Notes: #...# indicates thoughts/thinking.
Interlude VI
Quatre nervously snuck into Treize's private apartment. While the doctors had told him that he wouldn't get caught, his faith in them had taken a downward spiral since he got this assignment. That Duo had been doing this for months without telling them didn't make him feel better. He just was hoping that Treize wasn't going to shoot him out of hand. He made enough noise, so that he wouldn't startle Treize. It was three in the morning, so there shouldn't be anyone else in there with him. It there was, he'd just shoot them and get it over with. Duo did not need that complicating his life. He still jumped when he heard a voice behind him.
"Good morning," Treize purred. "I suppose you're the next bright shiny object that I won?" #Duo was right, these people are not subtle. Did they think that it would work a second time, after Duo was dragged out of here by Wufei. Or did none of the pilots bother to tell anyone what really happened?#
"Uh..." Quatre blushed violently. He felt really cheap. Did Duo feel like this the first time that he had to do this? He prayed the floor would just open up and swallow him. He didn't feel too bright.
"I take it that's a yes. And I know that a ‘go home' won't work, either. Dedication to the cause and all that," he continued sarcastically. #If I didn't know better, this child had to never sneak anyplace in his life. Blushing innocence, I should give them points for at least trying to peek my interest with someone different. Not that it would work. Une can eat him as a snack and he would have made me feel guilty more then anything. He just looks too damn young.#
"Actually, I'm just dropping in for a few hours, so they think that something is going on..."
"Why should I care if your superiors think that you're following your orders or did they threaten your family? Or your lover? Do they even know or care that you have a lover? They seem to think that you five exist for their whims only." Treize continued to speak as if Quatre hadn't started, staring at him with a horrified look on his face. "Good God you look even younger then Duo is. Do those idiots you that give you your orders believe that I'm a pedophile?"
"Duo's fine, we didn't do anything to him. He disappeared to force their hand." Quatre finished with a rush. He took a deep breath and continued, he was way over his head here. This should have been covered someplace in his life, under helpful hints for dealing with OZ generals and other people whose bedroom you sneaked into. "He didn't tell us anything! We never knew what was going on! And I can't help how I look!"
"Where is he then?" Treize growled. #Duo was right, they were good friends, if he was willing to do this just to tell me that Duo was unharmed by them. He looks like he is going to die from shame.#
"Boston."
Treize laughed. Quatre looked at him in confusion. "What's so funny?"
Treize stopped laughing. "How much do you know?"
"Not much," Quatre admitted. "The only one Duo talked to was Trowa and he isn't saying anything. As usual." Quatre smiled for a second. Treize liked seeing the change in him. He looked much better thinking about his lover, rather then trying to explain things to him. "But I got information from my superiors, which I'm taking most of it with a grain of salt. Sour grapes covers a lot of things with Dr. G I think." Quatre finished thoughtfully.
"Duo and I spent a week there last summer. He teased me unmercifully about how those rebels made it work and that OZ was doomed. We had fun." Treize said quietly, ignoring Quatre's slip of the tongue. "I think...that's when I realized that you could chuck it all and forget who you were supposed to be."
Treize was quiet for a second and then smiled at Quatre. "Where are my manners, do you want something to drink?"
"Yes, please." Quatre was relieved that. He sighed and sat on the bed. The worst, he hoped was over. Just hang out here for an hour or so and then sneak back to Trowa. He absentmindedly took the glass from Treize and took a sip. "Chuck it all? Sounds like Duo had corrupted you."
"Not really, Duo and I have a public persona and a private one. Very few people get to see the private one for either of us."
"I'd have liked to see that Duo." Quatre said sadly. "You are about the only person that he was close too. He never talked about the past with us or the future. He'd joke and help and cheer you up, but he never talked about himself."
"He mentioned that once. That the person he was closest to was the one he was going eventually have to kill. And it was tearing him apart, along with all the other assignments that he kept getting. He was wasting away over the stress. The last night he was here..." Treize stopped and stared at Quatre.
