A Gaslight Romance

A/N This may contain some Baron/Haru in it; I'm not entirely sure yet... And this is my first fanfic on this film (and it's been a while since I've seen the film so please don't be overly critical if I get any details wrong, thanks :3).

Chapter 1 – The World Awaits

The cow-shaped alarm clock beeped loudly, but only for a few seconds. A hand slammed down on it in frustration. Haru awoke slightly crossly, for she had been dreaming a wonderful dream, in which she and her "more interesting" friends were flying through the air on wings of gold and silver (except Toto the eagle/crow, he being a bird of sorts, already had wings).

But now the dream was over... Haru sighed in resignation and felt with a slight thrill that it was the weekend. Yes! No more boring school-work for 48 hours! She loved Saturday mornings. She changed out of her pyjamas into blue slightly flared jeans, a tacky blue t-shirt that bore the legend "I rock like Vesuvius, baby" (it was not something she'd normally buy, but it had been a gift from a relative who had visited Pompeii a few months ago), and robin's egg blue jacket. Quite why she was in a blue theme today was a little beyond her – perhaps it was because the azure skies in her dream wanted to manifest themselves into reality in some slight way...?

But she let this thought float off into the ether, as insubstantial as the faded dream, as she walked slowly downstairs to cook breakfast.

Haru's mother was by now used to the phenomenon of her daughter cooking breakfast on the weekends as she herself descended the stairs and wondered sleepily into the kitchen/dining room. It had been nearly a year since she had first walked down one morning and found Haru all ready to go out with her friends for the day. But not that she knew it had been nearly a year. Things had fallen into this routine.

Haru, however, did know. She remembered it was the day after her "more interesting" friends had rescued her from the Cat Kingdom.

It was in fact, one year precisely, since she had been rescued from the clutches of the overweight and greedy Cat King.

Haru said goodbye to her mother, who accepted the sight of her only offspring charging out the front door at top speed as normality these days. She only sighed happily and gave a faint smile as she spread more butter on her toast.

But what Haru accepted as normality these days would have shocked her mother. As Haru was leaving the front gate, a familiar voice greeted her with a loud yowl.

"Hey! Where d'you think you're going?"

"Sorry Muta, can't stop, I'm on my way to see you right n-" Haru skidded to halt just outside the gate, swinging on the gate post as she did so. On the post had been seated a large, tubby and rather shabby sourpuss of a cat. But, as the girl had swung round, Muta had fallen off as he jumped backwards in alarm and found himself in a rose bush. He flew out of the rosebush at 60mph, landing on the lawn with an arched back, hissing slightly.

"Oops." Was all Haru could think of to say as she tried to stifle a giggle.

Muta glared sulkily at her, trying to pick a rose thorn out of his front right paw. After watching him struggle with his lack of opposable thumbs for a few moments, Haru took pity on her friend and tried to pull it out herself. Her reward for her pains, was another pain resulting from the cat's reflexes. He had scratched her, making a slight rip in the jumper and a small scratch on her hand.

"Hey!" she said loudly.

A little too loudly. "Haru? Is everything okay?" Her mother called, opening the front door.

"Uh, yeah, everything's fine, Mom! Just a crazy cat clawed me when I tried to get a thorn out of its paw!" Haru replied quickly, looking daggers at Muta.

"Well, at least you did something nice! Have a good day!" her mother replied as she closed the front door and returned to her toast. Haru smiled as she saw butter dribbling gracelessly down her mother's chin.

But her thoughts returned to the sourpuss on the lawn. "Muta, it's nice t' see you, but how come you're here, and not at the crossroads?"

"Well that's nice!" Muta grumbled, "I come all the way here, facing danger and that's the thanks I get? I dunno why I bother..." Muta stood on all fours and shook himself slightly, his tail huffily erect, rather in the similar fashion of a finger. Then his eyes widened in shock as his friend reached down and scooped him up in a hug.

"Awww I'm sorry!" Haru said apologetically in a slightly mocking way.

"Hey watch it!" Muta yowled, before streaking off down the road.

"Muta, wait!" Haru said.

Muta, now puffing for breath, slowed. "Okay, okay. Just had to get away from that rose bush."

"Sure...but why are you here?"

Muta was looking very peeved. "Because Baron asked me to give this to you ASAP." the cat looked up and down the street, and after finding it deserted, stood up on his hind legs. After searching around on his person, he produced a white blank envelope sealed with a green wax seal in the shape of a cat's eye.

