They climbed out of their battle simulators one by one. Lockon was the first to pull free and stretch.

He watched the others disembark. Setsuna stepped out second, expressionless, as anti-gravity caught him and he began to drift. His eyes flicked up and he nodded at Lockon.

Lockon leaned against the wall to keep from floating off and folded his arms. So, it looked like Setsuna hadn't broken a sweat through the entire exercise. Lockon studied Setsuna a moment longer, and decided to be impressed instead of annoyed. A determined guy, that Setsuna.

"What did you think of the new program?" Lockon asked him, while Allelujah's simulator hissed next and the pneumatic door slid up.

"The Exia still runs better than the simulator," Setsuna said softly. He cut his eyes to Allelujah.

"Allelujah, Allelujah!"

Lockon's Haro startled the third pilot only slightly. Allelujah patted the Haro and nudged it back in Lockon's direction, finally climbing out. He stood upright on the floor like the anti-gravity didn't affect him, adjusting one sweatband at his wrist.

"I agree," he said. "I also think that Kyrios has better control than the program we use to run our simulations. Perhaps we can ask Miss Sumeragi to approve a changeover, so that we can test in our own machines next time we're asked to do a run-through. That way we would get better results."

There was a pause.

"Maintenance," Setsuna uttered.

Allelujah and Lockon looked at him.

After a moment, Lockon chuckled. "Setsuna's right," he said, shifting his foot against the wall for balance and waving one arm in the air. "We're out in battle so much that our machines need all the time in the hangar they can get for maintenance and repairs. If we tried to use them for running simulations too, we'd only get in the way and delay the work crew."

Setsuna gave Lockon a look of appreciation, and Allelujah sighed.

"But anyway," Lockon said, looking back at the final simulator, "Does anyone know if he's going to come out?"

Allelujah ran a hand through his bangs, as if checking to make sure they covered up his face. "Maybe he's scanning the post-battle statistics."

Setsuna watched the still machine. "Tieria Erde…."

"It's unlikely, considering the results of this run-through." Reluctantly, Lockon moved to the sealed simulator.

Far too often, Tieria dawdled and refused to come immediately out of his cockpit, whether it was after a simulation run or after a battle in his Virtue. Christina Sierra had suggested that Tieria needed more "recovery and adjustment time" than the other Meisters after a battle. No one exactly understood why.

"Even though we won the mission, there might be something for him to analyze," Allelujah protested. "If he wanted to stay inside to check performance statistics, that would make sense, wouldn't it?"

Lockon looked back at Allelujah, releasing something like a snort as he said, so only the three of them could hear, "It's nice of you to be optimistic, Allelujah."

Whenever Tieria took a long time to "recover," he came out in a foul mood, and was even more insistent upon hurling around insults. He sure didn't seem like he had difficulty adjusting. Lockon put one hand on top of the simulator.

"He's not going to be very pleased I guess, is he?" Allelujah asked no one in particular. Setsuna's gaze moved to Allelujah's slumped form, and he said with stolid sympathy, "Allelujah Haptism."

Lockon stood a moment with his hand on the simulator. "Tieria," he said loudly, knowing his voice would carry through the metal door to the Meister inside. There was no response. "Tieria. We're all supposed to discuss the battle results and develop our next strategy now."

Sestuna remained a statue, but Allelujah met Lockon's eye when another moment passed with no response from the machine.

"If you don't come out and talk," Lockon tried again, "we can't consult as a team."

"I hope he's all right," Allelujah said, when again they got no response.

"Sulking," said Setsuna, and the slight lift in his voice indicated that it was just his speculation.

Lockon wondered if Tieria could hear Setsuna. "A guy like Tieria wouldn't sulk," he said loudly, shooting the other two stern looks as if to say, If he hears you talk like that, he'll become even more stubborn.

"Oy, Tieria," Lockon shouted next, banging once on top of the simulator with a closed fist. He was getting sick of acting like someone's parent. "If you don't hurry up and come, I'll force my way inside, you know."

Allelujah closed his hand over his mouth, which had curved upward, and he treated Lockon with a darting look over his fingers that indicated humor had been drawn from the thing Lockon had said. His shoulders shook as if he were fighting back a laugh.

Setsuna F. Seiei looked vaguely scandalized.

