So, I've been getting a few requests to do certain things to this story. I cannot say I can quite fulfill said-wishes, because, as they say, I have no clue what will happen next (though I already know the ending). Please be patient. Also, starting next chapter, I will hopefully have this Beta-reader thing worked out! It's exciting! So, without further ado...

Disclaimer: Nope. Not mine. Never. I own the books, though! (finally.)

5. In Which an Offer is Made

"I am sorry to call you out in the middle of lunch. I hope it wasn't too much of an inconvenience."

After spying on two suspicious figures, he retreated into his hotel room, where he made a phone call—three phone calls, in actuality. One was to his head, Leverrier. The other two was to a house phone, then a cellphone, before he finally got his man. As he dined on the finest of pastries he ever tasted (second to his superior's, of course), he waited for his visitor to come along. And after twenty to twenty-five minutes of waiting, his guest appeared, looking unimpressed. A book bag was strapped over his shoulder, bearing the weight of what looked to be fifty pounds. His long hair and clothes were soaked from traversing in the rain.

"Inconvenience." He repeated the word with disgust. "Since when did you give a damn about what's good for me, you mole-head? Always giving me orders, always telling me to do since you bastards created me. Che." He plopped the bag onto the floor and kicked it aside. It skidded to a stop against a tacky-colored wall. "So what the hell do you want from me this time—or, should I say, what does he want me for?"

He didn't take an insult from his guest. If he did, he would have killed the man a long time ago. "I realize you are in the middle of dire times, what with finals and all. However, this is a matter the government cannot simply overlook. As you know, the Cube told a prophecy of there being fourteen people who will bring about the destruction of the Earth."

"Spare me the fucking lecture and get to your point. Who do you want me to kill?"

The man lacked tact. Sometimes, the Inspector was grateful for that. "We have a subject we want disposed of. There seems to be some connection between him and our main enemy, the clan of Noah. In fact, he goes to the same school you do." He nibbled on his pineapple upside-down cake as the man raised an eyebrow. "I don't care how you kill him, nor do I care how you dispose of the body. We own the police here anyhow. We'll cover your tracks and pay you immensely for his death."

"Will I finally be put out of commission from that fat bastard, too?"

That irked him. "Please be polite when addressing Leverrier." He put down the cake onto the table, feeling stuffed. "I will discuss it with him, though I do not guarantee any promises."

"And what of Alma? Will she be released, too?"

"She?" Link shook his head. "Dear, dear Kanda, you must still be wrapped up in that illusion. Alma is none other than a male—a fighter like you, payed immensely to do his job. He has been commissioned longer than you have, and by the looks of it, enjoys his job. So, no, he won't be released by Leverrier."

"Then no deal." Kanda picked up his bag.

"What if I told you," Link said, unworried about his guest's threat to departing, "that the person you were taking out is none other than your worst enemy, Allen Walker himself?"

Kanda stopped, doorknob in hand. His fingers squeezed harder on the cool metal before slowly turning around, long, black hair turning with him. His darker eyes narrowed as he closed the door. "You want the Moyashi dead?" he asked, head tilting at the question. "Che. You don't need an assassin to kill that bean sprout. He'll be dead by the time finals week ends, either by stress or his debts his caretaker owes."

"It's not quick enough. We need him gone by tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Kanda repeated. "Tomorrow is my hardest final. You really want me to blow that off just to kill a puny-ass kid? Are you fucking stupid, Link, or are you mentally retarded? Let me guess—you were dropped as a small child, and now you can't cope with it, so you pretend to act like a pompous bastard to make yourself feel better. Shit, I bet you're still in training pants, you're so fucking stupid. I will kill him by this Friday, but don't place any bets on tomorrow."

"Will you please lessen on the insults?" Link's grip on his fork grew stronger, knuckles nearly turning white. "It's bad for my ears. If you can't kill him by tomorrow, fine—just make sure he doesn't hang out with this girl." He slid a photo across the table, depicting said-girl clinging onto a scared-looking Allen. "If you have to, break them up—make them have as little contact as possible. In the meantime, try not to be such a prat all the time. If you keep that attitude, who knows what Leverrier might do? I would not like to think what he might do to Alma if I told him you were so chicken to not kill Walker by tomorrow."

