Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

-T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

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He doesn't remember waking.

What he remembers is the excited clamoring, words blurring together in his brain as he tried to escape the din that rattled within his skull. There was a pressure on his hand, and it took a monumental effort to so much as shift his face away from the noise — a movement which only set off another wave of dulled pain through his head. By contrast, the warm darkness was inviting when paired against the brightness and noise and pain.

The second time he wakes, he hears the platter of rain against a window, and thinks that raindrops should be against his skin right now, except he was warm and dry and cocooned within numbness, the pain now a comfortable distance away even as every thought was fuzzy and distant along with it. He tries to open his eyes that time, and the pressure against his hand increases sporadically, tightening and loosening and then repeating the process. The noises are gone now, but there is still a soothing voice near his ear, forming something like words.

The effort is too much, and he gratefully withdraws into darkness once again.

The third time there is the actually sensation of waking, of just starting to wake up but not being fully there yet, of drifting alongside dreams and combating the break of dawn. He hears hushed words this time.

"—need to stretch your legs sometime. We're all here to take over."

"...can't. He… he almost opened his eyes yesterday—"

The pressure on his hand tightened in accordance to the second voice's pitch, and despite straining to hear more, he found himself nestled back in the darkness once again.

The next time, he thinks, feels like the middle of night. The brightness isn't as harsh, and it feels more inviting somehow. The now-familiar pressure against his hand is gone, but there is a warmth on his face, a gentle touch on his forehead as fingers comb through his hair.

It's nice, he thinks drowsily to himself. There's the vague memory from his childhood, of being ill and his mother sitting at the edge of his bed, fingers carding through his hair as she hummed a gentle song to send him to sleep.

That memory brings along a pang of sadness, of grief, and he wonders why.

Another time, and there are no soft touches, no pressure on his hands. There is a strong voice speaking — reading, he realizes after a while. The voice is familiar, and he strains to hear the words once more. He tries to turn his head toward the sound, but feels bone weary. There is something fundamentally exhausting just about being conscious. Had it always been so difficult?

The voice halted with his stilted movements, and he stopped as well. Several long moments later, the voice began reading again, this time the tone not as strong, but clearly distracted. It was, however, not enough for him to notice as he tried once again to satisfy his curiosity as to who would possibly be reading to him.

It took a long time (ages, in his mind) to tilt his head just enough to face the source of sounds (as he could yet to expend the effort in trying to make sense of the words), and cracking his eyes open just slightest bit — enough to take in the dim lighting in the room (bright to his eyes) and the blurred shapes and colors that came with it. Luckily, there wasn't much to assault his sight, as the majority of his vision was white, and the figure…

"Dad?" He tried to mouth, but the sound came out more as a soft inhale as his tongue refused to work properly. He frowned, taking stock of himself… or at least the fact that he couldn't seem to speak properly. It shouldn't have bothered him as much as it did, seeing as all movement was hard enough, but somehow a failed attempt at speech was more presently concerning than anything else.

The figure moved, and his vision blurred trying to keep up. More words were spoken, this time quicker and more urgently than before, much to his consternation. It was hard enough to make out the voice, but individual words were hard, much harder when people spoke so quickly.

At least… he was fairly sure that was his dad talking. It sounded like him, and the blob shape looked vaguely like him as well. But there was something he was missing, and the familiarity wasn't enough to stop the nagging which only served to distract him even more from his surroundings.

Oh, well, he thought, exhaustion finally overtaking him. He let his eyes fall shut again, breathing deepening into sleep. If his dad was there, everything would be fine.

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The first time his thoughts were in any semblance of cohesiveness, he opened his eyes slowly to stare up at the white, white ceiling of what looked to be a hospital room. It was easier than it had been the last time… he didn't know how long ago or what happened, but there was a sense of relief that he could at least do that much without having to struggle as he had the last time.

His thoughts were still slow and muddy, and he couldn't for the life of him figured out what he was doing in a hospital room. Sleeping? Did he fall asleep here after—?

"You're awake!" The voice was high pitched and feminine, excited and shocked all at once, and he struggled to place it even as the pressure on his hand increased, and then curled strands of hair fell into his vision, along with a face that looked so familiar even as he tried to place the bright green eyes. "You're… you're awake this time, right? The doctors said that you might be unresponsive, but they also said you probably weren't going to get better and I know they're lying because of course you're going to get better."

