So I decided to do the iPod shuffle challenge. Try not to judge the incredibly corny title of this chapter and the absurd amount of Disney music I listen to :D

Reviews would be super fantastically awesome!

1. "Story of Us" – Taylor Swift

He hadn't expected it to be this hard, this first breakfast on this first morning in this brand new world where boys were girls and best friends were liars. But it was awful, sitting across from him- no, her at the table in the middy's mess, watching her swipe Newkirk's potatoes and sip her coffee, so dreadfully calm, all the while knowing that she had lied to him from the start.

He couldn't help but wonder if last night had left the same hideous jagged feeling inside of her as well, like being some broken mechanikal part badly repaired, ready to shatter at a moment's notice. But there was no way to ask. Their story was over, it seemed, and it appeared that it had been doomed to be a tragedy from the start.

2. "A Girl Worth Fighting For" –Mulan

"Do you have a girl, Dylan, back in Glasgow?" The question caught her by surprise, Alek's voice drifting across the empty darkness of the spare room they slept in in the warehouses of the Committee.

"Er- no," she said, wondering where he was getting at with this. Barking spiders, what was she supposed to say?

"That'd be nice to have though. A girl that was worth fighting in this war for, don't you think?" Alek's voice sounded annoyingly wistful and she scoffed.

"Sure, I suppose. As long as she had half a brain and didn't act like a barking ninny. I'd want a girl who speaks her mind, someone who's not afraid of life."

Alek laughed.

"Like Lilit, you mean?" Even though he couldn't see her, she rolled her eyes.

"Sure, Dummkopf. Like Lilit."

3. "Do Wah Doo" –Kate Nash

I don't care if we're just friends. Because she didn't, right? That's what she had been telling herself since Istanbul, since she knew that as long as Alek held on to that barking scroll, there'd never be a chance for her. She didn't care if Alek would never see her as anything other than Dylan, his best friend, the brilliant airman, the boy who was common as dirt. It wouldn't matter, as long as she got to be around him. She didn't care about only being friends.

Then why did this hurt so much?

4. "Dashboard" –Modest Mouse

The impact shook the cabin of the walker, jarring his bones and causing him to tumble into the hard embrace of the floor. He sat up dizzily, rubbing his head and feeling the tender spots that he knew would erupt into purple and blue splotches of bruises the next morning.

Deryn had managed to stay in her seat, still holding onto the controls and laughing, as if crashing a walker was some sort of mad adventure for her. He stood up shakily, noting that she had managed somehow to completely unhinge the viewport so that it refused to close, providing an unobstructed view of the fields below. Deryn gestured towards it. "Well, at least now we have some fresh air."

Alek regretted teaching his wife how to pilot.

5. "Status Quo" – Cast of Starship

She hesitated only for a moment in front of the mirror, gripping her mother's sewing scissors in one hand, her braid in the other. But that was where it started, with hesitation, and it would only lead to backing out, to agreeing to spend her life with a cooking pan in one hand and a sewing needle, forever stuck on the ground. Hesitation was the coward's way out, and Deryn Sharp was no coward.

Snip.

The braid fell onto the floor with a soft thump and she grinned madly as she snipped, shearing away Deryn and leaving Dylan in her place. She refused to accept the destiny waiting for her. Instead she would write her own, leave her mark on the world for all to see.

When the last wisps of hair were gone, she left her room.

She had a train to catch.

6. "Nightmares" –Chameleon Circuit

Alek woke to a knock on his stateroom door, a soft sniffling noise coming from the other side. When he opened it, Deryn was standing there, her eyes rimmed with red, face glazed with tears that she was stubbornly trying to wipe away.

"Couldn't sleep," she whispered, hands balled into fists by her side. He knew better than that, knew that she had been dreaming of her father again.

He led her in, shut the door quietly behind him, had her sit on his bed. They sat in silence for a moment, facing each other.

Since finding out her secret, he had felt utterly helpless. He couldn't help her protect her identity, awful liar that he was, and he couldn't return her feelings, not with a throne waiting for him back in Austria-Hungary.

But he could do this.

He put his arms around her, letting her cry into his shoulder, tears soaking into his nightshirt, until her shudders subsided.

"Thank you," she whispered, slipping off the bed and padding silently back towards her cabin.

Maybe he wasn't such a waste of hydrogen after all.

7. "Makes Me Wonder" –Maroon 5

He had to wonder, after everything that had happened, what had been true and what had been a lie.

She had deceived him about being a girl after all- who knew what else could've been untrue? Who was to say that she hadn't been lying from the start, pretending to care, to be his friend?

It wouldn't surprise me, he thought bitterly.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all. Couldn't he for once have someone who wasn't trying to kill him or manipulate him or deceive him?

No, life wasn't fair at all.

8. "Have I the Right" –Vampire Weekend

He only stopped to think for a moment, a niggling sense of propriety drilled into him from a lifetime of etiquette lessons holding him back. Wasn't it improper to kiss a lady without asking her first?

But he knew that no sense of decorum and manners would've stopped her. Besides, he was getting that feeling again as he looked at her, like the world had turned upside down.

God's wounds, he didn't care who was watching. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her in.

9. "Friend Like Me" – Aladdin

"Dylan, a-are you sure this is allowed?" Alek's face below her was pale and worried in the dark, and from her perch on the ladder, Deryn grinned.

"Alek, they won't notice that we've pinched a few things from the galley. Live a little, Dummkopf."

Alek muttered something nervously in German, something about never having stolen before.

"There's a first time for everything, Clanker. Besides, you've never had a friend like me."

10. "I Wanna Be Like You" –The Jungle Book

"-and so after I managed to save the Huxley from the storm, I free ballooned across the Channel until the Leviathan picked me up. Pure dead brilliant, it was." Dylan finished his story, lying back against the membrane of the Leviathan with a satisfied sigh.

Alek smiled, though he could feel jealousy twisting his insides. Dylan always had such adventures while Alek was too cautious, made friends even when he didn't speak the language while Alek held back awkwardly, barged in loud and reckless and confident even when he knew he was wrong while Alek was always nervous and careful. Dylan did everything with a sort of gleeful, glorious extravagance, whereas Alek was always the tense, stuffed up prince.

He'd give anything to be like him.

Review please?