"Oft, in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me:
The smiles, the tears
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimm'd and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus, in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me."
When Link finds Allen Walker, he's slumped against the wall, glass like glitter shimmering in his hair.
To be honest, Link wasn't expecting to find Walker at all—the suspected heretic was supposed to come to him. Link had gone off an hour ago to give a few new mission reports to Lvellie, instructing Walker to have his dinner in the meantime. So Link had expected to find Walker outside their designated rendezvous point—the library—to catch up on some paperwork before bed.
Instead, he finds Walker a good fifty away from the library entrance, half-hidden behind a pillar in a rarely used side hall. And he only finds the boy by accident—if he hadn't glanced left by chance, he'd have missed Walker's boots sticking out from behind the stonework.
For a heartbeat, Link stands frozen, eyes darting every which way, thinking some Noah or high-level akuma has wormed its way into the Order's walls again. But when his feet finally start shuffling forward, his hands tense and ready to whip out his blades, or a line of his most powerful seals, he realizes his assumption is dead wrong.
Because as he closes in on the unconscious form, the boy's head dipped forward, blood cascading down his face, Link catches sight of the glittering glass that forms a shattered halo around Walker's body. Green glass. Glowing bright underneath the harsh lights that line the vaulted ceilings. From a liquor bottle. The affixed label has been shredded, rests in pieces on the tile.
A Noah would not hit Allen Walker with a liquor bottle. An akuma wouldn't either.
Which means Walker's assailant was a human being.
Which means Walker's assailant works for the Order.
Which means Walker's assailant was supposed to be his comrade. (And wasn't.)
Link drops his fighting stance and sinks to his knees before Walker's motionless form, slipping off his gloves as he wades carefully through the sea of broken glass. He presses two fingers to Walker's neck, a smear of blood coating his skin, and waits until he's reassured by the steady thump thump that his charged hasn't died some petty death all alone in a deserted hallway.
"Walker?" Link murmurs, slowly tipping Walker's chin up to get a better look at his injuries. The head wound, at least the most obvious one, is a wide, wicked gash above his right temple. The blood has soaked his white hair red, and the green glass shards glitter around the edges of the laceration. Beautiful gore. Taunting.
Walker doesn't stir, even as Link calls his name once, twice, three times, and a pit forms in Link's stomach—if Walker was hit more than once with the bottle, it's very possible he has a skull fracture, in which case his brain could be swelling, swelling even now, threatening to kill itself from pressure. A severe concussion.
Link dips his head and sighs, wondering if this means he should close ranks on Walker even more, stand by his side for longer hours, refuse to let him out of sight. Walker would hate that—he hates Link's supervision with a passion, even though he's come to hate Link himself less and less over the weeks.
But, Link knows—and knows very well—that when you cannot trust your allies, when every warm body you pass is a potential enemy in disguise, smiles as pretty masks…that is when you need to be most diligent. He was trained for these situations, for allied territory turning on its head and becoming the enemy's domain at a moment's notice. But Walker…
Link isn't as dim or blind as Walker desperately wants him to be.
He's heard the hushed-up whispers when they pass groups of Finders in the hall. Noah. They say he's a Noah.
He's seen the way that some freeze up or turn the other way when Walker skips into a room. He could turn on us at any moment. He's the Earl's spy.
He's witnessed firsthand the growing wrath of those who have lost loves (and more) to their enemies, targeting Walker simply out of convenience. You tried to save that Noah, Tyki Mikk, you bastard! Don't deny it. You're no soldier of God. You're a goddamned traitor!
Link has experienced these things, by merely standing in Walker's shadow. But it's Walker who's been forced to bear the burns of standing in the light.
Walker marched into the Order expecting nothing, Link knows, because the world had given him nothing before. It had only taken away.
And when he discovered that the hallowed halls were willing to give him love and friendship…he must have been reluctant to believe it at first. Link would have been, in Walker's situation. But over time, his resistance to accept the love and friendship he deserved—and Link's not so straight-laced that he won't admit Walker deserves that much—even Walker's wariness wore down, didn't it?
He accepted love. He accepted friendship.
And then it was snatched out from under his feet in a half-hour meeting with General Cross.
Link wonders if Walker will ever accept those things again.
He bends closer to Walker's still form and gently lifts the boy into his arms. Walker is too light, too skinny, despite how much he eats. He's thin as a rail on the outside, frail and breakable—and God, Link hopes, or pleads, perhaps, that the boy's soul is a tad bit hardier. Because if not…
Walker's head lolls against Link's chest as the inspector rises and turns to head off to the infirmary. Link feels the blood seeping through his pristine jacket, his white shirt, his very skin. But he doesn't move Walker's head, or put any cloth between them. He refuses to put distance between himself and a boy so lost and damned.
Walker's had enough of that. As a child, forsaken. As a boy, forlorn. As a young man, set to be swallowed whole by something so far beyond his control.
No. Link owes Walker this much. Companionship if nothing else, even if unwanted, even if lukewarm instead of hot, like friendship's love. And really, Link owes Walker more—but he cannot give it. Not because he doesn't want to, not because he was ordered to refrain, but simply because Howard Link himself is cold inside.
He accepted love and friendship too, then threw it all away for the greater good.
(How much would Walker hate him, Link wonders, if he knew that Link had had choice and chosen…wrong? Right? Link still isn't sure. He'll never be sure. Not until he stands before the Gates and hears God's proclamation. Or until the flames of Hell burn his soul to dust.)
Boots grind glass against the floor, as Link marches back through the sea, Walker limp and listless in his arms. He thinks of other days, days as a little bird, days as a loyal dog, days fighting alongside a clown dressed all in white, fighting the righteous fight.
Link prays to a God he hasn't dared bother in many, many years. Prays for other days to come again, to wash away the glitter, the blood, the bitterness, the black that he knows will stain Allen Walker for so many years to come. Prays for another boy's salvation. Even at the expense of his own.
Because if God won't save Allen Walker, of all people, Link isn't sure He'll save anyone at all.
"When I remember all
The friends, so link'd together,
I've seen around me fall
Like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!
Thus, in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me.
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me."
A/N: Poem The Light of Other Days by Thomas More