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Chapter Text

The hospital room was completely silent, aside from the overly-loud tick of the clock mounted on the wall and the occasional creak of springs as Fang shifted restlessly on her bed. Every time she moved, made a noise, whatever, the room temperature felt like it dropped several degrees as Lightning's frosty silence continued.

Anger curled through Fang's stomach and chest. As if she didn't have enough to bloody deal with! Her head was throbbing something nasty, she couldn't see out of her left eye, and her ribs were doing a wonderful job of reminding her of just how much her l'Cie magic had faded since the whole Ragnarok business. She didn't need Lightning's continuing stroppiness pissing her off, too.

In all fairness, it wasn't like Fang was the only one who made it out of the incident more worse for wear than not. Clicking her tongue in annoyance - and knowing the noise would serve to irritate Lightning further - she cast a sidelong look across the room. Lightning was tucked up all safe-like in the room's neighbouring bed, her leg in plaster and covered in scrapes and bandages from her close encounter with a rock face. The woman was still wearing a scowl as black as a storm cloud, same as she was the last time Fang looked over.

At least the ire was mutual for once. No matter how well they usually managed to get along, Fang was not exactly enchanted with Lightning at that moment. The hard-headed woman hadn't spoken so much as a word since they'd both woken up in the hospital following the accident, and the silence was so tense Fang could have cut it with her hunting knife.

Lightning's bad mood was just that obvious - and more than a little unfair.

It hadn't been at Fang's suggestion that they'd travelled out to Brolga's gully - that was all on Lightning and her bloody over-competitiveness.

'Over-competitiveness' is probably too kind a word a for it, Fang decided, her lip curling. After yesterday's fiasco, she'd be hard-pressed to name a poorer loser than Lightning in all of Gran Pulse and Cocoon.

She snorted to herself, crossing her arms against her tender chest stubbornly and looking back down to her scratched-up, bandaged stomach. It had been Lightning's fault things had spun so horribly out of control, and she'd be damned if she'd lie down and allow herself to take the blame.

Honestly? Injuries, anger and wounded pride aside, Fang just hoped her hoverboard was still in one piece.

The house at the edge of New Bodhum was empty when Fang arrived home. It was early afternoon, so of course Lightning wouldn't be home for several hours. The Corps usually kept her late - not that it was really Fang's business what her time-poor housemate did, but she could have used the sort of distraction Lightning usually provided. The woman was smart, challenging, and best of all, she seemed to understand just how difficult reintegrating into society was for Fang.

Who would have thought I'd ever have made nice with the vipers in the sky, Fang thought, looking back over her shoulder. Or that I'd actually end up living with one.

The crystal pillar that had stopped Cocoon from falling to Gran Pulse was visible from the beach-side township Team NORA and Lightning had established, still looking as impressive as it had the day that Fang and Vanille had created it. Unlike the pillar, the world had moved on. Difficult and distasteful as it sometimes felt, Fang knew she couldn't stand in the way of making the planet fit for humans again. She definitely did not have to enjoy them doing it, though.

Feeling dispirited, Fang dumped off the pelts from her day's hunt onto her makeshift workbench outside, a little too emotionally drained to summon the energy required to treat and prepare them properly.

The sparsely-decorated home she shared with Lightning was certainly different from how things had been done back in Oerba. Everything had been fairly communal there – everyone lived everywhere, and everyone had been family. That was not the case with the people of Cocoon, what with their private houses and breaking-and-entering laws. Of course, there were some exceptions to the rule – Snow and Serah's house seemed fairly open to all of the extended Team NORA members in the settlement. Even so, after waking up it had been a struggle to adapt to a very different society than what she'd grown up with.

That had been when Lightning had decided to show a little mercy. She'd stepped in, offering Fang and Vanille a place to stay while they found their feet. In the small house, built some distance from the main NORA buildings and set against the beach side cliffs, it had been... easier. For a while, Fang hadn't needed to deal with the remnants of PSICOM and the Corps sticking their noses into her business. All she'd needed to do was hunt, relax, and just recover from her latest stint as a crystal.

Vanille had ended up recovering and moving out a lot faster than Fang had – though, she'd always been quicker to adapt. Sazh had offered her a place closer to the towns cropping up by the pillar, and she'd jumped at the chance to put her knowledge of Pulsian herbal lore to good use. Even a year after the Fall, the people of Cocoon still needed all the help they could get in simply surviving the daily challenges that Gran Pulse threw at them.

Fang, on the other hand, had opted to stay on with Lightning. Despite her housemate's somewhat prickly temperament, she was actually a lot of fun to live with, and it hadn't ended up being so difficult to give Vanille the space she'd needed. Things had gone from camaraderie through to genuine friendship, and from that...

Well, Fang certainly could say she enjoyed the way Lightning challenged her and pushed her to adapt. The fact that Lightning could also be drawn and baited had been a bonus. Before Fang had known what she was doing, a steady push and pull dynamic had developed between them, and surprising as it had been, she wouldn't have given it up for the world.

Most of the time, anyway, Fang amended silently, flopping down onto the worn out old couch that Lightning had salvaged from the original Bodhum. Sometimes, I don't want her to challenge me, I want her to-

She frowned, staring up at the ceiling a moment before slowly raising an eyebrow. That note had not been taped up there that morning, Fang was certain of it. That meant Lightning had come home at some point that day, probably between her scheduled patrols of New Bodhum and the surrounding areas. It didn't escape her notice that Lightning apparently knew enough about Fang's post-hunt habits to put the note just there, and she sat up on the couch.

Lightning's bold, somewhat messy handwriting stood out against the off-white paper, and Fang felt her mouth curl into a smirk as she read.

"Meet me at Brolga's gully, fourteen hundred sharp. You know why."

Oh, Fang definitely knew why, though she was a little surprised that Lightning had taken time off work just to challenge her yet again. Checking her watch, she bit out a curse. Ten minutes was not enough time to make it all the way out to the gully, no matter how she disregarded the speed limits the Corps had tried to impose on the airspace.

Lightning would just have to wait, then. Given the way the delay would get under her skin, Fang rather thought that was a good thing.

Her bad mood somewhat forgotten, she went to her room and hastily began to prepare.

The invention of pro hoverboarding was one of the few things – aside from a handful of select people – that Fang unreservedly loved about Cocoon. She'd always loved the thrill of a difficult battle, the way her stomach dropped when she looked out over the world from the top of a cliff or mountain, and more recently, the wind rushing in ears as she rode on Bahamut's back as a l'Cie. Before she discovered that hoverboarding was a real sport, she could have been fairly labelled an adrenaline junkie.

