Disclaimer: If I owned Chrno Crusade my name would be Moriyama Daisuke, and last time I checked it wasn’t. I’ll keep checking though, if it changes I’ll let you know.

AN: Sorry guys! I promised people who PM-ed me an update before the new year, but I didn’t make it. ;; I also apologise for my crappy updating record, uni saps up all my time and energy, and I’m a natural procrastinator, so that only makes things worse! But we’re getting closer to the end, soon everything should fall into place. Thank you for your patience and for not giving up on this story! I really appreciate your reviews and look forward to reading what you think about this chapter!

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Shades of the Past

Chapter 11 – Key to the Past

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Rosette woke up when light shinning in through the curtains made it impossible to pretend it was still night. She was still firmly lodged under Chrono’s chin, against his chest. It was incredibly warm and comfortable, so she closed her eyes again and just listened to his even breathing. After what happened yesterday afternoon, it was beyond comforting to know he was still warm and substantial. With the light filtering in through the curtains, if she ignored the barricade in front of the door, everything was perfect.

Since invading Chrono’s sleeping space last night, his only movement had been to drape an arm around her waist. He was still unconscious, but it was a peaceful kind of sleep that made her reconsider the thought of waking him up to see if he would be embarrassed by their position. ‘Probably,’ she smirked to herself. Almost unconsciously she reached up and touched his cheek, relieved to find it was warm. He would probably be incredibly embarrassed if he woke up to find her curled up against him like a lover. Hell, she would have been embarrassed as well if she weren’t so relieved to see he was okay. They had slept in the same room last night, but Chrono had waited until she was asleep before laying down on the floor to sleep in her sleeping bag. Would he let her cling on to him like this if her were awake? That was a silly question, Rosette decided, because there was no way she would be clingy like this if there were anyone to witness it.

She watched him sleep a bit longer before reluctantly extracting herself from under his arm. She wanted nothing more than to stay in bed with him, but she was still determined to find out what was going on, and the key that Shader had given her weighed heavily on her mind.

Her side of the bed was cold, so she didn’t waste any more time and quickly climbed out from under the sheets. She got changed and moved the furniture from the door as quietly as she could, occasionally glancing at Chrono to make sure she wasn’t disturbing him. Despite the loud scraping of the heavy wood furniture, his breathing was still deep and even. Satisfied, she glanced out the bedroom door, glancing down the hall to make sure she was alone. The sunlight made the hall look less threatening, and if proof that the supernatural exists were not sleeping in her bed, Rosette would have been annoyed at herself for being so edgy. She quietly made her way down the stairs, wincing as the bottom ones creaked loudly.

In the kitchen, nothing had been disturbed since yesterday, which made everything seem that much more surreal. It was hard for Rosette to accept that the solid and warm body in her bed was the same body that lay cold and translucent on the floor yesterday. Hesitantly, she picked up a fallen chair and pushed it against the table. Chrono had obviously held on to it to keep his balance before falling. Trying to ignore the sick feeling in her stomach, she put some bread in the toaster and leaned against the counter while waiting for the toaster’s ding. Glancing occasionally at the cellar door, she wondered, not for the first time, what sick game they were playing. Her fingers squeezed tightly around the key in the pocket.

‘It doesn’t matter what they throw at me. I’m going to win, and anyone who dares hurt Chrono again will wish they had never been born.’ Rosette glared one last time at the cellar door and quickly spread marmalade on the warm bread. She ate standing, glancing out the window at the oak by the river. Since she had fallen in the river, the looming presence she used to imagine feeling on the manor grounds seemed to have moved to the cellar. It made her wonder if falling into the river had woken it up. Maybe Chrono wasn’t the only person to die by the river.

