Tourniquet Chapter Five

By Jillian Storm

(Disclaimer: Character are not mine.)

. . . Before . . .

After a handful of hours practicing meditation with Chang Wufei in his monastery home, Sally Po thought she'd felt the truest liberation. The truest freedom. She could almost feel the chill mountain air heavy with early morning dew touching her skin with a multitude of miniscule kisses. The breeze would blow every wisp of hair back from her forehead. The sounds of silence caressing her ears with spiritual messages. Her body relaxing, legs crossed, arms outstretched, back straight.

He'd taken a strange joy in the role reversal as her meditations guide. His dark brown eyes wearing premature creases around his eyes, but in those moments they were signs of happiness more than the story of war etched into his skin. He only raised his voice to laugh at her efforts to amuse him. Any other battle in spirit had been fought already. His life was given to his faith, and she had embraced him glad to leave him in such strong spirits.

Sally had turned his resignation papers in to Une upon her return to base, which had been moved to Lake Victoria by that point.

"Wufei appreciated the welcome he received," Sally had explained, letting her body sink into the rigid structure of the wooden chair opposite from Une's desk, "It meant a lot to him, more than he said while he was here I'm sure. But I won't say that I wasn't happy to see him returning to a life more ordinary."

At a sound, Sally had looked up to see Une standing next to the gilded birdcage—a peculiar habit that their commander had picked up without preamble. Inside was a pair of dusty lime colored birds. One of them had slurred a brief song before falling silent again.

"Mariemia will miss him," Une had said absently letting one of her fingers slide along the side of the cage, "She talks endlessly about his insufferable personality, but she adores him." Une let her head fall back to smile over one shoulder at Sally, "She wasn't too fond of your amiable relationship with him either."

"Oh," Sally wasn't sure what else to say, except share in Une's maternal amusement.

"I guess it's not comfortable for some of us to imagine living on our own," Une's office seemed suddenly dark as the light coming in through the window disappeared as the sun set. One lamp in the upper corner did it's best to outline the shapes and figures of the room.

Sally looked down at her hands. She heard herself speaking kind words, light hearted words, comforting words, scolding words. But none of them struck her heart as being the right thing to say in just that moment.

"I suppose I've always envied your ability to make it look so easy," Une said solemnly. The short laugh and playful smile Une left Sally with struck an insincere chord.

. . . Now . . .

"So either I'll have settled that matter or," she smiled at him with her wry grin, "Or there won't even be an apartment for us to share."

Nichol first heard his heavy swallow in his ears, then he heard a shrill low whistle from Sally's equipment. She had been monitoring the bank all night in silence, and it was the first he had heard the alarm. His palms started to sweat immediately with years as a civilian softening his reactions, but his memory resurfaced, "Electronic communication. You have this guy tapped, right?"

"Outgoing," Sally spun in the chair she had been using in order to key a code into her small computer, "Intercepting. Locking on location of source. It's a long message, he's being careless." She struck a key and small roll of paper began to feed and print out a message that she looped over both her hands as it became longer.

"You make that look so easy," Nichol said, accidentally. He hadn't meant to confess his admiration for her solo skills, but she seemed to take the comment in stride.

"His target isn't the bank. He's going to detonate, but we've got to find out what his target is first. Damn." Sally slapped her open palm against the table, and as if the pain brought her thoughts together, she glanced over at Nichol with what appeared as an apologetic grin crossing her small lips.

"The bank's tall enough that he could put out a decent signal in just about any direction," Nichol tried to recapture his military intuition and use it in a disciplined manner.

"Exactly," Sally began to type again, swiftly at the speed of her thoughts, "I've pinpointed the source of the message and called for backup." She stopped breathing for a moment and fixed an appraising look on Nichol, her lips slightly parted and her eyes objective, "You have good instincts, Nichol. Want to test mine and come with? I think you might be helpful."

