Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Survival ❯ Alternate View ( Chapter 35 )

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

Alternate View

Okay, either bear with me here or skip past it…

--- Cue in rant ---

As for the delay, sorry again. Everything's been… almost as much amazing as horrifying for once, so I can't exactly say bad… Let's go with rough. Sudden curing of arthritis is amazing, not counting that it's impossible to find food without any milk or wheat in it, cure or no. My `twitch' went from mostly tame to utterly fucking insane in the past month or two (from nonexistent to conscious, violent seizures that can last up to four hours and can happen up to three times in twenty-four hours, apparently, even though the first fit left me keening with from the pain and so exhausted I couldn't muster tears, just a pitiful wail).

Thankfully, somehow it seems almost as if deep tissue massage is fixing the whack muscle disorder in my back that I've had for…. God, it's been seven years, I'm twenty-one… that's surreal, I keep forgetting that I finally hit legal everything last March. Mm, and now I have a new neurologist who's on a trip to try and cure me… and this one I don't think I'll be regularly telling to go fuck himself, like the one from my high school years, who thought I was a guinea pig or something. That and my Da's on his own sudden mission to cure all my ails… and you know what, he's been frighteningly successful so far (it was his idea to cut all wheat and dairy and hey, arthritis from hell vanished like mist on the wind), so whatever, if he can honestly make me feel like I'm thirteen again only with, you know, the curves and actual life, without all the anti-rheumatics, and the muscle-relaxers, and the painkillers… Hell, I'm game for that.

And then after over three years of pouring chemo shit into my body, my immune system decided I was a bitch and rolled over and let me get shingles… I think I would have finally wrapped this in early April, I was all rip-roaring ready to go, but no, I get slammed with horrific blisters on my bra line from spine to sternum, not to mention searing nerve pain… So now I'm falling asleep only because I'm knocked out from painkillers, waking up crying because they've worn off so my fiancé - sweet, wonderful, loving and thoughtful man that he is - gets me something to drink and shoves painkillers at me, and I sleep for another few hours before I waking up still feeling horrible but at least vaguely human.

…It's been great, or something. Story of my life: woot roller coaster of everything. I suspect some of that reflects in my writing.

---End rant---

Okay, now that I've ranted, let's hope I can pull this off without it looking too contrived…

All notation of Brussels will become vague again, at least so long as they're on base; it will note if the characters are in the city instead of the compound, but as before, feel free to assume that “Brussels” refers to the Brussels compound and more detail will be given from there.

November 26th 197 - Sunday - Brussels

Dorothy jumped as the door to Relena's suite slammed open, admitting the princess and her guards. Correction; admitting the absolutely livid princess and her Jake, while the rest of the boys did not cross the threshold. They rarely came into the room, at least en masse, while at the home compound. Jake took a moment to signal something to them before closing the door, but his face was set in a sort of worried grimace…

This can't be good. “Whatever happened?” What was it they had gone to do again? Frowning, she realized the thought simply wasn't there. I really ought to have paid more attention…

Relena turned a glower on the heiress that made her honestly want to back away… Exactly when had the little pacifist become so very fierce?

“My brother,” she began in a low hiss, “is a single-minded moron.”

Dorothy bit back her first response, which was to ask if her liege had only just noticed, and instead glanced at Jake, hoping for a better explanation.

“He's not clearing her to continue the tour,” Jake noted succinctly, his tone a little too reminiscent of the other night, only his eyes were flinty instead of cold and analytical.

“It's going to cause an even greater panic!” Relena snarled, though she was turned away from them, focusing her tirade on the dining table instead of her friends. “Not to mention the rumors that will count more against him than anything, saying I don't really have any control after all!” She began pacing then, gesturing with her good arm as she continued to rage at a more muted tone, so that it was only possible to pick up every third word.

In one easy motion Jake dropped onto the couch beside Dorothy, and she offered him a sympathetic look to which he rolled his eyes a little, before focusing back on the girl she had pledged herself to. While the princess had quickly bounced back from the shock of the attack and was making a speedy recovery, it would be some time before she was able to leave off the heavy bandaging and sling on her left arm. It looked more serious than it was as the bullet had not hit bone, only torn through the tricep of her arm, but if Milliardo was using it as an excuse to ground her now… Well, they were already witnessing the beginning of the eruption.

Not that she could be blamed; her worries were more than valid, as the people were going into turmoil. The food shortage already had everyone on edge, and with the rumors of unrest very forcibly proven, they would have had more than a handful of problems even if Relena stayed the night in Germany. Unfortunately, her withdrawal to Brussels had been seen by some as an order that came from Milliardo even though the man had not known his sister was returning until she arrived on the premises, and from there bloomed speculation that Milliardo had known the attack was coming and had wanted to use his far more popular sister as a shield against it.

They seemed to largely be ignoring the fact that if that had been his intent, the public would have had full knowledge of the princess' return instead of the utmost secrecy she had insisted on. The privacy in which everything had been done completely destroyed that visage, but apparently they thought the prince believed himself so cleverly tricky that he would twist his plot that far despite the lack of benefit.

And really, after you had found it logical to drop a battleship on the planet, it wasn't any wonder if no one trusted you to be sensible.

The remainder who had some sense, however, had latched onto one solid fact that, while Jake took some mass offense to it, was true. Whatever their power, it evidently wasn't enough to keep the princess safe… while Milliardo had exited the affair with no new scratches to show. It didn't matter that that had merely been a matter of false security mixed with a mass amount of luck. The princess was, by all apparent evidence, not even safe in her own home fortress. That was a powerful message being sent out… especially since Relena had yet to be seen by the public eye since the attack, leading to rumors that her condition was far worse than it was.

And now her brother had decided not to allow her to continue the tour a few days late, as she had intended? She certainly seemed capable enough… Was he worried about another attack on her, if he were to let her out of sight? Jake bristled at the very idea of his loyalty being questioned, and as he had handpicked all of the men on his guard, he was taking Milliardo's request to question his men rather personally… and actually, yesterday he had told the prince as much with quite an audience, outright refusing and citing where each of his men had been at what time, which was helped by the fact that the majority had been protecting the elder Peacecraft sibling in his attacks to take back control of his stronghold.

Is it a point to Relena or Jake that he won that argument? Looking between them, Relena was still pacing ardently and Jake, having pulled his laptop out from under the couch, had begun to type industriously, neither even glancing at her as they plotted. She had to ask herself, Is there a difference?

Between the two of them, there was no doubt that a counterattack was soon coming… and she began to wonder if she could raise from her spot on the couch without attracting attention. This was all very well and good, except that she had no idea what to do to help… So maybe she would just go back to her room, or perhaps into the city, and tell them to call her once they had something for her to finish…

Both glanced at her when she stood but didn't pay her any more mind than that as she made her way out.

***

Amsterdam

Karina brushed her hair out of her eyes as she followed the sound of her little girl boiling over with laughter in the next room… She'd woken up later than usual, and apparently someone had gathered up Renee so that she could sleep in. What had been weird was that Luc was out of bed, seeing as he worked that graveyard shift lately, so even if he was up he shouldn't be too energetic…

Yet it was him bouncing and tickling the baby so she squealed with delight, despite the fact that it was only eleven in the morning and he had come back in at five. Well, she was fairly sure he had; she barely woke up when he slid into bed anymore…

They both noticed her almost immediately, and Luc gave her one of his dazzling smiles while Renee squealed again and reached towards her around her father's arms, starting to incoherently babble, “Mamamamamamamamamamamamama!”

Unable to help her own smile, she settled the blanket she had over her shoulders a little better so she could reach out and take the nearly six-month-old from her husband, bracing her against her stomach; she could almost sit up on the floor by herself now, so it was easy enough for her to stay there, trying to wrap her legs around your waist. “Good morning, you pretty little thing,” she greeted, rubbing noses with her so she'd giggle again and pat her little hands on her mother's shoulders, tilting her face up so Rina could do it again.

Dear Lord, but she loved this child… her child, who somehow was keeping everyone happy even as the world outside got scarier by the day. They were safe, and none of the economy mattered to little Renee so long as she was fed and loved, and they had already made sure they had more than enough food to make it through earlier in the month, though they had always stockpiled enough to be okay for at least a month even before the word of the food crisis came… And even if they were running low, their little bit of cheer and hope came first by everyone's standard, not that she ate much of anything, now that she had started to eat.

Amusingly enough, it was Chaos who was incredibly focused on the tiny booklets on what babies ate or needed or what `schedule' kids followed on when they learned to do what, and kept saying she was advanced, or was suggesting this or that. He was so overly worried about it… Honestly, he needed to calm down.

Almost as if reading her mind, Luc announced, “I'm taking her in for shots today; Kay has a point about that part, at least.”

Karina frowned. She certainly wasn't against the idea, but was very much of the opinion that Chaos - no, Kasey now, Kay - was overreacting about the necessity of it when they needed to be careful with money. Vaccinations cost a lot.

Again almost reading her thoughts, Luc went on, “He's paying for most of it himself, Rina… and the idea of her not vaccinated honestly scares him senseless. He's seen what some kids catch because they never had the cash for the shots, and he just about had a meltdown about it a couple days ago just explaining it to me, and…” He grimaced and shook himself a little before continuing. “Even if there's a fair chance she'd be fine, I don't want to take it if we don't have to, Rina. That and if things go much further downhill, sickness is going to start getting around more, and even if we don't take her out in it, someone might bring it into the den, there's just so many of us here who can either catch something or be a carrier… Kay's survived an all-out plague before, so even if he's a little overboard, I'd rather be paranoid with him this time for Nee's sake.”

“A plague?” she asked incredulously, drawing Renee closer to her chest without really thinking about it.

Her husband shook his head a little again. “One of the big L2 ones, that made it through several full colony clusters before they quarantined it. I remember seeing the news on it when I was a kid… I suppose you're too young to have been interested in the news even if you had vid access back then. There was eventually a cure for it, but it was expensive enough that no one Kay was around could have dreamt of getting it. And even without him going into it I remember the horror stories getting out about the areas that had been cordoned off for quarantine… And he was in all that, apparently one of the five percent that had a natural immunity, and smart enough to keep the kids in his crew from most chances at infection so they mostly survived it, but apparently he lost a few anyway…”

He closed his eyes again, taking a deep breath this time, trying to not get worked up. “I know it's not that bad out there, and it shouldn't happen here or anything, but I can't imagine what it would feel like to lose any of us, let alone my daughter, so…” It was obvious he was trying to keep from crying all of a sudden, taking pauses to clear his voice and looking up at the ceiling with his eyes shut. “So I'm humoring him, okay?”

Rina nodded a little, trying to imagine and finding it too terrible to really get her head around as she stepped forward to cuddle up against his chest. Renee looked confused, and was patting at Luc's chest and babbling softly at him. Not sure what to say, she finally admitted, “I had no idea he'd been through something like that.”

Luc let out a morbid chuckle. “You never figured out who he used to be?” he asked, suddenly, looking down at her. His eyes were still glossy, but they didn't look like tears would fall anymore. She looked around to see if anyone else was around - they were alone - before shaking her head. Luc shook his a little too as he touched the baby's cheek to convince her he was okay. “Shov's the one who really put it together, back when Hilde was here, but he practically told me when we were out to rescue you from the Slingers… I think it was to try to calm me down, really.” Biting one lip, he asked, “He told you he was raised in a church, right?”

“For a few years,” she corrected. “He was just on the street until he was seven or eight, in someone's crew, he said…”

“He started leading that crew after the plague, two years before going there,” Luc corrected right back. “Though he still called said the crew was the name of the kid who led it before, one of the ones who died in that mess.” He blew out a breath. “So I'm guessing he didn't mention that he stopped living at the church because the Alliance firebombed it, and he was the only one not home so he was the only one who survived?”

“What?” She felt like the breath had been knocked out of her.

“He does like to sugarcoat things, given half a chance,” he noted in a tired sort of tone. “You probably remember hearing about that, they would have talked about it in school… The Maxwell Church Tragedy? Two hundred forty-five dead?”

“Oh my God…” she breathed, wanting to disbelieve, but the way he was about the church made more sense, if he hadn't ever wanted to leave… And then it clicked. “Maxwell?” she whispered hoarsely. Hilde Schbeiker called him Duo… “Oh my God…”

Luc's chuckle was, again, not terrible humorous. “Yeah… Makes a lot sense once you stop and think about it, huh?” He sighed and reached to take Renee back, and she let him. “Not that it actually matters, it just seemed weird that you didn't already know, when Shov and `Liss and I did. Either way, I'm taking Nee to the doctor's today for her shots, and that's one less thing to think about.”

Karina shook her head. “You have work tonight, you need to sleep. I'll take her.”

He grinned. “No work tonight! Found out last night; I got switched back to midday through swing shift, starting tomorrow. I slept for a little while, but I need to try to stay awake and get my schedule right.” He smiled brightly again, finally getting his mind back off Kay's horrors. “I'm so glad that's done with for now… it's a little more cash, but I'm not sure it's really enough more to be worth it, it felt like I was the only one alive when I got home sometimes, and then most people were gone by the time I got up… It was just awful.”

She nodded; he'd mentioned his feelings about the grave shift a couple times, and other than having to rearrange who had Renee when, it sounded great; they could actually get some time together now, and they'd been more than a little short on that in the last month. And, actually… that time was exactly what they had right then. Smiling up at him, she said, “Well, I say we celebrate… Everyone else is upstairs, right?” There really wasn't any reason to be upset… everything was okay now, Kay was okay now even if he used to be Duo Maxwell… And she really needed to feed Renee before she started yelling that she was hungry. It was a wonder she wasn't already, actually…

“I fed Nee some of the mash-up we have for her in the fridge,” her husband added as he started up the stairs ahead of her. “But she probably wants some milk too, by now… Her appetite's good.” Smiling broadly at the baby and bouncing her a bit, added, “Yes it is, huh baby? Of course it is.”

