Animus Facit Nobilem, Chpt 9

[camudekyu]

Title: Animus Facit Nobilem
Chapter: IX. Preoccupation & Distraction
Author: Camudekyu
Rating: M
Pairing: Lenalee/Lavi
Length: 11 pages
Warnings: No spoilers. Violence. Language. Oodles of UST.
Summary: When a series of bizarre events prompts the Black Order to dispatch exorcists, Lenalee and Lavi find that there is more going on in this small village on Malta than anyone could have expected. To make matters worse, the truth is going to hit just a touch too close to home for our Bookman cum Exorcist.
A/N: Lavi mentions Autonoë, who comes to us from Euripides's The Bacchae. A wonderful little dollop of the human condition, that. One that I find particularly relevant to my rendering of Lavi.

Previous chapters: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII

IX. Preoccupation & Distraction

Lavi's longer legs took him farther faster, and Lenalee let him pull ahead a few strides as they charged toward the small pack of Akuma firing randomly into the crowd before she roused her Innocence, felt the crackling buzz, felt the warm flutter of wings around her ankles, the sensation of something less corporeal than blood rushing through her legs. She kicked off from the ground and was soon high in the air and well ahead of Lavi.

The grey, expressionless bodies bobbed in the air over the church, one over the entrance to the church and one over each of the two bell towers.

Conditions could not have been worse. The street was packed. People could not flee fast enough. The Akuma did not even have to aim.

The air became more tangible when her Innocence flared to life, gravity more of a guideline than a rule. Lenalee would describe it almost as swimming with perhaps less resistance. She swiveled her body in midair, pushed off of nothing, and managed to avoid a spray of fire from the Akuma over the church's front entrance. In the fraction of a moment when she was eye level with the three Akuma, Lenalee determined to take out the foremost shooter, who had the widest access to the densest crowd. The Akuma to the left and right were attacking on a more limited scope, picking off people as they fled down the two side streets flanking the church, and Lenalee glanced down long enough to see Lavi charging down the road to the right.

The center Akuma fired a shower of shots at Lenalee, and she duck and wove through them, felt the heat of them as they just breathed past her. Before the Akuma could adjust his shots for a closer target, Lenalee was upon him. With a high axe kick and a guttural cry, she brought her heel down hard on the frozen mask of a face, shattering it like a porcelain bowl. In the momentary pause she allowed herself, Lenalee turned and looked at the scene below her.

Corpses were draped over the picnic tables. People flooded down the street in the distance, huddled behind benches, darted into stores. The top of the Virgin statue had been shot off, leaving a cross-section of the grotto and her small, hollow body. A single, discarded cardboard wing lay on the ground in courtyard.

Lenalee heard a swoosh and crunch from behind her, and she launched off from the tiled roof of the church, spun in the air, and hovered long enough to see Lavi airborne below her, thrown across the street from the force of his hammer's impact against another Akuma. She watched him deftly curl his body, land crouched on both feet and one hand, the other retracting his hammer. He slid across the dusty street, kicked hard off the curb, and charged back toward the front of the church.

She turned then and saw that the third and final Akuma had slipped over the steeple and was descending on the street below. A renewed chorus of shrieks sounded as the Akuma dipped out of sight.

Twisting in the air, Lenalee compelled herself toward the last Akuma. She did not make it very far, however.

Just as she approached the steeple, something collided with her midair. The tail of a fourth Akuma, a serpent-like Level Two who was a great deal more than the mere inconvenience of his comrades, had come down upon her. She took the blow across her ribs and flank, and she was flung to the courtyard below, like an ant flicked from a sleeve.

Lavi saw Lenalee's body, small and bent, streak through the air and crash hard against a picnic table. The horror of the scene seemed to slow down for him, his Bookman senses absorbing every terrible detail. He noted the sound her back made when it hit. He noted the way her spine folded back to conform to the table's edge. He noted the snap of her head, the flail of her arms, and finally, the shape of her when she slumped to the stones. She looked like a doll, an unstrung marionette.

He felt a wrenching, tearing sensation in his throat, and he realized only abstractly that he was shouting her name.

Lavi had been on a path for the side of the church, but he swerved so hard that he tumbled to the ground. He rolled through the fall, though, and scrambled across the cobblestones to where Lenalee lay on her back, her body making a s-curve at the foot of the picnic table she had hit.

He didn't dare move her in she had broken something-that sent a bolt of terror through his already fear-addled senses: She could be broken. Lavi touched his fingers to her throat. He felt her pulse fluttering under her skin, and that had to be enough for the moment.

The Akuma that had struck her, now writhing and whipping in the air above the church, was peering down at them, an obscenity of a smile stretched across its rictus. The last Level One came into view around the corner of the church, and Lavi leapt to his feet.