"You've already called for backup," Nichol regretted his reluctance, feeling the pressure of failure that he knew too well. He'd let too many of his dreams be haunted by the accusations of those he'd disappointed, "I think I'm too civilian for this part."

She nodded once, accepting his answer but notably paused before she spoke, "I agreed to meet the local authorities liason from Earth downstairs in your restaurant. I could use an extra pair of eyes to make sure that our meeting is safe."

"I could help you that much," Nichol agreed quickly, finding the compromise softened the bruise on his ego. He admired how she'd packed most of her equipment and taken down the camera in a matter of seconds. She dropped the blind with little gentleness that surprised him and the room suddenly seemed quite dark until his eyes adjusted.

"Ready?" Sally asked offering her hand. At first, Nichol thought she meant to give him a boost up from where he'd been indented into the sleeping bag most of the early hours of the morning. Then as he was already mostly up and straightening his sore knees, he saw she meant to shake hands. He reflexively took her grip without thinking, and shook once.

"Partners, okay," She smiled cheerfully, her comment light and comfortable. As if he belonged in her operation all along.

. . .

It took Hilde only a moment to realize why she woke up that morning with a luxurious stretch and a smile splitting her cheeks. She breathed in deeply and pushed off her covers in a rush to go downstairs in a search for evidence that her new feelings were real and not simply a dream.

The smell of burned cookies still lingered in the kitchen and was encouraged by the unwashed utensils from her adventure in feeding Heero. She panicked for a moment that she'd not taken the time to show him how she could clean up in the kitchen and then fought a fit of giggles at how ridiculous her own thoughts seemed to her. She then attacked the mess with enthusiasm that was completely unlike her, in her own opinion, while singing a mess of different songs all strung together and switching tunes when she forgot the words.

She felt healthy, as if everything in the world couldn't be more right.

Hilde was still holding onto the threads of that feeling when she heard the arrival buzz of her intergalactic telebooth. Nichol had whinged when she told him how much her communications device had cost. But at the time, she insisted that her business needed the latest technology in order to keep in touch with clients. Even so, they had a dreadful delay on delivery. Personal equipment always suffered a postponement in channels behind the military and the media. And she'd been struck with too much honesty to get a pirated version of the military model.

In passing she imagined herself taping messages to send to Heero if he were ever reassigned to a different location. But imagining any distance from Heero made her frown. She reassured herself that Heero assigned his own missions. He had the connections.

She flipped the switch to light up the telebooth and pulled a stool from the kitchen in order to sit in front of the view screen. The message was from Trowa Barton.

After entering her code, Hilde was greeted by the blank stare of the tall ex-Gundam Pilot. Then, as if a wax doll coming to life, Trowa started to talk, "Hilde, I hope this finds you well. I feel we're going about this all a little bit backwards, but no one knew how to get a hold of your brother and we didn't want to wait the months for comet mail to deliver a message." At that point, Trowa's words were spilling out faster that Hilde had ever heard him speak before, and his expressions were surprisingly animated. He took a deep breath, brushed his hair back with gangly lean fingers and then smiled, "I asked Dorothy to marry me. Quatre said I was a fool not to marry her after all this time . . ."

"All this time!" Hilde jumped off her stool and leaned in toward the video screen, before feeling foolish like she'd never received a telebooth recording before, "It's only been . . ." she counted on her fingers, ". . . seventeen months!" She winced, realizing how quickly time had passed. All that time, the video of Trowa had continued, with his fingers alternating between combing through his hair or rubbing the back of his neck.

"She really wants Nichol's approval, which I can understand since she's practically his sister . . . too." Hilde would have sworn Trowa's cheeks were turning red, "And I would want his permission to."

"Late to be asking!" Hilde caught herself talking to the screen again. In the six minute video she'd seen more expression on Trowa's face than in all the passing conversations she'd had with the guy. She still couldn't quite figure what had drawn that particular couple together, but wasn't terribly surprised nonetheless. After Libra and her time in Luxemburg, Dorothy had weathered a strange time of isolation and become a calmer, yet still dangerously intelligent young woman. And Nichol loved her unconditionally, which had been a mild source of jealousy for Hilde early on.

