AN: Me again! School is approaching steadily (on Tuesday...) so I've been hiding in my house and writing/preparing for the copious amounts of stress that will shortly arrive. Between cheer, dance, work, school, and shoots, I'll be hard-pressed to find time to breathe. That being said, I'll probably keep writing...it keeps me de-stressed.
I had fun with this chapter but I was upset when I "ran out" of space. I try to limit myself to 4,500 words (although I'll let myself go over if I can fit the rest into 500 words or less minus AN) but it just couldn't be done this time. I could have tried to squeeze it into this chapter but I decided it was better to write more in two parts than trying to squish everything into one. On that note, I'm glad to see that the number of readers is increasing by a lot! Please let me know what you think, if nothing else it gives me motivation to write. I have to say I expected readers to drop off rather than increase once I decided on a Lyle pairing, but I'm glad to see that I was wrong. A huge thank-you to StormyMonday whose reviews make me squee in happiness and which also are constructive.
I listened to "Heartbeat" by Childish Gambino for this chapter although it doesn't really apply at all, I just like the bass.
Shooting Stepdaddy
"A family is only as true as the ties that bind it together."
Reverie was unimpressed to say the least. The uniform that Tieria had given her was definitely unflattering and she'd never quite gotten used to her face without bangs. To be honest she was furious. The purple-haired princess got on her nerves frequently, and she guessed that this was another one of his ploys to assert his authority. Why did she go a long with it then? Because she was acutely aware that Tieria had a larger hand in her fate on the ship than she'd like to admit. The others didn't seem to question the assignments that he gave her, and although he still deferred some level of responsibility to Sumeragi, it was obvious that he was the one running things. Seeing as he'd been the one to bring her aboard the ship, the others left her fate in his hands without question. That was why she was staring at her reflection in the window of the small passenger shuttle and cursing. Of course, the heat of the flight-suit that Tieria had insisted she wear wasn't improving her mood any. He'd wasted all that time finding an unflattering outfit just to put her in an oversized unnecessary flightsuit. She needed an excuse to wear a helmet, he'd said. If he pulled anymore stunts like this he'd be the one in need of protective headgear.
She sighed and looked past her reflection and out the window. They were travelling over what seemed to be a desert and the sun made the bright gold of the sand almost unbearable to look at. She wasn't particularly bothered by the brightness though. One thing was certain: it was hard to stay mad at Tieria when the sounds of Cheridum and Arios' GN Drives were washing over her. The green-producing drives soothed her. If the Pseudo GN Drives caused her pain and filled her head with the searing droning, Celestial Being's GN drives did the opposite. They sang to her, refreshed her, and smoothed away any discomfort that she was feeling. She closed her eyes and basked in the sing-song melody of the pair of mobile suits. Luckily for her Cherudim and Arios were close enough to drown out the GN Particle Dispersal units that dotted the desert below.
"Tieria says you can hear the Gundams."
Reverie didn't have to open her eyes to know that it was Setsuna who spoke, but she did anyways. He looked out the window with her, staring at the set of suits as they escorted the carrier-shuttle. "I can." she said, nodding.
"What is it like?" A blurry image of Double-Oh flashed in her head and she realized that he was unsure.
"It's hard to put into words. It's like a beautiful song…one that takes away pain and stress and leaves you feeling like you've just woken up."
He was silent for a few moments before he looked at her sideways. His brown eyes were always so heavily guarded, but at the same time they were always so loaded with emotions that she couldn't understand. "Is that what peace is?" A flash of Marina's face came to her this time.
That made her tilt her head in thought. "I would imagine so…a true peace, yes." He always asked the heaviest questions, almost as though he had no reason to ask ones that had light answers. "Why?" she questioned.
He looked back out the window. "If Gundam can bring peace through actions, then it should bring peace with its voice as well."
