Disclaimer: I know, from traipsing through every store, mall, and boutique in the Greater Toronto Area, that nobody has Gundam pilots for sale. I even offered to pay retail instead of the supposed sale price, but they still said no. Therefore, I cannot possibly own these magnificent examples of manhood, or the chicks they hang out with. Do not sue me. I have no money except that miniscule amount reserved for presents.
~~~~~~~~~~Episode Seventy: Bad Connections
"Then indecision brings its own delays, and days are lost lamenting o'er lost days" ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Faust"January 6th, 1903
Thanks to Marcus, the servants had a very pleasant Christmas after all; his parents simply couldn't refuse them a decent meal in a festive atmosphere after hearing their sad story of poverty and abandonment. Marcus also put up a few pounds out of his monthly allowance to buy them some groceries, and to their delight, the kitchen was well-stocked once again. With the cupboards full of food, Heero's team felt much more secure with investing their energy in finding Relena, so that was what they set out to do next.
Duo and Hilde knew people living rough who always kept their eyes open. Doris and Elsie knew servants in other households filled with gossipy aristocrats. Arthur knew a handful of fellows his own age in his favourite pub, and Heero knew various low-level members of the semi-criminal underworld who didn't know that he wasn't officially part of their network anymore. Between the lot of them, word of Relena's disappearance was carefully spread, in the hopes that even one of these contacts might have a scrap of useful information to share. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to be turning up.
Lucrezia was still convinced, on some level, that the country house in Hampshire was the key. She had spent hours on the telephone just letting it ring, but no one picked up. She had travelled there in person and beat her fists on every door and window in the place, but no one had appeared to silence her. Still, she just had a feeling, a vague and cloudy suspicion that Milliardo was in there, somewhere.
"I just can't imagine that they'd have anywhere else to go," she told the others as they lounged around the breakfast table in the kitchen. "They've got to be there. Every instinct I have tells me it's true."
Heero watched three other people stir their tea, thinking. "We could easily manage sending a recon team, but if the family refuses to be found out, how do we force a confrontation safely?"
Around the table, Trowa, Quatre, and Hilde pondered the problem. Duo had vanished shortly after setting breakfast on the table and had yet to reappear. "Why don't we just sneak in?" Hilde asked. "There's plenty of windows to smash, or we could get Duo to pick open one of the locked doors."
"We shouldn't have to break the law to talk to Relena," said Quatre. "Things aren't that desperate anymore, and we have to weigh how badly we need her back against how much we're willing to risk."
"Things aren't desperate now because we're living off borrowed money," Hilde countered. "How long do we want to keep that up? Besides, it's only really breaking the law if Relena has us arrested, and she wouldn't do that!"
Heero leaned back and rubbed his chin. "Are you sure?" The others gazed in shock at the suggestion, so he elaborated. "Relena wasn't herself for weeks before the family left. Her behaviour was erratic and her actions unpredictable. I know I don't need reminding that she nearly poisoned me with tranquillizers. Would someone like that look the other way if we smashed our way into their sanctuary?"
Hilde could have made the argument that Relena had been afforded plenty of time to cool off, but the thought of the sleeping pill incident on the night of Treize and Lady Une's engagement party silenced her. When she had found out what Relena had done, she hated her for it, and the feeling lingered on. "Alright...what about a stink bomb, then? Duo's a chemical genius when it comes to distracting people! We can climb up on the roof, drop it down the chimney, and wait for 'em to come shooting out like chickens out of a pressure cooker!"
"No good," Trowa said. "I don't doubt Duo's skill for a minute, but anything he mixes up would probably have exactly enough punch for humans of more than a hundred pounds each, and Frederick would still..." Trowa wound down like a toy soldier with a slack spring, his eyes draining of focus as he realized something other than what he was saying. "...would still be there."
"I see what you're saying," said Lucrezia, leaning forward a bit. "We could end up choking him by accident, and I absolutely will not have a poor little dog on my conscience, not even to see Milliardo."
At the other end of the table, Trowa was still muttering. "...of course, Frederick would be there. She must have taken him with her." While the others all looked quizzically at his state of detachment, he slowly concocted another plan, one he wished he could have thought of weeks ago. He focused sternly on Heero. "I can find out if she's there. Take me along."
Heero was pleasantly surprised at the confident declaration, and didn't see the look of worry on Quatre's face as he nodded in agreement. "I'll meet you out front." He stood, drained the rest of his coffee, and left the kitchen in a flash.
Lucrezia also stood, but hesitantly. "I...don't know whether to stay here or not. I've been waiting for weeks to talk to him, but now...I don't know what to say to him even if we do find him."
"Forget about him for awhile," Hilde said, strutting up beside her and patting her shoulder. "Let the boys do the leg work for today, I'm sure they won't let anything earth-shattering happen without telling you about it. And in the meantime, you can help me do the laundry that's been piling up since we stopped being able to afford detergent. No excuse not to do it now, is there?" The maid grinned and carted both their breakfast dishes over to the sink.
"Might as well..." The girls headed for the pantry door, and Lucrezia tossed a wave over her shoulder to the boys. "See you both later."
"Yeah, see you." Quatre watched them leave, emptying the kitchen of all but himself and a strangely silent stable hand. He narrowed his eyes at Trowa, who was concentrating fiercely on his corn flakes, and cleared his throat. "Why do you suddenly know what to do now that you've remembered Frederick?"