Rina grinned as she raced up after him, having stopped when he spoke. It was nice having Luc wake up before her, she decided.

***

Brussels

“Oh, hello, David,” Relena greeted tiredly as the colonel came into her suite. Glancing at the clock, she frowned. “You're earlier than usual…”

“Well, about that…” He bit his lip, glancing the sheaf of papers in one hand. “I'm being pulled off your guard, looks like. Not tonight or anything,” he quickly assured her. “But… soon, I guess.”

Jake was frowning as well, but then his face smoothed and he began to grin. “Of course… after Thursday night, that would make sense, finally…”

“What?” Relena asked. It had been a long day, though she had finally managed to arrange a press conference for late tomorrow morning, at least. She had just been about to have a nap; she had already taken her painkillers for the afternoon, and the drowsiness side effect was… confounding.

“The strike force!” Jake exclaimed, grinning broadly. He turned to Mitchell. “That's it, isn't it?” When his friend nodded, looking a little embarrassed, Jake cackled and got up to congratulate him.

The strike force… of course. The group that had attacked a few nights ago was now confirmed as having nothing to do with Po's group, and the attack had made it abundantly clear that something needed to be done about the smaller uprisings. They had talked about it a great deal before RLTT had contacted her, before she'd even begun to befriend Jake, and periodically since then, but more out of reference than anything. They had decided that there was no way it could happen unless something happened to scare the higher ups enough to force her brother's hand, and, well…

At least something good came out of that night.

And the two of them probably wanted to get started working on that, and she wasn't of much use with her head so far gone on exhaustion and the painkillers. Standing, she muttered, “Well, I'm going to take that nap I mentioned, Jake.” Smiling at David she added, “Congratulations! It seems like years ago that Jake was telling me you'd be perfect for leading it, if we could just get it to form up in the first place.”

Mitchell grinned back at her. “Thanks.”

“When do you want me to wake you up?” Jake asked, focusing back on her.

She yawned. The stupid medication made the pain bearable, but it made her so sleepy too… But when she had complained Jake had only noted that sleep was the first part of healing and her body knew what it needed, so she was better off letting it have its way for a while, whenever she could. “If I'm not back up already after three hours, go ahead and wake me up,” she decided. With the way strange dreams increased with the opiates she had been put on, it was far more pleasant to be woken by another person than an alarm.

“Will do,” Jake agreed with a grin before reaching for the papers Mitchell had already started to lay out over the coffee table. “Sleep well, Lena.” Mitchell chorused him, though he didn't look up from the sheets he was flipping through, apparently trying to find something specific.

Covering another yawn with one hand, she nodded in thanks as she went over to her bedroom.

***

China

“What now?” Yue Zi asked in a bored tone, resting her weight against the back of the couch.

Wufei didn't bother to glance back at the sullen girl. She would either come to understand or she wouldn't; there was little point in arguing when she lacked true comprehension. Kailì had managed to quickly gain favor with the newly rising governing system of southern China, and therefore had shielded his family from the worst of what came after Libra, to the point that his children felt little difference in their lives from before and after the catastrophic event.

Kailì, on the other hand, enjoyed his daughter's company and wanted her to know what he did, which was a good trait for a father. “The common man over there is nervous,” he began, sitting forward and turning to look her in the eye over the back of the couch. “Scared, even, and scared people do stupid things. That was already the case before this big news blow,” he added, giving Yue Zi a level look in return for her annoyed look, saying he knew full well she had been about to interrupt. “Now it's turning into outright panic in some areas, where other people who thought they were untouchable are taking the brunt of the prince's newfound fear. Instead of holding it together for everyone, he's breaking down the standing order to find the disloyal, when chances are most people are only with him because they need a job and see him as a lesser evil than raging anarchy. He probably thinks he has to do this right now, but by not putting it off until the spring, he risks toppling the whole empire when they need the stability.”

Wufei watched her frown from the corner of one eye, leaning all the way back, focusing on the tv screen. She was considering the information, but was going to protest over some point soon…

She didn't disappoint. “But his home was attacked, so it wouldn't be safe to leave it alone for that long either. His sister is injured and he's putting the base back together piece by piece, so how could he afford to wait like that?”

“After the public attack that group is taking now, anyone would think twice before trying again,” Kailì countered. “Europe can't afford another hit like that before March or April, not and still be the home everyone there wants it to be afterwards.” He shook his head a little. “Maybe I'm wrong and he does have to defend and purge now; but you have to look at what effect it's having already. While he's piecing apart his infrastructure, he's temporarily stripping them of power and, intentionally or not, dropping the extra power on Darlian's militia groups, at least in the big cities. Now, these are just normal people out of their homes trying to hold down a job, but a lot of them belong to the gangs that were keeping the cities vaguely under law; they were given a minimal amount of power when in uniform in pre-arranged groups for peacekeeping action. But now, allowed as much room to move as before they had to agree to legitimate, monitored action, with full backing of the law? How many grudges and debts will be paid back in full? And how many people have to go stupidly far over that line before the more honorable ones start trying to compensate for the actions of those others, or to slip in a few favors for themselves?” Seeing her pensive look, he nodded a little. “And from there, what law enforcement you have begins to truly crumble.”

That would be one way to look at it, Wufei supposed, staring at the television screen even as he wasn't really watching it. It was so strange, to be on the outside… he wondered what that fool of a woman, Po, was trying now. Or Relena… the little idiot had gone and grown wings and fangs in the past six months. Wounded or not, he had little doubt she was running her own games behind the scenes that would come to light in due time, and she could work quickly; he remembered how swiftly he had been bounced out of the new capital for fear of discovery when she had come to inspect and make deals on his new technology. Apparently she'd even thrown a few well-placed barbs that made it obvious she was furious at not being allowed to meet the involved engineers. None of the others had been forced out of the city for fear of discovery, but it had been him who made most of the early big breakthroughs. It had felt like he was being punished even as Europe took up the amplifiers through the pure lack of recognition, especially when he had accidentally wandered onto that farmer's land and been chased off.

It had been gratifying when he had been able to come back to the room he shared with Shui and work on the new prototypes Relena had contracted.

But now… It was bizarre to watch war beginning to brew all over again and to have nothing to do with it. Was this what it would have been like, had Meilan never died, OZ and the Alliance never come to his colony, if he had kept them firmly out of the path of the war like he had planned? He had had a few places in mind to move them to when it finally erupted, back when his only duty was to his studies and his wife, her clan. They would not have been home when his colony was destroyed, even if he had had to drag her to another colony kicking and screaming - or sedated, more likely. Would he have watched the screen like this, wondering what had happened to Master O and scowling at the handling the chosen pilot had for the Master's art of engineering?

“What are you on about now?”

Yu Zi was watching him with that piercingly sharp gaze of hers again, having noticed his thoughts' deviation despite the fact that he knew he was still staring at the screen in a close mock scrutiny. She could be both as clever and infuriating as her father, and she noticed things she ought to have passed over entirely. It bothered him deeply to be so well read by this girl child of his contemporary, but she was only getting better at it the more time he spent in this household. And while he had no intention of doing anything other than continue to deflect her, he could see that she was as stubborn as he in all too many ways, and eventually she might tell him what was wrong instead of asking inconvenient questions.

He both dreaded the idea and was curious to see if she might actually accomplish it.

For now, he simply gave her an annoyed look and focused back on the subtitles for the European news channel. He had no real desire to help her along… and he had nothing worth sharing in any case. `What if' scenarios helped no one, at least not in the context he had been using; the brooding only served to help make a mess of his own mind with the hope that one of these days it might help him piece it back into a proper whole. Meilan was gone, and while the way he had tried to take her justice hadn't worked before, he was trying a new way now. And here, he was making a firm difference in lives everywhere, and that was all he had the right to do.

A little girl had no way of understanding the kind of debt to duty he bore. But these days, at least, he was almost proud to carry that burden.

Well, so long as the rest of the world didn't burn in the meantime.

***

Prague

Dr. Po took a long drag of her vile coffee, hoping the caffeine would do something to ease her headache; she was fully aware that she was addicted to the substance, but that hardly mattered, all things considered. The other night had been a disaster on the scale that she had worried about but still hoped was impossible… and whatever she had told Hilde before about not minding a little extra mayhem to help, this had not helped.

It had been exactly as she suspected, only larger… one group had been behind a number of attacks that had appeared random and varied. The Regime was deep into questioning everyone they had taken prisoner and while they were all sorts of paranoid now, worried about foul play within their ranks and already starting to purge for more disloyal men as well, they still documented everything through their computer network for fast transference. And while her computer junkie boys had noted that overall security was increased on the digital front as well, the back door they had been long taking advantage of was still there, if more obliquely hidden.

Someone was protecting that method of compromise, and if they hadn't been caught yet, Sally was beginning to doubt they would.

Her boys had explained enough to her that she understood that that doorway could have been hidden far better, and even if it was found, that it could have been made more specific, so that no one but the creator could use it without tripping alarms. Her best had specifically made the point, when they first found it, that whoever had made it knew far more than he did - something about the way it was set up being ingenious - and that the loophole they used to get their information was entirely purposeful.

She had been entirely against its use at first, because of that. The only reason she had relented was because there was no inbuilt way to track the users, which was highly unusual… Though it made sense if the creator had wanted no way for his or her people to be tracked by their own `ingenuity'. Even after they had begun to use some of what they knew - not so much that it was obvious there was a leak, mind - the information had never been false. Well, not unless the Regime had the wrong perspective to start with, but then they had screwed themselves over as well. From every sign they had ever gotten, that loophole led to the genuine goods, with nothing kept hidden.

Until, of course, last June, when R.L. Tomorrow Today apparently inspected the system.

She would love to know who ran that fund… All she could find were the past cases, or, more personally, that the R.L. stood for Rhea Lowe, and that it sometimes used a symbol of a stylized phoenix as its calling card. She knew two previous candidates personally, but if they knew more than that, they both were good liars and had no intention of telling.

The most curious part of the Fund, to her at least, was not the secrecy behind the proprietor, honestly… It was the fact that when RLTT came on the scene to aid Relena it had clearly considered the Regime digital security to be unacceptable, and instead of erasing any flaws, as Howard had said it demanded for the Peacemillion project, it had simply built an entirely new, virtually impenetrable system for all information surrounding the princess alone.

That… that suggested some highly mixed feelings when it came to Peacecraft and Darlian-Peacecraft.

There was a chance that the second wall had been her bodyguard's doing, Colonel Jacob Miller. Her head of all her hacking and networking, Stewart Malinsky, had very briefly been tutored by him back in the Specials, and he had even admitted that the wall completely covering Relena had some of his flair. One of the more likely theories she and Stew had come up with was that RLTT had ordered he set it up as an extra precautionary both because of his alleged skill and that he would, according to Stew, undoubtedly catch someone `playing that close to him on his turf' and wouldn't appreciate outsiders.

If that was the case, however, and Jacob Miller was that good with security, why had Zechs turned down the modifications he had apparently wanted to make to the original system when it was first being put together? The answer was mixed, from what they had been able to find. A number of measures had been dismissed as being `too paranoid', essentially not worth the hassle it would make with such a large set-up, which was understandable; when you had that massive of a project, the tricks that worked in a smaller group, almost all of which Stew had immediately implemented for their own system, were useless. At the same time, though, even if he was slightly out of his element, why didn't they have him still high up for controls of the creation of the system, if he was half so proficient as everyone claimed? He was never even officially part of the project.

The answer, it seemed, was that instead of building his fort solidly, Zechs had spent some of his better resources hunting for the gundam pilots. Admittedly, Jake had come amazingly close a number of times, but the boys were good at what they did, and had a greater incentive to come out ahead. Consequently, the searches had never produced anything more than hints and clues, and occasionally Miller would offer consultations of what ought to be done to the digital security… consultations that were either ignored or had never actually made it onto Zechs' desk, for all that they could tell.

And Stew insisted, even when she had him dissect their back door as much as he could, that while Relena's security had the colonel written all over it, their inlet didn't bear any of his `quirks'. And apparently, Miller had a relatively unique style.

He had never officially been involved with the digital security, so was it possible that he didn't know the secret entrance was there? Perhaps he had thrown up his hands some time after being ignored time and again and simply washed his hands of it. The question, really, was if it was apathy to the point that he hadn't noticed, or if he had decided the Regime needed a good bite in the ass before they would do anything about it.

Apparently that last was a common attitude for Miller, or at least it had been when he was younger. There were more than a few mutters about him breaking arms when someone touched him on purpose but uninvited, and simply calling it an objective lesson, that they wouldn't forget that he liked his personal space ever again. And indeed, considering the fact that more than a number of people had told her exactly that, they hadn't. And while he had apparently calmed down - he hadn't broken anyone's bones so unprovoked since he was thirteen - he still believed that experience was one of the most effective teachers.

None of his old comrades thought he was cynical enough to leave such a blatant hole in what he would see as his security system just so Zechs would learn his lesson, though. In all likelihood he had become frustrated enough to turn a blind eye and dive into a separate project with everything he had; apparently he had a history of doing just that.

Miller aside, the fact was that that back door had been built for someone in particular despite the openings left for others, probably from the very beginning. And whoever had built it was protecting the commodity that it was, despite risk of discovery from the Regime with the new wave of security precautions. Whoever had done it was committed, and it was unlikely that it was to a small group. There was a chance it was someone who had done it to just do it, as hackers were known for, but first of all it had been there since before the Regime had much power, and second, the price of getting caught was rather higher than most would like to risk.

Xutao Chang had claimed that for some time he had been chased by men belonging to Treize… And if Treize really was alive and in hiding somewhere, then his men would be as loyal as they ever were, and in practically every nook and cranny that existed by now. That would mean they were also all through the Regime, and it was likely that the door had been meant initially for his use… and anyone he had so deep knew well how to hide themselves. Especially since the idea that Treize was even alive was easily dismissed, let alone the idea that he greatly opposed Zechs, they ought to be fine.

