Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Survival ❯ Pride & Practicality ( Chapter 32 )

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

Pride & Practicality

October 22nd 197 - Sunday - Brussels

Milliardo stared out over the grounds of the compound. He liked the view at night… he could just see the edges of the city skyline through the glass. It was comforting, in a way… his view from his childhood bedroom had been similar, the lights from the suburbs of Sanc's capital barely visible.

He sighed. Happier times… Noin had always scolded him when this mood came over him… but of course, Noin was gone, now, and it was becoming harder to feel any other way.

Noin… Was she dead, or had she simply abandoned him at last? He had always relied on her more than he ever wanted to admit, even to himself… her absence was a constant deep ache that he couldn't shake away. She'd simply fallen out of existence, and it felt as though half of him was gone, never to return…

I deserve it too. There was at least a sixty percent chance that his actions at the end of the battle of Libra had ended her life. He had run the scenarios so many times, when even three weeks after the crash she hadn't resurfaced… Three out of five chances that I killed her… That tore at him more than the thoughts of how many millions had died in the Americas at impact, how many more from the coming up on two years of fallout…

I murdered the woman who loved me. A woman who had been so perfect…

“So this is where you've been sneaking off to.”

Milliardo grimaced and turned to glance back at Jake with a purposefully easy expression, before looking back out the window. “I like it here.”

“I really hope that glass is bulletproof,” the assassin commented idly as he came closer.

Milliardo didn't bother gracing that with a response; they both knew the nearly floor to ceiling pane could withstand a small bomb. “How's Relena?”

“Determined,” her bodyguard said simply as he leaned against the glass with his shoulder, looking out himself.

He couldn't help but smile in pride at that. “She always has been, even as a baby.”

“All the stress she's been under has only made her blossom,” Jake continued. He didn't look away from the view. “She shines like a diamond now, and the people love her all the more for it.”

“That's exactly as it should be,” Milliardo replied.

They kept a comfortable silence for a while; the prince sitting on the floor, back against the pillar by the window, the princess' guard leaning easily against what appeared to be a thirty-story drop, looking out at the night. They were old friends, they'd known each other through trials and tribulation, but even as their trust of the other was absolute, they had never truly talked to each other.

Noin had always been their medium, before.

“You're sick,” Jake finally muttered, turning to look at him.

Of course he had realized… When Milliardo had tried to stop the man from maiming his father, he had unintentionally revealed his bad health. Jake's blow and toss had merely been meant to move him out of the way, not harm, but the harsh motions had dropped him, gasping, instead of delaying his returned attempts to end the fight. No one else seemed to have appreciated the significance of that, with the pure violence the man had already been displaying, but Miller knew his own strength as well as any martial artist.

If the other man had meant to hurt him, bones would have snapped.

“That's one way to phrase it,” he returned after a moment, refusing to meet his friend's gaze. Damaged would be a far more apt term. The doctor had made it clear how lucky he was to have survived the electrical maelstrom Epyon's cockpit had briefly become after Yuy's last blow. The pain from the tender new skin and careful stitching around the grafts was what had brought him to his knees when Jacob had thrown him into the wall in September, but in truth, the burns were only the tip of the iceberg.

His friend looked back at the scenery as he mulled that over in his mind for a minute. After another, much shorter, silence, he asked, “Is it permanent?”

“Not entirely.” The skin grafts had finally taken fully in August, and he would be able to move completely freely again eventually, but the myocardial and nervous tissue damage was something he would always have to consider. That in mind, he added, “It could be far worse.”

Jake looked to him again. “How long of a lookout?”

Ever practical. That was something he had always appreciated about the other soldier; he kept life simple and to the point. He respected others' privacy and restricted his queries to capacity. “March, at the latest.”

His friend nodded, looking back out again. Milliardo could tell from his body language that he wasn't really done yet, though. “What?”

He snorted. “You're sad about more than that, but I couldn't think of a non-offensive way to bring it up.”

The prince grimaced again, looking away as the emotions came slamming back into place. Miller's blasé suspiciousness had been nice and distracting. “Just…” Of course, Jake could understand regrets such as this. “Noin.”

He sighed, closing his eyes and resting his face against the glass. “Yeah… Noin. I see more and more of her in Relena, as days go by.”

“You do?” He really couldn't.

“Yeah… that same resolve.” He smiled softly. “Won't take shit from nobody. Well, getting there, anyway.”

Milliardo considered his memory of his little sister pointedly telling him to mind his own business, when he had contested some of the areas on her tour. How she had outright dressed him down for visiting her in Barcelona… and couldn't help a smile of his own. Yes… That is very like Noin. “I suppose you're right.”

And that wave of despair threatened to crash over him again.

There was silence for another long moment before Jake sighed again and shifted his weight, though he didn't open his eyes. “Stop that.” His tone was tired.

Zechs couldn't help a sad smile from crossing his face… Noin had always said the same thing, before trying to distract him…

He grunted in surprise as a boot collided sharply with his shin, looking up to Jake to find him still with his eyes closed, leaning against the glass. “I said stop it,” he noted, idly crossing the offending foot behind the calf he was resting all his weight on. “She always told me that brooding wasn't healthy.” Opening one eye to give him a weighing look, he added, “I'm not above knocking some sense back into you, injured or not.”

Milliardo smirked, rubbing at the bruise forming up on his shin. “I'd noticed,” he commented dryly before looking back out the window.

“You need to do something.”

“Why would you say that?” He honestly had no desire to move.

“Zechs, you're sitting alone in the dark in a completely unfurnished room, staring out into oblivion for all that you're seeing of it.” He'd stood up straight now, and was giving him an exasperated sort of look. “Lu would kill me if I honestly left you up here to feel bad for more than an hour.”