"Hilde, I hope this finds you well. I feel we're going about this all a little backwards . . ." She had repeated the message.

"I wonder if she's pregnant?" Hilde thought scandalously, then dismissed the thought. She listened a second time and then saved it for her brother. However was Nichol going to react? While she knew that Nichol had a begrudging respect for Trowa Barton, no love was lost between the two of them given their history on Barge. Just prior to when she herself was arrested for helping Duo Maxwell escape from OZ. Just prior to when she would meet Douglas Nichol for the first time.

Lost in thought for a moment, Hilde felt a little chill.

. . .

Nichol went first, and sat at the front table where he knew long time patron of The Sunrise, Alistair Lewis, would come with his checkerboard. The front of The Sunrise was set up with a little café with a couple tables under the canopies. Nichol ordered coffee from the waitress who recognized him right away with a cup and regular coffee in tow. As he carried a comfortably light conversation with the waitress, Sally meandered into the restaurant and sat at the bar next to the small display of the day's pie selection. He could see her well enough between the stenciled letters on the front window.

The morning was as artificially orchestrated as the sunsets on colony. The cycle of artificial birth and rebirth seemed less insulting to Nichol when he had other matters to occupy his various senses. He'd taken a count of the morning guests over the first sip of coffee and had systematically determined no unexpected variables. Which didn't cause him to drop his guard any less, but put him even more on alert.

Nichol finished his coffee before he recognized the figure of Heero Yuy walking slowly up the length of the city block. Heero had locked eyes with Nichol at the same time, and the deliberateness that settled over both of them left Nichol certain that Heero was on the clock and that he was Sally's contact.

He put the lip of the empty cup to his mouth and didn't drink. Heero sat down at Nichol's table as if he'd planned to stop there all along.

"I wondered if this was your restaurant," Heero said, letting one hand sit on the edge of the table and the other loose in his lap. The breeze from around the corner of blew stronger for a moment causing Heero to narrow his eyes defensively, and Nichol wondered if Heero was suspicious of Hilde's brother's intentions in that moment.

"Yeah," Nichol decided to cut the suspense, "I like the view," He tipped his head at the bank with a painfully suppressed grin, Nichol added, "And the chicks all seem to end up at this place."

The waitress came over just as Heero stood, "I'm going to order inside. Want to join me?"

"No," Nichol shook his head, knowing that if Heero asked again, that his curiosity and urge to feel purpose would have him tagging along on their mission—unpracticed and lax in training.

"In that case, I think you've got the nicest table out here. Enjoy the view." Heero half waved from his waist in one movement and the jingle of the door bells indicated that the Asian Preventer had gone inside to get his mission briefing or to share colony intelligence with Sally.

Nichol accepted a refill on his coffee, and continued to keep his muted surveillance.

. . .

Hilde had cleaned every room in the house before she finally sank into the couch she'd shared with Heero just the night before. She curled onto it sideways and fancied that she might still smell him in the cushions even though she knew the only thing she smelled was the texture of the coarse fabric.

Rolling, she could see the clocks she had lined up on the far wall of the living room. Partially because of the telebooth, partially because of the nature of her business, Hilde like to have a number of clocks each keeping time for different significant locations so that she'd have some idea of when a good time to catch an important person might be.

Just then she wondered if it was too early to call her brother. Next she wondered if she should tell him Dorothy's news or her own news first.

Her feelings for Heero certainly seemed diminished in light of the commitments that Trowa and Dorothy seemed ready to make to each other. She could just imagine the blank stare that Nichol would make hearing that Barton had propositioned the kid sister he'd grown up with. Hilde imagined if that was Nichol's response, what response Mrs. Catalonia must have had. Or even Nichol's mother, who lived with the Catalonia's and held uncontested rule over the estates. Of course, Mrs. Catalonia would have been easier to convince than if Dorothy had been Nichol's true sister. In a brief moment of sympathy, she knew that Nichol would probably never please his mother in any life choices or romantic match.

