Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Survival ❯ Crisis Averted ( Chapter 30 )

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

Crisis Averted

Okay, sorry this took so long, work, like, ate me, I swear…

October 2nd 197 - Monday - Amsterdam

“We should get rid of it while someone might still pay all right for it,” Anika announced with a sigh, biting her lip and looking sideways at the television. “I mean, it was awesome to have one again, but really…”

“We got it for free,” Jamus shrugged off.

“With what I just heard, I want to cut all the electronics we don't need,” Luc agreed, taking charge as he looked around, trying to meet everyone's eyes. “Treat it more like when we first moved in… everything but the range and coldboxes on batteries, `cept the light in the areas where a big group is.” He frowned, obviously thinking. “I can't remember… We didn't take down the boards on the windows on the top floor, did we?”

Duo swallowed, hugging Melissa closer to him. He really wasn't that worried, so long as they planned for it now, they'd be more than fine… but the mood was catching, all the same.

The final census had come back on what crops had survived to harvest; it was below the estimate. The news had said this winter wouldn't be as cold as the last one, but it had been fucking cold last year, so that didn't say much… That and it wasn't like the fallout phenomena had ever happened before on such a large scale, so the estimates were rough.

The Regime was issuing rationing stamps… and he was painfully aware that, as a non-registered citizen, he wouldn't be able to contribute his share. That meant he'd have to make up for it through cash or barter, which he knew he could swing, more than swing, but people were going to be more tight with their money and food now than they had been with the recent ups in the economy…

…and it really felt like the beginning of quarantine all over again. He buried his nose in `Liss's hair, forcing himself to breathe deep… There weren't any patrols rounding up the sick on the streets to keep the infection from spreading, sectioning them off in their own quarters and leaving them there to die of the plague or the violence born of denying everyone the rights of a human being, or something even starvation, as the sector was either considered damned or forgotten.

And it wasn't like anyone cared about the `undesirables' who had been living in the shithole before it was made into a ghetto, the fact that they had been healthy before was just one more reason to move all the infected in… Two birds with one stone, right?

“Kay?” Melissa whispered, gripping the hand he had around her tightly and twisting slightly to give him a worried look.

No, this wasn't plague… but if they could do that shit to people because of a plague, what else would they do it for?

“Kay?” his girl asked again, tugging on the hand a little for his attention…

He turned away from her eyes and hid his face in her hair. “We'll be okay,” he mumbled, wondering who it was he was trying to convince. They had better odds, with the way they could pool all the necessities together, it portioned out easier on everyone's pockets…

She turned her face into his arm, closing her eyes. “Of course we will,” she returned easily. “We'll just have to live closer to the edge than we've been for the past year… not as much fun, but we just block off the upper two floors and keep the windows filmed and boarded, bunk up a bit, keep more of the meals actually communal than we have been. We can keep around here warm enough off the kitchen mostly, and it's easy to keep the more underground area toasty… We've got more mouths than before, but we've got better jobs too, so we let the church float on food stamps - the Regime's really good about orphans - and if we have to, we can pool everything we've got on food and rent and the power bill, but there's no way it'll get that bad, we just have to save every bit we've got incase an emergency happens.”

She went on muttering the details to him, and he felt some of his muscles loosen a little as he heard Luc and Shov and the rest hashing out the details of exactly the same things she was bringing up. They had done this before… and they had the self-control to pull it off too, they'd already proven that, they'd been here and stable long enough to have security.

It was so weird to think he'd really been here for a whole year. He'd never lived anywhere for that long. Father Maxwell had kept sending him out to foster homes which would keep him a couple weeks or months before sending him back to the church, so even though he'd `been at the church' for almost two years, it wasn't like this.

The impromptu meeting more or less ended, people wandering their own ways as a thought occurred to him, and he grinned down at her. “Hey, if we're `bunking up' closer, does that mean you'll move in with me?”

She snickered, leaning more against him. In an overly haughty tone, she returned, “Well, exempting the fact that we already live in the same place-”

“Doesn't count,” he negated happily.

“-or that we mostly sleep in the same place already-”

“Still doesn't count.”

She rolled her eyes, but they were sparkling. Still in the same tone, she pretended to consider. “Well… I suppose it would depend on how nice you asked me.”

“Mm…” He pretended to think on that. “I'll have to plan this carefully, then.”

“Mmhmm,” she returned with a smile, cuddling into his chest a little. “And help me move all my stuff.”