She felt her face form into a hard, grim smile. She would love to see when that investment exploded in Zechs' face… She just wished she knew when it would be, or what the man's ultimate goals were.

The main thing that had her wondering about the aristocrat, though, was that as he was technically dead, Treize had no access to Khushrenada or Romefeller funds. And if she knew anything about the General it was that he had to have at least three other fronts forming up, just as she did, and he would be working towards them. That would require some heavy backing, especially if he was building suits or widening his network… loyalty was good and all, but especially these days, everyone needed a definite way to put food on the table for the amount of time spent doing something. And considering the connections of all the past candidates for RLTT, and the seemingly unlimited nature it had always shown before…

She wouldn't be surprised if RLTT was also supporting Treize, considering its blatant disregard of the Regime with the exception of the princess. It was a bit of a leap, but again, considering its history… And if that was the case, then did Treize see the princess as a potential ally against her brother - which was next to impossible to tell at this point? In order to do… what? All things done and with hindsight being 20/20, she trusted Treize's intentions far more than she did Zechs'. She had always been Alliance before she left entirely, not OZ, but after she had relocated to Earth, she had met Treize once… And he had recognized her on sight.

“Ah, Dr. Po,” he greeted me genially, breaking away from his lieutenant and motioning for the severe-looking woman to stay back. “It's a pleasure to see you working on Earth.”

There was nothing about me that should interest OZ, and I knew it. My hackles rose, but I adopted the same smile I did for when I had a patient that ranked higher than I did. “The fresh air does me good, sir,” I returned brightly. “But I had no idea you knew of me, Colonel Khushrenada. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Manners might not always work, but they often gave you more leeway than people thought.

“To the point then,” he decided with a smile that held just a hint of the fact that he was humoring my attempt at civility and thought it obvious that I was leery. Moving further away from the crowd, acting as though we were simply on a walk, he continued, and I followed with the charade. “I understand you requested a transfer after several months with a sanitation squad?”

I felt cold, but I knew better than to show it. “It was rather dull work, Colonel,” I told him plainly. “My comrades were pleasant enough company, but I don't care to spend so long only surrounded by steel walls, breathing recycled air. I was curious to see more of space and the colonies, but I'm afraid they were far more lackluster than I had expected.”

“Of course, nothing can replace this,” the colonel agreed, gesturing vaguely at the vegetation and ocean view. “And I can perfectly understand any compunctions with working as a Sanitation Squad Commander, especially in some of the less popular reaches, where the oldest colonies reside.”

Oh God damn it! I had made a mistake in my written report, or one of my men had, something had contradicted from the story we decided on when it went into writing, and was only now being reviewed. But why would it be OZ here instead of the main Alliance? Had they been the ones who discovered the treachery, from a conflicting report? Inwardly, my eyes narrowed.

I had been ordered to deploy the YO-448 to `disinfect' L5-A0206, but after the colonel releasing the biological toxin had been killed, there had been no way OZ could obtain a visual that we hadn't dropped the canisters, not with all the debris. We had released the containment seals while still in the vacuum of space some time later, far from any colony, and I had disposed what was left of the canisters myself in a pile of scrap that I then personally saw incinerated… as was my duty as the Sanitation squad commander, of course. That had been the beauty of it… All infected materials needed to be either incinerated and/or melted down before they were delivered to either a Sweepers or Alliance-approved scrap yard. Once it had been cleansed of chemicals entirely by fire and melted into a flat, unrecognizable shape, I had traded off the pieces to the Sweepers as having had too many impurities for the Alliance to make further use of, so there couldn't even have been any records of the fact that the metal compound was close to that of the canisters I had allegedly no longer had.

I had made sure before I finished my transfer papers that the difference was completely unnoticeable from the end of my squad. I watched Treize closely from the corner of my eye. Had his men noticed there was still viable life on L5-A0206 and ratted the Alliance? No, the Alliance would be here already if they had. My employers didn't dally about business, hence deciding to commit the atrocity of fumigating a populated colony in the first place. No, if he knew, he was here without the Alliance knowing that was the reason… Blackmail? I had no ability or possession or even loyalty worth blackmail. Is he just here to arrest me himself? Aristocrats could have a tendency to take it personally that their orders were not followed to the letter, but OZ had wanted to attack head-on, not use the gas.

I couldn't think of any reasons he might want to undo my deception on L5-A0206, but if he was here out of vindictiveness to do just that, I'd shoot him myself before I was taken in and someone was sent out to kill all those people anyway.

“Rest at ease, Doctor, I am only making an inquiry or my own purposes. You see, I believe you may have… seen something irregular that my men encountered in the L5 cluster.” The man's pale blue eyes were piercing. “I understand the actions you may have taken, and will say no more; I am satisfied with all of the reports that have been made. However, there are a few… discrepancies… in your reports that I wish to make sure are maintained.”

“Ah.” And that was all I could say. There was no court martial hiding here… He wanted to know what I knew of the two mobile suits that had shown up… No, he wouldn't care about the Leo prototype, he wanted to know about the unidentified suit. Or rather, he wanted to know that I wouldn't go back on the fact that I omitted the complication of a bizarre suit sighting from my report to avoid anyone looking back into the case, as I had already protested the use of biological weapons to such a degree that I would be watched for it.

“The colonel piloting the suit my squad used was killed from misfire either from your men or the colony's fighting Leo prototype we saw,” I assured him. In truth it had been that strange, blue and white mobile suit that didn't look anything like any I had ever seen, and Colonel Khushrenada knew it. “He was, at that time, returning from his successful deployment of YO-448 into the colony. We left the area as soon as we realized it had become so violent that we might become involved, and I cannot say that any other irregularities occurred.” I didn't know why he wanted to hide that suit from the Alliance, but if he wanted me to cover him, he had better support my end as well.

“Of course, my men got out of hand and were stupidly arrogant, to be beaten by two Leo prototypes in such a backwater area of space,” the colonel continued smoothly. “Considering the death count involved, it is unfortunate you left too quickly to confirm who had killed your colonel, but it was entirely right of you to protect your ship from any harm; you were not there as soldiers, and ill equipped to do anything but take damage from enemy suits.” He offered me one of his brilliant smiles and a nod of his head that verged on a bow, or at least seemed to implicate it. “I appreciate your talking with me; it helps me put the case to rest at last.”

Yes, whatever treachery he was up to against the Alliance for not telling them about that suit was solidly hidden now… but so was mine. I gave him a genuine smile in return. I shouldn't run into situations like that anymore, in this medical center; I could just do what I had been through medical school for in the first place, and finish my time due with the Alliance in peace, business as usual. Khushrenada could do whatever he wanted; he had a better idea of what justice was than the Alliance, at any rate.

Well, it was business as usual until that Heero Yuy kid was brought in, she thought to herself with an amused smirk. God, that had been such an utter disaster… But those boys were rather good at doing that.

She wanted to be able to contact Treize at some point, but at the same time she was wary of what lies and deceptions he would spin for her. Khushrenada was remarkably talented at telling people what they needed to hear in order to do what he wanted, not the full truth; the war had proven that over and over again. The only solace she had was that when his machinations finally came to light he had had the same goals in common with the rest of them, and had likely been the main component that got them to one or more necessary points.

The only thing that had not gone according to his master plan was his old comrade being insane enough to actually drop a battleship on the planet. And, honestly, who could blame him for not realizing that?

She sighed, trying to catch her reflection in her coffee. The question she wanted answered more than anything was that of Relena's allegiances. She knew the girl was solidly for the best interests of the planet and the surviving people on it, but beyond that who knew what she believed to be the best path? Obviously, she had dropped all pretense of keeping peace and was focusing on mass humanitarian efforts that avoided all political influences. She had immediately come to ignore the political climate of any area and worked only on an economic level, trying to equalize pits of hell back into a form of normal life. The only affiliation she had offered the public was that she lived near her brother and had stood in for him in a meeting or two, but Sally knew from the war that Relena could care less about where she was so long as it was conducive to getting what she wanted done, and as for the latter, she had strongly supported her points with very little reference to her brother's stance to work a full compromise between the listed issues of state.

If what she had learned about the girl during the war meant anything, she was trying to create her own political climate… and with how much she had managed to do in six months alone, it was starting to look like she might just pull it off.

So then it becomes a question of `does Relena know Treize is alive and out to make friends yet?' Right before Libra, Treize and Relena had both used the other for their own ends, her granting him power and him releasing her from a role she held little interest in so she could try to stop her brother from his lunacy… And if anyone had ever been able to convince him, it would have been his little sister, but he had been past being willing to listen to anyone by then.

She wished she could send someone to talk to Relena, for Relena would surely hear them out and let them leave, being the girl she was, at least so long as it was neutral enough ground that she wasn't put in a situation where only her protection would keep the messenger form harm. She had considered it a number of times. The problem with that, however, was that the princess never left the company of her head bodyguard, Colonel Jacob Miller, and Miller was, in some ways, as much as a wild card as the gundam boys had been.

He had already been taught full field craft in a number of different forms of pure violence when he joined the Specials, to the degree that he could easily have been a field agent were it not for age requirements. He showed up trained to such a degree to join the Specials at nine. After joining he had worked closely with Treize and a cadet the same age as the aristocrat, David Mitchell, before later gravitating more towards his age group and becoming very fast friends with Lucrezia Noin, and by extension with Zechs. He had disappeared for almost a year after he turned twelve reportedly for `family reasons', but when he had returned, he had reportedly changed drastically, and his work from there had become… spotty. He had started to simply disappear from time to time, or handed off his orders to other soldiers if he hadn't been interested in following them himself. Treize had offered him reprieve after reprieve, allowing him to simply get away with his misconduct again and again before one day, at fifteen, Miller had simply handed in his resignation and left, though he apparently still stayed closely in touch with Mitchell and Noin, regularly visiting them and sometimes Treize and Zechs as well.

He had still been called into OZ periodically for jobs as a private contractor, but he also turned jobs down and regularly disappeared for months at a time, though he usually kept some correspondence with one of his close friends even while he was unchartable. He never seemed to want for money, and spoke of other work with his old friends, so presumably he did quite a bit of contracting otherwise, usually as security or as a bodyguard long-term or for a specific event both on Earth and in the colonies. He still just outright disappeared from all records sometimes too, without even withdraws from bank accounts occurring.

Most of the OZ jobs he had taken, according to his file with the Regime, all involved long-term espionage, assassinations, or the kind of `wet' Black Ops mission with a high body count, the sort of act the organization never admitted they had actually done. And he was often placed with David Mitchell when he was contracted, as the two were known to work well together, and now he again had David Mitchell as his second, working as Relena's bodyguard.

Mitchell, meanwhile, had resigned not long after OZ's takeover of the Alliance military and disappeared almost entirely until the Regime had formed, at which point he was easily accepted as having been an old acquaintance of Miller and by association, of Zechs'. During the war, Miller claimed to have continued private work in the colonies starting before the gundams fell to Earth, and had eventually been recruited by White Fang for his expertise in digital security.

With no idea how Miller and Mitchell, two incredibly lethal men, would react to a member of a separate faction, the idea of sending a messenger was unthinkable. Miller was described as being incredibly loyal to his friends and the ideals he believed in if not specific organizations, and it was possible that he might follow Relena firmly now because of what she was trying to do, but the risk could not be taken unless they knew he would follow Relena's lead and not his own initiative.

Therefore, the princess was firmly out of reach.

And now, really, they needed to just hunker down for winter. Any more pressure on Zechs might well cause the economy to crumble in this delicate state, and that, above all things, could not be afforded. The group that had attacked had not realized what upset in the governing seat could do, and while they had planned to attack when Relena was far from the base, the fact was that they had done the exact opposite. So that while the general public was scared at the sign of instability they were also furious that any rebels would try to hurt the humanitarian so many rested their hopes on. That increased the sheer amount of unrest, but so long as it didn't get too out of hand that anger was useful for keeping away the terror that this winter was bringing into many homes.

Artificial supplements and protein bars once made specifically for keeping people alive when on the edge of starvation were being mass produced and distributed, but while they might keep someone alive, it wouldn't truly quell an empty stomach, and no parent wanted to face the horror of hungry children. Even then, while the vitamins to keep general malnourishment down were easily distributed, the disgusting bars were harder to make, and there honestly were not enough of them still for the populace by the estimated counts. It was better than nothing, of course, but it still didn't solve the problem. The estimated production that would come out of the hydroponics complexes was very unsure, though at least they were only using the altered strains of crops the colonies used that matured extremely fast. It might help in the late winter, but they wouldn't truly come into their own until spring was on them. They would still desperately need the resource then, of course, but it would not help much for now, when panic was beginning to really spread.

Her own people should be more or less fine, considering the degree to which they had always prepared to be cut off from all outside sources with little notice, but part of their winter plan was also to rely as much as they could on those food bars, continuing to save any foods that were preserved well enough to keep should they find themselves in trouble in the spring as well. Hopefully she wouldn't have to worry about food by then, but she wasn't willing to take chances.

And for now… For now they could focus on work that they could accomplish without needling the Regime, and get ready for the conflicts come spring.

***

November 27th 197 - Monday - Brussels

It really couldn't be time yet.

She had been more than ready for this yesterday, but it took time to properly gather up the press. And now… She still didn't understand why originally Jake had tried to tell her to give the conference on Tuesday, but he'd been right, but it was time, and if she canceled now, panic would ensue.

“Here.”

She blinked at the sour candy that had long been her favorite as a child, the kind she had used to pick up and add to the tab at any grocery and convenience store without thinking… which she hadn't had since she was fifteen. Her mouth was suddenly watering as she remembered the sharp bite and sweetness. The package was already open and being held out to her by Jake.

She eagerly accepted one of the little pieces and popped it in her mouth even as she gave him a questioning look. Looking all too pleased with himself, he simply said, “Dorothy.”

Ah. Of course, Dorothy would remember something like that from Sanc instead of the ideals she hadn't really been there to learn.

“Better?”

