Kaito Endari grinned, only a touch of static crossing the image of his face as his child watched. "You know you can't come up here with me, Dannie. Your mom needs you down there anyway. What if the town gets attacked, like it did last time, hmm?"

Dannie frowned. "Dad, you know you've taught her enough to be able to take care of herself. I want to be up there with you, making a difference. Not sitting on my butt, watching the army and the Gundams get all the action."

"Now Dannie,"

Dannie cut him off. "I don't even care if I have to work for the army, I want to fight!"

"You know your suit isn't finished yet." Kaito shook his head, holding up a hand to keep Dannie quiet. "And it's been arranged so that, in a month, you'll be off helping that old man on his ship. But until then, you need to sit tight, and just make sure you take care of the house."

A woman's scream cut through the momentary silence between parent and child. "Danielle!"

Kaito jumped out of his seat, almost as if trying to leap through the screen that separated him from his house. "Jessica!"

Dannie bolted out of the room. In the next room, Jessica was pinned under a collapsed wall. Dannie ran forward, reaching out to help. "Mother!" Before anything could be accomplished, Dannie was lifted from the house by the hand of a mobile suit.

"Mother!" Dannie sat bolt upright in his bed in the infirmary, arms outstretched in an attempt to help his mother, years dead beneath that collapsed wall. Eyes wide, the last few bits of the dream memory still obscured his vision. There was someone there, in a chair beside the bed. Dannie felt the sheet slip from his chest, through the fog that clouded his senses. Something was wrong with that, but Dannie couldn't think of what it could be.

As the form in the chair beside the bed came into focus, so did that thought. Quatre was sitting there, mouth hanging open and face turning red at the sight of Dannie suddenly awake, and sitting up without any covering. In a scrambled motion, Dannie pulled the sheet up over their chest, pulling their knees up as well to make sure it better stayed put.

Quatre worked his mouth in silence, overcoming his shock enough to close his eyes. "You...You...I...but..." He shook his head, putting a hand over his eyes, shaking his head.

Dannie uttered a single word. "Danielle."

Quatre spent almost a full five minutes trying to regain his composure. Finally, he opened his eyes again and asked, "Why?"

"I didn't want you to think I was less capable. Well, not you. You have so many sisters I know you can't be as prejudiced as the others." Dannie was rambling, but didn't care. "But...they'd start doing stupid things to keep me from getting hit in battle, and we'd never get anything done." Trowa walked in, to check on both Quatre and Dannie, but the newer pilot didn't even notice. "It was necessary. You all would have taken much more damage than you had if you had known, during the last battle. I brought the matter up, and then I was ordered to do what I had been planning to do anyway, so I couldn't change my mind." Dannie was beginning to get angry at this point. "Howard had been told to keep me isolated if I was injured severely enough to end up here, but apparently he didn't. He must have set this up, let you come in here. He was against the idea from the start. He thought it would just be more trouble when you found out, but..."

Trowa, now thoroughly confused, finally spoke up. "When we found out what?"

Dannie turned to him, and then promptly lay down and pulled the sheet over her head. "Nothing."

"The way you were talking, It can't be 'nothing.'"

Quatre frowned. "It's just that, you see, Dannie is..."

Dannie cut him off from her place under the sheets. "Quatre, don't. Like I said, it will just get everyone all worked up. If you don't say anything, nothing will change, and no one will get hurt more than they have to."

"But you will get hurt more than you have to." Quatre tried to argue.

"Don't even get like that. With all your sisters, I know you know what women are capable of. You don't think that, given training like Heero had, one of them couldn't be up here working with us right now?" Dannie pulled the sheet to her shoulders in order to scowl at the blonde.

Trowa looked around, from Quatre's concerned eyes to those of Dannie. Then he scanned the room to see if anyone else was in hearing range. There was no one. "You know, Dannie, that with all the yelling you've been doing, it isn't hard for me to guess what it is what you are trying to hide. I can assure you that, one way or another, Duo and Heero will found out for themselves eventually. Even without one of us slipping. Duo knows you're odd, different from us. He's determined to find out why. As for WuFei, I don't know if he will care enough to know if he isn't told. But he would find out from the other two. It's no use hiding it anymore."

