Dossier Ch. 5
/present day/
"Odin..Lowe." Heero mumbled.
"Odin was your father..." Relena mused. The two of them had contemplated the potential fact months prior over pizza and red wine. Relena had wanted to know everything Heero could allow her to know about his past. He had told her what little he remembered about the man who gave him his first gun.
"Hiiro is your middle name." she smiled. He smiled too, feeling justified in keeping his codename for the past few years. It was somewhat comforting to know that it really was partially his.
Odin..Hiiro...Tadashi.
His mother had given him her maiden name. Why was that?
Aoi Tadashi. Who was she that she had the strength to give him her family name, and who was she that she had to have three witnesses present with such famous names? With such infamous names?
"These witness names. What do you think it means?" Heero brought himself to ask her. He had a feeling about the certificate, but he wanted to see if she felt it too.
"Redacted first names...last names Clark, Catalonia, and..Khushrenada. I feel Heero...that you're not going to like what I am thinking."
"I may not, but go for it."
"Heero...this has to be Romefeller related...Oz even."
"Hn." so she had picked up on it.
It made sense. Odin Lowe's involvement sealed it for him. His mentor had been specifically tasked with rebel and alliance assassinations, most likely on behalf of Oz. The Khushrenada and Catalonia involvement reeked of Romefeller- and brought him back to his odd encounters with nobels such as Treize and Dorothy.
The two names he recognized, but the last one had him scratching his head.
"Clark..."
She put her hand on his knee.
"Do you want to take a break Heero? I know this is a lot." Relena offered him, to which he returned a grateful smile and squeezed her hand in his.
He straightened up and closed the laptop, never letting go of her hand.
"I do feel better." he announced.
"Well...that is a good thing." she smiled, bringing his knuckles to her lips. She rested them there, taking a deep breath. He could only watch, grateful for the innocent show of affection.
"I have to get up in a few hours..." she admitted with a sheepish grin. Heero looked over to the clock that hung on the wall and immediately felt a bit guilty. It was already after eleven. They had spent nearly five hours in the living room already.
They had ate dinner together, discussed his past together, and they had kissed.
His face reddened at the memory.
He fought the embarrassment and leaned over to kiss her lightly on the crown of her head.
After exchanging a chaste "good night", they parted ways in the hall and into their separate bedrooms. Heero's room had the building's security control centralized on a desk near his bed, so that he could monitor every camera, lock, and alarm.
As he had become older, his paranoia lessened, and he no longer did security sweeps of Relena's room twice a day. It was more like twice a week now. The system he had installed was sophisticated, and sent a vibrating alarm to his smartphone even if a piece of dust triggered a camera. He had to help keep the house immaculately clean since he installed it, recalling the first weekend his phone buzzed non stop for four hours. The system was too sensitive in Relena's opinion.
He hadn't been flipping through the camera channels for longer than a few minutes when he felt the tell-tale crinkle of the envelope in his pocket.
Taking a second to see if Relena was safe in bed on screen, Heero slid the envelope out of his pocket and into his hand.
On the outside, was a lone "H", handwritten in crisp pencilled lines.
Heero again stole a glance at his security monitors, and then opened the envelope.
"To whom it may concern;
This is Clark. I have a few things of yours from when we were children.
Meet the morning after you've received this, 0500 hours, at 51.086080, 4.366330.
Come alone.
Do NOT tell Ms. Peacecraft.
-Clark"
Heero's breath caught. Clark was a name listed on his birth certificate. Could it be possible that this person knew him as a child?
He took out a tablet computer from his nightstand to look up the coordinates Clark gave him. As he fished it out from the drawer, he noticed his handgun.
Heero grunted, and removed the handgun from its resting place. Laying it across his lap, even with the safety on, was akin to wrapping himself in a security blanket. He needed to feel like he was in control.
"Boom...Antwerp..." he muttered after typing in the coords to his government-issued map system. Boom was a small town less than an hour north of Brussels. He could drive there, meet this stranger, and drive back all before he needed to report to his office at 10 hundred.
