A/N: I forgot to mention it was supposed to be September when Celesta first showed up, so I'm telling you now. I've felt very much in a fall mood lately. Maybe cause it is fall. Whatever. The events in this chapter do not happen in the book. This chapter's theme song is "Pruit Igoe & Prophecies" by the Philip Glass ensemble. I do not own D. Gray-Man.

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Sudden wrinkle in time: September 19--- October 19

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Celesta was headed down the hall leading to Komui's office. She had a soft spring to her step, probably related to autumn's arrival. Arizona hadn't had much in the way of fall, it was much prettier here.

She was also pretty excited to be going on her first mission. It was something relatively stupid to get excited about, but still! The way things had been going lately she was probably lucky she was being trusted away from 'home'.

Her suspicious looks never failed her. That creeper, Rouvelier, had his eye on her. The annoyance that was Allen's guard (thankfully not hers) didn't spend as much time focusing on her as he was told to. He was (for once) actually disobeying an order. It made her pretty happy that he did this for her, but she didn't like Lenalee's reasoning of why.

"I think I know why he's uncharacteristically not uptight." Lenalee had said at breakfast that day before.

"What do you mean?" Lavi was the first to speak. In his opinion, letting Celesta out of his sight for weeks on end wasn't uncharacteristic; he was Allen's guard, not hers.

"Well, it's just guesswork, but I think he fancies Celesta."

Right about then was when she gave a swift kick under the table. She hit Lenalee's ankle and then Lavi's shin 'cuz he laughed. After all, it wasn't like she had done anything people wouldn't get away with. He had just been told to make sure she wasn't going to turn around and literally stab someone in the back.

Nevertheless, she didn't mind too much; it wasn't like they were tying her down. They had all their employees in that division on Allen. It made her secretly happy that while they didn't completely trust her, they did enough that she didn't need a guard.

At her arrival in Komui's office, she was greeted by the faces of Miranda and Allen. Miranda smiled a greeting to her as she sat down. Allen wasn't making any sign of noticing anything. Celesta looked at his face, the way he always looked preoccupied with something. It annoyed her. He annoyed her, for no reason in particular.

"Ahem," Komui cleared his throat to get the three Exorcist's attention. "I know you're sleepy, Allen, but it's time to focus. Please get your head out of the clouds." At no reaction, Celesta reached over and whacked his arm.

"Hey!" the 15 year old woke up from his daze and looked at her with a face that said "You have betrayed my tiny trust…" and "What the heck was that about?!" at the same time.

"Celesta, thank you. But that was a hint violent, don't you think?" Komui's voice held an air of amusement at her shrug. "Anyway, back to business. I'm sending you three to Venice, Italy. There have been many reports of a creature in the canals and waterways that goes around terrorizing the gondola riders in the evenings. A few rumors of people going missing, but none are confirmed. It doesn't sound like Innocence per se, but it could be an Akuma and we don't want it to wreak havoc on the people, right?"

Allen shuddered at the thought of another level 4 Akuma. He fervently hoped it wasn't something so extreme, considering how they had fared last time. If it hadn't been for Lenalee's Crystal Innocence, they would all be dead. And Lenalee wasn't coming this time, so if bad went to worst, there was a low survival rate.

"Allen?" Celesta whispered as Komui finished getting together last-minute papers. "You okay? You look kinda… sick. Are you sure you can go?"

"I'm fine!" he snapped weakly. "It's just nostalgia. I'll be okay."

"...And you're ready to go!" Komui interrupted. Miranda got up and walked out the door, Celesta and Allen behind her.

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The three were stuck waiting for a while at the station. The train had been delayed by a storm out in Italy. Miranda had decided to go for a short walk around town because of the two hour delay. Allen offered to go too, but she said she'd rather walk alone.

That left Celesta and Allen standing together with Toma, who had come back two days ago. Celesta was sitting on a bench with a deck of tarot cards, shuffling through them.

Allen was fascinated by the artwork when he could see it. She'd every once in awhile take one or two out and look at them. He hadn't realized he had slowly been walking forward until he hit his knees on the back of the bench she was sitting on, causing her to loll her head back and look at him with an amused smile.

