He woke up because someone was shaking him. It took him a few moments to realize that, not only was someone shaking him, he was hitting the person shaking him with balled fists, angry, frightened, desperate. He took in giant heaves of air, as if he'd been drowning seconds before, unbeknownst that he had been lying in water until the moment someone dragged him from peaceful slumber.

No. It was far from peaceful slumber. Fragments came back to him, readily, like splinters of glass under his fingernails as he scrabbled to remember what it was that had stirred him to such agitation. Red hot metal, so many bruises, a single slick of blood on an apron, a bowler derby, dark glasses hiding amber eyes...

"Are you... alright?" Allen gasped, collapsing to his knees by the side of the bed. The white-haired boy had a new contusion forming at the corner of his forehead, high in his hairline but just enough that he could see the redness in the dim lighting. He had turned on a lamp in the hotel room. He was in his pyjamas, obviously just roused from sleep. He had a puffiness to his face, possibly from just waking up, and bags hung under his eyes, as Allen had received little sleep on the boat ride from Havana to Guatemala. The heaving ship had more than once thrown the Englishman into nausea spells that threatened to keep him awake for hours on end while Lavi slept like a log in his hammock- except during those periods where nightmares infested his sleep like insistent rats.

Such was this night. The apprentice recollected himself, putting his head on his knees, which were propped up. He hugged his knees with his arms, trying to keep his composure, but that ultimately showed signs of failure as a knot formed in his throat, a ball of spiky clay forced down his gullet.

"Fine," was all he was willing to say. He had no need nor wish to burden Allen. The kid had enough on his mind, and Lavi was supposed to be keeping his distance as it was. Spilling his guts would not help the 'detachment' strategy in any way, shape, or form. He'd grown fond of the bright-eyed fool, and he hated himself for it. When he finally had to leave, it would be like snipping each successive ligament of endearment with surgical precision and a lack of any kind of social anesthetic. Yet, he couldn't bear distance himself.

Now that he had finally been treated as a human, loved, he'd been made real. Through the catalyst, no, the reagent of affection, he had been transformed from a shell of a person into a fully grown, undeniable entity separate from the histories of the world, from his clan, from the blank, cold realities of paper and ink. It was breaking him as much as it was building him. It was a beautiful dichotomy, a cycle of destruction and rebirth.

He was now a cog in the war machine, inextricable and integral. There would be no backing out now. He understood this, finally, and it ate at his heart as well as nourished it.

He looked at Allen, who had refused to leave.

"Do you... want to talk about it?" Allen asked quietly, getting up from his knees. He hesitated, but then he finally sat on the edge of the bed, knees almost bumping the bed adjacent to Lavi's own.

Their hotel was small. In fact, it was almost pillbox sized. There was a single nightstand, just enough room for two valises, and two beds, one on either side of the room, with a scant three feet between the beds. Bookman and Darrin shared a room, both making a joyous symphony of snores on the floor above, their nasal tones drifting through the ceiling now and again. Much to Link's displeasure, he was rooming with Ricardo rather than Allen, due to... extenuating circumstances with the receptionist. Allen and Lavi had decided it best to room together, if just to catch up on old times and report to each other the things they had missed.

That was how they passed the night, telling stories of their adventures. Allen had been chasing ghost lights in America while Lavi had been busy in the desert, but Lavi was careful to censor some of his tales, to keep out any mention of her. Allen noticed, but he made no remark. Lavi could see it in the slight twitch of concern whenever Lavi would pause briefly to think of a way to reword or circumvent events that had happened with her intervention or input. Eventually, it came down to Allen talking the night away, Lavi blearily muttering affirmation now and again before drifting to sleep.

Only to wind up in a hellhole of his own making, submerged and drowning.

"I don't... know, just..." Lavi said slowly, sitting his chin on his knees. He stared at the far wall, a sad thing covered meekly in printed wallpaper that peeled from the humidity. The moon illuminated the print, little flowers that marched aimlessly across a beige expanse.

