AN: OMG, longest weekend ever, and longest chapter ever, and most unintentional chapter ever. I ended up somehow partying this whole weekend which is absolutely unheard of for me, and I still made it to my 8:30am class on Friday (I felt extremely victorious, let me tell you). I did undo a lot of the progress I made as far as quitting smoking goes, but I'm determined to not 'backslide' like that again. Curse you Lyle and your smoking scene! *shakes fist*. This chapter unfortunately has little action in it and is mainly a foundation developer, but I hope you'll like it. The next couple of chapters will be action-filled (memento mori, outrunning A-Laws, etc), so I took a 'breather chapter'. I mildly considered taking out the trans-am part but I left it in. Also, I try to imply that time is moving during the story, and in my head Rev has been with CB for probably two to three months at this point.

Thanks to those who reviewed! Lapislazulijavi: yeah, I write when I need to smoke, and the last couple of weeks have been hell. Add onto that the fact that I'm actually really excited about this story and you get an insane update rate. I was too tired to keep up my crazy rate this weekend, though. Stormy: No worries, I've been in a whirlwind this weekend where all my days blended together, and from the sounds of it you're pretty tied up on your end too. I'm so relieved that the explanation made sense. I feel like it makes sense in my head, but when I write it it sounds jumbled, so I do it over and over. Sigh. I underastand the warm and fuzzies :P. Anne: Thanks :D! Yeah, some days I feel like tieria could have single-handedly taken down A-Laws. He's just so damned stubborn and determined, but I'm starting to love it.

I listened to a mix of things for this, mainly photographs -Rihanna and This Love, This Hate, HU.

**I'm quite bad with fluffiness, so please let me know if it was alright. I'm not a fluffy person at all, so I can find it hard to write emotional-ish stuff because I find it hard to deal with. I think that reflects in Rev quite a bit, unfortunately. As we know though, Lyle is capable of being sweet if he puts his mind to it.

Awkward

"It's only awkward if you let it be."

Silvia Donahue

Reverie stood in front of Tieria, listening as he explained the process of testing her Trans-Am abilities. He'd come up with the hair-brained scheme to have her sit on Double-Oh's foot while they tested it with the Oh-Raiser, and somehow she was agreeing. According to him, having her in-contact with a Gundam that was accessing Trans-Am should activate her newfound abilities again.

She didn't care.

Her mind was still reeling over what happened three hours ago. Her mind was on Lyle. He'd stayed with her for half an hour as she brought herself back under control. She'd been embarrassed and apologized over and over again for clinging to him and sobbing over events that had happened eleven years prior. That wasn't what was keeping her mind occupied though. Oh no. She could have kept that out of her mind easily enough. Her mind was reeling because they'd crossed a line.

They'd kissed.

They'd stepped across the boundary of friendship and she wasn't sure what to do about it. Even now as she stood and thought, she didn't know who had moved first, who had parted their lips first, or who had been the first to break away. She'd been completely lost in the moment and she wanted to go back in time and smack herself. She should have known better, no matter what kinds of lust the intimate gesture had evoked.

She wasn't bothered because of the kiss itself, she'd kissed and been kissed, and she had no allusions about it meaning anything concrete. She was bothered because of the feelings that she'd felt from him with her unusual abilities. Nothing like love, thank-god, but she'd felt the sense of worry that he'd had, the relief, and the wanting. He wanted her. She wanted him, too. She didn't want anything specific from him, but she wanted him.

It was dangerous.

"Reverie Traum, are you even paying attention?"

Right. She was listening to Tieria. She nodded quickly and sighed. "Be here in an hour, I'll probably pass out again, I could get hurt. Got it."

Tieria sighed and shook his head, clearly not pleased with her summary of what he'd just said, but not willing to go through it again. "Yes, that's it. Now go eat and come back." He stalked away in a huff, not pleased but clearly having too much to do to deal with her any farther.

That was fine.

She wasn't in the mood to deal with his attitude. She had too much tearing through her mind to deal with him. She left the repair hangar and headed for the cafeteria of the hidden base. She hadn't told Tieria, but she'd eaten before meeting with him, right after Shia had cleared her to return to work. She could use a coffee though, and she could use the time alone to think about what had happened.