"You son of bitch!" he roared. He charged forward, drew his hammer, and in one smooth motion, swung it in an arc, past his right thigh, across his shoulder, and over his head. He felt it extending in his hands almost before he could cry out the command, and the head fell so hard and so fast that the next thing Lavi could see after the gunmetal-gray streak of motion, was his hammer lodged in the ground, the spindly tail of the Akuma poking out, twitching, twitching, and stilling.

A howl of rage sounded overhead, and Lavi looked up to see the serpent-Akuma thrashing.

"You're next, Buttercup!" Lavi barked, resting his now diminished hammer against his shoulder and pointing threateningly up at the enemy.

The Akuma jerked its head around to stare down at him. Lavi wedged the spike at the head of his hammer into the stones, pointed the handle toward the Akuma overhead, and bid it extend. He shot up through the air, both soles and one hand on the handle. He overshot the roof of the church by about ten feet, and as he fell through the air, he heaved his hammer up and around to his right. The Akuma shot into the air and coiled up clear of the hammer as it swung harmlessly a few feet below the Akuma's armored underside.

"I'm gonna eat mac'n'cheese outta the bottom of your skull, you undead bastard," Lavi snarled once he had landed on the roof, crouched and wound tight, both hands on his hammer. The Akuma circled overhead.

A grating noise, like fork tines across a tin plate, issued from the Akuma's mouth. It must have been a laugh because it turned its grotesque, scrap metal heap of a grin on Lavi and said, "Have I touched a nerve, Exorcist?"

Lavi grit his teeth, tightened his grip of his hammer, and prepared to give another overhand swing. This attack was undoubtedly his most satisfying-he could feel the crunch and give of his opponent-but it was also his slowest, and before Lavi could get his hammer over his head, the Akuma was rippling off into the sky, that screeching laugh tumbling out behind it.

Lavi wasted no time with his disappointment. He spun, sent the head of his hammer shooting toward the ground, and once the spike was jammed into the stones, Lavi rode the handle to the ground. Before he could land, his gaze found Lenalee among the overturned tables and bodies. She was easy to spot now that she was on one knee and pushing herself up slowly, painfully from the ground. In his haste to get to her, Lavi timed his landing poorly, hit the ground awkwardly, and the inertia of his descent on the handle spilled him onto the cobblestones.

With her left elbow up on the picnic table she had hit, Lenalee levered herself up from the ground, and she looked up in time to see Lavi slip off his hammer, hit the ground, and tumble over himself. His hammer flashed back to a manageable size without his command as he scrambled toward her.

"Lenalee!" he shouted as he descended on her. She felt one hand cup her elbow, the other close around her upper arm. He helped tip her weight onto the picnic table, where she waited for the pulsing, shooting pain in her ribs to pass.

"I'm okay," she assured him. She draped and arm over her solar plexus, holding her aching side, when she felt Lavi's grip on her shoulder tightening.

Lenalee looked up. Lavi's one eye was round and switching frantically over her face. He looked, she thought with some surprise, frightened. Truly frightened.

"You scared the shit outta me," he managed, curling his fingers into her arm.

"Seriously, Lavi," she assured him, "A few bruised ribs. It knocked the wind out of me." She put a hand over his.

A hissing sound began to issue from the bodies on the ground. Both exorcists looked down and around them to see the corpses, pale skins now dotted with ever-darkening stars, begin to flake apart and crumple.

"Oh, no," Lenalee breathed, "We've got to get away from these bodies." She started to bolt toward the church but nearly toppled over, wincing. Bent double like that, Lenalee could see the poisonous gas the infected bodies released begin to cloud around her feet.

"Can you walk?" Lavi asked, bent with her and cradling her shoulders firmly.

"I don't..." Lenalee grit her teeth, willing the sharp white light out of her vision. "I can," she gasped, "It just hurts."

The hissing was getting louder, and Lenalee felt an acrid sting against her bare legs.

"You're really not going to like my suggestion," Lavi said, switching his gaze from her strained face to the expanding cloud of noxious fumes.

Lenalee knew it already. "Just do it," she ground out.

Lavi didn't need to be told twice. Hooking one arm under her shoulders, he scooped up her knees and did his best to ignore the noises she made as he hoisted her up and curled her against him, tweaking and bending her damaged ribcage. He felt her hands fisting in his coat, her face pressing into his shoulder, but he could apologize later. The closest shelter was the church, and Lavi charged past the smoldering remains of the statue of the Virgin. He could hear Lenalee's whimpers as he jogged up the stairs, her body jostling in his arms despite his best efforts to stabilize her. Once they were safe inside, Lavi thought, she could upbraid him all she wanted.

A boy stood just inside the church, the door cracked so that he could look out, and when Lavi leapt up onto the landing, the boy pushed the door open. Lavi turned sideways and edged himself and Lenalee in, feet first. The cluster of frightened people-perhaps fifty total-in the dim atrium pressed forward toward the exorcists, speaking to them in Maltese, and if Lavi had had a free hand, he would have swept them back, toppled them like bowling pins.

