Chapter 4

Secrets Between Friends

Even though he had to get up early, Crono was very excited today. Within the hour, Taban was going to bring Lucca over. She had quickly become his best friend over the course of the last four years and it had been a few weeks since he was last able to see her. To say that he missed her a lot was an understatement. He had overheard his parents saying something about an accident and Taban was going to take Lara on a vacation to help her cope. He was happy that Lucca was going to stay with Crono's family for the week. He was curious as to what happened, but figured that it could not be all bad since he was going to have his best friend around for a whole week.

Despite their differences in personality, both children got along exceptionally well. Crono was very bright, but lagged behind the brilliant Lucca. They were for the most part, just like any other kids, but put them together and they complimented each other in such a fashion as to make their physical age pointless. Together these were not mere six-year-olds. She could out argue someone three times her age, and Crono could physically outpace a ten-year-old.

That was the second reason why Crono was so excited about today; he and Lucca were going to be spending the whole day at his father's shop. It was time for him to learn about swords. His father said that after Crono had learned about the different types and what made a sword good, he was going to teach him how to use one. He'd been waiting for his father to say this for the last two years. Lucca probably was not that interested in the swords, but being a curious person, she would most likely want to know about the history and creation of them. Crono never could figure out half the stuff that Lucca did, he wanted to learn how to use something, while she wanted to know how it would do whatever it was that it did.

As usual, Crono was practically drooling over breakfast. It was not so much that his mom was a great cook - although that was true - he just liked food. Only his parents and Lucca had ever seen him eat like this though. Despite being a very warm and caring child, he kept other people at a distance; to the outside world, he was a very polite and quiet boy. Today was even worse than usual, he was excited and wanted to get going as soon as possible. The bacon and eggs did not even have a chance.

Gina was not even sure if they made contact with the plate before being swept into Crono's waiting mouth. She could not see how such a small child could fit so much into his mouth and still be able to chew. She had learned to live with it though. At first she was always worried that he would choke, but after a while she found out that despite his hasty and somewhat 'rough' actions; he knew exactly what his capabilities were.

"You know you don't have to inhale your food so quickly." Gina sighed, "Geez, you're eating even faster than normal. Eating like a ravenous wolf is not going to get you there any quicker. We have to wait for Lucca to get here and your father is not ready either." Crono started to attempt a response, "And don't even think about talking to me with your mouth full! I have better things to do than see you spit partially chewed food across the table!"

"Or-ee." was his final response and he tried to resume chewing. He managed to swallow his breakfast and chugged his glass of milk. He stood up from the table and took his dishes to the sink, giving them to his mother, "I'm all done. Would it be okay if I go outside and see the sunrise?"

"I don't see why not, just get back here right after it comes up, Lucca should be here by then."

Crono turned on his heel and went out the back door. Unknown to his mother, he did not intend to see the sunrise. It wasn't that he objected to such things; Lucca had taught him to see the beauty in nature during the walks he accompanied her on. This time he just wanted a good reason to go out and practice. Neither of his parents knew that he had traded an older boy some of his allowance for a wooden training sword. It was not a very good one, and he had to keep it hidden in some bushes on the side of the house, but he would not need it for much longer.

He walked around to the east side of his house and dug around in the bushes until he found it. Crono thought it was a very good hiding spot. The bushes were thick and next to an open area of the yard. When he knew that his parents were going to be inside for a while, he would come here to practice his sword skills. It was ideal, since the sun came up on this side of the house, there were no windows and tall bushes covered the remaining sides of the yard, so he didn't need to worry about anyone seeing him.

Crono looked up and saw the sky was already turning a mild grey color. He knew that he would only have about fifteen minutes but it would give him time to get in a few good swings.

He prepared his battle stance, trying to find a proper combination of balance and responsiveness. He found that holding his sword slightly downwards and to the left at arm's length with both hands gave him a good position. Although it seemed to leave his chest open, he had found that he gained great maneuverability to parry whatever his opponent's first attack was going to be. He positioned his feet slightly wider than his shoulders with his right foot slightly behind him. He stared intently ahead of him and drew back placing more of his weight on his right foot.

"Hrruugh." He swung his weight forward and brought his sword into a horizontal position. He pushed his arms outward and thrust the sword forward with his upper torso.

"Yea-arrr-oof!" His thought of victory disturbed as he followed the movement by throwing the sword away from him as he fell forward onto his face.

Thrusting his sword forward had proven to be rather tough. Every time he tried to imitate the movements of his father, he tripped over his own feet. He still could not manage to find his center and usually would get off balance too easily.

He looked down at his tan pants and saw the tell tale green streaks on his knees. "It's a good thing that mom hasn't noticed that not all my clothes have been in the laundry." He thought. Crono ended up doing much of his own laundry in an attempt to hide any evidence of what his mother would think was odd behavior.

Looking up, Crono saw that the sun had fully risen. He quickly stashed his sword and made his way to the back of the house. Peeking into the kitchen window, he made sure his mom would not see as he scaled an ivy-covered lattice positioned just outside his bedroom window above the kitchen.

While climbing Crono came up with a backup excuse to tell his mother, "I had better get inside and change clothes before mom sees this mess. It's a good thing that she is always so busy in the morning, I can make it look as if I've been up in my room for a while and she didn't notice me come back inside. I'm glad that these weren't my last clean pair."