Trowa slowed his munching, but avoided Quatre's eyes. "No reason..."
"You're going to use your ability, aren't you? I thought we agreed we wouldn't do anything to arouse suspicion unless it was absolutely necessary."
After a time, Trowa put his spoon down, swallowed, and looked up. "Isn't it?"
"I don't happen to think it is!" Quatre insisted.
"Look, I've had a bad feeling ever since Relena and the others left, and I want to know why. If I can use my talents, without Heero finding out, I don't particularly see the harm. Besides...shouldn't you be more worried about what you're going to say to Dorothy? You keep saying you're going to go plant some ideas in her head, and you never do."
"I'm working on it!" Quatre shrank away defensively. He knew he wasn't moving very quickly with his plan to manipulate Dorothy, but Trowa didn't need to be so cold and snappy about it. "I'll get it done in a little while, I promise."
"Fine." Without making eye contact, Trowa swooped out of his chair and deposited his empty bowl in the washbasin, with his back to Quatre the entire time. "Just make sure you do your job, and don't concern yourself with how I do mine." It was obvious that he didn't care to hear a response, for he sped out of the kitchen and up the stairs with long, purposeful strides, leaving a sparse cloud of disapproval behind him.
An icy cold stabbing pain shot through Quatre's chest, and he winced as his body crunched into a loose ball involuntarily. Even though he and Trowa had agreed to be friends again, things still weren't exactly right between them. There was a barrier made of solid steel somewhere in Trowa's mind, and every time Quatre even came close to it, it became electrified and burned him from the inside out. When it first appeared, Quatre was very anxious to break through it any way he could, but the more he tried, the more painful his failures became, and lately it seemed that their partnership could never be put back the way it was.
**********One comforting thing about Duo, from Heero's point of view, was that when he went missing, he rarely took very long to find. It could have been that the two of them simply gravitated to all the same places in the house, or it could have been a streak of predictability that Duo would never admit to, but either way, it ensured that Heero found him on the very first try, yet again. He was straight up the stairs to the second floor and a few steps from their bedroom door when he heard rustling noises that had to have been made by Duo, since Shadow was sitting on a front room windowsill. "Duo," he called out before reaching the door.
"Y-yeah, just a sec!" The rustling noises became more frantic, and by the time Heero burst through the door, Duo was just straightening up to his full height, and the plaid blanket on the bed was just flopping back down into its usual position. Duo had both hands behind his back and an unnaturally chipper smile on his face. "Hi!"
They sized each other up carefully, and Heero glared with great suspicion. "You've been looking at that book again, haven't you?"
"Uh.....what book?"
"Duo!"
The chef scrunched backwards a bit, looking very guilty. For some reason, they had kept putting off finding a more secure hiding place for the blatantly illegal books under the bed, so under the bed they had stayed. "What're ya pickin' on me for!? Half of what's under that mattress is yours! More than half, even!"
Heero set his jaw and counted off each of his points for debate on a different finger. "One, it was just a phase, two, I'm over it, and three, if you're not downstairs in five minutes, we're leaving without you."
"Leaving for where?" Duo asked, happy to have the subject changed for him.
"South to the country estate," Heero explained. "We're going to find out once and for all whether Relena and the others are hiding there or not. Trowa's coming, and so far, he's the only one."
Duo shrugged with a different kind of guilt. "Can't. Love to, but can't."
"Why not?"
"You know those salmon puffs I used to make before we became officially poor? There's a shipment of prime Vancouver salmon hitting this one shop I know at nine o'clock precisely, and I wanna be first in line."
Heero fell silent. There hadn't been one scrap of salmon in the house for a long, long time, and there certainly hadn't been any of Duo's famous salmon puff pastries. The butler nearly drooled over his watch as he hastily checked the time. "It's almost eight-thirty! Go! Move!"
"I'm going!" Duo shouted as he ran for the door, with a strong shove in the back to help him on his way. If Heero's shoving hand had been just an inch or two lower, it would have detected something hidden under Duo's coat that shouldn't have been there. It was large and flat, and should have been under the bed with its kin, but Duo had other plans for it. Breathing a sigh of relief, Duo ran out the door and down the stairs, before Heero could notice anything was missing from the room.
**********Duo really did intend to be at the fishmonger's for nine o'clock, but he wasn't about to make a social occasion out of it. As soon as he had the salmon in hand, he all but ran out of the shop, wasting no time as he made his way to his real destination, Sally Po's house. He wasn't scheduled to arrive to collect a box of herbs for Helen for another week at least, so when Sally finished with an elderly lumbago patient, she was rather surprised to see him. They exchanged pleasantries, after which Duo got right to the point. He needed help.
"You're in luck," Sally said, strutting out to the waiting room in her fern green dress. "My next appointment isn't for an hour and a half. What do you need?"
Duo swallowed, thinking of the myriad of ways he could have answered that question. "Do you remember...something like a year ago...I came to talk to you about.....stuff? Personal stuff?"
Sally smiled her most motherly smile. It was actually more than a year previous, when Duo had come to her in a slow but terribly confused panic, confessing strange things that he found himself feeling towards Heero, and wondering what to do about them. She had given him just enough advice to calm him down and boost his confidence, but something had told her then that the subject would come up again one day, and lo and behold, the prophecy was fulfilled. She tilted her head to the side and crossed her arms. "Vaguely."
