AN: Here's the next one! This took me a while as school has now started and I've been thrown headlong into the most crazy schedule I've had yet. That's what I get for being a bit of an overachiever though. I surprisingly dislike the conversations between Reverie and Deiter, but they're necessary for chapters much later on in the story.

Thanks to Kate for letting me know what you think! I've been sticking to cannon so far, but as the story progresses I'll be making some major-ish changes, although it'll stay with canon for the most part. As for the pairing, Lyle/Anew will still be happening. I've written out a few different plotlines for how this will all work out, and I think that Anew developed Lyle's character too much for her to be removed. Reverie will have to suck it up for quite a few chapters. I don't necessarily like Anew, but I think it's because she wasn't developed very much and I wasn't able to bond with her character as much as the others. I'm planning on keeping her in-character though, and I'm firmly avoiding the 'turn the canon love interest into a jealous b**ch' storyline that so many OC writers seem to enjoy. Anew is a nice person, I'm going to keep her that way. This being said, I think the Lyle/Rev pairing will really only be solidified in later chapters, although there'll be lots of groundwork for it in the beginning. So much potential angst to work with. Thank-you so much for your review and input, and I'm glad that the story interests you even though it's not complete!

And of course thanks to my mystery guest (Stormy *cough*) who gave me the necessary criticism to fix the last chapter, as well as Logius Scriba for their input as well!

As a mini-sidenote, whenever I write a thought like this: -this is a thought- it is always whomever Reverie is listening to. Her thoughts are always implied through the text or are written in italics without the hyphens surrounding them.

Also a mini-sidenote, in my head I have implied pairings that are slowly revealed. So far I've suggested a one-sided Neil/Tieria, and Halle/Sumeragi. If you don't like that one, blame Omnicat...they've convinced me of it. Let's be honest, Sumeragi is destructive enough to go with it.

I listened to "Funhouse" by pink for the first part, and "Casual Sex" by My Darkest Days for Sumeragi's part. Odd, I know.

Keeper of Secrets

"A man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides."

- Andre Malraux

"You could have killed her!" Tieria snapped. He was livid. The twin stood in front of him, indignant and irritated as ever. What had he been thinking? Picking up a normal human with a Gundam? Even Allelujah's body would have issues with that kind of abuse.

"And leaving her to be target practice for an automaton and buried alive was a better option!?" The Irish Meister demanded.

"A better one than whipping her around a thousand feet in the air and possibly crushing her to death! What if you'd shattered her ribcage? Do you know how many pounds per square inch the Cherudim's thumb is capable of applying!?"

"Haro had it under control! She's fine, it didn't happen."

"She's not fine."

The twin clenched his jaw in frustration but didn't retort. His eyes were narrowed in anger and his body was tense but Tieria didn't give a damn. A week ago Tieria wouldn't have cared about the girl's safety so much, but after reviewing her AEU medical files and comparing them with the information gathered on her by the doctor, he was realizing just how irreplaceable she was. Irreplaceable and certainly not fine. She'd been curled up against Arios' foot for the last hour and a half, begging Allelujah to keep the GN drive running and flinching when anyone came near. She refused her sedatives and didn't want to sleep, but at the same time she was exhausted and unable to function. It was pointless and frustrating.

Finally the twin sighed. "She's not fine, but she's alive."

"Alive and completely useless." Tieria replied shortly.

"She's not useless, she's in shock. There's a difference." The twin said, his voice rising again. Tieria disliked the feeling that the taller Meister was looking down on him but he wouldn't let it deter his anger. He wouldn't be intimidated.

"Shock is supposed to wear off twenty minutes after a traumatic event!" Tieria retorted, the two of them were face – to - face and getting angrier the longer they looked at one another.

"Tieria, she's human."

He stopped, his anger halted. Those words. Just like that. The same tone, the same look, the same face. "Lockon…"

He wished he could take the name back the second he uttered it.

Not Lockon. The twin. The other Lockon. The fake. He looked up at the Meister. He was staring down at him in confusion, but the second their eyes met something flashed behind the twin's blue-green ones. Recognition. A different type of anger followed. He turned away.

