[Gundam 00] The Subtle Grace of Gravity (Arc 3)
Title: The Subtle Grace of Gravity
→ Arc 1: Waking
→ Arc 2: Return
→ Arc 3: Learning
Fandom: Gundam 00
Characters/Pairing: Mainly Lockon (Neil) and Tieria; cameo by Marina. Eventual Lockon/Tieria.
Rating: PG for now, eventual NC-17.
Wordcount: 5,936 (third part)
Notes: Part three of what will probably be an eight- or nine-part series.
Summary: Something not exactly secret from Tieria's past is dug up; Lockon travels.
The problem was that he didn't know what Tieria was anymore.
The thought came to Lockon one day as he was going through security footage Tieria had uncovered of social functions that Ribbons Almark had used to disguise the Innovades' true business. He had been in the lunar complex over two months now, and this was one of the more entertaining tasks he'd been set so far. Tieria, even as improved as he was, would never have caught the intriguing little subtleties that flashed between two people in the corner of a party, would never have been able to tell which exchange was perfectly ordinary and which indicated that those two people might be worth looking into. Most of the other things Lockon had to look through could have been done by Tieria, had he not been busy in Veda.
This wasn't to say that he was bored. So long as he didn't let himself think too much, Lockon could be entertained enough by the recordings from the Ptolemy and, live, Tieria's little quirks to forget the empty ache that bothered him in the quieter moments. It had been easier six years ago (six years that felt like less than three months to him) with Celestial Being, but then he had had a reason for being alive; the ache had been there, but focused, razor-sharp, easy to transform into something useful. Here--
--and that was what he meant by so long as he didn't let himself think too much. He'd been much better at that before.
It was in trying to get away from that thought that he stumbled upon this one: he didn't know what Tieria was anymore, and that was what made it difficult to rely upon his otherwise endearing quirks to amuse and distract.
Of course, this had nothing to do with Tieria's physical status. He actually knew more about that than he ever had, but it didn't matter; it never had. Whether he'd been born in a test tube or next door ten minutes out of Dublin, Tieria was still Tieria, and it didn't bother Lockon. The problem was that he didn't know what Tieria should be to him.
He remembered, now, that it had always been that way. Setsuna had been willing to accept that Lockon would treat him as a little brother, and to try his best to play that role because no one had ever treated him that way before--even if deep down they'd both known there was more to it than that. Allelujah, Sumeragi, so many of the others--they had known they were teammates and never tried to push for more or less. Feldt...it was easy to tell what she wanted, what she needed, and what the difference between the two was. Tieria--
Tieria had not wanted to be a teammate; he hadn't wanted to be anything to the rest of them. And yet Lockon couldn't ignore him, because he was a teammate, and even if Tieria himself didn't understand the reasons he resisted human contact, Lockon could tell them easily enough, and that was rather charming. Also, though he didn't like to remember it, because if he turned his back long enough, Tieria would be there saying something Lockon had not realized he'd known or understood, while never himself realizing why it was important.
It had been easier only briefly, after Lockon had lost his eye, but even then Tieria had been just shy of cooperative. Lockon could still remember finding the door out from his room locked when he tried it. He'd known even then the changes Tieria was going through and been pleased with them, but it had seemed beyond strange that he would go that far to protect Lockon. It hadn't occurred to the others that he'd need that kind of protection--they knew that wasn't the way things were supposed to be.
Tieria hadn't been good at knowing the way things were supposed to be, when it came to people. He was better now for the most part, and sometimes that made things easier, but...
It was a little bit like Tieria was a sheet of glass. From most angles, Lockon could see right through him. He was charmingly fragile, although less so now, and he couldn't hide anything. But then there were angles where he was like that same sheet of glass turned sidelong. In the wrong light he was almost invisible, and Lockon couldn't even see him sneaking up, much less see through him.
Lockon sighed, exasperated with himself--he was letting himself get carried off by these thoughts again. He was sure it hadn't always been so hard to keep his mind from wandering places it didn't need to go. Back then, there was always another mission to prepare for, or something he could do for Setsuna or the rest of the crew. When that failed, he would go home for a while, and remember--but he never had to spend too long there before there was something else for him to do back in Celestial Being.
There were things for him to do here, too, of course, but he knew he'd still be here after they were done. Maybe later, he would ask Tieria if there was anything more he could do. For now, he cycled the computer on to the next set of recordings.
This sequence didn't look like anything more important than the others--another party where the elite behind A-LAWS had mingled. Lockon still had a little trouble with that knowledge. The descriptions he'd heard of A-LAWS had left him clenching his fists, but there was no longer anywhere for him to direct that anger. It was an unbalancing feeling, like constantly trying to sit in an uneven chair. He checked the tags on the video and was gratified to discover a distraction: these scenes had been hidden behind more encryption than the others, which meant they were more important. He'd have to pay extra attention to catch whatever had happened.
By now he knew most of the regulars who'd appeared at these events. He'd already known Wang Liu Mei beforehand, of course, and Ribbons himself had been easy to pick out of the crowd. It also hadn't taken Lockon long to learn to recognize Homer Katagiri. In this one, his nephew was there as well--according to Sumeragi he was an ally now, but often best dealt with by people other than her. Lockon hadn't questioned her about that; it sounded like something that should stay private, and he'd always been good about letting Sumeragi keep her privacy.
There were a few new faces at this occasion. Lockon focused on them for now, trying to make out what was hidden between the lines in their conversations. He wasn't getting anywhere, so he switched to another group. Which was how he found the unexpected thing.
"Tieria?!"
He barely realized he'd spoken aloud until a wall next to him flickered, became a communications screen. "I'll be there immediately, Lockon. You can explain the problem when I arrive."
"That's not--" Lockon started to protest, but he cut himself off when the screen vanished again. Tieria was on his way already--and to tell the truth, Lockon didn't really mind. He started to grin; the expression felt strange on him, alone in the room. But he was looking forward to talking with Tieria about this.
Tieria strode in at a rapid pace. "If there's immediate danger, we should--" He stopped, realizing that Lockon was still relaxed and unconcerned. He paused, uncertain, not quite annoyed (Lockon hadn't seen him truly annoyed in some time). "Lockon, why did you call me here?"
The thought occurred to Lockon: once, Tieria wouldn't have asked. He'd have simply assumed Lockon had no valid reason and proceeded to scold him. Now he sounded genuinely curious. "Actually," Lockon said, "I didn't call you. I'm glad you're here, though. I wanted to ask why you stopped wearing that dress. It looked good on you!"
Tieria stared at him for a long moment. Then he said, "There's no point to this."
"What?" Lockon was still grinning. For all that Tieria tried to keep himself composed, he was obviously baffled and at least a little flustered. It wasn't a bad sort of flustered, though--it was the kind he could learn from.
