Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, exacly one day after getting out of school, the next chapter in Prisoner of Peace. Sorry about the wait. This year has been a real bitch, and I'm not just talking about school.
Quatre was disobeying the doctor's orders.
He walked slower than usual most of the time, careful of the tenderness of his foot, but he still refused to wear the cast. As he had tried to explain to the doctor, he healed fast, and the bones were all better, just look at the x-rays. But medical miracle or no, people in the medical profession still had expected him to limp around with a cast for another few weeks, not understanding that his main concern was making sure that his muscles didn't deteriorate from disuse.
"People will take it as a sign of rebelliousness and insubordination." Lady Une said from behind her tea.
"Quite frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Quatre looked and felt tired, lethargic from too much inactivity, and drained from too many pills. He stared bleakly into his empty cup, waiting for someone else to make the effort of small talk. Given that present company included his loud-mouthed little sister and the disillusioned principal, and one of the counselors, he didn't think that it would be too long before someone filled in the awkward silence. When the only sound for several minutes was the clinking of tea cups on saucers and the sipping of tea, he again looked tiredly around, wishing this would hurry up so he could get on with tackling the huge pile of make-up work that awaited him. But they all stayed silent, eyeing him carefully
He wondered what they were thinking, then dismissed it as irrelevant. He really just didn't care at this point.
Milliardo Peacecraft entered the room, ending the wait until Lady Une would address official business. He walked stiffly over to sit (equally stiffly, he did just get released from the hospital) on a couch by one of the counselors, and accepted a cup of tea from the vice principal.
Zechs and Quatre locked eyes across the table. One person was silently saying 'I'm tired,' and the other was saying 'hoo, boy, you're going to get it now.'
Lady Une set down her cup of tea, and drew every one's attention over to her.
"The police," she said, "have completed their investigation of the events of October the nineteenth."
"Sure took them long enough, considering how straightforward it was." Quatre muttered.
"So you have a good idea of what they concluded?" she asked in her usual airy tone.
"I know what actually happened, because I was there. However, I have lost all faith in people's ability to take simple evidence and come to any accurate conclusion."
Lady Une sighed, staring straight at Quatre and ignoring the rest of the room full of people. "Things are not looking good, Mr. Winner. There is this, yes, but there are many other things that need to be taken into account."
She paused to make sure he was listening. "Your teachers and fellow students have found your and your friend's behaviors to be rather unnerving. You avoid the company of most others."
"No crime in being a loner."
"You deliberately exclude people from your lives by employing your knowledge of foreign languages."
"We're a diverse group. We all have different 'first languages,' and act accordingly."
"You treat every day, every assignment, every choice, as if you were still in the military."
"Old habits die hard."
"You act as if you were preparing to go back to the front lines at any moment."
Quatre had nothing to say to that.
"You routinely leave in the middle of the night, and practice as if you were expecting to have to fight someone soon."
"Four A.M. is hardly 'in the middle of the night.'"
"Maybe, but it still doesn't explain why you and the others actively practice your hand-to-hand combat in secret."
Quatre wondered how she knew that.
"Your teachers have noticed that you seem to treat your classes as if it were some sort of fact-finding mission. You play sports as if they were war games. And you have proved hostile to both fellow students and visiting guests."
04 looked again at Zechs. He suddenly felt cornered, and wondered just what these people wanted from him.
"Pinpointing the proper course of action at this point is some what tricky, given the many unknown factors. But the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few, and this school cannot continue to offer you sanctuary if you and your friends will pose a danger."
"The school board is willing to take into account your rather unique experiences in the war." Interrupted the principal. "And appropriate therapy and counseling will be made available where there is a need. But only where keeping on an individual does not put the rest of our charges in harms way. For the rest, well…"
"You are not under suspicion, Mr. Winner. Your actions may have saved Mr. Peacecraft's life." Said Une.
"For which you have my eternal gratitude." Zechs drawled.
"But at this time we area calling upon you to give an honest evaluation of your peers." Lady Une took back the floor.
"An honest evaluation." Quatre said after a pause. "Or, in other words, you want me to tell you if the others are crazy."
