A/N: Moving forward, I might adjust the rating to an M. Not for anything particularly big, but there will be instances of language and content that might raise eyebrows. I wanted to give a heads up for anyone who's filters are set for T and below. The story didn't vanish, it just became an M

Chapter 6: Point of Snow Return

Following the whims of a Goddess would leave the ordinary person a little petulant. Lightning took all orders without question. Even if she wasn't technically receiving any orders I could decode. We'd gone from the Yaschas Massif to a location that clearly wasn't Valhalla. The blizzard was a dead giveaway.

"We taking a short cut?" I asked, trying to keep my teeth from chattering.

"Perhaps bringing you was the problem. I'd made a specific request for my destination."

"Which you didn't do last time when you dropkicked me into the last time zone."

Flecks of ice crystalized on her eyelashes when she blinked at me. "Those were different circumstances. I was under the impression I was to bring you there. But given the Director's presence, I couldn't exactly abandon you."

Snowflakes swirled angrily around us, obscuring anything more than a couple of meters away.

"What is all of this?"

"Blizzard. We need to get the hell out of here," I said, taking her hand and trudging toward the nearest shadow.

Thankfully it was the entrance to a set of ruins. There were no dips in the snow suggesting footprints. If anyone other than us was out here, they'd hid from the storm elsewhere. Lighting my hand with a fire spell, I released Lightning to look around. No wood, just stones and the occasional rat scuttling by.

"Is snow always this cold?" she asked, rubbing her arms vigorously. "I mean, I've been hit with a blizzaga before, but it wasn't anything like this."

"Of course it wasn't. That was instantaneous and the atmosphere was warm. A cold climate is completely different. Winter on Pulse can get pretty dicey. That being said, it's my favorite season."

I kicked a couple of rocks out of the way and gestured for her to sit down. At my fiancé's insistence, I'd always kept a certain item in one of my many pockets. Next time I saw her, I'd have to praise her for her forethought. I pulled out my packable, feather blanket and began unfurling it.

After I'd draped it over Lightning, I began unbuttoning and removing my shirt.

"What do you think you're doing? Just because I've never seen a blizzard before, doesn't mean you can take advantage of the situation. None of that 'sharing body heat' bullshit," she said, tucking the blanket just below her nose.

"Do you want to freeze to death or not?" I said, ripping off my shirt. "I can heat my skin. Your metal breastplate is actually ideal because I can conduct through it." I touched my warmed hand to her forehead before trying to lift at the blanket. "So you gonna let me in?"

"How do you do that?" she asked, allowing me near and wrapping her arms around my back.

"It's a weird, lazy, half-assed magic. I've tried to teach Claire a thousand times, but she can't do it." I laughed and watched my breath mix with hers. "You seem to see things in such a binary way, I doubt I could teach you either."

She huffed, but did not seem bothered enough to scoot away from me.

"You talk of her, as if she and I are entirely different people. At our core, we are the same, especially our memories."

"To a point yes, but at the point where our lives branch, I share memories with her that would be foreign to you. Not only in context, but in concept."

She frowned, and her arms slid to my waist. Her armor was no longer giving me goosebumps. With her temperature rising, so did her usual grouchiness.

"For example. This blanket was a birthday gift from her."

"She gave you a blanket? How practical."

"And utterly uncreative, as I had given her one the year before."

Then she cocked her head, formulating something in her mind. "You exchange gifts every year?"

"Yes. Why wouldn't we?"

"I only ever exchanged gifts with Serah. I never really had anyone that…" her voice petered out.

She made an effort of squirming in the blanket until I was holding her from behind. Unwilling to leave still, she situated herself between my knees and leaned back against my chest. I hadn't meant to upset her. It was hard to picture a Lightning who remained guarded. We'd been so close since we'd met; I hadn't realized that she would have dissolved back without me. I pressed my cheek to hers.

"Curious about what we gave each other? Though I doubt the Director would've given you similar gifts."

"Fine," she mumbled.

"When I turned fifteen, she gave me a book about weapon customization. Utterly boring, but I consult it to this day. So I guess it turned out useful. For her twenty-second birthday, I'd been nervous about what she might like. I knew she loved weapons and steak. So I bought her a kitchen knife."

