"I know, with absolute certainty, that the Noah that resided within Allen Walker is gone. I swear on the sister I love, the Order I serve, and the God you and I believe in."

Komui's voice was ragged and scratchy as it echoed throughout the room, but audible. The golemn that had faithfully recorded his words-because the procedure had been dangerous, and Komui had only had a minute to give his report and reassure his sister that he would be okay before passing out-shuddered a little, before cutting off. The silence it left behind was heavy, weighted with words unsaid and bated breath. No one dared break it, for fear of that weight coming down on them.

They were probably just realizing that they had spent five useless days accusing a loyal teenage soldier of treason. At least, that was what Lenalee hoped.

And then sound entered the room, and it was the form of the shaky gasp of air Allen took as he slid from his wheelchair to the floor.

It was as though a spell had been broken in the room. Lenalee lept to her feet and let out an undignified whoop, completely ignoring the fact that Allen was having a heart attack. She picked him up from the floor, smacked a kiss onto his clammy forehead, and then dropped him. He stared up at her, stunned, single grey eye wide and uncomprehending. Then she ran from the room, so fast that no one could follow her with their eyes.

The Interrogators glanced at each other uncertainly, because they hadn't actually said that Allen was innocent. But it was rather moot point, because the boy they were trying to question was lying in a crumpled heap on the floor, trembling and heaving air like he was trying to remember how to breathe.

And-well, Allen sort of was. The relief was suffocating, and the disbelief was overpowering. He'd honestly expected for Nea to still be there, waiting for another chance to eat at his mind. Allen Walker was not a lucky person, nor had he ever been; happy endings happened to other people, normal people. Did-did this mean he has a future? Did this mean he was free to leave the Order, free to travel the world like he really wanted to?

What...what was he supposed to do? Where did he go from here?

And then a person knelt down in front of him, taking his pale hands in her own dark ones. It was Mara, the smart woman, the one that the others had listened to. She smiled at him very gently, and then lifted her arms slightly. It took him an embarrassingly long moment to realize that she was trying to help him up.

"Thank you." Allen whispered, and allowed himself to be pulled upright. And then, surprisingly enough, Mara backed him up until his knees knocked into his wheelchair. He sat down with the thump, still too in shock to realize what was going on.

Then she took the handles of his wheelchair, and pushes him out the door.

Allen's manners seized control of his disorganized brain functions, drawing him briefly from his stupor. "Oh no, please." He almost pleaded. "Don't worry about it, I can-"

"Allen Walker," Mara said, in the same pleasant, firm tone that made the others shrivel up and obey during questioning. It was no less effective on Allen. "I have just spent the last five days accusing a child of being a traitor. Let me help you to your room."

Allen subsided, and decided that he would let her.

After several seconds of awkward silence, in which the only sound was the soft squeaking of the wheels, Allen couldn't help but tentatively ask, "Does...this mean I'm not going to be locked up?"

Mara's laugh was big, booming, and completely unexpected. He nearly fell out of his chair, heart pounding, for one insane moment wondering if this had all been an elaborate joke that he didn't know the punchline for. Then she said, still chuckling, "Yes Walker, you are free."

And that, once more, gave him pause.

Because...was he free? He didn't even know what that meant.

First he had been a child of the circus, and he'd desperately wished to leave, but the chains of hunger had kept him from straying too far. And then he'd been Mana's child, but that hadn't really been freedom, because his faux-father (the Earl, what the fuck) had never let him out of his sight (he tried not to think about the reason why). And then he'd been Cross's apprentice, and hadn't that been just shy of slavery, and even when he tried to run the older man had dragged him back. After that he'd been placed under the watchful eye of the Black Order, who quickly proved that they weren't willing to let him breathe without knowing about it. And when Nea had taken him over, he'd been imprisoned in his own head, trapped in a cell and-

He let out another soundless wheeze, thoughts turning in his head again and again, trying to make sense of it all. He wanted to believe, he wanted to believe so badly, but nothing in his life had ever gone the way he'd wanted it to. Nothing had ever gone right, and why on earth should he believe the impossible?

