Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ In the City at Night ❯ A New Life ( Chapter 11 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

A New Life

"You expect me to believe that some man who's never shown up on any political play-board would take the time to find an assassin?" Jordan demanded angrily of the actual assassin. "You expect me to believe that he'd want the most human member of the E.C. dead?"

The guy stared at Jordan in dismay a long moment, then shook his head.

"So Jonathan Breer wouldn't want to kill off Marquise," Jordan returned, moving around the table to rest against it beside the man. "But you already said Shifton didn't really hire you, so who did?"

The man blinked several times, obviously thinking fast.

"You make me sick," Jordan noted, pacing away as he realized he'd been on his feet for more than an hour. He dropped into a chair, feeling a vague throb from his leg-wound. "If you had any brains you would have noted how easy it is to find assassins in lower Angels."

"You really shouldn't give him ideas," Quatre broke in quickly, crossing the room to stand next to his old friend.

"I never saw who hired me," the man snarled, glaring between the pair of them. "I got a letter, a picture, and a check."

"May we see the letter?" Quatre asked politely, meeting his eyes.

"So what do you have against Breer and Shifton?" Jordan muttered, focusing on him.

"What?" the guy demanded, then shook his head slightly. "I don't have the letter, I burned it."

"And the check, evidently," Wufei muttered, moving across the interrogation room with a holder of coffee cups. He passed them around to the men, moving to sit in a chair at the end of the table. "Which means the money didn't mean anything."

"It was an envelope, okay?" the guy snapped irritably. "The cash was in an envelope! I burned the envelope and the cash processed through my bank."

"That's handy," Wufei muttered, then nodded at Jordan. "You're wanted down the hall."

"By who?" Jordan asked darkly, narrowing his eyes.

"Yuy," Wufei retorted. "Get out of here."

Jordan sighed heavily and started for the door, realizing his leg was giving more than it had been as he went. He pulled the door closed behind himself and leaned against the wall, taking all weight off the wounded extremity.

Sometimes he hated his lack in forethought.

He limped down the hall carefully, turning into the watching room as the various people gathered for the task looked up at him.

"Here," Heero muttered, extending his hand with two small pills. "These are plain ibu. They should help take the bite off."

"Talk in the hall," someone noted pointedly.

Heero moved across the room and waited for Jordan to join him before closing the door and offering an arm for support. "You need to take it a little easier," he admonished, studying the guy's leg. "Are you bleeding?"

"It only just started hurting," Jordan sighed, taking the two pills with the coffee Wufei had given him. "I'm sorry, I'm just upset."

"You have a point, though," Heero agreed, looking around until he spotted a bench. "Come on. Initially he got a mysterious phone call," the soldier added, sitting next to his friend. "That was followed by a credit transfer—that's the only thing we can verify. He had a large credit transfer before the attack. As far as we've been able to tell, the money was transferred directly from one of Shifton's random accounts. According to the paper, though," the man added, thinking, "the money was just filtered through the account."

"From?"

"Another man's account," Heero shrugged. "Before that it was another...whoever did it shifted the money through Shifton's entire party. Either Shifton is really smart, or has nothing to do with it."

"When do I talk to Shifton?"

"You don't," Heero returned, raising an eyebrow. "You and he were about to go at it because of Breer. Une told me that Shifton admitted he and Jon had a relationship. There's footage of them running all over Remington looking at different flats before deciding on the one Shifton bought. If you get in that room with him, something will be bound to come up about Jon. I don't know if it was just a summer thing or a vacation thing, or what, so I'd rather not have you rile him up over it if they had a bad split...or no split."

"But wouldn't that be better?" Jordan muttered, meeting his eyes. "If they had a bad split or aren't done yet, having me in there and familiar with Jon...I mean, he'd be agitated and less likely to remember fine details."

"I believe you, honestly I do...but what if Jon did do it?"

"But why would he?" Jordan half-whispered, as he studied Heero's eyes. "Zechs hasn't done anything to interfere with his business, so he's not likely to..."

"Jon ships drugs all over the world, Jordan," Heero reminded him gently. "He has tons of contacts on every continent and colony. You honestly think hiring an assassin to take out a man in power would be beyond him? You know as well as I do that he had those people who tried to mug us killed..."

"He told me he didn't do it," Jordan insisted, frowning slightly. "You've heard what he said before, he wouldn't lie to me."