Oh, hell, it was only a distraction, wasn't it? Sighing slightly, she grabbed another piece and slowly savored it for a moment, admitting to herself that while food bribery was a simple ploy, she felt amazingly better for the nostalgia, and even her body felt a little lighter for all that it was a mass of resonating pain…

“You'll be fine,” Jake muttered as he led the way over to the stage, tucking the candy away somewhere. “It's going to suck, but you'll do fine anyhow, and maybe next time you'll believe me about buffer time.”

“You hardly made it out to be important,” she argued sullenly, checking to make sure her clothes were perfectly settled.

“You ought to know your own limits, and if you don't know them, there's only one good way to learn,” he returned amiably, tucking a few stray strands of her hair back into place. “Besides, you might have felt great today, and if I'd pushed it the next time you'd been hurt you might have tried for even less prep over something more vital before collapsing in front of the cameras.”

“Next time?” she asked wearily, closing her eyes for a moment. She wanted her painkillers, but didn't want to be on stage with the opiate in her system, so she couldn't take them until after the conference…

“Plan for the worst, hope for the best,” her friend muttered. Then he grinned broadly at her, nudging her toward the stage. “You're beautiful, go stun them with a smile or something.”

She snorted slightly and took a deep breath before taking the last few steps. This needed to be done. She would do exactly what she had meant to, and then she could go rest.

***

Feldkirch, Austria

She's hurting, Adam realized with a frown, watching the public screen. She's going to be fine, and she's not doing too bad a job of hiding it… But she's in pain. Looking around at the people near him, he could tell he wasn't the only one who had noticed.

He was, however, perhaps the only one who had both noticed and appeared calm.

Was it really a good idea for her to do this? He could understand her wanting to stomp out rumors by allowing the public to see her, but this would only solidify the idea that she was in too poor of health to travel. He didn't think that she was so badly injured, he found it more likely that Zechs was simply keeping her on a tight reign, but the downside to being a public symbol was that it garnered a bit of fanaticism, which in turn spawned hundreds of rumors.

In her defense, she was probably only having a badly timed flare-up, and only realized how she would look when it was too late to cancel the press conference. Relena had never had such a harsh injury before to realize that just because you felt good one day didn't mean you would the next… or that in fact, feeling very good meant the next day was likely to be worse, because in your excitement you had pushed your body further than it was ready to go.

Adam frowned. He remembered being told that… remembered the man's expression as he gingerly shifted his weight off a heavily bandaged leg so he could sit. He had been incredibly tall from the perspective, and the background was vaguely similar to other snippets of memory from when he was young, so he could only assume it was from his childhood.

He felt a sort of intimate trust in the man, comfort from the his voice explaining something that had confused him… But he couldn't remember who he was, or why he had been hurt. That degree of confidence, dependence, was unusual compared to any other memories that had come back, bizarre, even, which meant the man had probably been important… but still, there was nothing more.

Aggravated, he reminded himself of why he had simply started following whatever whim came to mind instead of fruitlessly digging for what he was apparently supposed to be, that he had been. The memories were broken and came few and far between, and trying to rebuild what he had lost was impossible. It never got him anywhere but more confused than before and frustrated enough that he needed to fly… or at least, that's what the acrobatics his body had come trained to do felt like, really. Pure strength of movement and freedom… Cathy had said he'd had a motorcycle before, but she didn't know where it had gotten to… And there was that one flash that came to mind of flinging himself into the sky from the handlebars of one, so he doubted he might find it hidden somewhere, like he had Heavyarms. Gundanium was a bit harder to destroy.

He had hoped, once he remembered where the suit was, that being near it, in it, would spur on more memory, but while it was familiar it was only in the same way that he knew the acrobatics and seemingly every kind of weapon or tool he ever found; if he could touch it, he could make it work like he'd been doing it all his life.

And for all I know, I have. Not that he'd ever know… the only fact he'd been able to find inside his own mind or even through what databases he could magically open through use of a keyboard and net access was that despite all the skills he somehow had, he had been utterly unremarkable and not worth mentioning his entire life.

At this point, I don't think I was interesting enough to keep track of anyhow. At first the lack of information made him more sure that there was something to be found, some mystery that he had been hiding, but the more bits of memories and impressions that actually came back, mixed with other results… If he hadn't known that he had piloted a gundam, he would have been tempted to refer to Nanashi, Trowa Barton, as a pushover. He had thought the lack of general opinion on anything whatsoever had just been the amnesia until Catherine had made the most absolutely amazingly delicious dinner and she had laughed at him for enjoying it so much when he hadn't cared before…

And before he could protest, a little voice in the back of his head had said, It's food. Just eat it.

He liked to think he had valid reasons for naming his old personality `Apathy'.

That had probably been one of the reasons he had done so well at espionage and sliding past everyone unnoticed, during the war; he had dropped everything and just gone along with the crowd perfectly enough to wear them as a kind of camouflage… until he had an edge he could use with no one the wiser. From what he'd been told and managed to put together he had been very good at staying under the radar… And he still was really good at that now, too, though he was pretty sure he wasn't doing it much the same way he had before.

Though it might be; he doubted he would ever know for sure.

Catherine had said he seemed more creative. That he was more intrigued by life, more lively, or just… happier. She said he'd always been creative but had maybe been too apathetic to bother with more than the bare minimum; that with the amnesia he'd gained a new passion for life that he hadn't had before.

He trusted she had some idea what she was talking about; he'd decided a while ago that seeing as he couldn't remember anyway, there wasn't any reason to care.

And he was really starting to think that he liked being `Adam'. The name had been chosen at random to begin with but it had grown on him, especially after all the time he had spent traveling with Chang. Trowa had been a borrowed name anyhow, and while Nanashi or `Nobody' - depending on your language of favor - had apparently worked for a while, it was both impractical and inane.

Since I've decided to keep it, I should probably tell Catherine to use Adam instead of Trowa, he realized. His circus cover had never been blown, but he had inherited a good understanding of the value of discretion since his birth from an oxygen deprivation coma in September 195. He had embraced what he was shown then, even as some of it felt strange, but while he immediately found he could do things, he didn't know why… The flashbacks didn't start until after he had met Duo and Quatre, who knew him even though he didn't them, and the muscle memory came back so fast he had assumed the bare glimmers of the past would eventually unfold… but they never had.

He was fairly sure at this point that he knew everything he could do, and he understood certain frames of thought and habit as also being inherited from long experience and training… but other than brief images and phrases sometimes, that was it. Cathy had said the doctors reported some permanent damage in a few places on his brain both from the trauma - i.e. explosion - as well as from his time floating in space with a dying oxygen tank. They had said something about how he was lucky the `trauma' hadn't been so violent to tear the suit before he'd been ejected… something had put him into a coma before he had begun to drift in space, and apparently more than a third of his blood had pooled in his flight suit when he has found, parts of it had already crystallized, and coincidentally sealing the wound with more oxygen than would be expected. Apparently a fair amount of his skin and deeper tissue had had to be encouraged to regenerate in the hospital later… The amnesia hadn't been even mildly surprising to the doctor in charge of his case, once he had woken. The man had admitted point blank that he had no idea how much might be recoverable, how much forever gone, and had said he was lucky to have survived at all. He understood that. He had just been hopeful for a while, but now, over two years later, it was a given that this was about as good as it was going to ever get.

There were certainly worse things to have happen to you, especially considering he was positive on some level that he was happier than maybe he had ever been. Cathy had said he'd go into bouts of suicidal depression before, and that he had often floundered for guidance, unsure of what he ought to do…

He rolled his eyes as he focused back on the screen displaying Relena. Why should you have to ask anyone else what you should do? Relena was a fine example for his own philosophy ever since he had left the memory digging as a dead end. Do what you want, what you believe you must, and make sure you have no reason to go back and regret it later.

Though, for all his independence in repeating the phrase to himself, he rather got the impression that he had been given that advice from before… Something about handing a gun to people…

He shook his head, not sure if he would understand that one even if he could remember.

***

Treize's hidden compound

Treize frowned as he watched the end of Relena's conference, considering the information she had released both through words and her actions. She had obviously come on camera purely in spite of her condition, in a sentiment of responsibility, and that reaffirmed her strength and character to more than just him. Her tour was delayed, though she was soon going to be implementing a few temporary measures, a series of video conferences, to keep from falling too far behind and would also be extending her original tour to loop back into the areas that she had been unable to visit earlier. She was implementing the final stages of a few more of her vitamin and rations packets for select groups in any case, and she would have more news soon.

He wondered if she was holding so few conferences as she was through the net due to her health or because she didn't want anyone to get the idea that it could be a long-term solution. She very adamantly preferred to be out there in person from every account he had gotten, public or otherwise. Her little escapade last August in Germany where she helped save a handful of children from human traffickers cemented that idea.

He wondered how hard Zechs was pushing for her to simply conference long distance… She had presented her case rather more defensively than was necessary, which did help make everyone believe she wanted nothing more than to be out doing what she could to help. On the other hand, it suggested some contention between the Peacecraft siblings, because he knew Zechs' opinions about his sister - and anything to do with Sanc in general - well enough to realize the man would jump on any opportunity to keep the girl safer.

Contention between the prince and princess was something to be hoped for. Contention meant she might look elsewhere for allies… she might even be wary of Milliardo, but if she was she hid it fairly well. From what he remembered of her mixed with what he heard now, she wasn't so naïve as to believe her brother was above reenacting his tucking her away in some corner of space if he decided it was necessary.

From what they had gathered so far, Relena was showing herself to be far more cunning than in the past, and not above using tricks when they came to hand easily… It was one of the reasons he had chosen to be guarded around her instead of simply bringing her into the loop when she first showed up. She knew, now, how to get what she wanted without her brother's approval, forcing him into situations wherein he would lose more public face than he could afford if he tried to negate her decisions. So far it was mostly just to escape his over protectiveness, but it could easily be more that she knew that that was all she could get away with at that point in time without him retaliating despite the blow to his publicity.

Trying to divine exactly where her lines were drawn, however, was impossible. Until she said or did something more definitive…

His computer made a noise that meant he'd gotten mail from a high priority address, and he opened up that window to read. Ah, Váli…

Tate,

This sucks so bad you can't even know, and I don't care that it wasn't your fault, you owe me. Despite the fact that I would probably have gone and joined up and done all the same shit even without what you said, I'm still blaming you. Or something.

That said, it could be worse. It's not like I've done anything wrong, so it's hardly an issue, but just the same, it's turning into the fuckin' Spanish Inquisition in here. No more on that because yeah, none of your business, and you know I don't talk about work and I'm breaking that a little, but… shit, man.

I'm okay, everything's more or less okay… I lost some friends to some of those fuckers who waltzed in here like they had a right, but… We'll be stronger for it, or at least that's the running hope and propaganda.

Not much else going on right now, everything new already showed up on the news. It'll be a long while before I can sleep without one eye open, but hey, it could be worse, I've haven't done that in over a year now, new record or something. Oh, yeah, Michael was promoted into a different division, that's new. He can tell you what the hell he's up to on his own time, though, he's disgustingly excited anyhow and I need to sleep. I'll write you again some other time, when we've stopped doing our best kicked anthill impressions.

You're an asshole and should find me a girlfriend for Christmas,

Váli

Treize frowned. It was as crass as ever, but… no links on this one, just a vague report… the security had gotten tight.

Well, that or Váli really was stupidly busy and tired; writing secret emails wasn't exactly the easiest thing to do completely undetected. From his commentary, Treize would wager that he'd probably given up time he'd meant to spend asleep to write. Obviously, the message had still come in, so Váli's back door was still undetected in the Regime database. Part of the working hard comments probably had to do with that little loophole… which meant he should have everyone stop trying to play with it until all was stable again and Váli made some kind of contact to say as much.

Michael promoted… David Mitchell had been promoted? That was interesting… something new. The repeated used of the word `new'… A spark of hope ignited somewhere inside him and he found himself rereading and grinning. He was almost positive that had to mean the Regime was forming up the strike force now, but he wouldn't be able to confirm more delicate information until later.

Hopefully he would also explain the girlfriend comment then; he couldn't tell if it was an attempt at humor and keeping to the general mood of the writing style Váli always used in case of interception, or if it was supposed to actually be relevant.

The man had likely done that on purpose, just to leave him confused and thinking about it for no reason. He'd been moody enough otherwise for it to fit…

I'll find out later, Treize decided firmly, tucking the information away in the back of his mind. If it was urgent, he would have done something obvious. Váli had never had any problems getting attention when he thought it was due.

***

November 28th 197 - Tuesday - Amsterdam

Melissa frowned slightly, tugging the knitted cap tighter over Renee's head, glancing ahead of her to try and see how far ahead the line was. The infant looked up at her in mild consternation before returning to babbling happily at her hands, purely fascinated by the mittens that had transformed the part of her that she had thought she was familiar with into soft pink balls of fluff. The baby had hated the hat when indoors, but thankfully she'd gotten over that once she realized she did not want to go without it while standing out here. Melissa would have been far closer to a meltdown if she had a screaming, miserable, infant that didn't understand why she was miserable, or that one or another thing decreased the problem.

This was taking a bit longer than she'd expected… she should have brought another of the little blankets Sister Isabel seemed to have in endless supply; she didn't like having the baby out in the cold this long, especially so soon after her shots. Sin might not understand the first thing about vaccinations, but that was because she'd never been in charge of children younger than herself before. If the baby's immune system weakened while the half broken viruses ran through her body, there was a chance she might catch one of the very things they were trying to keep her safe from.

At the same time, though, if they wanted the benefits for Renee, they had to prove they had her, and Karina and Luc were working during the times you were supposed to come in about it, so Melissa had offered to take care of it. Honestly, Kay had had the best schedule for it, but they couldn't send him into a government building, baby or no; that would just be stupid.

Unfortunately, a lot of other people had children under five years old that they wanted to register for benefits, and this was taking longer than Melissa felt comfortable with… though at least Renee didn't look like she was cold or even bothered by being out here. If anything, she was curious.

