could make contact with the creature, fighting not to laugh at the outpouring of shrill, springy noises, until it charged straight at him.

He lashed out with his larger sword and ripped through the net, leaving the cactuar to spring free, but it made no move to run away. It bounced and flipped furiously, knocking the breath out of him with several well-aimed kicks. Thanks to the onslaught and stirring dust, he barely got a slash on it.

It was only after Noel began to mimic the cactuar's fast flips and directional shifts that he slowly but surely inflicted several visible wounds. The thing was weirdly aggressive. With every strike he took, Noel grit his teeth, sucking in quicker and more ragged breaths as he reminded himself that letting up for even a brief second might leave his target room to escape. That was not an option. A few bruises – or even a multitude of them – were nothing.

It may have been his imagination, but his attacks seemed to finally be slowing the cactuar down. Noel spared a fraction of a second to wipe the sweat from his eyes, drawing in a long breath, and in that moment his enemy rallied. The devilish thing pointed its stubby arms at him like automatic guns and fired a full battery of needles.

Noel somersaulted aside and tried to shield himself with his sword, but he felt the sharp sting of puncture points all over his body.

"You're goin' down, you fucking pin-cushion," he hissed, shoving himself up from the dirt. He hurled his short sword and managed to spear the cactuar's foot – if it could be called that – into the ground.

In one swift motion, he launched forward and carved into the dancing plant until it broke free with a final dramatic leap, crashing back to the earth and going stiff in seconds.

Noel stood unmoving for a full minute, just staring at his strange quarry.

Cactuar juice, huh? Okay, Fang. There'd better be at least a bottle's worth, for all this trouble.

He hadn't done this for her, anyway, but it had been her idea.

Feeling the adrenaline begin to give way to fatigue, Noel yanked out every needle he could easily reach, snatched up his damaged net and bagged the cactuar corpse. His chocobo was tied in a sheltered area at the end of the canyon, half an hour's walk to the northwest, and then there was the ride back to base.

Rest was still a long way off. He put one sore foot in front of the other and made the trek, overjoyed to hear a loud "Kweh!" in greeting near the canyon's mouth.

Exhaustion began to creep in like a fog once Noel settled into the familiar riding rhythm on the chocobo's back. He nodded off at several points, coming to with any sudden bumps, but his mount knew the way.

They reached the Cavalry base at sunset. He smiled wearily at the activation of several solar lanterns around the observation tower. Fang watched his arrival from there, her catlike eyes cutting through the darkness.

She laughed in his face when he turned up, offering no apology for her contributions to his bedraggled state as he dropped the bag at her feet. The Pulsian warrior promptly snatched his quarry, leaving Noel to shuffle away in silence.

He was too done to protest or even respond to her crowing after him, "You'll see the spoils soon enough, junior! Be grateful ya hit my mark and came back alive."

He'd departed the base immediately after, moving on autopilot at some thought of the coming day. He simply rode into the darkness, found his destination, and fell into an exhausted sleep.

Sometime later, Noel awoke with a start, nearly hyperventilating when he discovered his newest bed was a narrow metal area devoid of light. It took several seconds before he recalled that he was not hiding under a bush in a canyon anymore and forced his breathing to slow down.

He had a fuzzy memory of dragging himself into the darkest, quietest corner of the transport's mechanical space hours ago and collapsing in a heap before all options for mobility were destroyed. The chilly metal panels of the floor only encouraged him to curl up tighter and closer to the residual warmth of cables and machinery at his back, willing the cold to leave his bones and the ache to leave his muscles.

Intermittent racket and footsteps somewhere overhead stirred Noel to just-shy-of consciousness. There was a worrying thought in the back of his mind that he had another job to do, and he remembered something about a birthday present.

Is that today? No, Hope's birthday's at the end of the next week…

That line of thinking had led him to crash in the transport in the first place, after Fang's nigh impossible hunt. While he was pleased at succeeding in the mission, part of him cursed the day he'd listened to her overhyped claims about cactuar juice. The whole ordeal involved too many needles for his taste.

Someday, that woman was going to get hers.

Lacking the energy to sustain his irritation over Fang's relentless "mentoring," Noel let his thoughts slip away in the abyss of exhaustion once again. The transport's humming engine became a lullaby that drowned out everything else. He only vaguely wondered why the ship was on.

"Noel?" The familiar voice sounded distant and worried… probably just in his head.

Assuming Hope was about to invade yet another dream sequence, Noel made a valiant effort to fully wake himself. The wall of wires against his back had become too heated for his liking anyway, so he rolled very slowly and painfully onto his stomach. Tiny stabs to his chest and the front of his thigh elicited a groan.

Damn it, those needles are everywhere.

It still wasn't enough to make him change position or get up. His body demanded more than a few hours' sleep as retribution. Every inch of him, from his scalp to his toenails, seemed to be coated in lead and magnetized to the floor.

Noel hardly registered the squeak of rubber soles on rungs or the quiet footsteps approaching. What he did hear was the echoing clang of a metal object connecting with the floor, panicked shouting and the rush of pounding boots.

"Noel? Noel!"His shoulders were shaken, his pulse checked. "Wake up!"

He cracked his eyelids open to a blinding solar lantern on the panel nearby and a ghostly pale Hope. The pilot sank back onto his heels about an arm's length away, staring at him with wide, horrified eyes.

"Noel, what happened? Can you move? Please say something!"

It was rare these days, but Noel knew that look.

Shit. I've done it now.

"What… time is it?" Noel slurred. It took every ounce of energy he could muster to prop his head up on one arm and crack a smile. He needed to appear as far-from-dying as possible.

Hope released a shuddering breath and scrubbed at his eyes. It took another few breaths, each one steaming into the chilled space and laced with the smell of coffee, before he calmed down enough to respond.

"I-It's six in the morning," he stammered. He ran a shaky hand through his hair. "Maybe five, ten after by now. How long have you been down here?"

"Not exactly sure," Noel managed through a yawn.

Hope's eyes had dropped to one of a the needles protruding from Noel's battered Cavalry uniform – it was squarely lodged in the right breast pocket of his blouse. Hope reached out and yanked it free, earning several hissed expletives for the trouble.

It did not stop Hope from hunting for more, not once recognition crossed his features upon closer examination.

"Did you pick a fight with a cactuar?" he asked, pinching his fingers around his next target.

"Holy—!" Noel growled at the second yank, which set the back of his right arm on fire and led him to weakly swat Hope away. "Stop! Please. I'll deal with those. And I won the fight, thanks."

"Doesn't look like much of a victory," Hope muttered. "These needle wounds are starting to get infected – you're probably poisoned, too."

Admittedly, Noel hadn't considered that factor. He had extricated as many needles as he could find before he ultimately crashed in the transport. Fatigue was becoming such a constant in his life as to make the draining effects of a toxin indistinguishable from the norm.

He groaned against the pillow of his left arm. "My problem, not yours."

"It's about to become my problem," Hope insisted. He scooted closer and narrowed his eyes at the puncture site on the back of Noel's arm, probing around the sleeve with a gloved finger. It still burned like hell.

Blessedly, Hope gave up on that approach in favor of investigating Noel's rucksack. He rummaged around for a long minute and turned up an antidote vial, which he brandished with a fleeting smile.

"We're supposed to be shuttling the engineering crew to and from the crystal site today," he sighed, carefully rolling Noel onto his back – not without a few winces from unseen but certainly felt barbs in various places. "At least we were, before this little development. Open up." Hope tapped his chin until he complied and emptied the bitter liquid down his throat.

"Now, I'm going to get the first aid kit, and you're going to tell me what happened. I'll call Sazh to cover our flights."

Noel shuddered at the thought. This was going to hurt. He berated the traitorous part of him that was pleased with the attention, impending torture notwithstanding, but he just had to run his mouth.

"Roger that, Director."

"Don't call me that," Hope huffed, abruptly getting to his feet. His aggravated voice faded as he moved toward the ladder and further off, still correcting the offender. "We're not in any official setting, and you're not far gone enough to get away with being such an ass."

