22/8/15 Author Note: So this was originally supposed to be posted for the 219th night release, but I'm rather slow at writing and the ending gave me one hell of a time. Here it finally is, over a month late. I hope that everyone enjoys this as much as I did. It felt really wonderful to write Lavi again, though I do admit to being very rusty! Dedicated to the49thname and ninfia and everyone else who has been so kind and supportive over the years. Thank you and enjoy!
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{Prologue}
Do you believe in God?
That was the question the Bookman asked me when we first met.
I remember that day most clearly of all my days, because I had been brought before him in the highest chamber of the highest tower and told to sit in front of the man they called the Bookman and answer his questions. He did not ask me my name or where I came from or why my face looked the way it did. Instead, he smoked his pipe and appraised me with his black, black eyes and asked again:
Do you believe in God?
I knew the answer he wanted, but the words wouldn't come to me, because I was looking past his shoulder at the window, where I could see the sky for the first time in a very long time. It was that particular shade of blue that winters tend to have, when the sky seems vast and endless and beautiful. And I wondered how I could believe there was no God when something so magnificent existed.
Don't make me repeat myself again.
I looked back at him, at the lines upon his face, the dark kohl around his eyes, and saw something just as vast and endless as the sky beyond his shoulder. There was something very sad about him, but what, I didn't know. I was just barely seven years on the Earth and knew nothing of the outside world but what I had chosen to forget. So I said:
God
and he said
Yes
and I touched my fingers to my right eye, to that monstrous part of me that people turned from, and wished the words would come. But the sky existed and it was so beautiful that I couldn't be angry, God or no God.
I don't know.
You don't know?
Never seen God before, so I don't know.
Honestly, I thought he'd strike me, but.
He laughed.
And that is how I became Junior.
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{The world as he sees it is Hell.}
As I grew, I learned two things.
The first was that there may not be a God, despite the beauty of the sky and the sea and the forests and deserts and plains. I wanted to believe this, because it was better than believing in the second thing that I had learned; that if there was a God, God had forsaken us.
I watched battle after battle in war after war, years and years of standing on the outskirts of history. Men died at the hands of their brothers; women and children were raped and slaughtered by those they might have once called neighbours, friends. Churches fell on their worshippers and mosques were burned and I just couldn't understand why that would happen if there was a God. Why would the God who made the beautiful sky and seas and earth let those who loved him perish?
It was my eleventh name, on a night with a red, angry sun bleeding into the trees, when I wept over this question where Bookman could not see me. There were bodies in the grass and on the roads and pitched over fence posts. The animals had all been killed or stolen, the crops and huts razed, and all I could think of were the little children I'd seen playing skip rope down by the river. They'd smiled with their gap teeth and waved at me when we passed through town that day, inviting me to play. And I wanted to, because it had been far too long since I'd been offered the chance to be my age, but Bookman had been watching, so I turned my face away.
Later that night, I watched them die.
I watched them die and God didn't save them, because He wouldn't save any of us.
Boy.
When I looked up, Bookman was there, standing above me in the dark. He was nothing but shadow and the burning orange end of a cigarette. I knew he couldn't see me-my red, tearstained face-but I still wiped at my cheeks regardless, attempting to hide my shame. I had no one in the world but him now, and his approval meant more to me than anything else. And he couldn't see me cry.
You were right.
About what?
I pulled my cloak tighter around my shoulders and huddled into it, pretending that we weren't the only living men in a village of the dead.
God.
The word came out of my mouth full of spite, like a curse, and I realised then, horrified, that I wanted it to be. I wanted to curse the God that allowed this to happen.
God doesn't exist.
Bookman didn't say anything, and when I looked up, I saw that his cigarette had gone out. He stood there for a long while in silence. Then, I heard him rummaging for another cigarette, his book of matches in the pouch on his belt. I watched as he lit up the dark world with a sliver of orange flame, then cut it out and cast us back into the night. I pulled my cloak tighter around myself and tried not to breathe the smell of smoke and ash and blood.
I never said God didn't exist.
He began walking away, and the sight of his back sent something like rage through me.
You did. You said there wasn't a God and you were right.
Bookman stopped.
I never said God didn't exist
he said again, and I insisted
Yes you did
and then Bookman turned to look at me. I couldn't see him in the dark, but I could feel him staring right at me, right through me.
I never did. I simply asked a question: Do you believe in God?
I was struck, in that moment, of the enormity of that simple question, just as vast and all-consuming as the night. I felt humbled in a way that I hadn't since I'd seen the sky for the first time after so long in the dark. But as I stood there, in that place of death where the blood and rot squished beneath my feet, that feeling of awe dissipated and I sunk, heavy and defeated to earth.
No
I said, and began to cry again as Bookman continued to walk away.
No I don't.
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Blame / blām/
(verb)assign responsibility for a fault or wrong
(noun)responsibility for a fault or wrong
When I was 38 names older, Bookman told me we were going to the Black Order to record a War that would be forgotten. Having seen many wars that had been forgotten-and as many names-I wasn't particularly interested in getting so close to the battlefield, just as I wasn't keen on wearing the crest of the Order with its cross rose, being referred to as a Soldier of God when I'd forsaken Him as He had forsaken me all those years ago.
