guess who's an asshole? it's me! i'm the asshole!

this isn't a prank, this is actually chapter 6. this is an actual thing.

i'm literal garbage for having taken so long to finish this; i took a left turn in toronto somewhere and ended up in attack on titan fandom hell working on another longfic, but the last month of pure lr injected into my bloodstream has given me the ability to sit down and finish this. it jumped from 1k to 10k in like a week and that's where it's being published.

(it's kind of a good thing that i waited, anyway, because i learned a few things about writing my other long project that i hope are reflected in the content i'll be producing from here on out)

if there's stuff that doesn't make sense and that doesn't have an explanation, that's because this ending was planned with a sequel fic in mind by the title of In Absentia Luci, but i have no idea when or if i'll be able to sit down and write it. i really really really really want to, but it'll probably take some time.

also this ending's been planned for like a year i promise i didn't steal anything from anyone

also! i'm doing another one of the please-read-with-the-music scenes. watch out for (x.) and when it pops up between two paragraphs (it isn't a line break!), please queue up Atonement from the Final Fantasy XIII OST. you'll understand.

thankful shoutouts go to everyone in the tumblr noehopu fandom, especially Bekas, Genis Aurion, and Tango, for 1) not murdering me outright and 2) standing by me even in fandom hell. i'm so so so thankful for all of you.

that's all i've got, i think!

please enjoy!

Drip,

drip,

pitter-patter,

pit-pat-squelch

dripdripdrip

drip –

He opens his eyes to pitch dark.

Blinks. Anything? Nothing, nothing to be seen. Nowhere – not –

He is standing. He thinks. Feels upright, in black space.

Hears the dripping again. His breathing quiets, straining to source the sound. Rain? A stream?

Dripdripdrip drip

drop

squish –

thinks to investigate. Sound comes from everywhere at once.

Picks a direction, tries to move straight forward; no response. Limbs made of cotton hang helplessly. Like blankets.

Clothesline swings in the breeze, scent of fresh linen. Not here. Not anywhere.

Remembers a string tied in a loop, a slipknot. Alone.

Alone, he thinks.

Not alone.

Alone is white sand and empty sky. Dead trees and ache.

There is no ache. Only feels detached, trapped inside panes of glass. Mind separate from body – where is his body? Here?

Tries to move muscles. This time, he succeeds; breath hisses out through clenched teeth as bare palms come up against an ice-cold, flat surface. He would recoil, but his skin fuses to the material. Pain lances up his arms. The firmness beneath his fingertips grows abruptly hot, searing his skin.

He nearly cries out, pulling away as hard as he can. Resistance locks his hands, but he is stronger. The tips of his fingers are the last to leave; they do, and the wall – the glass pane, he realizes – cracks, loudly, like ice over water. The cracks spiderweb outwards, the first thing he has seen in the pitch dark.

The cracking persists, until all that is before him are lines of white on a black background. Dreadful silence, but for the beating of his heart.

Crack.

At once, the glass wall comes down, shattering to dust. Before his feet. A cloud of particles puffs up, and he covers his face with his arms – but there is no sting.

Something collides with the floor, making a sharp sound, like an abbreviated tinkling, piercing, crystal on stone. Once, twice, thrice; he lets his arms fall, and sees a chunk of something sitting between his feet.

From the wall? he thinks, bends down to cup it between his hands. Turns it in his palms to ascertain the shape – heavier than glass, glittering, and not entirely clear.

Crystal, then. Crystal, shimmering fire-red, cherry-red between his fingers. Not an artefact, but he isn't sure how he knows that.

Something is wrong. Looking up from the chunk of crystal, he glances around the area.

A faint light shines, a distance away, barely struggling against the ink blackness. Unblinking, he starts toward it, paying no heed to the pulsing of the crystal in his hand, rays of faint luminescence flaring out in time, like a steady heartbeat.

Footsteps crunch on pale sand. He hurries, but the light does not move closer –

suddenly, he is there.

The dim light seems to come from the person before him, illuminating frosted hair and porcelain skin from within; the man is crouched, poring over something on the ground with interest.

With a start, he realizes the dripping noise is close.

The man does not turn, but rises to his feet slowly, his arms hanging loose; they do not exude light, the muted glow swallowed as if something coats his skin.

Drip

drip

drip –

He takes an involuntary step back as the figure turns to him. Sandals squelch, grow damp – he's stepped in something, but he's not sure what.

The smell hits him, as sudden as a hammer blow, and he gags, raising the hand holding the crystal to his mouth, his nose, trying to block out the copper reek of blood, blood coating the ground, and the man looks at him curiously, as if unperturbed by the veritable lake of blood they stand in.

He looks at the ground, where the man had crouched before, and swallows hard when he sees a body – no, several, maybe five bodies dressed in military wear, faces hidden under their helmets, gathered together in a pile.

They're still bleeding.

He remembers the man, feels impassive eyes lingering on him, and his head snaps to the side.

"Hope," he breathes, as the man steps closer, thick boots sloshing through the blood easily.

"Noel," comes the answer, calm and tender, and an unwelcome shiver courses down his spine, settling hard into his stomach as he looks closer; there is dark red coating strands of the scientist's hair, tarnishing the silver, more smears of blood marring his face appearing black in the half-light escaping his pale skin.

"What is this," the hunter whispers, stepping back again as Hope draws closer, the crystal scraping his fingers. There is so much blood.

"I might need your help cleaning up," the silver-haired man says, turning back to look at the bodies piled behind him.

So much blood.

"Hope," the brunette utters, brokenly, "what have you done?"

"Hmm?" Silver eyebrows tweaked upward innocently. "Is something wrong?"

Don't look at me with those eyes, he wants to yell. Tell me what's going on! he tries instead. But he doesn't. He can't – the words die in his throat when intelligent, glittering turquoise turn to his wide sapphire, vibrant as the surface of New Bodhum's ocean.

Hope raises his hand, holds it out to Noel, palm facing upwards – his gloves are missing, but his arms are coated with blood.

Drip. A drop rolls off the tip of Hope's finger, splashes into the growing puddle under them.

"You'll understand," he assures him, pale as winter, pure as newly-fallen snow or unmarked white sand, covered in blood but looking for all the world as if he were merely discussing the weather.