"What?" Lockon asked, frustrated. For once, he was being serious, and they were laughing at his efforts? "What?" he repeated.

"What is that you're awkward and vulgar, Lockon Stratos."

Lockon whirled. At last, there was Tieria behind him, haughtily avoiding Lockon's gaze and pushing his glasses up on his nose. And finally, the innuendo behind the shouting and its implications registered in Lockon's mind. Allelujah and Setsuna had gone straight-faced again in Tieria's presence, however, so Lockon decided to fold his arms and try to forget about his awkward phrasing.

So, Tieria had opened the door and come out while they were distracted, and Allelujah and Setsuna were perverts. Fine. At least now they were all accounted for. Allelujah nodded an apology; now it was time for business. Lockon opened his mouth, intending to draw focus away from Tieria's delay by launching into the details of their cooperative mock mission.

"Tieria Erde, why wouldn't you come out?" Setsuna asked before he could start.

Allelujah clapped a palm to his face. Lockon groaned, knowing full well what would happen next.

"Perhaps I didn't want to socialize with the likes of you," Tieria responded instantly.

"The others said you might be reviewing the statistics, but when you came out, your screen was blank." Setsuna's face was rather blank, too. "Tieria Erde, what were you doing?"

Lockon fought the urge to drown the shortest Meister in a tall glass of milk. Didn't he have any intuition about appropriate timing? "Setsuna!"

"Lockon Stratos…."

"Just be quiet for now, Setsuna," Lockon said as calmly as he could. Allelujah's face was still buried in his hand.

Tieria Erde was the only one unruffled. "It's just as well he's concerned with my actions. I have plenty to say about his on the battlefield."

Allelujah, who had at last decided to pace to the window that looked over the hangar, glanced at Tieria in surprise. "But Setsuna was the only one of us who didn't take a hit, and he destroyed our final target by himself."

"And did a sloppy job of it," Tieria responded.

"Enough already," Lockon grumbled. He pivoted away and began to unzip his flight suit. Damn them, damn them all… couldn't anyone get along around here? He moved across the room to the lockers, where he stripped down, shivered at the chill of the air against his skin, and angrily pulled on his jeans and his T-shirt. It was difficult enough to be a Meister as it was, without the constant bickering; Lockon wasn't immune enough to the hardships himself to continually play the referee.

For a moment, he resented all three of them. Allelujah, always overcompensating by trying so hard to be nice, Tieria, snobby and with no tolerance for anything that wasn't A.I., and Setsuna, tactless as usual. It was a wonder they got anything done on the real battlefield, never mind inside the simulator. Lockon buckled on his belt and drew a deep breath. They were good men, good Meisters, and yet… in all the ways they excelled, the area that lacked the most attention was sportsmanship. Lockon pulled on his boots, knowing full well that he, too, could work on his tolerance and temperament.

"Lockon?" Allelujah called, concern in his tone.

"Yeah," Lockon said, although he felt a bit better for being back in his casual clothing. "I'm just taking a break for a minute. You guys go on without me."

"Lockon, Lockon!" His Haro bounded over and bumped against his locker door. "I know, Haro," Lockon said, so the sound wouldn't carry to the other three. "Don't worry, I'll be fine."

"Lockon is a little stressed, isn't he?" Allelujah asked in a whisper that echoed, and Lockon rolled his eyes.

"I can still hear you, Allelujah."

"A-ah, sorry."

After grabbing his vest and slinging it over one shoulder, Lockon made his way back to where they all stood. Allelujah looked guilty, Setsuna stared at the floor, and Teiria watched Lockon with a keen sense of definition that made Lockon uncomfortable. He shook it off and held up his hands.

"Well? Let's all talk. We may have won the mission, but there's a lot left to analyze about our performance before we hear what the rest of Celestial Being has to say about it. Constructive criticism as a team, so that we can all improve our tactics — that's what we do. Who wants to start?"

"I will not only start, but I will finish," Tieria volunteered at once. Lockon bit back a sharp retort. No, he had to keep his cool….

"The Exia strayed too far out of formation," Tieria said, and his flight suit glinted in the ship's harsh lighting as he shifted to face Setsuna. "You're either dense or blatantly disobedient. Veda laid out specific orders for positioning, but you neglected to follow them. You left Dynames to cover you in Phase One before he had gotten into position himself. Then, in Phase Two, your recklessness ran us two-point-four seconds overtime, when any discrepancy in timing could have cost us the mission. As it was, it didn't, but it did cost Virtue and Kyrios significant damage."

