[Lightning Returns] Family (4420 words)

[shamera]

Title: Family
Fandom: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Character/Pairing(s): Sazh and EVERYONE ELSE (not as a pairing)
Rating: PG
Warning: None whatsoever unless you can't daddy!Sazh
Summary: Five soul fragments, one coffer, and a multitude of kids to take care of means Sazh has a very large family to look after his son.

"You won’t need to move." Hope assured Sazh quietly, sitting knee to knee with the older man even as he tried desperately to come up with an adequate solution. "There’s an Academy research facility not far from here, and they’ll get you whatever you need. You can stay right here for as long as you need… as long as it takes to help Dajh get better."

Sazh didn’t respond, as immersed in his grief as he was, but there was the slightest nod of his head in response to the words. Hope’s eyes darted to where the little boy was lying on the makeshift bed; pale and silent, completely unnatural from the child he had grown to know after the fall of Cocoon. It was unfair to Sazh, he knew, that the father kept getting his son taken away by fate. Once by fal’Cie, second by time, and now… They didn’t know what the cause was. Only that the child lay comatose and there was no explanation.

"We’re not going to give up." Hope continued, voice low with determination. "We’ll get everyone to help. You’re not going to lose him, Sazh."

The older man shook his head as if attempting to shake off his stupor, but never raised his eyes from his son. “He’s just… too small for this. Why does this always fall upon him, huh? What’s he done wrong? He’s just a little boy…”

Hope reached out slowly to place a comforting hand on the man’s shoulder, and then tensed briefly as Sazh gave a full-body sigh and then slung an arm around his shoulders to pull him into an embrace, clearing remembering a time when Hope was still small enough his head wouldn’t have hit anyone’s chin and when he constantly needed comfort and reassurance.

It was okay, Hope thought even as he patted Sazh on the back awkwardly, now tall enough that his chin was actually resting on the man’s shoulder. Sazh was a father first and foremost, and if it made him feel better…

"What’s a man to do if he can’t keep his kid safe?” Sazh drawled out. Hope stayed silent, knowing that this was a conversation he couldn’t contribute in. The older man would have to find that strength and answer within himself without anyone’s help. And true to form, the pilot gave a heavy sigh before letting go of Hope. “I won’t give up. Not till Dajh wakes up. Not till he grows up with all those good memories a boy should have. Hell, not even then."

Yes. A father first and foremost. Hope smiled.

"We’ll all help. No one's giving up."

—

Hundreds of years later and still no one had the slightest clue as to why Dajh continued to sleep on. Hope disappeared, communications faltered between areas of Nova Chrysalia, and Sazh looked on as the weight of despair and disappointment and grief grew. The more residents of the Research Camp came to reassure him or to check on the monitoring equipment that had been set up for Dajh, the more Sazh gnashed his teeth and shifted from optimistic to angry.

Hundreds of years later and then one day a little girl with pink hair looking disturbingly like a younger version of another girl he used to know (and wasn’t that a real fix. He had never known Serah as well as he would have liked, but the amount of stories Snow liked to regale about his gal meant Sazh had never been able to forget her: her kindness and her bravery and eventually her death atop his ship) came to sit with him.

She offered him a box — “a coffer”, she said — looked more like a treasure chest most little kids would keep their knickknacks in.

She told him what no one else had been able to discover: that Dajh’s soul was in pieces all over Nova Chrysalia, and that the box she gave him would be able to connect the pieces together if he found all of them.

The girl who looked like Serah (“Lumina!” she corrected him cheerfully, swinging her legs from where she sat upon the top of a bookshelf… and just how strange were kids nowadays to pick places like that to rest?) disappeared soon after that, blowing in and out with the evening wind.

That day, Sazh picked up an old and rusted phone which had been installed near five hundred years ago, and with a painful twinge of turmoiled emotions within his chest, dialed a few very familiar numbers.

—

“What — what the hell, chocobo?” Sazh gave a yelp as the little yellow chick circled his head relentlessly and nipped at his ears. He had his arms up to defend against the small creature, but that didn’t seem to deter the loyal bird. “Hey, calm down! I know you don’t want me leaving Dajh here, but we’ve got a job to do! Can’t find those shards if we stay here!”

