A/N: To clarify what happened at the end of the last chapter: Lavi is not disgusted by homosexuality, he's disgusted with anal sex. He only thought Allen was raped because he didn't believe Allen (or any man for that matter) would willingly submit to being taken anally. Anyway, now that Allen has set him straight, he won't be making that mistake again.

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Fortunately for my sanity, Lavi left on a mission the very next day after the whole baby name incident. I was free from the pestering he would have done, and with his short attention span, he was going to have forgotten all about his curiosity towards my daughter's name by the time he got back. It was fantastic timing, and I wanted to feel good about it.

But I couldn't enjoy Lavi's absence when his mission partner was my fiancé.

Kanda hadn't been on a single mission since we'd learned that we were having a girl, completely ignoring his general's duties, and I had grown quite used to having him around. I missed him terribly. And not just because my pregnancy was making me horny. I was in the second half of my pregnancy; I needed my fiancé to be where I knew he was safe. And that was at home with me.

I knew Kanda was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but that didn't stop me from feeling concerned about him. Especially when his mission ran long. I knew there were thousands of legitimate reasons for why his five day mission had already taken twice that long, and that most of those reasons weren't life threatening, but that didn't stop me from feeling lonely over his absence or worried over his health.

But his health wasn't my main concern. No, my priority was my own health. I'd been working hard to keep myself fit and healthy ever since I'd learned I was pregnant, but now that I actually wanted my child, it felt like those efforts weren't enough. I wanted to shower her with love and attention and give her everything she wanted.

Except when it came to food.

The fact that my morning sickness was finally completely gone helped a lot, but even wanting my daughter didn't change the fact that I hated the way being pregnant had changed my appetite. I wanted to be able to eat what I wanted, when I wanted. But above all, I wanted to eat my favorite food again. And I couldn't do that when just thinking about it made me want to throw up.

The cafeteria was depressing. But not nearly as depressing as the entirety of headquarters was today.

As I walked down to lunch, I passed several different finders and scientists running around like chickens with their heads cut off. While I was curious what the commotion was all about, I knew that it had something to do with one of the ongoing missions, so I did everything in my power to ignore them - a difficult task when my enhanced hearing meant that I could still hear them long after they'd run by me. I was already depressed over my absent fiancé, the last thing I needed was to depress myself further with worrying over whichever mission had gone wrong and wondering which of my friends was in trouble. I also didn't need the reminder that I wasn't allowed to leave the building.

I just had to push it all aside and get to the cafeteria; with any luck, it would be noisy enough there that I wouldn't have to work to block out whatever was happening. I'd be able to chat with my friends and ignore everything else that was going on around me.

I relaxed as I stepped through the cafeteria doors, the lively chatter in the room covered up the chaos outside rather nicely. After taking a moment to appreciate that, I made my way to the counter and talked with Jerry while he prepared my meal. I enjoyed listening to the chef gush over my baby so much more now that I loved her.

But as we were moving my plates to the table, I was forcibly reminded that somewhere out in the world, there was a mission going wrong.

The snap of pain in my heart was incredibly familiar, but it was so unexpected that it shocked me into dropping the plate I was holding. It hit the ground and shattered, splattering deep red sauce everywhere, and everyone's attention was immediately on me, obviously wondering what had happened to make me waste food. But I didn't notice any of that.

The feeling of losing an Innocence fragment may have been familiar, but my body was currently under quite a bit of stress from my pregnancy, so it affected me a whole lot more than it usually did. I knew that I was in a public place and that I didn't want anyone to know about my ability to sense the destruction of the Innocence, but I was too overwhelmed to keep my reaction hidden.

Feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me, I struggled to breathe as I fought to remain standing. My pulse roared in my ears and I felt like I might black out. It certainly didn't help that my pain upset the baby, and she did not hesitate to let me know it. The kicks and punches she gave me as she thrashed about only served to make me feel worse.

I vaguely felt someone help me to my seat, and being in a seated position definitely helped with the intense disorientation that I was feeling. The hands on my shoulders moved to my front, and I knew from the flashes of purple hair that I could see and from the familiar way those fingers prodded at me that Komui was examining me.

Now that I was sitting, I managed to catch my breath, and my dizziness faded quickly once I was able to calm down. It was indeed Komui kneeling in front of me, and there was concern written all over his face as he examined me. I gently pushed his hands away and smiled reassuringly at him. "I'm fine. Nothing's wrong."

The Supervisor fixed me with a very stern look as he went back to poking at me. "Allen. You collapsed. That's not 'nothing'."

I stared stupidly at him. I thought I had kept myself upright, but apparently, I actually had blacked out and fallen. And while that scared me, the kicks to my stomach assured me that my baby had not been harmed by my fall.

I tried to push Komui away again, but he caught my arm and pressed his fingers to my wrist, taking my pulse. His stern look never faded as he did so. "I'm concerned about your heart. You were clutching at your chest when you fell, and I'm worried that your pregnancy might be putting too much stress on your previous injury. Have you been feeling any shortness of breath lately?"

I met his look with an equally firm glare. "Komui, I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with my heart or my baby."

The Supervisor looked like he was going to start lecturing me, but Lenalee spoke from beside me before he could. It startled me a little because I hadn't noticed that she was there. "You're crying, Allen."

I pulled my hand free from Komui's grip and brought my fingers to my cheek, which was streaked with tears. Huh. I'm apparently rather bad at noticing things today. I quickly wiped my eyes and shook my head at my friends' concern. "They're not my tears. They're Crowned Clown's. We just lost an Innocence fragment."