The babbling was unfamiliar, but the face was slowly starting to clear up for him. It was easier if he didn't try to concentrate on her words, because he needed all his concentration to make out who she was. Someone familiar. Someone he should really know.

The words stopped as she realized that he was staring at her, at her instead of the ceiling. Her expression twisted to one of apprehension. She said a word that he recognized, that he knew.

He tried to move his jaw, to twist his tongue. Everything felt still and sore, and yet thick and numb at the same time. It made even the tiniest of movements too hard.

That was right. Whoever she was, she called him by name. She knew who he was.

The pressure on his hand squeezed once again and he darted his eyes down tiredly to find that the girl had wrapped both her hands around his, and that must have been the pressure he was feeling. How long had she been there, holding his hand? Her eyes were familiar, her hair was familiar, her features were familiar… but who she was slipped from his grasp like water through a sieve. His brow furrowed in unhappiness. Why couldn't he figure it out? It must be important.

His head was pounding, he realized.

He thought about going back to sleep again. He could just close his eyes right there and then maybe her worried face would melt away in the darkness. It was far less complicated than trying to move, than trying to focus his eyes and to make out why she was so familiar.

But that didn't seem very fair of him when she was obviously waiting for a response.

Just a little bit more, he decided with his muddy thoughts.

There was a soft jingle of her bracelets, the metal warm where it pressed against his wrist. They were colorful, and the burst of color sparked a moment of recognition.

Fire. Grief. Crystal. The smells of Gran Pulse, and the warmth in his chest recalling a sound he had nigh forgotten.

He rolled his tongue within his mouth, and gave the resulting word a try: "...Vanille."

Better than before, again, although his voice was hoarse and painful and barely a whisper. His throat felt terrible. It was enough, though, and the girl — Vanille — brightened up considerably, her green eyes even brighter than before as she bit down on her lower lip hard enough he worried briefly that she was going to hurt herself. He didn't want to see her hurt. She was important, even if he wasn't entirely clear why as of yet. It was good enough that he remembered that single word in conjunction with her.

"You recognize me." Her voice was much like his at that moment, barely above a whisper and so thick he could barely make out the words after moments of concentration. She dipped her head down, hiding her bright eyes and pressing his hand, still wrapped within hers, against her face. He was alarmed to feel moisture against his skin. "I'm glad… I'm so glad…"

It was too much to take in, and he barely managed to flex his fingers within her grasp, trying to provide some sort of comfort for the weeping girl. It wasn't much, but… that was enough, right?

He closed his eyes after another moment, proud that he managed that much. Maybe he would remember more the next time he woke up.

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The next time he opens his eyes, there's a man standing in the corner of the room right by the window, speaking quietly on the phone and looking unhappy about it. Try as he might, he couldn't make out any of the words, not just because it was being said so fast, but because it seemed so quiet he could hear nothing more than the constant stream of sounds, none of which made any sense to him.

He feels less tired this time, like he might actually be able to stay aware for more than a minute at a time. Similarly, his brain was less fogged. It was easier to log that there was sunlight streaming from the window in the corner, that there was an annoying persistent noise from the machinery around him, and even that the man was starting to notice he was awake and aware.

He turned his attention toward the window. Sunlight, sky, and what could be distant buildings. That was good. He could tell what all of those were. Sunlight meant it was daytime. He was in a hospital.

Then… was he here because he was sick? He didn't feel sick. Groggy, yes, and somewhat irritated by the amount of time it took for him to register things in his head… he felt like it shouldn't take that long. But he didn't think that he had just fallen asleep here. Something must have happened before that to leave him in a hospital.

"Hey." the man said, voice directed at him this time. He slid his eyes over curiously. "You here with me, buddy? You gotta give me a sign if you can hear me, kiddo. Vanille said you recognized her, but… I can't tell if you're awake or just staring again."

Again? He tried to make out what was wrong with that statement, but gave up shortly after. It was too tiring.

Instead, he used the effort to frown at the man.

