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Azmaria wasn't afraid of many things these days. But she was afraid of inevitability.
So when Rosette went missing, her first thought was, well at least there's a Rosette to be missing.
"You don't think she wandered off somewhere and collapsed, do you?" said Joshua, in a state Azmaria had never seen him in before. It reminded her, she realized with a stab of fondness, of another blonde-haired country orphan with feathers ruffled.
He paced back and forth from the doorway, unable to keep still, until Azmaria put a hand on his shoulder.
"Let's give her the benefit of the doubt, okay? Father Remington was with her only a couple hours ago. No news is good news, right?"
Joshua was pulling at his pastor's collar like it had suddenly become too hot in the room for him. It was, admittedly, unseasonably warm for March. All the windows in Seventh Bell were flung open to allow in a little of the fresh, pine scent from the surrounding forest, before the cold swept back in for another dig at the Illinois countryside.
Azmaria's hand seemed to agitate him all the more, though, and absentmindedly he put his arm around her shoulders. She patted his chest, almost as if to soothe him.
"Sorry," he murmured, scrubbing his fingers across his forehead. "You're right. I just hate to wait."
She'd heard that many times before, from the other Christopher.
By the time midnight of that day had come and gone, Azmaria had to admit she was finally starting to worry.
She'd been sitting on the stoop to the back door of the orphanage for an hour, all the lights of the bedrooms above her having slowly extinguished. She was fairly sure she was the only one awake.
Just as she was about to nod off, she looked up, startled, at the sound of a crunch in the grass. The moon was bright enough to see all the way to the edge of the trees that surrounded the fields.
From the trees emerged a tall figure, and a smaller silhouette.
Surprise didn't have time to dawn on her before a deep, warm feeling welled up. The figure walked hunched, tired, with a plod that seemed to suggest thousands of miles behind him. The silhouette next to him walked so near that it almost became one with his imposing shadow, arms twined around his, their hands interlocked. They walked slowly, not watching where they were going, but each other. Once, then a second time, their faces met, joined at the lips, and apart again.
Azmaria realized belatedly that her hands were pressed to her face now, felt warm tears already settling into her palms.
They were close enough to see now. Chrono, at last, had torn his gaze away and was looking right at Azmaria from behind heavy bandages. She could see the way his brow was furrowed, the way his arm managed to be at a protective angle across Rosette's thin frame without removing his hand from hers. Rosette seemed to be using his arm as a sort of half-support, her feet unsteadily pulling her forward with the gait of one trying their hardest to mask a limp.
Azmaria stood, watching them approach and willing her lip to stop trembling. By now they had recognized her, and Rosette's smile reached ear to ear with a brightness that could light the entire field around them. Chrono's brow had loosened and he raised a stump of a ruined arm in greeting.
She was running toward them before she had fully finished forming the thought. A beat, and she was in Chrono's arms, his left arm strong enough to lift her off her feet on its own. His laugh, the same as she remembered. Rosette was furiously wiping away her own tears as he put her down, and Azmaria reached for both their hands, and they dropped to the grass, knelt together in a tangle of limbs and laughter and salty tears. Chrono's lips met Azmaria's forehead, glancingly, his arm tightened around his contractor and for a moment, all was right with the world.
Joshua proved to be a better at keeping a secret than Azmaria would have expected.
His first reaction, when Azmaria prodded him gently awake at three in the morning and he registered who had followed her into the room, was to land a somewhat solid fist to Chrono's chest, in a manner reminiscent of how he'd sent him off eight years ago. But after a moment he'd wrapped him in a rough embrace, choking out something that sounded like, "when I told you to keep Rosette safe, I meant you too, damn it".
It didn't surprise Azmaria at all when Rosette somewhat awkwardly asked if she'd keep Chrono's return quiet. According to the official record, he'd gone down on the beach in San Francisco eight years ago, by Remington's hand, and she thought it was better that way.
Besides, it wasn't as if either of them had much time left.
It was anyone's guess why Chrono looked the way he did. The bandages wrapped around his head were squarely where his horns should be. His eye and his arm were missing, despite legion and a functioning link to the astral line. There was no logical reason why he should be falling apart.
Chrono had, functionally, stripped himself of everything it meant to be a demon. As a result, he was steadily failing the way he had been when Rosette and Joshua had met him years ago. Azmaria looked from Rosette's gaze, to Chrono's. Their eyes held the heaviness of souls holding on by the last string.
"Azmaria," Rosette had said, not looking her in the eye. "When the day comes, I trust you to do what you think is best. We sure won't be worrying about it anymore."
Azmaria squeezed her hand, hard enough to keep her own voice from wavering.
"I promise."
She found Rosette and Chrono just after dawn on the fifth day after he'd returned.
He was propped up against the headboard, chin resting in Rosette's hair. His good arm was draped over her chest, her cheek resting against the crook of his elbow. Their hands overlapped. It was as if they had been stopped in time, having paused for only a moment to rest their eyes.
Azmaria didn't know why she did not cry. She reached to press her hand over theirs.
She would ensure they were buried together, though the marker would say otherwise.
Before she went for Joshua's help, she carefully unclasped the pocketwatch and chain from around Chrono's neck. The last thing they needed was that heavy reminder of what had brought them here.