Noel couldn't help the laugh that escaped him, though it set off ripples of pain. Even in his deteriorated state, he could tell there was no bite to the scolding words. Hope had been scared out of his wits.

Understandable, I guess. The more Noel thought about it, the more he realized what Hope must have feared, stumbling upon his unmoving body next to the wires, face down on the floor of the mechanical space for no apparent reason. It made him sick to his stomach.

He would have to be more careful.

- Two weeks later, at the Cavalry Field Base -

Damn was she impressive. Not even fully grown, and the load of wood Helga hauled with ease constituted half a building – in this case, half of a decrepit outpost structure that was about to become a bonfire for Hope's birthday party.

A familiar surge of pride built up in Snow's chest as he watched the young adamantoise lumber across the lightly frosted plain, her massive shape gradually disappearing from view. It was only one of countless trips over the past two months as they rebuilt and expanded the settlement, though it was her first trip of the day. The sun had yet to break the horizon, but her escort party of lobo riders would make sure Helga reached her destination safely.

It seemed like only yesterday that his adamantoise-powered transportation project had been a point of contention with Lightning—

"Claire," he corrected himself. He twisted up his mouth at the unfamiliar name. Serah may have been overjoyed about the change, and Snow really did understand the sentiment when it came to triggering thoughts of Maqui's untimely death, but Lightning's given name did not evoke the image of the soldier he knew.

He'd found his own middle ground by referring to her by rank and last name in official settings, or more commonly as Sis.

"Hmph, not like she cares anymore," he muttered to himself, half-smiling at the thought. He wanted to feel happier about her acceptance, but he couldn't shake the tinge of sorrow when he remembered the horrors that made it happen.

A sudden thwack to his backside had Snow spinning around and stumbling back against the icy lookout railing. He flailed to grab hold while his eyes found the ground thirty meters below, determining that it was not coming up to meet him, and the breath whooshed out of his lungs in a cloud of steam.

Satisfied after a fraction of a second, he looked up to see Fang's fiendish grin – one trademark of hers that he was thankful for. It still caught him off guard to see her in military-issue winter gear, but her usual attire was far from suited to the weather. She cocked her head at him and tapped the wooden planks with her spear.

"Surprised to see me?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "An' it was your order to report, Commander."

Snow cracked a smile and rubbed at the back of his neck. He understood why Hope would always cringe, however discreetly, at the sound of "Director" when spoken by friends and family.

He pushed back his coat sleeve to glance at his watch. "Didn't expect you for another ten minutes. I'm also not used to being stalked for report," he said with a chuckle. "You move like a predator – take it as a compliment."

"I am a predator, ya big lug." Fang raised the butt of her spear and prodded his shoulder. "Which is why we've been tracking a behemoth and a few odd gorgonopsid for target practice today. Should be child's play wi' the traps."

Snow laughed heartily and shoved the spear away. "Nice. We'll have to tell Li—uh, Sis once we've got the kill."

"Nah, that rookie hunter o' yours is going out with us," she said. "Noel's surely gonna brag to Hope, and he'll tell Sunshine. Should have the lot of 'em over for the big birthday shindig tomorrow, once Serah gets the word."

"Sounds about right." Snow scratched at his chin in thought, asking suddenly, "Why do you keep giving Kreiss a hard time, anyway? I hear you call him junior pretty often. He's a sharp kid with plenty of field experience by now, not some amateur, y'know. We didn't promote him for nothing."

Fang shrugged and took up a post against the opposite railing, the smirk never leaving her face. "Didn't mean it as an insult. The kid's got talent – natural instincts of a hunter, from what I can tell, and I'm tryin' to make sure he develops them. You got big plans for 'im or something?"

"My prerogative, isn't it?" Snow quipped. He crossed his arms, frowning in thought. "But no, not just yet. If you wanna keep taking him under your wing when he's not flying with Hope or handling his regular Cavalry duties, I don't have a problem with it. Just promise not to work him to death, a'right?"

The gleam in Fang's eye could only be construed as threatening. She balanced her spear across the back of her shoulders with a lazy smile. "Oh, I'll keep 'im alive."

"Fang, I'm serious," Snow said, willing a harder edge to his words. "He came back from your last so-called mission in pretty bad shape. They've got a lot of expeditionary flights coming in the next few weeks, so he needs to stay up to task."

"Sure thing, boss," she drawled. "Gotta say, there's no gettin' used to this responsible side of you. What happened to all that charging in guns blazin', or however it went?"

Snow rested his elbows on the railing, slouched in place for a few silent moments of contemplation. His long-buried mistakes tended to pop up and slap him without warning these days. And every time, he could hear his self-berating thoughts in the slightly cracking, furious voice of a teenage boy.

"What happens if your actions end up ruining someone's life?"

Ten years ago, Hope had hit the nail on the head. Snow knew his reckless approach of the past had claimed its share of victims, its legacy even carrying on to the present. If he really counted everything up, in a strange and twisted way, Hope had paid the most for it. First with Nora, and now with Maqui. Sure, Snow and his crew loved their little brother to death and felt the pang of loss on a daily basis, but it was different for Hope. Some part of him was permanently broken.

Shaking his head, Snow let the subject of pointless brooding go for the hundredth time. The soft warmth of the rising sun washed over his back, and he looked across to Fang with a tired smile.

"Guess I've done a lot of growing up since you and Vanille saved the world," he said. "I've got my own kid to think of, not to mention our growing extended family, and a whole bunch of green soldiers with wild animals. Try not to make my job any harder than it already is, got it?"

Fang shot back a half-assed salute. "Whatever you say. I won't give junior the full warrior treatment – not jus' yet. I'll keep him on his toes, though."

"Fine. I'll take your word on that," Snow laughed, relieving the railing of his weight to follow Fang to the ladder. "It's not like I'll be the only one settin' you straight if you get carried away. You know that, right?"

Fang snorted at his insinuation, calling up from a lower rung, "Ya think I'm afraid of Director Estheim? Gonna take more than a few extra inches an' a fancy title to pull that one off. Besides, I may or may not've helped junior concoct a special birthday present to the kid. A little somethin' to take the edge off."

Snow couldn't help but smirk to himself. Hope wasn't one for drinking, and Fang had never been on the receiving end of his wrath if she pushed things – very few people had, in his estimation, but he knew it to be an unforgettable experience. With or without magical abilities. Not that he would be clueing Fang in.

Instead, he called back down, "Suit yourself. Don't say I didn't warn you."

- The next day, Guardian Corps Site Offices, Settlement Warehouse District -

Lightning scrawled her signature across the bottom line, approving yet another stack of supply requests that would go back to the Aerma base. Were it still in her power to funnel her frustration into a magical force, she might have set the pen ablaze and left the papers as an ash heap.

She reminded herself that they were perfectly reasonable requests. It was the whole mind-numbing process that she wanted to send up in flames.

Tch, the life of an administrative supervisor. Lightning scowled at the desk full of papers before her. She had come to despise her positional title in the past weeks. It wasn't that she didn't keep her fingers on the unit's operational pulse – she attended every brief and knew exactly what projects they were on – she just lacked any authority to actually lead them. Where they went, she could not follow. When they trained, she could not participate.

She could only drill the hell out of them on promotion or disciplinary boards. And process their leave and supply requests, plus several award recommendations.

The urgency was never there. The camaraderie, the adrenaline rush, the need to prioritize one potential crisis over another had all been replaced by this desk-chained drudgery. Pregnancy was now the least boring part of her life.

Still, there was no room for complaint. Her entire family had been brought together again in the settlement and would not be leaving until the energy crisis was resolved. Lucil was making great strides in her rehabilitation, though some nerve damage and scarring would never heal, and Hope was… better. To a certain extent. He had survived to see twenty-four, at least.