The hum of the refrigerator was far from being suitable company; its constant drone just annoyed her. She felt more alone than ever, frustrated by Shader’s lack of answers. What could possibly be hiding in the cellar? In the attic? Throwing the marmalade back onto the fridge’s shelf, she paced the kitchen a bit, steeling herself. She had yet to look at the attic, and frankly, she didn’t want to. She had inhaled enough dust while working on the first two floors, and while spiders and vermin no longer scared her, she hated small spaces. But she needed to get some answers, and if they were in the attic, so be it. With that, Rosette headed up the stairs, before she lost her motivation. She stopped in front of Chrono’s portrait, again struck by the lack of resemblance. The boy in her bed looked nothing like the painting’s sombre subject, with his humourless expression and distant gaze. The Chrono she knew looked like a kinder version of Aion, really. She chuckled a little at this thought. Aion, kind? That was the oxymoron of the century. Shaking her head and stifling her chuckles, Rosette continued up the massive staircase and hesitantly opened the door to her room to make sure she hadn’t woken Chrono. He was still asleep on the bed, but curled tightly around himself to preserve warmth. She watched him for a few moments and sighed, wishing that things were easier. It was just her luck that some unknown demonic force had to enter the picture right when she had accepted to be with Chrono no matter what. She wasn’t going to back down though. If anything, this threat made Rosette more eager to move forward. Someone or something had hurt Chrono, so now it was personal. She gently closed the door and walked carefully down the creaky hallway.

Normally she stayed on the first floor of the manor and limited herself to two or three rooms on the second floor, her own included in that tally. She knew where the attic was though. At the end of the hallway, she turned left down the hall and opened the door to what seemed like a small closet. Inside that closet there was a steep set of stairs that lead to the third floor. She shuddered slightly at all the cobwebs, pushing them out of the way with her hand. They no longer bothered her, but the feeling of invisible fingers gliding across her skin unnerved her now more than ever. The attic stairs weren’t very solid, so she tested her weight on each step before continuing, having learned earlier on in this renovation project to be careful for rotting stairs. Sure enough, one step looked like it would collapse under her weight, so she avoided it. Willing herself forward, she opened the door to the attic and carefully poked her head in.

Thankfully, the third floor attic was nothing like she had imagined. If it had been a small, cramped space she would have said ‘screw it’ and waited for Chrono to wake up. But it wasn’t. Instead, the third floor was cavernous, easily spanning half the second floor but without the room divisions. And it looked as though no kids on dares had been stupid enough to come up here, because everything was intact. There were white sheets covering old pieces of furniture, as well as a mannequin that was probably once used to make dresses. If Rosette had been less brave, the mannequin would have creeped her out, but by now she was more than used to things being covered by sheets. She didn’t expect anything to jump out from under them to attack her anymore. But that didn’t stop her from looking under the sheet to make sure it really was a mannequin. Just in case.

The windows in the room were all intact, but incredibly dirty, light filtered in with some difficulty. All the boxes and furniture piled up in corners created shadows on the floor, but Rosette ignored them in favour of finding a box that could be opened with Shader’s key. With no small amount of despair she realised that there were over twenty trunks that could be opened by a key, some large enough to contain a body. Suppressing a shudder, she tried the key on the nearest body-sized trunk and saw, with some relief, that it didn’t fit, the key’s teeth were biting into air. She tried a few more trunks nearby, none of them fit. She kept going around the room trying more trunks, but with no luck.

She was beginning to think Shader had set up some elaborate hoax when she noticed a small trunk in a corner that she had missed. It looked around the right size for the key. Sitting down in the dust next to it, Rosette fit the key in the trunk’s keyhole, a little surprised when it fit. With an audible click, the mechanism released the cover, and she gingerly opened it to see what was inside.

Thankfully, there were no spare body parts. If anything, the contents of the trunk were incredibly mundane. There was an old pocket watch, a photo album, a few newspaper clippings, and most mysterious of all, a skirt, a blouse, what looked like old-fashioned undergarments, socks and shoes, all in excellent condition. Rosette curiously emptied out the contents onto the floor, gently going through the newspaper clippings. It was hard to see in the dim light, but most of them seemed to be about the Black Family Murder.

“These are about Chrono’s death,” Rosette gasped, amazed. She had thought she would have to fight for information, but here Aion was simply handing it over to her. Eagerly, she read the first article. The headline ‘Black Family Murder Unsolved’ grabbed her attention. Apparently controversy had surrounded Chrono’s death. To all appearances, he had died of a gunshot wound, but rumour had it that the doctor had been paid off to not perform an autopsy. She turned to the next one. Aion’s mother, Pandemonium, had been killed that same day. Drowned. Aion Black was a possible suspect. The next article stated that Aion had been cleared; an unnamed witness had confirmed that there was a second, more likely murder suspect that had mysteriously escaped. Yet another article speculated about the fate of the Black family, now that Aion was leaving for San Francisco and letting go of all the servants, some of which had served the family for generations...