Much, much better than that poor woman with the baby screaming bloody murder.

She was glad for the baby carrier thing… a lot of other people had brought children in car seats or strollers, but since Renee was such a tiny baby she still fit in the backpack that went over your chest, and it was easier to keep her good and toasty so close to her.

The little girl was going to sleep so deep later… It was way past her naptime - she'd figured the more of the trip the kid slept the better - but she'd been too excited, apparently. Really, it made sense since she was almost never outside, but none of them had stopped to consider that; it was just too damn cold.

“She's an angel, isn't she?” the woman behind her commented, sounding tired.

Melissa smiled and turned to face her; the other woman had a baby much younger than Renee tucked in a sling that was actually under her sweater and a little boy that looked to be around four asleep in a stroller. “Compared to most of this lot, I'd have to agree,” Melissa returned. “She has her moments though, trust me.”

The woman smiled and nodded in a way that suggested she knew exactly what Melissa meant. “Pretty too. Did she get the blonde from her father?”

The Devils girl laughed. “Oh, both her parents, actually. Her daddy's like a big brother to me, and he and her mom didn't have good hours for this, so I'm here with her instead. She's hardly any trouble, though.”

“Oh.” The slip didn't seem to embarrass to woman too badly, though she did look a little flushed. “You were just being so good with her…”

“My guy and I do watch her a lot,” she admitted easily. “But no, she's not mine.” She let out a sigh, going up on her toes to try to see if maybe the line had moved any closer to a building. “Man, someone could make a killing selling something hot to drink out here.”

There were more than a few groans and heartfelt agreements down the line, and Melissa snickered, leaning forward to rub noses with Renee, which made her smile before she went back to chomping on her left mitten. This sucked… but they'd get there eventually, and in the long run it would be more than worth it.

And in the meantime, someone was finally looking talkative. “How old?” she asked to make conversation, nodding her head at the bump of infant bundled under the other woman's sweater.

***

November 29th 197 - Wednesday - Brussels

Milliardo glanced down at the paper that had been shoved in front of him before meeting his sister's eyes again. “No,” he told her resolutely.

The young woman grit her teeth in a look that was rather reminiscent of when his mother had lost her temper with him and demanded he go to his room now. The tight smile showing too many teeth, eyes livid, even managing to look down at him since he was sitting and she standing, resting her weight on his desk with her good arm… It made some little piece of him that he had thought never survived childhood want to turn tail and run.

The resemblance was uncanny to say the least.

“Why not?” Her voice was cool and collected, as though there were no tension in the room at all and she were only asking why he didn't want his usual flavor of juice today. Her jaw was tight and her frustration was obvious from her expression, though not at all in her body language. Again, he couldn't help but feel a few shivers run down his spine as he realized more similarities between his sister and mother… Though, while Relena sounded cool and detached, Katrina had sounded… sweeter. But then, that might have only been how she spoke to her children when about to lose her temper instead of grown adults.

The dichotomy would not have bothered him so much had he not known she could do without it. He knew she could control herself better than this because he had seen her do it over the past year. She had come a long way since last Christmas in terms of personal growth. No, she wanted him to realize exactly how much he was annoying her right now… She wanted him to see her following his lead while she fought him on what she saw as stupid the whole way.

You would think that being shot and hiding in a closet all night while going into shock would raise even her paranoia. Some days, he swore, she had as little sense now as when she had gone chasing after Heero again and again during the war.

Fighting the urge to grit his own teeth, he glared up at her from his seat. Trying to stand quickly had too much of a chance of hurting him just now, and she didn't need to see that; no one did. “You are injured,” he reminded her tersely. “And it is dangerous out there, the political climate being far from stable. I will not allow you to risk yourself until matters calm somewhat.”

Relena's eyes narrowed. “I promised those people I would be out there, Milliardo.” Her voice had dropped, but it obviously wasn't a true indicator of an increasing calm; instead, she seemed fiercer. “I would not be doing anything more strenuous out there than here, and if the damn people are in a tizzy, I might be able to calm them down.”

“If you can get your work done here,” he returned in just as quiet of a snarl, “then you should do it here, where you're safer.”

“First of all, here is the only place I've ever been seriously hurt,” she snapped.

Milliardo found himself grimacing. I walked right into that one.

“Second,” his sister continued, “Video conferences are worthless for gaining rapport and true understanding.”

He knew that. He completely understood her previous refusal to use video conferencing instead of traveling, but until she was better and everythi-

“Sir!” The aide had appeared almost like magic at the door with a sheaf of papers in hand. “Sir, it's urgent! Over in the Ukraine, there's been a…” He stopped a moment to swallow and continue in a less frantic tone of voice. “There's been a riot.”

Milliardo felt cold shivers run through his body in a way that might have been pleasant before Libra, as the reality struck home. A riot… He had halfway expected one, but they were still the things of nightmares. Looking to Relena he could tell she was focusing inward now, likely running over the implications of the news. He half considered letting her stay, but he had no heart left to fight with her, and if she started something again he would say something he would later regret. And in any case, she had her own business to attend to these days.

“Relena, I need to concentrate on this,” he offered as an explanation while gesturing for the aide to bring him the paperwork. “We can speak of this again later, if you insist.”

“Mmm. We will.” Understanding the dismissal, she made her way out of his suite. Barely paying her any mind as soon as she began to move away, he buried himself in the facts that had been brought to him, trying to see exactly what had gone wrong.

***

Amsterdam

“Christ, Gust!” Karina exclaimed, standing from her place on the couch and rushing over to the man. His militia uniform was dirty as could be and he was holding a piece of cloth to his head. Despite that, blood was still flowing around his fingers, dripping down his face. Seeing Katrien run off, presumably for their first aid kit, she rushed over to him as he stumbled slightly against the doorframe and tried to steady him enough to have him get the rest of the way in and shut the door against the cold. “What happened?” she demanded. “What did you do?” Oh God, that was a lot of blood… “Do we need to go find Kay to stitch you up?” Wasn't Gust on duty? It was late, the wee hours of the morning; she hadn't been off work for more than an hour and Renee was asleep. “Where's your partner?” The partners are supposed to keep things like this form happening! Her stomach turned to full ice. What happened to his partner? Gust wasn't the type to leave anyone helpless…

The man grimaced as she lead him to take a seat on one of the stools by the bar; Katrien came rushing back in with the med kit in one hand and one of the fresh handrags they used for cleaning in the other to wipe at his face and hold pressure to the wound without looking at it. “Wasn't any help for it, Sin,” Gust said after a moment. “What he was doin' was jus' plain wrong.”

His speech was slurring a little, which scared her even more than the blood. Thankfully, before she could finish completely panicking, Luc stalked into the room. Taking the scene in quickly, he came to Gust's side and lifted the gauze only to immediately put it back. “Kat, go wake up Kay, he's not working tonight and he does stitches better than me. Gust?” Kneeling down in front of the man, he looked up to meet his eyes. “Gust, what happened?”

Gust grimaced again, tried to shake his head before immediately regretting it. “Couldn't let him do it Luc… Just couldn't let him, it wasn't right, an' he go' the firs' hit…”

“He? You talkin' `bout your partner, Gust?” Luc asked, unconsciously sliding into more of the slang he had always used growing up. Gust had always been one of his school friends, Rina knew, and while he and Shov had always been closer, Gust had still been part of their little inner circle. When the other man squeezed his eyes shut and nodded a bit, Luc blew out a breath. “Where'd he go, Gust? He okay or we all need to go find him now before someone else does?”

Such a dangerous question… She expected it, of course, this is what it had always been at first, worrying about fights and who was getting hurt, worrying that if someone got killed who wasn't theirs that they needed to hide the body, before the cops had wiped its hands entirely of anything they considered to be gang related. This area had never been a good part of town and most of the Devils had only lived within five miles of where they stayed now before Libra, but she remembered when the fights first started becoming common, before anyone was forming up true groups to stay safe… When she had decided it was bad enough that she needed a foothold in more than one place to be sure she'd always be protected.

She closed her eyes, trying not to cry at the realization that she hadn't even realized how good things had been the past six months, and that now it was going back to this. Everything had been better, but she hadn't really stopped to think about it, not after the city militia got going strong, and now the militia was going to hell? Luc had said, when they had met, that they were Devils because it was the only way to make it through this hell and it had only been too true, but… Everything had been going so well, even with the scare about the food crisis, and now…

Biting her lip, she turned and left the room; Luc had it under control now, and she needed to try and calm down.

***

November 30th 197 - Thursday - Brussels

“I am at wit's end,” the princess hissed, glaring at her pad of paper, scribbling more furiously on it.

Jake looked on, her words hardly being news. She had been losing her temper rather consistently since she had come out of surgery, and while it was mildly amusing to watch her get annoyed and more determined to plot, his own patience was beginning to run out with the situation as well.

And while a week ago he was fairly sure he could get away with telling Zechs he was being a dumbass for shunting his sister away from any political play with enough force to make him listen - Zechs had always needed half a threat or more to pay attention to the opinion of his closest friends, let alone anyone else - he was fairly sure that now, while the man was still all tetchy from the attack, any attempt would land him in a cell.

And while he would probably get out within a few hours, and he knew that the prince would probably feel a fool for having done it by the time he slammed back into his office, he was pretty sure that starting up his old schoolyard bullshit again with Zechs would not help the princess' cause.

Now if I could talk Lena into slapping him… That thought made him grin. There was no way she'd do it - or at least, not unless this went on for another two weeks or more - but the thought helped ease his temper a little further back on its shelf. And hey, if she did, it might help snap her brother out of his latest funk.

Or put him into a deeper one. He grimaced. Slapping someone who was being stupid was really Lu's thing, not Lena's, and for all that the little princess was growing up into a woman remarkably like his old friend, they were hardly the same person. And he would do well to remember that, while he had made his peace with Lu's disappearing act for the most part, and that he appreciated seeing the same traits in his new friend as in his old teenage crush, that was only his opinion. If his little sister came to remind Zechs too much of Lucrezia the man would likely go into another of his moping sessions, and Jake wasn't feeling fond enough of him just now to drag him out of it anytime soon. Lu had always been the one to care after both their mood swings before, and while he missed his friend more than he liked to think about, Zechs' perspective had more bite.

While for a long time Jake had wanted Lu as more than a friend, she'd always only had eyes for the prince, and he'd known how precious she was. As Jake had come to terms with the fact that he had an amazing platonic relationship that he never wanted to lose, Zechs had gotten the idea that he would eventually pair off with Lu, seeing as she'd been willing to wait him out… and in the end he'd chased her off anyhow. A woman like that, and so determined for so many years…

He'd convinced himself that she had finally written off her dream prince as a fucker and was simply avoiding the man, and avoiding him by association. The alternative was unthinkable. The alterative meant he would lose his job as the Regime crashed once he'd amended his mistake on Libra, sentimentality or no. The last time he'd talked to her she had seemed depressed beyond all means, and he hadn't exactly been helpful for more than chatter, placed on Libra as he was… If so much hadn't been at stake he would have tried to jump Peacemillion, just to try to convince her that it was okay, that watch, he wasn't really going to do it, it was all a bluff, they both knew how stupidly stubborn and determined Zechs could get once he believed something, he was as bad as Treize that way… He'd thought about it more than a few times, but he'd had his own doubts at the back of his mind despite what he wanted to comfort her with, and he'd thought himself that Zechs was more offbeat than he'd ever remembered, that maybe they needed a failsafe inside Libra incase it all went to hell…

And then he'd made the cosmically stupid choice despite all his doubts to trust his old friend after all, and not slash his throat and hide the body before his jaunt with Epyon.

And they all knew how well that had gone.

Thankfully, Zechs didn't think the idea had ever entered his head. It wasn't as though there would have been any point in killing him after the fallout, especially when he had seemed so frantic to try to pull everything together and save the planet. He'd actually managed a fair bit of good since then, not that it changed what he'd already done. And having seen the terror and disgust in the man's eyes himself, Jake was willing to buy into the temporary insanity theory.

Believing that the man wasn't still insane didn't make him any more fit for long-term power, however.

Relena sighed, and he couldn't help the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth as she leaned down and rested her forehead on the table, on top of her vaunted yellow pad of paper; she always had one of those things on hand, he swore, she'd had one the day he met her and the only time she was more than a handful of yards from a pad was during that mess in Munich.

He loved her for what she had done without even stopping to think in Munich, but it really had been a right mess. Next time they pulled a stunt like that, they'd have to organize it better.

And knowing the princess as well as he did now, something like that would happen again.

“Jake?”

“Mm?” She hadn't picked up her head yet, but her tone was thoughtful as well as weary.

“Thank-you, again… The other night, if you hadn't-”

“It's what I'm here for,” he reassured her. “The idea play and paper-pushing is the bonus, not the other way around.” This wasn't the first time she'd brought up thanking him again out of nowhere; chances were, she meant to go somewhere with the thought but hadn't quite gotten up the nerve or conviction yet.

Thankfully it was usually a matter of hours or days now for her to get it, instead of weeks or months, like when he had first started working with her.

“I know that,” she murmured as she sat up and stared across the table, away from him. “But it was terrifying, and so close…” She sighed and stood, moving towards the remains of the breakfast tray that had been brought up for them earlier.

Jake wanted to note that it hadn't honestly been that close, but they would likely never agree on that due to perspective, and he wanted her to finally get to what had been on her mind the past few days. He stood from his place on the couch and approached her from a different angle as she rolled it around in her mind some more, deciding that he could use another glass of water anyhow. She was really just looking at the tray and not seeing it, so he poured her a glass as well. They'd eaten everything but a slice of toast, so he held it up in question; she nodded a little absentmindedly, still looking off into nothing.

He had it half buttered when she came back to herself and met his eyes. “What would you say if I told you I wanted to learn how to defend myself?”

Don't tell your brother. Well, no, that probably wouldn't be the best thing to say.

Instead, making sure not to hesitate, he asked, “In what way?”

