Disclaimer: Still don't own them (and it's still a pity). I receive no monetary compensation off this whatsoever.
Warning: Violence, yaoi (1X4), and swearing.
Chapter 8Quatre stared at Heero, aqua eyes wide. "A traitor? What in Allah's name are you talking about?"
The dark-haired boy's gaze was level. "Someone under Une's direct jurisdiction, or the Lady herself, has been working closely with W.E. Specifically with those branches that are involved in illegal dealings."
"That's insane! None of our friends is a traitor! Where did you get this idea?"
"Believe me, Quatre, I didn't want to believe it, but there's proof. Of course, it still might not be Duo, Trowa, Wufei, Sally or Une. I have another more likely suspect." Heero's eyes had gone cold and unreadable. "You."
Quatre was momentarily shocked speechless.
"Not only is Winner Enterprises your company, but you're a Preventer under Lady Une, and nobody would suspect you of double dealing. They all trust you."
"Everyone but you apparently," the blonde said softly. "But you're overlooking some fairly pertinent information, Heero. I don't technically own W.E. until the day of my twenty-first birthday. And I wasn't a Preventer until after I was told that you were leading Red Thorn. Damn it, Heero, Une didn't even clear me for active duty until yesterday! Before that I was spending my time quite contently in school!
"Just because you aren't actively running W.E. doesn't mean that you are completely without clout as Master Winner. You also still have plenty of influence over the others, even if you're not working directly with them." Heero turned so that he was looking out the window instead of at Quatre. "Just last week you had lunch with Duo. You're still an integral part of their lives, and I know you often discuss Preventer business."
"How do you know that?"
"I still make a point of keeping an eye on you . . . and the others."
"I swear to you, Heero, I had no knowledge of any of the things going on at W.E." Though Allah knows I certainly should have kept better tabs on my father's company. I can't believe I was so stupid, in my search for normality I completely ignored my own responsibilities!
"At this point I can't afford to believe you." Heero suddenly turned from the window. A gun was in his hand and pointed unwaveringly at the blonde. "Having you here is a detriment to my mission. The prudent thing would be to kill you."
His finger was on the trigger, but minutes passed and he still did not squeeze it.
Quatre looked at him, and then at the unfired gun. His soul ached for the lonely boy in front of him. "Do you know why you haven't fired, yet, Heero? Because, on some level, you do trust me. You know in your heart that I would never betray you."
Heero looked at him, blue eyes searching. "No Quatre, my heart is sure of no such thing." He lowered the weapon to his side. "But I can't do it if I'm not one hundred percent certain. I won't make another mistake. Not like the one I made when I killed the peace-minded leaders of the Alliance."
The blonde lowered his head, hand unconsciously massaging his chest, right over his heart. He sighed and then glanced up again. "It's not me," he said again, "but I think I know who is spearheading this. Everett Orth."
Heero nodded slowly. "I know he's involved, but I'm not sure if he's in charge." His tone clearly said that that person could still be Quatre. The perfect soldier got up and pulled his laptop out of a black case. "Here's most of the data that I've collected on Orth so far," he pulled out a red disk and inserted it into the computer. "I hacked into his home system a couple of days ago, he doesn't keep anything really incriminating electronically. The important documents he keeps on hard copy."
"Hardcopy? Everything's computerized, barely anybody keeps things on paper anymore."
"He's paranoid, and smart with it. He knows that there are people like me out there." Heero hesitated, clearly mulling something over. Abruptly, he came to a decision. "Quatre there is a way that you can prove yourself to me." The blonde looked up, his face hopeful. "Get those files for me."
"How?"
"In four days Orth and your sister have an engagement party planned. It's taking place at Everett Orth's estate. On the news, with you missing, there has been talk of canceling it. But if you reappear, it can go on as intended. You're almost family to him, you shouldn't have to much trouble finding those papers and smuggling them out."
Quatre grimaced at the thought of being family to that slimy bastard Orth. Heero noticed and raised an eyebrow. "Family in name only," Quatre said. "But how am I supposed to just reappear? There will be questions . . ."
"We'll stage a rescue."
