AN: Whew! And school starts with a bang. Somehow our cheer team managed to win a speed-eating challenge and still continue throwing stunts in the heat. Either way, a good opening day of school. I even managed to get into a Gundam debate with a friend of mine who says I like the Dylandys purely out of Narcissism. Somehow I doubt that, but she insists that's what it is. Untrue, but a good compliment nonetheless. Who wouldn't want to look like a hot Irishman?

Anyways. This chapter gave me a lot of trouble until I got into the second half of it. I've read through it maybe 10 times but I wouldn't be surprised if there are issues with it that I can't see because my eyes are glazed over in editor-boredom. The second half is written in a very choppy style intentionally. Everyone's stressed, Reverie is convinced she's gonna die, Lyle is pissed, and everyone else seems to be AWOL. It's kind of a strange contrast-chapter as it goes from laid-back to shit hitting the fan. Ribbons is probably drinking tea through the whole thing. Stupid Ribbons. Also, I threw some more enemy mobile suits in the mix. I figure the A-Laws wouldn't send six suits to attack the base if they believed that Celestial Being was helping them out.

Let me know what you think! Thanks to Loguis Scriba for letting me know what they think, and of course thanks to Stormy who keeps me interested in writing this story!

I listened to "Saving Me" by Nickelback for this chapter *is shot*, although it was because my buddy had it on repeat while painting her nails. Strange, I know.

Safe

"Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil."

- Aristotle

On Reverie's life list of things to do, confronting Tieria placed somewhere between teasing a bear and drinking arsenic. If she had her way she'd bury her head in the sand and avoid him for the rest of eternity, but she knew that wasn't possible. The meeting had gone well and she was more than happy to report that the Katharon officials were honest in their intentions. It made keeping Lyle's secret much easier, that was certain. To be honest though, she wasn't sure that it needed to be kept. From what she could tell of Sumeragi's thoughts, she knew that there was likely a Katharon mole, and she was fine with it. Strange.

What was even stranger was the look that Tieria gave her when he realized that she was approaching him. She'd expected the full heat of ten suns worth of anger from him, but instead he refused to meet her eyes. "Reverie Traum."

"I'm sorry, Tieria. I shouldn't have hit you." She said. It was true, and even if it had been justified she knew that he didn't deserve it. He was just hard to get along with, that wasn't a crime worthy of a slap.

"What is your report on the meeting." He said, ignoring the topic of her apology altogether. Did he not know how to deal with it? It was obvious from his odd behaviour that he did care about what had happened. She'd go along with it. If Tieria wanted to talk, he would.

"They aren't hiding anything. They're almost naively interested in working with us, with no real expectation of getting anything specific in return other than the standard courtesy of providing backup for one another." She said, putting the feelings of the group into words as well as possible.

"Very well. You may board the shuttle to return to Ptolemy." He said, still not meeting her gaze.

"I'd rather not, if that's alright."

He met her eyes then, but they were confused. "Is there a reason for this?" he questioned, not following her.

"Our identities, Cherudim, and Arios were viewed in great detail by a number of Katharon members. I'd like to stay for a while and make sure that there isn't a threat that this information will be leaked." She said. It was true. If she could have run straight back to Ptolemy and avoided her stepfather she would have, but it wasn't in Celestial Being's best interests.

"I see. I agree that it would be preferable to know if they have spies among them." He deduced simply. "Tell the twin to stay with you." He said, the haughty tone returning to his voice.

"Lyle?" she asked, surprised. She never would have guessed in a million years that Tieria would encourage the two of them to do anything together. It didn't even make sense tactically. Arios would be better suited for leaving the facility, it had a combination of long and short range weaponry that would be better in the event of an attack, its color would blend in better with the desert, and it was much faster than Cherudim. "Why?" she asked. She couldn't help it.

Tieria almost smiled as he met her eyes, the gesture caught her off guard. "He seems to have previous knowledge of the area." He replied, then stepped past her. "and you're least likely to hit him."

Had he just joked? Did slapping him accidentally cross wires in his brain? She looked at him as though she was seeing something completely strange and ridiculous. What should she respond to that? "If you say so."