The braided boy looked down, left, right, and scratched the back of his head with his free hand before holding out a package wrapped in brown paper with the other. "This is gonna take awhile. You haven't got room in your icebox for this, have you?" From the shape and the smell, the package was easily identified as fish. Sally wrinkled her nose a bit, but took the bundle from him, and let Duo follow her around from the front room to the kitchen, and finally to her sitting room, babbling nervously all the way. "I really don't mean to burden you with junk like this, but it's the sort of junk you're supposed to talk to your parents about, and I'm kinda lacking in that department, even though I've got Helen, 'cause she's sorta been like a mother to me, off and on, but I really, reeeeally can't talk to her about this, and that's why it's gotta land on your head. Sorry."
She smiled in light amusement and pointed him to a green cushioned wing chair in front of her desk, then sat down behind it. "It's alright. I know what it's like, not having a mother or father around to explain the unexplainable."
Duo sat up suddenly, looking terribly saddened. "Oh...oh, gosh, I'm sorry. I didn't know."
The boy's tone surprised Sally, and it showed. "No no, they're not dead," she said, quickly opening a drawer and taking out a framed photograph, passing it across the desk to Duo. "They're mountaineers. I think they're in Tibet this month, but I won't know until I get a postcard, which usually takes awhile after they've set up a new base camp."
Duo peered fondly down at the sepia-tone photograph with slight envy. A fair-haired European woman and a plump-cheeked Chinaman peered back at him, dressed in tough canvas clothes adorned with various straps, buckles, and bits of mountain-climbing equipment, posed in front of a rocky crag. "Wow...they look really nice."
"They are," Sally said in a wistful tone, "but it would've been nicer if they could have spent some more time with me during my formative years. Although, I'll give them this much...they were very liberal with my long-distance upbringing. It was always too dangerous to take me along on their adventures, so I sat at home with the housekeeper and the occasional tutor, but they instinctively knew when I had questions that nobody around me had the guts to answer, and they kept sending the housekeeper lists of books to buy so I could find things out for myself. They were mostly medical textbooks, which is probably why I went into medicine. I'd already invested so much time in it." She saw that Duo had put the picture frame neatly on the desk and was now staring at his hands, folded in his lap, and took pity on him, leaning forward. "So...what would you like to ask me that you can't ask Helen? Something of the medical persuasion, no doubt..."
Blushing, Duo reached back behind him with both hands, under his black winter overcoat, and slid something out from the confines of his waistband. It was a large black hardcover book with no exterior markings, and he handed it to Sally with downcast eyes. Quite innocently, Sally took the book from him and laid it flat on the desk, casually flipping through the first few pages, slowing dramatically as dozens of naked people slammed relentlessly into her unprotected eyeballs. She seemed unfazed by it. "...I see."
"Actually...most of my questions are about..." Duo scooted forward in the chair and reached over the desk, flipping to the back of the book, where the lurid images were nothing but lithe young men, seemingly no older than he was. He stopped at a page he had marked with a long piece of thread, and leaned back. "...this."
Nothing on Sally moved except her eyebrows, which threatened to climb right up under her hairline. "Ah ha."
"And, um..." Duo leaned forward again and turned to another page further back, marked with another piece of thread. There, the same two nubile youths were pictured in entirely different positions. "...this."
"...mm hm..."
A third and final time, Duo directed Sally to a new page, and a new picture, the strangest of the three. "And that."
Sally studied the last photograph with clinical curiosity, slowly turned the book upside down, studied it again, then turned it right side up and exhaled. "Well, I wouldn't get your hopes up on that one, unless you're double-jointed."
Duo laughed gratefully. The tension in his neck and back was bad enough, and he knew Sally was the only person who couldn't possibly make it worse. "Don't bother asking where I got that, 'cause I can't tell you."
"I'm not surprised!" Sally exclaimed. "It's extremely difficult getting your hands on black market publications...in fact, I know several members of my women's group who could benefit from an hour alone with this book. We were supposed to have a poetry reading by Pauline Johnson, but she had to cancel. This would be an interesting substitution, to say the least."
Sally had turned back to the co-ed section of the book, and betrayed her professional exterior with slight traces of a lascivious smile as she perused the fantasies in black and white. Duo squirmed. "Okay...stop...enjoying it so much. It's just weird."
"Sorry." Sally grinned and closed the book, setting it off to the side. "So, you have some questions about your, um.....reading material?" Duo made a tiny, non-committal shrug. "Something in a you-and-Heero context?" Another tiny shrug, and Sally was getting confused. "Well, the pictures seem pretty self-explanatory, what exactly didn't you understand?"
It was a brash thing to say, but it seemed the only way to force Duo to admit that something else was wrong. "It's not that! ...it's...it's me. I just don't know what I'm supposed to..." He began turning red again, and he shut his eyes hopelessly as he shifted around in his chair. "I look at Heero, and I'm sure I know what I want. Then I look at the stuff in that book and I feel like my lunch is gonna make a surprise reappearance. Sometimes I'll go out for a walk, thinking that I just need to clear some junk outta my head, and then some girl has to yank her skirt up to step into a cab and my eyes are glued to her ankles! One time, this woman bent down in the street to pick up a crate of oranges and I could see right down the front of her dress! And after she stood up, I wanted to see it again! I felt so guilty that I purposely burned a pan of scalloped potatoes to a crackling crisp just so I'd have an excuse to stay late in the kitchen and scour the gunk off, 'cause I couldn't look Heero in the eye! And then the next morning I woke up next to him like any other morning, thinking I know what I want, and it starts the whole dumb merry-go-round all over again! What the heck's wrong with me!?" He finished his tirade with a firm slap on the desktop, and sprang out of his chair to stand off facing the bookcase with both hands clamped over the back of his down-stretched neck, sighing heavily.