We arrived in the middle of the night, but the Order seemed to be wide awake with movement and voices. I could hear the cacophony as we were escorted from the boat and into the tower, which was just as tragic as every other Catholic establishment I'd ever seen, but even more so because of all the coffins. Below us in the nave, there were rows upon rows of caskets, all with gold crosses adorning their lids. People were weeping over them and praying. It smelled like antiseptic and blood and death.
These people had just lost a battle.
I couldn't turn away, because Bookmen don't. We stood on the fringes of battlefields and watched and recorded and remembered all the things that people forgot. So I watched and recorded the fatigue and despair and hopelessness, all while biting back that dark, ugly thing in my throat that wanted to claw its way out and shout at them this is what you get for believing God will save you.
And then.
And then there was this girl who looked right at me.
I don't know how she saw me in the dark and at such a distance, but she looked at me, right through me as if she'd heard my blasphemous thoughts in that House of God.
And she was crying.
There were bandages on her face and on her arms and her legs were covered in bloody gauze, but she wasn't weeping for herself or her own pain. I could tell, because I'd seen people cry in that way before, and those were not the tears she shed. They were tears for her dead comrades, for those comrades left behind, for the civilians caught in the crossfire of the Holy War, for the people who had been called back from the dead and made into demons. They were also tears for those who had not died yet, but would inevitably meet that terrible fate. She wept for people she did not know and had not yet met.
And I think she wept for me, too.
Because this girl was crying for everything in the World, her sadness and love for it overflowing her body and I thought what sort of God would allow this girl to cry?
and then I looked around the room at all the dead and all the living and thought
What sort of God would allow any of this to happen?
and I blamed Him for her tears and their unheard prayers and their unflinching, unwavering belief in Him.
I hate you
I thought, as a woman began to steer the crying girl away.
I hate you for what you've allowed this world to become.
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{Please, God I hate so much, give me power.}
When I first met Allen Walker, I thought, this kid can't be for real.
Gramps told me he was something special, but I didn't see it right away. He was meek and quiet and afraid, and I was angry just looking at him because all I could think of was how he was going to die.
When I had learned that the Order used child soldiers, I despised them even more than I did for their hypocritical love of God. But even more so because I'd gotten close, perhaps too close to my temporary friends, and believed ardently that Lenalee never should have been taken and locked away and that Yuu should have been shown more kindness and that all those young Finders might have actually made it to adulthood if they hadn't been used as cannon fodder in a war they would never win.
So I hated the Order for using children, but Allen Walker made me hate them even more. It had everything to do with Allen's delicate fingers and his gossamer eyelashes and the way he tried to smile when he was sad. But it was also something else, something about the way he carried himself like he had a huge burden that no one else could help shoulder; the way he always walked forward even when he was afraid, without hesitating or flinching or cursing God.
Watching him, I kept thinking again and again and again this kid can't be for real because people like that only exist in stories. But then Allen would do something incredible and self-sacrificing and he'd be smiling-always smiling-because he was just so good.
And I knew I had to save him.
It went against everything I had ever been taught as a Bookman. But still, I did not doubt my decision. The world needed people like Allen: good people who did good things because they were right and just. The world needed people like Allen so that people like Lenalee didn't cry and people like Yuu knew something other than violence and maybe, just maybe, people like me could believe in something again.
Please, God I hate so much...
I prayed for the first time in my life,
...give me the power to save him.
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Love /ləv/
(noun)an intense feeling of deep affection.
(verb)feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to (someone)
When I kissed Allen for the first time, it was one of those blue-sky days that was forever hopeful and beautiful.
It had been one of those rare times between missions when we had nothing to do, so I suggested a walk and Allen had agreed so we trekked down the hill from the Order as if we had no other cares in the world. I brought Allen to the tree I liked that overlooked the the river, and we sat there for some time, watching as the clouds passed over the little red rooftops of the town below.
It's nice
Allen said, and I, who had been squinting at sunbeams between the leaves of the tree, asked
What is?
and then Allen was quiet for a long time before he reclined on the tree trunk beside me and answered:
Feeling normal.
I looked at Allen and saw, for the first time, true joy in his expression, and he was so gorgeous in that moment without the burden of his past or future or the Order's mission that I couldn't help myself. I was a Bookman and should have known better, but in a world where there was so little beauty, I found myself desperate even for a momentary glimpse of it.
Allen's lips were soft and sweet, softer and sweeter than any girl or boy I had kissed before. And there had been many girls and boys before Allen, but in that moment, I knew there could be no other. Allen was Allen and Allen was perfect, from the soft little sound of surprise that escaped his throat to the way he did not pull away from me. Instead, Allen pressed earnestly into me, his fingers pinpricks of warmth through my coat, his body a line of heat against mine.
