Inspired in part by the screenplay, "The Sixth Sense" written by N. Night Shyamalan)
DISCLAIMER: All Gundam Wing characters are property of Sunrise, Bandai Visuals, Sotsu Agency, and Asahi TV. This work is not written for profit, but for entertainment purposes only.
Author's Note: Pussycat, Pussycat takes place in London, England. Zechs and Duo have come their from a vacation on the Spanish Island of Majorca. This fic follows The Mysterious Affair at Victoria and Ice Cream in the Two For the Road series.
Also, I have Relena calling Zechs, "brother" in this fic, matching her name for him in the series. (It's odd but I don't think she ever calls him "Zechs" or "Milliard.") It sounds a bit stiff, but so does, "onii-sama" in the series. It seemed to fit.
"Was this the reason that you came to London, Dorothy?" Zechs asked. "Just to track me down?" He was standing with his back to her, staring into the fire, blatantly ignoring the space next to her on the sofa.
"Yes," she said plainly, "it was. "I heard it from Lady Une, who keeps fairly close tabs on you. She thought it would be good for both of us to meet and smooth things over."
He turned abruptly, staring down at her in anger and disbelief. "'Smooth things over'? Dorothy what happened between us is not something that gets 'smoothed over -'"
"Then you *did* want to kill him? You really wish I hadn't stopped you? Can you tell me that honestly, Milliard?"
It was a crippling statement. If he told her yes, it would be untruthful to the feelings he had now - that he had been wrong, insanely wrong, to want Treize Khushrenada dead. Yet, if he told her no it would mean shrugging off what had been at the time a crushing betrayal of trust - trust that had been given only with the utmost hesitancy on his part. Either way, he'd be lying about something.
He turned away again. "Why were you there, Dorothy?" His voice was thick, as if the words were being pulled from his body, against his will. "Why was it so important to you to be aboard the Libra?"
She stared at him, taking in the tall, lean form, so similar to that of her uncle, and the long, pale gold hair that nearly reached his waist now. "When I first came there, I thought that I was participating in something glorious... something that my father would have found brave, important. But then it became personal... I started seeing it as a terrible fight between you and Treize and I..." She hesitated for a moment, still staring at him. "I had to protect him..."
Zechs closed his eyes and ran a hand over his forehead. "You were wrong about what I was doing, Dorothy," he said, his voice eerily quiet. "It wasn't brave, *or* glorious, although it did have very important consequences." His hands were at his sides now, clenching into fists and he fought back very familiar tears. "Treize and I were trying to do the same thing... only... he came to believe that war happens when humans are passionate about their leaders. He believed that as long as he was alive, the men who were loyal to him would continue to fight..." There was a hitch in his voice but he continued. "He believed the only way to bring about peace was to die but... he shouldn't have died..."
"Then why are you so angry with me, Milliard?" Dorothy asked.
"Because you made yourself seem like one person and you turned out to be another."
Dorothy tried not to smile at the perfect irony of Zechs Marquise feeling that way.
Wufei cautiously opened the door of his room. No one was in the hallway, but he could hear the murmur of voices downstairs - Zechs and Dorothy. /Thank gods -- *he* can keep her entertained... and away from *me.*/
He walked down to the room Duo shared with Zechs, hoping to find the American, but no one answered to his knock. Sighing, he turned back towards his own room, but when he reached the door he found he just couldn't face going in, being alone again. Something in the air of the house maybe, or the strangeness of the dream he'd had, was making him feel vulnerable and he despised the feeling.
Deciding that he needed something to be grumpy about, he turned towards the staircase, muttering, "Is dinner *ever* going to be ready?" and headed down to find the kitchen.
Relena was in her room, sitting in front of the comm unit. "How is he doing, Quatre?"
The blond boy's face on the vid screen was polite, but the strain was showing. "Miss Relena... I wan't aware that you knew Heero was here with me."
"I make it my business to know where he is," she said simply, "but that doesn't answer my question. How is he doing?"
"A little better," Quatre said, the caution evident in his voice. "I'm working hard on getting him to open up a little, but it's very slow going."