The crystal gives a white-hot pulse, coursing through his fingers; he flinches, nearly drops the thing into the red liquid seeping into his sandals.

"Noel?" His eyebrows are drawn together, wrinkled in concern, and then he is stepping closer, paying no heed to the blood that parts before his boots, and then he is reaching, reaching upward with a bloodstained pale hand, looking impossibly tender as he moves, his palm cupping Noel's cheek –

The hunter sat up sharply with a gasp, his chest heaving. The fabric of the throw blanket dipped and pooled around his legs, his tanned fingers tight around the cushions of the white sofa; after a handful of heartbeats, rabbit-quick, he recognized the living room of Hope's apartment.

Gingerly, he touched the side of his face, expecting to feel wet blood... but there was nothing there but his own skin.

Just a dream, he thought, his heart still beating erratically. Only a dream...

He took a few deep breaths to steady himself, then opened his eyes and glanced about himself. A small sliver of space separated the two panels of the curtains covering the window; the gap allowed only a few rays of wan light to fall across the coffee table, illuminating the surface with a gray predawn glow.

Far too early to begin the day – but Noel couldn't seem to relax his muscles. He couldn't accurately recall the subject of the dream he'd had, but a nagging feeling of queasiness and panic didn't leave him... accompanied by a single heart-stopping impression of Hope, covered in blood and entirely indifferent.

Noel swung his legs over the side of the couch, standing and letting the blanket slide off him of its own volition. Stepping around the table, he padded silently across the room to the door that led to Hope's bedroom. As his hand came into contact with the metal doorknob, cold to the touch, the hunter sucked in an involuntary breath. He just wanted to check on the scientist – but their less-than-amicable parting the night before came to the forefront of his mind, giving him cause to hesitate before opening the door.

And still, the dream nagged at him.

The brunette squared his shoulders, chastising himself for being nervous. He was just going to make sure nothing was wrong. That was it.

The door glided on noiseless hinges when he turned the knob and pushed gently, and Noel peered in through the gap.

Obscured partially by the bulky comforter, the lines of Hope's left arm and back were visible from the doorway; the scientist slept in a loose curl, his knees drawn up above his pelvis and his silver hair sprawled across the pillow. If Noel held his breath, he could hear the faint whistle of the other man's breathing – slow and deep, completely at ease.

He moved across the room, coming to stand by the side of the bed. Hope faced away from him, locks of his hair draped unceremoniously over his cheek. The muscles in his face were slack, no wrinkles between his relaxed eyebrows.

No blood. Not even a trace of it – whether from yesterday or from –

Noel suppressed the oncoming deep sigh in favor of letting the man sleep, pausing with his palm hovering just above the sheet, as if to pull it higher, tuck him in more firmly. But the moment passed, and he let it fall to his side, palm damp and sweaty against the fabric of his sleep pants.

He left the room without glancing back. But even if he had, he would have been met with the same sight.

(Though his breathing was carefully measured, chrysoprase eyes at half-mast behind translucent eyelashes stared at the wall beyond his bed, listening as he was to the whisper-soft movements of the hunter.)

When she awoke, it was to the feeling of stone and crystal jabbing into her arm, leaving creases and welts on the tender insides of her elbows. Not exactly the most comfortable position to sleep in, but the faint glow of the greenish rings of crystal bleeding through her fingers helped to put her mind a little at ease, the light softening the edges of the fears that hid under her blankets.

Today was the day. Today was the day that she opened the box... and found whether she was alive or dead inside.

If spacetime flowed like a river, branching at points and continuing in small tributaries that rejoined the main path in time, then the section she stood at the edge of was shallow, unmoving, quickly stagnating as the water flowing in caused the level to rise, to lap at the boundaries, the shore that contained the possible outcomes.

There were two directions for the river to flow, from here; both narrow ditches were restrained by barriers of crystal. The deeper of the two, the outline of the expected direction of spacetime from this point on, stretched on into the distance, its edges clearly defined. The other, while it wound away at first, eventually veered back towards the first route.

The stagnant pool forming behind those crystal walls rippled with all the force of the past behind it; it wasn't meant to be dammed, but if there was one fork she wanted to examine until she understood it outright, it was this one. Here on the shore of Valhalla, she could see everything, but never enough, fast enough to understand the minute ebb and flow of the tide.

It wasn't by her power the river was dammed, either... and what it represented was also something beyond her control.

A wound healed by a touch that wasn't meant to. The smallest of candle-flames that should not have been. Though it was snuffed out quickly by the ripples of time trying to correct itself, floundering for a past that defended and justified this present, the smallest of events had done this - left the future in flux while the timeline struggled to pick between two courses.

(Or was it three? For further down the bank, the path less traveled branched again, the wayward fork twisting away from the path of the main body and veering in a direction entirely uncertain.)

She could only watch for the telltale shimmer of events that would affect the future, cement a certain path; and as she dropped to her armor-clad knees, reached out with one hand towards an eddy that glistened gold and blue, she caught a glimpse of one.

Snow, drifting along through the Historia Crux...

She could push him in a direction that would favor the smaller path. It was within her power to nudge that event - but was it to allow her to pick the outcome of the timeline? Was she allowed to do this – in the right to do so?

What level of sin would her meddling be considered?

(Further down the main stream, she saw what might be a young woman collapsing with a sigil emblazoned in her pupils.)

Her fingers, cradled in maybe-leather from the palm of a goddess, caressed just barely the ridge of the wave above the floating image of Snow. The water froze in an instant, in a circle the size of her hand, cracking in the center, spiderwebbing out.

The deed was done. She sat back on her heels, looking over her handiwork, as the tide rushed to push against the smaller crystalline dam -

In a flash as bright as lightning, the entire pool pulsated turquoise, the color resting just above the surface of the water. Quicker than thought, stilling the breath in her lungs, it coalesced into a crest, an emblem she recognized - and dreaded, not for who it championed but what it stood for.

The Eyes -

A loud crackle foretold the destruction of the dam, under the force of spacetime righting itself; the water slammed through, cutting a deep groove through the possibility she'd steered it toward... and careening the rest of the way beyond the next fork, taking the spidery hint of a future and carving a new path, further and further from the original pattern of the timeline.