"I do." He left the hall and exited into the hangar. Reverie stood for a moment in partial shock and followed after him.

Stepping through the hangar doors reminded her that she could hear the droning of the GN particle dispersal systems and she ducked behind the leg of one of the retrofitted Flags that stood there. Unlike the rest of the base, the hangar was partially above ground and it let the distant droning reach her ears. It wasn't bad enough to cause her the usual pain, but she could feel a dull headache starting in the back of her head. She pulled a bottle of mild painkillers from inside her flightsuit and popped the top off it. The painkillers would get rid of the dull pain, but they would also make it difficult for her to pick up on approaching GN drives. There wasn't much chance of a random attack here though, she reasoned. The base had obviously been there for quite a while without incident. She shook two of the pills into her gloved hand and her nose twitched at the idea of having to take them without water. She didn't like the chalky taste of them at all. Oh well. She tilted her head back to drop them onto her tongue.

"Sis?"

She stopped and lowered her hand, looking over to see who the intruder was. There was no way it was her brother, so they were clearly mistaken. She couldn't quite see them yet. "Can I help you?"

"Don't let dad see you taking pills, he doesn't need any help judging you." The figure stepped around the leg of the Flag and Reverie's breath caught in her throat.

"Deiter!?"

Her brother? She hurriedly dropped the pills back in their bottle and slipped it away. God had he ever changed. The last time she'd seen him he'd been just shy of his fifteenth birthday and he looked more like a child than a man. Now? She wasn't sure she would have recognized him. He towered over her, he must have been at least as tall as Allelujah or Lyle. His blonde hair fell in a pin-straight angular bob-cut that would have made Tieria jealous, and his blue-grey eyes were laughing at her shocked expression. "When did you grow up!?"

"Well, someone had to get dad away from the bottle after you left." He quipped. They'd always shared the same sarcasm, just as they shared their slate-blue eyes that were more grey than anything. "Come on, you really thought that I wouldn't have changed at all in the last three years? I'm eighteen now." He said, answering the question that she'd been trying to formulate. She didn't respond but instead flung herself at her younger sibling, surprised when her feet had to leave the ground to hug him.

"God I missed you!" she exclaimed before yelping as he swung her around in a full circle.

"I guess I'm the one who has to spin you around now." He said as he set her back on her feet.

"No kidding…who did you pay off to grow that fast?" she asked, her surprise finally dying.

"Well, our father was a giant, remember? Come on, you're a giraffe compared to most women."

"True." She muttered. She took a deep breath, then looked up at him in shock as a new, heavier question formed. "You're with Katharon." She stated more than asked.

"You're with Celestial Being." He replied. It was a good retort if she'd ever heard one.

"But you're still a kid!" she said, her anger was secretly starting to flare as she realized that her stepfather had something to do with it.

-Oh crap.-

"Karen, he's changed." He said, knowing what she was thinking. He didn't need her mind-reading ability to understand people…ever since he was a child he'd had an unspoken ability to understand what was going on inside someone else's head. If he would have been on the AEU ship instead of her that day, he probably wouldn't have noticed much of a difference. He lived in other's heads without screwed-up brainwaves.

"How much could he have changed? He brought you into Katharon!" she said with a bit more force than was necessary.

"He didn't do that, Karen. I came here on my own, he was just the one who told me how to join." He said, his greyish eyes seeming to laugh at the idea that the older man could influence him. "Dad needed this…it keeps him away from the bottle. We both know that he's a different person without it."

"Don't call him that." Reverie spat. "That man hasn't been close to a father to either of us."

"Can we expect him to be one if we don't treat him like one?" Deiter asked, having too much wisdom to be her younger brother. She knew better than to push the subject with him, he'd always seen something in the man that she never could. Of course, rage blinders were hard to see through.

"What about mom?" she asked, trying to change topics as much as she could.

"She left him." He said. "I don't blame her of course, but she's safe, if that's what you mean. She's travelling, trying to do all the things she couldn't do when we were around. You know, middle-age stuff." He said, somehow bringing the topic onto a lighter course. "She doesn't know about our attachment to Katharon."