She glanced over these articles in amazement, not believing her good fortune, when the attic door slammed shut. Rosette jumped a foot into the air, accidentally dropping the article she was reading. She lunged and caught it as it floated away, her heart racing.

“It’s just air pressure, there must be an opened window somewhere, it’s just air pressure,” Rosette chanted to reassure herself. She smoothed out the article clipping she had nearly crumpled and carefully placed everything on the floor. With no small amount of dread, she walked over to the door and turned the handle.

It wouldn’t budge.

Her stomach dropped. She rattled the doorknob and pulled harder on the door handle, struggling with the unmoving door.

“Hell no, you can’t be locked!” She cried out, ready to pound on the door. She stopped herself mid-movement. Chrono was still sleeping. It was probably just a draft that closed the door, nothing to panic about, these things happened all the time. She was a little annoyed at how scared she felt, and decided to tough it out. Chrono would wake up eventually and wonder where she was. There was no movement in the room, no evil presence, so she half-heartedly reasoned that she was safe, she was just over-reacting. Whatever dangerous presence once lurked around the house was now confined to the cellar. She tried very hard to believe that.

Rosette felt the wall to make sure it wasn’t rotting. The wooden planks that formed the walls were dry and somewhat solid, but she didn’t trust them to handle her weight. She brought the trunk and its contents closer to the door and leaned against it. Once she was confident that the door and its frame could handle being leaned on, she slowly slid down to sit on the floor. ‘It figures that the only thing not rotting in this room is the door,’ she thought bitterly. Her movements caused some dust to rise up and she wrinkled her nose at the mustiness of the room. Maybe she should eventually clean this space too?

“I still have the second floor to worry about,” Rosette muttered to herself, “there’s no way I’m cleaning the attic. The last thing I’m interested in doing is finding more rodent carcasses.”

With that thought, she looked around her again, just to make sure that there area was clean and guano free. Satisfied, she glanced at the attic door she was leaning against, a little annoyed with herself for not having the forethought to prop it open with a shoe or something. But there was no use crying over spilt milk, so she dragged the trunk closer and decided to keep looking through it. It was too dark in her corner to read the articles, so she pulled out the photo album and began to leisurely browse through it.

There weren’t many pictures in the album, probably because pictures were expensive back then. One of the biggest ones was a wedding picture, where the two subjects of the photograph looked deadly serious. Rosette raised an eyebrow. She flipped through the album quickly, glancing at the other portraits. All the people in the pictures looked deadly serious, no one was smiling. Not one person was sticking their tongue out or posing with a bottle of beer as Rosette was in the habit of doing with her brother’s friends.

“Well, if pictures are expensive and you don’t have a digital camera you’re unlikely to take crazy drunken pictures,” she reasoned with a smile. She flipped back to the beginning to study them more carefully. There were pictures of Chrono growing up, along with Aion and Magdalene. Jealousy gnawed at her stomach when she saw how beautiful Magdalene was, even as a child. She tried to suppress that unpleasant emotion and continued to look at the pictures. The happiest ones seemed to be those with an older black-haired woman. Rosette guessed she was Chrono’s mother. She glanced under the photos and saw the name Lilith occasionally written in a graceful scrawl. Even as a child, Chrono sat next to her in a dignified way. To Rosette’s surprise, young Aion seemed to love her very much as well, barely holding back a smile and hanging off of her in a few pictures. Then suddenly Chrono’s mother was nowhere to be found in the pictures, a blond-haired woman replaced her.

