Peanut

"Alright!" Serah called from the long side of the pool. "Ready....Set..." As she spoke, she focused on Lightning getting into position. Her eyes focused ahead, like they always had in a competition. "Go!" She shouted out the last word, but that didn't prepare her for Lightning's entrance. Despite her time away from competitive swimming, her dive in was almost flawless. And it was graceful, just like it always was.

Lightning hmphed, reaching out her hand and grasping Riku's. She set her other on the edge of the pool and got out easily, glad to finally be able to use her legs. They were almost back to normal on land, but in the water, they were perfectly fine. Though she knew she hadn't raced in a while and what was important to her was getting better, a part of her hoped to beat Riku.

"Two laps," Serah announced. "Down to that end and back here. Lightning, stroke preference?" Lightning gave her a look, and she recognized what that meant: it was ridiculous to ask someone who didn't swim professionally to swim any kind of formal stroke. "Alright, whatever you want. Ready?"

Lightning read between the lines of Serah and Riku's conversation; Riku knew she swam in the past. Oh well--there was nothing she could do to take that knowledge away. "I'm rusty," she said to Riku. "You've got a chance." Besides, he grew up on a beach; he had to be a good swimmer.

"Not right now," Serah said with a faint smile. "What I want to see is a race." She wanted Lightning and Riku to swim against each other. It had been at least four years since Lightning swam against anyone...It'd be interesting to see how she did.

"You asked," Lightning said with a slight shrug, though she couldn't wipe that smirk off her face as she said it. She pulled him in against his will, but whatever payback he was thinking of doing wouldn't be too bad; he was too kind to do anything that could actually hurt her or her feelings.

"Come see for yourself," Lightning smirked. She moved quickly as she spoke, jumping up out of the water slightly as she reached for and grasped Riku's arm. She pushed her feet against the wall and pulled on his arm to force him in, sure that she'd be successful. After all, it was easy to lose balance with the position Riku was just in.

Serah stayed silent for a moment, not finding it awkward. She and Riku knew each other well enough now that they could be silent and comfortable at the same time. But as Lightning neared them, she brushed away her sadness and looked down at her sister as she stopped right in front of them. "It's like you never stopped," she said truthfully. Lightning was still really good.

"Lightning told me it didn't matter," Serah added. "That family was more important than swimming. And I know she meant it, but seeing her doing it again...She must have missed it." Lightning looked like she was...free. She was able to move quickly and without leaning on anyone else. There was nothing to hold her back in the water.

"She used to swim--competitively," Serah explained, glad Lightning was swimming away so she couldn't hear. She wasn't sure if she'd want Serah telling Riku this part of the past; she'd say that it was the past and it didn't matter now. "She was one of the best, too. But when Mom..." She almost said "died", but she realized that wasn't accurate. Their mother was...murdered. Serah swallowed and then took in a breath, seeking a better phrasing. "When it turned into the two of us, she had to drop it all together."

"I don't know if anything could get her to stop," Serah said with a slight chuckle, though her lips turned down in a slight frown immediately afterward. "She must have missed this," she said quietly. She was going all out, even though her legs probably weren't up to full strength. Serah was glad to see her sister improving, but this was also a reminder from the past that brought up some sorrow.

Serah glanced over her shoulder when she heard someone, and she wasn't surprised that it was Riku. She waved to him from where she knelt by the pool, a smile of greeting on her face. Upon discovering the pool, Serah and Lightning invited everyone to come, but Riku was the first taker.

The Next Day Serah sat outside Disney Castle, a large pool sprawled before her. It was amazing that this castle was big enough to cover a huge part of the world, and that it had almost everything you could want. It had this huge swimming pool and infinite wardrobes that could produce whatever clothing you wanted. That was why Serah was able to wear the pink bikini that she had on now, and why Lightning donned her own swimsuit. Lightning didn't care much about what she wore: she cared more about the pool that she was now doing her fourth lap in. "Go Lightning!" Serah cheered from the side, seeing her sister going strong. This was a good way for her legs to recover their strength, and it was probably good for Lightning's heart too.

Zack saw that smile, but the sadness behind it too. He turned his focus forward and flung the pebble across the pond. "Alright then," he said. "I'll just have to take you some place with a lot of light." He didn't know what they'd do yet, but he'd figure it out.

Zack enclosed the pebble in his fist, looking over at Aqua in confusion. "A dark place..." he repeated. The way that she said it, it sounded like a real place, not a reference to her spiritual or emotional state. "Like a place that was literally dark?"

Zack glanced over at Aqua, seeing her expression. "That's cool," he said casually, picking up another one of the pebbles and stroking it between his fingers. "We have time to go over that kind of stuff." The date, remember? If she didn't want to talk about it though, that was fine too. After all, he wasn't completely open with his own past.

"And how about you?" Zack asked lightly, ignoring the thoughts of grief that threatened to cloud his mind. "What were you up to?" It was something weird, considering she didn't look aged from the last time that he saw her. He supposed that was good because he was closer to her in age now (a bit over, actually).

"Crazy things," Zack said, smiling faintly in fond remembrance. "Embraced my dreams. I became a hero in another world." But that world, Gaia...It didn't have anything left for him. Sure, his parents were still there and he stopped in to visit them, but the girl that he fell in love with, Aerith...died. He didn't know how it happened, but she died.

Zack smiled softly, shaking his head. "That was a joke," he told her. "I kept busy while you were gone." He went to the Underworld to settle his score with Hades, somehow lived through that, trained with Phil for a while, returned home, joined SOLDIER, and then...well, Sephiroth. That was his life in a nutshell.

"Of course," Zack said, picking up one of the small pebbles that was sitting on the bench beside him. He tossed it a few inches in the air before he caught it again, flicking his wrist and sending it flying. "After waiting over ten years for your answer, there's no way I'm cancelling now."

"Maybe on our date, I can teach you," Zack suggested, flicking his wrist and sending another one to the water. This one, however, only got two skips before it sank down. "...Not that I'm the best there is." He was out of practice; he really hadn't flung stones for a while.

Zack let off a stone as Aqua spoke to him, seeing it skip lightly across the top of the pond. It was one of his best yet, so he couldn't help but feel a little proud Aqua saw him do that one and not a dud. "Hey Aqua," he greeted, his tone almost back to normal in cheerfulness. "You know how to skip stones?"

A little while later, Zack was sitting in a secluded part of the city. There was a bench by a pond, and he was skipping stones across it. A backwater kid like him was great at those types of things; there was nothing else to entertain him growing up except his dreams of being a hero. Dreams of being like Sephiroth. He wasn't afraid of the foe coming back immediately; he'd bode his time. And he wouldn't go after Cloud, not until Zack was dealt with. Zack knew Sephiroth well enough to know all that, but he didn't know how to bring him back to rationality.

Zack only briefly glanced at the young woman who held onto his arm a moment ago. "Thanks," he said, referring only to the cure. He wasn't thankful that she stopped him though, even if it probably did save his life. Sephiroth... He put his sword on his back and turned around, hearing a outraged audience boo either him or Sephiroth's hasty exit. It didn't mater to him right now.

Zack didn't notice Sora shrug to Riku and the others; he was too focused on Sephiroth's last expression as he stood where Aqua stopped him. Sephiroth didn't smile often, yet he smiled twice today. He must have fallen into deeper insanity...But that wasn't his primary concern; Sephiroth vanished because he saw it would be too much effort to cut down everyone in his way. He'd be back.