21-Mar-2006

Title: Launch 17/?
Author: TB
Archive: GWA and
http://www.geocities.com/brother_maxwell/TB_home_page.html
Category: yaoi
Pairing: 3x4
Disclaimer: The plot and characters of Gundam Wing are used here without permission or profit.
Notes: The Longhorn is an actual science ship in use today, not a navy ship. She is also my model for the IEO. The Longhorn in the story is an amalgamation of several types of navy ships. Coincidentally, dolphins are used by the navy to find and disarm ocean mines. The internet is a marvellous teaching tool.
Summary: Chapter 17: Quatre convinces Sally of his plan, and the Longhorn launches.

Launch 17/?

"Parada! Usted no puede entrar allí!"

"Oh," Quatre said, flushing at the security guard. "You see, we have permission-- I'm sorry, is there a manager or something--"

"Let me handle this," Sally advised him, unclipping her badge from her belt and calmly holding it out to the guard. "¿Etiende el inglés?" she asked the older man easily.

"Si," he said, "yes. Some." He squinted at her badge, but moved his hand away from his comm and the baton that hung next to it in a holster. "You are Preventers?"

"I'm Field Commander Water," Sally told him in that firm but relaxed voice. "This is Field Agent Firebrand. We're with the launch from the marina. We're going to the dolphin tanks now."

The man looked nervous, but he nodded his acceptance and stood aside for them. They weren't quite out of earshot when he started speaking rapidly in Spanish into his comm, but Sally didn't look back. "We tread on a lot of local toes in this business," Sally said to Quatre. "I don't begrudge them a little reassurance. But I don't let it slow me down, either."

"I think you just like waving the badge about," Quatre teased.

She grinned down at him. "Absolutely," she said. "Now, where are we going?"

"Doors to your left." It was a Sunday, and the tanks were supposed to be closed to the public, though Quatre saw a few staff members lurking as they passed back into the sunlight outdoors. No-one moved to stop them again, and Quatre surmised that word of their presence had spread-- that, or the staff recognised their uniforms more quickly than the security had. It still felt strange to him to be wearing one, and the shoulder and hip holsters he wore beneath his jacket were always surprising him if he moved too quickly. He hadn't worn them often during the war-- he'd spent the majority of his time then trying to look like an innocent teenager, and guns hadn't done him much good inside Sandrock.

"There," he said briefly, pointing toward the restricted-access stairwell that would take them to the training tanks. There were no sounds in the dolphin area, but somehow he wasn't worried. A sense of presence nibbled at the edges of his awareness, like a nearby smell that was familiar. What he was worried about was how to go about phrasing his-- request. He hadn't lied when he'd said that he'd understood Albert that night, but Albert had been doing most of the talking-- thinking-- communicating. Quatre had merely agreed, and trusted. And he had always been the one to receive emotions, never, to his knowledge, projecting them to others the way they did to him. He unhooked the chain strung across the stairwell door, and gestured Sally to proceed him. The stairs were little more than steps to bring them up two metres higher than the viewports. They stood level with the ocean when they emerged, onto the same portico where he had first met Kathleen Ehrlich. The changing rooms and equipment sheds were empty, there were no conversations carried on in bright Spanish voices, and the surface of the tank was a healthy brackish green-- but still no sign of dolphin fins.

"Well?" Sally asked him, leaning on the rubber-padded railing that ran the edge of the tank at waist-height. Waist-height on her, anyway.

Quatre shed his jacket, dropping it on one of the benches behind him, and approached the rail with a confidence he didn't feel. After a moment, he dipped his hand into the water, finding it colder just below the surface where the sun had warmed it. On an impulse, he plunged both arms in up to the elbow, watching the disappear into the murky water.

Albert, he tried, flinging the thought out there. As soon as he did it he felt ridiculous. Albert wasn't really the dolphin's name, after all; it had been given to him by humans. He remembered what Albert had called him, when they'd met again at the tank with Duo. He amended it with a smile, and tried gain.

Big-friend? Big-friend, are you there?

Nothing was happening. He tried not to think about what he must look like to Sally. He leaned a little further into the water, until it began to soak the short sleeves of his shirt. Big-friend! he called. Big-friend, I need you. Please answer.

It hit him like an electric shock, and he reeled away from the water with a gasp, splashing all over himself as he tried to wrap his chest within the safety of his arms. His heart was thumping wildly.