It wasn't until I noticed that the people around me were all looking at me like I was crazy that I realized what I'd just said. I blushed fiercely and looked away, praying that Komui would ignore my outburst and go back to examining me. He didn't. The Supervisor seemed to be at a loss for words as he stared critically at me; I could practically hear the gears spinning in his head as he tried to process what I had just told him.

Lenalee brushed a hand into my hair and began rubbing my ear. I knew she was doing it on purpose, to keep me from running away, but there was a reason why it worked: even though I was angry at her for doing it, I couldn't bring myself to make her stop, my inner cat liked the feeling too much. The baby liked it too, if the fact that she stopped squirming around inside me was anything to go by.

When she felt I'd calmed down enough, Lenalee did exactly what I thought she was going to do. She began asking me about what I'd said. "What do you mean 'we lost an Innocence fragment'? And how could you possibly know that?"

She had me cornered, so even though I wanted to keep this to myself, I knew that I had no choice but to explain. I sighed heavily and focused on Lenalee, ignoring all the others around us and pretending that I was only talking to my best friend. This was going to be hard to say and I needed to feel like I was talking to someone who would be understanding and supportive. "I don't know how to explain it without sounding crazy, but whenever one of the pieces of Innocence gets destroyed, it feels like a rubber band has snapped inside my heart. Crowned Clown reacts so violently to the loss that I feel physical pain. It usually isn't that bad of a reaction, but I'm usually in much better shape than I am right now."

The hand rubbing my ear froze. Lenalee's violet eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head. When she finally managed to speak, her voice was full of confusion and concern. "'Usually'? This has happened before?"

I nodded slowly, seizing my chance to pull Lenalee's hand away from my ear. "Every single time we lose an Innocence fragment."

Komui spoke up then, but I continued to focus solely on Lenalee. "How long, exactly, has this been going on?"

"I don't know. A couple years." I didn't have to see Komui's face to know that he wasn't pleased with that answer. "Based on the fact that I first felt it sometime after everything that happened on the ark, it either started when I broke critical or it started when Crowned Clown healed my heart."

"And you're positive that what you feel is in response to the Innocence?" The female voice startled me. Camilla was sitting on the other side of Lenalee. My observational skills were definitely not at their best today. "Are you sure it's not something else? It seems a little far-fetched to me that you can sense the Innocence like that."

I met her stare with all the confidence I could muster in my tired state. "I'm not sensing the Innocence, Crowned Clown is and I'm just picking up on its grief. And yes, I'm positive that that's what I'm feeling."

My confidence didn't convince her and she continued to stare suspiciously at me. But before I could say anything more, Komui was claiming my attention. The look he gave me was rather unsettling; it was rare to see him that serious. "Allen. Why are we just hearing about this now? You should have reported this the first time it happened."

I sighed heavily as I turned away from Komui. I glanced down at the plates of food that were spread out on the table and my stomach growled loudly at the reminder that I hadn't eaten anything yet. It was immediately followed by an irritated kick from the baby, and I knew that she was telling me to feed her. So I grabbed the nearest plate. It had grown cold, but I ate the food anyway; I needed to eat, and I needed something to do while I tried to collect my thoughts.

I could feel everyone's eyes on me, still waiting for me to answer Komui's question, but no one interrupted me. They all understood that between my Innocence and my pregnancy, I had no choice but to ignore them in favor of eating. A few of the gathered people laughed when someone voiced their surprise towards how long I'd let the conversation last before giving in to my need to eat.

When I'd eaten all my food, which didn't take anywhere near as long as I would have liked, I set my fork down with a heavy sigh, dropping my hands to my lap, where I began to rub circles onto my pregnant belly; the baby was very content now that she'd been fed.

Steeling myself, I finally broke the silence, praying that Komui would understand my reasons for keeping this to myself for so long. "Because it first happened when I was under investigation for the whole Neah thing. I wasn't going to give Central anything that they could possibly use against me, and I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that this was something they would use against me."

"How would they do that?" In retrospect, it made perfect sense that Camilla was confused. The things that I was talking about happened before she joined the Order. She hadn't had any interactions with Central.

"I can sense when Innocence is destroyed. As you have already pointed out, that's not something exorcists can normally do. Even though that ability comes from my Innocence, Central was going to say that it was a sign that I was awakening as a Noah, and then..." I couldn't bring myself to finish the sentence; things had worked out, but it was still hard to think about what had happened back then.

Komui placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. It was clear from the look on his face that he understood my reasoning and that I wasn't in trouble. "That was two years ago, Allen. Why didn't you come to me about this after Central left?"

"Because that was when I became a neko. There was so much other stuff going on that it fell through the cracks. I was going to-"

I was cut off abruptly by a commotion at the cafeteria entrance, as Reever and a couple other scientists ran in. "Chief Komui!"

Reever headed straight for where the Supervisor and I were sitting together. The look of panic on his face scared me rather badly. He wasn't looking for Komui to make him get back to work, he was looking for him to deliver bad news.

I expected Reever to pull Komui aside, but instead, he just blurted it out in front of everyone. "We lost the signals from Lavi and Kanda's golems."

The conversation continued around me, but I was too freaked out to hear anything they were saying. They had lost the signal from Kanda's golem. That meant that his golem had been destroyed. And when you combined that with the fact that we had just lost an Innocence fragment, it was especially bad news. There was no way that it was a coincidence that the two things were happening at the same time. My fiancé was in trouble.

I couldn't handle that thought after everything else that had happened and I blacked out.