"Okay. Again. Je m'appelle..."

"Jer... map ell..."

"Um...No. Not even close."

Kanda rubbed his eyes, sighing heavily through his nose while I washed the laundry. I wasn't about to let him roam the streets of Montreal in disgusting, sweaty shirts and pants, and I couldn't stand the road grime on mine either. We had camped by a river to give them a good soaking and beating. So far, I'd done almost half the load.

I looked at him, amused, as he fought with the words again. Not so easy to wrestle your tongue as it is to wrestle a girl.

"Jer..."

"Try it softer. Je. Like when you say the word 'German', but not as hard. And with more of an 'uh' sound."

He gave me a bit of a glare, but he took a deep breath. Sure, he was an insufferable pain in my rear who couldn't hold a conversation with a human being, but he was a trooper.

He'd been working on this phrase since we got up this morning.

"Je..."

"Good! You got the first part down."

Kanda looked mildly surprised at me. Oh, something he'd never considered: encouragement. Because, you know, if he were an actual human being with a beating, fleshy heart he might've thought that was a good part of his curriculum.

Okay, I'm being unfair. Honestly, he'd been doing pretty well since we'd started our little journey. I was just cranky because I'd had to do a lot of stuff through the day with Kanda painstakingly butchering the French language. A sword and pithy comments does not an intellectual make. And considering Kanda talked more with gestures and grunts than actual words, his mastery of another language was... lacking.

However, he'd managed a few simple phrases, a hodgepodge of words, and he could read simple sentences, though he couldn't speak naturally yet. I'd tried immersion techniques, which had personally helped me learn. But after he'd destroyed a saddle bag, several small saplings, and a plate that had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, I decided that if we wanted to keep our things intact, we should stick to something less... intensive. We were on a phrase by phrase basis now, considering I'd figured he could mostly read French, if he squinted hard and sounded out some of the words to himself, though he tended to pronounce the letters that were supposed to be silent.

Of course, the fact he wanted to learn French was a feat in itself. I almost had to retrieve my jaw from the road when he'd asked at the beginning of the trip. When I had agreed - because, let's be honest here: do I want to disagree with a man who could chop off my limbs faster than I could say 'dismemberment'? - I also asked his reasoning behind picking up the language.

"I don't like to be left out of the loop," Kanda had grumbled, more disgruntled than usual.

Just thinking about it now, I winced at the amount of passive aggression dripping off of him. I hadn't thought he'd be the type to snip and snipe, but I was apparently wrong. He was the master of all forms of negativity.

His sour attitude might be attributed to Lavi and I speaking in French to each other when there were other people around. We were generally polite in public and didn't converse in a different language, but when we were around Kanda and Bookman, we slipped into our typical French. Sometimes I didn't even notice. It was towards the last few days together that Bookman insisted we speak English or else I'd forget how to speak it entirely. Lavi and I sort of... didn't listen, tiptoeing phrases under our breath like kids passing notes in class.

Kanda probably didn't appreciate that.

"Je m'appelle Kanda," he said, with a thick accent and no inflection, but with enough precision to be understood.

I looked up in surprise, and I clapped my soapy hands with an impressed look. He smirked at me, and he sat down on a rock nearby as I slapped one of his wet shirts on the slab of rock jutting out into the river. I held it up, noting the number of bullet holes.

"Um... what are these?" I asked skeptically, eying him through one of the holes.

His triumphant smirk fell off his face faster than pants off a sailor after ten months at sea. He frowned deeply, snatched his shirt, and he muttered, "None of your business."

"Did you get shot?!" I asked incredulously. "Are you hurt?"

"No," he said, stomping back towards the camp, and I doggedly got up and followed him.

"Okay, I want an explanation. I've been washing your shirts, and all of them either have patched holes, gashes that turned the shirt to ribbons, or tatters," I hounded, ticking off his 'offenses' on each finger as I stated them. "So, either you're almost dead, you've been dead and you didn't stay that way, or you like to take out your anger on your shirts."

