Here's chapter two everyone and I think I did pretty good on this one. Sorry it maybe shorter than I had wanted it to but I will try to make the next chapter longer.

Thank you everyone who has reviewed on my new story, it means a lot.


I laid there staring at the ceiling, in the dark, on my bed. I hadn't been able to sleep for the past two days and Snake Eyes still hadn't given back my pills after we had our conversation and small talk in his room four days ago. The first two nights I was okay, nightmare free and sleeping peacefully but the last two nights with the nightmares hit me like a ton of bricks. "I wonder if that small talk in Snakes room helped, even though it had nothing to do with my nightmares," I thought and rested my hands behind my head as I laid there.

"Either it's that or the voodoo tea he's been giving me..." I laid there in thought about the many possibilities of how he could have calmed my subconscious down, even if it wasonly temporary. I even talked to Doc about my nightmares which were more like horrible and gore filled blurs, but there were some parts that would play out. He told me that I was repressing memories of a tragic event, I already knew that and gave a smart remark which rewarded me with a slap up side my head. He also told me that talking about the nightmares or even reliving them through hypnotherapy could help. My answer was a 'hell to the fucking no'.

I did tell the good old Doc that it had to do with something when I was a kid but couldn't remember anything past the age of 12, that everything was always blur when I tried to remember. He responded with a 'hmmm' and a 'well as long as this doesn't effect work, just try focus on taming the nightmares'. "Great diagnosis Doc...not much of a help." Though the only help he was right about was talking to someone and the only person I had ever felt talking to about personal things like my nightmares was Snake Eyes.

The silent man was than just patient with me when I talked to him, he actually listened and I mean listened, not the type of listening therapists do then respond with a logical answer. He would listen through everything then give me advice, the type you wouldn't find from a shrink, he would give a reassuring ten to fifteen second hug or rub my back. Why can't shrinks do that instead of treating you like you have a disorder or disease?

Coming out of my self argument and conversation with myself, I looked over at my clock on the nightstand, the red numbers reading 1:45 in the morning. Groaning, I took my pillow and smacked it over my face and yelled into it. "THIS ISN'T FAIR!" Thankfully no one heard my muffled screams.

I sat up in my bed and suddenly wondered if Snake Eyes was still up, hoping I could talk to him to ease my mind. Then I thought and remembered that one, it was late at night and usually the lastest he stay's up is 11pm or 2am, I would be abusing our friendship for me just to sleep peacefully for the next four to five hours. For me that would just not do...unless I had special permission from him to wake him up in the wee hours of the morning. No, that wouldn't even do, no matter how much a friend and gentle man he was.

Now thinking more logically about my subject at hand, I suddenly got up and sauntered over to my closet and started to change out of my pj's and change into my workout clothes. This consisted of a black sports bra, gray sweat capri's and black tennis shoes along with 5lbs weights for around my ankles. Tying my shoe laces then putting my hair up into a ponytail, I stood then headed off to the gym to tire out my body and hopefully my mind which is being depraved of sleep do to the infernal nightmares.

It took five minutes to get to the gym from where my room was, which was at the very end of the hallway where the rest of Alpha Teams rooms were, but when I arrived, I was re-leaved to find that there wasn't anyone around. I went straight over to a treadmill and set the speed to a jog, the miles to four and then I set the timer to see how long it took me run the four miles.

.~:*:~.

When I had lose track of how long I had been working out, I looked over at the clock on the wall nearest to me. "Ugh...3:15. Definitely need to start paying more attention..." I had been working out for almost three hours and I still wanted to at least meditate for 30 minutes to calm my body and try to ease my mind. "Just 15, just half of the time...I can do that," I headed to the main training room and into a one of the five private training rooms just in case someone came and tried to kick me out, though I'm pretty sure no one would but you never know. This way I could do the 15 minutes without people bothering or even know that I was even there to begin with.

I sat in the middle of the room and sat Indian style, closing my eyes as I breathed deep but slow. "Just relax and clear my mind...clear my mind..." I kept chanting softly in my head so I could calm my body down, not knowing that my mind would soon start to wander.

.~:*:~.

Snake Eyes POV

Awaking early was a usual routine for me in the mornings. Get up at 4:30, get ready for the day, eat before everyone so they don't see me then meet everyone in the Rec room. Usually this was my routine, but not today.

This morning I had slept in, past my alarm clock and even past wake-up call. Now, it was almost 7:30 AM when I had walked out of my room and to the mess hall to snag at least an apple or something small, just to last til' lunch. Though at the thought of food was making very hungry and wanting a full meal, but if I had a full meal, that would throw off my lunch then that in turn would throw off my dinner if I ate later in the day.

Luckily when I walked into the mess hall, no one was there, except for the cooks, so I snagged and quickly ate a banana and a small bowl of plain oatmeal. Once done and currently satisfied of my small breakfast, it was now closer to 8 O' clock which meant that my morning class would be ending soon. "I hope Scarlet covered my morning class." Sure, it wasn't normal for me to sleep through two alarms but I could have my days of slip-ups, couldn't I? Just because I was a ninja and early rising was drilled into me, doesn't mean I can't act human and skip a few hours of work. I chuckled silently at the ninja and human since ninjas were myth's in some peoples minds, others super-human. I wasn't into comics but thinking of picturing myself as a myth in some little boy's mind was just to...whats the word...appealing in a way.

I sighed and walked into the Rec room and was greeted by Heavy Duty and Breaker but more so Breaker than Heavy Duty. The Moroccan man walked up to me with a slightly confused and worried face.

