Chapter 6: Big Brother- Right?

*Wufei looked up and tried to hide his anxiety as Hiiro quietly entered the study and soundlessly closed the door after him. He didn't meet the politician's eyes as he walked to the chair opposite of the computer desk and sat. The ticking of the clock continued with no sound to drown it out. Wufei felt like taking the pen in his hand and aiming it at Hiiro Yui's forehead.

"Anything?"

Hiiro finally looked up. He held up an object in his hand. "This is all I found on her. A mirror."

Wufei stared at it but made no attempt to reach for it. "There's a symbol on it … I've seen that type of mirror before…"

Hiiro nodded, face still a bland mask of indifference. "Trowa had one. It's used for communication but it's only accessible to one person. Only that woman can use it effectively to speak to the person on the other side of this mirror."

"Strange … you don't see those around much these days. Are they difficult to set up?" Wufei leaned back in his chair and eyed the man opposite of him. He was hardly any younger than Hiiro and yet he was the one being protected like some weak, useless brat. He felt stupid and powerless, staring on as if he were just a symbol, a puppet that was incapable of doing anything.

"They're not difficult … they're just obsolete. It's complicated to set them up. It takes time and the ends don't justify the means." Hiiro turned the mirror over and narrowed his eyes frustratedly. "Nothing else can be deduced from it."

"Oh," Wufei responded inanely. He frowned. It was well past midnight and the clock's hands smugly indicated a 2:45. "So what do we do now?" It was a weak question, a question that a child would ask his mother. Resentment pressed down heavily on his chest as he continued staring at the young man opposite of him.

For a moment, Wufei thought he saw Hiiro's lips twitch up. "We wait until she comes to kill you."

(~~)

Duo sighed and closed his eyes briefly, feeling the faint comfort of sleepiness closing in on him but ignoring it. His fists clenched and his wings twitched. He felt restless and it was tiring to draw in air. Biting his lip, he leaned back and stared at the ceiling.

How long ago was it since the White Witch had contacted him via his compact mirror? He pursed his lips. It wasn't until the mirror had returned to its normal, placid silver that he came up with a reply to her terse order for him not to go after Chang Wufei. She didn't offer an explanation or even drop hints and her usually calm and serene expression was disturbed by the faint frown and thinning of her lips.

He could easily deduce that something had gone wrong with Serena's part of the mission and though he was certain the uneasy feeling biting at his heels was due to his concern for her, Duo was also frighteningly aware that somewhere inside, happiness was bubbling up. He was happy Serena had messed up. Of course, the last thing in the world he wanted to happen was for her to die but … frankly he didn't mind if she got a little bit maimed. He wanted desperately for her to taste fear and failure and the White Witch's wrath; he wanted desperately for her to fall out of favor.

Duo looked down as his hands on the table through half-lidded eyes and felt a small smile curve his lips. He wanted to hurt her and then heal her, to make her bleed and then chase away the pain. It was strange. He was strange.

He shuddered at his thoughts and shook his head harshly, his heart's loud thumping suddenly chasing all previous thoughts from his mind. His hands gripped the edge of the table with such vehemence that his arms shook. He didn't know what he was thinking. There was no way he wanted for Usagi to get hurt or become something like Hotaru. After all, he was her big brother, right? He wanted to protect her … even if that meant their mother would forever be blind to his desperate attempts to impress her.

But still … somewhere deep inside of him, the elation never left.

(~~)

She had to blink twice before the ceiling would come into focus and it took her three tries to push herself up to a sitting position. Serena squinted around and winced at the bright light in the room. The tile floor felt unbearably cold underneath her hands and though her wings were still cloaked by the jacket and hidden from sight, they felt sore from her sleeping on them. She stretched her arms in front of her and sighed softly before standing up. The doorknob didn't budge when she tried to turn it.

She remembered the events prior to her unconsciousness perfectly. It made sense that the door was locked and though she was physically capable of knocking it down, Serena really had no desire to face what was on the other side at the moment.

She turned and paced around the room, staring curiously at the bookshelves and trinkets decorating them. This was Wufei Chang's house, she reminded herself. So why were there so many crystal and glass baubles of angels and other whatnot? The books were Wufei Chang's – it was obvious from titles such as Political Theory: Decentralization and Devolution and The Metaphysical Magic: Analysis and Interpretation – but the decorations … they screamed of a woman's presence.

Serena turned to the bookshelf on the other side of the room and leisurely walked over to it, examining more decorations next to the volumes of heavy reading. She gazed curiously at the picture frame, flipped over so that the picture was no longer visible and reached over to pick it up. A small cry of surprise disrupted the consummate silence of the room as she stared at the photograph.