She didn't know what to respond to that. It was true, even moreso coming from Setsuna. He was so old but so young, so torn apart by his past but so resolute in his future. He was far too many things to be a twenty-one year-old boy. Young and old, hard and soft, silent but unavoidably loud.
He didn't seem to care that she hadn't answered him. "I want to hear the Gundams." He finally said. They both knew of course that it wasn't possible, but Reverie couldn't help but feel that it was unfair that she could hear them but he couldn't. He was the one who should have been able to hear the beautiful song that was obscuring his words. Could she find a way to do that? Not the actual sound of course, but could she find something that came close?
"I wish I could let you all hear them." She finally replied. She would try. There had to be a song out there that could capture some small part of what she was hearing. "I feel guilty because I'm the only one that can hear it."
"That's pointless." He said flatly.
She laughed. "I guess it is, but I feel like I'm taking it all for myself."
"You didn't want this." The second the words left his mouth she was hit by a set of images that painted out a horrible scene. A boy, young, maybe seven or eight, gun trained on a woman who knelt before him. Her eyes weren't scared though, they were filled with something else. Pity? Sadness? Regret? She was saying something but Reverie couldn't tell what, the words coming in a language she didn't understand. The woman held out her arms for an embrace, then the bright flash of the gun and the image was gone. She took a sharp breath as she steadied her mind again, then looked at Setsuna who continued to stare out the window.
"Setsuna…was that you?" she asked against her better judgement.
He didn't look at her, didn't signal that he'd heard the implicating question. Finally he turned away from the window. "I didn't want that." He said as he stepped past her and back to the chair he'd been occupying when she'd boarded. She turned and looked after him, wanting to say something, to do something normal, like hug him and tell him it was alright. Would she? No. Setsuna was far past that point. He didn't need her to console him, he didn't need to hear justification from someone else. Just from feeling his thoughts she could tell that he was made of a type of iron that was reserved for those with strong shoulders.
Still.
The feeling of the thought lingered with her. Emptiness. He'd felt nothing when the trigger was pulled. Had he felt nothing after it? There wasn't grief attached to the image, no remorse or regret. Of course, she'd come to realize that Setsuna didn't feel things the same way other people did, and he definitely didn't cope in the same way either. Maybe the fact that the memory was still so clear was enough indication of its importance. He may have felt nothing, but it was there. Clear, crisp, and unaltered. If it had really meant nothing it wouldn't have been passed to her.
And as he himself had just said, he hadn't wanted that.
"Shuttle is descending." Tieria said, his voice taking her focus away from the blue-clad pilot who was now sliding his helmet on. The shuttle grew eerily silent then. It had been silent for most of the trip, but their approach of the Katharon base removed the element of comfort from the dead air. Reverie listened to the sounds of the Gundams until they landed and powered down. The silence seemed to steal away the restful peace that the GN drives had given her nerves. Finally the shuttle shuddered as it touched down and Tieria and Setsuna stood.
"Here." Tieria said, pulling a white helmet from under his seat. "The one attached to your suit doesn't hide your identity." He said. "Your face, like ours, will be hidden unless it's determined that our identities won't be compromised." He explained before she had a chance to argue.
She sighed and slid the helmet on, pulling her hair out of its cursed ponytail beforehand.
Tieria was unimpressed. "I thought I said no-!"
"You get one or the other, Tieria. I can't wear this comfortably with that god-awful ponytail."
He didn't reply as he slid his own helmet on, and she took it as a sign of grudging approval. He let down the ramp of the shuttle and they were met by an excited group of what looked like rag-tag rebels. Reverie stayed back with Setsuna as Tieria met Lyle and Allelujah at the end of it. The amount of thoughts caught her off guard.
