So, because my updates have been bad and irregular, this one is a super-chapter. This fic (as most of you have probably guessed) isn't exactly Daisya's story, but is mostly Daisya's story with respect to Kanda, because it was Kanda not exploding at Daisya and not even getting angry with him in the anime that got me to write this thing in the first place. Lenalee, Tiedoll, and Marie - it's easy to see how their relationships with Daisya would come to be, but as for Kanda it's a complete mystery. However, this means that I've been sorely neglecting them, so I tried to sketch out parts of their relationships in side stories.

Anyhow, there will be flashbacks in this chapter - they're in no particular chronological order, so you can slot them in where they fit in the timeline.

Hope you guys can enjoy the chapter! I was reading some of the earlier stuff the other day, and [wince] even though I'm still not great, this still seems to improve

They had the cabin to themselves, sitting side by side on a bench opposite their equipment. In case of any emergency, it was better to have everything close to hand instead of stored up on the shelves that were just a bit too high for kids before their growth spurt.

"Dude, I was having a nice nap until we got into town."

It was comforting, to hear Daisya back to normal. What he'd said these past few days still followed Kanda around, no matter how many times he tried to swat it out of his head.

"Don't try to tell me you're not tired."

Daisya yawned loudly, and stretched his arms out, one sliding over Kanda's shoulders and the other stretching out the window. Backwater railway lines like these didn't have the biggest cabins or the comfiest benches. "You know me too well."

No, he didn't know him at all. "You haven't shut up about it for days."

"But this time I was complaining about it because I was actually tired, you know, not just for the sake of it."

Whether that was true or not, Kanda couldn't tell. All he knew was that Daisya needed a heavy dose of sleep, now that they were relatively safe from akuma. There'd been a ton of them just hanging around the abbey in the hours afterwards, as if someone had warned them.

"Whatever. I'll sit up and sleep; you can lie across the bench."

"Don't need to tell me twice."

He tried to remember that last time he'd properly slept. This body could take more than a human's, a lot more, but with one exorcist down and akuma swarming he'd had no choice but to stay up, catching an hour or two here and there, asking Daisya to keep a lookout when they rested at the side of the road. It had been days. The day before they went to the abbey was probably the last one.

This was no fighting state. He should have rested a while earlier: he was a light sleeper, and he could outrun the akuma. Daisya was just dead weight. Couldn't run, couldn't use his Innocence fast enough to fight, too hyped-up on pain and fatigue and those meds he took to think his way out. He could just be left there, when push came to shove. Kanda had tried pushing him away before, tried locking him out or failing that to shove him out of the way. He'd thought he'd finally forced Daisya to cope on his own when he dangled Alma's mystery in front of him in return for an ounce of fucking caution, but now he'd figured out the fucking clues he'd picked up along the way.

It was obvious that he wasn't going to make it much longer. Alone, or with Kanda's help.

It hurt.

It hurt, and Kanda knew it, but that didn't make the dull pain of it go away. If he accepted it now, that Daisya's recklessness meant that he was living on borrowed time, he would be able to accept it when it finally happened.

That's what he'd thought, until he'd felt the hand in his back and nothing below him, heard the grinding stone and sickening crunch of bones, landed hard and in a blind panic ripped the fractured slabs of rock from off the body, to see the damage underneath.

One day, he would be a few seconds too late, too tired, too slow, and Daisya would be gone, and he would either have to die with him, or live on.

He'd made that choice years ago.

It wasn't any easier.

Daisya had already curled up, head resting on Kanda's knees, when the conductor came by to check tickets. Two passes, stamped with the rose seal of the Black Order, were duly inspected and returned, and the door slid shut again. Kanda locked it for good measure.

Whether he was awake or not, Daisya's eyes were closed and his breathing was soft and sound, keyed in to Kanda's own rhythm. No one could see them, pulling off into the forest and heading toward the plains.

No one could see him.

Slowly, he passed a hand over Daisya's face, smoothing back his messy hair and tucking it behind his ear to test if he was asleep. Daisya might be able to sleep through thunderstorms and lightning, but he was jumpy.

