Two at once. Because I can.
My status of ownership has not changed since three minutes ago.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
In the midst of the hum of the cafeteria at the Black Orders headquarters, the conversation that had been going on all day manifested itself again as a simple question between friends. "Did you hear, Grace? There's a new Exorcist."
Grace Evans put down her mug of hot chocolate and smiled with a hint of amusement in her blue eyes. "That isn't news, Máté. Everyone heard about him fighting with Kanda last night."
"I know that," Máté Varga, a Hungarian Finder, said with a large grin on his childish face. It was taking all of his willpower not to burst out laughing or tell the secret just yet. He had to keep it just a little longer, but he'd never been very good keeping secrets. "But I thought you might be interested in a little fact I picked up."
Grace looked away nonchalantly and resumed eating. "Oh really? What's that?"
"Komui said he's that student General Cross had when he dumped you with the Order."
She nearly choked on her porridge, making Máté grin. She recovered behind her napkin in an attempt to remain dignified. "That's ridiculous, Máté. You're not in direct contact with the Supervisor. You're just making that up."
Máté fidgeted, caught in his fib. "Okay, so maybe I didn't hear it from Komui," he confessed guiltily, "but Johnny did. And Johnny told Théo, and Théo told me. And the message was definitely that the new Exorcist was General Cross's apprentice. I'm not lying, I swear!" he said with his hands up when she rolled her eyes playfully.
"Máté, you know you can't rely on things like that when they go through so many sources like that. Between Johnny and Théo, it might have been General Kloud who sent the apprentice." She held up two fingers and made a small crossing motion to show the possible transition from "Kloud" to "Cross".
Máté sighed and said with a stubborn frown, "Maybe."
That made Grace laugh. "What?" Máté asked, slightly embarrassed.
She covered her mouth and smiled again, this time with her eyes. "You're such a child, Máté."
He snorted. "Well, yeah. I'm only 13." Defeated by his own logic, he sat down at the table before realizing he hadn't gotten any breakfast. "Stupid, stupid, stupid," he muttered dejectedly. Grace laughed again, which cheered him up slightly.
Máté got in the line to order, just behind an old man in a vest, or so he thought. The white hair made the person look old from the back, but when he turned, Máté saw that he had youthful features, and was about his age. He hadn't seen the boy around here before; perhaps he was a transfer from some other branch.
A tray slid out of the slot, bearing a helping of lasagna and a potato. A slightly odd choice for breakfast, Máté thought, although not comparable to the Exorcist Kanda's constant soba eating. The white haired kid took a bite with a smile, but didn't move.
Slightly annoyed and his speck of patience growing thin, Máté said, "Hey, fehér fej (1). You got your food, now move so I can order." Then another tray slid out, on this one curry and tofu.
Máté was about to ask just how much he'd ordered, since he still showed no signs of leaving, but an argument broken out across the room distracted both of them.
"What did you say?!" A tall Finder called Buzz was standing and leaning across his table. "You wanna say that again?!"
One persons warning to calm down was blatantly ignored.
"Be quiet," said a recognizable, stoic voice. "My meal tastes bad when you talk about dead people."
Since she was sitting nearby, Grace tried to keep things from escalating. "Kanda," she said respectfully, although she almost wanted to cry. "Alexei was a good friend of mine too… of everyone's. Couldn't you please try not to be so insensitive?"
He glanced down the table at her barely more than out of the corner of his eye. "No."
This enraged Buzz further. "That's how you show respect for your comrades?! We Finders risk our lives to support you… and you're saying it makes your meal taste bad?!"
He took a heated swing at Kanda's head, which was, of course, dodged without hesitation. Máté put a hand to his forehead and muttered, "Ostoba (2) Buzz…" In an instant, the situation was reversed: Buzz standing helplessly with Kanda's head around his throat.
"Support us?" Kanda said mockingly. "That's all you can do. You're the ones who weren't chosen to carry the innocence."
Buzz gasped for air, but Kanda's grip was relentless. "If you want to live, leave now. Your life is insignificant; you can be replaced at any time."
Someone's hand dared to close around Kanda's, and they dared tell him to stop.
"I'm sorry to interrupt when I have nothing to do with this, but I don't think this is the right way to resolve this," the white haired boy said with surprising authority.
Kanda looked at him, cold annoyance burning.
"Back off, moyashi (3)."
He jerked slightly in surprise. Bean sprout…? "I'm Allen!" he said defiantly.
Grace almost fell over. The white hair, the scar under his left eye, although she couldn't see above it for his hair in the way, the red left hand, and now the name… Máté had been right. It was him.
Kanda chuckled darkly. "If you live a month, I'll remember your name. Many people die here, like these Finders."
The sound from Allen clenching tighter was almost audible. "As I said, that's a horrible thing to say."
"You're going to die soon." Kanda was full out glaring now. "I hate people like you."
"Thank you," he said sarcastically.
Sparks flew between the two until River Wenham called to them, saying they had a mission.
Allen sat down with his huge meal that had been completed during the tension. Grace took the chance to confront him.
"Allen?" she said when she'd moved in front of him, without him noticing as he stuffed his face. "Allen Walker?"