Surprisingly, that seemed to cheer the other up quite a bit. It made him pull up a hospital chair and sit down heavily, the furniture groaning under his weight even as an arm reached out to ruffle his hair gently. "I never thought I'd be this relieved to see that grumpy face again. You had all of us real scared for a while there, kid. We thought — just, no more close calls, okay? You just worry about getting better."

Getting better from what? There were too many words and too many questions for him to follow, and the confusion brought about another round of frustration. He didn't like being confused, didn't know not knowing things. The man didn't seem to sense his growing irritation.

"Lightning will be here soon enough." He continued. "She'll be happy to see you awake, I'm sure."

That didn't make any sense. He closed his eyes again in order to concentrate solely on the words rather than by distracted by the visual stimuli. At least, that's what he hoped he was doing, because the darkness just made him more drowsy, and his brain didn't feel any clearer. He recognized Vanille's name, and Lightning sounded familiar… There was a certain relief when a few more things became clear.

"Whoa, c'mon kiddo, wakey-wakey. Sis'll kill me if I'm the only one who got your time today. Everyone's been waiting to say hi, you know. And you've got to wake up more to keep getting better. Or something."

The blathering made him exhale in aggravation. He frowned again and tested another word, determined to do better this time. "Idiot."

The surprised and relieved burst of laughter startled him to full awareness once again.

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It was hard to make connections sometimes. More than sometimes. It was difficult to identify anything when awake, and it seemed like there was always someone there with words and more words that confused him. The more he tried to make things out, the more disappointed people seemed to be. He hadn't noticed it at first, too busy with trying to make out sounds and blurry images, but eventually the twisted expressions made him feel… bad, at the very least. Like he was doing something wrong.

"You were in an accident. Do you remember your name?" Someone asked him once, and it was better because this person spoke slowly, calmly, and held no tingling of familiarity. There was no push in his brain trying to identify the person, although the way they were dressed seemed vaguely recognizable.

The question took him some time to answer, because while he was sure that he knew, at the same time it felt a little out of his reach. Like something on the tip of his tongue, there one moment and gone the next when he needed it.

The unfamiliar figure was patient, though, which he appreciated as he slowly nodded his head.

"What's your name?" The figure in white asked, just as slowly and carefully.

He thought for a while. Closed his eyes.

"Hope." He finally whispered, elated upon the memory of the word.

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"And the last thing you remember?"

Hope looked away from Dr. Cline and toward his father, who was sitting next to him on the plastic chair near his bed. It couldn't be very comfortable, he had seen Snow squirming around in that thing, complaining about the lack of cushions.

Bartholomew Estheim gave him an encouraging nod.

Hope looked back toward his doctor, still tired just from moving his neck. He concentrated hard to form the words in his mouth, as his tongue was still have trouble obeying his commands. "I… dunno."

"It should come back to you in time." Dr. Cline reassured him, swiping down notes on his medical tablet. "You're doing very well. It may be a bit early for me to say this, but… it seems as if your surgery was a complete success. You're a very lucky young man."

Hope gave a strained smile. The others had explained to him, slowly, and multiple times since he tended to fall asleep on them mid-story, about what happened. There had been an earthquake, the first one that the former residents of Cocoon had ever experienced, which taught them a little bit more about the land of Gran Pulse: mostly, that there were many areas which could not support heavy structures, and that the land itself was not always stable.

He and a great deal of other people had been in the accident, Hope was told. He had fallen from a great height, but Vanille managed to catch him with her rod before he hit the ground, although he stuck his head several times along the way down. It was the reason why she panicked, why she wouldn't leave him alone unless pestered, as his recent coma had been a direct result of those head injuries. Apparently her rod had also caused several more injuries, but those were all easily healed over with the help of manadrives.

She had saved his life then.

It had been the brain injuries that required more delicate care, the doctor sprouting off several long words that Hope couldn't yet make out. Things were slowly getting clearer, but…

"And can you feel that?" Dr. Clive was saying. Hope nodded at the touch on the bottom of his foot. "Can you move your foot for me? Good, good."

"Doctor?" Bartholomew asked anxiously after a moment of silence as Dr. Cline noted things down on his tablet.

