"Vice Foreign Minister Darlian!"
Relena turned in response to the voice calling from across the courtyard, then turned back to allow herself to make a face.
"What's the matter?" Heero asked, almost laughing at her expression.
"I don't know if I can deal with that man at this hour," she said quietly.
"Miss Darlian!" "that man" persisted.
"Yes Minister Cekenet, what can I do for you?" she replied politely.
"I need to speak with you Miss Darlian. Do you have a moment?" a serious-looking, bespectacled man in his forties continued as he hurried to catch up with Relena and Heero.
"Certainly sir. What did you need to discuss with me?"
Pausing to catch his breath, he gave Heero a sidelong glance. "Er… being that this is a matter of state, I'd prefer that your friend…"
"No problem," Heero interupted in a less than friendly tone. "I'll meet the others, and we'll wait for you, all right Relena?"
"Thanks Heero," she answered, waving as he disappeared into the crowd of delegates. "How can I help you, Minister?" she continued to her associate.
"This is my first day at the conference, Miss Darlian," he began after a pause until Heero was out of earshot. "And I am shocked….even appalled at some of the delegates."
Relena blinked.
"Beg your pardon, sir?"
"Known terrorists… people of extremely questionable mental status…are giving presentations… are lecturing in auditoriums full of some of the most prominent leaders of the world and the colonies! I cannot understand how something like this could have happened!" he told her severely, shaking his head in disbelief.
Relena's eyes had gone flinty.
"Perhaps the minister's intolerant attitude is a result of the fact that he has yet to attend any of the seminars?" she suggested, her voice flat. "Mr. Winner is speaking this afternoon. I imagine his presentation might allay some of your fears," she continued, biting back the term "paranoid delusions."
"I have no desire to listen to the ravings of a young berserker who has only avoided an institution due to his family's wealth and prominence," he assured her evenly. "Or to put myself in the way of a young man who has repeatedly exhibited suicidal tendencies. I cannot approve of your close association with such people, Miss Darlian. It doesn't reflect well on you personally, and frankly, it doesn't reflect well on the government. Terrorists are criminals whether they are being punished for their crimes or not."
"Mr. Cekenet," Relena began, voice barely controlled, "this week, someone took it upon themselves to punish someone they percieved as a 'criminal.' I find such terminology coming from another member of the government very distressing."
"Yes, I read about the incident with the former Oz officer. It gives me reason to doubt our security, undeniably. But tell me, Miss Darlian, how that young man differed from your dear friends, the former Gundam pilots, or even your brother, whom I understand is also now in attendance?" He raised his eyebrows, certain she would be unable to reply.
"The Gundam pilots were not vengeful," she answered quietly. "And as much as they tried to act on what they believed to be right, they were being almost constantly manipulated. How much do you know about the Zero system, sir?"she demanded.
"I'm a politician, not an engineer," he scoffed.
"Regardless, there are things everyone should understand," Relena replied, shaking her head.
"Miss Relena!" Quatre called from the doorway of the conference room she'd been headed towards.
"Relena, they're waiting for you to give the address!" Noin elaborated.
"I'll be there in a minute," she called back. Quatre was already hurrying over.
"Sorry to steal Miss Darlian, sir, but the delegates are all anxious to begin. It's a little behind schedule as it is…" he explained pleasantly.
"We'll finish this discussion later, Miss Darlian. Sorry for the inconvenience, Mr…" Mr. Cekenet began, extending a hand to shake with the polite young man who'd come to fetch the Vice Foreign Minister.
"Winner. Quatre Winner."
Quatre blinked as the politician pulled his hand back as if burned and muttered something about being late as he hurried away. Quatre cocked his blonde head.
"What did I say?" he asked Relena.
"Nothing, Quatre. Don't worry about it," she told him, letting out an exasperated sigh.
"Are…you ready to go, Miss Relena?" Quatre said, obediently dropping the subject, although she could see in his eyes that it was still troubling him.
"Of course." They walked back over to the conference room in silence. Once there, Relena hurried up to the podium, while Quatre paused by the door, where Noin was still standing.
"He wouldn't shake my hand," Quatre said softly, sounding a little hurt, but mostly baffled. "It's not as though bloodstains rub off," he added, unable to keep the sadness out of his quiet laugh as he looked at his long-fingered hands.
Relena was giving her brief address quickly, as though preoccupied.
"That's horrible! You're hard enough on yourself as it is, Quatre," Noin replied, keeping her indignation quiet, so as not to distract those seated from Relena's speech. Relena herself seemed sufficiently distracted for all of them.
"Not really," Quatre said, trying to smile. "I could never be hard enough on myself about it. But… even so, there's never a day that passes that I don't…" He trailed off, breaking eye contact.