Lightning wanted to add Hope's recovery to the list of things to be grateful for, but she couldn't lie to herself. Since the aftermath of August, Hope had become a human pendulum – emotionally unpredictable on his best days and a high-functioning robot on his worst. The latter was the most problematic. Robot mode may have suited his work life and productivity, but she saw it for the sham that it was.

Her communicator buzzed, the screen flashing an unfamiliar number. She redirected her scowl and snatched it up.

"First Sergeant Farron speaking."

"Afternoon, Sergeant, it's just me," came the unmistakable and aggravatingly casual voice of Corporal Kreiss. His confidence and occasional snark were nowhere near Snow levels of annoying, but it still merited an eyeroll on her part.

Lightning reminded herself again that this particular soldier was helping to keep Hope balanced. He was decent kid.

His military bearing just needed some work.

"Why exactly are you calling me at work on a Friday, Corporal?" she deadpanned. "It doesn't sound like an emergency."

He snorted. "Nah, no fires. It's just that I've, uh… got a task that requires your level of expertise."

It may have been testament to the record low of excitement in her life, but Lightning quirked an eyebrow. "I'm listening."

There was a long beat of awkward silence before Noel cleared his throat.

"So… I hear you cook a mean behemoth steak."

Lightning blinked. Where the hell is he going with this?

"Any idiot can throw raw meat over a fire," she said. "Flattery will get you nowhere."

"With all due respect, it's not that simple," Noel retorted. "I've had plenty of charred or tough junk that the chow hall passed off as edible, so I assumed wild monster meat wasn't meant to be tasty. Then Fang and Hope told me some stories about your travels and the steaks. You wouldn't even have to do any of the prep – just teach us your ways."

Lightning planted her face into her palm. "Am I to believe you've dragged in an actual behemoth carcass for Hope's birthday dinner?"

"All in a day's work, First Sergeant." His smirk was practically visible.

"Don't get cocky," she snapped. "This was Fang's idea, wasn't it?"

Noel let out a nervous laugh. "Not exactly. She left it up to me to prepare our kill – maybe she guessed that I'd come to you for help. We made pretty good time carving up the thing, and she gave us extra tips on that part, but I don't want to settle for the usual flaming meat-stick approach. Everyone is planning on this party at HQ. Good food means good morale."

Lightning sighed at the stacks of paperwork on her desk and looked toward the single, dirt-encrusted window. She didn't want to admit to being pleased that someone legitimately needed her help, even with such a simple task, but she wasn't about to turn the offer down.

"Fair enough," she said at length. "When do we start cooking?"

"Seventeen thirty or so," Noel replied. "You're really on board?"

"It's Hope's birthday, isn't it? Don't sound so surprised," Lightning said, pushing up from her chair and pressing her free hand against the small of her back. The ache in her lower back had grown along with the baby, another irritating side-effect of the sedentary nature of office work. Calling it quits a little early wasn't a bad idea.

"I could use the challenge, anyway."

- Later that evening, behind the Cavalry HQ Complex -

Vanille scarfed down the last bite of her steak, licked her fingertips and wiped her greasy hands on her scrubs pants. She sighed in contentment, a broad smile plastered across her face. The only thing more suited to celebrating Hope's birthday than a smorgasbord of wild game had to be Lightning's preparation of it. A lifetime seemed to have passed since they last enjoyed those meals as l'Cie.

Bright stars were becoming visible as their bonfire settled and a light chilly wind blew the smoke aside. From her crate against the back wall of Cavalry HQ, Vanille had the perfect vantage point for people-watching. Dozens of soldiers, friends and family chatted over their food, forming small groups that scattered across the dirt training field in all directions from the fire pit at its center.

There was so much to see in the crowd, but she found familiar faces first. Serah had just darted from her seat to the edge of the fire, dragging Milo back before he could plunge his marshmallow stick into the flames. Farther off, Snow's head towered above the others gathered around him, his booming voice indistinct over the pervasive noise. By his occasionally dramatic gestures and Lucil's frequent eyerolls at the fringe of his audience, she guessed his tale was even taller than usual.

Panning right, she spotted Bartholomew talking with Sazh and Dajh on makeshift benches closer to the fire. The older pilot stopped and turned, apparently sensing the attention, until he met her eyes. He nudged his son, and they both smiled and waved to her.

Vanille waved back, but she had no intention of interrupting their dinner. She propped her chin in her hands and focused on the bustle of activity directly surrounding the fire pit. Lightning stood only a small space back from a jury-rigged grill, sharp eyes peering over the shoulders of Noel and a couple of his teammates as they flipped and monitored the steaks. Fang swooped onto the scene as well, goading the soldiers at work until Lightning shooed her away, a frustrated Noel in tow. Every so often the grill-master opened her mouth to deliver instructions or a nod of approval.

And slightly more often, Lightning aimed her focus at a point past the crowd, off near the edge of the HQ building. Vanille followed her line of sight, but there didn't seem to be anything of interest there. From where she sat, though, she could not have seen whatever lay around that corner. After watching the spot for several minutes, she had to wonder…

"Somethin' caught your eye?"

Vanille jumped and turned at the voice near her left ear, giggling at Fang's triumphant smirk. She swatted her arm. "You're such a devil."

Fang threw a blanket around Vanille's shoulders and pulled her in.

"You're cold," Fang muttered against her hair. "Gonna tell me what's so captivating over there? I'll swipe another steak if ya like."

Vanille supposed that she had been too distracted to notice the chill or the ambush. She cuddled up against the wall of warmth at her side and narrowed her eyes at Lightning again.

"I think Claire's been watching something around the corner," she said, doing her best to accommodate Lightning's request to use her given name. It was hard when Vanille had only ever known her as Lightning. "Or watching for something, at least."

Fang chuckled. "I don't see her precious Director here yet, d'you?"

"Ah," Vanille sighed, realizing that she had not yet spotted Hope among the crowd. She chided herself for not noticing the fact sooner, but his lateness or even absence from social functions was unfortunately the norm. His own birthday didn't seem to be any exception.

"Should we go and find him? She's probably worried."

Shrugging, Fang played with one of her ruddy ponytails. "Oh, he'll be here one way or another. I already sent Kreiss after 'im. It's time I let someone else bust in a door or two."

Vanille could recall a few recent incidents. The colonel hadn't taken any real actions against Fang's interruption of their official business, but the lower level leaders were not fans. Hope had been compelled to give her a talking to.

Snow had consequently given both Fang and Hope a talking to.

It was all well and good for Fang, who had no actual enlistment status, position or rank, and who didn't give a damn if the leadership liked her or not. Those things did not apply to Corporal Kreiss.

"Won't that get Noel in trouble?" Vanille asked, more to herself than anything. She didn't know him all that well, but she could tell from their few interactions that he was not the sort she would wish trouble upon.

"Nah, he's just headed to the transport," Fang laughed. "He'll either charm or bulldoze his way through whatever the hold-up is."

Vanille perked up, turning eager, shining eyes to Fang again. "Why couldn't I go instead?"

"Nope. Ain't got a wyvern, and it's not your job, Vani."

"Well, it should be," she muttered, fighting the pout that was beginning to form. She pulled away to the far side of the crate and wrapped her arms around her knees. "I'm just as worried about Hope as the rest of you. I may be the youngest now, but at least I know how to be diplomatic."

Fang did not respond. Instead, she fixed her laser focus on a point past Vanille until her companion followed suit.

"Good evening, ladies!" Serah hugged her sweater around herself as she strolled up, grinning at the two. Vanille smiled back, but Fang just quirked an eyebrow.

"You headed off for some reason?" Fang asked.

"Yeah, just um… need to get some things from the HQ clinic," she fumbled, twisting the end of her braid between her fingers. "I know the building's right here, but could you let Sis know I've gone inside, if she asks? And that Dajh is watching Milo? She's getting mobbed at the grill right now."

Vanille knew a cover-up when she saw one, but she thought better of delving into it. A brief silence nearly became awkward before she exclaimed, "Of course we will! Don't be gone too long, okay?"