"Is this about these?" Allen asked, pointing to Lavi's arm. He looked down at it, noting the hair on his forearms had yet to lay back down. There was a scar, perhaps the thickness of his pinkie finger, no longer an angry puce but a dulled, silvery pink. The skin around it was tight, crinkled almost. Lavi looked at Allen, and at that moment knew he'd been outed. Allen's eyes were discerning, gray spotlights. Taking a shuddering breath, he looked away. He should have known Allen would have figured it out.

It was yet another thing he'd tried to hide, so so hard. He didn't wish to stir up those memories, not just because of the scars that were barely healed but because of the mental repercussions thereof. A word, a sound, a smell could trigger them, even the memory of those things, or the memory of a memory. He had no wish to be in that place again. Just the shadow of the thought turned his stomach, and he wrapped his arms around his middle.

"If you talk about it, perhaps you'll feel better," Allen suggested gently, patting Lavi's foot.

Lavi shut his eyes, and he shook his head.

"Allen, I don't think you understand."

"What is it that I don't understand, then?"

"I..."

Lavi found it hard to explain. He'd tried to tell Allen about the episodes he had, the strange switches between reality and the world of memory. He had the feeling that, though Allen comprehended what he was saying, he didn't fully grasp the sheer immensity of realness his memories posed. Lavi could remember the fine, ridged layers of paint on a tea cup from Paris three years ago in his memories, such was the depth of his recollections. He had been trained to grab and keep the smallest of details, and he was able to recount everything he had done for the past ten to twelve years. Allen would have no idea what sort of stress or joy or pain that would entail, and he definitely wouldn't understand the gravity of his memory world...

But perhaps he could try. Allen was... a connection. And connections could be useful. He just had to guard his heart.

Yet a house divided cannot stand.

"I don't want to... disappear into my head again. You remember that time, when I was standing on the seawall?" Lavi asked, his voice oddly flat and gravelly, obviously exhausted, emotionally if not physically.

"I don't think I'd be likely to forget," Allen admitted with a dark chuckle.

Lavi smiled for a split second, and Allen saw, for a moment, the smile that Lenalee and Kanda Yuu had first seen when Lavi had first appeared, an empty smile, hollow and ringing with insincerity.

It frightened him.

"I was in a memory. I was lost in the memory, and my body continued walking around, almost on autopilot. I don't know why I was on the seawall, though. My body does what it will when I'm... stuck up here," Lavi explained in more detail, tapping his temple. He stared at his feet, twitching his toes beneath the sheets. Allen shifted, the sound of sheets softly rustling. The moonlight was dim, but it bathed everything a strange shade of light blue. He remembered how she would sit by him, when these nightmares assailed him. She made him talk. But she had suenos of her own.

"And the memories are very very real. So my dreams are... also very real," Lavi muttered, flexing a single hand against his side. He dared not look at Allen, in case he gave away an emotion or betrayed his affections. Allen was a cog, just another cog, a cog that Lavi had to record, one that was very likely to die in the war to come, and Lavi would have to treat his passing with as much, or little, deference as every death he'd ever jotted down. Just another splash of ink.

A special splash of ink, though. He was beginning to see the special splashes of ink now. Komui. Lenalee. Even Johnny Gill. Ink of so many different colors, but ink to be spilled, he had to remember...

"I was tortured, so I retreated. Up here," Lavi admitted, the words seeming to be pulled out of his mouth like teeth. He tapped his temple again, fidgeting. He could hardly hold still some days, though that wasn't a new thing. Yet, this was an anxious sort of movement borne of paranoia rather than excitement or energy.

"Like with Rhode," Allen said.

Lavi smiled again, that hollow small smile.

"Yeah. Well, more like the inverse. My outsides were fine, and my insides... not so fine," Lavi chuckled, and he rubbed the back of his neck.

Allen's brow furrowed, and he patted Lavi's knee.

"Is that what you dreamed of? What they'd done?" Allen asked quietly.

"Yeah," Lavi said, without hesitation, surprising himself. It was easy to trust Allen. He was an open boy- an open man. He had no secrets, no gruesome tales of horror in his past, no need to stuff boxes of memories into closets. If anything, he was doing the opposite of Lavi, opening boxes of memories rather than nailing them shut.

"I remember what that was like, too."