“This must be Pandemonium,” Rosette murmured, surprised. The woman was clearly beautiful, but there was a stark contrast if one compared her to Lilith Black. Whereas Lilith Black had dark hair and seemed to radiate a sweet serenity, Pandemonium was platinum blond and had the look of a bitchy supermodel. Since the pictures were rather sepia in tone, it was impossible to make out her eye colour, but Rosette guessed it was probably the same icy blue as her son’s. In the following photographs, she could almost see Aion’s bitterness growing, as though the ‘family’ photographs with Pandemonium were a joke. Chrono, on the other hand, didn’t look very different. Like in the portrait by the stairs, Chrono posed impassively in the pictures, looking every bit like the model son he probably was. Once again, she was stuck by how hard it was to reconcile this unsmiling, rather bland looking figure with the boy in her bed. Real Chrono looked serious and, well, old despite being seventeen. Memory Chrono, the boy in her bed, although rather quiet, looked much more lively. Plus he was prone to gracing her with the most beautiful smiles, and he didn’t look nearly so strict in Joshua’s sweats. Maybe something had happened to change him a little? She would like to think it was her presence that changed him, but it was probably something else. Maybe Pandemonium was just a killjoy? From Aion’s expression of pure revulsion, it certainly looked like it. She wondered what the back-story between them all was.

Closing the album, Rosette leaned her head against the leather cover and sighed. It was as though everything had been put aside a seventy years earlier just for her. She did a brief tally of the information Azmaria had given her. Chrono could control time and Aion could see into people’s souls. Maybe someone who could see into the future had put this stuff aside because they had known she would want it? The pictures were old, but everything in the trunk was in pristine condition. The dark and dry space it was placed in was perfect for preserving everything. Who could possibly guess that the attic would be dry in seventy or eighty years?

Rosette was about to pick up the watch to look at it when she heard footsteps on the stairs leading to the attic. Moments later, the door swung open behind her, causing her to fall backwards. Chrono rushed forward to support her back and stop her from falling down the steps.

“What are you doing up here?” Chrono asked, looking startled but relieved to see her at the same time. He looked winded, as though he had searched through the whole house to find her. Come to think of it, he probably did. The attic would likely be one of the last places he would think to look.

Rosette regained her balance and started to get up. Chrono hurried forward and gave her a hand as leverage to stand, then stood back at a respectful distance as she brushed the dust off her clothing. “I didn’t mean to worry you, I was just looking for this junk. Aion had Shader leave me a key to this trunk, which of all places had to be in the attic. This is starting to look like a bad detective novel.”

Chrono raised an eyebrow as she piled everything back into the trunk. “This door is defective, it only opens from the outside,” he finally stated, glancing over her to make sure she was all right. “It was like that even seventy years ago.”

Rosette sighed. “I noticed.” She bent down and picked up the trunk, balancing it on her hip. “You’re feeling better.”

It was phrased like a statement, but Chrono could immediately see that she wanted some reassurance that he really was ok.

“I am. I don’t know what happened, but I remember that the electrician entered the house and I followed her as far as the cellar door. Soon after, there was a bright flash,” Chrono explained. “Let me carry that trunk for you.” She handed it to him without argument, having learned a while back that it was easier just to concede to his chivalrous habits.

“And then?” She asked as they both walked carefully down the attic stairs. He held her hand to help her avoid a step that looked as though it would give away under her weight, and didn’t immediately let it go when they had passed the obstacle.

“And then nothing,” he admitted sheepishly. They both paused once they reached the foot of the steep attic stairs. Chrono closed the closet door that concealed the stairs and shifted the trunk to rest it on his hip. “You probably shouldn’t go back up there until we fix those stairs.”

“What do you mean nothing? Memories aren’t supposed to get sick, right?” She stated, a little accusingly. She didn’t mean to get upset, but it was just that she didn’t understand why Chrono was so calm about suddenly loosing consciousness. Finding him motionless on the kitchen floor was the scariest thing that had happened to her in that house, and it had rattled her more than she would ever admit.

“No, they don’t get sick, but I’m guessing they’re still affected by demonic power. Aion’s electrician must have set up a barrier to contain demonic energy, and I was just too close, that’s all.”

Rosette shook her head, but hurried down the hall, wanting to get away from the attic. Mentally, she knew there was nothing to worry about since the demonic threat was confined to the cellar, but she was still a little shaky from her forced confinement. That slamming door hadn’t made the attic any less creepy.

