Relena's mind surrendered with her body, melting as Heero's gentle embrace soon became intoxicating featherlight touches. She made a soft sound in the back of her throat. Heero echoed the noise approvingly, his trademark 'Hn' sounding not half so harsh.
Clothes parted and slipped away with long practice and aching familiarity. Breathing lengthened from the sheer delight of proximity, and gentle teasing.
"Still not feeling well?" Heero asked against her sensitized skin, his warm breath sending shivers down her spine. Relena stared blankly at him, his hands were doing things that scattered her thoughts to the four winds. She felt, more than saw, Heero's half smile. "You're not normally so passive."
"I..." Relena started, unable to think properly, something wasn't right eating at the edge of her mind. But fogged over by the painful/pleasurable heat boiling within, foreign yet so familiar.
"Hm?" He asked again, his eyes still sharp, seemingly enjoying her scattered state. He nipped at her shoulder, loosening the belts on black riding pants. "Duo?"
The name.... Duo, why would he be calling... thoughts futilely tried to click together through the pleasurable haze. She desperately floundered, trying to connect what was wrong, her mind scattering and reforming in the wake of every slow stroke of his hand, every overwhelming burst of sensation. But why... Duo!
She realized couldn't hear him. No worse, she couldn't feel a trace of Duo at all. An aching emptiness, aloneness, pierced the clouds of her mind, bringing her back to reality faster than a cold dousing of water.
Panic drown out all other sensations. "Heero, stop please." She gave a weak push of his shoulders. "I mean it."
Heero backed off, his breathing slightly heavy, his face was a mix of passion, frustration and sheer confusion.
"We can't." Relena desperately fished for a plausible reason. "The doctors warned that something like this would cause a relapse."
His look turned to definite irritation. "I'm fine."
"Do you really want to go through all this again?" She asked, wrapping the covers around herself resolutely, she rolled over so that Duo's back was to Heero, hoping that he wouldn't press the matter.
Heero shook his head, at Duo turned away. His mind took in every part of Duo's posture, his tone, analyzing the days events with scientific precision. The braided boy himself seemed to be trying to put himself to sleep with incredible determination, so much so that he was probably spoiling any chances of success by the desperation of the attempt. What was wrong?
The differences were subtle, uncomfortable things. Duo might be reportedly unpredictable, but that's only if you looked on the surface. Heero knew his lover better than he knew the chambers of a gun.
Something was seriously off balance, just an inch off kilter. He'd gotten that impression at the hospital, small nagging. Little differences that set off his mental alarms, but he had discounted it to his own reactions to the antibiotics and the stress Duo was diagnosed with.
But now they were, if not home, than in a comfortable surroundings. They often spent more time as guests of Quatre's than they did in their own apartment. Duo was fond of saying, "Good company, free food and someone else cleans our room. Damn Hee-chan, I don't think it gets much better than this." Looking at the ornate room that surrounded them, he was hard pressed to disagree.
/"You still aren't feeling good are you?" Heero remembered Duo stiffening, as he'd asked the braided boy such a simple question, looking a bit to pale in the hospitals fluorescent lights. "Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?" He'd simply nodded, but not before so many emotions had passed over the panes of his expressive face./
Heero had thought it was reluctance to admit a sickness, which was understandable to Heero in the light of what little he knew of Duo's upbringing. Weaknesses were dangerous, even around friends and lovers. Heero knew he had Duo's absolute trust, but some habits were too deeply rooted.
Heero smiled bitterly to himself; he knew all about habits too deep to shake.
But what if Heero's interpretation was wrong? Heero's wry smile became a touch of a scowl. Duo had a worse time talking about himself, or how he felt than even Heero did. Duo just hid his silence amidst floods of words.
Perhaps Duo had wanted to say something more dire, but couldn't, or just didn't want to because of how sick Heero was at the time. He simply agreed to take the easy road out. Heero cursed the fact that he didn't press the matter, attributing his blindness to the anesthetics that were beginning to race through his blood at the time.
/Unacceptable./ Heero's mind rebelled, but some facts were starting to add up, and tonight was perhaps the least telling of all of them. /What do they call it? "Some time off?" "Personal space?"/
Perhaps Duo needed a bit of that.