Had Lenalee been in any state to scold him, Lavi knew she would have reminded him that these people had probably never seen an Akuma before and were terrified beyond rationality; he should be more patient with them. Lavi could just imagine her saying it, and that was somehow comforting. With that in mind, he didn't hesitate to body check a frightened and intrigued man who, in his efforts to get a better look, danced in Lavi's way.

Lavi managed to get Lenalee to the pews, and just as he set her down, he saw out of his peripheral vision the white spill of sunlight cutting through the atrium's thick dim. Lavi gasped and looked toward the entrance. People were opening the door, heading outside.

"No!" Lavi shouted at them, standing up in the nave and waving his arms. "Close the goddamn door, you idiots! Don't go outside!"

He got a crowd of blank faces in response, but over their heads, Lavi could see the blinding block of light pouring through the door. He looked back at Lenalee, who was pale and gasping on the pew, clutching at her side.

"Sir," a small, feminine voice said to his left. Lavi whipped his head around. The woman who had helped him on his first night there stood in the aisle, two more women in the same plain dresses flanking her. "I will stay with her," the woman said, gesturing to Lenalee.

Lavi didn't waste time thanking her. He pivoted on one foot and barreled toward the door.

"Outta my fucking way," he barked, sweeping shoulders aside as best he could.

When he reached the door, a woman was about to step into the sun, a cautious look on her face. Lavi seized her by the shoulders and flung her back inside.

The bodies in the courtyard below were crackling and turning to mounds of dust before his eye, the toxic cloud creeping up the stairs. Two boys, both perhaps six-years-old, stood on the steps in their rumpled Sunday suits, surveying the damage through the rising fog. Lavi darted down the stairs, snatched at both boys by the arm, and jerked them up the stairs. When they turned their faces up to him, he saw one of them was cold and impassive, and the other was streaked with tears.

Lavi practically threw them up stairs toward the door, the crying boy beginning to wail as reality percolated down. The blank-faced boy ambled his own way through the cracked door of the church, but the tear-stained boy slumped to the concrete landing, his face crumpled, his mouth hanging open and motionless as shriek after shriek tore out of him.

The poisonous gas was curling around Lavi's ankles when he stooped and gathered up the boy, who latched onto his front with every available anchor he could. Lavi slipped in through the door and pulled it closed with his free hand behind him.

The boy continued to sob and sob.

"Tell me about it, kiddo," Lavi muttered. He hardily registered the hands of someone else in the atrium reaching out and plucking the child from his arms.

Lavi elbowed his way through the pack of people for a third time. More people stepped out of his path as he charged through, the image of Lenalee, supine and writhing on the pew, in his vision like an afterimage burning against the dusty dim of the atrium.

When he entered the nave, flooded with daylight pouring through the clerestory windows, Lavi saw Lenalee standing and propped up against a woman in a grey dress. She limped and shuffled down the aisle, one arm curled around her injured side. Lavi jogged forward and drew level with Lenalee. She looked up at him, gave him a smile with some effort.

"The Sister said she'd take me to a room," Lenalee said, grimacing. "She said they'd get someone to take a look at me."

Lavi stepped around Lenalee's back and gently tapped the woman helping her on the shoulder. The woman looked up at him.

"I've got her," he said, and the woman disentangled herself from Lenalee, carefully transferring her to Lavi. To Lenalee, he asked, "You wanna walk or do you wanna ride?"

She laughed a little and winced. "A ride would be great."

Lavi ducked his head so Lenalee could drape her arm over his shoulders. He asked if she were ready. Lenalee squeezed her eyes shut, pressed her mouth tight, and nodded. As smoothly as he could, Lavi swept her up. He didn't hitch her up against him but, instead, lifted his arms just enough to roll her toward his chest. Still, she hissed through her teeth and whined in her throat.

"Sorry," Lavi mumbled.

"Don't be," Lenalee gasped, her expression still screwed tight, her right hand clutching his lapel.

He couldn't watch her face anymore. "Where to?" Lavi asked the woman who had been helping Lenalee.

With a sweet, sad sort of smile, she said, "We have no open room." She shook her head. "Even your loft is occupied. Father Mifsud has offered the antechamber to his study. There is a couch there where she can rest."

"Lead the way, ma'am."

She took them up toward the chancel and then down a corridor to the left, the opposite direction from the travelers quarters they had occupied their first night on Malta. This passage was much shorter with high, narrow windows. The doors in the walls were spaced farther apart, were broader, had a fresher coat of paint than those in the traveler's wing. The door knobs were cut glass, big as fists and clear as diamond. The woman stopped at the first door on the right, rapped her knuckles on a smooth, burgundy panel.

A voice within replied, "Iva," and the woman turned the knob. She stepped through and held the door. Lavi turned sideways and carefully inched himself and his injured partner through.

