Skeptic-A GW Story
Author's note: Well, I was wasting a perfectly good study hour reading some groovy fanfiction and...this happened. Apologies for the oddness.
We eat in silence. I'm munching on an exotic leafy salad, while Relena is picking through her French style veal cordon bleu. I rarely eat in this place-too high brow, not for the me who is a Duchess Catalonia, but for me as Dorothy. I'm a snob, but a moodily unpredictable one. And so I swallow
once again and glance at Relena.
My rival. My friend. My conscience.
Who is madly, undeniably, obsessively in love with a sociopath. Or perhaps a psychopath, I'm not much of a psychologist. Is this about the time I'm supposed to admit to some passionate love of my own-possibly Ms. Relena herself? We have good news and bad news. Good news, ugh, I am not in the least interested in Rel (heck, I don't even call her Ms. Relena anymore),but on the down side I'm not in it.
Love, that is. And so I finish the last of my salad, my fork sending a kaleidoscope of flavors into my palate. Without taking the utensil from my mouth, I straighten up in my seat.
He's here. Or one of them anyway.
The joys of the Zero system.
Relena continues to stare at her food, but she knows.
"Gotta go." I slide from my seat and head for the back door. It wouldn't do
anyone any good to see me with the Vice Prime Minister-even if it's...
"Miss Dorothy"
I don't turn around, just continue my path back to my office.
"Mr. Winner. What a surprise."
He follows me. I extended the invitation mentally. I can't afford to damage my fragile newly rebuilt reputation with this sort of company. I turn on a side street and head home. It's better that way.
"Please don't remind me how long it's been, dear." I nodded to my retainers as they left my living room. "It's a past I'm not particularly fond of."
He sat on one of the giant pillows I'd bought after my appointment into government. I smiled.
"The Preventers have a problem"
"Is that really a surprise?"
"You're trying to eliminate them. Why?"
"They impede the nature of humanity."
"It's not an advantageous position to be in, you know"
"As I am very well aware, thank you."
And so our spoken conversation continued, each veiled threat and lie building to convince whoever has been watching me that I was doing what a Catalonia did: manipulate the entire situation with no thought to the real issues presented.
But the real conversation consisted of planning and a lot of compromise.
Between the both of us
'Hilde's joining us in this operation. She's a hacker-one of the best there is.'
'Better than...him?'
'Think about that for a minute. Is there anyone better than him-at anything?'
'And what exactly is my job again? I'm not too thrilled playing the bait'
'We need an inside person, someone to keep an eye on...him.'
"My patience is normally inexhaustible, but I am afraid that you have really gone too far!" Quatre fixed his turquoise orbs on me and gave a credible, but ineffective Death Glare. I turn from his face, from the entire situation, it would seem, and gaze out of the window. Or so it appears. In reality, I'm focusing on one of the many cameras that I was assured was in the room. I want them to catch every feigned moment. Because when I got my hands on them...
"You know where the door is. Let's not do this again, shall we?"
I try to stifle my grin.
He makes sure to slam the door.
Melodramatic. Silly Quatre. Silly loveable unfortunately-not-my-type Quatre.
After I eat three bags of popcorn and watch old vids, I wash my hair and go
to bed. It's ten o'clock.
The next day I take pains to make sure I look imposing for my speech for the World Council. Surrounding me are the best of the beauty world, retained to make an impression. I gave them three and a half hours and nearly 4000 credits. They give me a darker rinse for my hair, the latest in haute
couture for the busy politician, and perfectly applied makeup. I look great and feel great. Though I normally walk to work (I live ten blocks from work), I engage my mother's driver to pick me up in one of her Rolls
Royces and drive me to my office, then to the Conference.
"Dorothy Catalonia is on the agenda today to address the Council"
some low-level representative mutters. I make sure to give my fellow members a demure smile. I don't know which one of them is spying on me, watching and waiting for an opportunity to...I don't know what. They're the ones spying, after all.
Relena, who sits in front of the members, stands up and gives us all a brief overview of her position on inter-colonial alliances. Several senators applaud at the appropriate places. She is poised and natural and capable.
Undefeatable.
It's my turn, and so I walk purposefully to the platform. Where Relena is opening and inviting, I am cold and logical. I utilize charts, quotes, and information from the Romerfellow organization. Where she stands at one place and merely gestures, I walk around, using movement to punctuate my points.
I end with a feigned glare at Relena.
We play the game well, she and I.
The votes were tied, and the arguments heated, so we adjourn for lunch. I follow my fellow constituents towards the cafeteria, break away, and walk down the hall towards a secret exit, a maneuver I assume Relena is performing elsewhere. We meet at a café three blocks down.
She tries the gourmet fish taco, while I stick with filet mignon-medium rare.
We discuss our views-we're really on opposite sides, but we each appreciate the other's view.
"You're really good at this" she says, her mouth full of fish and tortilla.
"We have to keep up appearances," I answer and I fiddle with the vegetables that accompanied my entree. The steak's juicy but flavorless; the plants are half-cooked and have been boiled.
"Is she coming?" Relena focuses on her food but still seems to know everything.
I don't get to answer, because a girl with strawberry blond curls approaches our table.
"It's been awhile, hasn't it?"
Hilde has changed. She is a married woman now, a high ranking member of the Preventers, and an undercover agent. She has dyed her traditionally blue locks blonde. She still laughs loud and has her rarely noticeable German accent.
And she has a child, a little girl she and Duo named 'Lissette'.
She outlines the plan carefully, emotionlessly, and quickly. Relena is unsure, but we all know this is no longer an unimportant mission.
"This is dangerous" I say what we've all been thinking since we first began outlining our idea. But I won't think it again.
It's a necessary endeavor.
We all decide to blow off the rest of the meeting and enjoy ourselves. Hilde invites us to her home, and we cooed over daughter and husband, the former a spitting image of her mother, and the latter sick with the flu. Relena takes us all on a plane trip to what once was North America. We walk around the ruins and take pictures and gawk at the poverty. I treat us all to gelato and designer chocolates.
We laugh, we talk, we bond.
We are biding our time.
It is late and we return to our respective homes, tired and pleased and happy.
And hopeful.
"Dorothy? DOROTHY? Donde estas?" I am late to the office for the third time
this week. Carmen, my housekeeper storms into my room with all of the authority and dignity of crowned heads of state. I was awake-not asleep, but lost in thought. For a long time I thought I knew who my voyeur was. As I am realizing, looking into what may or may not be a camera, even a simple exchange with the help could be used for nefarious purposes.
"Carmen, I have asked you repeatedly to…"
"There is the Vice-Prime Minister to see you, madame." The lilthe swarthy forty-something reaches through the canapy and rips off the sheets off my person. It takes fifteen minutes to get dressed, to get down the stairs.
Relena is at the foot of it, clutching a wellworn envelope, an uncharacteristic frown painted over her features.