While We Were Yet Sinners
By Jillian
(Disclaimer: Gundam Wing characters aren't mine. Although, I do feel like they've been my roommates for the past six years. So, I am going to claim them as family of some sort. And by extension, anyone who loves Gundam Wing. Enjoy.)
Pardon, like love, is only ours for fun: essentially, we don't and can't.
Charles Williams, "Descent into Hell"
"Finished with the file, Dots?" Darren Nichol had been leaning with his right shoulder and forehead pressed against the one way viewing glass. He marred the glass between breaths, but he was only starting to feel as if he might ever be dry again. He could still hear the rainfall against the building, a seasonal storm that he preferred not to go out into. Except when it couldn't be avoided. When it was his job. Uncrossing his arms, Nichol pushed away from the glass and just beyond his own reflection he saw the huddled form of the girl sitting alone on the metal folding chair under the single bulb lighting the room from a central height.
Her legs were crossed and arms folded as tightly as possible around her body. Her blond, nearly white, hair was cut short and curled around her cheeks, pressed flat against her head and skin. Her chin trembled with a steady rhythm; now and again, the shudder shook her entire body. The budget didn't keep the upper administration office warm enough on the days of a cold rain. The interrogation rooms certainly were not better.
"Done reviewing her history?" Nichol asked again, hearing the snappish quality slip into his voice. A drop of water from one of his front curls fell against his cheek and he wiped at it with the back of his hand leaving a chilly smear.
Dorothy Catalonia sat behind the simple wooden table. Her hair, once held back in a clip, was pulled free in an unruly, unattractive chaos. Pale eyes blindly skimmed a page and then flipped it over the manila folder's top so she could review the next documentation, "Patience, Nichol."
"I'd like to see you set an example for that," he scoffed, rubbing at the back of his neck loosening his collar from where it had plastered itself against his skin almost as securely as rubber cement.
The door from the outer hallway pushed open with a ferocious displacement of air and an immediate order, "Darren. Dorothy. Here you are. Get the prisoner moved to her secured holding, pronto." Then the man halted, "Is that the case files? Did Schbeiker leave those here?" He stepped into the room and made a 'give me' motion with his hand, "Need to know, only. Don't forget you're only Transportation Specialists."
"Yeah, pretty special," Nichol muttered. He didn't know who this particular uniform was, as Preventer officers were a dime a dozen under the new government. But, in the end, Nichol decided, minor officers were all the same. He used to rank over them, watching their petty struggles to demonstrate power and influence while having none. Except over foot soldiers, lower ranked pilots, and, now, Transportation Specialists.
The officer intentionally ignored Nichol's comment instead walked up to Dorothy and reached out his hand.
"Easy, love, it doesn't hurt to have well informed staff," She stood with an arrogant tilt to her head that made Nichol smirk to see. Dorothy said she understood the good guys now. That she was enlightened to the failings of war and the beautiful struggle to maintain peace. But, now and again, she demonstrated how little she had changed from the minor aristocrat that had relentlessly pursued the figureheads of the Gundam War.
And like all the insignificant minor officers Nichol remembered, the man cowed easily under a superior personality, and, taking the files with a diminished tilt to his posture, he couldn't leave fast enough.
"The nerve. Did you hear him call us by our first names?" Dorothy's lips curled around the words as if she'd taken a bite of raw chicken, "No respect in this new era. None."
"Inconceivable," Nichol mocked her.
"Just because you're not particularly concerned with honor and dignity doesn't mean it shouldn't hold a place in the new military," Dorothy fussed with her hair, fingers trying to put right something gone far beyond their capabilities.
"Sure and I suspect that our honor and dignity will be the shining examples for all of the Preventers as we perform our lowly task of freighting around persons of questionable intent for the current powers that be," Nichol mock intellectualized, "Empty hope. What did you learn about our stray cat?"
