Cross-posted on my Ao3. Originally supposed to be a oneshot, but it kind of...exploded. So yeah. Looking to be at least ten to twenty chapters. Hope that doesn't bother anyone.
Nea came to the Black Order at dawn, in a tan trench coat and a sharp vest, his hair floating around his shoulders in a silver curtain. The sun backlit him just so, highlighting his darkly tanned skin and reflecting off his pearly white head like a halo, so that he looked almost like an angel. The irony of that was not lost on anyone.
Lenalee stepped forward to greet him, her chin tipped up proudly, her thin legs tensed, ready to activate her Innocence in a second. They were not enemies per se, but neither were they friends. Nea was not the Millennium Earl, who would always be their bane. Rather, he was the third side of the war, and his motives were all his own. Sometimes these motives lined up with the Black Order's, and sometimes they did not. Therefore the exorcists had come to refrain from attacking on sight, like they would the other Noah (not...that they could win if they did). Yet they also did not let down their guard, preparing to defend themselves if needed.
Nea smiled at her faintly, for a second his expression so close to his host's that Lenalee had to look away. Then, he said in a voice that was as familiar as it was a stranger's, "The Millennium Earl is dead."
Lenalee did not move, nor show any visible reaction. The only thing that changed was that Kanda and Krory had suddenly joined her, from one second to the next. The three of them all watched Nea with big, wide eyes, searching for a lie.
"I suspected you wouldn't believe me," Nea says conversationally, scratching his head sheepishly, like "Oh it's terribly inconvenient that you don't believe me, but I suppose I have tried to kill you in the past, shall we let bygones be bygones?". "So I brought Timcanpy with me. He recorded the entire thing."
The little reconstructed Golemn, who Cross had apparently fixed-obviously reports of his death had been exaggerated-crawled out from his hiding place and onto the top of Nea's head. There was a stiffness to Timcampy's movements, however, that was out of place on the usually hyperactive creature. He sat there, little mouth working hard, before wearily opening his jaws to the sky and letting a projection flicker into being.
Lenalee grimaced a little; obviously Timcampy hadn't completely recovered, if he was exhausted after moving so little. She only wished she could help him, but Nea and Timcampy were a package deal, and no way was she trusting that Noah in their head quarters.
But then her thoughts were broken off by the sound of fighting, of muted screams and the clash of sword on sword. Timcampy's recording was thin and poor quality, but it was effective enough at making his point. The exorcists watched Nea go through two, three Noah (and in the end Road was shown, falling, falling with Nea's sword in her stomach, and Lenalee thought, oh.), and then finally the Earl fell, his face a wide, grinning mask of pure defeat.
The silence that deafened the area after Tim's projection was consuming. This didn't feel like it was real, was the Earl really gone? This was a war that had been going on for a thousand years, surely the ending would be something more...more climatic? This wasn't right, was it?
Nea's smile shifted, becoming a bit more bittersweet, which was odd because hadn't he just defeated his worst enemy? There were so many questions that had yet to be answered, so many secrets that had yet to be shared. "So you see, as a Golemn cannot lie, the Millennium Earl is dead."
"So what's your damn point?" Kanda snapped, startling Lenalee-and Krory, evidentially, by the way he nearly jumped out of his own skin. But that was the question of the hour, and Lenalee turned to look at their sort-of-enemy, anxious for a response.
"I...the Millennium Earl is not truly dead until I, too, die." Nea admitted, jamming his thumbs into the pockets of his well-worn coat. He noticed the confused looks of the exorcists, and simply waved one hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it. It's sort of….ancient history."
He sighed, and looked away. "I have….one more thing to do, though, before I die." He pressed one hand to his heart, eyes distant and expression lax, despite the stony, belligerent glares of the exorcists. "This body...it's not mine. It still has a future. I'm giving him back to you."