The chocobo chick gave a piercing cry and then nipped him on the ear once more, this time much harder than all the previous nips, and flew just out of reach as Sazh shouted in pain. And few more chirps and energetic flying and the pilot wished he had Vanille’s ability to communicate with animals.

She would have known what the daft bird was trying to say, he thought fondly.

In his moment of recollection, the bird circled back to his head once again, this time ramming itself against his hair until Sazh stumbled forward. “Ow! Ow! Okay — okay, what is it? You want me to go? You want me to stay? Make up your mind!”

The continued dive bombs against his head had Sazh running toward the door, opening it and escaping as the chocobo chick squawked after him, directing him toward the treasure ball he kept nearby, just in case of emergencies.

“Hey, stop!” Sazh protested as the chick continued to peck at him until he was nearly backed up into the floating ball. “What do you want? Treats? I don’t keep treats in this thing, you know!”

The chick sounded disappointed as it chirped at him, and then flew over to land on the gently hovering ball.

“What, you want me to prove it to you?” Sazh asked, exasperated. What was with the bird today? He couldn’t remember the last time the normally sweet and docile chocobo chick acted up like this. “Alright. I’ll show you. I haven’t even kept anything in this for —”

He pressed a hand lightly before the ball in a signal for it to open, only to have his breath caught as he saw a glittering light that shouldn’t have been there.

“Is this—?” He breathed out, fingers hesitating inches above the item. Was this a fragment of Dajh’s soul? Had it been this close all along, and he just hadn’t seen it?

The chocobo chick chirped happily, dancing up and down in the air.

—

“No calls, no notes, no signs that you might still even be alive — and you think I won’t be mad?” Sazh thundered over the phone, pacing with agitation outside the small plane crash shelter that he called home. He made sure Dajh was still sleeping undisturbed with a glance through the window before nodding in reassurance and then facing the other way to continue, “You better have a good explanation, so help me —”

“I’m sorry.” Noel Kreiss lamented from the other side of the line, sounding young and cowed. “I didn’t think —”

“Damn right you didn’t think!” Sazh hollered back. “What, you don’t think I’d be worried? You don’t think I’d want to know you were still alive instead of dead in a ditch somewhere? How’s someone to know if you get yourself killed in the Chaos somewhere, or —” He waved his free arm about in an attempt to shake off his agitation, despite knowing that the young man wouldn’t be able to see it. “Or if you just up and disappear like Hope!”

That brought about a tense silence, and Sazh sighed audibly before pressing a hand to his forehead, willing his anger to cool. That wasn’t fair of him. Shouldn’t have said that, especially since he knew damn well the all of them had searched frantically well over a century after Hope’s disappearance. Still no answers, no hints on where the kid might have gone.

But then again, it had taken centuries before he had the slightest clue as to what could be done for Dajh. Maybe they all just needed to be more patient in this unending world.

More patience, huh. He was too damned old for this.

Maybe he had gotten used to the three hundred years full of regular visits from Snow, Hope, and Noel. Hope had arranged it so that they would all stay connected, would all endeavor to meet annually. Sure, in the beginning it had been once a week; almost a progress report of what was happening (and damn if that kid wasn’t efficient). As time went on, the week stretched into months into once a year.

And now…

“Over fifty years since I last heard word from you.” Sazh griped, voice now at a normal volume. “You better be calling to say you just woke up from a coma and the first thing you thought of was to inform me you’re still alive.”

Again, silence over the line. Still, Sazh had enough experience with the kid to practically hear the guilt.

All these centuries later, and…

Kids, Sazh thought with exasperation. The lot of them.

“I…” and Noel faltered again, that one word sounding penitent. “…Sorry.”

“Yeah, you better be.” Sazh said, but the steam was gone from his words. Now, he was more relieved than anything else. Of course he had checked with Snow to see if the youngest left of them was still alive, but it didn’t make him feel any better to be informed of the existence of the Shadow Hunter. Crazy kids. He ought to ground their asses. “So what? You finally remember this old man existed?”

His anger completely vanished, however, once Noel informed him (in careful and halting words just in case Sazh decided to yell at him again) of a seed hunter in Luxerion who had traded him something very interesting for a bag full of soul seeds he collected plus something he had gotten off Mog near five hundred years ago.

