30-Oct-2004
Title: Mirage
Author: Muffie
Rating: R
Genre: War
Warnings: Post EW, Angst, Violence, yaoi, sex, bad language, assumes OAV as canon
Spoilers: Most likely
Pairings:?
Archive: gwa, all others ask first
Notes: I would like to send out much love and thanks to sil for the perceptive and well-considered beta-ing the story. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the proofreading, the opinions, and the fact that I adore my beta who doesn't blow sunshine up my ass. Expect slow updates because I'm taking my time on this one.
Brussels, Earth
Relena didn't know quite what she expected when a servant ushered her to a private patio that overlooked a rolling expanse of garden and the verge of the sparkling River Senne. Considering Heero's recent, semi-panicked--for Heero--communications with her, she had wondered if Quatre would be a bit unstable.
Quatre stood, smiling gently, and took her hand in both of his. "Relena, I don't see you often enough anymore. Wufei will be here in a few moments, he had some things to finish up at Preventers."
She smiled, a bit tightly, and settled into a chair that he pulled out for her. "How are you, Quatre? I don't mean to pry, but I've heard things and I do consider you my friend."
Quatre paused in the act of reaching for his cup of tea. "Heard things?"
She blushed and looked at her fingers. "I'm afraid that Heero has debriefed me."
"Debriefed?"
"To put it delicately, Heero sent me a detailed mission report shortly after the incident last Christmas." She smoothed at the napkin folded on the table in front of her. "It's been a few years since he's sent me mission reports. I had hoped he'd... nevermind."
"How detailed was this report?"
She blushed again. "Let's just say that Heero wasn't the least bit discrete and pretend it never happened. I'm more concerned about you at the moment. I hate to see anyone hurting, most especially dear friends. From what Heero has reported recently, the only pilots still on speaking terms are you and Wufei."
Quatre's brow furrowed. "He hasn't found Maxwell, then."
"No, he hasn't."
He sipped his tea and considered her slowly. "Do you know where Heero is?"
Something, perhaps his tone or perhaps the guarded cant of his eyes, suddenly made her very nervous. It had her thinking that perhaps Heero's take on his colleagues might be more factual than either of them wished it would be. "No, I don't." Even if she did, she couldn't tell him and she decidedly didn't like that feeling. Not with Quatre.
Quatre sighed and set the teacup on its saucer with a quiet clink of fine china. He smiled, a bit wryly. "You wouldn't tell me if you did, I don't suppose. Heero and I didn't exactly part on the best of terms."
She nodded slowly. "So I've heard. You still believe that Duo is responsible?"
Something fiery flashed in his sea-blue eyes. "There is no one else that could have done it."
"Perhaps there was some mistake?"
He sighed. "No, Miss Relena, there wasn't. At that time of night, the only people on the premises were Trowa, Maxwell, and a few Maganacs. The only people who had opportunity were Trowa and Maxwell and the only one with motive was Maxwell."
"But--"
"We checked everything. Nothing unusual appeared on the security logs or video. The wine was from my own cellar and Rashid had delivered it, unopened at Maxwell's request."
She shook her head, frowning. "But why would he do such a thing? I don't understand. I'd always thought Duo was too fiercely loyal to all of you to do something like that."
"I'd thought that, too. Once." He frowned, gently tapping his finger against the rim of his saucer. "Duo is in love with Trowa. I've always known that, but I thought he was my friend. I thought I could trust him. And then he did that. I could have eventually forgiven him if he'd simply tried to seduce Trowa, even if he'd succeeded, but to drug--" He broke off with a shake of his head, dropping his hands to his lap where they curled into fists. "He's basically a good person, I think. He grew up on the streets without anyone to teach him anything about morality or honor. He had to learn what he could on his own and that is, no doubt, the reason why he was able to drug Trowa. Maybe I'm just making excuses because I don't want to believe that Maxwell would do such a thing."
Wufei stepped on the porch. "What's this about Maxwell?" He nodded to Relena. "Minister."
"Hello, Wufei. We were just discussing last Christmas." She offered him a brief, reassuring smile. "I'm afraid that I've only had Heero's version of events."
Wufei scowled and sat down in the chair next to Quatre's. "Yuy had no business discussing this with anyone. It's a personal matter."
Quatre put a hand on Wufei's forearm and squeezed gently. "It's all right, Wufei."
Wufei huffed a bit, but nodded and busied himself with a carafe of orange juice and a glass.
"Now that Wufei is here, perhaps we should get down to the reason you requested this meeting, Relena?"
She folded her hands in her lap and met his eyes. "Lady Une is requesting the construction of more Taurus suits."
Quatre frowned instantly.
Wufei grunted and helped himself to a dish of diced summer fruit. "So approve it. Commander Une wouldn't ask without good reason."