And when he pulled away, his lips were red and his eyes dark and beautiful in a way that I had never seen before, because maybe I was the only person who could make Allen look like that. I wanted to believe it, because Allen smiled this smile that I think was just for me, and I smiled back.
For in that moment there was no hate or disdain or apathy in me, only an incredible lightness of being that I'd not felt since that day I'd seen the blue expanse of sky beyond the tallest window in the tallest tower of a place that did not exist.
And the Heart I was not supposed to have was in love.
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{Don't stop. Keep walking.}
The problem with being in love was the same problem as believing in God: that hollowness in the absence of one or the other.
Or, in my case, both.
It was a sunny morning after a long, dark night in China; the day we were to depart for Japan to fight a war we had no chance of winning. And just when I thought things could not be any worse, it was then that Lenalee lead me to the place where there was nothing left of Allen Walker but blood.
At the sight of it, Lenalee-poor, sweet Lenalee-slumped to the ground and wept in the way she had the first time I saw her, as if her entire world had disappeared.
And I wanted to weep, too, because I knew Allen was dead, the way I'd always feared, and I hadn't been there to protect him.
But I didn't, because I couldn't, because Bookmen don't cry because they don't fall in love because it hurts.
It was only when we returned to the harbor-empty handed save for a bloodstained poker card hidden in my coat pocket-that we discovered Allen Walker had been retrieved by the Asia Branch. His condition, however, was not made known to us, and would not be made known to us. At Wong's short, crisp words, I watched whatever light had remained in Lenalee's eyes fade away.
As we sailed away from the mainland, my despair and anger heightened, mounting dark and hungry and deep the further we traveled from land. Allen was there and we had left him and I didn't think I could live with myself. But then I looked around the room and saw everyone's forlorn faces and I thought no, we can't be like this because Allen wouldn't want it and we couldn't possibly hope to win like this. We had to come out of this alive-somehow, for Allen-and to do that we had to fight.
So I shouted and broke things and did everything a Bookman was not supposed to do. Gramps berated me-a persistent presence in my mind-for getting too close, for feeling something, and the entire time I kept thinking I was closer than you'll ever know.
And Bookman couldn't know.
So I shielded my traitorous thoughts and mourned in my own way after that: quiet and solitary. I went through the motions. I did and said what was expected, but I wasn't thinking about what awaited us in Japan. I kept thinking about the card in the pocket of my new coat, its ace of spades pressed against my heart like a lance. That tiny spear dug at me as the days wore on: the last bit of Allen that I could keep with me, the last secret that we shared that no one else knew.
The longer I thought about the card with its bloodstained edges, the more I couldn't remember Allen the way I wanted to. Even with my picture perfect memory, I couldn't imagine him smiling that smile he had just for me. I couldn't remember the way he tasted when we kissed. Worst of all, I couldn't recall the last night we spent together in each other's arms, whispering all sorts of promises we knew were well-intended but that we couldn't keep.
I tried to think of these things, because they were the things that had made me feel alive for the first time in a long time, but I couldn't dredge up any of that joy and happiness, not now. Instead, all I could imagine was how Allen had fought and suffered and sacrificed everything doing what he knew was right. And knowing that I would never see him again-kiss him again, press him against my chest where my heart beat for him and only him-made me want to die.
I wanted to cry and shout and throw myself into the sea because it just wasn't fair. But I couldn't because my throat had closed up with the tears I could not cry and my legs were heavy as lead and I was overwhelmed with hatred for a God I didn't believe in, and all because there was nothing good left in the world now that Allen wasn't by my side.
And then my anguished heart stopped beating.
It was just for a single, blissful moment, but it happened. I remember I had been looking up at the moon and thinking apathetically I could die here tonight. And then there was nothing for an instant: no pain, no fear, no sadness. Just a sudden, instantaneous state of not being in the world.
But then the world returned to me, sharp and clear as if I had been underwater and somehow managed to breach the surface. I couldn't make sense of anything at first, dazed and confused from my Time Recovery. All I could see was a void of black above me, the moon having disappeared behind the clouds. And then, my senses came roaring back: the electric smell of ozone and akuma, the sound of hundreds of mechanical bodies uttering their thundering groans, the pinpricks of pain in my flesh as my wounds closed and mended.
And then, someone called my name.
Lavi!
I heard my name, again and again, rising up around me Lavi! Lavi! Lavi! Some voices I knew, some I didn't, but they were calling out to me in fear, in fear for me, their comrade. And in that moment, I knew I had to get up, because if I didn't, I was dead, and Lenalee would cry like she did for Allen and Suman and for everyone else who had ever lost a battle.
And I wouldn't let this name be one more for her to mourn.
So I got up.
I knew that winning was slim to none, but we couldn't win if we didn't fight and we had to. We had to at least try. Allen's sacrifice would mean nothing if we didn't. So I stood up on my heavy legs and ignored my own pain and swore that I would fight with them, by their side, in this war I did not believe in, until my last breath.
For Allen.
