Mmm...didn't plan to update this for a while but it came to me today during my 'study of the history and culture of war' class so...yep. Chapter 1.

Okie, to answer a few questions:

1: This is definitely AU.

2: The war is set in the future, a projected year of new time S.S. 293. You will find out what S.S means in another chapter, possibly the next one though I won't get ahead of myself and promise anything. Suffice to say, people are living on earth and in space now, science has found a way—we knew it was gonna happen someday, right?

3: The war is convoluted as all wars seem to be for one reason or another but this one will be somewhat melodramatic probably, since all my stories seem to go off that deep end. It might not be a bad thing though, just not very realistic. I've never been in a war after all.

4: Chapters will probably be shorter, but then again some might be my usual length—longer—so to be safe, I'd say they will definitely vary, but I'll try to keep them long enough to be worth the read. You know?

5: More characters will show up from the original cast, my favorite villain included, but I don't want to say anything else for fear of giving away too much. I probably did that already anyway. Oy.

Okay that done, wow: thank you all so much for the reviews. They really surprised me and made my day whenever I got to read a new one so thank you. I can't seem to get anywhere in my major—my writing sucks there, writing for plays and screenplays...you know the sob story, no one likes my work, in fact they hate it, blah, blah, blah...you know, that sort of thing.

So it's nice to have this as an outlet and know that some people somewhere out there like some of what I do and by letting me know that, you encourage me to keep on writing. So super thank you.

This chapter dedicated to: castle in the air, this chapter's yours hon...thanks for your everything

Without You

Chapter 1: In which you follow me

It was the second week and the last free seven days the lot of us would see for most of the year—all of it, if the war came on sooner. Lunch on Tuesday was lunch on Tuesday and I sat as far from anyone else as possible. But this was normal and things might have continued as expected had she not decided to take lunch at the same time.

I was aware of everyone else watching her even as I was of myself doing the same.

According to the posted scores, she'd made it into the advanced classes.

I'm not sure how.

What kind of background could she possibly have to know all the things she must have demonstrated proficiency in?

What kind of person did you have to be?

My mind shook with cold laughter. What kind of person? Someone like you, it said to me and my jaw clenched. Whatever, that tells me nothing about her, I said to it and it quieted as it was replaced by the solid footsteps of the peer of my thoughts.

Whispers came on the dull heeled boots as she neared. Didn't she know? Hadn't she heard? I wasn't just another kid here from the pits of the city or the hills of a destroyed countryside. I wasn't just someone else. I was the military's prodigy, their favorite.

Slade's favorite.

And I had secrets, lots of them.

Hadn't she heard?

"Everyone else is too loud," she said to me as she sat across the otherwise empty table, pulled out one of the battle strategy texts assigned to us and promptly bit into an apple as she scanned page after page.

"There isn't a rule that says you have to eat in the canteen," I pointed out coldly.

I think she was ignoring me by the way she kept on biting into that damn apple, but I couldn't be sure. Maybe I hadn't spoken loud enough and to be fair, it was very noisy in the cafeteria.

"You could easily take your meal elsewhere without repercussions," I tried again and this time I was sure of it. She was ignoring me. My eyes narrowed behind the mask that covered them so solicitously and I was about to speak again but she chose that moment to glance up from her reading and lock me into a stare that demanded silence. Her eyes were strange, almost violet.

I'd heard of violet eyes before.

But I couldn't remember where from.

I dismissed it as trivial facts, fool that I was.

"I heard you the first time," was what she said as she placed the core of the apple on a napkin to her right.

"Your lack of reaction suggested otherwise," I replied, nonplussed.

"I'm not asking you to be sociable, just to share a table," she paused and then added, "Robin."

"You are new here. You probably do not know," I began.

"Know that you're considered the invaluable lapdog to the commander or that you're the top student here who likes to keep a low profile that has a habit of only getting higher regardless of your efforts? Or something else maybe?" she inquired, unimpressed, eyes boring into me like two well-trained missiles.

And for the first time in a long time I felt trapped.

"Know that I covet my space," I retorted, angry at being caught off guard by her awareness and angrier at her candor.

She did not know me.

And I certainly did not want to know her.

