A/N: I own nothing

Adam looked from Clio to the piano and then back to Clio (who was looking rather like a deer that had been spotted by a wolf, her hands frozen over the ivory keys). They were in a small, out of the way room in the Kamelot Manor house and he had discovered Clio playing a song that only a Noah should know.

"How do you know that song?" he asked. His sharp tone made her flinch before she pulled her hands away from the keys and fidgeted a bit.

"From my dreams." said Clio, not looking him in the eye "From Eve's memories. It's been haunting my dreams ever since... Ever since I met my other mate, ever since I met Allen Walker." she looked up at him, her bright eyes meeting his "Who was the Fourteenth?" That made Adam freeze. He had never told her about the Fourteenth. He had even forbidden his Noah from telling her about the Fourteenth. It was too painful for the family, far too painful. So how did she know?

"Who told you about the Fourteenth?" he asked, his voice edging on a very dangerous tone that scared her a bit.

"In one of my memory-dreams," said Clio "Noah called Eve his secret Fourteenth Disciple, the Musician." Adam was clearly taken off guard by what she said "Also, around Christmas time, something happened. I can't remember if was a dream or not but I remember a white room with a piano and in that room I met a Noah that I didn't recognize. He showed me how to play that song and he was the one who first told me that there was a Fourteenth Noah. He never elaborated but he did say that I knew who he was, even if I didn't realize it."

"This Noah," said Adam "What did he look like?"

"He looked a bit like Tyki," she said "But his hair was unruly and he seemed to be in his late teens to early twenties. He was also well-spoken and rather polite."

"Nea." breathed Adam in shock "That was Nea. He was the Noah of Destruction and he had the power of the Musician, the power to control the Ark. I thought he was the first Fourteenth but he couldn't have been if what you said is true. Eve was the first Fourteenth, which makes Nea the first Fifteenth but then why did Nea have the Power of the Musician? That was Eve's power. It was her unique ability. One that could not be copied unless she gifted it to them." he sat down in a chair and it was clear that he was unsettled by the information she had given him "It doesn't make sense. Why would she? Why would Eve keep that a secret like that from me? It doesn't make sense!" his eyes widened "Then... is that why? Is that why that thrice damned enemy of mine did that?"

"Adam?" she questioned. He looked at her, his eyes mournful as if they were filled with the sorrows of his lifetime.

"The world I came from was far different than it is today." said Adam and Clio realized that the story he was about to was very important "I was born into slavery. I never knew my father and I was torn from my mother when I could barely talk and walk. It was a horrible life but I survived as best I could, never realizing that my magic was helping me in small ways until one day. I was six when it happen. The overseer had caught me stealing food from the kitchens, the only thing I really remember clearly was the sting of a whip as he lashed me. He kept hitting me and hitting me until I thought I was going to die from blood loss. I had been so afraid of dying that my magic reacted and viciously at that, killing the overseer before spiriting me away. When I came to, I was on a soft bed in a clean room and my wounds had been tended to. I later found out that my magic had dumped my unconscious body in the garden of an old sorcerer named Noah."

"I can't count the number of times magic has saved my life." said Clio as she perched on the arm of the chair "Especially when I was younger."

"Magic is alive, my muse." he replied with a slight smile "You know this well."

"That I do." she said "So what happened next?"

"Lord Noah took me in." said Adam "He was kind to me. He allowed me to bathe, gave me new clothes to wear, and he fed me. I was taught how to read and write numbers and letters and that opened up a vast new world for me. I learned how to speak and act in polite company, I learned politics and science, I read poetry and literature, and I was taught potions, alchemy, and magic. Lord Noah named me Adam because I had no name of my own and he treated me like a son and I came to love him like a father. Soon, others joined us, each with a unique gift that made the family stronger. Joido, who could pass through whatever and whoever he wished. Dezaiasu, who could control others like puppets with invisible strings. Wisely, who had a third eye, a demon eye. Those were just a few of them. Lord Noah gathered thirteen of us in total and the reason why he gathered us was because of an incident that had happened before our birth. The birth of Innocence and Dark Matter. We had been infected with the power of Dark Matter and Lord Noah had been charged by the Creator to gather us as he had a task for us. We were to be the Balancers, those in charge of keeping the balance between the worlds of the living and the dead by keeping the flow of souls in check. To aid us in this quest, Lord Noah devised a way to trap souls in skeletons of Dark Matter, giving birth to the Akuma. Akuma would keep souls out of the cycle in order to keep the flow between realms even. These machines were designed to be alive and to evolve. As they evolved, the souls they consumed would be converted into matter to create new souls. Innocence was used to keep the Akuma in line. If they killed too many people, an Accommodator would 'exorcise' the Akuma and release the souls back into the cycle."