He stopped in his tracks, and I almost crashed into his back. He spun on a heel, towering over me, and my stomach tied itself into a bow-line knot. I swallowed, seeing the no-nonsense look on his face. His good mood had definitely fled the country for greener pastures.

He cocked his head to the side, and answered with a smile that was more tooth than humor, "The last one. I don't like the shirts the Order gives me. I'm trying to get the message across."

With that, he headed back to camp, and I had the distinct urge to grip my throat and thank God my head was still attached to my shoulders.


"Again," he said.

"Can I take a break?" I panted, dying on the ground. At least, I felt like I was dying.

"Unless you can keep standing after I shove you, no, you can't," Kanda said, prodding my side with his sword sheath.

I stared at the sky, pinpricks of light shining through the clouds with the moon filtering through slightly, gossamer and pretty. I was almost sad I couldn't enjoy it, considering I was wheezing on the ground, holding a bruised arm.

We were practicing dodging and holding ground, two of my better techniques. I was a coward, and I was a rabbit, so fleeing and standing stock still in fear were specialties of mine. However, for the holding ground exercises, I had to be blindfolded, considering I wouldn't actually know from which way an attack was going to come, and it would be a good idea to know how to take a hit without hurting myself, or at least dig my heels in and not let my opponent knock me over.

I usually did pretty good for the first few hits. After the fifth or sixth, I started to buckle. I was on my twentieth.

Yeah, I was only a little tired.

I put the blindfold on, and I got back up. I took my stance, shaking the jitters out of my hands. It wasn't like I was about to be shoved over from a random direction by a one hundred and seventy pound man. No need to worry. As long as I could keep lying to myself, everything would be good.

I heard the sound of twigs crunching under foot, and I turned my head a little, trying to pinpoint the noise. Kanda didn't hold back in these exercises, so if he made a mistake, it was a genuine one. I leaped forward, barely missing a ramming samurai. I back pedalled as I heard him head towards me, and I frantically tried to tell where he was coming from. The whistle of air and the sound of breathing tipped me off, and I dodged backwards and to the left. A flash of wind told me I was correct in my assumption, and I panted.

Yes! Twice in a row! Doing good so far. I honestly felt a little bit proud of myself, and I waited for the next attack. My head turned to the noise of a pile of leaves skittering... just as I heard a twig break somewhere behind me. Crap... which one was the person and which was the wind?

I ran forward instead -

There was a blinding pain in my forehead, and everything spun as I landed on my back.

I lay there, a small whine issuing from my mouth. A nervous giggle escaped my chest, and I tried not to panic. God, did my brains spill out the front of my head? What happened? Surely Kanda didn't whack me in the face with Mugen. He wasn't that heartless.

I couldn't even think straight it hurt so much.

The blindfold was pulled off my face, and I stared at Kanda, who was kneeling over me. I'd say he looked a little worried, but there were two of him in front of me, so I couldn't tell.

"Tch."

"Did you hit me?" I drawled, dabbing my forehead. I yanked back, and I winced. Nope. Nope. Nope. I just had my head stitched. I'm not doing it again. Especially if he's my doctor; Kanda has the bedside manner of a hungry wolf.

"No. You ran into a tree."

"Well, that's what you get for blindfolding me."

"Hm. Not my fault you have no spatial memory."

He suddenly grabbed my hand, and I let him help me off the ground. The world spun, and I had to grip his arm to stop from tumbling face first into the stupid tree that gave me the goose egg in the first place.

"Is it bad?" I asked hesitantly, looking at him through slitted, pained eyes. Just rolling my eyes hurt. There went my major form of facial expression.

"Yes. Irreparable. You might as well put a paper bag on your head right now and save yourself the trouble," Kanda quipped, with what I thought was a small smirk.

