Revelations Chapter 8
Allen Walker, Lenalee Lee, and all characters in the -Man Universe do not belong to me. I am merely borrowing them for a while to suit my purpose. If it wasn't clear before, I will reiterate that this is an Allen Walker X Lenalee Lee story. Nothing super lemony….just some overdue conversations.
*This story takes place a little bit after the anime ends and way before the whole Kanda-centric storyline that's currently going on in the manga (not that I don't like Kanda…I heart him…but he's just not the focus of this particular story). So, this starts a couple of months after the Level 4 is defeated at HQ and General Cross is able to speak with Allen for a moment wherein he lets him know that Allen is the vessel from which the 14th will be reborn. Furthermore, that Allen will eventually be taken over by the 14th and, once that happens, he will kill someone he loves.
Black Order – Asian Branch: Lenalee's Quarters
"Wow, you were right about it being a small room, Lenalee."
"If it's too uncomfortable, we can find some other place…"
"No, it's all right, of course," replied Allen, trying to reassure her. The size of the room was the least of his worries. He rather preferred it this way. Somehow, the closeness of the room made him feel better about the truths he was about to unleash out into world, particularly into Lenalee's. The magnitude of the information felt slightly more contained in a room such as this. The pure silliness of this idea followed his thoughts quickly but he was thankful for the intimacy of the quarters, nonetheless.
Allen ushered her in first and reluctantly let go of her hand. They hadn't spoken a word since Lou Fa took her leave of them but he used that time to focus on what he needed to tell Lenalee and to brace himself for what her reaction might be. At one point, he had found himself squeezing Lenalee's hand tighter than he had intended because of his growing tension. His breath had hitched when she returned the intensity of his grasp without a word.
The single person bed was pushed up against the corner of the room so that the head of the bed and one side was against the walls. Lenalee sat down at the head of the bed, curling her legs to the side.
"I'm sorry I can't offer you any other place to sit, but make yourself as comfortable as you can," Lenalee said.
Allen slowly walked towards her and sat at the foot and pulled himself in to lean his back against the wall which the side of the bed was pushed up against. It occurred to Allen that Lenalee had just come from her last training session with Fou.
"Lenalee, if you want to change into regular clothes or anything, I will leave the room until you're ready."
"It's all right. Fou's lesson for today was meditation today so I didn't even break out into a sweat…much," she said with a smile.
"I wanted to ask you about that…was she very hard on you?"
"I don't know whether to laugh or cry in answer to that, Allen-kun. She didn't treat me any differently than she did you. She made it a point of doing so..."
The light in the small room was generous in proportion to the cavernous arena and for the first time in many months, Allen looked at Lenalee. Her features were still as lovely as they ever were; delicate eyebrows framing her heart-shaped face, thick lashes shading her expressive eyes, her pert upturned nose, and her smooth lips. But he also noticed the tired lines under those eyes that came from lack of sleep. He was all too familiar with those these last several months. She had old bruises and cuts that were well on their way to healing and some fresh ones along her cheek and shoulders. Her exposed arms were toned and lean, exhibiting the work she had put into them over time. He could only imagine the strength in her legs was even more pronounced since that's where her true potency lay.
"…and I owe her so much for doing exactly that," Lenalee continued. "It would have crushed me if she ever held back because she didn't think I could handle it. I wasn't going to give her an excuse to do so."
"Why, Lenalee...why did you come here? Why did you do all of this?" asked Allen, looking away from Lenalee.
Lenalee was puzzled. Did Lavi not tell him? And even if he didn't, how could he not know?
"Lavi said that I should hear it from you. And I want to."
Lenalee drew her legs up and pulled them into her chest. Lowering her head, she rested her chin atop her knees and closed her eyes. She thought for a long moment, remembering the reasons why she came here and trying hard to suppress the still fresh emotions they evoked within her. It was like opening a wound that had yet to heal and the pain of it was just as intense as when it was first rendered apart.
"There are no words that exist in the world that could express how I felt when you and Lavi and Crowley were risking your lives and…all I could do was stand there and watch while you were hurt over and over again…"
"There was no way for you to break free of those prisons that Jasdebi or Rhode created around you…."