“Mm.” He considered contesting the `alone' part, as Jake was there, but knew the other man well enough to realize Jake would only use it to make him look childish.

“…I doubt you would enjoy me kicking you down the stairs.”

The prince turned an icy glare on the other soldier, trying to piece together his intent from his facial expression. The problem with Jake was that it was incredibly likely that he was entirely serious when he suggested something like that… his head spun oddly.

Jake's expression was entirely amused, now. “I could throw you, if you'd rather; we might go faster, that way.”

Milliardo supposed he grimaced again as he stood; it honestly wasn't worth the risk of testing him on that point. “Where are we going, then?” he asked resignedly.

“There's this twenty-four hour café that serves great pie, a little ways into town. You need to get out more, and if you can trust me with your sister, it should be fine for just you and me to split for a couple hours.”

He halfway wanted to argue, security measures… but at the same time, the idea sounded incredibly… liberating. If no one knew they were going ahead of time, this late, there shouldn't be a problem, with Miller on alert. “Alright,” he agreed, feeling a smile stretch its way across his face. “Let me get my shoes.

***

“How's Dorothy?”

Relena rolled her eyes, stretching out on the couch, trying to see if she could touch her toes. “Just as bouncy as ever, now.” She couldn't help her little smirk. “But she's exactly as particular as I wanted her to be when surveying, or anything else I ask her to get done, so that says something too.”

David laughed. “That has to be a respect thing,” he decided.

The princess smiled, twisting around a little so she faced forward, and pulled her legs into a butterfly stretch. “I also told her that if she got bored I'd give her something else and get someone else to survey.”

“Oh, so she has a choice,” Dave returned knowingly. “Smart, smart, Princess…”

She rolled her eyes. “You're patronizing me.” Though like with Jake, `princess' was always a title, not an endearment, at least.

“Aww, no,” the grown man whined at her. “I'm teasing, Lena, there's a difference, come on…”

“You used to be shy,” she noted skeptically.

He started sniggering again. “I'm sorry, you didn't have money on that, did you?”

Relena couldn't help but giggle a little herself at that; his smile was infectious, and that was exactly the same phrase he had given Jake when he annoyed the blonde man into making her same comment several weeks ago. David Mitchell was an entirely different person around strangers from when he was comfortable with you. Really, it was probably one of the reasons he and Jake got on so well.

Speaking of… “I think he must have found him,” she decided, looking at the clock. Her bodyguard had muttered something about Milliardo disappearing all too often lately and that he should hang out with him

David just kept snickering. “Well, yeah, he's Jake.” He only laughed harder when she threw a pillow at him. “Sorry, but you're stuck with me instead of Blondie tonight…”

She rolled her eyes. “That sounds great.” He only laughed again.

***

October 23rd 197 - Monday - Amsterdam

“Hey boys…”

They spun around at my greeting, and I could see all but one of them immediately dismissing me. That was all well and good for the moment; that last one was probably just wondering how I had managed to sneak up on them. I'd always been pretty good at stalking, it was more balance than anything, but playing around with Kay had perfected what mistakes I still made.

I didn't want to start this off offensively, so it was good that I wasn't in my militia uniform, and good that they saw a 5'7 teenage girl instead of the half-assed fighting stance I loosely stood in; I wanted to be ready to move, all the same.

Now that they'd noticed me, I started to move in closer, playing as though purely curious. They were trying to fiddle open the lock and chain across the doors of a building that had been abandoned for a while now.

Of course… shelter. These were some of the new refugees.

“They're going to check that pretty regular,” I warned them. They were around my age, roughly. “If you want to play that game, you need to find a less obvious way in and out and leave the front looking pretty. You'll want to get your own place soon, though; it gets too cold to manage without some heat or at least better insulation than that place has, soon.” We'd looked about this old set-up as a den before we settled on where we currently paid our rent, back when Luc had first yanked me back out of the red-light district, and I knew for a fact that it was pretty damn drafty.

There were reasons it was still abandoned.

They all turned suspicious eyes on me, and I shrugged. It wasn't as if the information cost me anything… and damn, but I knew what it was to be cold and hungry. These guys probably just really wanted somewhere to sleep without worrying that someone was going to rob them blind while their guard was down.

“Who are you?” one asked in English, with a heavy Swiss accent. I was glad I'd picked English to start with.

“Devils' Get,” I dismissed with another shrug. If he didn't know what the phrase meant, he'd learn soon enough; we'd picked the name in part because of the implied intimidation in it. When our home had transformed into hell, we hadn't had any choice but to fight just to be left alone and not taken advantage of.

I really hoped this wasn't a return to those days, like Kay seemed to worry it was… I really hoped we could manage any of these folks coming in without having to hurt them, that no group like Cal's Slingers would rise up again… I was relatively sure Kay was on the lookout to keep just that from happening, and he was talking about all of it with Luc and Shov and me all the time, considering the new logistics of the situation every day, practically.

This last spring and summer had been so nice… I didn't want to go back under again any further than I had to. It was getting damned cold again, and we had to ration out food, and that was bad enough without anything else starting up.

“Just don't cause trouble, and nobody'll mind you trying to slip through the cracks,” I told them quietly. “Most people in this city, especially this part of town, have been just as far down as you are, we know what it's like.”

“What do you want?” another asked brusquely.

“Nothing,” I clarified, shaking my head and taking a step back to make my body language clear and non-threatening. “Just don't cause trouble. Don't bring the Regime down with a vengeance, and we'll try to keep the neighborhood nice enough. Don't make a bother for us, and we won't make any about you. If you need a hand, we might even be able to help now and again.” I stood straight and let my eyes harden, moving into more of a beginning form, and felt them shift away form me. “Wreak any havoc and we'll put it down hard and fast,” I finished in German.