The cafeteria was easy to find and Reverie was surprised to see how expansive it was. It had several serving lines for the staff and a sea of tables that had an impressive, almost lonely amount of space between them. Tall television screens stretched all along one wall, presumably meant to feel like windows that looked out into space. She poured her coffee quickly and chose a table that was near one of the gigantic screens. The smell of her coffee filled her nose, a hint of hazelnut in the richly caffeinated scent.

Somehow she found looking at the vast blackness of space comforting. It reminded her that all of her problems, no matter how severe, were tiny in comparison to the universe. It didn't feel that way though. She sipped her drink and let it linger on her tongue as she thought. She'd had the suspicion for quite a while that something would happen between her and Lyle. She'd expected that one day they'd take their flirting too far and wake up tangled in his sheets or hers, bodies aching but satisfied. She hadn't expected this. She hadn't expected to share so much emotion with him, nor had she expected him to stand by her if she made such a display. She knew him quite well through his thoughts and through their conversations, and it was that knowledge which told her that they were far out of both of their comfort zones.

She knew that Lyle didn't have a long history of commitment or attachment. He could be sweet and attentive, but from what he thought of past relationships, she knew those displays weren't necessarily tied to anything. She'd never bothered with relationships. From the time she'd entered the academy she'd devoted all of her time to studying and getting ahead in her career. She'd been with men before of course, but she'd never searched for anything past a casual relationship. She liked the simplicity of casual. There were no promises to break, there was no trust to ruin, and she didn't have to share more than she was willing to. There was just the ease of knowing that needs would be filled. She knew that Lyle would agree, his thoughts told her so. She'd listened to him think about the possibility of them having one of those relationships more than once.

Still.

That kiss hadn't come at a casual time. It hadn't been after a hard days' work or after one teasing comment too many. It had come after she'd cried in his arms for half an hour about a father that had been taken too soon. It was uncomfortable. It was too close, too real. What was even more disturbing was that she hadn't heard the thoughts she'd expected from him. While it was clear that they wanted each other, he hadn't had any explicit lust. He wanted her in a different way. He wanted her to open up, to trust him. It scared her.

"Rev…?"

She was snapped out of her thoughts by the one who was the focus of them. She felt her face flush as though she'd been caught staring at something inappropriate. "Hey." The word was strangely uncomfortable as she looked up at him.

"Can I sit?"

Had he asked at any other time she would have had a witty remark for him, but she just nodded and sipped her coffee again, watching him as though he was a time bomb. He had coffee himself and she noticed that he was gripping it tighter than was necessary. –Where do I begin?-

"Are you feeling better?" he finally asked, his voice thick with tension. His eyes were full of worry and she realized that he was feeling just as awkward as she was.

"What happened earlier?" she asked, not wanting to sit through painful small-talk. She'd never been the type, and she didn't peg Lyle as the type either.

"I don't know." He said.

He couldn't say that. He had to know. One of them had to. She had no idea and she wanted answers and if he didn't have them, who would?

His eyes flicked over her face and she heard him silently curse in his head. "I don't know." He repeated. –I don't Rev. Just accept that.-

"Me neither." She admitted, though she hadn't been asked. She stared at her coffee again, watching a bubble move along the edge of the mug.

"I know what you're thinking, Rev."

That got her attention to focus. "How? You can't-!"

"It's all over your face. It was the wrong time for it to happen."- Too much emotion. I know.-

Damn him. Damn his intelligence and his observance and his focused blue-green eyes. She couldn't talk about it yet. She didn't understand her nervousness enough to confirm or deny what he was saying and she didn't want to sit in silence while he read her like a book. "When did you get so observant?"

"When did you get so defensive?" he countered. The words cut. They were meant to, she realized. This was Lyle after-all…they were similar enough that she knew that dodging his clever observations would annoy him. Still, he sat there, looking relaxed as ever and watching her with careful amusement.

Beep beep!

She looked down at her communication drive. Tieria. "I have to take this, his royal highness calls." She said, masking her annoyance at Lyle's comment.

"Reverie Traum, the timing for the test has been shifted. Be at the hangar in fifteen minutes, it will take half an hour to get you ready."