No movement. He was out like a light.

It wasn't Kanda's room, one illusion and his cracked flagstones behind a double-bolted door, but it would do. The locked door was enough.

He braced his shoulders against the wall, crossed his arms, and leaned sideways on the door, falling into oblivion if not into sleep. And slowly, bit by bit uncoiling each muscle and nerve, he let himself relax.

And start to cry.

…

Oblivious and relishing the rest and the peaceful haze of extra pills, Daisya let his thoughts drift over to what the Order had become to him.

What he might have left behind, if not for Kanda.

…

"Daisya?" called Lenalee, her warm voice diffusing through the dusty air. "You here?"

The boy in question hurriedly shoved a pile of paper to the side, dropping a heavy book on top to hide the spidery sketches that covered the pages. If he'd been trying to look like an academic, an hour's worth of doodles on his notes wouldn't do him any favours.

"Yep! Recent East Asian history section."

He grabbed another volume from the stack in front of him, and opened it up to a random page. The library was the only place you could get any piece and quiet these days, now that akuma activity was back up from the summer and the exorcists were coming and going like anybody's business. It was a bit chilly up here, with no fire allowed near the dry paper, but he'd bundled himself into a nest of blankets big enough to keep him warm.

"Got it!"

Soft footsteps ran towards him, climbing the creaky stairs without a single misstep and taking them two or three at a time from the sound of it.

Daisya hated to admit it, but Lenalee wasn't the same nervous wreck he'd sometimes thought of; embarrassingly enough, she was good, and getting better at this whole exorcist thing. Like, seriously good. Great. Kanda-level good. Beating-him-in-one-on-one-football good, as of a week ago, for crying out loud! If he were to be honest, that was why he was trying to study now (no one said anything about succeeding) — he needed to hold his ground somehow. Well, make up ground. He could keep pace with her in strength for a few years more (never mind that she was younger than him and should by all rights be a scrawny little weakling), but she was on track to beat him in lessons.

After so much time on the road in the fall, with no one but a finder, it was nice to come back to a challenge.

"Does your four-eyed brother want to see me, or something?" he asked, seeing her come into view between the crooked shelves. "I thought I was on leave until next week."

"Nope, that's right," she confirmed, speaking still too sweetly for Daisya to hold her skills against her. "Marie just got back ahead of schedule, so I figured you'd want to know."

Daisya nearly jumped out of his seat, but his legs were too stuck tangled up in the blankets. "What?! No, did you see him?"

"Unless I'm going blind, he's catching up with Suman." She grinned at him. "Should I hold you steady, or are you going to be okay?"

"Oh shut up, man," he shot back. "I haven't seen him in, like, six months! Whenever I'm back he gets send off to the back end of nowhere."

"Oh, yeah, I guess so. Me and Kanda ran that mission a few weeks back with him down in Fez."

Lenalee kicked one of the shelves back a bit, and sat down on a lone cabinet, lost in unfamiliar territory. Probably Reever had brought it up here, to keep at least some of the files organized and safe from her brother.

"And where was I?" Daisya asked, "Getting my ass kicked with a couple of newbie finders. I still can't believe we got out of that alive."

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad."

"Uh, nuh uh. You know that time where we got stuck in that bog in White Russia, and your feet got stuck and my Innocence was full of guck? Like that. But with a couple of good-for-nothings."

He shuddered at the memory. Not that bad? Not that bad? A whole army inhabited by Innocence and too belligerent to give it up? A couple of superstitious little kids? Come on.

"Daisya," she implored, frowning slightly, "Don't say that."

"It's true!"

"I meant that you shouldn't include yourself."

The grin that immediately burst out from her showed the joke, the little swine.

"Ha ha," he said flatly, throwing her a look. "I don't even know if you were joking, but very funny."

"Anyhow, if you can afford to take a break from your studies, I'm sure he'd be excited to see you again before you go."