"But he would, Jor," Heero muttered, looking down. "Fear of losing a loved one is the best reason I can come up with for a lie...and I have morals."

"You're trying to piss me off, aren't you?" Jordan accused. "You just want to push us into a fight over him."

"I want you to accept the fact that there's a vague possibility your friend made a mistake," Heero snapped, rising to his feet. "You're dismissed. Go home and relax for a few hours."

Jordan rose slowly to his feet, staring at Heero in disbelief.

"I outrank you because I've had four years consistent service," Heero half-threatened in a low voice. "You need to go home and meditate or something, because your control of your temper has never been that reliable. You're not going to beat the crap out of this dumb-ass so he gets himself moved to another facility."

"Sir," Jordan snarled, saluting.

Heero crossed his arms, watching as his old friend limped down the hall, then shook his head. Check one more off the list of things I never wanted to do but did anyway, he noted silently to himself as the guy disappeared. He swallowed slightly, moving back into the observation room.

"He's going back in there?" a woman asked blankly, looking past the soldier.

"No, he's heading back to his house for a break," Heero reassured her. "He's pressed what he's got to the limit."

"So you got an email, a newspaper page number, and a temporary credits card?" Wufei muttered from the interrogation room.

Heero sighed, "God, we know he's lying, why does he keep making shit up?"

"To keep us from figuring out the truth, I'd imagine," someone returned helpfully.

"Maybe he's like a rodent with a nine second memory," Trowa suggested. "Maybe he honestly thinks he hasn't told us before."

Heero grinned, meeting the guy's eyes.

Tro shrugged, "It's a thought."

"Hush."

X x X x X

Jordan half-gasped as his leg screamed in pain, shuddering slightly with the tension of it. He took several deep breaths, trying to relax his muscles.

The idea of putting weight on it made him shudder harder, but he had to sleep. He needed his muscles to relax if he wanted the wound to heal at all.

He couldn't take anymore of the drug Heero had gotten him until morning, and there would be no point loading himself with over-the-counter meds.

Jordan slid of the mattress, and Chai turned to look at him, "What's wrong?" she asked, rubbing at her eyes.

"I have to use the bathroom," he replied as normally as he could, shutting the door firmly behind himself before collapsing over the sink. He wanted to shout and curse, or maybe even puke, but he didn't want to wake Chai.

He'd known the whole walking around all day and then pacing the interrogation room thing would catch up with him, but he hadn't realized how bad it would be...and it was bleeding again.

"Shit," he gasped, reaching down to pull up his pant-leg. He ripped off the protective bandaging, then hobbled over to sit on the toilet itself, digging out a black washrag. The color choice had been inspired by him knowing he'd get bloody some time. He didn't want to ruin Chai's towels, so he'd worked a bit of black into the bathroom's decor...

The distraction of running over the color scheme only worked until he had the rag pressed to the wound. From the toilet, he could reach the medicine drawer, and he dug into quietly to pull out the tranqs. He stared at the bottle a long moment, then popped it open and downed two. He hobbled to the sink for a glass of water, then straightened slightly to dig out another bandage before limping painfully into the kitchen, hitting the auto-dial button his vid, and waiting.

"Jordan," Heero muttered, blinking at the screen in a way that suggested his eyes weren't inclined to remain open. "It's two in the morning...why are you calling when we work at seven?" The guy blinked as his eyes focused better, realizing that Jordan's face was sweaty and his eyes a bit glazed. "Are you all right?"

"My leg was killing me," Jordan explained. "I haven't slept yet..."

"So you wake me up?" Heero groaned a bit as he heard Trowa's bedroom door open. "That's nice."

"Well, yes," Jor agreed, resting his entire weight on his left leg and the counter, "I took the tranqs."

"What?" Trowa demanded, moving up behind the other soldier.

"I can't take anymore of the ones Heero got me until six," Jordan explained. "And O.T.C. drugs aren't gonna do me much good. I need to sleep, so I took the tranqs. I'm not gonna be able to get up on time."

Trowa ran a hand down his face, then looked to the screen again, "Are you all right? Is she?"

"She was sleeping," Jordan returned, "she's probably awake now, though."

"Why did you wait this long?" Heero muttered.

"Let me see him," Quatre ordered.

Heero and Trowa moved away from the screen so Quatre could get a good look at his friend.

"I thought that didn't work over the vid-lines," Jordan muttered, then started to shake his head, "I have to get my weight off this, guys..."

