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Lavi asked, because he always did. If Mei-Ling was telling her grandfather about him the first thing she would say was Lavi asks. But she couldn't, because Yeye was dead and buried. In heaven, she reminded herself firmly, her throat gumming up. Don't cry.
Something nudged her leg.
The Bookman-Exorcist pulled his foot back when she startled, eyebrows lifting to his hair. "You in there, Mei-Mei?" He said, gently poking fun.
His hair looked more brown than orange, now, with all the dust in it. As he leaned back again, more dust fell from the chunks of crumbling walls that hemmed Mei-Ling and her friends in on all sides. Lavi's Innocence, grown the size of a wagon, thankfully didn't budge from where it was wedged between them as the makeshift roof.
Lavi had lost his bandana somewhere over the battlefield. Without it his face seemed sharper, more serious. That made it more obvious he was pretending, even though he was still good at it.
She blinked at him, trying to ignore the thrum of pain from her head.
He grinned past all the blood. "Cat got your tongue, huh? Geez. I didn't think it was that hard of a question."
"Give her a minute, Lavi," Allen snapped. He was leaning heavily against the wall opposite her. Crown Clown's gentle glow was their little cave's only light. Allen must be hurt badly or he'd already back on his feet, Mei-Ling knew. He scowled at Lavi but focused on her, worry bright in his eyes.
She appreciated it, she did, but— she wasn't a kid anymore. She could talk for herself. "It's alright," she told him, and then to Lavi, "I'm alright." His question was easy to answer. "It felt like the right thing to do."
Lavi cocked his head and whistled. "Seeing your Innocence turn into sludge and then drinking it felt like the right thing to do?"
That stung a little; Mei-Ling tried not to curl her shoulders defensively. "Lenalee did," she pointed out, "Her and Kanda. I knew it was--" She was going to say 'safe', but stopped short; nothing about being an Exorcist was safe.
Lavi didn't need her to finish the sentence. He nodded, shifting on his spot on the floor. (The walls continued to gift them drifting dust.) "Yeah, I guess you had good company. And it didn't scare you?" His eye showed some concern, but mostly flat curiousity.
That question was... harder to answer.
Hesitating, she looked at her arms. They were crusted rust-black up to her shoulders-- all her own blood, flaking off in tiny pieces. Her first invocation had broken and reformed once already.
Maybe minutes ago— time never made sense in a battle— Lavi had shouted her name as Big Hammer Little Hammer shot across the battlefield in front of the akuma she'd been fighting. She'd not even blinked before grabbing hold, wrapping her arms around it and clinging with grit teeth as they rocketed back to the half-collapsed building the three of them were now hiding in.
Outside their tiny alcove, wind and akuma howled.
Heaven Weaver had changed since they'd crystallized. Instead of bracers, its new inactivated form was wire-thin iron bands coiled around her upper arms with ends reaching out in spirals. They were always warm against her skin. When activated they blazed furiously, flooding down to her palms in gold before cooling to its familiar moon-white.
With Heaven Weaver inactive, the holy wounds broken through the backs of her hands were left open to the air. In the dim light from Crown Clown's cloak they looked newly-made and ragged. She hadn't bothered putting the pressure bandages around them that Mr. Reever and his team had made for her to help the pain— she'd be fighting again soon anyway. Part of her wondered, distantly, if she even still had enough blood to reactivate. But she must. She had to.
Had crystallizing scared her? Yes was obviously what her friend was looking for, but that didn't fit. No wasn't true either.
Yes, but I'd seen Innocences die before.
Her crystal ball, first, and then the others from her last vision before she'd known about anything. That one still burned in her mind. It grew behind her eyes during akuma battles and came back to her when she dreamed. And it was simple, one moment going on forever: Mugen shattered on the ground at her feet. Kanda laying beside it, his face smeared dark; Lenalee facedown in the mud next to him with Dark Boots bending her legs backwards and making Mei-Ling's stomach sick. The others on the ground beyond them, laid out in circles like they were ringing an explosion. Only she was left, standing in the dark with the moon in pieces above her. Something had gone wrong. She'd understood it in her veins, the enormous loss.
She'd thought her crystal ball had been showing her her own death. She'd been so afraid she'd— dissapointed it, betrayed, and it had died in front of her in that horrible Noah's claws. It'd tried to warn her but she hadn't been strong enough to listen. I'm sorry, she wished to it, again.
By the time Heaven Weaver had found her she'd already decided that she'd never run away again. Mei-Ling couldn't do that twice— not to her friends, not to General Tiedoll or her battle-brothers, and not to God.
(And even if she could leave, where would she go? Yeye was in heaven. Her town and everyone in it was gone. Her old self, the little girl who'd thrown her future away - she was gone, too.)
Drinking its blood was her confirmation; the pain from her stigmata was just penance.
Even if she had been afraid, it didn't matter.
But she couldn't just say that, not to Lavi or Allen. It wasn't anything to tell people who loved you.
Mei-Ling decided to only give part of the truth. "Not really," she told Lavi finally."I'd-- I'd wanted to help you.” She meant the two of them, and Lenalee, all of the people at the Order; and everyone in her old village, in the places they went. She wanted everyone to be safe so badly. Her voice pitched up on the last and Mei-Ling cringed. She sounded so— weak, that way.
Her hand returned to her Innocence. Like Lenalee's, they could be mistaken for jewellery if someone didn't know anything about it. God's will holding her life in.
After that night, she'd woken in Headquarter's hospital ward and Ms. Head Nurse had told her she'd slept for ten days. General Tiedoll had been waiting there for her. He'd been sitting beside her medical bed with his sketchbook propped on his knee, humming to himself, and smiling just like her grandfather had used to. Mei-Ling had reached out to him as her eyes blured with tears. He'd dropped his charcoal and held her hand carefully, mindful of her wounds.
God wants us to be stronger, her General had said.
"And now?" Junior Bookman asked neutrally. Mei-Ling saw Allen scowl at him from the corner of her eye. He didn't like it when his friend disappeared.
She held her palm over the back of her other hand, covering her stigmata. It didn't help the pain but she could make herself believe it did. "Now I'm an Exorcist," Mei-Ling said, and swallowed. "This is where I have to be."
Junior nodded, the story disappearing into the libraries he kept in his mind.
Mei-Ling could see when he decided to put Lavi back. He leaned back with his arms behind his head, stretching extravaganly, then replied bright and carefree."Man, that's pretty heavy for a girl your age, Mei-Mei. You should be worried about tea and boys and things. Lighten up, will you?"
She cringed at the nickname (and boys) even though she knew that'd only encourage him. The cheerfulness felt weird in the air, and she didn't know what to say.
Allen spoke up for her. "The Order is lucky to have you, Mei-Ling," he said gently. "And I'm glad you're here."
Her throat tight, she nodded.
Lavi's faked laughter slid off him like raindrops. Instead of saying that he was glad too, he pretended to cough, shaking the dust off of his hair. "Well, poor Miranda's probably pretty upset about us by now. What d'you say we get out of this dump?"