"Got it." She said, cutting the communication off before Tieria had a chance to antagonize her. She was uncomfortable enough at the moment.

"Testing…?" Lyle questioned, eyes narrowing slightly. –She just woke up from her coma three hours ago, is he serious?-

She nodded. "Ian's testing Double-Oh's connection with the Raiser system, and they're going to be using Trans-Am to balance the systems out. Tieria wants me to be in contact with the Gundam so he can measure my newfound abilities again."

-What!? That purple-haired motherfu-!" He was angry. His eyes didn't try to hide it.

"It's alright, Lyle. I'm fine with it."

"Rev, you just got out of bed three hours ago after being-!"

"In a sixteen-hour coma, I know. This is different though." She took a large sip of her coffee, needing to finish it faster.

"How!?" Apparently he was angrier than she thought.

"Because this is monitored, they know it's going to happen this time, so they can keep a closer eye on me." It really didn't make a difference, but she hoped he'd ignore that fact. He didn't.

"That's bullshit, Rev. Monitored or not it could really hurt you this time." His gaze was unwavering and accusing. She wasn't fooling him.

"I know that and I'm alright with it. We need to figure my abilities out. I need to figure them out."

"At the risk of possibly being badly hurt? You have metal in your brain, Rev. You shouldn't be antagonizing it!" His voice raised. She suddenly realized that he wasn't about to let it go. His posture had lost its calmness.

"So what? I should sit around and do nothing because I might die? Any of us could die, Lyle! Even you! Especially you! I'm safe on the ship with a medic while you're darting around in space and you're going to lecture me about being safe!?"

His jaw tightened. She'd hit the battleship. "That's…different, Rev."

"How?"She was would never be intentionally useless. Not to protect herself, and sure as hell not to protect someone else's feelings. "You're allowed to pilot an eighty-tonne war machine and I have to stay on board and do nothing? That's ridiculous!"She was almost yelling now. She was hurt.

"Cherudim doesn't leave me knocked out for days at a time or writhing in pain on the floor!" he snapped.

"You're right. If something goes wrong with Cherudim, you don't get knocked out for a day. You die! At least I can recover!"

He was silent for a moment and she could feel the anger radiating from him. "You just shouldn't be pushing yourself like this, Rev. It's not good for you."

She downed her coffee and stood. She couldn't listen to any more. Would he have said this yesterday, before comforting her? Did he feel like he had some kind of unspoken right to say whatever he wanted now that their lips had met? She set the cup down much harder than she should have. "This is all I have, Lyle. I've spent the last five years being totally and utterly useless, not able to live a normal life and hating myself for having this weakness. You know what though? It isn't one. It's a strength. One that can help Celestial Being stop people like me from ever being accidentally created again. I can't be useless again! That will kill me faster than any damned head injury, Lyle. Don't ask me to be useless until you're willing to put down your gun."

With that, she stormed away. She put up every mental block that she possibly could to keep his thoughts out and she made a beeline for the repair hangar where Double Oh was being tested. She was seething with anger, but she had the nagging feeling that she'd overreacted. She shoved the feeling down. She could think about it later. Right now she was content to be frustrated.

Frustrated was better than nervous. Being mad at Lyle for worrying about her was…childish. She knew it. Childish and a poor cover for how nervous she was about the amount of emotion she'd shown him earlier. After he'd sat next to her bed for hours, waiting for her to wake up.

She was a horrible person. A childish, nervous, horrible person.

She sighed and stopped at the doors of the repair hangar and looked back down the hall. Did she have enough time to go back and apologize? She glanced at her watch. No, she didn't. Even if she did, what would she say? Could she really go back a few minutes after and say 'Sorry, I let my inner child out again'?

She shook her head and stepped into the hangar. Her apology could wait, at least for a little while.

Lyle stared at the empty coffee cup that sat across from his own. Reverie had never gone off on him like that before, not even when he'd asked her about her family. He hadn't seen it coming at all. She was usually so level headed and even tempered, what had happened?

Had they really changed that much in the course of three hours?