She rolled her neck to look back at me. "That's awfully specific."

"Trust me, they get more so." I found myself blushing, but I doubted she could tell in the dim light cast by the storm. "For my sixteenth, she gave me a new boomerang."

"Do I only give you weapons and survival equipment?"

There it was. If I doubted she could see my blush, I was mistaken. Because I could see hers, and it had nothing to do with the heat I was providing.

"For her twenty-third I gave her a new navel ring," I thumbed the indentation of her armor.

She shifted in my arms so that she was sitting perpendicular to me, her knees touching mine, her shoulder to my chest.

"For her twenty-fourth," I said, touching my earlobe. "I gave her this set of earrings."

"Then why are you wearing it? Did you give her something else too?" Her hand snuck out from the blanket. She rubbed her finger in circles round the jewelry.

Of course I'd given her so much more, or I'd tried too. I'd wanted to give her everything I had to give. And she'd almost taken it. Lightning's hand stilled and her eyes locked on mine.

"For my eighteenth, she gave me one of the earrings back. And this." I held my necklace above the blanket. "A promise that we would be together again. Circumstances ripped us apart the very next damn day. So on her twenty-fifth, I sent her a blanket. Which seems ridiculous, but it was something we'd talked about. I'd sent it half-jokingly." I smiled and was relieved to find the blanket retaining heat.

"Is this the only thing I gave you for your nineteenth?"

I chose not to answer her. That gift, and the days leading up to it, I'd keep to myself.

The day of our engagement had been wonderfully chaotic. I wouldn't have wished for it to have gone differently. By noon, Serah, Snow, and baby Elyse had arrived at the house. While Claire had consulted Serah on how to go about asking for my hand, she hadn't seen her in person since before the events of Vanille's rescue. Snow and Serah hadn't been idiots; they'd known I would accept the proposal.

We'd all celebrated, but that had left Claire and me in a bit of a bind. She'd been welcome and expected to share my room. But that night, Elyse had kept waking up Snow and Serah. Claire and I hadn't even got beyond the point of kissing before the adjacent room had come alive with parents dealing with a fussy baby.

I'd loved my family, but I'd begun to think there was a ploy to never let me fully indulge in my fiancé. She'd only been given a couple days of vacation before she'd had to return to base. The Villiers had actually stayed longer than she had.

All had not been lost. That would be the last time she'd have to live on the other side of Pulse. She'd been officially transferred to the Capital and would be moving in with my father and me. During the three weeks of her final stay, the Estheim house had been in a great upheaval. My father and I had switched bedrooms so that Claire and I could share the master. A great many days had been spent decluttering junk we hadn't even known we'd accumulated. My father had seemed just as eager about her joining our family.

When it had been finally time for her return, she'd gone straight to New Bodhum. My father and I'd let her spend a few days reacquainting herself with her friends before we'd joined her. We'd actually arrived on my birthday. The morning had been spent celebrating. Then, my father had insisted that he'd spend the night with the Villiers. He'd functioned as a grandfather to Elyse, and they'd grown to love him as much as Claire had.

As she and I'd woven our way back down the streets to her house, it had been setting in. This had been the first time we'd been truly alone in almost a year. I'd picked her up and raced past her home and down to the beach. We'd tumbled into the sand, and I'd gazed at her.

"Gods, I've missed you," I'd said before kissing her.

"It's only been a few weeks," she'd said, rubbing her hand where my shirt met my waistband. "And pretty soon you're going to see me every day. You better not get sick of me."

"How could I get sick of you?" I'd slipped her shirt over her head. "Or this?"

"If any of my neighbors come out, they're going to see us."

Her plea had been fully ignored as I'd yanked off my t-shirt. The sand beneath us had been warmer than where the skin of our stomachs had met. She'd been wearing a bathing suit underneath, so I hadn't seen the big deal.

"They won't be for much longer," my thumb had hooked on her shorts.

"Stop playing around, Hope." She'd sat up. "Can't you take one thing in your life seriously?"

I'd sat up and looked at her confused. Hadn't she wanted this as badly as me?

