Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Justitia ❯ Chapter 1

Title: Justitia

Author: Lethanon

Archive: www.geocities.com/lethanon

Warnings: eventual 3x5x3, Post EW, Preventers, Angst.

Summary: The war is two years in the past but not all is forgotten in peacetime, as Chang Wufei is almost aware. It takes a mission with his old-time partner Sally Po to make him realize just how wrong the world might be.

Justitia 1: A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.
--Michel de Montaigne

They had, of course, offered the mission to Yuy first. Chang Wufei had not minded, long ago having accepted that Heero Yuy was trusted, admired and loved by his people, and they were his people, and when things looked grim, and damn near impossible, he was, naturally, the logical person to call. Naturally. But Heero Yuy got himself shot the day before and not even Lady Une expected him to head out, even if one irate Duo Maxwell had allowed him to. Maxwell had, of course, offered to do the job instead but they could not afford to pull him off the mission he was already on. Maxwell was the only one with those, shall we say, particular skills.

At that point, Wufei supposed he might have expected to get the call. It was, after all, becoming a little obvious that they were in need of someone with…particular abilities The kind you only got playing on the wrong team, that is nonetheless in the right, in a war when you're still young enough not to have too much of a conscience. Still, he wasn't overly offended when they went to the next on the list. 03 did, after all, come before 05, and they did appear to be working in numerical order. But Trowa Barton was not technically contactable and not even Une knew exactly where he was after he began infiltrating a terrorist group six months ago. They got their weekly reports, from a different location ever time, and that seemed enough for everyone else so Chang Wufei did not argue. He did not decide to mind. It was just…one of those things that vaguely passed his interest and kept on going as he walked the other way. There seemed to be a lot of those lately.

At this point, Chang Wufei was almost ready to pick up the phone, though he didn't really want to, which was probably a good thing because it didn't ring. Rather, it rang one Quatre Winner, head of WEA Enterprises and tried to pry him away from home and family for one last job, because they just didn't have anyone else. That was a little confusing, more than a little aggravating, but it still wasn't enough to push Wufei into action. There was, after all, just one more number on the list, and he supposed he could pick up the phone. If he had to.

But he didn't. Have to, that is. Rather, Une resigned herself to calling one Sally Po, a brilliant young solider who had unfortunately given up her guerilla days in favour of becoming the leader of Preventers medical. She was more than happy to get away, none too pleased with having to deal with Heero Yuy and a gun shot wound and the Duo Maxwell that followed them around. So Sally Po took the job, and asked for a partner to take along for the ride, which, as she was not one of the perfectly trained individuals they had originally sought but a mere human being, was granted.

No one expected her to choose the partner she had dumped after becoming head of Preventers medical, except for the partner himself. And that, finally, was when Chang Wufei got his phone call, and when he decided that he minded.

Wufei reached out and hit the connect key, opening the small vid screen to reveal Sally, who was looking away from him, frowning at the folder barely visible on the desk at her side.

"You up for it?"

Wufei did not reply, not really sure what his response was meant to be; not sure he wanted a response to be. He rather liked his small, insignificant and quiet life, tucked away neatly in a back corner of Preventers and called upon for every mission that didn't really matter but had a low survival rate. Why would he want to change that?

Sally looked up, took one look at him on her vid screen and frowned. She grabbed hold of the front sheet of the mission report and held it up to the camera so it covered everything except her eyes as they peeked over the top of the page accusingly. Wufei merely raised a brow. What, exactly, was her point anyway?

"You should have been sent on this mission from the start," Sally noted darkly. "Yuy would have been detected in ten minutes, Maxwell would never have made it out alive, Barton would have swapped sides and been unable to get out again and Quatre would have taken one look at it and said his company was too important to risk it."

"Quatre did say that, actually," Wufei noted idly, reaching out to grab a paperclip off his desk and starting to work its kinks out with well-calloused fingers accustomed to the job.