While Allen was still deep in the throes of his upcoming panic attack, Mara distracted him by asking, "What do you think you'll do now, Walker?"

His brain screeched to an unsteady halt. Because he knew the answer to this, he'd dreamed about it during the day because at night he only knew nightmares.

With a clear voice, he said, "I want to travel all over the world and eat all the best food I can find."

For a moment there was a very stunned pause, and when Allen twisted around to look at Mara, she was staring at him, mouth hanging open. Her footsteps stuttered briefly, and for a moment Allen was afraid she'd trip over the wheelchair and knock her head on the wall.

But then-but then, even as she kept pushing the chair, she doubled over with laughter, that continued until she wheeled Allen into his hospital room. Which he was rather confused about, because he thought that gorging oneself on the best food and sights in the world was a mighty fine goal.

And then they entered his room, and all other thoughts fled from his mind.

Because waiting for him were all the European exorcists that he hadn't seen in ages, plus Link.

Miranda was laughing at Timothy and Krory, because the latter had removed his dentures and was chasing the former around with them (as Allen would learn later, the older two had all but adopted the youngest exorcist). Marie was sitting very calmly in a chair next to the bed, smoothing his fingers over a Braille book with endless patience. Link was taking up a corner aloofly, pretending that the others in the room weren't there, as he was wont to do, and Timcampy darted around his head cheerfully.

When at first his friends hadn't visited him in the hospital, Allen had been understanding. After all, after-war plans needed to be made, people needed to be visited. He'd ignored the little voice in his head that told him that they despised him for eventually giving in to Nea.

But then one week had turned to two, and hope had turned to resigned apathy. Of course they didn't want to talk to him, he hadn't fought hard enough, and then his body had been used to kill people.

But now-

"Allen!" Lenalee shouted the moment she spotted him, face lighting up for a second before fading to sheepishness. "I'm so sorry for leaving you behind, I just got so-"

She was promptly cut off by Krory dropping his dentures and shouting, "Allen!" Before leaping to his feet and running to pull his friend into a hug, lifting him from the wheelchair with the force of his affection.

Miranda and Timothy were just seconds behind him, and Allen felt each impact tip them over just a little more. Breathless, a little confused but wrapped up in a warm embrace, he was the first to realize that they were all on a one-way ticket to the ground. He had mere seconds to prepare himself before they landed, and he spared a desperate hope that he wouldn't crack a rib.

Then he was getting crushed by an over-friendly, wiggly pile of exorcists. The breath left him all at once, and to his immediate horror he realized that he couldn't expand his chest enough to get it back. He was going to die here, suffocated by his friends. At least I'll die happy, he thought hysterically, that's better than I thought I'd get.

And then, he was saved by somebody who he never could have expected.

"What the fuck is going on here?" An angry voice said, and abruptly the whole pile shook. Even though Allen couldn't see what had happened, he had a vague feeling that someone had just been kicked off of him, because the pressure on his chest lightened.

The pile shook again, and Allen could see the ceiling again. Now there was only one person on him, Krory, but he was very quickly scrambling away from Kanda's foot. The ex-general had apparently entered the room, spotted a lump of happy humans, and promptly disrupted it, because he thought hugging and happiness was disgusting. Allen was still trying to process the fact that he was alive.

A giggle escaped from his lips. Kanda stared down at him, seemingly befuddled by his very presence.

That expression was so funny that Allen couldn't help bursting into giggles, and had to slap a hand over his mouth to muffle them. When Kanda just frowned more deeply, Allen rolled over into his side, his laughter was so great.

I'm going into hysterics, he realized dimly, and that's when his laughter dissolved into sobs.

"I'm alive," he gasped out, digging his palm into his good eye, feeling the wetness press into his hands. He was aware of his whole body shaking, his muscles aching with the strain, but he didn't care. The thought, I'm alive, resonated through him, followed by sheer mortal terror. He hadn't planned on living. "I'm alive."

"I think you broke him." Timothy said, but there was a note of hesitant concern in his voice that belied his flippant words.