Well, Noel managed to tell him that after Sazh yelled at him again, this time for a near half hour, about being in the Chaos long enough and fighting enough of the distorted creatures to procure a bag of soul seeds.

Three days later, an apprehensive Noel showed up in the northern Wildlands to hand over a shining fragment, and the two of them watched with racing hearts as Sazh very carefully stored it in the coffer.

Noel stayed for several more days after that, grounded from going back to Luxerion.

—

“I’ve got some good news.” Were the first words Snow said when Sazh picked up the phone that day. Eight months of dead ends, of wandering from sunrise to sundown in the wildlands hoping to find a single clue as to where he might find the next fragment of Dajh’s soul, and nothing.

Zero, zip, zilch.

He almost didn’t have the energy to deal with Snow’s unexpected cheer. Not that it wasn’t good to hear a positive note in the hero’s voice, not after the numerous calls where the two of them would speak in low murmurs about the state of the world, the both of them tired out by the years. Nova Chrysalia was slowly decaying, and the both of them were well aware of that.

“Yeah?” Sazh asked, sitting down next to his son’s bedside and pressing a warm hand against his forehead. No change. At least nothing bad happened that day while he was gone. That was always good. “And what’s the good news, hero?”

“Well, I know you don’t approve of Zoe’s Slaughterhouse…”

“It’s a dumb idea.” Sazh said firmly. “Dumb as bricks, setting people up against monsters like that.”

“I entered last night.” Snow blurted out, and then continued just before Sazh could object. “I promise it was for a good cause! Not to entertain spectators or anything. They had this prize, see, and I couldn’t let it go just in case…”

“What are you saying, Snow?”

“How would you and Dajh feel about an all expenses paid trip for two to Yuusnan?” Snow asked cheekily. “We’ll see if the fireworks might make him feel a bit better, and if the fragment I got as a prize for winning last night is actually his or not.”

—

“Well,” she stuttered as arms encased in feathers waved about. “I’m Chocolina!”

“Yes, I know who you are.” Sazh replied patiently, still wondering what the vendor who set up shop by the train station was doing all the way in the north of the Wildlands. He often gave her a polite nod when he passed by and she waved frantically at him, and sometimes shook his head as her shrill enthusiasm carried some distance away while she was speaking with her customers, but never had they actually said a word to each other before.

In fact, he had never seen her away from her assigned shop. She always seemed larger than life, energetic and cheerful to a fault. Sazh had never seen her so nervous before.

She hopped about from one foot to the other (the action strangely familiar to him for some reason) and flapped her wings about. “It’s just, you see, I heard a teensie bit about your troubles in the past few years and, well, if you didn’t know it before — I deal in wishes! I’m here to make everyone’s wishes come true — if there’s someone who’s willing to help, of course. Wishes don’t come for free, after all, and I’m not allowed to give them out for free. Some pay money for items, others pay with items or even with spells, and —”

“I’m sorry.” Sazh interrupted, feeling a headache coming. He hadn’t had to deal with so much energy in a long time — not even the trip to Yuusnan with all the excited children wandering the streets had been as exhausting as listening to this girl. “You here to offer me a wish?”

She nodded enthusiastically in response, but then wilted almost immediately after as if a thought just occurred to her. “I can’t grant you the complete wish you wanted, but I think I may be able to help you out just a teeny bit!”

“And you need something in return?” Sazh questioned.

“Bingo!” She grinned widely and waved a winged arm over her head. “I knew you would understand!”

Sazh didn’t have the time for this. As nice as the girl seemed, he doubted she sold shards of souls. “Can’t someone else do this for you?”

Her expression fell. “They can. Anyone can, actually, but I wanted to offer this to you! I can’t give out wishes for free, see? And I have a wish I want to give to you and it’s something very, very precious that I want you to have. Well, it’s very, very precious and it’s something I want Dajh to have.”

Wait.

Sazh’s grip on the doorframe of his home tightened until he could feel the metal dig painfully into his palm. How would she know his son? “You say it was for Dajh?”

“For him specifically!” She clarified.

“And what do you need for this… wish?”

Chocolina’s expression turned pleased. “I knew you would understand! There’s an object I’m looking for south of Aryas village I need you to bring to me. I can persuade one of the chocobos to guide you to it, and it won’t take much of your time at all. A day at the most — you’d be back lickity-split!”

