A/N: Sorry guys, I've had this written for forever, but between laptop issues and internet issues and hey, even job issues, getting this chapter up has been, well, an issue. I hope that now I'll be able to get up chapters more regularly, seeing as I have a bit more of an idea where this story is going now. Enjoy, this chapter might be short, but I've got more ready and waiting.

Disclaimer: No, I do not own this series, the characters, or really anything but the beef pot pie in my fridge that I think I'm gonna go make for lunch.

He didn't understand. He didn't want to. It was painful and everything hurt and he just wanted to curl up in a ball. But he couldn't. The hands had moved him to a bed, and had propped him up and stuck a needle in him. Which shouldn't have hurt, his mind told him, but it did. Everything was agonizing, even blinking his eyes, which had begun to adjust to the light. He couldn't form coherent thought, couldn't make them stop, couldn't even move more than a little before his will crumbled under the mind numbing agony his body seemed to be permanently experiencing. He tried to thrash, but it was a weak gesture, barely even a twitch.

"Whoa there. Easy, easy. You're okay." A voice came from above him, making him flinch imperceptibly. His body felt like it was shaking apart, though the shudders he perceived to be violent were barely tremors. His eyes opened minutely, and in the blazing light, he could make out blobs of color and movement. Red. The red kept coming back to him, stroking and prodding his inflamed skin, mumbling words to itself, and always, always, hovering.

"Johnny, I need you to get me 15 mg of morphine, we need to get his heart rate down. He's reacting like an intense burn patient." A shadow covered him, the red was bending over him. He could feel fingers combing through his…his hair. That's what it was. It didn't make sense to him, hair, but he knew what it was.

"You're gonna make it through, kid." Red whispered, and he hoped.

Lavi didn't know what to feel. He was looking at, prodding, consoling, what had been a dead body hours prior, and before that, a coma case from hell. He could barely believe it was real. That Allen Walker, the boy who had never made a noise, was here, twitching, whimpering, living, even though the signs were miniscule. He was on the edge of shock, he could feel that, and the feeling of hysteria close by was what kept him moving. He had an IV in the kid as soon as he'd come into the room, and was checking his breathing, his heart rate, anything, to make sure that indeed, this wasn't some bad dream after all. Shaking his head, he looked down at his shaking patient, laying on the bed before him, and made a wish.

"You're gonna make it through, kid." He whispered, and he hoped that some higher power had heard him. Because as today was going, there had to be some god out there, with the animated corpse on the bed in front of him as his proof.

"Lavi, we gotta tell someone. He was dead hours ago. And now he's not." Johnny hissed, his voice filled with the hysteria that Lavi was fighting off.

"You're right. You should tell someone." The voice behind them made both of them jump, and Allen twitched on the bed. Lavi turned to face the man who had come in, his spine stiff.

"Bloody hell Lavi, what were you thinking? I have this kid's death certificate sitting on my desk. And he's definitely not dead." Reever shook his head, running his hands through his unruly blonde hair, as if that would solve the problem of the undead boy in front of him. Lavi wanted to wrap his hands around Reever's throat. It wasn't as if his job was on the line.

"Don't you think I've noticed that? Don't you think I've been asking myself the same questions about why a kid I certified as dead hours ago is breathing again? I double checked, Reever. I had Johnny check to. He was as dead as they get, had the whole unresponsive corpse thing going for him and everything." He couldn't keep the sharp edge out of his voice, even though he knew he'd pay for it later, after talking to his supervisor like that. As it was now, his mind was still consumed with Allen's presence. Reever sighed, and took a step closer to the bed. Lavi couldn't help that his spine stiffened further, or that his hands twitched at his sides. Reever checked the boy's pulse, his breathing, his eyes, everything Lavi had already done. Letting loose an even more suffering sigh, he turned away from Allen, only to let the full weight of his glare land on Lavi.

"I'll have to report this. It isn't going to look good for you, I'm afraid," Lavi held back all the biting retorts that burned his tongue, and nodded. "I'd even go so far as maybe looking into jobs elsewhere. This little stint with Walker is going to cost you. And as for him," Reever gestured to the body on the bed, which was now shuddering even more violently, "I'll ask that you detach him from any and all equipment and move him to the front lobby. You're free to go home after that."

"B-but sir, if you detach him from the IV, how's he supposed to stay alive?" Lavi couldn't help his nod, as he'd been wondering the same thing.

"And who said he's to stay alive, Mr. Gill? Allen Walker is dead, according to a certain stack of paperwork sitting on my desk. And he's going to stay that way."