"It's not quite that simple, Wufei. The Preventers have twenty Taurus suits now and other than training exercises, they're never used. Lady Une will not give me a reason that I can use to approve them. All I know is that she's found something that doesn't bode well for the peace." She frowned and twined her fingers together to keep from shoving them through her hair. "Right now there is something of a battle going on in the Senate. For the past two years, ENSO events have caused a drought in the parts of the Americas that aren't flooding, the Pacific Basin, and most of Africa. Asian and European regions have been too dry as well. The colonies have done well to rebuild a lot of the agriculture that they'd lost during the war, but they're still heavily dependant on Earth imports to feed everyone. Several senators from the colonies are convinced that Earth nations are lying about the drought and withholding food to drive prices up. Some of the Earth nations are accusing the colonies of either mismanaging their agriculture systems or lying about their needs to get cheap, subsidized food. The Ministry of Oceans and Atmosphere is predicting that next year will be another El Nino year."
"And in the middle of all of this, the Preventers want more mobile suits." Wufei observed. "The colonies could then justifiably call such a thing an escalation toward military domination, as the Alliance had done."
"Precisely."
Wufei shrugged. "Then don't approve the construction of the suits. Commander Une is not stupid."
"No, she's not," Quatre said thoughtfully. "I'm sure she's aware of what's happening in the Senate."
Relena nodded. "My office keeps her as informed as possible."
"She knows what sort of impact a request would make. I don't think she's like Treize, but--"
"She's not! I trust Une completely. She's as dedicated to preserving the peace as I am and even more objective. She has no leanings toward either Earth or Colony, only that there is peace and prosperity for everyone!"
"I apologize, Relena," Quatre said gently. "I did not mean to insult Lady Une. I'm looking at all of the possibilities."
She pulled the napkin to her lap, just to have something to squeeze. "She wouldn't ask without good reason and that alone is enough for me to approve her request, but we can't afford to escalate the situation into something that might start an arms race. That can only end in disaster."
"I understand your position, Relena, but I don't understand why you've come to us. I don't have a diplomatic seat and Wufei is a Preventer. Though I am, frankly, concerned about this request for more mobile suits."
"I was hoping that you might have some suggestions. Or perhaps you knew something that I didn't that I could use to calm the situation down." She smiled softly at the river in the distance. "It's silly, but I've always considered you pilots as sort of my Knights of the Round Table. With your support, there is nothing I can't accomplish. I've always had Heero, and then Duo, but now... ." She shook her head.
Wufei frowned at the center of the table. "I do know... things. I can't speak of them, but I can say that Commander Une is justifiably nervous."
How much could she trust them? Relena wrung the napkin in her fingers until her knuckles turned white. No, this was Quatre and Wufei. They were her friends, the only friends that she could count on at the moment. Quatre, in particular, would help her any way he could. She knew he would. At least she dearly hoped they were still friends. "Do you know why Une went to Prague?"
Quatre's tea cup shattered on the bricks and Wufei sucked in a heavy breath. "You are sure she went to Prague?"
She twisted the napkin until her fingers ached.
"Trowa. Trowa is in Prague." Quatre bolted from his chair and into the depths of his house.
Wufei glared at her. "Tell me everything you know about this."
She stared at him for a moment, wide-eyed, before forcibly collecting herself. This was Wufei. You treated him in the same manner in which you treated a large, junk-yard dog. You showed neither fear nor submission or he wouldn't respect you. "Not much. She borrowed my private shuttle two days ago and returned several hours later. This is in strictest confidence Wufei."
The dirty look he momentarily speared her with gave her the distinct feeling that he still saw her as that annoying girl in pink wailing for her unrequited crush. She smiled sweetly at him and his dirty look turned suspicious. She laughed; she couldn't help it. Duo had been right. React in a way Wufei doesn't expect and it would throw him off balance. His dirty look was impatient this time and said, quite plainly, that if she'd been an enemy, he would have skewered her. "I see nothing amusing in our present situation, Minister."
She chuckled. "Neither do I."
He grunted in a manner that could mean anything. "She went alone to Prague?"
"I don't know. I'm not sure precisely how long she was gone."
"What reason did she give?"
She shook her head. "She didn't."
He narrowed his eyes. "What did she say?"
"She called me and said, 'I need your shuttle.' I agreed, we hung up, and I had it prepared. The flight plan she filed was for Prague and the fuel consumed agrees with that conclusion."
Wufei gaped at her in a way that had to be exaggerated. "You just let her take your shuttle with no questions asked? She may not have gone to Prague, she could have gone anywhere."
She fixed him with a frosty glare. "I trust Lady Une." Her tone said, quite clearly, I am not like you.