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Salvation /salˈvāSH(ə)n/ (noun)
1.a source or means of being saved from harm, ruin, or loss
2.(in theology)deliverance from sin and its consequences
I don't believe in miracles because I don't believe in God, but seeing Allen Walker's face again hit me like a divine punch in the gut. I wanted to cry and put my aching arms around him and kiss him until I forgot about how much everything hurt.
But I couldn't, even though I wanted to, even when our eyes met and I could see that Allen wanted it too.
Unfortunately, there were other things to worry about when Noah's Ark appeared and we were pulled inside. Then, one by one, we were separated from each other in a collapsing world. Yuu first, then Krory, until it was just me, Allen, Lenalee, and Chaoji.
And the Noah.
Road grinned a grin at me that got right under my skin, her voice a dangerous whisper in my mind, and I thought, we're never going to make it out of here alive.
But before I could think too much on it-lament the way I'd held back all that time from reaching for Allen's hand because I knew it wasn't appropriate, just as kissing him wasn't, or pulling him close to me and saying I love you I love you I love you over and over again as I wept with happiness for having seen him one more time-the world bent and darkened and I was alone.
I knew hypnotism when I saw it-one of the many hidden secrets of the Bookman Clan-but even exercising all my mental training, I could not find a single seam in the fabric of the illusion. I told myself not to trust what I saw, what I heard, but the memories of my past bled into the nightmares that I had made myself forget: darkness and blood and bodies, coffins upon coffins filled with the corpses of people I knew and had come to care for more than anything else.
And then there was that Me with his careless eye and sardonic grin: the Me that had existed before I came to the Order, who had hated humans because of their savagery and ignorance. This was the Me who had never understood camaraderie and sacrifice and love and all those beautiful, fragile things that made humanity so important. And then he said, oh but they're just ink on paper and I wanted to shout no, no, no you're wrong because Lenalee was there and she was looking up at me like she had that night when we were adrift in the Sea of Japan, asking am I still in this world?
The memory of her in my arms, weeping for the world she loved, made something in me fracture.
I realised then what it was: that I was crippled by love for all of them, for the friends I never knew I would have. I was handicapped by their blinding trust in me, their unwavering acceptance, their unyielding love, and there was nothing I could do but trust and accept and love them back. I never knew my heart could be capable of such a thing, just I had never known my smile could be real and not an act. And even now, in this dream, with their slashing claws and gnashing teeth seeking to destroy me, I loved them to the point that it was overwhelmingly painful.
And then, there was Allen.
He was so beautiful in my memory, my dream, that my heart throbbed and ached with love for him. I wished I could push it aside, that I could separate myself from my feelings for him from this time and place, but I had mourned him and said goodbye and having him so close after all of that was too difficult to resist. I reached out a hand to him as he picked up the ace of spades that had slipped from my coat pocket because no, no don't touch it, just run, just run away-
Logically, I knew it wasn't the real Allen, but still, I wanted to protect him. I wanted to save him from the Me that smiled when he killed him. The sight of Allen lying dead in the water made my vision tunnel, because it had been Me, it was my fault, and all I could think was he's not just ink on paper, it's Allen, oh Allen, I love you, I love you and how I never got to say it.
Comrades are something a Bookman doesn't need. If your heart aches because of your comrades, then you should just eliminate them.
Everything was beginning to fracture inside my head and I knew I had to retreat deeper into myself, or else I'd never survive...
You're a failure as a Bookman, Lavi
I had to go somewhere safe...
Disappear.
So as Yuu and Krory and Lenalee surrounded me, I went as deep as I could: somewhere removed and far away from the rest of me, where I couldn't hear the shouts and moans and accusations of walking corpses wearing the faces of my friends. I ended up in a corridor in my own mind, where Forty-Eight identical black doors stood, silent and locked. Those were the Forty-Eight other Me that no longer existed, who had been erased to make room for this name, for Forty-Nine.
For Lavi.
His door-my door-was red, vibrant. Alive. And I went to it, placed my hand on the knob, then stepped inside.
It looked just like my room at the Black Order, the one I had shared with Gramps for the past two years. There, right where I had left them, were my log books and ink and quills, all piled haphazardly on the desk near the narrow window. But I didn't care about the records, where the drying ink spelled out those words collateral damage so precisely and uncaringly upon faded parchment.
No. There was something else I wanted, something that I hidden away where no one could find it. Not Bookman, not Road. No one but me.
I slid open the second to last drawer on the left hand side of the desk and reached to the very back. My fingers scraped against it, right where I had left it, secured to the exterior wood with tack.
A key.
But not just any key and not at all like the hundreds of keys I had seen in that room in the Ark. This key was very different, because it was only one of two. And it had been given to me by Allen.
The moment I touched it, the memory I had stored there came rushing back to me. After all my Names and all those wars and so little kindness, that memory was the one most precious to me. I fell into it like a warm blanket: that memory of the last night Allen and I had spent together. We had been in his bed at the Order and it had been raining and that was the night Allen had let me touch his left hand for the first time.
Do you think we'll win?
I kissed his hand in lieu of answer. His rough flesh felt hot against my lips.
Lavi?
