They met for the first time in a French military base seven miles from the front lines. He had just arrived and was being introduced to his peers when he noticed her in the background. The young Asian woman was sitting with a group of mourners attending to a row of coffins, her hand delicately resting over the closed white lid as silent tears dripped down her exhaustion-flushed face. Lavi nearly froze in place when she turned and met his gaze with her own. The image of her pale features and her dark and weary gaze remained long after he moved on and she turned away, haunting him in a way he could not explain or rationalize.
When they spoke for the first time she struck him as surprisingly cheerful and positive, though she was obviously still recovering from an injury and mourning whoever had died that day. He didn’t mention it and neither did she, and instead they exchanged small talk and discussed where they came from and what they did in the base with the rest of the group. Lenalee Lee was officially an auxiliary nurse, a part-time cook, a part-time operator for phones and telegraphs, and the assistant of the Big Boss in charge. Unofficially she was many things, including the beloved little sister of said Boss, but she had the skills to do all her official work and much more on and off the clock.
Lavi was impressed by her, and she seemed to appreciate his regard. He himself didn’t seem much to look at beyond the eyepatch and height at first, but his grandfather was a respected historian and professor turned diplomat to England in particular and the Allies in general. The young soldier had extensive skills in translation, interpreting, and negotiations, which had him rapidly promoted to doing mostly code work instead of hitting up the battlefield and risking his life quite so obviously. It didn’t mean he never did so, as he was often sent out on high-importance missions that required advanced tact and skills. For a one-eyed man he was quite good with a gun, and even better with handling explosives.
The first time that he ended up in the hospital was because he mistimed throwing a grenade and received minor grazes and burns from shrapnel. Lenalee handled him with firm but gentle hands and scolded him for being careless, and Lavi made stupid jokes and shamelessly flirted as she inspected, cleaned, and wrapped the wounds. She let him go the next morning with a warning to rest up and behave himself, and he saluted her with an enthusiast “yes ma’am.”
They would on rare occasions work together on decoding the missives she received and processed, and they both discovered plenty in the process of sorting through sensitive material for hours on end in locked rooms (though Lenalee’s brother was liable to interrupt whenever possible out of concern). Lavi spoke more languages and had an extremely thorough education in history and politics, but while Lenalee lacked his near-eidetic memory and instant recall she had plenty of smarts and talents to spare. She was better at handling issues of emotion by far, and where he did well at negotiation in terms of cost and benefit and the like, she had a talent for soothing frayed tempers and often handled people who outright terrified him without so much as blinking.
Lenalee was one of the more intelligent people that Lavi had encountered in his lifetime and it was refreshing, because she was an equal in so many ways despite what society stated on women and enforced in behavioral expectations even during wartime. France was not the most progressive of countries regarding equality or prejudice, and Lenalee was a Chinese immigrant with minor French ancestry, though she continually defied and worked around the prejudices she faced. He faced problems of his own, but he was hardly the only Jewish soldier fighting in the war, and the people who dared to make insinuations to his face regretted it eventually.
He found the revelation that she assisted much more heavily in espionage and retrieval than anyone not in the know would expect to be interesting, but ultimately not surprising when he thought of her immense capability and determination. As time went on they tended to be sent on secretive and often dangerous missions together rather than the separate assignments usually given before. Sometimes things went badly, and he learned that she was educated enough in eastern martial arts and basic weaponry to be a deadly force of nature in battle. The revelation only made her more fascinating and attractive in his eyes, and feelings began stirring in his chest that he was careful to repress for fear of the possible consequences.
Years passed and their relationship evolved as they learned more and experienced more with and without each other. The war was heating up and going badly, despite the attempts of government propaganda to convince the public otherwise. People came and went, many people died or changed drastically as the war took its toll, and Lavi began to change as well. He noticed it slowly, and it frightened him that he was moving away from his initial reasons for being there, though never quite forgetting, he had a duty to his people, his grandfather, and to himself that he could never discard or forgive himself for ignoring.
When Allen Walker arrived, the odd and startlingly young assistant of the notorious General Cross, he indirectly brought them all closer together, and Lavi found in him a dear friend and trusted comrade. Another effect of his growing friendship with Allen was that there there was suddenly a contrast, an alternate example in closeness to Lenalee. Thinkinh too deeply on the differences in his feelings for them caused him to repress the problem even more, because he cared more than he should and it was dangerous (and trying to put words to what he felt almost made him panic and pray that his grandfather never found out he might be going native).
Things reached a turning point when Suman turned traitor and Allen nearly died. Many operatives were killed, but Allen was the one closest to home, and he was so young and so dear to them both that his near-loss was devastating. When they nearly fought in the aftermath of the incident, it was the first time Lavi had ever been angry with Lenalee for any reason, and they were wary of each other for some time after. It took Lenalee nearly dying in an attempt to protect their team to put the problem aside, and the deaths of Anita and the others to let them escape from an ambush put further strain on them as they got deeper into enemy territory.
Lenalee took a long time to recover when they were finally safe at the base, but when the base was attacked and she and Allen took on a crazed berserker of a soldier to end the massacre his heart nearly stopped. All he could think of was just how close he came to losing them, and when he had repeated nightmares that ended with the sight of Lenalee’s bloodied corpse (much like in the hallucination he experienced in the incident where he had fought that terrifying girl called Rhode) he nearly lost himself in self-doubt. His grandfather’s threats and attempts to draw him out of the conflict only worsened his state until he was tearing into himself as he tried to find a way to cope and keep moving forward without being forced to go home and leave behind the people he was growing to care for entirely too much without learning of their ultimate fates.