"Don't talk to me about shock when you're the one stuck riding the aftershocks of my brother's death." He muttered under his breath and walked away, slipping a cigarette between his lips.

Tieria wanted to be mad, he wanted to shout at him and chastise him for implying that he hadn't moved on but he couldn't. How could he move on when he didn't know what it meant? It was easy for the twin to walk away and curse him like that. Like the terrified girl on Arios' foot he was human. He knew what it meant to move on. What could Tieria do? There was no level of VEDA that told him how to cope with the loss of someone that had been so important to him. In fact, there was no one on board Ptolemy who could except for the man that walked away from him…the constant reminder of his pain. That made him curse out loud and stalk away, back to the crowd that had gathered at the Katharon base. He would never ask that man to teach him the meaning of 'move on'. He may not have been human enough to know how to do it, but he was human enough to have pride, and human enough to hold a grudge.

It was his pride that made him snap at a set of men who were standing around and doing nothing to help the recovery effort.

Arios' GN drive sung a soft melody in Reverie's head. Leaning against its foot was uncomfortable, but it was a product of the ache that was starting to throb throughout her whole body, not a result of the Gundam itself. The screaming and yelling of all those who had died that day was stuck in her head. Male or female, young or old, Katharon or A-Laws, all of it. She'd gotten over the shock of the automatons, the pain of the pseudo drives, and almost being buried alive. She'd even gotten past the swirling ripcord terror effect of being in Cherudim's hand, yet as she watched body after body be laid out and zipped away in a black bag she couldn't shake the voices. Hours earlier these people's voices had been filling her head with eager thoughts of the Gundams and the business of everyday life. Now they couldn't think anymore, using their remaining seconds to fill Reverie's head with their echoing screams. Arios' drive was the only thing keeping the onslaught of echoing thoughts at bay, and Reverie's pride hadn't been strong enough to stop her from clinging to Allelujah, begging him to keep the orange and white machine running. He'd nodded softly and told her that it was alright, she didn't need to plead with him, he'd do it. Even Hallelujah remained uncharacteristically silent, as though he knew she wouldn't feel the impact of any of his quick remarks.

After Cherudim had landed outside of the destruction zone Reverie had refused to let go of Lyle until Arios joined them and Allelujah had met them in a strange panic, first-aid kit in hand. She'd listened to Hallelujah accurately guess that her damage couldn't be fixed with bandages, but she'd let him apply one to her forehead anyways. She and Allelujah had built a strange friendship, almost like the friendship one would expect between children. He reminded her of her brother. Not the joking tall man that she'd met again a few hours earlier, but the one that she'd left behind when her family had fallen apart. The gentle fourteen-year-old who was aged beyond his years, too silent and too smart for his own good. She suspected that Allelujah was aware of it to some extent but he didn't seem to mind. Instead he acted along, playing the part of brother. When she'd seen him awkwardly holding the first-aid kit she'd finally let go of Lyle. No amount of band-aids or soft words could stop the resonating screams in her head, though.

"Sir, you can't go over there, Celestia-!" The voice made her look up. After a brief standoff between some Katharon members and Tieria the two groups had stood separately, working on cleaning up different areas of the base.

"Verpiss Dich! I'll go where I damn well please, boy, and right now that's to see my daughter."

Her blood flared hot as she heard her stepfather's voice. There was no way she could deal with him now, not like this. She exhaled and pressed her cheek to the orange metal of Arios' foot and closed her eyes, not wanting to be a part of the conversation – fight – that was about to happen. Heavy boots stopped inches from her feet.

"You can't even stand when your father comes to speak to you?" he demanded, speaking English this time around, which was strange. She looked up at him, glaring daggers as intensely as she knew how.

"My father doesn't come to speak to me anymore because he'd dead." She said, her tone indicating how little she cared about the conversation at hand. Hearing screaming, dying voices wasn't the best way to put someone in an understanding mood.

"Your father wouldn't want to speak to you if he knew the truth about you." He said. The sneer in his voice at the word 'father' made her jaw clench in anger.

"I think I've forgotten what that was, please enlighten me." She sighed, biting back a groan as she stood. Her body hadn't responded well to being whipped around during her rescue.

