Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Survival ❯ Under Wraps ( Chapter 27 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Under Wraps

Hey again. I'd like to note that more of what I'm drawing up here is also from the information revealed in the manga “Battlefield of Pacifists,” the official story that takes place between the TV series and Endless Waltz. Obviously, the plot itself won't play a role in here, as the events don't line up for such a thing to happen again, but Vulkanus and Scorpio are from that canon, and I might steal a character or two from there as well for the sake of expanding the plot.

If someone's really lost as to the basis I'm drawing from and can't find information on it for some reason, I can probably be talked into writing up a synopsis and emailing it, or something. I bought my copy of the thing in, like, Paris… *thinks* six years ago? I want to assume it's mainstream now, but I haven't exactly looked.

Revealing more this chapter and probably answering a fair number of questions in the path of it. My style being what it is, though, I'll probably make you ask more questions than are answered…

Otherwise… I suppose I'll get on with it. Happy birthday to me…

August 25th 197 - Friday - Space, Barge ruins

“Passcode is 56VI,” Treize muttered to Duncan, forcing himself to not twitch his fingers as they barely slid past another piece of debris. He trusted his men, and knew Duncan was an excellent flier, he had trained him himself, years ago… but trust didn't stop instincts and reflexes.

More than anything, he wanted to fly the ship himself.

One of the downsides of command, however, was delegation; it tended to offend your men if you never let them do anything. And while Duncan would merely be amused by a command to stand down and let his commander do the dirty work, the situation could still get sticky very quickly, and if it did, he would be needed in a more… practical fashion.

If he hadn't interpreted Tubarov's riddle correctly, Vulkanus would come alert very quickly, and he didn't trust any of his soldiers to handle the `watchdog' for the mobile doll factory by themselves. Possibly for the first time, he really regretted having to destroy Tallgeese III back at the battle of Libra; it was necessary in order to escape and leave evidence of a false death, but he had the specs for the Scorpio he might soon be facing, and…

Well, it wouldn't be fun to try handling without something around the same power guidelines as the Vayeate. He would even have happily taken Tallgeese I, with its tendency towards killing its pilot, than the handful of Virgos he had immediately at hand.

As it was, it was likely that this fight would escalate back into MS warfare again eventually, and the bare remnants he had left could not stand against a man who could call all the old factories back into working form. Treize grimaced. It would actually probably be good for the economy if he did… He had only those few that had managed to escape the battle at Libra without detection from the newly risen Peacecraft Regime, the handful of Dekim's machines that he had newly loyal men escape with before the Regime finished moving into his would-have-been father-in-law's base, and Captain's Broden's squadron.

The tardy nature of Broden and his men to that decisive battle, while he might have been willing to upset himself over it initially, had turned out to be a gift all by itself. Due to his rather vocal dislike of mobile dolls, Tubarov hadn't seen fit to inform him of the doll plant Dermail approved for him to build in the ruins of the Barge fortress, despite the fact that the machines could be adjusted to contain cockpits with relative ease. With the deaths of those two men in White Fang's attack on the Lunar base, the information might have been forever lost, had Broden arrived at Libra in time to join the slaughterhouse.

He had put off coming to Vulkanus before now for a number of reasons, the most essential of which had been his lack of a suit powerful enough to handle the Scorpio doll programmed to attack any trespassers. Unfortunately, time had revealed that in order to construct such a suit he required a secure area in which to build, which was difficult for a dead man to accomplish, even if he had Treize's private RLTT candidacy and project approval. Money mattered little when there were no means by which to secure the necessary supplies.

If they could secure it, Vulkanus was already expertly hidden in the debris left by the Alliance's thoroughly destroyed space fortress. He smirked slightly. The base had been such a chore to get rid of; the irony of him using Barge as a stronghold was not lost on him.

His smirk broadened into a smile as he caught sight of the plant. If the password had been incorrect, they would have been attacked by now. Now he merely had to set events in motion and leave men behind to do continue implementing them before heading back into the center of his information network. It was tempting to stay out here, where he could move freely, feel the exhilaration of flying again, but it took too much time to send and receive information from his informants this close to Mars, as a solid line of communication was not present, and building a line for himself out of his own satellites would defeat the purpose of having a hidden stronghold. He would simply have to tolerate his isolation for a while longer.

Still, it had been a good day, possible casualties averted… and he now had over three hundred mobile dolls at his disposal along with the very formidable Scorpio, outfitted to be either doll or suit, so it could literally be called to its master. And that was only the beginning, the plant could be altered to build suits instead of dolls from the beginning as well as adjust the current machines, and more beyond that, once he started to get supplies out here.

And it certainly couldn't hurt if he made a little flying time for himself.

***

August 25th 197 - Friday - Amsterdam

“Um…” I couldn't seem to come up with anything overly intelligent to say. “'Liss?”

“Daddy?” she asked softly. “Dammit… Daddy, you recognize him, don't you?”

“You know already?” he asked weakly, a nervous chuckle escaping his lips. “Shit, girl, you said he was one hell of a fighter, but…”

I fought the urge to bounce on my toes in anticipation of… doing an assortment of things I really didn't want to do. “'Liss?” I asked again, more quietly this time to hide the rise in my voice. I'm not going to panic, I'm not going to panic…

It was William who met my eyes at the quiet plea… and made me jump, much to my embarrassment. I'm strung tight as a wire, I scorned, forcing some relaxation into my muscles. I was ready to bolt, to fight… but neither of those had very pretty outcomes. Knocking out your girlfriend's father was something reserved for bad movies or mafia members, or something.

I was glad they had dropped off Nolan back at the den to get his homework done, though.

Will's eyes were concerned now, not shocked, though he licked his lips before asking, “Are you alright, boy?”

…I am not shaking, I realized in horror, forcing my muscles tight enough that they couldn't do that anymore.

Will sighed, seemingly relaxed, and turned to his daughter. “You did say he had long hair, didn't you?”

Melissa gave the man a half reproachful glare. “You won't turn him in,” she informed him, her voice soft but firm.

Her father blinked. “Turn him in?” he demanded incredulously. “Turn a hero over to the maniac who dropped a battleship on the planet?! Not even counting that my little girl thinks he's the greatest thing since sliced bread?!”

“Daddy!” Melissa's flush was bright.

…Okay, maybe this isn't so bad…

***

Brussels

Cursing at the readout on the tiny monitor, I dug out the regiment of pills I'd been prescribed and threw them back. The feeling of shooting electricity in my back grew stronger at the motion, however slight I'd managed to make it… Shit. I was going to have to call Dr. Sanders again instead of keeping our arranged discreet meeting; the sensation had been back long enough that I wasn't convinced it was just complaining muscle anymore, and possibly a return of the inflammation…

I really wanted a drink, but considering how badly I wanted one, it was probably a good thing that Sanders had made it clear I could well kill myself drinking with what medications I was taking, not to mention my condition. While I was beyond miserable and overworked, the idea of suicide never entered the equation; I had far too much work to get done.

Sighing, I settled into the window seat overlooking the dark courtyard and rested my forehead against the cool glass. Even if others would rejoice my death - and not without good reason - chaos would reign if it happened, and that would be the end of the world, with the state of everything now. We needed stability more than we did fools parading about what was right and wrong; not that the parading shouldn't happen, it needed to, but after the crisis years, after the fallout had passed, and I wasn't fighting to keep what remained of the population alive.