The antechamber was a high-ceiling, long room, the walls lined with glass-paneled cabinets. Most of the shelves were populated by books with the occasional placard or photograph. The windows in this room were similarly high and swollen with sunlight, viney and stalked plants clustered at the foot of each in ornate ceramic pots. On the opposite end of the room, a door stood ajar, and beyond, Lavi could see a wide desk, two chairs, and many, many more books. Before the door were two brown leather couches, facing one another with a low table between them, and the woman who had shown them in hurried forward and gestured toward the couch on the left. She then turned and began exchanging low, tense Maltese with the priest, who was pacing tight little circles just outside the door to his study.

"I'm putting you down," Lavi warned as he drew up to the couch.

"Oh, come on, Doc, it's not that bad, is it?" Lenalee asked, a forced lightness in her voice.

Lavi needed a moment to realize that she was joking. "That's not funny," he said despite himself. He lowered Lenalee slowly, bending carefully over her. Standing like that, with her weight in his arms instead of against him, he was struck by how small she was, the airiness of her bones. He watched the slender muscles in her throat stand out as she held up her head, and he wondered that any body could hold together with such frail-looking parts.

The priest and the woman continued to speak with short, jerky gestures.

But this was Lenalee, he reminded himself. Small she might be, but Lavi would never describe her as frail. Still, he felt the urge to curve his palm around the back of her neck, to cinch an arm around her waist, the same way he might feel compelled to curl his hand around a key, to feel its angles and be assured tangibly of its safety. He restrained himself, of course, and set her gingerly on the couch so that she was sitting up.

"May I get you something?" the woman asked from behind Lavi.

Lenalee sat sideways on the couch, not wanting to put any pressure on her aching back, and Lavi sat facing her. He watched the top of her bowed head, the back of the wrist draped over her side.

"I'll take a double-scotch neat and an appletini for the lady," he said, not taking his eye off his partner.

Lenalee's shoulders jerked involuntarily, and she let out a strangled mix of a laugh and a groan. She managed to lift her eyes to his. "Don't make me laugh, Lavi, please," she said with a painful smile.

Empathetic as he was, Lavi felt better having made her laugh. He looked up at the woman, who was giving him a confused expression. "A glass of water would be great, thanks," he said. That, the woman understood.

"There is no doctor here," the woman informed him, "We could send someone to get him."

"No," Lavi said firmly. "Don't let anyone go outside. Not for a while."

The woman nodded. "Yes, of course. I believe that the bonesetter took refuge here. He is in the atrium."

"He'll have to do," Lavi said. The woman nodded her head and hurried out of the room. From the other door, the priest said something that sounded rather like a question. Lavi looked over the top of Lenalee's head at the priest, Father Mifsud. Lavi gave him an apologetic look and shook his head. The priest seemed to understand. He nodded and went into his study.

This struck Lavi as odd. Wouldn't the shepherd want to tend to his flock after the attacking wolf has been slain?

"Lavi," Lenalee said, tilting her head up at him. "Do you think I need a bonesetter?"

Her face was pale, her lips a little blue-tinged. "I don't," he said. "But I think he's seen enough bodies to be able give you an informed once over. When all that fog outside has cleared, we'll get you to a real doctor." Lavi let out a dry laugh. "Be glad we have a bonesetter, at least. I was afraid she was going to say Karmenu was in the atrium."

Lenalee made a disgusted noise in her throat. "That's just what I need. I'll take a bottle of Not-In-Pain, please."

"We'll put a couple drops in your appletini, and you'll be right as rain," Lavi said.

The door to the hall opened again, and the woman returned with an old, old man close behind her. He had a full head of steely hair and rounded shoulders, his glasses perched precariously on the end of his leathery nose. He shuffled in, looked from Lenalee to Lavi and then to the woman. He said something in Maltese, but the woman shook her head and answered.

"What did he say?" Lavi asked.

"He asked that you leave the room, sir," the woman said, "But I told him that this was your wife and that you must stay."

Lavi had forgotten all about that. "Oh, yeah, right," he said. "My wife." He put a hand on Lenalee's knee, feeling the familiar scratch of her wooly stockings, as though to prove it. When Lenalee glared at him, Lavi gave her the most disarming grin in his arsenal. She rolled her eyes in grudging consent.

"If you approve, sir, I will translate," the woman said, hanging close to the bonesetter's shoulder as he ambled his way toward the couch.

Lavi thought it strange that she would ask him and not Lenalee, but it then occurred to him that he was in a Catholic church and, therefore, must have some degree of pretend-ownership of his pretend-wife. Lavi imagined that, had the circumstance not been what they were, he could have had a grand time cashing in on his Simon-says sort of power. "Yeah, that's fine," he said.

The bonesetter asked Lavi a question as he approached.

"He wants to know what happened," the woman translated.