***

Brussels

Miss Darlian-Peacecraft,

I was pleased to receive your latest missive, and wholly approve of the increase in multivitamin-mineral tablet production; the vitamin enriched food stores are beginning to run dangerously low, and in light of the coming winter on top of the problems presented in the areas you recently surveyed, it seems necessary. My only suggestion would be to investigate the cost effectiveness of specializing what balances go to which region versus mass-producing an overall supplement.

As the majority of your last letter was simply an update about how all projects introduced on local levels are flourishing, I would like to move on to something you mentioned almost as a footnote.

The crisis of the low crop return should definitely take priority; of course, the vitamin distribution will help, but I am convinced that that will run smoothly. However, attempting to immediately rotate new crops into the used ground will only be feasible in a handful of circumstances, to my understanding, without compromising the more guaranteed to thrive spring planting. By all means, the plots that can manage the extra production should be used with more careful correlation of amplifiers than previously. I am curious to know if the Chinese government would be willing to send a consultant who is intimate with the machine's interworkings. However, this still does not solve the immediate problem, as the winter crop will not be available for consumption until spring, though of course, it will alleviate pressure during the new planting.

I would, however, be interested in what might be done with hydroponics complexes, on large scale. The heat amplifying technology is new, and therefore still experimental, if invaluable. The colonies, however, have long proven the efficacy of hydroponics, especially in the past two years, where they have been pushing the facilities past any previous limits in order to aid Earth. It is expensive, I am well aware, high cost for relatively low gain, but guaranteed, as the amplifiers have been shown to not be.

I eagerly await news from you on whether or not the idea is truly possible, and what measures it would require. Until our next communication,

Yours truly,

The Rhea Lowe Tomorrow Today Fund

Relena could feel her heart fluttering in her chest as she finished reading, and read the email back over again. It wasn't what she had been expecting, but more instead, with an option that hadn't honestly occurred to her… she could sing. “Jake!”

“Hmm?” His head snapped up abruptly and his eyes darted over to her before he blinked and relaxed back into the recliner when the lack of danger sunk in. She smiled a little apologetically; he'd said he was going to doze a little this morning with the usual note that saying his name would be enough to wake him, but she had forgotten he was asleep in her excitement; she hadn't meant to startle him. He grinned a little ruefully and settled his firearm back into its holster before standing and coming over to her. “What's up?”

“Read this,” she insisted, moving aside so he could see her laptop screen better. She hadn't mentioned her halfway plans to do something about the food crisis to him largely because she was convinced someone else would have come up with the idea if it was physically possible, and hadn't wanted to come across as uselessly idealistic. They needed to focus on what could be done, and her `footnote' as RLTT had put it had been almost entirely an expression of frustration, with little hope. The abrupt turnaround and applicable solution, though…

“Huh,” he mentioned after a minute, nibbling at his lower lip. “I'll get started hooking up contacts to get the numbers, then…”

She nodded. “In a minute, at least…. We need a rough outline first.”

He frowned. “You don't have it outlined already?”

“This just came in,” she defended. “Hydroponics towers hadn't occurred to me, I need to start research on that from scratch.”

He seemed to blink more sleep out of his eyes at that. “Oh, right…” He grabbed a report and flipped it over, pulling a pen out of his pocket. “I grew up on the colonies, in part, and my uncle went over the greenhouse plants basics with me once or twice, so I can at least give you a rough idea…” He started sketching a rough design.

Relena nodded a little to show she understood, then leaned back to look past him to the couch that Dorothy was still sound asleep on.

Jake had almost shot her when she stumbled into the suite this morning, apparently. She hadn't been herself, he'd said, though he wasn't sure if it was alcohol or drugs or simply exhaustion that was influencing her. He had woken the princess up shortly after getting their friend to sleep and told her as much… He had also noted that he had pulled her hair back out of her face when she stumbled into the bathroom to throw up an hour later, and helped her into the shower before slipping back into her bedroom and into the closet to find something for Dorothy to wear after she made her way back out.

To say she was worried about the other woman was quite an understatement.

She'd realized her friend was different right after they had come back to Brussels, of course, but she'd seemed almost manically happy. Her rebelliousness had reached new levels, as was obvious by the bright green streaks now dyed into her hair and the fact that she had simply stopped ever getting out of bed before noon, but she had been all too pleased with her actions, highly amused by the fact that no one had directly confronted her on the issues yet.

