.

It was something I had been fighting all along, spreading through my body like a disease, taking me over piece by piece. I tried to fight it, but I wasn't strong enough.

My heart wasn't strong enough…

White Flag: Lavi's POV

The doctor left the room, shooting me a timid smile over his shoulder. Once the door clacked shut, I covered my eyes with my arm, taking a deep breath. I winced at the sharp pain in my chest. Now even breathing hurt. Why hadn't I just died when I was supposed to? Why did I have to have a long, drawn out death like this? An operation? Were they serious?

I couldn't make it through an operation. I was too weak to breathe, apparently, and I was supposed to go under a knife and expect to come out alive? That was bull. The doctor had promised to try the best that he could, but his eyes told me that he was just as hopeless as I was. This was just a big waste of time, and it was silly to get everyone's hopes up like that.

I laughed weakly. By thinking like that, it was almost as if saying that I would be missed. At first, perhaps, but in the long run, I would just be forgotten. I wasn't part of history, so there was no other alternative.

The sound of the door opening echoed once again through my room. I let out a groan. What did that damn doctor want now?

"Lavi." I pulled my arm away from my face and looked up to see Lenalee stepping into the room, looking a little frazzled.

I let out another groan. She was the last person I needed to see right now. I wasn't trying to be cruel by thinking that – I enjoyed her company, of course. But now I had to tell her all about that operation, and I had to watch her be filled with false hope. Then when I told her that there wasn't any hope, she'd begin to lecture me. It was a waste of time. God should have let me die then – on the battlefield – when I was meant to, instead of putting her through all of this. It only made things worse when you had to die with Lenalee crying in the background. It made you feel guilty, as if you had done something wrong, even though there was nothing you could do to make her stop.

At this point, time was the only healer. Eventually, she'd have to realize that I was nothing, and that she belonged with Allen. Part of me wondered how long it would take, and the other part knew that it didn't matter – I was dead either way.

She shut the door behind her before cautiously stepping over to me and sitting down in the chair next to my bed, her hands placed in her lap and her eyes focused intently on them. I followed her gaze to see that her hands were shaking a bit. I let out a long sigh, my mind void of things to say.

"Lavi, I know about the operation," she told me in a soft voice, still keeping her eyes in her lap. "I was standing outside of the door."

The old me probably would have laughed at the image of Lenalee hunched outside a door in the middle of the hall for everyone to see, listening in to our conversation, but the dying me didn't seem thrilled by silly things like that anymore. I didn't have enough time left to become amused over such minor moments.

She seemed to be waiting for me to say something, but when I didn't, she continued on, her voice nervous and shaky. "I just really want to be positive that you'll do your best."

"How can I 'do my best'? I'll be unconscious! Besides, I don't have a choice in this matter," I reminded her, my voice sounding colder than I intended it to be.

She shook her head softly, but still refused to look up. "There is a choice! If you go into the operation thinking you're going to die, you probably will! If you go in thinking you'll survive, you have a better chance!"

I almost wanted to laugh at the irony in what she was saying. When was it her that had to tell me to think positive? She was the pessimistic one, not me! Or was I wrong again? What did I know about myself, after all? I was a bookman, nothing more. Lavi didn't exist, and he certainly wouldn't exist after tomorrow.

"I don't want you to die," she told me, her voice a little firmer than before, strong with her certainty. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself thinking that you died because of me."

What better way was there to go than as a hero? Even if no one else remembered, I would. "Don't say that, Lenalee. You'll get over it soon enough."

She finally looked up, but her expression was horrorstruck. Her mouth hung open a bit and her eyes were wide with terror as she glared at me. "How…how can you say that?" she demanded, tears forming in her eyes again. "Lavi, how could you ever assume something like that? If that's what you think, you don't know anything about me!" Her eyes searched me for a moment and the tears finally began falling onto her flushed cheeks as she opened and closed her mouth, debating on what to say next. At last, she spat the words out, no longer holding back. "Lavi, I love you!"

I felt as if she had just dumped a bucket of cold ice over my head. How did she expect me, a dying man – even more, a dying bookman – to respond to that? What use was it confessing to someone who was going to leave soon? Self-satisfaction? Was it to assure me that she had once had affections for me, so I'd know once she moved on with Allen? There was nothing I could say. There was nothing I could do. Nothing I felt mattered, nothing I said would change a thing. It was a lost cause. All was lost.

The fight was over. When would she finally put up her white flag and accept the facts?

"There's nothing I can do." This time, I didn't regret the cool tone in my voice. I needed to push her away now, while she still had a chance of getting away. It was the best thing for her – for both of us.

She shook her head back and forth, pulling herself to her feet, her tears doubling up. She bit her lower lip, turning away and heading for the door.

Unlike the doctor had, she slammed it shut, shaking the walls of my room.