"What…" Lenalee stepped forward cautiously, hoping beyond hope that she hadn't misread this person, who sounded like he was saying… "What do you mean by that?"
Nea looked at her and finally, for the first time, a real smile broke across his face. "Allen's coming home."
And then he fell over as though in slow motion, his eyes slowing shutting like the draw of velvet curtains, hair a blaze of lightning in the air behind him. Even as they watched, the deep tan that marked him as a Noah was fading, fading, leaving only pale, smooth porcelain in its wake. Lenalee's Innocence activated the millisecond after she processed Nea's words, and she buzzed forward at her fastest speed, meeting the body in its fall, cushioning it. Krory and Kanda were seconds behind her, dropping to their knees next to their Heart.
"You don't think…." Krory began, but stopped when the body suddenly let out a soft noise of pain, and arched in Lenalee's grip. Then Krory himself gasped quietly, bringing his hand to cover his mouth, and then there was a dry, clicking sound as-
"MAH PHEEPH!" He shrieked, and as the other two watched, shocked, streams of dust trickled from between his lips. The Innocence….had broken down? Then….
The body Lenalee was holding let out another soft cry, and then his left sleeve suddenly crumpled. There was a soft sliding sound, as the dust began to pool onto the hard stone that made up the courtyard. Lenalee and Kanda glanced at each other, eyes wide, knowing-knowing that if the Innocence no longer felt as though it was needed, then that really meant-
Deep, blue-grey eyes opened for the first time in two years. They blinked once, twice, before finally managing to focus on the world around them. He blinked a little in surprise when he saw Lenalee above him, staring out at something he couldn't see, expression shuttered and openly devastated all at once.
His right arm (and why did his left arm, usually so heavy at his side, feel so light?) reached up towards the face of his friend, determined to brush away that hurt look. When his tentative, trembling fingers found their destination, Lenalee's pale cheek, she jumped about a mile.
"Lenalee…?" Allen whispered, uncertain as to why she was looking at him like that. "Why….why are you crying?"
And before she could answer, he faded back into unconsciousness.
The end of the War was not actually the end of their problems-it was suspected that the exorcists would never be without their past snapping at their heels. While the Innocence had all crumbled into nothing (and Hevlaska had been a person before they'd been an innocence, and was still trying to remember how to walk on two legs), the soldiers who'd used them were still technically part of the Black Order. The generals were busy almost every day, searching the ends of the planet for any Akuma that might've survived the Earl's destruction, armed with the very weapons they'd scorned the Finders for using.
(Actually, not all Innocence had been destroyed. Lenalee's blood anklets still clinked around her feet, and she somehow knew that if she truly wished it, she could reform all the Innocence and give them back to their owners. She knew that Central would try to push it, try to force her to bring back their loyal soldiers-but, well. She was far from the girl who'd needed to be rescued by her brother. She was the Heart of the Innocence, and she had faced horrors that Central couldn't even dream of. The only thing that was keeping her from destroying them was the fact that she wanted justice, not vengeance.)
The main problem, however, was figuring out what they were supposed to do with several generations of traumatized people, who had been so convinced that the war would go on forever that they had literally planned no actual future for themselves. The finders had to be reintegrated into their families, and the Order was generously footing the bill for their much needed therapy. The exorcists, most of which had no family, much less a home, had all been relocated to the Head Quarters in their specific region until a more permanent solution could be decided. The people who had been Parasitic Innocence types, of which there were luckily few, were the most trouble, simply because they were all suddenly walking around without arms or legs (or in Krory's case, teeth-but he was already being fitted for dentures, so he was more fortunate than most).
There was another problem too, though, that...as long as it was handled correctly, would actually turn out to be quite profitable for the exorcists.
Because there were things that people were willing to overlook during wartime-mysterious disappearances, horrific experiments, flat out murder-but after the curtain call, the fact was that there were a lot of things people could blame the Black Order's brass for. They might have wiggled out of it, if Lenalee and Kanda hadn't been so willing to share their experiences with the rest of the world.