Lavi looked up in surprise. It suddenly occurred to him that that had been the case with Allen as well. How could he have forgotten?

He understood if he had a hard life. He chose this life of war and famine and death and ink and paper. He'd wanted to know the world's deepest, distilled secrets, and he'd got what he'd asked for. Allen, on the other hand, had never deserved a single thing that had happened to him.

Almost. Lavi couldn't deny that Allen deserved to be fined for cheating at poker. He was awfully lucky that the policewoman was Moore, so she let him off easy after Lavi had explained the situation. It had involved gratuitous amounts of missing clothes and Crowley's lack of experience... yet again.

"I dreamed for nights and nights about when Rhode had killed an Akuma, destroying it's soul. She'd made me watch it," Allen said blandly, staring out the window. "I remembered hearing it scream, listening to it beg for help as it was destroyed. And I could do nothing."

Lavi stared at Allen.

"What did you do?" he asked.

Allen smiled a little, toying with the edge of the sheet.

"I stayed up sometimes, eating a midnight snack and not wanting to go to bed, but I knew eventually I'd have to go back and sleep. Eventually, Lenalee noticed that I wasn't sleeping well. She kept asking, and I kept saying it was nothing for nearly a week before a broke down," Allen admitted, a half-smile now creeping on his face as he remembered it with fondness.

It amazed Lavi how this person would take a horrific thing like a nightmare and make it a lesson. For all his knowledge and information, Lavi lacked that sort of wisdom sometimes. Yet on more than one occassion, he'd had to give Allen the advice. It was a strange partnership.

"Lenalee and I talked for most of the night, and she told me that dreaming of those things was natural. She told me about a thing called a baku, a Japanese creature that eats dreams, and sometimes when she's having a terrible night, she'd just think of these baku, like counting sheep. And then, she'd just fall asleep and the nightmares would leave her be," Allen recounted.

"Where did she get the idea of the baku? The Japanese people have been gone for nearly fifty years now," Lavi asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"I think Kanda told her."

"Seriously?! Kanda?!"

That wasn't like him at all! Besides, Kanda was more Chinese than Japanese- just because he was ethnically a Japanese man didn't mean he was part of their culture! Unless... he remembered more than he let on about his past life. Lavi made a mental note (quite literally) to ask him the next time they called each other. Was it possible that Kanda and Lena... Naaaah, no way. Kanda was too busy babying Mugen to notice a woman, much less Lenalee (though that wasn't to say Lena wasn't a woman- she and Kanda just weren't- well).

Allen shrugged.

"Anyways, I tried it, and it worked, for the most part," Allen sighed. "I don't know if that's the power of suggestion or the power of the baku, but I didn't much care. It helped, though. I slept, and when the nightmares returned, I'd just sit there and think of these nightmare eating creatures."

"It sounds like a child's bedtime story," Lavi quipped, raising skeptical eyebrows.

"If it works, it works," Allen shrugged, noncommittal.

Lavi smiled, this time a genuine grin with teeth and stretched lips, from ear to ear, thinking of Allen with a thought bubble over his head as he counted sheep-like monsters chasing after cloudy nightmares. Lavi took another look at Allen, and he noticed the bruise growing on the boy's head.

"Holy crap! I socked you a good one..." Lavi muttered, grabbing hold of Allen's head and turning it into the light.

"Ow ow ow! Lavi, that hurts!"

"Hold still and let me see it!"

"It's just a bruise! It'll go away!"

The two fussed for a few more moments before there was a loud, insistent knocking from the floor below them, no doubt Link and Ricardo complaining with a couple of strong strikes to the ceiling. The two jumped, holding still and listening for more auditory intrusions. Seeing that they were no in danger of being sharply reprimanded by an angry CROW, Lavi fell back on his bed, staring at the low ceiling.

"Sorry I hit you," Lavi apologized.

"You're alright. I hadn't realized you would be so strong in your sleep," Allen sighed, rubbing his head tenderly where the bruise was steadily spreading.

It was companionably quiet for a while as the two boys were wrapped up in their own thoughts. Lavi turned his head towards the clock, and he saw that it was almost two in the morning. The night seemed to drag its feet, taking its time winding through the streets as moonlight filtered through the window to the floor, creeping along the edges of shadows to illuminate all things therein. Allen hadn't moved, and neither felt the need to sleep just yet.