"Wufei!" Sally snapped, slamming the page back onto the table and scowling darkly when the action elicited no response. "What is going on here?"

Wufei decided he really just did not want to answer that, because if he did he might have to decide it mattered, and that was the last thing anyone needed. Wasn't it? He didn't want to have to do anything about it. Better to leave it ignored. Only Sally Po, it seemed, did not agree with him.

"I'll be waiting downstairs in ten minutes. Bring everything you need." And she hung up. Not that Wufei wasn't accustomed to people hanging up. When they rang, which was rarely enough, they tended to do that rather quickly. The longest phone conversation he could recall had lasted four minutes, twenty two seconds and that had been Duo and he had only hung up out of sheer exasperation when Wufei refused to explain why he was still annoyed about not being invited to the Christmas dinner when Duo had already explained their table only sat eight people and he had been unlucky number nine. Wufei still could not recall why he had minded. But at least he hadn't hung up the phone!

Wufei finished unfolding his paperclip into a perfectly straight slither of steel and then pegged it at the ceiling, where it stuck, along with the one thousand four hundred and twenty six others he had pegged there at some point.

Sighing heavily, Wufei slipped his perfectly shined black shoes off and tucked them away behind his desk, reaching into his bottom drawer to pull out his well-worn and rather destroyed combat boots. The very same ones Marimeia Kushrenada had given him for Christmas last year when she realized there were no Christmas presents under his very metaphorical tree when she came over to ask him what she should get Une, who was attending Duo and Heero's banquet, making it rather simple for Wufei to take the redheaded daughter of the man he had killed off to the mall on Christmas Eve. He could count the days he had not worn them since Christmas on one hand…and oddly enough it was the same number of days he had spent not being shot at. Odd that.

Removing his plain leather belt and replacing it with the sturdier utility belt and holster only made him wonder why he ever took it off. He wasn't even sure if it weighed anything anymore, more than accustomed to the weight, not that it really mattered, but it would have been nice to know. He took off his nice blazer and folded it nicely on his desk; there was a lot of space there when he actually looked. No paperwork for Chang Wufei. He put the heavy field trench he used for extreme climates over one arm, picked up his bag, which he had not unpacked from the day before, and headed out the door, not even bothering to lock it on the way out.

He then proceeded to take the seven flights of stairs out of the basements and into the actual Preventers Headquarters, to the garage, and it almost struck him to wonder just why he worked seven levels below the garage, three levels below even the archives unit. Almost. But not quite.

He passed a total of three people and two of those were at the weapon's desk. They didn't even bother asking, which when he thought about it was becoming a normal thing. They just passed him a Mosin-Nagunt rifle, a Tokarev M.1933 semi-automatic pistol, a set of knives and a very plain, well-worn and very well honed katana, all packed up nicely in a plain, nondescript bag that still had the mud stains on it from yesterday…Wufei didn't bother telling them they should have washed it. There hadn't been time, after all. The other lady was a clerk from archives and he only passed her by accident when he decided to take a short cut through the archival supplies storerooms.

Sally had one of the black vans. The stupid ones that were so conspicuous in their attempts to be inconspicuous that Wufei avoided them at all costs, not that it really mattered this time. It was just a ride to the airport, and he guessed that was better than walking there.

He tossed his bags in the back and got in the passenger seat, holding out his hand for the report. She didn't say anything, just handed it over before getting in and starting the engine. It just wasn't worth asking why he didn't want to drive, which was a good thing because he didn't really know. It just wasn't, somehow, worth it. Besides he wanted to read.

It was a difficult mission. The first paragraph told him everything Sally had said and he almost had to wonder just why he hadn't been called. The mission was practically tailored to his abilities, particularly the ones he had developed since the war ended. He was the closest Preventers had to an assassin, much as he, and they apparently, hated to admit it.

Sally didn't try to talk to him, for which he was thankful. He had never liked noise while he was reading, and trying to speak while digesting a mission was just plain painful, not to mention idiocy. So he didn't and it was nice that she had remembered that. It had been a while since anyone remembered…well, anything. Not that he was going to think about that.