Hoverboarding was something that Cocoon folk had invented, probably to save themselves from growing too bored while the fal'Cie looked after their every whim. Whatever the reason was, it was definitely the most dangerous thing from Cocoon that Fang had come across to date – and that was probably why she loved it so much.

It had come to her attention one boring afternoon, maybe a month after she and Vanille had hauled their arses out of crystal stasis. She'd been lounging on the couch, flicking through stock reruns on the television and trying to entertain herself. Vanille was outside, tending to the white Oerban flowers she'd taken from their old town. In a rare afternoon of leave, Lightning was messing about on the kitchen table, her gunblade dissembled as she attempted to clean and maintain the delicate internal machinery.

On a whim, Fang had paused her relentless channel surfing. She'd watched for a bit, her eyebrows climbing steadily higher as the competitors pulled off a slew of complicated, gravity-defying moves that seemed very much at odds with her own assessment of 'soft-bellied Cocoon vipers'. A few times, she'd been sure one of the boarders would screw up and end as strawberry jam on the course, but somehow they always seemed to turn it around and do something amazing. She'd watched, completely transfixed, for around ten minutes.

When Fang had finally gathered her wits together enough to ask Lightning what the hell the sport was, the woman had frowned over at the television, waved a hand, and replied,

"Pro hoverboarding. Was popular before, but these days everyone has better things to do with their time." Lightning shrugged, turning her attention back to her weapon maintenance. "It's lost a lot of traction, and I'd say that the equipment is pretty hard to come by now. Expensive, too."

Given that Fang didn't even have two gil to rub together, that last part was a little disheartening, but she'd gone back to watching the competition with avid interest. In the week following, she'd made watching the reruns a regular part of her day, much to Vanille's despair and Lightning's obvious amusement.

In the end, the idea of getting her own hoverboard and attempting all of those complicated trick moves was what finally pushed Fang into attempting to reintegrate with the rest of the world. If she wanted the gear, then she needed gil, and if she wanted gil...

Well, she had to work for it.

It had taken Fang several months to gather up the gil Snow had estimated that she'd need, and another month of trawling scavenge and salvage markets for her to find anyone with functional boards. It had been something to shoot for. She'd have made a fairly lousy hunter if a bit of required patience was enough to throw her off her game.

Eventually, Fang had purchased a somewhat-scuffed up but functional board. It was the basic item, sure, but that was all she needed. Her first stop, down in New Bodhum proper, was to talk with the tech-obsessed kid on Team NORA. Maqui had given it a once over, decreed it 'mostly safe', agreed to teach her how to maintain it, and hell, he'd offered to show her how to upgrade it, too. Feeling better than she had in weeks and unable to quit grinning, Fang had arrived back at Lightning's place with her hoverboard under her arm.

Fang's enthusiasm hadn't died in the slightest in the hours it took for Lightning to return home, and she'd jumped to her feet as soon as she'd heard the jangle of keys at the door.

"So that's what prompted all the sudden interest in the markets. I shouldn't be so surprised," Lightning had commented, eying off the board, and Fang had offered her a smile.

"Of course, now we've got to get you one, too." Fang had waved a hand airily, not minding in the slightest that Lightning was rolling her eyes. "I mean, trick moves are one thing, but trick moves with a race..."

"Don't get ahead of yourself." Lightning smirked, resting a hand on her hip as she'd shot Fang a sideways look. "I might take you up on it, and I'd really hate to crush your confidence too badly on your first challenge."

That had been a clear line in the sand, so Fang wasn't all that shocked when Lightning showed up one afternoon with one of her own. Without so much as a word of greeting, she'd thrown some sort of synthetic jacket at Fang's face. By reflex alone, Fang had caught it, raising an eyebrow as she'd lifted it up to examine. An atrocious mix of black and yellow and clearly second-hand, it was very reminiscent of the protective gear that the pro hoverboarders wore in all of the competitions.

Fang looked back to Lightning, her question obvious.

"Figured you'd need it, if you're really serious about a race," Lightning said, her own jacket tossed over her shoulder. She crossed her arms, her face expressionless, but Fang was able to read the smile in her eyes. "Consider it a gesture of goodwill, for when I beat your ass so hard you go running back to Vanille."

Fang just grinned. "You're on, Farron. I'm going to enjoy the look on your face when I leave you in the dust."

As it turned out, Lightning had been completely full of shit. Fang had won the first of their impromptu races, and to the woman's obvious growing irritation, every challenge since.

When Fang finally made it Brolga's gully, Lightning was waiting for her, leaning against the Corps issued velocycle she used for her patrols. To anyone who didn't know Lightning as well as Fang did, she might have looked completely relaxed, almost like she was parked up top of the steep gully for the breathtaking view alone. To Fang's eyes, the set of Lightning's shoulders looked a little stiff, and there was a neutrality to her expression that seemed forced.

Being kept waiting was not something Lightning appreciated, but Fang doubted that was what was the only thing bothering her.

Lightning didn't really care about pro hoverboarding, not the way Fang did. She was, however, an incredibly sore loser about it, and that had resulted in challenge after fruitless challenge as she tried to put a victory to her name. Anyone else would have told the woman "enough is enough" three races ago, but...

Lightning was different.

As Fang neared Lightning's position, her hoverboard slung on straps over her shoulder, she allowed herself to flick a quick gaze up and down the woman's body. The protective jacket and reinforced trousers Lightning wore were sleek, black and form-fitting, and it all rather neatly accentuated her every physical asset. In all honesty, it was a big reason as why Fang had come to love Lightning's repeated challenges – in addition to royally walloping her arse, Fang got to see her all decked out in that.

Fang couldn't be blamed for the sudden prickle of heat in her stomach as Lightning looked up at her – she was only human.

No, her feelings toward her housemate had ceased being platonic at around the same point the hoverboard challenges had started, and that outfit was half the reason why.

"You finally made it," Lightning called out with a scoff, unfolding her arms and pushing herself up from the velocycle. She continued to feign languidness, as if she didn't know that Fang could read her like an open book. "Thought you'd chickened out."

"And lose another chance to throw you over my knee and give you the right spanking you seem to crave?" Fang tilted her head, flashing the woman a knowing smirk as she began to undo the straps securing her hoverboard. Needling Lightning over her stunning streak of losses was all a part of the game, and something Fang particularly excelled at.