"I'm sure it is," Relena said with a small sigh. She, of all people, knew how closed off Heero Yuy really was -- how far from "normal" his life had been and how deeply it had affected his ability to act approriately with other people. She and her brother had been among the first people Heero had showed any response to, and, of course, she admitted reluctantly to herself, there was Duo.
All the time she was thinking, Quatre was waiting patiently on the other end of the link. At last, he smiled weakly and said, "Is there something I can help you with, Miss Relena?"
That drew her out of her thoughts with a start and she gave him a nervous smile. "Oh, yes -- I'm sorry. I..." /Just say it - it's humiliating but just say it.../ "I want to come and see Heero. I need to talk to him and it must be soon. Sooner than soon. Immediately, actually."
Quatre looked stunned. "C-Come here? To Algeria? Oh... Miss Relena..." It was obviously he was struggling with a way to say no, but the girl on the end in London was not going to budge or make it easier for him. "Heero is still very upset... about, well, what happened in Sank... I don't know that he's ready to see anyone *just* yet..."
Relena leaned in towards the screen. "But he *must* see me, Quatre. He and I need to talk -- about us, about the future. I'm thinking..." /Do I tell him? If he knows it's *serious* maybe he would let me see Heero./ "I thinking of giving up the throne of Sank if Heero will have me back. I've told my brother that I would do that and, if Heero does decide to be with me again, that he would have to rule in my stead." She stared at the wide, aquamarine eyes of the boy on the screen, trying to will him to agree with her by sheer force of her gaze. "You can see how serious I am, Quatre. Will you let me speak to him?"
"Give up the Sank Kingdom...?" Quatre said faintly, a look of shock on his face. "But Miss Relena, you've spent two years now rebuilding, putting hope back into your people... you can't just step down now!"
"I appreciate your concerns, Quatre, really I do," she said. "You were always one of the best and bravest friends my homeland ever had. I love my country and I want only the best for it, but I also love Heero and I want a chance for a real life with him. That couldn't even begin to happen with me keeping a role both in Sank *and* at the Earth Nation level." She was quiet for a moment and then said, in a low and fierce voice, "Something has to give... and I don't want it to be my chance with Heero."
Quatre's head was down and she could hear him sigh, but then he looked up at her and said, "Let me think about it overnight. I'll call you back tomorrow morning and let you know, all right?"
"Thank you, yes," Relena said, inclining her head towards him. "I'll expect your call tomorrow, then."
They signed off and Relena pushed the blank vid screen away from her. "The problem is," she said softly, "what I'll do if he says 'yes.'"
Upstairs, Duo had butchered an old comm unit they'd found in the closet of the bedroom, and strewn the parts out across Mouse's bed. "Look," he was saying to the younger boy, "I can use the chip that contains the message I just made and slide it into this speaker component..." Long, graceful fingers, the fingers of a thief and an expert safecracker, put the tiny chip into place and slid the back of the small radio into place. A long cord trailed from it through a hole in the back of the wooden case.
"Now, I'll go put this into the sitting room and feed the wire back through that little hole I made in the wall of your room, 'kay?"
Mouse nodded gravely, watching every move the braided boy made with intense interest.
Duo stood up and carried the clock and cord out of Mouse's room and into the sitting room next door. He positioned the clock on the desk, exactly as it had been earlier, before they had taken it, and poked the slim wire cord through the tiny opening in the baseboard near the floor. "Okay, Mouse --grab onto it and pull!"
The cord began moving until most of it was in Mouse's room. Duo stood again and made sure everything was exactly as it had been before they'd begun tampering with things, then headed back to the boy's bedroom.
"Okay, now," he said, sitting on the bed next to Mouse, "all I have to do is hook this baby up to the wireless timer from the comm unit and we're in business."
"What does that mean?" Mouse asked, looking at Duo skeptically.
"Simple!" Duo grinned. "We can hang out anywhere we want to up here and when we hear him turn on the radio, we flip this switch and our broadcast begins! What do you think?" "Well... it *seems* like it should work," Mouse said, still sounding hesitant.