Patiently, Sally twiddled her thumbs on the desk. "I'm not a psychologist, by any stretch of the imagination, but I think if I were in your position, I'd be a little confused too."
"Yeah, but, confused about what? Everything was fine before..." Without warning, Duo paused, and thought quietly to himself as he was stared in the face by row upon row of bland, soulless medical books. Before when? I had a perfectly good idea of what I wanted until...oh no.....until I got that letter from Helen. Until I knew how badly she disapproved of the whole thing. I never should have brought it up. I should've known how she'd react. Now I'm all messed up. "Is it possible that I've been...subconsciously going along with what someone else wants, instead of what I want?"
Sally nodded. "It's possible." She waited until he plunked himself back into the green chair with a sigh before dropping the other, much heavier shoe. "Unless you're not sure what you want...or what Heero wants, for that matter."
Good point, Duo thought, sinking lower into the chair. I haven't been thinking at all about what he wants. I'd never even have the guts to ask...but I could work on that, couldn't I? Being ill-informed on some fronts was his biggest problem. He reasoned that if he was just a little bit better prepared on the subject matter, confidence would override embarrassment, and he might finally be able to have a sensible conversation with Heero on topics relating to love. Coating his nerves in a layer of iron, he reached forward and flipped the big black book open again, then sat back and swallowed. "Maybe if you could...explain this stuff in slightly greater detail, it might help me decide." He paused, with an extra-long blink. "Help us decide."
Sally took another disturbed look at the boys in the picture, and wondered about the best way to proceed. "You may not like what I have to say about it," she warned in a hesitant voice.
"Does it matter?" Duo asked. "I've got to know, ugly or not. Just make it as cold and mechanical as possible, and we'll see whether I warm up to it or not."
With more raised eyebrows, Sally agreed, and gently began an in-depth explanation of the pictures in the picture book. As it turned out, they really couldn't have fully explained themselves, and once Duo got over the initial shock brought on by Sally's bold and fearless analysis of the activities displayed therein, he was amazed at how much more there was to it than two bodies entwined in a motionless tableau.
**********Only Heero and Trowa ended up going to Hampshire, and it was just as well that nobody else got entangled in their mission. It was teeming with rain, so much so that the creeks and streams were overflowing, spilling muddy water into the cobbled lanes of many towns and villages between Southampton and Sutherby House. Not only was it a nightmare finding a carriage once they hopped off the train, but it took additional bribe money to convince the driver to take the most direct route to the country estate, even though it meant rolling through six inches of flood water, in places. The pair of them looked out the carriage windows and down at the insidious temporary lake with a doubtful cringe that lasted throughout their journey.
"We could have postponed this until the rain let up," said Heero with a weary sneer.
"I know, but I wanted it this way," Trowa said firmly. "The farmer's almanac predicted heavy rain for this week, and what better way to get into the house? Relena would never let us stand outside in the pouring rain for very long, even taking into account her new life as a hermit. I'll find Frederick, she'll follow, and all we have to do after that is look pitiful until she caves. That's why I'm just as glad Lucrezia stayed home. No sense in all three of us catching pneumonia."
Heero slouched. "How thoughtful." The rain began pounding even harder on the windows and roof of their vehicle, and he began to feel terrible for the poor driver up on top, unprotected. It would mean another hefty tip, but at least it was coming out of Marcus' pocket, along with the grocery money. "How do you plan to find Frederick? He won't be outside in this weather either."
Trowa was already looking out the window on the opposite side, and he knit his brow at the piece of glass. He had hoped that Heero wouldn't need to know specifics, because he hadn't had time to think up a cover story. He knew Frederick would come to him as soon as he sent out a mental beacon for the pup to follow, and when he devised the plan, he deluded himself into thinking that he could give Heero the slip just long enough to 'call' Frederick, and then all would seem quite normal. Realistically, though, Heero would want to be there when Relena showed up, so what Trowa needed was a tangible distraction to explain Freddie's appearance, rather than canine telepathy. Nervously, the fingers of the hand farthest from Heero's line of sight started kneading the worn velveteen fabric of the bench seat, and as they slipped down between the bench and the door, they found something. "I, uh....." While Trowa struggled for words, his hand clasped a cold, thin tube of metal, with one open end and a kind of a clip on the side. It would have to do. "I've got one of those silent dog whistles...you know, the kind people can't hear?" He looked at Heero and held up his hand with just an inch of the golden metal tube showing, the open end clearly visible.
Heero nodded, impressed. "Let's hope he's not too far inside to hear it." As he turned his attention back his own window, Trowa rolled his eyes and sighed silently.