Of course, I couldn't be sure because it was dark, I'd just rammed into a tree with enough force to shake the Earth's core, and Kanda didn't do faces.

I mean did he have any other facial expressions? Like, was he a robot with only two settings: snarky and angry?

He left me to make my way back to the camp, and I stumbled after him, trying to keep from ramming into any more vengeful plants. Perhaps this was karma for using them as target practice. I groaned as I held my head in my hands. I wasn't bleeding, but I felt like an army of dwarves were stomping around inside my skull with hobnail boots. I sat myself down on a log by the fire as Kanda pulled out a flask and poured something into a tin cup. He handed it to me, and I took it.

The minute the burning liquid hit me in the mouth, I spat it out in surprise on the fire, making it flare, and I flailed backwards away from the pillar of flame, yelping. I landed on my back, coughing and with eyes stinging.

"You handed me whiskey!" I spluttered.

He stared at me with a genuinely questioning look. So he does have other facial expressions.

"And?"

"Whiskey is - oof! - a sign of - of - of low moral character!" I stammered, trying to regain some of my dignity. I can't say I was successful. I stood unsteadily, tasting the alcohol on my tongue like a little devil playing with my heart strings.

What I wouldn't give for a drink right now. My firstborn would be in some serious danger.

"I thought it'd help with the mountain on your forehead. And maybe put you to sleep while I was at it," Kanda taunted, putting the little flask back into his saddle bag. I'd never taken him for the kind to drink, but I also hadn't figured he couldn't swim or that he liked gardening.

I'd caught him admiring the plants while on our way down the road. No one can disguise the look of fondness towards greenery, not from me. Lily got the same look on her face the minute she saw anything remotely plant-like.

"I can take care of that myself, thank you," I huffed, a little irritated.

He hadn't asked whether or not I took spirits, but then again, I couldn't expect him to infer every detail of me. Still, he could've warned me.

I sat back down with a sigh.

"You're doing a bang-up job," he retorted, drinking from a water bottle and pulling off a piece of beef jerky.

I took a small mirror out of my bag and stared at my face. I'd have a massive blue and yellow bruise by tomorrow. It'd look like a squid tried to make love to my head. I sighed to myself.

"Does it really look bad?" I asked.

He just stared at me. Yeah, it was bad.

I groaned as I prodded it gently. If I put a heated bottle on my face, it would reduce the swelling and pain, but I couldn't balance a bottle on my head all night. Deciding it was a lost cause, I put away the mirror and sighed.

The two of us went through our night time ritual, Kanda polishing Mugen into practical radiance in his tent and me... surveying the area.

"For God's sake, Maggie, there is nothing out there."

"It never hurts to check, alright!?"

I smacked the bushes with a stick, keeping an eye out on the wilderness. My gut cramped, but I ignored it, considering it was cramping an awful lot now that I was perpetually in Kanda's presence. Honestly, my stomach could detect his location to the inch, I'd been around him so much.

"Mag, stop beating the bushes and let me sleep."

"Oh, you sleep?"

I peeked through the high brush into the darkness. An owl hooted, and I ducked instinctively. My heart quickened, but I tried to keep my composure. Sighing deeply, I threw my stick into the wild to be free with its kind, and I began to walk back to the camp, semi-satisfied that I wasn't going to be eaten by a rabid wolf pack while Kanda snoozed.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose, and I looked over my shoulder. The shadows were too dark for me to see anything with definition, but I swore I saw a pair of eyes for all of a moment. I rubbed my arms and walked back to my tent. The fire was glowing in the embers, and I banked half of it with dirt. The rest would peter itself out.

"Thank God," I heard Kanda mumble as he turned over, and I resisted the urge to make a face in his direction.

"Dormez bien. Sleep well." If you sleep at all, you inhuman, sour, miserly...

"Hm."

I slid into my tent, pinned closed the door, and tucked myself in for the night.

