Wildcard

by Catsafari

It first started with the nightmares that bled into her life, and then the questions about their past started. About both their pasts. But when reality can be twisted by words, is free will an option? SEQUEL/CROSSOVER.

11. Whispering Heart

Chapter 11: Whispering Heart

"So what did you make of that?"

Haru leant against Toto's column, drawing up her knees and hugging them to her chest, but this time the action was just for comfort rather than out of fear. She hummed a bit under her breath before coming to an answer. "I don't really know. It explains a bit though."

"You didn't mention you were related to the author before."

"Yeah, I'm sorry. With everything I just sort of... forgot. It doesn't really matter though, does it?"

"... No. No, not at all."

"What surprises me is that Shizuku's death happened at around the same time as our visit to the Cat Kingdom," Haru continued. "It's a bit of a funny coincidence, isn't it?"

"It isn't a coincidence at all," Baron said bluntly. "Her death started the story into happening."

"What?"

"When Shizuku first wrote If You Listen Closely, I don't think she had enough power for the story to be made into full reality. Sometimes that happens. But it did have enough power to push some aspects of the story into being."

"Like your existence at the Bureau?"

"Yes. Since Toto and I are Creations, it is easier for us to be 'written'." Baron seemed reluctant to admit to this weakness. "A writer can change our behaviour and even our emotions and usually we have no knowledge about it."

"Which is why you just about quote If You Listen Closely word for word?"

"Indeed. It would explain why I have no recollection of my time at that shop or..."

"Or Louise."

Baron nodded silently, not trusting his voice to speak. Eventually he started again. "Something drastic in the writer's life – like their death – can jumpstart the story. Shizuku's death caused her story to start."

"Except instead of having a Takara, it picked up a Wildcard."

"Yes, I suppose the story couldn't avoid that." Baron smiled at her. "Anyway, it wasn't a bad choice."

Haru sunk her head down so that he couldn't see the blush set off by his compliment. "Thanks," she murmured. Emboldened a little by it, she said, "At least we've got an idea what happened to Louise and why you don't remember her."

Baron's face fell. "Yes."

Haru immediately wondered whether she'd made a bad move. "Baron? Are you okay with it?"

"I'm... It's going to take a little re-adjusting. That's all. It's just..."

"Yes?"

He shook his tawny head. "Nothing. I'm fine."

Haru waited for him to add anything else, but then saw that he wasn't about to elaborate. "I'm sorry Baron," she sighed. "I know this can't be easy and... and I'm sorry for shouting at you the other day about it. That was wrong of me."

She moved to get up, but a small gloved hand on her wrist stopped her. "No, it's me who should be apologising for that," Baron said firmly. "I should've known that you were just as surprised as I was and we were both stressed."

Haru smiled weakly. "Thank you Baron. Anyway, I should be heading back. It's been a long... it's been a long day," she sighed, her eyes fluttering shut as if to prove her point. She bit back a yawn as she got to her feet, stretching out her muscles to loosen them. "I'll see you around, Baron. Have a good day."

"You too."

ooOoo

"So when are we heading off to Kinkan?"

Baron spread out the recently re-organised files on Kinkan town and glanced up at Muta. "I don't know. I haven't mentioned it to Haru."

"You said she wasn't coming."

"I did, but she would still probably like to know we're leaving. Anyway," the tawny cat added in thought, "we haven't got much time left until she leaves for university. Perhaps we should postpone it until she goes."

"Baron..."

"The town has been clear for several months; what difference would one more month or so make?"

Neither of the other two could find a reasonable argument against that point. Eventually though Toto carefully said, "We are going to Kinkan, right?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't we be?" He smiled weakly, as if knowing his companions' thoughts.

"So when are you going to tell her?"

"All in good time."

"What about this evening?" Muta receive surprised looks from Baron and Toto for his suggestion. He just shrugged. "It's as good a time as any."

"After everything we've discovered today, maybe we should leave it to another time," Baron said.