And I don't know what possessed me to ask, but I did.
Do you believe in God?
His response was immediate.
Of course.
I kissed him, on the lips this time, so that he couldn't see my face. But when we parted, he touched my cheek.
Lavi?
Hm?
Do you believe in God?
I didn't answer right away, choosing instead to drag my lips along the length of Allen's pale throat, the sharp jut of his clavicle, and I would have made it farther if Allen hadn't put his hand in my hair and held me still.
Lavi?
I believe in you.
I wished I could press the words into his skin, where they would never fade, because they were that important. But Allen laughed as if the words were nothing and said
I'm not God.
Lightning flashed as I let my lips follow the path of my fingers that traveled down Allen's body
I can't believe in God, because I can only believe in what I can see
thunder rumbled as I kissed his stomach
what I can taste
rain crashed against the window as I dragged my tongue along the crease of his hip
what I can touch
I touched him in the most intimate of places, as tenderly and with more reverence than I had ever offered to another partner, because there was no one quite like Allen, and there never would be. Not in my lifetime.
And that's you, Allen. It's only you.
Allen gasped, and then smiled, and then laughed with joy, and I was in love, so much in love with him that I forgot about responsibilities and promises and God, because there was nothing but a beautiful storm and a beautiful boy and all the time in the world.
And then Allen took my face between his palms-both warm and ungloved and perfect-and looked me in the eye and asked:
Lavi...can't you hear...my voice?
I surfaced abruptly from the depths of my deep unconscious, back into the world of black water and caskets, where Allen's voice came to me as if from one end of a long tunnel. And it was in that moment between dreaming and awareness that I found a crack in the illusion. I grasped on to reality desperately, following the terrible sound of Allen's breaking voice as I laid hands on him without restraint, and took hold of my body.
But my mind was too entrenched in the dream. Already, Road was closing up the tears in her illusion and it wouldn't be long before I was lost again, back to hurting Allen, hurting Lenalee and Chaoji. I wouldn't be able to control myself.
So I made the best decision I could.
I reached out to my Innocence-felt the warm pulse of its heartbeat again my cold, trembling grasp on my own body-and I hoped it would understand that this was the best option. Allen was the Destroyer of Time. Lenalee was most likely the Heart. In the grand scheme of things, in this never-ending War, their lives were worth more than mine. And if this was the last record of Lavi in this war, at least it would mean something.
I felt my Innocence resist. It knew I was going to turn the attack on myself, that I would die and it would no longer have a suitable accomodator. But I begged
I love them. Please, please let me save them. Even if it destroys me. Please, let me save them.
I swear, in that moment, I heard my Innocence's heart shatter.
And the world was then awash in flames. I felt fire burning my skin, my hair, sucking oxygen out of the air so that my lungs were starving for it. I was dying and I was so, so tired, but I had one more thing to do. As much as it pained me, I lifted the knife I had plunged into my own body, and stabbed it into the corpse that had Allen's face. Road's voice faded from the dream world as she perished, and I began to fade, too, with every gasping breath my dying body took.
Why aren't you like all the others? Why are you different, Forty-Nine?
When I looked up, it was Me again, but younger, all wide-eyed and innocent like I'd started out all those years ago. It was Junior, the true me, and he was crying, crying out at me accusingly:
Don't you want to be a Bookman anymore?
All I had ever wanted was to be a Bookman, to know the secret history of the world, the history behind history, and I had been doing so well not believing in God and writing down unbiased accounts in books that no one would ever read. But then I'd seen a girl cry for the entire world and kissed a boy who believed it was worth saving and I didn't know what I wanted anymore.
Things change.
I thought of Yuu and Krory, lost somewhere inside the collapsing Ark, and Miranda and the others outside of it, injured and exhausted. Then I thought of Lenalee and Chaoji, helpless to defend themselves without Innocence. And then I thought about letting Gramps down; Gramps who, despite all his lectures about staying detached and unmoved, I knew had loved me all these years without being able to truly show it.
But most of all, I thought of Allen. Allen, who I'd just gotten back, who I hadn't told I love you, I love you like he deserved.
And something warm stirred in me, something that fell in time with my fading heartbeat, something that ached at my burning fingertips. It was my love for Allen-for all of them-reaching for my Innocence and the threads of my Innocence reaching back to me, not wanting to let me go. I felt overwhelmingly loved in that moment, as if falling into the embrace of the mother I'd never known, and it nestled right into a hollow place in my chest I never knew had been empty until that moment.
Heart.
I tried to open my eye, but I couldn't. Everything was burning away.
And then.
I heard my name, felt something cool drape around my shoulders. There were hands on me, holding me, lips pressed to mine, and I knew without the use of my sight that it was Allen, because no one else would brave fire and flame to save me.
I didn't believe in God, but I believed in Allen, and when I could breathe again and saw Allen leaning over me, beautiful and alive, I believed in salvation, too.
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Musician /myo͞oˈziSHən/ (noun)
a person who plays a musical instrument, especially as a profession, or is musically talented.
