The damn computer froze up and I had to rewrite half of this!! F— F— S—y B— B— B— F—!!
-sigh- I much liked it the way it was before it got deleted... unfortunately, it was DELETED! -sobsobcrycry-
Well... at least I'm getting something of a plot going here. My mind has been going on overdrive, probably because NaNoWriMo is starting (and I'm going to need to think that through a LOT ) and I have a lot of projects due very soon... like, a few more than 24 hours and I havent even started. I'm a sad student when it comes to projects... I have no will to do them at all...
well... since I've been on overdrive, I've come up with a few ideas for who Nina is in the story and why Lev is the way he is. So... you're going to see some slight OOCness in here... actually, it's pretty blatant, but oh well. Guess, speculate, make up insane stories, say whatever you want about them, but... if anyone says they're a couple... No. No. No. No. No. No.
Can anyone guess who the final scene belongs to? Yep, he's been given a bigger role than I though he would, too... I dunno why, but it's the OCs that are making this one work. Without them, we wouldn't have enough Central staff.
...I think Tale is coming back soon... cuz Tale and this are both at -1 days right now...
disclaimer: I think that... -faints from lack of sleep-
"How's he doin'?" Thomas asked as Nina entered the break room. He poured a cup of hot camomile tea from the whistling kettle. She thanked him and took the mug carefully between her hands. It was warm and comforting after a long night of making sure Allen didn't have another odd attack like earlier.
"He's... not dead," She said simply. "That's about the only way to put it."
Thomas sighed. How many fallen Crow warriors had they seen passing through? How many soldiers with their limbs ripped off? And yet, still, having a fifteen year old child in their care, under such extreme circumstances... To be blunt, it was a horrible feeling that weighed on them both. Especially after the strange mental-physical spasm.
He strode several feet til he was at the window looking out to the infirmary. It was quite useful when there was a patient that needed to be constantly monitored, such as Allen. There was a stock of white hair bending in with the bedding around it. If not for even the slight color of the boy's skin, he might as well have been invisible.
In fact, if he were healthy enough, Thomas imagined that the boy could easily slip out of the infirmary without them noticing at all. Like a little ghost, slipping through a wall. "Thomas, did you ever feel sort of... dirty?" Nina asked suddenly, breaking the odd silence that Thomas hadn't quite noticed settled around them.
He turned away from the window and the patient lying in the bed outside before asking, "Whatcha mean?" Nina hummed for a moment and shifted her weight on one foot to the other and back, fidgeting.
"Well..." She started, almost like a school girl who was trying to explain some concept to the class. "All we're really doing for him is making sure he stays alive long enough for Inspector Levirrier to torture him again..." She took a light sip of her tea and leaned against the white wall. Thomas sighed and nodded, seeing her point. He supposed he did sort of feel dirty when she put it that way.
"We're just doin' our job and tryin' to make it bearable," Nina nodded and glanced out the small side window in time to see the small body stir.
"He's waking up," She said. She set her tea on the tabel and tied on her medical apron. Grabbing a few bottles of medicine and sticking them in her pocket, she grabbed a damp cloth and hurried out the door. By that time, Allen was halfway awake and almost aware of his surroundings. He tensed up as she approached.
"Hey," She whispered, "Hey, it's me, don't worry," He remained stiff, waiting for whatever she was going to do. Nina frowned softly. Just three weeks and he had already been thrown this far into insanity, or paranoia, whichever it was. It was simply bad. There were too many people who passed through like Allen.
"I'm Nina," She said, hoping talking to him would help somehow. Like how people would talk softly to wounded animals in order to calm them down. "I'm the head nurse here, I've been here for most of my life. You're Allen Walker, you came to the infirmary yesterday," Allen seemed to relax slightly at the mention of his name. "Allen Walker," Nina hissed again. Allen relaxed just a bit.
"Allen?" Allen's shoulders fell down and he unclasped his hands. She had heard stories about people calming down because someone was calling their name, but she hadn't really thought it would work so well. Allen's chest began to rise and fall in rhythm again. Breathing.
A loud clunk and whining sound sliced through the otherwise silent room as the door unlocked and opened, pouring light from the outside hallway into the infirmary. Nina jumped at the sound, spinning around quickly to see if there was something happening. She relaxed slightly— just slightly— when she saw the figure whom entered the hospital so late at night.
"Good evening," She mumbled from her spot beside Allen's bed as he drew nearer.
"He's still not conscious?" Levirrier asked sharply, as though he were highly impatient for Allen's awakening. Nina snorted.
"I doubt he'd want to wake," She muttered. "Let him rest a while, he's probably having a long dream..." Levirrier barked a soft laugh, not even making the other occupants of the infirmary shift in their med, weariness and pain induced sleeps.
"A long dream?" He hissed back, "I certainly hope it's not about Noah."
"If it was, I think he'd either be thrashing violently or dreaming about saving them..." She said, her voice even quieter than before, signaling to Levirrier to drop his voice also. "...or so that's what I'd guess from the reports."
"Be sure he ends that dream so, in any case," He interrupted. "We're losing time every moment he spends not supressing the Fourteenth," Nina's hands paused from fiddling with whatever machine she happened to be using at the time, turning to glare at Levirrier.