Haru eyed the envelope with envelope with mixed feelings of excitement and trepidation. What would be so important for the Baron to write in a letter? Had he gone away?

With slightly trembling fingers she fumbled with the seal. After gazing at her for a while in the way cats do, Muta stepped in.

"Allow me." He extended a single claw and used it as a paper knife. Haru pulled out the sheet of paper and scanned the lines of neat, spidery writing in dark green ink.

Dear Haru,

I was wondering you would care to accompany me on a little excursion. I will be waiting for you there, and I hope you will enjoy it.

I apologise for sounding so cryptic, but I cannot divulge too much information for fear of disrupting temporal harmony.

If you wish to join me, please go to the Cat Bureau and enter the courtyard between the two houses to the immediate left. Proceed into the rear wall and there you will find me. If my calculations are correct, please go there at 8:59AM precisely and I don't think you will be disappointed.

Yours sincerely,

Baron Humbert von Gikkingen

Baron Humbert von Gikkingen... the cat figurine she couldn't stop thinking about. Her feelings for him were rather mixed. On some days, she regarded him as nothing more than a good friend, but...there were days when she found herself daydreaming of him as rather more than that... and when she daydreamed in class, her teachers grew annoyed. In fact, Mr Jusung had gone so far as to phone Haru's mother because of her conduct in class. But then again, Mr Jusung was a complete jerk.

But whatever Jerky Jusung did, Haru's spirit wasn't crushed. She just couldn't keep Baron's face out of her mind. Well, he was kinda handsome, for a cat figurine that had magically come to life to be a flesh-and-blood figurine-sized cat-person...

But she shook herself out of another reverie and glanced at her watch. It was 08:47AM. Now she understood why Muta was here, and not at the crossroads. If she had walked there she wouldn't have time to get to the Cat Bureau at the right moment.

She sprinted down the street, the fat cat running behind her, valiantly attempting to keep up.

As soon as they were at the crossroads, Haru veered off, heading along the usual winding path in the between spaces behind buildings. She had reflected many times, that it was perhaps appropriate that the between place between worlds was only accessible by other between places. Haru wasn't entirely sure that it was betweenworlds; but whatever it was, it was a charming place.

And now here she was: she was till unsure of its real name, but in her mind she always thought of it as Catopia. It appeared to be a town square surrounded by charming and brightly-coloured European-style buildings. In the middle was a tall pole up which Toto the eagle statue sat.

But today, he was not here. Haru supposed he had probably come to life again and was hanging out with his eagle buddies.

The one thing that was odd to any newcomers was the fact that everything in the place was scaled down to cat-size (except Toto, he was still the size of a regular eagle), hence Haru's nickname, Catopia.

She looked at the Cat Bureau. It was still the same as ever, a quaint little green-and-white painted house, looking like something straight out of a fairytale. However, she looked to the building on the immediate left. She had never paid much attention to it beforehand. It was a little red house with a bay window...and then nothing at all except at large gateway on a white wall, which connected with the white building. Haru reasoned that at least this gateway would be easier to crawl into than the little doorway of the Bureau. She prepared herself, and crawled towards the door on her hands and knees, and attempted to push open the gates. They swung open easily, as if they had been oiled recently.

"Hello? Hello? Is anyone here?" Haru called loudly, hoping she wasn't intruding on someone else's property, but she had never seen another living soul in 'Catopia' apart from Muta, Toto and the Baron before (apart from all the cats from the Cat Kingdom who had kidnapped her, of course).

Haru looked at the rear wall of the bare, empty courtyard and wondered what would happen. Well, she remembered, if those cats could drag me through all those walls, maybe Baron's got something similar...

She crawled towards it. She touched it with her hand. It rippled slightly, like a pond, and went - gloop! - very gently...

Applying caution, she crawled slowly towards it, apprehension rife throughout her body. She could feel She felt a tingle in her fingers as she pushed her hole hand through the wall. Was it the effect of the hole in space, or was it just her? She could feel branches and leaves on the other side.

If the Baron was asking her to come out of a tree that wasn't very safe. But Haru trusted the Baron with her life. And though she'd never tell him so, she'd even risk her life for him. And, without knowing for certain, she forged her way ahead into the deep end of the pool of life...