"Trust me," Duo said, "it *will* work. So, what shall we talk about while we wait?"
Mouse was just about to say something when they heard the sound of footsteps on the landing and the scrape that told them someone had just opened the sitting room door. Duo pressed his ear to the wall, as did Mouse, and both of them heard the distinct muttering of the lawyer: "Where am I? Why am I here? Why can't I feel my body? Where am I? Why am I here? Why can't I feel my body?"
They nodded to each other silently waiting for the click of the radio's 'on' button. When it came, Duo flicked the small switch he carried and the sound of his voice, with a perfect English accent, filled the room with the six o'clock news.
After ending up in two unfamiliar hallways, Wufei found a door with a small, round porthole window in it and correctly guessed it was the kitchen. He pushed it open hesitantly. He was not a regular visitor to kitchens. His food had always been made by other people, or cooked in the open. This felt like entering alien territory.
The cook was taking a large roast out of the oven, her back to Wufei, and Hadley was at the large kitchen table, garnishing the potato soup with airy bits of dill and arranging the bowls around the silver soup tureen.
He looked up as Wufei came in the door, straightening and doing his best not to show alarm at behavior highly irregular of a guest.
"Mr. Chang," he said with only a quiet blink, "what a pleasant surprise. May I help you with something?"
"I... I..." Now that he was here, in the midst of what appeared to be hard-working people, the idea of crabbing had somewhat lost its luster. Drawing himself up, he tried, with partial success, to smile and appear amiable. "I was just wondering. if... if I could help at all with dinner."
The cook nearly dropped the roast pan, turning round to stare at him in disbelief, but Hadley remained calm. He gave the woman a glance as if to say, 'He's odd but not dangerous - I'll handle this one,' and wiped his hands carefully on a nearby tea towel.
"That's *ever* so thoughtful of you, Mr. Chang," he said, "and you know, I *do* believe my tray is a bit too heavy to carry to soup bowls. Perhaps you could carry them and accompany me to the dining room?"
The cook's mouth dropped open and she appeared to be on the verge of squeaking, but Hadley cast her a reproachful look and handed the small stack of china bowls to Wufei. He hesitated letting go of them for a moment, and Wufei turned a bit red, wondering about the man's intentions and feeling his was getting a bit familiar, and all the while Hadely thinking, /Can I trust him with the Royal Doulton?/ When that little concern was resolved they headed from the kitchen, through the pantry, and into the dining room via the butler's entrance.
Wufei looked almost happy, carrying his soup bowls, with a real job to do.
"Do you want me to put one at each place?" the Chinese boy asked.
Hadley nearly jumped, saved only by good breeding. "Oh, my - well, *that's* certainly gracious of you, Mr. Chang, but surely you would rather join the Master for drinks in the sitting room?"
Wufei made a face. "He's got that *woman* in there. I'm not going anywhere near them!"
"Ah," Hadley said, determined to keep trying to get Wufei to act like a proper guest, "then your friend, perhaps, I'm sure that -"
Wufei cut him off with a shake of the head. "Duo isn't in his room. I don't know where he is."
"Mmm..." Hadley observed. There was only one more option and a part of him that was growing to like the gruff boy was loathe to suggest it to him, but it had to be done. Anything else would be bad form. "There is," he said, striving to keep his face neutral, "the Princess..."
Wufei set his bowls down on the table with deathly silence and stared intently into Hadley's eyes. An understanding seemed to pass between them, of what a man could and could not tolerate, of what he must do to maintain the social graces and what was beyond the limits of even the most polite guest. Wufei's gaze spoke of all of this, and Hadley's gray eyes understood it perfectly.
"I will serve the soup from the tureen when all the guests are here, but perhaps you could be so kind as to fetch the salt cellars from the pantry and place them at the upper left of each place setting."
Wufei nodded, as did Hadley. They worked in comfortable silence after that, preparing the table for the evening meal, and neither of them ever mentioned the suggestion of the Princess again.
End of Part 12
(:./kumiko/2road29)