When Relena had tried to pester her about what she was out doing all night, Dorothy had refused to say outright and insisted that she come along sometime… which was, of course, entirely out of the question. Her friend's entrance last night only made that fact more true instead of making her more wistful.

She wasn't even vaguely sure, however, of what to do. Dorothy was suddenly quite obviously sinking into a frightening kind of depression, as she had begun to realize shortly before she and Jake had left on tour. She hadn't thought that being away would cause the other girl to spiral downward so quickly, though… And she was at a complete loss.

The little voice in the back of her mind pointing out that she had essentially abandoned Dorothy when she left for her tour didn't help the twisting in her stomach at all.

“We'll work it out.”

She turned back to Jake, who was also watching Dorothy now, a worried frown on his face. “How?” she asked quietly, not liking the desperation she heard in her voice, but knowing it had its place; she didn't wish she could take it back.

He was quiet for a moment, before sighing. “Consider this,” he reasoned quietly. “She came back to us, so we could take care of her, instead of staying out or possibly being found out of bounds by someone who could hurt her on base.”

She nibbled at her lip. That was true, and while it didn't help the situation, it meant Dorothy still trusted them… and didn't see their absence as a betrayal. It meant that it wasn't as hopeless as it really felt.

“We'll talk to her about it once she wakes up, huh?”

Relena let out a deep breath and nodded; after all, it really wasn't as though there was anything else to do about it yet. She gestured back to the half drawn sketch. “What were you saying?”

***

Lárisa, Greece

“Again.”

“Again?”

Odin raised his brows, asking if I was really asking that… to which I rolled my eyes and launched into another tumble.

“I'm doing it fine,” I argued as I stood again, brushing dried grass off my shoulders. The stuff was working through my sweater and had escaped down the back of my pants and it was nasty and itched…

“You're thinking about it,” he negated.

“Yeah?” I returned, annoyed, as he moved towards me… and shoved me. We'd been playing that game practically since we met, however, and it had been a long while since that worked because I could redistribute my balance and quickstep if I had too, though he'd just done it harder than I remembered him ever trying… He'd thrown his weight into it, apparently. I shoved back just as hard, bracing because I knew he wouldn't go over too easy if at all, because he would be bracing… only to have him fall back with no resistance. He fluidly twisted his body into what looked like the reverse of the tumble he'd been making me drill in for the past hour, only I wasn't sure his hands actually touched the ground, and he came to his feet in the same motion without seemingly an ounce of effort.

…Okay, that was awesome.

“You don't think about balance now,” he reiterated as he came back over to me. I nodded a little, and suddenly he was behind me, practically lifting me up in the air as he shoved me, taking away any leverage I had… I tucked and rolled, but my shoulder hurt now, I'd shifted my weight wrong. I'd still made it back to my feet, though.

“Not too bad,” he muttered, though I know he didn't miss my grimace. “You're too small to fight strength with strength.”

…And the message clicked. He had just picked me up and thrown me, which basically ruled out any of the options he'd shown me before, but if I could always land something, it wouldn't matter… Actually, seeing how fast he'd recovered and how surprised I'd been, falling and rolling back might be a better technique than refusing to give ground.

Right, that's what he just said, moron…

He was staring at me, definitely considering how much I'd put together, and I nodded to confirm I had. Frowning slightly, he added, “It needs to be instinct.”

Hence the repetition, I realized grimly. Annoying, but he had a point. “Got it,” I mumbled, letting out another little sigh… and launched into another roll. As soon as I regained my feet, I sprung up and went into the same motion over again, and felt more than saw Odin's nod of approval. Speed would make it so I really couldn't overthink it, and the motion would move into muscle memory faster.

Odin could be obnoxiously obtuse, but the guy was totally a genius.

***

China

“You're taking it too personally,” Shui muttered.

Wufei stifled a growl, gripping his pencil hard enough that it was starting to bend… he lessened the pressure before it snapped. His roommate had been perfectly content to keep his mouth shut for the past half hour, and he had actually been starting to lose some of his tension. Forcing his furious sneer into a scowl, he didn't bother looking up, and went back over his notes. Where was I…?

It was another ten minutes before Shui interrupted again.

“You know the statistical estimates were from before we started our work.”

Wufei shoved away from his desk, hard, and glared over at the other engineer. “We're still below our forecast, which was never enough to start with,” he snapped. It's not good enough!