"Oh Allen," Miranda sighed, and then he was pulled up with warm arms into someone's lap. He let himself be, and turned his head into her shoulder, letting out noises that sounded more like a wounded animal than human. One by one the others joined the hug, until he was crying in the center of warmth and comfort.

Later, much later, after he finally had stopped crying (and he half wondered if he had only stopped because he had no more left to give), he was settled on the hospital bed. Timothy was asleep next to him, mouth opened slightly, drool dripping down his chin. Apparently having a head wound-Timothy losing his Innocence had meant weeks of surgeries, and fretting over how they were supposed to close the massive whole in his skull-was beyond exhausting. Miranda was sleeping on his other side, because the one who had been doing all the fretting about Timothy had been her, and that was pretty exhausting too. Krory was flopped over the end of the bed, snoring quietly, because as Timothy liked to say, 'he was an old, old vampire who needed his beauty sleep'. Marie had gone back to reading his book after the excitement, and Link and Lenalee were plopped into chairs next to the bed. Kanda had decided to replace Link in the corner, looking marginally more threatening than the ex-Crow had been.

"They've been wanting to visit you for ages." Lenalee said quietly, watching as Allen gently stroked Timothy's downy hair out of his face and off the bandage on his forehead. There had been no brain damage, thank god, but the science department had spent weeks designing a plate that would fuse with the original skull. They had done it eventually (because they were good at producing impossible things), but for a long time everyone had worried about Timothy getting an infection and dying. "Central wouldn't let them, though, until they were certain that you weren't the Fourteenth." Her disgusted frown showed her opinion on that.

"I'm not mad." Allen replied, because he wasn't. He couldn't bring himself to feel anything but bone-tired weariness right now. Then he paused in his movements, but quickly restarted when Timothy let out an unhappy sound. "...why didn't you tell me?"

Why did you let me think that these people no longer cared about me?

But Lenalee seemed to hear the unspoken question, because she gave him a guilty, miserable grimace. "I….I kept forgetting, to be honest." She hurried to explain herself. "I barely have a day to myself anymore. Brother and I are always going places, so whenever I stopped by to visit you, it was because I only had a little time between appointments." She sighed, and for the first time Allen took in the exhausted slump in her shoulders. "It just...slipped my mind."

Allen tried to come up with a response that didn't sound too accusatory. Because she was obviously telling the truth, she obviously was working herself to the bone to try and make everything better. But he just couldn't help feeling a little bitter at her, so he settled with a neutral, "Oh."

She gave him a look that made her eyes glitter like broken, sharp amethysts. "I'm not apologizing. I'm the Heart, Allen, and I'm sorry I forgot to tell you, but I have responsibilities of my own."

He sighed quietly, once again too tired to muster the energy to feel guilty, or pursue his frustration. "Okay." He said, shrugging.

"No, Allen-" She let out a frustrated noise. "Look, what's going on?"

He stopped again, surprised. "How do you mean?"

"Why aren't...why aren't you getting angry at me?" She asked, her voice rising just a little, so it almost came out as a demand. "I made you feel like you were abandoned, and that's all you can say?"

"What do you want me to say?" He asked, confused. Did she not want to be forgiven?

"No, that's not what I-" She broke off. "Allen, you're free. No one's trying to kill you anymore, you can do whatever you want. You can have a life, now. Why aren't you happy? Why aren't you feeling anything?"

Allen stared at her, surfacing a little from the dazed stupor he'd been floating in ever since his earlier breakdown. He had a feeling that this was more personal than he'd thought, that there was some piece of the puzzle that he was...missing, here. His answer meant far more to her than she was letting on, and he didn't know why. "I guess...it hasn't set in yet. I just...sort of feel numb right now." He laughed without humor. "I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

Lenalee bit her lip and looked away, suddenly looking very close to the girl he'd left behind those two years ago. Then she took a deep breath. "I keep...I keep wondering if I'm doing the right thing."

Allen stared at her blankly. "What?"

