AN: Wow! Feels like it's been a while since I wrote, but somehow it's only been a long weekend.

This chapter is a little bit of filler and a little bit of chat with the other characters. I mentioned previously that I'm trying to develop some characters more, and this means that Rev will be talking to them quite a bit. I have plans for Marina, H/Allelujah, Somarie, Anew, and some Setsuchan chats. On that note, I've decided to *officially* go with a LylexOC pairing. I weighed my pairing options and went through literally every OC fic I could find on here and some other sites and I couldn't find a single Lyle/OC fic. Time for the snarky Dylandy to get some OC love I think. That being said, I don't think I'm going to pass by Anew. I think there's some lovely plot Angst that can arise there so Rev may go through the wringer a bit. As for this chapter, I wanted to get into Lyle's head a bit as he's so generally masked on the surface. There'll probably be a few more trips into his head throughout this. We'll see.

I listened to "Flawed Design" by Stabilo to write Lyle's bit, for the rest I listened to top 40 hits. It was strange.

Uniform Angst

"In choosing to be the light you've forced me to be the darkness."

Lyle sat in the relative darkness of his room. He still had twenty minutes until his alarm would ring but he couldn't manage to sleep through them. He hadn't bothered to turn the light fully on and it emitted a half-hearted glow that mirrored his equally half-hearted mood. Haro didn't seem to care as he sat in his charging station and that was a good enough approval of the lighting for Lyle.

He was thinking about what had happened last night. Perhaps he'd been too harsh with the young girl who'd been watching him. Feldt. Of course he'd been cruel, but it was necessary, wasn't it? The unsettling feeling in his stomach told him that he'd done it more for his own benefit than hers. It was because he couldn't handle the hopeful expression in her eyes, the hope that he was in some way, maybe, his brother. That was why he'd pushed her to slap him. The pain in his cheek was much more honest than the hope-pain in her eyes.

Honest. That was a funny word. When he was young he'd always tried his hardest to be honest, to be a good boy. It had been the only way in which he'd been better than Neil. His mother could always count on getting an answer out of him eventually and he'd always felt a secret sense of pride when he was honest. His brother had always been some level of dishonest but it was never in a manipulative way. He would omit things or avoid topics altogether by burying them in friendly words and actions…it was accidental really. It was a difference that they'd both been aware of but that had been amplified when their family was taken from them. Neil wrapped himself in a blanket of half-truths, dodged answers, and circumstance that left others with no answers but a feeling of camaraderie. Lyle had been brutally honest and it left him alone more often than not. Celestial Being had changed that.

He was no longer honest but he was still more or less alone. He kept the secret of his involvement with Katharon, lied about his abilities with mobile suits, lied about where he'd learned to shoot. It wasn't hard to bury those details here. Everyone knew better than to push a topic that someone didn't want to talk about. They were all sworn to some level of secrecy after-all, but as the days went by Lyle found himself resorting to Neil's tactics; blanketing himself in lies. As far as he could tell it was working just fine, just as it had for his Oscar-deserving actor of a brother. Smile, nod, joke, laugh. Bury the truth. It worked on everyone easily enough. Everyone except Reverie, of course. She'd never actually called him out on his thoughts, but every once in a while he'd forget that she could hear him and he'd let himself slip through. Her long sideways glances were enough to let him know that she'd overheard when he did. For some reason she never brought it up though. That was why he liked being around her. She went along with his façade. Why? He had no idea. He wanted to ask her, but to do so would mean admitting that he spent most of his time covering up his true feelings. He couldn't do that. Not yet.

Of course, the one honest thing that not even Reverie could ignore was that he hated the constant comparison with his brother. Whenever it happened she'd send him a look that said 'here we go again'. He knew that it was more for his benefit than from actual annoyance but it made him feel less alone…if that was possible. His anger at the comparison didn't come from a misplaced sense of identity. He knew who he was and he knew who Neil was. The anger rose because no one could see past his brother's façade. No one could see that underneath the calm joking exterior he was hiding his true feelings from everyone. They were night and day and he was pissed that no one understood. Even their names demonstrated it. Neil. The cloud. High above everyone else and far out of reach but made up of nothing but air. If anyone had ever really gotten to know his brother they would have realized that he wasn't the calm floating cloud of a summery day. No. Neil was the deep purple tumult of a raging storm, one that was angry with all the people who walked the earth. He hated their ignorance, their willingness to accept whatever fate governments handed down, and he hated their willingness to take up arms for a cause they didn't even try to comprehend. That was Neil Dylandy.