Muta shrugged again. "If you say so. But you're just putting it off and the longer you do the harder it'll be to tell her the truth." He picked up the newspaper lying on the table and flicked it open; his face disappearing behind it.

"The lardball may actually have a point," Toto added after a few seconds. "When are you going to tell her?"

"Like I said before – all in good time. I still need to organise with Lune the portal to get us to Kinkan." He saw the expressions of his two friends. "Alright, I'll talk to Haru about this when she next comes to the Bureau. Are you happy now?"

"More or less," grunted Muta from behind his newspaper. "I just hope you know you can't avoid this forever."

ooOoo

Haru sat back on her bed, her head against the wall as she neared the end of the hardback in her hands. She flicked over to the next page, her brow furrowed in thought.

'It's so weird,' she thought as she read over the end of the scene where the crows came to the rescue of the falling Takara. 'It's like reading my own life. Even if Takara is very different from me, it still holds strong resemblance to the truth. Scarily similar,' she added as she read Baron's words which were printed word-for-word.

"I admire a young woman who speaks from the heart."

She paused, her fingers trailing almost mournfully over the same words that had haunted her ever since that day from so long ago.

'It's not fair,' her mind rebelled. 'Shizuku wrote him to say those words... if she hadn't, maybe he would have said something a little different... She wrote him to have nothing more than admiration. Was he even saying those words to me or to Takara?'

"I think she said something about how it'd make more sense for Takara to develop feelings for the Baron if the Baroness wasn't present. Also it gave him more of a sense of mystery if he didn't seem to have past."

Seiji's words from earlier that day returned to her. So Shizuku had meant for Takara to fall for Baron... although Takara had admitted her crush less haphazardly than Haru had, but they had both been given the same response to their confession.

'Baron said I was a Wildcard... it's just too bad that I still fell for him.'

She snapped the book shut, suddenly sick of trying to work out Baron's thoughts on the subject. She would never get any answers this way. Instead, she swung her legs off her bed and moved to her desk where her laptop was. Turning it on and typing in her password, she waited for it to load up. When it did, she navigated her way around the internet until she found Shizuku Amasawa's author page. She supposed e-mailing a question would be pointless, what with Shizuku deceased, but she clicked on the FAQ page instead.

She scrolled through the usual questions, trying to find something that might be useful.

WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR INSPIRATION?

ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT WRITING ANOTHER NOVEL?

WHAT WAS THE SONG THAT WAS PLAYED DURING THE DANCE?

Haru suddenly became sidetracked. She had never discovered what the song was – they had left in quite a hurry. She clicked on the link.

WHAT WAS THE SONG THAT WAS PLAYED DURING THE DANCE?

I never really thought about it much, but the original piece that I based it on was a song called Katzen Blut – the title literally translates into "cat's blood." I listened to it quite a lot while I was writing that particular scene.

~ Shizuku.

Haru returned to the original FAQ page and continued scrolling down. As interesting as the answer might have been (she had noted down the title so she could look it up later) it wasn't what she was looking for right now.

MIGHT THERE BE A FILM?

WASN'T THERE AN EARLIER DRAFT YOU HAD THAT HAD AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT PLOT?

WHAT HAPPENED TO TAKARA AFTER THE BOOK?

Haru paused, her mouse hovering over the last question. She wondered what Shizuku had planned for Takara after her adventure into a different world.

Did she dare though? Her heart wasn't sure. Was she brave enough to discover what her future should have been? What it should have been if she hadn't been a Wildcard? What it should have been if one little twist of fate hadn't granted her the gift of immunity?

She selected the question.

WHAT HAPPENED TO TAKARA AFTER THE BOOK?

I never put it into the final draft, but I did write an epilogue that I later decided to remove. In the epilogue, Takara faced life with a new enthusiasm – she apologised to her mother who she'd argued with that morning, worked harder than ever, knew what she wanted to do in life and asked out the boy she liked. She became independent and never needed to go back to the Bureau.