“I should have been taught what to do when someone grabs me a long time ago,” she decided bluntly. “Looking back now, I'm not sure why my father never insisted I learn; a soldier tried to hold me hostage when I was eleven just because I was nearby and couldn't get away.” She paused, and her face hardened. “And I want to be able to proficiently use a gun on short notice.”

“Fast, easy ways to cause pain and slide away so they'll lose their grip and interest,” Jake reinterpreted. “Those are easy but need a lot of repetition to be able to do fast enough to be truly effective. There's a lot of soft spots and nerve centers you can take advantage of, and because it's you I would also want to include the potentially lethal movements.” He met her eyes solidly, not wanting her to miss his point. “If someone is trying to take you, the danger level is already that high.”

She considered only a moment before nodding resolutely. She had been stewing on this for a while, from what he could read off her; her mind was long made up, Zechs be damned if he wanted to interfere. He could see it in her eyes, the way she stood. “And?” she asked simply.

“We can start some of that right away, and the boys and I can play test subject for it,” he continued, rolling it through his mind. The idea of giving her a little basic training had long been in his mind, but he had known better than to be the one to bring it up. She had needed to realize she needed and wanted it herself for it to be worth anything. In a lot of ways, once she was somewhat good at it, it would be easier on his mind; he had every intention of keeping all her training, mild or not, covert. It would become obvious eventually, but a thug not expecting the little Peacecraft to slam an elbow into his trachea the first time someone honestly tried to kidnap her might make all the difference. “You'll want to always have something sharp on you too, even if no one else realizes it is, actually, preferably if it looks harmless.” He'd find something appropriate.

She nodded again, completely agreeing. “And?”

He smiled a little in a way that he knew was a bit more devious. “We can't start that until you have a clean bill of health; I refuse to teach anyone one-handed first, your arm needs to be completely better.”

She smiled a little too then, with her own hint of smug troublemaking in it. “That sounds lovely, then.”

“Are we hiding this from your brother?” he asked, genuinely curious if she thought she could really get away with him not catching on.

“Well, we're not going to tell him,” she returned easily, taking the toast from him. “There's no reason to go out of our way to make sure he realizes. If he learns of his own accord?” She shrugged. “I suspect we'll be far enough along by then that he'll bluster and mutter.”

He grinned outright at that; that was precisely the reaction he assumed they would get if Zechs caught them at it after a few firing lessons, and there was no reason the man should realize it was going on beforehand. In all honesty, he would be relieved that she could defend herself a bit, for all that he would veto all self-training from the beginning should he be asked. “Sounds good to me.”

“When do we begin?”

He frowned, considering her for a moment, before shaking his head. “I can start explaining how some of it all works, but I nothing practical until you're out of the sling.”

She made an annoyed sort of face, but nodded; obviously she had expected as much but had been hoping otherwise.

Shaking his head a bit, he gestured for her to follow him back to the couch and, once she had sat with him, he pulled out his favorite gun. “I've told you before, but for the sake of review,” he started, checking the chamber for a round and ejecting the clip, flicking the safety back on from how he'd automatically flipped it off when drawing, “This is a Daewoo. She's pretty gentle, and she's what I learned on. She doesn't kick like most people would think just looking at her, she's small enough to hide easy, and she can take some pretty major abuse without jamming. Most importantly for you at this point, though, she's suited to small hands.” Scooting a little closer to his friend, he gently placed the weapon in her hands with her fingers away from the trigger, pointing it at the floor between her feet. “I'm sure you've always heard to treat any gun like it's loaded or the safety's off even if it's fine, so make sure you never point it at anything you don't mind putting a hole into, including your foot.” Taking his hands away, he let her try to get a feel for the weight, for all that she couldn't hold it perfectly with her arm as it was.

She nodded a little, eyes sharp as she looked the gun over, studying it. “Small hands were important when you learned too?”

He shrugged a little; she knew enough of his history to put that one together, which meant she was fishing for an exact answer. “I was four when I first picked up that gun for the sake of learning it,” he admitted, watching to see how she would react. People could get very peculiar over that piece of news, but she had to have guessed for a while now.

It made him happy when she merely nodded thoughtfully, shifting the weapon a little in her hands, tightening her grip on it. “Have you taught anyone else before?”

And that… killed it, entirely. “Yeah… I was helping teach Junior before our old man got out of the slammer and won back custody of me.” Gritting his teeth briefly before forcing himself to let go, he couldn't help but see the kid again in his memories, couldn't help but smile a bit even as happy was the last thing was feeling. “I was just shy of eight the last time I saw him.”

She turned sympathetic eyes on him, and he took the gun away from her before she could forget she was holding it. “I'm sorry,” she murmured. “You weren't allowed to see him after?”

Sighing a little, he put the weapon away. “When our mom died, her older brother took us in, and he and Jack and got on like rain and shine, and I certainly hadn't learned anything about personality from Jack. I was with him for a year before I pissed him off enough and made connections with enough of the right people that I got him to drop me with the Specials. I got ahold of my uncle after I'd been there a while, but Junior'd been so young and the custody battle had been a real nightmare…” He grimaced a little. “He hadn't even been five when I'd left; a year later, he didn't really remember the courthouse, or me either. I…” He paused a moment, trying to control the involuntary hitch that wanted to rise in his throat. “I decided he was probably confused enough.”

Relena looked heartbroken and he shrugged, leaning back on the couch; it had broken his heart too. There was a chance Junior might've just not remembered because he'd been little, but he remembered the stress and freakouts in and out of the courtroom, and there was a fair chance it had been the trauma of it all. He hadn't wanted to confuse the kid even more when he'd apparently just settled back into feeling comfortable in his own skin… It wasn't fair to turn somebody's life topsy-turvy all the time.

He hated Jack. He'd taken Junior away as good as killed him, and then they had been killed. It wouldn't have happened out the way it had if they'd had a third person with them.

“Jake?”

“Let's talk about something else,” he decided, pulling himself out of his brooding. He knew it wasn't healthy. “Which site do you have Dorothy at today? I can't remember.”

***

December 2nd 197 - Saturday - Amsterdam

It was always adorable, watching Luc play with his daughter. Rina kept the baby happy as a clam and I could tell she mostly enjoyed it, but Luc made her giggle and squeal with delight. Her mother was by far the parent Renee preferred for general comfort when she hurt something, or when hungry or tired, but that little girl adored her daddy.

It didn't help that you could see that Luc enjoyed spending time with her as much as she did with him.

I was so glad I'd gotten Rina to ditch Cal. The guy had been a plague on society. Whatever short-term hardship, Luc was the obvious long-term winner by far.

“You're staring,” Shov informed me, elbowing me good-naturedly.

“It's cute enough to warrant,” I defended easily, not bothering to glance his way as I tripped him. He stumbled, but was used to me enough, after this long year and more, to catch himself - mind, he needed to use the arm of the couch to do it.

It was fairly early morning and all of us were heading out. Well, no, Melissa had had night shift last night, so she was busy being practically as cute as the baby in refusing to wake up; she said she'd come to the shop this afternoon, along with a few amusing insults that were more off the wall than actually threatening. It had only made me laugh harder before she'd thrown something at me. At that point, of course, the only course of action had been to bounce back on the bed and start a snuggling war that ended in some mild touching before she sighed and fell back asleep.

I was constantly amazed at how well everything seemed to go with `Liss… It was vaguely like Luc and Rina, now that there were no big secrets, only a hell of a lot quirkier. I was pretty sure most girls didn't fume about the properties of one brand of engine lubricant over another - normally I was under the impression it was supposed to be groceries or make-up or something that the guy had bought the wrong thing of. I'm good at those - and good at making what Melissa swore was a crap product work, even if she just about got herself blue in the face ranting about it. Then she could fix some stuff faster than I could, or sometimes even challenged me to race over something, and even though I generally won she was still good, and then she demanded I show her what I did different and we'd hang around being stupidly geeky over a broken up old AM/FM radio disc player for two hours and have to get the damn thing back together when we realize the guy who was supposed to be picking it up in less than ten minutes.

It was nothing short of awesome.

I offered a half-assed salute to Luc when he looked back my way; he rolled his eyes and waved, taking the hint that I was more focused on my hot tea than getting a crack-of-dawn start, like his and Shov's shift made them do. Technically, I didn't have to be at my shop until nine, and it was only six something. I had woken up feeling far too awake to be healthy, and I'd been thinking about getting an early start too, but with the tea in hand and `Liss busy being a ball of blanket, I was far more inclined to go cuddle for a couple hours instead.

I loved not having to sleep alone, and someone who'd instinctively cuddle back even just in their sleep was a luxury I hadn't had since everyone else got adopted out of the church when I was a kid. I hadn't realized how much better it really made me feel to have that until Melissa had given it back to me. Combined with not having to ever worry about training, or about someone sneaking up and trying to kill me in the middle of the night, it didn't matter how much of a hellhole the entire world, let alone Amsterdam was. It was heaven, plain and simple.

I felt kinda bad for the people we'd just put out of business by competition, but at the same time they could figure out how to make a way through, and I knew for a fact that they'd closed down before they started to lose money, so they should've had time before it really went downhill, if they couldn't find something right away. Relena was running stimulus programs every which way in this part of Europe, and a lot of it included lifting the job market. There may have been a hunger riot in Ukraine, but Eastern was hardly Western Europe; we were having some rough patches, but if that shit started, it wouldn't be until February.

The princess was actually due to come to Amsterdam in another three days for some sort of speech followed by more of her usual social work, as the restart of her tour. She was going to come here right on schedule too, backtracking for the parts she'd missed once she'd finished what was already down for the rest of it so she didn't screw up all the locals' plans. She'd be working over part of Christmas, apparently, which probably sucked for her, but really, it'd probably do good for the public image; a lot of people had to work Christmas, and it made her even more down to earth than she'd gotten to be already in the past year.

Not that I'd be poking my nose out of the house the day she was here. Oh no. I'd risked enough running off to see her in Germany, I wasn't going to risk her seeing and knowing me in a crowd here, and her bodyguard was good enough that while I knew I could get in to wherever she was to say hi privately, I wasn't as sure about getting back out. I'd decided that back when I saw them before, and I wasn't going to risk anything going bad like that in my own home.

Luc and Shov though, among others not including `Liss, were supposed to be stationed in that area during it, and were looking forward to seeing the speech live. They'd given me so much crap for my Germany run before - `Off to see a celebrity and not inviting any of us!' - so hopefully this would sate them. A few others were planning on going, but for the most part anyone who gave a damn were planning on watching it live through a screen in one of the restaurants or pubs and treat it like an event proper by having a drink and something religiously deep-fried instead of packed into a crowd like beets in a can.

Me and `Liss would be working the shop, but she wasn't interested and I couldn't care less either; time with my girl was better spent, honestly.

It was like I could never spend enough time with her, I pondered for what had to be the hundredth time as I took another pull of my tea and headed back down to my and `Liss's room. She was great to just hang out with but she still mesmerized somehow, even though I'd have sworn I'd know her inside out by now… and really I did know her well enough that nothing surprised me anymore, so that didn't even make sense. The days we both worked in the shop we settled into such a comfortable rhythm, and everything about her was comfortable, honestly, and there was that fierce pride I'd both felt and seen in her when I realized she took down Cal to save Rina, not to mention the others, and she just…

I wasn't sure I'd ever been so happy, let alone just because of one person. I'd been dancing around the question of whether or not this was… was it for a damn long while now it seemed, waiting to see if it faded off and watching, fascinated, as it just got better instead.

Going quietly into the room, I sat on the far edge of the bed from Melissa and watched her as I finished my drink. We'd been sleeping in the same bed ever since she'd moved down from the upper levels, but beyond some making out it hadn't moved any further. I was more than fine with it, trying to keep from getting confused and waiting for it all to come crashing down on us even as it went steadily along, but she'd tried to apologize of all things for it at first… It had made me so mad that she thought it was expected, but, well, Luc had saved her from the red light district, and you didn't come back from that kind of experience without getting a bit messed up. She ought to have realized how fast I'd've bolted if she'd tried to jump me in bed, really, but some stuff sticks better than it ought to, and fears stay more than anything. I should know.

Somehow, the fact that she had issues too made everything with her even smoother. She wasn't going to expect too much from me, she knew I needed time to realize it might all be okay, and I totally got that she needed… practically the same thing, only over stuff I always figured should be that way. When I'd tried to explain to the Father what I meant about why getting close to people spooked me sometimes, he'd said it was sometimes called `intimacy problems' which had ended in a long explanation about how they were trying to help little Klara, the now four-year-old girl the church took care of who had been abused by more than one male family member before social services had taken her from them. It didn't connect exactly out of context, but all the talking about what trust meant and what experience taught, no matter what you were told, had made it mostly clear in the end anyhow.

It was easy once I looked back at how cynical I'd been before coming here, and realized now that it was really kinda stupid to believe that everyone you got close to would die. Looking back, I'd kinda known before it was just rotten luck, but I hadn't really been able to convince myself until after I'd become Chaos, then Kay for short, then Kasey von Koll. I knew how much experience counted, especially about learning things, but I hadn't understood how important it was to everything in my head until the Father put a new light on it.

I got now, too, that a lot of my calming down and really believing that I wasn't a damn god of death had been purely Melissa… When she had made me talk a little, and tried to convince me it worked differently, first as a friend then later as more. And… Well, I had to admit she seemed to have a point, as time went on and she proved it over and over again. I was making new experiences now to base off of with all the Devils, though mostly `Liss, Rina, and Luc, and with everyone at the church, ones that would suit me better than the ones I'd grown up with in a lot of ways. I'd only learned what I absolutely needed to, before; now, I was getting a chance to learn everything else, the Father had said, not just how to survive, but live and be happy.

Father Espen was a sage sometimes, I swore. Father Maxwell probably had been too, but I'd been way too young to learn what Espen was teaching me back then. I was too much of a frank kid back on L2, and kids can't learn the same way you can when you're older, a lot of the time. It probably also didn't help that I hadn't think I had anything I really needed to learn then either.