I never thought I'd say it, but I might have to reevaluate my stance on miracles.
I was dead. Or at least, I had been. I remember clearly the feeling of the ground giving out beneath my feet, the shout as Chaoji went first, then my own as I followed. I saw a flash of Allen's face-terrified and desperate-as he reached out to me, as I grabbed Chaoji's wrist with one hand and extended Odzuchi Kodzuchi with the other.
And then.
My Innocence broke.
I felt it more than I saw it: a flinch in my heart, a quiver in my blood, a sad and quiet song in my head. She was crying. It had been too much too fast: the battle at sea, Japan, now the Ark. It was just too much. Maybe too much for both of us.
I remember Allen's face very clearly in that moment, frozen in horrified resignation. I wanted to tell him it was okay, that it wasn't his fault, that I loved him. But I was falling too quickly and the words wouldn't come. As I plummeted downward, I wondered if I would die before I hit the ground and if it would be painless, because I was tired of hurting, so tired of all of all of this fighting and struggle. All I wanted was a beautiful day with a beautiful sky and that beautiful, beautiful boy I'd left behind.
As I fell out of the world, those were my last thoughts.
Or so I thought.
I woke to the sound of a song, the bray of birds, something far away that sounded like the sea. And when I opened my eye, the sun shone brightly in a sky that stretched endless and blue above me. If I had died, was this that place that people called Heaven? And if so, why was I here when I didn't believe in it, in God?
But then I realised I wasn't dead at all. My body ached. I felt thirsty. My mouth tasted coppery, like blood, from where I'd bitten my tongue. So I wasn't dead even though I should have been. And the Ark was whole when it should have disappeared.
Then Chaoji groaned and looked around and he wept because we were alive.
We all should have been dead: me and Chaoji and Yuu and Krory. But Allen brought me back. He brought us all back, restored the collapsing Ark and took us all home.
Home.
Into the laughing, cheering, crying faces of the members of the Black Order. Somehow, I didn't register my body's heaviness, the mental and physical exhaustion of the past few weeks, because I saw everyone smiling like they'd momentarily forgotten the war and the bleak future. They were happy now, overjoyed at our return. My heart felt full and warm at the sight of everyone reunited, at the arms that came round me and the pats to my back. Is this what family felt like?
And then, through the crowd, I saw Allen. He had glanced at me somewhat shyly between the throngs of people, but it was only a momentary glimpse. There was too much excitement and noise, and then when we were in Medical, too much quiet and too many eyes upon us. I wanted to reach across the space between our two beds and touch him, but I was too far away.
Rest
the Matron kept telling me, every time she passed my bed to attend to Krory and saw me awake.
But I couldn't sleep because whenever I closed my eyes, I thought about drowning in dark water and being lost inside a corridor of locked doors and fire, so much fire, and falling, down, down, down to the score of a song I couldn't remember. And then when I woke from that not-quite dream, I'd reach for my Innocence and find it gone and then I'd reach for Allen and he wasn't there either and I felt unbelievably lost and afraid.
So I didn't sleep, not really, between my dreams and the sound of Krory's stomach growling for food. I did manage snatches of rest here and there and I learned to close my eye when I heard the Matron's footsteps coming close to the end of my bed. But I wasn't sleeping, and I don't think Allen was either. I could tell by looking at the shape of his back, watching as he breathed. He was too stiff for real relaxation, his breaths too measured and precise to be true sleep.
And then, one day, he was gone.
I went looking for him, slightly self-conscious in my sleeping clothes and a borrowed dressing gown. I hadn't shaved in a while, and it was coming in patchy on my cheeks and chin. I itched at it irritably as I searched the Order for Allen's hiding place. The cafeteria came up empty and his room did also. I was getting tired by the time I'd searched the top tower and the nave and library, my exhausted body protesting every step.
I eventually retired to my room. I figured I should stop looking, because maybe Allen didn't want to be found.
Or maybe he just didn't want to be found by me.
So I crawled into my bed and tried to sleep, but the smells of dust and disuse kept me awake. Or at least, that's what I told myself. It was better than admitting that I didn't want to dream, that I didn't want to wake up alone again.
After a restless night, I showered and shaved and spent a restless day haunting the halls of the Order. I couldn't eat or sleep and my anxiety was only heightened by all the oddities in my familiar corridors: different faces and languages and smells and noises that sent me me reeling with overstimulation. Everyone was busy with one thing or another, but no one would fix my Innocence and no one had really seen much of Allen, not even Lenalee. On top of it, I kept hearing whispers about Cross, about Allen, about the Fourteenth and the Musician. When I asked Gramps about it-about those words I'd only seen mentioned in old manuscripts-he turned away from me and said
You'll find out in time
and after so long without sleep, I snapped
What's the point of being a damn Bookman if I'm in the dark just as much as everyone else?
Before Gramps could answer, I was gone.
Agitated, I paced the Order, searching, searching, but never finding what I sought. Who I sought. Eventually, the noise became too much and my frustration drove me to a quiet stairwell leading to the tower. I collapsed halfway to the top, my body too weak to continue after the abuse of the past few weeks, and I went down hard on the stones.
