A/N: This story is a sequel to my XIII-2 fic "Remember Me," but you don't have to have read that one to understand this one.

I wrote this first chapter a year ago after Lightning Returns came out, and it's been sitting on my hard drive ever since. Finally I kicked my rear into gear and finished it (just in time for Hoperai Week).

I'm glad to be writing Hope and Light again. I missed them.

Feedback is always, always appreciated. :)

Standard disclaimers apply.

Meeting You

Chapter One

She got the call that afternoon.

"Hey, Light." There was that smugness in his tone, the one that never seemed to leave. Snow.

"Hey." Lightning raised an eyebrow. "This is Serah's number. Why didn't you call on your own phone?"

"Ah, well, you know. What's hers is mine, that sort of thing. Her phone was on the table closest to me."

Convenience. Yes, she could understand that. "I see."

"Heh. Well, I have some news." He paused dramatically for a moment and said, "I saw his mother today. Nora."

Lightning went still for a moment. His mother. "Nora," she echoed.

"Yeah." His voice was casual, as if he was completely unaware that she was listening hard to every word. "I had to chase her down, even—she was across the street, going the other way. She remembered me, after all this time. Isn't that crazy? I mean, that day at Hanging Edge - that was so long ago."

"Yeah," Lightning said tightly. "What did she say?"

"She told me where she lives. It's just the two of them: Nora and Bartholomew Estheim." He paused again, and this time when he spoke, his voice was low. Serious. "You're still looking for him, aren't you?"

Her hand tightened around her thin rectangular phone. Him. Hope. "Every day," she answered quietly.

Some days were better than others. Sometimes she thought she saw him turning a street corner, or standing in the window of a store. Every time she thought is that him? Is he really...? And the realization that it wasn't—a wrong face with his hair, or clothes that almost matched—only encouraged the certainty that she was that much closer to finding him. Someday, somehow, she would see him again. Someday she would catch up to him, and he would turn, and it would be him. Hope.

And then there were the days where she didn't see anything—not a sign. Even the moments where she thought, just briefly, that it might be him were better than the days where she saw nothing at all.

Sometimes she wondered if she was just wasting her time.

You said we'd be together. She remembered him, reaching for her in the Chaos. He had worn that smile, the trusting, hopeful one that he'd shown so often near the end of their time as l'Cie. And as he'd pulled her up, out of her self-imposed exile, out of the darkness and into the light, his hand had tightened around hers...

But when she woke up in this new world, she was alone.

Snow let out his breath in a grunt. "Thought so. She told me where to find him."

"Did you get his phone number?"

The line went silent. "Uh..."

Lightning held back a snort. Figures. "Then where is he now?"

"A little town far to the south. Place's called 'Chateau Blanc,' if I remember right."

White castle, she thought. Just like his eidolon, Alexander. "Makes sense," she said.

"Yeah. I guess he got sick of the city or something—or just sick of people's attention. Nora said he was being hounded by all the people that remembered him as the Academy Director and wanted him to step in, or take a position at the university. He didn't want it."

"Huh," was all Lightning said, but she understood completely; enough people had recognized her as the Savior that they'd wanted her to take a leadership position in the government, or worse: to become the living deity for a new religion that the zealots were trying to create. Since then, she'd avoided the low-traffic streets and squares, and limited her excursions to times of the day where her face would blend with the crowd. It did make her search for Hope that much harder, but at least she wasn't recognized; there were enough women with rose-colored hair in the city that she didn't stand out.

"I guess if anyone could live in the middle of nowhere and be happy about it, it'd be him," Snow said. "Me, I'm too much of a city boy."

"Says the Patron of Yusnaan," Lightning commented wryly.

"Hey, it's true. Call me nostalgic, but sometimes I miss hearing the fireworks go off each night."

"I'll set off a box on your birthday."

"You gonna dress up as a chocobo girl, too?"

"Don't push your luck."

"Yeah, I thought you'd say that." Snow went quiet for a while and Lightning waited, sensing that he wasn't quite through. "So Norah mentioned that he looks a little different now."

"Different?"

"Yeah. Older, I guess. Back to the way he's supposed to be."

Lightning nodded to herself. "Bhunivelze said that he wanted a purified vessel, one that would be worthy to speak though. That wasn't Hope when he was the leader of Academia, when he believed science could fix things—he knew too much of the truth, then. So Bhunivelze made him younger, back when he still believed in gods and fate. When his resistance was easier to overcome." Her voice had a slight edge to it, sharpened by the anger she still felt at being used as a pawn in God's terrible plan.

Snow heard that bitterness, but he didn't comment on it, at least not directly. "Sounds like you won't mind, then."

The insinuation was there, but Lightning only smiled. "No."