She shouldn't have meddled. She shouldn't have -

But she saw the vision the same way the timeline's new tribute will, the glimmer of future events shown to someone who should have never been able to see them.

And she knew in that instant who the vision belonged to; who the timeline had taken as just repayment for its altered course, and why.

And if, in that timeless place wherein she fought for aeons upon moments and observed the rest, in that timeless place where the guilt for what she had done weighed down on her every muscle no matter what burden, what sin she added to her mantle - if, in that timeless place, she shed more than one tear for the newer tragedy that was to come, then no one had to see Lightning cry.

Minutes after Noel retreated from his room, footsteps softened by the carpeting, Hope slid the cotton sheets from his shoulders, making steady progress towards getting out of bed and starting the day.

But when he snuck a glance into the living room, peering around the doorjamb, with his mouth set in the very gentlest of frowns, he was met with –

Silence and empty space.

There was no telltale sound of another set of lungs, or pair of feet; the throw blanket was folded and neatly draped along the top of the couch, pillows and cushions neatly rearranged, as if Noel had never been there at all, vanished into thin air without a trace.

He supposed, though, that the hunter was self-sufficient – and much more intelligent than he seemed, or Hope gave him credit for, sometimes. Navigating his way through Academia in the early morning on the hunt for Serah (who was almost undoubtedly his goal) was well within his ability, if not his comfort zone – or what the scientist assumed his comfort zone to be.

And how much of Noel had he taken as proven fact, though his hypotheses couldn't hope to quantify the man?

He didn't deserve the mix of feelings that struck him at Noel's absence, moving unconsciously towards the kitchen, motivated by the prospect of coffee to wake him and distract him. – It had been his decision, after all, to cut whatever they'd had... whatever had been forming... short before it'd even had a chance to blossom.

In the name of the future, but his decision nonetheless.

As he buttoned his shirt, the two ends of his tie draped over his torso brushing against his fingers, he considered what there was left to do. Once the time travelers returned with the other three Graviton Cores, he merely needed to pass them on to the team heading the New Cocoon Project, ensure that the processes were streamlined with what they'd learned from observation of the Thirteenth Ark... and then he and Alyssa would be on their way. Headed to 500 AF, the projected date of the rise of their Ark.

He'd hardly become acclimated to 400 AF, and yet they'd be moving on in but a day. Granted, he'd had little time to ruminate on his circumstances – he'd been a little occupied in the last few days – but altogether it seemed, simply, just too fast.

He knew his perception of time was skewed, given that three hundred and ninety years had passed for him in what corresponded to a good night's sleep... but it was still odd to consider that plans he'd worked to lay for years of his own life, that others had devoted their entire careers to, would come to fruition before his eyes.

... How might the future be different if not for that meeting in 10 AF? In the sunset-bathed ruins of Paddra –

That wasn't right. He recalled an eclipse –

Pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, he willed away the onset of a headache that pulsed suddenly behind his eyes. Memories in flux; he knew what that meant, and it made him nervous.

It had to be Noel and Serah at work, fixing paradoxes back and forth down the timeline – it had to be the result of further progress towards his end goal. No, their shared goal. A future of safety.

While his mind was in many respects his sanctuary, the thought of his memories being unreliable sent a odd shiver down his spine – but he was prepared for that, in the name of saving his friends, his family.

Hope Estheim was prepared for sacrifice. He always had been.

The walk to work found him deep in his own thoughts, his collection of documents held tightly under one arm and his thermos of coffee in the other; as such, he failed to notice the whispers, slight like faint hisses of wind, that seemed to follow his footsteps down the streets and around each corner, passersby turning heads and speaking in hushed voices.

For that reason, he was not prepared for the reactions of the various civilians and Academy workers milling about the foyer of the Academy headquarters when he stepped in, the travel mug of coffee held to his lips.

He nearly choked on the mouthful when he looked up.

"It's the Director," he heard someone say just before the applause began, and while his immediate first thought went to the lacking correctness of the statement (he was nothing more than an adviser in this era), the sight of smiling faces and clapping hands drew him up short, left him uncharacteristically gaping and at a loss for words.

That wasn't right. Had he missed something, too wrapped up in his thoughts - of the New Cocoon, of the timeline, of Serah, and of Noel - to properly take into account what was happening around him? He wasn't forgetting about a crucial conference -

He saw Samuel shouldering his way delicately through the crowd at that moment with a modicum of relief, informally pinned as he was by the quickly growing crowd; the Academy's current Director just about stumbled past the innermost ring to the tune of several whoops and cheers, and approached Hope with what almost appeared to be uncertainty, or maybe - possibly - intimidation.

"What's going on?" Hope hissed, leaning forward and hunching his shoulders just the slighest so as to best reach the man's ear.

Taking hold of his elbow, Samuel Belhart guided the off-kilter adviser through the crowd that parted respectfully before them; at first he didn't answer amidst hands and faces, but once they had broken free, walking together then towards the inner sanctum, the man side-eyed him for a moment.

"After the move you pulled yesterday, I don't know why you would have expected anything different, sir," he said, frank but with the trace of a laugh dancing around his mouth.

"What do you mean?" Wide-eyed, perhaps in another time Noel would have told him how surprise looked good on him.

Belhart stopped, turned on the heel of his boot to face Hope; had his head cocked just the slightest in indication of a question. "You don't remember? You sure rocked the place, giving a speech drenched in blood - an interesting touch, I'd add -"

"Hardly drenched," he countered immediately, before the rest of the statement filtered into understanding and a proper rebuttal. "- It wasn't exactly a speech," he managed to protest faintly, the bulwark opening before them to admit entry to the control room.

"You could have fooled me," the current Director said wryly, and Hope was struck for a moment at Samuel's sudden level of comfort with him. Wasn't it just a few days previous that the man balked at the prospect of calling him by his first name? … It was refreshing to see such candor.

(But almost the tiniest bit irritating, as the man flashed him a knowing look, as if he understood more than he was letting on; there was something he was missing. He'd become an overnight sensation before, he unfortunately knew the feeling, but something was different about this situation, clapping and hollering when once there would have been distant admiration.)

