A/N: Happy April everyone! It's actually…semi warm out here in Newfoundland, and I saw my first crocus of the year yesterday- obviously, global warming is having an effect here, since normally we don't get spring until June! Actually, the usual joke is that Newfoundland only has two seasons, winter and fog, but I think it really depends on the year… and when the next snow storm comes!

But many things come with April. This year they include Easter holidays and my "pre-graduation" ceremony. And lots and lots of physics tests. And hopefully and acceptance into an international summer physics camp, since I applied for it and would desperately love to go.

But there's something else here in April!

The new chapter of Letters from Hell, which I hope you enjoy!

Happy reading, and best of Spring.

~Snekochan

Disclaimer: I don't own Chrono Crusade

Chrono turned his head slightly, looking towards the door. Somewhere in the room outside, she cold hear voices rising and falling sharply, followed by a crash.

Sighing, she began to jot down the alphabet.

Letters from Hell, Chapter eight: Be Seeing You

Rosette swallowed the hard stone resting on her tongue, but it caught in her throat as she stared at the scrolled door of the conference room. Like the surrounding offices, she knew it would be small and oak panelled. She and Amelia each had one on the next floor, where they planned out their arguments for cases. Sometimes Cam or Godren would visit them, the boy breathless in his excitement about something he'd discovered in the records, Godren bringing the latest news from the Council about new arrivals.

Rosette shook her head, scraping her hair back into its braid before gripping the doorknob.

"Are you going to get to work or not." Lucky jeered, dropping onto one of the green backed armchairs and kicking his thick boots across the floor. They left streaks of black mud. "I thought you weren't someone who wasted time." Rosette let out a growl, whirling on him.

"No! I didn't waste time, because I was trying to save someone I loved! Two someones I loved!" she hissed, her hands rolling into twitching fists. "Now? Now, who am I trying to save? You? Stevenson? Certainly not myself! Maybe we should let heaven be overrun!" Lucky quirked an eyebrow, leaning back in the chair and grinning at her.

"Sounds like blasphemy, Rosie-girl. Isn't that a bit selfish?"

"Then I'll be a selfish person. Why are those people-" she jabbed her finger at the row of doors behind which the Heaven's Horn members were coming up with codes to protect a life they didn't lead. "Why are they in Hell!"

"Because neither life nor the afterlife are fair. Deal with it. That and it's just easier." Rosette swallowed her hot breathe before it could rise again, staring at the Heaven's Guard. He was lean, with an angular face that looked like it should be smiling, laughing, not smirking at her like she was a- a- she narrowed her eyes. Easier.

She turned her back on the Guard and strode into the conference room, slamming the door behind her, pausing as she caught sight of her partner.

The woman- she had to trust from the voice and name that she was female- was completely covered by the dust grey robe, and even as it billowed around her as she scrambled to get her feet off the shiny oak desk, no part of her was revealed.

"Dammit!" Rosette stared as the Hellion leapt to her feet. "They sent you here after- the bastards! It isn't fair!" she snarled, kicking at the desk before standing stiffly across the room from her.

"I'm Uma." She said, finally, and held out her cloaked hand. "Good to meet you, Rosette. Or it would be under other circumstances."

"Likewise." Rosette smiled, matching the Hellion's firm shake and seating herself in one of the straight backed chairs. "So, do you have any ideas about what we should use?" Uma grunted, dropping into the seat across from her.

"Not a click, I'm afraid. Codes were never my specialty." The Hellion shrugged. "You don't use them much on a farm."

"You used to live on a farm?" Rosette raised an eyebrow. Uma shrugged, flicking at the push wheel telephone resting on a stack of Angel's Angle and Amplitude magazines, swinging the dial back and forth.

"Modernizing the Soviet Union didn't do much for the farms. So, letters as numbers, code phrases…"

"Those are relatively easy to solve though." Rosette tapped her fingers on her lips. "Wait a minute!" She stared at Uma's hand. "Are there telephones in Hell?"

"What?" Rosette picked up the receiver, then set it down again with a solid thump.

"Telephones."

"I suppose so, but we never get to use them. It's only for the office workers." Rosette jumped to her feet, rubbing her chilled hands and pacing back and forth in front of the desk, her wings twitching.

"I'll bet Lucky has a phone in his office- and, he might even have the Heaven's Telephone book. Maybe. Do you think you could find out? We can use a basic letter-to-number code for now, but if he has a phone book, I have a better way of doing it."

"What, I give you information over a tapped line?" Uma crossed her arms. "You aren't making any sense."

"You use page numbers, column numbers, etc, to locate a number which corresponds to a letter." Rosette chewed on a hang nail. Uma stood, leaning against the window and looking over her shoulder at the sweeping arches and the wide brick side of the city's central library.

"Might work." Uma tugged her hood lower over her face. "But I don't know how I'm going to get into the offices."

"Can you try?" Rosette dropped onto the chair again, glancing at the clock. They were almost out of time.

"Certainly. But I'm not calling you up to confirm." Out in the main corridor, a bell started to ring, and someone pounded on the door.

"Hey, Uma!" it was Ewan's partner- Martin? "We gots to get movin'."

"Alright. Be seeing you, Rosette." The blonde angel rushed after them into the hall, but they were already racing up the corridor, their cloaks swinging behind them. Swearing, she darted after them, back into them main town office, suddenly blinking against the brilliant light. Angels backed up against the walls as the Hellions passed, whispering among themselves.

"What'd you say?" The hellion who'd called for Uma screeched to a stop half way across the tiled floor of the lobby, glaring at an ash-winged angel.