However, the longer I lived, the more I saw and experienced, the more convinced I became that conflict was mankind's daily bread, despite the teachings of my father and Heero Yuy… the original Heero Yuy that united the colonies then was assassinated the year before I was born. No matter what was done, someone was always dissatisfied… and while I was not naïve enough to believe I might achieve universal popularity, I was weary of fighting. I was weary of the day to day legislature, but it needed to be done… the daily dance of carefully crafted truths that I had once believed I lived for… the constant pain that had to not only be abided but hidden…

Shaking my head a little, I took a long pull from my glass of water. At least my body was mostly sealed from the outside environment again… The series of deep infections had been a hell I had never imaged, even if the debridement made the series of infections look like walking in the park by comparison… However, that pain was so far beyond normal comprehension that it was difficult to recall.

I didn't dare let the information of my physical condition become known to even those I trusted most, with the exception of the doctor. My closest circle knew I had been seriously injured while battling Yuy just above then in Earth's atmosphere, but not the details… though I suspected Dorothy realized I had not actually recovered when I claimed to have. She was a strange girl, but I had relied on her enough in the past to realize she was far more intelligent, observant, and cunning than the absurd face she showed the world. She had no proof, however, and fortunately she was similar enough to her father that she would not act on mere suspicion. The means by which she came on the information that assured her were far more elusive than General Catalonia's had been, most likely due to the odd circles the young prodigy's mind worked in, but she never moved unless she had come to a firm conclusion.

I wasn't entirely sure what would happen once she did realize… It was really a good thing I had always concealed my form to some degree, always cared more for the decorum of my appearance than comfort, or else my style of dressing with up to my neck always covered might be suspicious, even with the terrible weather. Funny, that once I had stopped wearing my mask, the battle that ravaged the majority of my body did not touch my exposed face.

So much had changed in the past two years… everything had gone wrong, nothing as planned. Exhaustion had set in months ago, but even if this all was hopeless it was not as if I had any choice but to continue trying. Some days I wondered what might have happened had I gone with my first instinct and turned down the offer to lead White Fang, before it all began to spiral sharply downward. Before the madness that had seemed, at the time, like rather sensible action, once all the pieces were considered.

The first thing I wanted to do if I ever found Winner was ask how the hell we had come to such damnably similar conclusions. There was a frightening degree of similarity in the reaction to the Zero system between myself and the young heir, though I was not so irresponsible as to blame my actions simply upon the machine… though at least his tendency towards massacre had only occurred while in his gundam.

I closed my eyes, leaning back against the wall. His pure destruction of a handful of colonies didn't hold a candle to what had happened to Earth. There was no denying that I had brought it upon myself, that I had quite frankly earned all the hate mail I received day by day. That didn't change my resolve to atone as best I could. I had no delusions that I might ever come close enough to breaking even, that I was worth the loyalty of the people of Earth…

But they had mine. That had to count for something.

I was only a stop between in any case; in another few years, perhaps Relena would be ready.

***

August 26th 197 - Saturday - Amsterdam

“So.”

Duo grinned back at the man, leaning back on his hands. “So,” he agreed.

“Ignoring the fact that I slept in my daughter's bed and I'm relatively sure I know where she was,” William continued on in an amused sort of ramble, “I have a handful of questions I need to ask you.”

“Despite the fact that we might sleep in the same place, we're not in fact… sleeping together,” Duo defended calmly. He'd been waiting for that question.

“I'm aware,” the man dismissed, waving a hand. “As I said, ignoring that… I feel a need to ask about your motives outside those surrounding my daughter.”

“Ah.” He shrugged a little, looking up at the morning sky. “I don't suppose you're asking about the shop, are you?” When he didn't get an answer, he sighed. “Mr. Mehile-”

“Will,” he insisted.

Duo licked his lips. “Will… The war's over; we lost. It sucks, but that's it, anything that started now would be something new… and I don't think I need to be a part of it.” He looked back into the other man's eyes. “Everything I've ever tried going head to head with the government has only gotten everyone I care about in trouble… I'm more than happy to just keep my head down and move along.”

“…Ah. So you're not just biding your time?”

He snorted, focusing back on the sky. “I like to think I don't make the same mistakes over and over again.”

“That's a sad way of looking at it,” Will commented quietly.

“Not if it helps more people than it hurts, in the end.”

“Why are you so sure hiding will negate trouble? Way I've always seen it, trouble comes no matter what path you try for in life. Sticking your head in the sand only makes you more vulnerable, not protected.”

That made his stomach twist, though he didn't want to admit it. “It wouldn't have been as bad,” he explained. “A little self-restraint at a few key moments would have ended it better.”

“Self-restraint, sure,” Will agreed easily. “From what I understand, you certainly had a way of going all-out. Hiding's alright too, sometimes, and certainly it's the smart thing right now, for you. Inaction when push comes to shove can pan out just as bad as rash action, though.”

“You work for Po, don't you?” he asked quietly. “I don't want to fight again, alright?”

“I don't, and I'm more wondering what you do want.”

He closed his eyes. “I want to be normal.”

Will chuckled. “My boy, even living as you are, I can assure you that you are both nothing short of extraordinary, and exceedingly proud of it.” He paused a moment. “I don't know that Melissa would like you so much as she does if you were anything but precisely that.”

“Fine, I want to live to grow old,” he returned wearily. “I want everything to keep going awesome with your daughter and follow that where it leads me. And if you're with one of the no-name rebel groups, you'd do better to try melding with Sally Po, she's got an eye for organization.”

“Most women do,” he quipped. “If you're determined to sit still I'm not going to fight with you over it, I just wanted to know what you really thought.”

“I think Relena will come to power eventually and offer asylum instead of a bounty for gundam,” he returned. “Zechs' been keeping his psychosis inside his own head anymore, and the little princess is working her magic again, so so far as I see it, it's just a waiting game.”

“Zechs is only the beginning of the problem,” Will argued mildly.

He tugged his hat down over his eyes. “I'm not getting into that with you. Who are you working with?”

“Why not?”

“You don't go into a firefight where none of your bullets match the caliber of your gun. Who are you working with?”

“You're awfully interested for someone who doesn't want to know about anything,” Will noted in an almost curious tone of voice.

“I want to know who I have to convince not to bother me.”

“If you don't want to be bothered, you'll be left alone. He'll be disappointed, but he'll respect your wishes.”

“Sure he will,” Duo replied dubiously, lifting his hat back up to look at Will. “Who is he?”

He seemed to consider me for a moment before admitting, “Treize.”

***

August 29th 197 - Tuesday - Munich, Germany

Lincoln smiled a bit as he watched his superior. Cassidy had official charge of Miss Peacecraft right now, while she was having lunch with a few officials, and he was on detail outside the little restaurant, and Jake was taking a rare break a few yards away from him.

The guy really had a thing about kids.

Lin had noticed this one too, though… he'd shown up a few times today, though he was fairly sure he had only noticed because he caught the colonel watching him. He didn't know the story and doubted he would anytime soon, but the look in the man's eyes said enough; that mix of happiness and grief mixed together usually came together when seeing someone who reminded you of the dead.

It would explain his sweet spot for the little ones they ever came across, at any rate… Jake would probably give his lunch to every brat they encountered instead of just this one, if it was even vaguely feasible. His pockets were always full of the large coins worth a handful of bucks, or those individually wrapped hard candies… Lin had seen him tuck a handful of bills into the pocket of an older child minding a few younger ones before. He has to be burning at least half his salary, this trip…

He was resting in an easy crouch in front of the boy, talking quietly to him while the kid carefully devoured the sandwich he'd been given. Lin smiled a little, running a careful eye over the nearby crowds for anything unusual while he mused. In all reality, the colonel was as suited for this kind of work as Miss Peacecraft. When he had first heard who was in charge he had thought it was because of the level of importance the princess's security was, but it hadn't taken him too long to realize that in a lot of ways, the two were eerily similar. They both had that deeply humanitarian flair, which he had known about Relena, but hadn't imagined in the rumors about the once Special colonel. The man managed to be strict as hell yet laid back at the same time in an odd sort of dichotomy that tended to confuse both friend and foe into underestimating him, but Lin had been smart enough not to test the steel beneath his easy words and stance; he'd already seen the resulting injuries friends claimed he had caused.

