I wasn't going to do anymore of these but this idea got stuck in my head, so I had to write it... Thank you to everyone who has reviewed these little side stories!
Diclaimer: I don't own D. Gray - Man.
Warning: Implied mental and physical child abuse, because we all know that growing up with Cross had to be hell… Cross being OOC...
!Very important Info!:
This is a side story for both "Secrets" and "The Joker, the Jack and the King"
This is set and goes through the three years that Allen is training with Cross. So Allen goes from age twelve to age fifteen in this story.
Fourth Part: General Marian Cross was a womanizer, a cheat, and a drunk. She was his proof that karma did in fact exist and was out to kick him in the ass…
General Marian Cross was a womanizer, a cheat, and a drunk. He was a down right bastard when it came to using woman and breaking their hearts. It was these qualities that lost him the one woman that he had ever truly cared for.
Maria had been one of a kind, but he had broken her heart. He had been the reason that she had found herself in the arms of the enemy. Though Cross had the feeling that she did truly love the man…
General Cross Marian hated everything, though hate was to strong of a word really. No, Cross just didn't care. The only things he deemed worth his time anymore were women and wine. And not in that order.
He was an Exorcist, a General thanks to a little magic book that he had taken from the Fourteenths brother. His green eyes glanced at the body of the woman that he had once claimed to care about. He had used that old book of magic to animate Maria's body…
He tried to justify his reasoning's for everything he had done up to this point, but that still didn't make him anything better then a bastard.
He had been following the Fourteenths brother because he had promised to watch over the man, though Cross didn't see way he was still doing it, or why he had agreed to in the first place.
He didn't owe him anything…
But Maria…
Cross had only left them alone for two days, and the Fourteenths brother came up dead. Cross had felt like a fool to let down his guard. He had made his way to the grave yard only to find that he was to late.
Cross entered the old graveyard, Maria only a few passes behind him. He was slightly out of breath from running…
The scene that greeted his dark green eyes told him that he was indeed to late. That the Millennium Earl had indeed come and the little brat had made the deal. He had failed yet again…
He approached the small huddled form that was sobbing before the newest grave stone. Sorrowful and broken silver eyes turned to look at him after a few long moments of the General just standing there. Cross frowned when it felt like there was a cold knife being twisting within his heart at that look within those eyes.
Those silver eyes stared at him and Cross could only stand there frozen. There was no doubt in his mind that this little girl before him was his offspring…
Even with her once brown hair turning white.
The thought that he should kill this child before she had the chance to grow crossed his mind then. He was an Exorcist, this thing before him was the offspring of his enemy, one day she would awaken and also become a Noah, Innocence or not…
That Noah had to have done something to the Innocence imbedded within this small things left hand, there was no other way that he could think of that would explain why an Innocence would be working with one that had the genes of Noah.
Two opposing forces housed within one being.
He couldn't let this thing live, or the tainted Innocence to continue to function with its Accommodator…
He was an Exorcist, it was his duty. It was his duty as a human…
His hand moved to his belt, his fingers wrapping around Judgments handle. His green eyes narrowed and he wanted to, he wanted to so badly. He couldn't waste this opportunity, the Earl hadn't realized what she was when he had been here, but how long would that last?
Mana had done a good job hiding her with his magic and with disguising her as a boy, but it had been mainly luck that the Order or the Earl hadn't found her yet. And how long would that luck last, now that Mana Walker was dead?
Those haunting silver eyes continued to stare at him. The General realized that she had his eyes then. Cross dimly noted that the color must be genetic to the Walker bloodline, because he had met three Walkers that had those cutting and haunting gray eyes…
This thin little thing that was still staring at him looked so much like him, but Cross could see her in that face also…
The hand that had been ready to pull Judgment from its holster fell back down to his side. He found himself kneeling before the small and broken little girl that was the child of the Fourteenth Noah.
Cross remembered listening to that child break, because the Fourteenth had been nothing but a child then. He had listened to him hush his own child, this little thing before him now, back to sleep all those years ago. Cross wanted to be bitter, he wanted to hate…
But how could you hate a man, one much to young to already have a family of his own, a man that had loved his family so deeply that he would destroy anything that threatened them?
But still that was not what made him decide to spare this little girls life, decide to offer to teach her to be an Exorcist. To teach her to be an Exorcist like her mother.
He tried to tell himself it was because he at least owed Maria this…
Cross figured that this was karma's way of making him pay for every woman that he had ever wronged. This was his punishment, this was his retribution for all the sins that he had ever committed. Cross didn't care about anything, he was pretty sure that he had never cared.
But the Great General Cross Marian felt pity for the little thing sitting in the mud and dirt before him. This child of the Noah that should have never existed and the Exorcist that chose love over her humanity.
Cross wasn't a fool, he knew how dangerous this child was. This little rag of a girl had the power to destroy mankind if she only knew how. That in itself was frightening. To think about what could have happened if someone else found her before Mana had.
Cross had seen who had shown up at that circus just after Mana had taken her from that hell hole. He had seen them fallow after the two for these five long years. The Earl and the Noah had always been two steps behind…
Only ever seeing Mana, but never who the child that was with him for what 'he' truly was.