"I've changed over the past several years," Tieria said, "but I still lack understanding of the humor in that attire. It was necessary for the mission. The world has long assumed that the Gundam Meisters are male. Presenting myself as female made it easier to go unrecognized."
"People get really caught up on things like gender and sex," Lockon said. He was a little surprised that nobody had tried to explain it in simple terms for Tieria. Or was it that they hadn't realized he was asking? He could be awfully indirect about these things. "We forget that they're not really that important. So it's funny when someone mixes them up, and reminds us."
"I see," Tieria said slowly. He didn't really, but Lockon was sure he'd work it out sooner or later now that he'd been started on the right path. "Lockon, this recording--"
"I don't need to look at all of it," Lockon said. "Now that I know you were there."
"No," Tieria said quickly. "Nothing I did there is anything I am ashamed of. You should continue watching. There may be details I was too busy to notice at the time." But there was more color than usual in his cheeks. He must have realized it, too, because he said, "If there isn't any emergency after all, I should return to my tasks."
He was all right with Lockon seeing whatever it was he had done at Ribbons's party, Lockon realized, but not with being there at the time. He nodded. "All right, Tieria. If you've got anything else for me to look at, just pass it along."
Tieria nodded curtly and left the room too quickly.
Lockon stared after him for a moment, his smile fading back to neutral. Then he turned back to the recording and let it continue. The sight of Ribbons dancing with Tieria was discomfiting, but he watched anyway. As much as it bothered him that Tieria had been in such a vulnerable position, and Lockon himself had been utterly unable to help watch over him, he knew now that it had all turned out all right. He shouldn't let the past bother him so much.
But then, that had always been true.
He stopped, faintly dismayed, as Ribbons and Tieria left the semi-public ballroom and with it the sphere of the recording. He checked the other vantage points of the security cameras at the event, but only got as far as Ribbons's personal room before he ran out of footage. He would have let it go, but--
Lockon thought of what Tieria had just told him. Nothing I did there is anything I am ashamed of. For Tieria, that was perilously close to saying he was proud of doing something. Curiosity twinged at him. He wanted to know what Tieria would be proud of himself for.
It wasn't easy to cut a path through what he could touch of Veda in search of the missing footage. It would have been much quicker if he'd had Haro, but, he reminded himself, he no longer had any need for Haro, and his brother still did. It was funny, though: Lockon was surprised he could make it through at all. He knew his path through the encryption would be painfully obvious to Tieria and anyone else who knew the first thing about computer security, but still, he got through. It was as if the parts of Veda that Tieria had already explored yielded more readily than they should have to Lockon's access.
Veda wasn't an ordinary computer, Lockon thought, so maybe it just had quirks like that.
After a little while, he finally found the rest of the recording, and he watched it. As he'd expected, it cleared some things up. Ribbons had forced Tieria to choose between his first purpose as an extension of Veda, and his new purpose as a member of Celestial Being. Tieria had every reason to be proud of choosing right. It was funny, but not entirely unexpected, that he'd blush about this but remain unfazed by jokes about him in a dress. But some things still confused Lockon.
--you let that man too far into your heart. That Lockon Stratos. A foolish human who placed revenge for his family over the mission--
He didn't really get why that was when Tieria had finally turned on Ribbons.
* * *
It was entirely natural that Lockon should need to spend time on Earth periodically. In fact, Tieria encouraged it. He didn't want to see Lockon grow restless and unhappy in the lunar complex. Tieria could not leave himself--he hadn't yet figured out how to sustain this body away from the moonbase--but he nevertheless arranged for Lockon to do so.
"Setsuna wants me to meet with Queen Marina Ismail of Azadistan," Lockon had said. "And I want to help Feldt and Allelujah find out a little more about where they're from."
Tieria had listened, and he had wondered why Lockon had explained the week each in Europe and Central Asia and the Middle East (and Tieria worried about this, uncertainly, and resolved to keep watch on him via satellite), but not the two in Ireland. Was it because he thought it was obvious? Perhaps that was it; after all, it was a human thing to want to go home. But the other Lockon--Lyle Dylandy--his brother had once said to Setsuna when he didn't realize Tieria was listening in, "I have no home anymore." How was it that this Lockon was so different when they shared the same past?
He didn't ask. There were still things that froze in his throat before he could say them to Lockon. And then Lockon left, and Tieria was alone in the lunar complex again.
Tieria had spent over five years utterly without Lockon, and he had survived. Five weeks, he told himself, would be nothing. But it wasn't, and the moonbase felt absurdly large and empty without Lockon's presence.
He absorbed himself in his work within Veda when he could. But when he did that, he noticed the gaps where he would have received information from Lockon. He missed the feel of the connections Lockon would make, even though rationally he knew there was nothing exceptional about them. Lockon was an unaltered human, and he could only connect to Veda like anyone else. Tieria still missed him, still felt the worry that this time Lockon would be gone for good tense up even his virtual form.
Tieria found himself pacing the halls of the complex in his physical form instead.
It was beginning to look more like what it had been intended to be: a place for people to live and work while preparing for humanity's future. When Ribbons had left it, it had been cool and sterile, all its rooms devoted to strictly utilitarian purposes. The Innovators' ship Celestial Being could be provisioned and decorated as they liked, but this place was to be kept a secret, and to adorn it would only be engaging in unnecessary humanity. Tieria had made little effort to change this at first, but when Lockon had arrived, the need to do so had become paramount. Lockon was not just an expert in the things that made someone human--he was used to them.
Tieria passed through what had once been a room housing banks of monitors. Now only one row of them was left, devoted to communication with the Ptolemaios and the rest of the world (although there was nowhere else yet this place would contact, save for Lockon, wherever he was); the rest of the room was a lounge. Someday new members of Celestial Being--perhaps even public ones, after a day when they could reveal themselves--would gather here and talk about their day of work. But if he had to admit it to himself, Tieria hadn't made it for them. They were a distant goal. Lockon was the immediate force pulling him onwards, guiding him along his path.
Two of the non-descript bedrooms had been converted into one kitchen, for making as good a use as was possible of the food they could keep here. Others were still bedrooms, but slightly less non-descript as Lockon made observations on what sort of thing humans liked in their quarters, and as Tieria remembered things he'd noticed in the quarters aboard the Ptolemaios. A room that had stored sensitive data downloaded from Veda into physical form was now a communal eating area. The thought had once crossed Tieria's mind: he would like to arrange the schedule so that he could share a meal there with Lockon more often.
He realized where he was headed long before he reached his destination, but he still found it peculiar that his feet seemed to have made the choice to go there without consulting his conscious brain. Nevertheless, he let them take him there: the room he'd assigned to Lockon upon his arrival. Tieria had no reason to be there now, and he knew that instead of dwelling there he should return to his duties in Veda, but he still opened the door and let himself in.