Besides, David Mitchell was the same way, and everyone who had ever seen Treize in the more personal sense claimed the same of him. Zechs Marquise had always been utterly formal, according to the ex-Specials willing to talk about him… simply fluid speed and power full-time. That was how he had earned his nickname of `Lightning Count.'

Milliardo Peacecraft, as he now called himself, was certainly intimidating, but after a while you became accustomed to it and he could handle that… On the other hand, Lin wasn't sure if he was excited or scared at the prospect of seeing Colonel Miller shed the easygoing nature that hid his underlying steel; Mitchell was frightening enough when he went into action, and Mitchell looked up to Miller.

“Sir,” he muttered as Jake came back up to him… and handed him his wallet.

“I've got your post,” the man informed him happily. “Go inside and order twenty some sandwiches… a couple different kinds, but don't let them have fun with the spices, simple stuff a group of kids can stomach… make sure everything has cheese, but keep it a bland one.”

Lin blinked for a moment as his superior started explaining, then smiled down at the kids wide, very blue eyes. “Yes, sir.”

There were much worse kinds of commander to have than humanitarian.

***

Unknown

Marlé sighed, massaging the flesh between thumb and forefinger first on one hand, then the other. When Odin decided to do something, he really went all-out and did it. Normally she appreciated that aspect of him, she'd always hated the busywork her teachers passed out in school, but this several times a day every day schedule was made her hands hurt. She was pretty good already, though. He'd even suggested she was something of a natural, which made her flush with pride…

…before he made her move further back from her target.

Practice makes perfect, she lectured herself, sighing a little. Odin was obsessed with either the idea of practice or perfection, she hadn't decided which. It was ridiculous in some ways, but she could hardly deny the truth of the results of following his regimen, and really, it was part of what made him so cool. He was, like, the ultimate source of… everything awesome. The thoroughness of his knowledge and abilities just made her more determined to catch up to the expert.

He hadn't let her think about firing a shot until she could properly clean the weapon, consistently fill a clip in under twenty seconds, take apart and reassemble it in under a minute. He had drilled her on the common problems that could arrive from too much wear in the weapon, or how to spot flaws and subterfuge, and had explained how their current firearm differed from others in its same class. She wasn't sure she was on level with that, as they only had one gun in superb shape and there was no practical section on it, but she felt reasonably sure that she wouldn't find herself in trouble.

…Since I am totally going to go gun shopping anytime soon.

Rolling her eyes slightly, she stretched her hands, fingers splayed out wide, before working her thumbs in tight circles in an attempt to further assuage the bruised muscle. She froze when she heard a soft sound, however, straining her ears.

When she had proven herself impossible to imbalance by anything but brute strength, the game had evolved into strikes and dodging. He didn't hit hard, very obviously pulling back his smacks once he realized they would land, and the soft rap or tap he delivered was embarrassing enough to make her want to try harder. He said he would show her blocks eventually, but that dodging was more likely to help, considering her small stature. Speed was more important than strength, and it was likely that blocking a blow would cause pain in any case, he said, so evasion was a far more useful skill. The little reflex and balance games he would play with her were supposed to help in the same way, for all that she lamented that she would never beat him.

Besides fast, however, Odin was quiet… and part of the games he would play with her also had to do with avoiding his impromptu ambushes. He'd said something about honing her senses, or her instincts-

The hair on the back of her neck rose suddenly, and she ducked down in her seat as a hand swiped at where her head had been. Her virtual brother made an amused/pleased sort of sound, and she couldn't help but grin at him as she sat upright again. Her heart was pounding, but she'd gotten that feeling he'd been trying to explain to her for weeks, had really realized what he meant about focusing and listening for what you couldn't hear.

“You're learning,” he summed up, his eyes shining with what she'd come to learn was excitement. His grin was smug, which she couldn't help but return; his obvious pride in her success only amplified her own. Glancing at her hands and nodding a little to himself, he held up a small pail that almost looked as if it was from a child's beach play set; steam was rising from it. Setting it down on the hotel room desk she was sitting at, he advised, “If they hurt, try soaking them. Until you build up the callusing, it's probably a good idea.”

Marlé nodded easily, easing one hand into the slightly too hot water, wanting to grimace and sigh happily at the same time. The heat would probably work much better than what she had been attempting. “Thanks.”

He nodded amicably, focusing on the laptop she had been fiddling with. “We have a few more hours until the night shift goes in. What were you doing?”

***

August 30th 197 - Wednesday - Munich, Germany

Relena smiled a little to herself as Jerome muttered a not terribly nice comment under his breath about the neighborhood, watching Jake shake his head from the corner of her eye. He seemed more amused than anything, and didn't call out his man like he probably would have under a normal circumstance.

Lin grinned broadly and waggled his eyebrows in a comical gesture, and she bit back a wider grin. He, at least, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying their… escapade… into the underbelly of Munich.

Jake's reaction at her request had been similar… and she wondered if he had planned on suggesting such forays in the near future. She had come to find more and more over the past few weeks that he and she were of like enough mind to have the same or at least similar goals in mind. The difference between them lay in experience, which he was trying to give her at a rate he deemed to be well enough paced that it wouldn't make her unbearably uncomfortable.

On some level, that rankled, but her request today had proven he was willing to compromise if she wanted to push the envelope a little harder. In light of exactly how swiftly he had managed to get her unrecognizable in flannel-lined jeans, a dark sweater, and her hair tucked up in style of brimmed hat that seemed popular enough here, and detailed a contingent of bodyguards that happily passed themselves as a group of friends, not to mention how quickly he had taken them from the boutique shops into the dark bowels of the ancient city… She was realizing his usual gradient of acclimation was a luxury she had taken for granted.

Stepping outside her immediate comfort zone was well worth the effort, though, and she didn't regret it. It was, as it had ever been during the war, both exhilarating and uplifting as she knew she had taken another necessary step towards her goals, gained another edge.

The sun had just gone down, and twilight probably wouldn't fade for another hour or so. Despite her wool sweater, she shivered… and a coat was settling around her shoulders. She grinned back at Jake's easy smile, pulling the edges together and keeping her arms crossed instead of putting them through the sleeves of the bulky garment. “Thank-you.”

He winked at her and put an arm around her waist. “No problem.” Relena kept walking, changing her pace to match his better through her stomach's flip-flops, though she was pleased to realize that the nervousness was from the motion overall and someone being in such close proximity, not because it was Jake. They were posing for anyone who might be watching, and he'd warned her of his `role' beforehand, simply because it allowed him to stay closer and be overly protective if necessary, without seeming out of place. I'm finally over it, she congratulated herself. The majority of the embarrassing crush had faded away shortly after he'd become her bodyguard, and Dorothy's daily running commentary had been stomping out what was left. He was her friend now, and the fact that the physical touch hadn't set her heart racing was incredibly relieving. It was more pleasant than she could have imagined to simply be this comfortable in the presence of a man that… she supposed it was the calm confidence he and the other bodyguards exuded that made them so different from those she had regularly interacted with before.

Heero had had a similar effect on her by the time he came for her on Libra, but… this was different, probably because in all reality, she had barely known Heero, while she knew Jake and each of the men he'd assigned with them as good friends. It was far less tenuous… and it was only now that she knew what it felt like to feel perfectly safe in German slums that she could tell that the safety Heero's presence had offered was only the first tier of that sensation. She felt as though she might as well be reading, ensconced in her father's favorite armchair, before they went to the colonies right before her fifteenth birthday where she had survived the botched assassination attempt on her father, before she saw Heero's gundam falling to the Earth under the guise of a meteor.

