Noise Marie awoke due to the vibrations of excited boots stomping toward his cabin. The train he was seated on was still reliably clacking along the tracks, so they clearly hadn't arrived yet at their destination. If he wasn't mistaken, these frantic footfalls were characteristic of the more hyperactive side of Lavi Bookman, but there was also another heart thumping giddily from above—

"Guys!"

"What?" Kanda questioned irritably from Marie's left. Well.

"Have you guys seen Allen?" Lavi panted, breathless.

Honestly, Marie had never once seen Allen Walker in his life. Nor Lavi Bookman, for that matter. Well, that he knew of. Not that he was bitter about his loss of sight or anything, but he still noticed such unfortunate choices of wording. "Sorry, Lavi, I just woke up."

"Damn," the apprentice Bookman muttered distractedly. "Well how about Timcanpy?"

"Do you see that thing flying around here?" Kanda asked menacingly.

A short distance away, Marie detected the pinching and twisting of clenched (bitten?) textiles.

"Well, no, but—"

"Idiot rabbit."

"Now now Yuu, save the sweet talk for later!" There was a chill in the air as Kanda grumbled his customary threats of bodily harm at the lively young man who dared use his given name, but Lavi paid him no heed. "Now, if you see Allen or Tim, you give me a holler, alright darling?"

Poor Kanda took an abrupt breath here and held it, apparently nonplussed. Marie guessed the prickly swordsman was confused as to which term of endearment should be more offensive to his sensibilities.

"Lenalee-chan!" he called out an opened window in the adjacent corridor, "No dice! And I doubt he'd be out there. Come back inside and let's keep moving up the train!"

Those agitated boots bounded off again, toward the most distant train cars. Lavi had behaved a little down lately, Marie reflected, but appeared to be recovering his usual manic levels of energy. Whatever had been bothering the deceptively complicated young man, Marie supposed, was no match for the inevitable lift in his spirits whenever it came time to depart from Order HQ. He wondered idly if the boy had ever considered the place 'Home.'

But right now, Marie had a more pressing little mystery to solve. Tilting his head back, he spoke amicably toward the ceiling: "Hello, Allen."

"H-hi! Um, if you don't mind—"

"Oh don't worry, he's long gone now," he answered agreeably. "All clear."

"Great. Thanks, Marie!" Allen sprang from just above the cabin door, touching down as quietly as he could.

"Loser, invoking your innocence to get away from the usagi," Kanda taunted, interestingly without the typically large dose of borderline contempt in his voice.

"Right," Allen laughed, apparently unperturbed. "Well I'm sorry Kanda, I imagine I'm just not as skilled as you are at hiding from ferocious bunny rabbits—"

"Watch it, Beansprout."

"It's Allen, Bakanda!"

"Boys!"

"What?!" The two shot back with all the heated malice that Kanda was missing earlier.

"Can one of you tell me just what's going on here? Why were you hiding from Lavi, Allen?"

"Tch. Out with it, Beansprout."

"Yes darling," Allen sighed in exasperation. Kanda remained oddly silent. "Well, Marie, it seems— according to Lenalee— that something highly amusing happened with our dear friend Lavi, the other day. Okay, so maybe she didn't think it was funny, but I—"

"So?" Kanda was trying to come off sounding disinterested, but Marie knew better. He suspected even Allen could tell that Kanda was just as curious as he was.

"Well, it just so happens that Tim recorded all of it—"

oOo

Raphael reached the rear train car, finding neither hide nor hair of either Allen Walker or his unusual golem. He sympathized with Lavi of course, but when Lenalee asked him to help them search the train, he just knew this would be a fruitless endeavour.

"Well, this is kinda pointless, isn't it?"

Imelda, a Finder he had only barely met once or twice before becoming an exorcist himself, wore a sardonic smile as she tried to make light of the situation.

"I mean, I don't want to sound heartless, but there's really no way we're going to find him now… is there?"

"No," Raphael answered abruptly, running fingers up into his backswept chestnut hair, and hanging his head. Harbouring feelings of defeat, he examined the busy pattern in the train aisle carpeting for a moment, before looking back up again. "At least, not in time to stop him from witnessing a replay of yesterday's spectacle. But—"

"I know. I heard Miss Lenalee ask you. She obviously feels really guilty about letting that slip."

"It's not like she could help it though, really. It all started innocently enough, after all. Allen wondered how we all ended up on assignment together out of nowhere all of a sudden, and she ended up explaining the whole story and how her brother had ended up jumping to conclusions about Lavi and siccing two robots after him. The point was she insisted her brother had to apologize to Lavi and demanded he show some trust in her friends. Naturally, 'showing trust' ended up becoming a mission. You know come to think of it, you walked in when she was nearly done explaining, but it looks like you caught on pretty quick, anyways. Here, let's return to first class, alright?"

Imelda nodded and smiled winningly at him as they started back toward the centre of the train. He was getting the impression she was proud of something as her smooth dark skin stretched back to reveal a perfect set of teeth.

