Ah. As Mei-Lin suspected, there was a large ruckus. Blame started to fall between the family lines. Instead of being beside her, it was as she predicted. Her future husband now condemned her. It was only his associates that held him back from casting a stronger judgment since she was pregnant. Several slurs were shouted at her. How dare she as the next in line betray her future husband. How dare she kill an innocent man.
It was not her though. This, no one believed.
She was held, now sentenced. The prison area was simple and her food would be just with some concerned additions added inside for her benefit. However? Once the child was born, it would be taken away, and she would face the true extent of her punishment. Mei-Lin sat in silence. Used somehow against her will, conception unexplained, and now on a controversial death row, after nine months.
She spent another week inside her tormented situation until an outsider came to aid her. Mei-Lin watched her through the old-fashioned bars that were becoming her home. She knew of this woman, however her stature was now lower. She held her head up high and did not bend as she came in. Dressed like she were attending some casual Earth meeting on TV, she strolled in.
"Mei-Lin Wang. My name is Relena Dorlain." She came closer. "I am trying to remove you from this situation. The Earth and the Colonies have been working for more peaceful means to disastrous situations. However-"
"The Zhang clan is an outside colony to your usual," Mei-Lin interrupted her. "They will not bend on their beliefs."
"This is true, however, religion and politics must associate with the Earth and Colonies in all forms. No one is putting you on a death sentence for becoming pregnant before you were wed," Relena insisted. "However, the body found in your home has made that harder. It has taken time to make progress within your colony on these issues, but it's almost done."
Almost done? "Can you free me?" she asked. "Can you prove foul play?"
"I need details. What do you remember? I need trust and honesty," Relena Dorlain demanded. "No matter how cruel it may sound to your colony."
"It does not sound cruel. It sounds absurd." Mei-Lin moved from her bars. "I went in for a surgery. I looked for proof, but no one would give me it. I tried to tell my husband-to-be. Neither of us had been excited about the marriage. I planned on telling him the day I saw him then. Our marriage day. That is when I woke up with the dead man in my room."
"Is that the honest truth?" Relena Dorlain asked her. "You don't know the man who was murdered in your room? We have looked into this excuse and there are no records of you being at a doctor, or any recordings of what happened in that room."
"I have an appointment card." That made no difference to anyone though. It was just a piece of paper that showed she would be there to see the doctor. Not that she had been there, and that was quite small next to the insurmountable charge of killing a man.
"We do have that in our possession." She heard the sigh of the Dorlain woman. "As times have advanced, this has happened on more than one occasion. The opposition to marriage through different means of control," Relena Dorlain pointed out. "The identity of the man in your room. He was another interested in you?"
Ah. She was trying to make Mei-Lin confess about the father. That she killed the child's father. "I have done nothing wrong. I did nothing against my former husband's will, nor do I know the man who was lying in there dead. He was not another lover. If he was another option for marriage, my family would know those details. Not I."
"I have managed to work with other colonies over the years, as had the person before in my position," Relena confirmed. "One of many duties, but an important one, that I will not relent upon. Often." She paused. "A written confession of the events, fully disclosed, containing all legal and illegal events, with an official departure that removes them from the colony has been accepted so far."
Admit she was at fault and be banished from her colony. Admit she was unfaithful with the man that was dead, and that she tried to kill him to hide the secret on her wedding day. "I would write what you ask, if I could, but I have nothing more to say." There was nothing else to give.
"Mei-Lin Wang, I do not think you understand the position you are in." Now, the Dorlain woman was surely getting upset. She moved closer, her posture rigid. "The Earth and the colonies together are working to save your life in a colony that often runs in its own sense of justice. You need to be honest. Without honesty? Without a fully disclosed written confession?" Troubled. Relena Dorlain looked beside her, then straight at her. "I cannot stop them all. Without a confession, what I can do is limited for you. Please. Who is it that you loved and where is he?"
"It's confession or death." Mei-Lin moved as close to the bars as she could. "Do I save myself by saying I slept with another, killed him to try and hide that secret? If so, this child would be shunned. If I stay true to myself, have the child, and accept death gracefully? Their life would be better. Honor or life."
Relena's eyes . . . changed. The hard stance of Relena Dorlain softened toward her. "I would try to keep you from execution, but you are right. You would live the rest of your life behind bars." The eyes of Relena bore into Mei-Lin like she was searching for something. There was nothing though. "But? If there really is no one else, you don't know that man in your room, and you have been telling the truth?" She realized it now and backed away. "Mei-Lin. I?" She paced slightly. "No one believes this. I didn't believe it either, everyone has confessed that nothing has happened. Your doctors, his assistants, everyone." She moved back to the bars. "I will do everything I can to try and save you. I will pull all my power towards this case personally. At the very least, pull you from the colony to a place of safety for your condition. I am so sorry." Mei-Lin watched her walk off.
There was silence once again in her area. Honor or death. That was her decision.
Dorothy Catalonia's Home
Dorothy watched as Relena came toward her lovely outdoor table. "Good morning, Relena. How are you?" As always, Relena didn't share much about any of those trivialties. She needed help with something else. "What may I help you with?"
"What do you know of the Zhang colony?" Relena sat down at the table. "I am trying to keep peace, but they want to execute a woman."