"I won't. Thanks so much!" Serah said in a rush, running along the back of the building with a wave.

Fang watched her like a hawk the whole way. "Gotta wonder what she's up to."

"Maybe it's a surprise?" Vanille tried, nowhere near convinced. Medical supplies didn't usually figure into the plan for birthday surprises – inadvertently, maybe, but not by design.

She aimed a well-wishing glance to the corner where Serah disappeared, then panned her gaze over the rest of their friends. A cold, familiar weight had settled on her shoulders, so she returned to Fang and the blanket extended to welcome her.

"Still worried about Sunshine, or is it mainly Serah now?" Fang asked, once Vanille had curled up like a cat against her side. "Seemed pretty suspicious to me."

Vanille released a world-weary sigh. "I worry about them all."

That was a fact she knew would never change.

- That same evening (63 days since the settlement border mission) -

Hope let out a groan of frustration, regarding the comm unit buzzing in his pocket like a pesky alarm. It had been going off at constant intervals for twenty straight minutes, but he didn't want to move from his reclined position atop BARTHOLOMEW after spending hours at work in the bowels of his ship.

Hours spent at work, as well as hours spent eliminating a bottle of something green-tinted and alcoholic. Engineers popping in on his workplace came with certain perks, he guessed, though he'd have to give them another talking to about stashing alcohol on any of their work sites. Even if it was just a birthday prank. They knew he didn't prefer drinking, and never on the job, but his name was tagged to the smallish bottle with a bow.

He'd uncovered it in a box under the co-pilot's seat, where it sat mocking him until he felt miserable enough to cave.

Now, his care factor could not have been lower.

For the first time in a long time, he felt absolutely calm. The crisp October air left a breathtaking view of the stars overhead. The occasional biting wind and cold metal hull were probably the only things keeping him grounded, and they provided a bonus numbing effect on a few careless burns.

Hope pressed his sore fingertips to the hull and relished the soothing chill on them. He wondered if he could shut everything out – if he just stayed still and focused on those stars – he might fall asleep and not wake up to anything anymore.

Another voice in the back of his mind calculated and pointed out the improbability of that outcome for an adult in his twenties. But his unwillingness to move was stronger than that voice.

The interruptions would not cease, though. Hope begrudgingly moved one hand to his pocket to remove the offending device, didn't bother to look at the number, and flipped it open.

"Hey," he said, already resigned to take a tongue-lashing from the other end.

Instead, he got a drawn-out sigh. "Y'know, your wife would like to know you're alive. Everyone and your sister has been trying to get you on the phone, birthday boy."

"Appreciate the concern, Lucy."

He wasn't about to admit the validity of her concern, but the reminder of his 'special day' cut like a familiar knife in his side.

"Hope, I will javelin-throw this crutch up there, so help me—"

"W-wait a sec, you're at the transport?" Hope's awareness sharpened to a state of vague puzzlement.

"No, but I got your attention. You told us earlier that the ship needed a tune-up, remember? If you weren't brooding on top of that junker – which is obviously the case – you'd still be exerting dangerous levels of OCD on its guts."

"I killed the OCD a couple of hours ago," Hope muttered. "I'm just stargazing right now. I still need to call Maq's channel, though." He wondered why he hadn't done it yet, but dismissed the thought.

He wasn't entirely sure how long he'd been lying there.

"Look, I know we're coping in different ways," Lucil continued quietly. "You can tell him hi, for me, if you want. I just can't pretend…" Her static-laden huff on the other end betrayed the struggle there, but she sniffed once and regained her bearings.

"Anyway, getting back on track – we can't stall too long for you. Everyone's already gathered out behind HQ. Fashionably late will work, but you can't miss your own birthday party."

Hope took a deep breath and let it go. "Remind me again whose bright idea it was to make this thing a community event. Because it wasn't mine."

"That's what you get for dragging your feet, Director Hope Estheim," Lucil jibed. He could sense the smirk in her words as she used his full, hated title. "Somebody had to make a choice, so it was Snow to the rescue again. Lebreau knows how to work drinks for a crowd, anyway, and the Cavalry's hauled in more meat than we know what to do with. Everyone's a little overdue for a good time."

"Hmph, I couldn't say no to them if I wanted to. I'm putting my foot down at any drinking challenges, though," he carried on tiredly, searching for the reasoning behind that. "Think I'm already pushing my limits. You always said I was a lightweight."

Then again, that could've just been an excuse for deterring me.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that," Lucil started in, clearing her throat. "One of us listens to your sister, so I won't even be drinking a toast to your health this time around. I can't exactly mix these pain medications with alcohol. I get to be sober and cranky with Claire."

The name rattled around in his head like a loose screw until he remembered the recent change. Guilt churned in his stomach at the thought. The Lightning he knew and loved never had any intention of going back to her old name. She did it for him and for the family – for everyone else. He had failed to sway her decision.

Either way, she'll always be Light to me.

"Well, that sounds like a blast," Hope deadpanned. "Sorry I can't join you on the crankiness. Or the sobriety – not sure what that stuff was, but it packed a punch."

"Damn it, stop incriminating yourself and make your phone call. You've got fifteen minutes before Fang sends Noel over there with Snuggles."

"Pick-up service? Everyone's so thoughtful today."

"Yeah, well, happy birthday," Lucil said. "You'll pay for it later."

The line disconnected. Hope smiled faintly after the fact. No amount of so-called payment even made a dent in the mountain of debt he owed her. The longer he existed, the bigger the mountain became. And it was only one peak among the full mountain range of everything he owed Lightning, Serah, and the entire family for his survival and his struggle to emerge from a bottomless pit of grief.

He just couldn't think about everyone else right now.

His attention turned back to the open comm unit in his hand. Its blank face stared back at him like the void he intended to contact. Hope brought his thumb to the buttons and dialed the number to Maqui's headset communicator in slow sequence.

Once again, he wanted to chat with his best friend. Courtesy of Yuj's salvage work on one of Maqui's prototype communicators, along with Hope's integration of the parts into his repaired headset, any member of the family could call Maqui's number and hear his voicemail greeting. It didn't have an actual record function for messages, though, as that would be an unnecessary waste of battery life.

The device rang four times before it automatically tripped the recording. Hope's breath caught as the voice came through.

"Congrats, you've almost reached Maqui. I'm probably on the line with someone else or crazy busy right now, so either try again later or leave a message… Now!"

A beep signaled the end, and Hope choked on the words in his throat. It got him every time, hardly diminishing with the frequency of his calls over the past weeks. It was one of the few things that cut through the pervasive numbness.

Still, the yawning chasm of silence begged to be filled. Hope closed his eyes, and the Maqui sitting in the back of his mind stared at him, one eyebrow perched.

"H-hey, Maq, it's me again," he stammered. "I'm turning twenty-four today."

"Am I supposed to be impressed?"

Hope's eyes shot open. He rubbed his temple, feeling a bit overwhelmed by the force of his own imagination – clearly compounded by the forces of exhaustion and alcohol. Whatever the case, he delved back into the pseudo-conversation not two seconds later.

"No, I just… can't wrap my head around it. I don't even know what to expect anymore. I never imagined a future without you around," Hope said, fixing his thousand-yard gaze on the sky. "I assumed we'd figure things out as we went."

His mental version of Maqui shrugged. "We can still do that. Or have you already data-dumped everything I taught you like a heartless jerk?"

Snorting, Hope shook his head. He'd locked away enough advice and insults from his friend to carry on this conversation for a lifetime.

"Never. I need all the help I can get! I'm gonna be a dad, you know."

"And whose fault is that?" Maqui smirked inside his mind. "I can't exactly help you in the parenting department."

"Yeah," Hope sighed. "But you can help me pitch one of my top name choices to Light."

The skepticism that radiated from Hope's imaginary version of Maqui was impressive. "Appreciate the gesture, but what if you're having a girl?"

"Oh, I've done a little research," Hope replied, now fully immersed in the exchange within his head. "Turns out I'm not the only guy here with a girl's name, hypocrite. No wonder you gave me so much grief in the past."