"You're awake."

She promptly dropped the frame and whirled around, heart pounding like a frightened rabbit's. The tinkle as the protective glass shattered barely registered in her head as she met a pair of dark blue eyes that made the room suddenly seem so much colder.

(~~)

"Nobody has come," Quatre said quietly, not bothering to glance over at Trowa. "You can go sleep if you want." He smiled. "You look tired. I'd order you to go sleep if I were certain you would obey me."

There was absolute silence and for a second he thought perhaps Trowa had inadvertently fallen asleep. Quatre glanced over at his friend and blinked at the deep frown on Trowa's usually blank face. "Trowa?"

"They found out about it. They know I'm here."

Quatre's eyes widened. "That's not very likely, is it? I mean … there are so few people allied with Relena Darlian … and it would take a fairly powerful mage to get an image of us without your knowing … Aren't you overestimating them a bit, Trowa?"

Trowa shook his head forlornly. "It's very easy to do actually. After all, though I have magic, I don't have Hiiro's superb senses and intuition. It is very likely that somebody watched me come into your house."

Quatre suppressed an involuntary shudder. He was ashamed to admit that he was genuinely afraid. Not of what might happen to him, because Trowa was here and fully capable of protecting the two of them, but of what could have happened to him had Trowa not come when he did.

Then it wouldn't have been Trowa's feigned ominous voice threatening him. It would have been for real. It would have been a stranger's cold, deranged voice ordering him not to move a muscle.

(~~)

"You don't mind, do you?" The man with the coldest eyes she had ever seen in her life didn't wait for her answer before lighting the cigarette and breathing in the noxious fumes. She wrinkled her nose in disdain but was relieved that he had broken the long silence.

He walked over to the two couches surrounding a coffee table in the center of the small library and sat down before motioning to the other sofa and barely glancing at her. She frowned but walked over as well, sitting gingerly.

"Do you want to take off your jacket?" He sounded genuinely courteous had it not been for the vacuous, expressionless quality of his eyes. She shook her head. He didn't need to see her wings yet.

He shrugged and breathed out opaque smoke. "Is there anything you want to say?"

She bit her lip and glanced around the room uncertainly. This man perplexed her. She felt no hostility from him. In fact, she didn't feel anything from him. "The … the picture over there … when was it taken?"

His eyes flickered to the shattered glass. "About fifteen years ago, I believe. It was a while ago."

She held her breath as he breathed out another cloud of smoke. "Do you know the girl in that picture?"

"Yes. She was very close to Wufei Chang at that time." His expression still hadn't changed.

"S-so…" She paused and wondered whether or not she wanted to press on. "So … do you know her name?"

"Wufei doesn't like to talk about her."

Her anxious expression fell to one of disappointment and her shoulders drooped. "Oh."

He stared at her and cocked his head. "The girl's name, huh? Relena Darlian."

(~~)

"Duo? Duo!"

He cracked one eye open and caught sight of a pair of wide, violet ones. Groaning, he turned his head away and resumed sleeping.

"Duo … do you know what happened to Serena?" Hotaru's worried voice broke past the heavy dust of sleep. He reluctantly opened both eyes and sat up in the chair. His arms felt numb from his head resting on them.

"Of course I don't know. Only Mother knows so go away and ask her instead," he snapped crankily. He had always felt annoyed in Hotaru's presence. It was as if he were afraid her weakness would rub off on him.

"Oh." Her voice trembled and she looked ready to cry. "Thanks anyway, Duo." She walked out of his room and he sighed in relief.

"Weak, weak … always weak," he muttered to himself before shrugging carelessly and yawning. It wasn't his problem.

(~~)

"You're not very special at all, are you? I was afraid the White Witch would send somebody formidable but…"

Serena stiffened at the condescending tone.

"During this period, a normal person would have attempted to escape at least once. You're either exceptionally stupid or exceptionally cowardly … or maybe a combination of the two." His face remained impassive. "I wonder why the White Witch would send somebody like you after Wufei Chang … does she think that little of us?"

She couldn't come up with a biting retort. The man opposite of her had moved on from his first cigarette to his second and was ignoring the fact that she was trying to suppress coughs.

"So what is going to happen to me?"

His eyes refocused on her. "Well, we are hoping to get information out of you about the White Witch and her allies."

She frowned. "I'd never give away information about Mother!"

He raised an eyebrow. "Mother…" he muttered softly to himself and engraved the incident in his mind.

"We don't expect you to give away information." He crushed the second cigarette in the ashtray. "We plan on forcing it out of you."

It was the first time Serena had seen the stranger smile and she decided she'd much rather see a permanent frown on his face. *