"It's possible she--"
She held up her hand. "No, Wufei. I trust Lady Une to do what's right. Just like I trust you to do what's right."
Wufei glared at her, then looked away. Quatre slipped back into his seat and stared distractedly toward the river. Wufei frowned gently, if a frown could ever be considered gentle. "Quatre?"
"I managed to speak with Cathy. Une spoke to him for about five minutes, then left. She doesn't know what it was about. Thirty minutes after that, he was gone and she doesn't know where he went, only that he promised to come back to her."
Wufei leaned a bit closer to Quatre. "I'm sure he'll be fine. Commander Une has him doing a few missions every year."
"But not like this! She always calls him in. And I'm always there as his backup. This is wrong, Wufei, I can feel it."
Wufei leaned closer to Quatre and smiled, just a little. Their eyes met and Relena suddenly felt like a voyeur. It wasn't a comfortable feeling. "Barton is a very capable man, Quatre. He'll be fine for now."
"We have to do something."
Wufei nodded curtly. "And we will. Right now we must concern ourselves with these new mobile suits the Commander is requesting."
Quatre frowned again and picked at his napkin. "It would be for the best if you didn't approve her request at this time, Relena. Perhaps later, if she can provide you with adequate reason."
She sighed regretfully. "That was my conclusion though I had hoped to accommodate her."
Quatre tapped his chin. "I'm not sure you should simply because she asks. I understand that you trust her, however that doesn't mean that she's always right in the decisions that she makes." He smiled sheepishly. "No one is, not even me. Lady Une was trained to deal with conflict through intimidation and dominance rather than diplomacy. If she sees a threat, she's going to try to out-gun it even if the threat is nothing more than a dispute about the price of commodities."
Wufei stared at Quatre thoughtfully. "True."
"It also concerns me that she borrowed your shuttle to contact Trowa. Why didn't she take a commercial flight or a Preventer shuttle? It would have been nothing for her to have one of her subordinates rent a shuttle. Why yours, particularly since it's not the least bit discreet to be running around in the Queen of the World's shuttle?" Quatre poured hot water into his tea cup and slipped in a tea ball. "Why does she want you associated with her trip to Prague? If you assume someone was tracking her movements, why would she want you associated with Trowa?"
She leaned back in her chair, ignoring the whispers in her head that such lack of posture was unsuitable for a lady of her station. "Possibly because it's no secret that I am a patron of Trowa's circus. I believe Duo calls it hiding in plain sight."
"Visiting a circus performer in another city for five minutes is typical behavior for you?"
"No."
"The question still remains. Why was Une associating you with Prague when she didn't have to? I have to wonder what Trowa's place is in--"
For a moment, she thought a rose button had blossomed on Quatre's chest by the hand of a mischievous djinni. It was dark and red and didn't belong there and that was the only explanation she wanted. His entire body arched into it and his words strangled themselves off in the crack of a distant rifle. Then she was hitting the ground and Wufei was on top her, the table tipping over, and something was splattering on the brick wall behind them, sending fragments of brick stinging into the backs of her hands. The ricochet and the breaking glass sounded horribly muted while Quatre's struggling breath and choked moans reverberated through her head like screams. Flinching with each ear-shattering report from a nearby pistol and Wufei's enraged shouting, she crawled over to Quatre and eased him onto his back. There was blood everywhere; it was all over everything. His linen shirt had turned into a grotesque caricature of Howard's cheerful Hawaiian attire. It wasn't until something like steel bands wrapped around her waist and hauled her backward, into the house, that she realized that Quatre had been shot and the red on her hands was his blood. It wasn't until someone slapped her that she realized that she was screaming.
Three hours later, she huddled in a corner of a couch in a well-appointed hospital waiting room. Une settled in next to her and pressed a steaming cup into her hands. She blinked at it, curling her frozen fingers around the warm ceramic. It was a cheerful looking mug with a child's rendition of a box house with an oversized chimney, a sun, a wavy green line of grass, and four stick figures that stood as tall as the roof. On the back of the mug, where her finger tips rested, the person who had drawn the lines had written Erf Sfeer's Gratest Mommy. She put the house with its happy family to her forehead and tried very hard not to burst into tears.
"Drink, Relena," Une ordered. Mariemaia called it her Drill Instructor Mom voice. Relena sipped at the steaming liquid; it proved to be hot chocolate. Mariemaia was at that age where she rebelliousness and a sense of powerful invincibility lent her enough lack of fear to defy Drill Instructor Mom. "All of it."
"Quatre?"
"In surgery."
She peeked up, but Une refused to look at her. "Did they say what his chances are?"
Une's eyes squeezed shut and her lips pinched together, then she sighed. "They aren't very good. The left lung collapsed and they think that bullet caught part of his heart. His sisters are on their way. Iria will be here shortly."