Lightning didn't look amused at the comment, but then again, she never did lately. With a quiet huff, the woman turned to her velocycle's storage compartment, drawing out her own hoverboard and helmet.

The headgear wasn't something Fang had gotten around to purchasing, not on her meagre income. The only protective gear she had was the over-sized, black and yellow jacket Lightning had given to her at the start, and frankly, that was all she'd needed to put Lightning to shame. She did trade her sari and sandals for jeans and boots, mostly at Lightning's continuing insistence that she dress appropriately.

"We'll see," Lightning said, nodding to the steep and quickly-darkening gully stretching out before them. Brolga's gully was one of the gnarliest 'tracks' Fang and Lightning had found on Gran Pulse. Deep, branching and packed with jagged rocks and sharp turns, it was an effort just to make it out the other end in one piece. Trick moves were essentially a no-go, not unless either of them wanted to splatter on a particularly unforgiving rock wall.

"Usual rules," Lightning continued after a moment, firing up the crystal engine that powered the board's antigravity function. She tossed it down, where it rested, a good hand-span and a half above the ground. "Keep the comm I gave you in your ear, just in case you bite off more than you can chew."

Fang tapped the side of her head, indicating that she was already wearing it. "Same goes for you. Let me know if I need to come save your arse. It's okay to be a damsel sometimes, Light."

Those blue eyes narrowed just a fraction as they flickered towards Fang, the only visible sign of Lightning's skyrocketing irritation.

"I'm just saying," Fang protested, giving in to her urge to grin like a maniac. She looked back down to Brolga's gully, her excitement growing exponentially. This was the part she loved the most – the trash-talk with Lightning and the feeling of balancing on the precipice of an adrenaline rush like no other.

"Look." Fang looked back to Lightning and hit the switch on her own board. "Since this will be – what – the sixth time in a row that I trounce you, how about we make it interesting?"

She wondered briefly if Lightning would let her get away with asking for a date. She doubted it.

"Don't assume you're going to win," Lightning scoffed, though her jaw had jutted stubbornly at the barb. Fang cuffed her on the shoulder affectionately – the woman's insistence on believing they were equals in this was cute, if incredibly misguided.

"Well, whatever you reckon, Light." Fang zipped up her synthetic jacket – it'd do her no good if she let it hang open during the ride. "I'll just let history speak for itself."

Lightning shot her a dark look as she pulled her black, sleek helmet over her head. Fang just rolled her eyes – she could hardly be blamed for being honest about the state of affairs. As Lightning moved into position at the gully's lip, Fang took a moment to admire the curve of her behind. Again, she wondered what fal'Cie she had to thank for the creation of those incredibly flattering pants.

Hooking her own foot into the hold, Fang floated her way over to the edge. The steep incline wasn't quite a vertical drop, but when you were rushing down it at breakneck speed, it was just semantics. A thrill ran down her spine, and she switched her comm link on.

"You ready?" Fang asked. She tapped the comm link to check it, and was satisfied when the feedback made Lightning twitch.

"Born that way." Lightning's voice came from within Fang's own earpiece, her tone cool and clipped. She wished she could see the woman's expression, but the smooth, tinted synthetic material of her helmet betrayed nothing.

But damn, Fang loved it when Lightning got smart with her. She snapped on the goggles she'd borrowed from Maqui, giving the other woman a quick thumbs up to show she was ready.

"On three." The woman held up three gloved fingers, just in case Fang had spontaneously gone deaf and missed what she'd said. "One... Two... Three!"

Fang pushed off just as Lightning finished, her blood pounding in her ears as she crested the edge of the gully. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Lightning streaking for the narrow gully, boosters already firing and taking her out over the edge. She'd opted for a more sedate start herself, too aware that time in the air was the same as time lost. She quickly began to pick up speed as she began the gut-dropping decent to the stark, rocky valley floor, and she let out a whoop as she began the race in earnest.

Lightning immediately took the lead, boosters still activated as she tried to make the most of her momentum. Fang allowed it to happen, her plan of attack already mapped out in her head. She was more than happy to allow Lightning a little false confidence – it'd make Fang's own victory all the sweeter.

Narrowing her eyes, Fang dropped back even further, ensuring that for now, she travelled through the shadowy valley alone. She threaded a careful path through a cluster of sharp rocks that she knew like the back of her hand, steadily gaining momentum. Up ahead, she spied one of her usual shortcuts, and she let herself smile. Firing up her own boosters, she crested up the steep incline of the gully's wall and into one of the diverging paths the valley was so full of.

With another loud whoop, Fang burst back into the main valley in a showy trick move that was sure to impress her rival. She flipped over into Lightning's line of vision, several yards ahead, and she grinned as she heard the woman bite out an expletive at her sudden reappearance. Fang looked over her shoulder at Lightning for half a moment, already feeling confident that the race was in the bag.

"Fang-" Lightning started, suddenly sounding alarmed.

"Shit," Fang hissed under her breath as she turned, a dark outcropping of rock looming dangerously in the shadows and right in her path. Without stopping to think, Fang stretched out her hand and let off a burst of weak aero magic, just enough to help shove her out of the collision path with the rocks.

She missed catching herself on the jagged edges by less than a hand span. Her knees felt like they were shaking from the closeness of that call, and she could feel the wind rushing over her skin and chilling the prickle of sweat she'd broken into. Etro, while Fang loved a bit of risk, that was shaving it too close for comfort.

"Fang." Lightning drew level with her then, a streamlined, black shadow against the red and brown rock of the valley. Her tone was deceptively mild as she sharply weaved through a series of boulders. "How often have you been using magic?"

Fang shot her a sidelong look, noting Lightning's barely concealed anger. It'd be no good to lie to her though.

"Sometimes," Fang ground out, banking sharply and only barely avoiding a dense patch of scrub that loomed out from the darkness. They were going Etro only knows how fast down a valley filled with sharp rocks and narrow gaps - it was not the time to be having an in-depth discussion.

"'Sometimes'?" Lightning repeated, her voice dropping several degrees and growing chilly. "What about the rules?"

"What about them, Light?" Fang asked, genuinely perplexed and growing more irritated with the distraction by the second.

"Fang."

"I don't think you've ever bothered to specify what your precious 'rules' are, so kindly go and get stuffed, Farron." Of course, Fang hadn't exactly gone out of her way to get them clarified, but then again she'd figured using magic to save her neck wouldn't have been a bloody cardinal sin.

