Ladd and Lua

A/N: Ok, I don't own Baccano or any of its characters. This is the first in what will hopefully be a four or five-chapter story about how various Baccano couples met, but it might just end with this. Who knows?

Lua was aware of death, so very aware, ever since her childhood. Its shadow was her constant companion. She was weak, they said. Weak against illness. But Lua Klein was another kind of weak. She was weak against others, against orders. Prim little delicate Lua, always doing as she's told, always waiting, watching.

She had been sitting alone at the window. It was gray outside. It wasn't raining. She took in thoughts and observations simply. There was no reason to do otherwise. And yet…

When the door slammed open, she whirled about, and observed many, many things at once. Her barrier of death was shattered, the melancholy released, though she didn't yet know it. She saw the man in the doorway; the dark gleam of his blue eyes, living with so much more color than any sky could muster. His hair, falling golden onto his forehead. And that suit, all black and white, and stained so fully with red. Red what? What is red?

And red was Ladd, and Ladd was red, and everything was a whirl and death was a game. And when she was finished taking him in, she saw so clearly the death on him, around him, but never inside of him. He was untouched by it, unsoiled by the death that was all around. And he was an angel, an angel of death, and she welcomed him so eagerly that he took pause. He lowered the gun.

And Ladd Russo took a second look at the young woman inside the bare room. She was willowy, and slender. Her face was blank, and yet, she smiled at him, smiled and stood to greet him. Her dress was white, all white, and he wondered what she would look like covered in blood. Her blood? No. … Maybe.

"What's your name, dollface?"

And his voice was rough and gravelly, and it took them both by surprise how well their voices fit, when she replied.

"Lua… Klein."

And her light, airy, barely-there voice fit so perfectly with his rough tones.

They were perfect together. He was perfect. And maybe, Lua thought for the first time in her life, maybe Lua could be perfect too. Perfect for Ladd.

And he introduced himself as Ladd Russo, and he told her so arrogantly that he'd killed her parents that it was a dream and a nightmare all at once, and nothing was real, and she took his hand as he led her out. Out of her perfectly woven cage of silk and towers and pale walls and gray skies.

And every day, when she woke up, he would tell her.

"Good morning, Lua. Remember, stick close and don't let anyone touch you, doll. No one but me is allowed to kill you."

Ladd wanted the splendor of destroying something so pure on his own hands. Lua was his, and no one else's, and so no one else had the right, the privilege, to kill her.

And Lua waited patiently, as patiently as she had always waited for death. And yet, it was not death whose shadow enveloped her now, but Ladd. Her Ladd. And if she could see him as he killed her that would be enough. Because, who else would she ever want to kill her, than this man she loved? Why let any other person soil her death? Why let some pitiful disease take her life? Her death was precious. It was something sacred; and so Lua lived on, for herself, and for Ladd. And she would keep living, and she wouldn't die, because Ladd was going to kill her. Only Ladd.

And yet…

Lua knew that Ladd's words had a double meaning. At least when it came to her. He said to her 'I want to kill you', but what he meant also was 'I love you'. For Ladd, the only great pleasure he'd ever known was in killing, and so he was completely oblivious to what the word 'love' truly meant. Lua could see this so easily. The joy on his face when he killed blocked from her own mind the violently terrifying act of killing itself. And Lua never looked away. She would watch Ladd, keep him close. She knew, of course, that with Ladd's obliviousness to what he was actually feeling came a consequence.

It was a sure fact that he would kill her. But she didn't mind. Not if she could see that blissful look on his face while he killed her. She could withstand, maybe even relish in the pain, if it came to that. She had been with death so long that death was not what scared her. Not her own, at least, as she would come to find.

But she had a faint inkling that Ladd might never kill her at all. That his words were completely empty. That, or even if he did begin to kill her, that he would not take pleasure in it. That he would not take joy in killing her. That surely would shock him to no end, but if something like that ever happened, Lua would be there to channel his passion down the correct track.

The voice of the stranger covered in blood seemed strange, almost siren-like to her. She couldn't resist him, because she couldn't die before Ladd killed her. She'd promised, and she would do anything to stay alive for him. So gripping the edge of the train, she could do nothing but listen. Listen to this 'Rail Tracer', the man covered from head to toe in blood. Listen as he rambled on and on about how the world revolved around him, how he couldn't imagine the world without himself in it. Lua understood how he felt, if only slightly. After being with Ladd so long, Lua wasn't sure what she would do if he were to suddenly be gone. If this 'Rail Tracer' killed Ladd… If… But Lua could get no farther. She couldn't finish the sentence. Because with no Ladd, there was no her. No purpose to her life. If he wasn't there… He couldn't dance with her, or talk in that soft velvet tone, or whine about silly, pointless things, or… Or… If there was no Ladd… Who was going to kill her?

She couldn't let him die; she couldn't let him be killed, not now. Neither of them could die before Ladd killed her. It was an oath, a promise between them… But Lua had to do this, because Ladd didn't see that this man might kill him; might kill him and then he would be gone and Lua would be alone, and no one would be there to kill her. So she didn't resist, didn't pull away from the man in blood, didn't protest when he slipped a noose around her neck.

And Lua was in ecstasy when Ladd grabbed her. And she could still recognize that loving tone in her ear, as he looked down at her in the most tender way she'd ever seen from him.

"I wish I could kill you right now…"

And that was all she needed to hear. Ladd was going to live. Her world would survive. And with it continued the promise of her death, the sweetest pain she would surely ever know.

It shocked her when the noose slid away. The knot slipped untied inexplicably. That man, that 'Rail Tracer'… He had never intended to kill her at all. But why, how…? It made no sense at all to Lua. But she couldn't complain, not if Ladd was there with her, alive and breathing. His right arm was mutilated, though. The only part of him left below the elbow was his blood-soaked bone. No indication of a hand at all. She could feel the bile rising in her throat. Violence was not something that got to her after so long with Ladd, but to see her fiancé himself the victim was almost beyond what she could bear. Everything went black for Lua.

And when he was there, and there were police all around them, and he crooned to her in that rough voice, that he would have killed her sooner, if only, if only he knew. He was apologizing, apologizing to her. Never before had that happened.

"I could still kill you right now," he whispered to her, conspiratorially.

"But, Ladd…" Lua started, voice soft and tender.

Death was sacred! She didn't want to be killed with all these strangers, these cops watching. She didn't want to be killed when Ladd himself was in so much pain. Because if he killed her now, who would take care of him? Who would make sure he didn't die?

But Ladd didn't see these things, didn't understand them, and his childish rage burst forth in angry words. Betrayed, angry, didn't she want to be killed by him? Didn't she? Wasn't that why she was here?

But then the police separated them, took Ladd away. They didn't see, didn't see what being killed meant to her! Didn't understand that she needed Ladd, that he needed her.

So they took Ladd away, and Lua was alone, and the skies were gray again. But Lua would wait. She could wait. It was what she had done all her life. She would be there, would find a way to find Ladd again. He had to be there, or she would refuse to die. It had to be Ladd, and no one else, or Lua would refuse to die.

So she watched, and waited, and she found that boy, Graham Specter, and his gang. And with them she planned, and they would go to Alcatraz and get Ladd for her, and bring her life back; bring back Ladd. And then her dreams returned, because Ladd would be back soon, soon, and things would be fine again. Fine and good, and she would be killed by Ladd, and that would be her happy ending, and no one else could say otherwise.