Disclaimer: I don't own Gurren Lagann, it belongs to Gainax. No money has or will exchange hands over this piece of work as I wrote it for entertainment and to try and deal with how the series ended. All original characters and storylines do belong to me.

Authors Note: This is a somewhat different world from the ones that have gone before , it's more Simon/Nia with established Kamina/Yoko too. I am sorry for the delay - this has been in the works for months but I couldn't seem to finish it until it was ready to be finished. Feel free to let me know what you think, I'm currently trying to decide what to do with the next chapter.

Stars Below Ground

"Hello again."

"Hello, it's been a while - you've grown taller since I last saw you." They were in the Palace Gardens and the sun was bright in the sky. Nia sat underneath the shade of a large tree, cool and comfortable like a Princess was always meant to be. Her hair brushed and styled and her dress pink and white with jewels around her belt and wrists, the large skirts of floating fabric billowing around her.

She too was older since they had last met.

It was comforting at this time of night sat high above everyone else with enough time to breathe deeply and relax. It was even possible to sleep here, if she was careful enough and chose the right place. It was dark above her, so dark she would sometimes pretend it really was the great, vast sky high over head. The stars were harder to imagine though - tiny pin pricks of light in beautiful patterns across the expanse of black, some in different blues and reds and greens swirling in the vast expanse of the sky.

She had seen it once and once only, the night they had been forced from their homes . It was the one soothing memory from that time and Yoko could remember collapsing on her back against the cold hard ground and just staring as her lungs recovered from the gasses that had pushed them out from their homes. The burning eased and her heart rate settled, cold plumes of air lifting her gaze upwards and she lost herself for a few moments amongst the chaos just looking.

After, although she couldn't tell how much time had passed, Leeron had pulled her up off of the ground and carried her with him. She remembered people digging all around her and the sound of explosions in the distance then almost falling into what had now become her home. Half the village had died that night, but they had been offered sanctuary and now years later she had come to accept this place as her home.

That said she still didn't feel settled, doubted she ever would again and throughout those years she had sought escape - not necessarily to the vast world above them, so beautiful but so dangerous, but just peace and somewhere to be alone.

If only for a little while.

Only the night patrol were awake at this hour and all but the most important lanterns were out, the remaining left just enough light for her to find her way but the years had taught her this route by feel alone and it was easier to imagine you were somewhere else in the dark.

Yoko pulled her blanket around her, choosing to spend tonight alone, the others would understand, He would understand. She lay there, head pillowed by her hair twisted into a knot behind her head and her legs tipped over into the middle hollow circle that joined the three pathways together.

A quiet female voice spoke just as she was starting to drift off. "Yoko?"

Instantly recognising the voice she answered, trying to keep her feeling out of her voice. "It's me Nia, you can come over." It really wasn't something Yoko should get angry about, the other young woman didn't ever interrupt without reason.

"Kamina said you'd be up here tonight and I wondered if I could stay here too?" Nia was at the least a couple of years younger than Yoko, not that she'd been able to tell them her age, she arrived with an elderly gentleman who'd rescued her from what she had called the Palace and her father.

She'd arrived only a few months after Yoko and still lived with the old man who'd brought her here. Her hair shone white and blue in the available light and her eyes looked like night flowers, purple and violet that drew you in and kept you there. Nia tried to hide her differences with her hair platted long on each side of her head and her dress knee length and cream in colour, dirtied though it was by their surroundings none of these things worked. She still looked too fragile, too grand to be in a place like this.

"If you want to you're welcome." Yoko shifted around to be sat over the edge again, sleep could wait until tomorrow if needed, there was nothing to be done in the day time anyway. Her hair unknotted it's self and fell to the floor, keeping her as warm as the blanket around her.

Nia sat quietly, looking down upon their homes and little village, she never looked at the ceiling, seemed she never wanted to be reminded of what was above but Yoko had always sensed that she didn't want to be here either.

"How's everyone?" He asked, coming to sit at her side. His shirt was white and trousers too, but like her he didn't wear anything on his feet.

"They're still the same. Kamina and Yoko are living together but I can tell… there is still something hanging over them, I want to make them happy and see them smile but nothing seems to help."

He took her hand, Nia smiled at him as he did, cheeks turning pink but they probably went unnoticed in the shade.

"I couldn't sleep and I went to find you at home, Kamina said you'd wandered up here and he didn't think you'd be coming back tonight... you always said if i needed anything to come find you."

"I meant it." Yoko told her, laying her hand on top of Nia's as a sign of support, she had never had a sister but she imagined that any younger sister she might have had would have been like her friend.

"When I came here we had escaped during another battle that was going on above, my grandfather said it was the best chance we had and when we found the entrance to this place - we didn't know what we'd find and I was so happy when we found you…" She trailed off and Yoko half hoped she didn't continue.

"I remember, the ground was shaking then all of a sudden you appeared in the arms of an old man."