My English wasn't bad, but I'd gotten further in German in school and with my friends, and I knew the slang and not just the formal version and snippets I had for English. These guys were either Swiss or German by their accents, which meant they definitely knew German best out of the three.

The one who'd been suspicious of me first frowned more thoughtfully, and paused before slowly, in German, asking, “You don't like the Regime?”

“The war ended two years ago,” I returned sharply. “The Regime's trying to rebuild; I don't see anyone doing a better job yet. You want to pick a new fight, do it somewhere else - we're only interested in getting by, here.”

They looked slightly taken aback at my tone, but didn't seem angry. I raised one brow; maybe they were only curious, or trying to avoid partisan company themselves. “Alright?” I asked.

They all nodded a bit, and the one who had asked about Regime opinion actually smiled a little as he did. “Danke,” he muttered as well, turning to look back at the doors before glancing back my way again. “Do you know another way in?”

I smiled a little myself; I could work with this guy. “That one over there's a better bet,” I returned quickly in Dutch, pointing to a building that looked far worse, but I knew had better insulation.

“Really?” he returned skeptically in German, eying the thing before looking back to me questioningly.

Oh good, he knew some Dutch; his chances were much better for getting work and blending in sooner. “I looked through all these after Libra,” I explained in German, so there wasn't any chance he could misunderstand. “It just needs new paint, and the floors are bad; the walls are better, it stays warmer.” I thought for a moment before deciding the information couldn't hurt; he might already know it. “The Devils' Den is over on Sylvester, maybe a kilometer that way,” I pointed in the general direction of my home. “You'll probably see us around fair often.”

He nodded again, thoughtfully this time, and gestured the others with him to go look at the other building before meeting my eyes one last time. “My name is George.”

“I'm Melissa,” I returned amicably before taking a few steps back and waving. “I'll see you around.”

All things considered, that could have gone much worse.

***

October 25th 197 - Wednesday - Lyon, France

Cathy turned a dubious look on the audience, balancing a knife on the tip of one finger, setting off another round of laughter. Shaking her head in an exasperated way, she turned back to the obviously terrified clown and took a very exaggerated stance, pulling her arm back to throw. Again, Celeste squealed and ducked, knees knocking together, and the audience roared with laughter.

Catherine smiled a little, even as she threw up her hands and turned away, crossing her arms. She missed Trowa, but the routine she ran with their new clown was a lot more fun. She loved her little brother dearly, but he didn't know a thing about theatrics; people had come here to be entertained, and giving them what they wanted, sending them home happy and satisfied, was just good for business. At least half of their clients had heard about the show purely by word of mouth, so keeping them all excited was an absolute necessity, especially when fewer could afford to come at all, anymore.

This was their second to last show on Earth, at least for the next six months; business just wouldn't be good enough here, so it was back to the colonies for a while. She often felt halfway closeted up up there, but unlike a couple years ago, the people were just happier, and that made a whole world of difference.

It really was for the best, she supposed. She didn't get to see her brother as often when she was in the colonies, seeing as most of the time he was running around Europe, but staying dirt-side was just asking for trouble, this winter. And Trowa might like trouble, but she was perfectly happy to keep as far away from it as she could.

She looked over her shoulder when Celeste squawked at her, pretending to really consider the clown's renewed courage to have sharp things thrown at her. They continued on with their little act, Catherine eventually pinning the other woman through her clothes - though not without a few more deviations due to the girl's supposed fear - before helping her free so they could take a bow and clear the stage for the next part of the show.

Things'll work themselves out, she decided, trying to wipe the worry out of her mind. They always do, one way or another.

***

October 26th 197 - Thursday - L2

Leia sighed as she leaned back, trying to put together how to present her case; people could be stubborn about the stupidest things, sometimes. Not getting her patient's back up was likely pivotal to his survival. It was better on the colonies than down on the planet, for the most part, but life was still far from easy, and there was always, at least on L2, a very clear distinction between those who could manage and the impoverished.

Poverty seemed to be L2's curse; she would swear the destitution was never as severe with the other colonies. In a lot of ways, it was the oldest; L1 was technically much older, was the original colony cluster, but they had refitted multiple times to stay up to date. The population of L1 was more beneficial to the upkeep, which in turn brought in more money, keeping the stations afloat. While L3 and L4 had developed almost an aristocracy to keep the economy level in the form of the Barton and Winner families, L1 and the majority of the L5 clusters instead had a high income working class who held it together.

The original construction of L2 had been… a little typically American opportunistic. Their population had boomed, it had been one of the fastest to rise, and the cluster had certainly had its time in the spotlight, but the lack of organization and planning had eventually caught up… and its people had honestly never recovered. There was generally a number of programs going on to try to solve the multitude of problems, but the scope could only go so far on limited funding, and the sunken depression of the majority of the populace when it came to improvement didn't help; they were more than aware that little had helped in over a hundred years.

That downtrodden yet opportunistic attitude was the defining characteristic of L2's poor. They knew they could get by, but they didn't expect to do more than claw their way through. The consequential misbehavior spurred on a stronger authoritarian approach, however, which of course only increased resentment of those trying to keep society from going to utter hell, which certainly didn't help anything. The cycle repeated and turned in on itself… and the water tanks and ventilation tanks were not sectioned out enough to keep plagues from simply spreading when they hit, while in the other clusters could usually catch any bug before it went out into the population, or at least lock it down early enough that the situation was far from dire.

And it was fair to say that a lot more of the less attractive points of L2 history had been directly caused by the plagues and panicked attempts at quarantine when they simply didn't have the resources to manage it… humanely.