So what did that make Lyle?

The island. Separated from those around him by a vast expanse of guarded emotion, anger, and now lies. Anyone who believed that a man couldn't be an island had never met Lyle Dylandy. Thoroughly grounded but always just a few feet away from being swallowed by the world around him. Circumstances tugged like currents this-way and that and he was always caught under the purple-black cloud that was his brother. Lyle was the island, and he was alright with that.

"Lockon, you're early! Lockon, you're early!" Haro announced, swivelling in his charging station to look at him. It was amazing that a robot could act so human.

"Yeah, just a little." He said, patting the orange ball. "Might as well get up, right?"

"Practice time! Time for Prrractice!" the little bot agreed, bouncing out of his station and plopping onto the pillow next to Lyle.

"You said it little man. Let's get going."

Searing pain brought Reverie out of her sleep exactly eight hours after she'd been knocked out. She shot up in her bed, both hands immediately flying to her head and weaving into her hair. The pain was from a set of pseudo GN drives, she was absolutely sure of that.

Three of them.

That was the only logical explanation. A frantic thought-scan of those awake on the bridge told her that no one had picked up on the intrusion yet. She ripped the covers off the bed and hit the ground, cinching her robe tighter as she struggled to her feet and hit the comm link to the bridge. Feldt's face appeared in front of her. Her head was pounding now as the droning started to overpower her ears.

"Reve-!

"GN Drives! I don't know how far!" she barked through half-clenched teeth. On the screen behind Feldt she could see water. They were still submerged.

"What?" The girl was confused. Of course, it wasn't the most informative sentence Reverie could have given but her brain wasn't responding well to the feeling of being fried.

"GN Drives are approaching, I don't know how far!" She said again, wincing as the pain shot through her temple.

"Are you sure?" Feldt asked, not entirely sure how she'd know such a thing.

"YES!"

She punched the comms screen closed and hit the ground as the sound became louder. It was vibrating over her skin and filling her ears with a high whine. She reached an arm up and grabbed one of the pillows from over the bed and crushed it over her ears as she sat up on her knees. It didn't do anything.

Of course not, why would it? She was hearing the drives with whatever screwed-up brainwave channel she heard everything else on. The snarky side of her asked how she could tune it to HBO.

The alarms aboard the ship started sounding as she got shakily to her feet. She cursed as the impact of something hitting the ship sent her crashing into the far wall. The last thing she needed was a broken bone on top of a broken mind.

Relief flashed over her for a moment as the GN field reached its maximum. The friendly particles shielded her mind so that she could think far enough ahead to run for the Infirmary. If they could get sensors attached to her fast enough they might get more data on her injury. At the very least she could get a painkiller.

She ducked out into the hall and pulled the silk fabric of her robe around her just in time to be thrown into another wall.

"Are you alright?" a worried voice. She couldn't hear the thoughts right now, not over the droning whine in her head. "Miss, are you alright!?" It was urgent now as she held her head again. She looked up into a set of wide blue eyes. Jet black hair hung over her shoulders and down her back. It was the woman Setsuna had brought aboard during the mission to rescue Allelujah.

The ship stopped shaking.

The woman's question was forgotten by both of them as they slowly sat up and looked around. The bombardment had stopped.

"Is it over?" she asked. Clearly she'd never been in the middle of any kind of conflict.

"No."

The second the word left her mouth there was an immediate crash that sent them tumbling across the floor and into the other wall. Reverie shrieked and clutched her head again. She was getting really sick of the motion and even more sick of the pain.

"Let me help!" the woman said, shifting to her feet and slipping her arms around Reverie's waist, helping her stand.

"Infirmary!" she snapped a little rudely through clenched teeth. "Just get me there and we'll be fine."

"Is she going to be ok?" Marina had sat in the infirmary with the now passed-out girl for the past two and a half hours. The ship had stopped shaking and a voice over the intercom had told them that the battle had ended. The doctor in front of her, Shia, had explained the details: Katharon had intervened and forced the A-Laws back, and now they were on their way to the Katharon base.

"Well, luckily you got her here fast enough to have her brainwaves monitored…that gave me some useful data." Shia replied, pushing his pen back into his coat pocket.

