Title: Time Traveling for Dummies
Series: Katekyo Hitman Reborn (KHR)
Pairing/Characters(s): Fem!Fran and basically everyone else All27
Genre: Romance/Humor (Romance is in attempt only)
Rating: PG-13/T
Summary: There's a reason why only Byakuran travels between dimensions. Poor Francine has no idea what she's getting herself into. Placed right before the Arcobaleno Arc. Fem!Fran Attempted Fem!Fran27 All27 Chapter 4: Plot actually happens.
Word Count: 2595 (6723 So Far)

Chapter 4:

Things were not going well for Francine. She didn't know why exactly, but they weren't. Those stupid boys kept calling her stupid names and giving her inappropriate looks and no one let her touch Vongola! The whole bus ride to his house Francine wondered what in the world was going on.

She decided that perhaps Vongola was just shy. He is only fifteen now and he's not that great at flirting with women even ten years from now. It probably doesn't help that his guardians would jump him in an instant if he showed even the slightest interest in anyone.

So yes, Francine had now figured it out. And it just made Vongola cuter! Young, naïve, and too polite to take advantage of her. He's such a sweet boy and will become such a wonderful man. In order to avoid overwhelming him, Francine planned a new strategy.

When they left the bus, she pretended that Yamamoto wasn't squeezing her arm enough to hurt. She disapproved of him touching Vongola, but took advantage to change her outfit. With a low-cut shirt and short skirt she would tempt him, while wearing her normal boots made her outfit casual as if it was what she wore on a daily basis. That way he could be tantalized by what he saw without the pressure of knowing that she dressed up just for him.

It was kind of funny to her that despite the fact that this was a parallel universe the layout of Namimori was the same and Gokudera and Yamamoto acted very similarly too.

She was decidedly unsurprised by Reborn's attack on Vongola, but was sick of being ignored. So she introduced herself. She tugged her skirt down slightly; it made her appear more modest and ladylike, and introduced herself. "Francine of the Varia, at your service."

Reborn looked at her with a calculating stare. "At the moment there is no one in the Varia named Francine. There aren't even any women in the Varia."

Francine did not appreciate his tone. "I don't know what Varia you're talking about, but most of the Varia are women, or at least act like women. I'm still not convinced that Squalo is male," she snarked. "I'm from the future. I replace Mammon after the Arcobaleno curse is lifted and she decides to spend her time writing books about Vongola's life. They're bestsellers and have been adapted many times. The money never stops flowing."

"Hiiiieee!" Tsuna squeaked. "You're kidding, right?"

"No, it's a very successful manga, movie, novel series, television show, and anime." Francine paused. "She also writes most of the doujinshi to corner that market too. It's quite remarkable."

Reborn kicked Francine in the gut. "Mammon isn't a woman. Who are you, really? I doubt this is some Ten Year Bazooka error."

Francine prepared another response, but Gokudera took this time to intervene. "Reborn-san, Tenth said that he saw a pink gas hit Fran and then we got this… woman."

"Haha, Gokudera's right. That's exactly what Tsuna told us!" Yamamoto smiled. "So the sooner you fix the bazooka the sooner she can leave! Haha and then we can play the mafia game the way we usually do. I don't think I'm liking this level."

Francine smiled at Tsuna. "There's a lot of games that I wouldn't mind playing with you."

"Um, Francine?" Tsuna was still creeped out by how Francine could smile at him while speaking in a deadpan, but at least he knew her name now. "I don't think we should be playing anything. Reborn? I don't know what happened. I didn't even know that Lambo followed me to Kokuyo. There's some sort of parallel universe thing going on."

Reborn smacked Tsuna with a green ping pong paddle. "He wasn't. As a kindness to you, I kept the cow locked in a closet all day. Now I know that my kindness was undeserved. You will be punished."

Tsuna trembled in place in terror. It must have knocked something loose in his brain because he suddenly had an idea. "Do you think Byakuran's involved? I mean, Francine says she's from a world where Gokudera-kun and Yamamoto are women."

"Dame-Tsuna. Has it occurred to you that she's lying? She could be here to assassinate you."

Yamamoto and Gokudera immediately pulled out their Vongola Gear. This was exactly the opportunity they were looking for.

"Hiiiieee!" Tsuna yelled. "You can't do this!"

Reborn pulled his gun on him. "I'll give you to the count of ten to explain yourself."

Francine yawned in boredom.

"Ten."

"I promised Mukuro that I would take care of Fran no matter what happened to him!"

