The third night: Consolation
The effects of his first mission did not wear off as quickly as Allen had wished they would.
Kanda had gone for another mission. Even Toma, the Finder, had left the Order again.
Only he, Allen, stayed at the headquarter, sulking away his days.
It weren't the injuries that held him back - at least not the physical ones. Every night he spent staring into the darkness while something was gnawing on him relentlessly. The marks it left burned and ached until he burst out with sudden sobs burying his face in his pillow. Although he had already left a great deal of his tears in Mathel, only crying seemed soothe the tension that steadily built inside of him, anew with each coming night.
He couldn't remember how long he had laid there, trying to suffocate his feelings, until he hopefully passed out from lack of oxygen, but the need to breathe surpassed his need for oblivion every time and when he lifted his head from the pillow, cold night air crashed on his feverish skin like a breaking wave.
The cold cleared his thoughts a bit. Not enough to slap the sorrow out of him, but enough to finally quench his tears. Slowly he wiped his face, which must be red and sore by this time, and left his room. He wanted to talk to Lenalee, wanted to ask her what all this was about, what made an exorcist good at his job. Just someone to confide in...
At this time of the day (or night) the corridors of the Order were empty. Allen had no clue what time it was considering that he possessed no watch. Yet he assumed that Lenalee was still awake. Maybe she was down at the laboratories where she used to collect the last reports of the day.
As he passed the little cells where he had seen the weapons on the day of his arrival there were only a few scientists strolling around, putting last efforts into their projects.
But Lenalee was nowhere to be seen.
Later, in the more hospitable rooms of the analytics department, Allen discovered sleeping people left and right, their heads placed on books, crossed arms or whatever had been within reach the moment sleep had overtaken them.
He tiptoed through the laboratories without even finding a clue of Lenalee.
Then he picked up voices coming from the room with the many gadgets and he decided to look there as well. Maybe there was a person he could talk to; Komui or, judging from the sound of the voice, River or... he would even be grateful to run into Jerry, the cook, just to meet someone he had a little trust in.
Allen entered and carefully checked his surroundings, the dominance of unknown technology still intimidating him.
But no one was there.
Taking a few steps into the room he discovered the source of the voices he had heard.
They came from a battered recorder playing some kind of music tape. It was placed at the edge of a table, very small, almost drowning in its messy surroundings and almost accusingly featuring a haphazardly fixed surface. It looked like it was merely held together by various forms of tape and spite, sticking it to the shiny, sophisticated gadgetry in the lab.
Allen was not surprised to spot the aloof dark-haired girl sitting nearby, wedged between tools and humming machinery and pondering over a bunch of papers. She hadn't noticed him entering the room.
He felt uneasy all of sudden. She wasn't exactly the person he had hoped to encounter, but he very much still could use some company. Though the chances of having an actual conversation with her were slim. Maybe he should just silently back out of the room and leave her to her task.
While he was still pondering she began to stretch, rolling her neck until it cracked, then her always-tired eyes brushed over his frozen form and before he could say or do anything their gazes locked on each other.
She blinked, honestly confused to find him standing there. "What are you doing here?"
"Me... I... ," he stammered, feeling caught red handed. "I just wanted to ask..."
- "The analysis isn't ready yet."
"The ... what?"
She rolled her eyes and reached for the recorder to turn the music off. "The analysis of your Innocence. And the DNA sample. You dropped them off a couple of weeks ago, remember?"
She frowned as if doubting his state of mind.
"Yeah, I remember, but... look, Nora, I came for..."
- "Nova."
"What?" Allen slightly lost trail of his thoughts, feeling even more unease now.
He should have known that it was going to be like this.
He should have just left.
- "My name is Nova."
"Er, right..." He faltered. "What did I say again?"
"Nora." Brusquely turning her gaze away, she started sorting papers on the table. "Honestly, do I look like my name is Nora?", she chided, one eyebrow raised in an angry arch, but it was more a statement than it was a question. She did not even wait for a response. "Anyway, you get your results the earliest next week. Maybe I can squeeze it in tomorrow, unless we get once more stuck with all that Mathel stuff you brought home."
She was now talking to the papers in her hand or to herself, Allen seemingly forgotten. "I can't understand why everyone's so hot looking at their DNA profile... as if they'd comprehend a single thing... but sure, get impatient with me. It's not like the PCR takes forever with this tech. I just wish Komui would finally approve the autosampler I've been asking him for. That would make it ten times faster - "
Allen was sure he could've left without her noticing.
Still wavering he watched her flip through another bunch of papers, sorting them as she went. He hoped she would look his way at some point so he could give a conversation another try, but she didn't.
Lost in her own world Nova leafed through the printouts, frowning at the results in front of her.
He would not give up so easily though. Not in the current state he was in.
He spoke up again. "I'm looking for Lenalee. Do you know where I can find her?"