“There's some nasty rumors going around,” he muttered seriously in her ear, though like when he reprimanded his men in public, his expression was jovial, secretive as would be appropriate for muttering in your girlfriend's ear. His face rarely stopped matching the role he was playing, and his voice only carried as far as he wanted it to. Lincoln, walking close to her other side, could hear him, she was fairly sure, but not Jerome or Cassidy.

“Yeah?” she muttered, looking at him from the corner of her eye and answering his grin with one of her own without thinking.

“When the economy bottoms out, old traditions sometimes come back,” he continued, though there was a slight hitch in his voice. “I'm still not sure how isolated the cases are, but this city seems to house a fair number of people with… brands.” When she didn't respond right away, trying to follow his meaning, he explained. “From hot metal, Princess, like you mark cattle… escapees from something.”

Her heart plummeted into her stomach. “Escapees?” she whispered.

“Try to keep smiling… From some form of slave trade or sweat shops, by what I've been able to gather.” He leaned back a little and met her eyes. “I was thinking to look into it a little… find a talkative runaway instead of trying to track by pure rumor.”

She nodded numbly, trying to get her head around the horror of the idea. “All right.” Dimly, she acknowledged to herself that he wasn't shielding her from the unseemly anymore… and she couldn't decide whether she was thankful or wanted to throw up.

***

Jake smiled and waved when he caught sight of Caleb, ignoring the little gasp of surprise Lin gave. Good, he recognizes the same face from day to day, he mused dryly, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Lincoln was a good man, a decent soldier, but sometimes his memory for detail was more or less random.

The little boy grinned broadly before running towards them, a few words called over his shoulder had the rest of the children's curiosity transforming to excitement, though they were more cautious than the little boy he had first fed then had Lincoln buy food for his whole crew yesterday. He had helped the boy take the food home to stash, but the others hadn't been there.

He had left the boy to settle back in and have his friends hail him as a hero for the sandwiches, but he had spent a fair part of his off time last night tracking down any reasons a five-year-old had a strange but distinct symbol burned into the flesh where his neck and shoulder joined. His neck, arms and face had tiny little scars here and there, as if he'd been splattered with some kind of liquid or oil hot enough to scar… and what he had learned hardly settled his stomach. One of the burns on his arm looked as though it might be from a cigarette, which could be familial abuse, and a few of the scars may really have been accidents, but all together, and with the brand…

Caleb wasn't the only child this was going on with. He was under the impression that the boy was no longer in the situation where he had been injured, just because his behavior didn't fit, but he was hoping to get a few clues from the boy about where he had escaped from.

If he remembers… If he didn't, Jake had no intention of digging; the mind generally had good reason when it suppressed a memory.

Relena knelt, greeting the little boy happily, and he simply basked in the attention. Jake found himself smiling without effort; he couldn't have been in trouble for too long, to take so easily to them as he did… though Relena was something else again, if he was going to be honest with himself.

“You're the one who Cale met yesterday?”

Jake nodded, shifting his attention to the older boy he had noticed approaching. He hid his frown at finding the same scar on the same place as Caleb, stretching out his hand to shake and crouching a little, he settled an honest expression on his face. “I'm Jake.”

“Hans,” the serious nine or ten-year-old said simply, shaking the hand. His eyes shifted quickly over to Relena and Caleb, then back. “Thank-you.”

“It was nothing,” Jake dismissed, stepping back slightly while keeping his body language open, vulnerable, and saw Hans relax slightly. Hiding his self-satisfied smirk, for that would ruin what he'd just managed, he said, “This is my friend Lena, and these two are Lin and Cassidy.” Jerome was staying a ways back, keeping watch from the direction that had come through, incase this alley was a dead end. He didn't expect anything to go wrong, they were merely visiting a group of children… but as was obvious by the boys' necks, there were many less pure individuals in this city than them. Jerome was the best fighter outside himself in this little group, and third overall, just behind Mitchell; he would keep at least one route open for escape if somehow everything went to hell.

As it was, he turned an easy smile on the rest of the children there. Caleb was probably the youngest, Hans the oldest, but there were four others, just as the boy had told him at lunch yesterday.

If both boys were escaped from the same group or organization, than it both made more sense and widened the range of how far they had come; a ten-year-old could travel much further than a boy five years his junior. While that made his self-imposed mission harder in some ways, Hans would remember the details, provided he could convince the boy to divulge them.

For now, he needed to get him comfortable enough with their presence to stop seeing them as a potential threat.

***

China

Wufei rolled his eyes slightly, casually flipping off Cái as he grabbed the already moving lift. The other man protested in an amused sort of sputter, and cupped his hands around his mouth to call after him. “You're just scared!”

“I see no reason to commit time to something that I doubt I will find even remotely enjoyable,” the ex-gundam pilot returned coolly. He flipped the switch on the pull for it to stop rising, and leaned hard to one side to catch his other foot on the edge of the machine he wanted to inspect. The pull riser was nearly identical to the one he had on Nataku, which he genuinely found comforting… and had everyone else on the project either staring in awe or spluttering in horror at the stunts he was known to do on them.

Obviously, they had never had someone shooting at them while trying to rise to the cockpit of a mobile suit. They were sitting ducks when they clung to the harnesses they attached…

…But the purpose here was simply construction.

“Wufei!”

He hummed slightly to himself, securing the foot of the pull and stepping lightly onto the edge of the amplifier. His shoes came off easily, and his socks with small rubber pads to prevent him from skidding were perfect for up here. He wanted to do one more inspection of the actual mechanism that Shui altered in the last design before they tested it.

“Wufei! Listen to me, dammit, or I'm turning it on while you're up there!”

For someone more than five years older than myself, he certainly could act more mature, Wufei thought irritably, folding into an easy crouch next to one of Shui's `flowers.' Damn. It wasn't the leader of this quad… He glanced around the others nearby, looking for the identical device that had a control panel on it.

“Come on! You need to get out!”

“I have work to do,” he replied distractedly, finding what he wanted and making his way over to it.

“Fei! You haven't been to a single party this last whole year!”

May I continue to be so blessed, Wufei thought sarcastically to himself. He had no desire to go have his ears deafened or to rub bodies with who knew who in an attempt to… what was it? “I have perfectly satisfactory proof of my humanity as it stands,” he called back to Cái.

“You work too much!” Cái protested.

“You're lazy,” he retorted under his breath… though from Cái's annoyed huff he had heard anyhow.

“It's almost done,” the man practically whined less than a minute later.

Wufei growled in annoyance. “Yes, and the sooner it's done, the sooner it gets sent out to people who need it!” he snapped. “Either get out or make yourself useful.”

He wasn't sure how so many of the people on the project took their jobs so nonchalantly. Every minute of work was quite directly saving the crops, saving millions form death by starvation… yet it seemed like Shui was the only other one who took their `cushy' job and lifestyle merely as a reason to work harder, come up with more stable and efficient designs then getting testing underway and finished with as quickly as possible.

“Shui! You have to come out with me!”

“I do?”

“Yes, you do.”

Wufei snorted; Shui was more of a shut-in than he was. “It's an opium den!” he called down.

“It is not!” Cái protested.

“Full of scantily clad hookers!”

Shui laughed; another pull cord started twitching as he presumably put his foot in the sling and started fiddling with his harness. “Are they drunk enough to keep me for free?” he joked.

“Probably not that drunk,” Wufei returned dryly, rolling his eyes. “After all, most of them have children at home that they need to feed.”

“Support the economy!” Cái suggested laughingly.

Wufei growled, but Shui answered for him. “I have no interest in supporting that part of the economy.” His tone was serious and affected their coworker in a way Wufei's shouting never could. He shrugged off the quiet apology and activated the lift.

