Disclaimer: I don't, alas, own any part of Gundam Wing. Doing this is my idea of fun.

Note - Many thanks to KS and Snow for the 'wow' reaction, and special thanks to Snow for the fleas!

This chapter is dedicated to Wolfje, for her amazing powers of perception….and thanks to everyone else for sharing your theories on what the heck is up with Quatre anyway….

Warning: All sorts of Quatre-related angst and suffering.

04, In Urgent Need of Assistance:

It had to be L2.

He'd never been there of course; the only son of the Winner family had never been permitted near such a place, but Duo had told him the stories.

Even in the daytime, he'd seen rats, huge ones, slinking by the side of the street, and he'd crossed the road twice to avoid dogs lying in doorways.

Human predators, of course, in a place like this, were by far the most dangerous.

It would be foolish to stay in one place; doubly so after what had just happened. He'd killed the man in broad daylight, and not quietly. Even in a place like this, even in a shadowed alleyway, someone would surely be curious.

Just one more minute, he promised himself. A minute or two to try to catch his breath, to try to calm down. To try to remember where he'd left Sandrock; to frame a brief prayer to Allah that his Gundam was still safely hidden.

His left ankle, which had taken most of the weight when he'd jumped, had to be badly sprained. Probably not broken; he could still walk, just about, if he put most of his weight on the other foot. Left wrist; definitely broken and a couple of fingers stuck out at awkward angles as well. That arm had taken the impact from the fall; his right hand had been holding the gun, ready to fire if necessary.

He'd taken them by surprise, obviously, hurling himself through the window, instead of the one unguarded door, which had all too clearly been some sort of trap. They'd been organised, though; it wouldn't take long to assemble a search party. He hadn't recognised the uniforms. Some new OZ brigade presumably, who hadn't fought a Gundam Pilot before.

He wouldn't be too hard to trace; he'd managed to lose them in that frantic chase throught the streets on the stolen motorbike, but he was hardly inconspicuous. The bike was hidden somewhere in the warren of backstreets; he was far too noticeable where everyone else was on foot, but there was still blood on his clothing and his skin, and he was obviously armed. Or maybe no one noticed such things on L2. Maybe it was normal.

Most of the blood wasn't his; at least he hoped not. Shallow cuts from going headfirst through a pane of glass, of course. He wasn't sure how serious the head wound was; he'd banged it against a jagged piece of pavement when he fell and his fingers, when he'd probed tentatively, had come away warm and sticky with blood.

Status functional, as Heero would say.

Status fucked, would be Duo's comment.

He did have a gun, but it was out of bullets; useless except as a deterrent. The knife was an unfamiliar weapon, although he'd proven very definitely that he could use it if necessary. No idea where he'd hidden Sandrock, or where the others were, or what the mission had been. He didn't even know if he'd succeeded, or if he'd been captured first.

Think, Quatre.

It wasn't easy to plan logically; not after they'd given him some sort of drug. He'd been given him drugs, occasionally, during training so he knew the feeling, and when he was very young, his father had occasionally taken him to doctors or psychologists who might be able to cure the boy's 'little problem' of seeing inside people's heads, and usually ended medicating him into a stupor.

Or maybe he was wrong about them drugging him, and it was the blow to the head that was playing havoc with his mind. Random pictures were reeling across his memory; Trowa shouting and furious with him; a pretty, blond girl in a ball-gown and diamonds; Duo standing beside an absurdly bright yellow sports car.

'Ya killed him?' Slumped against the wall, Quatre hadn't even noticed the boy's approach and that was worrying; he was young, thirteen or fourteen, pale and thin as bleached bone with a shock of lank black hair falling past his shoulders.

Quatre nodded, and the boy whistled appreciatively.

'Lotta blood, huh?'

'Yes.' It had taken several stabs through layers of clothing and fat and muscle before he'd actually pierced an organ. Not the first time he'd killed, of course, but so very different from killing from Sandrock. So different, to thrust into the warm, breathing, struggling body on top of his. He'd blacked out, briefly, afterwards, from shock and terror and come to half-suffocating under the man's weight.

It was self-defence.

'So what happened?' The boy shoved himself off from the wall and squatted beside the body, going through his pockets. 'Didn't wanna pay?'

'No!' Quatre felt himself going red. Pretty stupid, after everything else that had happened, to blush at the assumption that he was a – one of those, but he couldn't help it. 'I'm not - I don't – he tried …'

'Bet 'e did an' all,' the boy commented. 'He likes blondes, does Harry. Used to anyhow.' He laughed. 'Jus' so ya know, this is my corner. Know wha' I mean?'

Quatre nodded, pulling himself upright and wincing when he put his left ankle to the ground. 'I'm not staying.'

'He did that to ya?'

'Some of it.' Quatre flushed again, furious with himself. He was a Gundam Pilot, and he'd almost ended up raped in an alleyway due to his own utter stupidity.

'I got a place up there,' the boy jerked one finger backwards, toward a looming tenement. 'You wanna come up?'

Oh, Allah. Trowa would kill him, for going off with a total stranger, but the boy felt….not quite safe; there was an edge to him, yes, but not entirely predatory. The empathy wasn't all that reliable, even when he did feel it; it tended to get mixed up with how his own emotions and then he couldn't quite pinpoint which were his, but there was no sense of immediate danger. And it would be better to be off the streets.

Why?' Quatre demanded. 'Why would you want to help me?'

The boy looked at the corpse. 'I knew him, yeah? Bastard. Reckon ya did me a favour. Name's Kyle.'

