Drowning: Chapter 6

Quatre's Past Revealed

Pairings: 1xR, 2xH

Irea's POV

Warnings: graphic content, child experimentation

Again, if this offends you don't read it. However, this is the chapter where everything gets explained and you'll have a difficult time understanding the rest of the story if you don't read it. You have been warned.

Disclaimer: don't own the characters, or the term Newtype.

(Note: Newtypes aren't actually ever mentioned in the GW universe, they're from the first Gundam show, but I think they can be easily applied to this show as well, especially when some of Quatre's actions are looked at)

"He was six years old when they came for him. The Alliance had taken over and ended many of the colonies' rebellions. There weren't a lot of people willing to take a stand against them. Especially since hardly anyone knew what was happening until it was too late, and those that did were either apathetic or were silenced quickly and brutally.

"They claimed they were doctors. Much like they did on the L2 colony cluster. They tricked the people into believing that they were to help when in reality all they had to offer was death.

"They went from house to house asking if there were any "different" children in the household. Any under the age of ten. You see, starting about twenty years ago there was a sudden an unexplainable increase in the number of "abnormal" children born in the L4 colonies. We used to joke that it was something in the water, but at the same time everyone was afraid. It became one of those topics that no one spoke about. Like test tube babies.

"Many started to call these children "Newtypes." They…were not like other children. They never grew very big and as little children they seemed to know far more than children should. It was because they knew things about people. Knew when you were happy, when you were distraught. Knew if you were pregnant before you yourself did. Knew if you were cheating on your wife. Everyone was afraid, and no one did anything to stop what was to come.

"These children began to disappear from all over the colony. One from this family. Two from another. Families were ripped apart with grief but were powerless. Some families did nothing because they were glad of the sudden disappearance of their terrifying children. As awful as that sounds, sometimes fear can make people more savage than even animals, who at least will always sacrifice themselves for their young.

"We woke up to the sound of Father screaming. I was home visiting from college at the time. All of us girls ran towards the sound. I had never heard my father scream or cry before. It was the most awful and heart-wrenching sight I have ever seen to this day. He was sitting on the floor beside Quatre's little bed. The blankets were all torn apart and flung about the room. The glass windows had been expertly broken through so that no one in the house had heard the intruders.

"Father…he was…it was horrible to see. He had completely broken down and was sobbing hysterically, clutching a pillow from Quatre's bed.

"We all knew what had happened. For a long time no one did anything. We were all in an utter and complete state of shock. They had come for Quatre. They had taken our sweet baby brother away.

"Father tried everything imaginable, called in all his favors, almost lost his mind in trying to track down Cat's location, but to no avail. It was as if Quatre had disappeared into thin air. We knew the military was responsible. It was never stated publicly, but we knew. Everyone did. And no one did a damn thing!

"Even as powerful as Father and our family was and is there was nothing more we could do. It seemed as though we had lost him forever.

"Father was absolutely crushed, but out of all of us…he was the only one who never lost hope. He simply could not even begin to fathom the possibility that Quatre wasn't coming back.

"We waited and hoped and prayed for a year and a half."

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I have to stop for a moment. The pain and utter astonishment on the faces of the former pilots is almost too much for me to bear. And I have yet to come to the worst of it. Relena is gripping Heero's hand and there are tear marks stretching from her eyes to the bottom of her flushed cheeks. Hilde, who had arrived at Duo's slightly panicked insistence, is holding and being held in an iron grip by Duo. His entire posture is rigid and it's clear from his frozen features that he's not taking the entire situation well.

I suggest to them all that we take a short break and get something soothing to drink. Wufei and I are drinking hot tea. The mint kind. Quatre's favorite. The others are nursing small cups of Arabian coffee.

I don't know if I really want to go on. I know I must though, for their sake and Quatre's. All of us sisters have realized since Cat returned from the war that something was wrong. He's good at hiding things from us though. Doesn't want us to worry, I guess. We were so blind! Why did we wait so long? How could it have come to this? I'm a doctor for the love of Allah and I did nothing!