"You're the one who caused this!" he snapped suddenly, his voice raising as he enunciated the English words. He got his desired response, several heads snapping around to stare at her.

"And when did I bring this about? Was it before or after I was almost shot by Automatons or buried alive?" The ass. He wanted attention, and he knew that the Katharon members were looking for someone to blame.

"You tell me, mind reader." He snapped.

She stifled a laugh, then chuckled, then burst into hysteria. It hurt her offended muscles but she couldn't stop. He'd never believed that she could actually hear people's thoughts. He'd been the one to decide that she was addicted to opiates and hallucinogens and he'd been the one to convince her mother that she was lying to them all.

"Don't laugh, do you know how many people died here today!?"

Her chuckle stopped abruptly as she stretched to look him in the eye. 'Of course I do, they're still dying in my head, still praying and begging and bleeding all over my brain.' She wanted to say. Would she give him the satisfaction? No. He didn't deserve to know what she was hearing or feeling.

He didn't deserve a response.

She stared him down with empty, lazy eyes. "Of course I do. Do you?"

-My friends, my comrades, how dare she!- his mind snapped. He'd never been one for intelligent thoughts or useful ideas. Unless of course he was ripping their family apart.

"Get out of here with your pathetic sense of indignation. I don't have time to listen to the whining of an attention-starved brat." She said, stepping past him and taking long strides away from him without a destination.

"You know, if your father saw you like this I bet he'd want to die all over again."

She snapped. She whipped around in anger. "How can you be selfish enough to talk about family problems now, when dozens are mourning their own!? Look around you. How can you use death as an insult when all around you fathers, sisters, lovers, brothers…when they're all being pulled out of the ground?"

He stared at her in shock, looking infrequently at his comrades around him.

"Can't you hear them screaming?" she demanded. "Can't you hear loved ones screaming around you as their families are pulled out of the rubble? I can. They can." She tilted her head to the small group around them. "My father may be dead, but I'm fortunate. I'm not feeling the tearing pain that all of those around us are. Before you throw around those insults so carelessly you should think of those outside of your narrow problems!"

"Are you saying I don't care about what happened here!?" he demanded.

"Karen!" Her brother's voice piped up from the crowd but she ignored it.

"I'm saying that you don't care enough to have the decency to put your issues aside. I hate you. I hate you with every fiber of my body, but that doesn't matter now. Look around you! Do these people care that we have issues? No. They don't. Nothing matters right now other than honouring and mourning the dead."

"Karen!" Deiter said, finally reaching her. –Let it go. Don't waste your time.- he thought, clearly wanting to stay out of their standoff.

"Don't worry, I am." She said. She started to follow her brother's tugging, but she stopped and looked back at her stepfather. "If you let anything happen to Deiter though…I won't walk away this easily."

"Karen, stop it. Leave me out of it." Deiter almost pleaded, dragging her along. Her stepfather stood in a mix of shock and anger, not moving and not retorting. Good. She didn't want to hear him speak. Her brother sighed. "Are you done? Are you alright?"

"I'm done with him, if that's what you mean. And I'm fine." The first response was as true as could be, and the second one…she wasn't sure. Was it a lie? Maybe.

"Good. Someone said they saw you almost get shot by an Automaton?" he questioned. She suddenly noticed the gauze that was wrapped securely over three-quarters of his arm, and the sling that held it securely to his body. His leather jacket had been cut away, now having one sleeve missing. As she looked closer she realized that the fabric had deep brown singe marks.

"Didi! What happened!?" she said with alarm, staring at the damaged limb.

-Here we go…- "Oh this?" he laughed, rubbing the back of his head with his good arm. "Not much, my Enact got shot down and one of the control panels exploded."

"Not much!? Didi, you could have been killed!" She said, stepping around him to see the damage to his back and swatting away his protesting good hand.

He laughed at her response. "Karen, I could die any day. The miracle is that I don't."

She huffed in annoyance. Leave it to her brother to say something like that. The damage wasn't as bad as it looked, he was right. As she peeked under the edge of one of the strips she realized that it was actually a minor burn and not the massive injury that it looked like on the surface. "Fine. Just remember, if you get yourself killed…"

"I know, you'll beat me so hard I'll come back to life."