And then my golem rang. I suppressed a groan, knowing full well that it was Vi making her daily call. I made it a point to answer any and all calls from my siblings, no matter what time of day, or location - nothing like talking about blueberry muffin recipes while slaughtering demons. I tapped the face of the golem as it fluttered.

"Mhm?"

"Hey! Just wanted to check up on you."

"You caught me at a good time. I'm in my tent. I just smacked into a tree not thirty minutes ago."

"Forehead first?"

"How did you guess?"

"Does Kanda have anything to do with it?"

"A little, yeah."

"Do I need to beat him up for you?"

I looked wistfully in his tent's general direction. Thinking of Violet attempting to take on Kanda gave me stomach cramps. It was like pitting a Yorkie against a polar bear.

"Nah, I think I can take him," I assured her.

She laughed on the other end with a giggling snort, and I rolled my eyes at the unladylike habit. Heaven help a man who can make her laugh.

We talked to each other for nearly an hour. She was in Boston with Allen, and she'd met up briefly with Lavi. The two of them had pranked Allen in spectacular fashion with caramel 'apples'. Onions were an awfully convincing substitute, at least in appearance. Allen had no idea what hit him.

"I wish I'd set up a camera, because his expression was hilarious! You should'a been there... I wish you could've seen him."

I smiled a little, staring at the golem as it fluttered in front of me. I missed Violet a lot. She was annoying, and she caused trouble, but she gave my life a little bit of light and kept things from getting too serious. Yet, there was something in her voice. I knew Vi like I knew my own name. There was a weird hollowness in the story, like she was tiptoeing around something, hoping I wouldn't notice. When she was little, she'd do that to hide the fact she got into trouble stealing again.

"So you guys are doing okay?" I pressed.

She was quiet for a minute, and I sensed tension. So it wasn't exactly Paradise on her end. I braced myself.

"I saw a guy die, yesterday."

I blinked, opening my mouth and realizing I had nothing to say. I knew that she'd eventually encounter death personally, but that didn't take any of the force out of that punch. As an Exorcist, it was unavoidable. Still, my breath caught in my chest like it didn't know where it wanted to go, and I lay on my side, propping my face in my hand.

"I'm sorry, Vi. Do you wanna talk about it?"

There was a heavy silence that plodded along like a tired heartbeat. I searched the hard ground for answers, but the Earth wasn't giving up anything today. Instead, I picked at the dirt with my fingernail as Violet sat on the other end, abruptly quiet.

I knew why she had talked about the prank first. It was the gold gilt that hid the rust.

"He just... I don't know. I mean, he was running away. Like, the Akuma weren't even after him. We were evacuating the streets, and suddenly the ground shook, and there was this building right next to us. A corner piece fell off, gigantic granite hunk of rock. Probably cuz Lavi beat an Akuma into the building. Fell right on top of him. He didn't even scream."

I chewed my bottom lip.

"He didn't even scream, Maggie. It happened that fast."

"I know, Vi. Sometimes that happens. This is a war, and people die."

"I just... I mean, it could've been any of us. Allen was standing not five feet away. Five feet separated Allen from being a piece of meat on the sidewalk. How? Just, how come some guy dies 'cause he's the unlucky john standing five feet too far to the left? I don't get it," Violet said, giggling a little towards the end, like it was a funny joke.

In a way, it was a funny joke - the world's a joke, and death is the punch line. All of us were the products of a comedian with too little imagination and too much liquor.

"You save who you can, Vi. You couldn't have done anything. Just be thankful you didn't end up a smear on the ground and keep your eyes open," I said, but even to me, it felt weak. The words bent like flimsy tin against the face of the reality.

The fact of the matter is, you stand five feet too far to the left, and you die. That's all that separates you from the Big Empty. The only consolation was that Allen had seen the souls of the Akuma leave, so there must be somewhere to go. God was kind in that respect.


"All on your lonesome?"

Sebastian looked up calmly from his rooftop spot. Lavi stood back near the doorway, and Bastian shrugged sheepishly. Unlike his more excitable twin, Sebastian tended to keep to himself.