"Hmm?" The doctor hummed, not looking up from his tablet for a moment before he startled. "Oh, I'm sorry. No, it's all good news. Considering the initial extent of his injuries, I'd say your son is amazing condition. I'd like for him to stay another two weeks, mostly for further assessment along with physical therapy. From what I can see… well, it's better than anything we would have hoped for."

"Two weeks." Bartholomew sounded disbelieving. "Surely it can't be that bad."

Dr. Cline shook his head, but looked as if he had told many patients and their families the exact same thing over the years, and already expected the reaction. "Head injuries are always a delicate matter. There may be quite a few holes in his memory, and while he is in good condition now, not many have the experience necessary to deal with the following muscular and speech therapy. He has a very limited range of motion at the moment, and it's important to understand that this may come from the brain needing to heal and relearn motion rather than the body."

"I…" His father seemed overwhelmed. "Yes, that would be a lot to deal with."

"Family members are encouraged to participate as well." Dr. Cline assured him. "Twenty years ago, this wouldn't have been allowed as patients could be distracted by other people there, but encouragement is a greater motivation than deterrent. I know you and the rest of your family have not left his side, so…"

"Ah." Bartholomew breathed out. "They're… yes, I suppose so."

Hope closed his eyes then, satisfied with having stayed awake so long.

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"Bored, are we?"

Hope set down the puzzle as Dr. Cline entered the room, pushing himself further up in his bed. It had only been three days, but a productive three days nevertheless. While his physical rehabilitation was a little slow, his speech therapy had progressed in leaps and bounds. His dexterity had improved, and thus, Hope had also managed to stay awake for hours at a time, leaving him with very little to do when he refused visitors.

He wanted some time to himself to work on remembering them rather than face their disappointed faces. It seemed as if the others didn't quite understand, but they left nevertheless when Hope started raising his voice and slurring his words in distress.

He nodded his head in answer to the question, and held out the completed puzzle.

"Remarkable." Dr. Cline murmured as he accepted the completed item. "Simply remarkable. I'd say you'd be ready to head home in half the time I projected. How are you doing today, Hope? And say it in words."

Hope frowned. He was still feeling terribly self-conscious about his faltering words.

"I," he hesitated for just a moment, forcing his lips to enunciate better. "Feel fine, doctor."

"Good, good." The doctor bustled about the room, making notes the entire time. "Ms. Farron was asking for you earlier, if you feel up to taking visitors. She said she'd come back in another hour or so if you're amendable and the two of you could have dinner together."

Hope shrugged. He liked whenever Light was around, although he couldn't understand why yet. She was a calming presence, and tended to turn a blind eye whenever Hope was having trouble expressing his words or even swallowing his food, unlike the others who immediately jumped to help him. It let him feel calmer about his mistakes, like he wasn't something that needed help with every little task. Because of that, it had only been her and his father visiting him the past day since Hope tended to make a fuss when the others stayed for too long.

"I'll tell her that's a yes, then." The doctor hummed in thought. "And bring you more things, shall I? Perhaps a few books this time?"

Hope nodded, and then added quietly, "Please."

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Within another two days, Hope was growing more than a little restless.

There was just nothing to do in the night hours. While there was someone who used to stay with him through the night, Hope had long since told the others to go home and sleep as well after seeing the dark circles under Vanille's eyes. Nothing was going to happen to him during the night, after all. It wasn't as if he was going to slip into a coma again, not when he was this awake and aware.

He set down the old fashioned paper-bound book he had been given for a moment, already bored with the tripe storyline written within, and listened to the beeping of the hospital at night. The lights were dimmed for the night so that those asleep would not be disturbed, but Hope's room was empty of anyone but himself.

He wondered why. Listening to the gossip of nurses during the day revealed the hospital to be overfull, and yet there was an empty bed next to his.

He wanted to… to do something. It felt strange to not have anything important to do. It felt like a ticking clock in the back of his mind, urging him to be productive before time ran out, and the feeling made him antsy. The hour on the clock read far too early in the morning (or perhaps late at night) for anyone to rightfully be awake, but…

He pushed off the covers and slipped his legs over the side of the bed, brushing against the pushed down handles. He was still tired from the earlier exercises, but his body was recovering faster than his mind. It was never his muscles that gave out first, but rather mental exhaustion trying to consciously control his movements.