"She, uh," Lavi started. Where to begin? "She fell from pretty high and hit her back on the edge of a table," he explained, and the woman translated. He thought it probably made a difference that Lenalee had been flung against the table while flying, but that would have required a lot more backstory than he felt like giving.

The bonesetter asked another question.

"Where did she hit?"

Lenalee moved her arm to point at her mid-back, but angling her shoulder like that made her hiss with pain. She dropped her arm and looked rather pathetically up at Lavi.

"Right here," he said, pointing where Lenalee had indicated. "You should probably take off your coat," he said to her. She nodded and began working at the buttons, slowly, painfully.

Lavi debated, he really debated, helping her. He could see that, as the adrenaline faded, Lenalee was hurting more and more-her brow furrowed deeper with every inhalation, her breaths becoming like gasps. He imagined even wiggling her toes would hurt those busted ribs of hers. He glanced up at the bonesetter, whose tanned, calm face was gazing down at him, and Lavi could see something like skepticism edging into those black eyes.

Right, Lavi told himself, Pretend-husband. He pushed Lenalee's hands aside and began deftly unbuttoning her coat, focusing on his fingers to avoid meeting her eyes.

He swallowed hard and slipped the coat off her, exposing her bare shoulders and her thin-strapped, cream-colored camisole. He could smell her sweat. "Here," Lavi said, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat and tried again, "Right here."

The bonesetter came around behind Lenalee and sank with some effort to the couch.

Lavi was determined now. He scooted closer to Lenalee and helped her slide her arms out of her sleeves. He draped her discarded coat over her lap and coaxed her to lean toward him. He swept the two dark tails of her hair over one shoulder. When he finally met Lenalee's gaze, he couldn't read her expression. He preferred it that way.

The bonesetter tutted, drawing Lavi's attention over Lenalee's shoulder and down her back.

There was a stripe of blood, blotted in her camisole, perpendicular to her spine about halfway up her back. Lavi flinched at the sight of it. Somehow the blood brought her injury out, made it tangible, and he was resting a palm on the back of her neck, pushing her cheek to his shoulder before he could stop himself. He heard Lenalee hiss when he began peeling the fabric up from her skin, bunching her camisole between her shoulder blades.

Lavi felt her palms settle against his thighs.

The bonesetter began speaking as he inspected Lenalee's pale, naked back.

"Could be worse," translated the woman, who was hovering by the bonesetter's shoulder. "The impact broke the skin," she went on as the bonesetter continued. "She will hurt badly and bruise badly."

"I could have told you that," Lenalee muttered into Lavi's shoulder.

"Is anything broken?" Lavi asked. The woman translated to the bonesetter, who sat back, rested his hands in his lap, and answered tersely.

"He doesn't know," the woman translated. "Perhaps a rib." When the bonesetter interjected with a question, the woman answered. She then looked back to Lavi and said, "He asked if she can walk. I told him that, yes, she can, but with pain."

Groaning deep in his throat, the bonesetter rose to his feet. He stood over Lavi, said something with finality, and pushed his glasses up his nose. "He says she needs rest, ice to stop the swelling, and brandy for the pain." The bonesetter began shuffling toward the door. "I will bring water and bandages for her back," the woman added before she went to help the bonesetter from the room.

Once they were alone, Lavi allowed himself to absorb the slope of Lenalee's back. He looked down the rippled ravine of her spine, watched her ribs expand and contract as she breathed in and out. He lifted a hand to test the wound, gauge the swelling, but he thought better of it. Lavi cleared his throat and began gingerly inching the hem of Lenalee's camisole down her back. He didn't want to look at the angry graze across her skin, the blood welling up like red pearls against the air. She was beginning to bruise already, green and violet blotches spreading around the wound.

"How does it look?" she asked. Lavi could feel her jaw articulating against his shoulder, the bridge of her nose pressing into his neck.

"Like it hurts," he said. The strap of her camisole had slipped off her left shoulder, and Lavi hooked his index finger under it, pulled it back into place. The graze of his fingertip drew goosebumps across her skin, he noticed, and he quickly draped her coat over her shoulders again. "We'll get you bandaged up, give you some brandy, and let you sleep it off here. How does that sound?" he asked.

"That sounds wonderful," she sighed.

They waited like that, Lavi rubbing his hand up and down her left arm soothingly, until the woman returned, a roll of gauze in one hand, a mason jar of ice water in the other, and a white blanket folded over her arm. She explained apologetically that she could not find anything for Lenalee to change into, but once the fog cleared outside, she would send someone for something. In the meantime, she said, she would try to wash the blood from Lenalee's camisole.

When she stood over them, Lavi realized that the woman was expecting Lenalee to divest of her camisole and hand it over. He met Lenalee's gaze long enough to say You can slap me later, and pushed her coat off her shoulders. Careful to brush as little of his skin against hers, Lavi swallowed hard, pinched the hem of her camisole, and pulled it over Lenalee's ducked head. He saw her wince and fold her arms over her chest.