He turned to look at the river in front of him, knees tucked to his chest.

"You just come back?" Sebastian asked.

Lavi shrugged as he walked over to the young Exorcist, and he took a seat next to him.

"Yeah, from Boston. Gotta tell you, the smell of brine doesn't wash out of clothes easy," Lavi said, seeming to vibrate even while sitting still.

The wind was chilly here. Sebastian enjoyed the crisp air, even though it made the hair on his arms and neck stand on end. He readjusted his eye patch absentmindedly, but the motion didn't escape Lavi's notice.

"How are you handling the..." Lavi motioned to the left half of his face.

Sebastian smiled a little, tousling his hair over the ruined half of his face. It was heavily scarred where they'd had to stitch the skin together. A lot of the bone was shaved off or gone, so it was a little sunken, but they'd reshaped the eye socket so that he looked more human. The patch had to be pretty big to cover it, and while he'd been rehabilitating, Maggie had joked that he and Lavi could be patch buddies.

"I keep forgetting that things are farther away than they appear. I look stupid grabbing for stuff. Eating sucks," Sebastian commented, stretching out. "How's Mag?"

Lavi went glassy-eyed, and Sebastian felt worry bubble in his stomach. The twin swallowed. He'd come to realize that when Lavi looked like that, bad news was either on its way or was already here. A plastic smile stretched on Lavi's face.

"She's fine. She fell, hit her head in the bathroom one night, but other than that, the usual. Broken ribs, broken pinkie, all that jazz," Lavi reported clinically.

"You call that fine? God, I hate to hear what 'bad' sounds like," Sebastian muttered darkly, bringing his knees up to his chest and staring back out over the water.

Lavi winced, realizing that he'd hit a sore spot. He was used to Maggie taking all the gallows' humor in stride. She herself was bad about telling terrible jokes.

"You okay?" the redhead asked.

Sebastian looked at Lavi, and his lips twitched.

"Just... miss my family. That's all," Sebastian said. "Rusty's on a trip with Lena to Greece. Vi's gone to Boston with Allen. Mag's with Kanda in Canada. And here I am. Puttering away."

He launched a pebble out towards the river, and it sailed into oblivion. Lavi tracked it with his good eye, and he pressed his lips together.

It was hard on this family to be apart. It was one of the downsides to family, really, being that close and then suddenly torn apart by duties to the Church. He honestly had no idea what they were going to do if, heaven forbid, any of them died. The Church didn't notify family members of the deaths of the Exorcists, but there was no hiding it from this bunch. It was hard on Sebastian especially. The kid and his brother were typically inseparable.

"You're not just puttering away. You need to get in shape! Keep your spirits up so you can get out there again!" Lavi shouted, giving him a friendly punch to the shoulder.

Sebastian winced as he rubbed the sore appendage, and Lavi mentally kicked himself. Those were not the right words, obviously.

"That's the problem. I'm afraid to go back out there."

Oh. Oh.

"I remember almost dying, man. I was that close. I stood on the edge, and I stared at it. I stared it down. I can't forget something like that. And I remember all I wanted..." Sebastian paused, rubbing a pebble between his fingers. "All I wanted was to curl up in Maggie's lap and have her hold me like when I was little. I wanted to do that one more time before I died."

Lavi stared at Sebastian, and his heart cracked a little at a time.

God, how was he going to tell them?

Well, he wasn't telling them today.

"The fear goes away."

"I hope it does. I don't think I can take it, going back out there again. Every time I think about picking up Innocence again and getting onto a battlefield, I just get this knotting feeling in my stomach. I can't do it. I lock up."

Lavi licked his lips and thought about his words carefully. Sebastian's life was on the line. If he didn't fight, he might become a Fallen. Innocence didn't treat traitors or cowards kindly.

