Thanks very much to Karina for commenting, though I can't say much for the remaining four of you. Anyhow, the first part of this story has finished (though the word count is about a third of the total.) Read, enjoy (if possible), and please review. And again, if anyone's got a character, ship, or headcanon they desperately want acknowledged, PM me. I won't guarantee I can include it, but any ideas are good story fuel.

Daisya's world was still dark.

But now he was in a bed.

A nice bed, even if it did smell like soap. Everything smelled like soap.

He opened his eyes, and winced at the light. It took a few moments before he could even see what was in the room. Well, it wasn't really a room. Two of its walls were suspiciously yellowing curtains.

The old man was standing there, in the corner, with some other lady in a nurse's outfit. She was saying something in a low voice, but the old man politely put a finger to his lips. Damn. He'd have liked to hear the rest of that, though she was probably speaking in German or something. A few scars would be awesome, but if it was anything more than that it would get really inconvenient.

And he remembered the pain.

"Ah, Daiysa, it looks like you've finally woken up."

The old man smiled at him, and he shrugged, putting a hand to the back of his skull. He was pretty sure — yep, most of his hair had burned off. It would take a while to grow it back.

"Yup. How long was I out?"

"Not too long. You slept through the night well enough, and I believe it's around noon."

The old man was pretty good, so Daisya couldn't tell if he was lying or not. He probably was.

"I haven't looked at a clock in a while, and I do believe I left my watch with Kanda and Marie."

It was all he could do not to wince in recollection. Maybe, if he was really lucky, Kanda would wait 'til he was all healed before kicking him into oblivion.

"But all that aside," the old man finished, "How are you feeling?"

The sentence jolted Daisya's mind off of one track, and back on to the physical rails. He screwed up his face briefly, trying to analyze the input from his nerves. Best not to say too much about what happened, until he found out if Kanda had actually done what he'd told him to.

Not much chance, but eh, who knows? Sometimes you can get lucky.

"Pretty good. I'm a bit tired. Feels like I got a really bad sunburn."

Tiedoll couldn't help but chuckle at his apprentice's understatement. Daisya's injuries were some of the uglier burns he'd seen - they weren't so bad as a broken limb, but they would leave a mark. Hopefully not too much of one.

But exorcists didn't really have love lives, anyway. A disfigurement would just give Daisya credibility.

"Yes, that could be a good analogy. Kanda said that you got hit by a ceiling joist when he was carrying you out, so that would probably be the cause of most of your blistering. And apparently the cuts are from flying glass."

So Kanda did lie. Now that was interesting.

"I must say," the old man continued, "I can't leave the two of you alone for more than a few minutes without you getting into some sort of trouble."

Daisya wasn't an expert, but the old man seemed to be hiding something. Whatever it was disappeared from his face when the nurse stepped up beside him, wiping her reddened hands on a cloth. Everything in this hospital seemed to be a bit worn - the sheets were threadbare, the wood was nearly grey, and the nurse's eyes looked to be short of a few nights' sleep.

"You should be glad there is no infection yet," she said choppily, "Otherwise you would be in lots of trouble."

A glare signalled that Daisya would also be in lots of trouble if he tried arguing, so he nodded. Nurses, he'd found out on various occasions, were not to be messed with. Not only did they have to deal with the doctors and the patients, they had to clean up the hospitals and work the worst hours. If you wanted a hospital's worth of people dead or diseased, just give the nurses a day off. They'd be glad of it.

He watched as the nurse muttered something in a different language to Tiedoll, and swept off. She obviously didn't approve of whatever got him there, in the first place.

Speaking of which, it was pretty weird what he was feeling. Which was basically nothing. The pain last night - if it was last night - had made him want to faint. Now he just felt fine.

"So, when are we leaving?" he asked, turning back, "The most important member of the team's awake, now. It'll get boring if we stay."

His natural support of selfish pride deflated slightly when he saw the old man's expression.

Actually, now that his eyes had grown used to the light, the room looked darker than it should be.