The blonde chewed his bottom lip absently, deep in thought, not noticing the attention the other boy was paying to the action. "That would work," he said thoughtfully, "but Heero, if I'm going to do this you have to do something for me. Let Eric Davis go."
The other boy frowned, attention pulled back to their conversation. "I'm not letting you both go."
"Why not? Are you really going to use him to blackmail his father?"
"I might have to, and if you are the traitor, I'll still have something you want."
"So he's to be a hostage for my good behavior?"
"Yes."
"You can't hurt him Heero, he's an innocent in all this. Eric's never gone to war. He's never killed or dealt with people like us before! He doesn't belong in this world."
"But you brought him into it Quatre, whether you meant to or not. Now he's part of it, and I'll do whatever I have to do to complete my objectives."
The blonde lifted his chin. "And I'll do whatever I have to in order to keep him safe."
"Fine." Heero sat the laptop on the bed. "You aren't any use to me until you've had time to heal. Rest. On the disk is information on Orth and his estate. There are blueprints of the house that you should commit to memory, I've highlighted likely places for the files to be hidden. Oh, and Quatre, don't think you can use my computer to contact any one else. I've locked it tight." Heero walked to the door and then hesitated. "I'll send someone up with food for you in little while. Don't do anything strenuous, let your body heal itself." He looked like he wanted to say something else, but then he frowned and walked out the door instead.
Quatre heard the lock click behind him. He stared blindly at the door, not really seeing it because he was so deep in thought. I don't care what he says, on some level he does trust me, or at least really wants too. Otherwise he would never give me this chance to prove myself.
The blonde shook himself and reached for the laptop. Heero had said that it was locked tight to other uses, but Quatre couldn't help but try to use it to contact one of his friends anyway. The perfect soldier was definitely the superior hacker, and after almost an hour later the Arabian still could not bypass his codes. Giving up, Quatre began to go over the information on Orth.
While browsing through it the blonde came across a news clip that was only several hours old. He opened it and settled back on the bed, injured upper body carefully propped on a mound of pillows, to watch.
The footage was from a press conference. Everett Orth stood at a podium, lit by the flashbulbs of the media's numerous cameras. Quatre could clearly see his sisters Ira and Terra behind him, they both looked upset.
"Quatre Raberba Winner, heir to Winner Enterprises, was kidnapped two nights ago." Orth had to wait for the uproar to die down. The press had suspected this but they were all still excited to have it confirmed. "We, his family, and those at W.E., are doing everything in our power to get him back safely. We have, as of yet, received no ransom demands. I'll take any questions the press has now."
From there the conference quickly deteriorated into an absolute media circus. The press made it into a huge spectacle, with Orth as the ringmaster. He charmed and wowed them, and appealed to their greed with the offer of five million dollars to the person or persons who gave information leading to the heir's whereabouts. The Preventers, or any other law enforcement branch, was not mentioned.
It was great for publicity, but not the best way to go about getting a kidnap victim back.
Quatre grimaced and shut the video off. Everett Orth had practically oozed false concern. He didn't know why people couldn't see how full of crap the man was. They haven't seen what I've seen. But then, you'd think the press would be able to sniff out a fellow vulture.
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.
What the . . .someone is actually asking permission to come into a locked prisoner's room? Aloud he said, "enter!"
He heard a scrape as the bolt was pulled back, then the door swung open. It was Mia. She was carrying a stainless steel breakfast tray, and for once, there was no gun in her hand.
I'm sure there's at least two inside that big white coat though.
"I just came to bring you food," she said, lowering the loaded tray onto the bed. She straightened, then stood at the foot of the bed, making no move to head for the door.
"Thank you," Quatre said politely, actually meaning it. His head still throbbed, but not as sickeningly as before. The thought of food was no longer nauseating. He was actually getting hungry.
The blonde looked at the tray and then back at the dark-haired woman. She was still making no move to leave. "Are you," she paused, uncertain how to proceed, "feeling better?" She finally asked.
"Yes, much, thank you."
Mia nodded, but still didn't head for the door. Quatre felt like she was here for something, but was not yet sure what. "Heero told me what's going on at W.E., I had no idea." He finally said. "I'll do whatever I can to make it right."
At his words her face twisted angrily. "You'll do what ever you can . . ." she snorted softly and laughed. It was not a sound of mirth, but rather one of pain.