Kanda scowled as the Inspector shrugged. "Don't you lay a finger on her," he said.

"Again with the her. Perhaps you were the one dropped on your head?"

The sword came flying out of its hilt, faster than Link's eyes could register. It hovered a centimeter from his forehead, blade illuminating off the dull lighting of the hotel. He sat still, chewing thoughtfully on his cake. "It was only a mere suggestion," he said with a sigh. "No need to throw such a temper-tantrum."

"I don't know whose attitude I loathe more," Kanda said, glaring at the Inspector as he made his way towards the door. "Yours, or Moyashi's." With that, he sheathed his sword, then stomped out the door, slamming the unfortunate thing behind him. Link remained still in his seat, trying to make the best out of his day. He wasn't entirely sure if the girl was, in fact, a Noah. All he could make out was her and whoever she was talking to wanting to go eat salad, of all things.

He couldn't risk it. If Allen Walker did stumble upon the Noah, then he could become a candidate for the Fourteenth. Letting him go was no longer an option, especially with such a dire time looming above them. Only if they located the source of the Noah's powers, then they could stop the war hidden from most human eyes.

The chances of that happening in time, though, like the rain stopping before nightfall, were slim to nil.

~X~

Hospitals always smelled the same. Disinfectant, sickness, death, and horrible hospital food. Put the four together and that made a mess of the sense of smell. He didn't remember how he got there, but it involved Lavi's car. Lavi's car and Lavi's reassurance. However, he wasn't sure how much of that reassurance could be put to good use. He tapped his foot impatiently as his redhead friend chatted with the nurse. She looked beautiful, but it seemed Lavi was too worried to notice, which was a first. Another first was the look in his eye, but he didn't know what it shined with.

"They said she's in the ER," he said after talking to the nurse. "Komui is there, too, waiting in the waiting room. There's no word on her condition yet. Come on," he patted a hand on Allen's shoulder, "let's go see if there's anything we can do to make Komui feel better while we wait."

Make Komui feel better. He couldn't even make himself feel better, let alone Komui. Allen nodded regardless, numb as Lavi pushed him along down the white halls of the hospital. People with walkers slowly rolled on by as nurses and doctors spoke in their own lingo. The lights overhead whirred by, like the open rooms beeping with machines and stuffed bears being handed out to sickly children. Sympathy smothered the whole place with its own pillow, only this pillow seemed nice enough, with smiles and sunshine hiding the darkness and anguish on the other side.

His pillow didn't come with smiles and sunshine. Only the anguish.

The waiting room had several people in it. Professor Lee, though a simple "Komui" worked for the situation, chewed away at his fingernails as his foot tapped with growing impatience. He looked like a mess, with a coffee stain spilled down the front of his white shirt, and his hat sloppily thrown onto his head, but he didn't seem to care. In fact, the only worry he had was of his dear sister, who was currently being checked in one of the rooms. He looked up to see Lavi and Allen approaching him with the same worry in their eyes.

"Oh," he said. He didn't seem surprised that the two were there. "They still don't know anything yet."

Allen sat beside Komui as Lavi stood by the window. "What happened, anyways?" Allen asked quietly.

Komui looked to his hands, which were covered in ink stains. "She was serving us coffee," he said, tears brimming. "She was smiling, despite the condition given to her. One cup to Reever, to Tapp, then, as she came to me, she dropped the mug. And it broke. All over the carpet, like a big crash of glass. Smash goes the cup. And she just stares." He looked off into the distance for a moment. "Stares like there was something behind me. I followed her eyes—nothing out of the ordinary. By the time I look back, she's on the floor, paler than... paler than a corpse." He said the last word with great difficulty, and it sounded dismembered when it did come out. "I call the ambulance, and... now I am here, awaiting for my sister's condition. She didn't wake up at all on the way here. Not at all."