Azmaria also thought it appropriate that she keep, in memory, the reminder of what brought them together in the first place.
After the burial, she laid the pocketwatch almost reverently in front of the photograph they'd all taken together. It was the first time in years she had looked, really looked, at the picture. Her own eyes were looking somewhere past the camera, probably at someone who would not survive the next hour. Chrono, laughing awkwardly in a way that should have blurred the film. Rosette, holding the two of them together. Satella, the only one who looked prepared for the photograph, her gorgeous smile as she held Chrono in place. Azmaria’s fingers curled into themselves on the table's surface, and she realized she had gone down to her knees.
And then, Azmaria finally found it in herself to cry.
Arriving in death was much stranger this time around. For one thing, she'd woken up on a train the last time, not standing on a station platform. For another, she didn't recall it being quite so bright.
And currently, Rosette Christopher was about to lose her mind.
"Your ticket for riding this train is your life. What kind of life did you lead?" The conductor looked at her expectantly.
Rosette rustled her skirts, waiting for the familiar weight of the photograph in her hands. This is how it had gone last time, hadn't it? That night, that moment, the encapsulation of the most important years of her life captured on that warm night in San Francisco…
Coming up with nothing, Rosette felt panic well up in her throat. "I'm sorry, I…I've been here before and I had my ticket, I don't know where it--"
The conductor raised a hand, with a kind smile, to silence her. "Miss, the moment you are meant to board, you'll have what you need. There's no need to worry."
Rosette looked helplessly at her hands, then combed them back anxiously into her hair, which was suddenly shorter than she remembered. She looked down, patting herself gingerly, her faded nightgown gone and replaced by a blouse and deep violet skirt. Memory struck her square in the gut, and she turned around on the spot, as if looking for the edge of the illusion.
"Miss, we have to be off. Please, try not to worry. There will be another. There is always another."
"But--!"
The conductor tipped his hat, gave an amiable wink, and before Rosette could open her mouth, the train was gone.
She hadn't noticed the benches that lined the platform. Dazedly, she sat.
Her first time in death, the train had brought her halfway home before she even realized what was happening. Now, she couldn't even cross over without waiting.
Always waiting.
She hugged her knees to her chest, resting her cheek against the cotton of her skirt, which smelled crisp and new, like it had just been pressed. Such a strange sensation to feel, and her body felt so light and faultless as it had not in years, if ever. What was it like to feel all right, anyway? She had been on borrowed time since the age of twelve. She no longer remembered what it was like to exist in a body that wasn't slowly failing her.
That's right. She was remembering. It was like this last time, too…there was something about crossing to the other side that made her temporarily forget all she had just left behind, all the urgency, fear, panic, sadness. It was a relief, but disconcerting, in a way. Just like trying to hold onto the last strings of a dream as she woke, her memories seemed to be slipping away more and more by the minute.
Footsteps.
It's not much of an excuse, is it? I ran, and ran, but I had someone who was always by my side.
And where…is that person now?
He……he's not here. I came alone.
Because I died.
The sight of Chrono approaching would never fail to make Rosette's heart seem to leap from its chest, now. The past few days trickled back in a warm rush, days spent doing nothing but drinking each other in like water, content to simply exist together. Kisses and tears in the hours when the dawn shone weakest. The morning when they awoke entwined and Chrono had gently, tenderly made love to her, whispering her name over and over as she whimpered his, slipping over the edge together. The afternoon that they had laid down to rest for a bit and they both knew they had stood on their own two feet for the last time.
Chrono's bandages were gone. He approached her like the Chrono she had seen in his memories, except his face was softer, the hard lines of a soldier melted into the smile he had found just for her, that he never showed to anyone else. He sat beside her, hands already finding hers and kissing her on the lips, briefly, and again.
"Sorry for the wait."
Rosette shook her head. "I was half-afraid you wouldn't make it. I don't know how the rules work around here."
"I guess I pass. Ashes to ashes, right?"
She laughed a little at the irony, resting her forehead against his.
It wasn't long before another train had rolled into the station. Rosette could not hide her surprise when the same conductor stepped off, already giving her a smile.
"I see you were able to come up with your pass to board. Sorry for the wait, miss."
"What? I still haven't got the--"
"Your ticket to ride this train," he interrupted, slowly repeating what he had said before, "is your life. What kind of life did you lead?"
Chrono squeezed her hand.
"I…" Rosette began, looking from the Chrono to the conductor and back again.
"If I may," the conductor began. "You came without something very important last time, yes?”
Rosette squeezed Chrono's hand back. "Yes."
"There is a young lady aboard, who has been waiting for you patiently, hoping you'd have what you had forgotten the last time. I think you have more than satisfied that requirement."
Chrono met Rosette's eyes, and she looked at him confusedly, before the man continued.
"A life lived for someone else's sake is a life well lived indeed. This is the kind of life you lived…you both lived. An even exchange, a union of souls for the betterment of both of you. Neither of you would have been able to board this train without the other, for the life each of you lived was a life lived for the other."
He extended a hand to them.
"You've worked hard, and the place we're going…it's a good place. You can find peace there."
Neither could speak, but mutely Chrono put his arm around Rosette and guided her to the foot of the train, following the man aboard. The moment they stepped on, the grate shut behind them, and the train shuddered to life.