So why couldn't she just—

"Of course," she said, eyes never losing that disconcertingly pensive depth as she wrapped the apple core in its napkin and shut her battle manual before swinging her legs over the table's bench to stand and leave. There was no indication of mockery in her tone but I felt there was something more there all the same. That hunch served nearly useless as I had no idea what that 'something more' might have been and it occurred to me as I watched her leave through my peripheral vision that one of the things that bothered me about her was that she was doing what I'd given up hope on anyone doing for a long time now.

She was treating me like any other person.

And I frowned as I realized that was the second time she'd thrown me off in scarce more than two weeks. Some part of me mocked that I was losing my edge and I quickly buried the very idea beneath an unhealthy amount of necessary arrogance.

You can't afford to be surprised anymore, I said to myself. You're not just anyone. Not anymore.

Of course like I said it'd been a long time since I'd last felt the desire to be able to blend in so it didn't take more than a few sentences of self-persuasion these days. Now the mask wasn't a sore thumb to be pointed out but a beacon of pride for me. If they thought I was the so-called prodigy, then fine. I would be that prodigy, wear the mask that kept the real me from ever even existing.

I'd planned on it anyway before coming here, if not in the same way.

Being the best was not a new notion in my own mind at the very least and the concept of 'the perfect soldier' was not so impossibly raised on a pedestal as to be unreachable.

And I'd been reaching for three years, four at the end of this term, and I could taste the proximity of my goal being attained like I could taste the metallic blood in my mouth whenever a test-mission got particularly sketchy or a combat simulation went awry.

It was rather like blood actually: practically a life force unto itself, coursing through me, consuming and providing for me, driving me, sustaining me...and the shadow in my mind whispered of the staining it would eventually do as well.

But I couldn't think about that...not yet. And for now, all this—the training, the grayness of morals, the inevitable death—was nothing more than a means to an end.

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"You're overstepping," she criticized.

God must have had it in for me.

We'd gotten matched up again...somehow.

"You're mistaken," I said and from the corner of my eye I could see the fire that ran in her cheeks at my reply.

"You can't ever admit you're wrong," she observed, a slight pout to her lip that she'd have to get rid of someday soon if she wanted to be a soldier.

"It's hardly a matter of right or wrong," I said as we moved a little closer to our approximate goal line. It was a strange exercise where one person and a partner attempted to 'move as one' according to our given instructor. The idea was to give the illusion of one since one was easier to hide, equal step for step and any other bodily movement. "We're supposed to try and get there first. With the way you're moving we'll be last in next year's recruit." I felt her stiffen, back against mine as we continued to move.

"The death of a soldier is a failure to calculate the odds. The way you're moving we'll be 'dead' before we even get in sight of it," she countered but I didn't lessen my step. I'd been there longer, done this before, knew what I was doing.

Her next step was deliberately slow.

"Look," I stopped entirely, knowing it was my only option. Any abrupt movement like turning to face her would give away our position and we'd lose the simulated exercise to some other team. That was unacceptable. So I simply stood, back-to-back with her, feeling her breathing rhythm through my vertebrae. Well versed so far in all tactics and honed in on all activity and the small nuances of working with another, she too had stopped at exactly the same time. "Just follow my lead." It was nothing short of an order.

And for some reason she complied.

I probably should've seen it then, noticed something, something about her willingness to follow, the purpose with which she seemed to have turned on a dime.

I should've seen it.

But I didn't.

All I had was the distinct impression of being in a very small room with a person who refused to say anything or even indicate the other person's existence except for pure loathing of the company.

It suited me though at the time.

Here was the begrudging cooperation I was accustomed to and had long ago realized I was suited to as well.

Well, I thought so at least.

We made it to the appointed destination first, were commended by our instructor...and so on.

"Well done Wayne, Roth," he said, nodding to each of us respectively before shoving us off to the next simulated trial. It was the fourth week since real classes had begun and this was our first set of tests, made—as far as I could gather—to weed out those who didn't really want to be there and more importantly, the people who couldn't stomach being there, essentially the weak ones. Most of them would stay though, I knew. They would stay until it was too late to get out. Walking to the next assigned area I let my masked eyes travel over my 'partner' in arms. She didn't act like a weak one. Probably she had a reason to be there but her outward demeanor gave nothing away.

I guess that was something we had in common, like it or not.

The clack of our boots echoed in the long halls and I was reminded of medical rooms—stark, plain, empty—and being so reminded, I flashed on memories best left buried. But before I could get too lost in my own reverie we'd reached the room and she was pushing me through unceremoniously, letting the door slide shut with a click behind us.