In a great part, that was due to the fact that Nichol's father—that Hilde's father—had an affair with colonies which had disgraced his family and his politics.

Hilde frowned. For a bastard, she felt she'd done alright. Although, she wasn't quite sure if she'd found true confidence in herself if she hadn't bonded with her half-brother. Or if she hadn't met the silent sturdiness of Heero Yuy. With them, she felt as if she were drawn out rather than pushed deep into the possibility of insecurity.

She wondered what Duo Maxwell was doing. She hadn't seen him in so long.

One of the clocks struck an hour and Hilde realized that she'd been lounging for some time. She reached out for her local colony phone and dialed her brother's number.

After letting it ring several times, she hung up the phone and wondered where her brother had wandered off to.

. . .

When Sally had asked him a second time if he wanted to help, Nichol couldn't resist. He'd been so amused by keeping guard at the front of the restaurant that he was feeling more invincible than he had since before he'd taken his fateful orders to assume command of Barge.

The print out from Sally's computer had indicated that the explosive devise in question was in transit to location. But the location was neither the origin of the message nor it's destination. Therefore, Sally planned to infiltrate the source of the message and search for clues. Heero had brought with him all the necessary stamps and seals to grant them access around the colony. And, in a light-hearted thought, Nichol fancied himself the commanding officer or at least extra-muscle.

He felt that Sally and Heero saw him as the latter when she gave him her equipment to carry. All except a handheld receiver that guided them down the streets to a suburb where the banker's communication had originated.

Conveniently, the home in question had a tall fence of blue grey wood covered in ivy along the drive, so after a quick check, all three of them were slipping in the back door of the house. Heero had picked the lock.

After a couple of deliberate breaths, Nichol placed the smell as that of mothballs. And the décor also indicated the presence of an elderly resident. Heero pointed toward a framed picture on the wall that showed an older woman, frail even in the picture, and two middle-aged men with identical short beards of red hair.

Nichol enjoyed the freedom of being a lesser but respected partner as the three of them separated and searched the first floor. Nichol noticed the living room floor had been completely covered with Christmas doormats like a second carpet. The smell of mothballs receded in that room to be replaced with the aroma of a large tank with several large angelfish and a plastic castle.

Sally was the first to join him in the living room, and for a moment she was a silhouette against the picture window. A dark shadow with a brilliant yellow glow shining around her curves. Nichol had to blink a few times before he could determine that she was mouthing words to him, and turning, he saw Heero standing behind motioning toward an open door and an upward stair.

Heero spoke close to Nichol's ear when he approached, "She sleeps there," he pointed with a finger, "Unable to go upstairs."

They took care while going up the wooly green carpet stairs that occasionally were home to different small boxes labeled 'Christmas.' The attic was lit by a sky light and the atmosphere sparkled with floating dust. The walls were fake wood panels and the ceiling was slanted down from the point of the roof. The far section of the attic was sectioned off by wire and what appeared to be a couple shower curtains.

Nichol heard rather than saw Heero remove his weapon. Heero moved first, Nichol followed, then saw from his peripheral vision that Sally had braced a smaller weapon between her two hands. The adrenaline was enough for Nichol, but he did feel oddly disconnected from the work of the other two.

Heero broke the silence with a ringing of curtain hooks as he pulled them back, no person sat in the chair behind the divider but it was obvious someone had been using that area regularly. A laptop sat with it's screensaver running on a desk with a chair in front. A filing cabinet on one side had what appeared to be an inbox piled high with papers. A printer and waste basket full of wadded paper were also immediately identifiable.

