Chapter 2 Empty Nest
A dark blue SUV cut through the night. Inside, quiet reigned between the occupants. Zechs glanced out the corner of his eye to see Noin steadfastly staring out the window at the passing darkness.
Inwardly he signed and tried to relax the fingers clenched around the steering wheel. Silver's smile, as he'd last seen her, filled his mind's eye and anxiety flooded through him. Something was wrong – very wrong. She never should have gone on a mission solo, never mind that she didn't want another partner. It was plain stupid to rely on inter-colony mail for a fail-safe. Damn all stubborn women! he thought angrily.
Then sighed and glanced again at another stubborn woman at his side. And loyal, his mind whispered. And smart, and brave, and supportive of every bull-headed thing you ever did.
She'd packed while he spoke with the foreman to cover their work on Mars, then arranged transport back to Earth. Sometimes, being brother to a world leader had its perks. They left by mid-afternoon. Questions were pushed aside in the rush to leave as soon as possible. When they finally had the time, the closed shuttle definitely was not the place. Zechs saw wry acknowledgment, along with curiosity in Noin's eyes before she succumbed to sleep.
Eventually he disciplined his own body to rest. Like any good soldier, he took sleep when offered. But, his dreams had been – disturbed.
"We should reach Silver's cabin shortly." He finally screwed up the courage to break the silence.
"Who is she Zechs?" Noin asked quietly. And why didn't you tell me about her? He winced at the unspoken question.
"After my rather spectacular failure to stop Libra, she found Epyon. Took me in, patched up my wounds, whither I wanted it or no. Gave me time to heal. And to hide." A slight frown pulled at his brows. That description seemed somewhat … paltry, if succinct.
"Then I guess I have a lot to thank her for." Noin's hand covered his own and squeezed.
He let go of the wheel briefly to squeeze back. Gratefully. "The Silver Angel and the Red Devil. They worked intelligence for both the Alliance, then Oz."
Noin shook her head slightly. "I don't remember them."
"We wouldn't. We were the Specials, Noin. Treize's shinning example. The elite. They were the underside of our glory. They carried out all the darker missions, the espionage, the black ops."
"The assignations?"
He nodded. "However, like so many of Oz's resources, once their liabilities out-weighed their usefulness, Oz disposed of them."
"Sounds familiar."
"Hmmmmm." Images of Antarctica, of that last battle as a member of Oz, fighting Oz, flittered through his mind. "Lady Une personally briefed them for that mission. The Angel barely crawled out of the wreckage. The Devil didn't.
"Silver chose to run and hide, using the money they'd skimmed from their ops through the years and her fairly extensive skills to bury herself deep. Only recently has she started to act again, using her hacker abilities to monitor world events, keeping her own eye out for problems."
"Who does she work for?"
"No one. She operates on a free-lance basis, you could say."
Noin frowned, old habits and instincts kicking in. An agent with the skills this Silver must have, without an authority to answer to, could be dangerous. Even the Gundums had answered to the colonies and the scientists who'd sent them.
Zechs saw it. "I trust her, Noin, her motives and her judgment. Although, I may have to change my mind after this," he added in a mutter. What the hell was she thinking…
With effort he cut off the circle that thought had become. "There's Silver's road."
Noin lifted an eyebrow as they turned onto the narrow, one car lane. "She has her own road?"
"Actually, we've been on her land for the last ten minutes or so." He beat Noin to the next question. "When the operations don't officially exist, accounting is a little … hazy."
"Really."
Zechs could hear faint disapproval in that tone. And signed again. Just tell her you fool…
"You should know about Winter, as well." Coward.
"Winter? Zechs, it's the middle of spring. I know the mountain seasons can be extreme, but – "
"Not the weather. Silver has only one friend who lives with her permanently. Winter, the wolf."
"A wolf?"
He nodded. "The biggest and most intelligent wolf I've ever seen."
"And you've seen so many," she replied dryly.
The corners of his mouth lifted slightly. "Touché. However, once I met Winter, and became fairly certain he wouldn't eat me, I did some research. Given some of what Silver dropped, and Winter's own skills, I believe someone, somewhere, tampered with him genetically."
"What can he do? Stand on his hind legs and talk?"
Zechs did laugh at that image. "No. But, he understands everything around him, Noin. And he has ways of making his feelings known."
"But, genetic engineering? On a wolf?"
"Why not? We're fairly certain Heero was engineered in some way. Do you think Doctor J started with human subjects? And while those scientists were the only ones brilliant, or crazed, enough to develop the Gundums, they're not the only ones willing to mess with creation."
He could almost hear Noin chewing on that thought as they topped the last ridge. However, at her gasp of wonder, he stopped the SUV altogether.
"It's beautiful."
Silver chose her home carefully. Light from the full moon flooded the valley below them, sparkling off the small pond at the edge of meadow and the creek that fed it. The outbuildings dotted the landscape at the edge of the darkened tree line. Yet, the cabin nestled at the foot of a sheer cliff drew the eye.
"It almost completely blends with the environment."
Zechs murmured agreement. "Silver had it specially commissioned and built. I believe the attempt at balance on the outside is part of her attempt to regain her balance on the inside."
"Amazing."
"Indeed." He put the vehicle back into gear and started to down to the valley floor.
++++
++++
++++
Antiseptic. Cool metal under her cheek. The faint squeak of rubber soles on tile flooring. Tuneless whistling as damp cloths were laid over her back. With effort, she opened her eyes, and confirmed her surroundings.
The infirmary.
"Patching me up again, huh Doc?" Her voice sounded raw even to her own ears.
The whistling broke off. "Awake finally?" A pair of kaki clad legs moved into her line of vision. Cold fingers professionally checked the IV dripping into her right arm. "Things would be easier if you simply told him what he wants to know."