"No, it wasn't just then. Even when I was just cast aside as a non-threat, in the open, I was totally useless. I had come to rely on my Innocence so much that I didn't know how to do anything once it left me. After that, I became a liability instead of someone who could fight by my friends' side. Even if I was of no use, the enemy used me against you. It was the worst thing that could happen, Allen-kun; to be a first-hand witness to my world crumbling around me. For the first time in a long time, I wanted to die again. I would rather have died than be used against those which I should have been protecting. It would have been better not to exist at all so that everyone could fight without having to worry about me on top of your own lives. I hated feeling that way. I hated it so much!"
"What do you mean….you wanted to die again?" asked Allen. He had turned to face Lenalee when she had spoken those words. They didn't process with him. When Lenalee continued on with her impassioned reasoning, he was stuck on those words. She wanted to die? It wasn't the first time?
"I…." Lenalee said but stopped abruptly, catching herself. "Allen-kun…we didn't come here to talk about me." She had alluded to an earlier time in her life without meaning to and Allen had latched onto it.
He continued to look at her, not dropping the question.
Lenalee let out a sigh. "I mentioned to you before that when I was first taken into the Order, it was not by choice."
Allen nodded.
"I was in turn scared and angry and scared and I wanted to go home so badly. After a while, I didn't even care if I went home, I just wanted out of there, no matter what it took. The last time I tried to escape, they found me, but I had a contingency plan at that point. I was done with trying to just physically escape that I had taken a small cutting blade from one of the lab trays and hidden it within my sleeves before my escape. I wanted to make sure that I escaped the Order…one way or the other. When they caught me, I thought I cut myself deeply enough but I must have been too weak to even do that properly."
"Lenalee…"
"He always found me: Chief Inspector Leverrier," Lenalee continued. "He found me that time too and he made them bind my cuts with bandages and tie me to a bed so that I could not move my arms or legs. I prayed to God to let me die and I was denied even that. I wasn't praying for the right thing, I guess, but God answered the prayer I was too hopeless to utter myself and one day He brought my brother to me. It was only then that I started to want to live again. But that same helplessness was what I felt watching you and Lavi that day as you fought Rhode and Tyki Mikk. I was back in that bed, shackled, unable to move, wanting to be erased from existence. It was a better alternative than to be seeing what I was seeing. I was so angry, Allen-kun; at myself for being so useless, at my Innocence for abandoning me, and at God who seemed to have turned His back on me again."
"When I was younger, I couldn't understand how selfish my actions were. Because I couldn't handle something, I decided that it would be better to take myself out of the world. It was the easy way out…the coward's way out. I thought I was past that way of thinking. But when I was trapped inside Rhode's cage, I felt that familiar pang again – that aching need to just disappear forever rather than sit idly by without being able to do anything. But I caught myself this time and pushed those thoughts away. How could I think such things when my brother would be left alone and my friends would be burdened even more? So, all I had left after that was anger. But you called me out on it, Allen-kun."
"I did…?"
"I thought I was just angry but you made me realize that the real reason I was mad was because of how weak I felt. When we were walking up those never-ending stairs, I thought about how you returned to us with so much more strength and spirit than ever before. I admired you. I still do. I knew then how weak I had become, and perhaps I had always been. And I knew I had to try harder, be stronger, or else I would never be of help to the Order, much less to my friends. I would just continue to be the dead weight that I was that whole time. When we returned home, I thought about it for a while; how I should train myself not only so I could utilize my Innocence better, but also not have to depend solely on my Innocence to survive. It took me a couple of months to realize what I had to do. I wanted to talk to you about it…get your opinion…but I…you didn't seem to want to be around me. The last time I felt close to you was when you had finally come back from your meeting with General Cross and you found me and Johnny waiting up for you. Well, I guess we had both fallen asleep," Lenalee said, with a smile, remembering the time fondly. "You sat next to me and chatted before you fell asleep as well. But you looked so…I don't know how to describe it…so sadly resolved about something. That was the last time I ever spoke to you until now."
Allen wanted to rattle out all of his feelings of regret and apologize for his ridiculous plan of alienating her for her own good when all it did was hurt her. Even now her face shown the passing shadows of doubt and concern for each of the times he avoided her or was short with her in order to excuse himself. But before that, he knew he couldn't pass up the chance to address all that she had told him in the last moments. He moved closer to her near the head of the bed and reached out to feel the silken strands of her hair. Lenalee looked up at Allen, her eyes large and glistening with unshed tears.
