A/N: new chapter.

Two reviews please...

Chapter 2

A Few Days Earlier

Sophie pushed open the door to her former apartment, she hadn't returned since the time she had found Mattie on the floor several months earlier. She side stepped the small bloodstain on the carpet from that time and continued into the room.

Why did I come here…? She thought as she scanned the room. To finally let go… She reminded herself not for the first time. She sighed and started sifting through the things left behind. She laughed at the mess, she couldn't help it; Mattie was always messy. Oh Mattie… I'll never understand how you could live with this mess. She sighed and started picking up clothing shaking each item carefully before folding them, knowing that Mattie was known for stuffing something in the pockets of anything.

Halfway through the clothing Sophie picked up Mattie's school skirt and out fell her neon pink compact popping open as it hit the floor.

Sophie bent down and picked up the compact. Mattie… She thought seeing that it had been damaged and used her nail to try to pry the make up off the keypad. "You had this for a month and you still managed to damage it…" She muttered as she finally pulled it free.

"Hello Sophie." Mattie's voice echoed through the room.

Sophie jumped and looked around. "Mattie…?"

"I shorted out the compact so that it would turn on as soon as you pried the makeup piece off. I'm not as computer illiterate as you thought."

Sophie looked down at the small screen to see the smiling face of her pink haired friend.

"How long has it been…?" She asked.

"Four months…" Sophie answered the electronic Mattie.

"It must be hard on all of you." The screen flickered for a moment. "How is Yusuke holding up? And you? How are you doing? You and I were partners for years in the WWPI. What about Hiei…? Better yet, don't tell me, I don't want to know." She smiled slightly in her screen. "I know you all must be suffering but you have to move on. You're tough you can do it. Please don't cry anymore. Everything happens for a reason." The bubble gum haired girl smiled again. "Oh!" She waved her hand at the compact. "When this ends there's going to be a little card that will pop out. Please give it to Hiei for me, okay? I'm not sure if he's still mad at me or whatever when I made this recording I didn't find out. Thanks Soph, you always did so much for me. Tell my brother I love him and go live your life Sophie, okay?" She smiled and waved at the screen as the image flickered and went out.

"Wait!" Sophie cried at the blank screen, tears weld up in her eyes. "Wait… Don't go…" The blue haired girl bit her lip as she fell onto the bed. "You knew this whole time that you weren't going to make it didn't you?" She sighed as she wiped away her tears. "Sometimes I think you played your life by that musical you loved so much." She laughed at that thought. "It's just like Rent; the one character everyone loved is the one that dies in the end. You didn't even give me or anyone else a say in the matter. Is this why you didn't want to tell Gary or Ken or even Bear what was happening to you? Why did you tell them in the end if you didn't want to be saved? Did something happen that made you change how you felt about your impending death? Or did you just want to make everyone feel like they at least did what they could to help you…?"

For a fleeting moment she truly considered asking someone to pull Mattie's soul back from heaven to finally answer the questions that tormented her but like every other time she considered it she brushed it away. "Botan was torn up enough about what happened to you and the fact that she had to be the one to take you to the other side, I don't know what would happen to her if I purposefully brought your soul back and made her have to do it all over again." She picked the small computer chip out of the side of the compact. "I'll try to get Hiei to take it. I can promise that but I can't promise anything else, but you already knew that didn't you?" She smiled slightly. "You were always two steps ahead of us this whole time and kept everyone in the dark, huh?"

Sophie shook her head as she pocketed the computer chip and went back to cleaning the mess. "Maybe I should have everyone come take something to remember you by… But you already knew I was going to do that too, huh?"

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Sophie opened the door and smiled. "Hey Yusuke thanks for coming."

"Yeah no problem…" He mumbled as he walked in.

"I wanted to let you pick something of Mattie's that you'd want to keep to remember her by." Sophie gestured to the stuff laid out. "It seems she had also picked out stuff for everyone and added a picture to indicate which she thought would go to whom."

Yusuke looked and noticed there was a picture of her with each person from the group. "I don't remember her taking those pictures."

"That's the point." Sophie pointed to the picture of Yusuke and Mattie; it was one of the times at school where Mattie had climbed into a tree and landed on Yusuke's lap. Mattie's face was all smiles while Yusuke looked totally shocked; it still made her laugh inwardly. "I think she wanted everyone to have a picture of 'in the moment' so that you can see just how much you're enjoying your time with her. Look, even though you looked completely shocked you're also smiling because you can't help but not smile when she smiles."

Yusuke nodded. "Yeah… No matter what she did if she was smiling while doing it her smile was always contagious and you couldn't be mad at her." He touched the object in front of his picture and smiled. Mattie had sown a stuffed chibified version of him and hung a bracelet around its neck.

"That's her earring…" The bracelet was of the one earning she had been wearing the day he met her and when they had gone training, a cloudy blue stone that looked remotely like the color of his Rei gun. He had made the comment that it was interesting that she only wore one earring on one side and that he had liked the stone, it seemed she had turned it into something for him to wear later on.

"Mmhmm…" Sophie answered. "If you want something else you can take anything."

Yusuke picked up the picture in its black frame along with the stuffed version of him and the bracelet. "Would you help me with this?" He asked as he held out the bracelet.

"Sure." Sophie smiled slightly as she hooked the bracelet onto his wrist. "Do you want to take Keiko her gift?" She pointed at the picture of Mattie and Keiko behind two stuffed versions of Keiko and Yusuke with their arms tied together with a delicate gold string.

"Yeah." He said as he smiled at the picture, Mattie had convinced Keiko to try on one of her outfits and Keiko looked totally uncomfortable but Mattie had pushed her out to show Yusuke who cute Keiko looked and he had to admit Keiko did look good in the more form fitting outfits Mattie wore. "Thanks Sophie."

"You're welcome. If you could tell Shuichi and Kuwabara they have stuff as well that would be great. I'm going to try to get a hold of Ken and Gary and Bear for their stuff."

"Of course."

With that Sophie closed the door behind Yusuke and looked back at the items.

Kuwabara had a picture of Mattie leap frog-ing over him as she did quite often with a stuffed version of him holding an orange sword to look like his Rei sword along with a Kendo bamboo practice sword. Shuichi's picture was of her pushing between Sophie and Shuichi, linking arms with both of them and pulling them forward. His stuffed version had a rose in its hair and a little green whip with tiny fake thorns on it. Somehow Mattie had preserved a bird's nest from the time she had climbed into a tree to place a baby bird back in its nest and in the preserved nest was a small bud growing.

At the end of the line of stuffed toys and pictures was a painting. It was Hiei's gift from the time Sophie had taken the picture of Mattie kissing him. In front of the painting was the stuffed figure of Hiei with a tiny sword but no picture. Sophie assumed that there was something like that on the disk she had and went over to the painting to tape the disk to the back of it.

Ken and Gary were going to get Mattie's rainbow outfit along with a picture of them singing together the night she had told them what was wrong with her and Bear would getting a picture of him holding her up in one arm along with the glass case that held his original designs for the tattoos Mattie had.

Sophie smiled as she touched the glittering necklace she had put on, a gift from Mattie that the pink haired girl had made herself and considered keeping one of the outfits Mattie was famous for.

Even during this sad time you still know how to make everyone smile… You will always be you Mattie. Sophie thought as she went off to contact the rest of the people.