Tieria sat down on the bed and wondered why he'd come here. It wasn't as if being in the room where Lockon slept during his time at the lunar complex brought him any closer. Somehow, though, there was a comfort to it.
Yet there was also a troubling disquiet. He thought of Lockon sitting here with that blank gaze, and he remembered. Years ago, he had used Veda to watch over the crew of the Ptolemaios, but without any of the care or kindness he tried to impart to it now. He'd seen Lockon looking like that sometimes back then, too. Worse, he'd seen Lockon with anger wiping out his casual poise. The first time Tieria had seen that, he'd been smug: so you're as fallible and misguided by your passions as the rest of them. The memory hurt.
And then at the end--
--I appreciate your concern, but right now I will fight!
Tieria had spent five years worrying over Lockon's last words to him, wondering what he could have said in response, if only he'd been a little quicker, to bring him back. Eventually he had convinced himself that there was something he could have said, something he could have done--but with Lockon here again, he couldn't believe that any longer. It was in the way Lockon smiled when Tieria spoke of humanity's future, the way Lockon didn't smile when he was alone, the way Lockon cast his gaze down in rueful contemplation. Tieria could not say what any of those meant individually, but he knew what they meant all together: there was nothing he could have done to stop Lockon, back then. And that meant that there was nothing he could do, when it came down to that, to protect Lockon now.
The force of the realization laid him low. Tieria found himself curled up on Lockon's bed, shaking slightly. But against all expectations, he felt himself begin to calm. He didn't know just what it was, and for a little while, he was baffled. Then it came to him--although the knowledge only left him more confused.
The pillows, the neat blanket, the bedsheets: they all smelled of Lockon. Tieria had trouble pinpointing all the specific components--faint sweat, soap, those were obvious, but what else? He couldn't come up with any answers, but he still wanted to keep lying there, surrounded by this tangible proof of Lockon's realness. That was another thing he couldn't comprehend: why something as simple and mundane as what Lockon smelled like made him feel so happy. His belly felt warm, his pulse raced even as he relaxed, his eyes blurred with tears. Was he ill? That shouldn't have been possible, in this setting.
For some reason, although he was somewhat alarmed, Tieria was not afraid. In fact, for no rational reason at all, he felt some of the fears about Lockon's safety that lay coiled in his gut begin to fade. He knew he should have gone back to Veda and continued his work--but instead, he relaxed, and he drifted quietly off to sleep with his head on Lockon's pillow.
* * *
Tieria had assured him that it was part of some larger project, but for now, Lockon was content to use the Celestial Being Menae I in a slight modification on its purpose as a two-person stealth transport. Despite the political deals Sumeragi had cut, Celestial Being was still too high-profile for him to travel openly. So, alone in a two-person vehicle, Lockon used the Menae to get himself from place to place on Earth. It was no Gundam, but it would do for this purpose.
Thinking too long of that led him to another thought: he would not pilot a Gundam again, but other people would. Including his brother--
But following that thought too far into his head led him back to things like his mistakes and his real name. That was fine when he was in Ireland watching the people and places, because that was what those times were for, but here, as he guided the Menae into Azadistan, that was the last kind of thought he wanted to be having.
It had been a little easier in Kazakhstan, even when he saw Allelujah and met Marie. He could focus then on glossing over and filling in the awkwardness of five years past. But even with them, there were still gaps he didn't know how to bridge. Sometimes, Allelujah had mentioned something Lockon had said, only to have to back up and explain that he meant the other one. Lockon Stratos was no longer Neil Dylandy to Allelujah, and to Marie Perfacy he never had been. In some ways, it was easier for Neil to be Lockon again once he was away from them.
But in other ways, it was harder, because now he was approaching Azadistan. He wouldn't have come here of his own will, but Setsuna wanted it of him, and it was the least he could do. It would have been different if it were a mission--there wouldn't have been anything awkward about it at all, except perhaps for something at the back of his brain being more alert than usual. It had been like that, over five years ago when he'd come here with Setsuna. Had that been when Setsuna had met this Marina Ismail? Why was she important to him?
Lockon pushed the thoughts away for now. All he was here to do was meet someone; there wasn't anything difficult about that. There were some political maneuverings to be made--it would be too risky to get close to the palace, and Lyle had sent very firm word that he was not to go into any bases maintained by Katharon. Marina herself had arranged for the meeting to take place somewhere politically neutral, although Lockon didn't know just where that was.
As it turned out, it was a nondescript building on the outskirts of the capital--situated, Lockon noticed, on a side street where the city's violence was unlikely to spill over. Lockon wondered if that was deliberate. He made his way to the door and knocked. It swung open, and for a moment he was disoriented: there was no one there. Then he looked down, and a small child blinked up at him.
Lockon crouched a little, trying to be as non-threatening as possible. "Hey," he said, lifting a hand in friendly greeting. "Could I talk to an adult?" The natural thing to do would be to ask for the kid's parents, but he had a sudden feeling that he shouldn't do that here. He hoped he was wrong about why.
The boy continued to stare up at him.
"You don't know English, do you?" Lockon gave him an apologetic smile; he was pretty sure that could carry through languages. "Come to think of it, I should have learned a little Arabic a long time ago." As it happened, he had known a little, at one point, but it was all about violence--nothing he could say to a child (and he had never bothered learning any Kurdish in the first place). "I'll just wait here for now."
It was several minutes before an adult showed up; throughout this time, the child patiently and loyally kept his place at the door and watched Lockon carefully. Occasionally, Lockon broke the silence to speak to him; so long as he used a cheerful tone, it would be less awkward that way, even if the kid didn't understand anything he said.
Finally, a woman made her way out of the hallway and into the entranceway. "I'm sorry I took so long," she said in English. "The orphanage is understaffed; I was helping."
Lockon wished he hadn't been right about what this place was, but he said nothing as she knelt to speak to the boy in Arabic. Instead, he studied her for a moment, wondered at the gentleness of her face--and then realized something.
"Princess Marina Ismail," he said as she rose back to her feet. "No, Queen now, right? I should have known right away."
"It doesn't upset me," she said, smiling at him. "I don't need to be the queen when I'm here, but only someone who cares for these children."
He met her smile with one of his own, although he had the feeling hers was more genuine. "I understand that point of view."
Her smile softened. "Do you?" She hesitated, then said, "Are you Setsuna's friend?"
Lockon grinned. "Do a lot of other confused foreigners show up here? Yeah, I'm Setsuna's friend." It felt like a strange way to describe himself, but he wasn't Setsuna's teammate anymore either, so it would have to do.
"He told me you'd be coming," Marina said, "but he said you'd introduce yourself."
