A Little bit of Suffering

Request by: The Light's Refrain

Genre: Romance

Rated: K+

"Lavi," a voice called. Lavi winced at the loud sound, wondering where it was coming from. He tried to reach to cover his ears, but his arms were too heavy. Someone began shaking him, and his name was repeating. "Lavi!"

His eyes finally flickered open to reveal Lenalee leaned over him, smiling, but seeming nervous.

"Lenalee?" Lavi sat up, but only to feel his head spinning out of control. The world seemed to be tilted, and the colors blended together a bit. "Ugh, did I hit my head?"

Lenalee placed her hands on his shoulders, pressing him back down against the pillows. "Lavi, you need to rest. You've caught a bad cold on your trip with Bookman."

"Trip…?" Lavi thought for a moment before remembering. It had been in a small, desolate town. He remembered the desperate looks in the poor peoples' faces before shuddering and turning back to Lenalee, who was sitting on the edge of his bed, placing a cold cloth onto his forehead.

"Do you remember?" she asked nervously.

"Sure, sure; I remember," he quickly assured her. "My memory is one thing that can never be penetrated, no matter how much I get knocked around."

Lenalee laughed softly, smiling but still looking concerned as the door to the infirmary opened and in flooded all the other exorcists, noisily rushing over to greet Lavi.

"You were gone forever!" Allen cried as he rushed over to the bed, beaming excitedly.

"Yeah, it was nice. Why'd you have to come back?" Kanda snapped.

Lavi smirked. "Hey, guys."

Miranda stepped forward, holding up a book. "I thought you might want to read."

Kanda rolled his eyes. "The man's got a splitting head ache – like hell he wants to read."

Lavi accepted the book, still smiling. "Um, I'll read it once my head stop acting up. I'm sure I'll be looking for something to keep me busy in no time at all."

"So? How did you get sick?" Allen wondered. "You've never gotten sick before on your missions, have you?"

"Not really." Lavi leaned back against his pillow, thinking back again. "Well, there wasn't any good medicine or anything there, so it was easy to get sick. Besides, almost everyone there had something wrong with their health." His smile vanished, though the others, too caught up in their curiosity, didn't even notice.

"Here, have another pillow," Krory offered, taking a pillow off of a nearby bed.

"Way to just steal someone else's pillow for Lavi."

"Lavi's more important!"

The exorcists all began laughing, but Lavi quickly said, "I'm not that important. I mean, in the full scale of things, I'm just-"

"Here." Lenalee pulled at Lavi so he sat up, and slipped the pillow underneath his head. "Better?"

"Um, yeah, I guess, but as I was saying-"

"We missed you while you were gone," Allen went on. "Without you, it was so-"

"Quiet," Kanda finished abruptly. "Almost silent. So next time, take Moyashi with you, too."

"I wish I could go," Allen commented thoughtfully. "It looks like so much fun, traveling everywhere and meeting all those great people!"

"It's not that great."

Lenalee raised an eyebrow, noticing Lavi's repetitive negative behavior. The others carried on regardless.

"So, was it beautiful out there?" Miranda asked dreamily.

Lavi shook his head. "It was very barren. Kind of desolate."

"Did anything exciting happen?" Krory demanded, pulling up a chair.

Lavi thought before shaking his head again. "No, not really. The people were nice to talk to and stuff, though."

Allen grinned. "Were there lots of them?"

Kanda grunted, "He already said it was desolate, idiot."

Allen shot him an annoyed look, but Lavi answered before he could start a fight. "No. There were even less people by the time I left."

"They moved?"

"No, they-"

"Why did you have to go there if it was so empty?" Kanda grumbled, even though he looked like he didn't want to be there.

Lavi opened his mouth to answered, but had to think for a moment before saying, "Well, the sickness that was spreading through there was historical, I guess. It might be, at least. It's worth recording…" His voice trailed off, and he found he was unable to say anything more.

"Sickness? Is that what you have?"

"No. I had enough medicine and protection to keep myself healthy. I just didn't have enough to spread around." He frowned. If had one wish, it would have been that he could have helped the people there. They had all been so welcoming and kind – so friendly and inviting – even though Lavi and bookman had just come to watch them die. That's how Lavi had looked at it, at least.

Noticing the change in Lavi's expression, Allen said, "It looks like you're tired. We'll go and come back tomorrow."

"Thanks." Lavi smiled at Allen appreciatively as he and the other exorcists, except for Lenalee, filed out of the room.

"Are you going?" he asked.

She shook her head, looking even more concerned than before. "You look miserable."

"Well, I am sick."

"Not because of that." She took Krory's seat, moving close to his bed. "What's wrong? Did something happen while you were gone?"

"Just what I said," he told her, looking away uncertainly. "Everyone there was dying."

"There's nothing you could have done about it," she reminded him.

"I felt terrible just sitting there and watching them die," he complained. "I tried to give them some of my supplies, but Gramps stopped me. Apparently I'm not supposed to 'alter history'. He said that 'if their people were meant to parish, than I shouldn't get in fate's way'. How crazy is that?"

Lenalee looked down at her lap, shrugging lightly. "Perhaps he was a little bit right."

Lavi's mouth fell open and he stared at her in disbelief. "What are you talking about? It's never okay to sit by and watch people die-"

"It wasn't up to you to save them."

"It's never up to anyone to save anything, but we do anyway, don't we?"

Lenalee sighed, reaching out and placing her hand over Lavi's. "I'm not trying to say it's okay. I'm just saying that you shouldn't blame it on yourself."

"I can't help it, though! I mean, look at me!" He held out a hand, gesturing to the room around him. "I've got a tiny head cold and everyone rushes to my aid, and I've got a million people worried about me and are doing whatever they can to help me and all that. The people in that town didn't have anyone that wanted to help them. They didn't have an infirmary or friends or anything."

Lenalee looked away, not really knowing what to say. It was silent for a moment, and they sat thinking about the town, unspeaking.

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Lavi asked after a moment.

Lenalee shook her head slowly. "The Black Order is only meant to protect the world from akuma – not sickness."

Lavi sighed, sitting up again. "I just can't sit here and let everyone take care of me. Not after seeing that. I'll fend for myself, like them-"

Lenalee took his shoulders and pushed him back down again, this time keeping her hands on him to make sure he didn't make another attempt to sit up. "Lavi, if you have people who can help you, you should take advantage of it."

"It isn't fair, though."

"What's not fair is you taking the burden for everything," she argued. "I don't want you to make yourself feel worse over this."

"I can't get them out of my mind, though," he groaned, placing his arm over his eyes.

Lenalee released him, leaning back again. "I don't really know what to say, Lavi. I understand how you feel, and I would, too. You can't take all of the burden onto yourself, though. You can't hurt yourself just because you know other people are hurting. Not when you have so many people who want you to recover. You have a job to do, too, you know. You save tons of people everyday," she reminded him. "And unless you get better soon, all those other people who are depending on you are going to get let down."

Lenalee pushed back her chair, standing up and leaving, flicking off the light as she went. Lavi looked up just before she shut the door. "Thanks, Lenalee."

She smiled over at him before shutting the door and vanishing from view.