Epilogue: 700 AF

Noel Kriess couldn't help wandering about in New Academia in awe. The city was massive, and the technology amazing, but since he had grown up in a small village on Pulse and not on Bhunivelze like most people these days it would seem fascinating to him.

He was eighteen, fresh out of school, and ready to go out and be on his own in the world. He had came to New Academia because he read everything there was out there on the history of it. As he continued to wander through the streets, he eventually came to a square in the vast city. In the center, there were large dark gray stone statues on a circular marble platform. Like the other people in the area, Noel stopped to take a look at them, smiling when he recognized them all.

There was Hope Estheim, once a young director of The Academy, and the one that worked feverishly to create and raise Bhunivelze into the sky. It had originally just been a safety measure in case the crystal pillar would one day become unstable and cause Cocoon to come crashing down on Pulse. Back in the day, most people thought it was pointless, why would the pillar suddenly crumble? The Academy had gone through the project anyway, slowly developing it over the centuries, then finally completing it in 500AF right before Cocoon really did fall.

He always thought it was a little sad that the man had never been able to see the results of the project he began, but as he looked up at the statue of him portrayed in his twenties in full Academy uniform, he was glad that Hope was being honored in a way.

Smiling at it, he looked to the left of Hope's statue, to see his wife standing beside him. Lightning had supposedly been her name, but Noel had also read that it hadn't been the name she had been born to. What her birth name had been was long lost now, for only a few people had known it. Looking at her statue, and back to Hope, he couldn't actually picture them together, even though they were calmly holding hands.

In all the things he had read Lightning had been a strong, and often cold warrior. Hope had been kind and sensitive. How had they made it work? He was also so much younger than her too...

Their relationship had apparently been private. Other than having raising a son and daughter, not much else was known. Lightning did seem like a private person so he supposed it did make sense that history hadn't recorded much, but a soldier with a scientist? Her statue even had her in her Guardian Corps uniform, and a cold firm look on her face. Definitely the look the solider.

Shrugging and moving on, he slowly walked around the platform taking a look at the other statues. There was Sazh Katzroy, Oerba Dia Vanille, and Oerba Yun Fang. He hadn't done as much reading on those three as he had the others. Sazh had continued his career as an airship pilot and raising his son Dajh, with Vanille and Fang's crystals had been safely pulled out the crystal pillar right before it collapsed, and they had awoken shortly afterwords. Both of them had gone back to live on Pulse after that, but like Lightning and Hope's private life, not much was known about them otherwise.

Then there were the last two: Snow Villiers and his wife Serah, who had also been Lightning's little sister. They were both smiling happily, Snow with his arm around his wife while she gently rested her head on his shoulder. They had both lived normal happy lives as well, Serah as a school teacher, and Snow...Well he hadn't cared enough about Snow to read about him at all. He wasn't really sure why, there was just something about him that he didn't like.

Snow and Serah had been a happy couple. Married until their old age finally came and took them, but before then they had a big happy family. Two twin girls if he recalled correctly, as well as two sons and another daughter through out their early years.

These had all been the people that had saved Cocoon not only once, but thanks to Hope twice. "The Six and the One" they had been called, a bunch of unexpected and unlikely heroes in history. They all deserved to be remembered and honored with these statues of them.

However Noel was interested in them for an entirely different reason: His dreams. Ever since he was a child, he had usual and unexplainable surrounding four of the heroes, but mainly Serah. They were always blurry, like fogged up memories of the past. Him meeting Lightning in a shining silver suit of armor in a strange and deserted city, him saving Serah from some monsters in the small fresh village of New Bodhum, the two of them embarking on a strange and mystical journey, and encountering Hope, Snow and Lightning a few times along the way.

He had never told anyone about his dreams, and even to him they didn't make any sense. They had started long before he learned anything about them, that's why he became so interested in them all in the first place. All the reading and research he did over the years didn't give him any answers or clues at all...

He sighed to himself as he continued to look at Serah's statue. In his dreams, as well as all the old pictures he had seen of her in books he always thought she was beautiful. She came across as sweet and caring, the girl that everyone wanted to be friends with or date. Sometimes he felt pretty stupid, having a little crush on a woman that was long gone, but in his dreams it was like they knew each other, like they had been friends...

"They're beautiful aren't they?" someone next to him commented, making him flinch.

He turned to the voice, and saw a young couple standing beside him. The woman had her long brown hair in a twisted braid, with a faded light pink ribbon in her hair matching her light pink dress under her short sleeved red jacket. The man next to her had spiky raven black hair, that went well with his outfit consisting of the same color.

"They are," he answered with a smile.

The woman smiled back at him, then lifted the little brown basket in her hand.

"Would you like one?" she said, showing him her basket of flowers. "They're only a Gil."

"Sure," he said, seeing the flowers reminding him of his home on Pulse.

He dug around in his pockets for some loose change, then handed her a Gil before she kindly handed him one of her white dandelions.

"Thank you," she said, her smile beaming at him for a moment before she turned back to her boyfriend and put her arm around his.

He nodded and watched them both silently walk away. They too, had looked and sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn't recall seeing them in any of his dreams. He sighed again, then glanced back up at the statues one last time before walking away himself. They were just dreams after all, he wasn't going to let them bother him the rest of his life.

"It really did end well for everyone," Aerith said to Zack as they walked away from Noel.

He wasn't the Noel they had known, but at the same time he was. Same face, same voice, same name, but a different past, and different memories. However, they were both certain they had the same soul, that it hadn't disappeared into nothingness or the lifestream. Noel had been reborn into another, happier life. It was the same time, but a different future, one that he unknowingly made possible.

"It did," he agreed with her, kissing her on the cheek as they began to fade back into Pulse's lifestream.

As promised, they had both watched over everyone and kept out for any sign of trouble. None came, and they were all able to live out the rest of their lives in peace and happiness.

Zack had also come to realize that even though he and Aerith hadn't been able to live out their lives like everyone else, it too had ended well for them. Their love had followed them to their afterlife, and remained strong through out the centuries. They would always have each other, no matter what.

It truly was a happy ending for everyone.

~FIN~

Author's Notes

I meant to put this up over the weekend but I forgot _ Anyway, so there, nice happy wrapped up ending (How it should have stayed in the first place -_-). So that's the end of this fic, NO SEQUELS BUT I have both planned and started a couple more VII and XIII/XIII-2 crossovers (most of them in the VII verse) that aren't related to this one or each other. When I have time I'm also going to replay Crisis Core so I can get my inspiration for more just VII stuff too.

So that's that, PLEASE comment and tell me what you thought overall now. Loved it? Hated it? Could've been better? Want to see more crossovers? XD