"It's nice that you are telling me all this, but what's going to happen in the future? Getting in contact with Duo means that he has to fight again. He won't sit this out. I don't like it, but it is his life. But it also means that he's going to be under his controller's thumb again. And that's not a good idea. They were running him ragged. And how are they going to react to his reappearance? And how do the rest of you feel about our relationship?" Treize fired off the questions at Quatre.
"I don't know. We haven't planned that far. Wufei just wanted me to tell you that Duo was okay. Heero's a bit miffed, but after they heard my interview with the Docs about sending me here...there was a lot of discussion. And we still don't know what we are going to do." Quatre finished in frustration. "Especially since all our contacts were abruptly cut off."
He blushed when he realized how big a blunder he had made. #Oops, I shouldn't have said that. But he probably knew that already. Or may be not, because G' s still breathing and he wouldn't be if Treize got his hands on him.# Quatre was happy that Treize ignored his blunder, continuing on with his discussion of the future.
"What it comes down to is that you all are fighting for the colonies freedom from Earth, whether they want you to or not. The problem I am having is that OZ is changing. Too much reliance on the mobile dolls. War is getting automated and they are never going to end it if they Romafeller Foundation don't have to take the losses in battle. I must confess, I don't think that in a month I am going to be here. Forces internal to OZ want me out of the picture. If things go the way that Lady Une has predicted, given the status quo, I will be ousted from head of the Specials by then." Treize sighed. "I just want the same thing that you do. Peace for the colonies and Earth. I just want to have a single government. May be Relena's Total Peace will be a good thing. I don't know."
Quatre was stunned by the honesty that Treize was showing him. And suspicious. He opened his mouth to argue with him again and was surprised by the sound of someone bursting into the room behind them. Quatre drew his gun and pointed it at the intruder. He hesitated for a second, not really wanting to shoot Lady Une.
"Treize-sama, " she cried, ignoring Quatre. "I have miscalculated. Dermail's people are on their way now to arrest you.
"Shit!' Treize swore. "Permanent or temporary retirement? What do your sources say."
"Temporary to Luxembourg, but the timing is off. More of a time for assassination then house arrest."
"Not really. Sick during the night, too ‘ill' to continue until I accept the mobile dolls. I have been expecting this since I told them that they had turned the war into a bloodless circus on their part. Just get him out of here. Getting him caught with me won't be good either." Treize said, gesturing to Quatre. "They are already questioning my loyalty. Fill him in on anything that you know and disappear yourself, space would be good. Start a tour of the facilities out there. I need you out of the way of them. Just in case they decide that you are better off not being active." Treize ordered.
"Yes Treize-sama." Une murmured, herding Quatre out of the room.
She hit a panel in the wall, opening a hidden passage. "After me, Winner-kun" she murmured, "this will lead us out to the base. You should be able to find your way back from there. How is Duo-chan?"
"Fine, I think. We haven't talked to him in a while." Quatre replied, puzzled. #Duo-chan?#
"Ah...will you be seeing him soon?" she asked, turning a corner.
"I think so, would you like me to pass on a message?" Quatre asked respectfully. #Duo-chan? She sounds almost, nice talking about him.#
"Only that I found the leak to the scientists and eliminated it. He's not going to have to worry about those deviants critiquing their performance in bed any more." Une replied calmly.
"They weren't?" Quatre asked horrified. #Thrust the knife deeper you bastards, nothing was sacred to you! You just had to make sure that he was following orders. Or were you getting your jollies listening to them?#
"Motion sensor in the room. I almost missed it. Passive feed to an off site location. Only activated when there were two people in the room. The person that we had searching the room was being paid to look the other way for that one...I've taken care of the problem." Une replied coldly, smiling ferally.
