AUTHOR'S NOTES: An early update, as I am going to be on hiatus again for about two weeks.

Operation Reforger does actually exist. In the real world, it was developed so American divisions could quickly cross the Atlantic by air, take up prepositioned equipment in Germany and the Netherlands, and be ready to repulse a Soviet or Russian invasion. In this world, it's to stop a massive GRIMM attack.

Schnee Manor (Herrencheimsee)

Near Munich, Federal Republic of Germany

8 June 2001

Weiss Schnee looked around her bedroom, one last check to see if she had missed anything. She hadn't. She looked forlornly down at her single suitcase, then smiled at herself. Well, Weiss…Ruby did give you hell for not traveling light. I guess this is what I get. She'd packed enough for one week—mostly clothes, though she did bring two books and a few CDs for her CD player. She hesitated before closing the suitcase. "I have to be out of my mind," she said aloud.

There was a soft knock at the door, then it opened to admit Klein Sieben. He carried a tray of food and set it down. "You should eat, Weiss."

"I will. Thank you." She sat down at the small table and began wolfing down the bread and meat. There was no telling when she would be able to eat again. She stopped halfway through the meal. "Klein, am I doing the right thing?"

He sighed and sat down across from her. "Miss Schnee, I've watched you grow into a fine young woman. When you returned from Vytal Flag, you'd matured into a fine young woman. There was no more of that selfishness or attitude you'd had before."

Weiss chuckled. "That's putting it straight to me."

"I must be straight with you, Miss Schnee, because no one else will." Klein toyed with one of the dishes. "And therefore I should warn you…if you go through with this, you will not just be giving up this family. I understand your reasoning for that, and honestly, I cannot blame you…sadly enough. But you will also be giving up your career in the Luftwaffe. They will declare you absent without leave, and should you ever return to Germany, you will be arrested, court-martialed, and possibly imprisoned. Your father will not only not help you, he'll be a witness for the prosecution. Not even your sister will be able to help you then." He faced her directly. "Can you accept that?"

"Yes." Weiss did not hesitate. She'd already gone over it in her mind over several sleepless nights. She hated to give up her career, and even her family would not be easy. Her father she could not care less about, but there was still her mother—Weiss' leaving would probably cause her to start drinking again. Winter would hate her as a deserter; she was remarkably straitlaced like that. Even Whitley would be affected; Jacques might imprison him at the Manor to keep from losing his last heir. "Can you? If Father knows you've helped me escape…"

"Your father can't run this manor without me," Klein smiled. "He will be angry, he will withhold my pay, and he will rage for weeks. But he will also get over it." He waited as she resumed eating, then said, "So what is your plan after you get out of Germany?"

"Get to Menagerie and find Blake Belladonna and her family. Ask for political asylum. And then go from there." She shrugged. "Menagerie doesn't have an air force, but once I renounce my German citizenship, perhaps the Americans will take me." She laughed, with a trace of bitterness. "I suppose I could go mercenary, if worse comes to worse."

"I should hope not." He said nothing further until Weiss finished eating. Then he walked over to her suitcase, opened it, inspected it, rearranged a few things, and closed it again. "I will return in an hour, Miss Schnee." He left, closing the door quietly behind him.

Weiss went into her bathroom and stripped to her panties. She brushed her hair out of its bun. She then began the process of dying her hair coal black. It took awhile—the Weiss white simply would not go down without a fight—but she finally got it right. There was nothing she could do about her ice-blue eyes, which would attract attention, but she was able to at least partially cover up the scar with some makeup. It would not fool anyone looking explicitly for Weiss Schnee, but it would fool the Bundesgrenzschutz, the German border patrol, that watched the airports. Hopefully. Weiss then dressed in the most drab clothes she owned, and put a pair of glasses in a pocket. They were an old pair of her mother's; Willow had once worn reading glasses until she had gotten her eyes surgically corrected. Weiss could not see through them very well, but they would get her onto the flight from Munich to London. Already packed into her purse was a fake passport, under the name Pearl White; the passports had been prepared years ago for when the Schnees needed to travel abroad without having to worry about the White Fang tracking them down. Her father would know about the fake name, but hopefully she'd be in Menagerie before he could stop her at the border.

She heard Klein come in, and took a deep breath. Well, here I go. She walked out of the bathroom. "How do I look?"

"Terrible, Miss Schnee. But I suppose that is what we will need." He paused for a moment, then sighed again, and waved her out of the room.

