A/N: And the ball is officially rolling on this prequel! I've gotten far enough in my draft that I feel confident in starting the post, and I certainly hope it goes over well. The single perspective approach has been a real challenge…but I could USE a good challenge. Apologies to anyone who expected much in the way of romance – that's pretty hard to pull off when the Light half of the Hope/Light ship is indisposed, but I'll be trying to make enough mention that it's clear where I was headed (and where I ended up, to those who've read Always in Repair – which I assume is most of you). That said, PLEASE do REVIEW so I can make this as true-to-character and enjoyable an experience as possible!

(Prequel to Always in Repair)

Believe in Yesterday

Are you waiting?

Nothing will ever be the same.

As Serah trudged down the familiar path, muddy from days of unrelenting rain, she pushed the thought back to the farthest corner of her mind where it remained comfortably hidden. Three months was a pathetically short amount of time to be giving birth to that kind of doubt. Only on Sundays did it rear its ugly head.

Is it really doing anyone any good to keep checking on them every week? Maybe it's just making me focus on the past instead of moving forward.

The steady mist picked up to a full-force shower, and she finally opened up her umbrella, a sunny barrier between herself and the depressing weather. Once the real street dead-ended at the edge of the settlement, she marched on down the lightly beaten trail to where the crystal statues of her only real family stood roped off in the field like museum artifacts. Post-evacuation chaos had left the military forces indecisive about what to do with the l'Cie – plenty of other things held higher priority. So they had remained where they landed.

Serah often brought Dajh along with her to see his father, but she was afraid the boy might catch a cold, given how disgusting it had been all week. That and having him with her required the semi-permanent mask of hopeful optimism to stay firmly in place.

I wouldn't mind chatting with Sis and Snow alone for a change.

As she approached, Serah saw the indistinct forms of the crystal statues through the haze of rain and felt a sharp, familiar ache welling up in her chest. She dragged her feet until she stood in front of her fiancé and her sister, allowing the moments of contemplation to settle in and pile up like stones on her heart. Whatever they had done to complete their focus had been at least partly for her sake, and must have somehow set her free. It seemed monstrously unfair to stand before them empty-handed.

If I had just stayed away from the Vestige, or run away while I had the chance, they would never have followed me there. All of this could have been avoided…

"I should have been strong enough," Serah said, broken and trembling, "to fight my own battle without dragging you both into this." Tears blurred her vision as she reached up to touch the fingers of Lightning's crystal hand, flinching at their rigidity.

"But you were right – I really am that pathetic, Sis."

Suddenly, a voice piped up from behind Light's statue over the sound of splattering rain. "Why are you crying?" it asked in a boyish tenor, dispelling any notions she might have had that the others were trying to speak to her from 'beyond.'

It was then that Serah also noticed the absence of a fourth crystallized l'Cie – one she couldn't identify, and quite frankly, had ignored.

"Who's there?" she asked, stepping around her sister to investigate. The boy's small frame was huddled up against the back of the crystal, and his clothes were so drenched and muddy that she couldn't tell what colors they had been. When he looked up at her under the yellow umbrella, his green eyes widened in recognition.

"You're Light's sister," he said immediately, mopping away the water still running into his eyes. "Crying isn't going to help, though. Do you really want them to see you like this when they wake up?

Serah felt her heart leap at the thought, but it came crashing right back down to reality before the moment was up. She blinked her eyes dry and pressed on.

"What's your name? And how long have you been out here like this?"

"It's Hope," he replied, fidgeting with a cloth tied around his wrist. "I don't really know how long it's been, but it was dark and rainy when I woke up, and I thought it would be best if we all stayed in the same place, just in case the others woke up soon. Not that I would've known where to start walking if I wanted to leave." He looked back up, eyes heavy with the weight of a thousand questions.

Hope? Is this some kind of cruel joke? Whatever the case, sitting out here in the deluge isn't going to bring anyone back, even if he happened to be hope personified.

"Alright then, Hope – come with me," Serah ordered simply, extending her hand down. "They'll find a way to town if they wake up, and staying here like this will only make you sick." Hesitating for a few moments, the boy finally nodded and weakly grasped her offered hand.

His glove is soaked through. If he's been here since last night, it will be a miracle if he hasn't already come down with something.

But when she tried to pull him up, Hope didn't move. In fact, his grip felt more like an insistence that she join him there on the saturated ground instead.