Mana had been to kind with Allen, to soft. The Fourteenth's brother should have known that he couldn't keep her from the war, she was to much a part of it.
If she was going to survive this war and this world then she needed to learn to stand on her own. It was not lost on him that the Fourteenth's child would be nothing but a puppet to whatever puppeteer found her first…
And it would seem that fate had decided that Cross Marian would be that puppeteer.
He had known that this day would come, the day he would have to look at her, the child of the one woman that he had ever thought he loved. Those silver eyes looked at him with such lose, pain, and absolute yearning that he wanted to be sick.
But not because he found that look disgusting. No, he was sick to think of what she could be made to do if she thought it would make someone love her. A woman's devotion could be even more frightening then facing the Earl and ten thousand Akuma without a weapon…
Cross took her in as his apprentice. The Exorcist General made sure that the first thing he crushed was her reliance on others. Cross was not a kind man, but he was also not truly cruel either. He didn't care for anything, but then he found himself raising the child of the one woman that he believe he loved…
Two years passed in a blink of an eye. Allen grew and Cross watched. He watched her grow and watched her learn. Every day that passed Cross could see more and more of Maria in her.
He was a sick bastard. Every time those silver eyes would look at Maria, Cross could feel that cold knife twist a little deeper. He keep his lips closed anytime Allen would ask him about her though, he would simply tell his apprentice to not ask such stupid questions…
The Truth about Maria would be something that he would take to the grave. Because no matter how much Cross thought that he didn't care about anything anymore, he found himself caring about Maria's daughter…
Anytime that he throw her out to deal with something, he had been within sight of her. She was a smart girl though and the General never had to step in to help her. She was her parents daughter after all.
Even if she had yet gained control of her Innocence she was still strong willed, though the fact that she couldn't summon her weapon was starting to concern him. Cross knew that the Innocence was functional, thanks to the turning Mana into an Akuma thing…
The General stepped up his training, hoping that he could force the modified Innocence to activate. He pushed her hard, sometimes forgetting that she was a girl…
But she was a young girl. Even though Cross let her think that he though she was a boy most of the time. Though Cross was soon to find out that there was a lot to rising a young girl that he didn't really think about…
It happened on their first visit to India.
He was standing on one of the balconies of the Maharajah's palace as his apprentice limped up to a young fifteen year old boy out in the yard, he believed that the boy was Ms. Urmina's lady-in-waiting's little brother. Cross watched with a blank expression on his handsome face as his idiot apprentice tried to talk to him, blushing and stumbling all over her words.
It took him a little longer then it should have for him to figure out what was going on. Even then he was sure that he was simply having some kind of nightmare. His mind trying to figure out when the brat had gotten old enough to be interested in boys.
Cross wasn't sure how he was going to deal with this new…
Development.
Thank god the brown head boy was to engrossed in looking at a pale ankle to notice the pink in those pale cheeks, or the stomach turning look in those bright silver eyes. Cross had seen that look directed at him enough times to notice it now.
His first thought was that if he were to put Judgment to his head and pull the trigger, would it kill him? Or would his Innocence decide that he hadn't suffered enough?
India, Cross hated India…
Cross knew how to deal with woman. He prided himself on it even. But the second that he noticed Allen blushing and falling all over herself to talk to that brown haired boy that wanted to become a doctor…
He remembered his second thought was that he would have to kill the boy. Cross couldn't help but think that the boy was lucky that her father and uncle were dead. He didn't want to know what horrible things a Noah could come up with to scare away unwanted suitors…
The thought alone gave the General nightmares…
But fate offered him a fix his little problem before long. He had dragged his apprentice from the palace to get her away from that annoying boy when they were attacked by Akuma. It was then that his keen green eyes had caught sight of the boys older sister, and Cross had decided on the best course of action…
He was a bastard, but he was also an opportunist.
Maria would never forgive him, if Allen ever knew half the things he never told her, she would never forgive him. Not that he ever deserved forgiveness in the first place. But Cross felt that he was justified in the things that he had done, the little brat had learned to summon her Innocence thanks to him...
It had taken him three years of putting her through hell, but she had learned to stand on her own.
And that was the only thing he could do for her. Cross didn't care about anything or anyone, but he found himself caring for her. For the offspring of his enemy and the woman that he had at one point loved in some degree.
Because deep in his heart he knew that Allen could have been his, if he hadn't been such a bastard all those years ago. This fifteen year old young woman he was now sending to the Order could have very easily been his daughter…
And maybe that had been the real reason he had done everything that he had…
Cross wasn't much of a parental type, he was definitely not one to ever show his feelings to anyone, the thought alone made him want to vomit, then shot himself with Judgment. He left his apprentice, unconscious, in India (again, Cross hated India) with instructions to head to the Black Orders Headquarters when she woke.
His lips slid into a bitter smile, and Cross found it ironic, that he would be feeling bitter over sending that brat out alone and not over everything else that had happened in his life.
Cross figured that he was a twisted and horrible father/uncle figure, but then he also figured that he had to be better then a Noah...
Damn, he needed a cold drink and some nice warm company…
Ok, now I don't have anymore to add to this… unless anyone can think of something that they might want to see?