Wufei raised his head as Shui came into view, swinging onto the ledge of the heat amplifier with fairly practiced ease, coming a few steps on before starting to unbuckle his harness.

“Pussy,” he noted.

Shui didn't even pause in his motions. “Asshole,” he returned distractedly.

Wufei smirked; his relationship with Shui was one he could appreciate. He was roughly a year older than himself, with the same propensity Wufei's instructors had always called `genius,' only Shui had never left school, even when the war had gotten into full swing. He also had never gone beyond the basics of physical training, so while he knew how to settle his weight, he had that common academic awkwardness that most scholars couldn't shake off.

Cái was obnoxious, and Kailì was too old to relate to easily, with his wife and school age daughters… and Sovann either had Turret's Syndrome or made his own interpersonal skills look absolutely golden. The five of them led the program, give or take, each taking turns in the spotlight with new designs… though most of Relena Peacecraft's `rewards' for machines with increased usability had gone to him and Shui.

Despite having to move out of the city during her visit, due to either the Chinese government's paranoia that Zechs was all seeing or lack of confidence in his ability to tay out of sight - though he admitted now that it might be due to the damn woman's propensity to take unexpected action - he had been forced to leave the city and hide out in a nearby town… where that farmer had thought he was trying to steal his apples, or something. Once Peacecraft had headed back to Europe, however, he had settled into an apartment with Shui… and it had been pretty much smooth sailing since.

No more conflict for now, and he was simply in a contract with the Chinese government and had conditions under which he could duck out, or just finish the time he'd agreed to for his services on the heat amplifier project… and Nataku wasn't hidden anywhere that she ought to be found by any government. Really though, he enjoyed his work here, especially after Peacecraft had come and gone… his life had meaning. There was no question of right or wrong, he was making it possible for a majority of the population to survive the fallout years, and probably beyond. There was no threat to him here - only a select few knew his name and none outside the province…

This was the kind of work he had dreamed of, before Master Shirin called him back from school in place of his dead father, and informed him in no uncertain terms that he was to marry the master's great-granddaughter, Long Meilan. Of course, he had thought it would he more related to the colonies, but after the debacle of the war…

Really, the only thing that made him want to keep his attention trained on back in the rest of the world, was the fact that everyone seemed to be convinced that he had slain Treize… something he pointedly remembered not doing in a moment of mixed panic and mercy. The old conspirator was up to something yet again, but instead of angry, he felt… almost excited. He had realized none of his rage against Treize Khushrenada was actually warranted, the events that had led to Meilan's death had relatively little to do with the man, and that he was actually a clear-cut example of what his family would have wanted him to become… though he debated if he would ever fulfill that role.

Treize was up to something… and experience suggested that only time would tell what. Some part of him wanted to go snatch up Nataku and prowl the European continent looking for him just to demand what he had his hands in now, to see if perhaps it was worth aiding as a pilot…

…but the calmer part of himself, the more patient side he had been cultivating the past year, held him. He was happy here, he had realized… even with only his fellow engineers for company. There were a few martial artists around that he practiced with periodically, for all that none of them came close to his level… and what he was doing was helping everyone who had survived his failure at Libra. This was atonement…

…and he was enjoying it.

***

Munich

“You look like the princess,” Carey decided, staring at me in pure admiration.

I smiled at her, winking. “I get that a lot.” Of course, it probably helps that am the `princess.' Jake chuckled softly, and I very pointedly turned and raised my eyebrows at him. His not quite devious smile made me shake my head.

Honestly, what else am I supposed to say?

I frowned slightly as I saw him nudge Lincoln and flash a few hand signals in such a way that the children couldn't see what he was doing. There was no reason for him to be communicating like that unless something was wrong… Well, more wrong than the marks on the necks of the two boys. Jake had organized this before we came upon the little ones so that it would run smoothly…

“'Rome hasn't called me yet,” he muttered, apparently having caught where my attention was.

Alarm bells started going off in my head. Jerome should have been checking in through the tiny chip hidden in the colonel's ear; the mic hidden in the collar of his shirt was equally discreet. “Maybe he got distracted,” I suggested.

He bit his lip. “It's not like him to run so far behind.”

My frown deepened. How late are we talking?

“Hey, guys, I've gotta run,” Lin announced, grimacing a little.

He's sending Lincoln to check it out… I wasn't exactly sure how weighted the significance of that was, however. We'd been here for over an hour. We all muttered our good-byes to Lin, and I focused back on the two little girls who were so thoroughly enthralled with me. I knew my friend too well by now, however, to miss the slowly building tension in his frame, as if he were coiling, getting ready to spring.

I was sitting on a stoop with Jake and Hans, watching the younger ones play with a baseball we had brought with us, when it seemed as though everything happened at once. A sedan with darkly tinted windows was ambling by, and a van behind it. There was little traffic in the area, but two vehicles were hardly out of place in the slow flow of commerce. When I saw a few men walking down the street, it didn't immediately register that they must have dropped off the opposite side of the van.

By the time the larger vehicle abruptly stopped and the doors flew open, the five children playing in the street had been snatched. I sat frozen as I saw Jake from the corner of my eye practically throw Hans, struggling to stand quickly, seeing as the boy had been resting against his knees. Cassidy had immediately tried to jump after them as the men leapt into the now open van doors, and had taken a solid hit to the head, he was stumbling… The tires screeched as both car and van speeded off.

“Oh my God…”

Hans was rising to his feet. “No!” he cried, starting to run after the van. His voice was heartbreaking. “No, you can't!”

“Fuck,” Jake snapped, his eyes darting everywhere at once before settling on Cassidy. “Stay here,” he hissed at me before running to assess the condition of his man.

“I'm getting Hans,” I returned quickly and he nodded slightly as he ran, and I went after the lone boy… just in time to see the vehicle turn the corner.

“No!” He was shrieking now. “You can't do this, you can't, it's not fair!” He was collapsing in the street, staring out at nothing in despair.

Something about the scene pulled at me… I remembered the explosion that killed my father, and the men hustling him and I into a van to escape the scene. Was that what I would have looked like, had they left me instead? This was hardly the same, the men very obviously were not acting in the children's best interests, and Hans' reaction suggested it might be whoever had branded him. This was possibly the best lead we would ever get…

“Lena!”

I turned at Jake's call, and saw him gesturing at me. “We need to get back, I'm cut off from `Rome and Lin both, you're not safe.” Continuing to steady Cass, he started giving him instructions, but I cut him off.

“What about them?!” I demanded, gesturing in the direction the van had gone.

His eyes locked on Hans' now sobbing form, and it was with visible effort that he tore them away. When he met my gaze again, I could see something burning there… “My first priority is you,” he informed me quietly.

I continued to study his eyes, shoving down my anger at his argument. There was something there… Anger. It was another moment before I saw what I was looking for. Anguish… he doesn't want to do this. He wants to go after them, I know he does…

Duty. I blinked as that last piece fit in, then grinned at him, pulling out my phone and starting to run after the van. He had to do his duty to me, and before all else he was a man that lived by his own personal code, much like my brother or Heero. He had decided that my safety came before anything else, and he wasn't going to back down from that stance any more than Noin would have.

My protection was his priority… but it wasn't mine. And he had also promised to help me bring the world back to a decent standard.

“Cass got the plate, he's calling it in,” Jake muttered, suddenly at my side.

“Good.” I didn't slow down. I was beyond exhilarated, and it wasn't just the adrenaline. He was following me, and not just to tuck me away pretty so I wouldn't get hurt, he was here to help. He and Noin really were friends.

His chuckle was disbelieving, and I dared a glance at him before we ran around the corner the van had turned. The torment was gone from his eyes, replaced by something akin to wonder. I flipped open my phone and handed it to him. “Chopper,” I forced out quickly. I wasn't going to pretend I could sprint and talk at the same time.