After the mission, they would talk, Heero decided. Until then, he needed to be the Perfect Soldier for a while.
The Jester found the Child alone, buried in the deepest part of the mind, watching old memories over and over, comforting times of friends and family now dead.
"Dun see why we had tae stay and all dem left." The Child was smiling without humor at an old memory. Solo and Duo pantsing a Federation soldier and running off with arms full of apples. The black-uniformed man trying to chase them, hindered by his trousers around his ankles would have normally been a humorous sight.
The Jester watched simply watched silently, waiting.
"Des left us behind fer this? Dun know wut the point is." The Child looked up at the Jester and smiled tiredly. "Tink dey'd like ta see us 'gain?"
The Jester rocked back on his heels, realizing what the Child meant.
"'Thy soul shall find itself alone; Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone.'" The Jester said, shaking his head slowly, the fixed grin was a little more desperate, as close as the fool could get to a frown.
"Alone in me thoughts? .... ya dun agree. I guess I shount expect ya ta." The Child looked down, one small hand playing with his toes idly. "We neva could take ta easy way. 'S not fair if all us can't agree on this."
"Sweet Child." Arched brows knitted together over empty sockets. Abnormally long fingers reached down to touch the Child's black hair, smoothing it in long soothing strokes. "Is life so empty? Is this so without hope?"
"I dun know wutta think." The Child sighed, wrapping his arms around his tucked knees. "HE shoulda been able ta tell da difference shouldn'e? What if ojosan was tellen truth when she say he didn.... doesn...?" The Child trailed off shaking his head fiercely.
"I have no answers, Sweet Child. But I do have trust."
"Wish ya could give a lil a tha' to me." The Child sniffled, pale blue eyes threatening tears.
"If only I could, if only I could."
"'S not right, ya know. I wus thinken of asken Shini to take wutever bullet come our way, on wutever Une give us ta do."
"It may be a fine thing, little heart, to go out with the dramatics and sweepings of such a romantic death. Sheer star-crossed and bleeding blood of heart run cold of a ghost touch, but to kill yourself, you kill all of us."
The Child sighed, his eyes going paler still. "I be knowen that nows. I jes.."
"Worry not more sweet one, the blond one with more heart than heart sees more than what his sight tells him. I suspect the pieces fall as they will and soon. Wait that much more?"
The Child snorted. "Sure he sees fine, but 's he talken? I's not hearen it."
The Jester giggled. "And here I thought patience was YOUR virtue."
"How kin I be patient! When she.... an he.... they!" The Child leapt to his feet. "He thinken it us. She gonna hurt him. I rather he neva find out it wus her. If we jes go away, iffen the body die... he never know right? He never hurt?"
"To trade him one ache for another? What right do we have to choose his pain? What better would we be than she?"
The Child hissed his frustration, beyond words. He fell back to his sitting position, seemingly exhausted. The Jester's face softened in sympathy and he sat beside the little urchin.
A long finger tilted the Child's chin upwards to face the Jester's face, no longer grinning, but smiling with soul-deep sympathy. "Worry not, I said, and worry not I meant. She and he... they didn't. When you left, so did I and she cannot feel our other.... she got worried."
The Child startled, his face wrinkling with confusion. He never would have expected that, but the Jester was no so cruel as for this to be a prank.
"She may be blinder than I," The Jester continued softly, "But she is not without a heart."
The Child's eyes flashed, almost a semblance of their normal vibrant blue, revitalized by the idea of hope.
"Meybe," he said slowly. "I kin wait a bit longa." The Child smiled, a bit of the devil-may-care back in his demeanor.
"Good good! It would be silly to make our way to the top of Everest just to jump from the peak. Even I can't find that funny." The Jester laughed, and spun away.
Once out of the Child's sight, he let his own exhaustion show through for a moment, before gathering himself again, and heading off in the direction of the cold. She had some things to answer for.
When the Jester found Relena, he was treated to the view of Shinigami backing her to the brink of emptiness. The scythe glowed bright green and the swirl of reds and blacks in the area were proof of Death's rage.
The Jester repressed an inappropriate urge to giggle. Shinigami was just as protective of the Child as he was, even if his methods did differ.