Lockon found himself wishing she hadn't said that, because now he knew why Setsuna had told her that to begin with. This was a chance for him. It was too bad, then, that only one name felt easy to give her, and in this place, somehow he didn't have the heart to make the hard choice. "I'm Lockon Stratos," he said. "You might have met someone else who looked like me with that name when you were with Setsuna."
She blinked, but nodded. "Then why don't you come inside, Lockon?" She stepped back and gestured for him to follow.
He didn't particularly want to, Lockon realized. But that was his problem, and it wasn't right to make it hers as well. So he stepped through the doorway and into the narrow hall of the orphanage. It wasn't quite wide enough for the two of them to walk side by side, so he followed her instead.
She glanced back as she led him deeper into the building. "You've fought a lot," she said quietly. "Like Setsuna."
"Not like Setsuna," Lockon said. "He always went about it a little differently. But you're right about one part. I have fought a lot, in the past." She was looking at the scars, he realized. Even aside from the obvious, there were a few faint ones on his face, and the edges of burn scars showed past his collar and his short sleeves. "It's not what you think," he said. "These are mostly from just one battle. I shouldn't even have survived it."
Marina turned back to look at him wide-eyed. "You shouldn't say such a thing," she said. "Everyone who lived should have lived, and many who died should have lived as well."
"Ah," he said. He blinked. "That isn't what I meant." He wondered if it was a language problem; she spoke it well enough, but English wasn't her first language, after all. "It's just really surprising that I'm still alive."
She relaxed a little. "I see." She reached out to open a door. "This is the common room; we can rest for a while in here, and I can watch the children as well."
Lockon started to open his mouth to object, unsure how much he wanted to be in a room full of these children, but she was already opening the door. It was just as well, though. She was obviously most comfortable around these orphans. Instead of protesting, he followed her into the room, smiling at the children in return to their curious glances.
Marina sat down on a somewhat threadbare couch and gestured hopefully for Lockon to join her. He sat down, looking at her curiously, both because it was best to look at someone while talking to them and because he didn't really want to have to look at the kids. She didn't seem to pick up on his second reason. "Lockon," she said, "how do you know Setsuna?"
"We fought together," Lockon said. "Six years ago, now."
"In Celestial Being," Marina said quietly. Lockon gave a small start, and she looked down. "They didn't tell you that I knew."
"I could have guessed," Lockon said. "It's just surprising to hear it so openly."
"There isn't anyone here who'll tell," Marina said.
"I know," he said. "I'm not worried about it." But he was studying her more closely now, trying to think how Setsuna knew her. She was definitely older than him--from the lines around her eyes, he thought as much as ten or twelve years, but there was also something younger there that made Lockon wonder if she wasn't younger than he was. Still older than Setsuna, in any case. Lockon briefly wondered if Setsuna had a thing for older women, then dismissed the thought before it hurt his brain too much. He couldn't conceive of Setsuna feeling that way about anyone, much less this gentle-eyed queen surrounded by children.
While he was thinking, Marina had turned away to speak to a couple of the children--maybe seven years old, in the middle of the age range that Lockon could see represented. Now she straightened back up to look at him again. "Setsuna sent me a message to tell me you'd be coming," she said.
"That was a good idea," Lockon said. She was working her way up to something. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what it was.
"He doesn't contact me that way very often," she said. "He's still learning, how to reach out to people like that. I hope you'll keep in touch with him, Lockon."
He smiled. "I will." There was another subtext there that she hadn't voiced: you must be important to him. He thought for a moment about whether or not to address it, then decided he owed her that much, after she'd gone to this effort for him. "When he was new to Celestial Being," he said, "I took care of him and made friends with him when no one else was up to it. I guess it stuck with him over the years."
"I'm glad he had someone like you there for him," Marina said. She opened her mouth to speak again, but then she stopped, looking at something just in front of Lockon.
He turned, only to find a small child, no more than four years old, staring up at him. "Yo," he said, lifting a hand to wave at the girl.
"Oh," Marina said. "That's Kalila. She came here just last year, after one of the most recent outbreaks of violence in the outskirts..."
Lockon smiled, first at Marina to cut her off before she went into more detail, and then down at the little girl herself. "She's probably just curious what a guy like me is doing here," he said. He was a little curious about that himself. But then Kalila was holding her small arms out to him. He blinked down at her.
"I think she wants to be picked up," Marina said, looking at him hopefully.
There was nothing else he could do about it. Lockon rose to his feet, then crouched long enough to scoop the girl up and hold her out overhead. She giggled without a shadow of restraint; apparently that was what she'd wanted, even though it was him. He couldn't quite pin down why that was so wrong. Lockon put her back down, then dropped back onto the couch with a wince that he didn't even try to cover up.
"Are you all right?" Marina asked.
"I've been traveling a lot," he said. "Is there anywhere I could sit down by myself for a while? I'll feel better once I've done that."
"Of course," she said. She showed him into a nearby room, obviously intended as some caretaker's bedroom, but currently quite empty--this place was understaffed, she'd said. Lockon was momentarily grateful as he sank down onto the plain bed alone. As Marina stepped out into the hallway and shut the door, he glanced around reflexively to determine if there were any security devices, but of course there weren't. The wallpaper was peeling. This place could hardly afford sophisticated surveillance equipment.
Reassured in that aspect at least, Lockon bent so that his head was almost between his knees and stayed there for several minutes, his hands around his face, his good eye closed.
The truth was, he was glad that Setsuna and the others had changed the world enough for their own satisfaction, had changed themselves so that they no longer demanded that it be fixed in an impossible way, but Lockon (Neil, after all) hadn't. He still knew that the world was skewed and broken. He still felt it that way whenever he dreamed. But these children didn't know that, despite everything they'd been through.
Finally, he sat up and took the computer that Tieria had specially keyed to the moonbase's frequency out of his pocket. He turned it on and opened a channel back there. Tieria's face appeared on the screen almost before he was done.
"Lockon," he said. "Is something wrong?"
"I'm fine, Tieria," Lockon said, and it was strange to see how much Tieria relaxed as he said that. "But I think I've had a change of plans."
"Explain."
"I'm going to be coming back tomorrow," he said, "instead of in a week. Is that all right?"
"It's not a problem," Tieria said. "But--are you sure? My schedule won't free you again for some months."
Lockon felt, obscurely, like he was disappointing someone, but it certainly wasn't Tieria. "I'm sure," he said. "It's best this way."
Tieria nodded, and then he smiled a little. Even now, the expression still managed to surprise and please Lockon a bit. "Then I'll look forward to seeing you soon." He hesitated a moment longer, "If there's nothing else--"
"No, everything's fine," Lockon said. "I'll see you then." And he cut the connection.
For a little while after that, he stood staring at the blank screen, wondering. Tieria was so genuinely pleased to be seeing him again soon. Now more than ever, Lockon had trouble wrapping his brain around that idea. So he didn't. Instead, he just got up and prepared to tell Marina Ismail about his change of plans.