As the carriage drew up to the gates that led to Sutherby House, the driver had to stop. The gates were locked, as they had been for weeks. Trowa gave the driver additional directions, which Lucrezia had given him before his departure, and the carriage rolled on through the gravel lane sheltered by bare trees, a good mile and a half around to the back of the property. There, the boys jumped out, and gave the driver a few more well-deserved coins before disappearing into the woods. Lucrezia had described a little-known trail that the locals had showed her once before, a winding path that led through a hedgerow, across a field, and over a footbridge, from which one could see the conservatory of the house quite clearly. The rain pelted them steadily for the entire hike, and only their standard-London-issue black umbrellas prevented them from becoming completely soaked. As they were walking over the wooden footbridge, over a very full creek with some tiny icebergs being washed swiftly downstream, Trowa had the audacity to remark that it wasn't so bad, and that they should be thankful the weather wasn't any worse. No sooner had the words escaped his lips than the footbridge broke, and Heero fell in. There was much angry nonsense and semi-obscene commotion in Japanese, and after hauling him out of the bone-chilling water, Trowa decided to just keep his mouth shut for awhile.
It was a grim march from then, but they made it to the house without further incident. It did indeed look abandoned, and not even Heero and his sharp eyes could detect so much as a footprint anywhere around the perimeter. Apparently, no food was being brought in, nor any trash taken out, but that didn't entirely discount the presence of people--the storage capacity of this home was several times that of Bridlewood, and they could easily have enough food stores to last them throughout the winter, if necessary. During the course of their search, the rain started to let up, from a torrential downpour to a drizzle, and then finally to a light sprinkling. It was not long after this change that the boys smelled smoke, and the burning residue of coal and wood. They stepped back a few paces, and there was a plume of greyish vapour rising up from one of the many chimneys. They looked at each other with victorious smirks.
Trowa beckoned Heero over to a nondescript wooden door around the back which was locked like all the others. Unlike all the others, it had a little swinging panel on hinges right at the bottom, just perfect for a dog Frederick's size. There were no pawprints anywhere around the door, but it was the only one like it on the whole building, and they knew for a fact that there was no courtyard for Freddie to run around in. Logic dictated that they had to let him out at least once a day, and that door was the best place to do it. "Why don't you cover the front door in case they try to sneak out that way?" Trowa suggested.
"That wouldn't make any sense," Heero said. "I'll keep out of sight, you use your whistle, and if anyone appears, I'll block their retreat back into the house." He promptly crouched in front of a hedge under a nearby window, completely hidden to anyone who might have been passing by indoors.
Trowa sighed quietly. It was worth a shot. Now he had no choice but to use a bit of trickery on Heero. He stood squarely in front of the altered door, about ten large paces back, and dug the golden metal tube out of his pocket. There hadn't been an opportunity to examine it and see what it actually was, but it looked like a piece of a broken ball-point pen. Heero absolutely did not need to know that, of course, and Trowa held the closed end to his lips and pretended to blow rapidly through it as if it were a whistle. Since the whistle was supposed to be silent anyway, Heero was none the wiser. Letting the hand fall back down to his side, Trowa then concentrated on his true siren call, reaching out past the bricks and mortar of the outer walls with his mind and searching for a familiar little brain wave pattern. Practising over and over with the horses in the stable and even the birds in the trees had made his mental focus much sharper, or so he hoped, and within a minute, it paid off in spades.
A distant yipping began somewhere in the depths of the mansion, and it grew steadily louder, accompanied by the scratching of claws against wood and tile flooring. Ducking his head, Frederick pushed through the doggie door and shot out of the house like a furry bullet. The peppy terrier was overjoyed to see Trowa again, and he leapt right up on the boy as high as his puny legs could launch him, barking and slobbering with longing and love. He had missed his two-legged friend terribly, and Trowa honestly felt the same; he caught Frederick in both arms and gave him a vigorous rub-down, laughing enough to forget why he had come. In the confusion, the 'whistle' was knocked out of Trowa's hand and bounced a few feet away, lost in the half-dead grass. Trowa didn't notice, but Heero did.
While the two of them carried on, Heero's keen ears detected another faint sound underneath their collective din, that of bipedal footsteps, rapid and frustrated, heading towards the same door. Bursting through the entire door, with only a thin shawl to protect her from the cold, was none other than Relena, calling Frederick's name and holding a set of four little red knitted booties that he was supposed to wear whenever he went outside. She ran right past Heero and the hedge, without seeing either of them, stopped in front of Trowa, and froze, her face turning ashen. Stealthily, Heero rose from his crouch and stepped in front of the door, still unpleasantly soaking wet.
Relena tugged her shawl closer about her shoulders, shivering from something other than the outside temperature. She strode right up to him and took Frederick out of his arms, backing up towards the house as she clutched her dog protectively. "What are you doing here?" she asked in a low and shaky tone. Trowa stared icily back at her, but involuntarily, his eyes shifted to Heero. Relena saw it and whirled around. Her breath caught in her throat as their eyes met, and her only thought was to escape him. She ducked quickly to the right, but he matched her movements with a steely gaze. She darted to the left, but again he blocked her. Flight was impossible. "What do you want!?" she cried in desperation.
Heero stood up straight, pulling his spine into a more relaxed and less threatening position, but he kept his glare in place. "You're a difficult person to track down lately," he remarked.
Relena was silent, her neck tightening with fear as she struggled to move, or scream, or do anything at all. She stared vacantly into the deep blue of Heero's eyes, truly petrified of him. Frederick picked up on her negative vibes and began growling fiercely at the boy, while still safely encased in his owner's arms. Both boys looked surprised, and Trowa especially found Frederick's reaction quite curious. He's never behaved that way to Heero before, he thought. He's only doing it to protect Relena. She must be terrified...but why?