"Good." She couldn't help but grin as he raised an eyebrow in his characteristic lopsided grin. His grin faded as he looked over her shoulder.

"Reverie Traum."

She turned to face Tieria. His voice had lost some level of the commanding presence that it had had before the attack on Katharon. Was he alright? "Tieria."

"The shuttle has returned, we're returning to Ptolemy."

"Alright." She said, upset by the idea of leaving her brother so quickly.

"Looks like that's my cue to leave. Don't be a stranger, Karen." Deiter said, smiling down at her and ruffling her hair. "And you take care of her." He said to the purple-haired Meister. Surprisingly, Tieria didn't respond but simply nodded. She watched as her brother stalked away towards a group of Katharon pilots who were helping with the rescue efforts. It unnerved her to see him go.

It wasn't until she and Tieria returned to the shuttle in silence that she realized something.

The screaming voices had stopped.

Five hours later

Tieria, Ian, and Shia stood in the infirmary. Reverie had been sedated the minute she'd boarded the shuttle and was now resting comfortably in one of the recovery units. With the threat of the A-Laws return hanging over their heads they couldn't risk the ships' gunner being out of commission. She'd agreed. One recovery unit over was Sumeragi, who had fainted after seeing the destruction brought on by the attack.

They weren't discussing their next course of action however. Instead, they were discussing the use of Reverie's abilities. Tieria had come up with a tentative plan, but it was thoroughly reliant on the cooperation of the two men who stood before him.

"Is that really something that we can do?" Shia, the medic asked, serious doubt on his face. "I know what kind of pain this little firecracker is in when those drives are nearby. That's not a humane suggestion."

"If she gives her permission, I don't see why it would be an issue. I know how much pain she's in as well, I've read the file. She will feel the pain either way, whether she agrees or not. As long as she's part of Celestial Being she won't be able to escape the pseudo GN drives. That is my reasoning."

Ian sighed and flipped through the electronic file in front of him. "I think it's something I could do, but I'm not sure it's entirely safe for her body…"

"Which is why Shia Mazarenco is here as well." Tieria replied, looking between the medic and the engineer.

"I can't guarantee her safety either. Really, we won't know until the system is created and she's done a trial run." Shia said, agreeing with the engineer. "I'm willing to do it if she agrees after reading through all the information."

"And you?" Tieria asked, looking at Ian.

He sighed. "I'm willing to draw up some designs for the system, but until she says she's willing to go through with it I won't start production."

That was all he needed. "Fine. I'll discuss it with her when the sedatives wear off. Please gather your information accordingly." He replied. As long as he had the grudging agreement of the medic and engineer he could move forward. He nodded curtly to the set of them as he left.

The idea had come to him when he'd watched Reverie beg Allelujah to keep Arios running. Obviously the GN drives had a positive effect on her, to the point where she clung to the war machines when traumatized. The opposite was also true. Being within any close physical proximity of one of the pseudo drives left her screaming in pain and if it was strong enough she could kill the power of the machines, as discovered by the AEU when they'd connected her with one of the red-shooting drives.

What Tieria wanted to do was the opposite. He wanted to connect her to Ptolemy's two GN drives. If she agreed to do that there was the possibility that her abilities could be amplified. They'd be able to sense enemy ships approaching much sooner, and they'd be fighting against enemies who weren't able to access full power. Cowardly though it seemed, if the Gundams were going to be fighting battles like they had four years ago they'd need all the help they could get. Of course, the moral aspect of the possible plan was its major downfall.

They had no idea what it would do to Reverie.

He flicked through the file before him one more time before closing it and stopping in front of the recovering girl's bed.

"Tieria, she's human."

The words of both brothers were in his head as he watched her chest rise and fall. How could two people who were so different chastise him in the same way? Both Neil and his twin had reminded him of something so basic. Something he didn't quite understand. Human. Because she was human he couldn't make decisions for her.