"It was only my left thruster," Allelujah said quietly, "And I was able to compensate by diverting the power from the right one into it and balancing out both at half-thrust."

"Which made you only half as useful," Tieria replied. "You fell behind, took more damage to your unit, and then your reactions became unstable and you got too bloodthirsty and uncontrolled."

"Tieria," Lockon said in a warning tone.

"Bloodthirsty?" Setsuna asked, showing mild surprise for the first time that day. He looked at Allelujah.

Allelujah avoided the gaze. "I was… distracted," he said.

Setsuna's face betrayed nothing.

"Whatever the excuse," Tieria went on, "You lost focus on the mission and decided that Kyrios was going to break off to pursue and kill the people on the ground. It's true some of them may have gone for the Flags and become a threat later, but killing absolutely every person in sight was a waste of time and didn't help us reach our objective, which was the building, not the people."

Lockon looked at Allelujah. On the battlefield, he'd been too preoccupied to analyze all of Kyrios's actions. Allelujah had broken away to slaughter unarmed pilots? Tieria might have a point in the overall scheme, but still…. What had actually happened?

Allelujah's head was down, and his mouth formed a severe line.

"Allelujah Haptism," Setsuna said, and his voice rang in the open space.

Allelujah flinched.

"The killing." Setsuna stared hard at the green-haired Meister, as if determining something about their recent battlefield situation. After a few seconds had elapsed, his scrutiny seemed completed, and he announced, "It wasn't really you." Allelujah looked up.

Tieria let out a huff of aggravation and spun away, but Lockon watched the exchange between Allelujah and Setsuna, trying hard to read them. Allelujah's expression faltered, making him appear shocked and somewhat vulnerable, and then he seemed to shudder with some internal memory as he met Setsuna's unwavering stare. Was it in some kind of fear or frustration that he shook, or in relief at what appeared to be Setsuna's trust in him? Trust, or perhaps some sort of respect for Allelujah's inner battle….

Lockon released his hands, which had tensed up inside his pockets. They were a team. Almost like a family. It might be hard, but if they tried they could get along with each other. Now he could see it again — the hope. Although Allelujah hadn't yet responded, Setsuna nodded once, as if confirming the truth for himself. Then he looked coolly back at the floor, waiting, Lockon knew, for Tieria to finish.

Allelujah touched the hair that rested over his right eye.

Lockon glanced back at Tieria and grew suddenly angrier with the attitude the Virtue pilot had taken.

Tieria, however, continued his tirade. "Exia might have been the one to take out the target and complete our mission, but the mission was nearly compromised multiple times due to inattention, recklessness, and disorganization. We'll have to log in the mistakes with Veda, and if we keep making them, it will only lead to complete failure on the actual battlefield." Tieria's eyes gleamed behind his glasses. "It's a miracle to me that any of you are Gundam Meisters." His hair fanned out behind him as he floated for the inner region of the Ptolemaois.

That was it, then, Lockon thought darkly. Another wonderful speech made by the lofty Virtue pilot.

After Tieria had gone, Setsuna shifted position and frowned. Allelujah looked helplessly at Lockon.

"That went well," Lockon said.

"He's completely right," said Allelujah sullenly.

"Don't be so hard on yourself. Maybe he is, but maybe he isn't." Lockon raked a hand through his hair and readjusted his vest over his shoulder, staring hard in the direction that Tieria had disappeared. "Even so," he said, and Setsuna cut in to finish his sentence: "He didn't have a good attitude."

Allelujah sighed, and Lockon was tempted to do the same. If even Setsuna could draw that conclusion from their discussion, they had a problem. Still, looking at the faces of the two Meisters left with him, Lockon knew that he needed to cheer them up as best he could, to maintain what good spirits were left.

"Well, someone has to go teach that guy the right way to interact with people," he said. "Since I got bitched at the least, it looks like it's going to be me."

"Lockon," Allelujah said, with the first hint of a smile since Lockon had threatened to take Tieria by force in the simulator. Lockon clapped him on the shoulder. Setsuna looked up at him next, and Lockon gave him a nod. "I'll try to make him see reason before we turn in our official results. No sense ruining our Captain's fun if we don't have to, right?" He winked, and Setsuna said listlessly, "Alcohol…."