While Trowa puzzled and Heero remained guarded, neither of them knew that a blood-curdling memory was bubbling to the surface of Relena's psyche, filling her with a dread she hadn't felt since the whole nightmare began, so many lonely nights ago...
~~~~~~~~~~"...no...I don't believe you..." Relena's hand trembled as it continued to clutch the stolen revolver level with Treize's head. Her entire arm was screaming in pain, but she was paralysed. It couldn't be true. It just couldn't.
"You asked for the whole truth," Treize scoffed mockingly. "You can't decide now that you don't like it. If it's that disturbing to your tender young ears, you should have been content to live in ignorance."
Up above them, the last of the colourful fireworks celebrating the Count's engagement were shot off, creating a deafening cascade of flame blossoms overhead. Multicoloured lights of every description bathed the pair behind the small utility building far away from the rest of the party-goers, casting a surreal glow over their clandestine meeting. With her free hand, Relena rubbed the waistband of her dress, trying unsuccessfully to calm her lurching stomach. "H-how...how could this be going on...without the authorities putting a stop to it!?" she choked out finally.
Treize clucked his tongue with sarcastic pity. "Poor, idealistic girl...the world isn't ruled by foolish notions of 'rights' and 'justice'...only by power, and these men have created their own power by their own means. You don't think anyone who could decide the fate of entire nations would be worried about Policeman Plod blowing his little whistle at them, do you?"
"But...nothing on earth could give any of you the right to destroy people's lives for the sake of a...a game! Have you no shame whatsoever!?"
The Count folded his arms and leaned languidly against the wall, still remarkably unfazed by the loaded weapon staring him in the face. "I haven't had any use for shame in a good many years, my dear. It, along with many other useless emotions, only gets in the way of one's goal."
Those words stung Relena even worse than learning that millions of lives around the world had been and would continue to be toyed with by a group of evil, contemptible men, whom Treize held in great esteem. A simple case of greed, she could understand, but this was monstrous. "I could accept that you tried to snatch our family fortune out from under us," she said calmly, "and I could accept that you never wanted anything to do with me from the very beginning, and that you've been lying since the day we met, but what I cannot accept is that any blood relative of mine would want to be associated with--"
"With kings?" Treize finished for her. "With heads of state? With law-makers and judges? It's all in your perspective, isn't it? The Cinq Association does all these things, and it's only the fact that they operate in the shadows that has you so irked. If they were in the public view, their power would be recognized by all, just like the kings and presidents of the 'open' world."
"If they were in the public view, they'd be strung up by as many trees as it took to exterminate them!" Relena spat.
Struck by an interesting thought, Treize slowly smirked, raising an eyebrow. "So...if you had your way, you would destroy every last soul that had any contact with these men, so that they couldn't contaminate the rest of your peace-loving society?"
Relena thought she knew when someone was trying to put words in her mouth, and she bristled, lowering the gun a bit to give her arm a rest. "Perhaps...if they refused to reform, and persisted in trying to drag the rest of the world down to their level...yes, they would have to surrender themselves."
"Fascinating," the Count purred. "And which do you suppose Heero would choose?"
The girl paled. Terror gripped every last part of her, except her subconscious, which smiled and nodded sadly, having somehow always known that such a revelation would occur. Her conscious mind, however, refused to believe it. "What do you mean?"
"I hardly have the monopoly on lying to you for self-advancement," Treize chuckled. "Haven't you ever stopped to wonder what brought Heero into your world? Didn't he appear out of nowhere, in the perfect place and at the perfect time? He was more than bright enough to get himself a top position anywhere in London, and yet he chose to cling to your skirt tails when it was obvious in the end that he had no interest in you whatsoever. Doesn't it all sound a bit suspect?"
"We've just grown apart, that's all!" Relena cried, shaking her head.
"Oh no, it's much worse than that!" Treize said with a snakelike smile. "He cared even less for you than I did, and he's just as dangerous. Why, he could have been after the family fortune too, and you never would have realized. You would have married him, fattened his wallet, and been left by the side of the road when he tired of your incessant whining. That is...if he didn't decide to do away with you altogether!"
The images that flooded Relena's distraught mind were multiplied by something she knew that Treize didn't, that Heero kept a loaded revolver in his bottom dresser drawer. The proof of his conspiracy was right in her hand. Her own finger was on the very trigger that might have been used on her, had she gone through with the engagement. Suddenly it all seemed clear; Heero must have planned it that way from the beginning, and was only playing the role of butler to build up trust and avert suspicion from himself when the day finally came, the day when he expected to walk out of Bridlewood for the last time, as a rich widower. When she stumbled across the gun, she had been too blinded by thoughts of extracting information from Treize to wonder why it was there, and now on top of this new horror was the sickening knowledge that Treize had probably just saved her life, for now that she knew of Heero's plot, she could avoid it.
"It's a terrible burden being wealthy, don't you think?" the Count went on, confident as ever. "You can't go one day without wondering who wants a piece of you and why. It could even be that Heero's after the same position in the Cinq Association that I am, in which case, to carry out your golden dream of a peace-loving society, you'd have to destroy him along with me, and everyone else who's ever set eyes on the power to reshape the world to their liking. And he'd deserve it, too...for no vicious deception against the Peacecraft family should go unpunished."