"She's fourteen. Born in the L2 cluster of colonies to a woman of the streets and was then left in one of the poor houses there," Dorothy let her index finger pull along her lower lip, her opposite hand balancing her elbow, "Her given name is Celena Schezar, but she's some how under the very determined impression that she is a boy."
"Oh really?" Nichol raised his eyebrow, interested, "That's different."
Dorothy smiled, "You missed the drama when she tried to feel up Yuy. Pardon me, Field Commander Yuy."
"That must have been a sight. No wait, I thought you said that she thinks she's a guy?" Nichol started to smile, distracted in no small part by the simple pleasure of imagining all of famous Gundam Pilot Heero Yuy's reactions to a frolicking prisoner.
"Interesting, isn't it?" Dorothy quipped, then pulled her jacket up from behind the chair she'd been using, shaking it out before starting to put it back on, "But, since you missed the drama, let me tell you: she's one hellcat. We're lucky they decided it was necessary to drug her up."
In the hall, the hum of the fluorescent lights and the buzz of conversation communicated the life in the lower levels of the Preventers headquarters even while the city slept peacefully outside. Nichol tried smiling at a young intern coming their direction. He recognized her from other late night shifts. Struggling to remember her name, it came to him just as soon as her eyes dropped to the floor and she tried to pass by him.
"Hey, it's Nancy, isn't it?" He turned at his waist and took a sideways step to continue watching her as she half motioned with her unburdened hand, never pausing.
"Dear Lord," Dorothy put a hand up to her forehead as if feeling for her temperature, "You are so suave."
"She just ignored me," Nichol didn't know what else to say. Then he felt an old temper start to settle on his shoulders as if someone had climbed onto his back and he carried another's weight, "Dammit."
"Easy boy," Dorothy said, the words cold but her tone didn't match them, "You think you'd be used to the atmosphere here by now."
"I volunteered, didn't I?" Nichol scowled, "I came back offering to help them."
"This isn't about acceptance anymore, Nicky," Dorothy put her hand on the door to the interrogation room, "Because acceptance isn't something that we're going to get."
"I don't care about their acceptance," Nichol protested, without thought and wanting only to argue, "But simple courtesy, isn't that manageable? I wonder who got to her. That prick, Barton, maybe?"
"Come on," Dorothy twisted the knob, leaning in but not pushing it open just yet, "You know as well as I do that Trowa Barton doesn't care one whit what happens or doesn't happen to you. That whole issue is in your head only."
Nichol shuffled one foot, finding it particularly hard to lift it just at that moment, "I don't care what Barton thinks or doesn't think."
"Good," Dorothy opened the door, first showing darkness only then gradually the outer ring of the limited light, "Because we've got a job to do."
The child jerked her head back her gaze becoming focused and unfocused over her upturned nose. She shivered, the breeze from the circulating air just entering the room caused her to rub her arms rapidly from shoulder to elbow, "Burn. Burn. Burn." She mumbled through powder blue lips, they were noticeably chapped.
"Why haven't the bastards given her new clothes?" Nichol turned his eyes away, seeing her without the glass between them made her that much more real, "A jacket at least." He heard a zipper and reflexively put his hand out onto Dorothy's shoulder, "Wait." He said, and started to shrug his own jacket down his arms, catching at the wrists so the sleeves came inside out.
While Nichol fussed over fixing the jacket, the girl started to rock back and forth, "Shesta. Miguel."
"Are those names?" Nichol asked, "Are we dealing with a multiple here, because the last time we had to transport one of those …"
"Yeah, I know, and if it happened again you were going to report the entire Preventers unit to an outside law enforcement agency for uninformed endangerment to their employees."
"Not an idle threat," Nichol scowled, making his way around behind the girl who suddenly stopped her rocking as his jacket slipped around her limbs and slender frame.
"But she's not, she's just confused about her gender," Dorothy shared a look with him that distracted them from their transport just long enough that the next thing Nichol knew, Celena had spun around from her chair and had curled her fingers into the front of his undershirt, pushing herself against him.