"Hold your blade dear Shini-chan." The Jester called out. Red eyes narrowed at the harlequin instead, but the blade held absolutely motionless above the frightened woman. "May I have this dance?" The Jester bowed to Shinigami, mimicking a formal ballroom style.
Shinigami let the scythe dissolve into nothingness, but not before giving the Jester a disapproving glare. It straightened it's uniform before slipping away as well.
The Jester wasn't fooled in the slightest. He could feel it's presence, watchful.
He would have to play this carefully. His scoldings lasted through the night, spanning from Poe to Shakespeare to the Bible to whatever random nonsense floated through his head. She sat through it all, glaring right back with fragile defiance and self confidence.
As much as he wanted to hate her, as much as he wanted to let Shinigami go though with whatever the enigmatic creature had in mind... he couldn't help but notice her relief when he mentioned that the Child was all right.
Each of the boys took great care entering the Preventers building, either showing up at their normal times, like Noin, Zechs and Wufei, or remaining unseen, taking the back ways. They were familiar with the procedures. The media getting wind of a mission would almost always jeopardize the team going in.
With the "big names" who were coming to meet with Une today, if it were discovered by the circus camped out in front of the main doors, the news would be shown on every vid in the settled universe before the first blueprint had been laid onto the table.
As it was the easiest for them, Zechs, Noin and Wufei were the first to arrive, politely talking with the Director. Une noticed with pleasure that while they weren't anywhere near each other, Wufei and Zechs weren't obstinately standing on other sides of the room.
Quatre and Trowa were next, conspicuously close and nodding to each waiting person as they arrived. The Director offered them both a tight smile and a returned nod.
Une frowned a bit at Heero and Duo's entrance. The two were normally as all over each other as Trowa and Quatre in their own way. Even at arms length, they had an aura of being connected somehow. There was a definite distance. Heero's face was harder than usual, and Duo seemed to keep sliding glances at the Japanese boy.
Win some, loose some, Une thought to herself, at least content in the minor improvement between her two other Preventers, Zechs and Wufei. She no longer had to worry about one throttling the other under the cover of battle.
Lady Une pushed her glasses up to the bridge of her nose and straightened abruptly, signaling the start the meeting. Immediately, everyone's eyes in the room was pinned on her. Not so close at the reporters, but their absolute and utter attention, their focus on her like it was the center of their universe, was almost as stifling as the suffocating crowd of reporters that greeted her every morning.
She pushed those useless thoughts aside and began. "None of this can or will be released to the media yet. Paul Lubbock, the only witness to the crash that Relena Peacecraft was involved in, died last night in the hospital. There is very strong reason to suspect not only it was a cover up by the Devolution, but evidence points towards it was a possible attempt on Relena's life as well that was botched."
The reactions, Une noted, were varied. She paused a moment, both to let that sink in, and to give her a chance to observe them in turn. Zechs and Heero looked ready to kill. Which was expected. Duo looked distinctly uncomfortable. But if Une was any judge, that was normal when it came to affairs dealing with Relena. The rest of the room held expressions of mild shock, interest or indifference.
"As you know, Relena's death will have rather widespread impacts on the entire Earth Sphere Alliance. While she's simply in a coma, things can be held together, but despite what you all feel about her." Une spared a warning glare at Duo in particular. "It is undeniable that she is necessary to preserve peace while the government is still reestablishing itself."
Reluctant nods were her answer. "She has been moved for her own safety out of the hospital. Her condition is stable enough for home observation. The Peacecraft mansion is as well out of the question. If they could infiltrate the hospital so easily her own home would be the next easy target."
Zechs was obviously not pleased with this situation, but Quatre nodded thoughtfully. "I can volunteer my own house. The staff, besides my sisters and the Magunaks are loyal to me and small. She should be safe there until she wakes up."
Lady Une nodded, thankful that she didn't have to do any persuading. "Thank you Quatre. I'll have the arrangements made." She gave the Arabian a genuine smile. "On another front, Sally contacted me yesterday. We have what we think to be an accurate source of background on Karla Grey, the leader of the Devolution."
Une opened a folder and passed it's contents around the rooms. Inside was a file.
"Karla Grey, suspected to be Leah Li, a noted historian and sociologist during the wars."