“So I’m guessing that whatever Shader did, it worked,” Rosette grumbled, “Maybe it works a little too well.”

“I’m sure Shader knows what she’s doing, but it probably only work for a certain amount of time. Pure demonic energy is hard to contain, and this house’s demonic energy continually feeds me, so it must be the same thing for whatever is in the cellar.”

“You’re not being very reassuring!” Rosette accused him. Chrono just shrugged. Shaking her head, she pointed towards the sitting room. “Do you want to look at the stuff there?”

“The kitchen has the best light,” he murmured. They both glanced towards the kitchen and wordlessly agreed not to go there. They entered the sitting room where they had spent an evening by the fireplace and sat on one of the chairs, spreading the articles on their laps.

He carefully avoided the newspaper articles. Rosette probably would have done the same thing; it had to be uncanny to read about your own death. Since it had been such a big story for the small town, some of the clippings even featured faded pictures of Chrono. Handing stay articles to Rosette, Chrono picked up the photo album and quietly started flipping through it. Rosette had no compunction about reading the articles though. The sensationalist titles, “Respected Family Falls Apart” and “Black Family Murder” didn’t put her off in the least. She was a little annoyed by how repetitive they were though. She wasn’t able to glean any more information. The articles only put forward a few concrete facts; the rest was speculation.

Known fact number 1: Chrono was shot near the river. Known fact number 2: Pandemonium Black drowned in that river. Known fact number 3: Aion was present at both murders but was acquitted of any wrongdoings. The murder suspect was never found. The final fact that these murders had never been resolved bothered Rosette the most. How could such a huge story have been swept under the rug for so long? How could this town accept that there was no answer to this murder? That the murderer was never brought to justice? And how on earth did Aion manage to escape conviction? That was the greatest mystery of all. Even if he hadn’t been guilty, identifying him as the murderer would have provided some closure.

She put down the articles and glanced up at Chrono. He was still looking at the album, but he was frowning as looked at the pictures, clearly troubled. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t remember most of these,” Chrono admitted, looking a little worried.

Rosette shrugged and leaned against his shoulder to look at the pictures. “That’s normal, you forget things over time.”

“Yes, but what I remember about these pictures isn’t exactly normal. I can remember vaguely how I felt about them, but I mostly remember Aion’s impressions. And I only remember the pictures that have Aion in them; the ones where it’s only me are a blank. It’s as though I’m remembering Aion’s memories.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Rosette slapped his shoulder lightly. “How can you remember things from Aion’s point of view?”

Chrono didn’t say anything. Rather than agreeing with her, his frown grew more pronounced as flipped through the pages. Finally, Rosette grew tired of seeing him look so troubled, so she tried to distract him by handing him the pocket watch.

“Any idea what this is about? Shader said you would know what to do with this stuff.”

Chrono took the watch gingerly, opening it up. He looked relieved when he recognized the familiar object. “This is my old pocket watch. The oils are dried up, you’re supposed to crank it once a day to keep it going. It has a substantial amount of my power left over in it, demonic energy tends to leave a residue. But I don’t know why Aion thinks this might be useful.”

“Well, if you were Aion and you wanted to use it, it wouldn’t be for something as mundane as telling time, right? You said the oils are dried up. Aion must have something else in mind. Think twisted and evil, like Aion. What would it be for?” Rosette insisted, a little annoyed at how little she knew about Chrono’s powers.

He quietly placed it back in the trunk, on top of the album. “Well, I suppose it has enough of my powers to serve as a grounder.” She gave him an expectant look, not understanding but urging him to continue. Chrono sighed. “I experimented a bit with it as a child and found that the easiest way to send someone through time is to use an object that exists in both times. When you send things to the past. But material objects that didn’t exist back then won’t travel.” He reluctantly explained.

“Like clothes.” Rosette added. He nodded, a little surprised.

“Yes, how did you guess?”

Rosette pulled out the skirt, blouse, socks and underwear from the trunk. “They’re in my size.”

Chrono looked at the blouse. At first, there was blank incomprehension. Then slowly everything settled in and he looked at her with barely disguised horror. “No… You can’t be serious!”