The stress leaked out of his voice, as did the worry. His finger kept tapping on the seat, keeping in pace with his foot. Allen looked desperately to Lavi, but the redhead seemed preoccupied in his own thoughts to help Komui calm down. "A corpse, huh?" he repeated dully. "But she didn't die, right?"

"No, God, no." Komui shook his head. "I checked immediately. She had a pulse. But she wouldn't wake up, not at all. No matter how hard I shook her, she stayed the same way. Lifeless, but not dead. Like..."

"A coma," the redhead finished, arms folding across his chest. His gaze continued out the window. Allen began to worry—Lavi never seemed so distressed.

"Right, a coma." Komui nodded.

The silence came back. With silence came nervousness, and with nervousness came anxiety. It was a party now, hosted by depression. He looked from Komui to Lavi, then focused his attention onto a picture of a grassy field hanging on the white wall. A woman sat on a rock with a notebook in her lap and a paintbrush in hand. A lake expanded a little ways past the field. He looked away from the picture. He became wary of any bodies of water since the nightmares started. He thought she would appear in them, and that she would drag him under.

He pushed the thoughts aside as a female doctor stepped out. "Is Komui Lee still here?"

Komui rose to his feet. Lavi tore his gaze away from the window, but he still hung by it. Allen stood beside his professor as the doctor flipped through some charts on her clipboard. "How is she?" he asked, impatience reaching his tone. "She'll be okay, right? I know she was diagnosed with cancer, but it was first stage, and they were going to treat it tomorrow and—"

"Komui," Allen hushed.

He stared at the white-haired boy before nodding, closing his mouth. The doctor frowned. "First-stage, right?" she said. "It doesn't make any sense, then. No cancer progresses that quickly. She came in yesterday and got diagnosed then, correct?"

"Yes."

The doctor shook her head. "Truly a mystery," she said. Then her sympathetic eyes came into play. Lavi stood up straighter at the sight. Komui's breathing hitched. Allen's body grew numb. "I'm terribly sorry to say that Miss Lee has progressed to the last stage of breast cancer in the course of a day. I do not know how it happened, but we're taking her to another ward and putting her—" the doctor's tone became solemn "—on death watch. I say she has about three weeks left to live."

Allen's face lost all color, making it look as white as his hair. The pillow that smothered the hospital came down, made a small incision, then took a chainsaw and ripped through his heart. He barely turned his head in time to see Komui fainting. His body thudded against the floor, his glasses and hat falling off and clattering to the floor beside him. The doctor called over some nurses to help him to a chair, where he still didn't regain consciousness. Allen choked, his eyes brimming with tears. It couldn't be happening. It was the only explanation he had. Everything that happened that day, it had to be a dream.

The sound of glass shattering disrupted his quickly-vanishing thought process. The nurses looked up as the doctor nearly dropped her clipboard. The sound also brought Komui back out of unconsciousness. Allen turned around slowly to see Lavi's hand outside the window, hand cut and dripping blood. His eye stared at the doctor as his lower lip trembled. "Death watch?" he said. "Death watch? You're putting Lenalee on death watch? She's only nineteen, you heartless bastards! You can take your goddamn sympathy and shove it up your ass, for all I care! You don't give a damn who lives and who dies, do you? You only care about getting paid! If you cared, you just wouldn't immediately put that label on her and try to see if there was anything you could do first!"

"Lavi!" Allen held him back as he started to grab a chair. "Lavi, calm down!"

"Calm down? Look at them! They don't give a shit about her, Allen! They don't care! How could they possibly not care about someone like her? How could they...?" His sentence broke off as he looked away. Allen stared at the redhead as his shoulders stiffened. What surprised him was seeing Lavi so angry and so upset at once. "How could they be so cold?" he finished in a whisper.

"Allen, Lavi."

They both looked to Komui, who held up the doctor from calling security. "Go home," he said. "Go home and rest. I'm going to stay here. You two have finals tomorrow, don't you? Don't worry about you breaking the window, Lavi. I'll pay for it. I'll call you two if anything changes. But, please, go home. I'm going to see Lenalee." He rose from his chair. "But thank you for coming. It would mean a lot to Lenalee, knowing her two friends showed up for support."