"It was difficult. Not having someone to talk to about it," Lavi admitted quietly, staring at the ceiling.

In truth, there was no one he could talk to about something like this. This had not been his first time being tortured, but it was definitely one of the worst. This time, he'd almost lost friends. He'd lost his sanity. It had all gone downhill from that point.

"They bound me up. They never cut me, not anywhere vital. Just under the fingernails and in between the fingers, between my toes, armpits, tender places. I remember I couldn't hold anything for days, and I had to be careful. No matter how I moved, something was going to hurt. They beat me a few times. They burned me. I think one of the hardest things, though, was when they-"

He fell quiet, staring at the ceiling, using it as a sort of canvas for his memory, a painting of experiences. There was a blank spot, a woman-shaped hole overlooking a cliff.

"-They shot my partner. Almost killed her. I thought she'd died. I could hear the gunshots from the tent I was in. They brought back her clothes. Luckily, they didn't take her Innocence," he recounted, his voice almost falling to inaudibility.

Lavi was quiet for a few moments, aware that his friend was watching him intently. Not with pity, not with admiration, not with horror or frustration or indignation. He was just watching him. Perhaps that's part of why Lavi liked Allen. He didn't judge, and he held his tongue until all was said. And perhaps that was what he liked about Kanda as well, though Lavi tended to snap shut around the Japanese Exorcist.

He worked his jaw, rolling his lips over his teeth, as if testing whether his mouth could handle the next words he was going to utter.

"But what was the worst part... was that I didn't have anyone's name to cry out. I couldn't scream for my mother. I never really had one. I couldn't scream for Bookman. I couldn't scream for Esperanza, or Darrin, or anybody. There was no one I trusted could save me. All I could plead for was that they would stop," Lavi slowly said, enunciating each word carefully, almost as if to savor their bitterness. "All I could do was cry."

It was quiet for a little while longer, and Lavi finally chanced a look at his friend. Allen was staring out the window with a forlorn look.

"Why are we here?" Allen muttered, seemingly non-sequitur.

"Because God hates us," Lavi groaned, throwing his pillow over his face.

"Or because God loves us," Allen guessed.

"What sort of God loves people by throwing them into war?" Lavi argued. Sometimes he had to ask himself why he was fighting this war. He had volunteered, but he hadn't meant to become a participant, merely a chronicler. Of course, that should have been apparent to him, considering they'd taken on Innocence, meaning that Akuma would have attacked them regardless of their affiliation.

"We're tested. We're tried. We're shaped, molded, changed."

"Yeah- and we're turned into animals, scrabbling for every available avenue to ensure our survival, taking food right out of the mouths of babes if needed," Lavi retorted.

"But you've seen the other side, too," Allen noted.

Lavi was quiet, thinking about how Allen had risked his life to save his. Indeed, Lavi had risked his own life to save Allen's, and Kanda's, and Lenalee's, and countless other people he didn't even know. That had never happened before, not until he'd joined the Order. He would look on at the destruction and not lift a finger. Remembering it brought shards of pain to his new, tender heart.

Speaking of tender heart...

He massaged his chest, the scar still fresh underneath the cotton of his shirt. It was a tall, angry ridge of flesh that still had flecks of thread running through it as the stitches wound around in his flesh, holding him together. His heart, beneath his fingers, was in much the same shape, still beating after its abuses and ridged with scars from where Bookman had haphazardly put him back together like some sort of Frankenstein creature.

It was odd that his true heart, the one that couldn't be touched yet could feel, was also in likewise conditions. It was cobbled together, 49 separate pieces making a whole, stitched like a quilt. It was threadbare, well worn, trod upon by so many feet and years of experiences. Yet, on one little piece out of the whole, names were pressed into the fabric, whether he willed them to be there or not. They'd left an impression he couldn't wipe away.

"Allen, how do you do it? Stay positive?" Lavi asked, sitting up on his elbows.