He'd tried to make a decision for a human before. God, how hard he'd tried. His jaw clenched as he thought about how frustrated he'd been when Lockon had refused to stay in the recovery unit. He'd been so angry that he'd wanted to strike him, shake him, and demand to know why he was being so foolish. He couldn't though. Not when the one-eyed Meister had smiled warmly and assured them all that he'd be fine. Of course they were all willing to believe him. Did anyone really believe that someone like him could be taken from them? The one whose smile held enough warmth for all of them?

He'd tried to stop him when he'd locked him out of the hangar. He remembered how the one blue-green eye stared through the glass, determined and angry but still full of understanding.

He'd tried to make a decision for Lockon and he'd failed. Of course he had. Not even the full force of nature could have stopped the Irishman from doing anything he wanted to.

Except staying alive.

Reverie stirred and turned on her side, grabbing at her pillow ferociously and shaking. She was dreaming. Her expression said it wasn't pleasant at all. As he watched her he suddenly felt like he was watching something that he shouldn't have been privy to, like he was spying.

He shook his head to remove the ridiculous thought, then left.

He wouldn't make this decision for her, it wasn't possible. He would make sure she strongly considered it, though. That was the best he could do.

6 a.m. Next Morning

Reverie sighed against the painful protests that her body gave her as she sorted the remaining contents of her meal tray into the various dirty dish stations. She'd woken up an hour earlier, hours after Tieria had basically tranquilized her on the shuttle back from the Katharon base. Her head ached and Shia had informed her that she'd taken a knee to the back of the head. Apparently Tieria hadn't expected the sedative to work so quickly and hadn't been prepared to catch her, leaving Setsuna to stop her from smashing her head off a console. He'd stopped her collision course alright, with an unbelievably hard knee. "Knees are softer than steel consoles." He'd said when they crossed paths in the hallway. She took it as an apology. For Setsuna to bring something like it up out of the blue was out of character, so it must have been his blunt explanation for the throbbing in the back of her head. Regardless of how it had started she wasn't very impressed with it.

She left the cafeteria once the tray was sorted and headed towards her room. She needed a shower and she needed to change into her properly-fitted uniform. The pants that Tieria had made her wear felt strange and uncomfortable. More than that she wanted to put her hair back up in its usual braid…it had been getting in her face for the majority of the day. The ship was starting to stir with the thoughts of those who were just waking up and there was barely anyone else walking the halls. Setsuna seemed to keep strange hours so she hadn't been surprised to cross paths with him, but she hadn't seen anyone other than Michaud, the young, rambunctious chef. She hadn't even seen Tieria, not that she minded terribly.

-They haven't found him yet…God they need to. I can't sleep knowing that he could be hurt somewhere, possibly lost at the bottom of the ocean. What if he's….No! I can't think like that. He'll be fine, he always is…-

Reverie looked up, not entirely sure where the thoughts were coming from. They belonged to Sumeragi, but she couldn't see the forecaster in the immediate area. She stopped and listened, trying to find out where she was exactly.

-always fine, he's always fine. What if he's not this time? Cherudim and Seravee need to check in, if only to keep me sane…-

Wait. Cherudim, Seravee, and Setsuna was on board. Allelujah? The forecaster turned the corner ahead of Reverie and looked up in surprise, not expecting to meet someone else so early.

"Reverie, you're up early." She said. –The sun hasn't even risen yet…-

"My sedatives wore off." She replied. "Is it Allelujah?" she asked. It was too early in the morning to tiptoe around conversations.

Sumeragi bristled and nodded. "Yes. He went missing when we were mixed up in the skirmish with the A-Laws."

The fight with the A-Laws? Right. She'd been knocked out through the whole thing. She'd been knocked out much longer than usual due to Tieria's massive dosage of the sedatives. Of course she couldn't blame him, if they hadn't knocked her out in under a minute he probably would have been the victim of a violent outburst. Even now she could tell that she needed to either beat something or shoot something. Dealing with her stepfather had ensured that. Now Allelujah was missing. Somehow she didn't think that the tension in her shoulders would let up any time soon.

"And Tieria and Lyle are looking for him? What about Setsuna?" She asked.

