Disclaimer: In a town called Perfect where there's a Walgreen's on every street corner, every author and authoress has their own set of Gundam pilots to love and to squeeze and to show off to all their friends. But we don't live anywhere near Perfect. *realizes she just ripped off a commercial to explain that she's not ripping off a tv show* Dangit.
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Episode Thirty-Eight: Breaking Point "As lightning to the children eased with explanation kind,The truth must dazzle gradually, or every man be blind." ~Emily Dickenson February 23rd, 1902 It began as a very bleak morning on the ferry to the Isle of Wight, and the boat was practically empty except for two lost souls leaning on the cracked paint of the steel railing. A woman in a gray cotton dress, the taller of the two, was picking away at the paint with one hand and lazily knocking flakes of varying sizes into the water below. Her companion, a dark-haired boy wearing an equally dark suit, leaned his folded arms against the railing right next to her, watching the specks of paint flitter down and float away. Noin was sent to fetch Heero every few days, as he was no longer even trusted to make the journey to Jeffrhyss' compound on his own. Over time as they travelled, they talked, just a little at first, but the more time they spent together, the more they were able to open up. Without getting into details, each knew the other was missing someone badly, someone they cared very deeply about, but they also knew there was nothing to be done about it. "So...is he blackmailing you too?" Noin asked, her eyes pointed down at the railing. "After a fashion," Heero replied dully. Noin shook her head once, sharply, and pushed herself away from the rail in frustration. "I don't get it. I mean, I can see how I got myself into this mess, but you look too young to have gotten into any decent trouble in life, and certainly nothing worth all this effort! I don't understand the hold he has over you..." Heero massaged his wrists, very discreetly, thinking back over several years; rarely a day or night went by during his training when he didn't have something clamped tightly around those thin wrists. "In my case, any blackmail is nothing more than a warning. As for the rest...this is the way it's always been. There is no other way for me." "You can't tell me that if you had the opportunity to leave, you wouldn't take it," Noin said. "It'll never happen." "But suppose it did...would you really stay with this life just because it's the only one you've ever known?" She stepped up to the railing beside him and leaned out over the water by the same amount. Heero had to admit he felt strangely at ease with Lucrezia, in a kind of fractured, big sister way. He'd already told her a few things he'd never told anyone else, and she'd done the same; being victims of the same tyrant turned out to be a fabulous icebreaker. "If...if there was a crack in his wall big enough for daylight to break through...you wouldn't see me for dust." Noin smiled and nudged her shoulder against his. "See? You do have something to live for. I kept telling you, but you wouldn't believe me." She saw a rare and lovely glimmer of hope in his eyes before it disappeared back behind the stony mask, and on some level, she understood. Maybe you're like me, and you've got someone to live for. To put up with this kind treatment, she must be really special. "That's what keeps me going...thinking about what I'll have once I figure out an escape. I know it won't be easy, but what's waiting for me on the outside looks so good, I've stopped caring about the risks." "If you can ignore the risks, you have no idea what they are." Heero left the railing and walked a few paces away, turning to face the rapidly shrinking mainland. "No one gets out. I've seen what happens to those who try, so there's no point in dwelling on some 'other life' we can never have. At least we have a purpose, even if we didn't choose it." Noin folded her arms and paced the deck of the ship, deflated. The boy was still very much a puzzle to her in many respects, and he seemed so mechanical and machine-like at times that she almost couldn't imagine him doing anything else besides travelling back and forth for his instructions. He's nothing without his instructions. He wouldn't know what to do with himself. "Well...for what it's worth, if I ever find a way out, I'll gladly take you with me." "...likewise," Heero said without turning around. In a short while, the ferry crossed the last bit of water to the tiny island, and the pair marched ashore in an orderly fashion. As they made their way from the docks to the outskirts of town where there was always a private carriage waiting for them, they both had the same thing on their minds: I know it's impossible...but I still want out. **********From a technical aspect, it was much easier cooking for three people than for an entire household including servants, but that was little comfort during the days that Duo would count among the most boring he had ever suffered. With the understanding that he couldn't contact Heero without putting him at risk, and also the promise he made to himself not to return to Bridlewood without seeing him, he