"In a nutshell, yes." Said the counselor. Quatre thought that he might be a psychologist, but couldn't remember.
"Let me ask you something." Quatre said. "You pulled together a team of the world's most renowned terrorists and murderers, and you are only now wondering if they might somehow pose a threat?"
The adults looked slightly uncomfortable at this oversight, and to his left, Pricilla made a squeak.
"General public opinion of your actions aside, there was no reason at the time to suspect that there would be problems of this nature." Lady Une said.
"No reason? What about the fact that Heero's original purpose for coming here two years ago was to assassinate Relena Peacecraft? Or that a sizable piece of the grounds was damaged when he stared fighting in his MS right above your heads with no regard to any one's safety?"
"Heero Yui does seem to be at the heart of the problem." Said that counselor/psychologist. "What can you tell us about him?"
"You want me to tell you if Heero is dangerous? Honestly?" Quatre looked incredulous. "Absolutely."
"You are confirming that Heeor Yui is a genuine threat to the safety of this school's inhabitants?"
"I'm confirming that Heero Yui is a trained soldier. That he's killed more people than could fit in this school. And that you may have taken away his tools, but he is still a highly skilled dealer of death. But you're forgetting that he risked his life to create this peace that you all enjoying. Is he dangerous? Certainly, and so are all the rest of us."
"Mr. Winner," said another counselor, "if you do no cooperate, then we will be forced to reconsider our stand on the possibility of removing you along with your fellows."
"I can tell you right now that your idea to treat me different than the others is bullshit."
Lady Une made a show of pulling out a small brief case, and opening it. "I have here the records of your statements to the police." She rifled through some folders. "Some of your fellows proved uncooperative at that time as well. I am personally interested in the information on Trowa Barton."
She placed a stack of papers that were stapled together down on the low tea table, and slid it across, closer to Quatre. He took it as she retrieved another one.
"Mr. Barton was one of the finest soldiers I had the pleasure of having in my service."
"Surely you realize that he was only there to spy on you." Quatre said bitterly. One of the papers was similar to what he had had to fill out for the police, and had Trowa's name filled in the appropriate places. The other was a similar form with the same name, but this was an application and record of military service for the Oz army.
"I had come to that conclusion, yes. But I am curious as to how he was able to pull off such a brilliant dupe of the system. His unprecedented rise in the ranks warranted a background check more than once, and no one found any thing suspicious. But now that he is no longer living in deceit, there are so many irregularities on him that one must assume he is hiding something."
"I don't know why you're telling me this."
"It is the belief of the administration that Mr. Barton is hiding some duplicitous deeds in his past." Said the principal.
"Trowa is hardly ashamed of his past. Why don't you just ask him to explain things instead of beating around the bush?"
Again the faces of the company showed their unease at having overlooked such a simple solution.
"Quatre." Zechs spoke up for once, and all others fell silent. "I know what it is like to have to re-learn what it is to live a civilian's life. But now I need you to tell us simply: do you think that your group would benefit from psychological therapy? Would counseling help you to fit in better? And most importantly, would getting help help you five to undo what happened to your minds in the war?"
Quatre regarded Zechs respectfully, and gave a wry smile when he had finished contemplating his words.
"Undo what happened to our minds? Just what do you think happened to us out there?" Quate found himself almost gleeful a finding the end of the problem. "This is not case of post-traumatic stress disorder, or hysterical neurosis. Nothing happened to our heads as a direct result of being in war. This is not something that can just be undone."
"In the case of irreconcilable disruptive behavior, you will all have to be expelled from the school." The principal said blandly.
"More tea?" the vice principal offered.
"Yes please." The Principal offered his cup. "As of now, you five are still with out any sort of permanent guardian, and the school will take responsibility of finding you suitable homes."
"And you, sir?" the vice principal offered tea to Quatre from across the table. With one hand below the saucer and the other curled around his cup, Quatre provided the drinking receptacle to be filled at arms length.
"Most of your fellow delinquents would most likely be placed in some sort of asylum. And since your family situation seems to be nowhere near close to being resolved, a non-related guardian that they all agreed on has been confirmed."