He quickly tossed the blanket around Lenalee's shoulders, wrapped it securely over her front. Once the woman was gone, jar and gauze left on the table, Lavi scooted back. He consciously and deliberately withdrew his hands and knotted them together in his lap.

"Sorry," he mumbled, "For, uh, the, you know..." His voice cracked again. He would have slapped a hand to his own forehead had he not had a pretty pretend-wife for an audience.

She looked up at him through her bangs. "Don't apologize just yet," she said. She was blushing. "I still need you to bandage my back."

It was an odd sensation, wanting something to be over while rather enjoying it. Lavi took the gauze and sat behind Lenalee. She slipped the blanket off her shoulders, exposing her back to him. He watched her fold her arms over her chest once more, saw the skin around the lesion on her back pull painfully. He began wrapping her ribs from as far away as possible.

"That sure started out as a good party," Lavi said offhandedly to distract himself from the horrible stretching of her bruised skin when she breathed.

"I love Saint Day feasts," Lenalee said. "I haven't seen one in so long. I wish we did more for them in the Order."

"We celebrate them, don't we?" Lavi asked.

He felt his knuckles graze the underside of Lenalee's breast. They both started, Lenalee winced from the jolt, and then they resolutely pretended that nothing had happened.

"Um," Lenalee began, flustered, "Uh, no. No, we don't," she managed.

This was ridiculous, he thought, and a hell of a lot more complicated than it needed to be. He couldn't touch her without getting all squeaky and awkward. Despite having slept with her-or perhaps because of it-Lavi couldn't remember ever feeling this anxious around Lenalee. "Sure we do," he argued, willing his hands steady. "We celebrate that big one, right?"

"I don't think Christmas counts, Lavi."

"No, no, that other big one. Saint... uh... Saint Zombie Jesus Day."

Lenalee laughed and held her side, her hand brushing his. "Ow, Lavi," she snapped. "Cut it out, would you? And I think you're thinking of Easter."

Lavi grinned. "Well, I think my name for it is a lot more descriptive," he countered as he smoothed the bandage across her back and tucked in the end. "And the Lord said unto his disciples, Braaains." He executed his best undead Savior voice.

"That is so blasphemous."

"Braaains."

"Knock it off before someone hears you, Lavi."

"Braaains!"

He set his hands on her shoulders and leaned forward to chew on one of her pigtails. Lenalee squeaked and groaned and laughed. Her arms seemed to get tangled as she tried to hold her side, swat at Lavi, and cover her chest simultaneously. She managed to press the blanket to her bare front with the same arm holding her side while she tried to punch Lavi in the face.

"Would you stop?" she yelped through her laughter. "Ow! Lavi, stop it!"

"I'm trying to get to the creamy nougat center," he said impatiently, his words muffled as he gnawed at her pigtail. Her hair smelled like soap and road dust and the earthy-sweetness of girl.

Lenalee's laughter was high and tumbling over itself and punctuated with groans and yelps, and Lavi felt rather like they shouldn't be having fun like this while mounds of dead desiccated to dust outside, but he couldn't help it. She had scared him. He had been so, so frightened. But her shoulders under his hands reminded him, and her slip of a back, curved and rippled like a whelk, against his chest reminded him, the supple edge of her ear and the yielding swell of her cheek and the perfect curve and recurve of her clavicles, and then they weren't playing anymore, and he was so relieved to have her there that he almost, almost, let it go on.

She wasn't laughing anymore. Her hand rested on his knee, the five rounded points of her fingertips applying just enough pressure to let Lavi know that she was on to him. She knew.

Lavi withdrew. "You should probably get some rest," he said, giving her shoulders a friendly squeeze.

She hesitated. Then, "Okay."

He slipped out from behind her. She gave him an indulgent smile that he didn't think he really deserved as he crouched next to her and eased her through the slow, painful process of turning and lying prone across the leather cushions.

Once she was stretched out down the length of the couch, her arms folded under her head, Lavi adjusted the blanket over her and tried not to think of the irony that he'd slept with her but this was the naked-est he'd ever seen her. He wanted to slip a hand under that blanket and maybe brush the backs of his fingers over the soft bow of her lower back. Maybe he could make it look like a friendly gesture. Lenalee would probably not be hard to convince of this. Lavi kept his hands resolutely where he could see them, though, because he would know the truth, and if there was one thing a Bookman must have, it was integrity.

"What are you going to do?" Lenalee asked, peeking up from the crook of her elbow.

Lavi screwed up his mouth and looked around. "What do you think my chances are of finding a book in here that isn't about God?" She smiled again. Lavi put his hands on his knees and stood up. "I'll find something to pass the time. All you should worry about is resting."

Her eyelids were slipping closed when she said, "All right. Thanks, Lavi. For everything."