“I’ve got the feeling Aion wants you to send me back in time,” she continued, pleased at having finally figured it out. Now all of Shader’s cryptic hints about ‘time is linear’ and stuff made a lot more sense. “Can you do that?”

Chrono was still in shock and his mouth opened and closed a few times, as though he just couldn’t believe she was asking him such a question. Rosette just looked at him expectantly.

“Even the shoes look as though they would fit.” Rosette took said pair of shoes out of the trunk. Curious, she pulled off her sneakers and pulled on the old leather lace-up ankle boots. They were so old that she was certain the leather would be hard and stiff, but she was pleasantly surprised that they were soft and used. They fit perfectly. As she was lacing them up, she glanced at Chrono. “Well?”

Chrono was frowning when he saw that the shoes fit. He reached out for the blouse, his frown deepening when he realised that it would be quite fashionable in 1930. “Well?” Rosette insisted, waving the other shoe in front of him. By now he was glaring sullenly at the pocket watch. “I’m guessing you can. That’s what Azmaria meant when she said your powers were the strongest, right? You can send someone through time. Can you send them both to the past and the future?”

He pushed the shoe down, and reached for the skirt, which was still in the trunk. “I think I remember seeing this clothing before,” he murmured, a little mystified. “Where could I have seen it?”

“Don’t avoid the question,” Rosette snapped, her patience thinning quickly. Chrono was supposed to be helping her, but instead he was keeping her in the dark when they were so close to getting some answers. Didn’t he want to know who killed him? “Can you send someone to the past or can’t you?”

He sighed, toying with the blouse’s buttons. Rosette was right; everything in the trunk had probably been placed there for her, it was all in her size.

“I don’t know. The most I’ve ever dared to do was to send myself a few years into the past.” He hesitated, as though revealing a childish misdeed. “I once sent Magdalene a few hours back in time to play a prank on Aion, so sending someone other than myself back in time shouldn’t be a problem. It’s just that to send you back to when I was alive would be sending you back over seventy years. There a much greater margin for me to make a mistake than if it was only a few hours. What if I accidentally sent you a few days after my death and you’re stuck there?”

“So you can do it!” she cried out, exultantly. “That means we can stop you from getting murdered! That must be what Aion has in mind!”

Chrono just shook his head. “It’s dangerous. And you can’t change time. ”

“Aion must want me to go back in time and change everything! Why else would he give me all this stuff? ” Rosette asked expectantly. Chrono kept shaking his head.

“That’s not the way it works. Time is linear, if something was meant to happen, you can’t stop it from happening.” Chrono explained sounding a little defeated. He sighed and decided to give an example. “Once I went back in time to stop Magdalene’s cat from falling out of a tree, but no matter how tightly I held it in my arms, it still managed to break free and broke its legs because of the fall. It’s always the same. If you try and prevent something from happening by going back in time, then you become a part of the cause. I don’t know what Aion is planning, but you can’t stop me from dying Rosette. Besides,” Chrono gave a small smile, “if I don’t die, then we would never get to know each other like this.”

That was true, but Rosette didn’t want to think about it. With a sigh, she unlaced the shoe, pulled it off and placed it back in the trunk along with all the rest of the clothing. Rather than putting her off, everything Chrono was saying just made her more certain that this was what she had to do. Although she was glad to have met Chrono, going back in time had to be the key to solving the mystery of his existence.

“I’m sure you have to send me back in time. Didn’t you once tell me you knew my name before having met me?” she demanded, suddenly remembering their first official meeting. “You said you had known my name for years!”

Chrono looked a little taken aback. “That’s true,” he murmured, a little bewildered, as though he had forgotten about that. “But that doesn’t mean I met you when I was alive, it could be something else. My mother could see into the future, maybe she mentioned you once.”

“You’re working against me here!” Rosette growled out, “We’ve established that only people who knew you when you were alive can see you, so how can I see you? It has to be because you met me when you were alive. And besides, look at these news articles, it says your stepmother was killed at the same time as you, and the prime murder suspect got away. Maybe I’m supposed to go to the past and try and save you, and maybe I really do become ‘a part of the cause’ as you put it. For all you know maybe it’s my fault you died! Maybe the ‘prime suspect’ is me! You can’t just write this off because time is set in stone, it obviously isn’t. Sending me back is what makes the most sense right now. We have to try.”