Marina scoffed, almost offended. "I mean is she going to be ok. I don't care about data…she's a person!" she said, her voice raising.

"Now now calm down. I know she's a person. Without data I can't do anything to help her." He said as he slipped a syringe of clear liquid into her elbow. "If we don't know what's wrong or how it works we can't figure out how to fix it."

"What about the pain, can you do something to help that?" Marina asked. She'd seen the girl running through the halls, stumbling and holding her head. To be honest, the whole scene aboard the ship, wailing sirens, running people, explosions…it was all so foreign to her. The girl was the one piece that she could help for the better.

"We probably can but the problem is how quickly it sets in." he said as he adjusted a monitor and sighed as he looked at the sleeping girl. "Short of knocking her out there isn't really much that can be done right now."

"There's no way to get rid of the pain?" Marina pulled at the seam of her shirt cuff. She didn't like the idea of anyone being in pain…and this girl was in pain while fighting with Celestial Being. Pain and war. The only two things that Marina would ever say she hated.

"I don't want the pain to be gone. It's how I knew the drives were approaching."

Shia and Marina both looked at Reverie as she cursed under her breath and raised a hand to her head.

"Well it's about time you woke up" Shia said, flicking a small light in her eyes and making her swat his hand away. "So no pain, eh? I hope that isn't your kink…" he joked, giving her a fatherly look of disapproval.

"Calm down old man. I have my reasons." She replied, sitting up and swinging her legs over the edge of the bed.

"You shouldn't sit up so fast…" he warned. The warning came too late and she cursed and fell back against the pillow again. "The drug I gave you to wake you up can make you a little dizzy at first."

"A little dizzy? I feel like I'm strapped to a merry-go-round." She said as she sat up again, swerving a little.

"Here, let me help." Marina said, steadying her by her arm.

Reverie looked at her in confusion for a moment. "You're the one who helped me get here." She said more than asked. Her eyes widened suddenly. "I'm so sorry, did you wait here the whole time?"

Marina nodded. "Yes. It's alright though, I had nothing else to do here really, so helping you was the best I could do."

Shia sighed, not interested in the exchange at all. "Well, you can keep helping her for the next ten minutes and make sure she doesn't run into any walls or fall over. The last thing we need is a sarcastic domino falling all over the ship." He quipped. "Now, up, up! Get outta here!" he said as he waved his hands in a 'shoo' motion.

Reverie took the hint and stood to the best of her ability, inadvertently leaning against Marina who supported her. She looked up at the smirking doctor. "You know, if I wasn't seeing two of you right now I'd give you a piece of my mind."

"Already have a piece right here." He said without missing a beat, waving the folder in his hand as the two women left the room.

They walked along the halls in silence for a few feet until Reverie stumbled. Marina caught her with surprising ease and helped steady her back on her feet.

"I'm sorry that you have to haul me around." Reverie said apologetically. "I hope for both our sakes that the sedative wears off fast."

"It's alright really, I don't really have anything else to be doing on board…I don't think that they anticipated my rescue." Marina replied, letting go of the brunette once she was stable.

"That's right, Setsuna rescued you, didn't he?" Reverie asked.

"He did." She said. The brunette looked at her curiously then smiled.

"But you don't know why he did, right?" she said, almost as though she'd known what Marina had been thinking.

"No, I don't." she said as she looked away. She and Setsuna had a complicated friendship. She wasn't sure how it had happened, but the younger boy had become someone important to her. His story made her heart heavy but his strength made it swell. Although she didn't agree with his methods for reaching peace, she respected his drive to achieve his goal. He was determined and fearless yet somewhere deep under the surface he was innocent. She wasn't sure how she knew, but she did.

"You're Marina Ismail, right?" the woman asked. Marina nodded, embarrassed that she'd forgotten to introduce herself. The brunette smiled. "I'm Reverie Traum."

"That's an unusual name." Marina said, wondering if it was real or not.

"I like to think that it's more real than my given name." Reverie said, once again answering the thoughts that Marina hadn't spoken. "As for Setsuna, he thinks about you a lot." She said as she stopped outside a door.

Marina could feel the flush in her cheeks. "He does?"

"At least as much as he thinks of the Gundams, which is a pretty decent amount…the Gundams are on his mind almost exclusively." She replied.