"Ha, you were too damn pretty to get away with it."

"You mean you were too much of a joker to let me."

"Guilty as charged," Maqui said, his exuberant presence in Hope's mind becoming suddenly withdrawn. "Sorry I can't be there to crash your party. It's gonna start soon, isn't it?"

The heaviness of loss settled on Hope again, pressing him against the transport's hull. He definitely didn't want to move, much less go to a rowdy birthday celebration, but reality had resurfaced in the words of his conjured friend.

"I guess it is," he said. The stars overhead seemed to have shifted, sharpening against the sky as the last of twilight disappeared. "Lucil says hi, by the way."

Maqui wagged his head in disbelief, barely mustering a sad smile. "She deserves a lot better than this. She's gotta move on, sometime."

"Fat chance," Hope muttered, instantly regretting it when his inner Maqui recoiled with a wounded look. "Hey, I didn't mean it like that. Maybe she'll find someone again, it's just never going to be the same. Trust me."

"I never said it would be the same." Maqui half-smiled, but his face was becoming hazier by the second. "If she can be happy, that's enough. Same goes for you."

One particular star burned brighter than its companions, and Hope's focus centered there. "Damn it, Maq. I really wish you were here."

"I know, Hope. Now go have a good time for me, will ya?"

"Yeah," Hope rasped, somehow holding together. "Yeah, I promise."

In that instant, the illusory Maqui in Hope's head faded away into the dead silence of the communicator against his ear. He was left with nothing but the void and the same unnatural calm. Any tears had been spent hours ago. He felt no more motivated to face everyone than he had before.

What's the point, anyway?

I'm just dragging them all down with me.

Hope closed the comm unit and let it rest on his stomach, not even flinching as the heated device made contact with his ice-cold skin. He crossed his arms underneath his head and reverted to the previous "maybe it will all go away" plan.

He didn't move from the position until the scraping of claws on metal announced Snuggles' arrival. Even then, he merely rolled his heavy head to the side.

Noel jumped down from the saddle and strode slowly over, as if assessing a potentially volatile situation. He stopped a meter away and cocked his head at Hope with a furrowed brow. It was rare to see him in such a serious mood.

"Something wrong?" Hope asked, blinking at the look of concern.

"Not with me," Noel said, gesturing at the entire space Hope occupied. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Hope narrowed his eyes but did not move. "Nothing? I'm pretty wiped, so I decided to rest up here? Throw me a bone, already."

For some reason, the response only served to make Noel even more flustered and worried looking, and he knelt to pull Hope into a sitting position. He gave him a rousing shake.

"You're a fucking ice cube," he ground out. "Where the hell is your shirt?" Noel shifted his grip to pull Hope's gloveless right hand into view, starting at the sight, but Hope noted it with almost total indifference. "And where are your gloves?"

Hope ran his free hand through his cold, matted hair, too numb to really process the charges. "…I don't know. About the shirt, anyway. I guess I might've left my gloves near the engines. It got hot in there, so that's why…"

His other hand was snatched from its task.

"Hope, for the love of Etro, look at yourself," Noel insisted, turning up his right palm. "This is more than just careless."

Hope looked down, seeing but not really believing the amount of burns and blisters all over his fingers. When had he taken off the gloves? Had the machinery burned through them? Had he chosen not to wear them at all?

Why would he ever not wear gloves for that kind of work?

Surely I wasn't trying to get electrocuted.

"I don't understand," he whispered. He wasn't actively panicking about it, and that made him feel even more wrong on a level he could not fathom. "I had to be wearing gloves…"

Or not. One fuzzy memory told him he'd dropped them in the mechanical space. He could see them slipping from his fingers to the floor.

Etro, I really have had too much…

Noel busied himself untying the knot of coveralls sleeves around Hope's waist, pulling the wrinkled material up and over his shoulders to block the wind. Hope looked up to see bright blue eyes full of pity mingled with guilt.

"Don't move from this spot, okay?" Noel insisted. "I'll be back in two minutes."

Nodding, Hope watched him rush off to the rungs and drop out of sight. He spared a passing glance to the wreckage of his right hand before pushing his arms into the coveralls sleeves.

Hope lifted the comm unit from his lap and stared at one bloody smudge on its numeric pad. Against the backdrop of his hand, the source was obvious.

He stuffed it deep into his pocket.

What seemed like an hour and no time later, Noel returned with a wad of clothing, a first aid kit, and the empty bottle. He shoved a bulky hoodie over Hope's head and yanked a length of gauze from the kit, muttering under his breath, "What were you doing in there, besides being an amateur drunk?"

"Routine tune-ups," Hope said. He finished pulling on the hoodie and finally took stock of his situation, hardly noticing that Noel was mummifying his fingertips with alcohol pads, ointment and gauze wrappings.

A familiar torn spot near the end of the sweater sleeve consumed his entire focus. Time stopped, and Hope's heart took off at an alarming pace. A chill ran down his spine as long-suppressed memories broke the surface of his thoughts.

For a span of five seconds, all he could see was Maqui laughing and sticking his thumb through the sweater's newest hole, declaring that it was about time to retire the old thing.

The memory was plunged into the fog before Hope could react any further.

"This… This isn't my shirt."

Noel shook his head at the remark, hauled Hope up from the deck, and guided him toward Snuggles. "Didn't have much to choose from in there."

"I'm sorry, I just meant… Forget it," Hope stammered as he stumbled along.

In one fluid motion, Noel swung up onto the saddle and extended his hand. "C'mon. Let's get outta this wind and find a pre-party snack before you get sick."

I'm wasting his time. I'm wasting everyone's time.

The assessment flashed through his mind, but Hope tried to take the offered hand with his bandaged one, wincing slightly at the more noticeable pain to his fingers. Noel grabbed his left hand instead.

He had no desire to argue about leaving. He slid onto the front of the saddle in silence.

They were high in the clear night air when Hope's focus began to slip. The stars overhead hung tantalizingly close, brighter than he could ever remember. His hold began to relax as his eyes slipped shut.

"Hope!" Noel shouted over the wind, lightly shaking Hope's shoulder until he came to himself and sat up straight. "You okay?"

"Just dizzy."

Noel gave his arm a pat. "Y'know, you weren't supposed to find that stuff before the party. Drinking alone is kind of a bad idea. Don't do it again, okay?"

Hope nodded his agreement, though he knew that wasn't the root problem. If a simple bout of drunkenness could sink him this low, what else was possible? Before this incident, he'd been pleased to only suffer the occasional mild breakdown for a few weeks running.

Still, between endless work and sleep-inducing medications, he hadn't experienced much more than snippets of normal life. He remembered the sight of Lightning's face from a particularly rough night, the wrinkle forming between her eyebrows when she looked at him from across the pillow, her face blurred through his tears. He'd felt her cool palm on his cheek, her thumb swiping under his eye.

"Hope, are you really awake? Hope, please talk to me. It's okay…"

"Hope! Seriously, you're not passing out on me, are you?" Noel called out, his voice cutting through the sudden spiral into melancholy. As Hope shook his head, he felt the relieved exhale at his back. "Good. We're almost to HQ."

Something else had occurred to Hope, though, and he was compelled to address it before they landed.

"That bottle was from you, wasn't it?" Hope guessed, his shoulders slumping. "I ruined your present."

Noel burst out laughing. "What do you mean, ruined? You drank it! I'd call that a success."

"But you said it yourself – I shouldn't've found it before the party," Hope argued, "and I don't even know what it was or if it was… I don't know, special? Kind of had a fresh aftertaste, and it didn't look like the green you get from a dye."

He was answered with a lighter chuckle and a clap on the shoulder. "Yeah, well, that's because it was already green. Did you like it?"

"A-actually, yes. I don't drink things I don't like, so… Thank you."

"Don't mention it," Noel laughed. "Happy twenty-fourth, Hope."