"In bed I assume." She pointed at the clock hanging over the black couch with a mildly aggressive stabbing motion, while her other hand filched through the clutter on her desk in search of a pen.
Allen followed her gesture and received a slight shock. The small hand approached the whole hour again.
It was three in the morning.
"Oh," was all he managed to say. Of course he would not find Lenalee at such a nocturnal hour.
Lost in his thoughts Allen kept his eyes fixed on the clock as if it could tell him what to do. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep at this point. And the thought of returning to his room, alone, felt positively terrifying.
"Are you bored or why are you still here?," came Nova's voice from behind his back. She had abandoned the task at her desk and was unloading a round of samples from one of the spinning and whirring contraptions on the workbench. "Watching the clock is probably as spectacular as watching paint dry."
She fell silent again while she concentrated on separating the samples, then finally looked up at Allen. "Anyway, you can stay and watch me work if you want. But I have to warn you: I'm not that spectacular either."
He glanced at her, irritated by her tone of voice, trying to figure out whether she was joking, but she only kept looking at him with a blank, distant stare, before she slowly raised her hand to point at the couch.
Allen shot the couch a questioning look then shook his head in despair. He needed to talk and his restlessness wouldn't allow him to sit still, so before he could make up his mind he heard himself whisper: " ... the ghost of Mathel is still haunting me..."
There was no visible reaction from Nova but Allen could swear that her gaze had turned more frantic, probably thinking he had lost his mind. And if he was being honest, she wasn't all that far off with that assumption.
"Kanda said we were destroyers, not saviors", he rambled in a sudden outburst and began pacing around the room. "But why can't I be both? Why do I have to choose between things that are equally important to me? How can I keep on walking when things are like this, when I have to abandon my one true motivation? Tell me this!"
Anger on Kanda mixed with despair and the feeling of failure rushed through his veins like a cocktail of fire and sharp needles, pricking and burning, driving him mad. "Tell me what am I to do now? How can I go on from there?"
Tears threatened to spill over again and he turned around, hoping for a sympathetic look and a few kind words, even if Nova as a scientist probably couldn't relate to his struggles.
But when he faced her again he felt like doused with cold water. She hadn't even been listening to his rant.
Staring at her notes and the various heaps of samples on the table she scratched her nose with the pen, eyes slightly cross-eyed, while muttering formulations under her breath.
"STOP IGNORING ME!" Allen slammed his fits onto the next table, making the wood vibrate and the utensils jump and clank against each other. Nova dropped her pen in shock and stumbled back in defense, bumping into the sample cart behind her back and almost tipping it over. Her eyes were wide with shock as she struggles to respond. After a few erratic breaths she broke eye contact and turned to the cart, restacking the sample holders that had tumbled over with shaking hands.
After what seemed an eternity her voice, thin and even a bit scared, was heard: "What do you want me to say? I'm not the right person to give you advice."
Allen swallowed the bitter taste that had risen in his mouth. The pressure in his chest and the coiling emotions in his belly now mixed with the stale taste of guilt.
He hadn't meant to snap at her, his rage once again having gotten the better of him. And it hadn't even been worth it.
Instead he felt worse than before.
Abruptly he turned away and staggered towards the black couch, already half blinded by tears. Letting himself fall onto the cushions he buried his face in his hands.
The noise of more utensils being stacked revealed to him that Nova had resumed work and he figured she would return to the samples as well, as soon as she had taken care of the mess he had helped create, leaving him to sit here until he had calmed down.
However, the silence that fell over the room shortly after wasn't indicative of any of this.
Then he heard her sigh, uncharacteristically resigned, and one last item being put down with a loud clank.
He didn't hear her approaching the couch, but all of sudden a second weight deformed the cushion next to him.
- "Allen?"
Although she tried very hard to make her voice sound soft and sympathetic, he detected impatience and tension in her words and he did not believe her sudden change of mind.
Indifference.
This was what characterized her.
"Leave it. She's just like that", as Lenalee had said.
She was probably only asking to appease him, to get rid of him, to return to her work without bothersome distractions.
So he didn't answer and her words dropped in the space between them like heavy stones.
"Oh come on!" he heard her curse under her breath and the next thing he noticed was a pair of scrawny arms awkwardly draping themselves around him.
He hadn't expected this in the least and it took him a while to recover. Once he did, the hilariousness of the situation occurred to him, the way she tried to hug him in a comforting way, but ultimately just awkwardly held him like some specimen in a petri dish.
It was hilarious in the same way it was infuriating. She was just like that, probably.
When Allen slowly rose his head he could feel the weight of hers bent into his neck in an act of desperate compassion and her arms still encircling him in that stiff, uncomfortable way. Carefully, as not to alarm her, he rested his chin on his hand and tried to look at her from the corner of his eye. But she had become aware of him becoming aware and quickly let go of him.
"Do you feel better?", she asked, sounding not entirely convinced herself and Allen couldn't help but laugh.
"You really suck at this," he said.