"I remember you explaining that to me when we first met." said Clio "It still is hard to comprehend the damage a single misplaced soul can do."

"Which is why I personally dealt with Tom Marvolo Riddle." he said "He was upsetting the balance with his Horcruxes and it was my duty to deal with him. He's in hell right now, right where he belongs."

"That's a relief." she said "I'm glad that I don't have that burden weighing me down anymore."

"As am I." said Adam before he continued with his story "For several years, there was peace and balance between our family and the Innocence. And then, one day I was out in the woods searching for herbs and that is when I found her. Eve. I had been shocked at first because I could sense that she had been infected by Dark Matter like myself and my kin but the sound of baying hounds brought me to my senses and I quickly offered her my help. She accepted and I took her back home, back to the Ark we had finished building scarcely a year before. Eve was quickly accepted into the family and soon it was as if she had always been with us from the beginning. The Ark came to life with her music, it loved her and the family loved her and, most of all, I loved her. We were soon wed and before I knew it, we were expecting our first child. That was when it happened. The spark that ignited the war." he paused for a minute and closed his eyes as he took a deep breath "This next part of the tale will be hard for me to tell. Please bear with me, my muse."

"I'm here for you, Adam." said Clio as she took his hand into hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. He smiled faintly at her in thanks.

"I'm not certain of all the details," he said, his voice a bit uneven "But what I do know was that there was an alchemist under the employ of the group that oversaw the Innocence Accommodators. He was experimenting with a shard of Innocence. There was an accident and it fused the alchemist and the Innocence together, creating a living Innocence. However, Innocence was not meant to fuse with humans like that and it became a twisted version of what it should be, corrupted by the fallible nature of the human it was fused with. This creature acted on its own. It was independent from the Heart of Innocence, so it could not be controlled but it could control other shards of Innocence by tainting them with its corruption. The only piece that could not be tainted was the Heart and this beast longed to control it. So it did the unthinkable. It began to have the Accommodators under its control indiscriminately attack the Akuma we created and when we began to follow the false trails it left behind, it attacked lord Noah's home. Not the Ark but a small manor he had deep in the mountains. Everyone of the family had gone out to hunt the creature except one. Eve, who at the time was barely five months pregnant. I had left her with lord Noah to keep her and our unborn child safe but the creature attacked the manor and slew our master before stealing her." he bowed his head and Clio could feel him trembling a bit "When we discovered what had occurred, we vowed to never forgive the corrupted Innocence or the puppet master, the living Innocence named Apocryphos. We retaliated and everything just escalated until it became a full blown war. Everywhere there was death and destruction. Blood painted the sky red and stained the earth like rust. And then I found it. That thrice damned living Innocence but before I could attack it, it unleashed its secret weapon." there were tears in his eyes now and several sliding down his face "Eve, my Eve. He had forcibly bonded not only several shards of corrupt Innocence to her but the Heart as well. She had been driven mad and her mind was shattered. She didn't even recognize me! I was forced to fight her but I couldn't bring myself to harm her. That had been Apocryphos' plan. To make me fight an enemy that I couldn't, wouldn't kill. I had been ready for death believing that it was what I deserved for being unable to stop the madness but it seemed that God was on my side. For a brief moment, my Eve returned to me and she threw herself onto my sword before her sanity could fade away. As she lay dying in my arms, she smiled at me and she told me that she would always love me. Then, she passed from this world. Sorrow and grief overwhelmed me before becoming such a dark rage, the likes of which I never wish to set upon this earth ever again. My family survived by escaping to the Ark during the three darkest days of my life. In my anger and grief, I had destroyed everyone. Those that managed to escape my wrath were those that weren't human because my anger was towards humanity because their stupidity and foolishness had cost me the light of my life, my wife and our unborn child." Clio wrapped her arms around him as he began to cry and she comforted him as best she could but, in the back of her mind, she felt a small pang of fear. It wasn't just her own fear, it was partially Eve's fear as well. The fear that what happened then would happen once again. She didn't want history to repeat itself and she swore to herself then and there that she wouldn't allow it to. Come hell or high water, she would do everything in her power to make things right.