"Alright. Well, good luck and all that. I guess Serah and I won't be seeing you for a while. Remember to call sometimes and remind us you're alive—"

"Snow."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. It's just—man. I mean, we all knew he was in love with you, but to think you actually like him back—"

"Snow," she snapped, acid in her voice. "Shut up."

"Okay, just—just one more thing. If you guys get married and have a kid, you should name him after—"

Lightning hung up.

She took the train the next morning.

She thought about Hope the whole way to Chateau Blanc. She remembered her first impression of him: a slight, pale boy who had spent too many days indoors, whose vendetta against the self-proclaimed hero Snow burned hot enough to eclipse his obvious weakness in the field. Their Focus as l'Cie had brought them together, but he stayed with her nearly the entire time - from Cocoon to the surface of Gran Pulse and then back to Cocoon, to slay Orphan.

She hadn't noticed that he loved her, then. She'd been too narrow-minded, she supposed—too determined to fight against the Fal'Cie, stop the world from ending, and save Serah, so she hadn't paid attention to much else. It wasn't until the dawnless days of silence and constant vigil in Valhalla that she looked at the timeline and saw the truth. Looking back into the past, she saw the things she had always missed: Hope's distracted glances as she fought during a battle, leaving him open to the enemy's attack; his pleased flush when she complimented him or, even rarer, smiled at him; the way he had been the first of their group to use her nickname, Light, and how he'd been so eager to heal her when she faltered; his lingering gaze behind her back when it was her turn to cook the meal, and his embarrassed denials when Fang made a suggestive comment or Sazh warned him not to be so obvious. It became somewhat of a joke by the time they reached Eden: Hope was so in love, but Lightning was too dense to notice.

She looked forward on the timeline, too, and watched to see what Hope had done with his time. He'd been upset to see every other l'Cie leave his life when, one after another, they slowly vanished. He became closer to his father, but grew up with few friends; many of his peers remembered him as a criminal, while others blamed him for their relocation to Pulse. When his skill and knowledge of mechanical engineering and astrophysics placed him at the top of his class, he earned as many admirers as enemies—but always, he was alone. Lightning had watched the quiet moments where he had raged against his loneliness and the unfairness at being left behind. Seeing Serah with Noel ten years later had only added to the anguish he felt, and he'd called out to Lightning, begging not to be forgotten, to be spoken to. She'd watched his whole life play out in multiple possibilities and known that he would be a great man. He was a natural leader, a genius, and his cleverness had the capacity to save the world several times over.

But he had never understood why he'd been left behind.

At the time, Lightning had called it a weakness. Whether it was her desire to see him—to see the man who had loved her all his life—or her guilt at never showing herself to him, not even once, despite his longing, she wasn't entirely sure. She decided to see him in Academia, the night before the pillar came crashing down.
"And that changed everything," Lightning whispered.

She had meant to only watch him from a distance, but of course that wasn't how it happened. Hope had awakened and seen her, and they'd talked. And then Lightning realized: during the many days that she'd spent sneaking glances at him in the timeline, over the many hours she had watched him and seen his budding desire and love for her, that she'd started to care for him, too.

She couldn't stay. Valhalla was unprotected in her absence, so even though she'd wanted to linger, if only to stay with Hope for just a few more hours, she couldn't. She left. And the pillar cracked, and Chaos swallowed the world with its eager hunger. Serah died. In her defeat, Lightning turned to crystal on Etro's abandoned throne, her last thoughts a prayer to fix all the mistakes she had made.

Then Bhunivelze intervened.

She remembered looking at Hope when she was first brought to the Ark, nearly five hundred years later. She recalled his love for her and tried to revive the feelings he had sparked inside her, but she felt nothing. "Light," he'd greeted her, but there was the same lifeless look in his eyes. They'd stared at each other, searching for the hidden passion that they shared, but... Lightning couldn't even bring herself to care that he was fourteen again.

She remembered, though. And she knew that Hope remembered, too.

It was a strange sensation—like there should have been something there, inside her, within her heart—but the loss of it didn't bother her, and it seemed that Hope felt the same. She tested his neutrality by trying to summon reactions out of him; for a while she dressed in her more revealing schemata each time she met him in the Ark, but it made no difference. Hope, who had always been brimming with emotion, who used to turn scarlet even when he saw her in her normal attire, barely blinked. And Lightning, just as clinical and cold, eventually gave up the effort.

Then, little by little, her indifferent shell began to crack. Amid Hope's faithful stream of reports and suggestions, he mentioned the past. He even teased her sometimes, in an attempt to cheer her up. And Lightning answered him wryly, matching his tone and intent with her own. It was like they had become comfortable around each other—friends all over again—and it made Lightning happy.

