Author's Note - It took a while, but I finally return with another chapter! Thank you for all your wonderful reviews and Ozuchi-Kozuchi for being an awesome BETA reader.
Disclaimer - I, under no circumstances, own D. Gray-Man.
It was hard to breathe. As anxiety stacked in her stomach, the person only continued to stare at her. She could feel their eyes on her, calculating her every move. Their atmosphere seemed friendly enough, but something had changed; there was something else swirling within it. He was a shell, just like her, but something was drastically different.
He was a shell holding something together that had been created.
He was being manipulated. She could feel it; she knewit. He was the one she had seen with Leverrier. The one that man referred to as his 'project'.
Project.
It disgusted her. How could Leverrier treat humans as such instruments? For goodness' sake, this person before her couldn't even tell her who he was!
She couldn't take it anymore. She had to know. She neededto know. What could Leverrier be hiding that needed to be so top secret? Who had fallen victim to his experimentation?
She was standing before him now. There was no turning back. It was now or never. She wouldn't get another chance, and if she didn't move quickly, she might lose it.
The cloth was thick, she realized, as her fingers grabbed hold of it. Remarkably, whoever was hiding underneath it did not feel a need to make her stop. Wordlessly, she slipped off the head piece. As a pair of eyes met her own, and a head of hair fell back partially into place, it became clear to her.
Gasping, she dropped the fabric, taking a step back in shock. She held her hands up against her mouth with wide eyes. Tears slipped off her face as she shook her head. "No." She pleaded, "please, no. You're not him."
"Not who?"
There was no denying him. The eyes. The hair. The voice. It was him, but it wasn't.
Lavi rounded the corner and promptly froze as his eyes fell upon the man. Then, rushing to Lenalee's side, he grasped hold of her.
"Lenalee? Lenalee! You need to breathe!"
He then realized what was wrong, however.
"Allen?"
"Damn it!"
The room was dark. Lenalee had no strength; it felt like the life had been sucked out of her. She sat against the wall, staring in the distance as she tried to forget what had happened. She willed the pain to go away. She willed herself to wake up from this nightmare and prove that this was not reality.
She willed Allen was still Allen.
"I can't believe they brainwashedhim! He says he can't even remember much of what happened only a year ago because it 'wasn't important'. I'm going to kill Leverrier. I swear I'm going to."
She broke into sobs. Falling over onto her side, her whole body shook as she sobbed. Lavi immediately silenced, sitting beside her as she cried, unable to do anything. Even after she could no longer cry, he still sat there wordlessly, thinking.
"Lenalee," he finally spoke, and it must have been an hour later after she'd stopped crying, "you haven't given up yet, have you?"
"I have."
"Why?"
"He's not coming back," she tonelessly replied. "He doesn't care about anyone." She shut her eyes tightly as she whispered, "he doesn't care about me."
"He'd better. You've been waiting for months. There's no reason for you to suffer like this. He'd better see that he's damn lucky to be loved by someone like you."
She'd never heard him cuss so much before. Normally, she would've chuckled, but not anymore.
"So I'm not going to give up," he declared, grinning at her. "Allen's still in there. I'm sure of it. And I'm sure it'd mean a lot to him if you didn't either. So have some hope."
She smiled. It was fake, but she tried. "You really think so?"
"Ha!" He grinned. "I know it'd make him happy. And if it doesn't, then I'll beat him until it does."
"What are we going to do, then? If Allen's been brainwashed, then surely he's going to follow orders and tell Leverrier what happened."
"Leverrier's meeting doesn't end for another twenty minutes," Lavi replied smugly. "So, I say we go find him again, Lenalee."
Lenalee nodded, determination burning in her eyes. "We won't fail," she replied. "We'll keep walking... just like Allen taught us."
After discussing their plan, the pair hurried out of Lenalee's room. They had only ten minutes to spare and were not about to let it go to waste. Tearing through hall after hall, neither Exorcist dared to look back or stop for anything as they raced against the clock to locate their target.