“It was an optimistic forecast, without being able to recalibrate for local weather at least once a week,” Shui argued. His tone was cool, logical, but his eyes were burning with as much passion and rage as Wufei suspected his own were. “Not to mention we don't know about any other on-site factors.”

Wufei found himself sneering again. “Blaming the unknown is a weak excuse, Shui.”

The other man leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “The Regime could not staff full guards, nor could they effectively train enough loyal technicians for each machine. There have been numerous cases of sabotage. These are facts.”

“That doesn't change anything!” Wufei snapped back.

Shui's eyes narrowed more. “It changes a great deal of things.”

“The end result doesn't shift,” he snarled.

Shui was quiet for a moment… before he stood. “If you're so fucking arrogant that you need to shoulder the whole world's blame, I'll leave you to it.” His posture stiff, he went to the door, opened it. Before he had closed it again behind himself, he added, “If you decide to grow up, I'll be down at Que's.”

He didn't quite slam the door, but it was a close thing.

***

Brussels

I groaned as a woke up, covering my face… it was far too bright…

“Morning, Sunshine,” a male voice greeted, tone dry. “You going to throw up again?”

Throw up again? I wondered, confused, then I grimaced; ugh, the taste was still in my mouth…

“Come on, have some juice.” One hand was peeled away from my face and a glass was placed in it. “Are you hung over?”

I mumbled something then as I sat up… Once I stopped to analyze the sound, however, I think it was some mix between the words `head' and `bright,' so it couldn't have been terribly illuminating.

Apparently, however, the way I was clutching my head was, because the hand busy doing that was also peeled away to have two small tablets dropped into it. “Take that.” Obediently, I brought the pills to my mouth and followed it with the juice. Trust was what had gotten me into trouble last night, but it as okay, here…

“Wild night out, huh?” I mumbled out a few choice phrases I had heard from the locals, remembering… Ithink what was last night, anyway… I opened my eyes to glare at Jake when he started to chuckle. He only smirked at me for my trouble… and proceeded to rattle back a far more colorful variation of what I had just suggested.

Was it bad that my mind latched onto the fact that he had a flawless local accent in the Belgium French with Dutch anecdotes, instead of the fact that he knew those phrases at all?

He just looked at me curiously after he'd finished, head canted slightly to the side, and I couldn't help but stare back at him… I wasn't sure what he wanted, really. Jake rarely worried me, but he was starting to, right now… and considering the fact that I had no memory of coming back here at all…

“The princess is off organizing her latest endeavor,” he noted after a minute of awkward silence, during which I belatedly realized we'd just been blatantly staring at each other. “I'd like an explanation for last night.”

Oh hell.

He held up a small device on a keychain pointedly. “You didn't breathe a high enough blood alcohol content to have been acting like you were.”

I frowned. “Why do you have a breathalyzer?”

He just raised his brows sardonically. “What were you on?”

“I don't know,” I snapped, shoving the glass of juice back at him and bringing my hands back to my head.

“You don't know?”

“I didn't take anything,” I couldn't help but sneer, squeezing my eyes shut. Since my first discovery of a club several weeks ago, I'd regularly begun to frequent a number of them on a sometimes nightly basis, but while I appreciated the movement and acquaintances, I had decided early on that while the early stages of alcohol were pleasant enough, the latter were for fools; I had no interest in losing my mind, even temporarily.

The problem, however, was that just that had somehow happened last night.

Jake sighed a little, taking a sip from the glass himself before focusing back on me. “What's the last thing you remember?”

“I see no reason to indulge your questions,” I retorted sharply, flopping back down onto the… couch? The action was not a terribly good idea, it made my head spin in such a way that I wanted to throw up. Oh God. I pushed myself back up on my hands, trying to determine if I could get up fast enough to make it to the bathroom.

The cup was pressed back to my lips, very slightly tipped. “Tiny sip,” Jake suggested gently. “Just enough to wet your tongue, don't swallow right away…”

For some reason I really couldn't comprehend, following just those directions made the nausea pass. He took the glass away and helped ease me back into a sitting position before setting a cold, damp cloth across my forehead… which felt so nice… “You really know how to do this,” I realized, blinking down at the bowl that the cloth must have come out of, the glass of juice and bottle of aspirin, and a small tray with croissants and pastries, a small plate of pancakes, tea, ice water… all the bland and sweet foods I liked that I had a chance of stomaching right now.