-There's five of them…only two gundams here though? Where are the others?-
-A purple suit? Is that a woman? Could it really be a woman piloting one of those things?-
-I wonder which one is Gene One…-
Gene One? What were they talking about? It seemed like a code name, but Reverie couldn't be sure. She honed in on the man's thoughts, but his thought pattern changed to Cherudim as he marvelled over the green and white machine. Useless. There were too many for her to keep listening to all of them and she narrowed the field down to those immediately near her. Of course, because she was familiar with the Meisters now it was difficult to not pick up on their thoughts. She recognized their 'thought-voices' and couldn't quite push them out in a crowd. It was strange.
"It's a real honour to have you with us, Celestial Being" a man at the front said.
"Yeah, won't you show us your faces?" a second said more than asked. She didn't have to read Tieria's mind to know that the question would annoy him.
-Might as well, they've seen me before anyways.- Lyle thought. They'd seen him before? Where?
"Oh right, my fault." He said, reaching for his helmet and sliding it off. His actions were rewarded by an underhanded chastising from Tieria.
"Our identities are secret."
"Stop being such a stickler for details. They did help us out after-all." She could hear the smirk in Lyle's voice as he replied. It was something she'd come to pick up on easily...almost as easily as his tendency to annoy Tieria.
Tieria sighed and Allelujah removed the reflective barrier from his helmet to look around, leaving the headgear in place. He didn't say anything, but Hallelujah was vocal enough for the both of them. –Hey girly, put on a little weight since we last saw each other?-
She wanted to slap the man's other half. She liked talking to Allelujah, but the voice in his head made no effort to hide its dislike for her. Of course, she took every possible opportunity to tease him, often evoking a string of creative profanity as a response. She'd decided that the alter-ego's fascination with insulting her was a result of being lonely. She was the only one who could hear him, so she was the one who received the full force of his 'charm'.
Setsuna slid off his helmet much to Tieria's dismay and Allelujah followed shortly after.
"Tieria?" Reverie questioned, motioning to her helmet as he turned.
"You might as well." He half-huffed before dialing back the visor of his own.
She was relieved to pull the suffocating headgear off and tuck it under her arm. She shook her loose hair out, pulling it from the neck of her flightsuit and unzipping the top of the heat-trap. "Thank-god" she muttered. She noticed a few glances from the crowd in front of them, eager faces studying the Meisters.
-Is that woman a pilot too? That flightsuit is different.-
-What about the one in the purple?-
-Jesus Rev, you should wear your hair down more often.- She sent a sideways glance at Lyle who did an impeccable job of keeping a straight face as he looked back at her. She wished she could think back at him, it could have made an impressive game. He seemed to enjoy thought-flirting, occasionally pushing far enough to make her blush in situations that didn't call for the action, such as programming weapon controls or receiving a briefing from Tieria. It was impressive.
What happened next didn't impress her at all.
"Karen!?"
That voice. Thick German accent. It was so familiar that it shot daggers of anger through her. Her head whipped around as she looked for the source of it, finally settling on a middle-aged man who was pushing his way through the crowd. He walked with a barely noticeable limp, and an old jagged scar ran across the left side of his head, stopping his grey-peppered hair from growing where it sat.
"Karen Muller-Weiss!?"
Her eyes widened in panic as her stepfather said her full real name. Tieria's helmeted head whipped around to face her but she didn't care about his opinion at the moment. She was furious. The man before her didn't seem to care and he almost stomped towards her. He set foot on the ramp of the shuttle but Allelujah held up an arm in a 'stay back' gesture. Her stepfather looked at the tall orange-clad man and stopped.
"Weiss." She said shortly.
"Excuse me?" he half-spat.
"I never took on your name, step-daddy dearest." There was venom hanging off her words and she didn't try to hide it.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded in German, clearly not wanting to continue the conversation in a language that everyone understood. The tone made her blood boil. He had no right to demand anything of her. –Of course she'd be here to ruin this, just like everything else.- his thoughts insulted her.
"Isn't that obvious?" she said, motioning to the Meisters around her. "I'm here with Celestial Being to discuss a possible partnership."