"Well, at least he was smart enough to keep that to himself." She muttered. Deiter looker up as someone approached.

"What exactly is 'middle-age stuff'?" Reverie didn't have to turn to know it was Lyle. "I figure I should know…I'll be getting there in ten years or so." He stopped next to her, helmet slung carelessly under his arm. –Tieria sent me over, apparently we're staying?- She nodded.

Deiter laughed. "I doubt you'll ever be a victim of middle-age, sir." He said.

"Sir?" Reverie questioned, looking from the Meister to her smirking brother.

"Karen, it isn't hard to imagine that you know about Gene One." Deiter said matter-of-factly, tapping a finger to his head to indicate her abilities. "He's the one who I keep trying to catch up to." He watched Reverie for a few moments before smiling. "See? You aren't surprised at all. You knew."

"Trying to catch up to?" Reverie asked, ignoring his comment about her level of surprise. She didn't like the glances the two men were sending each other. It felt like she was playing monkey in the middle.

"Yes, catch up to. He's Gene One, and he graciously gave me the title Gene Two. He also graciously keeps reminding me that I've got a lot of work to do if I want to match his mobile suit kill score and firing ability."

Her brother was a pilot? Of course, it suited him. He'd always wanted to be one for the AEU, why should this surprise her?

Lyle laughed. "Well, have you matched either of them yet?"

"No." Deiter faux-pouted. "Then again, I just have to wait for you to kick the bucket and I'll be number one. How many feet do you have in the grave? One or one and a half?" the younger man joked, picking on the Meister's age.

"Didi" Reverie said, using her brother's pet name. "You're making me feel old. If you keep it up you'll be face-down in the grave, with no feet to speak of." She narrowed her eyes in mock-anger. She couldn't stay mad at her brother and she knew it was useless to try. He was a member of Katharon. It suited him.

"Yes ma'am!" he said, mock saluting.

Reverie looked at Lyle next. "What exactly is your kill score, Gene One?" Gene One. Lockon Stratos. Lyle Dylandy. It was a miracle that he knew who he was.

"Do you want before or after Celestial Being? I've added a few since then." He said, raising a confident eyebrow.

Deiter sighed and shook his head. "Sometimes I can't believe that you two are older than me." Just then his paging device beeped and he looked down at it. It was strange to see such an out-dated piece of equipment, but it was probably all that would work in the building. "I've gotta go, time to run maintenance on my Enact."

"They have you piloting an Enact?" Reverie said, feeling sisterly nervousness in her stomach.

"Of course. It's the one I defected with." He said matter-of-factly.

"You defected!?" That was bad news. It meant that as long as the Federation was in place he could never leave Katharon. He could never live a normal life. Anywhere. His name was in a database of defectors. She'd been fortunate enough to avoid that…according to her file she'd escaped while under the influence of heavy medication. That was forgivable, defecting was not.

"Not all of us can claim insanity, Karen. I made a choice and I'd choose it again if I had to. I'll be around in the hangar." He said as he turned to leave. He stopped and turned back, looking at Lyle. "Give her the code for my mobile suit. Being able to watch it on-screen will make her feel better…trust me." He said. Lyle nodded and they watched the blonde jog away.

"So we're staying for a while?" Lyle said, breaking the silence and drawing Reverie's attention away from the jogging form of her brother. They made their way towards Cherudim, neither one really knowing why.

She nodded. "Tieria wants me to listen in and see if we should be worried about anyone leaking our identities or information about the mobile suits."

"And he actually let us work together?" he was skeptical, it was definitely a surprise.

She nodded. "I have no idea what happened to him, but that slap seems to have rewired him somehow."

"I'll bet, I half expected his head to spin around." He absentmindedly flipped his helmet in one hand with surprising ease as he spoke. "What's the plan then?"

Pain.

Out of nowhere.

Lots and lots of pain. Reverie grabbed her head and hit the ground, the thick flightsuit cushioning her fall.

"Reverie!" A strong hand on her arm helped her back up, a second on the small of her back kept her steady. Her hands grabbed fistfuls of Lyle's flightsuit and she buried her face in his chest. She didn't know how many were coming, but there were Pseudo GN drives on the way. "What's wrong!?" he said, worried.