spent nine hours a day cooking and sleeping, and the other fifteen hours thinking about how bored he was. The couple he was staying with, polite though they were, didn't provide much help. He couldn't make out a word they said, and all they ever did while he was in the room was smile those dopey smiles at him. Duo didn't ask pointless questions; he just cooked three square meals a day to keep up his end of the agreement, resigned to never knowing exactly what their end entailed. That morning he was tackling the monumental task of beating his personal best number of playing cards tossed into a hat from five feet away. The strain was almost unbearable. Up next, to defend his world title, Maxwell of the United States, the announcer said over the loudspeaker in his head. He sat cross-legged on the bed in his borrowed room, with an upturned hat sitting on the floor; the extra height that was added from sitting on the bed raised the degree of difficulty, which also raised his maximum possible style points. Scandal continues to swirl around this competitor as he pursues his eighth consecutive championship, while avoiding the hordes of reporters that have hounded him since these games began. Will his final score suffer as a result of his alleged 'relationship' with the Japanese judge? He began tossing cards at the hat, revelling in the cheers of the crowd when he hit his target, and sinking with their collective groans when he missed. After fifty-one cards, he stood tied with his previous score. With this last throw, Maxwell can secure his rightful position as Card Flip Champion of the Universe. And who's that standing on the sidelines!? Why, it's the judging representative from Japan, thumbing his nose at the league's suspension and preparing to congratulate the champion with a laurel wreath and the kiss of victory!! As Duo threw the final card, there was a knock at the door. He missed. Damn. "Who is it?" "Clio, the muse of history!" a man's voice answered proudly. Duo squinted, stood, and walked up beside the door, but didn't open it. "You don't sound like a muse." The door opened a crack, and Giorgenson's grinning face appeared. "Alright, I'm not, but I know all her guilty little secrets, so I feel safe in speaking for her." His grin widened as Duo looked more befuddled. "Get your coat on! It's a beautiful day outside!" Duo left the mess of playing cards all over the floor and followed him instantly, hopping on one foot and then the other as he put on his boots in transit. In less than a minute, he was jogging out the front door after the man, unwilling to wait another heartbeat for the information he'd been promised so many days ago. It was indeed a beautiful day outside, heralding the imminent extinction of winter and the emergence of spring, allowing Duo to venture out with only his brown tweed jacket. Giorgenson knew precisely when the boy had caught up to him without looking, and began the dialogue. "As promised, here I am. What would you like to know, m'boy?" Duo had assumed the man would only be telling him the least valuable of his secrets, as any good strategist would do; he hadn't expected it to be a question-and-answer period. "Geez...I don't know what to ask first.....is Heero alright? I haven't talked to him in weeks, and I hate not knowing what's going on with him." Giorgenson chuckled. "The bulk of what I know could shatter the establishments of half the civilized nations of the world, and all you want to know is how your friend's doing. That's touching, son, it really is." He paused to light his pipe as they walked south-westward across the grounds. "Heero's fine, for the moment, but I won't lie to you...I've seen him look better." Fine for the moment, Duo repeated in his mind. The professionalism he had osmosed from Heero took this as a green light to collect information now and worry later. "How do you know him? He's never mentioned you once, even though...I mean.....do you work for..." "Do I work for Jeffrhyss?" the old man finished. He took note of the way Duo's eyes bulged in slight fear of the name, and seemed to instantly understand how much the boy already knew. "No, I'm just a long-time acquaintance, and Heero's never mentioned me for the very good reason that he doesn't know me. I'm fairly sure that he's never laid eyes on me while in a state of total lucidity." They came upon a sparse wooden fence once used to pen in sheep, and perched on top of it side by side, facing a lovely stretch of rolling hills that were straining to turn green in the alien sunshine. There were a million things Duo wanted to know, but he could not, for the life of him, get his thoughts together in a straight line. They wouldn't even stand together in a ragged clump, for all the begging he did. Finally, he squashed all his doubts and longings into one vague, hopeful question, unsure if it would be enough. "What's it all about? Why.....why is his life so messed up? Why can't he be anything more than somebody's puppet instead of having a normal life like the rest of us poor slobs?" Giorgenson took a few puffs of his pipe and just enjoyed the morning sun for a bit while he sorted out his memories. "Personally, I wouldn't tell any of this to Heero, for his own safety, and there