Serah was waiting at Cavalry HQ when they arrived – Hope assumed that Noel had called ahead. She paced inside the entrance, clearly beside herself with worry and not one bit affected by the firelight and jovial noise of the party behind the building.

While Noel went hunting for snacks and clothing, Serah sat Hope down and asked him the expected battery of questions. Why had he been drinking alone before his own birthday party, or drinking at all in the first place? What had happened to his gloves?

Hope relayed as many facts as he could recall through the mental haze, but he couldn't seem to answer anything to her satisfaction.

Eventually, Noel returned with a set of casual clothes and a bag of some kind of game jerky from a previous hunt. Serah called Snow and Lightning to relay Hope's status, hung up the communicator, and collapsed into the chair next to him with her head in her hands.

"Hope," her muffled, watery voice said, "Can I ask you one more thing?"

He turned toward her. Gods, he felt like an idiot. But whatever his feelings or lack thereof, he'd caused Serah trouble. Another question was doable.

"Sure, Sis," he said.

She looked up at him, her wide eyes sympathetic. "Can you really handle this party?"

Hope balked momentarily, but he swallowed his doubts. "Listen, it's…"

It's not a question of can or can't, right?

"It's my birthday. I-I need to go. I owe it to everyone." He looked down at his hands, one of them stiff from the bandaging, and he could practically smell the smoke, rain and mud from the fateful border mission that saved the settlement and cost his best friend. It was a nightmare that never ended, sometimes even under drug-induced unconsciousness. Everyone knew his pain. They were being strong for him, whether he liked it or not.

I don't deserve any of it.

"Well, I guess if you're really set on it..." Serah sighed. She stood and crossed the room to a cabinet. She started rapidly filtering through the bottles on its shelves.

After searching for a couple of minutes, she threw up her hands and returned to Hope. "Ugh! Nevermind. I've got no idea how painkillers would react with whatever's in your system right now."

"Sis, I can't feel anything," he said dully, flexing his fingers. At least that was mostly true; he couldn't justify avoiding his own party just to wallow in misery alone. He reached for the snack bag and pulled out a piece of jerky.

It was going to be a long night.

Hope made an exceptionally late entrance to his party. Not that Lightning was surprised by the fact, or by Serah's call. She knew his habits well – had seen him reminisce himself into extreme introversion or depression on many special occasions, even before the recent border mission tragedy.

Lightning did have to admit that his 'mask' had improved, but she was not pleased about it. Having long since completed her grill duty, she watched him paint on smiles, fail at multiple rounds of cards, and stick doggedly to the cover story for his bandaged hand – that he'd been burned putting out a small engine fire. All in all, she supposed the event was going well for a majority of oblivious guests.

She was not surprised by Hope's limited contact with her, either. The instant they had more than a passing interaction, all pretenses would vanish. He could potentially have a breakdown, and neither of them wanted that here.

What did surprise her was his complete lack of restraint when it came to drinking. After Serah's report, she'd expected Hope to back off. He wasn't being obnoxious or loud about it – Lucil insisted he was a rather sentimental drunk anyway – but he somehow kept ending up with a drink in hand. There was a limit to Noel's and Snow's attempts at interference, too. She expected them both to be blackout drunk from subtly intercepting and consuming Hope's drinks if this kept up for another hour.

Lightning became more and more suspicious of a culprit behind it.

"Tell me something, Kate," she said, hoping she'd only seen Lucil wince as a trick of the firelight. It had been her friend's idea to suffer the name shift in solidarity, just between the two of them. She sipped at her cranberry juice and pressed on. "How many drinks do you think Hope's gotten his hands on since he got here?"

"Too many," Lucil muttered. "Can't say I'm surprised that our knucklehead hero and Hope's new bestie couldn't keep him in check. It's about time I stepped in, huh?"

Lightning noted the trace of venom in her friend's voice at the mention of Noel and knew that was not a good idea. She shook her head. "I'll handle this. I'm pregnant, not incapacitated, and I wouldn't want anyone getting crutch-smacked."

"Gonna set him straight then, mommy?"

"Tch, that's even worse than Claire," Lightning grumbled. "But no, he wouldn't respond well to those tactics. I'll figure something out."

Leaving the safety of their bonfire bench was no small task. Lightning adopted an untouchable aura to press through the packed field of people, avoiding the groups gathered near the tiki torches and hating every second of it. This was one of the few situations where she stooped to using pregnancy as a defense. Baby bumps tended to part crowds.

She found Hope on the far side near the storage buildings, sitting on a half-shadowed crate and staring at the sky. It was unclear if he had retreated to the spot or been placed there for safekeeping. Snow and Noel continued to mingle in the vicinity with deliberate, watchful patterns.

In some far-removed time and place, she might have laughed at them, but here and now she was just relieved.

"Having fun yet, beautiful?"

Her eyes snapped to Hope's voice. She blushed at the attention, shaking her head at his comically wide grin as she stepped closer to his spot.

"Not as much as you, apparently," she said, hoisting herself onto the crate beside him.

He turned his glassy gaze back to the sky and laughed, resting his head on the wall behind him. "Isn't this the socially acceptable way to cope? I haven't gotten completely tanked since— Wow, not since my eighteenth birthday! Six whole years…"

Hope sniffed at that, dragging his left hand over his face. A sob was trapped in his throat when he added, "Guess it always takes an extra little push."

"Are you saying someone put you up to this?" Lightning asked, slowly and carefully. She got a gentle grip on his bandaged hand, and he looked back to her. No amount of alcohol could drown the pain that radiated from his eyes.

"No, I just promised Maq…" he choked. "I promised I'd have a good time."

Lightning rested her cheek against the wall, eye to eye with him in a way she had never been before. It hurt her heart to see him sitting in her own version of rock bottom. He hadn't been wrong about the six years – she had never seen him drunk and didn't particularly care to. She didn't want to make it any worse.

"Are you having a good time, then?" she asked.

"I don't know," Hope tried, laughing it off when the tears came. "Am I?"

"Well," Lightning began, "you're surrounded by people and drunk enough to fail at everything. That's some people's definition of a good time, so yeah. Sure. Unless you had something else in mind?"

"Oh, that's right! I almost forgot," Hope said, his eyes suddenly wide as the heavy fog of grief cleared. He grabbed her shoulder and leaned in to whisper, "D'you wanna pull a sort of prank for me?"

This can't be good.

"Er, sure. What kind of prank?"

"Lebreau's s'posed to leave me a coffee at my birthday spot behind the crates at the end of the barracks, and I haven't given her a tip yet," he said.

Lightning didn't quite follow his train of thought. She did have reason to suspect that Lebreau was the supplier of all previous beverages, however. "Okay, so…?"

"So… Could you get the coffee for me and give her a tip? Any old tip, as long as it's not money," he explained, and at her cross expression he tacked on, "Just stupid words of advice. Once, I told her to keep spoons on the counter. Get it?"

I swear, I don't know where you get this corny nonsense.

Hope's drunken idea of a prank sounded more like the blatant mischief of a puppy. Lightning rolled her eyes. "Guess I could tell her to stay on birth control."

"Ouch," Hope groaned, wincing at the verbal jab. He rebounded unexpectedly and kissed her on the mouth. "Love you anyway."

"I-I love you, too," she stammered, clearing her throat and rubbing briefly at her spine in an effort to stamp out the tingle. There were too many people for any of that, second trimester urges be damned. "So can I use my tip, or was it not good enough?"

"Hm." Hope's brow furrowed in thought for several drawn out seconds until an idea somehow surfaced and lit up his face. "Actually, tell her the secret to winning Rummy is to drink the most rum."

"What? Why?"

He chuckled and replied, "'Cause she's got a tie-breaker with Fang coming up. See, over there?" Hope pointed unsteadily across the field to where Fang stood beneath the light of a particular torch, one boot propped on a chair as she downed a series of golden shots. Vanille was already shuffling the card deck.

Maybe he's playing to her sense of challenge? I hate drunk logic.