“You're malnourished and dehydrated,” she began bluntly, leaning forward again on her stool and meeting the young man's eyes. “Whatever your situation is, you need to find a way to be getting more water, at least.” When he bit his lip, she added, “I can get you one or two bottles, if you have to walk a ways to get it, but you need to be getting more than you have been; that's why you've been feeling so tired and dizzy.” Sighing a little, she sat up straight. “As it is, you're looking at maybe a couple months before you start to get delirious, and it's downhill from there.”

He nodded a little, still biting his lip; he was staring at the floor.

Leia bit her own lip with irritation and no small amount of worry, reaching into the cabinet next to her and pulling out two big plastic bottles. This hospital doubled as a clinic for those who couldn't afford any medical care but needed it… and the dehydration wasn't exactly an uncommon problem. “Here.”

He started, then blinked at the things for a moment before taking them. “Thanks,” he muttered quietly.

Okay, maybe he's a little more far gone than I thought, Leia worried. “Also, chances are you're not getting some of the nutrients you need… particularly iron. Have you looked at your eyes lately?”

The youth swallowed. “Yeah, Jimmy said the color was startin' to come out.”

That was one way to phrase it, she supposed; the iris color was starting to invade the white of the sclera in one place, and the line was far from distinct everywhere else. At least he's already noticed, she thought with relief. “Relena Peacecraft started up a program to provide essential multi-vitamins at no charge several weeks back,” she told him. “That's not exclusive to Earth. If you can give me the names of you and your friends, maybe get down here once every few weeks, I can get you all down on the list for your share.”

He met her eyes for the first time, looking surprised, and when she only smiled gently at him, he grinned broadly. Poor thing… It was people like him that had really made her want to be in medicine. Not for the first time, though, she mentally thanked the Peacecraft girl for giving her the means to help a few more.

***

Prague

Hilde frowned, carrot hanging from her mouth, as she watched the news channel.

“What?”

“Tha' is sho no' fair,” she argued, gesturing at the screen and taking the vegetable out of her mouth so she'd stop slurring. “We didn't do that, that's stupid, some moron with no thought for an agenda did that!”

Sally turned curious eyes on the screen herself, stepping away from the counter she'd been standing at while drinking her tea; it was just too late in the day for coffee. The Prague underground from the original city was amazingly modern in a lot of ways, even while still being hidden; this was her private `apartment' as it were. She didn't mind Hilde's company, this evening or most, when they both had the time to relax, the younger girl's horrible table manners aside. They were generally pretty amusing, actually. One of the things she loved about Hilde was that, despite everything, she was still such a kid at heart.

The world could use a few more people like that.

Considering the news report that had caught Hilde's attention, though, she chuckled. “If they really think it was our doing, then I suppose that's their problem,” she decided good-naturedly, taking another sip from her mug.

“That was a stupid thing for them to do, though,” the girl argued, obviously offended. “It gives no strategic advantage.”

Sally shrugged, leaning her hip against the back of the couch. “So either they have no head for tactics, or they were local and it seemed that important.” She considered the details being given out, and shrugged. “Looks like they did a good enough job.” She smiled into her mug as she took another drink, though, and once she came back up for air, she noted, “Though whoever it was is probably irritated that we got the credit, considering how showy they made it.” There was a lot of fire involved with that base… someone was a little arson-happy.

That got Hilde to grin a little, though it quickly changed to a sad smile… which meant she was probably thinking about whatever had happened in Amsterdam. The girl had steadfastly refused to give details about her escape, other than that she had had help that had only been too happy to pin the blame on the most well heard of rebel group lead by Sally Po.

She had her suspicions, of course, but if the girl was this adamant about not talking about it, then presumably there was a reason. Secrets had a tendency of coming out in their own time, and considering how non-urgent it was, Sally was more than willing to simply leave it alone; she had more than enough on her plate already. “I'm not going to complain about someone making my job easier, though,” she added to the dark-haired youth. “It may not have been strategic, but less resources is still less for me to work against.”

Hilde rolled her eyes a little and nodded, picking her carrot back up and easing back into the couch cushions as she flipped to a different channel. Sally only shook her head and went back to the paperwork at the breakfast bar. Kids and their pride…

***

October 28th 197 - Saturday - China

“Are you done being a woman yet?”

Wufei snapped around to glare at the interloper… who, surprisingly, wasn't Shui, but Kailì, fiddling with that damn toothpick he always seemed to have in his mouth. That left him on slightly less even footing; he knew he was the superior engineer for the most part, in terms of ingenuity, but Kailì had been doing this for years, and had experience of every kind under his belt.

Unfortunately, no matter what he said or did, he was just due a certain amount of respect.

The older man only smirked and shifted to lean against the wall, completely nonplussed by the glare. “You know, when I ask my wife that, she usually just asks if I'm ready to stop being a man.” When Wufei only scowled and turned back to his work, the other engineer rolled his eyes in an exaggerated way and fiddled with the piece of wood in his mouth. “I'll take that as a no, then.”

“Why don't you mind your own business?” Wufei asked, his tone acrid. He knew it was a bad idea to thrash the other engineer, but the urge was rising quickly, just the same.

“Because you've been acting like my daughter after she got snubbed by some boy in school for the past three weeks,” Kailì returned in that same nonchalant tone, watching him through lidded eyes. “I'm taking pity on you.” When Wufei just stopped still, he added, “I've been led to the belief that venting often helps.”

If everyone could just leave me to get my damn work done, he snarled silently, taking a deep breath, trying to force the same calm into his blood that he'd been relying on for the past few weeks… “I am not one of your daughters,” he growled after a moment.

“I'd noticed, actually; you're considerably more temperamental. I am not looking forward to when they reach your age, boy.”