"Can you wait with me, just a few more minutes?" he practically whispered, and the pleading look on his face made her stomach bottom out. The words she wanted to say to him were far from comforting – she felt wretched even thinking them.

Let it go. It will pass. Eventually, we all have to give up and move on with life.

But the part of Serah that felt guilty for having wrecked yet another innocent person's future by drawing him in to the fal'Cie far outweighed her desire to dole out rational advice. She joined him in the mud, shielding them both with the umbrella and praying that its fragile protection might do some good.

The silent minutes passed. Nothing changed. Eventually, Serah put a hand on the boy's slim shoulder and stood.

"Well, I'm pretty sure Sis would give me an earful if I let you stay out here any longer," she said matter-of-factly, "so how about heading home now? We can come back later, you know."

Hope considered the offer, and the ghost of a smile appeared on his face. "Sure."

Standing unsteadily to his feet, he nearly fell over a couple of times before regaining balance, and Serah ended up half-supporting him for most of the walk home, but she honestly didn't mind. Satisfying the need to be of use to someone kept her from dwelling on the bitter questions that festered deep in her mind since Hope's appearance. The ones that voiced her most shameful feelings, that made her want to shout at the sky, Why not Sis? Why not Snow? Why not Sazh? Why the one person that can't fix anything in my life right now?

Every waterlogged step of the journey, Serah shoved the dark feelings a little deeper, reminding herself of the one truly optimistic point in the situation: If one of them had awakened, there was a chance that the others would too. And while that was the only bright side from her perspective, it didn't change the reality of the miserable teenage boy struggling to walk alongside her. He didn't seem any happier about waking up before the other l'Cie than she had been.

Selfish of me to even think like that. I'm not the one who just spent hours in a rainstorm surrounded by crystallized friends.

"You know, Hope, you might recognise some people in the shelter. What evacuation district were your parents in?" she asked, trying to take his mind off the figures fading into the distance.

He stiffened, mouth opening briefly before completely locking down, and she took it as a sign that she had, quite possibly, asked the worst question of all.

It wasn't until they had reached the shelter that Hope spoke again, and then only to be polite. "Is it alright for me to go inside like this?" he asked, pulling self-consciously at his mud- and rain-soaked clothes.

"Don't be silly; of course it is!" Serah ushered him through the door, up two flights of stairs and down the hall to their one-room temporary living space. The furnishings were basic, consisting of one full-sized bed with a nightstand and lamp, a smaller child's bed on the opposite side, an old dresser, and a beat-up recliner in the far corner. In the center of the room, Dajh was playing on the floor with a toy, but his bushy head snapped up when she stepped in.

"Serah! Did you stop the rain? I wanna go play!" he exclaimed in excitement, but curiosity killed his eagerness instantaneously, and he stared at Hope with wide brown eyes as though Serah had brought home a new pet.

"Sorry Dajh, I told you that isn't how it works—" she started to explain.

But his mouth was quick to catch up with his inquisitive face. "You're all wet! Only crazy people play out in the rain – Serah said so! Are you crazy?"

Oh, the glorious 'imitation' phase. Sis just about killed me back then…

"Not yet," Hope answered, rubbing his arms as the cold wetness sank in, but he grinned knowingly. "You're Sazh's kid, huh."

"You know Dad?" Dajh was already in rapid-fire question mode – that much was clear. "Did you see him before he got frozen?"

Stumbling over a couple of false starts, Hope finally replied, "Yeah, but it was right before Cocoon shut down and I don't—" He stopped abruptly, obviously realising his total lack of familiarity with their circumstances. Turning to Serah, he directed questions of his own.

"When was that? And what ended up happening to everyone on Cocoon?"

Of course he would want to know. I should have said something before.

"Well, it's been about three months now. When Cocoon fell, they were only able to evacuate a small portion of the districts before a lot of the inner structures lost power and started collapsing, or else crystallized—" Serah began, but in the middle of her reply, Hope started into a fit of grating coughs, and she jumped into action. She grabbed a nearby towel and hurriedly led him from the room and down the hall to the building's male washroom.

I knew it. He's caught a cold.

Thankfully, no one was around that early in the evening to give her any trouble for practically dragging the boy in with her. Chills from the onset of a fever were already making him shiver uncontrollably, to the point that he slid down against the nearest wall and tried huddling against his knees for warmth. That wasn't going to do him any good, so despite his frail attempts to protest, she worked to help him get out of the soaked clothing.

"You have to take these off, or it's going to get worse." Her tone was insistent, but he refused to budge. The most she was able to accomplish was to get his sneakers untied.