Those blue eyes glinted in a dangerous but excited sort of way as, instead of taking the phone, he grabbed my wrists and somehow hoisted me onto his back without breaking our run. “You call one,” he returned, going faster now despite my added weight. “Knees forward, ankles back and crossed.”

I set my legs into the variation of piggyback he suggested, guessing that it interfered less with his speed, and wrapped one arm around his shoulders, keeping my chest tucked tight against his back. I started searching through my numbers with my other hand. I wanted a chopper to keep an eye on the van from above if we really lost them, though I was beginning to wonder if I'd underestimated Jake again.

***

L2 cluster

Leia sighed a little, waving to the nurse's station as she left.

“Good night, Dr. Keissler,” a volunteer called happily.

“Good night,” she returned tiredly, shifting her bag's strap on her shoulder as the automatic Emergency Room doors opened for her. Outside, the colony lamps were dark, signaling the wee hours of the morning. This was part of the L2 cluster, and while not as nice as the L3 cluster where she had grown up, it was certainly not as bad as her father had made out other clusters to be.

She sighed again as she started the walk home. It was hardly a home, really… she slept there and occasionally made herself a meal, and sometimes she would even just sleep on a spare hospital bed like she was still a resident. All the rest of her time was spent at the hospital, not so much because it was necessary, though the staff likely appreciated it, but because if she kept busy, she didn't have to think.

She didn't have to wonder where Marie had disappeared to.

Now that she finally could call herself financially independent of her father - had even changed her name to cement the fact - and had enough time to actually keep track of her child, she'd intended to bring her to live with her there on L2, away from what remained of her family and their influence. She had had half designed plans running with Marie's nanny, Meagan, for years, and had been excited that it was finally all coming to fruition. The condo she had bought had a room she'd started to mentally decorate for her daughter; they hadn't been talking as much while she was slammed between both the endless work of a resident and her grief over the news of Treize's death, but enough was enough… It still hurt to have her lasting hope for years, that they might be together again, ripped away, but she still had Marie, at least.

Or so she had thought until she had called Meagan for both ideas on what colors Marie would like to paint the walls and to make the rest of the arrangements, only to find that the number had been disconnected, and upon further investigation, the small manor her daughter and a slew of servants had been living in was for sale.

So much for maternal rights.

It hadn't been a stretch of the imagination that her father had taken Marie for some reason, and it was undoubtedly not beneficial to her little girl. She had hired a damn good lawyer, who was cutting down his price from the prospect of the publicity the case would get, when her private investigator had stumbled on the latest shame of the Barton family.

Some days she wondered how their name had managed to become so respected as it was. She really did.

The fact that he'd been using his granddaughter as a symbol of Treize to rally men was downright sickening, considering how much he'd hated the Khushrenadas. She still wasn't sure how he had found out who Mariemaia's father was, other than the fact that she must have slipped up somewhere after all. Not that it matters now… All those years of trying to mislead my father or staying away from Treize for his protection, and he died anyway… Closing her eyes, she fought back the tears.

Life was just no fucking fair.

She had a few of the best investigators she could find hunting for her daughter now, and in the aftermath of Dekim's fall she had had both high hopes and worries that the Regime would refuse to let her keep her daughter next. Now, after almost two months of hearing absolutely nothing at all, she was starting to come undone. Treize was dead… was her daughter as well, now? Was another group preparing to use her?

Will I ever get to keep someone I love?

***

Munich

Coming across a dead end, Jake spat out something that I was pretty sure contained profanity, though I had no idea what language it had been in. It had been a good idea to cut through a few alleys when he was reasonably sure what main roads they would stick to for the next few minutes, but I had to agree with him here.

His eyes were livid, and he seemed torn… and for a split second, he reminded me of the gundam boys. Looking towards the wall, I remembered a few of the things I'd seen Heero do… “Can you get over that wall, on your own?”

He looked over his shoulder at me, eyes narrowed, before nodding.

I immediately let go of him and dropped to the ground, relieving the muscles that had been cramping from holding my place on his back. “I'll wait here.” He hesitated, looking ready to argue, but I narrowed my eyes right back at him and snapped, “They're going to get away, go!”

Again, that not quite wondering look… and then he was down the alley, on a doorway to our right, on top of the wall at the back of the path, grabbing onto a window on the right building, then pulling himself up onto the roof… and gone into the gloom.

Well, I feel inadequate… Crossing my arms, I considered the area around me. There were trash bins by the back doors to the buildings, but no sign of anything else. Sighing a little, I pulled out my phone again and started flipping through numbers, wondering if there was anything else I could do… to see that Lin's cell was listed. Wow, what a stupid thing to forget about, I grumped silently, hitting send and jamming my free hand into my jacket pocket… and finding cold metal.

My eyes widened. I was still wearing Jake's coat… and if I had his gun, then what was he going to do once he caught up to the van?

Muttering a few dark words myself, though mine were all perfectly English, I ran back out the mouth of the alley and in the direction we'd agreed the van would be heading.

***

“Hello? Lena? Miss Relena? Jake?” Lincoln turned wide eyes to Jerome. “What the fuck?”

It had taken a while to find Jerome, much to Lin's embarrassment, largely because of the twilight and because he did not have a knack for remembering faces… Jerome was usually on night shift while he was on day, and apparently they were both dressed and moving too casually for the other to pick up. It hardly helped assuaged pride that it was their own training that had goofed them up… It hadn't been until it occurred to Lincoln that `that guy' had been spending an awfully long time talking to the cashier in the little convenience store pharmacy that they'd managed to find each other.

Rome had blinked then hailed him as the `person he'd been waiting for' before offering a good-bye to the clerk, and they'd ducked back into the increasing gloom to sort out that apparently nothing was wrong with Jerome's radio, for all intensive purposes… Though they weren't hearing anything form Jake after confirming safe status on either communicator. Unable to decide whether the colonel simply felt that answering would blow his cover or if something really was wrong with the transponders, they had decided to have Lin run back on the claim of having forgotten something…

…to find a hysterical little boy.

He had tried radioing back to Jerome, secrecy be damned… but the transmission hadn't gone through.

Why the hell does someone have a scrambler up in the area? He'd demanded of himself furiously as he raced back toward his teammate. It was the only explanation he could think of, exempting the fact that it was either a rather expensive piece of equipment or someone who really knew their electronics being overly paranoid in the area. He had every intention of telling his commander once they found the damn colonel and princess, and they could start working out if the scrambler was due to paranoia or a plot, but dammit, why did every bit of weirdness have to crop up the moment they didn't go strictly by the book?

We are so dead, he brooded now, staring at the phone. He just hoped it was Jake threatening to flay him alive, for leaving him slack to pick up, and that he wouldn't soon be running from an enraged prince.

“It's still connected,” Rome muttered a moment later, starting to dig in his pockets.

“Thank God we're out of the range of whatever it was before,” Lin agreed, watching the seconds continue to toll by on his phone. Jerome had a little device he'd hacked together that let him track a phone call… useless compared to the complex versions the normal military might use, but good for short distances, and therefore endlessly useful for pranks in college, as he had once explained.

He handed over the cell when Jerome held out a hand, and accepted the the man's cell in return as he ordered, “Call Mitchell for backup.”

***

It was luck, pure and simple, that had me come back onto main streets completely away from where I had intended to end up, I was sure, to find the van stopping at a light. Jake had had a point; once they had made their initial getaway, it would make more sense to slow down and draw as little attention as possible. It was a white, unmarked van, and for a second I thought it was too good to be true…

But that was the same sedan right in front of it; I'd actually recognized the make of the thing when it had driven by the first time.