He'd noticed the change immediately after their lips had separated. They'd stared at each other with similar bewilderment before he'd awkwardly stood and she'd awkwardly pulled her uniform jacket on and left, mumbling that she had to find Shia. Something unusual had happened, and they both sensed it. When he'd seen her sitting at the table with her coffee he wanted to see exactly how much had changed. He'd hoped that they'd brush it off and chalk it up to an emotionally charged situation.

That wasn't what happened.

He'd come to realize that she was like him, and for that reason he understood what she was feeling.

Fear.

He knew because he'd felt the same thing when one of his exes had stumbled upon the box of his family's things that was hidden in the bottom of his dorm closet. He'd left her in bed to head to class, returning three hours later to find her sitting on the floor with the contents of the box neatly laid out. He'd been struck by a flash of morbid electricity when he saw her looking through the various pictures and items, and she'd looked up at him with eyes full of sad comfort. He remembered holding in the crash of anger that had enveloped him, and he remembered telling her to leave when she'd wrapped comforting arms around him. She'd insisted on staying, pleading with him to open up to her, but there was no way he could. Sylvie was gorgeous and smart, but she wasn't meant to be close to him. He'd known that since the moment they'd first spoken. He never had the intention of opening up to her, so seeing her holding Amy's tiny teddy bear and his father's wallet was enough to make his stomach churn in fear. That was when she'd become an ex.

Was that what Reverie was feeling?

Could it have been that she'd never intended to let him get close to her? It wasn't a ridiculous thought. She didn't willingly volunteer information about herself to anyone, and he'd more than once gotten the impression that she was careful to avoid certain topics unless asked. Had he intended to start caring about her? Not at all. Their friendship had started because she was the only one on-board Ptolemy who didn't see his brother in him and who was nearly his age. The fact that he wanted to sleep with her helped quite a bit, too. Over the course of their time he'd actually become a genuine participant in their friendship, though. That had changed a lot.

So where had the kiss come from?

He had no idea. All he remembered was comforting her one second, and tasting her tongue the next. He felt strange and uncomfortable now, but at the time he'd felt neither feeling. It was definitely at the wrong time, in the wrong context, and neither of them seemed to know how to deal with it.

He sighed.

"Are you alright?"

"hm?" A female voice.

"I couldn't help but notice that you've been sighing a lot." She said. She was tall, almost as tall as Reverie if not the same height. Her hair was a strange, light lavender and her eyes an unnervingly pretty crimson that he'd only seen on Tieria.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He lied, sitting up and resuming a casual position. "Just a long couple of days." That was true.

"Can I sit here?" she asked, motioning to the seat Reverie had been filling minutes before. He nodded and moved Reverie's cup. He needed a distraction. Anything. A conversation with a stranger seemed like as good a choice as any. She was strangely beautiful, and her face was inexplicably kind. They must have looked like night and day. "I'm Anew." She said, extending a gloved hand. "Anew Returner."

"Lockon Stratos." He said, grinning and extending his own. "It's a pleasure, Ms. Returner."

A distraction. Someone who didn't know him, who couldn't hear his thoughts, and who hopefully didn't know his brother.

Just what he needed at the moment.

"Do you have any questions about the system?"

Marie shook her head. Tieria had explained the system in exacting detail, and if it hadn't been for her remarkable patience she would have gone crazy listening. Reverie was sitting quietly on Double-Oh's foot as thought it was a daybed, once again covered in electrodes and not looking very impressed with Tieria's fussing. "I'll be fine." Marie said, reassuring the Meister.

He nodded. "Good. This program is a copy of the one that will be used on-board Ptolemy, so please be delicate with it."

She nodded and he turned around, looking between Reverie and Shia, the medic. "Are there any remaining questions about the procedure?"

The two of them looked at each other before looking back at Tieria and shaking their heads. "No." Reverie confirmed. Marie was worried about her. She'd been uncharacteristically silent and she looked sad, almost embarrassed. Marie made a mental note to ask her about it later.

Tieria gave a thumbs-up to the control room and Marie saw Ian Vashti nod and disappear, presumably to his seat.