I closed my eyes again, but not because the room was too bright, I was used to it now. No, he so obviously cared, he'd even sent Relena out so I wouldn't embarrass myself in front of my idol, he was putting so much effort into it…

I didn't want him to see how close I was to crying. I hadn't ever had someone go to so much trouble for me. My family had catered to me before they had died, but they had only had to pass along orders to others that what I wanted be done, Jake had managed this for me himself…

“Hey,” he muttered soothingly, wiping at one wet cheek… which made me want to cry harder, though I tried not to. “Hey, don't do that… It's alright…”

No, it's not! I wanted to scream, the true horror of it coming to me. I had no idea how I'd gotten here, though I recognized that it was Relena's suite of rooms, now. I had absolutely no memory of last night, beyond vague impressions of dancing, having a few drinks, nothing terribly heinous… But I couldn't remember. “What happened last night?” I demanded suddenly, looking down at him, crouched in front of me.

His eyes narrowed. “You don't remember?” His mouth hardened into a line. “You stumbled in at three ten this morning and passed out almost immediately. Anything before that… You don't remember coming home, not at all?” I shook my head, feeling my breathing come in haggard gasps… My heart was speeding up as the full implications struck home.

I was drugged. Someone drugged me… How could that have happened, I thought…? Oh God, what happened?

He was pulling me into a hug, now, however awkward it must be for him, the way he was half leaning and holding himself away so that the gesture wasn't too intimate. “Hey, you're okay, it's okay now…”

God, if only it could be that simple…

***

October 4th 197 - Wednesday - Treize's hidden compound

Treize strode confidently down the hall, headed to the observatory, running his tongue over the inside of his teeth. He selected his men carefully, and only allowed those selected by men he trusted absolutely choose civilians to back their cause. He had laid down his initial rules carefully so that there was very little chance his secret could get out. However, one of the factors that the secret of his life and location depended heavily on was that very few men and women left or entered this compound up in the mountains.

He did not think his security was compromised, but arrogance was a foolish attribute unless it were only a mask, and he liked to think of himself as masked and Zechs the fool, however hard they had played the images in the other direction, in the past. This… this was a right he had granted on principle, not practicality, and had not expected anyone to attempt to follow through to the point that he had to meet like this.

It would only take one wrong move to ruin all this, he thought grimly as the door came within his line of sight. He didn't pause in any way that might be visible as he neared his destination… he wasn't pausing mentally, because honestly, one was the same as the other, and his mind had been decided long before… he couldn't remember the last time one thought hadn't flowed smoothly into the next. It was that easy confidence he'd always had that had allowed him into the Specials, that had won him Leia, garnered the loyalty of the men and women he lead against the Alliance, and he knew it. He had always intuitively known that fluid dance, and he had learned how to mold the reactions of those who responded to him early.

If this is nothing, he will not leave happy, he decided grimly, reaching for the handle.

The civilian turned immediately when the door opened. “Your Excellency,” he muttered respectfully, looking nervous.

Treize waved one hand in a dismissal of the formality. “Please, make yourself comfortable.” A pitcher of ice water and two glasses had been set out on the coffee table between the two armchairs he had had brought in here for this meeting, and he went to take a seat and pour for both of them. His guest, of course, felt uncomfortable still standing and also took a seat, accepting his glass with thanks. However, he didn't seem to know how to begin what had brought him here so urgently, refusing to send any information he might find useful by the normal routes and insisting on coming here in person, so Treize chose a more neutral subject to start off on.

Leaning back and taking a sip of his drink, he asked, “How was your vacation?” He had already delivered the details he had asked after in Amsterdam a few weeks ago, and while the deeper questions he had remained unanswered, a few clues had been provided for the greater puzzle.

“It was wonderful,” the Dutch man returned, though he seemed more distracted than pleased, studying the glass in his hands rather intently. “Thank-you for helping along the arrangement.”

“Of course, don't think of it,” Treize returned smoothly, sipping again. William had grown up then raised children in Amsterdam, and was intimately familiar with both it and its residents, including the members of the most peaceable large group of young people in the city; he had been perfect for unobtrusively checking the legitimacy of a few details. “Your children are doing well?”

He was looking to the side now, though smiling now. “Yeah. My boy's getting top marks in all his classes, and my girl's starting up a business by herself, holding down a job with the militia, and is as happy as can be with a kid that seems pretty serious about her.”