…There was only so much he could tolerate; if this was Shui, it would be different, but he didn't even really know Kailì. He snapped around, chambering and throwing a punch…

And cried out as electricity ran through the limb. He launched backwards on pure instinct, the muscles in his arm going into spasms, but the shock not extending to the rest of his body. He started shaking it out, cursing, and looked back over to Kailì…

The bastard was holding up what appeared to be a civilian style taser, his expression completely nonplussed. “I don't make a habit of fighting fair,” he noted dryly, still fiddling with that damn toothpick. “Especially not with hand-to-hand specialist war heroes.”

Damnit, the feeling was just starting to come back in his hand, and it hurt more than he liked to admit. “I'm not a hero,” he snapped. “My life is just a series of one mistake after another.”

“Cry, cry,” Kailì returned sardonically, finally standing up straight. “You're the one my baby asks to tell her stories about at bedtime.” Grimacing, he spat the toothpick out into his empty hand and pocketed it. “Most heroes are really one big sob story, that only strengthens the qualifications.” He shook his head a little, his smirk now a little sad. “You need to learn to take what you do get, kid.”

He started to walk off, then hesitated, looking over his shoulder. “Oh, you're coming to dinner at my house tonight.”

Wufei frowned, still shaking his arm out. “What?”

“My wife is a good cook,” he dismissed, as though that would explain everything. Raising his brows, he added, “You make her smack me for cooking for too many people, I'll do something to piss you off.” He turned to walk away again, and made an annoyed, pained noise, rolling his shoulder, muttering under his breath…

Wufei couldn't help a little bit of a smirk at that; for that stunt, the asshole had deserved at least one hit.

***

October 30th 197 - Monday - Belgrade, Serbia

Adam considered the men - and woman - laid out on the ground with a grimace. It wasn't that he regretted his actions at all, they had been entirely necessary…

It was just starting to get ridiculous, was all.

This was the fourth little uprising he had put down in two weeks, cases where the people honestly had no hope of accomplishing something meaningful, but had headed full-bore into disaster anyhow. At this rate, he was starting to wonder if the favor he was doing was for them or the Regime.

If the frequency went up any higher, then it would probably be the latter.

I should start leaving Chang's contact information, he thought in amusement as he shook his head and walked away. They would probably assume he had been some sort of black ops agent from the Regime, it would be nice to correct them. Make up some business cards… The Chinese man would certainly not appreciate the sentiment, of course, but Po might like the chance at picking through new recruit options.

And annoying Xutao was an entertaining prospect by itself; he found himself actually missing his company, some days. Well, it would be amusing so long as he wasn't dead yet, anyway; he hadn't tried to actively check on that since they had parted ways. He wasn't quite ready to open that door to Po's group yet.

He stepped into a convenience store and went to grab a bottle of water out of the cooler - prices on that hadn't gone up, at least - and also picked up a considerably more expensive sandwich and vitamin packet before going up to the register. They still had fruit here, but he wasn't going to waste the money on it when he could get the supplements; the price on the oranges really was steep.

As he paid, he considered the issue… it was unlikely that Chang was dead, really; he would have heard something on the news about that by now, and that was relatively good proof of his safety. He supposed he should send something to both Chang and Treize's e-mails; the increase in activity was important, especially considering the cases where it went unreported, as in the group he had just disabled and robbed of their more violent resources.

He checked his watch as he approached the bus stop; it was only a few minutes off until it should get there, so there shouldn't be any problem with the morons waking up before he was gone. So long as he didn't do anything suspicious enough to make anyone want to look in his knapsack… and actually, he should probably find somewhere quickly to rearrange his things a little more carefully, so there were no possible odd bulges or clanks, and of course, nothing dangerous and recognizable was near the top…

The rooftop a few buildings down from the bus stop was easy enough to reach.

He had quite a few stashes of weaponry at this point, and was actually headed back to one to deposit his latest acquisitions before he found more trouble to dive into - his bag wasn't terribly large. He had no immediate use for them, after all. He had considered selling them, or offering the ammunitions to one group or another, but something in him balked at the idea…

It was never good to run out of munitions. The very fiber of his being demanded that he ought to hoard everything he could.

Sighing slightly, he headed back down just in time to catch his ride, and settled into a seat by the window, his bag stashed above his head. What really made him worry was that if tension was running high enough to make him want to act more purely on his old survival instincts, it was likely the same thing leading these smaller groups to great enough frustration to act stupidly. Stress was high enough to brew mass amounts of trouble from just the news that a food crisis was on its way…

…What would happen once the crisis was actually here?

Hopefully they wouldn't be in it long before the relief from Relena's new hydroponics complexes kicked in, but he didn't like relying on hope; it had a tendency to get people killed.

Even though his memories were generally fuzzy at best, he knew hope was a dangerous beast, seconded only by desperation. They led to good people going to terrible lengths… to do things to either destroy or remake the world. If there was really a difference between the two, anyhow. Any change destroyed what used to be, and any devastation brought about new beginnings; Libra's crash had more than proven that once again. He would not be where he was, who he was, if not for a number of terrible things that had happened, so he supposed that that was alright…

The easy contentment that slid over him at that thought suggested that he had always believed just that, or something close to it. At least, that was what he chose to think, and he liked when it happened. It wasn't nearly as much of an upheaval anymore. The more he put together about his old self, the more he found he wasn't so much different as… more. He thought he was happier now too… He couldn't remember ever really feeling as he did now, which might mean nothing, but at least meant he had no regrets from the actions he had decided to take. Trying to remember had become nothing more than an exercise in frustration as time went on, to the point that he had decided that his old self be damned, he was going to do what he felt like, now.

He wasn't sure he liked who he had been, but he knew, now, that the nameless soldier he had once been would not have minded him one way or another. It was good to know you didn't conflict with yourself… it would have made choosing his stance in this new war far more difficult.

