Warning: This is a future fic and thus contains up to date spoilers, currently that's Chapter 152 of the manga and Episode 74 of the anime.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. D. Gray-Man, Tyki, Miranda et al belong to the brilliant Katsura Hoshino.

However, until Ms. Hoshino agrees to have Tyki return to his old charming self for his next manga appearance he will remain shackled in my room. Actually he seems to be a bit of a masochist so at least he's enjoying himself...ummm...(coughs)...yeah soooo... On with the story!

WORLD ENOUGH, AND TIME...

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime...
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
- Andrew Marvell, 1621 - 1678

God gave Noah the rainbow sign,
No more water,
the fire next time...
- Traditional Spiritual

They were dead. All dead. Miranda Lotto huddled in the crumbled remains of a bombed out building and silently wept.

The war against the Earl was lost. He and his minions had systematically destroyed each Black Order chapter and the finders, the scientists within. In Rome, even the Vatican had been laid to waste and the Pope himself killed. The remaining exorcists were forced into hiding.

Still they fought on, fought where they could, striking from the shadows, but for all the damage they inflicted it was returned to them tenfold. Each encounter left gaping wounds where friends and allies had been.

Crowley, Lavi, Kanda, Bookman.

Miranda had held onto them as tightly as she could but their time ran out, and they slipped through her fingers like dust.

The only ones left had been Allen, Lenalee, Cross and Miranda herself.

And, in the end, only Miranda.

In her mind's eye she saw Allen again, smiling that bright, beautiful smile.

Stay here Miranda, please. Everything depends on your staying here.

She should have protested. When the three walked away she should have followed them. Continued to protect them as she had for days on end, for as long as she could and then died by their side. She would have followed if she had been able to move. If she had not lapsed into unconsciousness.

When she had finally come to, she had known in the depths of her being they were dead and her Innocence lay silent.

Now she was alone and waiting for death to come to her.

Useless. To the end of the world, as she had always known she would be. Useless. She crawled deeper inside herself and wept anew.

Tyki Mikk, the Noah of Pleasure, flicked away the spent cigarette, watching as it cast glowing embers into the already burning air. Immediately he lit another. He sprawled upon the stairs of what he thought had once been St. Paul's Cathedral, eyes lazily following the tendrils of smoke that danced above his head. In the distance Big Ben stood silent, one of the few London landmarks to remain reasonably intact. In the battle with the last surviving exorcists the city had been completely destroyed.

In deference to the carnage, uncounted Level 2 and 3 akuma patrolled the skys while massive quantities of the newly created bobbed around the wrecked city like particularly gothic balloons. Tyki's lip curled. The Earl must have been positively giddy, what with all the new toys to play with. Soon they would begin moving into the countryside and they would do to the British Isles what had been done to Edo. Though not as isolated as that other country had been, rumours of virulent plague, with no survivors to contradict them, would ensure the Earl's activities went unobserved.

For his part, Tyki was... conflicted. He was, almost literally, of two minds about everything. The Earl's triumph was no exception. When the last of the exorcists finally fell, he was filled with indescribable elation.His family was safe and they had won. They had won! Still, he could not deny, even as joy swept his being, that some part of his soul curled in upon itself and wailed in despair.

At the very least, now that he was unopposed, the Earl was of no mind to rush the final chapter. Unlike a fox in a hen house, Tyki knew his master would rather hide in the shadows, snatching up his prey one by one, instead of indulging in an orgy of mass slaughter all at once.

Still... how long would it be, Tyki wondered, before light began to fade from the world? How much time was left for him to be his White self? Or even his Black self? When the light had gone would either Tyki exist or would he become that mindless black thing that had consumed him in the Ark? He shivered. If that was his destiny he'd rather die with the world.

A small flurry of activity in the distance caught his attention. A woman in a panic, clutching a small girl to her chest, came scrambling over the rubble. Apparently unable to go any further she slumped down beside a broken wall, and, in an attitude of despair, began to rock her. As the woman held the child, the child held a doll. It's bright red dress flashed at him through the gray haze.