Lightning let out a longsuffering sigh. "Wait a minute. The last time Lebreau really pushed her limits, she blabbered on about us having babies. I don't want any more prophetic wishes coming our direction from her, thanks."

"How much more damage could she do?" Hope laughed.

She did not want to speculate.

"You do realize she'll make you pay for it later, right? That is, if she buys into such ridiculous advice."

Hope shrugged, and his smile faltered. "She'll know I got that tip from Maq. Never could get her to try his silly strategy." He laughed an empty laugh, wiping carelessly at his eyes with his sleeve. "Besides, if she comes after me, I've got a getaway plan."

Etro, I'm afraid to ask what that entails.

"Fine. I guess we might as well give it a shot," Lightning said, sliding back off of the crate.

"Pun intended?" Hope called after her, and she snorted at the lame and completely accidental joke.

"Yeah, sure."

She'd overheard but dismissed Maqui's hare-brained and often superstitious game tactics over the years. No one ever tried them but the mastermind himself.

From what Lightning had observed, Maqui's strange but ingenious mind had only ever failed him in games – never when it really counted. It didn't matter in the end, though. Some forces could not be outsmarted, and it stung every time she acknowledged that fact. No amount of name-reversal could undo the cruel irony of what had happened, but it was the best she could do. Even as she cringed at the sound of "Claire," she remembered Maqui's opinion about Lucil's name restrictions and her own previous refusal to use her old name:

"Guess we all have a lot of quirks, but hey – when you give a damn about someone you just roll with it, right?"

From that perspective, she could actually imagine Lebreau going along with Hope's silly suggestion about the rum. It occurred to her that he wasn't the only one having a rough time celebrating his birthday. Even in his drunken state, he was trying to reach out to everyone else. He was paying homage to the missing piece of their family.

She would complete his mission, whatever the consequence.

- The next morning -

Hope opened his blurry eyes to the location in which he'd crashed – what appeared to be the corner of a chocobo stall. An empty bottle nearby reminded him of the cause, as if his churning stomach and pounding head weren't enough. There were only so many people who would be searching for him at the crack of dawn on a weekend, and he was grateful for that. He pulled the rough wool blanket up over his head for a few more minutes of half-sleep.

In a way, he hoped they'd find him soon, because the pervasive smell of chocobo droppings and musty straw was overwhelming his nose. If he'd vomited somewhere earlier in the night, it was thankfully not in the current space.

Surprised I even made it this far.

Snuffling sounds near his feet drew his eyes up and over the edge of the blanket. The familiar white-flecked chocobo cocked its head at him and made a throaty chirping sound. Its beady eyes almost looked concerned.

Hope made the monumental effort to sit up. He could mostly see straight, but his head felt like it might spring several leaks. The chocobo settled in beside him and nuzzled his shoulder. He stroked its feathers and tried to shut out the rest of reality.

"Thanks, buddy," he said. "Sorry I'm such a mess."

"Kwehhh."

They sat quietly for a few semi-peaceful minutes before Snow's voice came crashing into Hope's consciousness.

"Hope! Hey, kiddo, where'd ya get to?"

His shouts were close enough to pierce his skull. Hope covered his ears in a futile attempt to block the excruciating pain and drew his knees in to his chest.

Seconds later, Snow's head popped over the stall door. "Ha! Shoulda known it was this one."

"Holy shit, Snow," he hissed, unable to press his hands any tighter against his head without making things worse. Hope squinted up at him, but his eyes had watered and his vision was too blurred to read his face. "Please stop yelling…"

"Oh, er, didn't think I was that loud." He stalled for half a moment, shrugged it off and hopped the gate. The chocobo snapped at him, but Snow made a few clicking noises and offered it a handful of greens, luring it away.

"Your therapy pet's a little defensive, champ."

"He's sensitive that way," Hope groaned, bracing himself against the back of the stall to try and stand. The chocobo whipped its head toward him, abandoned its meal and shuffled over. It waited patiently for Hope to lean on its feathery side for support, squatted down, and let him climb aboard.

Snow crossed his arms and smirked. "Actually, it's not a he," he said, jerking his thumb at the far, shadowy corner of the stall. Hope could just see the tops of three splotchy gray eggs peeping above a nest of grass and plumage.

They caught his attention like nothing else had.

"Snow… Does Light know I'm out here? Is she okay, or is she angry with me?"

"What do you mean, 'out here?'" Snow laughed, thoroughly amused at Hope's deer-in-the-headlights stare. He laughed even harder when the look turned hostile.

"I mean out here at the field base," Hope deadpanned, glaring back with all the animosity born of his hangover headache. "I woke up in a chocobo stall."

"Hate to break it to ya, little bro, but you never left the stables at HQ. No way were we letting you ride off across the plains in the dark!" Snow declared.

He unhooked the gate and led Hope's chocobo out by the bridle, and the view of familiar settlement buildings solidified reality. "Kreiss said you looked pretty cozy with your chocobo pal last night, so we let you be. So yeah, Sis knows you're here. Last I checked, she's just preggers and wound up. Probably misses the pleasure of your company, huh?"

Hope buried his face in the feathers and groaned. "I am such a failure."

So much for escape plans. Or birthday sex.

"Hey, it's alright. Been a long few weeks for all of us." Snow walked them to the fence line and stopped, busy flipping through his well-worn notebook but not really reading it. "Anything else going on besides the usual hangover stuff – headache, fatigue, nausea, maybe you feel like puking up a lung?"

"You should leave the medical business to your better half, Snow," Hope muttered. "I'm not miserable for your entertainment."

"Believe me, I know. I'm only here to deliver your ass to your lovely wife," he retorted, mussing Hope's thoroughly wrecked hair. "Your day's looking better already."

Hope covered his ears again, but Snow let the subject drop, prodding his arm until he glared directly at the taller man's smug face. He helped Hope down from the chocobo, who gave him a parting kweh and nudge to the back.

"Oh, and I should probably warn you," Snow said, clapping his shoulder as they walked, "Lebreau's gonna make you pay. Or so she says."

"Damn it," Hope grumbled. He rubbed at his temples, thinking back to what he must have said and done at the party to bring about such an outcome. "It was the rum, wasn't it? Did she lose the final game?"

"Hell no," Snow laughed. "She smoked Fang, but the rum really floored her after the fact. It's not like she can take it out on a pregnant woman, either – Sis was just the messenger. So now Lebreau's sworn off rum for life. You might wanna watch your back."

As if everyone doesn't already have my back. If only I'd been able to return the favor when it counted, we wouldn't all be trying to drown our sorrows…

Hope tried to shrug off the stubborn, painful thought. His friends had not only made sure he safely arrived at his birthday party, but that he didn't do something so stupid as ride across the plains and get himself killed. He swiped his sleeve across his face, breathing in a lungful of the smoke clinging to his clothing from the night before.

He could not shake that smell. The smell of fireworks and the smell of searing lightning through flesh merged into one awful memory.

His nose and eyes burned anew.

"I'll survive whatever it is," he sniffed, trying to walk away from Snow without stumbling. "Might even pass my invincibility to my offspring, who knows?"

Snow halted Hope by the sleeve. "Hey, you sure you're okay?"

"N-not… really." The tears came out of nowhere. Hope wrapped his arms around his middle, trying to choke down the guilt and the fear that suddenly surged inside his already unsettled stomach.

It wasn't going to work. Nothing worked. The party, the prank, the alcohol and even his reliance on Maqui's comm channel were just silly, useless distractions. There was no easy way around the tormenting grief that only time could wear away, and even then, it would never leave. Just like his mother's death still hovered in the back of his mind, occasionally surfacing to haunt him.

Overwhelmed, Hope heaved on the frosted grass. Again and again until he was gasping for breath. He belatedly noticed the gigantic hands on either side of his head, holding his hair out of his face, and another flood of tears streamed down. He couldn't look up from the ground. Not now, maybe not ever.