"Oh…I didn't realize that." Marina wasn't sure why her cheeks lit up, she and Setsuna definitely did not have a friendship that called for the reaction. She thought of him as a younger brother almost, one that was in need of guidance. "Did he tell you this?" she asked. She found the idea hard to believe, but how else could she have known about the young Meister's thoughts?

"Not exactly." The brunette replied. "I have a way of finding these things out." She said, tapping her index finger to the side of her head. "Anyways, this is me." She motioned to the door. "I would like to speak with you more a little later on…right now I should probably get changed into something more…appropriate." She said, fiddling nervously with the hem of the short silk robe that was pulled tightly around her. She was right, there was no way she could keep standing in the hallway like that.

"I'd like that a lot." Marina acknowledged. Truth be told she didn't know many people on the ship, and making friends had always been something she'd enjoyed. The girl was strange for sure, but she was an interesting type of strange…and anyone who could give insight into Setsuna's mind was someone she wanted to know better.

Reverie waved before slipping into the room and Marina found herself free to roam the ships once again. Of course, this time she knew she wanted to see the focus of Setsuna's thoughts; the Gundams.

Three hours later

Tieria shook his head as he looked at the data from the earlier tangle with the A-Laws.

It was impossible.

According to the data before him the mobile armour's power was cut down by almost thirty percent immediately before it had struck the ship. His Trans-Am system had made quick work of it, but even he had to admit that it had been easier to deal with than he'd expected.

The mobile armour had shown up on the radar at 6:36a.m. Reverie Traum had paged the bridge and told them about the three approaching GN drives at 6:34, minutes after her nightly sedatives wore off. Eighteen minutes later she had been sedated again due to the severe pain of an acute headache and 'hearing' screaming. Eighteen minutes after 6:34 he had destroyed the mobile armour. Combined with the AEU's medical file on the girl he couldn't ignore the possibility that she'd somehow altered the Pseudo GN Drive's output, and he couldn't deny the fact that she'd heard its approach before the radar had. She could hear them coming. She'd been the one to cut the armour's power back enough to make it Seravee's cannon fodder.

If it was true it was amazing.

He slipped the data drive into his pocket and marvelled at his annoyance over his situation. He wanted to analyze the girl right now…he wanted to find out exactly how her gift worked and how to apply it to the ship. He couldn't though, not now. Right now he had to get her onto the descent craft that was heading into the Katharon base.

He'd returned as soon as the threat to the ship had dissipated, and neither he nor Sumeragi knew how to interpret Katharon's intervention or request for a meeting. The two groups did have similar goals, but Celestial Being was far more advanced and was much better equipped to carry out missions than the rogue organization. Neither was worried about a confrontation, but they were still on their guard.

Reverie Traum would come to the meeting as a way to assess the honesty of the organization's leaders. If they were lying she would most definitely know. Her usefulness was getting harder and harder to ignore and in the last three hours Tieria had realized that tactical forecasting wasn't her purpose aboard the ship.

No.

Her purpose was much more unique, and he had every intention of figuring out exactly how to use her abilities to Celestial Being's benefit.

Just remember that she's human.

Lockon's words echoed in his head frequently when he pondered the woman's abilities, or when he thought about anything really. Lockon was in his head more often than not lately, especially as he saw his twin walking the ship day after day. He didn't like him. He didn't like his attitude, his teasing, or the look in his blue-green eyes that seemed so guarded. Lockon - the real Lockon - never would have had a glare like that. He was open and approachable, not hiding his true intentions behind a baseline of sarcasm and jest. Somehow the fact that Reverie Traum had become friends with the twin had made Tieria like her less. The two of them seemed to have a camaraderie that the others weren't privy to. A private circle of two. Even Allelujah, who was notably friendly and approachable, couldn't seem to get onto the same wavelength.

Or is it you and the other veterans who've pushed the two of them out?

Lockon again. His unguarded blue-green eyes were almost smiling in Tieria's mind. "Is that so wrong? They weren't here…they couldn't possibly understand-!"

Understand loss? He's my brother, Tieria. He understands it as well as I do. As well as you do.

"And her?" he said defensively to the air.

Would she have joined if she didn't?

Damn him and his logic. Always so right and always sung in Tieria's mind with the all-knowing warmth of his big-brother tone. "We'll see." He muttered. He checked the screen of his room when he heard a knock on his door; it was a very strange action in the modern-day world.

Reverie Traum.