"Yes, I will. I'll fix this."
Her voice turned bitter. "Can you fix past wrongs?"
"What do you mean?" He pressed gently, sensing that they were finally getting to her reason for being here.
"What about the lives that W.E. destroyed, can you right those, Master Winner?"
"Whose lives, Mia?"
"Do you really want to know? If I tell, you won't be able to return to your ignorance, and ignorance is bliss in this case, believe me."
He just looked at her expectantly.
She began to pace restlessly across the room, back and forth, the movements almost hypnotic. She kept touching her coat, and Quatre realized she was stroking her gun through the fabric. "They've taken people, people who they didn't think would be missed, and used them as lab rats. They tested drugs on them, drugs to up human aggression, without worrying about the affect it would have on their patients!" She stopped pacing abruptly and stopped in front of him, although she still touched her gun, as if finding comfort in it. "I know this because they used my little brother."
Quatre stared at her, a sick feeling invading his stomach. He was no longer hungry. "What happened?"
She took up her pacing again. "His name is Daniel. He was fourteen when it happened. Our mother had died during the war, so I took care of him. I worked as a freelance mercenary, a hired gun, so I wasn't around as much as I should have been. But someone had to get the money to pay for a place to live and for him to go to school." She frowned, angry with herself, and then continued. "One day I came back and he wasn't there. I questioned his friends, and one of them said that he had last seen him going off with some men in a car. That had been happening a lot lately, we lived in a poor neighborhood, there were plenty of kids that no one important would miss."
She paused, and then spoke again, her expression fierce. "But I missed my brother, and I may not be an important, powerful person, but I wasn't going to let anybody fuck around with the only family I had left. I followed some of the kids around, ones that were likely targets, and it wasn't long before those bastards tried again. But this time I was there. I killed all but one, and made the one I had left alive bring me to my brother."
She paused in her pacing again, a riot of emotions dancing across her features. "There was a big gray building, and inside there was a lab. And inside that lab . . ." she shuddered and then met Quatre's eyes, her own were haunted. "There were people in cages. Honest to god cages. They were all teenagers, apparently the tests worked best on the young and healthy, and most of them had already been injected. Those kids were going crazy. If they put any together they would literally tear each other apart, and alone they would turn their rage on themselves. There was so much blood." Mia's eyes had a far away look in them. "The cages were dripping with blood and guts and skin, but the rest of the lab, it was just so fucking sterile. Like those damn monsters in their pristine white lab coats somehow managed to keep themselves clean, it was all about science to them. I don't even think they saw those kids as people!"
"What happened to your brother?" Quatre asked gently.
"He . . . he wasn't one of the kids in the cages, thank god. One of the doctors had taken an interest in him. Daniel is such a cute kid . . . and, and . . ."
Suddenly what she had said in the cell after shooting Rai made a lot more sense. "It was like what Rai Setsuna almost did to me, wasn't it?"
"Yeah. I came in and caught the monster in the act. I blew his brains out, but Daniel, there was something wrong with him. The man had injected him with a milder form of the drug, or maybe it was something else entirely, but combining that with the rape, he went inside his own mind. He's completely cationic. The people at the hospital I took him to, they don't think he'll ever wake up."
"That's why you joined Red Thorn."
She nodded. "I couldn't take these people on, not by myself. But if I had known that Setsuna was like . . . that man . . . I would have put him down like the mad dog he was."
"I'm sorry. I know words aren't even close to adequate for what you lost, but I'm sorry anyway." Quatre looked down, horrified and ashamed. "I know you don't believe me, but I had no idea that any of this was happening in W.E., and I know I can't make it right for you, or even better, but I will stop the man responsible."
"I do believe you. You could have killed Byers and Park, hell, I would have if I had been in your shoes, but you didn't. The person responsible for those atrocities in the lab, he would have shot to kill and then happily bathed in the blood. And I've seen how you are with the Senator's son. He's an innocent in all of this," Mia said, unknowingly echoing Quatre's words from before. "I'm sorry that we put him through all this."