He didn't have the mental capacity to deconstruct his sudden increase in fame as well as handle the last few details of the New Cocoon Project, so he pushed the former to the side for a while. It would simmer at the back of his mind, but for the time being, his resources there were taken up by thoughts of –

He hated to admit it –

Out of everything he expected to feel about the night before, remorse wasn't something he had tallied. Why was he feeling guilty about the conversation with Noel? He had been right. The future came first, before any of their wants and wishes; they both had sacrificed for it, a vision of someday with Vanille and Fang safe, Lightning back with them… and all of Noel's dreams fulfilled as well, a future for humanity that didn't end in a footnote, muddled skies and white sand.

Why was he left feeling as if he'd made a mistake?

They'd both been in their own thoughts, really, speaking to each other minimally and only about the most idle of observations or realizations; solving the anomalies in Oerba, 300 AF, hadn't required all that much teamwork, as they took turns traversing the Temporal Rifts under Mog's guidance. The moogle in question either didn't seem to notice that his two friends were being distant, or had concerns of his own that he didn't share with either of them. But whatever the case may have been, it was only thanks to Mog that they hadn't each wandered into a few monsters in moments of extreme distraction.

"Are you okay, kupo?" he asked of Serah eventually, bobble dangling right between her eyes, while she cupped her hand to another cut she could've easily avoided were she in the right state of mind, healing it easily with a Cure; while the slip-up was easily rectified, she had still made it, and that was of concern.

Noel tuned into the conversation quickly enough to hear her stuttered "Yeah", which was hardly reassuring, but her silence afterward spoke of unwillingness to share what was on her mind. He thought of asking, but he figured that wasn't really fair. He'd been doing just about the same, after all, wandering around with his head put on backwards.

He knew better than that.

As Serah stood up fully, he turned to her sharply, both hands clapping down onto her shoulders; startled, she almost recoiled, but held Noel's gaze evenly (if with a shade of trepidation).

"I won't ask what's up, but we need to focus," he said, as much to himself as to her. They were both in a funk, and it was going to get both of them killed at this rate. "We're out here to survive, get those Cores and bring them back to Hope. Time enough for thinking when we're back in the Historia Crux, but out here we've gotta stay on our toes."

Serah blinked – twice – three times, before she nodded in agreement, flashing a lopsided grin with a sparkle in blue eyes that hadn't been there before.

"You're right," she said. "We'll get through this. The future's on our shoulders, remember?"

"Exactly," he said, and the relief he felt could be attributed to a few different things – not least of all having something to distract himself from thoughts of the night before, or the morning thereafter.

But when they stepped out of the Gate onto the crater in New Bodhum, three years after the Fall, Serah fell to absolute silence once again; spoke only when spoken to by her friends from that era, Gadot (if he remembered right), Lebreau, Maqui, and Yuj with the funky hair.

Nothing else to say even with the Core hovering inches from her hands, turning back and looking over the shorefront with what might have been mist in her eyes as the Gate behind them activated, reconnecting to the Historia Crux with a whir of paradox energy.

Saying goodbye. As if this time, she could accept that it would be the last time she would see this place.

Neither of them spoke after that. They floated through the red-orange netherspace in dead silence, such a sight drifting past their eyes unseen, unprocessed by either of them.

They had them. All seven Graviton Cores, but what he felt wasn't excitement, wasn't anticipation; rather he was a man approaching his execution. While Serah looked behind them with grief, leaving her home for probably the final time… he looked forward with the same, not wanting to return to the place that had turned into a sort of home for him as well, only to have to leave it again.

His home couldn't come with him.

The Historia Crux, by definition, could not exist in the very same space and time as each of its branches; as the path through the Void Beyond, it served as a route connecting spacetimes. Thus, Snow may have been drifting through another branch of the Crux at the same time as his fiancée and her companion – or it may have been days, months, years different, forward or backward or time flowing in a circle.

Nevertheless, drifting he was along the Historia Crux, cracking his knuckles in his leather gloves as his eyes flicked from "exit" to "exit", hunting for a telltale flash of chromed buildings or silvery hair. Looking, with his mouth stretched in a cocky smile, for the Academia that existed in the timeline without the proto-fal'Cie Adam, the timeline they'd gotten right so far.

"Light's told me what I gotta do," he said to himself, rolling his shoulders. "I'm coming to save your ass, kiddo. And then Serah and I are gonna deal with this Caius guy our way."

"It's Serah! It's Noel!"

The shout was pitched high, high enough to carry as they touched down from the Gate; automatically Serah pivoted on the heel of one of her shoes, looking around for the person who'd called her name, while Noel blinked, doing the same.

A young girl, from the looks of it, standing on the next cross street, was waving at them as powerfully as she could, the motion of her arm almost throwing her off-balance in her vigor. The sight perplexed Noel – how did she know his name? – but Serah, unexpectedly, laughed and raised her hand in return.

"What –" he wondered aloud as the girl smiled and turned away, falling silent and raising an eyebrow as Serah faced him.

There was life back in her eyes again, he noted. The cheer wasn't false.

"You mean you don't know?" she teased, wagging a finger in front of his nose – definitely an Alyssa quirk she'd picked up, and he likewise wondered if he'd appropriated any of Hope's – with an air of amusement. "We're heroes!"

"… You mean we weren't?" he half-joked, still not understanding.

"That's not what I mean," she corrected, turning to step towards the moving sidewalk that would begin to carry them towards Academy headquarters, as if antsy to be on her way. "I mean Hope made a speech yesterday –"

"He did?" He didn't mention anything about that. "When?"

"That's the funny part. It was playing on news networks everywhere last night, but from the looks of it – yesterday evening. That's why he got to his apartment after us. I guess he stayed behind to make a speech. Who knew?" She giggled. "I remember when he couldn't as much as look me in the eye, you know. It still surprises me sometimes."

But that still didn't explain what it had to do with them, Noel realized, pursing his lips at her amusement – if he understood what he'd learned of Hope the last few days, he had a lot of talent… but was also a little vulnerable in some areas. He strove to keep his personal and work lives as separate as possible; yeah, they were working with him professionally, but still.

How much of last night had to do with whatever speech he'd had to construct out of nowhere?

How much vulnerability had he been trying to make up for, to guard, in their very last conversation?