"He blew Double Oh's drives during the battle, he can't take the Gundam out in such a state." The forecaster replied, tone dropping.

Allelujah. Hallelujah. Both were lost somewhere outside the safe confines of Ptolemy. "How long has it been?" she asked, biting her lip. Did she want to know?

"Just over four hours…" the forecaster said sullenly. Reverie caught a fleeting feeling. Worry? Not standard worry. There was something else. Her head tilted unconsciously as she looked at the woman.

"You're worried about him." She said, buying time to pinpoint exactly what she'd seen. Guilt? Sadness?

-Both of them-

So she knew. Of course she did, why would that be surprising? Sumeragi probably even knew things about her that she thought had been carefully hidden away. "You're worried about Hallelujah?" she asked.

The woman bit her lip but shook her head. "No. I know that Hallelujah will be fine, even cramped away in Allelujah's mind." Mourning. That's what it was. What was she mourning? A flash of Allelujah's face appeared in Reverie's mind. No, not Allelujah. Wild hair, a golden eye, and a grin that most definitely didn't belong to her gentle friend.

-Hallelujah…-

"I'm sure they'll find him soon. Allelujah's not known for being weak." Sumeragi said lightly. Reverie knew better than to believe it, her eyes weren't smiling with her lips. Hallelujah was someone important to her. Important and destructive. Of course, Sumeragi was known for her dedication to a destructive lifestyle, but Hallelujah?

"I hope you're right." Reverie replied, matching the woman's smile. She wouldn't question her on it and she wouldn't breathe a word. She couldn't stop herself from wondering though…did Allelujah know? She mentally shrugged the thought away, another, more urgent one replacing it. "I hope it isn't out of my place to ask…" she began. Sumeragi looked at her with startled, almost scared eyes."

-Don't ask…don't ask about it. Please don't ask about Hallelu-!

"I watched a dream when I was unconscious…it was about the AEU's friendly fire incident…" she said, intentionally cutting off Sumeragi's thought. She didn't want any more confirmation of her suspicions. "…was that your nightmare that I watched?"

The woman sighed in what Reverie could only describe as relief. "…It was my reality." She said, there was almost a laugh at the end of her statement. Not a laugh of happiness though, a laugh that found its roots deep in cynicism and disbelief.

"I'm sorry." Reverie replied, looking away from her. If what she'd seen and felt in the dream was true, she could understand where the forecaster's guilt had come from. Her destructive activities were her form of atonement. She felt like living happily would be an insult to the people she'd put in the ground. More specifically, the person. Emilio. The name suddenly had importance for Reverie as well.

Sumeragi chuckled. "Well, I can't blame you for picking up on things unconsciously." She said, taking on a jovial demeanor that was intended to shift the conversation. "I'd go crazy if I had to listen to all the secrets on board…" Reverie could almost see the forecaster's emotional walls going up.

"You have no idea." She muttered. "Especially with the characters on board…"

Sumeragi was about to say something, then tilted her head. "If you ever want to vent, my door is open."

Reverie smiled. "You sure? I'll probably take you up on it. I have to warn you, I can rant forever…" she cautioned.

"Well, I'll make sure to have a stockpile of booze, then." The woman joked. "I'd love to keep chatting, but I'm off to the bridge." She said, almost apologizing for escaping from their heavy, impromptu heart-to-heart.

"I should probably shower anyways. Don't get too close…I smell like a sandstorm."

That made the forecaster's eyes glint with humour. "I'll see you after that. We'll need you on the bridge anyways."

"Got it." Reverie nodded as the woman made her way down the hall. She watched her disappear around a corner and she sighed. There was an entire library of secrets stored in the heads of the Ptolemaios' crew. From the forecaster's unspoken destructive relationship to Lyle's working for Katharon, to Setsuna's familial slaughter. Somehow though they all managed to work together. They were all broken enough to have a silent understanding that those secrets would be shared only with permission, and only in amounts that suited the sharer. It was an agreement that Reverie understood, and one that she was willing to follow. She'd follow it because she didn't have to divulge secrets of her own, no matter how miniscule they seemed when compared to the others. She'd keep their secrets, and she'd revel in the small victory that sounded in her every time one of them was shared.