Dannie continued to glare, now changing her target to Trowa. She couldn't fight his logic, she knew as well as he did that she couldn't argue. "Fine. Whatever. I'll bring it up at breakfast tomorrow. I should be eating with you again by then."

"So soon? Are you sure you'll be alright?" Quatre was genuinely concerned. "They say you've bruised half your ribs, and you have a minor concussion."

"I'm sure." She frowned, looking around for the ace bandages that would have saved her from this whole mess. They weren't anywhere to be found. "And could you do me a favor?"

Quatre nodded. "Sure, if I can."

"Make sure the med staff gives me back my ace bandages. Or at least some ace bandages. I'm going to need them." Dannie sighed, turning to lay on her side. "But for now, I'm going back to sleep. I need the rest."

"Of course. I'll see that they are returned to you." Quatre smiled.

Dannie found herself asleep once more before the pair were even out of the room.

Duo threw himself into his chair, nearly tipping over backwards in the process. He didn't care though. Letting his elbows crash down onto the table, his chin met his palms. As Heero turned to look at him, the American let his face slide until his hands were covering his eyes.

"Something wrong?" Quatre asked, as he set a bowl of soup in front of the agitated man.

"Yeah, but I can't figure out what." Frowning, Duo removed his face from his hands. "It's really been buggin' me," he said, taking a spoon and chopping absently at the vegetable chunks with it, "about Dannie, I mean. There's something weird about him..." He shook his head, braid waving around behind him. "I just can't figure out what it is, and it's driving me crazy."

"I have a feeling you'll find out soon enough." Trowa said absently, not paying much attention to anything.

"How's he doing, anyway?" Duo asked, turning to the blonde sitting beside him.

"Dannie's doing alright." Frowning slightly, Quatre paid more attention to his words than one would think necessary. "He thinks he'll be back with us for breakfast tomorrow. Although he looks to badly hurt for that...but who am I to judge?"

"You've seen plenty of injury, Quatre. I would trust your judgment." Wufei sat down with his own bowl of soup, though by the way he was looking at it, one could tell that he was not particularly interested in it.

"Like Duo says, she's odd." Quatre shrugged. He then realized his slip up, and clamped his mouth shut. Hopefully they wouldn't notice.

Quatre, however, was out of luck. In this group, it was hard for anything out of the ordinary to go unnoticed.

Trowa glanced at his blonde friend, but it was Wufei who spoke. "Did you say 'she'?"

Under the Asian's gaze, Quatre tried to shrink into nonexistence. He failed. "Um, no...I didn't." To keep from answering further, he filled his mouth with soup.

"He did." Heero said quietly.

"She?" Duo seemed the most startled by the slip out of everyone.

"Let Dannie explain over breakfast tomorrow," was all Trowa had to add to the conversation.

Dannie was thrashing around on the bed early the next morning, still trapped in her dream. "Dad, no!" Tangled in the sheet, she managed to thrash right off the bed. Still, her body refused to wake. "Dad! Come back here!" Shivering from the cold of the tiles, she continued to dream. "I don't care about my uncle! You still have to teach me. I need to fight! ...No! No, no, no! I want you to train me, not some old man! I don't care what they say you have to do. They don't control you! NO! LET ME GO!"

Walking by the infirmary on the way to the gym, Heero was surprised by the yelling. Enough so that he went into the room. He saw, on the floor, Dannie thrashing around. Kneeling beside her, he restrained her arms enough to keep her from hurting herself. He was taken back by how strong she was, even in her sleep. He could barely hold her arms by her sides.

"NO! You let go of me! I don't care if I'm your daughter, you have no right to do this!" All of a sudden, her eyes snapped open and she gained consciousness. Looking left and right, she saw her arms restrained, and noticed that she was laying on the floor rather than the bed.

Her violent outburst at an end, Heero let her free and stepped back. He stood silently, watching her.

With a deep intake of breath, Dannie gathered the sheet around her and stood up. The medics had stripped her down to her underwear, and she still hadn't the chance to dress herself again. "Nightmares." She said simply, looking down at the tiles.