"You mean you've been using magic this entire lot of challenges?" Lightning finally demanded over the comm in Fang's ear.

Fang's own anger flared. She couldn’t believe it. She could have smashed her head open or broken every bone in her body, and Lightning more worried about the fact she'd used a little magic to save her skin?

There was a long, tense silence as both Fang and Lightning banked up on either side of the steep gully walls, the only way to negotiate that particularly nasty section of the valley's floor. They both swung back down to continue their race on comparatively flatter ground, and Fang already knew that her friend wasn't done with the topic.

It was no good talking reason to Lightning when she was like this though – she'd already made up her mind.

"If you're going to use magic, then I am too. Fair and fair about." Immediately, red magic flared in Lightning's palms, and Fang had just enough time to register that it was a spell before the woman exploded into the distance at an incredible speed.

A Haste? You have got to be kidding me, Fang snarled silently, staring after her. "Lightning! Lightning, come on, do you have to be such a bloody jerk about this?"

Lightning didn't answer, apparently too pissed with Fang to listen – or to consider playing fair. The feeling was definitely mutual.

"Fine. Just remember, I'm still going to kick your arse."

Fang wasn't sure how she was actually going to pull off that miracle, only that she had to. A haste spell was a declaration of war. No matter how unfair it was, Fang wasn't about to lose out to Lightning, not over something so stupid.

Her mind raced as she tried to think of a way to even the odds, ducking as she zoomed under a section of low-hanging rock. She'd never bothered to learn Haste – back during the Focus, enhancements had never really been her role to play. That said, she had more than a few tricks of her own.

Ahead of her, Fang knew that the gully diverged into a series of narrow pathways. They were all around the same length, and in Fang's opinion, were the slowest-going part of the whole area. Slowing down was a necessity and a Haste spell would only lose Lightning more time than it saved. It was a bottleneck, simple as that, and if she was able to bypass that section entirely, it would be Fang's last chance to catch up before they converged a bit before the finish line.

To her left, another outcropping loomed in the shadows, but her keen eyes picked out a trail leading up the side of the gully wall. It was probably a chocobo migration trail – the details didn't matter, but if she could get up the top of the valley, she'd have a flat, direct path to the finish line.

She made her choice in an instant, and she pivoted sharply to use the chocobo trail as a ramp up. The pathway petered out not far from the lip of the gully, and not to be deterred, Fang quickly summoned a burst of Aerora magic beneath her hoverboard. Propelled up by the powerful gust of air, she cleared the top and immediately activated the boosters fixed to the back of the board. She streaked across the open, dusty plains above the valley, the wind whipping her hair back from her face and howling in her ears as her whole body centred in on her goal.

At breakneck speed, Fang headed for the edge of the cliff where she estimated all the narrow pathways converged once more. Adrenaline rushing in her veins and her stomach plummeting, Fang didn't hesitate as she launched herself out over the edge of the cliff and down into the gully once more. Below her, she could see the dark shadow that was Lightning, and it seemed as though she hadn't reapplied her Haste spell. Good.

Fang landed several yards ahead of her, and while it was a little rough, she was happy.

"Thought you could get away with that?" Fang asked with a forced grin, glancing to the side as Lightning drew level with her again. The other woman didn't answer, simply throwing a tiny Ruin spell at the next patch of jagged rocks. The spell exploded in silver light, clearing Lightning's own path and forcing Fang to turn sharply to avoid the flying bits of rock.

"We're going to have a serious talk about this," Lightning finally bit out, as Fang hit the accelerator and deliberately cut her off.

"No bloody kidding." Fang looked over her shoulder for just a moment, her eyes narrowed as her anger rose up. Yeah, she'd be more than happy to give the woman a few choice words about sportsmanship -

"Fang," Lightning said, her voice suddenly a little breathless over the comm. "Fang, watch where you -"

Fang had woken up in the hospital at the pillar's base, her vision fuzzy, her head wrapped in bandages, her ribs busted, and covered in more scuffs and scratches than she could count. Her stitches pulled every time she took a breath, and she was certain that if she wasn't doped up on pain medication, her whole body would be on fire.

Lightning had been out a lot longer than Fang had, and seemed to have been hurt a lot worse, which had been a worry. That had been before Fang had remembered that she had a very good reason to remain angry with the woman, and had quietly started to stew on it.

Fang's memory of the accident was jumbled and only barely there – a lovely side effect of having slammed head-first into the side of the gully. She wasn't actually sure how Lightning had gotten hurt, but if that woman hadn't been taking the competition like a petulant little brat, it would never have happened at all.

What else can you expect of a viper? Fang asked herself as she stared at her bandaged forearms, doing everything in her power not to just snap and start giving Lightning a real piece of her mind.

Fortunately for the tattered and abused remains of their friendship, Fang was given a much-needed distraction as visiting hours rolled around. Right on cue, a soft knock came on their door, and both she and Lightning looked up as Vanille, Snow and Serah filed in. Of course, Serah made a beeline for Lightning's bed, and was already exclaiming over all the injuries before the door clicked shut. Fang had rolled her eyes at Vanille, half tempted to tell Serah exactly what had happened that had put them in such a dangerous position in the first place.

She kept her silence, eyeing Lightning's side of the room angrily.

Vanille took the seat at Fang's bedside, patting her bruised shoulder diplomatically for a moment before offering the bouquet of white Oerban flowers she'd bought.

"How are you feeling?" Vanille asked quietly, as Fang accepted the flowers.

"Sore. Etro only knows how long I'm going to be out of action for, but I'm more angry at her than anything else." Fang's voice was taut, and she shot another dark look over Vanille's shoulder. After a few moments, she looked back down at the flowers, not really sure what she was meant to do with them. She'd never really been in this sort of position before – the medic bays in Oerba had been very different from a Cocoon-style hospital.

Vanille took her meaning, and smoothly rose to her feet to grab the empty vase sitting on Fang's beside table and fill it with water.

"What are you so angry about?" Vanille ventured when she returned from the room's sink, gently prying the delicate stems from Fang's too-tight hold on them and carefully propping them up in the vase. "What happened?"

"She threw a fit over losing, took it far too seriously, and we wound up crashing." Fang's jaw set stubbornly. "I can't believe her! It's been pissing her off that I'm just better than her at hoverboarding, and now she's done this. Just tell me that someone grabbed my board from the gully."

Vanille's expression flickered, becoming a little worried – and more than a little guilty looking. Fang swallowed, suddenly tense. That expression never boded well.