He looked up, surprised that anyone outside the science department and Lenalee knew his full name, and got an even bigger surprise. "G-Grace!" Lost for words, he said, "Um… hi…"
She pulled at a strand of her hair nervously. "You made it."
"Yeah…" he said slowly. And then he remembered: River had said ten minutes…
Grace laughed as Allen, armed with a fork in each hand, shoved food into his mouth, and one dish after another disappeared. She had vague memories of him doing that, every time he visited the church.
"Record time!" she sang and clapped her hands, after only seven minutes. Then she opened her eyes and became slightly concerned. "You look like you might explode."
He leaned back in his seat with a hand on his belly. "I think I might too…"
"Well, you still have three minutes." She walked around to his side of the table and put an arm around him. "I'm glad your Master let you come."
"Me too," he said. He straightened up a little, already recovering, and she withdrew her hand to sit on it. "But, Grace…"
Here it comes, she thought.
"Are you an Exorcist now? Did a piece of that Innocence match with you?"
She gave him the best smile she could, but it still looked sad. "No."
His hopeful look dissolved. "That's why I'm wearing white," she continued, pulling at her long skirt. "But don't worry. There's always someone on a mission to retrieve Innocence, and most of the time they come back with it. Maybe the piece you get this time will be my match.
"But in the meantime, I can still help you. I'm a Finder after all." A glance at the grandfather clock told her it was the end of their long overdue bonding. "You should go to Komui's office now. We can talk after your briefing," she said with her constant smile.
Allen gave her a solute and hurried out of the cafeteria. She was chuckling as Máté came up to her new spot with a tray.
"I told you. You do know him," he said. He was not as smug as he would normally be. Jealousy tainted his victory.
"Yeah. You were right, Máté." Her gaze was as distant as her voice, following Allen though he was long gone.
Máté scowled and took a bite of the porridge he'd gotten to mirror Grace, even though he wasn't particularly fond of it. "He's too young for you," he said.
That made Grace laugh, and Máté thought he might have cleared up the problem once and for all. How wrong he was…
"Don't worry. I don't think of him that way. I've only seen him a few times, but… I guess he's like a brother I can look up to. A big brother… even though I'm older than him, he's so much more mature than I am." She giggled. "That's sort of funny, isn't it?"
It was a very good thing she decided to leave the table at that moment. She had the good fortune of missing the heartbroken look on Máté's face.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
"Italy…" Grace said to herself, thinking hard about all the missions she and her friends had been on recently. She and Allen walked the corridors down to the port beneath the building with no time to stop along the way. Immediate departure was troublesome, as always. "That must be the Ghost of Martel."
"Ghost…" Allen said, slightly incredulous.
She nodded. "Aleksandr was on the original scouting mission, so I know a little bit about it."
"Do you know the people there now?"
Another nod. "There's Ivan, Lewis, Kristian, Joshua, Conor and… Matteo! They're all our age, and there's someone older with them…"
"Why are they all guys?" Allen asked softly. He was sweating at the list. What had happened to Grace these months since he'd last seen her?
"Pervert," she said, tucking her hands into the folds of her skirt in embarrassment. "There aren't that many girls at headquarters, and I need to have people to talk to, right? Besides, we Finders go on missions in big groups for longer periods of time. When you spend a few months at a time with people, you get to know them."
"A-A few months…" Just the thought of spending any significant amount of time with Kanda made Allen nervous, but months… that was out of the question.
Grace giggled when she saw the look of horror on his face. "Don't worry! We do all the hard work, so the Exorcists missions only last a few days."
They reached the end of the spiral staircase, near the port out of headquarters. "I'll see you when you get back," Grace said.
They stood looking at one another for a few seconds and Allen smiled. "I'm taller than you now."
She looked at him, then down at her own body in disbelief.
"When did that happen? You can't be taller than me; it's not allowed!"
Allen laughed. "Maybe you didn't get any taller here, but you got a sense of humor." He put his arms around her and encouraged her to do the same. She did.
"If only"s flew through her thoughts as Grace held him close. If only she'd known he'd been at headquarters last night, to have more than a few minutes here and there to catch up on the past year and a half since she'd last seen him. If only Komui hadn't decided to be so inconsiderate and assign Allen to a mission the moment he became an official Exorcist. If only she wasn't scheduled to leave on a mission of her own the next day. "If only, if only," she said quietly. "I'll see you soon, Allen."
"Yeah."
She let him go, and watched him through the door. At the top of the staircase, Máté watched through angry tears.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Footnotes:
Fehér fej (1)- Hungarian; lit. white head
Ostoba (2)- Hungarian; stupid, idiot
Moyashi (3)- We all know what this is ^_^ But I can't be sure about the romaji, as the translator only does the katakana. Let me know if it's wrong please.
A further note about Máté and his Hungarian:
I don't speak Hungarian myself (as anyone who does has probably already figured out), but I'm doing my best to make this as authentic as possible, so Hungarians will speak a little Hungarian, Russians will speak a little Russian and so on. However, I'm relying on an online dictionary's imperfect translation, one word at a time in most cases, so if anyone lucky enough to know more languages than I do would like to help me out with any of the ones you see throughout the course of this fic, particularly with grammar and syntax, it would be very much appreciated. In highest demand right now are Hungarian and French, so please let me know if you can help. Thanks everyone!