are a few things I'd rather say in front of both of you, but...I don't see why you shouldn't hear at least part of the story...if you really want to know..." "Oh, I do," the boy answered earnestly. "I don't know how else I can help him." Giorgenson nodded. "Well, I suppose I should begin at the beginning...with Jeffrhyss. He wasn't always a bitter, twisted megalomaniac, you know...we met when we were twelve years old and still full of youthful enthusiasm. It was 1861. Our families each owned property on either side of a line that became the border between Virginia and West Virginia. Now, what was special about that time and place? Can you tell me?" Pop quiz time. Though he'd never spent a day in school, there were some things Duo made it his business to know, particularly about American history. His eyes went vacant and he clutched the fencepost directly to his right. "...the war...you both lived through the Civil War?" "There's a good lad. You know your history." Judging solely by his tone of voice, the man was neither pleased nor displeased, despite praising his student. "When the line was drawn, I was in the North and he was in the South. We spotted each other one summer day, looking out from our forty-acre backyards and feeling sorry for ourselves. Our home life wasn't very homey, no brothers, no sisters...no friends...parents who were always too busy...plus the added bonus of the world falling to pieces all around us. We just clicked, probably because we had all the same things to complain about. "It started out well enough, as friendships go...long walks in the wilderness, whittling wood, skipping stones, criminal mischief under ten dollars...you know, the usual. We were happy until our parents found out and started forcing their opposing views about the war on us...'you can't be his friend because his half of the country is oppressing our half of the country,' that sort of thing. After awhile, we started listening to their points of view, and debated those points faithfully every day, but we were still friends. During the course of the war, we were both orphaned, our families and homes wiped out, and by then we needed each other, even though we were becoming opposites as we grew up. I got silly and he got sullen, almost overnight. One day I looked at him and realized he was everything I was missing in myself...he was strong, and brave, and confident, and a dozen other things." Giorgenson took a long draw of his pipe, staring at the horizon. "And he was beautiful. And he didn't give a damn about it." Duo fastened his eyes on the side of his head in shock and seemed to shrink within himself. I didn't just hear that. I wasn't listening. I couldn't have been listening. I did not hear him describe me and Heero. I didn't. Oh man... "You can see why I don't mind telling you, because I know you've been there," Giorgenson said matter-of-factly. "You're still there, actually. Don't ask how I know, I just do. Anyway, Heero really shouldn't be burdened with screwball things like this in his present state." "Yeah...sure..." Duo swallowed twice, wondering whether or not he wanted to stay and hear the rest. A second later, he wondered if he was even safe in the man's presence anymore. "I don't want you to be alarmed either, son. How I felt about Jeffrhyss then is immaterial to either one of us now, and it should be immaterial to you too. Besides, it turned out to be just a phase for me...I was quite the ladykiller in later years." He let the pipe rest on his knee awhile, smirking, and at the same time could sense Duo relax considerably next to him. "The point is, I had a chance, however brief, to turn him around, and I couldn't manage it. We saw a lot of terrible things during the war, and he let it all get to him so badly...maybe if he'd felt wanted by someone, he wouldn't have been such a fatalist, but we...just couldn't seem to communicate on that level, and I lost him. In '64, a little while after his fifteenth birthday, he told me he was going to enlist. "For hours, I tried to talk him out of it, and the subject of...shall we say, affection almost came up about a dozen times, but never quite made it to the surface. I didn't know if he was running away from what I couldn't bring myself to tell him, or if he was waiting to hear the words that never came, but in the end, he got his way, like he always did. Left the next morning, to join the Confederate army, I presumed. "I didn't see him again until the last days of the war, and by then, there was a lot less of him to see, having lost three-fourths of his limbs in battle. All he had left was one good arm, and that was taken up with a crutch. God knows why, but he came to see me. I was part-owner of a bar in Washington then, a young gadabout with a different girl on my arm every night. I'd moved on...and then he hobbled into the place expecting...well...to this day I don't know what he was expecting, but once he saw that I was doing brilliantly without him, he refused to tell me what he came for, and I never really bought the 'old times sake' excuse. Still, we had something of a history between us, so we officially got back in touch." Even as the subject of the conversation turned morose, the old man's tone remained light and