"Hmm?" Quatre was mildly surprised that his sisters could agree on anything, but focused on the slow but steady stream of dark liquid into his cup.
"Yes. One Madaline Catalonia, who is the mother of Miss Dorothy-"
He was cut off by a snap that filled the room. The vice principal quickly pulled back the tea pot, but was too late to stop the waterfall of drink that dribbled onto the tablecloth from between Quatre's fingers. The boy stared at the Principal wide-eyed, and heedless of the fact that he had gripped the cup so firmly that it had cracked in his hands, and was now cutting into his hands as tea and blood leaked through. He seemed suddenly unable to form coherent sentences, and his lips twitched but no sound came through.
A moment passed, and another and another, until finally Pricilla placed a hesitant hand on his arm, and she was startled when his head snapped around to look fearfully at her, as if she had startled him first. Sucking it up, she forced him to draw back his hands, then he pulled away from her and looked at the mess in his grip as he place his hands in his lap. He absently pulled shards from his cuts and still no one said anything.
Quatre stood suddenly, mumbled something about seeing the nurse, and strode out of the room.
Quatre didn't go to the nurse. He trudged up to his room, ignoring the odd looks and the speckles of blood he left in his wake. He locked the door behind him and sat on his bed, and stared at the all across the room on Heero's side. He absentmindedly waited for the bell, and then realized that it wasn't a school day. Footsteps and voices on the other side of the door signaled the presence of his dorm mates, but he sought no company, even in the familiar ranks.
He grabbed his pillow and threw it against the wall, and then felt foolish on top of everything else. 'You're a mess,' he thought to himself, 'and you've done a lot of damage today.' Papers rustled as he rearranged his workload in his binder, but he set that aside for now. A clean sheet of paper and a textbook to back it lay in his lap, and he slowly but surely began to write.
"He's afraid of her." Zechs summarized.
"Ridiculous. He's faced worse than her. Even if she hurt him on a personal level, it would not warrant such an irrational fear." General Une was displeased with the effects of that afternoon's meeting. None of her goals had been achieved, in fact, it had been most counter-productive.
"Dorothy has a history of obsessing over targets. She doesn't take losing well. Quatre didn't have any problems fighting her and beating her in the war, maybe something happened after?"
"It's possible. But it causes problems for us. If people think Quatre will act irrationally around Dorothy, then he will be categorized with the others as insane."
Zechs sighed. "None of those boys is truly irrational. There's something we're missing here."
"Like what?"
"I honestly don't know. Did their initial consultation bring up any unusual points?"
The general laughed. "They didn't have any 'initial consultation.'"
Zechs looked surprised. "They didn't? Then how are they dealing with the Wing Zero programming?"
"On their own, I guess."
Zechs rose with a purpose. "If they've not seen anyone about the Zero Programming, then that may just be what is causing them to act strangely."
"The Zero system can't be blamed for unusual behavior. Maybe a little post traumatic stress, but hardly a complete turnaround. And this is getting worse over time- how can something that happened years ago be accelerating."
"Because that's what the Zero system does."
"Zechs," General Une rose as well and placed her hands on her hips. "Why do I get the feeling that I'm the one missing something here?"
Zechs drew himself up for a long explanation. "We did a lot of testing of the wing system during the war. On both sides. Near the end we started finding out more of what it does to the human brain. That's what enabled us to put Miss Catalonia in a large-scale impersonal operating system. She had a less focused point of interest, and some new protections for herself, so we were able to use her as a control set for further research."
General Une nodded to show she understood.
"But the fact that the shielding worked confirmed our worst fears of what the original Zero system was doing. And the only way to tell how much damage was done, and to fix it, is with through psychoanalysis."
"And what, exactly, did the Zero system do to those boys?"
"The zero system operated by supplying combat data directly into the cerebral cortex. And when running on full capacity, it, well, it kind of, left…some of itself behind."
"What?"
"It would imprint itself, and basically program the human brain."
I would be much obliged if you would review. I would really like to see what people have to say after all this time.