With a breath to prepare himself, Hope slipped from the bed and settled onto the floor, noting the cold linoleum underneath his feet. Steady. He was steady at the moment. He wondered if he could make it to the rec room before anyone caught him, and whether it would be alright for him to stay in that room a few hours. Maybe he'd be able to find something there to do, rather than read the flimsy books that had been brought to him. Maybe he could do something else. Study. So much time spent in the hospital meant that he must have missed a lot, right?

He made it to the door and peeked out into the hallway cautiously. Coast clear. Hope slipped into the hall, sidestepping various obstacles to make his way down to the rec room, luckily still on the same floor. There was a night shift nurse behind the counter in a lit part of the hall next to the elevators, but she merely gave him a frown as he slipped past her, turning away to ignore his presence.

The small recreational room was brightly lit still, colorful and empty except for a young child sitting by himself in a corner, bandages wrapped tightly around a bald head and his left arm in a cast. Hope stared for a moment, but then went back to scanning the rest of the room when it seemed the child was ignoring him as well. There were several small shelves of books along one brightly painted wall, and crates of toys and puzzles shoved against another corner by the tightly drawn curtains.

Childish, Hope thought, and wondered why that didn't feel right. Why he hadn't noticed it before. But then again, Dr. Cline mentioned before that he would notice more and more of his surroundings as time went on. Perhaps he just skipped the information before this.

He wandered to one of the shelves and sat down on the floor cross-legged, entirely ignoring the bench and seats next to him. None of the books looked interesting, all childish scrawls and simple plots. He scanned over the titles with a finger, pausing slightly at a science encyclopedia and then bypassing it entirely. Boring. He needed something to do.

Another few moments of restlessness and Hope shuffled himself toward the standing chalkboard to the left, brushing off the previous stick figures and misspelt words until the board was entirely empty. He picked up a broken piece of chalk, and then hovered his hand slightly over the board.

Something to do.

He drew a circle. Gave it a rotational and gravitational axis to turn into a more three dimensional model. Maybe a scale just to see how large it was… like a planet. Like Cocoon. Probably not as large, though, although he wasn't sure why he was drawing a planet. Mass had weight, after all, and weight was something that needed to be carefully calculated, otherwise the entire planet might collapse into itself.

But, and here his brow furrowed as he used the empty space on the chalkboard to figure out the equations necessary to calculate the weight of a planet, it wouldn't just the weight by itself, but the weight of people as well. People, belongings, animals, structures, and entire biospheres. Drawing a planet was harder than he had initially thought. He was barely scratching the surface and already running out of space on the chalkboard, even if the sphere itself took up barely a fraction of the space.

"What are you doing?"

Hope startled and dropped his chalk as the young boy who had previously been seated in the corner plopped himself down next to him. The child couldn't have been older than ten old, and was sickly pale, his right hand used to stable himself on the ground as he leaned back.

"I'm…" Hope blinked. What had he been doing? "I'm making a world."

"Oh." The child responded. "Like Cocoon? That looks like math, though. With letters. And squiggly lines. Yeesh, it looks like something my sister does for her homework, except way longer. What's it supposed to be?"

Hope glanced back to the sprawling equations across the chalkboard. He… "It's just simple physics. I'm trying to solve the density for the amount of mass needed to form a shell like Cocoon's."

"Liar." The child accused. "C'mon, tell the truth. Is it your math homework, or did you make it up?"

It was nothing more than a brain exercise. A warm-up. A way of letting out the frustration he felt from being confined and told to rest all the time. It was something that felt familiar in an unfamiliar place and situations.

The silence must have been the answer the child needed, as he only nodded and then challenged, "If you can do math like that, why don't you help me solve this puzzle? I'm not going to bed until it's done, and Nurse Buzzkill outside's been trying to hound me to go back for hours."

"Wha—?"

"Here." There was a cube dumped onto his lap by the child. "You're supposed to get all the same colors onto the same sides, but I can only finish one side. See? It's like… three by three on each side, and apparently it's all math or something like that. So how do you finish that, Mr. Math Genius?"

