Sorry about the late update everyone but I'm kind of a perfectionist. I don't want to do this story by half measures. I hate reading fan fictions that have really good summaries, but the actual story is very blah (if you know what I mean). But anyway, please enjoy and let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: I do not own Black Cat or any of it's characters.

The Hesitant Cat

"Fall down, fall down, falls the rain. My life won't be plain."

Train Heartnett sat in his bed thinking about the night's events. He remembered hearing those words which caused him to look over at the neighboring rooftop. That was when he saw her. The weird girl. He didn't know her name. He didn't much care. She was just the weird girl.

It was probably rude to just sit there and stare but he couldn't help it. People didn't just go on rooftops and start singing. They go on rooftops for valid reasons. Like himself, for instance. He went on the rooftop to drink his milk, possibly feed the stray cats, and think about his past and his life decisions, tragic or otherwise. Completely normal reasons.

It's not like the girl was any good. Really, her voice was adequate and the lyrics weren't all that interesting. Train Heartnett, Chronos Number XIII – Black Cat, just felt enlightened and not for the first time today. Strange that this feeling seemed to keep on happening to him today. First, at the party, there was the old man and the multi-colored hair teenage girl yelling at him about killing his target.

He was surprised at first, because no one had ever caught up with him after he completed a job and then he actually started listening to what they were saying. They were treating him as if he had a choice. As if there were a choice not to kill. Enlightenment #1. He didn't understand it. You were given a target and you kill the target. It was that simple. Now that girl was making him think about the collateral damage which made him feel…unsettled.

Now, there was the weird girl. He was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he didn't even realize she had stolen his milk until it was too late. He only saw the bobbed haircut and the kimono and suddenly he found himself without milk.

Train Heartnett couldn't believe the girl's audacity. He also couldn't believe he didn't altogether mind. It was at this point that Train began to suspect that this girl might just be insane. She just kept rambling on and on until the conversation migrated over to Hades. Train didn't like talking about Hades so he deflected.

"I'm not the only one with a gun."

"Yeah! Check me out! I may not look like it but I'm a Sweeper," the girl exclaimed. "And you?"

Train kept to his silence at this point. It really wasn't any of her business and it was common knowledge that Sweepers were not fond of Chronos. There's no way this girl could possibly understand.

Suddenly, he heard her speaking again. "We're more similar than you'd like to think." Then she left just as quickly as she arrived. Well, she also left with a quip about crows pecking his head. He spent the rest of the time on the roof racking his brain on how the two of them could possibly be similar but he could find nothing. As he turned over in his bed, finally ready to fall asleep, he found himself truly excited for the coming days for the first time since he was a child. He was enjoying this feeling of enlightenment. I've now met two strange, possibly insane girls in one night. What kind of town is this?

Adrienne was sitting at the restaurant playing with the straw in her glass of water when she heard the waitress approaching the booth. She just sighed. She knew exactly what Sven was going to do.

"Boo!" Sven exclaimed, scaring the waitress.

"Sven, don't do that to the poor girl. You shouldn't mess with people who serve your food." Adrienne looked up from her glass of water while subtly kicking him underneath the table in their booth. "It's not very gentlemanly, either."

Sven gave a dejected look once the waitress promptly informed the duo that they'd maxed their credit limit. Sven got out his watch and Adrienne sighed again.

"How much credit will this watch buy me?"

"Look around you. We're not some sleazy pawn shop," the waitress retorted.

"Yeah, the sleazy pawn shop wouldn't even take that watch," Adrienne muttered. "Our inevitable starvation is all because of our unfortunate run-in with that damn cat. Black cats really do bring bad luck."

The waitress looked at them. "What happened? You two didn't talk about it yesterday but I thought you had a bounty lined up?"

Adrienne groaned. "Ugh, we have the worst luck in the world. We track the bounty down only for some kid, with terrible fashion sense I may add, from some secret government agency to go and kill him."

"Since being a Sweeper pays you nothing, why don't you two quit and get a real job?"

"A Sweeper is a real job. And it'll pay just fine when I find a target," Sven sniped back.

"Tell me," Adrienne started. "Is there a timeframe for when you'll share this 'new target' with me? 'Cause we got bills to pay."

"Good for you. Sticking with the dead end. You two sure know how to live." The waitress looked at Sven. "Don't you have any kids waiting for you at home?"

That simple question caused the coffee which had been so charitably given to Sven by the waitress to be sprayed all over Adrienne.

"Hell no!" Sven exclaimed.

"Bad luck, yet again," Adrienne muttered to herself as she wiped herself off. If I ever see that damn cat again, even if it kills me, I'm going to hit him really, really hard. I don't know where yet. It might be best to surprise myself.

After the waitress walked away after making a quip about Sven's age, Adrienne decided it was time to get serious.

"Seriously, Sven, we need a new target. Please tell me you have a plan."

Sven looked at Adrienne. "You've been a little testy today. How much sleep did you get last night?"

Adrienne sighed. "Not a lot."

"Was someone worried about our friendly Mr. Black Cat changing his mind and deciding it was better to kill us?"

"No!" Adrienne exclaimed. "I had that dream I had in the car again. You know, the one with the two guys fighting. It kinda freaked me out. Everything just felt so real…like I was actually there. Our friendly Mr. Black Cat was one of the men in the dream by the way. I just can't seem to shake the feeling that something truly horrible is about to happen and it has something to do with Black Cat. And quit trying to deflect!"

Sven hated it when his ward got like this. With her being all sarcastic and tough, it was easy to forget her age. But then her power will start acting up and then he starts remembering exactly how young she is. When her power leaves her with these feelings, Adrienne suddenly becames a teenage girl with the entire world weighing down on her shoulders.