"He talked about his mom, too," she said, a faint twitch of her upper lip the only remnant of the smile, attaching an appropriate somber air to the mention of Nora Estheim. "Even I got a little emotional –"

He was walking before he even realized, breaking into a run down the ramp as the statement processed, Serah's surprised exclamation going unheard. Because he knew – he knew she was one of the sorest topics of all, and with the memories he'd had Hope dredge up just the night before he'd found himself backed into that corner…

He hadn't even known. Hadn't even realized what kind of open wound Hope had been nursing when he'd sprung that kind of shit on him; knew full well from his own experience just how painful it was to keep reopening them when maybe they'd just begun to scar over, hurt plenty from the way Caius had been doing that to him throughout their entire journey in the pursuit of his own objectives. Yeah, maybe Hope had done it to him accidentally once, that night in the Yaschas Massif, but that was out of professional curiosity – and it wasn't even the same damn Hope.

The line of thought had him considering even how much the mere sight of him rubbed it in Hope's face, that he had all these dreams and wishes and prior injuries and couldn't do anything about them besides stand by and encourage others to solve his problems. How many times had Noel himself popped in and out of an era Hope resided in, widening that wound, too?

It'd occurred to him that his and Serah's efforts might – would – irrevocably and unforgivably alter the lives of people in the timeline, but he'd taken Hope's assurance that together they would fix the future as an excuse to justify his actions.

Not only that… but maybe he'd taken the excuse of protecting Hope as a means to avoid thinking about the ways his mere presence, his mere existence probably opened and reopened those same wounds in the man, like a survival knife between the ribs.

His appearances in each era were themselves paradoxes that he caused, trying to set the timeline to rights; not only that, but he was a living, breathing reminder that someone or something had deemed Hope not good enough. As if his motivations were less valid than Noel's and Serah's, as if he couldn't do as much – and if it was the goddess who'd put Noel in this position, or maybe Lightning herself, he might have a few words to say.

Because he'd done a grand job of hopping up and down the timeline, failing to look past his own nose, causing as many paradoxes as he tried to resolve.

… If it was a matter of résumé, then Hope sure as hell was a better candidate than he was.

He strode with purpose through the city of Academia, Serah doing her best to hurry behind him; when Noel was on a mission he covered distances almost as rapidly as a chocobo, something she had always failed to understand. Maybe it was the hunter's blood in him, allowing him to harness his fight or flight instincts more effectively than she could. But the thought was extraneous, distracting; she tried her best not to trip on a ridge of steel foretelling a moving sidewalk, jealous of the way Noel seemed to glide right over the obstructions in his path.

He hadn't seemed too happy to return to Academia, for some reason. What had gotten into him now?

Was it something to do with Hope? With what she'd told him about the speech he'd, apparently, not known about?

… He didn't seem angry. She'd hear him stomping about from here. The intensity was there, maybe even more so than usual, but she was pretty sure he wasn't going to punch a hole in anything. So that, at least, was a relief…

But she still told Mog, with a push to the back of his head to egg him on, to keep up with him and make sure he didn't get himself into any trouble. There was to be no stopping him, running down the stairs as he was on the way to the building, leaping fearlessly over a gap in the road that opened into five hundred floors of empty space, so she at least wanted to make sure someone could keep an eye on him, if she couldn't.

If it was a matter of being in shape – it wasn't like she sat around all day every day, but it looked like she had a lot of endurance to build up.

"Noel! Slow down, kupo!"

It wasn't like he didn't hear Mog, caught off-guard by the sound of the moogle's voice, but he was in a hurry. He had more than a few things to apologize for, and he had no idea how long they'd been gone for in this era – how long Hope had had to ruminate on how insensitive Noel had been, even if just by failing to ask what was wrong.

He failed to respond to the whispers that sprung from his footsteps like wildflowers, as well, failed even to notice them as he cut across the room, admitted by the bulwark without even having to pause.

It was relatively quiet inside the control room; the sounds of his footsteps resounded off the metal, sandals clacking loudly against the flooring. Undoubtedly the noise disturbed the peace, as Hope – standing before the large holosphere in the center of the room with a coffee mug in hand – was the first to turn, eyes growing wide behind the rim, scarcely able to turn it level so that it wouldn't spill before Noel crashed bodily into him with all the force and tact of a behemoth, nearly bowling Hope over.

He would have fallen if not for the arms that wrapped around him, one at his back and the other at his waist, pulling him close to the hunter in an embrace that was entirely too intimate for public.

"Noel?" he tried to ask, barely able to get the question out from the rather magnificent job Noel was doing if he was indeed trying to suffocate Hope.

"I'm sorry," was all the hunter responded with, saying nothing further and only stepping back when Hope managed to put enough force behind a shove to his chest.

"What do you –" – mean? he started to ask, but shook his head. "Not here," he said lowly, glancing to the other scientists in the room, most of whom were doing their best to hide their eavesdropping ears behind their monitors. Instead, he quite gently set his mug down on the tiny almost-a-desk next to the holosphere's interface.

"So, then," he said, looking towards the sphere, away from Noel; as if the sphere symbolized his new Cocoon, the one they both had been working towards building. "You're back."

"Yeah," Noel said, the subtlest of sighs escaping him just before the affirmation. "We –"

"We have your Cores, Hope!"

Noel jerked at the exclamation, turning around with guilt evident in his frame; he'd been too caught up in himself to remember it wasn't just his success to declare. They'd both done it.

Serah sagged into him, panting, and he bore her weight without complaint, as Mog scowled at him as best a moogle can.

"Sorry for the underwhelming surprise," she joked. "This bozo took right off and ruined our timing. I guess he wanted to see you bad."

"Is that so?" Hope phrased the question lightly, shooting Noel a glance from the corner of his eye. "Though, I suppose we can't really start until –"

The last member of their party burst through the bulwark with a shout. "You can't start the victory party without me!" Alyssa declared indignantly, clutching a bag to her chest as she jogged lightly up the steps.

Hope's tiny sigh at her exuberance went unheard as the trio turned to welcome her, all smiles – and all genuine, no trace of stiffness in any of their faces. Because all irritation was pushed to the side, for the moment; this was their common goal, and they'd done it.

They'd done it.