That sounded far too easy to be true. A day’s trip to find something in Aryas for what could possibly be a fragment of Dajh’s soul?

“Why are you doing this?” He asked her even as she hopped a bit away, whistling loudly and gesturing with her wings toward one of the wild chocobos that roamed the lands. It was interesting to note that the creature came at her call, the wild beast as tame and docile under her cooing as the pets he had once seen on Cocoon.

She hummed in consideration before answering, “You’ve helped me a lot, you know. You and your son — if it weren’t for you two, I wouldn’t be here. One day you might understand. I just want to do whatever I can to help you, that’s all.” She held up a wing after that, leaning forward and winking at him. “Now, no more questions, okay?”

—

He heard about Vanille and Fang’s reappearance, of course. He had been informed by a grouching Noel (who he coerced into weekly calls, despite not being able to get more from the boy than that. He still disapproved of the former time traveler’s choice of isolation and self-imposed job along with his choice of residence, but Sazh figured he’d have enough time to coax the young man into accepting more help later on) about the sudden appearance of the Order’s ‘Saint’. Further details revealed the identity of the newest addition to the church in Luxerion.

“You give her my contact, hear me?” Sazh told the hunter during that conversation. “Say I expect her around.”

It was one thing to bring Dajh to Yuusnan, but he didn’t want his comatose son anywhere near Luxerion and the Order, especially after Noel’s regular updates about the spread of corruption after Hope’s disappearance.

To say that he was upset at the lack of contact after that was an understatement. Noel admitted in later calls that it may be because the Order was limiting her contact with anyone outside of the church.

So it was with great surprise that the first call he received from someone other than Noel and Snow came from Fang.

“Hey, old man!” Came the cheerful accent. “How’ve the centuries been treating you? Good, yeah? Bet you don’t look your age at all — barely any older than you were a thousand years ago. Mind if I come over to check if my theory’s correct?”

“Fang.” Sazh set down the spoon he was using to stir his lunch about. The sheer relief at the sound of her voice was staggering. The years had taken so much away, but maybe now it was finally starting to give back. There was a thick wad stuck in his throat as Sazh blinked away the moisture in his eyes, surprised even at himself for the drastic reaction. “…You don’t know how glad I am to hear your voice.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” He could almost hear her grin. “See, a certain hunter and hero told me this interesting little story. I figured, since I’m already on the search for something, might as well keep that interesting tidbit on my list. Just in case interesting decides to pop up.”

“How interesting?” Sazh demanded, almost forgetting the sheer amount of questions he wanted to ask her about why neither she nor Vanille had contacted him before this.

In response, there was a banging on his door and Sazh startled, jumping to his feet as fingers gripped the phone tighter.

“You owe me favors for the rest of your life after you hear about this interesting story I’ve got about this Cactair and what it was carrying out in the Dead Dunes.” Came a voice just beyond his door. “Open up, would ya? It’s freezing out here!”

—

Sazh didn’t wait for lunch to finish, didn’t wait for Fang to finish her tale before gingerly accepting the fragile fragment she was carrying with her, both hands cupped around it reverently as he slowly brought it to the coffer, almost afraid that the slightest agitation might cause the fragment to burst into pieces.

“Give him more credit.” Fang told him, slinging an arm over the back of the chair she claimed as she watched him. “It’s stronger than you might think.”

Sazh swallowed, his throat suddenly dry to the point of pain. “I don’t want to risk it.”

Five pieces, he thought. This was it. This was what he had been searching for the past… era. Sazh didn’t know how long he’d been searching except that his thoughts were consumed by the search of fragments.

And now…

“Go on,” Fang urged him gently as the fragment was accepted into the coffer and Sazh hesitated with his hands hovering above the precious box. He looked up as he felt her warm hand on his shoulder, squeezing as she smiled at him. “You’ve both waited long enough for this.”

Sazh nodded absentmindedly, swallowing around the lump in his throat as he took the coffer to the small boy resting in bed along numerous Academy equipment monitoring everything from his heartbeat and blood pressure to hydration and brain waves.

“C’mon, son.” Sazh murmured quietly as he placed the coffer upon Dajh’s chest. “Daddy misses you, champ. Sun’s bright and shining, time to wake up now.”