Now… Now Melissa was lying there being beautiful without even realizing it, and still as maybe perfect as when I'd told her who I'd used to be, after we'd saved Rina. I'd even met her old man, and he and her brother didn't have any issue with me beyond Will wanting to tell Treize where I was, and hey, it wasn't like anything bad had happened because of that. Everything was… alright. Even if all hell broke loose, I was pretty sure I'd be able to make it be okay again somehow. Something tracing back to knowing it could all be better than it had been before.

I couldn't even explain in my head how confident, how good that made me feel. I was Kasey von Koll, I was Duo fucking Maxwell, and I was happy, but if you pissed me off I could take on the whole damn Regime. Don't wanna, but I could do it and make it look good.

I wasn't exactly sure when I'd lost my ego, but damn it was good to have it back.

Shaking my head a little at my own bullshit, I took one last swallow before setting my cup down and tucked back under the covers, wiggling over so I could pull `Liss's back to my chest and generally wrap around her. She didn't exactly wake up, but she sighed and wrinkled her nose a little in confusion before settling contently against me. Smiling, far more proud of myself than this all really counted for, I settled myself in for a comfortable hour or two. Anymore, I think I'd give anything up for times like this…

***

Brussels

“You know, I don't even care anymore,” Relena fumed, gently throwing the file she was holding so it would slide across the table and away from her without making a royal mess. “He's not even listening when I go to talk to him anymore, and he's out and out ignoring my requests that he get around to authorizing my tour continuing!”

“Is there a chance he didn't realize he took away the petty authorization?” Jake asked. He was leaning back on the couch to the point that his head was almost upside down off the back of it, Adam's apple facing the ceiling.

Her bodyguard was stupidly bored, it would seem. And no wonder, with us tucked back in here all the time.

“Considering how he handed me the paperwork and told me how I was confined to the grounds when he did it, I'm doubtful,” she returned. Two years ago, she wouldn't have believed she could speak with such dripping scorn, let alone about her own brother.

He'd been about to crash a battleship into the planet, and the idea would have been scandalous. Nice to see how far I've come… Sarcasm was contagious, it would seem, though with that thought, she wasn't sure she was at all in the cynical frame of mind; it was simply true.

Jake, for his part, snickered, raising his head to a normal cant and looking at her with that grin as if to ask her, `Did you really, and I missed it?' She stuck out her tongue, to which he laughed again, before looking away and running his tongue over his teeth.

She watched him questioningly, curious if it was some of his playing around nonsense or something serious, and the longer he spent thinking about it before speaking up suggested the latter. Getting impatient, she finally asked, “What?”

He looked back to her, mouth pursed, eyes a little too innocent to hide the deviousness. “Wanna make a break for it?”

Seriously? “Can we?” They were pretty deep inside the compound…

His grin was just trouble. “I kinda want to show the security guys a thing or two, to be honest, and your brother's being an ass. He technically doesn't have the rights to confine you, you could skate the legality on it…” He tilted his head to one side, then the other. “I'd have to start working on it now, but I think we could manage, if you want.” She snickered again. “It probably won't work twice if you want to run away when the base is on lockdown some other time, but I think we could get away with it this time.”

Hopefully her brother wouldn't be so wholly stupid as to try to confine her like this again; part of breaking away would prove the point. Finding herself smiling back, she decided, “Why not.”

He shook his head a little, still grinning, before standing. Walking to the door, he said, “Let me work on some stuff… But we'll need Dorothy, so get a hold of her?”

“I can have her back today,” Relena agreed. Honestly, the other woman was starting to get bored surveying… She would probably thrive in whatever excitement they kicked up. A bored Dorothy was not a problem she greatly enjoyed.

And so we're off on a brand new plot. As soon as Jake came back, she'd have to dig the details out of him. She was not going to break her promise to be in Amsterdam on Monday.

Though she didn't intend to stop needling Milliardo; either he would give in, or it would make the snub all the more effective.

***

December 3rd 197 - Sunday - L1

“Well, I wish you good luck,” Dr. Loucks returned pleasantly enough. She was better than some of the others they had pestered to meet, who were annoyed at being interrupted by a seeming sob story. Most were sympathetic to a little girl trying to find her mother, if skeptical. They usually calmed down once they realized that all she was interested in was seeing their face, not any kind of charity, but it was nice when you could tell someone honestly felt some compassion for her over the whole mess.

“Thanks,” Marie returned, unable to help feeling a bit let down. Yet another dead end… It felt like it would be forever before they found her. They were almost done with all the unknowns in the L1 cluster, all without a sign…

It really was going to be just the two of them for Christmas and New Year's. Not unless they found her mom within the week; they had already talked about taking the holidays to themselves and having fun instead of fitting fun in around the searching.

Well, no, she'd suggested it to Odin and he had seemed curious and had had no objections to the idea. She wasn't sure if he entirely understood that it was because she didn't want to spend Christmas finding another dead end and getting depressed about it. And hey, Christmas with just the two of us should be fun. Probably a little weird, but that was just how anything worked out with them, and that was nice, in its own way. And even if they never really got to hang out much after they found her mother, they'd always have their winter holiday to remember together as well as their birthdays back at the end of summer, and everything else.

They'd find her mom eventually, but until they did, they might as well have a good time.

She found Odin not outside the gift shop but in it instead, looking about at everything with his usual concentration, which meant that the clerk was starting to get a little antsy. From the looks of things, it looked like the woman had probably asked him if she could help, or what he was looking for a number of times now only to be rebuffed by Odin's typical polite but still too intense way. He didn't usually creep people out anymore, but the clerk probably thought he was trying to find the perfect gift for his dying fiancée or something.

Knowing him, it was probably a hunt for some kind of chocolate, in all actuality. Marlé had mentioned wanting some yesterday, but they hadn't gotten around to finding a store with the overpriced goodness that was getting more and more rare. She'd more meant it in passing as something that would be cool since she hadn't had any since her grandfather took her from Meagan, but Odin just didn't forget details. She'd been starting to figure out, lately, that dropping hints about innocent things helped calm him down over time and see more of the stuff he'd always missed out on before. And once Odin got an idea in his head, he attacked said detail with all the attention of a rabid dog following a rabbit.

He really ought to have just asked the clerk instead of making her nervous, though; she would have told him where it was, or if they had any at all.

Wait, wasn't he muttering something about hospital gift shop similarities? Oh geeze, he was off on one of his offbeat reconnaissance mission stunts. Mentally, she recounted how many steps it had taken to get to the front desk, to the room she'd talked to the doctor in, then to here; he was probably going to ask. Odin had ground it into her at some point to keep track of that kind of thing for stupid stuff, then how to estimate it in meters, just so she could measure out space without anyone noticing if it ever was important. When she'd told him it was dumb he'd challenged that she couldn't keep track without looking it looking obvious or like she had mental problems, and then, well… she'd had to prove him wrong. Then sometimes he'd ask for the numbers and estimates at random and if she hadn't kept track he'd be annoyed - in his very particular `Odin annoyed' way that most people wouldn't notice but was still irritating to deal with - and it got to be habit. Now, it wasn't like it was any sort of hassle.

If I never find a reason for knowing all that in the next five years though, I'm going to give him crap. Odin taught her so much that was completely awesome, though, that she figured she couldn't complain too much about some of the weirder stuff.

One of the cool things about being up in the colonies now was that the parkour had started focusing on different stuff. Instead of the open areas they had worked with before it was with buildings and stairwells, bits of wall, climbing and jumping and falling. She'd mostly gotten over any fear of falling… even if she did fall, and she still did a fair amount, she knew how to fall so it never really hurt. Sometimes she didn't do it perfectly and bruised a bit, but it was happening less and less often now and the pure freedom of flying through the air, or the adrenaline of chasing Odin through alleys and across walls and bits of building… She wasn't anywhere near as fast as him on the ground, Odin was fast, but she was starting to catch up when it came to climbing and tumbling over and across things. He said part of the reason was that she had less weight to worry about so she could go further with less work, and that part was because of his leg still being bad, and part that so much practice was starting to make her fearless, and he said that that was the most important step.

Once they found her mother she was going to insist that they get his leg checked out again and probably worked on. He was doing great with it, but when they were at the Sronas she had cornered the doctor at one point and Samuel had admitted that it would probably need some basic reconstructive surgery eventually, that some of the ligaments were weak and that even with so much progress on reshaping them himself with regular therapy, Odin might still need some muscle work done as well. Right now the two of them lived off the money Odin was teaching her how to digitally steal from here or there where it was likely to not be missed, and it kept them comfortable, but he'd need insurance or a lot of money or at least good connections to get surgery done. That and she knew him well enough by now to realize he wouldn't sit still for a recovery until they were reunited with her mother, so that all worked out anyhow.

She'd even gotten Odin to talk frankly about surgery a few times and he wasn't against it even with all his pride; he just didn't think it ought to be his top priority just then, and he was curious to see how much he could improve on his own. He was more careful not to push it and have to recover for a while like he had chasing down the rebel who wasn't Wufei Chang, but he was still starting to get as fast as all the stories about Heero Yuy from the war said.

Meeting his eyes as she came into the store, she shrugged a little and he nodded slightly in return; it wasn't as if they hadn't done this a hundred times already. It usually was funnier when Odin stayed in the emergency room and tried to learn more about social interactions there than when he stayed in the gift shop, though. He didn't ever screw anything up, he wasn't that odd - anymore - but there were points sometimes where he just misunderstood bits of conversation and wanted to relay them to her later so he could understand. In all reality it was a good place for him to learn because it was pretty normal for someone to clam up or be vague or to just stop wanting to talk in an ER, and he saw a lot of raw emotion there. It was usually what people said when they were scared or desperate or hopeful for something to turn out okay beyond all reason that he asked about later, and even if it was awkward she liked talking to him about it. Part of it was that it put a whole new light on things for her too, part that it made her feel like maybe she was helping, teaching him as much as he was her. But a lot of it was that she was happy that he trusted her and her opinions enough to really just want to talk to her. He was much more comfortable now, and seemed happier, than when they had first started to travel together.

It was great to see him smile and laugh; he did it the same way as someone who hadn't done it so long that they'd almost forgotten how, and it made her feel good that she'd started to help him get back on track.

Odin was somebody special, to have tried to save the world and the colonies without it helping him at all, and who still hadn't lost his beliefs that he would do whatever was necessary to do what he thought was right. He'd taken her in despite how much trouble he had thought she might bring him at first just because it was the right thing to do, he'd admitted, even though if he hadn't he probably would have caught Xutao Chang that morning. He said that before `the retraining', he'd always been taught to follow his emotions, his heart, to never do something he would regret, and that was the code he was trying to live by again. That they had tried to make him into some sort of perfect soldier and that he'd believed he was, or that he had to be that during the war, but that after Libra and his leg he'd realized that there wasn't any such thing as being perfect, or rather, what he'd been told was `perfect' just wasn't good enough. That emotions weren't a weakness, they were just as important as the rest, even if it had been hard for him to see that for a while. And that he was long out of practice.

She couldn't imagine how awful it must have been, feeling like a broken, worthless thing when his leg was ruined and he was on the run after Libra but not even able to run by himself, after he'd always been the fastest, the best at everything he did. He didn't say how long it had been before he had changed his mind about everything, but it was implied that it hadn't happened quickly.

They walked out without getting anything, and Marlé watched the clerk roll her eyes and couldn't help but smile a little to herself. There wasn't much that would interest either of them at a hospital gift shop, though knowing Odin he might have been trying to cook up ideas for a Christmas present.

She was honestly curious about what he would decide to do; it was impossible to say, with Odin. He might do something utterly practical, something typically gift-like now that he was getting a better idea of what gifts were for, or he might try to have them do something more uniquely fun - which might be more random than anything, knowing him - or he might just be completely on the wrong track and just do something weird.

It would be interesting, whichever way.

“L5-C1936 is putting up a big tree on the fifteenth,” Odin noted as they left the building.

Marlé blinked, then grinned. “Really? Sort of a silly thing to make.” It would look amazing, though, all decorated like the ones she'd seen pictures of the Earth trees when she was little, set up in big town squares.

He shook his head, smiling slightly. “They didn't make it, they brought the whole thing up… one of the really big ones too.”

Odin's smile widened a little as he saw and she felt her eyes light up like… well, like a kid in front of a Christmas tree. “The whole colony's got to smell like it!” she exclaimed, the idea just… wow. Evergreen smell everywhere, what a Christmas…

“They were also planning a snowfall on Christmas day,” her brother continued, more than happy to watch her as she got to be more and more excited. “It won't last more than a day or so, but they were planning a fair amount of festival stuff for the day after too.”

Marlé grinned. “So… once we wrap L1, we do L5 next?”

“Sure.” His indulgent smile, along with the more and more casual speech patterns they had gotten into, were just… nice. Whoever they'd been before, Odin was her brother now, and nobody knew him better than she did, and even when he was stern he liked to dote on her like most big brothers or uncles would. He was stupidly practical unless you talked him out of it - though that was getting easier with time - but he cared more than a lot of real relatives ever bothered to, and just towards the general world. His focus for that was mostly centered on her now, but the amazing thing about Odin was like he just didn't see the difference between saving a misfortunate kid on the street like she had been or going head to head with all authority that existed without any back-up. The guy just… Once he decided he cared about something, he dove in headfirst and there was no pulling him off on a different trail.

She was more than a little curious about what would happen once they had found her mother, and Odin was healed the rest of the way, and he started really fighting again… Whatever had happened at Libra, you just didn't lose with someone like Odin on your team, because he never gave up. Some people said the gundams had failed at Libra, but she'd always heard it that they were the only reason the entire planet wasn't gone instead of just the Americas; that hardly counted as having lost, not with so much at stake. Once he started fighting again, and if any of the other four were alive and picked the fight back up once everything was calm enough to bring the issue to bat… It was really going to be something. She was learning constantly, but it was only a tiny piece of what Odin knew and could do…

She was going to love seeing him and all the others like him in action, one day.

