"How're you feeling?"

The lights flicker on as she walks into his room, face set and her stance determined. He squints in the sudden light.

She's followed by a quiet man, with white hair and a jagged red scar running down his face, his slight figure wrapped in a jacket too large for him. Lavi remembers a time when Lenalee was small compared to him, maybe about the size of the man she's with, but it's different now and has been for a long while.

Lenalee sits down on the chair that's opposite of the bed he's lying on, and crosses her legs before staring intently at him. The staring doesn't bother him, it's the way she's staring at him that does. Like he'll disappear if she takes her eyes off him for longer than half a second.

He rolls over; she sighs.

"Y'know," she says, "this is the first time we have the chance to have a real conversation since everything kind of went to hell." He can practically hear the bittersweet smile on her face that he remembers she wore so often. "The least you can do is look at me."

Lavi can't really say no to her so he does, propping his head up with his hand and staring at her.

Fuck, she's gorgeous. Warmth pools in his stomach when she smiles, like some mental burden has been lifted from her shoulders.

The staring continues for a moment longer. He breaks the silence first. "M'not gonna disappear."

He's always been good at reading people, and Lenalee is no exception, they've known each other for so long that reading her body language has become second nature. She was confident when she walked in but now she's strained, and her hands have a light tremor to them. Her shoulders, broader than from before, are drawn in. It looks like she's shielding herself, in a weird way. Not much has changed, form back then because she did this when she was scared.

She seems a little surprised at what he said, but her eyes quickly melt into relief.

"I know," she wrings her hands. "I'm not going to let you. I lost you once, I'm not losing you again."

"Even if I am an ex assassin?"

Damn. He didn't mean to bring that up but. Oh well. What's done is done. He's kinda inwardly cringing at what Lenalee will say because she'd support her friends until the end of the world and then some. And she still considers him a friend.

"That wasn't you doing it. Well, not exactly. You were brainwashed." She says, standing up, the muscles in her arms flexing in a very nice way when she crosses them and oh fuck. Lavi doesn't say anything else, figures he should just leave it at that but Lenalee doesn't. She crosses over to his bed quickly, and the look in his eyes has him starting to worry for himself.

Lenalee crosses the short distance between them quicker than he would've liked. "Listen here, bookman," She hisses, eyes narrowed and tears brimming at the corner of her eyes. Lavi swallows thickly.

"You're my friend, you got that? I don't care what Hydra forced you to do, I know you and you wouldn't have done ANY of that if Hydra hadn't messed you up and brainwashed you." She pauses, taking a deep breath to steady her voice. "I'm not losing you to anyone ever again."

Lavi blurts it out before he has any time to think about what he's going to say. "I love you." He says and it doesn't dawn on him what he's said until Lenalee starts blushing and then he realizes.

"Wait-shit. This isn't how I was going to tell you, fuck-" He notices that the white haired boy's head snaps up when he hears that; Lavi forgot he was here. He wonders how he knows Lenalee.

"You idiot!" There are arms, warm and strong against his shoulders, pulling him up and then those arms are wrapped around his chest and she's hugging him with everything he has. Something hot and warm soaks into his shoulder where Lenalee has her head buried there and he hugs her too, because fuck he's missed her so much. "I love you, too."

He makes some kind of noise that's a cross between a whine and a dying animal and Lenalee laughs, airy and light and her laugh makes him feel warm, in a different kind of way than the way that heat does.

"God, you're such an idiot," she whispers and he smiles.

"Yeah, I know."