"Fang, the thing is -" Vanille started, but Fang cut her off with a sharp wave of her hand.

"Please. Vanille. Just tell me you got it." She tried not to let her desperation leak into her voice, and she was only partially successful. That board was her pride and joy. It was the first thing - other than her lance - that had really been hers. Was it still down there, rusting in the wild? From Vanille's ill expression, it was a lot worse than that.

"Fang, the board was wrecked. Maqui took a look at it and-"

"You've gotta be kidding me." Fang felt as though she'd been sucker punched. Wrecked? She stared at her hands, still reeling from Vanille's words, almost unable to believe it. She'd put so much time and effort into that board, and it was gone just like that?

That was the final straw.

Slowly and painfully, Fang pushed herself up from her hospital bed, gritting her teeth and fighting through the fresh wave of agony from her ribs and head. Staring around the room desperately, Fang finally came to rest on the fresh vase of flowers. She grabbed hold of it without further thought, carefully removing the contents, before slowly and painstakingly staggering over to Lightning's side of the room.

"Fang?" Vanille asked, her voice small. Fang ignored her, completely focused on where Lightning silently watched her approach with flat, dispassionate eyes.

Nobody moved a muscle to help, but none of them seemed to have the courage to try to stop her, either. Fang met Lightning's blue eyes very deliberately, and she slowly tipped the vase's water over her fair hair.

Chapter Text

All things considered, Lightning was lucky to have gotten out of the hospital when she did.  A dislocated shoulder, a broken leg that had required surgery...the various bumps and scrapes that were still healing over the rest of her body were minor by comparison.  She should be glad to be home and away from all of the nurses and doctors hovering over her.  She knew that.

But though the five days spent in the recovery ward had been taxing, she was beginning to find that “home” had become its own personal kind of hell.

To think that only a scant two weeks prior she had actually been contemplating how much she liked her roommate, and how she might, surprisingly, like to be more than just friends if the opportunity were to arise.

The thought was sneeringly laughable now.

Lightning’s leg was in a thick cast, with titanium pins and screws keeping her shin together.  Meanwhile Fang was suffering from a concussion, three broken ribs, various stitches, and a rather spectacular black eye...and it was all Lightning could do to keep herself from sending the woman right back to the emergency room with another, new injury.

It was probably better that she was on crutches for the moment.  It at least significantly increased Fang’s current survival rating, though the woman had been doing her best to steadily drop that number.

Both of them were too injured to do anything physical, which had resulted in a continuous battle employing passive aggressive, backstabbing and otherwise below the belt jabs.  The war thus far had been without respite, and Lightning’s hands burned in an uncomfortable reminder of the latest standoff between her and Fang.

Her palms and armpits alike were red and inflamed from the unfamiliar usage of the crutches, and when she had taken to wrapping hand towels around the grips of the crutches to ease the pressure, she had found barely a day later that the entire household supply of hand towels went missing. Apparently, Fang decided to oh-so-charitably do a laundry run of every last piece of linen in the house, with all of the hand towels returning horribly mangled and half-destroyed from a “dryer incident”.

In retaliation, Lightning had made sure to “accidentally” throw away Fang’s entire bottle of prescription painkillers.  The woman could suffer through her broken ribs until they healed themselves, and considering the vase of water incident at the hospital...as far as Lightning was concerned, she still owed Fang quite a bit more than just some lost pills.

There would be time enough to even the score, though Lightning had yet to think of what else she wanted to do besides punch her housemate repeatedly.  Once she got off these thrice-damned crutches...

The air hissed between her teeth, and she she breathed in deeply, focusing on the task at hand, a call with her supervising captain in the Corps.  This would be the first call with her superior officer since the accident, and she prayed to any gods above or below that he would not inquire too much about what happened.  She checked her time, then dialed into the central comm. device that she had laid out on the table.  There was only a momentary ring before her captain picked up, and within a minute he was all business, laying out over speakerphone what his plans for Lightning were while she was off active duty.

They were only part way through the call when Fang sauntered into the room.

She watched as her housemate looked at her, looked down toward the comm. device through which the captain was speaking, and then promptly turned on the television.  Lightning glared as Fang proceeded to turn up the volume on the entertainment center until it was nearly blasting her eardrums.

The look of silent venom that she shot at Fang was predictably of no effect, and Lightning savagely stuck in her earpiece and microphone, already apologizing to the captain for the background noise as she grabbed her crutches and hopped out of the kitchen to finish her call.

Her raw hands itched against the starchy fabric of the ruined hand towels as she crutched, and she stormily thought of just how much she would like to give Fang a second, matching shiner.

Serah flipped through her keychain until she found the right key for Lightning and Fang’s apartment door.  Normally if the two were home, she stuck with having the decorum to ring the doorbell—it just seemed politer than barging in.  However, considering the state that both her sister and Fang were currently in, common sense dictated that it would be better to make use of the spare set of keys that Lightning had long ago bequeathed to her rather than making either injured woman crawl to the front door.

As she slid the key into the lock, she turned around to call out to her fiancé.

“You have everything, right, Snow?”

He grinned from around the stack of food containers that he had loaded into his arms. “No way would I forget any of your delicious cooking.  I for one intend on having some of everything.”

Serah scolded him with a smile as she unlocked and opened the front door. “This is for Lightning and Fang, remember?  I want to make sure they have some easy leftovers.”

It was the least that she could do.  She knew her sister, and she knew that Lightning was far too obstinate and proud to ever ask for help, even when she was stuck at home nursing an injury that would have left almost anyone else nearly bedridden.

Serah did hope that dinner—casual though it was—would go smoothly.

Before she had to leave town again, Vanille had helped Lightning and Fang get settled back in from the hospital. The report she had left for Serah had been grim, to say the least.

When Snow had asked how things were between the two housemates, Fang’s sister had shaken her head, her face morose, and had told them only one word: bad.

It was not a hopeful message, and Serah knew how stubborn her sister could be.  Sometimes, all it needed was a bit of time.  Surely, surely, things couldn’t be anywhere near as bad as what they had been during the hospital visit?

“Serah!  Snow!”

They were heralded in and toward the dining table as both Fang and Lightning greeted them, Fang coming from her room while Lightning remained sedentary on the couch.

“Smells amazing!” said Fang, as Serah organized the containers on the table, swatting away the offered help, while Snow went to grab utensils from the kitchen

Lightning did a one-legged hop to get from the couch toward the table where Serah and Fang were, disdaining the use her crutches.