She looked up as Double-Oh's drive started to hum and spit out dancing green particles. She looked at the screen in front of her. Reverie's body was reacting remarkably well to the GN Drive, and as she watched the brunette she thought she could almost hear her humming over the noise of the Gundam. Marie had read the woman's file. She had to, she was going to be monitoring her while she used Tieria's mystery system. From what she could see the file had been right, the brunette found incredible relief when around the green-shooting drives. Her blood pressure had lowered within the last minute, her heartbeat had slowed to a normal range, and the levels of oxygen in her blood showed that her lungs were working with remarkable clarity. Even Soma commented on her relaxed quantum brainwaves.

Did Gundams really hold so much power?

"Now initiating Trans-Am"

Setsuna's voice rang through Marie's earpiece. She'd now be able to hear all of the Meisters whenever she wore it, along with Sumeragi and the bridge. She was a living network hub for the girl in front of her, relaying information this-way and that.

Various patches of the Gundam turned the brilliant coral-pink of Trans-Am until the color covered the surface of the giant suit. Marie turned all her focus to Reverie. At first she stayed relaxed, laying back and looking up at the war machine. Seconds later her head snapped forward. The same patch of her scalp was glowing, it looked like her skull was cracking and releasing the brilliant light.

Her words came in an insanely fast stream.

"Topological defect shifting to higher level, Increase in particle generation and emission rates. It's passing the normal hundred and eighty percent…"

Her eyes were focused on an imaginary point that Marie couldn't see. The words were spilling from her mouth almost as though she were a talking doll, it was clear that she wasn't consciously present in front of them.

"Her body temperature has increased two degrees!" Shia, the medic, said in a panic. "Administering three miligrams of quatrazine!"

"…Double-Oh about to exceed theoretical limit." Reverie said, then suddenly her words stopped and her eyes grew wide. "Satellite weapon attack struck Kingdom of Suille approximately thirty seconds ago. Relay point appears to be lower orbital ring, approximate geographical location of-!"

Cold.

Ice cold.

Marie couldn't hear the brunette anymore, something happened. "Colonel!"

He was standing in front of a blinding white light. It was ominous and evil, and he shouldn't have been so close. She could hear Soma screaming, protesting, and she felt Soma take over, pushing her back into the back of her own mind. "Colonel! Get away from there! Run Colonel!"

She fell to one knee and held her head.

Then it stopped. "What?"

"Ms. Parfacy, are you alright?" A strong hand on her shoulder helped her back to her feet. Shia, the medic. He was staring wide-eyed at her.

"I….um…" She shook her head to clear her thoughts, Soma having retreated again. "I'm fine." She concluded. Shia didn't stay to respond, but had already darted to the Gundam's foot and the figure that was still lying there.

Right. She was supposed to be monitoring Reverie. She could consult with the medic afterwards. She was fine, Reverie most likely wasn't.

What had happened? She didn't know. She looked at the screen in front of her. The brunette's heartbeat was erratic, her temperature was high, and her muscles were sending involuntary signals, but she was awake. That was an improvement on last time.

Marie logged the information quickly and sent the reports to Tieria before darting over to the girl and helping Shia support her.

"I'm fine." Reverie weakly protested, trying to shake the older man off and stand on her own.

"Oh really?" he asked, raising an eyebrow in a gesture that Marie hadn't really come to understand. "Well then, you won't mind helping an old man walk." He quipped.

"Let me walk on my own, Shia." Reverie growled as Marie pulled off the electrodes that were still stuck to her.

"You sure?" he asked in disbelief.

"Of course I'm sure. I've been practicing this walking thing for twenty-four years." She said, still weakly trying to push away from him. Marie could feel her tremble and she realized it was a bad idea.

"If you say so." He said, letting go and raising his arms in surrender.

Marie stepped back as Reverie took one teetering step, then another, then crumpled. She cursed and pressed her forehead to the ground, her chest and back shaking as she took in a few deep breaths.

"Are you done?" Shia asked, looking down at the woman. She huffed and nodded, extending an arm up towards him. "Marie, I'm gonna take her to the infirmary. Can you clean up the equipment?"

She nodded.

As he pulled Reverie up and helped her walk again, Marie concluded that she was a strange person. Anyone who could go from humming to spouting knowledge to arguing with a medic when they were definitely in need of one was strange.

Marie liked it.

So did Soma.

Although Soma was too busy worrying about the colonel to admit it.