For those of you who were interested in the Takara/Baron pairing, sorry. I just felt that Takara would have moved on from her crush on the Baron and, anyway, a relationship between a human and a Creation would never have worked out. The Baron only ever saw Takara as a client at any rate and didn't harbour any stronger feelings than "admiration" so even if their situations had been different, a relationship would not have sprung up.

Hope that answered your question.

~ Shizuku.

Haru stared at the page for several long, laboured seconds.

"A relationship between a human and a creation would never have worked out ... the Baron only ever saw Takara as a client ... so even if their situations had been different, a relationship would not have sprung up."

Haru blinked away the tears that threatened to rise. 'Baron said that he could be "written" easily since he's a Creation... so he really did see me as nothing more than a client...?' She wiped at her eyes, surprised by the wetness there. 'I suppose... I suppose that answers one question. Damn, I feel so foolish...'

ooOoo

A week passed by at the Bureau, but still there was no sign of the familiar brunette. Muta had told Baron that he hadn't seen her at the Crossroads either – and commented how it was almost like Haru was avoiding them. With her absence, impatience began to run high at the Cat Bureau.

"We have to assume that she's not coming to see us anytime soon," Toto said, perched from his usual place on the balcony. His tone was a little more clipped than usual. "So either you go to her and tell her that we're going, or we leave without telling her. You got the portal business sorted out with Lune days ago and if we wait much longer we'll find ourselves tied down with client business."

"I know. It's just..." Baron sighed and leant back in his chair. "I expected her to turn up by now. I judged wrongly."

"So are you going to tell her?"

"Now, you mean?"

"We've been kicking our heels for a week. Yes, now."

Baron looked uncomfortably around, but saw he was going to get no support from anyone else. "Okay, Toto, I'll go now. Will you give me a lift?"

"If it ensures you go and talk to the girl, I'll fly in ruddy loop-the-loops," Toto cawed back. But he gave Baron a lift all the same and flew out of the Bureau's balcony doors.

"Can you just drop me off at her window?" Baron asked over the roaring wind.

"How long will you be?"

"Give me an hour, but stay close."

"Okay, you're the boss." Toto's comment had the mechanics to sound humorous, but only managed to sound slightly sour. "Do you have any idea how you're going to break the news to her?"

"I'm hoping that the right words will come to me."

A coughing sound came from Toto. "That sounds slightly risky. Is improvisation really your thing?"

"It worked for the Cat Kingdom adventure."

"You had a script to work from then," Toto reminded him.

"Toto, when I want you to give me a reality check, I'll tell you." Baron looked over the crow's wings. "There, there's her house."

"I know where she lives," Toto returned. "Goodness knows I should do by now."

Baron had no response to that.

They arrived at Haru's window and Toto balanced precariously on the edge as Baron jumped down to the sill.

"She's shut the window... she hardly ever does that."

"Yeah, well I'll leave you to sort that out." Toto flapped his wings experimentally and peered down as if to check how far the ground was. Not that he needed to. As he had said before, he had visited enough times. "So, an hour, right?"

"Yes, thank you."

Baron watched the form of Toto flying away in the early evening light before turning to the closed window. The light was on; showing Haru to be sitting at her laptop, busy typing something. Baron tapped at the window lightly.

Haru jumped and missed the keys she was typing, to form a mismatch of nonsense words appeared on the screen. She turned around and spotted the feline standing on the other side of the glass. Her mouth formed a word that may have been "Baron" and she moved out of her chair. She unlatched the window and opened it.

"What brings you here, Baron?"

Baron jumped across the gap and sat down on the inside of the window ledge. He noted that her bed was covered in leaflets... notably leaflets for a university; probably the university Haru was heading to, he thought miserably. A few key items from the box Haru had recovered from her mother's box were also lying on the green and red chequered bedcover. A suitcase sat in the corner of the room.

"I just needed to tell you that... well, that the Bureau is going to be absent for a few weeks."

Haru had been moving a few items across the bed to make room for her to sit down, but froze halfway in the action. "What? Why? Where are you going?"

