'In these distracted times, when each man dreads
The bloody stratagems of busy heads.'

- Thomas Otway, 'Venice Preserv'd'

Chapter 14: Distracted Times

They were in the waiting room, all three of them. Fiametta was lounging in one of the room's straight-backed chairs, which were more homey than the furniture usually found in a doctor's office. Still, thet looked just as uncomfortable as the typical brightly-colored plastic or mental contraptions that existed solely to torment the bottoms of loyally waiting family members and friends. The fact that Fiametta looked relaxed, coolly regal, and not a bit like she had been mutilating toads recently made Doujima hate her just a little bit... more. Amon stood, sentry-like, by the door on the other side of the room, one which Doujima noted because it probably led to the outside world. He had abandoned the khaki and white 'lawn ensemble' in favor of his habitual black, sans coat, which she had failed to notice earlier but for which she was extremely grateful. It was a small island of familiarity in a world turned upside down, although she thought it might be a little deranged of her to find a sense of stability in her friends' wardrobes. A quick glance told her that Robin, too, had abandoned the atrocious daisy print. Doujima quietly but fervently hoped that it had somehow been damaged beyond repair during the course of her rescue the other night.

Robin smiled at her, a small smile, quaint and strange as ever. There was something more to it now, something that resonated deep within Doujima, reassuring her, and frightening her because it was so reassuring. She wanted to lay her head in Robin's lap, fall to her knees the way that Sakaki once had, and be soothed. It was familiar and comforting in a way that not even the stretch of black fabric across Amon's shoulders could be. She could feel the pieces of her puzzle struggling to click into place, questions and answers hanging suspended on the upward curve of Robin's mouth.

"Syunji," Fiametta said, pulling Doujima out of her reverie. "Caesar has returned. I believe he has an apology to offer you."

Nagira looked momentarily baffled. Then his face smoothed out with understanding, and he scratched his chin. "The whole attempted drowning thing?" He gave her a shrewd looked, and Doujima held her breath, seeing the game and wondering if he would, too. "That was more your fault than his, wasn't it? Why make the guy apologize, especially now?"

Shrewd, she thought, a little regretfully. But not shrewd enough.

Fiametta shrugged dismissively. "I have already apologized, but he will not let an insult go unanswered." She stood, and took his arm, leading him towards another door, next to the one through which he and Doujima had just passed. "He does enjoy a good grovel, once in a while. It is what the church of the Holy Mother and her bastard Son has done to us, even to us. Sad, no? I like to think..." Through the door they went, leaving Doujima alone with her former comrades, straining to hear the last of Fiametta's low, carefully distracting monologue. Robin, when Doujima looked at her, tried and failed to hide the look of mild satisfaction on her face. The idea had been hers, then, and hers was the order that had made it happen, as well.

One more piece of the puzzle, the one that had hidden so enticingly in Robin's earlier smile, slid into place.

Doujima looked at Amon and, almost imperceptibly, he shrugged a shoulder. She caught the message hidden in that, too. It would have been impossible to speak to her without Nagira present, unless he was elsewhere and distracted. There was no way he would have willingly removed himself from the conversation, and everyone in the room knew that he could be... tenacious. The stubborn ass. The words remained unspoken, even though she was sure that she and Amon, at least, were thinking them.

Also unspoken was the reason why Nagira had been removed, although she thought that she understood some of that now, too.

Understanding. What did she understand? Or rather, how was she to put it into words, rather than letting it hang, silent and awkward, the elephant in the middle of the room that no one would speak of, even when it started tap-dancing and singing show tunes. Doujima looked at Robin.

"So. I guess Fiametta isn't really the Witch Queen anymore."

Amon tensed, then visibly forced himself to relax. She saw it from the corner of her eye, because she literally could not look away from the woman in front of her.

"Is she, Robin?" she asked, quietly.

"I don't want him to know," Robin warned, just as quietly, her eyes downcast. "I didn't want you to know, either, but things are already dangerous enough for you that it probably doesn't matter if SOLOMON is given another reason to make you the hunted. I don't want them looking at Nagira."

