A/N: this chapter basically covers the discovery of Cross's body(or lack there of) and the following missions. Please rate and review, I always love to hear from the people who are reading my stories. Big thanks to my cuz if she can get this up in the hols.

Disclaimer: if I was Hoshino sensei would I be writing random fics here or would I be working on the next chapter of -man and/or recovering. My point exactly.

5. Changes

I don't know how long we slept for nor did I know the reason we woke but I know that something was disturbing. I felt the weight of the girl's head against my nephew's shoulder. Timcampy and one of the men from the science department, Johnny, I'm sure his name was Johnny, I must make a conscious effort to remember names, slept too. I sighed for I knew my nephew would not move until he could do so without waking the girl. He was, in many senses, if not every sense, of the word, a gentleman. I wondered where he got it from. If I had had hands that could touch, I would have ruffled his hair and smiled at him, and if I had a voice he wanted to hear I would have told him I was glad of it, but I had neither. It surprised me how he turned out, though in truth it should not. Mana and I had been well raised, it would not have been hard for him to teach Allen the same manners. It was just hard to see the tough, caring and at times rude brother of mine teaching a child manners. Maybe it was only hard because I stopped trying to see him too long ago, shied away from the pain that came with it. it could have been Cross that had taught him to behave but part of me rejected that. I could live with Cross teaching him to fight, making him learn how to gamble and do good hard work but I held on to the fact that Mana had shaped this child. Mana had made him who he was and I refused to believe otherwise.

"Is it morning."

The sun has risen, even if you cannot see it through the rain. I qualified.

***

Eventually the girl had woken and we'd taken our leave but something was wrong. I had no gut left to feel it with but part of me felt it.

Nephew, I urged: let's go speak to Marian, surely the interdiction no longer applies, you know what he needed to tell you.

I don't know if he heard me or if it was instinct that led him to Cross Marian's room, but one way or another that was where we went. Timcampy was gone and that worried me more than it should have. He often went off to do his own things but he always returned. It should not bother me, not at all but somehow it did. Hushed voices came from the room and the door stood open. That in itself was unusual. If they were talking and didn't want to be heard, the door would have been closed. If it did not matter who heard, Cross would be talking on top of his lungs, not minding if he woke people. I felt shock flood Allen's body as he looked a second before I did. We didn't move from the doorway as two sets of eyes floated across the room. Timcampy was at the window, the broken window, broken like the mask that lay on its sill. Red painted the room and the window. Blood, lovely red blood. The man, the girl Lenalee's older brother, realised that he had an audience and turned to look at us, with Timcampy on his hand.

"Tim just suddenly got up and came here."

So that was why he left, he'd been paying more attention than I had.

"Is that blood?"

For once I was silent, I did not have the heart to tell him, even if he could not hear me. I wanted someone else to tell him. However, it was unnecessary, he knew, already he knew. He'd been hoping, hoping that his mind was playing tricks on him.

"Then whose?"

I heard the question in his voice that the others could not. Who else had he lost? Who else had left him alone in the world, to fend for himself? He saw Tim touch the mask and I felt the pieces click together in his head. Felt a pain and a shock strong enough to immobilize even the strongest of men and the numbness that was not far behind.

"… Let's go Tim"

Yes let's. There is too much reality too early in the morning after a painful night. Today will be challenging enough, we did not need this.

Lock it away nephew, you haven't time to mourn.

"Don't you want any cake?"

"I'm fine thank you."

No, you are not, you never refuse food. You are hurt and upset and more alone than ever. You never thought he could fall did you nephew? I cannot pretend to know whether or not you liked the man but I do know that he was a certainty in your life. What he did, how he acted, it didn't change and I know you needed that.

"Allen Walker… Was it perhaps you that killed Cross Marian, Mister Fourteenth?"

The day my Allen no longer is, is the day you die. I promised him. I will kill you in the most painful way possible and maybe then you will learn to control your tongue. Even if it were I who had done this, it would not be him at fault.

"Or perhaps it was you secretary."

That was something I could believe. I don't know if my anger flowed over into him or if he was simply angry enough for both of us but he put all his strength into slamming that door. I was satisfied to see that the door cracked. The only thing that disappointed me was that the Secretary or Two Pimple's fingers were not in the way. I wouldn't have minded the damage it would have done.