"Thank you, Lockon," Allelujah said, as Lockon pushed off from the floor to follow Tieria.

Lockon waved without looking back. "This is what teammates are for."

Lockon found Tieria still in his flight suit, halfway between the room they had come from and the Ptolemaois's bridge. He was leaning with his forearms against the railing, looking out the picture window into the vastness of space. For a moment, the image struck something inside Lockon's consciousness, and he was both taken aback and impressed by Tieria's posture, the philosophical implications in his stance, and the beauty in his deep speculation of unknown space.

But the moment passed. The truth was, although Tieria looked from afar like a person incapable of cruelty or harshness, he had just disheartened the rest of the team. Lockon moved forward so that his reflection would be visible in the picture window.

"Tieria."

At first, Tieria hardly stirred. Lockon could not see his eyes behind the brightness of his glasses in the window, but then he moved. He turned around and leaned his back against the rail instead.

"Lockon Stratos."

They studied each other. It was not often that Lockon found himself alone in Tieria's presence, and he wasn't sure what to expect after the situation they had come from. Tieria remained calm, watching Lockon with neither interest nor distaste.

Lockon began to relax. This might be easier than he'd expected, he thought to himself. If he didn't have to worry about Setsuna, about Allelujah, then maybe he could talk to Tieria Erde on a level where they could converse productively, and leave all the petty accusations behind.

"I followed you to talk more about the simulation," he said.

Tieria smirked and looked again out the window. "I thought you might, and that I'm right makes you just as much of a fool as the others. All of you are so useless."

So much for leaving accusations behind. Lockon felt his inner fire flare. This guy….

"You hoped to change my way of looking at the data, didn't you? Well, don't bother. I've just submitted everything from the simulation to Veda." Tieria said it neutrally. His eyes were still on the outside, and Lockon tried hard not to stiffen in outrage.

This was just the way Tieria was. It wasn't as personal as it sounded, Lockon tried to convince himself. It's just that he cares about the operation, the operation at all costs, and not about….

"Don't you care about the things you said to the other two at all?" Lockon asked before he could reign himself in.

Tieria's smirk grew slightly wider. "No. But it's obvious that you do. Why don't you tell me why, Lockon Stratos?"

Something in Lockon snapped, and he fixed Tieria Erde with a gaze he knew was stern enough to turn his face to stone if he used it all the time. "I'm tired of your ego, Tieria," he said darkly, and for the first time Tieria looked him in the eye.

"If ego is what will make me succeed, then I don't see the problem."

Lockon was tempted to sneer, but he wouldn't do it. He wouldn't let his anger overtake him. Instead, he continued to stare Tieria down. "You messed up in the simulation, too."

At that, Tieria released a small noise in the back of his throat.

Lockon moved across the hallway to the opposite side, the one against the wall, and faced the picture window and Tieria, after hanging his vest over the railing there. "You shot at the seventh window from the left first, didn't you?" Tieria was no longer looking him in the eye. "Our intelligence said the most accurate place to aim at to get rid of the opposition was the eighth window in, on the twenty-third floor. You got it right the next couple of shots while Kyrios was taking out the artillery on the roof, and before Setsuna got there and sliced the whole place to bits, but you either miscounted or misaimed on your very first shot."

Tieria was gripping the railing on his side of the hall now, and he looked cold. Lockon waited for him to say something.

"But it didn't hurt the mission," Tieria said harshly. Then, more warily, "How did you notice it?"

Lockon's jaw stayed tight, and he covered up his left eye with his hand in demonstration. "Sniper's vision," he said grimly.

"And yet you missed Allelujah Haptism's slaughter at ground level."

"Because I had my eye on Virtue."

Tieria seemed a little unnerved by that, but he kept his composure well. "And why," he asked suspiciously, "were you monitoring me instead of the target?"

"Don't even think of accusing me of neglecting the target," Lockon said, perhaps a little more vehemently than he'd meant to. He took a deep breath and started again. "I watched you," he said, "because you need the most watching. You make the others uneasy sometimes, and it affects everyone's maneuvering."

Tieria said nothing. His expression fell back into a cold, hard mask, and he again looked out the window, trying to ignore Lockon.