The sun was beginning to set out of the windows. It would take an hour to get to the airport, and half an hour to get on the flight. The flight itself would be about an hour and a half, then half an hour through customs—that would be the tough part, Weiss reflected, because there was a chance that, by that time, her father would be looking for her. Then another hour to Menagerie. And then I throw myself on the mercy of the Belladonnas. How ironic.

They made their way down the hall as quickly as they could, towards the library. It would take them directly past her father's office.

General James Ironwood stood in front of Jacques Schnee's desk, hands behind his back. They were there so he didn't wrap them around the other man's throat. "You need to control yourself, Jacques." He struggled to keep his own voice under control.

"Me? I need to be under control?" Jacques was on his feet, leaning across the desk. "Do you even hear what you're saying, General?"

"I am basing everything on the reports I am given—reports given to me by Winter, your own daughter."

Jacques snorted. "My own daughter. A daughter you stole from me."

"One you drove away—" Ironwood stopped himself. "No, we are not getting into that, Jacques."

"No, I suppose not. Not when we have more pressing matters, like your lunacy!" Jacques brought a fist down on a stack of papers. "You want me to pressure the EU to end the embargo, when you Americans have done nothing to address the fiasco at Beacon?"

"The Secretary of Defense resigned. So will the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The rest of the responsibility will be placed on Captain Ozpin." The words grated on Ironwood. Just as Ozpin himself had predicted, he was to be made a scapegoat.

"Oh yes, how convenient. Blame everything on the dead man. Meanwhile, you have an orbital weapons platform orbiting over our heads! How do we know that you crazy Yanks won't drop one of these…these 'rods from God' onto this mansion!"

Don't tempt me, Ironwood wanted to say. "And I've already told you that the orbital weapons satellite was a one-use only unit, and it was used because otherwise we'd still be pulling bodies out of Chicago."

"Assuming you're not lying, as usual." Jacques flipped through the papers until he found the one he wanted. "And now you're telling me there is a threat to the EU's borders from the east, based on extremely sketchy information that an unknown enemy might be preparing to move against Japan?"

Ironwood forced himself to remain calm. "That is credible intelligence, Jacques, provided by Winter, who is my best. If she thinks there's a viable threat to the EU, I'm inclined to believe her. The British believe that the threat in Japan is credible enough to send a retired Air Commodore over there to investigate." He leaned forward and pointed at the report. "Jacques, without the United States, NATO is vulnerable and you know it. This power play of yours is playing with fire. You keep up that embargo and you might find yourself all alone. I don't think the Polish Free Legions is going to be too inclined to die to the last man to defend Germany, and there's only so much Robyn Hill's Happy Huntress mercenaries can do if she's not backed up by the Luftwaffe. I don't trust the EU to stop whatever is happening in the Russian Dead Zone without help."

"That's your problem," Jacques hissed. "You've never trusted anyone other than yourself."

"And for good reason!" Ironwood suddenly shouted, pushed too far.

Jacques stepped back. "You need to control yourself," he said, throwing Ironwood's words back at him.

"All right," Ironwood said after a moment to get a rein on his temper. "I didn't want to do this, but you're not going to listen to reason. So fine. NATO will protect the European people, even if their so-called leaders won't. By this time next week, I will activate Operation Reforger. American military units will deploy to Europe under OPLAN 311."

"You can't do that!" Jacques snapped.

"Oh, but I can," Ironwood smirked. "NATO troops are not under the command of the EU. They're under the command of SACEUR—that is, me. You can complain to Brussels all you want, Jacques. By the time those bureaucrats figure out what they're going to do, there will be three American divisions in Germany and Poland. I imagine the EU will go along with me at that point." He straightened. "And in that case, I think you'll want to be on my good side, Jacques." Without saying anything more, he turned and walked towards the door of the office.

Klein and Weiss had stopped at the angry voices coming from the office, afraid to go further if Ironwood stormed out, which seemed likely. Now they both realized they'd made a mistake: they should have kept going, using the noise to cover their movements. Now Ironwood was actually leaving the office, and unless he suddenly went blind between the office door and the stairway to the main hall, he would see both Weiss and Klein. Klein motioned Weiss behind him, into the shadows, for all the good it would do.

Then both of them heard soft footfalls on carpet. Coming down the hallway was Willow Schnee.

Unknown to anyone in the Schnee Manor—with the exception of Klein-Willow had liberally installed cameras around the entire manor. She no longer trusted her husband, if she ever had, and used the camera footage to ensure she had blackmail material, in case it was ever necessary. Unknown to the man she slept alongside every night, Willow had never forgiven, and would never forgive, Jacques for driving away one daughter and imprisoning a second.