"Quatre?" Sally demanded, coming to his side. "What happened?"

"I think he heard me," Quatre told her weakly. "It's-- never felt like that before. With him." Actually, it felt a great deal like it had when Heero had self-destructed that awful day five years ago. He shook his head to clear it, and forced himself to lower his arms and relax his shoulders. "Water," he said.

Sally's thin eyebrows climbed. "Excuse me?"

"Water," he tried to explain. "Well-- it is a conductor. Especially salt water."

She was staring at him. "I don't know if I'm just getting used to you," she said at last, "but I think that made sense." He grinned at her shakily. "So... Albert's coming?" she asked a moment later.

"Yes. He was nearby. They were eating." The taste of raw fish was suddenly in his mouth, and he had to fight off a sensation of triumph and fierce enjoyment that he knew didn't come from himself. "He was with Camus, I think. Silly-friend."

"Silly friend?" Sally repeated curiously, guiding him over to a bench. He gave her no resistance, though he did try to sluice the water from his arms as he sat. "Silly-friend," he confirmed. "I'm little-friend... sort of. Albert is an older dolphin, a bit of leader. He and Camus were caught by fishers and injured. They were both brought here for recovery. They've stayed together since."

"You make them sound a little-- well, human," Sally said, watching him closely.

"They are," he shrugged. "But they're not. They're more open in some ways, but his thoughts..." Quatre trailed off. "They're like impressions," he decided at last. "Layers and layers of impressions, but with meaning."

She looked fascinated despite herself. But she managed to tamp it down, and the mask he was starting to think of as Agent Water came down over her genial features. "It's interesting, but it's not quite what we meant by "proof,'" she told him. "And we're losing time."

He was saved from answering as they were hailed by a high-pitched whistle. Quatre stood again, and Sally was only a beat behind him as a pair of dorsal fins came arcing through the water, appearing and disappearing and coming ever closer. When they reached the tank, Quatre was already at the railing, putting his hands back in the water. Camus performed a beautiful jump for them, chittering happily as he landed broad-side on the surface and showered them with sparkling water-drops. Sally blinked, but then she laughed, and brushed off her face.

Albert came sedately to the rail, sticking his head out of the water and floating close enough to accept Quatre's eager hands. Quatre took several moments to stroke over Albert's blunt nose and wet hide, re-establishing their physical connection before attempting to speak to the dolphin again. Big-friend, he whispered between them, rubbing the sensitive zone where Albert's snout joined his forehead.

Albert whistled, and spat a small stream of water at him playfully. Quatre laughed as it doused his trousers. "I might as well have gotten in the tank, huh," he said aloud. But then he sobered. Without thinking about it, he grabbed Sally's hand, and brought her close enough to touch Albert's head. She gasped slightly as he planted her hand above Albert's eye.

"This is Sally," he said to Albert, reinforcing it with the first images of Sally that came to his mind-- Sally gazing at him with amusement and concern in the cafeteria. Sally hovering protectively over Duo on the plane when her younger partner wasn't watching her. Sally turning her face up to the warm Dorada sun when she stepped off the plane, her eyes sliding closed and the tension leaking out of her for just a moment. We can trust her, he tried to explain, not sure if he was really conveying that. She's a friend, too.

Albert seemed to accept that. He bobbed his head under water, pulling away from their hands. But he was back a moment later, content to just hover at the rail, close enough for Quatre to reach him if he wanted to. Quatre decided to hold back for a moment, just letting his hands dangle in the water as he leaned on the rail. Sally was right; he had to find a way to ask what he needed. And there was no sure way to go about it.

He let the sun on the back of his head seep a little deeper into him. He let his eyes close, and focused on the sensation of his hands floating in the little waves of the tank, his fingers loose, his palms caressed. He let the feelings from the past day out of the box he'd been holding them in.

The hurt. The betrayal. The anger, and the helplessness. His determination to make it right. The part of him that was absolutely sure that they would succeed because they had to, because they had before. His fear that they would fail.

He was aware of Camus coming closer, of Albert's quiet listening. He let them see the IEO, his love for the people on board. His constant battle to make Ehrlich accept him, his new hesitance with Mostyn who thought of him as a child in need of protection. He let them see his first sunrise on the IEO, feel the chilly breeze as he had felt it, raising gooseflesh on his arms and neck and tearing his eyes as dusky blue became orange and pink, as the last of the stars faded from sight and dawn brought another light to the world.