"You've got to get out there again, though. You're an Exorcist. There are people who need you," Lavi stated.

It felt rehearsed, almost, but it was a truism. But how many times had he heard men say that to each other again and again, war after war? The people need you. The people need you. Go risk your life for somebody else's crusade.

Sebastian made no comment. Lavi steered the topic into less chaotic waters.

"So, you miss her. Mag."

"Like crazy. I don't think you understand it. You don't know her like we do," Sebastian muttered. He knew he was being sullen, but he needed to vent.

He'd been alone too long. There was no one to talk to here, now that everyone was gone. It was just him and the doctors and their clickity-click pens that he wanted to snap in half. There wasn't even anyone to joke with. It might be better if he could pull a nasty prank on somebody, but there wasn't anyone he was willing to alienate. He'd taken up writing as an outlet, something he wouldn't let anyone know about in a million years. Mostly, they were just memories he'd decided to write down.

Just in case.

"What do you mean, I don't know her? I practically stood on top of her for over two months," Lavi joked. "And you almost got me a lot closer to her with that lingerie stunt." He poked Sebastian in the shoulder playfully, and the kid finally cracked a real smile.

"Hey, lay your dirty paws off my older sister! She's like my mom, okay."

It was quiet for a while longer. The wind picked up a bit, whistling over the cornices.

"Sometimes, when we'd come home, she would have tried to make dinner for us, and we'd smile and eat it before feeding it to the dog, and then we'd all pile in bed, and we'd never see a hair of our actual mother. It wasn't that Mum was a bad mother. Just that she wasn't there sometimes. Maggie was. I remember she used to put us all in bed first, argue with Rose about something, and then she'd putter around the kitchen all night because she was so mad. And then she'd complain to Mom, but Mom couldn't do anything about it by then," Sebastian rattled on with a wistful smile. "And then when Mom left, Mag would be the one coming home late, but we'd still pile in with her anyways, no matter how late it got. Mag was home. Anywhere she was, was home."

Lavi stared at the kid with his messy, wavy brownish blondish hair. He shared Maggie's orange-brown eyes, but the family resemblance stopped there. He could see the same longing look his sister typically wore on his face, though.

And he understood. In the few months he'd stayed with Maggie, he knew what Sebastian was talking about. Though she wasn't a good cook, and even if she was obsessively neat and more than a little paranoid, she made you feel like you would be taken care of. It wasn't a romantically inclined feeling, either. She just immediately surrounded the people in her vicinity with the feeling that they were safe, even in the face of all evidence to the contrary. She brought out the domesticity in people.

Even Kanda. Lavi would've eaten his bandanna before betting on Kanda allowing a woman to dictate his table manners. Now, he was a (begrudging) gentleman at the dinner table.

"Do you miss the others?" Lavi asked.

"Yeah. I miss them a lot. It's so much quieter here without them, and I wish I could have all that noise back. I thought I hated it, but now I wanted nothing else. It's so quiet, I can hear piss hitting the urinal from three hallways down."

"Hey, you can always help me sort documents and read through old reports," Lavi offered.

"Um, I could hardly read with both eyes, much less one. Of course I guess it depends on the material. I'm reading through this pretty fast," Sebastian smirked, holding up a small, black book with a pink ribbon.

"What's that?" Lavi drawled with a slight, mischievous smile.

"Mmmm, Vi's diary."

"Anything good?"

"Let me tell you, she's really fascinated by someone you wouldn't have ever guessed..."


Screaming... blood... more screaming... fire, orange light, fire… shaft of wood through his heart... white face... long hair... God, what do I do what, do I do? He's dying and there's blood all over my hands and those big black eyes, but I have to keep my promise! I have to keep -

I woke up slowly, and I was sweating by the time I was fully aware of my surroundings. I sat up slowly and rubbed my arms, the chilly early morning air raising goose bumps across my skin. It took me several seconds to convince myself I was not, in fact, on a roiling battlefield full of bursting mortars trying to plug up Kanda's chest with my hands. I swallowed, regaining my bearings.