It was, as he had heard somewhere along the grape vine, or through his somewhat illegal surveillance of Preventers Headquarters, a mission in Antarctica, at the old Morson Base sold by the Australiasian Environmental Committee years ago to the Chinese Government in return for their agreement to nuclear disarmourment. Three guesses where they put all the nuclear warheads no longer permitted on mainland China.

There would be a lot of killing, but that was not unusual. Wufei shut the folder and sat in silence, mind turned inward, just processing information and already drawing up game plans. He was well accustomed to working a lone by now and it took some effort to factor Sally's presence back into his creations, but he managed it.

They arrived at the airport and after reading the report Wufei now knew the Preventers plane would take them to the southern tip of Argentina, where a sea-shuttle would take them the rest of the way. A Chinese shuttle at that…They were, of course, Chinese tourists on their honeymoon, ever desperate for the next great adventure. Where better than the Antarctic. All those penguins…

Grimacing slightly, Wufei didn't bother asking the loading men who were sitting around playing cards to help. It was just their job, after all. Instead, he grabbed everything he could carry, leaving a rather confused Sally to pick up her one bag of clothes, and that was that. He tossed it all in the carry-cage at the back of the plane and buckled himself in, reminding himself that, no, it was not okay for him to pilot.

Sally took the seat directly across from him, seen as the seats all faced inwards and trying to talk someone was much easier when you could look straight at them rather than their profile. Not that Wufei wanted to talk but if that was what Sally wanted he supposed there wasn't much he could do about it short of killing her and that was against regulations.

"So?"

Wufei raised a brow and returned the question, albeit silently and while no one else on the planet would have known what he meant he knew this was the one person who did, so it was okay. Right? Right. Sally sighed in exasperation as the plane began takeoff and the whir of the engine took a little of the edge out of look but there was still a pinched quality to it. Wufei wondered if she had eaten her breakfast.

"Wufei…you are going to talk to me."

Wufei. Not Chang. So she was Sally, not Po, which meant off the records talking as…friends. Wufei barely restrained a sneer but he managed it, because this woman had done nothing wrong. No one had. This was just life, and what people were expected to do with it.

"Wufei! What is going on?"

"We're going to Antarctica, on a mission, because Heero, Duo, Trowa and Quatre were busy." Wufei thought that was rather obvious and it was a little annoying that he had to explain it all, but to each his own. Maybe playing dumb was Sal's way of getting into the mission groove, though it certainly had not been before she became head of Preventers medical. Still, people change. Hell, everyone had.

"Wufei!" Her voice was getting rather loud and there wasn't really any need for it…

"What?" He compensated by making his voice softer than usual and he supposed it almost sounded…tired. But he wasn't. He was ready for the mission, ready for anything. Really.

"WHY?" She bellowed at him, the slightly pinched look in her face transforming into a mixture of confusion, anger, annoyance and he didn't really want to think about what else. That might mean he was paying attention, and if he paid attention he might want to…but he didn't.

"Why what?"

"Why weren't you even considered as a candidate for this mission? Why did I ask twenty seven different secretaries where your desk was only to be handed your phone number by the very last one, with an `I'm not even sure if that's still it'! Why when I found out it was not, in fact, your number did Duo then give it to me along with a completely stumped expression when I asked him if you were in adequate condition to come with me? Why the hell was I asked and not you when I found out from Heero that you were in perfectly fine health and `why the hell wouldn't you be'? Why are your bags still covered in I don't even want to know what, and why did the carters at the airport not even look twice at you instead of doing their job and why did you not make a simple snide remark the entire way here or ask if you could please fly the god damned plane because these idiots don't know up from down!"

Wufei had to admit…there did seem to be an awful lot of turbulence, but it wasn't that bad. He wasn't going to say anything about it, but since Sally did maybe it was okay. He had thought it a bit rude.