She crossed and uncrossed her legs, looking almost as excited as Daisya to have three quarters of their group back together. The exorcists and even the finders tended to separate off into little gangs, and just with the way it all played out, the quartet of himself, Marie, Kanda, and Lenalee (sometimes with four-eyes and the old man, if he was in town) had become his new family.

Family. He hadn't thought about them in a few weeks, but it was nearly time to write the monthly letter.

"Hello? Daisya?"

Lenalee waved a hand in front of his eyes, and snatched it away when he tried to grab it. Yep, definitely family.

"Sure!" he answered, "I'll just finish this up, and then I'll follow you back down."

Carefully, he stretched, and things snapped in places he wasn't sure could cramp like that. God, the academic life was a tough one.

"You should do some exercises tonight," chirped Lenalee, "With me and the rest of Yeager's students and the new recruits. It'll get you back into shape."

"Ugh, maybe. Now why don't you get lost?" he said affectionately, patting her on the head, "Go back to your new little friends, or whatever. Someone actually your age."

"Hey, I'm not that young any more."

She hopped to her feet, and stood on her tiptoes to make a point before running ahead.

"Tell that to me when you're taller," Daisya shouted after her.

"It's a deal," she called back, now at the top of the stairs. "By the way, you'll probably read better if you turn the book right-side-up!"

Daisya stared into space for a moment as the stairs creaked, and looked back at the text in front of him. Sure enough, it was upside down.

Kids these days had no respect for their elders.

…

"Hey, gramps! Long time no see."

"Ah, Daisya. It's been at least a few months since the last time you called me old."

Daisya skipped the last few feet, and slid on to the bench beside Marie. A quick check showed that nobody was talking to him right this very moment; for Daisya, this was a free pass to go and start chatting.

"Aw, you missed me! Any near death experiences you got to talk about? Interesting people? Cool instruments?"

Marie's information was rarely short of interesting. The guy saw — didn't see — the world in a different way from everyone else, and seemed to have the brains to back it up. Even just asking him to describe a rock was an experience. Your average loser would just say it was grey, but he'd talk about how it smelled, and the pitch it rang out with when you hit it with something.

"Nothing to rival what I heard you were up to in the Yugoslavic region, but we did run into some rather unique situations. Would you like to hear about Australia?"

"That's the convict colony? Right?"

"Yes. The government is brutal and the weather is bad…"

"So like Russia?" Daisya interrupted. "Let me tell you, some of the stuff that happens there is just. Ew."

"Maybe," continued Marie, smoothing over the break, "But it's hot, not cold. As I was saying, the folk songs are incredible. They're just — they are history and art in one."

Marie's face lit up as he said it; sure, he was calm, but the moment you got him talking about something he liked, he was even bouncier than Jeanne.

After how sombre he'd been the last time Daisya saw him, it felt nice to see him cheered up.

"Don't leave me hanging! What do they do that's so special?"

"It's hard to describe. It is — tapestries are a recording of stories and histories, and yet they are also just tapestries?"

"Well, yes…"

"The songs are songs, with tunes and lyrics, but some songs are histories that go on for centuries. And the singers have all of it in their memories, more than books."

Daisya whistled. "I don't think I can even remember the words to my school songs."

"Mm."

Marie didn't even try to deny it. Hey, that was kinda rude!

"Where's Kanda? I haven't heard him around."

Daisya sighed, and slumped down on the table. That was why it had been a boring few days, with Lenalee off with Komui all the time.

"He's off on a check-up mission with Isaac for a couple of weeks more. I betcha he'll be begging to have me back after that."

This time, he didn't give Marie an opening for one of his pointed silences.

"Say, are you back for good? You've been running off to all the different branches since like, a year and a half ago. They were even going to move your room!"

He trailed off, but Marie didn't answer for a moment. No sense of dramatic timing. Good old Marie.

"I'm back now. They needed me for intelligence."

"Like, smarts or data?"

This got something that was almost a chuckle out of him.

"Data. I can eavesdrop."

"And don't I know it."

Daisya waited to see if Marie was going to fill in the blanks.