Of course. Nagira had a life, and a mission, that he would have to return to, one that would not be aided by having SOLOMON's prying eyes directed his way. And she was a wanted woman now. How foolish to forget.

Still. "I won't tell him," she said. "But you should, and soon. He's come this far, and he has as much of a right to the truth as anyone. SOLOMON doesn't need to know that he knows."

Reluctantly, Robin nodded, and Amon didn't contradict her, which made Doujima sigh with relief. This, at least, she could do for him. This small piece of his puzzle, she could supply.

"Alfonso knew about you," she said. "It's why he was killed."

Again, Robin nodded. "Yes, probably. I can't tell you for certain. We think that he somehow got a hold of Zaizen's documents, after the Factory collapsed, and was able to make sense of them."

Doujima, who knew this to be the case, winced. She had been the one to send him what remained of Zaizen's belongings. Unfamiliar guilt made her voice harsh. "He called you hope."

Amon took a step forward, his stance protective in a way that Doujima couldn't miss. She had a moment to think, with some satisfaction, so that's the way it is, before Robin looked up to meet her eyes. "He's not the only one," she murmured.

"Fiametta?" Doujima murmured, but Robin shook her head.

"All of them," she said haltingly. "Starting with Maria." The name meant nothing to Doujima, but she kept silent, hoping that the younger woman would continue. "I didn't mean for this to happen, Doujima, but it's a part of who... of what... I am. To SOLOMON, I'm the Devil's Child, and to the witches, I'm rebirth, their Eve. I can feel them. Each and every one of them, the moment that they awaken to their Craft, screaming in pain or rage. I can... do something about it." She took a deep breath, and her voice strengthened. "I have to. The coven has suffered in darkness long enough."

From the moment we're recruited, we're taught that there is something within us that is inherently evil... Alfonso's words again, and she wondered if she would ever be free of them. "Not just the coven," Doujima said, without thinking. She closed her eyes, opened them again. "They weren't the only ones to suffer." She took a deep breath of her own, allowing her thoughts to settle before continuing. "You mean to destroy SOLOMON."

Robin leaned forward, and her eyes burned so bright. "No. No, 1I don't want to destroy SOLOMON—I want to change it."

For a moment, the blazing sincerity in Robin's voice made Doujima catch her breath, swept up in the pure, vibrant idealism in that statement. Then something made her look at Amon, and his customary scowl was softer than she thought she had ever seen it, but there was something almost pleading in his eyes.

Doujima very nearly laughed. Poor Amon was completely ill-equipped to deal with being in cahoots with a sixteen-year-old witch with dreams of revolution. God, she could only imagine what that bright, shining sincerity was doing to him now; she imagined that it was something like washing his brain out with bleach. "Well," she said, "if you're going to fix the world, or whatever, I suppose I had better help you." She waved a negligent hand, and liked to think that she did so with just as much panache as Fiametta. "Not like I have anything better to do, anyway." She did laugh, then, her old laugh, bright and carefree, ready for an extended lunch hour and some power shopping, almost enough to make her forget that she had started to harbor hopes of returning to Japan when this was all over.

Amon's face returned to stoicism, which she thought might be the equivalent of naked relief, coming from him. Robin, however, hesitated. "Doujima, there's something you should know."

"Mmhmm?"

"The other night – I felt you."

Meaning and understanding swam lazily around each other for a moment before meeting somewhere in the front of Doujima's mind, and she froze. Hard to process that, but no harder than the rest of the shocks she had received in the last few days. "I see," she said slowly. She looked down at her hands, suddenly clenched hard over her abdomen, and forced them to relax their white-knuckled grip.

"Do you?" Robin asked, her voice gentle, so gentle.

"I'm a witch now," Doujima confirmed, the words hanging solemnly in the air for a moment, before she forced another laugh. "I don't have to bow or anything, do I?"

Still watching her carefully, Robin smiled, an echo of the sly little smile that she had shown on the boat, before the world had come crashing down, while they floated through Venice's dark waters. "I wouldn't suggest a curtsy." She looked pointedly at the dangerously short hem of Doujima's dress, and that was enough to draw an unconscious, indignant noise from Doujima at the thought that the floral print Antichrist was critiquing her clothing choices.