Execution. That would surely be causing Relena stress. Political was tough to deal with, but for religion? "What is it she has done?"
"She was pregnant with another man's child," Relena said, "while she was promised to another." Stress and anger. "The morning of the wedding when she would confess, there was a man found dead in her home."
"Oh. I would have said she knew what she was getting into before you said the last part." Dear oh dear. "A man dead in her home? Have you tried a confession?"
"She didn't do anything." Relena shook her head, looking out toward the beautiful view. "This isn't the first case I've worked with in this way. Once I've guaranteed their lives, I have almost always got a written confession of the truth." She crossed her legs. "I can't get that because I believe she has told it. I believe someone did this on purpose to her. All of it."
"Foul play? Unusual for this." Dorothy sipped on her tea. Normally she offered her tea, but it was iced tea. She'd just had her own tonsillectomy. Once Relena left, she would head back inside again. "Did someone want her husband? Who was next in line?"
"Someone named Mei-Hua." Relena didn't look well herself. "I need to find a way to prove someone else was in the wrong, or an innocent woman is going to die."
"I would speak to this Mei-Hua. It's all I can offer." Dorothy watched Relena stand back up. Huh. Usually she was less abrupt than that.
"Yes, you're right. I will look into that angle. There just aren't many left to expose." She walked off, deep in thought.
Poor Relena. Always trying to save the world. When she herself was clearly sick.
"Let me see in your throat, Relena," her family doctor said as he came over to see her personally.
"I shouldn't be here. I have important work to get done." Unfortunately, health didn't care. Relena kept burning up with fevers, on and off for days. She tried to ignore it to keep going, but eventually she had to take action before it got worse. "What is it, Doctor? Is it the same thing again?"
He seemed to be quieter than usual. "Yes. I recommend a tonsillectomy. It won't take long and you'll be better in a few days." He started to write it down in his memo pad.
"Are you okay, Doctor?" He didn't look so well. Was it only her tonsils? Were they only one side of a potential problem? The constant fever and being tired, was it really all just from tonsils?
"Here is an ear, eye, nose, throat specialist." Her doctor handed her the paper. "Go see them as quickly as you can. Get this taken care of before you are in a bed for days due to running fevers."
Then she wouldn't be able to help anyone. "I will." If anything was wrong too, she would schedule for the soonest surgery she could. The world didn't wait for her to get better, she needed to stay up with the world. Even if she was in pain in her mouth, she could still travel.
Noin picked up her phone, seeing the restricted number. Most numbers could be identified on her signals. "Noin here."
"Hello, this is Quatre Raberba Winner."
"Oh, Quatre." One of the previous Gundam pilots. He wouldn't be calling her for no reason at all. "Is there something you need?"
"Just, touching base," Quatre said. "I called Lady Une too. Duo, the previous pilot of Deathscythe. There's some suspected foul play, probably not related to anything, but we're just being cautious."
"Caution is always a smart idea," Noin said. She placed her phone on speaker and turned to her memo pad on it. "What's the caution?"
"Duo's friend, she got pregnant, but she didn't do anything. They both suspect foul play from a doctor when she had surgery."
Noin looked at the memo area on her phone. What should she even put? "He sure she's just not telling him a lie?"
"We looked at it all. The footage disappeared. She's his best friend and he trusts her. He's now on Earth, with her. He's staying until after it's born and it's safe to go back to their colony."
Noin scratched her head. "How long ago? Did this just happen?"
"Well? Duo wanted a week with his friend on Earth, just in case you did want to drop by and ask questions," Quatre said.
"Oh." She wrote down Duo's Friend Got Pregnant in Surgery Supposedly on her memo and left it at that. "I can see how you didn't jump to tell us."
"I know, but it doesn't feel like its right. Like it's over? This just, it doesn't say . . . you hurt someone I love and so this is what you get? Do you understand what I mean?"
"Very true." Noin agreed. "I've got it down. Most likely, it's . . ." This friend probably had too much fun and was lying her butt off. "It doesn't seem like it's nothing to do much with us, but I'll inform the others. Thanks."
Hospital. Earth.
It took every cent she had, and more she didn't. Middie Une watched the nurse give her the okay to go in the back. She had needed the surgery for months now, but money wasn't a luxury she had. Unfortunately, things like going to work with the fevers also weren't working. Her boss forced her to come and get something worked out. She ended up selling everything she could and a man she worked with loaned her the rest. Afterwards, she would have to work overtime to pay him back, but right now? She couldn't keep her hours. She was getting fevers more and more. It felt like she could barely even swallow or eat half the time, and now she was starting to have trouble with her breathing at night.
Her breathing. It was absurd that tonsils could be the cause of so much misery. She walked toward the room.
After today, she could recover, and then no more worries of missing work. Just worries about how she was going to pay back that money fast enough and still survive her own rent. I may have to get desperate enough to find another way. She would try though. She would try the good girl way.
On the outside, she looked like a good girl. With her blonde hair and beautiful big eyes with a wide smile. Anyone would think that. She'd performed unspeakable acts in war though, becoming a spy with those qualities. Trust and innocence. Only a disguise, and the man who lent her the money knew it. Expected it. For her to be a bad girl, to pay that money off.
She wouldn't quickly pick that role up. She didn't like it, it wasn't a favorite. But, it was one she could play and play well when she had to.