There was a tent. Here was my bag. There were my toes at the end of my blanket. My back hurt like someone had taken a mallet to it, and all my broken and not-as-broken bones squeaked in protest. Tears were pricking my eyes, but I reminded myself that, in such an event, it'd be more likely that I would be the shish kebab.

Still, it had felt real. I thought I'd seen the fear on his face as all of that blood started draining out of him.

I laid back down, deciding it wasn't worth worrying over. We had a long day tomorrow.

I stared at the ceiling of my tent for another ten minutes. Ten minutes stretched into thirty minutes. Thirty minutes yawned into an hour.

I wasn't going back to sleep. I had to check on him, just to be sure. My mind wouldn't let me rest until I did.

I quietly crept out of my tent. It was misty, giving the forest a creepy feel. I could hardly see Kanda's tent, just the mere outline of it. I shivered in the fall air, and I tugged my big, black cloak from my tent and threw it over my shoulders. The mist parted like water from a ship's prow, and I grumbled mentally to myself.

This was stupid. Honestly, why would I need to check on him? He was a full grown Exorcist, not to mention a man, and he could take care of himself. He knew how to put his boots on and tie them. He didn't need a nanny following him around, nagging him. So why was I out here at three in the morning, going to check on him like he was a five-year-old with a habit of nightmares?

I stood outside of his tent, and the mist tried to fill the spaces between my toes. I licked my lips, debating whether this was a good idea. After all, the last time I'd woken him up in the middle of the night, he'd almost decapitated me. Granted, he'd had a nightmare before that, but that didn't exclude the possibility of danger. I wanted to keep my ten fingers as long as possible.

I gently peeled back the flap of his tent, and I saw a dark swath of hair. He had his face shoved into his pillow, and he was holding on to it for dear life. He wasn't mumbling or anything, just lying there with his sword in hand. An unexplainable rush of relief went through me, knowing he wasn't impaled or missing limbs or mortally injured.

In the false light of predawn, I could see his face clearly, and I was struck for a moment by the fact that, right now, when he wasn't shouting at me or scowling, he could've been handsome. It made me wonder what kind of a person he would've been, if he hadn't been dragged into this war.

Suddenly, he woke up with a flurry of blankets, and I backed away from his tent, hands held over my head.

"What are you doing?" Kanda hissed, kicking his blankets off his legs.

"I-I-I was just, uh," I stuttered. How did I say this without sounding weird?

"Were you watching me sleep?"

"No! I was checking on you!" I stated.

He gave me a confused look, blinking and shaking his head with a slight curl of the lip.

"Why?"

I grimaced, awkwardly shrugging my shoulders. It was difficult to explain it in such a way that I'd seem like a rational human being. Yeah, so I had a nightmare, and I was afraid that maybe you might be dead even though that's not remotely even possible because you're some kind of automaton and I thought maybe I should make sure you actually were still breathing. Yes, that sounded plausible.

"Just... wanted to make sure you were okay," I said slowly, realizing that it actually was the truth.

Sure, he wasn't my favorite person, but I did care about his welfare. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have dreamed of him dying.

In any case, it didn't look like the thought had ever crossed his mind that somebody else might want to know he was still okay.

"Whatever," he shook off, crawling out of his tent. He looked up at the sky, and he sniffed.

"It's daylight anyhow. We should get going," Kanda ordered, and I tried not to groan.

I failed.

"It's three in the morning," I whined. "I barely slept four hours."

"The Akuma don't care how long you nap, Sleeping Beauty."

Like I hadn't heard that for the past few days. The demons don't care you need to bathe. The demons don't care if you're ready or not. The demons aren't going to wait for you to lace up your boots and get ready to fight. The demons aren't going to play checkers while you do your warm-up. Next, he'll be telling me that the demons won't wait for me to finish having a nice tinkle in the woods.