As he watched, a Level 2, wolf-like akuma appeared and snuffled along the other side of the wall, stalking them.

He whistled sharply.

The akuma's head shot up, ears pricking as it turned in Tyki's direction. With only the slightest hesitation, disappointed to abandon the prey, it loped towards the Noah.

"Yes Lord." It growled.

Tyki took another drag off his cigarette. "Tell me," he drawled in a bored sort of voice, "what's going on in the rest of the city."

As the akuma launched into a report that seemed to consist mainly of how many humans the akuma had himself killed and what parts of the city were still burning, Tyki watched the woman. She seemed stunned at first, then, as if taking strength from the unexpected reprieve, she gathered her child to her once more and escaped, plunging into the shadowed ruins beyond.

He stared into the distance where they had disappeared for a while after. The akuma's voice had long since become a vaguely annoying drone in the background, God, it must have been such a bore as a human, when his thoughts and the report, thankfully, were interrupted by an elated, "Lord, Lord, Lord!" and another akuma hove into view.

This particular akuma was distinctly feminine in appearance, with a glittering golden body, and multicoloured wings that flashed as she dove towards him at a somewhat alarming speed.

Cute akuma, he thought absently. It was also so happy it was threatening to blow itself up for joy.

"Lord, Lord, Lord!" She called again, landing in front of him with a bright chirrup.

"Well, yes we've established that much. Anything else?"

"News, news, news!" She sang, then paused a moment. "Good news!" She added enthusiastically.

The Noah sighed but, luckily for her, the creature continued.

As the akuma shared her intriguing information, Tyki pulled himself to his feet, treating himself to a cat-like stretch. Finally, he thought, something interesting to do. With a wide grin, and a mildly ominous admonishment to the akuma to tell no one else, he strode purposefully into the shattered city.

Miranda's face still shone with tears but her mind had settled somewhat. She had been startled from her mourning by the appearance of an akuma, fluttering above her hiding place. She had thought it had seen her, but it swept away without a backward glance. She realized she could not remain here, like this. Her strength, as well as her curse, seemed to be her ability to go on no matter how many times she failed. Before, when she lost a job, she always plucked up her pride and found another.

Things were going to be a little more difficult this time.

She knew she had to stand against the Earl, of that there was no question. It was the 'how' of it that was worrisome. Especially with her Innocence gone. She had not felt it since the others had died. Of course it must have broken with the 'Heart', but it disappeared far more quietly than she expected.

She bowed her head and tears touched her eyes again. She could only go one step at a time. The first step was survival...

"My, my, my, what do we have here?"

Startled, she looked up, and froze, a sparrow suddenly face to face with a hawk.

The Noah, Tyki Mikk, stood above her, smiling lazily.

He was dangerous, frightening, and Miranda knew precisely what cruelties he was capable of, but somehow she couldn't help feeling darkly fascinated by the sensually beautiful creature. Even in shirt sleeves he cut an elegant figure. The battles that had bruised and bloodied her had barely dusted him, mussing his hair ever so slightly. He smirked at her around his cigarette and his eyes glittered. Casually he plucked the spent smoke from his mouth, flicked it away and crouched before her, pulling out a soft white handkerchief.

Miranda was both mesmerized and terrified as he leaned forward and gently wiped the tears from her eyes.

" Tell me, Lady Exorcist," He murmured softly. "Would you like to live?"

He was so handsome. So charming.

So deadly.

Miranda felt the fury build inside of her. He was a murderer. How many had he killed, helped to kill? Death would be better than to become a tortured, twisted toy. With a desperate cry she launched herself at him.

He was expecting it. With a wicked grin he easily caught her wrists and, using her own momentum against her, rolled until she was pinned beneath his body. She panted, squirming a bit at the intimate contact.

