Yeah, this crossover is going to be a bit interesing...

Arnold and Rouge: Left Unsaid

Honestly...I can't say for certain why I ever opened that journal in the first place.

It was supposed to be a simple recon mission: sneak in, dig up dirt on the whereabouts of the next Emerald, and sneak out.

Easy, right?

Besides, this old shack of a boardinghouse doesn't exactly have the most advanced security system anyway. Regular burglars, sure, those saps would've fallen for it.

Not me—this gal's too sneaky for that.

'Cept...my curiosity tends to show me things I'd rather forget.

That journal's one of them.

It didn't look all that special at first. Dusty, slightly moldy, and wrinkly—not much of a find...

Course, when you've been in the business as long as I have, you better learn fast that looks can be deceiving. I guess I thought I'd take a look and see if Sunshine or any of the kooks he lives with knew anything about the Emeralds.

So...I took a gander at the inside of the journal...

It was beyond anything I ever expected!

Who could have ever expected such a dingy book to be full of so much adventure...romance...mystery?

But the heartache...that was the biggest piece of all in this little book.

A part of me told me to stop reading, to put the journal right back where it belonged and high-tail it outta here.

I didn't.

I couldn't.

Call me batty (no pun intended) but something deep down in my gut told that I just needed to do this, if not for my sake then at least for Sunsh—I mean, Arnold's.

And by the time I reached the end, for the first time for as long as I can remember, tears fell from my eyes.

Real, actual tears...

I tried my hardest not to let them spill on the page I was on, but I'm pretty sure some of those pesky drops made it anyway.

So much for stealth...not that that mattered to me anymore anyway...

Quietly but solemnly, I returned the journal back to where it belonged.

But right before I was about to walk out, there was just one thing I had left say for the man and woman who'd left those memoirs behind.

"Maybe someday..."