Allen shrugged again, sheepish. He looked at Lavi, and he admitted, "I just... I see no reason to focus on the negative. We only live here a short time. Might as well make the best of it. No use being miserable the entire time. Especially for us."

Allen's eyes fell on his black, deadly hand, and Lavi knew who he was talking about. Though Lavi had only war after war to look forward to, he was grateful, guiltily, that he didn't face Allen's fate- death at a young age, his own body betraying him.

Yet, he and Lavi weren't very different. The both of them were suffering mental issues, so in that regard Lavi could finally relate. He knew what it was like to have someone in your head, someone you couldn't control, someone who was part of you but wasn't you.

"I never asked- how've you been with, uh, with him?" Lavi asked.

Allen suddenly drew his knees up to his chest, staring at the ground. A pall had fallen over the boy, and Lavi immediately regretted asking. Lavi scooted over, patting the bed, and Allen stuck his legs next to Lavi, laying down his head next to Lavi's feet.

"Uh... good, I guess. But there... was an incident, at a point, in America," Allen said quietly. The boy shifted, a telltale sign of his discomfort.

"Nea suddenly took over. Not for long, but... it stuck with me, I guess. I almost didn't notice," Allen muttered, losing his positive edge for a moment, letting the dark creep in.

Lavi nudged Allen with his foot.

"The Science Department cooks up miracles daily. Maybe they can find something for you," Lavi sighed, flinging an arm over his eyes.

"A miracle... yeah," Allen breathed, staring at the ceiling.

Before long, both of them had fallen to sleep.

There was a knock on the door.

Allen had left with Link for the day to gather supplies for the trip into the Gautemalan rainforest. The first thing they wanted to visit were the Mayan ruins, as that was the best lead they had for finding a 'lake of tears' and where the 'sun and moon' kiss. Viracocha was Peruvian, and the Feather Snake and Hummingbird references were Aztec. They had decided to start in Guatemala and work their way to the Aztec ruins, and finally they'd head south to Peru and scope out the Inca ruins for clues.

Lavi was left in his room, sitting on his bed and furiously scribbling notes as he read four different books simultaneously. His absolutely limit was twelve, but that gave him horrible headaches, and he wasn't nearly desperate enough to try for that many just yet. Four was easily doable. So far, though, he hadn't come up with much.

"Come in," he called out, expecting Allen to barge in with his arms full of food. He couldn't wait to eat, honestly. He was starved- for once.

Bookman stepped inside, shutting the door softly behind him. Lavi sat ramrod straight, tossing his pen back into the inkpot.

"Gramps," he said in surprise. Realizing the mess of his room (books everywhere, papers strewn about, half-eaten food, mostly Allen's, on the floor and the bed, crumbs in the cracks, even ink on the walls and on the bed spread where he'd dripped it on accident), he swept the bed and stacked the books and hastily threw the inkpot on the desk.

"I... wasn't expecting you," Lavi laughed nervously, breathing heavily from exertion and nervousness.

Bookman studied his student. Lavi was gawky, overly skinny now (his clothes hung off in telltale fashion), his cheekbones sticking out like blades. His eye was muted- not dull, not empty, just... oddly shaded, like someone had put a screen in front of it. His lips were tinged blue- not a good sign, but at least his skin wasn't completely white now. The scar on his chest reached up over the neck of his shirt, and Bookman stared at his pale apprentice. For the first time in years, his freckles were visible- perhaps because of his pallor, perhaps because of the sun. He fidgeted under his master's gaze, tapping his fingers together, ink stained and dirty. From the looks of him, he hadn't even showered. From what Bookman knew, the teenager could sleep until noon, wake up, continue his day, take a nap for several more hours, wake up again, and then promptly go to bed and sleep a further fourteen hours before restarting the cycle. He slept more than any other person Bookman had known, and Bookman had known a lot of people.

"Yes, I see that," Bookman muttered. "Though... my room is not much better."

That seemed to put the redhead at ease. Bookman motioned for Lavi to sit on the bed, wherever he could find the room, and Bookman sat on the opposing bed.

"How is the heart?" Bookman asked, gesturing to his chest.

Lavi placed his hand flat to his chest, and he muttered, "Been better, been worse. It keeps limping along. The laudanum helps."