She sipped more of the hot chocolate and closed her eyes. Feeling was starting to come back into the numbed parts of her body and her thoughts were starting to move less sluggishly. "Where is Wufei?"
Une's hands curled into fists until the knuckles turned white. "He's after the shooter."
Relena wasn't that out of it, not to notice the flat tone of voice. "What aren't you telling me?"
"I'd rather not say."
"Don't give me that," she snapped.
Une slanted her a look, frowning. "Gossiping about wild allegations will not help the situation."
"They're not that wild if they bother you that much."
The frown deepened. "It's not the allegations that disturb me, it's the inevitable trouble that will come from it."
"Will, not might."
Une relaxed her fingers and looked down at the floor.
Gently, Relena set her fingers on Une's sleeve. "It's me. Remember?"
Une met her eyes then, the hard brown boring into her until it felt as if every layer of her character had been sloughed away until nothing was left but her inner weaknesses. Une returned the squeeze with a little smile that softened her eyes. It was distinctly possible that she and Mariemaia were the only ones privileged enough to see the lurking gentleness. "Chang apparently believes that the shooter is Maxwell."
Her mouth dropped open. "But, but, that's impossible! Duo would never... ."
"There is no proof. Chang was shouting at the shooter as if he were truly Maxwell and Rashid Kurama verified that he did see a brown braid and that the shooter was the proper height and build to be Maxwell, but he couldn't provide a positive identification."
Relena frowned.
Une squeezed her eyes shut and unbent enough to massage at her temples with delicate strokes of her elegant fingertips. "It doesn't make sense. Maxwell prefers head shots and he wouldn't have missed if he would have even used a rifle. He uses other methods. It isn't like him to be careless enough to be seen either."
A flash of brilliant purple rolled through Relena. She could still see him, sliding to a halt, gun raised and obscuring the lower half of his face, his braid flying, backlit by the lavender sunset, and those eyes. She shivered and huddled over the mug. Heero had his own gun pointed at her and a glaring look of determination in his eyes. She'd known he'd never hurt her. She'd never been afraid of him. Duo, though, a half of a heartbeat looking into those eyes had terrified her. She knew he was a killer just as surely as she knew Heero was her white knight. Even now, Duo could still scare her with a grin and those eyes while nothing Heero ever did could do the same.
Relena took a deep, chocolate-scented breath, and then another. "No, Duo would never do that, not without reason." She squeezed her eyes shut. "He might have had a reason."
"He has gone to ground." Une's thoughtful tone brought back the image of Duo shooting Heero.
"So he might...?"
"He might have had opportun--" Une cut herself off with a shake of her head. "No. Are you staying, Relena?"
She clutched the mug tightly and let the abrupt change of subject go. "Yes, I want to see Quatre's sisters. You?"
"Chang will eventually turn up here. Someone must put a leash on him before he does any damage."
"Oh boy." Relena didn't envy Une her job.
Une smiled wryly. "Quite."
Silence filled their little corner of the waiting room then and Relena found it oddly comfortable considering the circumstances. She let the remains of the chocolate cool the mug in her hands and listened to her own breathing.
"Commander Une. Miss Peacecraft." Iria Winner. Several women flowed into the waiting room behind her, taking up positions on various furniture clusters in little groups. Their movements bore the testimony of long experience with waiting. Iria settled a chair across from Une and sat, her back straight and her hands folded pleasantly in her lap. "Commander. You know precisely where all the gundam pilots are at any given point in time. When do you expect to have Duo Maxwell in custody?"
Relena wanted to slap her. Une met Iria's eyes coolly. "The shooter has yet to be identified, Ms. Winner."
"Where is Maxwell?"
"The Preventers are doing everything possible to catch the shooter."
Iria smiled in a less than friendly way. "I am aware of that. I've spoken with Wufei a few minutes ago. I want to know what you are doing about Maxwell. I am well aware of how you protect the pilots."
"I do not answer to you."
Iria's smile turned shark-like. "I control WEI when Quatre is unable to do so."
Une lifted her chin minutely. "I do not respond to threats, Ms. Winner; however, since you are so intent on your bone, Maxwell hasn't been on Earth for quite some time. He's had no opportunity to shoot Winner."
Iria's smile faltered.
Relena blinked, feeling the ground suddenly tilt beneath her.
Une lied.
Silly. It was silly of her to feel so... disappointed. Everyone lied. Even Duo Maxwell deceived people whether he wanted to split hairs about exactly how true his words were. She specifically did not ask Une certain questions because she knew Une would then have to lie to her. Une's position traded in secrecy and she trusted Une to do right with those secrets. But she'd never caught her in a lie before and to do so, particularly now, it shook her.
End Part 3
(:./muffie/mirage3)