"P-Please, Serah, I can do this my-myself," he said through chattering teeth, but that was not going to fly.

Shaking like that, you couldn't undo a button to save your life.

Sighing, she tried again to reason with Hope. "Look, I know you barely know me, and you're just trying to do everything on your own, but you're sick right now and that changes things. You need help, and that's okay. Trust me."

Another coughing fit immediately afterward apparently sapped his will to fight, and Hope finally nodded, letting his trembling arms and legs drop out of the way. Two sticky layers later, after the shaking had calmed a bit, she left him with his boxers and the towel at one of the shower stalls, promising to return with clean, dry clothes as soon as possible.

That left Serah in the throes of a dilemma – finding something that would fit the scrawny teenager. She was certain there were no children in her building that fit both factors of his size and gender.

Wait a minute…Maqui!

Team NORA had been keeping constant tabs on her in Snow's stead, but due to the nature of their work with patrols and joint military operations to establish the settlement, the group stayed in a much more functional warehouse complex that was serving as the temporary Guardian Corps headquarters. Maqui had managed to rig their old communicators to work as short-range transceivers that could relay off his own antenna, so Serah's first thought was to give him a call.

She dialed in the channel and pressed the button. "Maqui, are you there? This is Serah, and it's an emergency!"

Suddenly, a burst of static blasted from the speaker, and she jerked the device far from her ear. "Emergency? What kind? What is it?" he fired off, one question after the other.

"Yes. Do you have any extra clothes you could spare, just temporarily? The boy that was crystallized with the others woke up, and his clothes are soaked, and obviously he can't wear my stuff, so I need your help!" She hated to sound so rushed, but the urgency of the situation and the urgency of his questions took it out of her hands.

"That's great! So one of them finally came back!" Maqui exclaimed before getting to the point. "But extra clothes…all I have is my other set of work clothes. Would that be okay?"

Serah was ecstatic. "Yes, of course! Could you bring those over here then?"

"Sure thing. See ya in five!"

Maker, I wish I could drive a velocycle. I could have already gone there, gotten the clothes, and come back without pushing it off on someone else.

But she simply wasn't strong enough to properly control a velocycle. Accepting her long-occupied role of waiting patiently, Serah went to the small cabinet above the dresser and searched through several bottles within. Dajh had caught a nasty cold a few weeks before, and she was thankful to already have the proper types of medicine on hand. Having spent the better part of her childhood battling frequent bouts of illness, she remembered the basic treatment regimen for a number of common sicknesses. Considering Hope's case, she took out acetaminophen and ibuprofen, along with a strong cough suppressant.

Hopefully it won't be any more complicated than that. Pneumonia would be disastrous, and I'm not sure the clinic even has enough antibiotics to go around as it is.

She had already been hearing reports of a few people coming down with some sort of serious infection, something far worse than pneumonia, and the thought made her instantly reconsider leaving him in the shower in his condition. As she turned abruptly from the dresser, Dajh looked up from the floor, eyebrows crinkling in what seemed to be concern. His mouth opened to say something, probably a question, but she didn't have time to waste and simply called out on her way through the door, "Be right back! Gotta check on Hope!"

Serah ran out of the room and down the hall, charging into the men's room without hesitation. The water was still running, so she called to him over the noise from outside the curtain.

"Hope? Everything okay?" There was no answer.

"Hope?" she called louder, but it was clear that something was off. Still, the thought of inevitably invading someone's privacy rubbed her the wrong way, particularly since Light had taught her the consequences of doing so from a young age. It had been a memorable lesson.

Why me? What if he just couldn't hear me, or he was so hoarse that I couldn't hear him answer? Ugh.

But she was already far too concerned to back down. Serah ignored the angry sister voice in her head and peered around the edge of the curtain. Surprise etched itself on her face at not immediately seeing someone in front of her, but the instant she looked down to the tiled floor, she gasped.

Hope lay curled up on his side against the left wall of the shower, head resting on his folded arm. He seemed oblivious to the hot water cascading down.

The fear that he might have fallen in the shower vanished at his relaxed posture and the slow, easy rise and fall of his ribcage. She let out a sigh of relief, acknowledging that the heat and steam had simply lulled him into an exhausted sleep. Serah quickly turned off the water and grabbed the towel, holding it over him as she knelt down to shake his shoulder.

"Hope, wake up. Can you hear me?" He stirred slightly, mumbling something in his sleep, and finally squinted up at her. His brow knit in confusion, water droplets running down the creases.