"Jajuka," Her voice was deep, "I hate rain. It makes me so depressed." The lilt of the voice was falsely sweet, as if to hide the truth of the statement behind it.
"Jajuka?" Nichol held his hands up in the air as if he were under arrest, "Dorothy?"
A hysterical giggle and the girl petted at the front of his shirt while the other hand tightened it's grip, "Did I tell you? The bastard cut my face. He cut my face. I'll kill him." Then again, more sorrowfully, "I hate the rain." Her voice weakened from the momentary outburst.
"Shesta, Miguel. They were in her gang. Perhaps Jajuka was too?" Dorothy shook her head; "No one kept particular records recording the dead during the earliest years of the war. Colonies liked to pretend they didn't have prostitutes, let alone the prostitute's kits."
"And she got brought to earth as part of the new restoration initiatives?" Nichol felt the girl slump against him and he dropped his arms to catch her as she started to lose consciousness.
"One of Relena's ideas to educate the street kids," Dorothy nodded as Nichol picked up Celena in his arms and opened the door, "She won't be any trouble now. Let's get her to the Kushrenada Institute."
"Lord Treize's financial effort to assist the mentally unstable and re-wire them to function in a normal society," Nichol shook his head, feeling the brittle dry ends of his uncombed hair, "I wonder what His Majesty would think about the way that place is run."
"Oh, but it just sparkles on the outside, doesn't it?" Dorothy's sarcastic comment rolled off her tongue glibly enough.
"Yeah, so our favorite Colonel Une can drive by it thinking she's done something right, for once," Nichol, unlike Dorothy, had never mastered hiding his own bitterness. Celena was hardly a weight in his arms, and he looked down at her all too thin and long face. Pale lashes over fair cheeks that were wind chapped red. He did see the thin scar that dropped from one cheekbone nearly to her chin, "Our girl here's only exchanged one alley for another."
"Wait. Wait," Dorothy caught up to his long stride, stepping around him, she held up the metal cuffs with a reprimanding purse to her thin lips. Then she smiled broadly, "I wouldn't want to give them an excuse to put a black mark on your record."
Nichol laughed as Dorothy gently slipped the rings loosely around Celena's wrists, "I'd like to see where they could find room left in my record at add another…"
They made it to the elevator and the lower level without incident. Dorothy unlocked the back of their truck, and Nichol climbed in best he could and laid the girl onto the gurney. He belted her in with the leather straps, "So she doesn't roll off," he said by means of excuse.
"I'll ride back here with her," Dorothy offered, "In case, she wakes up."
Nichol crawled back out and when he put his hands onto the steering wheel, he remembered all the times he'd transported others for the Preventers. He and Dorothy would show up at the scene and if they were alive, transport them to the appropriate enforcement agency. If they were dead, take them to the local morgue. Or, if they were under containment, and needed to be moved to another facility. He'd heard colorful language he hadn't considered before. Threats. Bribes. All ridiculous. Nichol had complained to Dorothy once, "Who do they think they are that we haven't heard it all before? Do they think they deserve forgiveness? Understanding? The excuses begin to lose any meaning with such repetition."
"But for each individual it's true," Dorothy had replied. And they'd sat quiet for a long time after that.
He turned on the headlights, and, once they left the garage, switched on the windshield wipers. The road was difficult to make out with the constant shine of reflecting water from the pavement, but the streets were empty. At one red light, Nichol furrowed his brow, tired of waiting and went through it anyway.
He didn't help Dorothy roll Celena out; instead, he climbed up to her, undid the belts from around the girl's motionless body, and pulled her into his arms, "She's not heavy," he explained in a chilly tone and afraid of Dorothy's reaction.
"Very professional… conclusion…" Dorothy replied, while he knew that the decision was anything but following the letter of their job description.
They were able to enter the institute through a back door entrance from the employee parking. Their vehicle had been recognized at the gate, and, from experience, Nichol knew that a doctor or nurse would be waiting for them at the back desk with updated instructions from Preventer Headquarters.