Of course he'd been expecting her, he'd asked her to meet him so he could instruct her about her job at the meeting. He wanted to be very specific afterall.

Be nice, Tieria.

"One step at a time." He said under his breath as he abolished the darkness of his room with the flick of a switch. He'd be civil, but nice would wait until the two new-bloods had earned his respect. Somehow, a part of him hoped that they would.

A small part.

He hit the lock for the door and stepped back to let her in as it slid quickly open.

"You wanted to see me?" she said. He immediately noticed the data drive in her hand and wondered what it was about.

"Yes. You will be travelling into the Katharon base with us and you will be present at our meeting with their officials." He said nonchalantly as he slid a set of drives into their respective places in one of his drawers.

"Getting right to business I see." She muttered under her breath. "Fine. Did you call me here just to tell me that?" she asked, her eyebrow raised in a typically human gesture of annoyance. He'd come to adopt it himself over the last few years and as such understood its meaning.

"No. I asked you here to explicitly tell you that you will not speak during the meeting. At all."

"Scared I'll single-handedly take-down the meeting?" she asked, the annoyed gesture remaining. She wore it frequently around him.

He sighed – another human gesture - and chose his reply carefully. "We don't want anyone outside of the Ptolemaios to know about your abilities if possible. Furthermore, if you don't speak it'll be less likely that they'll remember you."

"Ah" she smiled. "So you'd like me to be forgettable so I can be used again."

"Exactly. The less people that remember your face, the better. It's a pity you aren't more unnoticeable, though."

"Excuse me…?" she asked, clearly confused.

"Men seem to pay attention to you. There will likely be a number of them there, so please wear this." He said, handing her another uniform. This one consisted of a white Celestial Being jacket and brown undershirt. A new set of pants sat under the set.

"Why a new uniform?" she asked, looking skeptically at it as she picked through the pile.

"According to my research white is the least-flattering color for the female body. In addition, this one is a size larger than your usual one." He said as he slid the drawer shut and stepped out into the hall past her, flicking off the light in his room on the way out. She followed.

"Why not just bandage my face and go all the way?" she muttered under her breath as she walked after him.

He thought about the question for a moment before nodding. "Actually, that wouldn't be a bad ide-!"

"I was joking!" she half snapped. "There is no way in hell I'd let you bandage my head, Tieria. I'd expect you to suffocate me."

"That would be detrimental to the interests of Celestial Being." He replied calmly. "Make sure to change uniforms." He said as he continued walking.

"So that's it?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes."

She sighed and dug around in her pocket before holding out the data drive from earlier. "I'm guessing you don't need this then."

"What is it?" he asked, eyeing the drive over his shoulder.

"It's the tactical forecast that you asked for." She replied. "Although I know you don't actually need it."

"What makes you say that?" he asked as they turned down another hall.

"I know that you only wanted to use my forecast to bait Sumeragi into returning to Celestial Being. It seems that Allelujah's managed to talk her into staying, so you don't need it anymore."

"How would that help?" He asked skeptically.

"You are obviously aware that I could never compete with her forecasting ability, so you were relying on the inadequacy of my plan to make her realize that she was irreplaceable."

He winced in his head as she hit the nail on the head. "I thought you couldn't read my thoughts." He replied, taking the data drive from her hand.

"I can't."

"Then how did you-!"

She smirked. "You know, mind-reading isn't always needed to find out motives. It makes the most logical sense."

He was a mix of infuriated and intrigued. He didn't like the idea that she could use logic to understand him, but at the same time he couldn't deny the usefulness of her people-reading ability. If she could combine her thought-hearing capability with a genuine understanding of human motive, she would be an irreplaceable asset to the team. "You're right." He finally replied. "Although I'll take this to make an accurate assessment of your abilities." He said as he stopped in front of Sumeragi's door.

"Good." She nodded. "I spent quite a few hours detailing that plan."

"That was wise of you. Now go change. The landing craft leaves in ten minutes. Also, pull back your hair. No bangs." He said, listening as she sighed with aggravation.

"Yes overlord." She muttered as she left.

He smiled. He really didn't care what she looked like but it was necessary for the mission. He looked at the door in front of him and for once was at a bit of a loss. Reverie's strange gesture was stuck in his head.

Had he ever knocked on a door? He didn't think so.

Did it matter? Not really.

He looked at it for a long second before he raised his hand and knocked.