"You're strong." Heero said, his own small way of trying to take her mind off of it.

She nodded. "My father..." Hesitating, she shook her head and started again. "Fighting is in my blood. I've been training since I was old enough to know what fighting was."

"Hn..." Heero looked away. He knew what that was like, to some extent.

"You can go now. I'm alright." She looked down at the sheet wrapped around her body, wishing suddenly that the material was thicker.

Heero nodded, and left her alone.

A few minutes later, Dannie was in the middle of getting dressed when the door was nearly knocked down. She had found and donned her pants, and was in the middle of binding her chest with the ace bandages when Duo's voice assaulted her ears.

"Dannie, are you alright? I heard you..." Eyes bugging out once he realized what he was seeing, Duo did an about face and slapped a hand over his eyes. "I'm sorry...I must be in the wrong room. I'm dead now, aren't I?"

Dannie sighed, shaking her head at his behavior. Trowa was right. It was inevitable that everyone would find out, no matter what she did. "You have the right room, Duo."

"Do I?" Duo shook his head, careful to keep from looking at her again. He'd had a few bad incidents with accidentally walking in on a woman getting dressed, and he didn't want a repeat of the repercussions.

She finished what she was doing, and pulled her shirt over her head. "You can turn around now."

Duo did as he was told he could, taking his hand down from his face. His head tilted to one side as he looked her over. "You're not going to hit me, are you?"

Dannie shook her head. "Not your fault." She picked her shirt up off the bed, pulling it on as she asked "What were you saying when you came in?"

"I, uh, heard some yelling from down here not to long ago. I can't quite, er, jump through floors with nothing but boxers on so I, ah, took the long way to come check on you...Make sure you weren't in trouble or anything...I guess..." Rubbing the back of his neck with a hand, Duo seemed a bit lost for words.

Dannie frowned, looking around for her hat. It was probably up in her room rather than with her in the med wing, but she looked anyway. Predictably, she found nothing. Lacking her headgear, she was forced to focus on Duo. Something about yelling and boxers...Clearing her head, she tried to explain somewhat. "I was having a...violent dream. Heero came in and woke me up. Nothing worth jumping through floors for." She smirked, seeing if she could agitate him through his surprise.

Duo did seem agitated, but more over something other than her teasing. The braided boy pushed it aside, and let his stomach lead his mind to other things. "Breakfast is probably ready...or at least everyone will be up eating soon. I think our stove is actually working today, so we can make eggs." Duo offered Dannie a haphazard smile.

"Sounds good to me," she replied, and motioned for him to lead the way.

In the kitchen, the gundam pilots were already assembled to meet Duo and Dannie. Wufei was contemplating an omelet in his usual seat a space away from an already fed Heero, who was sitting still as stone, waiting for something. Quatre grinned at the two new arrivals from the stove before turning to prod a pair of fried eggs in his frying pan. Sitting near where Quatre stood, Trowa was waiting patiently for his turn at the stove.

Duo let himself fall into his regular chair, deciding that his stomach could wait ten minutes for eggs. Dannie left the seat next to Trowa for the blonde cook, and sat between Heero and Wufei: the only two in the room who did not yet know the secret she had been ordered to keep. Both sets of eyes turned to her. Shrinking away and keeping silent was not an option; Danielle had some explaining to do.

Trowa moved to replace Quatre at the stove, but was surprised when the Arabian put a plate down in front of him. Duo grinned and all but leapt out of his chair and to the stove. That was another five minutes Dannie didn't have to wait for her turn.

Quatre glanced at Danielle, his way of reassuring her that the sooner she explained things, the easier it would be. She knew that, of course, but simply confirming what the pilots believed could be detrimental to their entire mission. The last thing they needed was to spend a battle protecting her instead of letting her fight.

As Duo's eggs hit the pan with an almost deafening sizzle in the silence, Danielle shook her head. No use stalling any longer. "I suppose I should get around to actually introducing myself to you..." Taking a deep breath, she paused to see that she had everyone's attention.