Unlike their offices, the Treize Institute was uncannily quiet in the early morning hours. Nichol had half expected to hear moaning or screaming patients. Instead, all he heard were Dorothy's lightly clipped steps and his burdened, uneven ones.
The Preventers had been saturated with volunteers after they gained a positive reputation with the President and the colonies. It didn't hurt that all of the Gundam Pilots had decided to join forces with the unit in one aspect of another. They were heroes now, of a sort. History had a funny way of accepting things that had once been beyond acceptance.
Like reinstating a dishonored Lieutenant to a low security, mildly dangerous transporting duty. At the interview, Nichol had promised himself not to apologize. He hated and still hated the naivety of the so called 'new soldiers for peace.' He didn't come to reconcile himself to anyone, but, as he ruefully admitted after staring at the ceiling in his insomnia, he wanted a purpose. Something to be doing.
Their response, "Win back our trust, and you'll be considered for promotion along with everyone else."
His favorite form of lip service: the idealistic insincerity of someone out of touch with reality. Nichol's reality.
"Is this the patient?" The evening duty nurse stood as they approached. She stared at the girl in Nichol's arms, obviously not voicing her confusing at the careful way he held a child in handcuffs.
Nichol could read every conflicting emotion as they wrinkled her brow, pressed her lips and made her jaw audibly click. Likewise, he tried to curb the instant distaste for her chosen vocabulary. Patient? They made it sound like Celena was there for the long stay.
"I suppose you know all about her? Everything's ready?" Nichol said, a bit surprised at himself, but he didn't really feel any inhibitions at two in the morning.
"Yes, sir," the nurse responded, lifting a chart she'd been writing in, "We're ready for her. If you want to bring, or carry her to her room."
The nurse motioned that they should follow her.
"How cute are you, Nichol," Dorothy leaned in to whisper up at him, "You almost sound like you're her father."
"Knock it off," Nichol growled, and had to shift Celena's balance in his arms nearly missing his step in the process.
"This way," the nurse called to them, as she began to open the doors to a new wing. From her tone she was impatient to be done with them.
"What's this?" Nichol read the sign over the door, "Solitary?" He rasped in disbelief, "She's not that far gone."
"You should have seen her before the sedation, Nicky," Dorothy pressed a few fingers onto his upper arm. She did that now and again, which he'd come to recognize as her attempt to keep him from embarrassing her. After being given the task of transporting bodies for the Preventers, it was decided that he needed a chaperone. At the same time, Dorothy Catalonia had stepped forward expressing an interest in more directly using her powers and influence to assist their cause.
Dorothy hid a deeply rooted guilt, but for all of her sincerity to make amends, her reputation was tarnished enough that the bureaucracy decided it was in their best interests to keep her role as small and uninvolved in the media as possible, "I'm used to controlling things behind the scenes," she had explained to him one evening on a long haul to take an illegal refugee back to his home state, "And given my abilities to subdue strong men, obviously, they thought I'd be the best babysitter for someone like you." She never said 'traitor.' And he never said that her reasoning was bullshit. They both were very aware. If she wanted a role, she had to pretend she wasn't herself. At least, she couldn't surround herself with powerful people. Instead, she got him. The most powerless companion who in every odd particularity was her only equal.
"In here," the nurse held the ring of keys in her hand after pulling one from the lock. The door had a five by seven observation window and a narrow metal door hinged to drop food in for the so-called patients. The toilet was an open stool in one corner and the bed was a sterile and simple mattress on an equally unimpressive frame.
"Aren't you going to make her a bed? Sheets?" Nichol asked, indignantly, hearing Dorothy's comment regarding his possible paternal interests and trying to convince himself that wasn't it at all.
"We're not sure of her stability, sir," the nurse said, heavy with implication. Nichol had a fleeting image of Celena waiting for the door to open and trying to strangle whoever walked in with a pristine white bed sheet.