"No problem," he said, and once her eyes were closed, her breathing slow and steady, Lavi sank onto the opposite couch, propped his feet up on the table, and tried to think of anything he would rather do than watch her sleep.

~

Lavi didn't realize that he had fallen asleep until he was waking up. Pain coiled at the top of his neck from the way he had slept-sitting up, head tilted backwards against the back of the couch-and he groaned and rubbed his neck as he sat forward blearily.

The only light in the room came from a heavy, amber-colored paraffin lamp on a table by the entrance. Between the lamp and Lavi stood two dark, blurry shapes, and after much blinking and squinting, Lavi realized that Bill and Giorgio were looming over him.

"Oh, good, you're awake," Bill said.

Lavi scratched his scalp, stretched, and looked around. In the twilight, the antechamber was all rich mahoganies and golds and warm ochres; the high windows were columns of the diaphanous blue of seaside evening and the glass-faced cabinets were dim mirrors. He leaned around Giorgio and looked at the opposite couch. A thin, white blanket was draped over the back of the couch, and his partner was gone.

"Where's Lenalee?" Lavi asked, looking up at the finders, who exchanged a glance.

"I believe you would call it having girltalk with God," Giorgio offered dryly.

Lavi snorted. "She musta hit her head when she fell," he replied and rose to his feet with a groan. He stretched his arms over his head and let out a long, wide yawn. "Has the poison gas dissipated?" he asked, shoving a hand under his coat and scratching his ribs.

"Yes," Bill answered, "People have been coming and going from the church for an hour now."

"Good," Lavi said as he started to the door, "I'm ready to the get the hell outta here." As he walked past the finders, he noticed that neither of them were readily meeting his eye. Lavi couldn't help but wonder where they had gotten off to during the attack. In all the confusion, they certainly would not have been able to do much offensively; he imagined they were with the crowd, herding people and trying to waylay fears, which was probably the most useful thing they could have been doing. A part of Lavi knew that he shouldn't question their loyalty for it. Still, there was another part of him that knew he could.

The air was thick and warm in the dimly lit chapel. The tall, stout candles on the alter had been lit, casting shadows of the low railing separating the chancel from the nave across the floor before the pews. Lavi strolled into the chapel, his hands deep in his pockets, and he scanned the pews for Lenelee's pale face. The pews were dotted with the stray bowed head, and Lavi wondered dryly whose business would do better after the tragedy: the Church's or Karmenu's. He started down that avenue in his thoughts-if what the old trombonist had said was true, then why would Karmenu leave the church? And was there Innocence involved in his apostasy? And was it really these feelixirs creating and calling in crazies like the Tunisian man Lavi had met in jail? And and and-but he stopped himself. The stiffness in his neck was traveling north, it seemed, metamorphosing into a pounding in his head.

He spotted Lenalee in a wide niche on the opposite side of the chancel. The arched entry opened into an apse much smaller than the one over the altar, and set in the back was a faded painting of the Mother and Child. At the base of the image, perhaps a hundred small candles flickered in the red glass cups of a two-tiered, wrought iron votive stand. Lenalee sat on a bench with her back to the rest of the chapel, her shoulders gently sloped and her head tilted back just a degree.

Lavi's footsteps announced him before he could say anything, and Lenalee looked over her shoulder and smiled.

"You know, you probably don't want to be up, waltzing around for a while," Lavi said as he came up by Lenalee's left and rested his elbows against the back of the bench.

"Trust me, I wasn't waltzing," Lenalee said, laughing quietly. "I was inching." She looked back up at the painting looming over them in it's chipped, gilded frame.

"I didn't interrupt anything, did I?"

Lenalee smiled. It was not lost on her that Lavi had asked without a hint of sarcasm. "Not at all," she said. "I just came out here to light a few candles." She could see out of her peripheral vision Lavi's hands hanging near her left shoulder. The combination of the red glow of the candles, his proximity, and the brandy one of the Sisters had given her made Lenalee feel quite warm and comfortable. "I lit one for you, one for all the people who died today, and one for all the people who survived."

"I get my very own candle?" he asked incredulously.

Lenalee smiled, watched the Virgin's serene face. "Of course." She heard him shuffle his feet, glanced over in time to see him clasp and unclasp his hands. "Did you see Giorgio and Bill? They're okay."

"Yeah, they came and found me," Lavi said. "Giorgio didn't seem to be his usual, friendly self."

"No, I wouldn't expect him to be."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Lenalee thought for a moment and shook her head. Lavi could be so dense sometimes. She shifted in her seat to get a better look at her partner and sucked in a breath when she inadvertently tweaked her injured ribs. Even with the brandy, a solid jolt of pain spread out from that epicenter in her side, and she took a moment to let it pass. When she opened her eyes, Lavi was watching her, his brow knit.

"This was an important day for him," Lenalee said, her voice still a little hoarse.