"Heero was a perfectly acceptable candidate for the mission. I don't have a secretary so my number is not on the lists of the others and my office was moved while I was away last year so no one really knows where it is, I am in perfectly fine health, my bags are dirty because I only got back last night and have not been home to wash them and why should they carry my bags when I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself? Oh, and you hate my snide remarks and I thought I would spare you until the honeymoon actually started."

Sally…did a weird impersonation of a fish for three seconds before she just sort of slumped against her seatbelt, starting at him, incredulous. Then the finger came out and he knew he was done for. He remembered that finger.

"Wufei…" She hesitated, discarding whatever she had been about to ask and drawing out a different question. "Where the hell is your office now?"

Wufei raised an amused brow at that, but saw no harm in telling her. It wasn't as if she would come down all the way from the thirty fourth floor, which was where her office was, just to visit him.

"Sub-level Seven. It's kind of hard to get to though because there was this leak late last year and water got inside this wall, which corroded and collapsed, so you can't get there through the main corridor now, you have to take the south corridor and go through the old armory and then…"

"WHAT?" She was doing that weird fish thing again. It was almost worth having a camera handy, except…well, Chang Wufei didn't own a camera. "Wufei, sub-level seven is…two levels below archives! There is nothing down there!"

Wufei just glared at her. That was where his office was and that was that. He didn't have any problems with it. She seemed to sense he was not about to say anything more and took a new tact. Wufei could see it coming in the way she shifted about in her seat, as if getting more comfortable; settling in for the long haul. Wufei didn't really want to talk much longer but had that odd feeling he wasn't really going to get a say in the matter.

"What's on sub-level six then?"

"Nothing." Wufei shrugged. Sally winced.

"Sub five?"

"Archives."

"Archives go that low now? Wow…who woulda thought…" Sally shook her head and quietly chastised herself for the mumbling. Wufei just quirked a small grin at her, wondering when she had picked up that weird habit. "So, you're below archives? A level below a level of nothing, and you see no problem with that?"

Well, there when you put it that way…But, no, Wufei was not going to have a problem with that. It wasn't like he was there that often anyway, and he had enough space to keep everything he needed on hand at all times and then some! Hell, how many other Preventers had his set up for an office? That would be none. And since no one knew where it was no one was about to find out exactly what a neat little posy he had going. Nope, he didn't mind it at all, though he had to admit lunch was kind of boring.

"You do solo missions only now. When did that start?"

"The day you resigned." Wufei thought that was more than obvious. She had been his partner, after all. What did she think would happen when she left.

"You were not assigned another partner?"

No, that had never come up, and thank God for the small mercies! The last thing he needed on those missions was a partner. They would both be dead! But Sally didn't seem to agree with him, because she was shaking her head, face rather incredulous.

"And what? You went off on a mission and came back to find your office had randomly moved twenty eight floors south and that your old phone line had been disconnected?"

"I was away for three months on that mission," Wufei shrugged. "They needed the space."

"Wufei, are you fucking out of your mind? For all you know they sent you off on a suicide mission and packed up your shit the day you left!"

Well, they had given it all to him in nicely sealed cardboard boxes, with a neat list of what was in each one, but that had just been so he knew where everything was when it all moved. Right.

"God…that's what they did, isn't it?" Her voice must have just dropped a good thirty decibels, he was sure. It was a rather weird change. She didn't look impressed about it either.

"Don't be stupid, woman." They had just…needed the space, and he was gone a long time, and it was a really hard mission, and he had spent weeks trying to get rid of that damn sickness, whatever it was…Space. They had just needed the space.

Sally was looking at him in that way; that calculating way only women can really pull off, with her eyes slightly narrowed and that weird little light flickering in her pupils. Wufei could practically hear the bogs turning and he didn't like it. He didn't want to talk anymore; wanted the conversation to end right there and then. Did not want to hear anymore and knew perfectly well that he was not going to be given a choice in the matter.

"You were not at the fourth of July celebrations last week."