"You're always picking on them, Tieria! Setsuna and Allelujah do their best. They're Gundam Meisters for a reason. But being Meisters doesn't mean they can't be human, too." Tieria said nothing. "Even I make mistakes. I made one today. I don't know why you didn't say anything, unless it's because it's only Allelujah and Setsuna you dislike." He quoted Tieria's parting words. "'It's a miracle to me that any of you are Gundam Meisters.'"

Lockon couldn't tell, but Tieria looked like he balked at that a little. He still didn't look away from the window, though, and so Lockon continued, growing more and more frustrated with his teammate's pretended composure. "I agree that it's important to follow the forecast, but sometimes we have to adjust in a manner that's more conceivable to us in the heat of the moment. None of us are like you when it comes to battle, so calculating, so… computerized."

This time, Tieria did balk; his well-formed eyebrows drew into a stricken kind of frown beneath his purple bangs. Lockon realized that he had probably gone too far, and was about to cease, when Tieria opened his mouth and said, "But Veda said—"

It pushed Lockon's last button. He stepped away from the railing and crossed the hall to where Tieria stood.

"Veda, Veda, Veda…. Tell me, Tieria, did you ever once think that the success of Celestial Being depends on the strength of people like Setsuna, or Allelujah, and not on following our orders from Veda to the letter? When you criticize them too harshly, you create tension. We're a team, Tieria!" He was practically yelling now, and Tieria looked positively scandalized, so Lockon forced himself to lower his voice. "What makes us Meisters? Why are we trying to eradicate war? It's because we're human, and all of us know what it's like for human beings to suffer. The only thing we can do is support each other and try our best." When he finished, Lockon realized that his breathing had gotten harder.

Tieria smiled coldly, but at the floor rather than at Lockon. "You think I can't relate enough to the human emotions in all of this." His voice was low, and oddly empty in a way that made something about it threatening. Lockon took a step back.

Whoa, he thought, Did I actually upset him?

"I didn't say that," Lockon said carefully.

"Your timing was off by one-point-seven seconds when you were supposed to back up Exia in the first phase," Tieria said. "You fired late." Lockon watched him. "Do you want to know why I didn't bring it up, Lockon Stratos?"

What was this guy getting at? Two seconds ago, he was on the defensive, and now, while he revealed these things, he looked almost….

"When Allelujah said you were a little stressed, I decided it would be wiser not to worsen your condition by mentioning it."

Lockon stared at him, dumbstruck.

"I may not understand why people are so sensitive in the ways that they are, but I did weigh the outcomes and determine that you seemed more tense than you usually do. If Allelujah was right, it would be wiser for the upcoming mission if I didn't do anything that would compromise your mental state." Tieria's hair fell over his eyes and he looked at the railing.

Lockon spluttered. "It— It's not like I'm delicate or something," he burst out.

He felt like an idiot. Had Tieria, in his own way, been paying attention to his mood the whole time — been trying to spare him another burden? Lockon tried to shake himself free of the idea, because it seemed too unlike Tieria. No, Lockon convinced himself. Tieria had only done it because he was thinking about their upcoming mission. That was what Tieria always did. There was still no sign that Tieria had the capacity to worry or care about his teammates in the way that normal people did. Perhaps right now he was merely trying to placate Lockon.

"You still aren't convinced, are you."

Lockon's mouth slipped open, but quickly he closed it and narrowed his eyes. "Is that was this is about, Tieria? Convincing me of something, so that I'll acknowledge your discretion and feel grateful, and forget the way you chewed out all the others? No matter what you say, I might not act the way you want me to. That's called the human factor in things."

"Fine then. I give up, Lockon Stratos. If you ever grow more brain tissue, maybe you'll realize what I was actually saying." He pushed off from the railing and began to drift away in the anti-gravity. "All of you are so hopelessly stupid."

Lockon grabbed his arm. Tieria moved to tear the limb away, but it didn't matter, because the moment Lockon grabbed Tieria's arm he released it again, shocked by the pieces that had come together belatedly.

"Tieria," he said, "You really were sulking inside your simulator."

Tieria flinched, then said, "Don't use that damn Setsuna's phrasing."

"But you don't deny it." He took Tieria's arm again when Tieria made as if to flee the scene. "You're actually bothered by the way things went wrong, not just annoyed by statistics or worried about what Veda will say."