"GN Drives!" she said, shaking as the full force of the approaching drives hit her brainwaves. She looked up at him urgently. "You have launch Cherudim! There's GN Drives on their way here!"

Lyle nodded. A tiny amount of relief washed over her when he believed her without question. She felt him slip an arm around her to support her weight as he covered the remaining distance to the green and white Gundam. The droning was getting louder.

"Open the hatch! There's mobile suits approaching!" Lyle snapped at a group of men who were off to the left.

"What!?" one said.

"Mobile suits! I don't know whose. Get your pilots ready!" he yelled, the force of his voice making Reverie's lungs shake. The men nodded and shot off in different directions, one yelling the alarm into his radio. Reverie felt Lyle crush her against him when he reached the stirrup of Cherudim's dismount cable but she shook her head and pushed away from him.

"No! I'll get in your way!" she said, taking a knee again once she left his supportive hold.

"I can't leave you here!"

"Of course you can! I'll be fine. Go stop those suits from getting here!" she snapped. He looked at her for a long moment before cursing and boarding the Gundam. She knew she didn't have to tell him to alert Ptolemy. She had no way to know that telling him she'd be fine would later turn out to be morbidly wrong.

She took a deep breath as Cherudim's GN drive powered up and blocked out the pain for a few seconds. She wanted to hug the leg of the machine and never leave the range of the pain-relieving song, but she knew she couldn't do that. The wind of Cherudim taking off made her shield her face. –I'm sorry, Rev-

She didn't care. She couldn't be in the cockpit with him, not when she'd be falling all over the place and screaming. Once enough pseudo drives showed up she had no doubt Cherudim's drive wouldn't numb the pain anymore. She stumbled to her feet and clumsily ran for the hangar wall. She had to get out of the way of the mobile suits as they exited. She stumbled to the ground as she reached the wall and held her head, yelling. She'd never felt pain like this. There were too many to count. Her head was exploding with pain and her stomach was twisting in worry for Lyle. One Gundam against a group of pseudo drives? What if she'd just sent him to his death? Could she live with that?

She didn't know. She'd never been responsible for someone's death before. She'd never taken a life either directly or indirectly. What would she do if her friend was the first person she'd killed? The thought combined with the pain made her sick and she yelled through her teeth.

The other Meisters had to get there. Fast.

Cherudim shot out of the underground hangar in a flash and Lyle took a sharp breath. There was an entire three-ship unit coming towards him. Could he hold off that many? He had to try. He shot towards them, hoping that he could start the fight before they reached the Katharon base. The farther from it the better. He'd already gotten through to Sumeragi but she couldn't give him an estimate of how long it would take for Arios and Seravee to get there. He was on his own until then.

The ships began launching their mobile suits as soon as he came in range of their radar. Luckily this meant that they hadn't seen where he'd launched from. Haro gave him an update of how quickly they were launching but he tuned the bot out. No amount of information could delay the inevitable overpowering of his suit. He pulled the GN Pistols from Cherudim's thruster pack and started shooting.

One after the other. Hit, hit, hit, miss, hit, hit, curse, hit. He could feel his entire body humming with Adrenaline. If it were any other situation he'd be loving it, but not with his comrades underground, the women, the children. He breathed a short sigh of relief as the assortment of Flags and Enacts started launching behind him. It gave him a split-second to switch to the GN Submachine gun. The blasts from the massive weapon produced an array of explosions on the horizon as suit after suit exploded, his aim far more accurate than normal. Of course, he had no choice. It had to be better.

More suits launched. Ten, no, twenty more suits, Haro informed him. The ship to the left sent a barrage of missiles in his direction and he had to stop firing and shoot away from them. Should he use his eight missiles now? No. He dropped to the surface of the sand and shot the missiles one after the other. The heat of the sand made half of them lose sight of their target and they exploded in brown clouds of dust as they hit the desert around him. He rose back into the air, the force of his directional change sending up a sand-wall that sent a tailing mobile suit exploding into the surface below.