"Light?" he asked sleepily, rubbing his eyes. "Where am I? And why are you—"

As he looked at her again, eyes ever-widening in recognition of the true situation, he regained the presence of mind to sit up, snatch the towel from Serah and retreat to the corner. Had he not already been running a fever, embarrassment could have easily painted the blush across his face.

He thought I was Light?

She looked down at the tiles, away from Hope's increasingly mortified expression. "Sorry about that. Promise I didn't look. Anyway, we need to get out of here so you can get dressed and take some medicine, okay?"

Hope mumbled something in reply, but the sound of creaking door hinges made Serah jump and turn toward the entrance.

"Ha! I knew you'd be here," Maqui started in, his presence multiplying the awkwardness of the situation ten-fold. He casually strode to where Serah knelt, peering over her head to the corner of the shower. "So what happened with the kid?"

Breathing deeply to focus, she replied in a somewhat irritated voice, "He's really sick, and he passed out in the shower, so I had to wake him up."

Maqui stepped to the side, looking back and forth between them. "Fun timing," he remarked, shrugging.

"How'd you know where I was, anyway?" she asked, standing to her feet and eyeing him skeptically.

The teen smirked in a way that reminded her distinctly of Snow. "Dajh said you ran off to check on 'Hope', so I put two and two together and voila! Is his name really Hope?"

Serah's little glare was enough to shut him up, but she still heard Hope mutter under his breath, "I'm right here, you know." Choking down the urge to snicker, she stepped toward him and held out both hands to help him up, casting a sideways glance to guilt Maqui into assisting as well.

Apparently still miffed at the other boy's words, Hope refused to comply and managed to stand on his own power, but the act exhausted his limited energy, so he begrudgingly allowed them both to support him on the way to the room. As soon as they got inside, he practically collapsed on the bed, drawing his knees to his chest and shivering in the towel.

Serah placed a hand on his forehead and felt the fever burning the skin – it hadn't taken long to flare up with renewed force. She didn't bother with dressing him, but maneuvered the covers out from underneath him and buried him up to the neck in blankets instead.

Movement in the corner of her vision distracted her – Maqui had placed a small stack of clothing articles on the bed.

He added a belt to the stack and absently remarked, "It's just coveralls and an old t-shirt. I guarantee they'll be way too baggy on him, but they won't fall off at least." Stepping back to take a look at Hope, he grinned mischievously.

"And you know, Serah, next time you oughtta just take him to the girls' room. Nobody would notice."

"Maqui, that is so mean!" she exclaimed, smacking him weakly in the arm and causing the blonde to laugh boisterously at the gesture. It did make her wonder, though, and she looked at the now-clean boy she had rescued from the rain. The flush wasn't helping her case.

Guess he is a bit pretty for a boy. Must take after his mom.

Sick as he was, Hope just narrowed his eyes and glared at Maqui through his damp bangs. "Who exactly are you?" he asked roughly.

"Hey, it talked! And it is a boy," Maqui exclaimed, smirking again. "I'm just the guy that brought you clothes. Name's Maqui. Welcome to the settlement, I guess." He reached out his ungloved hand to shake, and Hope hesitated before taking it.

"Thanks," he replied tersely, glazed eyes dropping back to the covers once he had retracted his hand. "You're not too big on first impressions, huh."

Gathering the medicine she had set out, Serah turned back to see Maqui shrug off the comment. He adjusted the goggles on his head, muttering in response, "Forget it. Just another day's work for NORA. Serah calls, we answer."

Hope chuckled at that, though it came out more as a series of tiny, raking coughs. "So you are one of them. Thought you looked familiar. Snow would be more than happy to hear you say that." But he clamped his mouth shut once he had said it.

When Serah leaned closer to give him a glass of water and two of the pain pills, his gaze locked onto hers, and she saw undeniable guilt and empathy there, as clearly as if he had said the words, I know it hurts, and I never should have brought that up. The effect was unsettling, and she found herself responding with a hushed, "It's okay."

He half-smiled at the reply to his unspoken thoughts and took the medicine, and then settled back into the pillow.

Not sure what's worse – talking about the others like they're dead, or pretending they never existed at all. There's got to be a better way to deal with this.

Maqui shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "Well, yeah so…I'd better get back…busted velocycles to fix and all that. Later, Serah!" He strode across the room and was half-way out the door when he stopped in his tracks, turning to face the bed with an uncharacteristic look of determination.