→ Arc 1: Waking
→ Arc 2: Return
→ Arc 3: Learning
Fandom: Gundam 00
Characters/Pairing: Mainly Lockon (Neil) and Tieria; cameo by Marina. Eventual Lockon/Tieria.
Rating: PG for now, eventual NC-17.
Wordcount: 5,936 (third part)
Notes: Part three of what will probably be an eight- or nine-part series.
Summary: Something not exactly secret from Tieria's past is dug up; Lockon travels.
The problem was that he didn't know what Tieria was anymore.
The thought came to Lockon one day as he was going through security footage Tieria had uncovered of social functions that Ribbons Almark had used to disguise the Innovades' true business. He had been in the lunar complex over two months now, and this was one of the more entertaining tasks he'd been set so far. Tieria, even as improved as he was, would never have caught the intriguing little subtleties that flashed between two people in the corner of a party, would never have been able to tell which exchange was perfectly ordinary and which indicated that those two people might be worth looking into. Most of the other things Lockon had to look through could have been done by Tieria, had he not been busy in Veda.
This wasn't to say that he was bored. So long as he didn't let himself think too much, Lockon could be entertained enough by the recordings from the Ptolemy and, live, Tieria's little quirks to forget the empty ache that bothered him in the quieter moments. It had been easier six years ago (six years that felt like less than three months to him) with Celestial Being, but then he had had a reason for being alive; the ache had been there, but focused, razor-sharp, easy to transform into something useful. Here--
--and that was what he meant by so long as he didn't let himself think too much. He'd been much better at that before.
It was in trying to get away from that thought that he stumbled upon this one: he didn't know what Tieria was anymore, and that was what made it difficult to rely upon his otherwise endearing quirks to amuse and distract.
Of course, this had nothing to do with Tieria's physical status. He actually knew more about that than he ever had, but it didn't matter; it never had. Whether he'd been born in a test tube or next door ten minutes out of Dublin, Tieria was still Tieria, and it didn't bother Lockon. The problem was that he didn't know what Tieria should be to him.
He remembered, now, that it had always been that way. Setsuna had been willing to accept that Lockon would treat him as a little brother, and to try his best to play that role because no one had ever treated him that way before--even if deep down they'd both known there was more to it than that. Allelujah, Sumeragi, so many of the others--they had known they were teammates and never tried to push for more or less. Feldt...it was easy to tell what she wanted, what she needed, and what the difference between the two was. Tieria--
Tieria had not wanted to be a teammate; he hadn't wanted to be anything to the rest of them. And yet Lockon couldn't ignore him, because he was a teammate, and even if Tieria himself didn't understand the reasons he resisted human contact, Lockon could tell them easily enough, and that was rather charming. Also, though he didn't like to remember it, because if he turned his back long enough, Tieria would be there saying something Lockon had not realized he'd known or understood, while never himself realizing why it was important.
It had been easier only briefly, after Lockon had lost his eye, but even then Tieria had been just shy of cooperative. Lockon could still remember finding the door out from his room locked when he tried it. He'd known even then the changes Tieria was going through and been pleased with them, but it had seemed beyond strange that he would go that far to protect Lockon. It hadn't occurred to the others that he'd need that kind of protection--they knew that wasn't the way things were supposed to be.
Tieria hadn't been good at knowing the way things were supposed to be, when it came to people. He was better now for the most part, and sometimes that made things easier, but...
It was a little bit like Tieria was a sheet of glass. From most angles, Lockon could see right through him. He was charmingly fragile, although less so now, and he couldn't hide anything. But then there were angles where he was like that same sheet of glass turned sidelong. In the wrong light he was almost invisible, and Lockon couldn't even see him sneaking up, much less see through him.
Lockon sighed, exasperated with himself--he was letting himself get carried off by these thoughts again. He was sure it hadn't always been so hard to keep his mind from wandering places it didn't need to go. Back then, there was always another mission to prepare for, or something he could do for Setsuna or the rest of the crew. When that failed, he would go home for a while, and remember--but he never had to spend too long there before there was something else for him to do back in Celestial Being.
There were things for him to do here, too, of course, but he knew he'd still be here after they were done. Maybe later, he would ask Tieria if there was anything more he could do. For now, he cycled the computer on to the next set of recordings.
This sequence didn't look like anything more important than the others--another party where the elite behind A-LAWS had mingled. Lockon still had a little trouble with that knowledge. The descriptions he'd heard of A-LAWS had left him clenching his fists, but there was no longer anywhere for him to direct that anger. It was an unbalancing feeling, like constantly trying to sit in an uneven chair. He checked the tags on the video and was gratified to discover a distraction: these scenes had been hidden behind more encryption than the others, which meant they were more important. He'd have to pay extra attention to catch whatever had happened.
By now he knew most of the regulars who'd appeared at these events. He'd already known Wang Liu Mei beforehand, of course, and Ribbons himself had been easy to pick out of the crowd. It also hadn't taken Lockon long to learn to recognize Homer Katagiri. In this one, his nephew was there as well--according to Sumeragi he was an ally now, but often best dealt with by people other than her. Lockon hadn't questioned her about that; it sounded like something that should stay private, and he'd always been good about letting Sumeragi keep her privacy.
There were a few new faces at this occasion. Lockon focused on them for now, trying to make out what was hidden between the lines in their conversations. He wasn't getting anywhere, so he switched to another group. Which was how he found the unexpected thing.
"Tieria?!"
He barely realized he'd spoken aloud until a wall next to him flickered, became a communications screen. "I'll be there immediately, Lockon. You can explain the problem when I arrive."
"That's not--" Lockon started to protest, but he cut himself off when the screen vanished again. Tieria was on his way already--and to tell the truth, Lockon didn't really mind. He started to grin; the expression felt strange on him, alone in the room. But he was looking forward to talking with Tieria about this.
Tieria strode in at a rapid pace. "If there's immediate danger, we should--" He stopped, realizing that Lockon was still relaxed and unconcerned. He paused, uncertain, not quite annoyed (Lockon hadn't seen him truly annoyed in some time). "Lockon, why did you call me here?"
The thought occurred to Lockon: once, Tieria wouldn't have asked. He'd have simply assumed Lockon had no valid reason and proceeded to scold him. Now he sounded genuinely curious. "Actually," Lockon said, "I didn't call you. I'm glad you're here, though. I wanted to ask why you stopped wearing that dress. It looked good on you!"
Tieria stared at him for a long moment. Then he said, "There's no point to this."
"What?" Lockon was still grinning. For all that Tieria tried to keep himself composed, he was obviously baffled and at least a little flustered. It wasn't a bad sort of flustered, though--it was the kind he could learn from.