"They were taping them in bed?" Quatre repeated numbly. This was so weird. And sick. He shivered, wondering what Une had done to the traitor that made her so gratified and if he could take a few strips out of his hide too for Duo. That Duo knew about it...he hoped that he did at least. If he didn't he wasn't going to tell him, because that was just too cruel.
"Why?" he asked numbly and mentally kicked himself. That was someplace that he did not want to go.
Une turned and looked at him curiously, wondering what had prompted that question. Quatre looked back with a confused and hurt look on his face, he was still trying to figure out why he asked that one too. There must have been something there that made her answer.
"Duo suspected the bedroom was bugged, no matter where they were" she told him. "He had received orders that no matter how injured or sick he was, he was to keep Treize-sama ‘entertained'. He didn't once, he was too injured after one of his other assignments. He was then told that he was to have sex with him whenever he visited. Treize informed me of that after Duo left one day. And they made sure afterwards that when anything happened most of it wasn't in the bedroom, it just started there and enough hints were dropped so that they knew that something had happened. Your superiors wanted make sure that he kept Treize-sama preoccupied."
Une's tone was controlled, but Quatre felt her anger. He did not want have this woman irked at him. She was scarier then most of his sisters, together, in a small room, mad at him for fooling around with their stuff.
"I'm sorry to pry," he apologized, feeling rather like a tiny mammal trapped by a cat. "We never knew what was going on. Just that Duo went on a lot of solo missions and ...." Quatre's voice trailed off when he realized who he was talking to. Oz's unofficial head of Intelligence really didn't need to know this.
Une smiled tightly. "Do you really think I didn't have any idea what was going on?"
Quatre stopped and looked at his feet. "The rest of us sure didn't! Duo...Duo..." his voice trailed off in frustration. He felt so used. May be his father had been right. Une leaned over and touched him gently on the cheek. Quatre looked up startled. Tenderness was the last thing he expected out of a woman that threatened to blow up a colony if they didn't surrender their Gundams to her.
"Duo was willing to accept those assignments so you or Wufei didn't have to. He was very protective of you, even if he didn't show it. Duo didn't want you to become as jaded about killing as your controllers were. They wanted him to be very used to doing ‘wetwork', I believe is the phrase, so that it would be easier for him to kill Treize when they ordered him to. It was starting to wear him down, the Duo that I meet early in their relationship was not the same boy that Wufei left with that last night. That was their plan from the beginning, to be kill able to Treize-sama when it was advantageous for them to do so, they were slowly crushing his spirit so that he would be happy to do it. That and he was expendable in their eyes if he got caught."
Quatre slumped against the wall, stunned. He couldn't believe anything this cool woman told him, but it did make sense. It was too unbelievable not to be true. Duo had mentioned once that he was an impulse addition to be trained, because his controller had found him stowed away on one of the Sweepers barges.
He looked at her, mind filled with questions that he was too afraid to ask and too tired to want to hear the answers. Une handed him disk. He felt ancient. He wondered if this was why Duo had been looking wraithish the last few weeks he was with them. It was tiring to feel that old so young.
"The information on there is something that you might be interested in."
"Why are you giving me this information?" he asked curiously.
"Because Treize-sama asked me to." she replied simply. "Now get out of here while you can. And please give Duo-chan a hug for me. I missed his visits."
#Great now I just have to wonder why Treize is giving me this information, is it good, or will it blow up in my face. Or is it revenge for all the mental acrobatics that he must have went through to figure out why Duo was sleeping with him?# Quatre thought as he cautiously made his way to the exit. He had to get out of here. Getting trapped behind enemy lines during a coupe was not something that his lover would forgive him for. He would get the information back to Heero and Wufei, then go and contact Duo in Boston. He had a right to know what was happening with his lover. After Trowa hugged him a lot because he was very disturbed about his encounter with Lady Une. She was very scary and he had no idea what magic Duo performed to make that woman like him. Unless he was sleeping with the both...? No he was not going to get that picture in his mind. Une in bed with anyone was an absurd thought.
End Part 9
Christine
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