Disclaimer: Ghost Trick is property of Shu Takumi and Capcom.

- Dawn -

He had probably saved her life more times than he had saved anyone else's. So many times, in fact, he had lost count, but he knew that the count had passed thirty quite some time ago.

Lynne had absolutely no sense of self-preservation, he thought. She would throw herself in front of trucks to save children in their path, investigate obviously unsafe locations because she knew that there would be vital evidence, and just use herself as a human shield in general.

"Are you even bothered when you die anymore?" Sissel asked her once, after bringing her back to life for the umpteenth time.

She grinned a wide grin. "Not really."

"You really do get more brazen with each death," he said flatly, ears twitching in annoyance. "It wouldn't kill you to be more careful, you know. Really, it wouldn't."

"Hey, better for me to be the one to die and brought back to life than some random person whose never died before, right?" she chirped, bending down to pet him.

"You don't take death seriously at all, do you?"

"Nope! I'm used to it, after all."

So used to it, Sissel swore she was trying to die in a more and more grandiose way every time. Who else could proudly claim death by dinosaur bones, death by hostage-retrieval-shootout (Lynne did manage to free the hostage)—and on one occasion— death by shooting herself, all in one lifetime?

"You shot yourself!" he had cried.

"It was that or bleed to death and going four minutes before my death while I bleed to death won't bring me back to life," she retorted.

"So you shot yourself?"

"It was a death two minutes after they originally shot my legs. I thought it'd be easier for you to prevent my death if you had two minutes to prevent them from shooting me in the first place."

"You really are too use to this," the kitten said incredulously. "I can't believe you actually thought all that out."

"I know, now hurry! I have intel for Detective Jowd!"

Despite his annoyance, Sissel had to admit that Lynne was right that time, if she hadn't done what she did, there would've been no way to bring her back to life.

That was when he began to think that, perhaps, his powers weren't sufficient.

Of course, he was fully ready to admit that now.

"I haven't done this in years!" Lynne was laughing, her entire face lit up in a smile. "Haha, I died again!"

Sissel only heard the laughter; he couldn't bring himself to look at her. For the last time, he thought.

"That's right, so cheer up, Sissel," she said, "you won't need to save me anymore."

"But I can't leave you dead, I can't!"

"But you can't save everyone either."

It was almost surreal how Lynne had died (again). Lynne who died in the grandest, most exciting ways…

Simply died quietly in a hospital bed.

It had been a routine admission (She was getting on in the years the doctors said). Then she stayed.

Towards the last few days, Sissel only spoke to her in the ghost world. In the world of the living, all was still in the room except for the beeps of the heart monitor.

Then that morning, even the heart monitor went quiet.

"Come on, cheer up," Lynne said again, stooping to pick him up. She hadn't done that that smoothly in years, with the back-pains and whatnot. Of course, back-pains didn't bother the dead all that much (or at all).

"Are you even depressed to be dead?"

"Well, I do miss living," she said light-heartedly as she stroked his fur. "But, like I said before, I'm use to this. It was inevitable."

"There has to be something I can do…"

"Sissel, you've done enough," she said sternly, lifting the kitten until he was at eye-level with her. "Believe me. I'm dead, but I've managed to accomplish everything I wanted to—and how much I wanted to accomplish would've been impossible if I could only die once. Not many people can die without regrets, you know. " And she grinned her familiar grin. "I'm lucky I met you."

"But isn't there more you want to do?" he insisted.

"Of course, and I will. Just wait a bit, I'll be back eventually."

And Sissel, as well as a cat could anyways, smiled. "You don't take death seriously at all."

"Nope." Lynne paused for a moment. "Oh, dawn's here again."

Twenty-four hours were up.

She set him down and waved. "I guess this is goodbye for now then," she said, her smile more subdued.

"I guess it is. Goodbye."

One more grin.

The core disappeared.

Sissel blinked and stretched his body. It was stiff from lying in one position for so many hours in the morgue. He cast one more glance at Lynne before leaving.

The old, beautiful pattern he had observed for so many years was unraveled by Death.

It was strange, just when he grew comfortable with the idea of cheating Death, Death showed again that he could not be cheated.

Still, new patterns would appear again eventually, different, but just as beautiful.

And he would wait for that.

A/N: Well, that wasn't great. But I really wanted to write something short and quick for Ghost Trick.