"Gottverdammt!" he snapped, placing a hand on his face as his German cursing slipped through. "We're supposed to trust them and you're with them!?" –drug using lying little bitch!-
She muttered under her breath. "Du hurensohn…" All things considered she could have been more creative than 'son of a bitch'. "I have better places to be than here arguing with you." She continued in her native tongue. She stepped past him, the crowd parting awkwardly, scuttling out of the way. None of them wanted to be part of the awkward family scene. She wasn't sure where she was going, but the bits and pieces she picked up from the words around her told her that the red door to the left was a good guess. She walked through it and kicked it shut behind her.
"Don't you walk away from me you little-!"
His voice was cut off as the door closed, and she didn't give a damn. Throwing a tantrum was light-years out of character for her, but that man was the one person in the world that could elicit the response. She could hear the Meisters, Marina, and Sumeragi as they followed towards the door, their thoughts not straying very far from the scene that had just unfolded. She could also hear the murmur of the crowd outside. So much for being inconspicuous. It wasn't her fault though. How the hell would she have ever guessed that that…lowlife would be part of Katharon?
"Reverie Traum! What the hell do you think you wer-!"
"Shut it, Tieria!" she barked at the purple-haired Meister. He looked at her in surprise, then opened his mouth to retaliate but she held up a finger. "Don't say one damned word."
That seemed to work. He huffed and looked away, unimpressed but not willing to tempt the angry brunette. Sumeragi looked at her questioningly. They'd never really spoken, but Reverie felt her head cool off as she realized how badly she could have just blown things up for the forecaster. "I'm sorry." She said to the older brunette. "I didn't know that he would be here and it caught me off guard. We have a very…dark history."
"It's alright." The woman said. Her eyes were kind, and as Reverie picked through her thoughts she couldn't find any anger. "We all have somewhat troubled pasts."
She didn't have a bad past compared to the rest of those on the ship though, which made her feel even worse. She had no excuse for losing her cool like that. Why not just pretend that she had no idea who he was? A little late for that now, but it could have worked. "Still, I shouldn't have."
"You're right, you shouldn't have." Tieria spat.
The back of her hand connected with his cheek before she had a chance to think the action through. His red eyes scalded her in complete fury as his glasses clattered to the floor. "I said shut-up!" she yelled at him. She could see a tremble of anger run through his frame.
"Rever-!"
"Tieria, cool it. Not all of us can turn things off like a robot." Lyle interrupted, placing himself between the purple-clad Meister and the upset telepath. Tieria's fury wasn't masked at all as he picked up his glasses and stalked away, angered further by a smiling Setsuna. Had Reverie not been so angry she would have stared in awe at the odd expression. She knew of course that the confrontation was far from over, but she would willingly take the break. Lyle placed a gloved hand on Reverie's shoulder. "Are you ok?" He tilted his head as if to say 'that was weird'.
–Bruns Muller is her stepfather?-
Her eyes shot wide with surprise at that. "You know him!?" she sent a shocked and accusing glare at Lyle. How would he know her asshole stepfather who was apparently a part of Katharon? He sent her a sharp look that was full of alarm. She'd touched on something that she wasn't supposed to and it showed in the suddenly very calculated, almost dangerous look in his eyes. –Not another word.-
"Or what!?" she said incredulously in a half-whisper, answering his thought. His hand tightened on her shoulder and she suddenly became very aware of it. –Or things get very ugly.-
Had he just threatened her? "You aren't getting away from this." She said, dropping her voice to a barely audible tone. The others walked away from the two of them and down the hall, clearly not wanting to be involved in whatever was going on. "You're going to tell me how you know him." She said, meeting the harsh look he was giving her with equally unwavering eyes. She didn't want to admit it, but there was something in his eyes that was almost scary. Almost.
-Or what?- it was his turn to ask.