"Do I have any neat powers?" she asked, after a moment's consideration. "Can I make things explode with the power of my mind? Or fly?"

"Perhaps you'll be able to color coordinate with even greater efficiency," Amon said and, as usual, it took Doujima a moment to recognize his particularly deadpan sense of humor. She was terribly, terribly grateful, though, as soon as she did. It was better, much better, to be able to laugh off this latest change; a change not in her world, nor in the way she viewed it, but in her very blood and bones. No longer a Seed, but a Craft-user. No, not even that. A witch.

"All ye mortals see me and tremble before my superior shopping skills," Doujima replied, mimicking his tone of voice, "for I am a great and terrible force. Soon Gucci and Klein shall be at my mercy, and the world will despair."

Robin covered a smile, but when she spoke, she sounded serious. "I can't tell you what your Craft is, or how strong it will be. All I know is that it's there."

"Trauma has been known to activate a Seed's latent powers," Doujima said. Poison and truth were a lot to swallow and, now that she thought about it, it wasn't all that surprising that her Craft had awakened.

For a moment, something passed over Robin's face. Then she rose, and crossed the room to the door that Fiametta and Nagira had exited through. "I'm going to check on them. It would be best to make sure that poor Caesar isn't actually on his knees, begging for forgiveness."

When she was gone, Amon gestured to the chair she had abandoned, although he made no move to leave his own post near the front door. Doujima sat, and he turned to look at her with impassive, gunmetal eyes. "What she's trying not to tell you," he said, "is that it probably wasn't only the trauma. We've noticed that those who spend a good deal of time in Robin's presence are more likely to awaken." The curve of his mouth looked even less like a smile than Robin's had, the corners tilting upwards so slightly that it was possible to mistake it entirely. "She stirs their spirits," he added. "Zaizen said that."

"She doesn't seem to stir yours," Doujima said, keeping her tone purposely light, watching him out of the corner of her eye. She saved the information he had provided her with to mull over at a later date, but what did it really matter if it had been trauma or Robin responsible for the awakening of her Craft?

The barely-there smile changed subtly, twisted, hovered between a smile and a grimace. It was a minute before he answered. "You don't think I'm a witch?" he asked.

"No," she replied, not even having to stop and think about it. "You wouldn't take it so lightly if you were." For almost a year, she had spied on him, him and the others at the STNJ; for a while after that, she had worked closely with him while investigating the Factory. It had been her job to find out everything possible about how the members of the STNJ ticked, and so she knew that, for Amon, becoming a witch would not have been something to laugh off.

He looked down at her, and Doujima wondered briefly if the increased height difference was why he had wanted her to take the chair. So much better for intimidation purposes. "I suppose we're alike, in that at least," he said, his voice cold enough that she chose to temporarily abandon the subject of self-hatred.

Frankly, though, she was a little surprised that he hadn't left Robin already, if she stirred the spirits (or whatever – Zaizen hadn't exactly been known for his sane and rational discourse, so she chose to take whatever he said with a grain of salt) and brought witches into their power. After a moment, she said so.

"I can't," Amon said, and Doujima perked up, interested in spite of herself. She slumped back into her chair when he continued, mechanically, "I'm her warden. She's very strong, and it's my responsibility to make sure that she doesn't abuse that strength."

"Mmm," Doujima said, small and noncommittal. "Do you support what she's doing, then? SOLOMON was your organization, too." What she didn't say was that Amon had been devout. These last few months, finally able to steal glances at what lay beyond the brotherhood's careful façade, she had stayed out of fear, because she had never known anything else and because she knew what they would do to her if she questioned them. Amon, though... Amon had been one of the faithful, following with full, blind devotion. It was strange to see him here, willingly plotting against them.

"It was," he agreed. "It's not anymore."

He didn't seem inclined to say anything more, and Doujima didn't push him. She probably wouldn't get anywhere, even if she did; Amon had proved in the past that he was more-or-less immune to her interrogation skills.

