Heads up to q!

(Look, look at this. I can actually keep one of my promises. This is a legendary day, my friends. Imma go mark it down in my calendar, holy shit.)

Not totally sure about this one, mainly since it's basically all original, rather than pulled from canon. But, I dunno, I like it well enough.

I don't own D. Gray Man or Corpse Bride.

She smiled and embraced the light, her body breaking into butterflies (oh, she loved butterflies, how they start on the ground until they bloom into the sky and really, wasn't that what she was doing?)

Emily closed her eyes and smiled.

Emily was already dead. She'd been dead long enough to know about the Underworld and the rules of the Land of the Dead. She wondered, sometimes, watching her friends enjoy their eternity of peace. She wondered…

Where do the dead go when they die?

What a silly question! The dead are already dead, they can't die again. That wasn't how the world worked.

So…where was she?

Emily tried not to hate people.

It wasn't in her nature, really.

She hated Lord Barkis, perhaps not for killing her, but for ruining the lives of countless girls, for trying to ruin the happiness of Victor and Victoria for something a pitiful as money.

So, as much as she wanted to, Emily couldn't hate Marian Cross. Oh, but she wanted to.

Emily lingered, staring down at her Accommodator's coffin. It was decorated, as if adding color made up for her death in the line of duty. A duty Maria never asked for.

She just wanted what Emily always wanted. To be happy. To be loved. To have a family.

Maria was so close, too. Emily had been close, once, before greed buried her beneath an old tree, waiting.

Emily wondered if Maria was waiting now, and that was why she lingered, an Innocence without her Accommodator.

A voice, commenting on her presence, dragged Emily from her grieving to watch her Accommodator's lover approach.

"Marian," Emily greeted. The man's eyes followed his Innocence's, but failed to connect, wandering over her shoulder. "Judgement."

"You're still here," Judgement noted. He didn't bother asking the question they were all wondering. It was obvious enough.

"I think she's waiting," Emily said.

"If you would allow me, Voice of Magdalene," Marian spoke up, crossing his arms as he stared down at the coffin. "I believe I might be able to revive her."

Emily froze, shocked and appalled. She tried not to let hope flicker to life, tried not to let her distrust ebb. Marian Cross, for all her Accomodator loved the man, never did anything for free.

Judgement tilted his hat down, covering his eyes. "Marian's been practicing," he assured her.

It had only been two days ago when Maria had stopped and spoken to her. Only been two days since Maria died and ten hours since her body was found.

Thirty eight hours of waiting.

"Maria, please, listen to me," Emily beseeched. The girl, a young woman really, set her jaw and marched forward. "Maria!"

"I love him, why can't you understand that, Voice of Magdalene?" Maria spun around, tears in her eyes. "I love him and I know he loves me!"

Emily tried not to flinch, tried not to let that cold rage that flirted with bone-aching sorrow bleed through. Maria wouldn't understand. Maria was too young to ever understand that words meant so much less than actions.

She was just trying to protect her Accommodator, however she could.

"We'll run away together, and finally be free of this damn Order and their lies!" Maria hissed, her face turning red. "We'll be happy. Don't you want me to be happy, Voice of Magdalene?"

That was all Emily ever wanted. She wanted everyone to be happy – Victor, Victoria, Maria, herself.

Why couldn't Maria see that Emily was only trying to protect her?

"Running away from the Order won't solve anything!" Emily argued. "You'll Fall or you'll be attacked by akuma. Please, Maria, just go back. You'll be safe there."

"Safe?" Maria repeated, aghast. "Safe? With the Order?" She spoke as the idea was outrageous, unthinkable. Emily winced, pulling back a single step. Maria didn't notice. "Marian told me about what those salauds in the Science Division are doing with our bodies, with our families. I'd be safer becoming a Fallen One than letting myself become nothing more than an experiment to them. Have they no love for human life? Have they no humanity left?"

"Don't say that, please, Maria, calm down," Emily asked, resisting the urge to glance around. No one was in the cemetery with them, no one would ever know what was happening if Maria returned to the Order right now.

Emily could feel a weight forming on her ring finger, the ghost of a touch on her check. She could hear the flutter of thin wings in the air and she prayed for patience. For understanding.

"Marian and I, together we can fight off akuma and we're talented enough to get by. We don't need the Order. All we need is each other!"

Emily fingered her ruined bridal veil, remembering the Elder Gutknecht's rules, of the spell he used to bring her to the Land of the Living.

The things she did for love.

"It is rude to keep a lady waiting, Marian," Emily decided.

She might not trust the man – the scientist with such a dark Innocence – but she trusted her Accommodator, who loved Marian Cross and could spend days singing praises of the man and his honor.

She hoped it was enough.

She hoped it wouldn't be the third biggest mistake of her life.

She hoped and hoped and hoped.

Emily should be used to betrayal.

She lifted her hand, painted in black, to her face, hidden behind a butterfly.

Emily opened her mouth.

And sang.

(Oh, how she hated butterflies.)

What do you mean this isn't what happened.

I was debating between Voice of Magdalene and Song of Magdalene, but I liked Voice a lot better for some reason. I figured it would fit well enough, considering the story of Magdalene.

So, this is basically a bit after Cross resonated Judgement and so he knows what's up with the Order and their Exorcists. He and Maria were kinda in a thing together and they decided to run away (because Victor and Victoria; Marian and Maria both are such similar names it makes me laugh). Cross was going to use the excuse of still killing akuma along the way to slip away from the fate of Falling. Maria was going to follow his lead, as his support (I'm not saying Maria wouldn't have been a bad-ass Accommodator, just that, like Miranda, her Innocence seems more like support than melee.)

Personally, Cross isn't a villain. Anti-hero, maybe. Really it's up to you guys to determine if he just messed up the spell for necromancy or if it worked perfectly and he's just a dick to someone who isn't technically human anymore. Considering his involvement with Neah and his plans, it could go either way.

Guest Reviews:

Guest 4: ! No, hun, no that's not what I meant at all! Personality wise, Danny and Lavi are a pretty good match. Just understanding the perceptive of a suggestion makes it easier for me to write a chapter. I try to ask people to expand on their reasoning when they make a suggestion cause Im kinda lazy? Otherwise I gotta do research to place the suggested character into the timeline and such. I love DP (I'm so happy to hear you love it too, btw, cause it's amazing and it deserves all of the attention, really) and would gladly add Danny to the roster, don't doubt that for a second! I'm so sorry if I made you doubt yourself or your idea for even a second, that was not my intention!

I hope everyone enjoyed the chapter!

*squints off to the side* Well, next chapter is the first Extra of this compilation. And man, am I gonna have some fun with this.

Dark Boots - Maximum Ride (Maximum Ride)

Time Record - Rapunzel (Tangled)

Crown Clown - Luffy (One Piece)

Heaven's Compass - Haku (Naruto)

Voice of Magdalene - Emily (Corpse Bride)