"Mia, Heero has me going on a mission to prove that I'm trustworthy. He's making Eric stay behind as a hostage. Will you keep him safe well I'm gone? Make sure nobody hurts him?" He left the unspoken words, like Setsuna tried to do to me, off the sentence.
She heard the unspoken words anyway. "Nothing will happen to that boy, I'll guard him myself," she promised.
"Thank you," Quatre murmured, "and Mia thank you for before, for saving me."
She looked uncomfortable with the thanks, but nodded. "I need to go now, good luck to you."
"And to you," the blonde said to the door as it swung shut behind her. They may have bonded but Quatre still heard the click of the lock as the bolt was put in place.
He leaned back into the pillows on the bed, rubbing his bruised face tiredly. He glanced at the tray of food. He was no longer hungry but decided that he had better eat anyway.
The blonde was just cleaning up the last bite of toast when the door opened again as Heero returned. "Good, you ate it all," he said, eyeballing the empty tray.
Quatre raised an eyebrow. "Did you feel you needed to check up on me? Don't trust me to eat my food like a good little patient either?"
Heero just grunted, ignoring the blonde's uncharacteristic snarking. "What was Mia doing in here?"
"Talking."
Now Heero's eyebrows went up at the monosyllabic answer. "She told you her reasons for coming to Red Thorn." It wasn't really a question.
"Yes."
Heero nodded grimly, and then retrieved his laptop off the bed, moving to sit in the chair with it on his lap. Quatre watched him curiously. "Heero, where did you go after we destroyed the gundams? What did you do?"
The other boy didn't look up from his laptop when he answered. "I tried school for a while, tried to make friends, and act like a regular person, but it didn't work out."
"Why?"
"I couldn't leave my training behind. Not many kids appreciate someone who throws them into a locker when they grab an arm to get your attention."
Quatre winced. Heero looked up at him and frowned. "Your bandages need to be changed." The other boy went into the bathroom and came back out with more medical supplies. He reached for the belt on the blonde's robe, intent on getting to the cut on his chest, but Quatre clutched at the cloth protectively. It was an automatic reaction.
Heero looked at him expectantly. Finally with a slight blush, the blonde allowed him to continue. The dark-haired boy bent over him and begin to peel off the old bandage, surprisingly gentle.
"It won't work for you either, you know."
"What won't work?"
"Being a regular student, regaining you innocence."
"That's not what I'm trying to do!"
"Isn't it?"
"No, of course not!"
Heero carefully began to re-bandage the cut. "You're trying to get back the childhood that you never had, the childhood that you gave up for the colonies. But you can't Quatre. You, and me, have killed. Done things that a normal person couldn't even comprehend in their innocence. You can't go back to being normal, if you ever were to begin with. You're too well trained. And worse, you're too much like me."
"What is the purpose of saying this Heero? Believe me, I'm aware that I can never be innocent. And comparing me to you is hardly an insult."
"No?"
"No." Quatre said firmly. "During the end of the war, you kept me together, you kept us all together. You pushed me when I didn't think I could go any further. You may not trust me right now Heero, but I trust you."
Heero finished placing the bandage on, then he reached up and grabbed the blonde's chin, stroking his thumb along the jaw line. "Are you sure you should trust me, Quatre?" He murmured huskily. "I said I was keeping an eye on you. I know all sorts of things that I could use against you." He bent closer still, breathing his words into the other boy's ears. "For example, I know that you had a very short lived relationship with one of the Maguanacs."
He pulled back slightly and looked into Quatre's eyes, his own hooded. "I even know that you had feelings for me during the war. I heard you and Duo talking on the Peacemillion . . . and I saw what happened afterwards."
Quatre felt a blush begin to burn on his cheeks. He remembered that day.
Notes: Well this chapter has taken me forever and a day to complete. I'm not particularly happy with it, but I needed to get through some stuff to set it up for chapter 9. I'm actually gainfully employed again, damn it, and my job requires that I get up at five o'clock in the morning. That means I can't write until three in the morning like I usually do . . . grr, that's the time when my brain is at its best. I need to win the lottery.
I sat down one day and planned the rest of this story out, but stuff is still managing to sneak in. The ending for this chapter isn't exactly what I was originally going to do, but oh well. I guess Duo is sneaking his way in . . .
Reviews are loved and feed the author's brain!