When France fell they had been moved to a new base in London, but it was his temporary stationing in China that nearly ended everything. Lavi was captured and tortured for months on end and it nearly broke him as he was brutally torn into multiple times a day, every day, without reprieve. His grandfather wasn’t going to talk, he was likely going to die in this hellhole and he’d never get to see Lenalee or anyone from headquarters ever again.
The sight of her when she opened the door of his cell was akin to an avenging angel, but the tears in her eyes betrayed her even if just for a moment before she was moving again, helping the rescue team to secure him and his grandfather and getting them to safety. The rescue and retrieval mission didn’t go as planned, their captors caught on quickly, but in the end they narrowly won their way to freedom without getting killed in the process. If Lavi’s hands weren’t shaking and covered in gore he would have held her close, so even though smiling hurt like a bitch he smiled widely and tried to forget the blood and ash in his mouth that was no doubt staining his teeth in a gruesome manner.
Lenalee came to him in the night like a vision bathed in moonlight. He was drifting between dreaming and wakefulness in the quiet hospital room where he lay weakly on the too-thin mattress beneath a threadbare blanket, and it wasn’t until he felt the warmth of her where she brushed his hair from his forehead that he realized he wasn’t dreaming after all, he was awake and free again and she was here with him, alone. The young woman who held his heart held him close as gently as she could so as to not open his stitches, crying silent tears into his uncomfortably dirty and ragged hair as he cried in relief against her shoulder. She was limping and her face was cut and bruised but she was alive and he was too and no one was here to judge them for their tears.
In a flash of daring he had not dared to do more than imagine before, Lavi pulled away just enough to look into her beautiful eyes before he drew her in so that their lips were less than an inch apart. His grip was weak and she could easily pull back, but instead of rejecting him and leaving she leaned down and kissed him. It was soft and innocent, flavored with salt by tears and traces of blood, but he wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. They did not go further than kissing and embracing each other, but they had no desire for more, nog when they were neither able to nor ready to take carnal actions. What they sought was comfort and mutual reassurance that they were alive, safe, and recovering.
Looking back on what came after those idyllic moments where they embraced in the silence of the sheltering night was painful and almost brought him to tears, even years later after time had begun to heal the scars left behind. Many people died, some closer to him and to her than others. Lavi himself was very nearly a casualty several times over, but by a narrow margin he pulled through. He was one of the lucky ones. Far too many were not nearly as lucky, even if they did survive.
On the day that the War officially ended, he was in the Hospital sitting beside his closest surviving friends and comrades at Headquarters as the news came through of Germany’s surrender, and even though it wasn’t truly over yet—there was cleanup and tracking down war criminals and healing and relocating civilians and helping the countless victims and so much more—they broke down in tears of relief and joy. Kanda actually smiled (it was bitter but still a smile) from where he was resting after a near-fatal injury, and while Alleen wasn’t awake for the initial announcement he looked happier than Lavi had ever seen him. Johnny jumped for joy and danced around the room with Cash and nearly tripped up Marie and Miranda (poor Miranda, she could finally go home but it wouldn’t never be the same).
If it were a movie or a novel he would have kissed Lenalee then and there in front of the entire room and damn the consequences. No, instead Lenalee moved her wheelchair over to his bedside and gently squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back, and that was enough for them in that moment. No words were needed for them to know just how things were about to change, and when Lavi thought of the ramifications a laugh on caught between hysterical and triumphant began bubbling in his throat.
Afterwards things seemed to pass by in a blur—everyone was healing, gruesome horrors were unearthed, arrangements of all kinds were negotiated, bigwigs passed through and caused even more chaos, people were sent out on clean up missions and helped restore order, and in general everything was happening at once and nearly impossible to keep track of. Before he knew it, Lavi found himself healed and helping out in every possible way he could, and then he was being told that he was officially released from duty and free to return to his responsibilities and help his grandfather sort out the mess going on in Palestine as refugees arrived and whispers of creating the promised nation of Israel seemed to be becoming a reality. Lavi was not quite sure what to think of it when so much else was happening, he had a feeling that it was going to be an enormous headache.
Saying goodbye to his comrades, his co-workers and friends was one of the hardest and most emotional moments of his life. There were spaces where some of the people who deserved to be there at the end had been denied their chance to witness the end, some people he might have preferred never to see again almost spoiled a few of his talks by causing irritation and trouble, and some people had been irreversibly changed and lost things in such a way that it almost choked him to wish them luck when he knew that civilian life was going to become infinitely harder for them. His grandfather had chosen to be tactful and not speak but refused to actually leave and acted as a constant reminder of what was to come. Unfortunately, Lavi had a time limit to consider before the train from Paris was due to leave, so he could only devote so much time before he was ready to say the last goodbye.
They exchanged possibly the most meaningful gaze they had ever shared in the four years they had known each other, and in that moment a promise was made without either of them saying a single word, a promise to remember each other and to see each other again no matter what it took or how much time it might take. Lavi was the first to break contact, just as he had that very first time all those years ago, and with a hesitant smile he turned and walked away to follow after his grandfather, just as she followed after her brother. They had their respective homes to return to and their own sets of separate duties now that the war was done, but someday soon they would overcome the distance separating them and meet once again.
