A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, c17 - write at least five reincarnations (slightly different) of the same scene (eg. like the same person doing the same thing five times, with subtle differences)

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Six Introductions

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When Serah first met Hope, it was with Lightning's arm around his shoulders and it was the strangest sight she'd ever seen. Because Lightning just wasn't that relaxed with anyone, including her, and yet here she was with her arm around a boy Serah didn't even know.

Later, she learnt he'd been a l'Cie and crossed half the world with her. That they'd developed a relationship that tethered between siblinghood and of the parent-child variety and it was strange but also heart-warming, to see Lightning so invested in someone else.

It was almost a shame there was a seven year age gap between them, but once Hope grew up a bit, it probably wouldn't matter that much.

Nothing about that first meeting told her anything about Hope Estheim, but that was okay. Anyone who could put that sort of expression on Lightning's face was met with automatic approval, as far as Serah was concerned.

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Within seconds, Serah's first meeting with Hope was rewritten. There was no Lightning with her arm slung around Hope's shoulders. There was no Lightning at all. And after Serah had screamed about how wrong that was, a hesitant Hope had come baring her knife. 'This is… Light's…'

Even if Serah didn't remember their first meeting, the fact that Hope had called her sister "Light" would have tipped her off.

But she did remember. Hope, on the other hand, forgot.

That made it difficult. Everyone forgot. It was like Lightning hadn't even stood there with them, hadn't given her blessings, hadn't introduced the boy who'd become so special to her…

Maybe Serah was bitter, because when they later split up with the Cavalry, Serah didn't try to stay in contact. And with Sazh bringing Dajh to her for lessons, Hope was the only one of that group she wound up losing contact with.

Until Snow left to find Lightning, that was.

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Thirteen years later (for Hope anyway), they met again. Hope didn't seem to bear her any ill will at all, but maybe it was because everyone else had vanished from his life, one by one. First it had been his mother, then Vanille and Fang and Lightning, then Snow, then her, then Sazh and Dajh, then his father…

He'd lost everyone. One by one, they'd all left him alone.

She was reminded of that teen, looking so lost on the plains of Gran Pulse with her sister's knife in his hands.

She could only stare at his eyes now, tired but sparkling with something. Happy. To see her.

Then he blushed and looked away and it was endearing, but also sad. Because Serah wasn't who Hope was waiting for. Hope barely even knew Serah.

But if Serah came back, maybe Lightning would come back too. Maybe that was what Hope was thinking back then.

And when they followed him to the ruins and the Oracle Drive, it looked like that really was what Hope was thinking.

Lightning… was always on Hope's mind. And so were all the other people he'd lost over the years.

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They repaired the paradox, so their reunion was rewritten.

Serah marvelled at how different it became. Alyssa hovered, for one, instead of arriving once the initial greetings were said and done. Hope had no forewarning to their arrival, and therefore was caught off guard. And Noel didn't get to look at him suspiciously, this time.

Rather, it was Hope giving that look and it really didn't suit him.

In any case, he was quick enough to accept that Noel came from a future after the fall of Cocoon. Probably because the Oracle Drive showed the day Cocoon would fall.

And yet, despite all of that, his eyes shone the same way when he saw me. Like me, jumping through time and appearing before him again after years of silence, was a sign that he was on the right track. And he was. I was sure he was. He had the mind for it. And the drive. It didn't matter if he was driven by personal scars. So were we. Noel for a future he didn't want to come to pass. Me for becoming a l'Cie, for condemning four others to become l'Cie in my stead including my sister and including the man standing before me now…

'Hope…'

He looked at me, face worn but… happy. 'Thank you, Serah.'

No, thank you, Hope. But I couldn't say that right then.

I did, once he'd shown us the prophecy. But that was for something different, and we all knew it.

But once we repaired the timeline, I'd have the chance again.

And people like Hope wouldn't have lost all those years with people they loved.

(Though, even then, she knew there were some scars she'd never be able to erase. Like Alyssa crying over the tombstone listing victims of the Purge. Like Hope's parents. She could get Lightning back, and Vanille and Fang, and Noel's future… but they hadn't gone back in time at all and that meant that the Purge could not be undone.)

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She drifted in the Chaos. She wasn't alone. The Chaos was filled with souls and some of them she got to know. She found Lebreau and the others easily enough. They'd waited five hundred years for her and Snow, after all. She found them and stuck with them, even after the flood added to their numbers exponentially.

They waited, and simultaneously hoped and dreaded Snow's arrival, or Lightning's, or anyone they knew. And they had few people to wait for, compared to the mass of new souls. They were out of their time, after all. But even so… There were their parents, waiting for Lightning still. There was Snow's parents… and oh, he had siblings too. Snow had never known. And there were Hope's parents too, so proud of their little boy and how he'd become the face of hope for mankind. And there were the people of Oerba: Fang's and Vanille's families, waiting for their daughters and their heroes and the last of their people. And so many Yuels, adrift in the darkness, searching for Caius. And one Yuel, searching for Noel as well.

And then Sazh and Dajh were there, and a great many more people, and the end of the world was upon them.

The end of the world, and now Lightning, no Snow, no Fang nor Vanille, no Noel nor Yuel nor Caius… and no Hope.

That was strange. That was wrong. The voice had told them to go up to the Ark, that they'd be reborn… but without her sister, her fiancé and the boy that meant the world to her sister? Not to mention the other precious friends they'd lose in the process.

That was wrong. That wasn't what she wanted.

So when she heard another voice calling, her sister's voice, she followed that instead.

And there they all were. The people she couldn't leave behind. Fighting.

'I'll fight too.'

'Good,' said Lightning. And she smiled.

Hope was on Lightning's other side. And he smiled too.

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The new world was strange. There were no talking creatures like Mog, nor monsters crawling everywhere nor magic nor Fal'Cie.

Instead, it was a normal world for normal people like them.

What was also strange was how spread out they were. Serah and Snow found each other easily enough, but Lightning lived halfway across the world. She was coming to visit them, she promised. And she did come, alone and a little disgruntled as to leaving Hope behind (and that was how the rest of them discovered Hope had picked right up where he'd left off in the old world, researching how to save humanity. That hope…)

Later, Hope would call to inform them a reporter was searching for the story of the old world and Lightning would hum and set off before the reporter showed up on Serah and Snow's doorstep, complaining about how far away they all lived from each other…

And, tiring of waiting for Lightning to come visit them again (and Hope to finally get enough time off work to manage it), Serah and Snow packed up and moved instead. After all, they didn't have a place binding them. Just people.

And that meant that, for once, Serah could knock on the door. And when it was opened by his mother who no longer recognised her (with Hope right behind her), she could smile and say: 'Hi, I'm Serah Farron' and pretend it was their first meeting again.