"He thought it would go away," Quatre muttered, turning to look at Wufei. "Who's gonna bite the bullet and tell Une?"

"We can draw straws for it in the morning," Heero muttered. "Let's all just go back to sleep..."

"Sorry for waking you up," Jordan apologized to them all, leaning forward more. "I just thought someone there should know."

"It's fine," Heero reassured him. "Go ahead and go lay down...we can go talk to the doctor tomorrow after the tranqs wear off. Maybe they'll figure out a way to keep this from happening again."

"Sorry, guys," Jordan repeated, then hit the button to end the call. He really hadn't meant to wake everyone up, just Heero. He limped back to the room, then drug himself onto the bed, gasping in pain again.

"Are you all right?" Chai muttered, rolling over to touch his face.

"It really hurts," Jordan explained, swallowing a bit. "I took the tranqs...I should crash soon."

"All right," she muttered, laying against him and running her fingers along his face. "You shoulda told me it was hurting that bad," she reprimanded. "I coulda helped you relax earlier."

"I didn't realize how bad it was until you were asleep," Jordan replied, gritting his teeth together. "It's so stupid that a dumb flesh-wound like this is just knocking me on my ass..."

"You're not fighting for your life," she reassured him. "That kind of things makes pain vary..."

"I guess," he admitted, relaxing slightly and leaning against her. He smiled slightly, "I love you."

"I don't think I'm ever gonna get tired of hearing you say that," she muttered.

He kissed her hand, smiling slightly, "We'll see."

X x X x X

Wufei sighed as a warm breeze blew across the base, snuffing out his cigarette and leaning against the wall to stare at the sky. Clouds had rolled in, which was slightly odd for a June evening.

"There you are," Morgan muttered, moving up around the edge of the building. "I thought you'd ran off for a while. Where have you been today?"

"Didn't you hear?" Wufei muttered, nodding at the guy, "Maxwell is back."

"I heard it, but I didn't believe it," the guy muttered, digging into Wufei's pocket for the pack of coffin nails. "So you're busy with him, I take it?"

"Off and on," Wufei agreed, offering the guy the lighter. "He came back because he's friends with Jonathan Breer."

"Figures, low life to low life, huh?" the guy shook his head.

Wufei focused on him in disbelief, "You did not just say that."

"Huh?" Morgan exhaled and blinked at him.

"Jordan has been my friend since I was fifteen," Wufei snapped. "Don't say shit like that about him around me."

"Oh...sorry," Morgan took another drag, watching as Wufei dug out another cigarette. "I don't know him, though, so I'm just going off the shit I hear."

Wufei spat derisively, offended and wanting to change the topic. Morgan had a way of getting under your skin if he found a sore spot. "What the hell are you doing back here, anyway?"

"I went inside and Tro said he didn't know where you were."

"Oh," Wufei sighed, studying the cherry on his cancer-stick, "I meant to call you and warn you I wasn't showing up for lunch, but I got busy."

"You gonna introduce me to Maxwell?" Morgan asked curiously, shifting around where he was standing. "Any of us?"

"I might," Wufei conceded, thinking the idea over. "But he'll kick your ass for slight offenses. When he draws a line, he makes it deep."

"Hence going a-wall for five years, huh?"

Wufei nodded, inhaling as he thought. "Fuck, I've had a long day."

"Get a girl," the guy muttered. "It's a nice stress relief."

"Haha."

"You laugh, but I'm serious," Morgan studied Wufei a moment and shrugged. "Wayne or Logan might make a bid."

That got the soldier to laugh, "They wouldn't be nearly faithful enough."

Morgan sniggered, "But they'd pretend..."

Wufei laughed more, "Shit...I don't think so...somehow, they don't hold my interest."

"And it's they, not just one or the other."

Wufei laughed more, gesturing toward the sky, "It's gonna rain."

"You won't melt," Morgan reassured him. "Your pretty-boy might, but you won't."

"Quatre?" Wufei asked blankly, meeting his friend's eyes.

Morgan laughed again, "Yeah, sugar melts with water."

They both laughed at that as Wufei groaned, and then stood a long while talking about different topics. Morgan was an external friend Wufei had picked up that had a definite "aquired taste" aspect. Tro was fine with anyone, but the guy irked Heero for some reason. Quatre was offended by the stupid remarks the guy'd make, too. He avoided him.

That made Wufei wonder if Jordan would get along with him...and then wonder when he'd started thinking of his old friend as Jordan instead of Duo. There was definitely something about losing the braid that made the new name more plausible...