And then there was Allen.
His official case had been open and shut: Lenalee said that Allen was innocent, with absolute certainty, and since she was the Heart, they believed her.
His unofficial case was… Less open and shut. Because a lot of the fingers that were being pointed at the Black Order's brass would've been pointed at Allen, if Lenalee had not stepped in. Because Kanda and sometimes Reever stood watch outside of his hospital room, glaring at anyone who was looking shifty. Because there were riots of finders and ex-exorcists in the streets some days, calling for Allen's imprisonment at the tamest, his grisly death at the most violent.
However, Allen had yet to wake from the coma Nea had left him in. It was a lot easier to judge a man for his actions when he wasn't around to explain or argue his case. That was probably the only reason they let Allen the Noah slide, because he wasn't causing them trouble, and refusing to let Lenalee's friend live was just asking for her to turn her back on the Black Order entirely. No one needed to be reminded that when the girl put the world and a friend on a scale, the friend would outweigh every time. They still needed the Heart, and Allen was sleeping for the foreseeable future, so they let him be.
Five months after the end of the battle, five months after Allen dropped into a wakeless sleep on their doorstep, three months after Levierre was put on trial for war crimes and one month after they finally were able to get him executed, Allen woke.
Or rather, he woke twice.
The first time, the boy's eyes fluttered open, and no one was there to greet him. He was...not in pain, exactly, but he was aware that something irreplaceable, somewhere, was missing.
He fell back into unconsciousness, still trying to figure out what it was.
A day passed, and Allen hovered just below the surface of awareness, letting the voices around him wash over his mind like waves on a beach. He was happy here, because it was calm, and quiet, and no one was hurting him. And also...somehow he could tell, that going out there meant pain, and that something was still missing, something that he needed.
But even he could not fight to stay asleep forever.
He finally relented and allowed himself to slowly awaken, like molasses being poured from a jar. Everything returned in slow increments; first voices became more distinct, understandable. Then he felt thick, starchy sheets on his skin, and the solid weight of air pressing down on all sides. Then light filtered in through his eyelids, and when the information finally hit his brain-
His eyes flickered open.
Or, one eye did. The curse eye was covered by a bandage of some sort, and stubbornly refused any attempts at movement.
The pale white sky of a hospital room was the first thing to greet him, familiar in the way all medical room ceilings were: so clinically clean and white that it was almost obsessive. Allen stared at it blankly, trying to figure out if this ceiling was any more familiar than the next. He had been in a great many hospital rooms before, so he had a wide selection of memories to choose from.
Not finding the ceiling to be very revealing, Allen let his head loll to one side, allowing him to get a look at the rest of the room. Which, unfortunately, did not hold any more information than the ceiling, because he was surrounded by a thick green privacy curtain. The only things that he could see were an IV drip embedded into his arm, and a vase of nearly wilted flowers on the bedside table next to him.
There were muffled voices coming from somewhere behind the curtain, and Allen tried to lever himself up, so he could figure out what, exactly, was going on. But-but when he tried, he just felt so weak, like he'd just spent a day training with Master and could barely move a muscle for fear of it spasming. And even worse, when he tried to use his arms to prop his torso up against his pillow, he somehow managed to unbalance himself and nearly face planted on the floor. As it was, he was currently sprawled over one side of the hospital bed, face jammed uncomfortably into his right shoulder.
"What the-" It had been years since his left arm had been so unfeeling and useless. It was almost like his Innocence wasn't even there anymore. Allen maneuvered himself as best he could with one arm, so he was once more lying, panting but horizontal, on the bed. He reached across his chest with his right arm, determined to try and massage some feeling back into the aforementioned left limb-
His hand met thin air.