"I've been trying so hard to give you all the lives you should have." She continued, her voice choked with pent-up emotion. "I just...want you all to be happy, but…" She took a shaky breath, unaware of Link, Kanda, and Marie's gazes on her. "Lavi woke up, and now he's so angry, all the time. All the people I talk to, they-they don't have any hope. They lost everything to the war, and I can't-"

Fix that, Allen finished silently.

She took a shaky breath. "And now you've won, Allen, but you aren't-" She broke off, looking ashamed of herself, and miserable, and for just a moment the eighteen-year-old she was supposed to be. "You aren't...happy."

She sounded so lost and helpless in that moment that Allen's heart went out to her. Lenalee really was trying her hardest, even though he didn't always agree with the application of all her ideas. She was still a teenager, even though she'd been a soldier for the majority of her life. More than that, she was the Heart, and that responsibility had dropped like a leaden weight on her shoulders. The desire to push harder, go longer, and save everyone must have been in her mind at all times. All that work, and what did she have to show for it? A bunch of miserable, broken exorcists.

"You can't save everyone, Lenalee." Allen told her gently. "You did your best, and that's enough."

"It's not enough!" Lenalee cried, and buried her head into her hands. "It's-it's never enough. Things were supposed to get better."

Allen stared at his friend for a moment, wondering how on earth he was supposed to get through to her. He sent the others a pleading look, but they all just stared pointedly into thin air, no more sure how to help her than he was.

He thought for a moment.

And then he said,

"There once was a little boy."

There were only four people alive, other than him, who would be able to derive the true meaning of this story. One of them was missing, one was traveling in Europe, another was pissed at him right now. The last was leaning against the wall, a golden golemn swirling around his head, and he already knew all of Allen's worst secrets. He had peeled back the darkest parts of Allen's heart, seen them, and not cared in the slightest about their scarred nature.

"Everyone hated this little boy, because he was different. They beat him, and called him a monster, and told him that the scraps of clothes he wore had a thousand times more worth than his life."

They may guess that Allen knew the little boy-they might even guess that the little boy was Allen. But they wouldn't know to connect Allen to Mana, and Mana to Nea, or Mana to the Millennium Earl. He could….tell this story. Indirectly.

Lenalee peaked up at him from behind her fingers.

"But then the little boy met a man. And of course he was frightened at first, because all the boy had ever known was pain. But then the man, he-he helped the little boy. He gave him food, and he took care of him, even though the little boy was still cursed."

He was aware of the silence in the room, of the lazer-sharp gazes fixed on him. Even Link, who had been told the story before, but did not know the details, seemed interested. He felt exposed and vulnerable, as though he were using his actual name rather than none at all.

To cover his shakiness, he returned to petting Timothy's forehead.

"And it wasn't always good-sometimes the little boy went hungry. Sometimes people still beat him up. Once, the man even slapped him."

Allen took a deep breath.

"He was not the best parent, nor was he the kindest. What he did was love the boy, and taught the boy to love in return.

"He didn't save the little boy. Nothing could save him. But the boy remembered that kindness, and knew that the man had done his best to provide for him. And he remembered the lessons he had been taught about love, and was able to love people around him because of it."

He turned his grey eyes to Lenalee. "Do you love them?"

"Yes." She whispered, looking wrecked, but more hopeful than she'd been in a while.

"Are you doing your best?"

She swallowed hard, looking as though she wanted to say something else, but stopped herself, because there was only one correct answer to that question. "Every day."

Allen shrugged, and wiggled downwards so that his head was resting on the pillow. He was so tired-hysterics and emotions and memories were trying on someone who still hadn't recovered their muscle mass. "Then they're thankful. They'll remember that. You've already helped them."

Lenalee was quiet for a second, and even the others weren't speaking. Allen took this as a good sign to lower his eyelids.

He was just drifting off when he dimly heard Lenalee say, "Thank you, Allen."(7)

7. This section was actually supposed to have a completely different ending, but I decided that Lenalee needed a character growth moment and had to completely rewrite the entire thing.

Also, one of my reviewers posed a question last chapter, asking about why Neah left Allen at the Order and not somewhere safe. This is because Neah was not actually trying to help him. He was trying to make life harder for Allen, and guess what? He succeeded.