After another four hours in the infirmary, Reverie was convinced that she never wanted to see the inside of the damned place again. She was in there so often that Shia didn't bother having one of the female staff change her into the standard gown and geriatric slippers, they just took off her jacket and boots and that was it. If she was smart she'd start leaving her toothbrush there…she barely saw the inside of her room anymore, after-all.

She made her way through the halls of the ship and back out into the hidden base. She wasn't sure why Shia had brought her back to Ptolemy instead of taking her to the massive infirmary in the resource satellite. Maybe he liked the empty ship better, or maybe he wanted to antagonize her by making her walk farther. Either was a good guess.

Regardless, it made finding Lyle harder.

She needed to apologize. She picked through the thought-voices in her head, dropping in on random conversations and trying to find his all-too-familiar accented thoughts.

She flinched as she heard Hallelujah, her anger temporarily flaring, then dissipating. She didn't know what she was supposed to feel towards Allelujah's violent alter-ego. She'd always found him morbidly entertaining to listen to, but she couldn't passively listen to him now, she found. Hearing his babbling insane thoughts in her mind was setting her on edge. Shia had shared an interesting piece of information with her when she'd accessed Trans-Am.

Hallelujah had done this to her.

Well, accidentally. Still though, he was the reason for everything that had happened in the last five years. Her head injury, the testing with the AEU, her fights with her family, her insomnia and numerous overdoses. Her joining Celestial Being.

Hallelujah was behind all of it.

She listened to him mutter about wanting to slit so-and-so's throat for taking too long in the lunch line and she shivered, pushing him out of her head. She didn't know what to do about her newfound knowledge.

She gave up trying to find Lyle. There were too many voices in her head and she was too tired and sore to really pick through them like normal. She wasn't really sure what she'd say if she found him, either. Sorry would be a good place to start, but she wasn't sure what to say after that.

She sighed and turned around, deciding to head for the range. She'd be alone there, and hopefully the sound of her shots would block out some of the mindless humming thoughts that she was picking up. She had more than enough frustration to release to justify her choice. She tried to drown out the thoughts of at least those near her until she could get to her destination.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she opened the door to the range. It was pitch black, empty. "Lights, activate."

Nothing.

Right. The power to unnecessary systems had been shut down until Ptolemy's repairs could be finished. She sighed and started to feel along the wall for the manual switch for the light system, finding it after a few unsuccessful searches and flicking it on.

She breathed a sigh of relief again when she realized that she was really alone. She needed the space to think about exactly how she was going to word her apology, and to think about how she felt about what she'd learned about the Taklamakan incident.

She looked at the pistol stand but decided against it. She hadn't reached that lesson yet, and she wanted to improve her consistency before moving on. So far they'd dealt with the rifle standing, kneeling, and laying prone, as well as two types of firing for semi-automatic weapons. Lyle had started teaching her the proper stances for pistol firing, but she didn't want to develop bad habits while on her own. She'd stick to the antique rifle that she'd come to love and work on her breathing and trigger control.

She laid out the box of ammunition, the rifle, her protective gear, and pulled on the gloves that Lyle had chosen for her. She slid into position, checking her angles and making sure that she was lined up with her firing arc, then slipped her headgear on and loaded.

The butt of the rifle was cold as it sat in the crook of her shoulder, held firmly in place to avoid the bruise that she'd had after her first lesson. She inhaled deeply, then slowly cut back until she felt like she needed no air at all.

The room was completely silent as she steadily pulled the trigger back. Slowly, slowly, slowly, keeping focused and still as a statue. The crack of the shot filled her ears and she stayed still, not moving until the shot had sunk into the target downrange. She exhaled.

"Your breathing is getting better every day."

She snapped around to find Lyle leaning in the doorway, careful to keep the muzzle of the rifle downrange. He held a cigarette loosely in his lips, and somehow the playful look that his eyes normally held had returned.

'Much better! Much better!' Haro agreed, bouncing into the room.

"Little man, do you even understand breathing?" she asked the little bot as it rolled towards her, stopping a foot away.

'Understand! Understand!' it said, a little indignantly.

She patted him and stood, picking up the ammo as Lyle watched her. "What brings you here?" she asked. Somehow she couldn't feel awkward around him when at the range. It had too many good memories. Laughing, teasing each other, tension that made suggestions that both of them kept quiet about.