"Look," Heero spoke, and Nichol saw that beyond the computer, the next wall was covered in clippings. Pictures. Articles. The largest was the cover of the Earth Daily Star newspaper. A full spread picture of a moment after the Christmas Mariemia had descended to earth—when the little girl had first appeared in public at the side of . . . Une.

Nichol saw her, after trying to avoid her image for so many years. Turning the news channel for a moment, letting Hilde fill him in on the important parts of the printed news. He'd deliberately tried to let himself miss running into Une, and now he was staring at a wall that at first glance seemed to contain a chronicle of Une's activities for the past few years.

"Someone's obsessed with Une," Nichol was surprised to hear his own voice speaking.

Nichol caught Heero looking at him with a bitter smile, "Or someone's obsessed with Mariemia."

Nichol looked back and read the oversized text that accompanied the first picture he'd analyzed. It said, "Kushrenada's Heir."

"What's this?" Sally asked, and Nichol became aware of her presence nearing his side. With her next step, all three of them heard the audible click.

. . .

While the hours past, Hilde had decided that even though she could trace her interest in Heero back for quite some time that she was in no way ready to consider marrying him. She's also practiced making another batch of cookies and wondered if Heero was going to call before he came over. If he was coming, or if he were waiting until later when he usually walked Daisy.

Hilde finished the paperwork for two of her largest orders to keep her mind distracted. Finally, she ate lunch and turned on the radio.

"Local authorities arrested thirty-six year old Valentine Domingo at the Second Colony Bank minutes ago. Domingo was taken to an undisclosed location. However, in the moon-side suburbs, firemen are still trying to control a fire started by undetermined means at the Domingo residence.

"Preventer and Gundam Pilot, Heero Yuy was at the scene and single-handedly rescued Valentine Domingo's grandmother, a ninety-seven year old invalid."

Hilde sat down, staring numbly and pulled her legs up underneath her. She found the remote next to her and turned on the television to compliment the radio. Images of the fire were the first she saw.

One of the reporters had Heero under the brilliance of their camera light. Colonist media were famous for their ability to swarm like deceptively harmless bees to the first pollen of flowers. Hilde saw the tension in the frown of his lips, his hair unruly as if singed and his skin more than dusted with soot.

"Do you know what was inside the Domingo household that Valentine would want it to be destroyed, even if it meant killing his grandmother?" The reporter was a blonde woman taller than Heero, but he fixed her with a steeled gaze and said in rough monotone, "No comment."

Hilde wrestled with the urge to run to the scene and stand by him. To stare down the blonde reporter with Hilde's own angry eyes and share a few choice words beyond "no comment."

Behind the cameras, Hilde noticed movement. It looked like the colony medics were helping a younger woman, also dusted in the ashes from the smoke. Hilde leaned forward, since the focus was still on Heero's resolved scowl. She realized that the young woman actually was helping the medic, between them they were helping. Nichol.

Hilde didn't bother to think twice before racing to the yard to get her make-shift motorcycle.

. . .

He couldn't help but lean heavily against her, the pain was all on his left side. Nichol saw Sally move to speak, and he snapped angrily, "Don't even apologize. I probably was tripping over my feet more than protecting you from anything."

Her eyes changed then, and Nichol felt warm even though he hadn't really been trying to charm her.

"You should have waited for the stretcher," Sally said instead, "I can't believe you aren't more hurt."

His first response, after Sally accidentally tripped the wire that started the upstairs explosion, had been to grab her and try to find cover from the explosion. They were lucky it was a smaller bomb mostly intended to destroy the evidence of the espionage work. Fire had started immediately, moving up the wall as if the wood panels had already been primed with kerosene.

Heero had reflexively thrown himself the opposite direction, toward the stairs and cut off from Nichol and Sally by the flames.

Heero hadn't even wasted time for cursing, "Secondary explosion is likely. Go out the window NOW."

Nichol and Sally had both picked themselves up and raced for the windows, Nichol faster and wrapping himself around Sally as he barreled himself at the window. The fence and bushes had caught his momentum and surprisingly, Nichol realized that the significant pain was from his left arm. Sally was unhurt and helped pull Nichol to his feet and away before they did hear the second explosion.