"No picture?" Wufei asked, a single eyebrow raised. Lady Une shook her head.
"Not one, not even baby pictures. It's what made us suspicious in the first place."
"A good assumption." Wufei commented. Une repressed an urge to smile.
"Your message mentioned a mission?" Heero asked at last. Une nodded to him, she should have expected the soldier to be the first to ask. She hated to keep them waiting but the information was important.
"Yes, we have gotten the order from up above to get someone inside their establishment, find out what they are planning, and then strike if necessary. This of course is to be done with the utmost of discretion."
"Who do you have in mind?" Quatre asked, his blue eyes narrowed. Une sighed, knowing this confrontation was going to come.
"Myself." Trowa said quietly, laying a hand on Quatre's arm. Une nodded brusquely.
"I know you are not fond of the idea, but we simply cannot trust anyone but our best infiltrator with this." Une smiled at Trowa. "You've fooled even me."
"There were times, you wanted to be fooled." Trowa replied. "I couldn't have otherwise."
"Are you all right with this?"
"Nimnu ryoukai." Trowa intoned quietly, nodding.
"So what are the rest of us here for?" Noin asked.
"To create the distraction necessary to get him in and enough chaos for a window of opportunity. We've attempted to infiltrate their organization several times, but with no results at all. They've screened applicants too well, and during normal times, they are very aware of exactly who their recruits are and what they look like."
"Duration?" Heero asked.
Une stood up and paced back to her desk. "This is not a long term mission. I wont expect you to be in for more than a day. Any longer and your own life will be at unacceptable risk. So you will have to be fast and efficient."
"Do we even know where to start?" Quatre asked in a voice laced with irritation. Displeasure was strongly evident on his face. He wouldn't question the orders, but he could make the fact that he didn't like them broadly apparent.
"Not yet, I was hoping to utilize all of your resources on the mat..."
"That I can help with." Duo spoke up, breaking his uncharacteristic silence.
Relena had sat, uncomfortable throughout the entire meeting. Hundreds of little things made her wish that she was somewhere, anywhere else. Just the presence of Zechs and Noin, two people who knew her, and everyone else, who knew Duo so well, together in the same room was enough to have her on edge, compiled that with them actually talking about her.
More than once she had squirmed with the urge to demand that they stop talking about her like she wasn't there, saved at the last moment by some distracting detail of the plans or her own instincts catching her.
So she had sat, trying not to attract attention, waiting for the conversation to turn to her advantage. That advantage came when Une stalled on where exactly the Devolution was headquartered. Karla was cautious in their conversations, but not always discreet.
"That I can help with." Relena said, leaping upon her chance to be useful and fulfill her promise to the three. Mentally, she concentrated, paying more attention to her mannerisms now that every gaze in the room was regarding her with scrutiny. "I know a bit of stuff 'bout them."
Relena ignored Heero and Quatre's uncomfortable and surprised stares, pushing on. "There's an old base bout fifty or so miles out of town, real secluded like, that was pretty much blown to bits during the war." Relena shrugged in what she figured was a close imitation of Duo's careless style. "There's a lot of activity there now."
"In which direction?" Noin asked, pulling down some maps from Une's desk. Relena leaned over the table, squinting at the unfamiliar lines and symbols, after a few minutes of puzzling, she pointed to a small black rectangle to the north-northeast of the city. "The Holt Air Base? That was turned to dust. I remember the reports on it."
"Seems there was plenty of space underground, they just built up from there." Relena answered, concentrating.
"How do you know this Duo?"
Relena blinked, not expecting to be questioned. Quickly her mind raced through all sorts of plausible answers. Finally she settled on a wide grin and a wink. "Ve have our veys."
This seemed to satisfy the director, who was used to Duo's unpredictablilty and had long suspected him of massive underground connections, but more than one pair of eyes stayed on her as she sunk back into her seat with a practiced flop.
Relena took another glance around, noting the expressions and dismissed the idea of telling them what she knew about Karla. Knowing about a military base is easily forgotten, but how could she explain Duo knowing intricate polical secrets?
Une suddenly turned all business as she and Noin quickly accessed and pulled up everything they could about the area and possible reconstruction lay outs.