"When you get over this stupid little cold, you should come help me in the shop, Hope. I'm not gonna let a perfectly good set of work clothes go to waste!"

Hope's jaw dropped open, and he stammered, "S-sure." Serah just smiled to herself.

Oh Hope, you'll learn pretty quick that insults and tasking make up the majority of his language of friendship.

"Good to hear it. I'm out then!" Maqui said, waving carelessly as he left.

Glancing across the room, Serah saw that Dajh had slumped forward on the floor where he sat, fast asleep against a large stuffed animal. She got the child to his feet with more than a little effort and dragged him over to the smaller bed on the other side of the room to tuck him in. Exhausted, she finally collapsed into the recliner and tugged off her shoes, curling up like a cat before pulling a blanket down from behind her head to wrap around herself.

"Serah," Hope said with apprehension, which was interesting to detect in the barely audible voice, "I can sleep over there – you're too tall for that recliner to be comfortable, and I don't—" Another coughing fit cut him short, reminding Serah that it was time for the liquid medicine anyway.

No. I can't deal with another person's guilt plus mine. It's too much right now. It's just too much.

She got to her feet and crossed the room in a rush, frustration causing her to make harsh, sudden movements and nearly spill the cough syrup at first, but the look on his face when she went to administer the dose dissolved everything. For what seemed like the hundredth time that day, she regretted her bitter thoughts, wishing that they lined up with her good-intentioned actions.

"Here," she said much more gently, and he took the medicine from the spoon held in front of him. But as he swallowed, she was surprised to see tears well up and spill down his cheeks, rolling silently in two uninterrupted streams.

When he spoke, his already coarse voice somehow broke further. "She's dead," he choked out, looking down at his hands. "My mom, I mean. It wasn't Snow's fault, but I blamed him, and I tried to kill him for it, and then-then he saved my life anyway," he blurted out, and Serah's eyes became impossibly larger at the sudden confession. For one, the image of the slight teen even 'attempting' to kill her giant of a fiancé seemed totally absurd.

Hope nervously met her gaze, obviously trying to gauge her reaction, but he couldn't seem to stop his mouth any more than his tears. "I'm sorry – I mean you asked about my parents before, but I didn't want to talk about it because— Look, it was a terrible mistake, and you deserve to know. What's worse is that I didn't listen when Light told me to let it go – I acted childish and stupid, and I just have to make it up to them...and to you. So please…I can't let you sleep in that tiny chair, not after you've helped me this much. I'll move over there."

Stunned, it took Serah several seconds to respond. It was hard to say whether it was the mention of that tiny piece of the dilemma Snow and her sister had been through, or the pain in Hope's apology that had left her more winded from the force of emotion hitting her in the gut.

"That's… not necessary, Hope," she stammered, hoping to avoid a further discomfort by appealing to logistics and skirting around the underlying issue. She didn't need anyone else trying to 'make things up' to her.

"I'll just sleep over here with you." She smiled at his odd expression and ruffled his hair, tacking on as she returned to the recliner, "And next time I'll make sure to keep the truth serum on a different shelf than the cough syrup."

Hope rolled his eyes at the joke, then wiped his face dry. "You really are perfect for him," he muttered. She was thankful that he hadn't pressed the issue.

"I heard that." Serah grabbed the extra blanket from the chair and walked around to the other side of the bed, lying down and making a cocoon around herself to Hope's left. "And yes," she mumbled sleepily, "I'd like to think I am."

"Serah?" he asked minutes later, bringing her back from half-sleep. She looked across to the same odd gaze he had given her before and simply responded with a soft "Hmm?"

"This is weird."

Serah snorted out a laugh. "No, silly. Weird was back when we all had to stay in tents and huddle together under a bunch of sleeping bags for warmth! And even when I was a kid I had to earn my own room. Besides, I've got my own blankie, thank you very much. What were you, a spoiled rotten only-child?"

Silence. Followed by light, cough-riddled laughter. "Forget I said anything," he said eventually. "Sweet dreams, Serah."

"You too."

She finally drifted off to sleep, wondering what on earth was going to become of their household, and how she was going to finish raising a teenager in addition to a six-year-old. Then again, her sister had done it, and without anyone's assistance. At least she had NORA, and some small part of her wanted to believe that Hope could actually be more a source of help than just another burden. For whatever reason, being needed made her feel that much more alive.

Even if Snow and Sis and Sazh all came back tomorrow, I know that nothing will ever be the same. Not now.