That explained the muted eye. However, Bookman couldn't begrudge Lavi the use of opiates- they kept his pain under control, and after having one's chest cavity torn open, it was a must.

Bookman nodded in agreement sagely, and now it was Lavi's turn to survey his master.

Short, as always. Question mark ponytail, still defying gravity and physics and Lavi's best efforts at understanding how it managed that shape. His eyes were black, his eyeliner was thick as coal, and his fingers were tipped with those scary, metal claws. When Lavi was younger, he'd actually thought those were part of Bookman, until he'd taken them off in order to wash his hands before delivering a child. He was older, though, more wrinkled, more hunched. His clothes were neatly pressed (unlike Lavi's), and his person was clean and shaved (unlike Lavi's). However, the typically direct man was staring off at the ground, looking at the ants on parade, carrying away bits of Allen's last dinner into the cracks in the floorboards.

"You... didn't come here just for that, did you?" Lavi asked quietly.

Bookman finally looked into Lavi's face, and the redhead's heart throbbed in his throat.

Had something happened? He hoped not. He shouldn't hope that Allen wasn't dead, that Link wasn't dead, that Darrin and Ricardo weren't dead, but he couldn't help himself. He glanced at the bandanna on the floor, the thing he'd stopped wearing because he was too fond of it, too attached.

Bookman noticed and he shook his head. "They are fine, apprentice. Our connections have means of keeping themselves safe."

Lavi felt conflicted. Bookman had talked about connections being useful...and now it seemed that Bookman used the term almost interchangeably with 'friend' or 'allies'. After all, they were the documenters- they couldn't have allies, because allies didn't exist when you weren't part of the war machine.

So Lavi toned down, not completely quashed, the feeling of relief.

"Do you remember your parents?" Bookman asked, rubbing his forehead.

Lavi frowned, weighing his words carefully. How could he tell Bookman he still remembered? He could still smell the brick dust, still see the shells of buildings, those husks of cities in his mind's eye, luring him into a memory of blood, terror, despair, hopelessness. He still remembered his mother staring out at sea for hours at a time, the most yearning look in her washed-out blue eyes, aquiline nose pointed straight to the horizon as she seemed to crumple from within like a rotting pastry. He remembered the meager food. He remembered how she tried so hard. He remembered.

In the end, he didn't have to answer. It had apparently written itself on his face.

"I can't expect you to not remember. I taught you to recall absolutely everything," Bookman muttered to himself sardonically, rolling his eyes. "Sometimes, to my detriment."

Lavi almost snickered. Prank wars were not common between him and Bookman, but... revenge was always disproportionately remembered, he would put it that way.

"I should have told you a long time ago," Bookman sighed. "Do you remember anything of your father?"

The redhead again frowned. He shook his head.

"No. I know he died when I was very young. I must've been three or four," Lavi said, tapping his knee with his fingers, still unable to stop fidgeting. Despite the laudanum dulling his senses, he was still always moving, a habit that Bookman had once found very annoying. Now, he took it as a sign of Lavi getting back into good health.

"What I am about to say to you must stay with you and you only," Bookman warned, standing in front of the boy, still shorter despite Lavi sitting on the bed. Lavi nodded solemnly.

Bookman took a breath to compose himself.

"Your... father was not a Bookman. Your mother was distantly related, a child of a Bookman and his consort who shunned the clan and their way of life. That is where many of your genetic tendencies toward eidetic memory and magic come from," Bookman explained. "She had wanted to marry your father, a merchant."

"What does this have to do with me keeping a secret? 'Oooooh, dear, his father was a merchant! Capitalist pig!'" Lavi joked, waving his hands. Bookman's stare shot the humor in the heart, and Lavi once more sat quietly.

"Your father had odd tendencies. We recognize them now as disorders of the mind, diseases of the brain," Bookman sighed.

Lavi could see where this was going, and he stared at Bookman. His eye flickered down to stare at his hands, and he clenched his hands together, rubbing his thumbs together and biting his lip.

"I get it," Lavi muttered quietly.

Bookman was silent.

"So... I'm crazy? Not... just because of them."

The old man said nothing.