/To deceive those so used to deceit? You are braver than I give you credit for, ojosan. How far will be too far I wonder./ The Jester asked, his voice strangely thoughtful.
/What do you mean?/
/Oh sweet interloper, where has that head floated off to, for your thoughts are obviously not here./ The Jester laughed. /You've made your bed, will you lay in it?/
Relena's confusion subsided into a numb sort of lightheaded panic as what exactly the Jester meant became apparent in Une's monolog.
"...emember Heero, MINIMUM casualties. Self destruction is NOT an option, but neither is being captured. Duo, you'll be with Heero, low grade explosives only, I don't want a repeat of the New York incident, we just want confusion, not total demolition. Otherwise, keep in position behind Heero and cover your groups movements. The usual sniper tactics only. No dramatics. Wufei I want you and Zechs to team up and head along the north wall to the grou..."
/Sniper... explosives.... they want me to shoot people??/ Amusement was her only answer.
/Have you forgotten the nature of the beast you play with?/
/I can't do this./
/Do you have a choice?/
Quatre sat through the rest of the meeting, part of his mind dutifully memorizing the plans, assessing the situation and the best strategy for contingency when something went wrong. Quatre had long since learned to expect that no matter how well formed the tactics were, something would not followed the carefully laid out execution.
The other half of his mind was overflowing with worry. He knew he was being foolish and overprotective, but this whole situation had him beyond jittery. On top of that, his suspicions about Duo seemed even stronger as each day passed.
He could hardly detect the "scents" we was accustomed to, not overpowered, but weak and in the background now, fading like potpourri left in the open too long. The new one, almost a lily sort of mental aroma, had taken deep seat.
So much at once. He resisted an urge to rub his temples as Une dismissed them, telling them abruptly that they have 5 hours to prepare, that speed, according to their sources was the essence. Everyone filled out of the room, preparing to leave as inconspicuously as they came. They would meet later before the mission in a more convenient spot.
Une grabbed Wufei's arm as he brushed past, intent on getting to his own office. She leaned close and said. "Oh and Wufei, Sally also had a message for you. I quote, 'If you don't get your ass home directly after this mission, I'm going to have every one of your katana's smelted and reforged into a gaudy floral arrangement.' end quote."
Quatre was already out the door, but his mind easily supplied the image of Wufei's eyelid twitching and face going red, as his ears picked up the matching growl of "OONNNAAA!" He wasn't sure which it was for, Sally or Une. He suspected that neither did Wufei.
Quatre muffled his own giggle, as humor dissolved, for the moment, his darker mood and worries. He slipped out of the room to located the departed Trowa. His mind was already running through all the interesting ways he could make up his behavior at the meeting to Trowa in five hours.
It was that lazy part of the afternoon, after the lunch rush but too early for dinner. There were few patrons in the small European cafe and most were outside on the patio, enjoying the cool breezes coming off the nearby lake.
Dorothy Catalonia sat alone at a grey latticework table in a seclude corner, shaded by two young, leafy trees. She was wearing a smooth, feminely cut slate grey pinstripe suit. Leaning back in her chair, and enjoying the way the cool breeze ruffled her golden hair. She was simply staring out over the lake, letting her thoughts drift while she waited.
Karla, no doubt, was observing her, Dorothy mused, with a mixture of irritation and affection. The woman was smart and cautious. She wouldn't approach until she knew that no one had followed Dorothy.
Still, Dorothy's long fingernails beat a steady cadence against the iron table, it wouldn't have hurt her to hurry up a little. Dorothy had things to attend to back at her manor, that could no longer be ignored in favor of her little hobbies.
Dorothy enjoyed these small meetings. At first she used them to gather information, or to poke at Karla, to push the fiery woman further along the Devolutionists path. Now she found herself attending merely because she enjoyed the company of the idealist. Still, she was always sure to bring an interesting tidbit or offer to keep the other woman appeased and unsuspicious.
At last, a short, stocky woman in a neat business suit ambled over to Dorothy's table. The mousy brunette had a newspaper tucked under one arm and a small glass of ice tea perched in the palm of her other hand.
Casually, the woman smiled and indicated the seat across from Dorothy. "Is this seat taken?"