“Lightning,” scolded Serah. “You’re not supposed to do that!  Please tell me you’ve been using your crutches the rest of the time like you’re supposed to?”

Her injured sister opened her mouth, and was cut off by Fang, who snorted. “Huh.  And since when does Lightning Farron ever listen to anyone’s advice, even when it’s for her own good?”

Serah watched as her sister’s face turned a peculiar shade of pink and then red, and as her eyebrows steadily lowered into an icy glower that threatened to bring an early winter on them all.

“Ah...” Serah stuttered over her words, uncertain of what to say.  Clearly, she should have trusted in Vanille’s opinion.

Things were still very, very bad.

Thankfully, she was saved by Snow as he walked back in from the kitchen, a stack full of plates and utensils with him and a large and generous smile on his face, oblivious to what had just been said.

“Alright!” he said, already eyeing the table. “Let’s eat!”

If there was one thing that everyone seemed to be in mutual agreement of, it was dinner, and the first few minutes were punctuated only by the sound of content chewing and swallowing.

Snow decided to cautiously break it.

“So how’s your head doing, Fang?  Feeling better?”

Fang waved away the concern and rapped her knuckles to the side of her skull. “The noggin is fine.  Docs were overreacting, or just didn’t get the diagnosis down right.  But it was no concussion.”

“Yes, she must have fainted instead,” commented Lightning easily, reaching across the table to grab the container of stir-fried vegetables and blatantly ignoring the way Fang’s fork clattered loudly against her plate while she glowered darkly.

Serah glanced back and forth between her sister and the woman that was supposed to be her sister’s closest confidant.  Obviously, this was going to be a long dinner.

The remainder of the meal was a tenuous balance of small talk, with Serah and Snow both trying to divert all of the passive aggressive attacks that the two housemates would periodically direct at one another.

It was hard not to breathe a sigh of relief when Lightning finally excused herself to the restroom and Fang left to go lounge in front of the television.

Only once she was left with her fiancé in the kitchen did Serah finally voiced her disbelief.

“I can’t believe the two of them!” she exclaimed.

Really, she knew how childish Lightning could be from time to time, but this seemed over the top.  And with Fang of all people?  The woman that Serah and Snow had both secretly agreed on as having the best chance of becoming something more to Lightning than a platonic friend?  

“Yeah,” Snow chuckled. “Not the best dinner company I’ve ever had, but, what are you going to about it?”

“More than just sit around!”

She couldn’t speak for Fang, and she had no idea what had actually happened leading up their hoverboarding accident in Brolga’s gully. Frankly, at this point she no longer cared.  It was time for Lightning to stop acting like a child and handle the situation like the adult she was supposed to be.

“Serah, what are you doing?” asked Snow urgently, grabbing her sleeve to pull her back as she began to march out of the kitchen.

Serah rounded on her husband-to-be, bewildered as to why he was stopping her.

“What do you think I’m going to do?  I’m going to go haul my sister down for a talk by her ear, if necessary, and tell her to stop acting like a...like a...” There really won’t any words to accurately describe just how ridiculously petty and juvenile her sister was being.

Snow shook his head in response. “I’d let it go, Serah.”

“What?  But...”

She was just supposed to walk out and not say a thing?

“Nah,” repeated Snow, and Serah was surprised to see the beginnings of a knowing smile tug his lips upward. “Let Lightning—and Fang—be.  Trust me on this one.  They’re like two little kids on the playground; they don’t get that the other one is pulling their hair because she likes her.  Just give them time.  They’ll work it back out.”

Or kill each other with their sheer stupidity and stubbornness.

Serah sighed and conceded, recognizing the truth in what Snow was saying.  Besides, she reflected as they ultimately took their leave from the bickering women, it’s much easier not getting dragged into the middle of this particular tussle.

Lightning sighed and leaned her head back.

Baths were normally a relaxing past time, but this was anything but.  Until her hard cast was removed, she had to be water-wary with her foot, and that meant no showers.  So instead she was stuck taking yet another bath, her broken leg sprawled uncomfortably atop the the edge of the tub, wrapped with a plastic trash bag just for the extra security and protection.

Her hand idly tapped against the cast, steadfastly ignoring the growing itch of the trapped skin beneath it. Her leg wouldn’t be back up to full strength for some time, and she cursed under her breath.  It was a frightening reminder of how fragile and mortal the former l’Cie still were. 

Lightning closed her eyes and let the air escape from her lungs in a loud whoosh, and she allowed herself a moment to recall how everything for her had turned south so quickly.

They had almost gotten through the entire gully, with Fang a bare few meters ahead of her.  It had been the time for all or nothing when Fang had turned around to glare back at her, and had turned her back on the rock field that lay dead ahead.  It was the last stretch before the gully ended in a long plateau of flat plain, mired with fragmented boulders from landslides and littered with scree.

Lightning had tried to call out and warn her, but they were moving too fast.  Fang had a bare second to turn around, and then bank a hard left in order to avoid a smattering of sharp, stalagmite-like debris. 

Lightning moved on instinct, kicking her safety lock and launching free from her board to dive toward Fang as the other woman’s board still clipped a boulder and sent her spiralling directly toward the wall of the ravine.  What happened next surely occurred over only a few brief seconds, but Lightning could recall it as if time had slowed to a standstill.

There had been a series of several cracks in quick succession, each equally chilling for their own reasons.  The first had been as Fang, despite Lightning’s efforts, had smacked her head at an awkward angle against the side of the gully.  The sound had been sickeningly terrible, and made her stomach drop even as it happened and Fang began to crumple.

Lightning had reached her at that moment, and instinctively dove under her friend to cradle her while she tried to control their now collective and careening crash course through a minefield of rock formations.

Fang’s hoverboard was still attached to her feet, and Lightning had a moment of clarifying dread to realize it needed to come off before it snagged against one of the larger and quickly approaching rocky outcroppings in the gully that they were sliding toward.  She had thrown a Ruin spell ahead of them to widen the gap, while at the same time stomping her foot against the hoverboard where the safety catch was.

The second crack had been as Fang’s board snapped and broke clean in half, stuck in the boulders not a second too soon, once Lightning was finally able to hit the catch and kick it free from Fang’s legs.  That was when the third crack happened, as they were finally about hit the open land beyond the rock field.