It took him a moment for the realization to sink in, his fingers scrabbling uselessly at the ghost of a memory. And then it hit-Allen flung himself upright so he could look properly, grey eye wide and panicked, but there was nothing. There was only his shoulder, and then miles and miles of space that used to hold something very, very precious. His Innocence was-gone? Was this some twisted form of the Fallen, punishment for being a Noah? Why-
The curtains swished quietly, and then the voices that had been steadily growing clearer and closer, which Allen hadn't noticed in his panic, said, "We can't keep him here forever, you know. We need to move him somewhere-oh!"
Komui stopped in his tracks, eyes wide and round behind his glasses, the curtain still gripped in one hand. Seemingly oblivious to her brother's sudden pause, Lenalee said in a voice that dripped derision, "Anywhere else and he'd be dead within a week. I'm the only one who can-"
"Lenalee shut up." Komui rushed forwards, a big grin on his face, and said, "Allen, welcome home!"
"Ko-Komui?" Allen squeaked, his right arm still clutching at the sleeve of his shoulder. He stared at the man he'd never expected to see again, and for the first time, wondered if he had ended up in the hospital of the new European Headquarters. It was a preposterous thought, considering how Allen had left them (Acrophos tracking him down, finders close behind him, accusations of "NOAH!" ringing in his ears). Also, Allen didn't know how long Nea had had control of his body; he had no idea who he'd hurt, what he'd done. Considering all these things, it was a wonder he wasn't rotting away in a jail cell.
"Allen!" Lenalee gasped, walking forward and dropping onto the side of his bed, face filled with open joy. However even as she approached, Allen realized that there was something odd about her, and not just the fact that her hair was short like it'd been after her first battle with the Level Three. There was something about her...face, maybe, or her eyes, that was harder, or harsher. It obviously hadn't been too long since he'd last seen her, judging from her age, and yet the changes left him reeling at the unfamiliarity of it all. "When did you wake up? How are you feeling?"
Allen startled at that, suddenly remembering the reason for his panic. "I…" he swallowed hard and looked away, ashamed. "I'm sorry Lenalee."
Her joy faded into a look of honest confusion. "Huh?"
"I don't have my Innocence anymore." He said quietly, so lost in his own pain that he didn't hear the soft noises of realization from the siblings next to him. "I...it must have been the Noah, or something. Maybe the Innocence doesn't think I'm worthy anymore." He shook his head. "I'm sorry."
There was a moment of dead air, and Allen waited for pity, or disgust, or outright rejection. But after a second Komui let out a soft snort, and though Lenalee said, "Oh hush, you," Allen couldn't help but look over at the man, feeling betrayed.
"Oh, I'm-" Komui looked like he was trying not to laugh, covering his mouth with one hand, mirth glittering behind his eyes. Allen...had to fight back tears, then, because he had no idea why Komui was laughing at him, but there it very obviously had something to do with the fact that he'd lost his Innocence. That was a cruelty too harsh to bear.
But then he caught sight of Allen's face, and the amusement died instantly."Oh Allen, I didn't mean it like that." He said quietly, regret in the grimace of his mouth, and gently reached out with both his arms. Allen didn't realize the older man was going in for a hug until he was wrapped up in a warm embrace. It had been so long since he'd felt anyone's kind touch, that it took him a second to remember to settle his right arm tentatively on Komui's back. "Allen, your arm is gone because it's no longer needed. We won the war."
Allen's eye flew open wide. He looked to Lenalee for confirmation, who was watching him with warm fondness, a smile just touching the edges of her lips. She nodded.
Allen couldn't quite wrap his head around the idea. The war, over? The one he'd been training for since he'd first joined his master, basically the only thing he'd cared about for years? The Thousand Year war, which everyone had expected to last another thousand years, an eternity, was over? The one he'd bled for, nearly died for, dedicated his entire heart and soul to-that was over.
He literally couldn't comprehend it.
So instead he dropped his forehead to Komui's shoulder, and let himself be held.
Please excuse any mistakes, this is my own beta-ing.