“I'll arrange the flights tonight,” Odin decided. “Our shuttle to the next colony over isn't until morning, though.” He tilted his head in question. “There's a range nearby; we shouldn't bring in anything of our own, but we can rent and you can get a better feel for different calibers and makes.”

“Alright,” she agreed easily. They'd probably end up playing around with fighting or parkour afterwards, but she needed the shooting practice, and she'd still be able to do all the rest with aching hands and tired arms if they stayed late. Parkour at night was beyond exhilarating to boot. “Can we try that Thai place we saw earlier for dinner? I've never had Thai food.” He shrugged in his easygoing way, meaning yes, and she blinked, wondering. “Have you?”

“I don't think so, but maybe.” He shrugged again, tilting his head to one side then the other. “I don't mind trying.”

Marlé grinned at that; however blasé he was acting about it, she knew Odin loved new things. The guy was as much a sponge sometimes as a toddler could be.

He chuckled a little in his throat, amused that she was amused, before gesturing at a post across the parking lot. “How far is that?”

Marie frowned. “I haven't walked it,” she tried to protest. He hadn't mentioned anything like-

“You've been keeping track of your own pace for a while now, and you're good at telling real distance from that. Estimate.”

Oh crap, the useless stuff is really just build-up to maybe useful stuff… She really ought to have seen that one coming. “Um…” She bit her cheek, considering. “Maybe… thirty meters?”

Instead of correcting her this time, or simply saying if she had it or not, he stopped walking and gestured with his head. “Go check; I'll wait here.”

Rolling her eyes, she grumbled, “I thought we were going to the range.” She kept walking and counting all the same.

“We'll get there,” he returned dryly. “You should be able to estimate this, it's important.”

“You could have just told me I was wrong,” the girl called back over her shoulder.

Odin made an amused noise. “Who says you're wrong? You guessed, so you need to see how far this was, thirty meters or not, and start learning to recognize it. It's like with tumbling, you can hardly learn from being told.”

A lot of your lessons could just be told, Odin, she grumbled to herself. Of course, she would never remember them as well as when they did this sort of nonsense, and she could see the logic behind what he was saying; that didn't make it any less annoying. At least maybe now he'd stop asking for how many paces she took everywhere, would maybe keep it all in meters…

Aw geeze. Once she got good at this he was going to start her learning on how fast she could cover the distances, wasn't he? I need to start running more… It made sense, even when he turned it all into baby steps so sometimes it looked pointless, but she couldn't really deny that she was learning, and fast too. And if she wanted any chance of trying to keep up… May as well finish the measure at a run; got to get used to that too, might as well start before he asks. He always got that insanely proud look when she read ahead of what he was asking, and like any little sister or teacher's pet would, she liked to preen under it.

Well, until the next time he got irritating about something dumb and they started all over until she realized why it was worth it and raced to outstrip his expectations.

And at any rate, it would be nice to see and work with guns other than Odin's Daewoo.

***

December 4th 197 - Monday - Brussels - Early Morning

Milliardo sighed, checking the clock; it was almost seven… Relena was probably ready for her day by now; even with the medications she was on now she usually was still up at the crack of dawn and had just been taking a nap in the afternoon. She hadn't been as thrown by the experience as he had initially worried, having a place that was supposed to be safe for her so violated and to be as hurt as she was… Relena may have never been shot before, but he knew how terrible it felt, let alone the first time it happened. And she did see this as a safe house, having come back against her schedule already for a `night at home' as she had put it, however badly it had played out in the end.

But it was as though she just… wasn't bothered, not at all. He had even asked Jake, discretely, if there was much difference in how she was treating this recovery compared to how she had been after finding those children in Munich. When the answer had been that it was almost identical, even with the disparity in the severity of the injury, he had thought that perhaps she was in a mild state of shock, that she needed the time to cope or at least realize that she needed time to cope before going back out, no matter what she thought.

But then nothing had changed beyond her getting more and more snippy with him and he'd tried to figure out why. Maybe the events in Munich had helped prepare her? They had found what they hoped was the source of the child human trafficking ring those two boys had belonged to, but that was hardly the only one out there, and that fact alone was hard for him to swallow, let alone a young woman who had led a more sheltered life. She had put herself in danger without even considering the consequences, though at least Jake had said he would start trying to cement more of those ideas into her for the future…

But then he'd happened on the fact he'd been looking for and wanted to groan. Princess of Sanc or not, Relena had been raised by the Darlians, who, pacifist or not, had kept at least one gun and allowed their daughter virtually any freedom and privilege she asked for, even in dangerous situation. Darlian had known about Operation M, had seen a gundam come up behind his shuttle and land in what was almost their exact trajectory… and still let his daughter walk home alone because she was upset and wanted to. She had incidentally met Heero Yuy for the first time on the way home. She was allowed to invite whoever she wanted to a birthday ball inside the Darlian estate, including the boy soldier she'd found half-dead on the beach who later announced to her that he wanted to kill her. She had followed him out to where he was trying to launch missiles at God only knew what before he was shot down by a party she claimed to be unable to identify before taking him to an Alliance hospital and claiming to be his girlfriend. She'd done investigative work to find him and Duo Maxwell once he'd transferred schools. Then somehow she had managed to follow him to the duel Milliardo had set up with him in Antarctica after most of the pilots had all returned to space and gotten right in the middle of the battlefield.

When he stopped and thought about it, the fact that his little sister was both utterly relentless and had no concept of what fear even was shouldn't surprise him. He'd dismissed it before as teenage recklessness and not realizing how dangerous this or that situation honestly was, with her childish naïveté, but no, she had lost the naïveté now… That might just be a part of her personality.

It made him even more glad that he had agreed to have Miller watch her. As he'd proven the night of the attack, Jake could keep up no matter her latest wild idea.

With that realization, however, he had had to admit that there was no point in keeping her here against her will when she had a solid point. Grimacing as he stood to make his way out of his suite he decided, She can head out tomorrow and get started again on Wednesday. She would likely need the rest of the day to get everything set up. He'd really been an ass about it too, and an apology was due.

Once in the hall he paused, considering. Relena liked to do her more informal work, brainstorming and communicating with RLTT, out of her suite, but she still kept an office down in the main for when she was working with others, preferring to keep her rooms as more a private space than he did his. Jake normally kept guards outside as well as staying inside, sometimes with one of the others on his team; they weren't there down the hall, so they were probably down in the main compound. It was a little unusual for her to be out this early, but not unlike her.

When he didn't find her in her office he checked his watch again; it would be like her to go have breakfast in the regular cafeteria. When she wasn't there, he assumed she had already eaten and was going from office to office again trying to piece together her latest project, rounding it out before letting him even get a glimpse of it. When she didn't answer her cell phone it was a little worrisome; normally Jake would answer if she was busy, or Dorothy if she had decided to tag along with them that day.

Maybe she slept in after all? It was odd that the guards weren't outside, but if she had decided to stay in the men might be staying in her living room area; sometimes they all took breakfast in there. Maybe Jake was starting to finally trust some of the new security measures being put in…

It wasn't until Dorothy answered the door to Relena's rooms and he couldn't see anyone else with her that alarm bells started going off. When in residence and not sleeping, Dorothy was virtually welded to the younger Peacecraft.

He also didn't see Jake, and unless he was out of line of sight somehow… he knew the colonel had an ingrained habit about watching doors.

Barely sparing the Romefeller heiress a glance at her too friendly `good morning' he slammed the door out of her grasp and waltzed into the room, glancing around quickly for a reaction… one that didn't come. No one started at the sharp noise, no movement.

No one's here.

He didn't really hear Ms. Catalonia's protests as he slammed into the bedroom area, almost hoping that everyone had cleared out except for her because Relena was having some torrid affair, but while one fear was thankfully banked the rest grew worse; the bed was perfectly made. Housekeeping didn't come through until nine at the earliest, and the coverlet was even folded in the exact pattern it normally was in his room… She hadn't slept here.

He ran his mind back through what Dorothy had been trying to say; it was all nonsense, words meant to stall him. Taking a deep breath, he ignored her again and tried to make his blood pressure calm back down. Relena was gone; if she was on base Dorothy either would be with her or would explain what was really going on in short words, not going on and starting to look like a panicked poodle.

On the other hand, Jake was gone, as were her guards, and Jake had more than proven that he was good at his job…

Realization struck like the hammer of some Nordic god and it was hard to not see red. His voice cold, he cut off Dorothy's rambling excuses. “They're in the Netherlands, aren't they?” They had talked Dorothy into staying behind as damage control… and indeed, if he hadn't changed his mind about his behavior of the last two weeks there was no way anyone would have been alerted before she was stepping onto the stage in Amsterdam. Miller… He knew Jake was damned crafty enough to trip his way out of the base, but he hadn't considered that he could manage it with Relena as well. Did they pull a Cleopatra and put her in a damn carpet?! He didn't know now, but he would soon. Storming out of the suite and slamming the door in Catalonia's face he just… boiled. He wanted to kill Miller…

And yet he knew the other man well enough that he wouldn't have done it unless his charge was all for the idea. It was hard to say whose idea it might have originally been, what with how closely the two worked and how thoroughly he had managed to infuriate his sister, but…

How dare she? Outright defying him like that when it was for her own damn good, when he was just trying to keep her safe. There had been domestic and civil cases for violence sited all over the place not even mentioning the embezzling, the increased number of people going missing, the vandalism of politicians' houses… People were starting to go half mad, looking at a winter with such impossibly yawning jaws. Flirting the edges of what was acceptable was well and good when there weren't people out for blood on every street corner!

“Sabetta!” he called as soon as he came into his rooms again, looking for his aide; the efficient woman wasn't even startled by him, merely raising her brows in question as to what was he wanted from her now. Normally he rather appreciated her dry humor and implied sarcasm, but he just wasn't up for it at the moment. He didn't trust Mary Jean Sabetta overmuch, but she had proven some amount of loyalty if not bravery upon immediately barricading herself and all the highly confidential paper records she could get her hands on in an out of the way room during the attack. She had been one of his aides before that, not a stranger to him, but it was sobering to know people's priorities when everything they knew went out the window.

Realizing his mood, she apparently decided to simply be an aide instead of joining the peanut gallery for the day. “Sir?”

“We're sending a contingent to Amsterdam, and I'm going too. I want to be gone in half an hour; we can pick up more personnel closer to our destination if necessary.”

She gave him an odd look but didn't ask, and immediately hopped out of her chair, verifiably dashing out the door - apparently that tight skirt didn't constrict as much as it looked like it did - yanking her cell phone open. She would get it done, he was sure… she was a woman on a mission. Noin and Une had taught him how much pure determination and gut could count.

Snarling, he gave into the urge and threw the ottoman across the room… And grimaced, trying to catch his breath again as the graphs pulled and the pain shocked through his torso… and he had to sit then lay on the floor because he'd just thrown the closest thing he could sit on. He could barely hiss his breath through his teeth… Everything he'd done during the attack had aggravated the old injuries more than was even vaguely foreseeable, but he couldn't fall into a week or two of seclusion now, with everything that was going on, and now his fool of a sister was going to get herself killed with Miller at her side if she thought she could just do bullshit like this… Even if he'd been about to let up on canceling he didn't want her going into the hotspot that was the Netherlands for another week or two, that was why he'd been willing to let her go on Wednesday, not today…

Fighting for breath he just stayed there for a minute, praying that no one tried to come in before he put himself back together… At least Sabetta had closed the door on her way out. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus on the pain, on forcing his lungs to move the way they needed to even if they didn't want to… It hurt so much, especially after he'd been doing so much to get better before, he hated this, the pain, the feeling so helpless…

Yuy must be laughing now, he couldn't help but think, grinding his teeth. Following the traceries of pain helped sometimes, but if he could just force it out of his mind that would work too… he needed to get up, before someone could see him here, before it could get out, before Yuy could really laugh. The tenacious young pilot had crippled him and didn't even stay around to pay for it… Didn't have any problem sliding through his fingers even though he'd been fighting just as hard even after they hit the atmosphere and the electronics started to lose their integrity… He'd have sworn he saw, maybe just heard, something explode and a fire start through the vid connection inside Wing Zero but it wasn't as though there was any evidence to show it wasn't just what was happening inside Epyon and that his head had started playing with him at that point…

Gritting his teeth harder, he forced himself onto one side and began fighting to get his breath again, sliding one hand against his neck to feel his pulse. Damnit, too fast, not good… He tried to fight for longer breaths instead of short as well, tried to calm his breathing to calm his heart… That pacemaker was going to earn its keep in his chest one of these days, God damn it all. He was going to make a full recovery eventually, but it was just taking so long, and he'd never be fit enough for MS atmospheric entry again no matter how much strength he regained.

He was going to get better. He would… Relena would be safe if he had to pull her off a damn stage himself to keep off any assassination attempts. An open air speech… The idea made his stomach turn after what had happened three weeks ago, he didn't care if it hadn't been aimed specifically at her. She wouldn't have changed the timing of the damn thing, he'd be able to get there in time, he just had to get up…

He would do whatever he had to… he had to, after everything… And he'd keep Relena safe no matter what.

…That was insanely long and I still didn't end… bloody hell, this next one had better be short and sweet…

Any commentary? The origami flower will be explained soon… I guess this works as an ending style wrap-up as well as the last calm before the storm.

I actually kinda pity Zechs in some ways. I would never be his friend if he were a real person, his view on the world is too different, but the poor guy's rather messed up in just about every way you can be messed up…

Again, some commentary would be great if you guys can; I know this took me forever and I'm sorry, but there are some lines and thoughts that I just loved writing… Like Sally's, or Adam/Trowa's… and Duo's stupidly bouncyness was just fun.

Next chapter ought to open right on top of this one, with Relena trying to figure out what to do with the fact that her brother called her. Catch you all soon, I guess.