For a moment, I had no idea what I should do, and I couldn't help but glance up, thinking Jake would be there any moment…

…but we had thought that the kidnappers would head in a more populated direction than this. It was purely by accident that I had been turned around in a few twisty alleys and ended up here instead of closer to my bodyguard. He could be on the next building over, or blocks away.

The light would change soon.

I had seen three men snatch up the five young children, and the doors had been opened for them, so there were four or five kidnappers in the back of the van, and at least one person driving in front… and not even counting the man I had seen in the driver's seat of the sedan.

That dismissed any idea of mimicking Heero's hijacking of the ambulance I had called him that day on the beach, if I'd had the strength and gumption to even do so in the first place. There were simply too many people, even if I managed the element of surprise.

Maybe if I just opened the back and… And what? I was all too aware of my lack of training in firing any gun, let alone what such an accomplished soldier as Colonel Jake Miller, part-time Spiderman would carry. Biting back my breath, I ducked low and approached the van, hoping they wouldn't see me in the side mirrors, and stood against the back of the van, waiting, even remembering to make a gesture like I was knocking for the benefit of the person who had driven up behind me. I still had no idea what exactly I was planning when the vehicle started to move away from me and I grabbed hold of the handle on the back door, pulling myself up onto the hitch.

Thank goodness it was locked, I realized as we drove away.

***

“Miller.”

“Is there any particular reason Lincoln is practically in hysterics?”

“The situation is unstable; fast decisions were necessary.” David's silence was telling, but then, that was probably due to his tone of voice.

“Is there any particular reason you forgot that you all possessed cell phones, Colonel?”

“…Lack of regular use.”

His old friend made an annoyed sort of noise. “Remedy that once we're done, would you? What are you doing?”

“Unknown persons kidnapped the children in a plain, unmarked van,” he continued formally, reaching a good viewpoint and suppressing his urge to growl in annoyance when he couldn't catch a glimpse of the damn van. “The princess insisted on pursuit. Foreman received a blow to the head in the altercation and notified local authorities of the incident and vehicle identification numbers before seeking out the local pharmacy.”

He could almost hear David clench his teeth, but they had long agreed that the frame of mind was both inevitable and generally beneficial, so he doubted the other man would get into an argument about it with him. “Mode of transportation?” he asked instead.

Jake frowned; Dave was worried if he had decided to slip into the same speech patterns. The idea was to keep at optimum efficiency, on Jake's end, which was a subtle cue that he ought to do anything necessary to achieve perfection in his objectives. What is he concerned about? “Foot, free-running.” Ah. “The princess required she by left at approximately 83rd and Hickam for sake of the pursuit.”

“Princess located at approximately 98th and Markt, moving northeast at high speed, tracked by Jerome,” Mitchell reported tersely.

He felt his eyes narrow, and he quickly started moving again, in a different direction. “Operations yellow and white,” he snapped out the regulations they needed to follow. Drain the tubs, but don't tell. “Convene pursuit of priority.” He bit his lip slightly, mentally shaking himself hard; Mitchell didn't appreciate some of his habits but knew how to handle them, while the boys were new and might misinterpret it. “Lincoln and Jerome are partnered?”

“Yes.”

“Have them call me once you update them.” Kicking off one rooftop, he tucked the phone against his chest and rolled off the force of the impact, coming back to his feet and continuing to sprint without break. Bringing the phone back up, he challenged, “See if you can't beat me to her.”

“Was starting to wonder if you'd ever ask,” Mitchell purred.

“For the record, you creep me out.” Dave was verging on shy until he got his feet wet; then he enjoyed wreaking mayhem far too much.

“You creep me out,” he returned in that… It made his skin crawl because whenever the man did it, if he didn't already know his full meaning he'd swear he was trying to talk dirty.

“I hate you.”

“Only because I'm going to win,” he returned in that same tone, so that he almost expected him to add `bitch' on at the end. He heard an engine rev. “I'm calling your boys… mine are already dancing.”

Forming a net. Jake crossed to another building. As much as he disliked David's `battle persona,' as some might call it, he functioned better under it, and couldn't slide in and out the way the blonde could force himself. Just the same… “Make sure they understand you don't want to molest them,” he growled.

Dave just laughed… and Jake hung up.

***

Somewhere in the Sahara Desert

Nick jumped hard when he heard the soft sound of cloth on cloth, then settled quickly when he saw who it was.

How the man managed to move silently on sand was beyond him.

“Boo,” Robby muttered in amusement, coming even with him and sitting with one leg bent, the other sprawled.

Nick rolled his eyes, focusing back on the dark night sky. The contrast with the pale sands, lit by moonlight, was beautiful, really… And it was hard to find anything beautiful anymore.

“Wishing you had your camera again?”

He smiled a bit, shaking his head. “Always.” He'd told Robby about how he'd just finished his first semester of university for photography when Libra fell… and even though the world wasn't as dead as the predictions had suggested, it had still fallen apart, and his life along with it.

Now… now it was about making it from day to day without getting yourself killed. And it was a lot harder than he had ever imagined it could be, though Robby seemed to have it down well enough.

Then again, that was the reason he was more or less in charge; before he'd come, there had been little to no guarantee you'd survive the day, let alone the week… Nick had barely been making it, keeping out of the heavier end of group politics. Then Robby had arrived and started organizing them, made their lot in life a hard and detestable job instead of sheer chaos. He had slowly begun to weed out the more dangerous men and take charge, leveled the playing field a bit, started giving rewards and punishments as he saw fit…

He was keeping them human, making an honest effort with the faction he called his own to keep them alive, healthy, and maybe even happy. He cut anyone who started to show a true passion for causing others pain… he allowed the rush of adrenaline, and seemed to be cultivating more vices than the cigarettes he was now offering Nick, but he only allowed minimal degrees of sadism in those falling loyal to him.

The man was very much insane in his own peculiar fashion, and could be just as frightening as the true commanders, however; Nick was relatively sure that it was simply his possessiveness of them that kept him interested. This was a strangely soft moment, enjoying the rise of the moon together… Robby would save you in a fight, provided you weren't sliding back into the beliefs imposed by the group, but this was different. For once, the man didn't terrify him on some level.

This uncharacteristically easy personality was as stark a contrast to his usual sharpness as the sky and sand, but comforting in the same way the scene before them was beautiful. They were in a fight to stay human, here in this hot hell… And it was somehow comforting to see him come out of his shell for once.

“Do you miss home?” Nick asked quietly.

Rob's response was to smack him upside the head, hard… but not so hard that the world swam, like it usually would. “Stupid question.”

Grimacing, Nick held a hand to the spot, supposing it had been. He accepted a light from his friend, inhaling deeply and just trying to let it all go as he blew the smoke back out. Everything he'd seen that day… the horrible things he'd done. It was best to just let it all go, he'd learned… try to forget. They were slaves, here, whatever they were told, with no real chance of escape outside of death. Robby only had the loyalty of maybe a quarter of their encampment, and there were other camps, older ones that were more loyal to the ideals, that would think nothing of gunning them down should their subversion come to light… and there was nothing but desert for miles in every direction.

They were damned, in a hell nearly as true as any biblical version, forced to enforce and impose the same hell on others… but no one wants to die. And some days, there was even a little hope for escape. Turning back to Rob, Nick noted, “I want a cola.”

“Tch.” Tossing his ponytail back over his shoulder and leaning back, he blew out his own stream of smoke. “I want a pony.”

Nick grinned at that… and focused back on the moon.

***

Munich

It was full dark now, which in some ways was a blessing, Relena supposed, as it would be hard to see her… but there still remained the fact that she was hanging onto the back of a van for dear life and still had no idea how to fix the problem. Letting go just wasn't an option… but she didn't dare loosen her grip so she could try calling one of her bodyguards again.