"And you were crying." Nia said, clear enough for them both to hear but it wouldn't travel much father.

"I don't…" Yoko started, shaking her head and moving both her hands to her lap.

"Understand? or want to talk about it?" Nia looked to her friend, concerned that she'd dredged up uncomfortable memories but at the same time wanting to get it out in the open. She had been there for just over 8 years and in that time they had talked of many things, Nia had told Kamina and Yoko her past, everything about where she had come from and what had happened… Yoko had shared everything from the time before her village had been destroyed and Kamina had spoken fondly of his father.

But there was still something untold, something that hung over them. It had been present the day she'd arrived and in the years since. She's watched Kamina and Yoko grow closer and set up a home together but never heard mention of children and had watched the sheer terror in their eyes on the rare occasions there had been a ground quake. Even though it was never the earth moving of it's own accord but always the battles from above forcing those underground and ignorant to submit to a terror they knew nothing of.

"Both I think." Yoko said finally, turning ever so slightly to look at her friend.

Nia smiled kindly. "I've come to think that life is filled with those. My own father wished to kill me because I asked one too many questions." She paused for a moment as if trying to think of what to say next. "But you can't dwell on them. Something happened here that has been hurting you ever since and you won't talk about it."

"Even Kamina won't… he… not to me, never to me… and I don't know what to say. Something happened that we can't change or reverse and since then everything has just felt…"

"Wrong." Nia finished for her, looking more serious than Yoko had expected.

"How can you?" But Yoko knew that her question didn't really make much sense.

"Because I've seen the ground quakes since and I have seen others reactions to the loss of loved ones. That is what happened… but I just don't know who or why it changed so much, why everything feels so wrong."

There were tears falling unchecked down Yoko's face but she ignored them and purposely kept her breathing steady. If Nia noticed she was good enough not to say so and that meant a lot… maybe it was a good start.

"His name was Simon." Another voice interjected just as Yoko was about to start. "My brother." He came to sit by Yoko's side, the walkway turning at that point so he could see them both.

"Kamina." It was acknowledgement as much as it was reassurance and he smiled at Yoko, knowing how much more impossible it would have been without her.

"The quakes came often here and Simon had always been afraid, ever since they took his parents when he was only a small boy." His voice was steady but his eyes gazed across the expanse to the walls around them. "They came without warning and would last for hours at a time, Simon was so…scared"

"He would spend the time with one or both of us, depending on where we were at the time. He and Kamina lived together and I lived just a couple of doors down. He always had somewhere to run to." She ran her hand through her hair. "He was a digger… like most of the young men down here and he was working on expanding the village, making it more stable but earlier on the day you arrived the ground quakes started again and Simon was digging at the time." Nia wished they'd stop calling them that, it was no natural force acting upon them… they must know, Leeron had told them - her grandfather had told them…. their denial was another thing she knew she had to break.

"We heard the screams, saw some of the diggers scramble for safety but he was in too deep - we tried… many of us tried to reach them but the collapse had been too sudden… too immediate that he either died instantly or... suffocated." The last word was breathed out slowly.

"Try talking to them, ask them why."

"Do you know?" Nia asked and the young man nodded.

"More than they do. When they tell you… please let them know it wasn't how it seemed."

"What wasn't?" Nia asked, confused by this but he just smiled and pulled her into his embrace.

"They found him eventually, three days later but you were still sleeping from your injuries at the time and everyone here thought it would be for the best if you didn't know." Kamina talked through gritted teeth.

"What did he look like?" Nia asked, something starting to come together, she just needed a couple more of the pieces.

"What makes you ask?" Yoko looked up at her, meeting her eyes for the first time since the start of the conversation, Nia's countenance hand't changed and for a moment but something in her eyes made her look more determined.

"Because it's clear this person meant a lot to you both and I'd like to know more about him." It was half true but how else could she explain it to them, when she was sure then she would speak up.

"His hair was a darker blue than mine." Kamina told him. "He was shorter too and he always had his blue jacket with him with a-"

"White circle on the back and a light happy smile on his face and Boota, the pigmole that was always with him sat on his shoulder."

Kamina and Yoko looked at each other then, both confused and somewhat surprised. They didn't speak, didn't know what to say, Nia described him with a smile on her face, none of the sadness and darkness they had come to associate with it.

"It was over so quickly that I don't even remember it happening and when I woke up I was in a large and beautiful garden, like this one but different." He felt Nia rest her head against him and settle into the embrace. "My parents were there and they told me what had happened, said that I wouldn't be able to return but I could watch from here."

"Then why can I meet with you here?" She asked, taking his other hand, the one not wrapped in her hair at her shoulder and weaved her fingers through his.

"Because you came close to death, had your grandfather not rescued you and later cared for you whilst you slept, you would have stayed here."

"I met you on the border, near the maze that first time… my first dream in my new home." He kisses her hair as she speaks. "I was here for a long time… my friends said I slept for days recovering. But it always felt like so much longer. When I woke up I though it had all just been a dream."