My hands are shaking. Tea is sloshing over the rim a little. Allaahu Akbar. Bismillaah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem, Wal 'Asr, Innal insaana lafee khusr, Illal ladhenna aamannu, Wa 'amilus saalihaati wa tawaasau bilhaqq, Wa tawaasau bis sabr. God is Great. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Merciful. By the Token of Time through the ages, Verily Man is in loss, Except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and join together in the mutual teaching of Truth, and of Patience and Constancy. I must be calm and focused. I'm ready now.

"Do you all want me to go on?"

"Yes. If this is going to help us find out what's happening to Quatre, I think you must," Duo says. He's absolutely serious. There's no trace of the light-hearted expression on his face that I had come to recognize him by. All the others look equally grim. I just pray that I am doing the right thing for Quatre by telling them all this. There's a very real chance that after they find out about Quatre they may be frightened of him, or even hate him. Humans, after all, have the predisposition to hate what they fear and fear what they don't understand. I trust Cat's judgment in people however, and if he calls these people friends and considers them practically brothers then I think I can trust them as well.

"Alright then. At the time of these disappearances there was a faction of rebels that had started to form ever since the Alliance had taken over. They were the only group to survive the all out massacre that claimed the lives of so many other rebels. Many of the colony citizens knew about this group. Some supported them. Most did not. They were complete fanatics; they truly believed that it was Allah's will to get back at our oppressors by any means possible. One of the reasons so many people from our part of Earth had move to the colonies was to escape that sort of thinking. We didn't want to have to live in fear of radical groups like that. They were helping though, as much as we disliked their tactics.

"Now that I think back on it, it was probably one of the reasons our colony ended up turning against the Gundams. They were afraid of being associated with terrorists. No, don't get me wrong! I think the Gundams were truly there to help the people; however your tactics reminded them of the groups that had ruled over our countries on Earth, even though your intentions were honorable.

"This group called itself Red Dog. They were very successful during the early years of occupation.

"It came over the radio one afternoon that Red Dog had successfully liberated what they had thought to be an experimental weapons facility. What they actually found was so horrible that it caused mass hysteria within the colony. They had found the missing children of L4, or what was left of them.

"Apparently the children had been taken to a satellite between the L3 and L4 colony cluster. Once there, they had been given many preliminary tests to determine if they were what the scientists were seeking. These scientists, who had posed as the doctors when on-colony, had taken the children showing the most abnormal brain wave patterns and placed them in holding cells to be organized into groups. Those that weren't gifted enough were shot on the spot and their bodies burned. We found this out through the extensive video footage the Alliance scientists had made on the whole process.

"The others…the others….I'm sorry." Breathe Irea. You can do this.

"The others were split into groups. Each group was…experimented on differently. There were four groups, each named after an archangel. Such blasphemy! Dear Allah…

"Every child was given a mark on their shoulder that identified which group they were in. Jibril, Mika'il, Azrael, and Israfel. Those children who were in the group named Mika'il were tested with a powerful drug that apparently affected the areas of the brain that involve reflexes, motor skills, and emotions like anger, lust, and terror. These children…they went mad very quickly. The ones that were kept together tore each other apart. The others were found to be too unstable to be useful and were killed.

Jibril's children were given drugs that made them so paranoid that they distrusted anyone and everyone. Many died of sheer nervous exhaustion. Of all the children however, they had the highest survival rate…but still…the numbers who died…

"They apparently had the most "luck" with the children of Israfel. It was shown through documentation that because of the amount of chemicals they were dosed with (three times the amount of the other children) they stumbled upon a formula that would increase these children's Newtype abilities. However, they couldn't pinpoint the exact cause of this discovery, and before they could narrow down the possibilities all of the children had slipped into comas and died.