flippant, as if none of it mattered anymore. "Now...I know for a fact that every man has a breaking point, some lower on the temperature scale than others." Giorgenson paused, relit his neglected pipe, and let the thought dangle there for awhile. "I remember the exact place, date, and time that he reached his breaking point. April 14th, 1865. The last day Jeffrhyss ever smiled." Duo squinted and searched his memory quickly. He knew that date was important for some reason, but what? "We really painted the town," Giorgenson reminisced with a smirk. "Sightseeing, fancy dinner, a night at the theatre, and not having any legs left didn't seem to slow him down one bit. Seeing me again actually made him happy, and I guess I was flattered. Seeing him again did something to me too, but we just picked the wrong night to stir any dying embers into a flame. We managed to swing tickets to a play that everyone who was anyone had to see, and right before it began, we looked up...and there...in one of those red plush luxury boxes...was Abraham Lincoln." Instantly, Duo remembered, and sank his head into one hand. "I don't know if you can imagine what it's like having your president slaughtered by a mad gunman right in front of you, but it's not pleasant," Giorgenson said. "I've got a vague idea," Duo mumbled miserably. Giorgenson looked down at the slumping boy with his pipe clamped between his teeth, and made no mention of whether or not he knew of Duo's presence at the McKinley assassination. "Well...I don't have to paint you a picture. A shot rang out a little after ten o'clock, and my only friend died inside at the same time. What he didn't tell me until that moment, when I started yelling and screaming at him, asking if he was happy that his side finally won, was that he never enlisted with the Confederates...he decided that my point of view was the correct one and joined the Union Army. He gave up an arm and two legs defending Lincoln's North, and had the cornerstone of his prize shot down just like that, and it all came flooding out into the open. He told me everything that happened to him while we were apart, all at once...it was humbling and horrifying, but, like I said, every man has a breaking point, and for him, that was it. The poor boy was made out of matchsticks...they'll either break or burn, but either way, they won't last long." For one ten-thousandth of a second, Duo almost felt sorry for Jeffrhyss--almost, but not quite. "So he went nuts. That doesn't excuse or even explain what he did to Heero!" "I'm not saying anything will excuse it, not in a million years, but Lincoln was the last straw," Giorgenson insisted. "That night was the catalyst that made him what he is. He was tired of fate jerking him around, and resolved to spend every last drop of energy making sure that history turned out the way he wanted it to. He was obsessed. His anger and bitterness made him intimidating, and he used that intimidation to accumulate power and wealth, and eventually an entire empire whose sole purpose remains the manipulation of world events. I'm with you on this one, son...Heero's innocent in all this. He's just a pawn." "Too right, he's a pawn!" Duo snorted. "He doesn't deserve this, you know, he's a good person. None of this is fair..." "Now that sounds familiar," the old man cackled. "Life is rarely fair and always irreversible. Heero can't change what was done to him, only how he lives in spite of it." Duo looked up at his companion and swallowed a third time. "What did Jeffrhyss do to him?" he asked weakly. "And why didn't anyone stop it? How could he get away with this?" "Well, as far as I've ever been told, Heero was an orphan too. He didn't have anyone to look after his best interests, and he was thousands of miles from home. Nobody's ever heard the full story of how a Japanese child suddenly appeared in Brussels with no legal guardian, but somehow it happened. The very next day, Jeffrhyss held a gathering of his contemporaries, myself included, to show off his latest catch. I was way at the back of the room when he hobbled in, holding the hand of a little four-year-old rugrat, and if I recall correctly, not long after the preliminary speeches, Heero got scared of the room full of weird old men speaking a dozen different languages, and started crying. It was pretty cute, and most of them had a good chuckle over it, but none of them thought Jeffrhyss was in his right mind. "You see...being in the army taught Jeffrhyss that soldiers don't win wars. He enlisted with the mindset of being the perfect soldier, the one who could turn it all around, but the soldier is the absolute lowest level of power in a conflict. Real change happens at the top, and for that you need the perfect spy. He toiled for years with fifteen-year-old recruits, using all manner of mind-control and training techniques. It wasn't a stellar success...somewhere in the neighbourhood of a 60% suicide rate...and then, just when he came up with the brilliant hypothesis that if you start your subjects younger, they'll get used to the training faster, and will be less likely to rebel, this tiny, impressionable child drops down from the heavens right in front of him, practically gift-wrapped with a bow around his neck. He