"I've changed over the past several years," Tieria said, "but I still lack understanding of the humor in that attire. It was necessary for the mission. The world has long assumed that the Gundam Meisters are male. Presenting myself as female made it easier to go unrecognized."
"People get really caught up on things like gender and sex," Lockon said. He was a little surprised that nobody had tried to explain it in simple terms for Tieria. Or was it that they hadn't realized he was asking? He could be awfully indirect about these things. "We forget that they're not really that important. So it's funny when someone mixes them up, and reminds us."
"I see," Tieria said slowly. He didn't really, but Lockon was sure he'd work it out sooner or later now that he'd been started on the right path. "Lockon, this recording--"
"I don't need to look at all of it," Lockon said. "Now that I know you were there."
"No," Tieria said quickly. "Nothing I did there is anything I am ashamed of. You should continue watching. There may be details I was too busy to notice at the time." But there was more color than usual in his cheeks. He must have realized it, too, because he said, "If there isn't any emergency after all, I should return to my tasks."
He was all right with Lockon seeing whatever it was he had done at Ribbons's party, Lockon realized, but not with being there at the time. He nodded. "All right, Tieria. If you've got anything else for me to look at, just pass it along."
Tieria nodded curtly and left the room too quickly.
Lockon stared after him for a moment, his smile fading back to neutral. Then he turned back to the recording and let it continue. The sight of Ribbons dancing with Tieria was discomfiting, but he watched anyway. As much as it bothered him that Tieria had been in such a vulnerable position, and Lockon himself had been utterly unable to help watch over him, he knew now that it had all turned out all right. He shouldn't let the past bother him so much.
But then, that had always been true.
He stopped, faintly dismayed, as Ribbons and Tieria left the semi-public ballroom and with it the sphere of the recording. He checked the other vantage points of the security cameras at the event, but only got as far as Ribbons's personal room before he ran out of footage. He would have let it go, but--
Lockon thought of what Tieria had just told him. Nothing I did there is anything I am ashamed of. For Tieria, that was perilously close to saying he was proud of doing something. Curiosity twinged at him. He wanted to know what Tieria would be proud of himself for.
It wasn't easy to cut a path through what he could touch of Veda in search of the missing footage. It would have been much quicker if he'd had Haro, but, he reminded himself, he no longer had any need for Haro, and his brother still did. It was funny, though: Lockon was surprised he could make it through at all. He knew his path through the encryption would be painfully obvious to Tieria and anyone else who knew the first thing about computer security, but still, he got through. It was as if the parts of Veda that Tieria had already explored yielded more readily than they should have to Lockon's access.
Veda wasn't an ordinary computer, Lockon thought, so maybe it just had quirks like that.
After a little while, he finally found the rest of the recording, and he watched it. As he'd expected, it cleared some things up. Ribbons had forced Tieria to choose between his first purpose as an extension of Veda, and his new purpose as a member of Celestial Being. Tieria had every reason to be proud of choosing right. It was funny, but not entirely unexpected, that he'd blush about this but remain unfazed by jokes about him in a dress. But some things still confused Lockon.
--you let that man too far into your heart. That Lockon Stratos. A foolish human who placed revenge for his family over the mission--
He didn't really get why that was when Tieria had finally turned on Ribbons.
* * *
It was entirely natural that Lockon should need to spend time on Earth periodically. In fact, Tieria encouraged it. He didn't want to see Lockon grow restless and unhappy in the lunar complex. Tieria could not leave himself--he hadn't yet figured out how to sustain this body away from the moonbase--but he nevertheless arranged for Lockon to do so.
"Setsuna wants me to meet with Queen Marina Ismail of Azadistan," Lockon had said. "And I want to help Feldt and Allelujah find out a little more about where they're from."
Tieria had listened, and he had wondered why Lockon had explained the week each in Europe and Central Asia and the Middle East (and Tieria worried about this, uncertainly, and resolved to keep watch on him via satellite), but not the two in Ireland. Was it because he thought it was obvious? Perhaps that was it; after all, it was a human thing to want to go home. But the other Lockon--Lyle Dylandy--his brother had once said to Setsuna when he didn't realize Tieria was listening in, "I have no home anymore." How was it that this Lockon was so different when they shared the same past?
He didn't ask. There were still things that froze in his throat before he could say them to Lockon. And then Lockon left, and Tieria was alone in the lunar complex again.
Tieria had spent over five years utterly without Lockon, and he had survived. Five weeks, he told himself, would be nothing. But it wasn't, and the moonbase felt absurdly large and empty without Lockon's presence.
He absorbed himself in his work within Veda when he could. But when he did that, he noticed the gaps where he would have received information from Lockon. He missed the feel of the connections Lockon would make, even though rationally he knew there was nothing exceptional about them. Lockon was an unaltered human, and he could only connect to Veda like anyone else. Tieria still missed him, still felt the worry that this time Lockon would be gone for good tense up even his virtual form.
Tieria found himself pacing the halls of the complex in his physical form instead.
It was beginning to look more like what it had been intended to be: a place for people to live and work while preparing for humanity's future. When Ribbons had left it, it had been cool and sterile, all its rooms devoted to strictly utilitarian purposes. The Innovators' ship Celestial Being could be provisioned and decorated as they liked, but this place was to be kept a secret, and to adorn it would only be engaging in unnecessary humanity. Tieria had made little effort to change this at first, but when Lockon had arrived, the need to do so had become paramount. Lockon was not just an expert in the things that made someone human--he was used to them.
Tieria passed through what had once been a room housing banks of monitors. Now only one row of them was left, devoted to communication with the Ptolemaios and the rest of the world (although there was nowhere else yet this place would contact, save for Lockon, wherever he was); the rest of the room was a lounge. Someday new members of Celestial Being--perhaps even public ones, after a day when they could reveal themselves--would gather here and talk about their day of work. But if he had to admit it to himself, Tieria hadn't made it for them. They were a distant goal. Lockon was the immediate force pulling him onwards, guiding him along his path.
Two of the non-descript bedrooms had been converted into one kitchen, for making as good a use as was possible of the food they could keep here. Others were still bedrooms, but slightly less non-descript as Lockon made observations on what sort of thing humans liked in their quarters, and as Tieria remembered things he'd noticed in the quarters aboard the Ptolemaios. A room that had stored sensitive data downloaded from Veda into physical form was now a communal eating area. The thought had once crossed Tieria's mind: he would like to arrange the schedule so that he could share a meal there with Lockon more often.
He realized where he was headed long before he reached his destination, but he still found it peculiar that his feet seemed to have made the choice to go there without consulting his conscious brain. Nevertheless, he let them take him there: the room he'd assigned to Lockon upon his arrival. Tieria had no reason to be there now, and he knew that instead of dwelling there he should return to his duties in Veda, but he still opened the door and let himself in.