Math genius, he wasn't a math genius. Something about the entire conversation just wasn't adding up. It made the back of his head ache. Everything was wrong. The brightly colored room, the children's books…

"If you can't solve it, you're lying about the planet drawing." The child accused gleefully.

Hope frowned. "I'm not —"

"What is going on here?"

"Geez, chill." The child responded to the nurse's dismayed tone, even as Hope flinched back. "We're just talking. No one's dying, the world's not ending, no need to shout."

"You were supposed to the in bed hours ago." The nurse told the child sternly, and then turned her attention on Hope. "And you. What are you doing here?"

"Obviously," the child answered before Hope could so much as think of a reply. "Because he'd a kid and something bad happened so he ended up in a hospital. Duh. Why else would he be wearing a hospital gown and in pediatrics?"

A kid? No, no, that wasn't right. There was that accident, yes, but he wasn't a kid.

The nurse looked furious. "I want both of you back in your rooms! It's past lights out and you're disturbing the rest of the ward. Especially you, l'Cie, you're not to go near any of the children here, do you hear me?"

Hope didn't wait for further reprimand, instead stumbling to his feet as quickly as he could and racing past the nurse and down the hallway back to the safety of his room.

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"I think it's a cause for celebration." Vanille told him cheerily, patting his hand. They were seated next to each other on the narrow hospital bed, the both of them shoved up against the headrest and vying for space. "They're letting you out a week earlier than you thought! No more bad hospital food, no more boring hospital room, no more getting kicked out by doctors…"

"That's just you." Hope told her, and smiled as she giggled in agreement. His smile faltered, however, as he remembered the events of the night previous. It was most likely the cause of his early release from the hospital, rather than how well he was doing. Immediately following his physical therapy today, Dr. Cline had appeared in his room to tell him with a terse smile that due to his progress, he was free to go when his family could pick him up.

He even said that Hope didn't have to come in for the second part of his physical therapy.

The nurse last night called him a l'Cie, and yet for the life of him, Hope couldn't understand why. He knew the term. Knew the concept. But he wasn't one! Had he been? Maybe. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed plausible. But he knew with certainty that he wasn't one now, and was surprised by the vehemence of the word.

"Wish I could remember more." Hope murmured, and Vanille turned to him with wide eyes.

"Oh, I'm sure it'll all come back eventually!" She said, and nudged him with her shoulder. "So cheer up! You can come visit us now, right? Oh, you should see the little place Fang and I picked out. It's only a bit away from New Bodhum, just close enough that we can visit at any time. You could stay with us, you know… if your dad's decided on where to move yet."

Hope shrugged. Apparently their home had been destroyed in the same earthquake that landed him in the hospital, which meant that all the survivors were evacuating to new homes. His dad hadn't said anything about it, presumably for the same reason Lightning kept telling it was alright if he didn't remember and to take it easy.

"I haven't seen him yet today." Hope said, fingers picking at the edge of the hospital blanket. He didn't like how cold his hands always got. Gloves. He needed to get gloves. "Dr. Cline might have called him. I don't know."

He hesitated. Somehow, it didn't feel like a good idea to ask, but he had to know. "Vanille… were we… were we — l'Cie?" The word somehow felt filthy in his mouth, just as the sound of it felt like monster from the nurse last night.

Vanille, however, didn't seem to hear the negative undertones.

"Yeah." She confirmed, shoulder still pressed against his. "Not long ago, I guess. But not any more. Did you not remember?"

The way she said it didn't sound too bad. Her tone wasn't fearful or hesitant.

"I'm starting to." He admitted.

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Hope glared at the offending contraption. "I don't need a wheelchair."

"Good." Lightning informed him. "Because you're out of it the moment we get out."

But in the meanwhile, it meant that he was stuck being wheeled from his room to the awaiting car. Possibly in full view of the very same nurse he was hoping to avoid. If he were allowed to walk, then Hope could twist his way to hide around Lightning when they walked down the hall, but this meant that he would be out in plain sight.

Still, Lightning's tone brook no argument, and Hope gave an exaggerated sigh (along with a full grimace) as he sat heavily in the contraption. At least it meant he was getting out of the hospital. His father hadn't been able to get there in time on the short notice, so it was Vanille who stayed with him and Lightning who was going to take him home.