"Tell me how it stands, then," she said, after a moment. "If I'm going to help, I need to know what resources we have to draw on."

"England. France. Spain. Northern Italy."

"What?"

"Those are the places we've visited in the last few months, the places where Robin has been promised the aid of the witches who live there. England and Venice are the most organized; the witches in Spain, and in the rest of Northern Italy, are connected through family bonds but have very little in the way of communication or alliances beyond that. SOLOMON keeps the French witches on guard, and security measures there are tight; we had to leave fairly soon after our arrival."

"I know," said Doujima, whose mother had been in charge of administering France for SOLOMON since Doujima had been a child. "The church still holds strong there. Offhand, I'd say the German states are something of a loss, as well. SOLOMON doesn't have quite the hold there that it does elsewhere, but the witch population was absolutely decimated during the Burning Times and hasn't recovered since. Possibly the rest of Italy, too. The closer we get to Rome, the less we'll have to work with. Further east... SOLOMON is new there, and doesn't have the same power that it does elsewhere, but the influence of those branches isn't terribly significant. If she really means to change SOLOMON, it might be best to do so from somewhere that will actually make central headquarters sit up and pay attention." That made her think of Japan, and the STNJ, but neither of those subjects were particularly happy ones right now. She was rebelling against the organization, and she doubted that she would see Karasuma, or the chief, or even Sakaki's stupid face, ever again. "The same applies to the New World, with the exception of North America's eastern seaboard – Massachusetts in particular – and parts of South America. Still, it's a start."

"I'm glad that you think so," Amon said, and his voice was dry but he looked half convinced that she might prove useful, after all.

"I'm glad, too," she said promptly. "I would have been quite dismayed to find myself associated with a completely hopeless cause. It's only mostly hopeless."

They shared a glance; commiseration and gallows humor, possibly the closest they had come to being of one mind, ever. Shared experience helped, Doujima realized. So did a common goal. She felt... unexpectedly warm towards Amon, even if he was a robot with an unanticipated Lolita complex.

"Now that that's sorted," she said, after their moment of silent communion, "I need your help with something."

He had the good sense to look cautious. Or perhaps it was simply habit; he never had trusted her. "What?"

"There's someone that I need very much to speak to." The look he gave her encouraged her to get to the point. "Father Juliano. He's currently staying in the city." Another look, this one interrogatory. "He had dinner with Alfonso on the night of his death. I know who killed him, and why. I've recovered the most important of his documents. He and Juliano were friends. I want to know what part Juliano played in Alfonso's death. I need to know." She wasn't convincing him, she could see that much written on the blank slate of his face. "Please, Amon."

Once again, he met her eyes. Generally, she wouldn't have trusted that Amon would understand that need, that drive; he was always so controlled, so rational. Twice, she thought, his control had broken: once when he had helped Robin to escape the STNJ, and once when he had left SOLOMON. After a moment, he nodded. "Very well. It will be dangerous. They're still looking for you. I'll accompany you."

"More dangerous for you than for me," Doujima retorted, ignoring the fact that his tone of voice very heavily implied that she was likely to end up neck-deep in trouble without his assistance. "You're still dead."

"I won't be able to stay dead forever," he murmured, almost too softly for her to hear. Then he gestured impatiently towards the door. "If we're going to do this, we had best do it now." He gave her a critical glance. "Cover your hair. You can't afford to be recognized."

She smirked, and stood. "Teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Amon. Give me five minutes."

Disclaimer: My fandom has a first name, it's R-O-B-I-N. However, it does not actually belong to be.

Notes: The next chapter, Who Hath Caused This?, is complete, and will be coming your way shortly (once WiccanMethuselah has had her wicked way with it). For the moment, I will be begging shamelessly for reviews. C'mon, folks, gimmee some sugar. Even flames will make sweet, sweet crème brûlée.

Now, before my author's note becomes open to further misinterpretation, I'm off to fight for truth, liberty, and line breaks. FF . net has removed mine, so I'm going through the previous chapters and putting them back in, proper.