"...Is there a treatment?" Lavi asked, already knowing the answer.

Bookman said, "No."

"...Thanks. For telling me," Lavi stated, looking up hesitantly.

"You understand why I cannot tell anyone," Bookman said quietly, putting a hand on Lavi's shoulder. The redhead gave a sheepish half-smile.

"I wouldn't want a crazy leader either."

Bookman nodded, and he began to leave, letting Lavi sift through this information, integrating it into the stronghold of facts and figures, experiences and inferences.

"Wait, why did you pick me if you knew-?" Lavi asked slowly as Bookman opened the door.

It was silent for a while, and Lavi watched Bookman deliberate, stroking the door handle, taking in its dull, brassy color and smooth texture, run over by hundreds upon hundreds of hands. This door had been touched by thousands before him, and that was something that would never cease to amaze Bookman, the sheer number of encounters that objects made with others that far succeeded humans.

"You were worth the risk, Lavi," Bookman said, looking him in the eye with raised nonexistent eyebrows.

"You're awfully chipper."

Lavi looked up in surprise.

"Huh?"

Allen was staring at him with an odd look, though it wasn't bad. It was like happy bewilderment.

"You're much more lighthearted today than you were. Did something happen?" Allen asked, shifting on top of the hay.

They were trundling along in the back of a truck, all their belongings piled high on large bales of hay. It was the only convoy going up this way into the Guatemalan rainforest towards the ruins. The roads were sparse, and the way was curving and sinuous. Few knew how to navigate it, and the next convoy out planned on leaving in the next month. Going by themselves was out of the question. While Akuma may await them in the cities as well as the jungle, there were plenty of bandits as well, and the Exorcists weren't allowed to shoot them.

"Naaaah. Just feel better, is all. Ticker's still going, sun's out, and the mosquitoes are mostly gone," Lavi said cheerfully, going back to his prior activity.

He'd taken to sketching now. He found it helped with the blackouts, those periods when the world disappeared into vivid, bright memories. Despite his eidetic memory, he didn't have the ability to put what he saw in his head on the paper. The challenge was both liberating and frustrating. Though he could picture Bookman clearly in his mind, he couldn't seem to get everything about him right. The curve of the ponytail was just a bit off, or the eyes weren't symmetrical, or his hands weren't folded right. The bumpy ride didn't help his drawing ability, either.

"What are you doing?" Allen asked, peering over the top of the paper.

Lavi pursed his lips at the boy, turning the paper down towards his chest, and whined, "Hey! I'm not done yet!"

"Oh, come on, I'm sitting here bored out of my mind, and you've been scratching at that paper for the better part of an hour," Allen sighed dejectedly.

Lavi held out his paper to the side and surveyed it, pretending to really take interest in his creation. Allen grinned and tried to snatch it from the older boy, but Lavi was quicker.

"Ah ah ah! Nope! Gotta be patient. I'm deciding whether or not it's fit to grace your vision," Lavi said imperiously, and Allen flailed his arms as Lavi pushed his face away.

"Well, maybe I shouldn't have added such a big nose on you," Lavi teased as he stared at the sketch, and Allen's jaw dropped.

"You haven't been drawing me, have you?!"

"Only while your mouth was lolling open and your tongue was sticking out."

"Lavi! That's not funny!"

"Hey, quiet down. I'm trying to nap," Bookman grumbled, the old man stuck between several bales and the cab of the truck. His blanket was thrown over his head, and he was stuffing his fingers in his ears. As if the drone of the engine weren't bad enough, he had two teenage boys doing stupid things in the back of the truck.

Lavi and Allen winced simultaneously, and they tried not to laugh.

Lavi leaned back against the hay, sighing and readjusting the bandanna over his eye. He made sure to sit on his sketch, and Allen 'hmph!'ed rather loudly. Lavi grinned, and he tried to settle down his mind.

He'd gone back to wearing his bandanna. He talked a little more to Allen, a little more sincerely too. He traded dirty jokes with Darrin. Ricardo talked about his maths projects, and Lavi sat and listened intently, giving advice where he thought applicable. He felt better these days, and the world seemed maybe a bit brighter. The sun banished the demons of the past, and his work gave him purpose.