"Of course not, my dear." Dorothy stood up and embraced the other woman, giving a brush of a kiss to each cheek, feeling a European greeting more appropriate to the surroundings.
"An interesting edition of the newspaper. You should read it." Karla puts down the newspaper, pointedly putting her glass of iced tea over the picture of Paul Lubbock. "But oddly, it wasn't the article I was expecting to see today."
Dorothy nodded. "Strange how those things turn out."
"Indeed." The other woman's face was impassive, much to Dorothy's displeasure. Karla was getting harder and harder to read these days at their impromptu meetings.
"Still," Dorothy said, coyly nibbling on the tip of one glossed fingernail. "They say that man saw everything. It must be fortunate for the Devolution that one of the nurses got sloppy."
"True, although there are those who are impatient."
"But not yourself?"
"No, not myself." Karla shook her head, her shoulder-length hair following the languid movement. "It doesn't really matter to me. There are more important things to attend to."
Dorothy nodded, running her finger along the rim of a glass. "I wonder though, about those you surround yourself with."
Karla shrugged. "They are useful I suppose. All of them have different ideals. Some wish for power. They are veterans of war and don't know how to stop fighting. The others, perhaps they follow Her too closely. They don't See the way the world is, but at least they honestly wish to change it."
"So you aren't completely blind." Dorothy surmised with a pleasant tone. Karla's eyes narrowed.
"No, far the opposite. There are times I see what the world doesn't wish to."
"Your theory of conflicts? That humans are cruel?" she asked with a touch of irony in her tone.
"In a way, we all knew that. Before we could even speak, we knew how to fight, how to hate and to hurt." Karla smiled, a bitter light in her eyes. "I just understand why."
"It still intrigues me. This common enemy. How will you keep yourself from becoming it yourselves?"
"This old topic? Dorothy you sound like a broken record."
"Then perhaps it is a point you should take note of."
"Perhaps. But I think more you are looking for information." Karla met Dorothy's eyes, watching the blond woman as in turn she was being watched. "You will see, when the rest of the world does. I enjoy your company Dorothy san, but as you were introduced to me at Relena's side, you must forgive me if I cannot always trust your motives."
"Forgiven naturally." Dorothy smiled. "You would be a fool otherwise, and I have little love for fools." After a thoughtful pause, she continued. "You do know that the Preventers will now likely take action?"
Karla nodded absently. "I know, but it doesn't matter much, they will focus on the wrong people, and our plans are nearly complete. Despite what the others say, nothing else but completion matters. Everything else that happens is aftershocks to the main event."
"And who would look twice at the secretary of the great Karla Grey?" Dorothy said.
"Someone did once." Karla replied, unconsciously digging in a bit of the thorn in Dorothy's side. That Relena made the observation first, while Dorothy concentrated on the motives of the puppet that the Devolution displayed as their leader. "I'm still amazed that Relena noticed. She is formidable."
"Oh quite." Dorothy admitted. "But, it seems hardly an issue now."
"Agreed." Karla looked down at her watch, as if she was just taking note of the time. "I should be getting back. Like you've mentioned, things are not going to be easy now."
"Then allow me a parting gift." Dorothy leaned over the coffee table and touched her lips to Karla's taking a chaste kiss from the other woman. Noting with pleasure how Karla's eyes slid shut just briefly, only to snap open with inner fire and outrage.
Dorothy purred to herself, turning to leave, leaving the bewildered woman behind at the table.
She always had a taste for idealists. It was a shame there wasn't more time.
Back at the table, Karla's eyes took on a thoughtful look, as she regained her cool exterior and called out to the other woman quietly before the blond was more than a few steps away. "One thing bewilders me though, which side ARE you on, Dorothy san? If you don't mind me asking."
"Side?" Dorothy paused, looking genuinely confused for a moment. "Oh, no side. I'm just a catalyst, an interested spectator if you will." She smiled to herself, enjoying that analogy.
"A spectator? Then I assume you'll be there when my plan comes to completion?"
"Of course." Dorothy gave a true, wistful smile. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."
TBC
Notes: Quotes from Poe this time and his poem, Spirits of the Dead. (Last chapter had quotes from Maid Quiet and The Mask both by Yeats, gomen, we forgot to mention that at the time. Credit where it's due.)
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