A/n: Hey, I'm back! I wrote this after watching the new extended trailer for Lightning Returns, so it's best you check that out before reading, and find yourself a picture of Lumina for reference. (Crazy, right?) My mind jumped all over the place as I wrote, and I'd like to clarify that this is 100% speculation on the game and its characters. There's no section for Lightning Returns, so I figured FFXIII-2 was as good a fandom as any to release this into. Also, there is a Noel/Serah bent to this piece! That's right, the Noerah still runs strong in me.

Any theories of your own? Or thoughts on this piece itself? Please leave a review or a message in my inbox! And of course, I hope you enjoy reading.

The Memory Keeper

"You miss me?"

He paused in his steps, listening for any sign of movement.

"It's not very nice to ignore a lady."

He grimaced, then straightened, deciding that being nice was not among his top priorities. He sensed the voice coming from off his right shoulder. He turned slowly.

Nothing.

He wasn't mistaken. That voice had been as clear as glass, nothing like the phantoms that haunted him in his sleep- hell, they haunted him in his waking hours too. And they were always the same: Serah's musical voice turned weak and pleading - you had to save me! Why didn't you save me?- Serah's eyes widening with golden magic before they shut forever, Serah's weight slumped against his lap. Those things he knew well.

This was something else.

"You should try a little harder to find me. I'm quite pretty, you know."

He refused to speak to something he couldn't see. He waited to turn again. The voice was bouncing all over the alleyway.

"Noel, Noel, Noel. Kreiss, Kreiss, Kreiss."

On instinct, he whipped his gaze upward.

His breath caught.

"Hm, looks like you found me," the girl said, her expression too far away to catch. She seemed to float down from her perch, coattails billowing out behind her. Her hair moved with the moonlit breeze - pink hair.

Recovering from his initial shock, he steeled himself double in this stranger's presence. "What do you want?" he asked before her boots had a chance to land on the cobblestone.

She picked up on his hastiness. "Now, that's not a polite way to greet the dead, is it?"

He barely flickered. "You're not dead."

She seemed amused at his stoicism. "Aren't I, though? And aren't you madly in love with me?" Her smile was dangerous.

"What do you want?" he asked again, not honoring her questions with replies.

"You don't care how I know your name? Where to find you? You don't even care that I'm so, so pretty?" she sung, circling him without making noise on the cobblestone.

He continued down the alley, not in the mood for games. Honestly, he hadn't been since Serah died. "No," he said, not bothering to look back, "I don't."

"What happened to you? You used to be so... energetic."

He sheathed his heavy blades and stepped forward to pick apart the carcass of the beast he'd just taken down. Maybe if he didn't reply for long enough, she'd up and leave.

A waft of perfume made its way to his nose. The same smell. "It's like you're a whole different person."

His mouth filled with so many things to say - how would you know, leave me alone, stop wearing her perfume - but he couldn't say them so he just grunted and hacked claws off of the animal.

That drew a reaction. "Ooh, that's gross. Though you do have a certain finesse that's really... kind of... hot."

His mouth twitched into a frown. He moved onto removing its horns.

She watched a while longer. When he stood up, finished, she was already gone.

He wasn't surprised to hear her a day later- it was what she said that surprised him. "Lightning's back."

She was baiting him. Telling him something too important to not reply to. But because - in the aftermath - he had lost his patience for trivial matters, had lost his layers of optimism, had lost his Serah... he would like to keep his pride at least. He went on brushing his teeth, the girl's face twisting with something mischievous and malicious in the mirror behind him.

"Hm, for some reason, I thought you'd care a little more than that," she said, smiling. Even in the starkness of his bathroom she carried a strange aura - one he couldn't place or trust. As she floated past him, he felt goosebumps rise up his arms.

He spit.

She tilted her head back as if poised to laugh. "Looks like I'll have to tell Light that you don't care," she threatened, voice still deceptively bright. "What a shame. Since you both have that oh-so-hopeless common goal."

He couldn't hide his expression with the mirror reflecting it back. His frown, his darted glance. His jaw clenching, the muscles in his neck jumping beneath his skin. He gave up his pride. "Where is she?"

The girl was positively delighted. "Why, who do you mean?"

He looked at her, straight on. "Lightning."

He caught the flash of venom in her before she became sweet, all smiles. Even then, she looked like she had a secret to keep. "Light's in the city now. She's wandering around, looking for a way to stop the end of the world."

"End of the world?" he questioned. He didn't need to explain himself. Though he didn't believe in praying for his salvation, like so many of Luxerion did, (for all that had changed, he still firmly believed in fighting until his last breath,) the end wasn't supposed to strike for quite a while. Hope's science had given them more time.

The girl twirled the end of her ponytail around her finger precisely and carelessly. He could just see the bubblegum in her mouth. She read his mind. "Oh, I know Hope predicted you'd have longer," she prattled, "but it looks like the gods have something else in mind. How else do you think I'm appearing back from my sleep?"

He ignored select parts of her sentences. "How long do we have?"

She examined her nails. "Oh, about 13 days. Funny how that's always the magic number, hm?"

13 days. His mind went wild with the possibilities. Was she lying? Was Lightning really here in the city? Was Hope aware of this?

"Name's Lumina, by the way," she drew him back to the present with an extended hand.

Mistrustful, he hesitated before shaking her hand. She was as cold as ice. Though she knew his name already, his manners took over, "Noel Kreiss."

