Lavi sat quietly, trying very hard not to feel, but after a moment he realized, to his consternation, that he really couldn't. His head seemed to be full of air, and his legs weren't registering the wooden floor beneath them. He didn't even know that Lenalee had hold of his hand until she squeezed it. "Lavi?" she whispered.
He was scaring her. He shook himself internally. "I'm fine," he said. "I'll be fine." He wouldn't, though, and unfortunately she knew it.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, and when he looked, he saw her eyes were filled with tears. "It's my fault."
"Of course not," he said. "It's not at all your fault."
"But…"
He put his finger on her upper lip. "No. Don't start. It's not."
There was a loud shout from Komui's office, and they both turned to look. "Crap!" Lavi whispered.
Lenalee winced.
"Wonder what that's about?" Lavi said softly.
"Probably that girl," Chaoji said.
"Maybe," Lavi said, although he doubted it. Road Campbell was well known to be a loose cannon.
There was a crash and more shouting.
"I don't think that's about Road," Fou said.
"What's it about then?" asked Link.
"I have no idea," Lavi said. "Damn!" The next crash involved broken glass. "Wonder what that was?"
"I don't know," Lenalee said, glancing over at her brother, who sat rigid in his chair. "I think that's the worst I've ever heard."
In a way, Lavi was grateful for it because it took everyone's attention away from himself, including his own. On the other hand, it sounded like murder was being committed in there.
Why? Allen had done better in China. There was no need, even by Rouvellier's standards, for this kind of violence.
It reached a crescendo of banging, clattering, shouting, a door slamming, and then nothing for a while.
"Is he dead?" Fou asked quietly.
Rouvellier came into the room, looking decidedly out of sorts. "Howard Link!"
Link got to his feet, his face grim.
Lavi winced on Link's behalf.
"Where's Allen?" Lenalee whispered.
"I don't know." Lavi was starting to wonder if Rouvellier had thrown the kid's corpse out a window when Allen came into the room, looking, of all things, a little smug, although not unharmed. His left cheek was red.
"What happened?" Lavi asked.
Everyone watched as Allen sat down beside them. "He was after Cross," he said, a little louder than was necessary, but everyone looked like they wanted to ask the same question.
"Where is Cross?" Fou asked.
"I have no idea," Allen said with what seemed to be genuine satisfaction. "That's why he's so upset. How about you?" he asked Lavi. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah," Lavi said, no longer feeling guilty for his gratitude. "Tyki's going to kick my arse, but I'm all right. I'll figure something out. Don't worry," he said to Lenalee. "I'm not going to do anything stupid. I promise."
"I'm sorry I broke my foot," she said, but she was no longer quite as angry at herself.
"Don't be stupid," he said, "that was my fault. I should have made Komui let us do that song before you strained it in the first place. And anyway, next time you'll have a chance. I was only holding you back."
"No, you weren't," she said, surprised. "I was holding you back. Rouvellier said so."
Lavi felt sick, but he should have known that Rouvellier would play them off each other. "That's what he told me," Lavi said. "He told me I was holding you back."
"Oh," Lenalee said, wiping at her face. "Of course he did. What else would he say? Oh, this is…this is…it's Rouvellier, of course he did. I shouldn't have listened. I'm sorry."
"I shouldn't have, either," Lavi said, wondering what had just happened. Why had they believed the man? Why hadn't they talked about it sooner? Had they been in the Order for so long that they'd forgotten how to trust?
Was that what was screwing them up onstage? That they couldn't really trust each other? Had the nature of life in the Order set them up to fail? Lavi blinked and swallowed hard.
"Allen, what happened?" Lenalee asked, touching Allen's face. "It looks like he hit you."
"It's nothing," Allen said. "Just a slap. It's not going to leave a mark."
Still, Lavi thought, it was rare for Rouvellier to strike anyone physically. He didn't need to. A word from him in the wrong place could do a lot more damage than a blow, and everyone who dealt with him knew it. A lot of things were happening that day that didn't make any sense.
Link came back looking shaken, and he nodded at Kanda to go in. Kanda, of course, did not come back at all. Instead, Rouvellier came out in search of Fou. Lenalee looked at Lavi, whose hand she was still holding. "I'm sorry. I have to go see how Kanda is."
"It's no..." Lavi began, although he didn't mean it.
"I'll go," Allen said, shifting his weight to stand.
"Allen!" Lenalee said. "You can't."
"Why not?"
"It's the girls' locker room!"
"Are there any girls in it right now?"
"Well, no."
"All right then," Allen said, as if that settled it.
"He doesn't like you," Lenalee said.
"Does he like anyone? Including you?"
"No," she said. "Not really."
"The idea is to just sit with him, right?" Allen said. "I don't have to talk to him or hug him or anything, do I?"
