Note: Edited for content.

When she ran, she didn't go far―

She was upset and crying and terrified, but she didn't flee the bunker. She only wanted to hide from Colonel Autumn because he was so, so angry―

He didn't have to aim his pistol at her like that! She'd been getting ready to leave―and he'd―

She ran to the training course, collapsing onto the mat and hiding behind the barrels, her face filled with blood and her head fuzzy. Her arms shook in panic, her hands weighed down by what she thought at first was guilt, but then―she remembered. Her hands were weighed down with metal, not with intangible emotional concepts.

"One of our member has chosen a path that we cannot take," someone said, the voice so distant that she couldn't place who was speaking.

Lillie cried uncontrollably, curled up on the plastic mat and squeezing herself into the gap between the barrels. It was a minute or two before she heard the President calling to her from the intercom. She―wiped her face and breathed out, shakily. She had to keep it together―this was bad, but she still―

Her fingers were still curled around his pistol. The heaviness in her hands. Lillie looked down at it and blinked. She'd―she'd picked it up because that was what she was trained to do. When disarming an opponent, one removed their weapon as far away as possible. She'd taken his pistol because he'd dropped it and she wasn't about to let him shoot her.

Colonel Autumn's pistol, in her hands again. She lowered it to the floor, letting the barrel touched the mat. Why had she taken it? He hadn't... last time, he'd disabled it, and he hadn't been able to shoot her.

"Lillie, listen to me," President Eden was saying. "I promise you will be safe, if you follow my direction."

Safe. She felt her face prickling in shame. She had been safe in the bunker―but not now. Not now that she'd actually attacked Colonel Autumn on purpose―he'd tried to kill her! There was no other reason for him to turn his pistol on her! Loaded and ready, unlike the last time―

And she'd kicked him in her panic, taken him down, stolen his weapon and fled. She could have killed him, herself, but―but she didn't want to kill him, why would she want that? He was her... knight in shining armor...

Oh, God, though. She'd hurt him so very badly. Kicked him so hard that she'd left bloody footprints on her way out. Hit him where she'd hurt him before, and made him fall and she was sure she'd kicked him in the face―she stifled a sob. Oh, why!

"Colonel Autumn has ordered your arrest, Lillie. But do not worry. I know the truth about what happened. I will help you."

He didn't have to turn his pistol on her. She was aware of how proficient he was with a firearm. He could have killed her without even trying, if he wanted. If she hadn't knocked him down... he might have.

Would he have?

"You should leave the bunker, Lillie. Colonel Autumn will undoubtedly attempt to finish what he has started. I simply cannot allow you to come to harm. Listen to me, and you will be safe."

Lillie shuddered out another sob. She didn't want to believe that he might have shot her. Maybe he―she was grasping for any kind of explanation, now―maybe he was only trying to not show favoritism, like he'd told her she shouldn't? Maybe he'd meant to scare her away from him so she wouldn't get hurt?

Maybe he had only meant to scare her―well, it'd worked―

But―she was confusing herself. She felt so terrible for hurting him! He was angry and drunk and she―she'd deliberately gone to his room, so she could talk to him about the lie―it was all her fault, again. Her fault she'd worked him up―

"Lillie, I've opened the door. The Colonel's men are on their way. I cannot protect you, any longer. You can leave. You must leave."

She lifted the pistol to her eyes, and ejected the clip. Eleven bullets. Almost full. She looked around the room, finding the weapon locker, and her shoes squeaked against the mat as she pushed herself to the corner. Pulled open the door, grabbed out the armor and the spare rounds, and slammed it shut.

"You must leave the bunker, if you wish to avoid execution. I will facilitate your release," President Eden was saying. Lillie ignored him for a moment, checking the condition of the pistol.

Near perfect. Colonel Autumn was a good soldier. He would be coming after her, soon. She had to run. She had to run because he was going to have her arrested for attacking him.

Lillie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. No matter how forgiving she had been of him, or how wonderful his kindness in holding her hand had been... no matter how much she'd wanted him to be her knight, or how many fantasies she'd had...

He was a soldier, first. He would not go easy on her for attacking him.

She breathed out, shakily, and opened her eyes to look down at the pistol. She should worry about other things, later. Right now, she needed to be safe, and to get out of here. Leave the bunker and go outside―and secure the situation, so she could figure out where she could go.

"I'm ready, Mr. President, sir," she said, turning her head to the side but not looking at the intercom.

"I do hate that we have to part in this way," President Eden said, "but I will rest assured in the knowledge that wherever you may go, you will be safer."

"Thank you, Mr. President."

"Now, Lillie, you will need to go up two flights of stairs..."

Lillie spent the first two hours outside of the bunker hidden atop the rocks, above the entrance. She'd―at first she'd thought it would be better to sit a while, and rethink her decision to leave, as prompted so suddenly by President Eden―and no one came to chase her off, so...

After crying herself out again, curled into a ball up on the rocks, she stared blankly at the white sky and tried to think straight. To not let the stupidity get to her. It was amazing what the change of scenery did for her bad feelings―

But it just wasn't possible that she could go back inside. Not facing the punishment that she deserved, for hurting him. Even if she were forgiven, she'd deliberately wounded a superior officer.