just couldn't turn down such a golden opportunity, and he brought Heero before us saying that he'd be the first test subject to begin training at such an early age, and crowing that fate was finally smiling on him." Duo was beginning to wonder who all these 'contemporaries' were, but said nothing about it. "Look, I don't wanna sound ungrateful, since you're telling me all this for free, but why couldn't you do anything to stop it? You're so bent on helping me now, what was keeping you from helping Heero then?" "Believe me, kiddo, I tried," the old man admitted. "Even with my connections, I couldn't get in to see what was going on. I've relied on third, fourth, and upwards of fifth-hand information up until now, so keeping tabs on him over the last twelve years hasn't been easy. No other recruit has received as much instruction, as much attention, or as many resources as Heero. He represents the largest, most extensive investment Jeffrhyss has ever made in a single subject, especially with all the added security around him. What all this amounts to is that he sees Heero as his most valuable possession, his golden ticket to being the most powerful man on the globe. If this new method of training proves successful, the number of infant recruits will skyrocket, and his Lordship will be unstoppable...so you can see why he's not keen to give the boy up." It made sense, and yet it didn't. If the end result was no actual change in Heero's situation, the entire conversation was pointless. Duo blinked rapidly and spread both hands out in front of him. "So?" "So why are you here?" "Wha...how can you say that!?" Duo howled. "I thought you were on my side! I thought you were gonna get me into the house to see him!" "First," Giorgenson said, gesturing at the horizon with his pipe, "I want to hear you say why you want to see him." Duo pondered how he should answer; there seemed to be an object lesson at work, and as annoying as that was, he didn't was to miss the point. "I want to get him out of this spy business. I want him to get out from under that jerk's big fat thumb and have a normal life." With me, preferably, but I'll take what I can get, for his sake. "Even though you can't use the direct approach because her Ladyship will likely step in and muck up the mission, either by throwing him out or dragging him further away? She might even try to take him out of the country, and he couldn't say a word about it. Benidorm's nice this time of year..." "Well...we'd figure something out..." "Even though Heero would be letting Count Khushrenada slip through his fingers? Even though Jeffrhyss would chase you both to the ends of the earth to hold you accountable?" Duo hunched over the fencepost thinking; was this a test or was Giorgenson being serious? Did it even matter? He paced in mental circles around the kernel issue, around and around until the dizziness nearly knocked him off his wooden perch. There was no room for compromise anymore. "Yes. Absolutely. I don't care what it takes or what it costs us afterwards, it has to be better than what he's got now. I'm going to get him out of this." Giorgenson smiled in admiration. "Now there's the stubborn streak I was hoping to find. That tells me you're serious about this, and for that, you shall be well rewarded." He suddenly hopped off the fence and stood in front of Duo, switching into lecturing mode. "I'll help you as much as I can, but you need to know what you're getting yourself and Heero into. See, as long as he's under orders from Jeffrhyss, that's not a house he's living in, it's a military base, subject to military rules. From Jeffrhyss' point of view, any attempt on your part to remove and detain one of his agents from the field would be a grave act of subversion, and he'd send someone to clean your clock, permanently. The assumption would be that Heero wouldn't want to leave. "Now, because of his rank, Heero does have some discretionary power over his movements, but that doesn't mean you can just snatch him away. He has to make the conscious decision to leave the house now and deal with the consequences later. Basically, it comes down to him choosing you over the immediate needs of the mission. That way, he takes the heat as comfortably as possible and you remain an innocent civilian, got it?" "I think so," Duo said, nodding faintly, "and I know I could convince him to leave if I had the chance, but how's anyone else gonna know whether he wants to come with me or not?" "Don't go underestimating his Lordship," Giorgenson said, waving his pipe in the air. "There's hardly a square inch on this earth that he can't see. Eyes and ears everywhere. I wouldn't even trust that fence you're sitting on." Duo involuntarily looked down at the fence timbers in horror before catching himself and glaring at the old man with a smirk. "So what do I do?" Giorgenson puffed at his pipe and tilted his head just enough that the indirect sunlight laid flat against his round spectacles, obscuring his eyes. "For now, do nothing. Leave it with me for awhile, I'll think of something." Abruptly, he turned and walked a few steps away, then paused just as abruptly and turned to face Duo again. "Was I right in hearing her Ladyship say that she was holding a hunt ball in the near future?" "Uh...she might've said..." Duo really wasn't sure; that day seemed to be miles away in his memory, and he couldn't retrieve it no matter how far he stretched. "Mm." The old man nodded and walked away again, pausing a second time to make a hasty about-face. "Would you agree that the best place to hide a thing is with a whole flock of other things that look just like it?" "Well...yeah, I suppose so...I knew a kid once with a favourite marble, and he hid it in this huge bag of other marbles so nobody could steal it. 