He knew distantly that there were tears on his face, but it seemed very far away.

When he had shown them all of him, he felt strangely empty, but cleansed. And they returned everything he had given with gentle affection and acceptance.

I need you, he told them. Something only we can do. Something I think I must do.

Small-friend, Albert said, and that was enough.

Quatre opened his eyes. And found himself lying on his back on the concrete, with Sally Po leaning over him, worry and awe mixed on her face and his jacket bundled beneath his head.

"Thank God," she said when she saw him looking. She released his wrist, taking his pulse. "You just sank to your knees, and then you fell over. As if you were in a-- a trance."

His hands still felt like they were in the water. He had to look to be sure, but though the sensation faded, it didn't go away. He rolled his head to his right, and found two dolphin heads floating just behind the glass, unblinking eyes waiting for his gaze.

He sighed, and sat up on his elbows. "I'm going to need some gear," he said. He had to squint to see her, framed by the sun at her back. "If you agree?"

She released a long-held breath and sat back on her heels. "My head tells me I shouldn't," she told him frankly. "But... shit," she added, sounding so like Duo suddenly that Quatre couldn't help the genuine grin that spread over his face. To his surprise, she returned it, only a little reluctantly.

"Let's find that gear, then," she said. "And figure out how to get your dolphins on the ship."

The Marina had offered-- reluctantly-- the use of temporary transportation enclosures. With the help of a few staff and three agents, Quatre supervised loading the dolphins onto the Longhorn's lower well-deck. The enclosure was little more than a converted life-raft filled with water and two surprisingly patient mammals; Quatre himself was anxious, aware that they were getting close to their launch and that any delay he caused would be incredibly detrimental. Sally had disappeared to the bridge to take over last-minute preparations with the crew, and the three agents who had been assigned to help him seemed content to give him odd looks and not question his last-minute addition to the plans.

Duo made an appearance just as Quatre directed his team of five to points on all sides of the enclosure, so they could push and pull it over the sill and off the wet deck for the duration of their journey. He had clambered inside the enclosure itself, on his knees between the two dolphins, so he could drape them with wet blankets and keep them calm during the bumpy ride. Duo wore an odd expression when, huffing and puffing, they finally got the enclosure stabilised and strapped down inside. Quatre tossed him a lopsided smile, and announced, "We're good to go."

"So is my better judgement," Duo muttered. He rubbed a hand over his braid at the back of his neck. "Johnson, Tutura, go get dried off and suited up. Gryffydd, what are you doing down here?"

"Switched with Levy, sir," the one named Gryffydd said. He was perhaps ten years older than them, sweating profusely and thoroughly soaked from the waist down, but he was grinning like a toddler with a treat. "Always wanted to work with dolphins."

Quatre laughed at that, though Duo grimaced at him. "Stop seducing my bomb squad," Duo complained. But he was tentatively reaching out himself, before he noticed what his hand was doing and snatched it back. He took a cautious step backward. "T minus three minutes," he added. "Let's get that gate up so we can leave." He nodded to the marina staff, and said, "Thanks for your help. I've already alerted HQ about your expenses, and you'll receive compensation shortly."

A young woman who was one of the dolphin trainers answered in accented but clear English, "If our dolphins help to save the world, that is payment enough!" She blushed quickly, though, and she and her partner hurried back to the edge of the wet deck and the dive boat they'd used to tug the enclosure to the Longhorn. Within seconds, they had the motor running. The girl waved once before they sped out of sight.

"Save the world," Duo muttered. "They're optimistic down here."

"I thought you had a good feeling?" Quatre asked, snagging the hose from the wall and turning it on to a gentle stream, carefully spraying down Camus, who looked driest. Duo looked up at him, and slowly his grin returned.

"Yeah," he said. "I do. And from the look of it, you do too. I thought in the plane-- well, you didn't look like you do now. I think you believe it, now."

Quatre smiled at him. "I do," he agreed. He licked his lips, and reached for Duo's hand. Duo let him take it, and he squeezed hard. He hadn't tried it on a person yet, but he let himself open to Duo the way he had to Albert and Camus.

"Tickles," Duo commented, blinking.

Quatre let him go. "Sorry. I guess I don't know quite what I'm doing." He didn't miss the way Duo touched his chest, as if it hurt. Then Duo leaned down and hugged him quickly about the neck.

"You do," he said. "I love you too."

End Part 17

(:./erin/launch17)