The sharpest of thrills went through Noel's body at the sudden realization – with enough Cores to levitate the new Cocoon, their arrival once more in Academia should have repositioned the timeline. His hand flew to Serah's shoulder, causing her to glance at his worried face in confusion.

"Are you feeling all right?" he said under his breath, having sensed Hope's eyes flicking to him and not wanting to dampen the celebratory mood.

"Yeah?" she said, but it was more of a question; she'd regained her breath, for the most part, and stood on her own power. Thoughtfully, she raised a hand to brush back a lock of her bangs. "Yeah. I'm good."

Good," Noel responded, relieved; the smile he cracked was then truly devoid of inhibitions, of doubts.

She was carrying the Cores. Half of them, rather. With the way they repelled each other when kept in a contained space, there was no way for one bag to manage all seven; therefore, Hope looked down at two worn leather satchels, containing all seven of his Cores, with an expression that was carefully controlled but for the sparkle in his turquoise eyes.

"I still can't believe it," he whispered. He looked up to the pair. "If you don't mind, I'd like to –"

"They're yours, Hope," Noel stressed, fake exasperation lightened by his grin. "You don't need to hold back, alright?"

Taken aback, the scientist blinked once; then, like the faintest crescent moon glimmering from behind a cloud, a ghost of a free smile crept across his features as he fell to opening the bag in Noel's hands, untying the strap fastening the lid to the body (and distantly observing the craftsmanship, scraps of leather sewn together with strong cord, the bottom of the rucksack reinforced with an extra layer – smart) and tucking it back.

By some miracle he managed not to drop the first Core he'd gotten a hold of. Though he hadn't really touched it with his hand – the repellent force pushed back from his palm in such a manner that he just about had to scoop the damned thing out of the bag, in less a triumphant movement than he would have preferred.

It reminded him of the one Artefact he had ever handled, back in the Yaschas Massif –

"Hope?"

Serah was looking at him in concern, the only one of the three paying attention to the way his free hand had moved to his forehead, gloved fingers rubbing at the bridge of his nose to offset the sudden flare of a headache; Alyssa was rummaging in her bag for something under Noel's watch, having called for his attention before she started digging.

"The nascent Gate on the east side's all fixed and working normally!" she chirped as she pushed aside binders and books, propped up on one leg with her other folded over it as a sort of makeshift table; there was no possible way she could remain standing like that, but somehow she managed to keep her balance. "And next to it I found –"

" – an Artefact!" Serah exclaimed, letting Hope take the bag from her hand and moving closer to eye the chunk of rock and crystal, surprised that it had been so easy.

The Academy had the Cores (well, really, Hope had them, both leather sacks dangling from one hand as he tried to tuck the hunk of matter back into one as best he could), their Gate was fixed, and they didn't even have to go hunting for the Artefact. It seemed clear enough – clear that they were on the right track towards resolving all these paradoxes.

Maybe we can do this, she thought with a smile. Bring Lightning and Snow home. Raise the new Cocoon. Save the future.

"FREEZE!"

Serah stumbled back at the sudden shout, jerking away automatically, an instinct that had stayed dormant since her time as a l'Cie but reared its ugly head in times of shocked uncertainty –

Noel recoiled as well, raising his hands in the air automatically, a repeat of the situation that had occurred when they first stepped out of the Gate in the Bresha Ruins all that time ago, following Serah's wordless direction in "social" situations he had no prior experience with.

The sounds of hurried footsteps on metal, heels of ASR soldiers clacking on the flooring to the tune of shouts like "Stop her!" and "Step back!" masked the thump of the two bags of Cores hitting the walkway, falling from Hope's unfeeling hands, the seventh Core slipping out and "bouncing" away as best it could with the repellent force acting against the influence of gravity and momentum on its path.

"What –" he tried to say, watching uncomprehendingly as the group of armed soldiers crested the stairs, one making to drive Alyssa – scared, confused, quivering Alyssa, his assistant, his friend – to her knees.

The tone that escaped him was much darker than he'd been trying for. "What's the meaning of this?" he ground out, sharply, striding over to the soldiers who kept their weapons trained on Alyssa unflinchingly.

Alyssa. Whom, as far as he was aware, was hardly capable of harming a fly.

The soldier whom had made to grab the Artefact from her hands growled as she clutched it close to herself, to her chest, curling over it as if it were something precious, not sparing Hope so much as a glance; he never wanted this authority, but it irked him to see it questioned, as he moved to stand between them, pretty damn unappreciative of the way the regiment was waving guns around, safeties flicked off for Etro's sake, inside the Academy's inner sanctum.

"There had better be a good explanation –"

"Whoa, kiddo, you might want to take a step back."

His head snapped to the side faster than he thought it ever could, identifying the speaker even before his mess of hair became visible over the stairs, thinking the name even as Serah gave it voice, spoken in quiet wonderment, the only sound in a moment of dead silence when all of the soldiers had clamped their mouths shut.

"Snow –"

"Hope I'm not late to the party," Snow Villiers said with a cocksure smile, looking perfectly at ease, and an expression like that hadn't pissed him off as immediately as it did then, at least not since he had been fourteen years old, because what the hell was going on?

"Director," Alyssa pleaded, drawing Hope's attention from Snow, from Serah and Noel behind them lowering their arms slowly, "I –"

"Don't even try, missy," Snow interrupted, seriousness taking over his voice, striding with heavy steps toward Alyssa who held her Artefact close, shaking in place with an automatic rifle trained on her forehead –

made as if to move right past Hope when the scientist stood in front of him, barring his way, the most terrifying expression he could muster on his face.

(x.)

"What the hell are you doing arresting my assistant, Snow?" he demanded, not budging an inch when the man looked at him in exasperation. Maybe it was fine for Serah to let her fiancé run amok, unknowing of the motivations behind his actions, but he wanted answers before he was going to let one of his colleagues, one of his friends, be treated like some common criminal; he knew he should probably trust Snow's judgment, since it seemed the man knew something he didn't, but –

(- he doesn't admit it, but maybe it's got something to do with that still-raw injury of losing his family to the timeline, cauterized but not able to heal, and he doesn't want to even consider what kind of explanation Snow might have for this -)

"Saving your life," the taller man answered, just as terse. "And theirs." Undoubtedly he was referring to the pair of time travellers standing behind them, rapt in their confusion, standing very, very still. "Ask her yourself, where she got that Artefact of hers."