Tieria sat down on the bed and wondered why he'd come here. It wasn't as if being in the room where Lockon slept during his time at the lunar complex brought him any closer. Somehow, though, there was a comfort to it.
Yet there was also a troubling disquiet. He thought of Lockon sitting here with that blank gaze, and he remembered. Years ago, he had used Veda to watch over the crew of the Ptolemaios, but without any of the care or kindness he tried to impart to it now. He'd seen Lockon looking like that sometimes back then, too. Worse, he'd seen Lockon with anger wiping out his casual poise. The first time Tieria had seen that, he'd been smug: so you're as fallible and misguided by your passions as the rest of them. The memory hurt.
And then at the end--
--I appreciate your concern, but right now I will fight!
Tieria had spent five years worrying over Lockon's last words to him, wondering what he could have said in response, if only he'd been a little quicker, to bring him back. Eventually he had convinced himself that there was something he could have said, something he could have done--but with Lockon here again, he couldn't believe that any longer. It was in the way Lockon smiled when Tieria spoke of humanity's future, the way Lockon didn't smile when he was alone, the way Lockon cast his gaze down in rueful contemplation. Tieria could not say what any of those meant individually, but he knew what they meant all together: there was nothing he could have done to stop Lockon, back then. And that meant that there was nothing he could do, when it came down to that, to protect Lockon now.
The force of the realization laid him low. Tieria found himself curled up on Lockon's bed, shaking slightly. But against all expectations, he felt himself begin to calm. He didn't know just what it was, and for a little while, he was baffled. Then it came to him--although the knowledge only left him more confused.
The pillows, the neat blanket, the bedsheets: they all smelled of Lockon. Tieria had trouble pinpointing all the specific components--faint sweat, soap, those were obvious, but what else? He couldn't come up with any answers, but he still wanted to keep lying there, surrounded by this tangible proof of Lockon's realness. That was another thing he couldn't comprehend: why something as simple and mundane as what Lockon smelled like made him feel so happy. His belly felt warm, his pulse raced even as he relaxed, his eyes blurred with tears. Was he ill? That shouldn't have been possible, in this setting.
For some reason, although he was somewhat alarmed, Tieria was not afraid. In fact, for no rational reason at all, he felt some of the fears about Lockon's safety that lay coiled in his gut begin to fade. He knew he should have gone back to Veda and continued his work--but instead, he relaxed, and he drifted quietly off to sleep with his head on Lockon's pillow.
* * *
Tieria had assured him that it was part of some larger project, but for now, Lockon was content to use the Celestial Being Menae I in a slight modification on its purpose as a two-person stealth transport. Despite the political deals Sumeragi had cut, Celestial Being was still too high-profile for him to travel openly. So, alone in a two-person vehicle, Lockon used the Menae to get himself from place to place on Earth. It was no Gundam, but it would do for this purpose.
Thinking too long of that led him to another thought: he would not pilot a Gundam again, but other people would. Including his brother--
But following that thought too far into his head led him back to things like his mistakes and his real name. That was fine when he was in Ireland watching the people and places, because that was what those times were for, but here, as he guided the Menae into Azadistan, that was the last kind of thought he wanted to be having.
It had been a little easier in Kazakhstan, even when he saw Allelujah and met Marie. He could focus then on glossing over and filling in the awkwardness of five years past. But even with them, there were still gaps he didn't know how to bridge. Sometimes, Allelujah had mentioned something Lockon had said, only to have to back up and explain that he meant the other one. Lockon Stratos was no longer Neil Dylandy to Allelujah, and to Marie Perfacy he never had been. In some ways, it was easier for Neil to be Lockon again once he was away from them.
But in other ways, it was harder, because now he was approaching Azadistan. He wouldn't have come here of his own will, but Setsuna wanted it of him, and it was the least he could do. It would have been different if it were a mission--there wouldn't have been anything awkward about it at all, except perhaps for something at the back of his brain being more alert than usual. It had been like that, over five years ago when he'd come here with Setsuna. Had that been when Setsuna had met this Marina Ismail? Why was she important to him?
Lockon pushed the thoughts away for now. All he was here to do was meet someone; there wasn't anything difficult about that. There were some political maneuverings to be made--it would be too risky to get close to the palace, and Lyle had sent very firm word that he was not to go into any bases maintained by Katharon. Marina herself had arranged for the meeting to take place somewhere politically neutral, although Lockon didn't know just where that was.
As it turned out, it was a nondescript building on the outskirts of the capital--situated, Lockon noticed, on a side street where the city's violence was unlikely to spill over. Lockon wondered if that was deliberate. He made his way to the door and knocked. It swung open, and for a moment he was disoriented: there was no one there. Then he looked down, and a small child blinked up at him.
Lockon crouched a little, trying to be as non-threatening as possible. "Hey," he said, lifting a hand in friendly greeting. "Could I talk to an adult?" The natural thing to do would be to ask for the kid's parents, but he had a sudden feeling that he shouldn't do that here. He hoped he was wrong about why.
The boy continued to stare up at him.
"You don't know English, do you?" Lockon gave him an apologetic smile; he was pretty sure that could carry through languages. "Come to think of it, I should have learned a little Arabic a long time ago." As it happened, he had known a little, at one point, but it was all about violence--nothing he could say to a child (and he had never bothered learning any Kurdish in the first place). "I'll just wait here for now."
It was several minutes before an adult showed up; throughout this time, the child patiently and loyally kept his place at the door and watched Lockon carefully. Occasionally, Lockon broke the silence to speak to him; so long as he used a cheerful tone, it would be less awkward that way, even if the kid didn't understand anything he said.
Finally, a woman made her way out of the hallway and into the entranceway. "I'm sorry I took so long," she said in English. "The orphanage is understaffed; I was helping."
Lockon wished he hadn't been right about what this place was, but he said nothing as she knelt to speak to the boy in Arabic. Instead, he studied her for a moment, wondered at the gentleness of her face--and then realized something.
"Princess Marina Ismail," he said as she rose back to her feet. "No, Queen now, right? I should have known right away."
"It doesn't upset me," she said, smiling at him. "I don't need to be the queen when I'm here, but only someone who cares for these children."
He met her smile with one of his own, although he had the feeling hers was more genuine. "I understand that point of view."
Her smile softened. "Do you?" She hesitated, then said, "Are you Setsuna's friend?"
Lockon grinned. "Do a lot of other confused foreigners show up here? Yeah, I'm Setsuna's friend." It felt like a strange way to describe himself, but he wasn't Setsuna's teammate anymore either, so it would have to do.
"He told me you'd be coming," Marina said, "but he said you'd introduce yourself."
Lockon found himself wishing she hadn't said that, because now he knew why Setsuna had told her that to begin with. This was a chance for him. It was too bad, then, that only one name felt easy to give her, and in this place, somehow he didn't have the heart to make the hard choice. "I'm Lockon Stratos," he said. "You might have met someone else who looked like me with that name when you were with Setsuna."