"Oh, I know," she laughed. It was the most girlish thing he'd heard. "It's impossible to forget you."

He didn't know what to say, so he said nothing.

She reached out and cradled his cheek with her cold, cold fingers. It took a lot for him not to jerk his head away. When she spoke, it was gentle and true, "I'll see you again, Noel." And she was gone.

He turned back to the sink, tasted the mint of toothpaste on his tongue.

He wouldn't allow himself to think of Serah in the same time and space Lumina occupied. They weren't the same. Serah was... untouchable. In so many ways. This other girl - creature - was nothing in comparison. No matter what she said, no matter what she seemed to know...

He let the tears slip.

"Will you smile, please?"

He had no intention of doing so, and he let her know by continuing to not smile.

She heaved a sigh. "You just look so serious all the time. You're such a downer."

This opinion didn't matter much to him. Her opinion didn't matter much to him. He went on scanning the crowds from his high vantage point, combing the streets for Lightning.

She floated next to him effortlessly, hair and clothes whipping with the wind. "I don't remember you being so somber. You're really much better looking when you relax your face."

At this point he wasn't even hearing her, much less listening. He had just fixed his eyes on a head of pink hair, beneath which there was a cape and a bodice of black, matte metal. Definitely Lightning. He climbed back down the clock tower three-quarters of the way and jumped the rest, tucked and rolled to the ground, then broke off into a sprint. Hopefully she wouldn't change her speed or direction.

He had to talk with her. About the end of the world, about Serah. How he was sorry that things had gone so wrong, that he had failed her quest. And maybe it would help, to talk about Serah with someone else who held her so dear. Maybe it could bring him... peace? Resolution? Or at least a sense of these things.

He pushed mindlessly through the throngs of people - his arms came up to push bodies aside without a thought, his feet continued on in Lightning's direction. The moment he caught her he burst out without regard to the crowd, "Lightning!"

Lightning didn't seem to have heard him. She walked on.

Suddenly, Lumina appeared from within the crowd, right in front of Lightning. He hadn't even noticed the girl had left him. True to form, Lightning barely reacted. They only spoke a few words, but Lightning seemed to carefully consider Lumina's words before nodding and taking off. He forgot he was supposed to be tailing her until it was too late and Lumina was upon him.

"You actually speak with her?" he opened uncharacteristically.

"Of course," she said like he was an idiot, "She is my sister, after all."

He bit his tongue to stop the flurry of words. Still, his bitterness managed to show, "Does she think that?"

She turned her back to him for a moment, then turned back to face him. She answered him enigmatically, "She knows who I really am."

He narrowed his eyes. "And who is that?" He felt a prickle at the back of his neck, the kind that told him danger was on the horizon.

She gave him a dazzling smile by way of answer. And with a swish of her coat, she dove into and disappeared with the crowd.

"I am her."

He knew he wasn't dreaming when those words woke him from his sleep. The voice was undoubtedly Lumina's, and he only ever dreamed of Serah. Happy or sad, sane or mad, his dreams only ever featured one pink-haired girl.

He rolled over, and sure enough, there Lumina was, sitting in his windowsill. Moonlight poured in, casting her an ethereal blue.

He sat up. In his drowsiness, he forgot to care about being cold to her. "You're lying. There's only one Serah."

She hopped off of her perch, arms swinging at her sides in a manner eerily close to Serah's. "You're right, there's only one Serah. But me," - she looked up at him with her eyes, not quite as wise - "I'm Serah reborn."

He looked at her, hard.

Taking his silence as prompt, she continued, "Those with the Eyes of Etro are cursed to see into eternity for the rest of eternity, born over and over. But when the worlds were devoured by space-time, the curse lost its power." She did a joyless twirl in the centre of his bedroom, stirring the air with her scent. She smiled a fragile smile at him. He followed her, soaking up every word.

"Serah left just as Valhalla took over everything. And this ripple, this little imperfection, along with her curse... led to me."

There was quiet for a long time. When he spoke, he sounded newly emerged from a deep dive beneath the sea. "You have her memories."

"A glitch made possible by her dying right as Valhalla began to encroach. A glitch in the passing of soul to body."

He looked at his bedsheets, unseeing. His fingers had tangled in the wrinkles without his notice. "You can't... you can't have her soul. You're... nothing... you're nothing like her."

Her smile became an ounce rueful. "Believe what you want. Lightning knows. She knew that Serah would come back, though she wasn't sure how. She saw as far as Valhalla would let her."

"Come... back?"

Bring my sister to me. Her name is Serah. Had Lightning asked this, knowing Serah could die? Why had she asked him to deliver the bow? His mind began to twist in ways he hadn't fathomed. He had been so devastated by Serah's death that he'd never fully recovered. It had been his fault, he'd thought. His sword had stabbed Caius, Caius' heart had stopped beating, that stop had started a new future for Serah to see. What Serah saw killed her.

And he would never see anyone else but her.

So when Lumina told him, he broke.

"She knew."

He had many dreams. They were all of her. In one, Yeul joined them and they searched for a way out of a desolate reality. In another, they fought in a war of giants as partners. In another, they guarded a tower, somehow less than human. In yet another, he struggled to have her memories restored, yelling from beyond a void.

Another, his wish, was this: Serah was alive. Warm and heart beating, lying beside him. He draped his arm over her just as she nudged her way closer to him. That was it. That was all.