He felt his heart drop into his stomach. That –

But when he turned, the desperate expression worn like a mask on his faithful assistant's face mutilated her visage, fingers like claws caging the luminescent green crystal in them like a buoy, like her life depended on it.

"Director Hope," she rasped, fragile, unable to meet his eyes fully. Ashamed. Desperate and ashamed and terrified and –

"What have you done?" he whispered, looking at her as if he'd failed her; unsure what she was fighting for, but sure he had done something wrong, to drive her away so, that she clung to a crystal as a young child might cling to a teddy bear, an emblem of security.

And there were tears in her eyes; unshed, but growing, and he was not prepared for any of this.

(How deep ran this betrayal?)

"Caius gave it to you."

She sniffed as she looked up sharply, gaze traveling past Hope, past Snow, to Noel, his teeth gritted.

"Didn't he?"

Her silence was enough, answer enough that he'd hit the mark, as she tried to curl even further in on herself, faced with so many enemies, such opposition to whatever selfish goal she held that she would cooperate with the man who single-handedly sought to destroy their future –

"Why?" Hope couldn't stop himself from asking, both gloved hands curling into fists, leather creaking in the silence that pervaded. "Why would you –"

"You of all people should understand!" Alyssa shouted suddenly, standing up straighter, blue eyes on fire, glaring at her superior with venom in her mouth. "You of all people know what it's like, to know you should have died but you survived because you got lucky! To know that everything you've achieved could just as easily not have happened at all if only one thing had been different… to know that your life was never supposed to mean anything at all!

"I should have died in the Purge," she admitted angrily. "I'm a paradox. If Noel and Serah keep on with their journey, everything I've ever worked for could be erased in a moment, as if I never was. I was never supposed to mean anything. I was just some dumb kid from Palumpolum who got pulled in too deep just trying to survive, just as easily a name on a monument as a name in a history book! I can't imagine how relieving it must be, to not jump at every shadow, to know you were on the right side of fate just that one time. But it could have just as easily been me, Director. And if you were in my situation, you would do the same thing! To let yourself have worth! To prove that you were meant to survive!"

He stared turquoise daggers at the floor, unable to even look at her, Alyssa's words rattling around in his brain. For how long had she watched him with envy, doubting each of her successes just as much as she celebrated them? For how long had she dreamed of the death that should have been, that day, the beginning of the end?

His fists tightened further.

Did he deserve to stand in this spot when, with the flip of a coin, the beat of a wing, their positions could be reversed?

The dead silence was stirred by the sound of light steps on the metal walkway, not as heavy as boots or heels but still striding with purpose. Tap-tap. Tap-tap.

"You're wrong," their owner said softly. "You couldn't be more wrong, Alyssa."

The hand on his shoulder was the catalyst, allowing him to drag his eyes up from off the floor and turn to his left – turn to see Noel standing beside him, twine-laced hand gripping the cloth of his Academy uniform.

"You and Hope are nothing alike," he declared, not so much as glancing to the man of whom he spoke, blue eyes glimmering almost violet in the room's lighting, focused on Alyssa unflinchingly. "Because he'd never stoop to this. Even if – even if Caius told him the same thing he told you. Promised him a way to stay alive – he'd never take it.

"He's too selfless for that. The lives of people would come first. The future would come first. And if he had to sacrifice himself to see his dreams realized – if it really did come to that, well…" The lift in his voice covered for the hitch Hope just barely heard, covered by the sound of Noel's sigh. "We both know he'd pick the world ten times out of ten."

Noel shook his head, jaw tightening. "I'm not saying you're wrong, Alyssa." The grip of his fingers tightened as well, felt through the thick layers of fabric. "Etro knows how many lives I've screwed up, just trying to make things right. You deserve to exist. I want you to exist. And I'm not gonna ask you to forgive me for putting you at risk. But for what it's worth… I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

The apology hung in the air for a span of seconds, the stillness of the room exacerbating the long pause of silence from the young woman who could look none of them in the eye, arms loose around the Artefact that had promised her a life, a future.

"I…" she murmured, the sound barely a whisper past her lips. "I can't accept your apology, Noel. I'm sorry, but I…"

"Alyssa," Hope said. Just her name, while at the same moment Snow gestured with a jerk of his head for the soldiers, watching the scene from afar, to detain her.

She didn't resist, letting the Artefact be taken from her hand, letting her arms be pulled behind her, unable to catch the tears that finally fell, clinging to her lashes and sparkling green in the light from the holosphere.

"I'm sorry, Hope," she whispered, eschewing titles for the first time he could remember. His assistant didn't look at him, choosing to stare at the floor instead. "I don't know what else to do."

And as he watched her being led towards the Academy lobby with her hands in shackles, watching her leave and unable to lift a finger in her defense, he thought, I don't know either.

"We've gotta get moving," he said, a hand falling to grasp one of Serah's, large fingers encompassing her smaller ones as she looked up at him in surprise.

"Get moving where?" she asked, turning to face her hero fully and catching a glimpse of Noel squeezing Hope's shoulder before they both turned to face their friends.

"Caius is on the move," he said, glancing to both the scientist and the hunter. "And it's about time we take 'em on our way, don't you think?"

"Hang on a moment," Hope interrupted, before Serah could respond. He still looked a little shaken from the events that had just transpired, but the way he propped his hands on his hips, confronting Snow with an air of accusation, was almost...

Well, let it be said she had to hide a smile behind her hand.

"You can't think that you can just waltz in, drop a bomb like that, and just take off again. But it looks like you were planning on doing just that, huh?" He continued without letting Snow get a word in edgewise, silver eyebrows furrowed mid-tongue-lashing. "I shouldn't be surprised. You always do that. Do whatever you want, even if it means leaving people behind. Snow, you haven't changed at all!"

"Ouch, kiddo," the man responded, releasing Serah's hand to hold his up in defense. "I come to save a bunch of butts and I get this kind of welcome?"

"I'm older than you," he groused on principle, allowing the rest of Snow's words to go unchallenged. He wasn't ungrateful - he was thankful, really.

He was just irritated.