The words nearly broke the both of them. Allen managed to nod as Lavi looked to the floor, unable to come up with something to say. They both pushed each other out of the waiting room, out of the hospital, and into the parking lot, where the rain continued to patter against the buildings and cars. Lavi sat in the driver's seat, car key in hand, but with no motivation to put the key in. Allen sat in the passenger's seat, staring at the dashboard as his muscles stiffened. Lenalee, who sat by him during lunch, was dying. The worst part was, there was nothing to cure her of the cancer, not anymore. His mind reeled with too many thoughts, too many theories. It hurt to think. It hurt to breathe. If he could talk, he would say something incomprehensible.

"Damn," Lavi said for him. He punched the steering wheel before covering his eye with his arm. "Damn!" he said again, only much louder as he put the key in the ignition. The car started up, and he put it into reverse. He came to the end of the parking lot only to shake his head. "I can't," he said, lips trembling. "I'm sorry, Allen, I just can't."

"Want me to drive?" His voice sounded too hoarse for his liking. One more thought about Lenalee's death sentence was going to push him over the edge and into a lake of tears.

"Neither of us can. I'll call Yuu and ask if he can pick us up. I think he can put up with you for fifteen minutes." He parked the car again and pulled out his cellphone. "Oh, fuck," he whispered as he dialed the number. "Hey, Kanda?" A pause. "Yeah. Can you pick me and Allen up?" Another pause after what sounded like yelling. "Listen, Lenalee is in the hospital. It's..." He trailed off. Kanda seemed to get the message. "We're at St. John's. We'll wait for you outside. Thanks."

He hung up the cellphone. Allen stared out the window, mind numbing as each second passed. The rain made his mood worse as he buried his face in his hands. Lavi patted him on the shoulder, and he began to cry without an ounce of shame.

~X~

Night came quickly. Allen sat still on his bunk, staring at the opposite wall. A thunderstorm rocked the downtown region, lighting up the area suffering a power-outage. The flashes of light vanished as quickly as they came as the storm raged on. Kanda, surprisingly, didn't yell at him when he came to pick them up. If anything, he was silent the whole time, only asking Lavi about Lenalee's condition. The redhead barely managed to get the words out: "Lenalee's dying."

Allen punched himself on the thigh as the thought sneaked into his head. He didn't want to think about it, not with finals and everything else pushing down on him. But it was Lenalee, the girl he cared more than he liked to admit. Her smile, her eyes, the way she carried her happiness with her... she made his freshman year better than it would have been. His teeth clenched together as he tried to stop himself from crying. His bedsheets had snot and tears all over them already. Lavi didn't seem like he was crying. Instead, he was calling back his grandfather and talking in a foreign language. When he came back, though, his eye seemed stunned as he crawled into bed.

Lavi hadn't moved since.

Lightning illuminated a pair of golden eyes. It didn't scare him as much as he thought it would. He sat up straighter as a pair of arms wrapped around him. She sat in his lap, giggling a little. When he didn't respond, she tilted her head. "Why the long face, cute widdle Allen?" She poked him with one of her long nails, painted black as if she were going to a funeral. "You seem distraught. You being distraught is no fun."

"What did you do to her?"

She stared at him, lightning lighting up her confused face. "Hm?"

"I said, what did you do to her?" He grabbed Road by the shoulders. "You obviously did something!" he hissed, applying more pressure through his fingertips. "You're the reason why she's in the hospital, why the doctors put her on death watch, why she is now sicker than ever! You did something to her, you had to have! Why her? She didn't do anything! She didn't so anything at all, she only talked to you and ate some of your candy! I'm the one you want, remember? Me! Not her! Me! Whatever you did to her, undo and do it to me! Because she has nothing to do with this!"