"Well, you do have a show tonight so cheer up. Don't tell me you're going to be singing to a bunch of people with that sulky look on your face. And don't worry, we'll get another target."

The pair eventually found them self at their friend, Annette's place. A sweeper hangout.

"Yo, Annette. What's up?" Sven greeted dejectedly.

Annette responded with a typical, "Well, well, well. Long time, no see. I figured you were dead and your charming partner finally decided to take her music mainstream." Every time they visited, she always greeted them the same way.

"Trust me, we're right on the edge. Bad luck in spades…again," Adrienne responded.

The two shuffled over to the bar and sat down. There was an awkward silence before Sven and Adrienne's stomachs broke it.

"Are there any big jobs on that board?" Sven implored.

"Please tell me that there's something. I don't want to perform on an empty stomach," Adrienne added.

"Sorry, someone just snatched up the last big catch," Annette answered.

"What did you say about getting us a new target?" Adrienne muttered to Sven.

The two surveyed the board what which pretty much only had mediocre pickings. They eventually settled for Tony Kaye at 50,000 before it was rudely snatched from them. The two were ready to put up a fight when a blonde girl rushed in begging for help. A blonde girl who was showing way more cleavage than was actually necessary. Adrienne just rolled her eyes.

Sven decided to help the girl out with her thug problem which made Adrienne roll her eyes again and mutter, "Sven's just making a fool of himself."

Annette looked at her. "What makes you say that?"

Adrienne glanced at the girl. "The damsel in distress is totally packing heat right now."

"Very good," Annette responded. "You know, I had my doubts when Sven first decided to take you in as a Sweeper but I gotta say, you've really become one of us." Adrienne beamed. Annette was the closest thing she had to a mother. "You gonna tell Sven?" Annette asked.

"Nah, I'll let him figure it out himself." With that, Sven started walking back in looking very smug. A few minutes later, Adrienne found out why when she found herself wolfing down food they didn't even have to pay for.

Then all of the sudden, she found herself bamboozled into helping Ms. Blonde Cleavage rescue a little girl. Supposedly, the girl was the blonde's sister, but Adrienne had her suspicions about that. But they did need the money, so Adrienne decided to go along with it.

Train had decided that it had been a truly strange night. He met the weird girl on the roof again, gone to help said girl with her Sweeper job, and then been forced to go to a concert. Just like the previous night, it had been a night full of enlightenment.

Enlightenment #1 was that the weird girl had a name. It was Saya.

Enlightenment #2 was that this girl used her gun on her target without killing the target. Train had never heard of such a thing and he instantly became obsessed with the idea. He thought back to what Saya told him.

"The pistol does what I want it to do. Not the other way around."

"If I don't want to shoot, then I won't. It's pretty simple."

Train found himself wondering if it really was possible to go through his life living according to those words. Carrying Hades but knowing that he holds on the cards on whether or not to kill someone. He was enthralled by the very idea.

Enlightenment #3 was meeting the multi-colored hair teenage girl again at a concert that Saya had dragged him to after she collected her reward.

"Now that the dirty business is over with, you're coming with me to see Flying Freedom," Saya demanded.

Train looked at her questioningly. "Flying Freedom? What's that?"

Saya rolled her eyes. "Not what. Who. They're a band. An awesome band. And you're going to accompany me."

Train let himself be taken to an underground club. There were all kinds of people there practically from every walk of life but he was even more surprised at what he saw on the stage. It was the multi-colored hair teenage girl. He was surprised to see the girl there in the first place and even more surprised to see that she was an actual singer. Not for the first time tonight, he became entranced and listened to the song.

"I'm caught in the rain, caught in the rain.

And my heart's too drunk to drive.

But in this black out state of mine, all I want is you.

When my head tells me no, my heart tells me go.

And my heart's too drunk to drive but I'm on my way to you."

As Train listened to this girl sing, he realized that this girl's voice sounded like freedom. Her voice had a beautiful, in your face feel but marked with so much passion that he could understand why this girl would go chasing after him after he just killed a man to reprimand him.

"She's pretty awesome isn't she," Saya yelled to Train. "Best part about her is she refuses to sign with any agency. She refuses to let anyone dictate her life or her music. These concerts are set up purely on donations from her supporters. I think it shows real character and I just know she has to be an amazing person."

Train looked at Saya. "Have you ever met her?"

"No, but I want to one day. She's really hard to get a hold of as a person because she's always moving around. But you know a secret? I think she moves around because she's actually a Sweeper. She puts on these concerts in the same cities that she follows her targets to. How cool is that? Sweeper by day and pop star by night."

Train had no idea who she really was and decided that he didn't really have the right to know. He quickly ducked out of the concert before the girl recognized him. He wasn't too fond of the idea of getting into a fight with her. No doubt she was still a little mad about what happened to Lib Tyrant. He would really hate to be forced to hurt her. Besides, he had a job he needed to get to.

Sven, Adrienne, and Elena began the journey up to Torneo's mansion to rescue the girl after the concert. Adrienne still had a bad feeling about this mission. And she also felt that "Elena" wasn't being entirely truthful but she was also itching for a fight. She couldn't believe she actually saw Black Cat at her concert but figured it would be bad form to go after him in the middle of a club. I really need to hit something. She smiled to herself. Despite the bad feelings I'm getting from Elena and this job, at the very least, I'm gonna have some fun knocking out some henchman.

As always, please review and let me know what you think. The song Adrienne was singing is called On My Way by Lea Michele. I had a hard time figuring out how I wanted to do this chapter. I'm sure everyone knows that the first part of the Black Cat anime can be kind of slow moving. With the two separate stories going on in the beginning it was a little hard to figure out how to write it. I didn't just want this to be from just Adrienne's point of view though. This is as much her story as it is Train's. When you read romance genres, its better if your reading from both sides (at least that's how I feel).