"How long did it take you to realise it wasn't?"

"When you aged with me, when you remembered everything, when you told me things I knew nothing of that I later found to be true." Nia moved in his arms, shifting to sit on his lap, wanting to face him, wanting to see him. "You've always said not to tell anyone else of this place so why now?"

He takes her hands in his again.

"Because they need you to, I thought they'd have moved on by now, even liked think they'd have tried for the surface… but I can't reach them Nia - neither have been close enough to death."

"Even Yoko?" His hands were running up her arms and down her back, pulling her closer towards him.

"Yes, even her."

"Simon?" She was so close to him now and his hands rested firmly at the small of her back, her vast skirts billowing around them.

"Hmmm?" He was smiling at her softly, just visible in the light around them.

"How long will I keep dreaming of you?"

"How long do you want to?" He kissed her then, just a press of his lips on hers, enough to bring this conversation to an end.

"It's that simple?"

"Yes." She didn't have anymore questions or anything to say so when her nose brushed with his he pulled that much closer and kissed her.

"He doesn't want you to be like this." She was smiling now, a smile so bright Yoko almost couldn't look. So out of place in all this Darkness.

"Nia?" Kamina managed to say, holding on to the ledge so that he didn't fall, neither young woman could tell if it was out of anger or something else. Yoko had learned not to mention the name of his dead brother and rejected the mention from anyone else.

"You keep him locked away down here, live by his death and ignore everything he was."

"You don't have the right." He told her, eyes flaring.

"Maybe not but he's not here to tell you all the things you should already know and someone has to say something." She kept her voice low but determined. "He was terrified of the quakes yet he still dug further into the ground. You say he died by his worst fear but he was already facing it everyday, trying to make a difference, trying to make everyone safer, happier." She thought of the warmth always emanating from Simon, his smile and the way he spoke. He had so much love for them and he could only watch them destroy themselves.

If Kamina had known better he would have said that Nia knew him, she almost wished he would, at least it would be out in the open. She was beginning to see how wrong it was that only she could see the light.

"You think I avoid the land above because of the memories it brings back, you think it is a place of bad memories for me… but that isn't why."

"Go on." Kamina tells her, hands still gripping the sides but not in the same way as before, he isn't angry, not with her.

"I miss the light and I can't stand the thought of the world I used to know. My father did a terrible thing and I am lucky to be alive but that doesn't change the fact that I love and miss the world I used to be apart of." Nia started to unplatt her hair, letting it flow the way it should always have been allowed to do so. "You know that every ground quake is caused by my fathers army! Stopping us from living on the surface!"

Yoko nodded and Kamina turned away, he had known - he had been hiding from it. If they could take Simon then they could take anyone. Until now he had believed that the fight for life was more important than freedom. He had yet to realise it could be both.

"What do you want from us Nia?" The other young woman asked her, amber eyes seeking her's out. There was more to this than just she and Kamina facing their own nightmares.

"To stop grieving and to fight back." She was standing now and looking to them, waiting for an answer.

"With what?"

"With this." And she took from her pocket something neither of them had seem before, in this light it was easy to make out the shape but of what they didn't know. Kamina stood and moved towards Nia, the village Princess, the light that shone with no cause…. when it now seemed she had had one all along.

The light in her hand pulsed and she held it out for them both to see, Yoko now also on her feet. It was a drill, they didn't need to know any more than that.

"Nia?" Yoko asked, the change in her friends stance and attitude awakening something inside her that she had thought dead along with her friend.

"There is something you have to see."

"Do you still have it?" Simon asked, now laying besides her in the soft grass underneath their tree.

"I've never been without it, not since I arrived." She told him, brushing her bare feet with his.

"I found the machine too, it was just where you said it would be and I haven't told the others, I only wish I could have found it sooner."

He shakes his head. "You found it when it was safest, I don't want you in any more danger than you have to be." He squeezed the hands held between them gently. "There has been enough time pass now, enough of the earlier fighting has ceased and your father is weakening."

"I know, I just hope they're ready for it."

The surface was cold and dark and beautiful. The three stood alone against the night, alone amongst the stars. The little machine had carried them to an area of rock dug into the mountain they had come across, showing them the way others before them had taken.

Nia had watched as both Kamina and Yoko settled underneath the stars, wrapped up together underneath the blankets and smiling like she had never seen them before. She had left them in peace, setting herself down close enough but not too close, the drill attached firmly to ribbon around her neck.

"I don't know what we've started Simon." She told him, settled in his arms amongst their own night sky.

"Does it matter?" He asked her, warm under the blanket of her hair.

"No." She considered leaving it there and not saying anything more about it but there was something else. "It feels better now though like things aren't so off balance anymore and I know now, whatever happens that we have to keep moving forwards don't we Simon?"

He smiled and nods, kissing her hair incase she couldn't see his actions.

"All the way to the heavens and back again."

Reviews and Constructive Criticism welcome and appreciated.