Francine felt her heart pound extra hard at his words. They were spoken so passionately! And to protect her too. She didn't know why she was here, but she couldn't regret it. Not when Vongola was so set on her safety to the point of going against Reborn. If she'd know that he was so sweet when he was younger she would have gotten caught up in a Ten Year Bazooka incident years ago.

"What?" Reborn demanded. "Explain yourself again."

"You told me to go get Mukuro to take back Chrome. He said that if I took care of Fran then he'd consider helping out." Tsuna felt like he said that already. "But he insisted that I had to keep Fran no matter what happened to him. I have to keep my promise! Promises are important!" He insisted.

Francine resisted the urge to grin in triumph over the fact that at the moment she was more important than anyone else. She ignored the fact that he was really doing it for Chrome and Mukuro's sake. That was irrelevant. The important part was that he was taking care of her! And this meant that they would have ample opportunity to get… closer.

Everyone was silent until a crying Lambo ran out of the closet next to the bathroom. Reborn kicked him in the head and he pulled out the Ten Year Bazooka. Yamamoto quickly grabbed it and Gokudera threw Lambo out the window.

Reborn sighed and put down his gun. "I'll call Gianini. It's possible Byakuran is involved so I'll try to find someone who knows something about him too." He glared at Tsuna. "I'm glad that you're honoring your responsibilities to your famiglia. But I detest that you're starting now of all times to do it. Don't screw this up."

"Tsu-kun! It's dinner time! Bring all of your friends to the table, please." Nana called out. Tsuna was thankful for the interruption.

They all ate a delicious dinner, but the meal did have a few… awkward moments.

"Tenth's mom! This meal is delicious! You could open up a restaurant and make a fortune in a day!"

"Haha, don't do that Sawada-san! My dad's place would go out of business if you made a restaurant. You'd steal all of the customers in Namimori!"

Nana smiled and giggled. "Oh you boys are so sweet. I'm sure that with words like that there's no end to girls wanting to date you."

Gokudera froze. "Well, there's not really a girl, a someone, that is, I like—" He took a deep breath. "Thank you Tenth's mom, you're too kind."

Yamamoto scratched his head. "I get lots of letters from girls, but none of them are my type." Only Reborn noticed his quick glance in Tsuna's direction. "I'm not going to give up hoping for the right person's attention."

Tsuna looked at both in awe. "Wow, I didn't know you two liked someone. Do I know her?"

Yamamoto and Gokudera quickly looked down at their rice bowls.

Tsuna didn't understand why this created an awkward silence. The boys stared holes into the designs in their bowls. Fuuta continued to eat neatly. Lambo was throwing food at I-Pin, and Bianchi was contemplating buying more goggles or maybe fashion glasses since Gokudera had been coming over for dinner more often lately.

Finally, Nana asked, "Francine, is it?" At the nod she received in reply she added, "What do you think of the food?"

Francine put down her chopsticks. "Passable. I prefer French food. Asian food bores me."

This silence was more than a little intimidating.

The first person to snap, surprisingly enough, was Bianchi. "How could you?" she yelled while pulling out poison cooking. "All you need is love! Can't you taste the overabundance of love in this food?"

"Bianchi-san! Calm down!" It was times like these that Tsuna knew that Gokudera and Bianchi were related. "People are still eating!" It took all of Tsuna's willpower to prevent Bianchi was assassinating Francine then and there. He even almost had to go into Hyper Dying Will Mode.

Luckily Reborn managed to calm her down and dinner finished with a static of distrust and unease. After the dishes had been cleared, Gokudera tried to place things in perspective.

"We don't know very much about this situation," he pointed out. "I think that we should make a list of what we do know and who we know who could help us or be involved."

Reborn nodded. "That's a good idea. Dame-Tsuna go get some paper. Bianchi, when he's doing that go make sure that the brats stay out of our way. Francine… don't, don't say anything."

They rushed to get their tasks done and returned to the dinner table.

Reborn started. "So we know that based off of the pink gas that the Ten Year Bazooka is somewhat involved, but that it isn't a problem on our end because Lambo wasn't anywhere near Kokuyo."

Tsuna nodded. "Yeah, and there's also the problem that it's a parallel universe thing since Fran changed gender and came from a place where there are a lot more women in the Vongola Tenth Generation."

"She could be lying," Yamamoto pointed out.

Francine opened her mouth to say something, but Tsuna cut her off. "I know the Ten Year Bazooka and it was definitely the Ten Year Bazooka after effects that I saw. I wouldn't get tricked by some other pink gas. Besides, my hyper intuition hasn't told me that anything's wrong. Since Fran's gone and we have Francine instead, I think we have to accept that there's something going on. I don't think this is an illusion otherwise Reborn would've seen through it, right?"

