Once Upon a Time
Request by: AkaJenny1
Genre: Romance/Angst
Rated: TI'd tell him bedtime stories. Once he was born, I was going to flood my son with a thousand bed times stories every night. He would grow up the same way his father did, so he would hopefully be just like his father. He'd smile like him, laugh like him, and have that same, positive attitude I envied so much.
Lavi was a bookman. His entire life consisted of telling stories. It seems that all that had happened to him had shaped him into the wonderful person he became. I wished that our son could be like him, too, so I'd share those stories with him like Lavi had with me.
I remember the first time Lavi told me one of those stories. It had been after one of those long, hard missions. The ones you put your everything into and lost anyway. I remember the hopeless feeling we had carried as we reentered the Black Order. Unable to sit still, I had rushed outside shortly after relaying the events of the mission to my brother. To my surprise, Lavi had had the same idea and was lying outside in the grass, staring up at the stars. With a sigh, I had joined him, lying by his side.
---
"It's beautiful out tonight, isn't it?" I asked conversationally. There was always a beautiful view of the stars from here. It wasn't anything new.
Lavi nodded, placing his arms behind his head. "You have no idea."
I laughed shakily. "What's that supposed to mean? Of course I do! I'm lying right here!"
A smirk flickered across his face. "I know something about those stars that you don't know."
"Oh, really?" I asked sarcastically.
"Damn straight."
"Care to share it with me?"
His eye flickered over to me as he explained, "It's a little something I learned on one of my missions with the Old Panda. Before the Black Order."
"Oh. Those." I kept my gaze upward. I had never heard anything about his life before the Order. Even though he was the most social person I knew, Lavi tended to keep his past life to himself. I waited patiently for him to continue, not wanting to interrupt.
"It was one of my first missions," he told me, "from a long, long time ago. I was in this old mining town where there was this huge dig going on that I was supposed to study. Apparently, if it was finished, it was going to be a big deal."
"It was never finished, then?"
"Nope. There was a cave-in one day, and ten of the men working on it died. After that, they canceled the entire project."
My eyes grew wide and I glanced over at him. His eyes weren't as playful as before.
"It was hard, you know? I had gotten to know those guys. The Old Panda kept telling me to get over it and lectured me about not getting attached to history or whatever, but it was what one of the surviving miners told me that I remembered." He tilted his head back so he was looking at the sky again. "He said that each of those stars symbolizes those men, and everyone else who's died."
I rolled my eyes. "That was so cheesy. What an anticlimactic ending!"
He ignored my comment. "So, even though we lost some people on that mission, don't let it hurt too hard, all right?" He pointed up to the sky, smiling over at me. "They're right up there, and see how bright they're shining? They're perfectly happy."
I sat up, studying the sky closely. I wasn't sure if he was serious or not. It seemed so corny, but at the same time, after losing so many people, I wanted to believe it. After a moment, I felt an irresistible smile creeping across my face.
"You're right," I agreed, "it's even more beautiful now."
His smile broadened, and he sat up, too, his shoulder brushing against mine. "See? I told you."
It was probably the light from the stars that caused my eyes to water. I wasn't going to cry. It had just been the light. I was sure of it. Nonetheless, Lavi seemed to think I was crying, and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, placing his head on top of mine. Well, maybe I was crying a little. It was nothing to get worried about, though.
But still, Lavi held me until I had stopped.
---
The second story, he told me on one of the longest train rides we had ever experienced. We sat side by side, waiting patiently for Allen and Krory to return. They had run off again to go gamble with the other passengers. I was surprised Lavi didn't join them, but I wasn't complaining.
I groaned. "What time is it?"
"You asked that two minutes ago."
I sighed. "This is such a long ride, though."
He laughed. "I've been on much longer rides before with the Old Panda, back when we used to be traveling all the time. In fact, I remember one just like this that we took on this exact same train."
"Seriously? This same one?" I wondered.
He nodded, laughing a bit. "We were headed somewhere else – somewhere even further – though. It's definitely the same train, though. I'm sure of it."
"Where were you headed?"
He concentrated for a second, trying to remember. "Some really poor town. Apparently, they had a new ruler and he was making a ton of new policies that we had to study or something." He shrugged. "I think that was it…"
I rolled my eyes. "So, you don't really remember? I thought you had super memory?"
"I do!" he defended. "It's just not working right now."
I laughed. "Uh-huh."
"I do remember the people from that town, though," he said thoughtfully. "They were a good bunch of people. They had been through a lot, but yet, they were still awfully optimistic. They were the type who threw dimes into a fountain no matter how old they were, thinking it would work. Always making wishes." He leaned back, yawning. "I wonder if any of them came true?"
I yawned, too, leaning my head against his shoulder. Before I had a chance to stop myself, I was out like a light, sound asleep.
---
Lavi and I sat on the shore of the beach outside the hotel we had stayed at, waiting for our train to arrive to return us from our latest mission. He was cross-legged and I was holding my legs to my chest. We both stared out over the water, watching the sun setting on its surface.
"I'm going to miss this place," I mumbled. "It's so nice…"
"Yeah, forgetting the whole part about the akumas tearing apart the city, it was pretty nice."
I glared over at him. "Oh, knock it off, smart-aleck!"
He smirked, resisting a laugh. Then he was silent as he studied the ocean waves, before commenting, "The last time I was this close to a sunset like this one – at a beach just like this – I saved a man from drowning, you know."