"We're just heading to another town for a short period to check how things are going."

"Why? Is something wrong?"

"No, not at all. In fact the town is more normal than it's been in years."

"Oh. Why are you going then?"

"It's... to do with stories that affect life. You remember how If You Listen Closely caused our Cat Kingdom adventure to occur?"

"Yeah..."

"Well imagine that, but on a much larger scale."

"Oh." Haru paused. "How big a scale are we talking about exactly?"

"As big as a town."

Haru's eyes drew wide, but this time no "oh" was emitted from her. "O-kay. And that's bad?"

"Very. But we have reason to believe that what caused it is no longer a threat."

"Isn't it still risky for you?" After a blank moment, Haru added, "I mean, you said that Creations can be easily written. If stories were happening there, couldn't you be... you know... changed?"

"Like I said before, we have reason to believe that the threat is gone."

"But you're not sure." Haru's response wasn't a question, but rather a statement.

"No, hence why we're going."

Haru smiled weakly. "That's funny really; I had planned on telling you at some point that I was going away for a short while too."

Baron looked pointedly at the suitcase. "I thought university didn't start yet."

"It doesn't. But look at this..." Haru moved across her bed, scavenging the same portrait she had picked out before – the one with her mother next to that man. She opened the back of the frame and tugged the photo out. On the back was an indistinguishable date and two words.

Kinkan Academy

"See, I've worked out where this was taken," Haru said excitably, missing the dismayed look on Baron's face. "I've booked the tickets and I'm going to stay at the academy – the place does a sort of summer course, so it's still open. I'm just going to be a guest – I won't need to dance, thank goodness – but I will be able to get a feel of the place. Maybe I could even find the man in the picture."

"Why, Haru?"

Haru looked up, surprised by the tone in the Baron's voice. "Why?" she echoed. "My mother isn't telling me much about the place – I don't think she remembers much – but this man..." She tapped the picture. "I was just thinking that maybe this man... maybe he was my father..." She looked over to Baron. "I've got to try and find out at least."

"You don't know who your father is?" Baron found the question slipping out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

"I know it's weird, but no... And Mum doesn't even seem to realise that I'm missing a father figure. I can't remember her ever telling me about him or ever bringing him up, and it's as if she doesn't think he exists. I didn't even realise it was weird until I started hearing other children talking about their fathers at school." Haru shook her head. "That's why I've got to go."

Before Baron could respond, there was a beeping from the laptop on Haru's desk.

"Hang on, that'll be Hiromi replying to my message. Shoot, I forgot to log off." Haru moved across to her desk and clicked on the tab option until she came to a social network page. She typed out a hasty reply to Hiromi's demand to know where she'd disappeared to, and closed the tab. The next tab was revealed to be a Google-search on Kinkan Town. She closed that tab too and turned off the laptop. "It's weird; for about ten years the town has almost seemed to have disappeared off the map... forgotten... but now it's suddenly returned. And everything there is so old-fashioned... although they're working to bring it up-to-date now." She smiled at Baron; leaning back on her chair. "I mean, even if I just find a grave, it will be better than not knowing, won't it?"

"Haru, can't this wait a while?"

The brunette frowned. "It's waited for eighteen years. And next year I'll be at uni and everything will be so busy..." The thought seemed to sadden her. "Anyway, the tickets are booked."

The clogs were furiously turning in Baron's mind. "Haru, just trust me; that place is dangerous."

Haru's hand crashed down on her laptop; slamming it shut. "Baron, just because you were written to be all knight-in-shining-armour to me once doesn't give you the right to suddenly become over-protective of me now," she said coldly.

There was a sudden silence between them.

The irritation in Haru left as quickly as it had come; her hand – which had furled into a fist – unclenched and she sighed. "Sorry, Baron. It's just..." She sighed again and shook her head. 'What am I meant to say? That I had hoped that he felt the same way about me as I do about him? Yeah, because that will go down well...'