The suits were pushing him back, slowly but surely. They were getting closer and closer to the base. He'd taken down eight, Haro informed him. That was still twenty or so too few. He launched the missiles. All eight locked onto their targets and shot forward, hitting limbs and cockpits and sending four more A-Laws pilots to the sands below.

He couldn't let them get past him.

The center ship begged to differ. He saw the gun charging a second before it fired. A second too late. It tore up the desert surface in a straight line, turning half the sand to glass and tearing the ceiling of Katharon's hangar to pieces, the unsupported structure collapsed in on itself and gave away its exact location.

"DAMMIT!" he yelled, punching the arm of his seat. Now he was ready to go into overdrive. "TRANS-AM!" he yelled. He needed the speed. Anything to stop the steadily-approaching mobile suits.

Anything to protect the people who were below him.

Reverie screamed so hard that her throat felt like it had ripped. The second the ceiling had caved in the droning noise had reached the highest whine she'd ever heard. She'd taken four of the painkillers in a moment of clarity, but she was still minutes away from them taking effect. She lay on her back, squirming and writhing, her hands woven into her hair and crushed over her ears as she tried to block the noise.

Several flashes of red shot across the sky above her. A-Laws mobile suits. They'd gotten past Lyle. She screamed again as one flew slowly past the opened roof of the hangar and dropped something with a series of equally-spaced thuds. A massive reverberating crash followed as the offending mobile suit itself slammed into the concrete floor of the hangar and ripped it apart. It had lost power, the pseudo GN drive barely able to spit out its orange-red particles. Reverie watched through tear-blurred eyes as the cockpit opened and the pilot stuck his head out. He disappeared back into the suit once a metallic whirring started. –Oh shit, the Automatons. I can't let them see my heat signature…the cockpit is my safest bet.-

She rolled onto her side and looked around the destroyed hangar space, the painkillers finally taking effect. It was a blur but she forced her shock away and focused. Steel boxes stuck out of the sand everywhere, evenly spaced. That was what the powerless suit had dropped before it fell. Reverie got to her feet as quickly as possible. If the pilot was scared of whatever those things were, she knew she had to be too. She was the only one in her area, the others presumably on the other side of the pile of debris. She ran as fast as she could, skidding to a halt as she reached a hallway. She slipped into it and whipped around another corner, hiding in the unlit corridor as well as she could.

She could hear shooting now, and screaming. So much screaming. It was in her head and in her ears. People were dying. People were praying to unseen gods as their lives slipped away, begging for the safety of families, friends, lovers. They were running from robots. Robots which were making the metallic whirring sound that she was hearing. She flattened herself against the wall as she heard one enter the hall that she'd found. It was around the corner. She held her breath. Her heartbeat had never sounded so loud in her life. Heat signature. She praised Tieria as she realized that the flightsuit that she was wearing was blocking the majority of her bodyheat from radiating out and signalling her position. She prayed that her face wasn't a large enough source to trip the machine's targeting system.

It turned the corner and she slipped into a door way, shoving herself into the corner of it as much as possible.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Her heartbeat was loud in her ears. She realized then that the screaming had died down.

Until a scream tore from her own throat.

BOOM!

The ceiling above her disappeared, paneling and concrete and sand falling all around and crushing the robot. Had she not been squished into the reinforced doorway she would have been crushed with it. Her legs were buried by the sand that was pouring into the hall and she screamed again. She couldn't be buried alive. There was no way she could die like that.

The whirring started again and her eyes grew so wide she thought they'd leave the sockets. Every hair stood on end, and every muscle in her body shook with fear. Her breath caught in her throat so hard she would have choked if her body could remember how to make the motion. The falling debris had brought one of the automatons with it and its single red camera stared her down. This was it.

CRASH!

Then it was gone.

Green and white. A pillar. A shape. Her eyes weren't registering anything. She stopped hearing anything but a dull tone, the kind she'd heard after explosions on the grenade range. She didn't see the sand and ceiling falling further around her, nor did she realize that she couldn't feel the droning pain in her head. She just stared at the strange green and white tower in front of her until something that her mind mildly recognized as a giant hand reached down. A giant hand? It was ridiculous. So funny. There weren't giant hands. Only little hands, like hers.