I have no idea how long I laid there, hurting and trembling from the cold and aches and pains that wouldn't go away. But after some time, the slant of light on the far wall moved and turned to burnt amber, and that was when there were footsteps on the stairs below me. I tried to sit up, but my body wouldn't obey, and I wondered what sort of lie I could tell to get me out of the inevitable conversation that would occur on my discovery, slumped upon the stairs. I wondered if I would have enough strength to force a smile, to brush it off as clumsiness or something of the like.
The footsteps stopped a few stairs below me and I heard an intake of breath that sounded pained
Lavi?
And then there were hands on me, gentle hands, kind hands, and blue, blue eyes looking down at me with unadulterated concern.
I'm...okay….
The words were clumsy, as much as my hand that tried to find Allen's, to still his panicked review of my body.
I'm okay.
Why are you on the floor? What happened?
Just taking a break. You know how the old man works me. Help me up, would you?
Allen obliged, sliding his arm under me to help me upright. The motion hurt more than I wanted to admit, but it was Allen's face that made my heart throb more painfully than anything else. He looked so young and afraid that I wanted nothing more than to spirit him away somewhere far from here, where I could protect him from the entire world.
Thanks.
Lavi…
Allen's voice trembled and his eyes were wet and I wished my arms would work so I could hold him. But even if they could, would Allen want it? It had been so long. So long and so much had happened. Did he even feel the same way after everything?
But then Allen kissed me-a shy, chaste brush of lips on mine-and I felt some of my anxiousness dissipate.
Hey, I'm sorry.
Allen shook his head at my apology.
No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have…disappeared like that. I just...there was a lot to think about...
I understand.
Allen looked at me like it hurt.
Were you looking for me?
Yeah.
I sought Allen's hand with mine and squeezed it weakly
I just wanted to make sure you were okay.
Allen squeezed my hand in return and said
I don't know if I am.
Allen…
Allen flushed as he struggled with the words
Would you…would you want to come back to my room? Just for a little while?
My reply got stuck somewhere in my throat, because it had been so long since we'd been together, just the two of us, and even longer since we'd been in Allen's bed. I nodded mutely, accepting Allen's help to stand on my weak legs, relying on his strength as a crutch to get me from that stairwell to his room.
And when we were there, Allen closed the door and locked it, got me out of my heavy boots and ill-fitting clothes and into bed. The moment I laid back on that mattress, I sighed all the way down to my bones, and then again when Allen finally crawled in next to me. It had been eons since I'd felt the warmth of Allen's skin, the heat of his lips, and it wasn't even sexual for me, not now when I was more tired and relieved to be alive than anything else.
Allen hummed happily against my mouth, moving his hand down my arm, along my side, and then he pulled back suddenly, his expression unreadable. I managed to raise my hand, to cup his cheek and ask:
What's wrong?
Allen swallowed, skipping his fingers along my protruding ribs, down the sharp shelf of my hip.
You're... so skinny…
You're one to talk, beansprout.
My joke fell flat, because Allen looked like he wanted to cry again.
Oh, Lavi…
Shh, it's okay.
Allen tucked himself against me, hiding in that place at the juncture of my neck and shoulder that he favoured. I held him, watching as the last vestiges of daylight disappeared beyond his window. It was only when darkness had consumed the room that Allen said
I thought you were dead.
He trembled, this brave, beautiful boy who looked to me for comfort. And I didn't know what to do for him but offer assurance with the press of my body, the sweep of my hand in his hair, the quiet words against his forehead:
I'm here.
I thought you were dead, Lavi. I'd just gotten you back and then...you fell…
Hot tears gathered in the well of my clavicle. Allen Walker was crying.
Crying for me.
It felt like my heart was being crushed.
I let you fall...
You didn't.
I did. I couldn't reach you. I let you-
Stop, Allen. You saved me.
I kissed his temple
Thank you.
I closed my eye and tried not to think of drowning and fire and falling. Instead, I focused on that moment of realisation that I had not died: when I had woken to the sound of a song at the very edges of my consciousness, when I had opened my eye to see the bluest blue of sky above me. The whispers and riddles of the word musician filtered through my mind, but the negative connotation of it did not reach me. Because where everyone else was fearful of this Musician, I had felt nothing but benevolence.
It had been Allen reaching out to me, to everyone he loved.
For saving us.
And that was what was so different about this war and these humans I had come to care for so much. Forty-Eight other names had seen so much blood and death and turmoil, but only one name had experienced that unadulterated love that Allen had showed to his friends.
To me.
For saving me.
Love might not win a war, but it changed the way people viewed it, the way people fought for it, and maybe love could make all the difference. At least, I hoped it could, just this once.
I love you, Allen.
He kissed me like the stars were falling out of the sky, like the world would end with the rising sun and I knew we might not have a lot of time, but we had this time, and we would have to make the most of it.
dgmdgmdgm
{Epilogue}
So this is your decision, then.