But then Bhunivelze had shown his will and purpose at last. He'd used Hope as a vessel, a puppet. And Lightning herself was going to be the goddess of death.
But it's over now, Lightning told herself as she looked out the window. In the months that have passed, we've all gotten used to this new life; Fang and Vanille have gone their own way, just as they've always done. Sazh is with his son, and Noel has his Yeul. Even Snow and Serah are together, just as they always wanted to be.
The brakes shrieked as the trained slowed to a stop. And me, Lightning thought, my journey is over, too.

She double-checked the address in her phone as she stepped close to the house. This is it, alright. She looked up at the house, her eyes taking in the three steps leading up to the small porch, and the dark green door beyond. It looks so rustic. Unassuming. Comfortable, Lightning thought, smiling a little. She turned the phone's screen off and slid it into her back pocket.

The short walk up the steps and to the door shouldn't have made her heart flutter in a sudden wave of nervousness, but it did. Lightning sucked in a breath, forcing her heart to calm. She hadn't felt this way in a long while—not since that night, centuries ago, when she crossed through the gate into the darkened sanctuary of Hope's hotel room. She'd stood over him then, watching him sleep, feeling like she was teetering on the brink of something big, something important—and she felt like that now.

Now she understood why.

Lightning raised her head. She rapped the knuckles of two fingers against the wood and stepped back, the fingers of her other hand tightening around the handle of her valise. If I've come all this way and a different person opens the door... she thought, the idea of it bringing an ironic curve to her lips. Then the bolt scraped as it slid out of the lock and Lightning quickly looked up to see the door swing open—

And Hope stood there, his eyes widening slightly as he saw her standing before him. "Light," he said and pulled the door open further to step out on the threshold.
Lightning smiled, but her nerves had gotten the best of her again and her smile felt awkward, forced. "Hope," she said. Her low voice held the same calm that it normally did, and that relieved her. "It's been a while."

"Not since..." Hope began but stopped, his eyes flickering up to meet hers.

"Yeah." Had his eyes always been so green? Lightning mentally shook herself, taking a breath to calm her ridiculously unsteady heart. She made a show of glancing around the porch and past him inside the house. "So this is where you've hidden yourself?" she asked, her trademark mild sarcasm coming through.

He glanced self-consciously over his shoulder. "Yeah, well... I couldn't think in the city."

"I figured." Lightning looked back at Hope, noticing for the first time his pale green collared shirt, his casual slacks. "It took me long enough to find you."

Hope looked back at her, his gaze sharpening. "You looked for me?" he asked.

"I..." Oh hell, what had she said? Lightning blinked, caught off-guard by her own admission. "...yeah. I did."

He blinked at her. His softening expression was slowly unraveling the rehearsed words and careful explanations in Lightning's head, and she made herself meet his eyes, determined to stay focused.

"I made a promise to you in Yusnaan. Remember? You said that when all this was over, you'd like me to make you some steak." She lifted her valise. "I brought the seasonings for it—all the things I had when we were l'Cie on Pulse, or as close as I could get, anyway."

Hope's face melted into a smile. "I didn't think you'd remember."

"I never forget my promises," she said, lowering her arm.

"Well then, please." He stepped back, opening the door wide enough for her to get in. "Come inside."

Lightning bent her head and walked past him into the house. Ahead of her was a small sitting room—immaculately clean, with a sofa and a chair—and beyond that was the kitchen. It was sparsely decorated, meant for utilitarian purposes. Or maybe it's just because he's still in the middle of moving in and he doesn't own very much, Lightning thought. She had given all of her meager possessions to Serah and Snow, apart from what she could fit in her luggage. Regardless of the reason, Hope's plain kitchen matched her first impression of the outside of his house: simple, yet comforting.

Hope shut the door and hurried ahead of her. "It's funny you should mention the steak, because I... have one. In the fridge. I always have one on hand in case you ever... in case we wanted to..." He opened the fridge and pulled out a package of raw meat.

Lightning glanced up at Hope's face. So you didn't forget, either, Lightning thought, taking in the faint color that rose in his cheeks, his eyes downcast. You were hoping... I would come.

She cleared her throat, ignoring the flutters that had awoken inside her at her last thought. "Well, it's no behemoth," she said, adopting a mock critical air, "but I suppose it'll do."

A radiant smile broke over Hope's face, and this time it was Lightning that couldn't meet his eyes.

Lightning could feel Hope watching her as she cooked.

Hope didn't say anything when she snapped open her valise, revealing rumpled layers of extra clothes. He didn't comment when she pulled aside a blouse to reveal a small line of spice bottles—paprika, coriander, sea salt, rosemary, red and black pepper—cushioned against a tank top and jeans. He'd pointed her toward the frying pan when she asked where he kept it, but then retreated to the closest chair at the table to watch her. And he still didn't say anything, until Lightning carefully dropped the steaks into the sizzling pan.