The girl snickered as she pulled out a lollipop. "Oh, poor, naïve little Allen," she said, shaking her head. Her teeth crunched the swirled candy as she tapped his chin. Her fingernail dug into the skin, making a nick and making it bleed. "I didn't do anything to her. And I mean it when I say it—I did nothing." She smiled; her eyes narrowed as it flickered with anger. "But blame me again, and I will do something to her, far worse than a little 'death watch.' I will make her scream, Allen, oh, I will make her scream loudly and make her beg for mercy compared to what she has now." She took the half-eaten lollipop and shoved it into his mouth. "And if you doubt me, I'll be more than willing to show you a demonstration of sorts."

"No, not needed. I believe you." He didn't want to know what she would do to Lenalee. "Then, if you didn't do anything, how come...?"

"Oh, I knew there was something wrong with her the moment she said it. She lied to you, her brother, and everyone around her." She took the lollipop out of Allen's mouth and popped it back into her own. "So I checked into it after I ate lunch with a good friend of mine. She was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer several months—maybe even a year—ago, but she told the doctor to put it in her report otherwise, that she was all right, because she had no health insurance. And yesterday, she forged the report again to not worry her brother as much." Her smile looked wicked. "She's been a dead-man walking ever since you met her, Allen."

Thunder shook the dormitory as lightning clapped. The rain came down harder. He swallowed the feeling of helplessness as she stroked his cheek. "Th... that doesn't sound like her at all," he said, eyebrows furrowed. "She wouldn't lie to everyone! She just wouldn't do that!"

"Really?" Road looked bored. "Not even to protect her friends from a horrible truth?"

That floored him. He knew Lenalee would do anything to keep her friends safe to any means. Lying never crossed his mind, though. Especially with her. But it sounded right—Lenalee, knowing that she couldn't possibly pay anything to get herself help (and, even if she did, the chances of her surviving were slim to none), told the doctor to lie, and then she lied herself. All to protect them. The thought choked him up again as the warm arms brought him closer to Road.

"It's all right, Allen. It'll be okay."

"Get away from me," he whispered. "You aren't even human. You don't care about anything."

She snickered as she pulled away from him, tilting her head ever-so-slightly. "Really now?" she said, grin dancing on her lips. "I'm not human? But don't I feel human? I'm warm. And I breathe the same air you do. The only difference between you and me is that I can live forever, whereas you cannot. You remember the time I stabbed myself, yes?" His shudder made her chuckle. "I take that as a yes, so I don't need to demonstrate again. And I do care about things, Allen. In fact, I care enough to even tell you a little secret."

He shivered as she breathed against his ear, making the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. "What secret?" he asked.

"There's a river far from here," she said, fingers tracing shapes on his back. "It has the ability to heal any sickness the drinker has. After the Great Flood that occurred according to the Bible, every body of water dried up, including the oceans, to make way for land. Noah and the others found the river after some time, and by drinking it, he lived for seven hundred or so years. The human race prospered again, as you know, and the oceans restored. But the river was the last body of water to flow after the Earth dried up. If you want to heal Lenalee now," she licked the side of his face, making him tense, "you have to get the last remains of this ancient river."

"How do I get there?"

"No regular human can get there alone." She sat up in his lap. "I'll have to take you there. If you have such an objection, don't go—and let Lenalee die, see if I care. But if you really want to help her, you have to come with me. And it's not going to be easy. See, this little thing known as the government is trying to get me, trying to kill me. If you come along, there is no doubt in my mind they will try to kill you, too, Allen. Tell me your answer by tomorrow morning—I will wait in that cafe with the delicious smoothies."

She stilled his face from moving away with both hands as she planted another kiss on him. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ignore the unpleasant feeling, as the kiss drew out longer than he anticipated. His eyes started to relax as he felt himself being pushed down onto his bed. A blanket covered him as his mind washed over with sleep.

Road giggled as she stared at her little sheep. "I can't believe he fell for that," she said with a grin. She brushed the bangs out of his eyes before opening her door. "You're mine, now."

And I don't intend to let you get away.

~X~

Ah, end of chapter 5. If you feel like it, leave a review, make a favorite, or alert! If not, well, no hard feelings—sometimes I'm really lazy and don't do any of those things (my profile reveals my like of favorite anythings). Until next time! —Nobody Odd