Reborn smirked. "Correct. Congratulations on finally recognizing my skill as the number one hitman Dame-Tsuna." He frowned. "That doesn't leave us with much though. The fact that Mukuro gave you orders to take care of Fran, 'no matter what,' implies that he expected something like this to happen, but he may have only been covering his bases. Who else should we talk to?"

"Haha, well, you already mentioned Gianini and Byakuran, right, Kid?" Yamamoto asked. "And Tsuna mentioned Irie and Spanner too."

Reborn actually smiled this time. "You're doing well Dame-Tsuna. We'll make a great boss out of you yet. Anyone else?"

Gokudera took this time to intervene. "I think we need to consider using the Ten Year Bazooka on Lambo or anyone really to determine if our bazooka is keyed into this alternate universe and even if it's not, we could maybe take advantage of the bazooka to figure out what we're researching in ten years that could be related to the incident that causes this."

"Wow, that's such a good idea Gokudera-kun!" Tsuna complimented. Gokudera beamed in response.

"Thank you, Tenth! I also think we should talk to Shamal just in case he knows about a disease that could change people's appearances or something that could have similar effects to the Ten Year Bazooka." He was quick to add, "Not that I doubt you or anything, Tenth!"

Tsuna sweatdropped. Reborn hopped off of his seat. "I think that's enough for now. We have our work cut out for us. I think we should get ready for bed."

"Um."

"Yes, Dame-Tsuna?"

"Should we contact Uni? I mean, she might have had a vision or something about this and could give us an idea of how things will play out."

Reborn paused. "That's not a bad idea, but we should try to keep this as close to the famiglia as possible. That's to be a last resort. Now go home you two."

Yamamoto and Gokudera reluctantly left the Sawada household with promises to be by bright and early the next day.

This left Tsuna in an awkward predicament.

"Uh, Reborn? Where is Francine going to sleep?"

Francine had been bored out of her mind during the useless chatter, but she quickly started paying attention again. "Oh Vongola, aren't I your responsibility?" she asked.

Tsuna very slowly nodded. "I guess."

"So I'll sleep with you!" she exclaimed with actual emotion.

Reborn was very very glad that the boys had already left. Otherwise things could have gotten very ugly very fast.

Tsuna flushed. "You, me, my room, that is," he took a deep breath. "I don't think that's a very good idea."

Nana took this time to come check on her son. "Tsu-kun? Did your friends go home already?"

"Yes, Kaasan."

She looked at the most recent addition to the Sawada household. "Oh, you're still here."

"Yes, I'm currently without a place to stay and I was hoping that you could let me stay with you for the time being." Francine had the proper frame of mind to bow to her. After all, it was important to be polite to future in-laws, comments on cooking don't count.

Nana frowned. "We're out of spare rooms though. Hm, maybe I need to talk to Iemitsu about moving into a bigger home." She clapped her hands and smiled brightly. "But in the mean time you can stay in Bianchi's room! You both aren't too far apart in age and your sizes should be close enough too. I noticed that you don't have any luggage with you."

At hearing her name, Bianchi joined them all as well. "The children are all in bed now. What's this about sizes?"

"Bianchi!" Nana exclaimed. "You wouldn't mind sharing a room with Francine and letting her borrow some clothing for now, would you?"

Bianchi actually minded a lot. Like Gokudera she was actually very much a fashion snob and the idea of anyone wearing any of her clothes disgusted her. She could maybe have tolerated it if Reborn had demanded it of her, but not with this woman. Francine had unfortunately made it onto her shit list and that meant that anything Francine touched was getting torched. However, she did have the proper frame of mind to know that she was a guest too and that she didn't really have much choice. Oh well, at least the newest lines were coming out soon. Now she could justify the new expense.

"It would be my pleasure." Bianchi finally said, smiling falsely and freaking Tsuna out. "We can have the most lovely conversations about love and boys."

Francine completely misread the atmosphere. "I would rather not talk to you. I suppose I could tolerate wearing your clothing, but you have awful fashion sense. I simply must go shopping tomorrow." Francine ignored the fact that she had absolutely no money and forgot that she had decided to be polite as long as she was a guest.

Bianchi gritted her teeth. "Great," she forced out. "Let's go find something for you to wear."

Nana rushed off to find a spare futon as Bianchi and Francine went to Bianchi's room.

Tsuna looked at Reborn. "This is going to go horribly, isn't it?"

Reborn tilted his fedora. "No doubt about it."

End Ch.4

Author's Note: This chapter wound up crazy long by my standards. Don't expect this often. I just really wanted the story to finally get somewhere. Insomnia is a great motivator. This chapter isn't as funny as others.

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