Yet, at night, he could still see her face, dark glasses glinting against firelight. He couldn't forget, but he could at least keep his mind off of it for a while. At night, it was harder. No one was awake to talk to. Lamplight was too dim for easy work. He was left to his own devices, and his mind ran like a wound clock. Some nights, he went without sleep altogether, deciding it wasn't worth the dreams.

But for the time being, daylight was his friend, and he welcomed it.

There was a sudden commotion off to the side of the truck, and the trundling vehicle came to a stop. Allen and Lavi sat up, curious as to the hubbub. Bookman continued his snooze, because there was no point to getting up just to find out there was a man's cow stuck in the middle of the road or something like that.

Lavi and Allen looked over the high gate of the truck, eying the rest of the convoy. A series of men were huddling around the commotion, and Lavi could hear the sound of a goat bleating.

Spikes of fear stabbed him in the gut, and he didn't know why.

"Allen, get Bookman," Lavi breathed, suddenly heady. Something about this situation just didn't strike him right. The goat, the sudden stop, this whole mess

The smell of livestock somewhere deep in the forest, New England trees surrounding him, the light filtering through the leaves. It's midday, and the caravan's stopped, just for a moment, because they heard a cow lowing in the brush. It's a gray day, and the ground was wet, petrichor seeping through his nose. And then, there was motion from behind as the men tried to free the cow, and he remembered seeing that the cow had been tied to the tree amid the brush, deliberately places. Then the guns-

BANG BANG BANG-

Lavi ducked, unsure if this was the memory or reality.

"Lavi, what are you doing?" Allen asked, peeking over the bale of hay as Bookman surveyed the terrain from his perch on top of the cab of the truck.

The redhead looked around, aware that the air was silent. He hesitantly began to stand up, heart hammering in his chest. The smell of cordite and wet ground still lingered in his nose, and he ruffled his hair. He could see men milling around the goat that had been trapped in the brambles, and he took quick breaths, trying to calm himself.

Not New England. Not French or Injun or English or slave. Just... the forest.

"Esta nada! Solo un cabra! Va, va, arriba."

The convoy continued.

"What did he say?" Allen asked, collapsing back on to the hay.

Lavi couldn't help but notice that his glove was unbuttoned. He wondered how much good Innocence would do against metal bullets. Then again, if it could stop an Akuma's bullet, surely it could stop a mundane slug. At least, he sincerely hoped so. He'd never had to test that theory.

"He said it was nothing, just a goat. It must've wandered off from one of the homesteads somewhere out in the forest," Lavi said, pointing behind him at the verdure, thick and luscious. It was hard to believe there was enough space for a goat, much less an entire homestead. The plant life seemed to wage a war against human construction, creeping across the road at points with vines and nettles. It was only constant vigilance and a well-placed shovel that kept the botany at bay.

"People live out there?" Allen asked himself.

And then there was the deafening bang.

A/N: I'm baaaack. Spring Break has revived my sudden need to write, and I've churned out this chapter that's been through development for nearly three months! I apologize for the lateness. I hope to get some chapters on backlog so that things will be more or less scheduled, but I wouldn't hold my breath. :/

Anyhow- much thanks to my new subscribers, rollando35, graveMonera, Tera Raiden, PrincessWindNight, and fading ink! They give me hope that people haven't given up on me yet.

A big thanks to graveMonera, rollando35, PrincessWindNight (all double-headers!), and AnnieMatsukaze for favoriting the story, too. There's nothing like free publicity and a good readership! I'm glad so many are willing to show they like the fic!

And finally, to my reviewers, who've been sadly neglected. Indiahenna, I was more than happy to refer Heat Wave, and I'm pleased to find that things are moving at more or less the right pace. PrincessWindNight, I'm just happy you like the story so much and were willing to tell me! Really, that's 50% of what a writer needs to hear. The other 50 is good, detailed critique. I gladly accept either.

I don't really have any questions! Feel free to ask your own, tell me what you think, or even rant about how you hated that I left for so long and the story almost ended on a cliffhanger. Read, subscribe, favorite- show your love!

God bless you, and happy reading!