'Course...he never figured out which one was his after that..." "Mm-hm." Giorgenson nodded again, walked away a few paces, and spun around a third and final time. "What size clothes do you take?" Duo's eyes narrowed into slits as the conversation turned strangely personal. Suspicion flooded his voice. "Why?" "I said I'd think of something, and I think I've thought of something, and you'll co-operate like a good boy because I'm not going to tell you what it is, thereby ensuring that you'll be dying of curiosity by the time it happens, alright?" He stared the boy down for a moment, but he wasn't giving anything up. "Fine," he sighed, sizing Duo up with his eyes, "you look like a 29-inch waist to me. We might just find something appropriate to squeeze you into." With that very cryptic remark, he turned and walked away, this time for keeps. Duo gripped the fencepost, swallowed yet again, and grappled with the inevitable conundrum that he was dying of curiosity, even though a part of him really didn't want to know what Giorgenson meant. Really, really didn't want to know. More unnerved than ever, he began walking slowly back to the farmhands' cottage. Still, if it helps Heero...I should be willing to do just about anything. As an afterthought, he frowned over his shoulder at the peculiar man, scoffing on the inside. 29 inches...hah! I've been 27-and-a-half for years, and I'm staying that way! Freak... **********"...couldn't I just have five minutes, Uncle Treize? I'm really worried, and I need to talk to someone." Relena's plea fell on deaf ears as she followed her uncle in broad circles around the massive library. Since the day he returned from London, the Count was moody to the point of being downright truculent with everyone around him, and wouldn't stop moving, even to eat. He was constantly barrelling from one room to another, moving everything in it as if he was looking for something, muttering and scowling the entire time. "Not right now, dear." He was very busy at that moment, taking books off the shelves two at a time and weighing them in his hands. "But Dorothy's already tired of listening to me complain, and I can't blame her for it," Relena moaned. "I really need a gentleman's perspective on this problem with Heer--" "Don't...say that name," Treize snapped, freezing with two books held in the air. He took a deep breath and resumed his odd rearrangement of the bookshelves, scowling much harder than before. The girl behind him made no further argument, feeling as though she'd already lost, and was about to lose all she had left. She turned and left the library as quietly as she had come, and in her wake, another blonde girl tiptoed in, much less likely to scurry away in defeat. "She's right, I am getting tired of listening to her moan about that boy, but I've also been stuck in this house with her for the last two weeks, and you haven't heard one syllable about it yet. You're past due!" Dorothy swept past him in an iridescent green dress and flung herself dramatically and stylishly into a red velvet wing chair near the spot where he stood. "You're not still at it, are you?" The Count grunted in annoyance and continued to feel all the books for weight. "I can't understand how he did this to me!" Behind him, Dorothy sighed. Treize rambled on, unaware that the girl was simultaneously mouthing the words at the same pace, having committed them to memory over the last week. "We searched that house from top to bottom, emptied every cabinet, opened up every wall, tore the place apart floor by floor, and all we have to show for it is twenty-seven bars." As he whirled around in frustration, Dorothy snapped her miming mouth shut, smiled, and nodded quickly to indicate that she was paying attention. "Twenty-seven bars of gold. What good is that going to do me? I was expecting hundreds of the infernal things to be tucked away in that house, and now my men have to work triple overtime to repair the damage they caused looking for something that wasn't even there!" Dorothy squirmed in her seat. She had never seen Treize actually angry before. Miffed, perhaps. Peeved, once in awhile. Angry? Never. "That doesn't mean it's been here all the time, surely! Maybe Lord Peacecraft took it out of the walls and put it in a bank somewhere. He would have known you couldn't search the confidential records of every bank in England." "It has to be here," Treize whispered harshly. "If the gold isn't somewhere in this house, it means that boy's hidden it on me. It means he's gotten the better of me. It means he's laughing at me this very moment. I can't be expected to listen to Relena nattering on and on about him when his is the last existence I want to be reminded