***

November 1st 197 - Wednesday - Brussels

Relena couldn't help but smile and shake her head a little as Jake shifted against her pant leg, getting his hair all staticky… rather, more so, at any rate.

“I still can't believe it,” Dorothy noted in fascination, watching him from where she sat on her knees maybe a foot away on the floor.

“He's sick,” Relena noted dryly, turning back to her laptop, where she was intermittently reading reports from those she had put in charge of various projects around the world and colonies. Her bodyguard had had all the classic signs upon waking; the fever, horrible congestion, extreme sleepiness, general malaise and irritability… She hadn't planned on going adventuring today anyhow, though, so there hadn't been any reason to either make him more miserable or call in his boys to take his place when they were already stationed outside the room. He wasn't in his pajamas, but none of them were going out so they weren't in any sort of formal dress either.

It was actually nice to see him in the baggy pants and faded t-shirts he had always worn when she first met him. He looked good in uniform, of course, but… it was nice to see the softer side of him too. He was so good at what he did, without a doubt, but while he was generally invigorating and happy, he seemed so much gentler in normal dress… less an ally and figure in his own right and more a friend. I should make a point to have more stay in days, she decided. It was nice to be able to simply relax a bit and get the more quiet end of work done without worrying about appearances… She'd rather missed being able to wear jeans and walk around without shoes on. It was one of the advantages to staying in one place, she supposed…

And while she hadn't thought it before, the Brussels base had become home sometime while she was traveling. She had never really liked the place, but it was comforting to be back where everything was familiar and she didn't have to remember to keep everything in line by herself because the base policies already covered those fronts. Not that Jake hadn't handled most of that without her, but… there was still a difference.

“I think he's drooling,” Dorothy announced, still thoroughly enthralled, for whatever reason.

“Fascinating,” Relena noted, not bothering to look. Dorothy, of course, was trussed up in all her finery… but really, Dorothy had no concept of what dressing down was. The Romefeller heir was simply like that, and it wasn't worth raising the subject.

The girl turned to her in horror. “Relena, he's drooling on your couch!”

“Don't wake him up,” the princess admonished as the man shifted, reaching over to twitch the blanket a little tighter around him. “I think he's earned the right to a little drool, Dorothy, honestly.” Jake worked as hard as she did, around the clock. If not harder, she mused to herself, resisting the urge to run a hand through his messy hair; she would probably wake him up, and she was relatively sure that, despite announcing that he wasn't on duty today, there was at least one gun somewhere in the couch cushions or his pants… possibly both. His boots were by her feet, and she could see a rather big knife tucked to one side somehow…

That was something she had never realized when she first met him - Jake was always armed, and in more than one way. The months of living in very close quarters had caused her to put together that even when dressed casual or in his pajamas, he was… precise. His jeans were baggy, but he always wore boots, the laces tied tightly. She was almost positive that the two identical, distinct bands he always wore on his right wrist served a purpose. He was usually in uniform anymore, but he hadn't completely forgone jeans in general, and she had realized today that all his pants were baggy in the exact same way; and she had bumped into him once or twice over the past few months, to feel that there was definitely something metal strapped to his legs, more often than not. He was hardly shy about wearing an outright shoulder holster over his shirt but under his jacket, and he generally walked without his jacket when they were indoors, leaving the weapon exposed, but as he had made his point before, he never had only one firearm on him. The obvious one was purposefully misleading.

Jake could be frighteningly good at misdirection, when he wanted to be. David Mitchell and the other bodyguards usually dismissed a great deal of his habits revolving around just that to his experience in espionage… and considering how experienced her friend seemed to be, she would imagine that the ingrained habits had probably saved him once or twice. He was incredibly economical most of the time, very focused on efficiency even while he indulged whims without a care… he knew how to dance circles around most problems and get exactly what he wanted.

It was one of the reasons she had gotten so far so quickly, she would readily admit. She was good, but Colonel Miller had taught her more than a few tricks, and helped her hone her mind to have a much sharper edge… and she was uncomfortably aware that he had almost positively done it entirely on purpose. She had needed it, or rather it would have taken her much longer, with quite a few more mistakes, without the advice and guidance he had offered, but…

She appreciated what he had done, but was trying to take a step back, now. She knew she could do this, now, and she appreciated the support, but Jacob Miller, while often brilliant, was just that: support. She had been mildly worried that he would be offended at first, think she was shunning or avoiding him for a silly reason when she made a point to draw a distinct line between his and her work, but it had been entirely unfounded. Instead, he had only seemed… excited. She had felt bad about leaving him in the dark about a few of her proposals before sending them into RLTT at first, but he had simply jumped on the replies and new work with fresh kind vigor.

She had the distinct impression that the emotion he seemed to outright ooze lately, other than that sheer vivaciousness, was pride.

He was subtle enough about it… he didn't want to patronize her any more than she wanted to admit her childish points that she had had - maybe a few of which she still retained - since they had met, but he was still proud of who she was becoming… and, well, she supposed she was more than a little proud of herself, so nobody needed to rub in how badly off she had once been. He was a sort of constant, easy source of acceptance… he didn't try to rule her at all, pointedly just followed her lead, as the incident in Munich had shown.

She knew she would never have to worry about him turning on her, the way Milliardo had with Libra.

He was better than that.

“Mm, I'm going to get my computer,” Dorothy decided, standing and heading over to the door.

“Alright.” Maybe after she finished reading and responding to the progress reports they could watch a movie… She had another tour planned to start in three weeks, but until then, or until a new idea came to her, it was just time to sit back and maintain what work she already had in progress.

And really, between China and the amplifiers, the militia, vitamin production, complex construction, and seemingly a million and one locally personalized ventures around the continent, it was actually quite a lot.

***

Amsterdam

Kasey von Koll fought the urge to grumble as he walked. He really had nothing to be annoyed about, he hadn't had any trouble… which, typically, was the problem.