A switch flipped and the lights went up.

I arched a brow even as I bent at the waist. He'd always had a thing for the dramatic—or "the elegant," as he called it.

"Your Excellency," we both bowed immediately. Here was Slade, leader of us all in this strange pre-war era, those of us who were on this side in any case. He was a handsome man, lithe but muscular, maybe seven or nine years older than us with ash-blond hair that cut itself in clean, uneven lines, falling against his tan skin. More attractive probably was his air, the kind that would not be denied respect, the kind that required full attention and in most cases, allegiance. His one visible eye, seemingly the color of off-blue ice scrutinized us deliberately.

Credit to us both, neither of us cracked even the slightest under the intensity.

It was the patch-covered eye that weighed on my mind.

"Cadets Robin Wayne and Raven Roth," he greeted formally. "At ease, you need not bow in the privacy of me and my men," he said and his voice was deceptively smooth, like wine. It could poison if it was too potent or too much but it could be delicious, tempting, intoxicating. I'd learned not long after first meeting 'his Excellency' not to trust even him too heartily. Trust was a foolish thing anyway these days. A sideways glance told me nothing about Cadet Roth's sense of virtue or truth, nothing about her perspective on the commander before us in his fine black and rich royal blue.

"Sir, I'd thought we were to meet the other students in this facility to initiate the next trial," I ventured.

"You are the only two students who made it across," he said, all candor and a bit of smugness for whatever reason.

"Sir?" my voice intoned more than his title. He began to walk, almost pace, but not quite. His steps were margins too deliberate to make the aimless amble of pacing. Vaguely I noted the arrogant way his rich cape wrapped itself over his left shoulder, the heavy folds accentuated by the shadows of the room.

"I wanted to meet the two highest scoring students in the history of the academy personally. You have both performed rather...impressively I must say," he said and I immediately had the ire rise in me as I thought: you 'must' do nothing; you are master here. But I said nothing of the like. I knew what he meant.

I wasn't certain, however, that she did. But it wasn't like I could just stop and ask her then and there.

Not that I wanted to.

"Then it is our privilege," I said as decorum dictated, careful to avoid a mocking tone at all costs. Faintly I heard Raven shift her feet; the boots were too heavy to be soundless and I could not begin to understand her sudden discomfort. This was praise, not execution, so why the unease?

Raven didn't seem the type to even 'do' unease, part of me thought wryly.

All the same, I tried to discern an answer but I should have known better by then.

My unrelenting stare in her direction gave me no clarity on her position and that only furthered my curiosity.

"Cadet Roth, is it?" Slade inquired, his voice dangerously calm, at which Raven seemed to drag her gaze from the floor to meet his, unfaltering, if reluctant.

"Yes, sir," she said, the quietness of her amplified by the surrounding silence of the room as Slade leaned in near her, uncomfortably close from what I could tell.

Hell, I was uncomfortable watching her be uncomfortable.

But that was one of the things Slade did best.

Make people uncomfortable.

With him, with each other, and most of all, with themselves.

And he did it well.

"Very nice work, cadet," he proffered a cold smile she did not return but she saluted and stood clean at attention as one might expect, gratitude in her words if not on her face.

He dismissed us shortly thereafter and we parted ways without a word, her to her dorm wing, and I to mine.

Males and females were separated for obvious reasons in living domiciles at the academy training base and I'd never seen that wing, though I accepted that it existed as just another part of reality. This was in spite of the fact that I'd never had a girl in any of my classes in years before. They didn't tend to get into the Honors curriculum, ending up always as medics and so on rather than frontline soldiers.

Except for Raven of course.

Unlocking my door, the girl filled my head unnecessarily and at the forefront of my intrigue with her was her obvious unsettlement in the presence of Slade minutes before. It wasn't the discomfort he had caused, which was expected, but rather the discomfort I'd sensed all along, and it was only as I stepped out of the shower, fire-hot steam fogging up the mirror, that I realized it was the same type of discomfort a person got when they were trying to hide something.

Raven was trying to hide something.

But what?

I hadn't the faintest.

What I did have, I realized, was yet another reason to continue disliking her as much as she seemed to dislike me, because when I climbed into bed a couple hours later sleep would not come to me.

Nope.

No sleep.

Only her face.

And a lot of questions.

Review please! And thanks again for stopping in to read.

-Rei