"That was a failure." She said and then turned back to her cards. "You know, you can just say you're curious. I don't care if you want to look." She turned around again and gave a half smile to him. "You also need to work on how loud your footfalls are. I could hear you come over before you realized you had."

"Uh…" he turned an odd color of beet red. He watched her long, pale fingers shuffle the Tarot cards the same way one would shuffle their deck in a game of poker. She cut the deck and handed half to him.

"Cut it again." She told him. "Then hand the bottom half back to me."

Doing as he was told, she deftly took three cards from the middle of his small stack and held them face down inside her coat's sleeve. Setting down the rest of the deck, she took out the three cards. Setting them down on the bench, she turned over the one in the middle.

"This one is the present." She said and tapped the card. "It can also mean the problem in the moment, or the feelings causing an issue in your current life."

"Current life?" Allen asked. He had a sinking feeling he knew what it meant, but wanted to be told he was wrong or right before he let the reading get to his head. He had never put too much stock in psychics or fortune tellers. There had been a couple with him and Mana at the circus they traveled with, but they always told the people what they wanted to hear.

"Meaning, if you believe in reincarnation, that you could've been several people before you were born as yourself. For all you know, before Allen Walker existed, he may have been the captain of a sunken ship, or the emperor of China, or a pet that was very dear to a person."

"Could you, per se, be a reincarnation of someone you never met but are apparently related to… sort of?"

She gave him a quizzical look and cocked her head to the side. "Sorry, I'm sure what you're talking about. But, I guess, possibly.

"Anyway, you present card is 'The Knight of Swords'. It usually means a brave and courageous warrior, or someone who doesn't give up easily. He's sort of an archetype. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, depending on the person." She eyed him, her tawny hazel eyes appearing to take in his soul. "The card fits you. It's not mere coincidence that this card turned up." He peered at the knight, wielding a sword on a galloping horse as he appeared to be charging into a battle. An eagle soared overhead, and he could almost see the feathers rippling in the thermal wind.

Flipping over the card to the left of the valiant knight, she tapped it as she had before. "This usually indicates the past. Any form of the past, including memories. And yes, past lives." The card held a man on horseback, clad in black armor. The man held a staff with a wreath on it and a rolled up parchment in his other hand. It was upside down, and Allen got a very bad feeling from it.

Celesta looked at it as if worried what he may think. "This card is the 'Six of Wands', reversed. It means the loss of a battle, in which one or both sides weren't noble in their way of achieving what they wanted. It indicates bad news or prosecution…" she paused then, and Allen wondered if that was all.

"…Prosecution for murder, or for being a traitor. In other words, this card goes hand in hand with Death."

A shiver ran down Allen's spine. He could guess exactly what this card meant for him. The 14th was a part of him, and his past life, probably. No one was sure the 14th had been a noble person, even though he too wanted the downfall of the Millennium Earl.

Moving on, she turned over the final card on the far right. This one held a cloaked figure holding a scythe. The moon overhead was huge and had a mist cloaking the ground. A young girl was standing beside a rock, looking over at the cloaked figure. Allen didn't need to be told this card was Death.

Celesta tapped it, as she had the others. "The right symbolizes the future. But just because this is Death doesn't mean someone will die. Death symbolizes the ending to a journey, or a phase of life. It can be bad or good. But I'm not going to lie: it can mean physical death."

She put the cards back together in their pouch as the sound of the train's whistle blew. It was still a while off, but close enough that Miranda came sprinting to where they were. She paused, panting, and sat down beside Celesta.

Allen looked over at the two of them. Celesta was watching where the train would be coming around the bend. She showed no signs of her earlier distress at the cards drawn or the reading she had made.

It was like nothing had happened between them.

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A/N: I'm pretty happy with this chapter. I'm not very good at Tarot readings, I'll admit. I'm much better at palmistry and certain forms of water gazing. I'm not psychic, per se, but have a strong spiritual connection with this kind of thing. I haven't met anyone else who read Tarot cards, so if you do please tell me if I got the cards right. And please review!