"Or I cry wolf with half a story and you get checked over with a fine-toothed comb." She murmured again. The look in his eyes said she'd struck gold. He was spying, presumably for Katharon. She'd never quite realized how imposing he was until now. Staring up at the angered Irishman she suddenly felt very short, something she wasn't used to.
He sighed in frustration and ran his other hand through his hair, almost wiping away the dangerous expression he'd had seconds earlier. "Let's get you calmed down, we'll talk about this later." He said in a jovial tone, putting on a tiny show for the other members of their group. He slipped his arm over her shoulders and gripped her tight enough to be a warning as the group of Meisters started making their way through the halls.
Stupid stepfather! She cursed at him in her head. If he hadn't been there Lyle wouldn't have had the thought that had given him away, and she wouldn't be feeling a hot pang of adrenaline shooting through her. Of course, there was no getting out of the situation. Lyle was pissed, it wasn't hard for her to see.
The carefree expression on his face sat in stark contrast to the crushing grip that he had on her far shoulder. Had his hands always been that big? She didn't believe that he would actually do anything to her, but had she known him long enough to trust him? Of course not. He had willingly joined Celestial Being. That was reason enough to be worried. Setsuna had presumably shot his mother, Hallelujah had detailed a dozen different ways that he would kill her if given the chance, and Tieria would probably throw her out into space after this. Why trust that Lyle would have any reservations about getting rid of her? She didn't know. She tuned into his stream of thoughts, the one thing that the majority of the world couldn't control when panicked.
-Dammit. Do I tell Klaus? Do I tell them myself? They must already know. Tieria wouldn't let something like that go by unnoticed…they must know. What if they don't? My ability scores must have tipped them off as well. Dammit Rev, why'd you have to pick up on that? I don't want to do this…-
Do what? He was panicking in his head but his expression was as calm as a placid lake. His arm slung over her shoulders went unnoticed as anything other than a friendly gesture by the Meisters, yet she was acutely aware that it wasn't one. He slowed their pace considerably as the group ahead of them entered a room. "Here." He said before pulling her down another hallway. It was barely lit, obviously unused. She had no intention of fighting him on it. That would be a sight, her trying to fight Lyle. The mental image would have been funny if she hadn't been shaking nervously. Of course, she was very good with the hand-to-hand training that she'd received from the AEU, but it didn't take much thought to realize that a spy undercover in Celestial Being would probably put her severely to shame. She looked up at the maple-haired Meister uncertainly but his face was obscured by the shadows of the hall.
-What the hell am I doing? It's not like I'm going to do anything. She's a woman. She's my friend. I can't hurt her. I need to scare her. How? I can't be rough. Jesus this would be so much easier if she was a guy…-
The idea of being rough with her sickened him, she could feel it. It was obvious from his thoughts that she was safe, but he was also extremely anxious. The feeling radiated from him…it was something she'd never felt from him before. She spun away from him, pulling his hand off her in the process and placed her back firmly on the wall, almost helping him by standing where he wanted. "What's going on, Lyle? Why are we here?" The shake in her voice surprised her.
He placed a hand firmly on either side of her on the wall, keeping her there without applying any force. The message was enough. Stay. She could hear his breathing, it was slow but restrained, like he was holding back. "How much do you know?" he finally said, his voice much darker than normal and missing its usual playfulness. Of course, he wasn't playing at all.
"I know that you know my stepfather's real name without it having been mentioned. Your thoughts tell me that you're spying for someone. I'm assuming its Katharon. I can't see you working with anyone else."
She heard a low growl of frustration. "What do you intend to do with that idea, Rev?" he asked, using his recently found pet-name for her. Her flightsuit was stifling, her nerves firing off warning bells. If only she could have seen his eyes…she wasn't sure what emotion they would hold right then.
"Teach me to shoot!"
The words left her mouth without any thought at all and she was as surprised as he was.
"What?" he said, confused and exasperated by the sudden change of subject.
"Teach me to shoot and I won't say anything." She furthered the idea.