Home, he thought, might be just as strange as here. He didn't know where it was, or what to expect. Despite the earthquake having happened near three weeks ago, Bartholomew hadn't exactly explained where they would be relocated. And now that he thought about it, Hope wasn't sure where he was in the first place. Which hospital was this? He had never thought to ask.

Thanks to an earlier conversation with Vanille, Hope was slowly starting to piece together more than just recognition of his surroundings. His memory was still fuzzy, but he sort of remembered the Purge and what came after. He remembered their journey and the Fall, and then… and then, it was all blank.

"Don't worry about it," Vanille had told him in response to that admission, although there was a worried look in her eyes. "You remember us. That's good enough for me."

But it wasn't good enough for him. There was something he was missing, he just knew it, but couldn't figure out what. The gap in his memory didn't feel like a small thing, but a colossal mountain he had to climb. Or perhaps a better descriptor would be more like a dark pit and the fear that came with preparing himself to dive right in.

"I hate this thing." Hope declared sullenly, shifting in his seat even as he slouched down with embarrassment as Lightning pushed him out of the room. Vanille was humming happily behind them, carrying the bag of items Hope managed to accumulate in his room the past week. A few books, a joke stuffed animal plush from Snow, an actual thoughtful plush from Serah, and a handful of books and puzzles he managed to beg off his father.

"Then make sure you don't end up in one again." Lightning told him in response, which only made Hope slouch more in embarrassment — he hadn't meant to act so childish in front of her. It was just that… well, maybe the hospital really was getting to him.

Luckily, the nurse in question didn't seem to be on shift at that moment, and many of the other hospital staff steered clear of them. Hope wondered how many of those people didn't approve of the fact that he was there, and then tried to reconcile that statistic with Dr. Cline's daily words of encouragement.

There was a hovercar waiting for them at the front of the hospital, and Snow waved enthusiastically from the driver's seat, nearly up ending the drink tray he had strapped to the window.

"Oh, no." Hope groaned. "We're all going to die."

Lightning only snorted in amusement (possibly agreement as well) before wheeling him in that direction even as Vanille ran past them cheerfully to greet Snow.

"Hey, kid!" Snow called out to him when the two of them were close enough. "Sure you got everything? Arms, legs, brain cells?"

Lightning reached through the open window to whap him over the back of the head, making him yelp loudly in protest. Hope took that opportunity to scramble out of the wheelchair and through the open car door that Vanille was very generously holding open for him despite not needing to, still smiling and most ignoring Snow and Lightning's antics.

"We'll be fine." Vanille said as she got settled in the seat next to him. She nudged his side with her elbow and winked. "Can't be as bad as when you were driving."

Hope flushed as the vague memory of crashing in the Pulse Vestige returned, and he sputtered in response.

"Move." Lightning told Snow in the front, arms crossed as she waited outside the driver door. The blond made a whining noise in protest but eventually shuffled to the passenger side with a pout, sighing dramatically as Light slid into the driver's seat.

Snow twisted to face the two teenagers in the back seats. "See? I can drive here, but I'm not allowed to drive when there's precious cargo on board. I'm calling favoritism on Sis right now. She likes you way better than she likes me."

"Obviously." Lightning agreed pleasantly, and then frowned. "Snow. Stay in your seat. You'll tip the entire car over if you move around."

"And now she's calling me fat." Snow lamented dramatically, attempting to look more upset than he actually was. Vanille giggled at their antics, buckling in both herself and Hope as well, much to Hope's indignance. "See what I have to deal with?"

Lightning didn't wait much after Hope and Vanille were buckled in, and the hovercar shot forward, Snow yelping once again as he clung onto his seat.

"Your dad will join us later." Lightning informed Hope, her eyes never leaving the road. "He's —"

"Busy at work, yeah." Hope was used to it. That was the norm before the Purge, and he hadn't expected it to change all that much afterward. It was enough that Bartholomew was trying to make time now, and that Hope had a better understanding as to why his father worked so much. He kicked the back of his heels against the bottom of his seat in thought. "I get it."

"Hope." And here Lightning sounded softer, prompting him to look up and catch her expression on the rearview mirror. "He'll be here."