"Mission."

"You weren't at the Easter celebrations at Quatre's a few months back."

Quatre had an Easter party? Weird, he was sure he hadn't received an invite, but he was on a mission…that one in Cambodia, and it had taken six weeks. Probably lost it in the mail…mailman probably couldn't find his new office. Typical.

"Mission."

"You were not at Duo and Heero's place for Easter."

Not. Invited. Not enough seats. Not…that didn't matter. He hadn't wanted to go anyway. He had a perfectly nice time, he wouldn't have missed it for the world. He didn't need to go; it was better that everyone else got to go.

"I had to take Marie shopping."

"Marie?" Sally was straight out gaping at him now, it wasn't even a fish, just a gape. "As in the daughter of Treize Kushrenada who frequently goes missing three afternoons a week when Une picks her up from school and brings her to the office to see everyone. That Marie?"

Funny, she usually spent three afternoons in his office when he was there…He smirked at that and Sally frowned darkly, tossing her hands in the air.

"Maybe I should have just asked her for your damn phone number then."

"Or directions," Wufei noted wryly. He had always liked the girl; she had spirit and she didn't judge people. She liked war, thought battle was necessary to protect the things you loved and most of all she didn't expect anything from anyone. She was an outcast, tossed into a corner by society and not allowed to move because someone had manipulated her into thinking she was more than society wanted her to be. So yes, Wufei liked Marie a lot and when he had found her crying in the hall one day, completely abandoned he had reached down, grabbed her hand and tugged her through three floors before she finally looked up and walked for herself, all the way to sub-level seven where they had a fine afternoon playing with Wufei's computers. After that she just found her own way there and Wufei got used to it. She was the boss's adopted daughter, after all.

"I'm the head of Preventers medical you know," Sally noted idly, that twinkle still far too prominent in her eyes for Wufei's liking.

"I am very much aware of that." It was, after all, the job she took when she left him to go solo. When people started acting a little strangely, not that he really noticed because he was so busy with work, which just seemed to be getting harder but that was probably just because he was getting older…wasn't it? Anyway, of course he knew!

"Wufei, I can declare anyone in that building unfit for work, even Une herself. I have power! Why didn't you…you could have…"

Gone to her. Complained to her. Asked her for help. He could have done a lot of things, but he didn't, because that was what people expected. They expected him to break, to crumble, to fall apart…To quit. To go stand out in the hall until they were ready to deal with him, which would be never. But he wouldn't, hadn't, refused to…Because nothing was wrong. Everything was just the way he liked it. Everything was perfect.

Besides…

"You were at the Christmas party," Wufei noted. She had to have been to know he wasn't. "And the Easter party, and the fourth of July celebrations last week." And he suddenly wanted to know… "When did you get Quatre's invitation, by the way?"

And he saw the moment she realized it, the moment it all sank in, and he hated himself for that moment, along with all the others that he refused to acknowledge. Because they were the bricks; the golden markers on his own private road that led to his palace of weaknesses.

Sally Po had been at every function but had never wondered why he was not. Sally Po had received an invitation and passed them out in return, but had never once wondered why there was never an invite for Chang Wufei. Sally Po had known everyone's number and visited every office, but had never wondered why Chang Wufei was not on her list of visits to be made or numbers to be called. Because she could no longer say Chang Wufei was a friend, having left him outside in the hall.

"God…Wufei, I'm so sorry."

And Wufei pushed the words aside, not wanting to hear them, instantly forgetting them, putting them in that category of `dreams we didn't dream' and pushing them away. Because he didn't need pity. He didn't need friends. He didn't need sympathy.

He was not weak. He would not be and there was nothing he could not live with, or without.

"Sleep, we have a mission." He folded his arms across his chest and it was a simple thing, to slip down into mediation and from mediation to sleep. He did it almost daily as he was ferried from one place to another.

He did not feel the fingers that lightly brushed across his brow in apology, and the apology was not accepted. It was not, after all, required.