"Aw," he whined, drawing out the syllables,"Don't tell me we'll have to say here. We've got to get to the finders, right?"

The old man shook his head slightly, and tapped the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up his face. He avoided looking up. It was never a good side when adults were scared to look at you.

"Well," he said carefully, "The problem is…we do have to get there as soon as possible. Even staying here now is wasting time. But the type of burns you have really should have a few weeks to heal. The scarring can be permanent."

In the moment, the scene was incongruous. The old man, standing at the end of the bed as if at an audience, and the child staring, as always, with the iron self-centredness found in both sociopaths and a certain type of military general. The window, carefully positioned to throw light on the patient, added to the air of a court.

Daisya started to retort, to say that there was no way in hell he was staying here while Kanda got to go. Not in a million years.

But then he stopped, realizing what the old man had said, and grinned.

"That's it? Just scars?"

Daisya laughed.

"No way that's going to keep me here."

The old man's gaze took on the tones of a glare. Geez, he must have been worried if he was this nasty about it. They all had stuff to get to, so why waste time? He had to ask Kanda about why he lied. And about Alma. About a lot of things, actually, and the old man was fretting about this.

"It's not just–"

Daisya waved a hand, brushing the argument aside.

"Yeah, will I die?"

He didn't give the old man a chance to answer.

"No, but I'll be bored as he– as anything here."

...

Also I didn't save Kanda's ass so he could go traipsing off without me, he added in the privacy of his own mind. And Marie should be grateful to me, so he shouldn't go either. And you shouldn't go without me. I'm your student.

I'm not going to get stuck waiting in some boring old town.

You shouldn't go.

You're not going to leave.

Don't do it.

Don't leave me here.

Not again.

Unconsciously, his fingers had curled into fists.

...

The old man held his stare for a few moments, then sighed.

"You should stay."

"Yeah, probably."

There was another sigh.

"Very well."

The old man turned to the nurse, and bowed slightly, out of habit as well as courtesy.

"Nurse," he said in German, "I'm afraid I have to request the patient be discharged. There is a matter we have to attend to."

…

Kanda watched the trains go by, rattling along the tracks. The look on his face was bored, almost blank, contrasting with his typical sullenness.

"What time is it?" he asked, rattling off the words almost robotically. The clock tower was out of sight, after all.

"Eleven fifty-six."

Marie listened to the clangs of steel on steel and the whistling of steam. Then the squealing of metal without enough grease.

"Tiedoll'd better come back soon. That bastard's gonna waste too much time."

Marie looked shocked, as much as was possible behind his glasses.

"Kanda–!"

Kanda shook his head.

"Daisya, I mean."

Had he been able to see, a splash of colour would have caught Marie's eye. As normal, Kanda was fidgeting.

Not quite as normal, his fingernails bit into his skin hard enough to draw blood.

"He's wasted too much of our time."

Kanda's words were without emotion. Had they been spoken though gritted teeth, Marie would have felt far more at ease.

"It has been days since we left — a few hours can't make too much difference," he said comfortingly, "Anyway, the General said we should leave as soon as he wakes up — we don't have to bring him along."

"Still."

Something else seemed to be on Kanda's mind. The fire had probably upset him, linking back to the wretched childhood Marie had only glimpsed.

"Don't worry. We'll be in time."

…

Well, the bandages would take some getting used to, but Daisya thought he was pretty lucky overall. No broken bones, no nothing. Sure he was hyped up on some drug they said came from opium, but the old man said the nurse gave them enough to get them through a week or so. Anyway, everyone knew that opium gave you good dreams. All you had to do was keep moving.

And that wouldn't be a problem because geez, was the old man was in a hurry. What was the occasion?

Well, probably some more dead finders, but that was their job.

I mean, it's never nice to die, but some people just do. A few hours don't make any difference.

Oh, well. The old man probably thinks it does.

Daisya skipped on one foot, and broke into a run to keep up. The train station was just a few minutes away.