"You're supressing the Noah? I hope you realize that you're doing this child more harm than good," She growled. "He panicked a few hours ago when he first came in. You chain him in a coffin for hours and bring him out only to make him go to... you expect him to come out alright?" She hadn't realized how loud and shrill her voice had gotten while ranting. Maybe she was getting overprotective in her roll as nurse, but oh well. People were injured, it was her job to help them.
Levirrier looked down at Allen's face calmly. The silver eyes were going dull and gray. They were opened just slightly, misted over by clouds of sleep and sickness. He was the only person in the infirmary whom had awoken because of Nina's temper rising so suddenly. The others had just moved a bit and fallen back into deep sleep.
The fog in the dull gray eyes cleared just slightly as wrinkles appeared on his forehead. Small tears crept into the corners of his eyes as he tried to turn away. It was difficult and Allen eventually recognized failure and forced his eyes to close again. He waited for the barking command to get out of the bed and go to somewhere...
"Go back to sleep, Allen," Nina muttered. "He isn't here for you right now," Allen didn't so much as begin to breathe. Nina scowled at this. She turned sharply and grabbed Levirrier's coat sleeve, dragging him into the small office.
"Listen," She snapped, no longer keeping her voice low for there was no need. "You saw that, right? That poor kid is scared out of his mind about what's going to happen to him! You've planted fear into him and he might never be able to trust a human being again, much less one of the Order!"
"He doesn't have to trust anyone!" Levirrier retorted, "It might even be better if he didn't!"
"Oh, so now you're concerned about him?" Nina asked, her hands firmly on her hips, her face torn between disbelief and mockery. "Or are you involved in some grand plan to save the world?"
"I am not, and it is none of your concern if I do have some plan for him!"
"So you're planing to do all this shit to him and hope he pulls through so you can go and play games with him? What great thing are you going to do by messing with a life that's already been ruined?"
"He is an exorcist! He should expect to be used!"
"What are you going to do to them? Some of them are still just children! You have no right to destroy all of their lives like you're doing!"
"I am not destroying their lives, I'm making so they have the chance to have them if they somehow survive!
"I thought your exorcists were all just sacrifices? Why would you care if they lived life or not?"
"We are all sacrifices right now!" Levirrier yelled, his face blotched and red, the same as Nina's. Her face dropped from anger to confusion, draining out her anger. Levirrier took a breath, his face still showing his rage. "You listen. Right now, the Order is losing the war. We're trying to hold together but it's unlikely that will happen because we have lost so many so quickly. It will take time to recover, and even then, it's unlikely we will ever be strong enough to defeat the Earl..."
Taking another breath, he straightened his back and stood up again, straight. "That's why I'm using Walker. Walker appeared at the perfect time with his inner Noah. We cant have it awakening inside the Order having all the power of an exorcist. For all we know, he might be in a field mission and would be able to kill exorcists while claiming it was Akuma. We cant take that chance, and so, We're trying to prevent the awakening if nothing else."
Nina blinked slowly as she tried to decipher where Levirrier was going with this. "If his Noah is restrained but the powers are still usable along with his innocence... do you have any idea how it might give the Order an edge? But for that to work, we need to learn how the Fourteenth comes forward in his conciousness, and for that, we need to push his consciousness back until—"
"So you lock him up in a coffin and have Espi hurt him?" Nina snapped, understanding everything very suddenly. It might make sense, but she didn't have to like it. "I knew Espi too, you know! You fill them with shit and talk about a freedom none of us have ever had, and yet you justify yourself with.. with putting others down and..." At this point Nina noticed Levirrier had left. Left her alone in the office where minutes before she had been sipping tea with Thomas.
She slumped back into a chair after looking out the window to see if Levirrier was going to try and harass Allen anymore for that night. She felt like a school teacher trying to deal with very young children. They were impossible and sadly amazingly good with their arguments...
Her tea was cold by the time she finally picked up the cup again. And then she heard something. Not exactly a door opening, but more of a ruffle. She turned and saw Thomas trying to dislodge himself from a rather large mass of tree leaves an brush from several of the large plants they kept in the room. "He's not coming back, right?" He mumbled. Nina sighed.
"No," She said, shaking her head. "He'd have hell raised if he did."
000
He glided down the halls, silently, effortlessly on his legs which he could no longer feel. His face remained blank. He felt no muscles in any part of his body at that point, although he was acutely aware of every movement he made. Almost painfully so.
The cold air in the halls pushed into him like walls. Dead, used over a few too many times, perhaps. His body numbly navigated the halls of the Central Administration, feeling only the dull ache in his chest. Left side. Right over his heart.
One door he passed snapped the fog out of his head momentarily. Because there was familiarity behind it. Someone he had seen recently. Who was it again? The white haired boy, he thought? As everything elapsed into the fog again, the question vanished, being resolved with a 'yes, that must be it'. Very briefly, his thin memory sent strands of random images. Times when he had seen the white.
He walked on, deftly ignoring anything in his path. It was late, but he had no will to sleep. It was pointless anyway. Very few like him slept.
If I die before I wake, you pray to God my soul to take, and though I feel safe by the hour should I fall, send devil's power.