"Play nice," Serah said to both of them offhand, rubbing the top of Mog's head; he had clung to her hair in fear through the entire ordeal, too terrified to make a single noise, and was only now confident enough to flutter more than a foot away from her. "Can we talk outside? The air in here is …"

She trailed off the thought, but they all felt it; lingering tension going stale like a bad taste in the mouth.

"Then I can yell at this rockhead properly," Hope said under his breath, only just loud enough for Noel beside him to hear, met with the sound of a quiet chuckle.

Someone had already gathered the Ores that should have been scattered all around their feet, he noticed, following behind Snow and Serah and doing his best to stay engaged in what Snow was saying – he knew it was important, caught "Caius" once or twice but had only a blurry image in an Oracle Drive to put to the name, but his attention was fraying, feeling as if he needed time to process everything that had just happened.

Alyssa was meant to die in the Purge. She survived because of a paradox… was meant to die before the Fall, but lived through a wrinkle in the timeline. But wasn't Lightning's disappearance the first paradox? Then –

"I never wanted to sacrifice people," Noel murmured, inches from him, undoubtedly lost in his own thoughts as well, but drawing Hope's attention out of his musings by the tone of his voice. "Even if it means fixing the timeline… I never wanted to hurt anyone."

Shielded from the prying eyes of bystanders in the Academy lobby through which they moved by the angle of their bodies, Hope reached out without thinking and took hold of Noel's wrist – not quite his hand, but the sentiment was there.

"She chose her path," he said, low and serious, ensuring that Snow and Serah wouldn't hear what he said. The words weren't necessarily meant for their ears. Snow wasn't bothered, and Serah – Serah inherited that Farron determination that allowed her to shut out feelings until a more appropriate time at which to deal with them became apparent.

(Light had taught him that, too. He was getting rusty.)

"She chose to trust Caius instead of us," he continued, the words just as much for his own benefit as to relieve the weight that had settled visibly on Noel's shoulders. "You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved."

"Maybe you're right," the hunter whispered back, his eyes on the back of Serah's head rather than looking at Hope outright. "But we'll never know for sure."

There were Caiuses in the past, present, and future. And they all had to be stopped.

Snow's mission had led him up and down the timeline, setting paradoxes to rights; Caius, however, made a point of voiding his efforts, putting paradoxes back to the way they had been as if Snow had never been there at all.

"Where's Lightning in all this?" Noel asked. She's been trying to keep him busy in a war at the end of the world. Hasn't that helped at all?

"She's on the job," Snow said, shifting in his seat aboard Shiva, the Gestalt form of his Eidolon. (When he had summoned the ethereal creature – creatures, really, the Shiva sisters were twins - Hope found himself taking the smallest of steps back, beset with a few unpleasant memories that had taken shape encased in their ice.) "With Sazh and Dajh."

At those names, Hope jerked upward. If Sazh and his son were, too, then that accounted for… everyone.

Everyone who could be was on the Caius job.

Everyone – but him.

"What can I do?" he asked of Snow before he could stop himself, not noticing Serah's surprised glance; the moment of silence and the look on Snow's face, though, made him nervous suddenly.

"Stay alive."

What –

Snow's voice was soft, serious, focused. "Listen. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but –

"- You're going to be assassinated exactly three days from now."

Serah's and Noel's startled "What?"s went unheard under his noise of surprise. "Me?" Why - ? In this era, I don't represent anything. The New Cocoon Project is on track, and –

Snow kept talking, unfazed by the reactions. "Without you, we might as well forget about having any kind of future. 'Without Hope, we're done for.' So it's important that you do everything in your power to protect yourself."

He couldn't stop the stammer no matter how hard he tried. "R-right," he responded, "but –"

"He won't be doing it on his own."

Noel held Snow's gaze evenly when the man looked up, raising an eyebrow. "I'll protect him. That future won't come to pass."

"So you're volunteering?" Snow shot back, flashing a grin. "Fantastic. I was just about to put you on guard duty."

"And what are you gonna do?" The way they fired questions at each other was so distinctly competitive that Hope found himself forcing down the urge to roll his eyes, despite the tone of the conversation – and despite the odd feeling in his chest at the turns the events had taken.

"I'm going to the future to greet Caius with my fist," Snow elaborated, raising his for emphasis. "But before all the fun happens, I got thirteen different eras to visit. There are a bunch of crystals with my name on 'em."

"Thirteen different eras?" Noel parroted, glancing at Serah in confusion as if to ask why he'd never heard anything about this – but his companion wasn't looking at him to give a proper response. So he looked to Snow instead. "Not one to sit still, huh?"

Serah looked up when her fiancé turned to her, offering his hand. "Serah, come with me, okay?"

There was a beat of hesitation that seemed to stretch into an hour as she thought over the decision. What would happen if she refused? If she chose instead to continue Noel's and her mission – even without him?

And what would happen to their task, appointed to them by Lightning herself?

"Okay," she agreed, taking hold of his hand, locking the future in stone, the last key decision to be made before the timeline altered itself to suit the path it had been pushed towards.

Watching Snow pull his fiancée onto the motorcycle, Noel didn't realize what was happening until he heard her gasp, turning just quickly enough to catch sight of Hope falling to his knees gracelessly on the cobbles, sightless, hands flying to his face and covering his eyes.

"Hope!" he exclaimed, moving to his side faster than either Snow or Serah could react, frozen in place with concern; the occurrence was unexpected. Had he fainted?

He felt as if he was struggling to breathe, dropping into a crouch to see what was going on, to understand what he was watching; he reached to take hold of both of Hope's wrists, to pull his hands from his eyes, and was met with little resistance.

They were wide. Unblinking. Turquoise, they stared at Noel without sight, without comprehension.

But superimposed over his pupils the crest shone.

Unmistakable.

"No," Noel said at the sight, shock and disbelief. "No."

"Noel, what's going on?" Serah asked, worriedly, not hearing quite the content of the mantra that Noel had begun to chant as if it would somehow fix this, change what he was seeing. "Is he –"

"It's the Eyes," he rasped, interrupting the young woman but not turning to her as he spoke, his hands still clasped around Hope's wrists, a myriad of denials not changing the situation.

"He's – he's having a vision."

to be continued.