Getting false identification papers, even such high quality ones as those now tucked safely into his knapsack, had been disgustingly easy.

He was still trying to work out if it really had been, though, or if he just thought so because no matter what he wanted, he was still Duo fucking Maxwell. Neither idea put him in a good mood. For one, if it was the first, then there was probably a lot more trouble underfoot in Amsterdam than he had thought. If it was the second…

It made him start to wonder if he would ever change, if he could, or if he ever had at all. It made him wonder if anything he had done in the past year had really mattered, if any of it had really been worth it. Had he made any kind of difference, or was it all still the same? He knew how easily everything could just be snatched away, no matter what promises he made… So much had changed, but at the same time, he couldn't tell if anything had at all.

He knew it really didn't matter, that he was happy and that made whatever else happened okay, but at the same time…

Amsterdam was regressing into exactly the state it had been in when he arrived, the economy having taken another steep dive with the arrival of all the refugees in the area. The granaries were near here, so in a sense people had flocked to water and food, and really, Brussels was only a stone's throw away, so they were coming closer to the seat of the government too… It wouldn't make any actual difference to their quality of life, but it did make sense, on a more instinctual level. The problem was that flooding a relatively healthy area with problems didn't solve said problems, it just drug more people down. He had already had to prove that the Devils were not a group to be messed with to more than a few people, and while he knew it needed to be done to keep them all safe, it was far from enjoyable; he didn't like scaring people that reminded him so much of himself.

And it was only going to get worse as everyone continued to get more high-strung as the winter grew deeper.

He sighed softly as he turned a corner and the shop came into view, and a smile crept up his face. It looked nice… the last time he had a place he could honestly claim that looked nice was Maxwell Church, with its neat paint and stained glass. The shop was hardly beautiful the way the church had been, but it was… elegant, almost, in an tidy, practical way. The green Plexiglas of the big front window arch correlated with the dark green of the open drive and front door, and the color alone was a breath of fresh air. One of the reasons they had settled on green was because Melissa said people missed the green of the plants most had a hard time keeping alive anymore, or that it was hopeful, that it promised spring…

And he liked green. Green was a good readout, the protection of a beam scythe, or the coding layout on his screens… No matter how much he'd like to forget the war, he couldn't deny that green was comforting, probably the same way that in the opposite way, dim, red light set his girl on edge.

His girl… he had never had anyone to claim before Amsterdam. He had been Father Maxwell's, Sister Helen's, but they had never really been his in return. It had always been Solo's crew before that, even after Solo died and it had been Duo holding them together. On some level he'd always felt like Deathscythe was practically a person, a true friend, especially with the odd way the light seemed to catch in his buddy's eyes at seemingly key moments… but that was grasping at straws and he knew it. He understood enough about psychotic breaks and general stress reactions that G had shoved down his throat to realize that he'd just been that lonely, and his gundam had just been the only real constant to rely on.

Amos was over today, and smiled broadly as he spotted him, waving before ducking back inside. Kay smiled. Amos had really come a long way in the past year, and the kid had a real knack for machines, the same way Duo always had. He was learning fast… it was kinda a good thing Father Espen hadn't been able to get him that government-paid locksmithing apprenticeship last summer, seeing as he wouldn't have had the time to learn this. Well, he though, smirking, if he really wants to learn that still, I could teach him locks too. Amos was responsible enough that Duo trusted him not to get himself into any illicit bullshit with the knowledge; the Father had raised him better than that.

Actually, Amos was kinda his too, these days.

Nobody was in the garage, so he went over into the office area, where the church orphan was sorting out jobs in terms of what he knew he could do alone, with help, and what he wanted to work on with either Kay or `Liss so he could learn. Mm, he probably just got here himself, he had school today. The boy looked up as he came in.

“We've got a house call set up for four o'clock,” he noted. “They just called in, their fridge went out.”

Duo nodded. “Alright. You told them to keep it shut, right?”

“Yep.”

“Good.” The thing would still insulate the cold air already inside it for a while. “Where's `Liss?”

“They're upstairs,” Amos returned distractedly, reading the details on a job.

They? Kay checked his watch. Oh, right, Rina's shift starts in half an hour. He grinned and nodded a thank-you to Amos before running up the stairs. With all the new people in town, not to mention the new gangs rising with mostly unknown motives, Luc and he had decided that Karina shouldn't be out walking alone, especially when she was prettied up for her waitressing job; Amsterdam did have a certain reputation about pretty women walking alone, after all, and while decent, Rina wasn't exactly a great fighter. After her kidnapping, she wasn't really interested on fighting them on the point either.

She had been taken once; they weren't going to give her any opportunities for the same to happen again. Luc's job overlapped with when her shift started, so usually Kay walked with her there, then Luc came by and picked up Renee once he was off before walking out to meet her at the end of the shift late at night while the baby was asleep at home.

Rina was standing with her back to `Liss, her head down, while her friend was parting her hair into two even sides. He couldn't help but grin at that; when he had first come to Amsterdam, Sin's hair had been bobbed, cut along her jaw line. Now, apparently, it had gotten long enough to be put into a version of the low, over the shoulder pigtails Melissa preferred. The baby was asleep on the pile of blankets they kept as a bed in the corner.

“Hey, Handsome,” `Liss greeted cheerfully. “Make sure you hurry back, you've got a house call in two hours.”

“Yeah, Amos told me; I'm probably going to take him with, so you'll be holding down the fort.”

“Sounds good,” she returned, grouping together one tail and having Rina hold it while she gathered the other to compare sizes. “Nee just went down for her nap, so I'll keep the monitor with me and get started on something Amos is into; he's got some homework due tomorrow, so he's probably going to ditch us and focus on that after a bit.”