of right now." With a bit of thought, he stopped hefting the books around and put back the two he was holding. "No...he would've had to hollow out more than a thousand books to hide it in here. He wouldn't have had enough time..." His gaze drifted across the room to an unfortunate grandfather clock. "He could have fit a few in there..." The Count dashed across the library, scooted the massive clock around to expose the back panel and started tugging at the edges in a manic state. Dorothy jumped out of her chair in a panic, ran over to him and slapped his hands away from the priceless antique. "Get ahold of yourself!" she shouted, and he actually drew back from her in surprise. "Look at the facts for a minute before you go tearing anything else to shreds! You guessed that the Peacecraft gold was hidden in Bridlewood. You guessed wrong. Get over it! If it wasn't in the house all that time, it was probably long gone before we even got to England. Until you have something solid to go on suggesting that the gold is in Hampshire instead, you might as well just admit that your plan was a failure and move on. There must be plenty of other family fortunes to plunder." Treize eyed her suspiciously, as if wondering why she wasn't as worried about the loss of the gold as he was; after all, she needed it even more, and her share had disappeared right along with his. Luckily for her, he was too fired up to waste energy thinking about it, and launched into another tirade the likes of which she was all too familiar with. "This was the haul that could have cemented a critical deal for me, and now there's a chance that someone else with greater influence and wealth will take my place. There's a deadline to be met! I simply don't have time to go hunting for another cache of this size! This was the gold I needed!" "So you keep saying," Dorothy moaned, "over and over and over..." "He did this," Treize growled, beginning to pace the floor again. "Somehow, he did this, and now I'm going to have to have a long chat with our Mr. Yuy. I'll have to endure that smug smile while he taunts me with his success. A confrontation with the king of sore winners won't begin to describe it. I'm going to need several stiff drinks before going to look for him." ".......whatever." Dorothy tossed her hair over her shoulder and pranced away from the downtrodden Count. "Let me know when you're done. I could use some of that hot air to dry my hair after my bubble bath." Treize simply snarled as she left. **********It took Relena some time to realize that she hadn't run out of people to talk to. Dorothy didn't want to hear anymore, Treize was too busy, and she already knew what Otto would say, but she had ignored the other resources available to her. Before Heero came into her life, before all the confusion and uncertainty began, she had another friend, and she suddenly realized she had neglected his fine advice for too long. After Treize made it clear that he wasn't interested in her petty problems, she went looking for Quatre. She collected enough tips from the rest of the staff to determine that he was in the conservatory, looking through the household collection of flower bulbs. As she neared the glass-enclosed room in the far corner of the house, she heard a girl's voice, intruding on the solitude she sought. "Well, I'm sorry, I can't help it if I think fox hunting is barbaric. What did the poor little fox do to deserve that? Nothing! They're harmless! In fact, I think they're kinda cute. Wouldn't mind having one for a pet, if Heero can have a cat, and if you can have Trowa..." A boy's voice replied quickly and mirthlessly. "Oh, ha ha. Help me with this bag of potting soil, will you?" Relena poked her head into the room and saw Hilde and Quatre struggling to move heavy burlap bags of dirt around on the concrete floor, trying to get at the cupboard in behind. She took a few steps into the room and cleared her throat quietly. Both servants looked up, then stood straight before their mistress and awaited her commands. "I'd like a word with Mr. Sagheer in private, if you don't mind," she said to the housemaid. Hilde exchanged small smiles with the boy before curtseying to her Ladyship and skittering out the door to find some other duties to attend to. Quatre laced his fingers together in front of him and nodded to Relena. "Is there a problem, miss?" "No, I just..." Relena ran out of words much too fast, and grasped the back of a white-painted metal patio chair in front of her, thumbing the filigree shell design on the crown. "We don't seem to talk anymore...you know, like we used to. I know I've gotten busy lately, but that doesn't mean...do you mind if we....." "Oh, of course!" Quatre chirped. He dashed to her side and pulled out the chair for her, inviting her to sit at the decorative card table. He quickly took the chair opposite and sat forward in it, leaning both arms on the table with his hands clasped together in concentration. Naturally, he could tell something was bothering her. "Please, you go first. Unless you want me to go first. Should we flip a coin?" "No, no, no, it's alright." With a delicate toss of her hair, Relena almost appeared normal for a moment, but the stormclouds swiftly billowed back