She blinked, but nodded. "Then why don't you come inside, Lockon?" She stepped back and gestured for him to follow.
He didn't particularly want to, Lockon realized. But that was his problem, and it wasn't right to make it hers as well. So he stepped through the doorway and into the narrow hall of the orphanage. It wasn't quite wide enough for the two of them to walk side by side, so he followed her instead.
She glanced back as she led him deeper into the building. "You've fought a lot," she said quietly. "Like Setsuna."
"Not like Setsuna," Lockon said. "He always went about it a little differently. But you're right about one part. I have fought a lot, in the past." She was looking at the scars, he realized. Even aside from the obvious, there were a few faint ones on his face, and the edges of burn scars showed past his collar and his short sleeves. "It's not what you think," he said. "These are mostly from just one battle. I shouldn't even have survived it."
Marina turned back to look at him wide-eyed. "You shouldn't say such a thing," she said. "Everyone who lived should have lived, and many who died should have lived as well."
"Ah," he said. He blinked. "That isn't what I meant." He wondered if it was a language problem; she spoke it well enough, but English wasn't her first language, after all. "It's just really surprising that I'm still alive."
She relaxed a little. "I see." She reached out to open a door. "This is the common room; we can rest for a while in here, and I can watch the children as well."
Lockon started to open his mouth to object, unsure how much he wanted to be in a room full of these children, but she was already opening the door. It was just as well, though. She was obviously most comfortable around these orphans. Instead of protesting, he followed her into the room, smiling at the children in return to their curious glances.
Marina sat down on a somewhat threadbare couch and gestured hopefully for Lockon to join her. He sat down, looking at her curiously, both because it was best to look at someone while talking to them and because he didn't really want to have to look at the kids. She didn't seem to pick up on his second reason. "Lockon," she said, "how do you know Setsuna?"
"We fought together," Lockon said. "Six years ago, now."
"In Celestial Being," Marina said quietly. Lockon gave a small start, and she looked down. "They didn't tell you that I knew."
"I could have guessed," Lockon said. "It's just surprising to hear it so openly."
"There isn't anyone here who'll tell," Marina said.
"I know," he said. "I'm not worried about it." But he was studying her more closely now, trying to think how Setsuna knew her. She was definitely older than him--from the lines around her eyes, he thought as much as ten or twelve years, but there was also something younger there that made Lockon wonder if she wasn't younger than he was. Still older than Setsuna, in any case. Lockon briefly wondered if Setsuna had a thing for older women, then dismissed the thought before it hurt his brain too much. He couldn't conceive of Setsuna feeling that way about anyone, much less this gentle-eyed queen surrounded by children.
While he was thinking, Marina had turned away to speak to a couple of the children--maybe seven years old, in the middle of the age range that Lockon could see represented. Now she straightened back up to look at him again. "Setsuna sent me a message to tell me you'd be coming," she said.
"That was a good idea," Lockon said. She was working her way up to something. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what it was.
"He doesn't contact me that way very often," she said. "He's still learning, how to reach out to people like that. I hope you'll keep in touch with him, Lockon."
He smiled. "I will." There was another subtext there that she hadn't voiced: you must be important to him. He thought for a moment about whether or not to address it, then decided he owed her that much, after she'd gone to this effort for him. "When he was new to Celestial Being," he said, "I took care of him and made friends with him when no one else was up to it. I guess it stuck with him over the years."
"I'm glad he had someone like you there for him," Marina said. She opened her mouth to speak again, but then she stopped, looking at something just in front of Lockon.
He turned, only to find a small child, no more than four years old, staring up at him. "Yo," he said, lifting a hand to wave at the girl.
"Oh," Marina said. "That's Kalila. She came here just last year, after one of the most recent outbreaks of violence in the outskirts..."
Lockon smiled, first at Marina to cut her off before she went into more detail, and then down at the little girl herself. "She's probably just curious what a guy like me is doing here," he said. He was a little curious about that himself. But then Kalila was holding her small arms out to him. He blinked down at her.
"I think she wants to be picked up," Marina said, looking at him hopefully.
There was nothing else he could do about it. Lockon rose to his feet, then crouched long enough to scoop the girl up and hold her out overhead. She giggled without a shadow of restraint; apparently that was what she'd wanted, even though it was him. He couldn't quite pin down why that was so wrong. Lockon put her back down, then dropped back onto the couch with a wince that he didn't even try to cover up.
"Are you all right?" Marina asked.
"I've been traveling a lot," he said. "Is there anywhere I could sit down by myself for a while? I'll feel better once I've done that."
"Of course," she said. She showed him into a nearby room, obviously intended as some caretaker's bedroom, but currently quite empty--this place was understaffed, she'd said. Lockon was momentarily grateful as he sank down onto the plain bed alone. As Marina stepped out into the hallway and shut the door, he glanced around reflexively to determine if there were any security devices, but of course there weren't. The wallpaper was peeling. This place could hardly afford sophisticated surveillance equipment.
Reassured in that aspect at least, Lockon bent so that his head was almost between his knees and stayed there for several minutes, his hands around his face, his good eye closed.
The truth was, he was glad that Setsuna and the others had changed the world enough for their own satisfaction, had changed themselves so that they no longer demanded that it be fixed in an impossible way, but Lockon (Neil, after all) hadn't. He still knew that the world was skewed and broken. He still felt it that way whenever he dreamed. But these children didn't know that, despite everything they'd been through.
Finally, he sat up and took the computer that Tieria had specially keyed to the moonbase's frequency out of his pocket. He turned it on and opened a channel back there. Tieria's face appeared on the screen almost before he was done.
"Lockon," he said. "Is something wrong?"
"I'm fine, Tieria," Lockon said, and it was strange to see how much Tieria relaxed as he said that. "But I think I've had a change of plans."
"Explain."
"I'm going to be coming back tomorrow," he said, "instead of in a week. Is that all right?"
"It's not a problem," Tieria said. "But--are you sure? My schedule won't free you again for some months."
Lockon felt, obscurely, like he was disappointing someone, but it certainly wasn't Tieria. "I'm sure," he said. "It's best this way."
Tieria nodded, and then he smiled a little. Even now, the expression still managed to surprise and please Lockon a bit. "Then I'll look forward to seeing you soon." He hesitated a moment longer, "If there's nothing else--"
"No, everything's fine," Lockon said. "I'll see you then." And he cut the connection.
For a little while after that, he stood staring at the blank screen, wondering. Tieria was so genuinely pleased to be seeing him again soon. Now more than ever, Lockon had trouble wrapping his brain around that idea. So he didn't. Instead, he just got up and prepared to tell Marina Ismail about his change of plans.