As her leg had kicked back Fang’s board, it caught on one of the more prominent and jagged rocky outcroppings that they were tumbling through.  There was not even a second to even think or readjust—they were moving too fast, and Lightning had been focused on trying to shield Fang.  In the blink of an eye, a resounding snap had reverberated through her entire body, instantaneously followed by a pain so intense and knife-sharp that she nearly blacked out despite the flood of adrenaline in her system.

Somehow, she had kept her arms tight around Fang, and they had slid for another thirty meters until they stopped, Lightning’s synthetics now in tattered threads from the friction of dirt and rock.

Lightning had been forced to push a barely conscious and severely concussed Fang to the side, and then nearly fainted herself when she saw the shard of white bone poking midway up through her shin.  Even now, the memory of open fracture made her head swirl.  Lightning knew just how hard it was to break a healthy tibia, and she silently thanked Etro that it hadn’t been worse. 

At the time, though, years of training had taken over then as she'd crawled to check on Fang and called in a hele-vac rescue. It wasn’t even until she had woken up out of surgery in the same recovery room with Fang that the cold and seething anger took hold again.

They could have died!  And really, it was only because of Lightning that they came out in casts and stitches instead of body bags.

Here she was, in a heavy cast, out of normal patrol work for at least the next month, and the icing on top of the entire proverbial cake was that the very woman she had stuck her neck out to save was being the most ungrateful, ingratiating, and all-around puerile person to deal with.

Not even a “thank you”, Lightning internally railed.  Never had she been so upset for so long, not even at Snow.   

But despite her earlier resolve, she found herself now having second thoughts about just how long she wanted to continue this unnamed household war of attrition.

After dinner, Lightning had already been digging in, mentally preparing herself for the expected talking to from Serah, a talking to that never came.  Serah and Snow had finished cleaning up, and then taken their leave.

Nothing had been said, but then Serah hadn’t needed to.

Lightning could read the reproach and disappointment in Serah’s eyes as easily as if it had been shouted; but for all that Lightning had thought herself set, the silent criticism was more cutting to her now than what any lecture could have been.

She knew how childish she and Fang were both being—both being painfully stubborn in refusing to give ground, both waiting for the other to bend and break before them.  She knew how much simmering and petulant anger was being harbored between the two of them.  She knew how resentful and incensed she personally was by the accident and the less than ideal results.

And she knew without even having to ask just how upset Fang was over her wrecked hoverboard.  Lightning knew, perhaps better than anyone else, just how much time and effort Fang had put into recovering and maintaining it.  For Lightning, hoverboarding was just an extra side activity, something she had only really picked up because of Fang.  It had taken money and time, but she’d willingly given over every bit of gil and every extra minute all because she had seen how happy Fang was when she was on a board...and she had seen how much pleasure Fang had taken when Lightning joined in.

That...that was what all of this was originally for.

It wasn’t for Lightning, it wasn’t to get away from work or even just to help out with a newfound hobby; it was to see Fang happy, and there had been no smiles on either of their faces for quite some time.

She was still angry, and oh, there was always the momentary satisfaction and having gotten the upper hand in their vicious and quiet war. Yet at the end of the day, she realized now more than ever, it left her feeling more than a bit shallow and lonely.

As much as Lightning detested admitting defeat in any form, she knew that enough was also enough.

She heaved one last sigh and then began to push herself up and out of the bathtub. 

Why do I have to be the adult?

It was time to have a talk.

Fang was in her bedroom, the door closed.  It was a rarity for her to do so, but since they had returned home from their hospital stay, it had become the usual, yet another silent declaration of the quiet conflict between the two of them.

Lightning stood outside of that door for a very long minute, resting on her crutches and weighing her options for the hundredth time in her head.  Even after all of the internal debate earlier, she did not want to be the first to bow her head.  But if it would ease the tension and maybe get Fang to—

The door suddenly opened, and Lightning rocked back on her crutches in surprise.  Fang stood in front of, looking equally thrown off for a moment before she expertly schooled her features into a mask of vague irritation.

“Yes?”

Right.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

There was a long pause.

“Can we not do this in the hallway?” asked Lightning finally, when the other woman showed no sign of saying anything further.

Fang shrugged rudely, and then turned back and walked into her room. The silence as much as an invitation as Lightning supposed she would get to enter.  She slowly limped in after, stopping in the middle of the carpet across from where Fang now stood.

“Well?” asked Fang, her voice already dismissive and disinterested.

“I...that is, what I guess I wanted to say...”

“Are you going to say something or stand here wasting my time, Lightning?”

Lightning flashed a glare, and had to count silently as she pressed back the bubblings of anger in her chest. 

“Will you let me speak?” she snapped.  Then she inhaled deeply, trying to tighten the leash on her temper and rapidly failing.

An open-palmed gesture was her cue to continue as Fang finally shut her mouth for a few seconds, and Lightning fumbled to find her words again.

“Look...I just came here to say...I know we haven’t really talked about the accident, and your board getting all smashed up...” Dammit, why was it so hard to get her words out properly? “But I feel badly about that, even though it was a stupid mistake...”

“Mistake?” asked Fang, quirking her head and looking for confirmation.

“Yes,” clarified Lightning, though why Fang was confused was beyond her. “You remember, when you turned around instead of watching the course.  I know we were in the heat of the moment, but that’s why you’re supposed to—”

“Wait,” interrupted Fang again, her voice rising. “My mistake?  You mean to say the accident is my fault, as opposed to yours, Miss ‘I-can’t-ever-admit-someone’s-better-than-me’?”

“I was hardly the one breaking the rules on the course,” Lightning retorted hotly. “Or turning around instead of looking at the rocks I might plough right into!”

The short laugh that Fang let out was ripe with indignation and mockery. “Oh yeah, cause trying to save my face from splattering along the gully is definitely cheating!”

Lightning hissed in a breath, now just supremely incensed with the woman standing in front of her.  She vented out loud, more to herself than to anyone else. “I hardly even know why I thought trying to come here and apologize would be a good idea!”

“Apologize?  Apologize?  Well, yeah, Light, I do think you owe me an apology.  This is probably the worst that I’ve ever received, but really that shouldn’t surprise me.”

The gall of her!

“Well at least I’m trying to apologize,” countered Lightning, leaning forward. “Unlike someone.”

Fang threw her hands out, as if flabbergasted by the insinuation. “Me?!  What the hell do I have to apologize over?  ‘Sorry for being too good at hoverboarding and making your throw a temper tantrum that sends us both to the hospital’?  Okay, yeah, then sorry.”