"Please don't take it to heart," she said. "Just because people are closed-minded and can't be compassionate doesn't mean that you should have to suffer because of them."
"It's fine," he said, shaking his head. "Nothing is different."
Quatre turned and walked back over to his seat. He'd had a bit of a schoolboy crush on Noin since he'd met her. It had more or less worn off a long time ago, but things like this made him relapse.
He sat down, and Duo glanced over at him.
"What's your problem, Quatre?" Duo asked abruptly, his voice low, returning his gaze to Relena, who was still at the podium.
"My problem? Nothing Duo, I'm okay," Quatre answered, blinking.
"C'mon. If nothing was wrong you wouldn't be sitting there looking like your dog just died."
"I never had a dog," Quatre told him.
"Quit changing the subject."
"Sorry."
"Excuse me, gentlemen," one of the other delegates said, leaning back in his chair. "I believe the lady is trying to make a speech…"
"Well excuse me," Duo began sarcastically.
"Sorry, sir," Quatre cut him off.
"…so again, I'd like to thank you all for coming. There are coffee and doughnuts in the back of the room, so please feel free to squeeze breakfast in before the first presentation," Relena told everyone pleasantly.
Duo took her at her word, stood, and beckoned Quatre to follow.
Standing by the refreshment table, Quatre plopped a tea bag into a cup of hot water while Duo gulped his black coffee and munched a cinnamon roll.
"So what's up?" Duo asked, swallowing.
"It's not important," Quatre said, pouring a packet of sugar in while his tea steeped.
"That's not what I asked," he pointed out, selecting another pastry. There was a pause while Duo chewed and regarded Quatre objectively. "By the way … you do realize that you're on your third sugar packet, don't you?"
"Damn!" he said, looking down as his hand froze partway through the process of dumping sugar into his tea.
"Whoa! Now, I know you're upset."
"Must be the company I'm keeping," Quatre quipped, smiling through his blush. He took a drink of his tea, made a face, and stirred a little more vigorously.
"At last, I'm rubbing off on you," Duo said dryly, finishing his pastry and surveying the custard-filled, chocolate covered confections sitting in neat rows on the table.
"Duo…" Quatre began, still stirring his tea, as if it would help, "do people ever… recognize you?"
"Could anyone forget this face? I mean…other than Trowa."
"Seriously, Duo," Quatre pleaded.
"Yeah, they do. I have to admit it's a little freaky when people get all weirded out when you introduce yourself, and…" Duo fell silent, looking at his coffee.
"Nicely done," Zechs told Noin quietly as she returned to her seat.
"Thanks. Although, I think the presentation itself was better last time. But it definitely ended better today," she commented with a wry smile.
"I imagine so," he said flatly. He was glad she was relaxed enough to joke about it, but couldn't help feeling that she was masking any residual discomfort with humor.
Quatre took the podium and nervously straightened his speech. Heero had been imperturbable, as usual, Trowa, an experienced performer, hadn't minded the crowd, Wufei had been all but scornful, but none of them had quite matched Duo's poise and sincerity.
Shyly making eye contact, Quatre adjusted the microphone. "Unlike Mr. Maxwell, I did spend quite a long time on my speech. Unfortunately, I'm extremely nervous, and forgot most of it," Quatre told his sympathetic audience, blushing a little. They laughed politely as he shuffled through his papers, attempting to decide what important points he wanted to make before he lost his nerve.
Zechs felt an instant of lightheadedness, perhaps from the warmth in the room, or the bright lights - how odd… He steadied himself by laying a hand on the table he was sitting at. When the mist cleared from his vision, details were clamoring for his attention like a group of unruly children. The threads of the tablecloth occupied the nerve endings of his fingertips, and his brain labelled each of the smells meandering about the room – his coffee, Noin's shampoo-tinged scent, the glob of chocolate-peanut butter-maple and outright sugarness coming from the table of donuts. He saw how pale the strands of hair on his shoulder looked in the flourescent light, and how his hands trembled just slightly. Very odd.
Quatre's speech, beautiful and metaphoric – he caught something about beating swords into ploughshares – came through the curtain of surreal, confused sensory inputs only indistinctly. Most of what he could hear was the sound of his pulse.
He tried to grab onto that as a lifeline. The steady beating of his heart would help him focus…
But it was like trying to tap your foot to one of those pieces of contemporary music that constantly changes meter. Everytime he thought he'd found the pattern, it changed. It was erratic, and holding onto it dragged him further from reality.
For the second time in his life, he was quite acutely aware of the organ trying to pump blood through his body.
It didn't hurt, exactly. But he could feel it trying almost desperately to do what it ought to be doing, and not exactly succeeding.