Dont picture me broken

[Oerba Yun Fang [The Desperado]]

Synopsis: Their final night; they fought through thirteen days of hell, only to come to this single moment, she couldn't fight it anymore.

It was their last night, that final night before they entered Orphan's cradle before they would complete their focus. Everyone was on edge, even the normally happy go lucky Vanille's bright mood have been sobered and washed out with a shade of gray. This was where the band of l'Cie knew they would go separate ways, knew they would probably never hear from each other again. And they all seemed to deal with it differently. Snow, he sat in his corner in the camp looking into Serah's tear as if it would give him the answer to prevent them from separating after this night. His normally bright eyes had darkened even in the light of the fire and a frown seemed to only sober everyone more.

Hope had taken to sitting with Vanille, the two kids looking up at the sky hoping that there was a way to maybe reverse it all, go back in time and bring everyone together in a different light. They had such naïve dreams, but they were kids, they needed to dream if only for a little while. Vanille herself was one of the few that weren't scared of showing her emotions that night, she sat beside Hope and silently let a few tears fall, Fang was right. The girl had a rough life, her first family ripped away in the war, her second disappearing in the sands of time and now this one was about to be sundered into pieces once again.

Sazh sat by the fire, stoking it every once in a while, his chocobo nuzzling against the elder man's face in a show of support. Even the chocobo knew that something that wasn't good would be happening soon, and so it offered any kind of support it could to the man as he sat there, neutral that night as if all the sarcastic energy he normally would have was sapped out of him. Fang, she was a different story, since they had made camp she had been gone, Lightning could hear her, hear her fighting and training, as if her stupid actions would help them any. But she could hear the masses of enemies fall in the huntress' wake. It was different as one last clang of metal against metal rang through loud and clear and then things went eerily silent.

Lightning dealt with this night as she had dealt with loss before. She retreated into her shell, built her walls back up and became the soldier she had been before. Her steps were even, as she rounded a corner to see Fang sitting there in a circle of fallen beasts, and other enemies. Fang was just sitting there now, as if she was finally sapped of her frustrated rage and could only now calm herself. But Fang was different in many ways that night. She didn't even acknowledge Lightning as she approached, she didn't acknowledge it when Light sat herself beside her in this single cavernous room. An unfortunate enemy had decided to wander into the room and Lightning silenced it before Fang could even react. A single gunshot from her weapon was all it took.

Fang finally looked at the soldier, the green eyes so different from what the soldier knew to be Fang. Gone was the playful light that Lightning knew so well, gone was any sort of happy emotions. They had been replaced with a burning determination, a burning desire to complete this focus that the l'Cie gang had been tasked with. Fang, she was self sacrificing, and that in itself was half of her drive. Lightning remembered in a brief talk while she was on Gran Pulse that the Pulsian regretted so many things in her past. Fang had become a l'Cie to give Vanille the life she had deserved, to give her sister the things she should have had, but instead never got. It was that regret that drove her to make sure that this time, this time Fang would make sure that her new family had the lives they deserved to live, a life away from crystallization for eternity.

As they sat in that silence Light couldn't help but reach for her friend, a friend she had known for less than two weeks but trusted more than anyone else in this entire gang. She reached for Fang and let the huntress rest her head on her shoulder. It was a rare moment of mutual understanding between Lightning and Fang that was taking place.

"T-There's gotta be somethin' I gotta tell you… gotta be somethin' I could say t'ya.."

The accented voice rang throughout the cavernous room, Lightning regarded the words silently, it seemed Fang was at a loss of what to tell the soldier, it seemed that she longed to say something but had no way of expressing it. The soldier reached an arm around Fang and chuckled, a soft bitter chuckle. She half held the huntress in her version of a sort of wordless support, a silent message that she knew what Fang felt and felt it as well. And it was then as if hit by an epiphany that Fang stood up, pulling the soldier with her. It was there in that cavernous room surrounded by the corpses of enemies and creatures Fang had slain that the huntress embraced the soldier.

"Sunshine, If'n I don' wake up t'morrow like you guys wil-" Fang was cut off abruptly.

"Don't you dare say that. You will wake up tomorrow just like the rest of us." It seemed Lightning's words went ignored and disregarded as Fang continued.

"..like you guys will, I want ya t'remember me the way I was here, remember me as Oerba Yun Fang, that woman from the world below.. I ain't standin' here before ya all glitzed up and glamoured in gold like y'know I would normally be, this is me just in color, takin' away th' damned façade I keep for Vanille's sake. Remember me here, Sunshine, nowhere else."

Lightning looked at Fang, she was dressed in the shadows of the room, wearing them like some elegant midnight ball gown. Lightning was illuminated by the few rays of moonlight filtering in from the worn ceiling above them. They were so starkly different; day and night. And yet, Lightning could never appreciate her friend more than she did right now.

"Yeah Fang, I will." She nodded and nudged the huntress. "We all need rest, come on, lets head back."

Fang nodded, that burning determination to protect those six people never leaving her. And they were the first two people to smile that night.