"Hey, Snakes. Have you seen Amber this morning?" He asked as we walked further into the room so we could have a more comfortable conversation and to not block the exit.

"No, why do you asked?"I signed then he sighed as he pushed his glasses up his nose in an annoyed manner, this usually wasn't good.

"I have new upgrades for her arm. I sent her a message on her computer and PDA. When she never responded, I figured she over slept, so I went to her room and found that she wasn't there and both devices were in her room," He explained as we stood next to the couch and near my little corner of the room where my stuff was.

With this information, it made me slightly worried. "Where could she be? She's never disappeared like this before..." I pondered as I stood there in thought, my posture almost looking that the historical statue, The Thinker.

"Have you asked the others?" He nodded in response and sat on the couch, leaning forwards with his elbows on his knees. This made my worrying increase since the others didn't know ether. Other than Scarlet, Amber was a very dear friend to me and the thought of her missing made my mind race with what happened to her. Did she fall somewhere, injure herself and no one has found her yet? Did someone come and take her as a hostage while we all slept? Was she dead somewhere in the base?

This worrying made me think back, back to the day two weeks after she had arrived here. We had gotten along fairly well because I felt as though we had known each other for years and because we had a lot of things in common. We both shared the love for Japan and its culture, I had lived there and some of her family was from there. We both like martial arts, jasmine tea, anything that was a blade and, ironically, our favorite color was black. Somethings that I did she came into habit of wanting to learn such as meditating, easily walking as to make no sound, ASL, and, weird as this may sound, cooking. When I had cooked for her for the first time, she loved it and asked me to teach her, so I did and currently still am.

Our friendship had grew a great deal when she had showed up one night at my door, bruised, in pain and slightly crying though obvious that more crying had happened before she showed up do to the dried tears on her face. Amber was also a strong woman when it came to emotional and physical pain, but that night was the first time I had ever seen her cry and not take pain as a joke like she usually did. She was a wreck when I allowed her into my room and sat on the couch.

She had told me that there were a few recruits, like herself at the time, didn't like the fact someone with her 'disability' was trying to be on the Alpha Team, so they tried to scare her out of the Pit by beating her up. Upon further inspection of cleaning her up and tending to her wounds, this is why I'm against people beating women, not only did they beat her but had stomped and smashed the shoulder joint of her prosthetic arm which had to cause extreme pain. The only reason I knew it would have cause a lot of pain because when she first showed and told me about her arm, the area where her real shoulder joint would have been, was still very tender.

From that day, our friendship had just went further up the scale each time she got hurt, or needed to talk to me when something bothered her. She told me she didn't like any form of doctor when it came about talking or personal information, but to get to the point, she would rather personal information to a terrorist than a doctor, that's how much she hated them. Though, when she did meet Doc, she said he's been the most trustworthy and nice doctor she had ever met and all the other doctors could...well lets just say she had a very colorful vocabulary when she talked about the others.

I came back into reality from my thoughts and looked back down at Breaker, signing. "Did you check all her usual hang-outs and place's she would hate so we wouldn't look?" I knew she would never got to place's like the infirmary unless she had to and she never liked going down near the hangers where the vehicles were kept since a soldier wasn't looking and literally almost ran her over when she walked in. If I hadn't pulled her out of the way, we would have been down a soldier and the only time she ever goes back in there is with the team to depart for missions.

"I even checked the surveillance camera's to try and find her. You know, I think she gets the whole, not wanting to be found, from you," He stood and adjusted his glasses as he glared at me. "Lets rally the team to try and find her. I'll look over last nights tapes to see if I can trace her steps from her room," He said and I followed the Moroccan to get the others for the search.

.~:*:~.

It had been over four hours since our search started and we still couldn't find Amber. Breaker said that she had went into the gym last night but that was the last time he had saw her since there weren't any camera's in the gym do to privacy purposes and the fact that none of the Joes would want to steal gym equipment.

I had went back to the gym and looked around again but there wouldn't be any place for her to hide. Sure, she may have been small and could fit into place like the air-ducts or even a mini fridge for that matter, but with the type of equipment in here, there really would be no place for her to hide. I even went up the catwalks to see if she was there, but no dice.

We all decided to take a break and get back to a few hours of work while Breaker still looked through the tapes. Since I wasn't scheduled to have an afternoon class til' somewhere around dinner time, I decided to go and do self training. So I got a few things from my room and headed to the private training rooms.

When I opened the door and flicked on the lights, I stopped right in my tracks and stared at the body on the floor. I slowly put my stuff by the door and cautiously walked over to the body and saw it was Amber. I sighed in relief and knelt down by her side and noticed she was sleeping. "How long has she been here?"

When she whimpered a little in her sleep, I quickly noticed that she was having another nightmare. When she had first told me about her nightmares, and when I found a pattern in her sleep when she would have nightmares, I knew when to wake her. Right now it must have been a bad one since I had decided to call her whimpering stage two. Her stage one would be tossing and turning, stage two was whimpering and shaking, and stage three was talking or screaming in her sleep. Usually now, the only thing that would calm her down without waking her was to hold her, and that's what I did.

I locked the door and gently picked her up then sat against the wall with her in my lap, her back against my chest though it didn't take long for her to calm down. I gently wrapped my arms around her and tried to meditate as best I could while she slept. "So much for training...but this is worth skipping it..."


Have no fear, next chapter will pick up where this one left off.

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