"Why's he gotta take it out on me?" Lavi sighed.

Lenalee twisted her mouth as she considered how best to explain it. "Lavi," she started, "Imagine you've got something you really care about. And it's something that I really don't care about. In fact, I mock it to your face."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Lavi interrupted her, "I get it. And one day this thing I care about is in danger, and you swoop in and defend it while I can only watch powerlessly, right? I bet I'd be frustrated. I bet my little pride would be hurt, which would be really ironic if this thing I was powerless to protect dictated that pride was the first and worst sin in the history of, you know, everything."

He did have a point, Lenalee thought; however, he didn't need to be such a jerk about it. "I know you're right, Lavi," she countered, "But if you're in the mood for irony, maybe you should take a look at your holier-than-thou attitude."

He stood up straight and set his hands on the back of the bench. "My what?" he asked slowly, deliberately.

"Everyone's a hypocrite sometimes," she said compassionately. He was staring at her hard, and it occurred to her then that she might have actually offended him. Lenalee set her hand, with some effort, on Lavi's. She could almost discern the thoughts passing through his eye. As it was, she could make out only their shadows. "You ready to head back to the hotel?"

"Yeah," Lavi said shortly, pulling his hand out from under hers.

Lenalee grimaced as she scooted forward. She set one hand on the back of the bench and one on the seat. With her teeth grit, she started to push herself up, trying to tip her center of balance over her knees. But every motion, every breath sent bolts of pain down her side, and she had lifted herself only inches from the bench when tears began gathering in her eyes. She fell back into her seat with a yelp.

"Damn," she hissed. Getting up off the couch hadn't been this hard. Clearly, enough time had passed since her two stinging gulps of brandy for the effects to start wearing off. Squaring her shoulders and keeping her back straight, Lenalee tried to push off again.

Lavi stepped grudgingly up in front of her. "You gonna need a wheelchair?" he asked dryly, wrapping one hand around her upper arm to help her.

"No," Lenalee scowled up at him. "Help me up," she grumbled, and she took his free hand in hers.

With much effort and deep breathing, wrestling and frustrated laughter-Lavi muttered such supportive things as, "I have handled sacks of potatoes more coordinated than you,"-they managed to level her up onto her feet. Once she was standing, Lavi practically had his arms wrapped around her, one under each arm, and she could feel his laughter in his chest. Lenalee steadied herself, and Lavi stooped down until he was almost nose to nose with her, his mouth pressed tight and his eye narrowed. She blushed and pulled back as much as her injured ribs would let her.

"What?" she demanded.

Lavi sniffed loudly. "What is that?" he asked incredulously.

Lenalee frowned defensively. "One of the Sisters gave me something to drink when she brought my shirt back. I think it was brandy."

"I see," Lavi said. If he was trying to repress his grin, he was doing a poor job of it. "Come on, Autonoë."

"What did you just call me?" Lenalee snapped, setting her fists against her hips.

Lavi withdrew a little. "Oh," he said, "Autonoë... she's-"

"I know who she is!" Lenalee interrupted, "And I don't appreciate the comparison."

She glared up into his face, waited for him to laugh at her or pinch her or do something retaliatory. But he didn't. He furrowed his brow and blinked his one eye, green as verdigris. He laughed in his throat, a sound of surprise.

"What?" Lenalee demanded again.

He opened his mouth like he was going to explain. It hung open a moment longer before he shook his head. "Nothing," he conceded. His voice was weightless, tinged with a pleasant sort of disbelief. Lenalee did not entirely believe him but decided not to press it. "Let's hit the road," he suggested. He hovered at her side, his arms out, waiting to help her. He moved like he was ready to hook an arm around her back and brace her, but she waved him away. They began the long, plodding journey from the church to their hotel, Lavi's arm draped over her shoulders, loose and compassionate.

Lenalee was sure it must have been frustrating for him, matching her stride, but he stayed at her side for most of the walk: he broke away once to run a lap around her-to keep himself from falling asleep, he claimed-and once more to open the door to the hotel for her. They trudged up the stairs, down the corridor, and to Lenalee's door. Admittedly, she could probably use a hand getting herself recumbent. However, she would just have to handle it on her own because when she turned and asked Lavi if he had meant what he had said about her and the sack of potatoes, he laughed and told her that, no, he hadn't meant it and that, even busted up, she still moved like water, and Lenalee knew then that she couldn't let him cross her threshold. She subsequently wished him good night and disappeared into her hotel room.

Lavi watched her door close. Once she was gone, he bumped the side of his closed fist against his forehead, grit his teeth, and cursed everything. He then turned and unlocked the door to his hotel room. He found his luggage at the foot of the bed, rooted around for the bottle he had stolen from Karmenu's shop, and once he found it, he wrenched his window open, leaned out, and hurled the bottle out into the street. It hit the stucco storefront opposite and shattered with a unobtrusive chime.