Gramps always has had a way of saying things instead of asking, even when he is posing a question.
Yes.
and then, I add, for good measure:
Sorry, Gramps.
He stares at me appraisingly with his black, black eyes, like he had done all those years ago on that day he asked me about God. And I can't help but let my gaze move past his shoulder to the window, where the winter sky is as vast and blue and endless as it had been over twelve years ago.
You always were too soft.
I look down at the table as he lights a cigarette, because I can't bear to see his disappointment.
But then, I feel a hand on my head, the most gentle of touches to my hair, and I want to cry like a child.
You were never meant to be a Bookman.
I feel tears coming unbidden, hurt and angry. I want to tell Gramps that he's wrong, that I had been born to be a Bookman, but I choke on the words and I cannot lift my head even when Gramps moves his hand away.
You were meant to be something else.
What are you saying?
Gramps moves away from me, towards the window, and when his back is turned, I hastily brush away my tears.
You don't understand now, but you will someday.
He sounds...strangely sad. I stare at him, my heart hurting, because this is the man who raised me, who taught me to read and write and fight. It's the man who bandaged my injuries and soothed my fevers and made sure I had new boots when I needed them. It's the man who had bought me my first piece of chocolate and had mended my worn clothes and had always made sure to pull my blanket up over my shoulder to keep me warm at night.
It's the man who is the only family I've ever known.
I want to reach out to him, to touch him, but then Gramps turns around and he's more serious than I've ever seen him before.
It was their plan all along to take you.
Who?
The Order.
I swallow, remembering my youth as we travelled from battlefield to battlefield, steadfastly avoiding men in black coats and black carriages. Gramps had hidden me from sight more than once, telling me that the men would take me away and torture me because…
I press the heel of my hand hard against the patch that covers my right eye.
What do they want with me?
Gramps takes a drag from his cigarette.
I taught you to hate humanity. And that's exactly what they wanted. Your hate.
What…? Why…?
Because
I turn around, and General Cross is there with his riot of red hair and his cold, cold eyes:
a Heart isn't just born. It has to be made.
My pulse beats so rapidly I feel dizzy as Cross continues:
The Heart is not a specific piece of Innocence. It's a specific accommodator.
I turn back to Gramps, but he is not looking at me.
Then why...all of this...why would you…
Because to truly understand what it means to be the Heart, you had to understand hate as much as love. And then you had to choose which meant more to you in this world.
I don't look back at Cross, because I can't, not right now.
And you've decided.
I shift my gaze back to the window and think about all the death and bloodshed I've seen over the course of Forty-Nine names. I think about the dead children and raped women and mutilated men and the fires and destruction and how much greed and violence have strangled the beauty from the world and I'm overwhelmed with hatred for humanity.
But then I remember the striking acts of kindness: a woman on a battlefield distributing bread to the wounded and hungry, the families who had hid refugees in their cellars despite pain of death if they were discovered, people praying together and dancing and singing and weaving flowers in their hair.
I remember Johnny insisting I be measured properly for a new coat because you're our comrade now and Jerry making me the yakiniku with the sauce I particularly liked because my little soldiers can't go hungry and Komui locking me and Lenalee behind a steel door because I need to know you're safe.
I remember Krory pulling me out of the ocean and the strong line of Yuu's back as he told us to go on without him and the tragic, beautiful smiles of Anita and Mahoja as they faded to dust.
I remember the young girl I'd seen all those years ago, mourning her comrades, and the way she'd looked at me, the same way she would look at me when she was in my arms and crying as she asked am I still in this world?
But most of all, I remember Allen: Allen on the first day I met him with his delicate fingers and gossamer eyelashes and the first time we kissed under that tree on a blue-sky day and how he'd braved fire and flame to save me. There was all kinds of pain when it came to Allen, when I thought him dead, when I thought I might be the one to kill him, when I thought I'd die before telling him I love you, I love you. But then there was joy when it came to Allen: joy in the night we lay in each others arms and kissed like the world would end at dawn, and how, when it hadn't, we had watched the world come alive with the sun and thought maybe, maybe we'll survive this and how I wanted that to be so more than anything else.
There is so much beauty in the chaos of our existence that I am almost overwhelmed with grief, with happiness, and the emotion gets stuck somewhere in my chest, right where it hurts. Right where it matters most.
Yes
I say, because I've got to walk this path. I've got to fight in this war, to do whatever I can to save them, to save everyone.
Because everyone deserves to live.
I've decided.
It's only after Cross has left that Bookman puts out his cigarette and sits down across from me. I look at him and that same vastness is there in his eyes, something deep and dark and somewhat sad. I didn't understand it all those years ago, but I think I do now.
Will you stay?
Gramps smiles, just a bit, and says
Of course, brat.
And that has me crying, because he loves me even if he can't say it, even if I can't be a Bookman like he'd hoped, even if it means he might die fighting a war he doesn't belong in.
We're going to win
I tell him, and that warmth in my chest expands until I'm full with it, this promise.
I promise we're going to win.
I still don't believe in God, but I believe in us.
And that's something.