He looked one last time at the monitors and saw Relena sprawled out in her bed, clutching a pillow to her chest. He always felt guilty for watching her sleep, and he felt all the worse now that he was planning on sneaking out in the morning to meet with a potentially dangerous stranger. A stranger who could have ties to Oz, let alone his past.
Heero ended up staying awake for the next few hours, mostly watching Relena sleep peacefully on screen.
He left at 4 hundred hours, dressed in his commander's uniform, leaving the tell-tale jacket in the back seat. He had planned on donning a gray peacoat for the meeting, allowing him to remain inconspicuous while in Boom, while being able to be dressed for work. He often left before Relena on a normal day anyway, usually to steal some time at Preventer's private gym, so he had hoped Relena wouldn't notice that he left his running shoes behind.
As he sat in a cafe in the center of the aforementioned rendezvous point, he couldn't help but let his knee bob up and down, propelled by lack of sleep and anxiety. His large Americano (with a double shot of espresso) was cooling fast, untouched by his lips. He knew he stuck out like a sore thumb, and the financial section of a newspaper sat in front of him, conspicuously untouched.
The lack of sleep had him antsy. The impending meeting had him on the brink of a panic attack.
"Heero." The voice graveled from behind him.
He turned and stood to greet the stranger.
"Good morning Mr. Yuy." greeted a young man in a navy blue suit, arm outstretched inviting Heero to shake, other hand holding a piping hot cup of coffee.
"Hello...Mr..." The man looked familiar, but he couldn't quite place him. He appeared slightly younger than himself, with similar olive skin and dark hair, but his eyes were black like coal. Where had he seen him before?
"Clark, Siet Clark. Forgive me, its been some time since we've last met. I do believe it was Minister Peacecraft's world hunger summit? You were working her detail."
The realization hit him hard; it was Siet Clark, Vice Minister of Agriculture.
But why was he in Boom? At these coordinates?
"Are you wondering why I asked to meet with you?" he said as Heero finally submitted to shaking his hand.
If recognizing him as a politician hit him hard, realizing that he was the stranger who sent the letter hit him like a brick to the face.
Heero returned to his seat, choosing not to answer his host.
Siet followed suit.
"No doubt you've seen my family's name on your birth certificate?" he said as he brought his paper cup to his lips, not bothering to blow away the steam escaping the lid.
"Hn."
Siet gingerly placed the cup on the table, taking a glance at the unread newspaper Heero had in front of him. His eyes then settled on Heero. Immediately Heero felt that something was off.
Siet put on a knowing smile.
"You're alone. Good." Heero didn't move, gathering that if he did, something would go wrong.
"So. Heero. As you are called now. You do not remember me." Siet stated, nodding at his own declaration. "You knew my father, but you may not remember him either. You knew my mother, and its sad, but you don't really seem to have ever known her. Not like I did." The last words came through as if laced with poison.
Heero did shift now, growing ever more uncomfortable in his seat.
Siet laughed, eyebrows twitching, most likely taking stock of Heero's discomfort. The conversation seemed to go unnoticed by the rest of the cafe patrons. They seemed like two ghosts haunted a table.
"Who are you really?" Was all Heero could think to say, although his voice came out dark and intimidating. He was trying to retrace his steps, looking for anything that had seemed suspicious about the drive, street, or cafe itself. Did he see anything? Hear anything? Smell anything?
"No need to fret. I'm a politician, not a fire for you to put out. I feel as though you're going to be highly interested in what I have to say, Odin." His use of his given name sent chills down Heero's spine. This man may in fact know something, was he dangerous? How the hell had he gotten himself into this situation?
"Who are you then? Why would it matter to me who your parents were?" Heero said through gritted teeth.
Siet took one last leisurely sip of his coffee, finishing off the steaming liquid in one long gulp. He sighed deeply, exhaling some of the heat.
"Because...dear Odin Hiiro, our parents, are the same."
a/n: oh jeepers! 5 chapters in and we are finally getting some real answers! A little bit of plot, but soon, more angsty fluff. I promise!
~murshmallow