Willow had been watching the argument unfold in Jacques' office when she'd spotted Weiss and Klein moving down the hallway together. She had seen Weiss' disguise, knew immediately what her youngest daughter was planning, and determined to help. She had done nothing to stop Jacques, and it deeply shamed her. And now, despite it being a dagger in her heart to see Weiss throwing away a career she'd fought so hard to keep, she was going to do something.

In her hands was a tray of cheese and crackers, with a bottle of schnapps. Her fingers shook, as her body cried out for the alcohol it craved. There was a bottle of water on the tray as well, for her, and she prayed she could resist the urge to drink and drink until she could no longer think. She had just arrived at the office door when Ironwood flung it open. "Oh, General," she said. "Leaving so soon?" She forced her way into the office, which caused Ironwood to retreat back into the office as well. She nudged the door shut with her foot. "Both of you need to remember who you are," she advised. "And please, General, accept the hospitality of this house." She reached for the schnapps. Ironwood intercepted her hands, nodded in understanding, and opened the bottle to pour a glass for himself and Jacques.

"Willow?" Jacques asked in amazement. "Where is Klein? He usually does this."

"Oh, Klein is helping Whitley. Whitley is going into Munich tonight—to party, I suspect." She pasted a fake smile on her face as Jacques scowled. "Jacques, please. Whitley is young. You already keep Weiss shut in; you can't expect him to do the same."

"I suppose you're right." Jacques accepted the glass from Ironwood. "Better the boy sow his wild oats now, I suppose." He took a drink. "Speaking of Weiss, have you seen her?"

"I haven't," Willow lied.

Weiss rushed into the library on Klein's heels; for a portly man, he could move rather fast. "How did Mother know I was there?" she asked. "Why's she covering for me?"

"I don't know. But she loves you, Miss Schnee." The first part was a lie, Klein reflected; undoubtedly Willow had been watching on the cameras. The second part was true. He stopped as they reached a blank section of wall. It was a false wall: beyond it was a passage leading to the garage, a way for the Schnee family to escape if it ever became necessary. "Miss Schnee," he said softly, "this is your last chance. You can still go back to your room. If you go through here, there is no turning back."

Weiss put a hand on the false wall. It was tempting. But that also meant staying here as a prisoner, while her father ruined her life. At least this way, I'm ruining my own life. "Let's go, Klein."

"All right. One last thing." He reached under the tail of his shirt, and handed her a holstered pistol. Weiss' eyes widened. It was a Walther PPK, a small but effective weapon. "Klein, are you crazy?" she asked. "If the Bundesgrenzschutz catches me with that at the airport, I'm dead!"

He smiled, reached into a pocket, and handed her a slip of paper. It was a permit for the gun in the name of Pearl White, good throughout the EU. She would have to put the pistol in her suitcase, but the border patrol would accept it—especially since it was signed by her father. "How did you…" Weiss began.

Klein's smile broadened. "I wasn't always a butler, Miss Schnee." He opened the false wall. "In you go."

Weiss ducked in, then turned and kissed the butler on his cheek. "Thank you. You've been more of a father to me than my own father."

"My duty, Miss Schnee." He gave her a wink and shut the door, which locked with a click. Weiss already had the little pocket flashlight she carried in her purse, and twisted it on. She followed the narrow corridor downstairs, wincing at the noise her suitcase made bouncing down the stairs. Finally, she reached the garage door, and opened it.

The Schnee family garage was enormous, with five cars, ranging from her father's Bentley, the family BMW limousine, her mother's Porsche 911 that she terrorized the autobahns with, the Volkswagen GTI that in theory was Weiss', and finally the Mercedes 300SL that Whitley Schnee stood next to, the gullwing doors open. "About time you got here," he said.

"I'm sorry. We got delayed. Ironwood and Father were arguing, and we had to wait until they were distracted."

"Well, hop in." He tossed her suitcase into the trunk—what little trunk the Mercedes had—and she got in the passenger side. "Slide down and keep out of sight." He tossed a blanket to her, and she wrapped herself in it. It would not fool the Schnee guards if they looked too closely, but Whitley and Weiss were counting on the bored guards not paying any attention.

Whitley also wasn't going to give them much of a chance. Much to Weiss' chagrin, as soon as he was out of the garage, Whitley peeled out of the driveway and raced towards the main gate, flashing the headlights. The guards quickly opened the gates, and he threw them a quick wave as he went through the gates at over forty miles an hour. Once they were well clear of the manor, across the bridge and getting onto the autobahn, Weiss threw off the blanket and belted herself in.

Her brother grinned at her. "That was fun. Ready for next phase of the great escape?"

Weiss grinned back. She was free. She was shortly to be without a home, without a family, and without a country, but she was free.