"Really? That's it?" she heard his skeptical tone and nodded. –What kind of game are you playing, Rev?-
"No game. What do I get if I turn you in? Not much. I lose a friend, we lose our link to Katharon, and I still won't know how to shoot well."
She listened as he weighed her response in his head. "Anything else?" he asked, a hint of relief in his voice. She couldn't see his eyes, but she wanted to.
"And no more secrets." Her voice had lost its shake.
"You make this sound like a relationship." He quipped. "Why?"
"Because if I know about things I can cover for you." She said. He was always guarded around everyone, even her. She'd heard bits and pieces slip through here and there but she knew that there was a Lyle under the surface that he kept submerged, drowning. She wanted to see that Lyle. How had she changed to wanting to know him more after deciding seconds ago that she couldn't trust him? She didn't know.
"Why would you cover for me?" The edge in his voice was back, skeptical and strange.
"I already told you. If I say something I lose a friend and we lose our link to Katharon. As long as no one is being hurt, I see no reason to turn you in and make mud out of water."
He sighed but stepped back, lifting his hands from either side of her and smoothing out his hair again. "Is that really it?"
"Yes." She said simply.
"Fine. Deal." He said awkwardly. "Do we shake on this? Normally these situations leave the person who would be you a little bruised and scared…not agreeing to get marksmanship lessons and a soul-searching license." He said, the joking tone slowly creeping back into his voice. She could hear him cursing at himself for not being harder with her, but she could also feel his relief.
"It couldn't hurt." She said. She extended her hand. "To me keeping my mouth shut and you opening yours." He hesitated in taking it, but finally his larger hand slipped around hers.
"To that." He agreed. They stood awkwardly in silence for a moment, like kids who had just agreed to keep silent about a box of missing cookies. "We should get back."
"Tieria will have my head if I'm not in that meeting." Reverie agreed, nodding. Explaining where they'd been would be awkward enough...facing Tieria would be worse.
"I'll have Tieria's head if he gets any more pretentious." Lyle muttered. "That was a nice slap, by the way."
"I think I hurt my wrist...his cheek was hard." Reverie muttered, still trying to command her heart rate to go back to normal. She'd have to get Lyle back for the near heart-attack at some point.
"Let's hope your hand was harder." Lyle quipped, the snarky tone back in his voice. It was over. They made their way out of the dark hall and back to where the other Meisters had split off. She let Lyle lead, now knowing that he knew his way around much better than she did. "They should be in here…" he said, pushing open a steel door to their left.
Sure enough, they were. Sumeragi, Setsuna, Tieria, Marina, and someone that Reverie couldn't name stood across a table from a set of what she assumed to be Katharon's operatives. The group of them stared at the pair of newbloods and Reverie couldn't help but want to roll her eyes. She resisted the urge, though.
"It's about time." Tieria said, sighing in annoyance. He stared Lyle down next. "Back to the Gundams with you. Allelujah is there alone." His tone effectively conveyed his dislike of the man. Of course, Tieria didn't try to hide his feelings…Reverie couldn't remember if he'd ever called Lyle anything other than 'You'. Then again, everyone seemed to believe that uttering the name "Lockon" was sacrilegious.
-One of these days Tieria…- The tone in Lyle's thoughts said he didn't know what to finish the sentence with, but that he wasn't pleased either way. "See you later, Rev." he said, not bothering to send a glance toward the purple-haired princess-Meister as he left. Reverie caught a laugh from Sumeragi's thoughts. At least someone was enjoying the situation.
"We can get started now." The tactical forecaster said, nodding to the Katharon operatives that stood across from her.
Reverie took a place behind the others and pulled back the mental barriers that she'd put in place carefully after running into her stepfather. She didn't want to miss a single thing from any one of the operatives. Lyle may be her friend, but these people weren't, and if they gave her a reason she would wave a red flag. She hoped for his sake that she wouldn't have to.