She'd be the silent keeper of their secrets.

She already was.

Bonus Mini-Story!

Tieria held the syringe carefully in his hand. Reverie had been almost violently refusing to be sedated and it was infuriating. As the gunner for Ptolemy, she had to be well rested and ready to go at all times. She was neither at the moment, and it would significantly decrease operating efficiency if she was exhausted. He watched the dirt-smudged brunette board and take her standing position by the window. For whatever reason she didn't seem to like sitting in the small ship. Regardless, she would be sitting after he slipped her the drug.

He nodded to Allelujah as he let the shuttle lift off and he cast a curious glance at Setsuna, who had been watching him intently ever since the Syringe had been hidden in his gloved hand. Somehow the Meister knew.

"Reverie Traum, are you going to sit?" he asked, looking at her incredulously.

"I don't see the point." she replied curtly. She was obviously still upset with him, but he wasn't bothered. He joined her at the window.

"What are you looking at?" he questioned.

"Nothing in particular." she said, disinterested. She didn't even look at him to respond. Well, she wouldn't bother noticing his next move, then.

He froze for a moment before raising his hand quickly and stabbing her with the syringe in the soft tissue just above the left side of her collarbone. Her head whipped around as he pressed the plunger of the antiquated medical device and withdrew it. He'd have to endure a few minutes of her anger before she passed out, but he was willing to deal with it.

"Tieria, what the hell did...you...do to..."

Her eyelids slowly closed and she stood, swooning for a long moment. What!? How had they acted so fast!? Had he used too much? According to his data he'd used just enough for her body size! He watched in mortified terror as she slowly leaned backwards and-!

"Tieria!" Setsuna's sharp voice caught him as a flash of blue shot under the falling woman and a resounding crunch was heard in the small shuttle.

Allelujah's head spun to look at the scene but Tieria didn't bother to give an explanation. Her head had smashed into Setsuna's well-placed knee and she was most definitely unconscious.

"Tieria Erde, what have you done!?" Setsuna asked in a more demanding tone than normal. Somehow he still managed to look as calm as ever as the woman slumped to the ground. He shot up from the ground and yanked the wall-mounted spinal board from its resting place.

"She wasn't agreeing to sleep, and that isn't beneficial to the furthering of our-!"

"Did you drug her!?" Saji Crossroad's voice interrupted the bickering, panicking Meisters.

"Of course I did! She wasn't listening!" Tieria snapped at the civilian.

"You can't do that to people, Tieria!" he scolded, leaving his seat and kneeling beside the woman, helping Setsuna set up the spine-stabilizing device.

"I don't see why not. She obviously couldn't be trusted to make the decision for herself." Tieria stated simply, crossing his arms as though it would end the discussion.

"Do you know what kind of people drug women!?" Saji demanded, glaring daggers at the purple-clad Meister.

"Ones that strive for efficiency, I'd imagine." he mused as the other two men shifted the girl onto the solid board.

"S-sexual predators!" Saji exclaimed, stumbling over the first word.

That made Tieria's face change to insulted shock, a flushed red color seeping into his cheeks. "I would never do something like that!" he exclaimed, gesturing with his hands as though it would further prove his point.

"Oh really?" Saji asked, raising an eyebrow that was intended to insult the Meister more than it was to implicate him.

"Tieria Erde would not do something like that." Setsuna agreed in an even tone as he tightened the neck-supporting straps of the device.

"See? Setsuna knows." Tieria said, crossing his arms again.

"And how do you know?" Saji asked, not really sure why he was still debating Tieria's possible moonlighting as a rapist. It was obvious that he wasn't the type.

"Because Tieria would have to like women to do that." Setsuna replied.

There was an awkward silence between the three of them before Tieria simply huffed and stalked away, taking a seat next to Allelujah who sent him a curious glance before returning to piloting the shuttle.

Not another word was said for the rest of the trip.

AN: I hope you liked the mini-story, I couldn't help myself. I might do a few more here and there if I find little areas to work with them. Gundam Series are always so heavy, but I imagine that there must be funny things that happen when they're not busy saving the world. Come on, with that group, there must be.