He hopped through the window, pulled off his pants, and stashed them under his bed. He pulled a new identical pair from a drawer in his closet, hurriedly put them on, then casually walked downstairs to wait for the guests to arrive. Fortunately, he didn't have long to wait; within a few minutes, there was a knock at the door.

Before Gina had a chance to respond, Crono practically ran to the door and threw it open. "Hi Crono, I see you actually woke up. I expected you to still be asleep for a few more hours." He gave her a scowl; coming from Lucca this was a positively warm hello. Sarcasm suited her well, probably why his father got along with her so well too.

Every time Gina would look at the three of them, she would just huff and roll her eyes. They knew that she was just kidding and that she really found it funny that all of them were so much alike.

"Hey Crono. How've you been?" added Taban as Crono sidestepped and he walked through the doorway.

Crono shrugged as he closed the door, "Fine. Dad should be out soon, he's almost ready."

With his usual timing, Michael emerged from the bedroom. "Taban. It's good to see you again. I take it everything is in good order?"

"Yep. I've got some of her stuff right here and if you need anything else here's a spare key. Barring any problems, we should be back in town Thursday and we'll come pick Lucca up on Friday. I really do appreciate this, I think that this getaway will help Lara a lot."

"Crono, why don't you take Lucca up to your room and get her settled in." Crono motioned to Lucca and they both dragged her bag up the stairs. Michael turned back, "Come in and have some coffee before you go."

Michael poured some coffee for the two of them as they sat down with Gina at the kitchen table. "I didn't want to say anything in front of Lucca, but how has Lara been? I was surprised that she is ready to leave so soon after getting out of the hospital. This couldn't have been easy her, or any of you for that matter."

Upstairs Crono and Lucca had managed to get the bag onto his bed. Well, actually it was gong to be her bed for a week. Crono now laid claim to the couch downstairs. Tired from dragging the heavy suitcase upstairs, Lucca plopped down on the bed while Crono retrieved his chair from the desk near the window.

"Hey Crono, something is different." She snapped her fingers, "Your bandana! I think this is the first time since I gave it to you that I haven't seen you wear it."

"Wha!" He felt around on his forehead, moaning, "I had it on earlier! Oh, man. I bet if fell off outside. Wait here, I'll be back in a minute."

He ran to the door and sneaked part way down the stairs. Crono hung his upper body over the stair railing and glanced into the kitchen. "Good, looks like they are in the middle of a serious conversation. I shouldn't have any problem getting by without them knowing." He murmured to himself.

Silently he crept back up the stairs and re-entered his room. He held up a finger to Lucca as he crossed the room to the open window. Crono sat with his legs out the window and swung over to grab the lattice he had climbed only fifteen minutes ago. As quickly and quietly as he could, he shimmied down to the ground, peeked into the kitchen to make sure they were still at the table, and then darted around the house to where he was practicing before.

"Good it's here." He thought upon seeing the white piece of fabric that was caught in a bush. He ran over and untangled it from the limbs, tied it around his head and made his way back to the window. He made one final peek into the kitchen, but something they were saying caught his attention. Even though every fiber of his being was telling him to just get upstairs before he got caught; he waited and listened in. Taban looked very depressed and seemed to lack the smile that normally was plastered on his face. Crono wondered how he missed the change when he saw him earlier.

"Lara is coping," Taban said, "but to say that she is depressed is an understatement. I'm trying to not blame myself. Lucca won't say, but I know that she feels more responsible for the whole mess than any of us. I made the damned machine, but I don't want Lucca to get the idea that it is okay to blame herself. I'm hoping that if she thinks I don't blame myself, then maybe she won't feel so bad about not being able to shut it off."

"I'm sorry Taban, I know this must be hard on you guys, if you ever need anything, don't hesitate to ask. Gina and myself would be more than pleased to help out any way we can."

Crono decided that he had heard enough. His thoughts were a mess as he started to scale the wall. "I wonder what happened to Lucca's mom. What could have happened that she would blame herself for?" He figured that whatever happened, Lucca would tell him when she was ready. It must have been really big and if she wasn't going to tell him, pushing her would just upset her. "Man, when did I get so good at understanding emotions? I'm only six! Some of her intelligence must be rubbing off on me." He wondered if that was a good thing or not.

Crawling his way back into the room he saw that Lucca had finished unpacking and was sitting on his bed waiting for him to return. Crono tried to hide all sign of worry from his face and acted as natural as possible. The last thing that he wanted to do was make her think that he already knew something was up.

She rose from the bed and helped him through the window, "I see that you found it alright. What happened?"

"It got stuck on a bush. Probably happened when I hid my sword."

Lucca was the only person, beside himself, that knew he had a training sword as well as his dismal failure learning the basic moves. He felt that she was the only one he could trust with such important information. "Hopefully she feels the same and will tell me what happened." He added to himself.

"How is your training going? Are you a master of the wooden sword yet?"

Crono looked at her with narrowed eyes.

"Going that well is it. They say that dirt is actually good for you. I'm not sure about that, but I read it somewhere so it could be true."

The door opened, interrupting any smart reply he had. Michael stood in the doorway, "Are you two ready to go? Lucca, your dad's leaving, so if you want to say goodbye, now would be the time." Lucca hurriedly moved down the stairs to see her father.

"Well. All set?" Crono nodded his head and followed his father outside.

Lucca was waiting for them in the front yard and Taban was halfway down the street. Michael watched him for moment before turning to the two children "Come on you two, let's get moving." The early morning sun fully illuminated the city of Truce as the three walked to the center of town.