Or giant hands like Gundams had.

Gundam.

Green and white.

Cherudim. It was Cherudim in front of her. The pillar was its leg, the automaton crushed underneath it. This revelation shattered her shock. The sounds of the slaughter around her returned in a wave. Automatons. Death. Screaming. Chaos. She had to get out of there. She tried to move her legs but she was stuck. She looked down. She was buried up to her waist. She was stuck there!

Wait.

All her thoughts were coming to her in a jumbled mess.

Her flightsuit. It was too big for her.

She gasped as she realized it was her way out. She unzipped it as far as she could and planted her hands in the sand around her. She wriggled and pushed, slipping inch-by-inch out of the oversized white suit. Her waist was free, then her thighs, then her knees. With one final heave she pulled herself free and tumbled forward into Cherudim's waiting left hand. She gripped the hot metal index finger of the Gundam with all the power she had left in her body.

It shot off the ground and she felt like she was on the end of a bungee cord as the Gundam whipped into the air. She wrapped her legs around the digit as firmly as she could, although it was too big for her to get around. Her cheek was pressed to the hot metal surface and she squeezed her eyes shut as she held on for dear life. Firm pressure crushed against her back and she realized that the suit's thumb was holding her in place. She didn't care that it had the potential to squash her like a bug, right now she was relieved by the straining pressure in her chest. If she could barely breathe then the increasing G-force of the Gundam spinning and ducking wouldn't tear her away from it. It was trying to, though.

She opened her eyes. She was easily a thousand feet above the surface of the sand, the destroyed Katharon base far below her. Flags and Enacts whipped around below her, like birds hovering to catch bugs. She could see the orange-red telltale sign of a set of mobile suits approaching and she had to close her eyes again as Cherudim suddenly dropped to avoid them. If she hadn't still been partially in shock she would have thrown up. The suit continued, this-way and that. She could hear the pulsing of the GN Submachine gun as it fired over and over again.

-A-LAWS! YOU SCUM!- She heard Lyle, but at the same time she didn't. He sounded a million miles away as she clung to his Gundam's hand. She closed her eyes and focused on the sound of the Gundam's drives. Find the melody. She thought. It washed over her, soothing her, taking away the stress of her situation. She continued to hold on as she tried to drown everything else out.

Finally, Cherudim stopped and hung in the air. Hung until it slowly descended to the surface. She continued to hold on with her full-body death-grip. She was terrified. She held on even when the hand had been laid flat on the ground and as she heard the Gundam's cockpit open.

The shock was back.

Terror. Sheer terror. She was numb with fear. She'd almost died more times in the last five minutes than she could count. She heard a whimper leave her mouth but she didn't remember making the sound. She just held onto the Gundam's finger and trembled.

"Reverie!"

The voice was familiar but so far away, speaking to her through a wall or door, muffled. A large hand slipped around her wrist, pulling at her hand and almost pleading for her to come down. "Reverie, it's over, come down. I'm here."

Lyle?

She didn't know quite when she let go of the finger but she knew that it was because her body couldn't hold on anymore. She slid off it and heavily into strong arms. She panicked at the feeling of falling again. She crushed herself against the familiar form of her friend. Arms, legs, whatever she could use to cling to him. Her whole body shuddered.

"Shhh."

A hand on her head, fingers running through her hair. "It's alright. It's over now."

She looked up at him with eyes full of bewilderment and fear. "It's over?" she asked, not recognizing the shaking, scared voice that left her throat.

He nodded, eyes warm but sad, almost angry. They weren't angry at her. They were angry for the countless bodies that lay in the place where she'd almost died. His friends. She felt tears start welling in her eyes. They were hot as they poured down her face and they pooled against her cheek as she buried her face against his shoulder.

Clinging to him with Cherudim's GN Drive in the background and his soothing voice in her ears, Reverie felt something that minutes ago she was sure she'd never feel again.

Safe.

Let me know what you think!

I'm going to go draw Chibi-Ribbons drinking tea now.