"It's surreal to see you here," he said, just loud enough to be heard over the hissing meat.

She didn't look at him as she dug around in a drawer for a spatula. "Yeah, well, one nice thing about being Etro's Champion and Bhunivelze's Savior was that I didn't need to eat to survive. I haven't cooked anything in over a thousand years, so consider yourself warned."

Hope chuckled lightly. "I didn't mean that it was strange to see you here cooking. I meant... it's in the next drawer over. The spatula," he added when Light sent him a surprised glance.

"Thanks." She found it easily and balanced the flat edge on the rim of the pan. She set the timer for a few minutes and then turned to look at Hope. "So what did you mean?"

"Just that I wasn't sure I would ever see this: you, in a setting as natural as a kitchen, like it was commonplace."

Lightning leaned her hip against the edge of the counter, listening.

He crossed his arms, resting his elbows on the back of his chair. "When I was a l'Cie, I wanted a sense of normalcy so badly. Especially in the beginning, I just wanted the whole nightmare to be over."

Light thought she knew what Hope was getting at; there had been no time, back then, to pretend like things weren't wrong. There had been no opportunity to relax and drop their guard - to be the people that they were when they didn't have armies, Fal'Cies, or Cie'th hunting for them. She had been too busy trying to stay alive to miss civilian life, but for someone like Hope - that had been all he'd ever known.

"And then when it was over," Hope continued, "when we all woke from crystal and you weren't there, I knew that things couldn't be the same—not ever. And I realized I didn't mind that. Ten years later, when you came to me that night in Academia, I began to want a different sort of normalcy. Something like this." Hope blinked, looking away, and his voice softened. "Just us, here. Together."

Lightning sucked in her breath. She was grateful that she had the excuse of the steak so that she could turn away and shield her reaction at his words. Just us, here. Together. She picked up the spatula and prodded at the edge of the closest cut, trying hard not to let his words resonate in her head.

"I looked for you, too, you know," Hope said, and Lightning couldn't stop herself—she looked at him. He was staring directly at her, his eyes serious. "I looked for you every day before I left, everywhere I could think of in the city."

"Why did you stop?"

He winced. "I didn't. Well, I didn't mean to. I decided to continue my search from a distance, but it's been taking longer than I thought to hook up my computers in the spare..." He trailed off, his mouth opening a little as if in surprise.

Lightning raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Nothing."

She narrowed her eyes at him, but then the timer went off. Lightning turned and flipped the steaks over. They were browning nicely, the spices adding a delicate fragrance to the already heady smell of the steak.

"That smells amazing," Hope sighed.

Lightning smiled to herself as she opened the fridge to retrieve the butter. "You used to say that back then, too. Hopefully this will taste better than the meals I made on Pulse."

"If it tastes anything like it smells, then I'm sure it will." He paused. "And you'll have to tell me if it tastes better than the steak you had in Yusnaan."

Lightning snorted. She had almost forgotten about that. "You mean at the restaurant, Banquet of the Lord?"

"Yeah."

"On my date?" she taunted, smiling sarcastically.

"...yeah."

Lightning glanced sideways at Hope, only to see him looking at her levelly. "Well, I'm no trained chef, you know, so I can't speak for that part of the equation," she said airily. "But the present company is already better than before."

The corner of Hope's mouth tipped up and Lightning quickly turned away. Why did I say that? She berated herself, glaring at the steaks. I sound like I'm trying to play into his favor. Why do the honest answers always sound so false?

"I'll set the table," Hope said. The chair scraped against the floor as he stood. "They must be almost done by now."

"Just about," Lightning agreed. She pulled two steak knives out of the knifeblock and offered them to Hope, hilts first, as he retrieved plates from a cupboard. He gave her a grateful smile.

"Thanks, Light."

She turned off the heat on the stove and followed Hope to the table. She plated the steaks and sat down across from him, steam rising in twin curls from their meat. "If you want some kind of sauce to eat it with, you won't hurt my feelings," she said.

"Nope, I want to eat them the way you made it." He picked up his knife and fork.

Lightning followed suit but waited, watching as Hope cut a small square out of the side of his meat and pop it into his mouth. A blissful smile broke over his face. "Light, this is perfect."

She snorted. "I'm glad you think so."

"No, it really is. This is just like what I remember from all those years ago on Pulse." He closed his eyes and opened them again. "I can almost imagine a campfire, and all of us sitting around it."

"Things were different then. Easier." Lightning smiled a little.

"I thought about our time as l'Cie a lot in the years afterward," Hope said.

She nodded.

"But this is better than anything that happened on Pulse."

She raised her eyebrows. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." He sent her a crooked smile. "This time it's just the two of us."

Lightning smiled.