around her face. "You know that I've been engaged for almost two months, but I doubt that you've noticed that my relationship with Heero...well, it's been getting worse instead of better. I thought perhaps that life in London wasn't suitable for him, that's why I brought him here, but no matter how hard I try to make him happy, we...we seem to be growing apart." Quatre looked away uncomfortably. "I wondered if...since you've known him as long as I have, maybe you could..." "...talk to him about it?" the blond boy finished for her. "Would you, please?" Relena begged, tears of anxiety and restraint threatening to tumble down her cheeks. "Maybe he'd feel better talking to another man about whatever's bothering him, but I have to know what it is! Does he feel isolated out here in the country? Is he worried about marrying above his station? Is he h-hav--" She winced and swallowed, clenching her hands in grief. "Is he having second thoughts?" Quatre heard every word she said, but they didn't receive all of his attention. While her head was lowered and she dabbed at her eyes, he looked past her to the doorframe, where a shadow with ocean blue eyes was staring very strangely at the scene. Quatre tried to catch the shadow's attention, but it's gaze was riveted to the back of Relena's head as she struggled not to break down in a fit of tears. Finally, the shadow looked up, locked eyes with Quatre just for a second before bolting back down the hall. Quatre shook his head at the empty space, frowning. Heero...you've got to explain yourself sooner or later...this is just plain cruel. The gardener patted Relena's trembling hands as comfortingly as he could, cooking at her in a soothing voice. "There there, it's probably nothing. I'll track him down and talk to him for you, okay? Now, why don't we go up to the parlour and I'll have Elsie bring you some tea, alright?" The girl sniffled and nodded in agreement, and the pair of them got up and made their way slowly to the other end of the house. In a different direction altogether was the round-fronted lounge, where the shadow had fled once he knew he'd been discovered. Now Heero was slouched heavily in the green leather chair, one hand on the armrest and the other raised enough so that he could gnaw irritably on his thumbnail, a habit he'd never noticed before. As he stared out at the countryside and the fading daylight, he realized that a new set of feelings were making themselves known where Relena was concerned--a curious mixture of pity and guilt. He still felt annoyance when he thought of her hounding him until their alleged wedding day, but his behaviour was making her miserable, and he knew it. Just one more person having their life ruined for the sake of the mission, he thought on a reflex. It was to be expected, in a way; stringing her along was part of his job, and it always had been, but he couldn't do it convincingly anymore. All the pleasing words and soft glances he once knew were gone now, and where he used to be able to dazzle her Ladyship with his very presence, he could barely muster enough enthusiasm to say 'good morning' at the breakfast table. He knew it wasn't fair to treat her that way. Nothing in his life was fair. Duo and I aren't the only ones suffering, but at least we know the reasons behind our situation. She doesn't. She might be flighty and difficult to respect, but she doesn't deserve to get hurt by this perpetual lie. He tried to reason his way out of feeling guilty, and to a point, it worked. If it weren't for the mission, all of this would go away. The mission. Forever the mission. It ruined everything, completely and consistently. Without even realizing it, he picked up the newspaper and started thumbing through it, looking for distraction. He stopped at the travel section, and was stared at by package holidays, ocean liner voyages, railway journeys, and saw that everyone else in the world except him could go just about anywhere they wanted. Duo would probably like one of these...someplace with a low concentration of agents would be nice...and a bit of sun...he'd like that. Heero took out his notebook and pen, and started jotting down details on boat fares to all points around the globe, not really stopping to think if he was serious. It was just something to pass the time. We have to get out of here...we have to get away... He sat there for the rest of the night, staring at the package holidays and pretending that he wasn't rooted in place. |
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Next, in Episode Thirty-Nine: The Hursley Hambledon Hunt goes forward as planned, and so does the gala ball, but with a few more guests than Relena had accounted for. Treize confronts an unsuspecting Heero about the whereabouts of the Peacecraft gold, while Duo and Giorgenson plot to rescue the boy from his sad destiny of lies and subterfuge.
Ack. My dinner's on the table, so I'm gonna luv ya an' leave ya. I hope you won't throw heavy objects at me, but there's going to be a little extra time between this episode and the next, but in all likelihood, it's going to be double-length, so hopefully that'll make up for it. Can you last until March 7th? *crosses fingers whilst ducking heavy objects* I knew you could. =^_^=