A/N: Today was a long, hard day. Hopefully you guys are doing better than I am. Enjoy the latest chapter.

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Lenalee taking Kanda's side didn't piss Allen off as much as he thought it would. And she definitely had a point with that whole trust thing. Not that he would ever admit to that out loud. So long as he kept thoughts like that to himself, he could continue to live in denial.

Allen didn't react to the comment and returned to scowling petulantly at her, so Lenalee continued to talk. "I don't know that you know this, but Kanda once told me that out of everyone at the Order, he considers you to be his best friend. Not Lavi, you. Granted, he complained and swore the entire time he said it, but he definitely meant it. He's cared about you for a while now, and I know you know that. After all, there's a war going on, and he's sworn his loyalty to you and your side."

Allen had been doing his best to not react to what Lenalee was telling him, something that was quite hard to do given that she was telling him that Kanda had cared for him long before he'd gotten pregnant, but that last bit was too much. Lenalee wasn't supposed to know that he and Kanda had joined Neah's side of the war - that was a secret that only Komui and General Teidoll had been let in on - yet she somehow also knew that Kanda had only changed sides to support him. It was something Allen had forgotten about in the chaos of learning he was pregnant, but now it was something he couldn't stop thinking about, and it conflicted with the bitterness and frustration he was feeling towards the samurai for knocking him up and forcing him to keep the baby.

Lenalee almost laughed at how Allen's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head. The reaction was comical, but she was more relieved that he actually seemed to have heard what she'd said for a change; she was getting through to him. "I know I'm not supposed to know about that, but you can't really be surprised that Komui told me; he's incapable of keeping secrets from me. ...Anyway. Back on topic. Kanda's feelings for you are genuine, and you should not only let him love you, you should love him back."

When Allen glared sullenly at her for that suggestion - a look that she was not going to tell him he had picked up from his husband - Lenalee gently clasped his hands and proposed a compromise. "Look, just give it a month. One month. That's all I'm asking for. I know you think you want an abortion and a divorce, but just try being committed to your marriage for one month. I'm telling you, before the month's over, you'll not only be happier than you've ever been, but you'll be excited for your baby too."

Allen frowned in thought. That was a much more reasonable request than he'd been expecting from Lenalee, but he had one major problem with it. And it had nothing to do with his mixed up feelings. "That means having sex with him, doesn't it?"

"Obviously." Allen's reluctance to sleep with his husband was adorable. Lenalee was about to laugh at his pouting, but then a very different thought occurred to her. "Wait. If you two haven't had sex, how are you pregnant?"

Allen shrugged nonchalantly, trying to act like there wasn't something to tell so that Lenalee wouldn't pester him for the full story; though, with the way this conversation was going, she probably wasn't going to fall for it. "We were drugged."

Lenalee squeezed his hands tighter at the lack of information in that statement. The mention of drugs only made her more concerned about her friends - if such a thing were even possible. "How is that an answer?"

Allen scowled and pulled his hands from hers, finally having had enough of her mother hen side. "The sex wasn't consensual. We were forced into sleeping together, and that's when I got pregnant."

That was something that Lenalee wished she'd been told weeks ago, back when it happened, but now was not the time to lay into Allen for hiding things from her; that particular lecture could wait until he wasn't quite so irate. "Well, that certainly explains why you're so pissed off."

Allen snorted at that; it was definitely an understatement to say that he was pissed off, and the nonconsensual sex was far from the only thing about this that was pissing him off. "We found an Innocence fragment on our last mission together. It bonded to the baby. Which is yet another reason why I can't abort it."

"And another completely valid reason why you're pissed." Lenalee was horrified by the news that Allen's unborn baby was already an accommodator, but reliving her past traumas wasn't going to help either one of them, so she stayed focused on the subject at hand. "But I stand by what I said earlier. Kanda is your ally in this, not your enemy. You figured out how to be his friend back when you were on the run together. Now you just need to figure out how to love him."

Allen was both disappointed and angry that Lenalee hadn't fallen for his attempt to change the subject. "You're really not going to let me out of this, are you?"

"Nope." Lenalee laughed at the way his face fell. She threw her arm around his shoulders and tried to cheer him up. "It's not like you have to do anything hard, Allen. Return his kisses. Use his first name. Go to him when you need someone to talk to. He's already admitted to loving you. You have nothing to be afraid of."

He just continued to frown, so Lenalee changed tactics. "Just promise me that you'll try, Allen."

Allen sighed in resignation at the determination on her face; it was at times like this that it was painfully obvious that Lenalee was related to Komui. "One month?"

"Thirty days. Starting the first day you see him after we get home." They still had several days of their mission left after all, and there was no way of knowing if Kanda would even be at headquarters when they got home, and that was a loophole that Lenalee was not about to let Allen exploit.

Allen grit his teeth as he spat out his response. "Fine."

The dejected way Allen ground out the word was amusing, but Lenalee wasn't going to let him off that easily. "I want to hear you say the actual words."

Confused as to what the 'actual words' were, Allen frowned and said something he hoped would satisfy her. "I promise that I will try to act like I actually want to be married to that bas- ..." Nope, calling Kanda names was not going to be acceptable to Lenalee. "To Kanda."

"Good boy." Lenalee smiled and tousled his hair, making him pout even more. Then she smiled brightly and abruptly changed the subject. "Now, tell me about your baby."

Allen groaned in annoyance, but this was a - mildly - better topic than his marriage. "I'm only seven weeks in, Lena. There's not much to tell yet. I've got some pretty bad morning sickness, but the baby is perfectly healthy anyway."

Lenalee frowned at the bitterness in his voice. "Ok, new rule. When you're around Kanda, you also have to pretend that you want your baby."