Nope.

Okay, a few seconds was enough. He really had to do all the work some times, to get the good stuff out of the guy. At least Kanda found the time to rag at him in between.

"I'm guessing all that secret intel stuff is under wraps, so I'm not gonna ask about that."

"Good."

"Do you want to do some sparring later on? Kanda hasn't been around to drill me, so my strikes are getting pretty weak."

He gave Marie his best puppy eyes, because sparring was almost as good as dancing for a good time, and then realized that he could see 'em. Damn. It's been too long without someone who could hear you through three walls.

But Marie seemed to get the effect, smiling a bit.

"Do you think you're up to it? Kanda told me you got into a serious scrape a few months back."

"Man, that healed up months ago. I was born to be an exorcist."

Marie had to be making fun of him — his smile had broadened, and what, what was he doing now, getting up just after he'd come to see him?

"Is that so? The synch scores I heard from Reever would say otherwise."

"You're on. Though, it kinda sucks that we can't practice that resonance trick of ours, now that you're back."

He could tell by the slight tightness in Marie's expression that the guy was about to drop something good, but he didn't want to be kept in suspense.

"Whatcha looking like that for?"

Marie chuckled just once, and smiled.

"The old section chief retired, Daisya. We're free to practice if we wish."

"Sick! Give me five —" he tripped on the bench in his haste to get up, catching himself just in time. "No, three minutes — just need to get my stuff. 'Kay. Got it. Innocence drills. See you in a bit!"

As he sprinted for the stairs, he heard Marie's muted laughter on the lower edge of hearing.

…

"Oh boy—"

Daisya wiped at the water dripping down his face, having emptied the canteen over his head. It didn't do much to cool him off, after the match they'd just had.

"—where the hell did you learn something like that?"

"From you, remember?" Lenalee smirked.

"Ugh. I know I taught it to you, but I never expected you to actually, like, learn it."

They were finishing up a few cool-down lengths of the courtyard, red-faced and panting.

"You'll just have to make up some more moves, then!"

"Yeah, otherwise you're going to beat me."

It had been ages since the last match with his unit — Tiedoll and Kanda versus Daisya and Marie — now that the General had finished the basic training, so Lenalee was his practice partner. Actually, next month would mark the one year mark since they started doing this, when they had time.

"Don't be silly, Daisya, you're still better than me."

"And I'm three and a half years older than you, in case you forgot." He reached over to ruffle her hair. "It takes practice."

"I know, I know, but do you think I'll be able to catch up to you?"

Something about the way she said it made him think that she wasn't just talking about football.

"Well, maybe not me, because I'm the best at football, but yeah! You've just got to stick to it."

He couldn't see her face from his position beside her, but for a moment she seemed to deflate, the usual post-match buzz trickling out like sand from an hourglass. Nothing Daisya could understand, no, definitely not the same feeling as in the beginning, when no one else wanted to play with him or when he realized that the rest of the kids were on a mission.

"I…will."

"Lena? You good?"

They halted halfway across the yard, and Lenalee gently reached up to take his hand off of her head, and place it down by his side. Then, she smiled, not without sadness.

"I'm fine, Daisya, really."

Hard to believe she was only ten, sometimes, with how much she tried to act like nothing was wrong. They started off again, and Daisya decided it was worth a try.

"It's not bad mustache again, is it? I thought those finder said he was holed up over in Asia, but he's as bad as dust. Turns up goddamn everywhere."

Mind your language, his mother snapped in his head. Bah, what did she know. Lenalee dealt with worse from Kanda every day.

"No. No. Not him. It's just, I had to run last mission with two finders."

"That so. Which ones?"

"Dora and Bailey."

Her voice had grown quieter second by second, until now it was the hushed tone of someone (someone who wasn't Daisya, that is) speaking in a library or a church.

"Dora…yeah." He almost had to wince. "Bailey, she's the new one, right? Bit older than your four-eyed brother?"

"Yes."

"Well, I saw Bailey off with Dris the other day."