“Good,” Treize returned politely.

William grimaced slightly, though he was still smiling, and sat forward so he could pull something out of a back pocket… his wallet. He set his water down on the table and opened it up, reaching in to pull out a folded up photograph. His hands were shaking slightly, and he chewed on his lip a little as he reached across the table to hand it over. “There's a picture of them, actually,” he muttered quietly.

His curiosity peaked by the man's behavior, Treize leaned forward as well, setting down his own glass and taking the glossy paper. Not expecting much, he unfolded it.

The young woman shown had the same eyes and smile as her father. She wore a militia uniform and was leaning back against a young man with a black ponytail falling over one shoulder that nearly reached the bottom of his sternum. He was holding her and they were laughing, the expressions true…

…and while the hair color was wrong and his face had certainly thinned and matured, he recognized the young man as the gundam pilot Duo Maxwell.

“Ah.” This whole charade made sense, now. He smiled slightly; this certainly qualified for the level of secrecy William Mehile had demanded this meeting take place in.

“That's the only picture I've got,” his guest mumbled, obviously trying very hard to meet his eyes. “I want it back.”

“Of course.” He offered it back, and William took it and considered it for a moment before sighing and putting it away. After the man was settling into a proper sitting position again, he asked, “How long has he been there?”

“A full year now, apparently.” The Dutch man sighed. “Showed up out of the blue one day and slid right in with them. Says he doesn't want anything to do with the war anymore.” He rubbed at his leg in another nervous gesture. “It was him and my little girl that took down the more violent group all by themselves, back in July.”

“Mm.” That had always been Maxwell's sort of flair, hadn't it?

“He says he lead them to take Schbeiker back, back in April, too.”

…That does make the pieces click together for Amsterdam, Treize decided jadedly, resisting the urge to rub at his eyes with one hand, nodding in understanding and looking out the glass at the scenery instead. Men talented enough to effectively fly a machine so powerful as a gundam required a sort of spirit that had always fascinated and driven him, but as he himself was testament to, they also had amazing capacity for throwing a wrench into the machinations of others.

“What else can you tell me?” he asked after a moment, determined to get what he could out of the man while he was here. Maxwell wanted to be left alone, obviously, or he would not have made William go to such lengths for privacy… but his current opinion did not entirely rule him out as a potential ally.

Knowledge was an endless variant of power, after all.

***

Brussels

“Everything looks fine,” Jake said quietly. “She had some definite traces of what the practitioner said was a common date rape drug in her system, but… nobody did anything to her.” He sighed, staring down at his hands. “The best theory we can come up with is that she realized something was wrong and made her way home before someone could take advantage.”

Relena nodded a little, trying to fight down the bile rising in her throat. “So she was lucky.” She had come back to the suite to check on them Monday afternoon only to find a hurried note form her bodyguard about taking Dorothy to a city hospital for anonymity's sake, and that they'd be back soon. He had sent Cassidy to keep his usual place in the Murphy bed near the entrance to her private rooms in her suite, claiming not to be fit for duty and sleeping in his old room instead. He and Dorothy had both returned the next day, as though it were completely normal, with a quick comment from Jake that the details could wait until the results followed as well… and they had only gotten the results a bare ten minutes ago. Dorothy was still asleep.

His sudden grin was rather feral. “I'm not sure how much of it was `luck,' really. She was armed, and a few rounds are missing that she can't account for, so her actions may have been a little more… proactive… than is usual in that situation.”

“Well, that's something, at least…”

“She must have scared the hell out of him, minimum,” Jake noted. “I'm hoping he's dead, personally.”

“Can't they track that?” Relena snapped quietly.

“Only if someone wants to try,” he returned coolly. “It's more likely someone saw an opportunity and already harvested the body for organs.”

“Organs?” she asked, feeling her stomach twist again, harder.

He stood, going over to the tray the maids had brought up and pouring himself a drink from the carafe. “You'd be amazed how much a kidney goes for on the black market.” His tone was one of mild interest. Reaching for a second mug, he asked, “Coffee?”

“No, thank-you,” she muttered, clenching her hands to try to stop them from shaking; she did not need any caffeine. She was relieved, and agreed that it would only be what the man deserved, if it had happened out that way, but still… “Milk sounds good, though.”

It was left unsaid that the subject was closed, for now.

Hey, sorry again that this took so long… Thoughts?