By then, they found Heero in the front of the house, holding the elderly woman in his arms without strain.

"Stay away," Heero instructed, "Although, I'm sure that this guy is into one particular target, not general destruction." They heard the sounds of sirens approaching, "He even gave the department time to rescue grandma here, even if I hadn't."

Nichol had been trying to listen. Listening to Heero had proven to be a reliable choice. But flashes of pain were lighting up his vision and Nichol was fairly certain that no one else was seeing the corresponding symptoms.

"You're arm," Sally said, just as a news van pulled up on the opposite side of the street. Firefighters were already working on the house. Nichol could hear the buzzing of voices and engine but wasn't able to make specific sense out of any one voice, besides Sally's, "You! Hey, help me with this man. He needs medical attention."

Nichol felt the earthquake under his feet and wondered what other disasters were going to strike, but as he swayed he found Sally caught him rather sturdily.

"Bring a stretcher!" She shouted another order, but Nichol couldn't see clearly to know if she was talking to herself or if someone else was actually out there.

"Nah, I can walk," Nichol felt detached from the pain just then and took a tentative step. Sally gasped and moved to balance his next careless step, "See. I'm fine."

"I know you're fine." Sally sounded vexed, "You ox. Just wait."

He heard a weary catch in her voice, and was more frightened by her gentleness than her medical diagnosis, he snapped angrily, "Don't even apologize. I probably was tripping over my feet more than protecting you from anything."

. . .

Hilde found Nichol sitting in the back of the medics van, his feet dangling over the back wheels. Someone had put his arm in a hasty tourniquet, blood still soaked most of his sleeve.

"Idiot!" Hilde whispered running up to him, "What the hell were you doing with Heero on a job!" She made to punch him, but pulled short of actually touching his good arm, "At least make sure they're going to pay you before you do something reckless."

He had been staring at his arm with a morbid fixation, but at her words she saw his face breaking into a lunatic grin, "I'm glad I'm not dead too, Hilde." Nichol did look up at her then, his eyes oddly content and his smile genuine, "I had forgotten. Well, I've missed living . . . so much. I had to get close to death to figure that out."

Hilde fought down the lump in her throat and retorted around the thickness that remained, "Dummy. You weren't even close to dying. You just have a broken up arm."

Nichol breathed a laugh, wincing that time. He sat, slouching, but let his head turn to survey the other people still cleaning up after the explosions. Hilde followed his gaze to see the blonde woman that had been helping move Nichol as she watch the television.

"She looks familiar," Hilde said to herself, feeling a stillness amongst all the business now that she was certain Nichol was more or less alright.

"Sally." Nichol supplied, and Hilde wondered how they'd met since Nichol talked like he knew her.

As if knowing they were talking about her, Sally finished her conversation and took a tentative step toward them. Nichol lifted his chin to call her over, and Hilde was certain then that her brother was bruised more than just his left arm.

"Sally," Nichol continued to use his chin to introduce, "This is my sister, Hilde. Hilde, Sally. She's the one that got Heero and I into this mess."

"Oh really," Hilde figured that if Nichol was being cruel that Sally was a good person.

"Yes, I did." Sally spoke softly, "But all I can promise is that I'm sure that the trouble is going to leave and I won't be bothering Nichol or Heero again."

"Don't go making promises you can't keep," Hilde watched for Heero, feeling his absence like a skip in her heartbeat, "I know these two boys are horribly motivated by women in power."

Nichol opened his mouth, but uttered no protest.

. . .

Nichol decided he was happier before they properly reset his arm for a true healing. He hated the more often truth that one must suffer more pain before becoming whole again. He liked band aids much better. Sally Po had arranged to supervise his medical care, and he found that he not only trusted but respected her.