I didn't see Dora. The unspoken words ran between them.

"I got to her in time."

I couldn't save Dora. I couldn't get to her in time.

Finders lasted six months or so. Newbies less, vets more. Dora had been on for about a year so far, mostly as an exorcists' escort, which wasn't too bad. She'd get a good send-off with the others in the ceremony at the end of the month.

She'd had a soft spot for animals, and she'd knitted Lenalee a scarf for her birthday. She was plump, and made good small talk with the other adults, and was reliable in an emergency. Daisya hadn't been on a mission with her, but he'd seen her around, and Lenalee had talked to him about her. She talked to everyone about everyone.

"Gotcha," Daisya said. He didn't apologize, because there was nothing he could have done about it. "So you just need to be faster next time. You'll get there."

"No."

All of a sudden, Lenalee had turned to face him, and stamped her foot down. "Don't you understand? It's Dora! She's never — she's not coming back. And it's my fault."

Her voice cracked and broke down, and try as she might Daisya could still her the stuttering where her lungs were trying to heave sobs. Just like his crybaby sister back home. No — that was wrong. She was his crybaby sister, and they were here, at home.

Daisya, his mother scolded, what did I tell you about making your sister cry?

"No way." He took her by the shoulders in what he hoped was the right way to calm her down. Yes, she was really only ten. "Look, would you ever decide not to save her? No, because she's your friend. It's just…it's just what happens. Sometimes it's just not our choice."

A couple of tears slid down her face, though she wasn't ashamed of them as Daisya would be. What a lame reassurance that was, that there wasn't anything anybody could do about it. If he was in a story, it would be a cop-out of a speech.

But it was true.

"So it's God, or something?" asked Lenalee, staring at him as if she were trying to challenge it, or something. It was almost an accusation, but not directed at him.

"I have no idea. Not a single clue."

Whether that was the right answer or not, he also didn't know, but it made her laugh.

"Daisya! Come on."

"Hey, it's the truth."

She pushed his arms off, and scrubbed at her eyes, then set her face in the usual slight smile. "I know. Let's get back now, so we can clean up before lunch."

"Fine by me. Can you get me an extra bread roll?"

"Why?"

He grinned at her, as if everything was back to normal. "'Cos Jerry likes you better, so he won't yell!"

"All right, if you say so."

…

A strained noise almost jerked Daisya out of his reverie, but for now the medication let him have a few more fragmented dreams.

…

"Hey, look at this!"

He knew he sounded like some dumb kid who'd just gotten a puppy and didn't know how much work they were, but this was great! This was exciting, entertaining, not boring!

The Charity Bell hung in midair glowing slightly, at about the level of his sternum. As he moved his hands around it, drawing them closer and further away, the pitch changed, going from a tinkling little doorbell to the rich and chocolate tones of a church bell.

"Didn't you hear me, old man? Get your ass over here."

"Don't be rude, Daisya," said Tiedoll's voice from about five inches behind his right ear, "I'm right behind you—"

"Jesus Christ!"

"And don't take the name of the Lord in vain."

How the hell could that old guy move so fast? And quietly enough that he couldn't notice it too, the son of a bitch.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he shot back, too quickly to take the surprise from his voice and replace it with sarcasm.

"By the way, my child, you appear to have dropped your Charity Bell. Was there something you wanted to show me?"

Daisya opened his mouth to snark back, then shut it, and looked at the space between his hands where the Innocence was.

Had been. Shit.

"I — it — you heard it, you should know!"

"Heard what?"

"I got it to change tones while floating it. See? I told you I could do it."

He grinned eagerly up at the General, waiting for the inevitable approval and easy forgiveness. But Tiedoll only smiled sadly, and shook his head.

"I'm afraid my hearing's getting bad in my old age, so I didn't hear a thing. All I see is that you dropped the Bell, if indeed it was floating in the first place."

"What?"

"Please repeat the exercise until you have it ready, I said. I will come over when you call me, but in the mean time, if a bit of a shock is enough to make you lose control, you'll have to stay far away from any fights."