***

I was not surprised that they told the rest of the exorcists, nor was I surprised that they chose to keep him. in the years since my death the order hadn't changed much, they needed what he could offer, what I could offer, too much. I knew it hurt him, their faces, his friends but he struggled to understand that they would feel this way, that it could have been worse. They were doing their best.

I congratulate you nephew you think more of them than I ever could.

"As commander of the black order, I wil now assign the exorcists a standing order. If Allen Walker should awaken as the 14th and be determined to be a threat to the order…"

In some small way I respected the eccentric scientist and I knew I would do my best to leave him unharmed, as I would do for his sister. And all because he could not finish his sentence. I was glad that even though this man knew about me he couldn't sentence my Allen to death. Allen was another story.

"If that should happen, please kill me."

Foolish, stupid child. You would be furious if one of your friends should make the same request of you. There are few enough of them here that will kill you should I wake while you slept.

"But that won't happen."

You can't fight the inevitable child, one day it wil be you who goes to sleep and it will be me who wakes.

"If the Fourteenth should attack the order, I will stop him."

I didn't know how he planned to do that but I could feel that he was sure that he could. I didn't know what he planned, only that he knew it would work. I wondered if he had found himself an anchor to hold him in reality, wondered if he knew it wouldn't work. One by on, I would cut those strings and break the chains, till one day it would be my body.

***

I must admit that there were times in fights were I just didn't pay attention. I kept an eye open for potentially fatal blows, ones that might actually hit him, but there were few enough of those. Truly, there was not much difference between one punch and the next. I had seen enough battles in my life time that there was no interest left in me for them. I was begrudgingly impressed with Two Pimple, not only was he playing a game of chess in the middle of a noisy, violent fight, but he played against a dead champion and he was winning. There was also an annoying old woman shouting in his ear. Her voice was enough to send me over the edge. I glanced at the board from time to time. Unless I was mistaken, he could have the game in five moves. Annoyance grew in me, how I wished for just a minute I was in control, then I would teach them a fine lesson. I was not used to being treated like this by akuma, even when I'd turned traitor those who had found me had trembled. They had tried to fight me but it had been in their faces, they knew they would lose. Certainly they'd never used some of the words I was hearing them use know round me, and directed a t a lady, no less. Luckily enough my nephew was willing to educate them in my absence.

"Shitty. Puny. You should show a little more respect for women."

It was not a long fight, I may have been biased but no one could deny that he was a talented fighter.

"Pitiful akuma let me save your soul."

I mightn't have been able to read his thoughts yet but I did know his emotions and in my experience, from the brief periods when both had been open to me, I knew that they correlated well. Something about the akuma depressed him. Possibly not, who knows, he'd had more and more of these depressed periods since he'd learnt about me. Triggered by the tiniest things. They didn't last long and this one was no exception, he was soon at the board with everyone else, looking at the game. As I had predicted, the game was just about finished and it went to Two Pimple. I was growing used to missions too, the relaxed feeling that flowed through a tired body once we had retrieved innocence or a friend, like the girl at the Ark. It never affected his judgement, they all seemed to stay on red alert until they actually reached headquarters. I wondered if they were used to being attacked in the final stretch.

There were new, unprecedented levels of security in the order. Prompted by monogenic cousin, no doubt. Most of the Earl's soldiers would just blast straight through but they could prevent shape shifters in this manner. The trick was getting the exorcists to remember. I confess to being extremely amused when Miranda Lotto mistook the request for a password as an introduction and shook the priest's hand. The unfortunate thing was that nowadays things never remained funny, a fight would break out quickly and mercilessly. I didn't pay them much attention, Allen did. He saw a reason to the heightened stress levels and he blamed himself, he thought that he was responsible, because I lived in him. He was probably right. It was not so bad now but that was simply because another feeling dominated him, hunger. I wondered if I would be prone to the same impulses once I took over this body. If I would need food as much as he did, or if the innocence would reject me. vaguely I noticed the woman next to us panicking but I can't say I paid much attention. Allen was my priority, Allen was always my priority, and she had a predisposition to worrying. I was grateful to her when she gave him something to eat but I was happier still when we returned to the Ark. We both felt like it was home, even if we had slightly different reasons.