"A train? The beach? We…are going to get married. It's me and it's you. 'Til death do us part." She rested both of her hands on my lap. "I want to do this with you. I've never wanted it from someone else." She'd leant forward until her head was touching my chest. "This carries a lot more risk for me than you. What if I get pregnant? What if you decide that you don't want me after all?"

I wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head.

"Light, I could never want anyone but you. That's what me saying 'yes' meant. That I will only ever love you. And sure, I don't think knocking you up right now would be the greatest idea. But if it happens, it happens. We'll love our kids whether it's nine months or nine years from now. I told you, didn't I? We can take things at whatever pace you want."

"Then give me this. Give me a chance to feel safe."

She'd taken my hand in hers and led me up her back porch. We'd walked straight into her bedroom where we'd silently peeled off each other's clothes. I'd whispered reminders of my love until my mouth had focused on parts of her I'd touched but never tasted. We'd reached a point of fatigue that I'd only known in war times.

Lightning was still waiting for some sort of elaboration. She knew, just like she always had, when I got lost in thought.

"For my nineteenth birthday," I said, looking at her, "she gave me her trust." I poked her forehead. "Which I haven't earned from you yet."

Lightning and Claire were different. As easy as it was to be here, holding her in my arms, it would never be the same. She would never love me. Not like Claire did.


The night passed and the storm came to a peaceful end. The roar of the wind had put me to sleep. Nothing had chosen to eat us in the meanwhile, so I didn't see the issue. Lightning felt differently and had skulked off to find something for breakfast.

Her adventuring had only lasted about twenty minutes. It turned out that we were on the far edges of a settlement. The snow had completely blacked out the scenery during the night. The ruins were within a mesa forming the western boundary of a behemoth farm. The beasts plodded through the snow like lazy cattle. All of their anger had been bred out of them. One even snuffled a chocobo. The bird was fitted with a saddle, but its rider was busy tending to his herd.

"Pardon me, Sir. You wouldn't happen to know where we are, would you?" I asked, waving my hand to get his attention.

Lightning mouthed, 'pardon me?' at me like it were the strangest thing I'd ever said.

"Howdy," the man said, trudging through the knee deep muck toward us.

The sun was surprisingly hot for winter. The ambient air wasn't freezing my exposed skin like before. Actually, entire patches of earth were visible past the fences to our East. There was no sign of the storm on the bushes that clung to the eroding cliff faces.

"Rotten luck, huh? The weather machine has been acting up again. Maintaining it is a crapshoot. Sometimes it'll work flawlessly for decades. And then for no reason it'll breakdown for months on end. I never know if it's gonna snow or rain. At least the crops are keeping green." He patted the chocobo, which had followed him.

"But where are we?" Lightning pushed.

"The Steppe?" The man seemed confused by her question. If only he knew that we really wanted to know when not where.

She crossed her arms and drummed her fingers. "Does Academia ring any bells?"

"You are hands-down the strangest travelers I've met."

Academia didn't ring any bells for me. Did that have something to do with the Academy? The slush was wicking its way up my pants. I'd used up a great deal of magic keeping us warm last night. Drying my pants while knee deep in wetness would be a futile effort. Didn't stop me from being cold, though. I was ready to get a move on.

"Course I know Academia. My niece lives there, wanted to get out of the country. Big city doesn't have anything on this life though." He clapped on the chocobo's haunches. "Nothing like living off the land."

"Well?" Metal clinked as she adjusted her stance.

"About an hour by airship, but we don't have any shipments planned for another month. But if you follow that road," he said, pointing to a dirt path in the distance, "It's half a day's ride. I can rent you Puffs here if you want. My cousin runs a rental service, he'll take care of him 'til my uncle is ready to come back from his visit."

"How many people do you know?" I asked, stunned as the man began listing off further relations. I was beginning to think everyone fled to Academia just to get away from him.

"Thanks, but we have our own means of transport," she said, cutting him off and bolting off across the Steppe.


Another A/N: I know I said I'd try to finish this before the end of the year. That's still the goal. But I also don't want to post something half-assed. Once again, I gotta give credit to yinuj, who has graciously read my disjointed draft ahead to the end. His input has been invaluable.