"What do you see when you look at yourself in the mirror…when you see how much your hair as grown?" he asked her gently.
"I see what I have lost."
"What about what you have gained?"
"What I have gained?"
"Yes, Lenalee," replied Allen, pulling back, letting her hair gently fall back into place and brush the top of her shoulders. He sat cross-legged, facing her directly. Lavi told me about that night when you took on the Level 3 akuma by yourself. How can you say you were ever cowardly? No one had ever done that before. But Lavi said you had charged in, fiercely. What he remembered most vividly was the look on your face before he had to go back to the ship with Bookman. He said that you seemed like you had decided something. You had decided to throw your life away in order to defeat the Level 3, didn't you?"
"I…I knew it was something I had to accept could happen. It served me right for leaving your side when we were trying to help Suman. "
*Allen looked at Lenalee, bewildered as to where this was leading.
"Then Timcanpy took us to where…"
Lenalee's breath hitched as her mind's eye brought her back to that bamboo forest, where the foliage was so thick it seemed as if they were enclosed by night under the dense canopy of leaves. Only the few, scattered shafts of light that pierced through indicated it was indeed day time. One of those beams illuminated a large darkening splotch on the ground and it changed the surrounding colors so much that Lenalee couldn't tell what it was until she got close enough to touch it. Falling to her knees, she reached out with her fingers, feeling the chilled dampness of it, the forest steadily encroaching and suffocating her…
"…to where…but you were gone….and your blood… there was so much blood. I touched it. It was so cold. And you were gone. I looked down to see your blood on my fingers, my hands. Your blood was on my hands."
Lenalee looked down at her open palms as if seeing again the smear of Allen's blood painted all over her hands in streaks of condemnation.
"I couldn't bring myself to wash it off for a long time. It was the only way to keep you with me so I wouldn't forget what I did…"
"No, Lenalee! You mustn't feel that you were being punished. I didn't know Timcanpy had led you back there and you shouldn't have seen that. But it wasn't you're fault, you have to believe me! I made my own choices that led me there. And I would never have found the true nature of my Innocence without losing it first. And you, you were willing to die for the purpose of saving your friends and loved ones, not because you wanted to erase yourself from the world because you were scared."
"But, I was very scared, Allen-kun!"
"Being afraid and being a coward, they're two different things. You were scared but ran head-long into the fight. That doesn't seem like something a coward or a person had given up would do. Because of that, Lavi, Miranda, Crowley, Chaoji, Kei, and Masao -they survived. And so did you. I never got to thank you for that: For saving our friends…and for coming back to us. Please don't see it as a loss, Lenalee. What you gained was more valuable than you or I can put a price on. And the strength you had to have to do so was immeasurable."
"I couldn't…didn't see it that way."*
"Of course you didn't. From your perspective, you were only doing what came naturally to you, just as you were naturally frustrated when you were trapped by Rhode. I would have felt the same way."
"I felt like I was going crazy, Allen-kun. I really thought I'd go mad in there."
"But you pulled yourself out of that and decided to become even stronger, didn't you?"
"I guess…eventually."
"You gave me and Lavi a good walloping even without the use of your Innocence. I think we still have the bruises from it," Allen said, smiling, as he almost felt the phantom bump and ache on the right side of his head.
"I don't know how you do it, Allen-kun."
"Hmm?"
"You manage to keep smiling even through the most harrowing situations. That smile makes everyone trust in you and feel at ease. And rightly so. But I know better, Allen-kun. You are hiding such sadness behind that smile. There's something you haven't told me – something gravely important and we've wasted enough time talking about me. Please, let me help you, whatever it is. Tell me what's been bothering you for so long?" pleaded Lenalee, reaching out to place her hand over his.
Allen felt the warmth of her care and support stem from her hand on his, up his arm, down his neck, spreading into his chest. His heart began to beat faster and his face flushed so he lowered his head to screen the sudden change of color to his face.
"Allen-kun…"
"I will tell you something I've learned about me, Lenalee. And then you will have to decide whether you ever want to see me again…"
To Be Continued
Originally written on 10/9/10
11/2/10 –Revision: I added and edited a few paragraphs to this Chapter after feeling I had forgotten to make some points about how Lenalee literally and figuratively had Allen's blood on her hands. I went back and added to and/or amended the parts that are between the asterisks near the end of this Chapter.