I looked up with a jolt. "Really? What happened?"
"Well, first of all, there was a man drowning. Secondly, I saved him."
I slapped his arm playfully. "Come on! There's got to be more to it than that!"
"I was only meant to observe, but it was one of those times when I was allowed to make an exception," he went on to explain. "I swam out there and pulled the poor guy back in. He wouldn't shut up after that, though; he was thanking me all day."
"That's a good thing, though."
"Hm. It got annoying."
I laughed. "You're bizarre, Lavi."
"I know! Isn't it great?"
Our eyes met and after a second, we burst into laugher. In the distance, I could hear our train pulling up. We leapt to our feet and, hand in hand, we made our way across the sand to the train station.
---
We stood by the window, looking out over the mountains surrounding the Order. I wiped a tear from my cheek, trying to compose myself a bit. I knew I sounded like a whiney kid, but I couldn't help but be upset. In fact, I was beside myself.
"What am I supposed to do?" I demanded. "This…I never expected this to happen. I have a job. I can't leave it to become a mother! Who's going to take care of the child when we're on missions? Komui's going to be furious!" A thousand thoughts raced through my head, and I was sure I was going to break out into another round of sobs, but I resisted the urge. I glanced over at Lavi, who was taking the news of my pregnancy silently. He was glaring out the window, now, as if I had said something wrong.
"What?" I asked. "Are you dreading telling Komui about this?"
He shook his head, shutting his eye and taking a deep breath before turning back to me. "That's not it."
"What is, then?" I asked. Was there another terrible part of this I had forgotten?
"Lenalee," he sighed, "you seem disgusted by all of this."
"Why shouldn't I be?" I demanded.
He shrugged, staring out of the window rather than at me. "Is it really that bad to be pregnant with my child?"
"Yes."
"Honestly?"
I stared at him, trying to figure out what he was trying to say. Somehow, he seemed hurt by how upset I was about this. I sighed. "Lavi, maybe in a different time and place, this wouldn't be a bad thing. It could be a great thing. Right now, it's not going to work, though."
He smiled encouragingly at me. "We can make it work, though."
I raised an eyebrow. "How, exactly?"
He placed his hands on my shoulders, turning me to the window. "See that?" he asked.
"What? All I see is barren land."
"No! Beyond that!"
I squinted, but I couldn't see anything. "What are you talking about? Lavi, I'm not in the mood for games-"
"Sometimes, I'd get afraid while going on my missions with the Old Man that I didn't have a future. I was sure I was trapped in the past. When I began feeling down like that, I'd just look out the window and look at that, and I'd feel better immediately!"
I was completely confused now. "What…?"
"The future," he told me, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Don't you see it?"
"Of course I can't!"
"Well, sure you can't see it precisely, but I can see it's there, at least." He placed his hand in mine, staring out along with me. "I can see it, Lenalee. I can see our future with our child. I know it can work. Want to know why?"
I looked up at him, doubt in my voice. "Why?"
He leaned closer, so that our foreheads were touching. "Because I love you," he answered before pressing his lips to mine.
---
I was staring out the same window now, eight months into that very pregnancy. I rested my hand against my large stomach, a sad smile sweeping across my face.
"I guess I was a little uncertain at first," I said, even though I knew my son couldn't hear me, "but even if it didn't seem right, I broke the rules for you, hon. So you can live." I looked down at my stomach. "That has a story behind it. Want to hear it?"
No answer came, of course, but I went on anyway, gazing out of my window into the night. "Once upon a time, there was a young exorcist who met a handsome bookman. They used to go with her to exotic places all the time, just the two of them, and they'd have so much fun, just being together. Sure, it was all on the job, but as long as they were with one another, it didn't matter what they were doing." I took a deep breath before continuing. "He was a smart man, and that's not only because he was a bookman. He knew a lot of things that aren't in the history books that he had picked up along the way. He taught the exorcist all he knew so that she could pass on her knowledge, too.
"He taught her about the future. Even though the exorcist was scared of what awaited for her, she went forward anyway. He taught her about life, and she decided to bring her son along with her. He taught her about wishes, and she wished that the bookman could come along with them, too." Water filled my eyes for a moment, but I quickly blinked it away. Taking a moment to compose my voice, I breathed deeply before continuing. "He also taught her how to deal with losing all of that, too. He showed her something beautiful, and now she's going to show her son." I pulled the shades open completely and opened the window as wide as it would go, allowing the starlight to sprinkle into my room, shimmering against the walls. I looked up in the sky, looking for the brightest one. I was sure that that would be Lavi.
"He's right up there, and see how bright he's shining? He's perfectly happy. Even though, on one of those special missions the bookman and exorcist went on together, he didn't get to return, he got to go to an even better place. You never would think there would be a better place, but if there ever were to be one, then there is no one more deserving than Lavi, the bookman, to be the one to go there. Even though it's hard to be left behind, you have to think of what's best."
After every mission, Lavi and I would go down into that field and watch the stars, and it was always to beautiful that it would bring tears to our eyes and we would stare, mesmerized for hours. Tonight, though, the stars were a thousand times brighter, and this time, it was so beautiful, it knocked her breath right out of me, making it impossible for me to finish the story.
Every story begins 'Once Upon a Time', but not every story ends 'Happily Ever After'. That doesn't mean that it wasn't a wonderful story, though. If I were given the chance, I wouldn't change a thing.