“Alright. Oh…” He slung his knapsack off his shoulder and rifled through it for his newfound papers as the girls tied off Rina's hair. “Here, look.”

“Hm?” The woman he considered to be a sister took them curiously, her eyes flicking over the words for a few moments before squealing in delight. “Ooh, Kasey!”

“What?” Melissa looked bemused as she leaned over Rina's shoulder to read. After a moment, she grinned. “Kasey von Koll, huh?” Moving around her friend, swaying her his a little more than she usually did, she walked up to him and interlocked her fingers behind his neck. Eyes sparkling, she said, “Well, it's nice to finally learn your name, good sir.”

Kay couldn't help but grin broadly at her as he rested his hands on her hips; she knew exactly who he was, but it didn't matter to her at all…

“Ooh, so this means you can actually play at being my brother now,” Karina decided happily. “Brother-in-law, but it still counts.”

And Rina… He'd kept her safe through thick and thin despite their rocky start, and she seemed to have lost all her bitterness… she was so happy now while last November she hadn't seemed to even know the meaning of the word.

Maybe he hadn't changed, and maybe nothing he did would really matter in the big picture… but that didn't mean he wasn't important here. It was like he had told Hilde, what seemed like ages ago now… He had changed Sin's whole world, he was part of the glue that held the Devils together, and Melissa…

Everything around him just mattered more than it ever had. Maybe it was because he knew what it was like to lose it, but he had promised himself that he wasn't going to let that happen again, so if that was the case then it didn't matter. He felt more free than he ever had, even though he was scared half out of his mind with paranoia… it was just-

“Kasey,” `Liss sing-songed, swaying side to side slightly, her arms still around his neck. “Kasey… Don't zone out on me Kay…”

…And somehow, the sound of his new yet not new name on her lips in that sweet Dutch-English accent set his blood on fire. He didn't need to be a different, better man, or make a difference in this world if…

God, he loved it when she spoke to him in English.

“I'm here,” he returned in the deeper tone he'd been gaining all summer, ducking his head down to catch her lips with his, wrapping his arms tight around her, feeling as if he never wanted to let go. She returned the gestures immediately, making a happy sort of noise in the back of her throat…

This was so much more than it had ever been with Hilde in so many ways. He could never get tired of touching or even just being near her… He thought he knew what that meant, but at the same time, he didn't quite dare to hope he was right…

Karina started to laugh. “Hey, come on you two, I need to get to work…”

Kasey smiled against Melissa's mouth, pointedly turning away from Rina slightly and not stopping just yet, even though he could feel his girl's own smile, and how she was shaking slightly trying not to laugh… Karina made an exasperated sort of noise and started down the stairs, calling down to complain good-naturedly about them to Amos. They both started actually laughing, breaking up the kiss, so he decided to call it good and kissed one of her hands before giving a jaunty wave. “I'll be back,” he noted as he started for the stairs.

“You'd better be,” she returned happily, shaking her head a little as she watched him run after the blonde. “Don't forget about to hurry back for the house-call!” she yelled after him.

“I'll be back fine!” he retorted, rushing out the door to see his picture-perfect sister smirking at him out on the drive, making like she was tapping her foot at him… before grinning raucously and starting to run.

He laughed again as he gave chase, hearing her breathless laughter trailing back to him, his brooding set aside again… because this was what having a family meant, and none of his worry mattered in the face of that.

***

November 3rd 197 - Friday - Florence, Italy

Kail Jaynes couldn't believe his luck. He had doubted at first, after all, she was out in the open and plenty of kids looked alike…

But he'd seen her face clearly, and that definitely was Mariemaia Barton-Khushrenada. Her hair was dyed blonde, but he had a picture in his wallet, and he had long memorized her facial structure.

She looked… happy. She was obviously healthy, well fed and in good quality clothes; her jeans were clean, other than grass stains, and she had at least one tightly knit sweater on under a fur-lined leather coat she left hanging open. Her shoes looked good too, and her face was clean and clear.

Someone was taking care of her. She was alone right now, but there was no way she could provide so well for herself; she had help. The fact that she was clearly trusted not to wander too far and definitely under no duress was also a good sign.

She was heading into a less populated area of town, which was good; she hadn't noticed that he was following her yet, and once they were somewhere a little more secluded, he could take custody of her with little to no fuss. Once she realized he had been sent by her father, after all, she ought to be happy to come along.

It was a few more minutes before she meandered down a side road that was completely deserted. He followed at a slow amble, turning the corner…

She was several yards further than he had expected, from the speed she had been going at, but kids will be kids; she had probably run a few paces for the fun of it. He followed at a slightly more brisk pace…

It wasn't until she stopped and turned to look at him that he realized he had made a mistake. Mariemaia was calm, without a glimmer of surprise or fear. She had known she was being followed, probably for some time now. She is every inch Treize's daughter, he realized as she watched him impassively with his leader's eyes.

That was his last thought, watching her watch him, before he felt a sharp pain explode in the back of his head and the world started to slide… before his vision went black.

Well, that only took far longer than it ought to have... Sorry about that, been trying to balance work and school while keeping the house in some semblance of order... But hey, 18 pages is something closer to my general chapter length again, ne?

As usual, would love to hear anything back from you all... looks like there'll be two more chapters before I tag in an epilogue and move on to the sequel, so hey, we're actually getting to the true climax next chapter.

The sequel ought to have a different tone... This story has very much been appropriate to its title, as the characters are just focusing on surviving, making do and managing to get from one day to the next, most of them leveling out to some degree. I haven't decided on a title yet, but the theme is much more changing the world, a full revolution kind of thing... any ideas for what might work?

Mm, well, off to bed for me, class in the morning... Hope you all enjoyed it. Thanks.