"...and you've only been half here for the duration of my company," Morgan summed up his story, "So I'm gonna go set your grass on fire and find something better to do."

"What?" Wufei demanded, focusing on him sharply.

"You're in never land, boy," Morgan retorted, snuffing out his cigarette as he exhaled. "You're not really listening to what I have to say, so I'm gonna go do something else."

"Morgan," Wufei protested, putting out his to give chase. "Come on, I told you I had a long day."

"I know," the guy reassured him. "You can go back inside and veg out with those others, huh? Just come to lunch tomorrow."

"Come on," Wufei protested, still following. "Give me a break..."

Morgan turned to give him a very level look, then smirked slightly. "Take me to him."

"To Jordan?" Wufei asked, blinking.

"No, Maxwell."

"He is Jordan," Wufei noted.

"Duo?"

"Yeah."

"Wait...what?" Morgan's expression was confused.

"He changed his name to Jordan and gets pissed when you call him Duo," Wufei explained. "And what do you mean, take you to him?"

"You've ditched on me for three days, I think I should get to see why," Morgan retorted.

"You're worse than a girlfriend," Wufei snapped at him, turning back to the building. "I have to get my keys."

Morgan snickered, "You're not getting any benefits from doing what I say."

"Yeah," Wufei muttered from the door, "Like I said. Worse than a girlfriend."

Morgan started laughing.

X x X x X

"I got the tab," Quatre reassured the women he was sitting with. "You guys go ahead and take off. I'll finish eating and head back to my place."

"You want us to come over?" Varia asked curiously as Gina gathered up her jacket.

"Not tonight," Quatre muttered, sitting back slightly. "I'm gonna go home and crash."

"You work too hard," Gina accused, moving around the table to kiss his cheek. "You're too stressed. Take this weekend off and we'll get you drunk again."

Quatre smirked at that and shook his head, "Maxwell is back. If I go, I'll have the full troop."

"What's wrong with that?" Varia asked curiously.

Quatre grinned at her, "I'll run it by them and see what they say. You realize I mean the full troop, right? Wayne, Logan, Mor...all of them."

"I thought you didn't like Morgan?"

"I don't, but Wufei does. Wufei wouldn't leave him out—Relena and'em will probably show up, too."

"The prospect of getting him drunk at a bar isn't looking so good," Varia noted to Gina. "Maybe we should just make Paris kidnap him."

"Paris won't do that," Gina returned, studying the blond.

"Don't try and kidnap me," Quatre reprimanded them, grinning a bit. "Especially don't make Paris do it. He's too nice, I don't want to hurt him."

The girls grinned at each other, then at him and shrugged. "We'll think of something to get you away from your cling-ons."

"I like my cling-ons," he protested.

"But we're prettier than they are," Gina gave him a cute smile.

"You have a point there," Quatre noted, considering it, then grinned at them. "I'll try and come over. Jor has a girlfriend so they might be doing something."

"Jor?" Varia asked curiously.

"Jordan," Quatre agreed. "Maxwell. He doesn't go by Duo anymore."

"Oh," the girls blinked at each other, then looked back to him. "Girlfriend?"

"Yeah, sweet little thing," Quatre agreed. "I'm almost jealous, but they've been friends for the last five years or something."

"So he had her the entire time he was gone?"

Quatre nodded, rolling his eyes slightly, "They were in Angels."

X x X x X

Deb grinned, kissing Trowa, "I'll see you tomorrow."

"You should just stay the night," Trowa returned easily, standing up to kiss her more.

"I have to work in the morning," she protested, laughing and trying to fend him off. "It's an early shift, too. I can't quit."

"You should anyway," he muttered, pressing his lips to her throat. "I think it sounds like a good idea."

"And if I did it," she muttered, pushing him off with a vaguely annoyed look, "You'd reconsider in the morning. You're absolutely impossible, you know that?"

Trowa laughed, kissing her again, "Fine, you can leave..."

"I don't think your friends like it when I stay the night, either," she added, thinking of the long-suffering looks the guys had given him behind her back.

"They're just jealous," Tro retorted.

"We're going to Jor's," Wufei informed them as Morgan followed him into the main room. "I got my keys, so..."

"All right, later," Trowa muttered. Deb grinned, kissed Trowa's cheek, then followed the other two out the door.

Trowa hesitated, looked around, then darted after the males, "Wait for me!"