Um… yeah, I don't know what possessed me when I was writing this. I kinda wanted to write something about Road Camelot's origins because she's my favorite Noah, and this popped out instead. Also, I couldn't think of a decent title (cries). Still, I figured someone might like reading it, so here it is.

Warnings: Implied murder and torture, come on people… this is Road we're dealing with. Also, certain revelations involving Allen's past are alluded to, so if you're frantic about not getting spoilers, you might want to skip reading this until you're current in the manga. I don't think it's really that obvious, but if you're current you'll definitely be able to pick it out.

Disclaimer: …I wish I were awesome enough to come up with something like -Man… but I'm not. Don't own, so don't sue.

Within the Dream

He had always been there in the beginning, in the time when there was both waking and dreaming. They were always together; running and laughing through the streets of Camelot, nicking sweets from the bakery where his aunt worked while she pretended not to notice, sneaking outside the walls to go fishing upriver or swimming, or just to get away from the eyes to play a game of make-pretend. He would often find excuses for her to come eat dinner with her family, and the one time her stepfather had beaten her so badly she couldn't walk he had dragged her out of the house and found a doctor. He was there for her through the jeers, defending her from the insults. Even when the fevers and the nightmares and the bleeding grew so bad she could barely function, he never left her side, and his face was the last thing she remembered seeing before the waking world slipped away and the dream descended.

Of course, once the dream became her waking world everything was just… better. Her real family came for her at last, bringing her love and affection and an end to all the horrid, small-minded little people that had made her life hell.

Still, even in the dream she had loved him best. It was because she loved him that she let him share the experience with her as she punished them all, all those two-faced, pious little vermin that had mocked her for being an unwanted bastard, called her a witch just because of her nightmares and her illness, who had said that her violet eyes and hair were demon marks, and worst of all, the ones who had stood uselessly and watched because they were too spineless and cowardly to act. Even then, while she slaughtered everyone they had known one by one by one, he had tried to save her, to wake her from the dream. It was laughable. It was beautiful.

So beautiful that she had played one last game of make-pretend with him, so beautiful that she had kissed the blood off his face while he died.

So beautiful that she took the name of that horrible city with her as her own, because it had given her the dream, and it had given her him.

And maybe it's just another facet of her dream, unwilling to let the memory of him go, or maybe it's his guilt for not being able to save her from herself, or maybe that gypsy woman was onto something with her babbling about 'destined soulmates', but it seems like she keeps running into him throughout the centuries. His face and name are always different, but his personality never really changes. He's the wandering medicine peddler, bringing treatment to places that can't access or afford medical help for their ill, he's the knight quarreling with his liege lord when his peers victimize the peasantry(sadly that was the last life where he ever willingly took up arms against another human, which is such a shame because no matter what he looks like, crimson is always his color), he's a baker distributing bread to the poor, a watchmaker giving little trinkets out to the local children even when their parents can't afford them… wherever he goes, he seems driven to help the people around him, whether they deserve it or not. And no matter how she first approaches him, he always treats her nicely. Like she's special. Like she deserves to be saved.

It's part of what makes breaking him so much fun.

And now she's found him again, in an Exorcist's black coat with a curse mark etched across his face and a shard of Innocence imbedded into his hand, struggling once more in a thankless task for people who don't appreciate him and won't remember him once he's dust. Maybe it's because he looks more the way he did the first time, or maybe it's because watching his arm grow to twice its normal size and sprout claws makes him seem more inhuman than she does, but it just feels like she's looking at the purest, most concentrated form of him that she's ever encountered. And even though the surname Walker has to be a coincidence it lets her close her eyes and picture those forgotten days back in Camelot where the dream began, except this time it's pale blue eyes slowly staining yellow and rapidly darkening blood dripping into white hair as she tries to change the bandages on a still-pale forehead…

In the privacy of her own dream, she can admit it's a nice image. But it's just not meant to happen; he wasn't chosen by Noah and even if this is her dream, there are just some things she's not able to change. She can still console herself with the sweet music of his screams (it's always better when she meets him before he becomes an adult; she can close her eyes and listen and pretend it's just like the first time). And there's just something so fantastic about pressing herself up against an Exorcist and feeling his body tense as he realizes yes, she is human. Not that there's any doubt of making him understand that, this is him after all. But seeing that look above one of those hated black coats is just… well, wonderful.

So wonderful, in fact, that she lets both him and the dark-haired girl live. Those coats they wear are a guarantee that their paths will cross again, after all… there's no need to kill them all the first time. She wants to savor this dream, since it'll probably be the last one she has. And she can't wait to see if he'll actually try to kill her in this lifetime, or if once more his innate desire to save everyone will win out, crippling him with indecision while she riddles him full of holes.

And it's just plain funny to walk through the Ark licking Allen's blood off of one of her candles, seeing how many of her kinsmen she can freak out while she does.