He stared at her reflection, and for a moment everything — just everything — felt too surreal. Like a dream. Sitting in the car at that moment seated next to Vanille, watching Lightning drive as Snow fiddled with the radio… he didn't know why, but in that moment it was as if everything turned grey for the briefest second, as if time slowed to a point where even the scenery outside the hovercar was slowed to a crawl.

I shouldn't be here.

And just as quickly, the moment passed, and Hope kicked once more at the bottom of his seat. Normally, he wouldn't have banked on his dad being there, but if Lightning said so… "Okay."

But the sense of unease never left.

.

.

New Bodhum was nearly an hour away, and even the road there felt hastily made, nothing more than upturned dirt rather than pavement. It was squeezed in between the water and mountains, and the buildings there were nothing more than the foundations to what looked to be small and squat homes. Comfortable and cut from the rest of civilization. The people there probably loved it. Hope could understand feeling more secure away from large crowds of people, having also survived the Purge with other Bodhum residents.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Vanille asked as they gazed out the window onto the flickering blue ocean. She gave a happy sigh. "Home sweet home."

Hope wondered for a moment why Fang and Vanille hadn't decided to go back to Oerba, but then decided it was a dumb question. He wouldn't have gone back to Palumpolum, either. There was just something about the ghosts of his past haunting him. He didn't want to go back to that large, empty house now that his mom was gone. Fang and Vanille probably didn't want to stay in a town that was empty of the people they used to know, either.

"Just wait," Snow told them. "Lebreau's probably cooked up a storm. Serah mentioned wanting to put together a welcome back party and has the others up in a riot. Well. A good one."

"You don't have to go if you don't want to." Lightning interjected. "Serah understands."

"There's nothing wrong with a little party." Snow objected, feigning offense. "We're all just glad Hope's alive and hasn't suffered brain dam—"

"I'm sure it's all going to be delicious." Vanille spoke up as Lightning's knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. She threw her arms around Hope, who leaned back from the unexpected weight and cheer. "We'll just have to make sure to eat a little bit of everything, right Hope?"

"Sure." Hope agreed, feeling a bit overwhelmed. He glanced at Lightning's tense figure as Vanille's hair tickled his face, and wondered what felt so strange. She seemed more irritable than he remembered, or just… he didn't know. His head was starting to hurt again, although it was a dull ache. His memory was improving in leaps and bounds the past several days, but every time he mentioned that to her, she seemed to be torn between relief and… tension.

There was something else going on. He knew it.

"Hey, Vanille." He asked quietly under the warbling music that Snow insisted on tuning into on the radio, turning his head to face the redhead. "I — I keep meaning to ask." He swallowed. How to phrase it in order to not sound offensive? He didn't know. "How are you here?"

"What do you mean?" She asked back, leaning her head against his in a manner that had her hair tickling the side of his face. It was just another thing that Hope couldn't reconcile — they were close, had always been, but had she been this close before? With the way she tended to stay close to him, Hope wondered if somehow he was to fade away if she didn't keep a close enough eye on him. Maybe it was just the accident. Vanille had felt the guiltiest out of everyone, after all. It would stand to reason that she needed more reassurance he was actually alright.

Hope opened his mouth to clarify, but then considered it a moment further. "During… during the Fall, weren't…?" He bit his bottom lip, and then shook his head. "Never mind. I must have remembered things wrong."

The faintest flicker in the back of his mind told him that Fang and Vanille were crystallized, and that Lightning shouldn't be here either.

That's right, a voice whispered in his head, and then Snow left and Sazh disappeared and Serah was gone.

He felt like he was remembering more and more, and the more he remembered, the less things made sense.

Or maybe he had been dreaming. Maybe he was remembering a dream, albeit a very long one.

Instead, he smiled in Vanille's direction to appease her worried eyes and asked, "Think there'll be cake?"

.

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Okay, so this is a NaNoWriMo prompt from Animus Lost, which I debated how to actually post because it's just easier to post things on AO3 lately, but the prompt came through here and I figured I'd honour that! ^^ Just as a note: because this is for NaNo, none of this has been looked at a second time. I'm going to be struggling just to hit wordcount, and possibly be writing things other than this story at the same time this month.