A quick preface: this isn't mine. My friend Kizuato gave this to me and asked me to post it if I thought it was good. (It didn't even have a title...that's my particular touch...please disreguard it completely.) So, here it is. Set after Volume 8 of the manga. Please leave a review on the way out...who knows, maybe if we encourage her enough, she'll get an account here.
Please enjoy.
May 1999
Chrono rarely went out anymore. With his right arm still missing, and the left half of his face still a wreck, it was just much easier to stay inside than to listen to the whispers of children as they asked their mothers and fathers what had happened to the strange man with purple hair.
Today was a strange day though, and he had wanted to visit Rosette's grave. There had been no real reason for it, but looking at the copy of the group picture had made him nostalgic, and so he had planned an outing to visit one of the people that had been left behind.
Of course, he had not expected to see someone he had long thought dead to pass his car on the street.
"Stop," he told the driver as he got out and stepped onto the sidewalk.
"Satella?"
The woman in question turned around and faced the demon. She looked confused at first, and then her eyes slowly started to widen.
"Ch-Chrono? Oh my god…they told me you had died!"
He did not have the heart to tell his old friend that the Chrono she had known was no more. That just seemed a little too cruel after all that she must have been through to come back.
"Where were you going?"
The red head shrugged. "I was just walking. I'm still trying to get use to everything."
"Would you like to join me then? I was planning on visiting one of our old friends, and then going to a café after that."
Setella smiled and nodded, and the two got into the waiting car, and drove off to a small hill with a lone tree. They did not say anything to each other on the trip, maybe because they had nothing to say, or because they felt that words would ruin the silence that they had become accustomed to for the last seventy years.
"Mister Christopher, we've arrived," the driver said, and the demon quickly got out of the vehicle to open the woman's door.
"Chistopher?" Satella asked as she walked next to him.
"Hendric was already taken, and after Joshua died in World War Two, I felt that someone should continue the name."
"Joshua died in war?"
Chrono nodded. "He was at Pearl Harbor on the day that the Japanese came and attacked it. The order gave Azmaria his belongings, but she did give me a few of his possessions several years later."
"I was told that he joined the order though."
"Oh, he did, but when Hitler rose to power, he felt that he needed to join the military. I suppose that it was just another way to atone for his sins," he gave a sad smile and gently kneeled before the tombstone that they had come to.
"Rosette'," Satella whispered.
"Yeah, I try to visit her a couple of times a year. I'd think that she enjoyed knowing that there were still some people out there that remembered what happened and respected the dead," Chrono replied. As soon as he said that last part, he immediately thought of his conversation with Aion, so, so long ago. He did not dwell on it though, and it soon disappeared into the recesses of his mind, to be brought up some other cloudy day.
"Are you the one that puts flowers on her grave every year?"
The demon looked at the former bounty hunter and gave her his now customary sad smile.
"Who else would?" he said before he stood up and started to walk back to his car. "Come on, it looks like it might rain soon, and I still have to take you to that nice little café I was talking about earlier."
"Chrono…do you still miss her?"
"I'll always miss her, Satella. I just think that she wouldn't want us to dwell on the past. So, I get up every day, and I think about what I can do to make the world she helped protect a better place. One can only grieve over memories for so long before you forget what you were exactly grieving about," he said as walked to his side of the car and let the driver take care of his old companion.
In almost no time at all, they arrived at the café that Chrono kept talking about, and the owner of the small shop came out to greet the demon.
"Mister Christopher! It's been too long! You've really got to get out more. My daughter has been asking about you…Oh! Who's your friend? I don't think that I've ever seen her before," the woman grinned as she took hugged the demon like one of her own children.
"Mary, this is Satella Harvenheit. She's an old friend of mine that I just recently found again after many years of being apart. Do you think I could get my usual table with an extra chair?"
"Anything for my favorite customer," Mary said as she went to set the table up.
" 'Favorite customer'?" the ex-jewel summoner asked with a smirk.
"Her business wasn't doing that well, and I said that I would invest the needed money if she gave me one free drink whenever I come by. I usually stay for two."
"There you go! The usual, or something different?"
"The usual, but I have no idea what Miss Harvenheit would like, so hold off on mine until she decides."
"Of course, Mister Christopher."
"It's Chrono to you, Mary," he called as he walked over to a small table by the window. Satella quickly followed, not really knowing what to do, but he pointed to a list of strangely named drinks over the counter.
"I can explain most of them if you'd like, but I just get a regular coffee. The hot chocolate is good though."
"I'll just have what you're having…This looks a little complicated."
"Mary," the old woman looked up from behind the counter, "two of the usual. Could you bring some extra sugar too?"
While the owner bustled about making the coffee, yet another silence fell upon the two. Satella was beginning to wonder if the only thing they had in common was the past, and that disturbed her a little.
"What have you been doing since…?" she trailed off, but he understood what she meant.
"Starting my own businesses, investing, getting involved with local and national charities. Anything to keep me from having to go out in public mostly. It's not often that you see a well dressed man with purple hair, a missing arm and a disfigured face wandering around, and I'd just prefer to keep the publicity down to a minimum."
"Yet, you're involved in many things that would require you to talk or be involved with people. Somehow that doesn't make sense to me."
"I have my ways," he said before he paused a moment to let their drinks be put in front of them.
"What about you? It's been two months since you woke up, correct?"
"How did you…?"
"I have my ways," he said before sipping at his coffee, indicating that she should continue.
"Mostly it's been catching up with everything. Seventy-four years is a long time to be gone. The world seems so much larger now. The buildings are huge, there are so many things to make lives easier, the movies with color," she sighed and twirled her mug in her hands, "I'm thinking of maybe attending college to help out, but even that seems needlessly complicated. I just missed so much."
"If anyone could adjust to such a dramatic change, it's you, Satella," he said softly.
The rest of the afternoon was spent talking about what had happened in the years following Satella's encasement, and speaking of the good times that they had had. However, all good things must come to an end, and soon Chrono's cell phone was ringing, and life hit them full force.
"Who was that?" she asked as he hung up and rubbed his forehead in his hand.
"One of my business partners in New York. I probably need to head over there tonight," he explained as he stood up and placed a healthy tip on the table.
"You can do that? Get from one place to another in a night?" the bounty hunter asked.
Chrono laughed. "Yes, I can do that now. Hell, if I need to, I can go to Europe to see some of my other partners, and still have time to go to China to look at my manufacturing plants. To me, the world has become a small, small place. Promise me, Satella, that the world will always stay big for you."
"I'll try, but I don't know if I can make any guarantees," she said.
The demon hugged his friend. "That's all I can ask for."
He took her back to the hotel where she had been staying, and he gave her his business card.
"If you ever need help," he had said before driving off.
Satella would occasionally call him, and they would go off to the café where they had first reconnected. He was there for her wedding, and there to be the godfather and pseudo-uncle to her children, and then one day, he disappeared. The calls went from once a month to once a year, and as the years passed, even that stopped.
He had had to come up with a new name, and a new life. A new life, that unfortunately, did not include her. However, whenever she went to visit Rosette's grave on the anniversary of her death, there was always a bouquet of flowers lying there. He had not forgotten the past, nor would he ever forget, but he would always move on when he needed to, and he would never give it a second thought.