"Take your hand off me."

"You must really be troubled about your own mistake, and that's why you didn't come out of your simulator right away." Had Lockon truly misjudged and misread the other Meister? Had they all? Perhaps Tieria was as hard on himself as he frequently was on the rest of them.

"Lockon—"

He still didn't let go of Tieria's arm. "Tieria, if you were upset, then you should have just said something." Tieria asked him to let go again, but Lockon spoke straight over him. "Instead of making everyone think you're a cold heartless bastard, you should have just—" Tieria Erde slapped him, hard across the cheek.

Lockon's head snapped to the side and his face suddenly burned. His senses became disoriented for a moment in time. What the…? Tieria had slapped him. Slapped him like a woman.

Tieria retreated back to the railing, and he stood there with his body closed off; his arms stayed wrapped tightly across his chest and his legs were crossed.

"Huh," Lockon said when he had recovered, "So you do feel something now and then." Tieria's face was turned away, but Lockon could see part of it in the window reflection.

He grew astonished all over again.

Tieria looked like he was about to cry.

Lockon blinked and double-checked. He had to be wrong. Tieria Erde, this upset…?

But if he was, it was Lockon who had made him that way.

Shit. He felt like an asshole. At this rate, he wasn't helping the team either. He honestly had gone too far, thinking that Tieria was something less than human because of his atypical reactions and his seeming lack of feelings.

"Tieria?" He didn't know what to do. He definitely didn't know what to do. He didn't know what he'd done. He flexed his fingers in his gloves.

"Don't you dare pity me," Tieria said, glaring back at Lockon from behind ruby eyes. Lockon blinked. Tieria had lifted off his glasses.

"It's not pity," Lockon said at once, "It's concern. There's a difference. I'm sorry I misunderstood you, so don't look like you hate yourself for making the truth so evident. It's not a crime to feel something, if that's what you're thinking. Everyone gets mad when they make a mistake." What was he supposed to do, now that Tieria Erde had proved to be emotional?

Tieria held tight to his glasses. "I'm the one with the link to Veda. I ought to be the most competent, because I have access to the most knowledge," he said. "I… I don't understand why sometimes I end up making mistakes, when everything needs to be perfect."

Lockon looked at Tieria as if seeing him for the first time.

Tieria had said I, but he had used watashi. "No one's perfect, and everyone makes mistakes." Lockon said. "Maybe…." Watashi was a form of addressing the self that usually did not come from Tieria. "Maybe Allelujah and Setsuna and I are just a little bit better at accepting mistakes than you are. In which case," Lockon said, trying to brush Tieria's foreign speech pattern out of his head, "you should try to lighten up, because the only one so obsessed with being wrong here is you."

Tieira blinked. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Lockon noted the irony of the reversal he had completed; now he was trying to comfort Tieria, whereas moments before he'd had to force himself not to holler at the Meister until he went hoarse. What a day, what a day.

Lockon caught Tieria's gaze. He could hold back his curiosity no longer. He said gently, "Watashi?"

In one fluid movement, Tieria colored, turned away, and allowed the first tear to slip down his cheek. "Ore wa, boku wa… what does it matter?"

Instantly, Lockon experienced again the sensation he'd had when he'd seen Tieria looking out into space. Only this time, he could better understand it.

There was something about Tieria Erde that felt like outer space. Tieria was like something and nothing simultaneously, like one thing and another that cancelled itself out… or somehow, like a little bit of everything. The vast expanse of space was unknowable, and difficult to comprehend or map — much like Tieria himself. And yet, if a person studied closely, he might begin to understand what made up the different parts, or how the universe worked.

Tieria was mostly indefinable; his harsh, holier-than-thou attitude and his impassivity in the face of bloodshed existed alongside feminine features that suggested something softer. His eyelashes clung together now, damp. Lockon reflected. Ore wa… watashi wa…. Tieria was one big question to which Lockon had no answer, but Tieria was there, like outer space around them, and Lockon suddenly felt a desire to understand Tieria as best he could.

But why? What would he gain by seeing this side of Tieria Erde? Lockon wondered vaguely if it might change him somehow.

"Don't cry, Tieria. I really don't know what to do if you do that."