"Perhaps the most terrifying thing that Red Dog revealed was what had happened to the children of Azrael. Each of the four sections had placed in its own hallway, or ward. The popular nickname for Azrael's section of the laboratories was the "Death Ward." One of the head scientists had an absolute fascination for death and the afterlife. He felt the only way to find what was beyond death was to send empaths there and then bring them back to life. Quatre and the others…they…they…oh Allah, let me get through this!...they were injected with a bright blue chemical that entered into their bloodstream at an amazing rate and killed them by stopping their hearts. It was shown however that their minds were still functioning for as much as ten minutes after their bodies had died. They were then resuscitated and the process was begun all over again. Many children simply never woke up again. Many were thought to be too far gone to be resuscitated and were taken down to the furnace rooms and burned alive. It was documented that of the two children that survived the Death Ward, each had been killed and brought back over three hundred times in the space of eighteen months.

"By the time Red Dog arrived and took over the satellite many Newtype children were already dead. The scientists, upon learning that they had been discovered had begun taking children from the cells and throwing them, completely conscious and aware, into the furnaces. Despite Red Dog's best efforts they were only able to kill the few scientists that remained behind to destroy the "evidence." The rest escaped and their whereabouts never revealed.

"When all was said and done, of the nearly three-thousand children taken, only seventeen survived."

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They don't believe me. I can see it in their eyes. I can't really blame them. After all, who could imagine such evil? When faced with that kind of evil, what does one do? We collectively go insane. Men beating their heads against walls until they are unconscious. Women screaming in the streets and ripping their hair out. The wailing and anguished cries were so loud that day in the colony that I could have sworn people on Earth heard us. That was not the case however. No one in the rest of Earth or space would ever hear what had happened.

"I don't believe you. There just isn't any evidence of something like this happening. I mean, the rest of the world would have heard about this!" Duo is saying, his voice laced with shock and desperation.

"Yes. Duo's right. The other colonies and Earth would have been in an uproar over this." Heero's steely cobalt-blue eyes drill into me as he speaks.

"You would think so, wouldn't you? The plain fact of the matter was that no one believed us. No one. The Alliance covered its tracks very very well. Red Dog was demolished within days of finding the laboratories. The satellite literally disappeared. All that was left as evidence were the children, and they were too young and too traumatized to be able to tell what happened to them. Everything we had learned from Red Dog was destroyed. But the people knew. The people of L4 will never forget what happened to its children."

"And Quatre?" Relena asks.

"Quatre…it took him a long time to heal physically. Mentally, I don't think he ever has. He never speaks about it, but I know he is reminded of it all the time. I'm pretty sure it's one of the reasons he became a Gundam pilot, to prevent this from ever happening again."

"Is this why he is having these episodes now?" Trowa says calmly. Of all the people gathered in the room he looks the most unbothered by the whole event. I'm not sure if it's because he truly doesn't believe me, or if it's because he believes me totally and is doing the only thing he can to deal with it. I'm willing to bet it's the latter. Quatre and him were very close during the war.

"I honestly don't know what's causing these fits. We should know better after I run a few tests. I also need him to talk to me…or someone, and tell them what's going on. I would bet anything though that it has something to do with what happened to him."

"I agree. If you would like, I will ask him when he wakes up." With that Trowa nodded to me and headed towards Quatre's bedroom.

"I still don't think what you said is true. I mean, it can't be! Who would do something that awful? Who would want to hurt Quatre like that…I just don't get it!" Duo's not even pretending to be fine now. Little silver streaks are running down his crumpled face.

"We will get to the bottom of this. Make no mistake. We are all here for Quatre, and we will do everything in our power to help him." The others look shocked that Wufei has spoken, but are all visibly more relaxed now that a battle plan has been established.

I too am heartily grateful that Quatre's friends are here. They are like a rock that's anchoring me during this terrifying time. And I am terrified. I just hope to God that Quatre is going to be alright. That this ordeal will soon be over for him. That he will be able to reconcile his past and move on. I wish Father was here right now. I could certainly use his guidance right now.

Big thanks to Mlaine and LinaChan for reviewing the last chapter. I hope this one wasn't too confusing. Where will this story head next? What will happen to poor Quatre? Stayed tuned my friends…: ).

-NostalgieMalaak