Because of his injury, Nichol also found himself an honorary attendee to the follow-up debriefings and strategy operations. No one hesitated to share the latest intel on Valentine Domingo's brother, Jorge, who apparently made it off colony with their weapon and agenda uncertain and unspecified. Except that now they had an idea of the target. Mariemia.

It was after the first of these meetings that Hilde had rushed in to Heero's side, then waited in a moment of insecurity before reaching out to take his hand. Nichol watched without bitterness for the first time allowing himself to see the fragile tangle of love that was starting to weave Heero and Hilde together.

Hilde caught Nichol's attention next, still letting Heero keep her hand, "Doctor Sally says it's okay to take you home, so I'm taking you home with me to keep an eye on you."

"I'm not that broken," Nichol grumbled, but acquiesced without further complaint.

What he wasn't expecting was the mail Hilde had been so careful not to spoil.

"BARTON!" He'd growled so loudly that Hilde had automatically replayed Trowa's message insisting that Nichol actually listen. Which he finally allowed himself to do. Reluctantly admitting to himself that he wasn't surprised.

The surprise came once again with Sally Po, who having become familiar with Hilde's house, arrived that same evening with an official military summons from Earth.

Nichol could hardly process the thoughts. Une was coming to the colonies. And she'd asked to see him.

. . . Later . . .

They waited for the shuttle, Sally standing at attention even as the colony dust kicked up by the landing spacecraft swirled at her feet. She could feel Nichol's presence next to her. His breathing came in alternating deep and shallow breaths betraying his discomfort even though he'd refused her insistence that he should sit down. Sally doubted that he knew he was swaying on his feet. Occasionally, she'd feel the sleeve of his uniform brush against her shoulder. Of course, with his arm underneath in the better-constructed sling, she knew he was unaware of their touching.

Oddly enough, and she nearly choked on the thought, it made her feel warm.

It was something unlooked for. Douglas Nichol was a ridiculously arrogant ex-soldier with a short fuse and limited insight. But, she chided herself, that was only a superficial grasp of his character. Watching him with Heero, she'd realized that while he trust was slow won, Nichol's loyalty was unwavering. He had learned a lot from his sister, and she remembered seeing his first genuine and unguarded smiles when Hilde had fussed over his injury.

His dry humor and insecure smile made him attractive to her. His stern chiseled expression and the last signs of his boyhood in the curly hair.

She relaxed and turned to look at him, at a loss for something to say. Nichol turned to look at her with a hint of fear in his eyes and eyebrows that were uncertain where they wanted to rest on his forehead.

Almost, Sally almost felt like they were the only two people waiting on the ground as the crew brought out a staircase for Une to meet the press, the military and the people of the colony. Flashes and clicks started before Sally turned back to see Une. In her uniform and with her hair down around her shoulders, the commander was a juxtaposition of gentlewoman and soldier. A unified comprehension of both the Lady Une and Colonel Une of the Gundam Wars.

Sally could tell that Une was trying to seek them out, scanning the sea of press badges and flash-bulb cameras until her gaze found them. Une's vague smile froze, even at that difference and Sally felt not only Nichol's sleeve but his weight against her in response.

Une walked over, and if the backwash of microphone carrying colonists hadn't been behind her, it would have only been the three.

Une said watching him with interest while speaking, "Sally says that we owe you much gratitude that even while a civilian you're serving wherever you see a need."

"Sally is kind," Nichol's voice was demurred, completely different from the barbed jests he'd thrown back at the customers of The Sunrise under his apartment.

"Protecting Mariemia is a large task. To be prepared on multiple fronts." Une's voice still maintained her authority, but her posture relaxed as in the presence of a familiar ally.

Without mistake, Sally knew that for all the mentioning of her name, Sally did not exist in their thoughts. An with a chill of insight, she grasped Une's subconscious intention, "I guess it's not comfortable for some of us to live on our own."

"Nichol, I've come to make a personal request that you consider returning to Earth. With me."

. . .