ttw4

Thicker than Water
four


He was standing on the corner, absently holding a cigarette he never intended to smoke. The man he'd chosen to speak to walked up and frowned angrily at him. Harlequin's shiny sunglasses prevented the snitch from seeing his cold blue eyes. The man, roughly Harlequin's age, was not as lean, with his hair in a total mess of gel and sleep. Night was setting in on them, and less of the public eye was paying attention. Harlequin grumbled something, not allowing the snitch to hear him.

Do you have it? the man asked impatiently.

Harlequin nodded and held his hand out. In the middle of his hand, again gloved white, was a small bag of computer chips. The snitch grabbed them away and handed Harlequin a folded piece of paper. Just when the snitch was loafing off, Harlequin threw his arm out and caught him by the collar of his jacket and yanked him back hard, almost slamming the man into his chest as he read the letter.

Wh-what, man? I'm only the messenger! The snitch started to act suspiciously.

Pulling the man closer, Harlequin's sunglasses gleamed against the neon lights around them. There's nothing here but two recipes for drinks.

The snitch's eyes darted from Harlequin to the other side of the road and back. You don't understand. The title of the drink is the location of a club, he whispered, Harlequin's knuckles now pressing into his throat, line the numbers up of the measurements and that's the phone number of where you can reach him. The ingredients are the key words in order to contact the man, don't you get it?

Sneaky, Harlequin mused, they must think they're real smart. he huffed, pushing the snitch down the alley, drawing a blade from the waistband of his slacks. Now give those chips back.

What? No way, this is your payment for my, he paused, upon seeing a flicker from the metallic surface of a knife, services. That's not necessary...

But it is, he drove the blade into the snitch's side and yanked up, hard, slicing through not only his vital organs, but also a few wires that had connected him to his people, anything for the safety of the earth and colonies. Anything for her, you understand?

___

Relena thumbed through the first pages of the photo album, in a completely different time zone than her captor. Portraits of the founding members, her great grandfather and his wife, a stunningly beautiful woman encased behind the tattered lines of the photo. They wore elegant clothing, fit for the royalty they became, and had expressions wrought with hope for a bright future that they never got to see.

Over the next pages were photos of their children, Relena's ancestors. All the way to Milliard Octavius Peacecraft, the origin of her brother's name, Milliardo. The Peacecraft family had been in its own republic since the colonies were created, and several generations passed before they became known as a powerful pacifist organization instead of a monarchy. In the beginning years of the budding battles that would soon cause the Eve Wars, Milliard Octavius was growing older. The senate was fighting a losing engagement with the Earth Sphere Alliance. His oldest of two children, Milliardo, was so young, and he knew that he would have to grow up in a war torn world. Milliard and his wife, Lena, decided that they were in danger after angering the Romefeller Foundation, before anyone even knew it existed.

A man named Everett Darlian, one of the most loyal senators in the Peacecraft's organization, was given the responsibility of caring for the sole daughter of the last generation. Relena Peacecraft.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked over a portrait of her mother and father, Milliardo on her father's knee, herself in her mother's arms. The face of that woman, it was exactly like hers. She choked up and read on, fighting off the urge to scream, though it would have made no difference.

Everett Darlian and his new wife, Lena Peacecraft's twin sister, Amelia, took Relena just as the Alliance's mobile suit troops were preparing to get rid of the bothersome family for good. Milliardo escaped with a few of the senators, and led his own life from then on, with the help of the Alliance, his heart beating on only to allow him to exact his revenge.

Relena's head was swamped. Her mother, the one she'd known forever, was really her aunt. She fell to her knees, the half drank Slim Fast spilling on the wooden floors nearby. Stubborn tears started to drop onto the worn pages of the photo album, holding all the members of the Peacecraft's entire lineage, all the way to the last generation. Milliard and his beautiful wife, Lena, a young girl from the surrounding city with a heart of pure gold. The building blocks for Relena's own strong will; she was perhaps the only successful ruler, able to cast the world into a daze. It hurt her badly, scarring her deep within her aching breast, because she wasn't anything like them. She still had to find her place.

Did she belong with the Darlians, or with the Peacecraft family? She needed someone who knew more to help her figure that out.

To be continued...