A choke rasped out of her throat, her poor facsimile of a chuckle. "He already has the information he wants, Doc. This is just for fun. We both know that."
The doctor over her withdrew enough so that she could see his face. Blond eyebrows drew together in a frown, and for the briefest of moments, concern, guilt and even anger flashed across his eyes. Abruptly, he turned.
"I know no such thing. We need the information you have. The Commander said so. If you simply told us – "
"Please. Doc, you've seen me how many times now? Lie to yourself, but don't lie to me. How cleanly did he manage to brand me?"
The doctor winced. Then his shoulders straightened and he turned with syringe and needle in hand. "These antibiotics should nip any infection in the bud." Carefully he pushed the needle into the valve on the IV tubing and depressed the plunger. "I'll let the topical medication work on your back for a while longer before applying the new bandages." He turned to busy himself at the tray out of her line of sight.
"Why?" she asked quietly.
"Excuse me?"
"Why? Why do you patch me up after ever 'session'?"
"Every life should be cherished, even an enemy's."
"And, what he does to me is cherishing life?"
Silence. Then, the quiet click of the door closing behind her.
Silver sighed and closed her eyes. It was worth the shot. The guilt was beginning to get to him. She'd just have to keep working on him, as well as Him. Maybe one of these days, she'd finally push one of them the right way.
Experimentally, she moved her shoulders as much as the restraints to her wrists would allow. No pain. Doc must have hit her up with a pain killer before she woke. Damn good stuff, whatever it was. Not only did it kill the pain of the brand on her back, but everything else as well. And that was a lot of pain.
Grunting more from habit than effort, she turned her head to the left. Amazing. He actually allowed the Doc to splint it, she thought. At least her arm now had a chance to heal correctly.
Then she snorted bitterly. Hell, a mis-healed arm should be the last of her worries. Sighing, she closed her eyes and took stock of the current situation. Even with the current euphoria the drugs had given her, she could picture every cut, every burn (acid and otherwise), every bruise exactly. It wasn't long now. I couldn't be long now.
Please God. Something had to give.
Unfortunately, years of survival training made an active death wish … difficult.
With a deep, pain-free breath, she began to go over all the corridors she'd seen again, trying to reconcile everything with the maps in her head.
Something had to give.
***
***
***
Zechs stood at the base of the cabin's front steps and inhaled deeply. The air in Silver's valley was still sweet, still untouched by man's pollution. A slight breeze played with the ends of his trench coat, and rustled through the grass behind him. Peace flowed through the meadow and around him.
But the cabin before him remained dark. Uninhabited. Untouched, for far too long. And the cold that seeped in with that though chilled him more than the mountain air.
Feh. Enough build up. Get inside already, you idiot.
He just started up the stairs when a low growl rumbled from the darkness of the porch. Pausing on the second step, Zechs waited.
"Hello Winter."
A wolf padded out into the moonlight at the head of the stairs. Behind him, Noin's quick intake of breath was almost masked by her move for her firearm.
"Don't," he said quietly. "It's okay. Isn't it Winter?" He moved up another step and held out a hand for inspection. Two years had passed since he'd seen either Silver or Winter in person, but he gambled that the large lupine would remember him.
The low rumbled still came, more felt than heard, but Winter moved forward to sniff the offered hand. The gamble paid off as Winter looked Zechs up and down, then sat and transferred his unblinking stare to Noin, still at the car.
"She's a friend Winter. My wife."
The yellow gaze flickered between man and woman as Zechs held out a hand for Noin to join him. She confidently took it, but he could feel the fingers tremble in his grasp. Winter padded down two steps, so that his head was just below Noin's. For a moment, he locked eyes with her, and took several hearty sniffs. The rumble in his chest died, and he nodded once, definitively.
"Thank you," Zechs replied softly.
"My God," Noin breathed next to him as Winter turned to the door. "The intelligence…"
He squeezed her hand once more, then moved up the rest of the stairs. Winter scratched lightly at the door handle and wined softly in the back of his throat. Zechs reached a hand to the security panel next to the door. After allowing his fingers to rest briefly on the cool touch screen, he turned to Noin and cupped her face in his hands.
"Have I thanked you yet for coming with me?"
She frowned. "Wha –"
He leaned in, brushed a kiss along her lips, up her jaw and paused at her ear. "Something's wrong," he breathed, his lips hidden by her jaw and his hair. "Silver's security system is dead."
Noin made an appropriate murmured back.
"There's a door to the kitchen on the right side, three-quarters of the way down."
She nodded, brushing her cheek along his. "You know, love, I think I saw an excellent variety of coniferous extraneous just on the other side of the house."
He chuckled. "And you want to check it out before we even get inside."
She smiled back, teasingly. "You know me too well." The intent look in her eyes belied the smile. "I won't be too long."
"Okay." He planted a kiss in her palm and she retreated down the stairs. "Let's go Winter."
He confidently pushed the door, one hand on the gun strapped to the small of his back. Someone was in Silver's home, someone good enough to disable her security and lock out Winter.
Moonlight flooded in from the large windows lining the top of the cathedral ceiling of the front room. Silver's living and dining space was immense, built to her specifications – and very open. Winter slithered by Zech's legs and shot up the stairs to the second story. Zechs advance a couple of more steps into the room, towards the kitchen and office in the back before pausing.
Nothing. Yet.
Slowly he scanned the room, eyes searching out the shadowed corners and crevices. The miniscule scrape warned him.
He whirled, gun outstretched, only to find a man in a similar position only a few feet from him.
"Who the hell are you?" they asked in unison.
Okay, what do you think everyone? Yes, definitely a Noin/Zechs fic – please read and review!! It's not pretty when I start to beg!!