His grin grew wider. "Ah, I like a woman with spir...guhh." He grunted painfully as she brought her knee up solidly. Wincing he rose to his knees, dragging her up with him, pulling her tight to his chest. "Right," he groaned, "maybe not that much." She twisted in his grip and as she grabbed at his hair, light flared along her arm.

Tyki's eyes widened with shock. "Innocence? But that means yours is...!" He was unable to finish as they were both enveloped in a swirl of dark and light and the world yawed open beneath them.

It was like falling... no, falling was too gentle a term for it. She was plummeting, light flickering around her in the dark. Squares of light like windows and strange, blurred impressions of figures moving in the rooms beyond. Stranger still was the other mind she sensed, turning in tandem with her own.

Tyki Mikk. His confusion and curiosity, and more than a little fear, felt very human to her. She had expected a monster, a Noah, with a mind alien and unreadable. A jolt of alarm and the thought, the Noah, skittered across her mind. It wasn't her thought. With dawning horror she realized, I can hear his thoughts...

And I can hear yours

Then a thought like the crack of a whip...

Woman, what have you done?

Miranda began to panic. What had happened? The Innocence had never done this before. Her Innocence shouldn't even exist! She caught Tyki's flash of brittle amusement.

Well, whatever is happening, it's tearing both our minds apart!

He was right. She could almost feel the edges of her mind, his mind, shearing away from them. She felt his will grip at those ragged edges, and she added her own. It was a such a desperate effort to keep their minds intact that they reached out blindly, grasping at each others. It was a matter of survival, but each time Tyki caught a tendril of her consciousness and drew it back, or when she took a tight hold of one of his fading thoughts, there was a sharp current of pleasure. It was exquisitely intimate, and she couldn't help but tremble as his mind brushed close to hers again and again.

It couldn't keep on like this. Either they would fall on and on until their minds dissolved under the pressure...

Or they hit bottom.

What had they told her at the Order? It was her will that created the reality of the Innocence.

Her Innocence. Her world.

Then now would be a perfect time to take control!

There was a sharp hint of panic to Tyki's thought that she might have found amusing if she hadn't been so close to it herself. What was it? What was there for her to take control of?

Alice down the rabbit hole.

All at once she remembered that odd book she once read and in her minds eye she pictured a young girl floating gently down a deep well.

Almost immediately their rapid descent slowed. The flickering windows became doors of differing shapes, sizes and colours hanging in the black around them. As the immediate danger passed she was recalled to the fact she was sharing space with a deadly enemy.

For a moment she wondered if she should withdraw her mind from Tyki's completely and let him drop.

This thought was greeted by a flash of shock from the Noah followed by a shimmer of darkly delighted laughter that tickled at her mind. Deciding she knew too little of what was going on to attempt anything, and acknowledging some instinct that he was, for now, no danger to her, she allowed his mind to remain close. They drifted carefully down together.

After perhaps a minute, or maybe an hour, ironically she couldn't seem to perceive time properly here, they came to an abrupt halt. Without the pressure to keep their minds tightly bound, they withdrew from each other. As the warm pleasurable tingle of contact disappeared Miranda felt an unexpected flicker of disappointment.

There was a moments smug amusement from Tyki before he focused on their surroundings. All was black but for a black and white checkerboard floor that lay beneath them and a large red door, standing alone.

Where have you brought us Lady Exorcist?

Miranda tensed herself but the Noah seemed of no mind to attack. The gentle bell like chime of her Innocence trembled through her.

I don't think it's 'where'.

She hesitated as realization flooded in.

It's 'when'...

A/N : For some reason I hooked into the idea that a Tyki/Miranda ship might work (perhaps it was the anime's first intro that had a windblown Miranda image immediately following a Tyki closeup). The more I read of these characters, the more I liked the idea, even though they have never had a scene together. I looked but I haven't found one story with this pairing so I decided to write my own. Enjoy.

Please review and let me know what you think!

Oh and some music on rotation as I wrote – Prelude 12/21 by AFI and Tranquilize – The Killers