He put her on the mattress and felt regret as he started to take back his jacket. But he pulled his fingers away like a shock, wondering how observant the nurse would be, or if Celena might still be wearing it when she woke to her new home. Instead, he motioned to Dorothy for the keys to the cuffs. Holding Celena's hand longer than necessary after he'd freed them.
"Thank you, sir," the nurse waited until they both were in the hallway then locked the door behind her, "We'll take the best care of her."
Nichol almost laughed. She felt it. She felt as if she owed him an explanation.
The nurse watched them as they left the way they had come. In the dark of the back lot, as his eyes fought to adjust to the dark, blinking away his reaction to the drop in temperature, he felt Dorothy take his hand. She simply held onto his fingers, ever now and again as they walked the back of his hand brushed her near hip.
He kept his arguments internal, until he got to the mistimed red light that left them sitting in stillness while nothing around them moved, "Why aren't we in solitary confinement? Really, what is the difference? Weren't we both classified as 'unstable' in our psychological profiles?"
"We're still redeemable."
He hadn't expected her to answer, and when she did, he knew that her comment lacked her personal belief behind it, "You know that's not true, Dots. We're just around to comfort them on their big compassion when they feel like it. To help them all sleep a little better at night. That they made a difference by giving Darren Nichol a second chance."
"Is that what you want?" Dorothy's voice was low, and he waited to hear what she said next. Waited like he waited for the light to change, "Do you want to sleep a little better at night? Thinking that you made a difference in Celena's life?"
Nichol felt his temples throb as he pushed his teeth tight together, and the pain pushed through his guilt for a moment, "At least, I know what it feels like to seek retribution," He turned to look at her and wanting Dorothy to look at him, "I don't deny my doubts and my tensions and my flaws."
The light changed, when exactly it happened he wasn't sure, and he let up on the brake, "I know what truth sounds like. And I can't deny that what you said is true, in part."
"But its different," Dorothy finished.
"I don't know why, exactly," Nichol admitted, knowing that they were close to the headquarters and the sympathetic stares and the downcast gazes and the outright dismissals. Knowing that this conversation was limited to that moment.
"Because," Dorothy started, "If I can make a guess, because I think I know you well enough now. Because you know that redemption is a gift given without a pre-requisite. Without needing a resume of qualifications and proofs of loyalty. To give a gift of true forgiveness, while we are yet sinners."
"Hmm," Nichol swallowed, pulling in the gate as the attendant waved them through, "And here I thought we made a cute dysfunctional family. Traitor father, war crazy mother and maniac gender confused child."
"That too," Dorothy laughed, her mood lighter, transforming as they unlatched their belts. Going inside to fill out the paperwork and try to keep the requirements of their supervisor.
"We should probably leave that observation out of the report," Nichol commented, smiling at her half sad and half resolved, "Shouldn't remind them of our past faults, even in jest. Might not go over too well with this bunch."
"Come on," Dorothy pushed against his arm, a gesture meant to comfort, "You know that they had hired that intern to pump you for loyalty verification."
"What?" Nichol's voice echoed from the increased intensity of his volume.
"Sure, you didn't think she was really interested in you, did you?" Dorothy laughed, cruelly.
"Dorothy, I'm crushed," Nichol wondered if he hadn't known, or if for a moment, he had really hoped that someday his 'trial period' would end.
"Stop," Dorothy pulled him short before he opened to door to enter the long hallway back to their jobs, "Don't expect these people to ever give you the recognition that you're looking for. Please."
"Why, Dots, it almost sounds like you really care," and he almost regretted saying it until he saw in her eyes that she understood his comment.
"You know, we have clearance enough to go back to the institute," Dorothy changed the direction of their conversation, "I was thinking maybe we could visit the little imp. Read to her, or something. Make sure we don't have to report her cruel treatment to some outside authority."
"Sounds like something I would like to try," Nichol impulsively put an arm around her shoulders and reached out for the door simultaneously. They had to go back inside eventually. But they had each other, and they would get through. He laughed with exaggeration and shivered against her, "I mean, really. I have to get my jacket back, don't I?"