She thought she understood what had happened. She knew why Colonel Autumn reacted like he did. She shouldn't have gone to see him. Should have listened to President Eden... But she'd been so mad. He'd lied! He'd lied to her face and told her that her dad was dead!

Why?! Unlike all the other times he'd been cruel to her, this one stood out―this one was far beyond cruel. To tell her that her father was dead when he'd really been put to work by the President―

Like she would feel better if he was dead? Like she wouldn't miss him every day―

But... Lillie wiped her face and looked up at the clouds, thin and tiny on the sky. It was so beautiful. So breathtaking, seeing something so different from the dull metal walls of the bunker. It was so hard to be angry when the real world was so wondrous.

She'd... she had moved on, after her dad was gone. She'd grieved, and she'd let go, and she was smart enough to understand that whatever reason Colonel Autumn had to tell her that terrible lie―his was a reason he'd not been able to tell her due to the plot against them. If... if she trusted he was telling the truth when he told her they were both puppets.

That secret was dangerous. Someone in the bunker was trying to manipulate them―and she'd exposed that she knew about it. She'd―played into her anger and outed both herself and him. Made the secret, not so.

Was there really a secret plot...? Was it even real? Lillie closed her eyes and thought hard.

President Eden had tried to talk to her, to talk her out of going to speak with the Colonel. She was angry, and didn't care. She'd knocked on the door and he'd pulled her in, nearly making her hit her head. And he'd...

She sat up on the ground a little straighter, looking out over the rocks and dirt. "Are you happy?" he'd asked. "Your inane plot has finally―"

Colonel Autumn had scared the hell out of her, because she'd thought he was talking to her. But he wasn't. And... somehow she got the feeling it was supposed to go that way. His face... when the President said those things to him... how he'd looked...

"Are you going to watch this debacle tomorrow?"

President Eden was talking to Colonel Autumn. What he said didn't make any sense.

Eden must have been watching, too, when the Colonel had nearly hit her. Was... he chastising Colonel Autumn? Or was he―was he the one that the Colonel meant? The manipulator? There was no one else, she knew. No one else had the opportunity.

She frowned, thinking back. VIOLA let her see, and the scientists could record what she saw. She understood that. Maybe Colonel Autumn... was watching her watch him through her eyes? Why would he do that? She supposed he was expected to keep an eye on the program, because he was in charge of her well-being, but...

Lillie's heart hurt. Was that why he'd tried to make it up to her, by holding her hand? Because he saw how terrible he'd acted, and wanted to make things better? Because he'd watched himself being cruel to her and―

"I regret what I've done. I'm sorry. It wasn't who I am."

Everything he'd done, he knew he'd done, and he was sorry. He had been pushed. Like he'd told her, someone was manipulating them. It had been shown to her that he was being manipulated to react like he had―and she wouldn't have known a single thing about it if she hadn't been watching him so closely.

If she hadn't been―she flushed and looked down at his gun in her hands. If she hadn't been looking in his eyes and seeing how awful he felt, seeing how―

How many times had he seen her looking in his eyes and watched his own feelings put back on himself? How much of her fright, caused by his anger and terrible actions, had he replayed? She couldn't imagine seeing herself through another person's eyes. Seeing what she was in truth.

"I wouldn't presume to ask you to forgive me for the past."

No, she wouldn't forgive him. He'd lied about her father being dead. She couldn't forgive that. But... unlike her dad, who was angry at the Enclave for doing such a horrible thing, she understood why he'd acted that way. Why he'd... why he'd not wanted her to know it was him being kind to her.

Because, even though he had been cruel, his punishment was knowing that cruelty played back on him. Reliving it every day, maybe, in stereoscopic truth and knowing that all the other people in the bunker could see him, too. Like the President. Lillie sighed. She knew it was true. It was unavoidable.

Colonel Autumn must be in Hell, knowing that he was always watched. Knowing that he would be judged, constantly.

Her chest ached in pain for him. When he said he had no patience―he'd stared at her with some weird emotion in his eyes and she didn't know if she could bear to see it again. It was... it was the same look he'd given her, briefly, on the training course. Before the firearms training, when he was acting so mean. For the tiny fraction of a second that she'd seen that look―

Lillie bit her thumbnail and stared out at the world. That look made her insides melt. She―he was―she sighed out in a shudder, and cried a little more. God, she really didn't know if she... and maybe he... maybe he was having the same problem.

Her knight in shining power armor, who'd pulled a pistol on her and forced her out of the bunker to keep her away from the one who was hurting them both. To make her safe.

Stop it, imagination. You're blowing this out of proportion. It's not love, it's infatuation. That's all.

Lillie wiped her face, sucking snot up into her head, and stood up. To believe that... that the President was pushing them in this way―it must be for a purpose. She was outside of the bunker now, and that meant there was something that President Eden wanted her to do.

She couldn't go back inside. No one would let her back in, anyway, and if―if President Eden wanted her outside, then she was outside for a reason, and she had to find out what that was. There was nothing else to do but to press onward, and...

She smiled with one corner of her mouth. And come back to make things better for everyone in the bunker... for her father, for the doctors, for... her knight.

She looked down at her hand, at Colonel Autumn's sidearm. She had the sword, and she knew how to use it. Maybe―

Maybe she was the knight in shining armor, today.