Now, Treize was deviating slightly from the truth, for he knew perfectly well Heero was there because of him, and not Relena, but he was pleased with the effect his fibbing had on the girl. She began shaking all over as tears streamed out of her reddened eyes, and she wrapped both arms tightly around herself, finally lowering the gun. '...no...I c-can't trust anyone!' she thought. 'I truly loved Heero...but if he could fool me so much for so long, any of them could! I have to get away...I have to get out of that house forever! I could be dead if I don't!!'
Before Treize could spin any more half-truths, she turned and ran, sobbing hysterically, the revolver still clutched tightly in her right hand. Treize, thinking proudly that he'd finally managed to snap her tiny brain in two, smirked triumphantly and sauntered back to the party, where his lady love was waiting.
~~~~~~~~~~Trowa had shifted over to stand next to Heero, and they were both peering into Relena's blank face with slight worry. The cinnamon-haired boy waved a hand in front of her eyes, and several times they called her name, but they just couldn't bring her back to reality. It was only when Heero reached out with both hands to give her a small shake by the shoulders that she inhaled sharply, and backed away in panic. "Don't touch me!" she hollered.
Heero lowered his arms and glowered strangely. That was something he didn't hear too often. "I think you'd better do the talking," he muttered to Trowa, stepping away from the scene.
As his leader stalked off, Trowa felt the pressure of being put on the spot, for he had already done everything he had planned to do. Swallowing in deep thought, he approached the girl as meekly as he could, which wasn't much, considering his mood and the rough position she had put them all in. "We need to talk, and don't try running away from me, because you're not getting out of the cold until I've had my say."
Relena scowled at her employee, and only then remembered that she was outdoors in winter without a coat on. "You've got some nerve!"
"And you've got a lot of explaining to do!" Trowa shot back. "What did you think you were doing, running off and leaving us to fend for ourselves?"
"What I think is never your business unless I make it your business, and I'll have to be very disappointed in all of you if I can't take a few days off without the house falling apart!"
"It's not the house that's falling apart, it's us! We've been going hungry because your creditors haven't been paid! The grocer, the butcher, the corner bakery, the dairy...they cut off all our credit, and it took the last of our pocket money just to keep enough food in the pantry so we wouldn't have to start selling the furniture!"
Relena looked as though she'd been slapped. "But...we don't send cheques out until the end of the month! That's when the accounts are due, they know that! There's at least a week left, isn't there? There has to be, or we would have missed Christmas!"
Heero had wandered somewhere behind Relena, idly shuffling his feet along the ground, looking for the dropped whistle. He looked up at Trowa with the quintessential raised eyebrow, and Trowa shook his head, running a hand through his spiky bangs and taking a calm step towards her. "Relena.....it's January."
The look of shock on her face worsened. Surely she couldn't have misplaced an entire week, not to mention her favourite holiday! It seemed inconceivable, but the fact remained that when spending so much time locked away from the world, one day felt very much like another, and her family had been too busy with matters of global importance to bother looking at a calendar. Time inside Sutherby House had stretched into one long day, while the outside world had marched on into a new year.
The three of them were all so wrapped up in this silent revelation that they almost missed a young man's voice wafting on the breeze from far away. Three heads turned as a dim silhouette came crawling out from behind the far edge of the mansion, and slowly came into focus. As the figure jogged closer, it's lamenting howls became more distinct. "Lena!" it cried.
Relena realized that it was Marcus, and felt even more trapped. Also realizing that Frederick was becoming bored, and was wriggling around in her loosening grip, she hastily pulled the four red booties over his paws one by one, and set him down on the ground. He went straight over to the pair of black umbrellas lying next to the kitchen door, intent on sniffing the daylights out of them. Relena then straightened up and wrung her hands, which were starting to go a bit numb anyway, and thought frantically about what to say when the jogger finally arrived.
Lungs heaving, arms windmilling, Marcus ground to a shaky halt like a juggernaut that had just run out of oil, and leaned forward with his hands on his knees for several seconds, trying to catch a bit of oxygen. They couldn't tell from how far away he had run, but it looked like a lot. When he finally straightened up, he saw that Relena was hideously underdressed for the weather, hurriedly slipped off his overcoat and draped it around her shoulders, then scowled at the other two for not being gentlemen enough to do the same. Still huffing and puffing a bit, he address the boys first, somewhat apologetically. "Sorry to...burst in...uninvited.....but Miss Noin told me...you'd be here." Once he got a good look at Heero, no longer dripping but obviously drenched, he gaped. "Good Lord, what happened to you?"
"Substandard navigation," Heero quipped. Though he couldn't see it, Trowa glared.
"Could we have a moment?" Marcus asked without missing a beat, putting an arm around Relena's shoulders and steering her away from the boys.
Trowa stuck his hands in his pockets and glowered, wishing he could have finished his argument, since he was doing so well with it. He lowered his head and pivoted around, giving a quick whistle to the dog. "C'mon, Fred..."
As Heero, Trowa, and Frederick retreated to a dignified but watchful distance, Marcus spun Relena around so that her back was turned to them all, and clasped both of her chilly hands in his. "Miss Peacecraft...if I've caused you any embarrassment, I am truly sorry, but I had to talk to you."