Raphael wasn't sure what had just made her so happy, so he returned her a polite— if somewhat confused and tentative— smile of his own and paid close attention to what she said next: "Well, I'll never forget that look on Master Allen's face…"

"Huh? Oh, oh yes. That face. He must have just realized Timcanpy was there to record it all… That special look of his is legendary— literally." He answered distractedly, still mystified as to what that strangely comforting energy was that the Finder was emitting.

"I'd heard about it, but it was quite something to finally see it in person. The shadow over his features, the mischievous sparkle in his eyes—"

"That evil grin…" Raphael added slyly, feeling emboldened.

"Yeah," she laughed, "I remember that. Amazing how he can go from being such a little Angel one moment to total little Devil, the next…"

"I haven't known him that long myself," Raphael conceded, adjusting his glasses on his nose. "But I've heard so much from Lenalee."

"Right. I could tell she thinks very highly of him by her frustration and disappointment as Lavi got back and she realized Allen wasn't going to the toilet, but had run off to find that cute little golem of his—"

"Yeah. I suppose…. she does… think of him… highly." Raphael mumbled with a vague sadness.

"Oh, but—" Imelda seemed to panic slightly, "I can tell she likes you a lot. You— you can tell because she's always smiling at you, you know."

"Really?" Raphael instantly regretted how hopeful he sounded right at that moment.

"Yeah, really." Imelda bestowed him a kind, endearing closed-mouth smile here before continuing; "I know we've only known each other a short time, but I pride myself on being a good judge of character— and you're a really nice guy, Raphael. No doubt about that. She's so lucky to have you."

Raphael almost choked. He could feel himself flush slightly both at the compliment and because— "How did you know we—"

Now Imelda bowed her head a little and turned it to the side, smiling demurely out a window they happened to be passing by.

"Oh I can see it written all over your faces, you know, that the two of you are going out." Raphael's mind prepared to shoot into hyper-overdrive terror at the thought of Lavi's earlier fate one day befalling him because they were apparently so obvious. "Don't worry, you're not the least bit obvious about it— not at all. I can just… sorta tell."

"Wha— Really?" Raphael spluttered, literally astonished she just pretty much read his mind. "That's amazing. How… do you do that, Imelda?"

"Dunno. It's just something I can do, figuring people out like this. Probably something to do with my upbringing. Though at the same time I've never met anyone else either back home or anywhere else the Order's sent me that was as freakishly tuned into people's emotions as I am."

"It's literally unbelievable, but hardly freakish. You're just… incredibly perceptive."

"Um… thanks." On flawless skin about the shade of cinnamon, a pinkish glow became perceptible in her cheeks.

"So uh…" Raphael was feeling bold again so, with a keen interest, he tried a new question: "You mentioned your upbringing…? Where did you grow up?"

"I—" However, as the pair were now entering the cluster of first class cars at the center of the train, familiar voices could be heard. More accurately, familiar laughter became audible from beyond the joint of the first and second first class cars.

Allen!

He was hiding in Kanda and Marie's compartment and all four of us missed it?

In any case, the boy had to be completely blowing a gasket, laughing as hard as he was. Every gale of unrestrained giggles emptied the boy's lungs so forcefully, they left him audibly gasping for air. Meanwhile, other muffled but familiar sounds played back somewhere near him.

"—ANOTHER ONE?! Save me, Panda-jiji!"

"Ahahaha— classic!"

Imelda and Raphael found Lenalee and Lavi standing just outside the targeted cabin. Lavi stood with both hands over his face in apparent humiliation. Lenalee, clearly sympathetic and guilt-ridden, was rubbing his upper back to soothe him and murmuring words of reassurance.

"Ouch, that sounded like it hurt—"

"Don't worry Marie, he's just fine."

"Tch. Of course he's 'just fine' if he's on a mission, dumbass."

He wasn't sure if Lenalee had caught sight of Imelda and him yet when her remorseful expression suddenly morphed one of into indignant rage. She found the wherewithal to throw open the sliding compartment door and give Allen a piece of her mind for being so insensitive. She moved on to berate Kanda (and even poor Marie) next, for encouraging the young man.

Lenalee wasn't doing anything wrong and he knew it, but Raphael couldn't resist the first pangs of jealousy upon witnessing the depth of her concern for Lavi Bookman's emotional wellbeing. Of course, the two of them have known each other far longer—

he felt a warm hand fall lightly onto his shoulder. Imelda spoke softly: "She's very protective of her friends, isn't she?"

"Yes, she's been like that as long as I've known her."

So why should it hurt to see her flying off the handle like this on Lavi's behalf?

"You know," the Finder responded gently, "I bet she would react the same way on behalf of any one of us here. Wouldn't she?"

Yes, that's true, she would.

But…

Would she get that fiery about it for just anyone? For me?

Raphael inwardly admonished himself— immediately. He really had to be less insecure. It helped that Imelda was so observant and empathetic. Before meeting her, if someone told him how well she could read people, he would have been put off from being around her at all, for fear of the inevitable imminent humiliation. But in reality, she was so friendly it hardly ever occurredto him to be embarrassed.

If she's really as sensitive to others' emotions as she claims, she probably can't even help it. The kindness in those warm brown eyes, he reminded himself, was also there for all to appreciate.