In fact, he did, or at least there was one tactic he knew was helpful sometimes, but he didn't want to think about it. The people Lockon had mostly seen crying were girls, and making girls feel better was a lot different than the situation he was in now.

Tieria released a bitter laugh. "Lockon Stratos — womanizer extraordinaire and the person who gets angry at others for not being nice enough — doesn't know how to react when his teammate is upset." Tieria lifted a hand to wipe away a tear, and for a moment, the normal hardness in his face returned. "You're a piece of work."

It felt like a challenge.

"I'm usually only nice to girls," Lockon said stonily, but he continued to study Tieria's features. Tieria reached up a hand to brush his hair out of his face, looking like he was barely keeping control. "If you're worried about showing this side of yourself to me, don't be," Lockon added, and Tieria's eyes found him.

Ruby red daggers. "I wish you weren't standing so close to me," he snapped.

"Oh? That isn't very nice. I even showered today. Who would you rather it be standing here — Setsuna?"

"I'd rather it be no one," Tieria spat.

"Well, that's just tough luck. You got the nice guy." Tieria closed his eyes, as if unwilling to confront Lockon any further, or the situation, or his renegade emotions. "You're the real piece of work here," Lockon said, and without another hesitation, he leaned and kissed Tieria's mouth.

He made it quick. Lockon didn't have a problem with men kissing each other, but he strictly preferred women. Besides, of all the men to kiss — Tieria Erde…? But what else could he do for his teammate, after he'd exploded at him and made him upset, and failed to notice earlier that Tieria had tried, in his own way, to accommodate Lockon's feelings?

Lockon allowed his lips to rest lightly atop Tieria's for one quick instant — Tieria's mouth was rigid and unmoving, probably due to shock, or maybe Lockon was about to get punched (who knew with Tieria?) — and then he pulled away.

Tieria looked at him. "Why in the name of Celestial Being did you just kiss me, Lockon Stratos? Tell me or I will destroy you."

Lockon resisted the urge to roll his eyes, or groan, or both. He decided to answer the question. After all, this shouldn't be quantum science. "Because you felt badly and I wanted to be nice. That's what people do, Tieria."

"It isn't. And you said you were only nice to women."

Lockon frowned. "You're right, I did. Well then fine, we'll say it's because you look like a girl."

"By looking harder, Lockon, can't you tell I'm not?"

"Only sometimes."

Tieria gaped at him, although he tried to do so in a fashion that remained haughty and irritated.

Lockon gave in and rolled his eyes. "It's a joke, Tieria, a joke. I like girls. Girls." He mimed the shape of breasts against his front, and Tieria looked down at his own chest, which was quite obviously flat.

Man, was this guy really so hard-nosed that he couldn't laugh?

"Look, Tieria, really — I just want to make you cheer up a little. It's pretty clear now that the entire team has been stressed, including me, so let's just—" He stopped. "Come on, what's with that face when I say I feel stressed? Didn't I already tell you that I'm not delicate? Why does me feeling tension make you react so unlike yourself? Stress happens to everyone, especially after simulation battles that don't go well." If Tieria didn't act normal soon, Lockon was going to end up annoyed. If not even a kiss could fix this, it might mean that Lockon was losing his touch — in which case all he wanted to do was take Haro to the back room and polish his boots in the trouble-free quiet.

Tieria was no longer crying. "Besides me," he said, "you're always the last one to get affected by the work we do." Lockon lifted his eyebrow, as if to say, so what? "I'm not an idiot, even if I seem like I don't understand people. You're using stress as an excuse to brush everything off. You ignore yourself and act on just a surface level, and when you finally do let yourself feel something…. Well, if it's like what I experience sometimes when I'm doing the same thing, then I understand it's painful."

Lockon stared. Tieria could understand the inner layers of his personality so easily? Like seeing through window glass…. Tieria leaned in again, very slowly, as if uncertain of what Lockon might do. "If you understand all that," Lockon murmured, and he knew that Tieria's lips weren't far beyond his own, "then why don't you try to change it in your own life and stop worrying about mine?"

Tieria shrugged, and it was the first time Lockon had ever seen him make such an ambiguous and human gesture. "Because I've never changed. I'm always the same, no matter what I do. But you might change, Lockon, and if you changed to something bad because of so much stress, it would probably compromise a lot of our missions." He still hadn't moved, but he was very, very close.