"You can't just add on rules after the fact." Allen scowled angrily at her. "Besides, he's already made me promise that I won't lie to him about my pregnancy. And I'm pretty sure that trumps you wanting me to lie to him."

There was no need to tell her that that promise had already expired, not when he was so certain that that portion of their earlier truce was something that Kanda was going to try to continue to enforce. Besides, if there was one thing that Allen knew about Kanda, it was that the man could somehow always tell when he was lying about his feelings. If he valued his life at all, he was not going to make a promise that required him to lie to the samurai's face, especially one that required him to lie about the man's child.

Lenalee sighed and conceded. "That's a fair point. You really should be being honest with him. But could you at least try being less hostile when you talk about the baby? You're never going to learn to love it if you're constantly telling everyone how much you hate it."

"Why not? It worked for Kanda." The comment had been sarcastic, but when Lenalee didn't get it, Allen found himself explaining, and in doing so, he discovered that he had an actual argument against what she had just told him. "For years, he's been telling everyone that he hates me, but now he's apparently madly in love with me. If he can do it that way, why can't I?"

That logic momentarily rendered Lenalee speechless, but she quickly came up with a retort. "Because you were willfully antagonizing him and deserved a lot of the bad things he was saying about you. Besides, I don't like it when you talk about your baby that way, and if you want my help with your pregnancy symptoms, the shopping for baby stuff, babysitting, any of it, you're going to have to knock it off. Got it?"

The thought of being pregnant without Lenalee's support was terrifying. Not only was she his best friend, but she was also female, and therefore would know much more about pregnancy than he did. Doing this without her help was not an option. "Fine. I'll do my best to be civil towards the baby... when I'm in public or around you. But I'm not going to lie to Kanda, and I'm going to be as sour as I want to be when I'm alone. And if you start pestering me about things I don't want to talk about, you can forget the whole thing. Understood?"

.x.x.

A week later, the novelty of discovering that Allen was pregnant with Kanda's child had worn off, and several things were even clearer to Lenalee than they were before. She had examined all of Allen and Kanda's previous interactions with each other, and she was now positive that they had been falling in love with each other since they first met. She wouldn't get the confirmation of her theories until she talked to Neah a couple months later, but for now, the evidence she had gathered from her own memories was enough.

It had been four days since they had returned from their mission, which meant that Allen was four days into his promise to commit himself to his marriage, and she wanted to find out how things were going between the two of them. But she knew she shouldn't ask about it directly, or Allen would flip out at her for trying to keep tabs on him, which meant that she would have to be discreet about it. And in this case, that meant asking about something that Allen would never suspect her to ask about.

It was easy to get him alone, since he was understandably going out of his way to avoid being around people, and then all Lenalee had to do was ask her question. "How's the sex going?"

For a moment, Allen just stared at her with his eyes bugging out of his head, but then he scowled, crossing his arms over his chest in a gesture he hoped conveyed just how much he wanted to be left alone. "I wouldn't know. Now leave me alone."

The dismissal was quite puzzling to Lenalee. Allen had clearly meant that he hadn't slept with Kanda yet, and that was something that she found rather strange. After all, she was certain that Allen had been attracted to Kanda for years, and it was unthinkable to her that he wasn't sleeping with him now that they were married. "Unless I'm mistaken, you'd have done almost anything to have sex with Kanda just six months ago. So what changed? Why aren't you jumping at the chance to sleep with him now?"

Allen just snorted and blew off the question. He was in no mood to have her pry into his private life today. "I've already had sex with him, Lenalee. I'm pregnant, remember?"

While he'd meant for his hostility to scare her off, the simple statement actually told Lenalee quite a few of the details she had been missing. Namely, it told her that despite being drugged, Allen remembered the actual act of having sex with Kanda. And that combined with his hostility told her that he hadn't enjoyed the sex and had classified it as something he never wanted to do again. And that was just sad. "You do realize that sex now is going to be completely different from what it was like when you were drugged, right?"

As expected, Allen merely glared at her and didn't even try to answer the question. Some days his stubborn streak was endearing, but today was not one of them. Lenalee let out an exasperated sigh and debated giving in for now, but her inner romantic won out; Allen and Kanda belonged together, with their child, and she was going to do everything in her power to make Allen see that. "How many times did Kanda kiss you that night?"

It was such a random and unexpected question that it caught Allen off guard. His curiosity was piqued, and he found himself thinking back over that night. If he wanted to know where she was going with this, he'd have to give her an honest answer. "Depends on how you count it, but if you're asking what I think you're asking, once."

The number was lower than Lenalee anticipated, but it was still along the lines of what she was expecting to hear. "And how many times has he kissed you since you got married?"

"I don't know." His answer was intentionally glib, as the question had made him think that Lenalee was prying rather than making a point, but the stern look she was giving him made him feel like he had no choice but to elaborate. "He always kisses me before bed and first thing in the morning, so at least two dozen times. Probably more than that."

Lenalee nodded knowingly, trying to mask her surprise. While she was right in suspecting that Kanda was an affectionate husband, she had never dreamed that he would be that romantic. But she needed to stay on topic. "And knowing that, how many times is he going to kiss you when you finally let him sleep with you for real?"

Allen's face briefly lit up in understanding, but then it faded into a confused expression that made him look like a lost little kid. And that was when Lenalee remembered that he had been unconscious for days and spent a week in the infirmary following that mission. It wasn't just being intimate with Kanda that he was scared of. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she tried to be gentle as she set him straight. "Sex isn't supposed to hurt, Allen. It's supposed to make you feel good. You're not going to end up in the infirmary again, and if you do, I'll beat the shit out of him for you, ok?"