Warnings: yaoi, lime, AU, language
Notes: The first bit is a letter from Quatre to Trowa; it is purely a plot
device intended to give you, the reader, a sense of time passage. It was
honestly the best I could come up with, and I apologise for the clumsiness
of it. But I hacked and hacked at the block that stood between me and plot
acceleration, and that's what emerged. -_-; Gomen!
Dear Trowa;
I was so very glad to hear about Catherine's new engagement! I'm so sorry I wasn't able to make the party, but I swear I've cleared my schedule for a week so that I can make it to the wedding. She's not wasting time with this one, is she? Good for her. Give her a kiss for me, and my warmest congratulations.
Duo has asked me to say hello to you. He was so pleased with that tape of music you sent for him. 'It's so wonderful that he's followed his music,' was what he said. He listens to it constantly. At first I honestly couldn't think why he was so surprised to hear that you'd been directing the College of Music at Cambridge for years--then I remembered, of course, he's been out of touch! Oh, Trowa, there are days when I forget that we believed he was dead for so many years... I can barely process that it's already been a month since I was told he was alive, alive and coming to me. And he's practically a permanent feature here, Trowa, you should see him--him and Mariemaia, dear Marie, his shadow. Trowa, I wish you were here with us.
Unfortunately, I'm on the run, so I have to wind this letter up now. My love to Catherine. My love to you! Treize sends his regards. Give mine to the Queen when you see her at your concert tomorrow.
Fondly, Quatre R. Winner
"I can't believe you did this without telling me!" Quatre cried, banging a hand onto the table. "In my own house!"
Treize scowled. "Can't you understand *why*?" he demanded, matching Quatre's fury and then some. "It isn't the sort of question one puts to a young lady held prisoner for the majority of her young and ignorant life! 'Excuse me, there's a dove, might I have a bit of your DNA? Ignore my status within the very organisation which you view as the epitome of all evil. I swear I won't misuse you again!'"
"But to go behind her back--behind mine--damn it all, Treize." Quatre sighed heavily and slumped into a chair. "Though it's just as well you *didn't* ask," he added. "Neither one of them would have allowed it--or forgiven you for it. I'm not sure yet that *I* do."
Treize stood behind the distressed Arabian, and laid his hands on Quatre's shoulders. "I had to know, my dear. I had to know if I had let that child rot away in a prison cell in those ungodly conditions... I had to know if that child was mine."
"Does that make a difference?" Quatre asked bitterly. "She still lived all her life in that 'ungodly' camp, and ultimately, it's still your fault."
Treize, perhaps hurt, let his hands fall from Quatre's shoulders. He stepped away, loosely linked his hands behind his back, and outwardly seemed relaxed as ever. But the blonde man could guess at the expression sure to be seen in those cornflower eyes, and he winced.
"I'm sorry," he said, his voice very small and quiet.
Now it was Treize who sighed, and turned. "Don't speak too soon, my dear," he replied.
"Anything else for you, sir?" the waiter asked, as he paused by Duo's table.
Duo nodded. "A beer, please. Whatever the house brand is." He felt in his pocket, and slid a small plastic card up beside his fork--Quatre's credit number. A hand came down on top of his, and pushed it back towards his pocket.
"Make that a wine," a new voice interposed, from far above Duo's head. "Red, your best vintage. A full bottle."
"Of course, sir," said the waiter, and left.
"Thank you," Duo murmured slowly, replacing the card. "May I ask whom I have the pleasure of drinking with?"
"A friend," the low, cultured voice replied. It's owner settled across from him in his little booth. "Possibly a very good friend."
"And what name should I call you by?"
"The name," the stranger said, leaning slightly toward him, "is Zechs Merquise."
It may have been nearly two decades since Duo had heard that name, but instincts that had dulled over all those years suddenly sharpened and told him exactly how this odd meeting would play out. Unknowingly, Duo's expression tightened. He wasn't having any of it. Not anymore.
"I'm not interested," he said.
There was a slight pause; clearly, whatever answer Zechs had been anticipating, that had not been it. But he recovered very quickly, and leaned forward. "Don't you want to hear the proposition before you decline it?"
"No," Duo retorted. He tapped two fingers on the tabletop, hard. "I'm not in a position to help you in any way, and I don't want any of the kind of help *you* could give *me*." All he wanted, period, was a quiet dinner. Alone.
Zechs Merquise's voice was intense, if very quiet. Long hair brushed across Duo's hand as he leaned in even farther, making Duo jump. "But you are, Mr. Maxwell, and you do," he whispered. "Don't be so quick to discount me--or who I represent. I presume you know who that is?"
A little alarmed by the way he couldn't seem to shake the man, Duo drew back and actually reached for the gun he hadn't worn in seventeen years. "I could guess," he muttered.
"Let me make it easy for you." The wine arrived, and for a moment Zechs paused, took a brief sip, waited impatiently for the waiter to leave. "My organisation is called 'White Fang'. We have resisted the rule of the World Nation--of OZ--in Space long before the war even ended. But people are growing complacent. Peace has been achieved, with the exception of what trouble rebels like us can stir up. No one gives a damn about freedom if they have their security."
Duo was trying very, very hard not to listen. But he couldn't help it. How many times in his brief life as a Gundam pilot had he made that very same argument? It was as if the past was falling away, and he was fifteen again--frustrated, tired, alone, repeating himself one time too many to deaf ears. He sighed.
"Go on."
Zechs was relieved. "Not here," he said, relaxing. Duo heard his teeth clink against his wine glass as he drank--a heavy gulp, not a gentlemanly sip. The Lightning Count had been nervous. "Romafeller has spies everywhere. If I give you a place to meet me, will you come?"
Slowly he nodded.
"Then do so." Zechs stood, and tossed back the rest of his glass. "Enjoy the wine. My treat. Consider it a toast... to a new ally."
"Don't count your chickens until they're plucked," Duo replied cooly.
Zechs laughed softly. "Maybe I'm just that sure of my cause, 02."
It gave him a shock, hearing his old identification after a month of hearing his name.
Zechs bent and brushed his lips over Duo's cheek; but the kiss was only a decoy, to conceal the whispered address that Duo knew he would visit before too long. Then Zechs was gone, and Duo was alone with a bottle of alcohol he didn't favour and a slice of apple pie that had gone cold.
Mariemaia met him in his room when he returned to the Winner estate. She shyly dismissed Duo's ever-courteous escort; then she took in the minute tightness of Duo's mouth and the almost unnoticeable contraction of his feathery eyebrows, and she paused.
"All right," she said. "What's up?"
"'39," he replied, lifting gentle fingers to her cheek. "Marie... get your coat, pet. We have somewhere to be."
End Part 6
(:./erin/20years6)