Chrono was quiet as he looked through the articles. She was looking at him impatiently, tapping her finger against the arm of the chair. Finally, he looked up.

“I’m sorry, you’re right, it’s what makes the most sense at this point, but could we wait? I don’t think it would be wise to send you back in time over seventy-five years tomorrow morning.” He sighed, looking rather worried. “I need time.”

“Thank you for agreeing with me.” Rosette smirked, kissing him lightly on the cheek to cheer him up. “I’m not suggesting that we do that right away, it’s probably a good idea to get more dirt on Aion and your murder before rushing head-first into Aion’s master plan. Besides, we have more cleaning to do. Why don’t we try and clean some graffiti outside?”

He reluctantly nodded and placed the blouse he had been holding back into the trunk with all the other articles. Rosette closed the lid and slipped the key into her pocket.

They both got up, and Chrono was about to silently walk away when Rosette pulled him back towards her. Without any warning, and surprising both of them a bit, Rosette pulled him into a kiss. He responded almost immediately, but it was obvious he was still upset. When their lips parted, she hugged him tightly. “Nothing will change you know.” She murmured against his collarbone.

Chrono was still a little surprised by the kiss, but soon he returned the hug, leaning his cheek on her hair. “How can you be sure of that?” he asked, “How can you be sure you’ll survive whatever Aion has planned? You’d be alone there, I wouldn’t be able to help you.”

Rosette pulled back and winked. “Because I’m not some damsel in distress, I’m Rosette Christopher. I’ll take on whatever gets thrown at me. And I’m not too worried, even if it’s not as ‘Memory Chrono’, you’ll still be with me. We’ll have to trust that ‘real’ Chrono will worry about my well-being as much as you do.”

He didn’t say anything at that. He wanted to believe her, but also didn’t want any false hope. It would be wonderful if she could prevent his death, but then what? Supposing that she could defy the linear structure of time, they could never be together if he survived. He would be an old man even before she was born. He just couldn’t think of a way to make everything work out. In desperation, he pulled her closer. Being together like this was enough for him, but would it be for her? Dying a virgin certainly had its disadvantages. He quickly pushed that thought from his mind.

“This whole situation just seems hopeless,” he admitted, “Can’t we take advantage of the time we have?”

Rosette laughed. “Sure, we can take advantage of it. Lets start by going to buy groceries, the fridge is almost empty.”

“I’m was being serious.”

“Me too. It would probably be a good idea for me to drive into town and check my mail again too.” She stepped back and took his hands. With a smile, she squeezed them gently. “Come with me?”

Chrono shook his head, letting out a small laugh. “Fine. But I have to go get changed so that I can keep Joshua’s clothing to sleep in. With all the rain we’ve had, it won’t take long for the clothes to get dirty.”

“You wont get dirty if we take the car,” she said, and then remembered that he couldn’t travel in cars when he raised an eyebrow. “Right, I’d forgotten about the car thing.”

Chrono shook his head, chuckling softly. “I don’t see how you could, we’ve just been going over how abnormal I am. But it would be nice to go out. I think we could both use a change of scenery. Wait for me while I get changed.”

With that Chrono let go of her hands and left the room. She watched his retreating back as he headed up the stairs, idly appreciating Joshua’s clothing on his slightly more muscular frame. Thinking about Joshua reminded her that she hadn’t talked to him in a while. She probably should phone him to see how he’s doing. And if ever things didn’t work out in the past, she needed to talk to him one last time. She had complete faith in Chrono’s ability to send her to the past safely, but she didn’t trust Aion one bit. The more she learned about Chrono and the details surrounding his existence, the more she realised how dangerous her situation was. Aion was the one manoeuvring her as though she were a pawn, and she was beginning to realise how much her well-being depended him, which wasn’t a reassuring thought. She had to blindly play whatever role he had scripted for her, and hope that he wasn’t leading her to her death. She also had to hope that she could be fast enough on her feet to recognize the antagonist and outsmart this person by herself. But more than anything, she really hoped this play had a happy ending.