"Same thing as you, I guess. I needed to get away for a while."

She set the ammo on the table, away from where Haro could knock it over. "I can leave if you want to be alone for a while."

"What fun is the range without my range buddy?" he asked, clicking his tongue, cigarette now in-hand. -What would that accomplish?- she heard him wonder. "Besides, we need to talk."

"That sounds promising." She quipped, not really sure if she was sarcastic or scared. She saw the look of annoyance that flashed over his face and she kicked herself. "I'm sorry." She sighed. "I'm just not very good at this."

He flicked the tip off his cigarette and tossed the butt in the garbage, finally stepping into the range and letting the door close. "Good at what?" he asked, stepping past her and leaning against the desk. She could look him in the face, it was strange.

"Apologizing." She could feel herself blush and she looked away, down at Haro. "I'm sorry for earlier. I shouldn't have lost it like that. Either time."

'Rev feels silly! Rev feels silly!' Haro interjected, flapping his 'ears'. The little robot was more perceptive than she'd realized.

"You taught him my nickname?" she asked, tilting her head. It was far off-topic, but she was curious.

Lyle shook his head. "He picked that up all on his own. He's a smart little guy." He watched her curiously, as though she was about to do something interesting. "I'm sorry too, Rev."

She tilted her head. She hadn't expected that. "What do you have to be sorry for?"

"It takes two to make a kiss work like that." He quipped more than said.

"And only one person to make it awkward." She pointed out. "and I think that was me."

"Why?" His blue-green eyes were searching, of course he wouldn't know anything about her history of unemotional relationships. He couldn't read her mind.

She swallowed and sat next to him, not wanting to lock eyes. "I don't deal well with emotion…not when it's me leaning on someone else, anyways. I can deal with shock, fear, and anger, but not that kind of sadness." She paused. "I've never let myself be comforted about my father before…I've never really told anyone before…not friends or lovers or coworkers. No one. Just you. I don't know how to deal with that. Then we kissed and I didn't know what to do about that either."

Lyle nodded, but she was relieved when he didn't say anything.

"This will make me sound much less respectable than I'd like to think I am, but I don' t get involved with people that care about me in that way…" she paused again. "I never have. I don't know how to deal with it."

"Do you want me to care?" he asked, meeting her surprised look.

That was a hard question, but she knew that she couldn't tell him not to. Why did she have such a hard time with people caring about that part of her? Was it because it made her vulnerable? Because it showed that she was human? Her overdoses and depressive state when she couldn't sleep were one thing. That was conditional. Her feelings about her family…they were integral to her. As integral as she imagined Lyle's family's deaths were to him. "That depends. Why do you care?"

He didn't respond for a long time. He was thinking, examining. She put all of her effort into blocking him out, wanting to give him the benefit of a well-weighted response this time. She wanted to hear what he wanted to say instead of the pieces that lead to it. "because you know what it's like to stand on the other side of the glass. You know what it's like to sit and watch those around you be fake, lie, say that you're really the one they wanted to see. You aren't one of the people on the other side." He exhaled, looking away from her. -You're the other island in the sea.-

She'd heard him think about the island frequently, about the cloud-brother, the broken-bottle family, and the currents that pulled this-way and that. Lyle. L'isle. The island. "When you look at me, I know that you aren't disappointed. You don't look away or stare at me with sadness. I'm not a painful reminder to you…you're happy to see me. I care because you see me."

She was silent, then a smile tugged at her lips. "I see you."

"Too much emotion again, right?" he asked, eyes laughing as he looked at her sideways.

She raised an eyebrow, she could feel her grin start. "I don't see any tears, so I think we're good. There haven't been any inappropriate comments yet though, that's a warning sign."

"We'll work on that." He said, his grin matching hers.

They stared at each other silently for a moment until Reverie slipped past him. "Now, teach me my firing stances, Instructor Dylandy."

"Keep bossing me around and you'll need to do an extra-credit assignment…" he warned, leaving the table to shed his uniform jacket and stand in front of her. Neither could hide their grins.

Just like that, somehow, they'd returned to normal.

Or so she hoped.