"I'm so s-sorry," he choked, his voice barely working. His hands shook where they braced against his knees. "Maq is gone and I-I couldn't stop him and… Etro, I can't make it up to-to you or anyone. What if I can't keep Light safe? W-what if I can't even protect my own child?"

Snow moved his hands to Hope's shoulders. "Hope, stop. What happened at the border wasn't your fault, and you can't keep thinking like that. You are not some single point of failure. We are all gonna protect you and your family. Got that?"

Hope nodded in response, having no strength left to protest. A part of him truly wanted to believe what Snow said, so it wasn't entirely a lie.

"Okay, then," Snow said, patting his arm. "Let's get you cleaned up."

"Are you going to talk to me, now?"

Lightning stared at the wall, absorbing the sound of Hope's steadily calming breaths just behind her in their otherwise quiet room.

His immediate answer was only to pull her closer and trace patterns over her stomach, pressing kisses to her neck and shoulder.

"What about?"

Twelve hours had passed since Snow brought him back that morning, and in that time Lightning had begun to wonder if alcohol was the only reason Hope had managed to communicate at all the night before.

The silence was eating at her. It had been easy enough to get him into bed, to connect without words. She hoped that taking care of basic physical needs would leave room to finally address what was still tormenting his mind.

Sighing, she stopped his hand to link their fingers. "You know what I mean, Hope. You burned yourself and got completely shit-faced yesterday, which is not like you, but even before that you were working yourself to death and only sleeping under medication," she explained. "I just want you to tell me what you're thinking. Tell me what hurts, instead of keeping it all to yourself."

"Light, you already know what hurts," Hope began. He released a long, heavy breath. "Talking about it won't fix anything."

"It would still be a hell of a lot better if I knew why you keep punishing yourself," she said, turning over to face him. She met his clouded eyes and held her palm over his heart to drive home her concern. "There's a difference between having a general idea of what's wrong and hearing you get things off your chest. It's been two months. So please, talk to me."

Hope searched her gaze for several seconds, his face full of conflicting, pained emotions. She could not read anything clearly through the storm there.

"Light, you know I love you," he began, his heart pounding under her fingers, "and I would do anything for you. But I've run circles around this conversation with nearly everyone I know. I've hit a memory – a smell, a sound, some stupid phrase that shouldn't mean anything – and broken to pieces so many times now…"

Tears had gathered in his eyes, but he held them at bay with a steadying breath. The mental walls were trying to form again. Hope bit his lip, squeezing his eyes shut. "You don't need this."

Lightning squeezed his arm. "Hope, I really do. Let me help you."

"I should be strong enough to handle my own demons," he whispered. "Not shove them onto you."

"Well, that's still the deal," she said, dangling her pendant before his eyes. "At least, it is according to the vows I remember. We'll figure out how to get through this, together."

Hope snatched the pendant and kissed her suspended hand. He lowered them both slowly out of view, looking more troubled than Lightning had hoped when their gazes locked.

"This deal has been a bit one-sided," he said. "Hasn't it?"

Lightning smirked, moving his hand back to her stomach. "Don't worry. You'll make it up to us."

- Three days later, at the Cavalry HQ clinic -

"Is this… real?"

Hope had barely whispered the question, but Serah's eyes snapped up from her work repositioning the ultrasound wand.

Both he and her sister were mesmerized by the grainy black and white image on the screen. Claire's smiles may have been rare, but the expression of almost childlike wonder on her face at that moment was practically unheard of since before their parents' deaths.

She caught her breath and grabbed onto Hope's hand. "It looks pretty real to me."

Serah hated to interrupt the moment, but she had finally gotten the wand repositioned properly on the evasive baby and needed to explain.

She cleared her throat. "So, this is the angle we needed to tell the sex of the baby – you're seeing the underside of the thighs, here and here," she said, pointing at corresponding oblong shapes on the screen. "I could call it outright, but I'll let you both take a guess first."

"Um," Hope tried, "unless you've got a different angle, there's quite a gap in the middle, so… It must be a girl."

Her sister nodded slowly. "Definitely looks that way. I had a feeling it would be."

"You got it," Serah confirmed. She watched the smile grow on Hope's face over the news, and he kissed the top of Claire's head. The baby on-screen curled in on itself as if trying to shut out their investigation.

Claire snorted. "She really takes after you, Hope – even in the womb-cave she doesn't like people in her space."

Serah chuckled as she moved the wand back into a better position to see the baby's profile – it had once again raised both tiny hands to its face, at which Hope prodded Claire's arm.

"Nice try," he said, "but I'm not the one who refuses to be photographed. She's one hundred percent camera-shy."

"All right, we'd better leave your introverted princess alone," Serah cut in after another half-minute of observation. She shut off the ultrasound equipment, wiped the clear jelly off Claire's stomach, and switched on the overhead light while continuing to summarize.

"Developmentally, she's right on track. No missing digits, organs are the right size and position, and she's in the target height and weight range based on your measurements, Sis."

Neither of them responded beyond a distracted nod, which prompted Serah to quietly gather the equipment and move across the room. She felt a heaviness settle in the air.

"Nora, then?" Claire asked as she traced a hand over her belly. "We had a really short list, and I thought…"

"Of course," Hope said. "Maybe she'll take after Mom. We could just… keep Maqui for a middle name, if you're okay with that. Let her decide what she wants to go by."

"That's fair. Picking names is not my forte."

Serah held back her tears. She wasn't quite sure about the meaning of 'fair' anymore, and even if she thought their situation was anything but fair, that meant nothing. The shadow of tragedy still hovered behind their joy.

She could not guess how long it would take to fade into the background. Only that it would, someday.

Endnotes: Beta-roomie has left a few parting gifts for this gigantic project FINALLY wrapping up!

When Noel first hears the sound (boing!) of the cactuar: Lol for a second I thought you were writing onomatopoeia for Noel's eyes opening and I was just like, "uhhhhh…"

When Noel jabbed at the cactuar in his net, testing it: There's a fine line between "happily successful hunt" and "serial killer levels of animal torment" and I see you edging toward the latter, Noel ;P

As Noel thought over the reason Fang had told him to go after the cactuar: Lol talk about going to great lengths to get drunk

Annnd when Fang told him to be grateful he came back alive: "lol hope you had fun almost dying LET'S GET WRECKED"

- After Snow tells Fang to not be too hard on Noel, and she only promises to keep him alive: I feel like this is the response subs (referring to Navy submarine riders) gives whenever they gain a new Sailor.

"Here's a new one. Please don't destroy him."

"Ha. Hahaha. That's cute."

"No, seriously, please—"

"Too late, he's already irreparably damaged."

"What? It's been 5 minutes!"

"We're that good."

As Snow remembers what Hope said to him as a l'Cie: Goddamn Hthar you are not going easy with the super depressing references, lol. It's like, "oh, nice, happy banter with Fang and Snow…. Annnnnd now there's existential angst. Cool. Cool cool cool."

When Lightning considers burning all the paperwork: You can still do it, y'know. Grab some matches. Embrace your destiny.

- As Vanille thinks about how Fang doesn't have the worries that come with actual enlistment status: Omg she's a contractor, isn't she? Hahaha that makes it even better.

Random officer: "Fang, you… you really can't do that—"

Fang: "That's cute. I do what I want."

RO: "But—"

Fang: [starts dancing with her middle fingers held high] [Big Sean's "I Don't Fuck With You" starts playing in the background]

RO: "…ok fine, do want you want"

Fang: "I GET PAID MORE THAN YOU, TOO."

When Vanille talks about how she is at least diplomatic and wants to help: Diplomacy isn't how you force Hope to cooperate. Have you seen who his wife is? Do you really think she's diplomatic?

When Lightning rolls her eyes, and again when she thinks about how she hates (Hope's) drunk logic: Lol she definitely speaks for us all

As Snow tells Hope that Lightning is just 'preggers and wound up': She would probably also stab you for that comment, Snow, you realize how close you are to death right now, right?

When Lightning references their wedding vows in her defense: Haha GOTCHA THERE. :P