Nevertheless, we saddled up for the day, and we started following the country road. Kanda was on point, both for direction's sake and because he was impatient to be on the move, and I followed behind.

Now, I know I don't have to tell you that Kanda is not exactly the paragon of conversational excellence. He has the communication skills of a teapot. I could have a more meaningful correspondence with a potted plant than with him.

But what I do know about Kanda, is that his language is almost completely nonverbal. I'd learned to read his body the way a sailor reads the water. I had no choice - if I wanted to make it through my training in one piece, I'd better get to know the lingo, and as a translator, I understood that body language was just as important as what came out of your mouth. In Kanda's case, it was more important. Everything he said was gesticulation.

He was taut as a bowstring. I wasn't sure if that was because he'd had a nightmare when I'd woken him up, or if he was recovering from his sudden bout of being loved on (I don't think he's ever been mothered before). What I did know was that he was a little off today, and I had better keep out of his way.

That wasn't hard. My horse did all the walking, and I was nodding off.

"Hey, you."

I sat up, trying to at least appear awake. I screwed my eyes shut, though, as I stretched out and yawned.

"Yeah?" I gaped, rubbing my face. Sheesh, how long was I asleep?

Kanda gave me a disdainful look that said "were you just sleeping?" And then, he shrugged it off with an annoyed readjustment of his jacket.

"Nothing," he said. His neck and back, however, shouted, Everything.

"You sure? What is it?" I asked, noticing how his eyes were crinkling at the edges as his gaze shifted around the forest.

I followed his gaze, but all I saw was open road and lots of trees. Now and again, there was farmland, the occasional cow, a picturesque pond with a few ducks, and lots and lots of fence posts. I hadn't been paying attention, though, because I'd been, well, snoozing. It was overcast, and I suddenly worried about the weather. I could feel it in my hair - it was going to storm sometime this week. The frizz didn't lie.

But I couldn't see what he saw. Something about this scene struck him as being wrong, which was pretty important. I could see it in how he was gripping the reins of his horse, both legs taut in the stirrups despite the easy walk we were going at.

"I... thought I saw something. It's nothing," he said.

But those hands screamed, Something's going on.

And then, my gut clenched on itself, either in response to his nervousness, or because something was about to happen. I suddenly wished that my gut sense could be just a little more specific.

I ran my tongue over my teeth, my right hand twisting the metal bracelet on my left wrist. Though I wouldn't trust him to catch me if I feel off a roof, I did trust his battle judgement. If there was anyone who could smell trouble, it was him.

Unfortunately, he tended to go towards it, rather than away from it.

But for now, things were quiet. I hoped that it would stay that way.


A/N: Another day, another chapter. I'm back! This is a little bit of a filler chapter, but I thought you'd want to know some things from another person's perspective. I thought I'd try something different. Frequently, I find that people tend to forget that there's a war going on in DGM, albeit a fantastical war, and some of the more human aspects of it get left out. So here's a little bit from the point of view of someone unfamiliar with warfare.

Lots and lots and lots of love to my beta, karina001, who also faithfully reviewed! I love it that you leave me reviews, even though you've already done so much for the story. They really help me keep going.

Same goes to my Guest who left a review! I'm so happy to see that you enjoyed the story enough to tell me! That's all I really ever need to know, is that someone likes the story enough to continue it and want to see more of it. Don't worry too much about the content, just say what's on your mind.

But, in case there's not a whole lot on the noggin, here are some jump-start topics: Do you think the tone of the story has become more serious? More comical? Do you think the war is being portrayed realistically, both in terms of fighting and emotional burden? Are canon characters in character, or have they derailed a little bit? Do you enjoy the canon characters? Would you like to see any more of Maggie's family or their point of view? Is the pacing of the story good, or is it going too slow? What relationships in this story so far are your favorite (parental, platonic, or otherwise)?

Anywho, that's all for now. God bless you, and keep reading!