She pretended to shrug off how that sentence was going to end. "Nothing. Sorry, if you feel it's too dangerous for me, I'll keep that in mind, but I'm not going to back out. This is important to me. I thought you understood that."

Baron watched the becalmed girl, a little more than just shocked by her outburst and a whole lot of hurt by it too. He hoped none of that was visible in his expression. "Okay, Haru. But on one condition."

Haru smiled weakly, slightly reassured by the tone that sounded almost Baron again. "It depends on what that condition is."

"I'm coming."

ooOoo

"What?" Muta stepped out of his claimed place on the sofa, taking several steps towards the figurine. "I thought we were taking the portal!"

Baron was halfway through collecting his notes for Kinkan. "You are. I'm going with Haru. She's agreed to let me travel in her hand luggage..."

"You've gone mad."

Baron looked up from the stacks of files. "Haru has made up her own mind to go to Kinkan. Not only that, but she's staying in the academy, and from Toto's reports, that sounds like the place where everything was focused. Far from making her visit quiet, she's making it uncannily easy for Drosselmeyer to discover her..." Several piles of folders he deemed unimportant were swept to one side as he carried on digging through the notes. "I'm not letting Haru enter Kinkan Town on her own..."

"And what do you intend to do if Drosselmeyer does turn up at the gates?" Muta asked with a smirk on his face. "Take him on with your cane?"

"I feel better about the whole thing if I know that Haru has arrived at Kinkan safely," Baron replied flatly.

"You know, this sure is a lot of bother you're going to over one client," Muta commented innocently.

Baron gave him a cold stare. "We were going to Kinkan anyway. This is just a... a detour."

"Uh-hm."

"Muta, if you don't have any helpful comments to give, please keep your opinions to yourself." Not for the first time, he became glad that the fur hid any sign of a blush. Well, just about. "Anyway, this enables me to enter Kinkan under a cover." He looked over to Muta. "You can just be a stray–"

"Hey, watch who you're calling a stray!"

"–and Toto at least looks like an ordinary crow. But I stand out. At least this way I can just be in my wooden state."

"Have you told the girl about Kinkan's history?"

"I've told her... that it has been seriously affected by stories in the past. I haven't told her about Drosselmeyer though." After a guilt-induced moment he added, "Or the fact that she's a descendant."

"You're going to have to tell her some time."

"Perhaps when this is all sorted out."

ooOoo

"Is that… is that… me?"

Haru reached for the last photo frame in the box that contained her mother's old possessions and brought it up to her face. The last photo from the box, stacked right at the bottom, wasn't only of Naoko. It wasn't even just the mysterious man. This time, there were four adults.

And two babies.

She recognised the man from before and her mother, but there were two new adults. A couple, it seemed. The woman had dark brown hair the same style as Naoko's, and even shared the same eyes – a green-grey combination that Haru knew well. The man had an even darker head of hair; but his eyes… they were the same rich chocolate shade as Haru's. She stared a little longer, but then her eyes flickered to the two babies held by the unfamiliar couple. Both had dark hair, although the quality of the picture made it difficult to gauge whether it was black or just dark brown, but…

'It could be me…' Haru's mind whispered. Her hand brushed away more dust from the forgotten photo frame, this time centring on the babes. Her thoughts were still in disarray, as one fact rang round her head.

'There are two of us?'

ooOoo

A/N: Shoot, yes I know it bears some similarities to OFAF (Of Fur and Feathers, for future reference) but please bear with me. I know in OFAF Haru has a past in Kinkan too, but I wanted to be able to change to scenery to Kinkan and this is based off my own observations, not YarningChick's story. When this gets to the end, then you can condemn me for taking any ideas off YC, but have patience to see this to the end before you do. Remember, I'm taking the same characters and mixing them up – it's not the easiest to come up with a wholly original plotline/scenarios.

If I get to the end and I'm still being accused of plagerism, then, out of respect of OFAF and YarningChick, I WILL delete this story. But I worked hard on this, so only when I have finished updating this will I delete this story, if pressured to.

Thank you.