There were several long seconds as he held his breath and heard Fang settle into a crouch next to him to offer her support. Come on…

There was a little groan and fluttering of lashes, and Sazh thought that his heart might burst out of his chest as dark brown eyes blinked up at him and Dajh yawned, looking for all the world as if he had just woken from a quick nap and not a centuries long coma.

“Hi, Daddy!” Dajh greeted cheerfully, and Sazh finally felt the warmth of tears down his cheeks as he immediately drew his little boy into a tight embrace.

—

Noel insisted on keeping a lookout for the two of them as Sazh and Dajh entered through the south station of Luxerion. The Shadow Hunter didn’t trust the dark streets of the city nor any of the Order members. His presence was a silent comfort as Sazh made his way to the gates of the giant cathedral, trying to hide his distaste of the grand architecture while the rest of the city lived in much humbler buildings. He hadn’t stepped foot in Luxerion since…

Since before Hope disappeared. Back then, there was no church standing in this location.

Give it time, Sazh thought. Things were finally coming together. With Vanille and Fang away, with Dajh’s soul reassembled, the next thing to work on would be Hope’s disappearance, as well as Lightning. They had all the time in the world.

“You can’t enter after hours!” A priest shouted at them just as Sazh moved to cover Dajh’s eyes and a shadow dropped down from the rooftops behind the priest and brought the hilt of his weapon down on the man’s neck.

“Daddy?” Dajh asked behind Sazh’s hand. “Are we not supposed to be here?”

Noel made sure to drag the body to a darker corner before waving Sazh on, and father and son continued their stroll into the cathedral, this time without any other interference.

“Sure we can be here.” Sazh reassured his son. “We’re here to see Vanille, right? She’s going to be real excited to see you.”

“Okay.” The little boy said, and then tugged on Sazh’s hand again. “Miss Vanille’s and Miss Fang’s been asleep for even longer than me, right? I’m glad we’re going to see her. She must have been really lonely.”

As all the members of the Order were silently knocked unconscious by Noel, it didn’t take very long to find Vanille in the heart of the building, her eyes growing wide even as she covered her mouth with both hands at the sight of them. It didn't take long for the silent tears to fall onto his shirt as Sazh drew her into an embrace, one hand still clutching onto his son’s.

(He spent the night arguing with her after that about her decision to stay with the Order, letting Dajh soothe her guilt with his childish smiles and gift of wildflowers the little boy picked from the Wildlands, slightly squashed underneath his warm palm.

He left the next morning with his son, disappointed, as the next shift of church members started to trickle in.

It wouldn’t be the only time he would visit to Order in attempts to convince Vanille to leave.)

—

“You don’t have to do this alone, alright?” Sazh told Lightning after he put Dajh to bed, standing in the doorway and watching as the pink-haired woman stared intently at her own hands. From what he had heard, she already straightened both Snow and Noel out, and was here in the Wildlands on the way to the unreachable castle in the distance.

“Thank you.” She told him, but there was no emotion in the words. “But you can’t help me, and you should spend this time with your son.”

“I plan on it.” Sazh said, and then walked over to the small kitchen to prepare a kettle of tea. He figured they could both use it. Everything in his house was worn smooth with time, materials fragile from years of care. His mugs were nothing more than tin cup, whatever bright paint it might have once been splashed with long worn. “He’s the most important person to me. I’m not leaving him behind, no matter where I go.”

The tea leaves were fragrant as he pulled them from the cupboard. It reminded him of the old gatherings that he used to have with Snow, Noel, and… Hope.

Well, Lightning was back now. And from what she was saying, there was a chance that Serah could be saved as well. And she had seen Hope.

He could feel it in his bones: things were finally coming to an end, wrapping together. Now all they needed to do was get Vanille out of the Order’s grasp, and…

Thanks to technology provided by the once-Academy, the water boiled within seconds, and Sazh poured the liquid into the teapot, and then let it seep for just a minute before pouring the fragrant tea into two mugs.

“But here’s the thing.” Sazh said gently as he handed Lightning a mug of tea, watching her wrap her fingers around the handle carefully. “Dajh is my son and the most important to me, but… that don’t make the rest of you any less family.

“Don’t forget that, soldier girl.”