Relena's head was spinning, and she could hardly tell what was going on right in front of her, let alone feel put-upon by yet another unnannounced arrival. "No, it...it's alright," she stammered, looking down at his Ascot tie rather than up into his face. What am I going to tell him?
"I hope so, because it's a drop of water in the ocean compared to what I'm about to say." With one hand, Marcus tipped Relena's chin up, forcing her to look him in the eye. "I know you'll probably think I'm meddling, a-and of course, you've every right to do so...but...I wanted you to know...there's no need to pretend anymore. You don't have to hide from me. I know why you've come here."
Relena's eyes bulged even larger than before. That's impossible! Nobody knows except the people caught up in...oh no. Please tell me you're not... "...how did you find out?"
"Heard two old codgers talking about it over the holidays," Marcus confessed. "It's all 'round the city, I'm afraid. Everyone's talking about you, and about Bridlewood...and the word 'bankruptcy' keeps popping up." He clutched her hands a little tighter, clearly anguished by the situation. "I understand what an awful time this must be for you, but Relena, why didn't you tell me? I wouldn't have thought less of you, and I wouldn't have judged you! When you disappeared, I didn't know what to think, and when I found out it was just money problems, well...you could have come to me for money, anytime you needed it!"
The clouds parted, and Relena sighed deeply on the inside. Marcus didn't know her problems at all, and with the staff unable to pay the bills, plus her widespread fundraising campaign, it was no wonder that he thought the manor was out of cash and out of hope. Far from that, the Peacecrafts were just as rich as they had ever been, and yet they suddenly needed more. But I can't let you know that. I can't take a single penny from you, or you'd be a part of this mess instead of safely away from it. Thinking with the speed of a thousand cheetahs, she put on her innocent face. "Oh...it isn't that bad, really...we just came up a bit short the last few months. I don't want you to worry yourself."
"And I don't want you worrying either," said her beau, "which is why I've already made a small contribution to the household, for food, water, electricity and all that. Call it a loan, if you like, I just couldn't let your home fall to ruin. What kind of friend would I be?" Not even Relena's stoic arguments of pride could top that. She was genuinely touched by his kind gestures, and smiled in spite of her hopeless mood.
While Relena and Marcus had their quiet rendez-vous and Trowa played with Frederick, Heero kept an eye on both scenes while scanning the ground for the dropped whistle. He intended simply to return it to its owner, for any item lost was automatically money spent. At last, a glint of gold caught his eye, not too far from where Trowa had been standing when he summoned the pint-sized pooch. When Heero bent down and picked it up, however, it ceased to be what it was advertised as. A whistle it most assuredly was not.
He looked over at Trowa. The boy hadn't noticed Heero's activity, and was happily busy playing fetch with a foot-long twig. Upon closer inspection, the 'whistle' looked more like a broken pen cap, made of common, everyday brass; there was no other object within a fifty foot radius that could have been in Trowa's hand. Heero instantly wanted to know why he had lied, not to mention, how he could have whistled for the dog when there was, in fact, no whistle. Trowa turned around suddenly, and Heero slipped the pen cap into his pocket for further analysis, which was fairly low on his list of priorities after a hot meal and a dry set of clothes.
Closer to the house, Relena had fed Marcus some reassuring words, without telling him one way or the other whether or not she could realistically ever see him again, and beckoned her servants over. Even though she didn't trust them, she had to keep them on the payroll so they wouldn't have an excuse to revolt. "The bills will be paid on time from now on, and so will your weekly wages," she declared solemnly, "so if that's all you came for, you may go now. If there was anything else you wanted to discuss with me, you may still go now. Keep the house running, and don't speak to anyone about our financial difficulty. If there are to be any changes to your routine, I shall be the one to contact you. I don't want to see either of you, or anyone else from the manor, traipsing across the countryside to ask me pointless questions or spread gossip, understood?"
Heero simply glared, so it was up to Trowa to answer for the pair of them. "Yes, Miss," he muttered.
As Relena stepped back up to the door and cracked it open, Frederick heard the sound and went running back inside as quickly as he had come. Then, she took off the borrowed overcoat, handed it back to Marcus, and before she could ponder whether or not she should even see the boy again, "I'll write to you" slipped out, seconds before she herself slipped inside.
Marcus turned to the others, crestfallen, just as low, rumbling thunder rolled across the mackerel grey sky. Seconds later, the rain began pelting down again, saturating all three of them to one uniform wetness. They all looked at each other with similar stares of despondency, and as the thunder doubled in intensity, Heero put both hands in his pockets, turned to Trowa, and glared humourlessly through a miniature waterfall tumbling down his face. "All we have to do is stand here and look pitiful until she caves and lets us in.......right!?"
It was a long, long, soggy walk back to the village.
~~~~~~~~~~
Next, in Episode Seventy-One: Duo tries to start a crucial conversation with Heero, but gets side-tracked as he realizes his friend has been hiding something more important from them all. Quatre summons up all his courage to talk to Dorothy on neutral turf, and not knowing what sort of reaction to expect ensures that whatever happens will be a complete surprise.
Anyone blown any resolutions yet? =^-^= Aw, don't feel bad. You know what Dr. Phil says? Willpower isn't what makes or breaks your New Year, it's lifestyle changes that really matter. *hides the box of mini-sugar donuts under the desk* I just love Dr. Phil, don't you? ...aaaanywho...I think January 17th would be an appropriate time to pick the story back up. See you then! :D *wavies*