“And just how do you think I snapped my leg and tore my gear to shreds?” snarled Lightning.  Typical.  She had come here in good will to try and make even, and Fang had to go and dig her heels in and turn cheek. “It was trying to save your ass from dumping head first in between some boulders!”

“You’re telling me that I should consider myself lucky to have a few broken ribs and banged up head because you supposedly saved my arse from worse?” Fang unfolded her arms as she scoffed in fury. “Some rescue job that was!  And after the petty squabbling you’ve shown in the gully and since then, why on Gran Pulse should I believe that you of all people would have stuck your neck out in place of mine?”

Fang was shouting, pointing accusingly with one finger at Lightning, and she snapped back the first thing that came to the forefront of her mind.  For all that she was known for her temper, it was rare for her to yell.  However, she did so now, all patience in the matter completely used.

“Because despite how damn ingrateful, frustrating, and utterly moronic you are, I like you, Etro knows why!”

Her words were left ringing in the air.  Whatever retort Fang was already preparing to say clearly died on her lips. Her eyes, which had been narrowed in anger had now widened with surprise, and she'd relaxed into a more puzzled and thoughtful stance, the prior furor now dissipating under somewhat else.

However, Lightning couldn’t bring herself to feel the least bit apprehensive or concerned.  Anger had long since burned away those unwieldy and worrisome emotions, and even now as Fang stared at her she was just plain mad, at the end of both her wits and her patience with the woman she’d been harboring a crush on for too long.

She cursed the damnable crutches again, keeping her from crossing her own arms and enhancing her dark glare.

When the silence stretched on, she finally ended it.  Choosing to come here and try to talk had been a mistake.

“...whatever..” Lightning grumbled under her breath, and began turning around to haul her way back toward her own room.

“Light!  Wait!  Let’s talk.”

She whipped her head around. “I thought we were done with that.”

Lightning was nearly back at the door when Fang spoke again.

“Will you just sit down and let me talk to you?  Please?”

It was the genuinely pleading tone in Fang’s voice that gave her pause.  She huffed, and then hobbled back to sit down on the edge of Fang’s bed as grudgingly as she could manage, though she was glad to push aside the crutches if only because it finally let her cross her arms and fix her glare properly.

Fang sat down next to her, the side of the mattress dipping slightly under their combined weight.

Lightning was steadfastly looking ahead, her lips pursed, but in her peripheral vision she saw Fang’s hand rest next to her thigh as the woman began talking again.

“So...I almost ended up spread all over the rock field, huh?”

The question was casual and testing, with none of the accusatory or defensive undertones that had characterized their earlier attempt to “talk”.

Lightning gave a clipped nod.

“And you got your hospital souvenirs from grabbing me back from that.”

Lightning gave a second, less clipped, nod of affirmation.

Fang let out a deep sigh next to her and ran her fingers through her hair, shaking her head all the while.

“We’re both right idiots, aren’t we?”

Lightning was silent in response, still gritting her teeth as periodic waves of frustration pulled at her.  She knew Fang was trying, but it was hard for her to smother her temper once it had been roused, particularly when Fang was the one who had been tempting it.

But at the same time, Lightning felt like it was starting to become a fight just to maintain her indignation in the face of Fang’s clear relaxation from their earlier tussle.

Why was she always so damn responsive to the woman’s moods?

“Why are you grinning so much?” asked Lightning, still suspicious once she turned and met an earnest gaze.

Fang chuckled at this, and Lightning felt the heavy mood that had weighed on her since the accident finally start to break apart, and her anger went with it.  It was the first time she seen Fang look excited since, well, before the hoverboarding incident.

“Because, Lightning, it’s hysterically ludicrous when you take a step back. To think that it only took a potentially lethal accident and over a week of passive aggressively trying to drive each other mad that finally led to a first kiss.  I guess that’s how you show your affection, huh?”

“Wait...what?”

Fang shook her head, her grin morphing into more of a gentle smile. “You’ll have time to laugh and appreciate it later.”

Lightning felt a hand cup the back of her head to angle it upward, and then lips were gently brushing against hers.  Her eyes were wide at first, taken aback by the sudden change of tides, but then she found herself leaning into the kiss, taking everything that Fang was offering up to her, and offering back just as much.  Before she even realized it, she had unfolded her arms and was reaching back around the beautiful woman that was pressed close to her, kissing her back.  Fang’s lips were as soft and wonderful as what she had always thought they would be, even if this particular lead-up scenario had never run through her head.

When the kiss finally ended and they both slowly pulled back, Lightning tried—and failed horribly—to reinstate her glare.  She settled with twisting her lips and furrowing her eyebrows. “You realize I’m still upset with you.”

“Very much so,” said Fang, seeming not the least bit phased.

“I’ve got titanium screws in my leg right now thanks to you.”

She got a nod in response. “And I’ve got a total of twenty-three stitches sewn in various places across me, so let’s say we call it even for now, okay?”

She leaned in a second time, and Lightning obliged by meeting her halfway.  She kissed Fang in soft and unhurried increments, starting well on the way to mending what unseen wounds they had steadily inflicted on each other for the past week.

Then Lightning let her head dip to rest gently against Fang’s shoulder, just enjoying having the woman back at her side and close to her.  She closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of Fang’s shampoo, feeling the stray locks of dark hair tickle against her face.

“Fang,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.  For everything.”

She felt Fang shift, felt lips first press to the crown of her head in quiet acknowledgment before pulling back so that they could kiss her directly. “It’s okay, Light.  I forgive you.”

Then she stood, giving Lightning a guileless grin that was incredibly suspect.

Wait!  Where was her apology?

“Fang?”

“...yes, very glad we got that out of the way.  As I said, completely forgiven.  I’m okay with being the bigger person here.”

“Fang...” Lightning let her voice drop into a low and warning reproach.  The woman steadfastly ignored her, though, opting instead to stretch as casually and gingerly as someone with broken ribs could.

Lightning scowled and reached out to grab Fang by her nightshirt, but the woman stepped away expertly, leaving Lightning to snatch at empty air as she traipsed away and out of the bedroom, taking off down the hallway.

“Fang!” yelled Lightning after her. “I swear, Etro help you when I get my hands on you...”

Fang’s lilting voice traveled back to her with hints of laughter beneath it. “Gotta catch me first!  And you better believe I’m going to make the most of outrunning you while I still can!”

Lightning rolled her eyes and grabbed for her crutches, not bothering to fight back the smile on her lips this time.  Even with the crutches and her foot in the boot, she was still more than confident that she could catch up.