As the conversation went on, Daisya's grin had frozen into a grimace, and eventually morphed into utter confusion and then indignation.

"You can't do that. How else will I learn if you won't let me watch?"

"You'll learn by practicing, my boy. Just like everyone else."

He gave Daisya one last paternal smile, and walked back to the easel on the other side of the plateau.

God damn that bastard, pulling a prank like that.

He kind of had to admire it.

…

"Surprise!"

They'd been up all night. Marie had been sighing in the corner for the last hour, the kitchen would need an extra-good scrubbing tonight, three inches of Lenalee's hair had to be cut off, Komui was panicking, Daisya could have sworn he got eggshell up his nose, and in the end a very grumpy Jerry had to be woken up at 5 in the morning, but here it was.

The alleged cake.

The layers were sliding off of one another, propped up by broken chopsticks to keep them on the plate. The cake was burnt on the edges and, as they would find out, still gooey in the middle, and covered with off-white frosting that dripped and slowly oozed down on to the plate. Twelve chopsticks were pushed upright in the cake, with a bit of kerosene on the end to make them light up when the time came. In short, it was a disaster, but Daisya was inordinately proud of it. Marie had given up just after the oven had caught on fire, and Lenalee had been hauled off by Komui to get a hair cut halfway through, but he'd seen it through from beginning to end.

Of course, he could have made one before, but he hadn't thought to ask about birthdays until Jeanne and Kiki had theirs, and when Lenalee had hers Jerry wouldn't let him near the kitchen, and finally for his birthday he'd been out mucking around the backwoods with Kanda and Lenalee, and since Marie and Tiedoll hadn't been there he'd just had a leftover slice with a candle in it when he got back. Not bad, but not as fun as making your own.

Now, with Kanda's birthday, he hadn't been about to give up the opportunity. No matter if Jerry, and Komui, and Marie, and even Lenalee had told him in varying ways that Kanda wasn't a birthday person. They obviously didn't know that a person's birthday wasn't about them, it was about everyone else getting to eat cake and make fun of them. Seriously, they wouldn't be much fun otherwise.

And so he was standing, arms crossed and grinning, in front of a glaring Kanda, with Lenalee and Marie lurking in the background, the former smiling awkwardly and the latter trying to hide his embarrassment.

"Happy birthday! Whaddaya think?"

Kanda just narrowed his eyes, and Daisya felt a tiny bit disappointed. Don't know why, because if Kanda didn't like it there was more for him.

"What. Is that."

"It's a cake, dumbass. Look at it. Icing, layers, the works."

"Who told you my birthday."

"Let's see…"

"Don't tell me."

"…Komui, and Lenalee and Marie confirmed it, and probably Jerry and everyone else would have told me if I'd asked."

He took a step closer to Kanda, and glared back at him.

"So, you gonna eat it or not? 'Cos if not, I'm taking it."

"It's breakfast."

"That's why you've got to decide."

Kanda's scrutinizing stare shifted down from Daisya to the cake he'd made. It wasn't an attractive cake, Daisya knew, but it was what was on the inside that counted. In this case, burnt and undercooked cake.

"You want to eat all that?"

"Sure thing."

"Then I'll take some."

Why it was, he didn't know, but something warm bubbled up inside Daisya and turned into a laugh.

"I'm happy that you like it so much!"

"Moron."

In the background, Marie and Lenalee slunk over to another table, leaving Daisya to chatter away in peace. What a nice gesture.

…

Something jolted, and Daisya's eyes flew open. Medicine. The pain was flowing over him again.

He scrabbled at his pocket, got out the vial, and through the noise and the shaking of the train downed a couple. Good.

Slowly, his surroundings filtered though his senses. Rattle and bump of the train on the tracks, Kanda's ever-so-faint warmth — god damn, that kid was practically a lizard, no wonder he needed such a thick coat — the shaking of the body that held him, and the sound, just on the edge of hearing, of sobs.

A drop of warm water fell on his face, and slid down his cheek.

This was a dream. This had to be a dream.