Stevenson. Rosette felt her teeth start to grind.

"I said, enjoy your trip back where you belong." The angel spat, smirking. "I'm going to need a lot of air fresheners to get rid of your stench."

"Why you-"

"Marty! Not now!"

"Can it Stevenson!" Rosette stormed up to the other angel, catching a glint of red from under Chrono's hood as he grabbed Marty by the arms, pulling him back. The demon continued dragging his friend back, for the lanky Hellion was trying to pull his way free.

"Shaddup Chrono! I can take him!"

"Pathetic." Stevenson snorted, crossing his arms, his wings spreading. "Pathetic." With a final chortle, the angel swooped up, circling up and up and up until he landed on the upper reaches and strolled down one of the halls.

"Get back here you damn pansy!" Marty roared, twisting and swinging at Chrono's face.

"Quit your whining Marty!" Uma stalked over, "Ivan!" With a sullen sigh, the largest of the Hellions grabbed him, letting Chrono drop to the side.

"Are you lot trying to get incinerated?" Lucky snapped, holding open a set of doors at the far end of the lobby. "Let's move it!" Squabbling and trying to shush Marty, the group clattered through the doors and Rosette felt a surge rush through her.

They were leaving.

Chrono was leaving.

God dammit, not again! She raced across the lobby, nearly colliding with the demon as he paused in the doorway to look back at her.

"Oof- Rosette?"

"Chrono, hurry up will ya?" She ignored Lucky and wrapped her arms around his chest, shuddering at the rank odour of Hell on his clothes. Before he could hug her back, she stepped away, glaring at him.

"If you get yourself hurt, I'm assigning Uma to smack you, you got that?" She growled, swatting his head. "You damn well better come to the next meeting." Chrono cringed, chuckling.

"Wouldn't miss it, Ma'am." He saluted, then caught the hand she was shaking at him and gave it a light squeeze. "Be seeing you."

"Chrono!" With a final squeeze, the demon turned and followed the others into what looked like an ivory elevator. Lucky snapped something about wasting their time and then the scrolled cage slid shut and with a whirr, began to descend.

Rosette stood, staring at the vacant gap for a long while. The inner elevator had gone, but there was no hole- a large metallic flap had swung into place over the shaft, preventing the Hellions from escaping up it, she assumed.

Or an angel from going down it.

She stalked up to the cage, gripped its pale rungs in white knuckled fingers. Somewhere below, Chrono and his friends would be getting assignments and risking their lives, while she stood in this- this-

"Dammit!" She snarled, kicking the gate. "Why didn't he just let them infiltrate the city!" Then-

"Rosette!" Before she could aim a second blow, Cam tumbled down from on of the upper floors, his gangly winging snagging in one of the broad leaf ferns on the second floor before he landed, his glasses bouncing off his nose. "Whew- hey!" he grinned, fixing his glasses. "Sorry about that. Anyway, Godren needs to speak to you in her office-"

"About what?" Rosette muttered.

What more did she need to hear from that… "I'll see you later, Cam." Grinding her teeth, Rosette leapt into the stifling air, streaking through one of the arched entrances and out into the dimming sky.

She wheeled, higher and higher, a warm breeze tossing her skirt, her feather, her hair as she rose past the shining shop lights, the sparkle of apartment windows. Beyond each light, she could see Angels, each living their own afterlife, oblivious to the occurrences that were shaking the lives of so very few. The steady flap of her wings faltered as she spotted two teen angels, curled atop the spires of the library, talking and shyly peeping at one another. Suddenly a third angel thumped onto the roof behind them, an older man, swiftly shaking his fists at the female angel and growled something to the male, a sharp bark that sounding disgustingly like "not good enough". Rosette clenched her teeth and flapped harder, until she rocketed towards the orange moon, her wings on fire.

It was the same as earth.

She lit on an arch, sitting and tucking her skirt around her bare legs, shivering. Her eyes stung, but she shook her head deftly, staring over the twinkling city, watching as the sparkles spread out like a quilt over the buildings until they jolted to a black halt at the wall.

There, all light was snuffed, eradicated less it light the lands of evil.

Heaven forbid.

Godren forbid.

"Damn her!" Rosette slapped the rough stone, standing and pacing the arch. Thirty steps from the center to the far building. Sixty steps all the way to the other side. Sixty back again.

"Be seeing you." When? When would they see one another? Since they weren't partners, who was to say they would be allowed to see each other without "jeopardising the mission"?

She dove from, her ears aching at the change in pressure, the wind.

Wind. She shuddered, landing on her pier and opening the door to her apartment, sticking the key back into her pocket, wishing for the umpteenth that there was a point in calling out "I'm home".

"Damn her!" Rosette slammed the door closed behind her, the golden sails of her wings twitching and half-flapping, knocking papers from the desks.

Cases, cases and cases. Was she supposed to go back to work tomorrow? Like nothing had changed? And what was the point? "Let people into here- why'd I want to do that? Let them come and take Heaven! We'd be better off!" Still growling, she flicked on the light, sweeping the papers into thick piles.

"You know; if you just shove the papers around like that, you're just going to make more work for Amelia, and she really won't like that." Rosette swore, her hands instantly swooping to her hip for a gun that hadn't been there in fifty years. The light in the kitchen came on and Godren smiled tersely at her, leaning against the cupboards and twirling a small key on a leather string around one pale finger.

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A/n: Happy Spring break to all of my fellow students. And to any of you who might happen to be in University/ college, good luck on all your exams! (I'm sure you studied though, and won't need it). I'll see you in May! Now, I'm off to write an essay on… something. I haven't decided yet! ^-^