Hopefully Jake knows what he's doing… The deeper she got into this, the more apparent it became that she certainly didn't. He should get here soon, right? It was strangely humbling, terrifying, and exciting all at the same time.

Just the same, she certainly wouldn't mind a rescue, at this point. Her hands really hurt…

There was a sort of shifting sensation in the door, and a shout… and suddenly the door was flying open. She completely lost her handhold, finding herself flying backwards, as someone tumbled out the now open doors. Feeling as if everything was moving in slow motion, she wrapped her arms around the child and tucked her head down, closing her eyes as she held the orphan tight against her chest…

She couldn't help but cry out as her shoulder hit the pavement, but she didn't let go as she continued her painful roll, protecting the child she'd saved from the impact. They were lucky that this wasn't a very busy street, and all they had to deal with was the speed of impact, and not traffic. They would probably both be dead if that were the case, or if the van had been going faster.

“Are you okay?” she asked once they had stopped. Her voice was teary… she didn't know if she had ever felt this bad. Whichever child she had managed to save was shaking badly, but so was she. Trying to swallow her tears, she tried again. “Are you hurt?”

Whoever it was, they jerked hard as if in shock, then pulled away enough to look at her. It was Caleb, the boy that Jake had first seen with the brand. He looked seconds away from crying, and she pulled him roughly back against her chest, rubbing his back. “It's okay, you're safe now, sweetie…”

He started shaking even harder, and she tried to sit up, hissing in pain as she did. Still, they couldn't just lay in the street. Loosening her hold on him a little, she muttered, “Caleb, we need to get up… Can you stand up on your own?” Sniffling a little, the boy nodded and crawled away from her side, rising shakily to his knees. Taking a deep breath, Relena squeezed her eyes shut and followed his example, though she quickly found her vision blurring. It hurts… Big, fat tears rolling down her cheeks, she brought one knee up, and shakily started to try bringing up the other. Caleb stood himself and grabbed at the hand she had been waving for balance, trying to give her an anchoring point. He was so little it really didn't help at all, but she appreciated the attempt. After a few not quite falls, she managed to get both feet back on the ground.

By then, the van was long gone.

Once she had regained her posture, Caleb threw his arms around her, burying his face in the leg of her pants and starting to cry in earnest. Relena patted his head a bit awkwardly with one hand, wiping at her still streaming eyes with her other. It was over, and she was relieved… but she had only managed to save one of the five.

Only one. The thought made her want to cry harder, and it had nothing to do with the pain.

She almost lost her balance when she heard a motorcycle rev and someone called, “Relena!”

Catching herself, she turned to squint into the night at the rider, who was coming up alongside her and pulling off his helmet… “Mitchell?” she asked, disbelieving. He can drive a motorcycle?

“You're safe,” he sighed, relieved.

She winced, looking back in the direction the van had gone. “They got away…”

“What happened?”

“Relena!”

She turned at the other voice and found herself smiling weakly at Jake. “You're late,” she murmured.

“What happened to you staying back in the alley?” he demanded, his brows furrowed.

“You left your gun with me!” she exclaimed. “I was trying to find you, what if you'd needed it?”

He stared at her for a moment, mouthing silently. “You… Relena, I never carry just one gun!”

Well, that made her feel unaccountably stupid… But when Caleb shifted against her leg, and she found herself automatically rubbing his shoulder in reassurance, she couldn't find it in her heart to care how foolish she had been. Sighing, looking down at the boy, she decided, “It was worth it.” Her resolve hardening again, she looked back to David and fixed him with a commanding stare. “They aren't far from here; they were heading that way.”

I am not going to save just one.

The man looked mildly taken aback, before getting an almost predatory smile and shoving his helmet back on. “Ma'am!”

She looked back to Jake. “You're staying with us?”

He stared at her for a long moment, something she couldn't quite read in his eyes. It seemed as though he was fighting to keep some emotion from overtaking him, but she didn't think he was angry with her for her mad rush to help. One fist was clenched, though…

Her bodyguard nodded an answer and came closer, coming down in a kneel in front of her and beginning to talk softly to the boy, coaxing him off her thoroughly aching leg and going through what she recognized as a paramedic's basic trauma evaluation. His questions were all delivered in that soft, soothing tone of voice, and he even managed to get a sniffling giggle or two out of him with a few well-placed comments and pokes. He had a few scrapes, but that was all. Caleb didn't talk back, only nodded or shook his head, but Jake treated him as though they were having a perfectly normal conversation, smiling easily and encouraging him, saying that his friends would all be back soon, talking him into sitting down by himself on the sidewalk while Jake made sure the `lady who rescued you' was okay too.

He smiled easily and kept the boy calm… but his eyes didn't match the rest of his face.

“What happened?” he asked quietly, concern lighting up his face.

But his eyes still weren't in it.

“I was holding onto the handle on the back door, and he must have unlocked it,” she explained quietly, watching him. “We both went flying, but I protected him from most of it.”

He grimaced, nodding his understanding. “What hit the ground first?”

“My shoulder,” she whispered, feeling tears sting her eyes again as the pain washed through her anew at the reminder. It was as if it had its own heartbeat, thrumming through her…

“I'll try to be gentle,” he murmured, reaching out to gingerly grip the joint, evaluating it. “I don't think it's dislocated,” he decided after a moment. “Does anything else hurt as bad?”

She shook her head, wiping at her eyes again with the arm he hadn't been inspecting; it just hurt so bad… “I feel like such a baby,” she muttered irritably.

He let out a disbelieving guffaw, which certainly caught her attention. His eyes were completely in it this time. “Lena, you're a hero, today,” he told her quietly. “You're allowed to cry all you want.” His eyes darkened again. “That little boy is safe, and it wasn't because of anything I did, that's for sure… you did it all on your own. It doesn't matter how much of it was luck or not. I'm proud of you… you should be too.”

“Then why do you look so tortured?” she demanded, finally putting a name to what she had been seeing in those dark blue eyes. They were haunted… despairing. He was trying to hide it, but there it was.

His laugh didn't deserve the name of one… it was as bleak as his eyes. “Because I didn't,” he explained bitterly. “The last time I saw my little brother, he was the same age as Caleb over there…” His voice didn't quite crack, but it came close. “I had promised to always protect him, and I lost him. I scoured the world and colonies for almost a year, and I never caught a damn glimmer of him.” He covered his face with one hand.

Suddenly, Mitchell's voice came floating back to her. “Jake… He changed a lot after his family died… …He calmed down about it all eventually, and we came back home… we were close enough before that, but after… I guess he's been my best friend since then.”

Not giving much thought to her injuries, she pulled him tight into a hug, grinding her teeth to bite back the pain… and felt Jake's body shudder hard against hers. She just held him tighter, recognizing the precursor to crying, squeezing her own eyes shut.

“I… I just… I would have made sure they were caught, but you ran out like that and…” His fingers buried themselves in the back of the fabric of the coat she was wearing… his coat. She could hear the tears in his voice, and found herself wanting to hold him tighter, even though she couldn't. “You just…” He took a deep, shuddering breath and she felt the wet of his face against her neck. “Thank-you… Thank-you, Relena.”

So, right, tell me if you guys think I should include a summary somewhere about `Battlefield of Pacifists,' I hope Treize's bit didn't horribly confuse everyone…

The next bit might be a bit delayed; I'm moving in a couple weeks. Tired of the mountains, they make all my joints scream day in day out, and I'm not a fan of small towns either, but I've been away at college in exactly that. It'll be really nice to go back to the desert… I grew up in Las Vegas.

So… Review? Please? I was trying out a whole ton of things in this chapter, it'd be great to get your guys' opinions. Either way, though, hope you enjoyed it.