Lavi blinked, but Allen didn't like Kanda, either. It seemed like an odd thing to do for someone who wasn't a friend.
"No," she said. "You just sit. That's what I do, anyway."
"Then I'll go." Allen got to his feet. "You stay with Lavi. Kanda will understand."
"No, he won't," Lenalee whispered as Allen left, but she was giggling, and Lavi felt himself grinning a few seconds before a stream of invective ending in "bean sprout" came from the hallway.
"Oh, do shut up, BaKanda!" they heard in Allen's clipped tones. "A man can't hear himself think with you yammering on like that."
"What the fuck makes you think you're a man?"
"Bloke then."
"Bloke. What the fuck kind of word is that?"
"Pick whatever substitute you like: chap, fellow, gent..."
"Jesus fucking Christ!" There was a clang, as if something had hit a locker. "Nobody butchers their own language like the English." But there was no sound after that and, to Lavi's surprise, no sign of either Allen or Kanda.
"He didn't understand," Lavi said, but he was laughing quietly.
"It worked, though," Lenalee said. She was still giggling, and the whole room was filled with quiet bursts of laughter.
"Yeah, it did." Lavi was grateful, because although it would have been all right to have Allen stay with him, he much preferred Lenalee. He wanted to spend time with her while he still could.
Komui was called in last, and he came out looking, for the first time since Lavi had known him, dangerous. "Mei mei, get your things," he said. "We're going. Reever, you handle rehearsal."
"Right," Reever said, frowning, but Komui was clearly in no mood to answer questions.
Lenalee squeezed Lavi's hand. "I'll call you!"
"Thanks."
They were partway through warming up again when Kanda came out, looking irritated, but no more so than normal. Allen followed, smiling as if nothing unusual had happened at all.
The day wasn't over with rehearsal, though, and as he walked home, Lavi pulled out his mobile, scrolling through until he found a number he rarely called.
"Lavi?"
"Hi gramps," Lavi said, feeling the same hopelessness he always did when he spoke to his grandfather.
"What's happening? What's wrong?"
"Lenalee broke her foot, so I'm dancing solo in Paris. You might want to make plans."
"Can't you win?"
Lavi would have sighed if there hadn't been so much at stake. As it was, he thought he was going to crush his phone in his hand. "No, gramps, I can't. Not against Timothy Campbell."
"Maybe you need to practice harder."
"What I need," Lavi said through gritted teeth, "is to have had dance lessons from birth until now. Then, provided I have the same raw talent he has, I might have a chance."
"Lavi, our survival depends on this. You have to win."
"I can't," Lavi said.
"You must."
"Would I call you if I could? I'm trying to give you as much warning as I can. That's the best I can do."
"I can't just pack up and leave. Where am I to go?"
Lavi's grandfather was an assistant librarian, a bookish man hidden among books. That it was so dependent on Lavi's dancing was nobody's fault but his own and Lavi knew it, yet he still felt responsible, and guilty. "I don't know, but at best, you have until the end of the year. At worst, you have until Paris, and Rouvellier hasn't been in a good mood lately."
"Maybe you can do something else for him."
Like what? Lavi thought. The only thing Rouvellier seemed to want that badly was the location of Marian Cross, and if Allen didn't know, nobody would. "If there was something I could do, I'd be doing it," Lavi said. "I'm warning you because that's all I can do."
After he hung up, he looked at the spire of the church attached to his school. He'd started walking back to the dorm on instinct, because he had two papers due the following week and needed time to work on them. Lavi didn't like school any more than anyone else did, but he liked research, which made education itself less onerous for him. He'd been looking forward to spending time digging around for a different angle on subjects he knew had been done to death, but now there didn't seem to be much point. He wasn't going to be around long enough to graduate, and where he was going, he wouldn't need to anyway.
He stopped on the street, suddenly aware of the flow and babble of people around him, people who had normal lives and expectations. There was a snatch of conversation about someone's boss, someone complaining about how their baby kept them awake all night, someone giggling about a friend's crush on a boy in their class, someone shouting for the attention of someone across the street. He tried to imagine himself talking to any of them, about who he was or where he was from or what he did, and he couldn't. Nothing about his life would make sense to them, and their lives wouldn't make sense to him.
It was why he couldn't imagine himself running. If he left now, he might be able to get somewhere that wouldn't bother extraditing him, but then what? What would he do? How would he integrate himself into a world he hadn't been part of for so long?
He'd promised Lenalee he wouldn't do anything stupid, and he meant it, but he understood Daisya completely. If he didn't win, he was nothing, and he couldn't win.
It might not have been so bad if he felt good about any of it, but he didn't. It wasn't worth it. None of it was.