"Lavi!" Lenalee cried out, though in a whisper so no one would hear. Leaning against the wall, feeling light-headed, she told him, "I don't think we're heading the same way." Seeing his puzzled glance, she added, "my legs. They're getting weaker. He's not this way."
Much to her surprise, he grinned. "Ahh, I get it now!" Jogging back to meet her, he helped her walk the opposite direction. "Is it going away?" he asked her after a few minutes.
She nodded, before turning without warning down another hall. "This way." About halfway down the hall, they encountered Bookman, who was strolling along. Lenalee uncomfortably stepped to the side, making a bigger gap between herself and Lavi as she eyed the older man.
"Lavi!" Bookman barked, obviously irritated, "where have you been?"
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Allen - who was still covered in his cloak - turn the corner and begin approaching him. Upon seeing them, he stopped abruptly before turning and making his way back. Doing her best to not act suspicious, she turned to Lavi. "I'd better go tell Brother where those books are. Thank you for showing them to me." Looking at Bookman, she pretended to look guilty. "Sorry for taking up his time." She then took off, walking as fast as possible to catch up with Allen.
Allen had only gotten a couple of halls away when she found him. Luckily, she'd met up with him turning a corner, so he didn't make it very far when he tried to flee before she reached forward and grabbed his arm, dragging him back. Hoping to not cause much of a distraction, she opened a door to a storage closet and dragged him inside along with her before shutting it promptly.
"What are you doing?"
She had no response to that. Letting her hands fall to her sides, she looked at him helplessly. "I don't know," she finally replied after a moment, her voice soft. "I haven't known for a while. Life's moving too fast. If I spend too much time trying to plan my course, everyone else will move on without me. Especially you."
His eyes widened and for a second she thought he'd stopped breathing before he stepped forward. "Me? Why me?"
Lenalee slowly took a step backwards, but was unaware of the stairs behind her and tumbled backwards. Alarmed, Allen tried to grab hold of her wrist, but ended up being pulled down along with her. Both tumbled down the stairs, falling onto the floor below in a tangled mess of limbs. She was halfway lying in his lap, with her head leaning against his chest while he held her by her waist to support her. A rush of blood made it to her cheeks, and for once she was thankful of the darkness.
Allen recovered after a moment, helping her back onto her feet. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness somewhat, so she could make out the outlines of his frown and puzzled eyes. Determined, she didn't allow herself to back down and reached out, roughly grabbing hold of his cloak and dragging him backward so he couldn't get away.
She recalled their past days. Both the good and the bad times. It took much effort, but she finally allowed their last memories together to occupy her mind. For the first time, she let her mind wander to their last few months together before that day when Leverrier had marched him out early in the morning with no warning. She wondered how much more the man in front of her could change. It'd already been hard to understand him and now it seemed that she had no idea who he was at all. If anything, it only hurt her more, yearning to be let in by someone who had no intentions of letting anyone anywhere near close to him emotionally.
Much like Lavi, it angered her too. How dare Central take away her comrade - her family - and bring him back brainwashed, thinking he needed to hide behind a mask in the safety of that cloak's hood?
"What's wrong?"
"What's wrong?" She outrageously took a step forward. "What's wrong is that someone important to me is someone I don't even know anymore. Can you imagine how that would feel in our position?" She took another step, placing her just inches from his face. "Can you imagine losing someone you loved and not knowing what happened to them and never being told anything about them for a whole God-forsaken year? Can you imagine yourself finding them sneaking around Headquarters, thinking of themselves as some kind of project and flat-out saying to your own face that they don't recall who you are because you weren't important?"
"You act like I don't remember anything," he replied, not even phased. "Well, I do. Only difference is that I understand my emotions now."
"Your emotions? You don't feel anything, Allen! How is that emotion?"
He eyed her darkly. "Exactly. I remembered that I care nothing of you."