"You're too close, Tieria," Lockon said, but he noticed that his heart had begun to palpitate quickly, and not in a way that was like fear, or discomfort, or battle-adrenaline.

Tieria kissed him this time, coolly and experimentally, returning Lockon's initial gesture. Lockon tried to jerk away, but Tieria held him in place with a grip like a Gundam's. His lips were firm and smooth, and the hands at the back of Lockon's neck clung tightly; fingers slid through his tawny hair and caused a prickling sensation that seemed to drain away days worth of tension.

After a moment Lockon realized he'd begun kissing back, automatically, and fervently. Perhaps a little recklessly. The pace picked up to match the burn of new sensations, and it took all of Lockon's skill to keep up with the movement. Tieria took Lockon's lower lip between his teeth, and it felt good.

"Mmffgh—nngh—oy, oy, OY." Lockon tore himself away, breathless, and Tieria merely looked at him. "That's— Tieria!" His lips felt slightly tender now, and he dared not look at his own reflection in the window against which they stood, for fear of seeing what a grown man's face looked like with a flush across it caused by another grown man.

"Didn't I just get done saying that I only liked girls?"

Even so, Lockon was not a man to fool himself when something was obvious, no matter what Tieria said about acting on a surface level and brushing things off. He felt warm, and when he looked again at Tieria, the moistness of Tieria's lips and the light in his ruby eyes stirred something in him that wasn't all distaste.

He had kissed Tieria and liked it.

"Does this mean I also like men?" he asked.

Tieria shrugged again. "Do you want to keep going to double-check?"

Lockon took a stunned step back and whistled through his teeth, looking Tieria up and down. "Did you just make a joke?"

Tieria was not smiling. "If you ever tell anyone, I'll probably have to kill you."

"You'd kill me for giving away that kind of secret?" Tieria ought to let him. It might make Allelujah laugh.

"…No," Tieria said after a moment of thinking. "I'd kill you if you gave away my other secret."

Lockon was already moving forward again, a grin on his face. "And what secret is that?" he whispered against Tieria's ear. Tieria's hair was very soft.

"Nadleeh."

Author Note: I love Gundam 00 to pieces. I really do. That's why I think I needed to have some fun at the Meisters' expense (plus, I haven't posted anything in a while). My girlfriend told me that this story is like a caricature of them all. I think I agree. It doesn't have much depth or originality to it as far as my fanfics go, but I have to break into the series somehow. I could use any helpful criticism, as usual. I haven't written any 00 before...

Lockon: This is a little ridiculous, though, don't you think? I feel like everyone who writes about me is trying to make me gay….

Setsuna: Lockon Stratos.

Lockon: What the— Setsuna? You know I was just kidding in there, right? Tell them. Tell everyone that we're a bunch of perfectly normal guys and that we don't want to bang each other.

Setsuna: Lockon Stratos….

Lockon: Whoa. You have a really serious gaze from this close up, has anyone ever told you that? How about you back off a lit—

Setsuna (unblinkingly): Lockon… Stratos….

Lockon: Come on, Setsuna, ahahaha. That's not funny. You're a little too intense right now, considering what I'm trying to prove in front of everyone, you know, about how none of us like men….

Setsuna: Lockon….

Allelujah (grabbing Setsuna and tossing him out of the way): Ahaha, Lockon, he's just joking. Look, come over here; let's try not to think about what it all means.

Lockon (scarred): A…Allelujah… he tried to do sexy eyes at me….

Allelujah: Don't worry, Lockon. It's going to be okay. We'll convince the readers together that we have no hidden sexual feelings for each other. I wouldn't ever try to touch you, because after all, I'm in love with Marie— ah, AAHHH, m-my head… it-it-it hurts, it— AHA HA HAHAHAAA!

Lockon: A-Allelujah?

Hallelujah: Hey — don't take anything that guy says for truth. Now that I'm really lookin', you're pretty damn hot. I'LL touch you.

Lockon: Fuck you, you bastard! Give back Allelujah!

Hallelujah: Fucking you is exactly what I'm going to do….

Lockon: What the f— hey, no, NO, goddammit you bas— MMFFFGHH! (crash-struggle-bang)

Feldt: I didn't know Lockon had that kind of preference, too.

Haro: Anal rape, anal rape!

Christina: Sh…Should we cover our eyes, or keep watching?