'Duo.' Quatre half-offered his hand, then withdrew it. It was covered in drying blood; one of the deeper cuts still bleeding sluggishly. It was probably better to be inside when darkness fell.

Trowa. Have to call Trowa.

'You comin' or what?'

'We – can't just leave the body lying there. Someone will see it.'

'Yeah. Like who's gonna care?' The boy hunched one skinny shoulder. ''Sides, the dogs'll take care of him for ya. An' the rats. Won't be nuthin' left after they's done with 'im. Now, come on…'

Kyle's room was halfway up one of the tower blocks, and he only laughed when Quatre moved towards the elevator. The stairwell was almost dark, stinking of urine and waste, with piles of refuse on each landing. In one long hallway, a couple of ragged children were trying to chase rats away from a a pile of trash. The stairs seemed endless and Kyle hurried him on when he tried to rest, saying it wasn't safe to be caught here.

The room Kyle took him to would have been used in any of the Winner mansions for a broom cupboard.A stained mattress sagged against one wall; the corner farthest from the door held a pile of blankets and old newspaper, resembling a nest far more than a bed. There was nothing else; apart from a few cardboard boxes, and a naked lamp bulb dangling from the ceiling.

'Wanna drink?'

'Some water. Please.'

'Water?' Kyle gaped as if he'd asked for some exotic substance. 'Got some soda; if you want, you can have that.'

'Oh! No, I just thought…maybe I could wash. Clean some of the blood off.'

Kyle shrugged. 'There's a bathhouse a couple blocks away. Wouldn't be safe now though, not that it's getting dark.'

'Oh,' Quat said again. He took the bottle Kyle handed him and swallowed warm, flat soda. He'd thought some of their safehouses had been impossibly primitive, but there had always been running water and washing facilities. A refrigerator for cold drinks. Necessities that he had always taken for granted, but had impressed Duo and Trowa.

Trowa.

Call Trowa.

'I need a cyber café. I have to send a message to a - a friend.'

'I told you,' Kyle sounded exasperated. 'Not safe to go out now. Not when it's starting to get dark, OK? But if ya want to send an email, try this.' He rummaged in the nest of blankets in the corner and produced a small hand-held computer. 'I was with this guy a couple nights ago and he left this behind. I was gonna sell it but it needs some kinda password. You know how to use these?'

'Of course.' The device was smaller and sleeker than he'd seen before, but technology was improving all the time. Heero would like this one; just the right size to slip in a pocket. It was simple to log in as the network administrator; Duo and Heero had both shown him all the sneaky little hacker's tricks.

'Ya got it!' Kyle peered over his shoulder, sounding impressed, as the screen lit up.

'It was easy,' Quatre said absently, logging onto his email account, the one he'd never had to use. Trowa had set up a special account for each of them, only for extreme emergencies, as well as a system of codes. This .. was an emergency, wasn't it? He'd made Quatre promise to call him if he needed help, and Quat had agreed, never thinking it would be necessary. He was supposed to be the tactical genius, after all.

'It's got a few glitches though. I can fix it if you like. The date is wrong, and it's saying L4 as the server location, not L2.'

Kyle laughed. 'Your head sure is screwed up! This is L4.'

'No. It can't be,' Quatre remonstrated. Could it? What did he know of his home colony, really, apart from his family's estates and occasional visits to his father's office? Could places like thistruly exist on L4?

'Sure it is.' He handed Quatre an armful of rumpled L4 Gazettes. 'Look at these.'

Oh, Allah. What did that mean; that he'd had a mission on L4? Was OZ targeting his home colony? He shivered suddenly.

'Aren't you cold?'

'Cold?' the boy scoffed. 'It's not cold, Duo! An' you're sweating.' He stood up, showing Quat a bulging wallet. 'I'm gotta go out for a bit. Get some food. Dinner's onHarry tonight.'

Quatre touched his forehead; it was true. His skin was feverishly warm and damp with perspiration. Blood loss. Shock. His head felt increasingly odd, now that the rush of adrenalin was starting to subside.

'Kyle, you can't go out. You said it wasn't safe.'

'Not for you, maybe,' the boy informed him with a hint of scorn. 'I'll be OK. I know my way 'round. You want to eat, don't you?'

'Be careful.'

'Yeah, yeah,' Kyle scoffed. 'Don't worry about me. Ya wanna piss, use the bucket, right? Don't go out by yerself.'

Quatre slumped cross-legged against the wall when he was alone, picking a blanket from the pile and dropping it hastily when he saw the tiny insects moving across the fabric. Although he had only barely touched it with his fingertips, Quatre's skin prickled, it felt like fleas of a thousand camels were invading his armpits. And thought longingly of warm water and clean clothes.

Not safe to go to the bathhouse…

Quatre shuddered. How in the name of Allah could people survive like this?

Duo had grown up in circumstances like this or even worse. Kyle at least had a room to shelter in while Duo had slept in doorways or abandoned houses. He'd tried, sometimes to make it sound like an exciting adventure; a group of children living without rules or supervision and doing precisely as they pleased. Quatre had never been quite sure which of them he'd been trying to convince; it was hard, sometimes, to tell with Duo. He'd known, of course, that it couldn't really have been like that, but he'd pretended to accept the censored version.

But this was how Duo had lived. Quatre shuddered, thinking of Kyle, of the children he'd passed. Did they have parents or was this their life – scavenging through other people's rubbish for food and sleeping on damp concrete?

Oh, Duo.

He'd known that Duo's life had been impossibly hard, but …not like this.

He'd known this sort of thing happened, but not in broad daylight, not on a colony like L4.

Not to someone like him.

Oh, Allah, he'd been so stupid. After he'd hidden the motorbike, he'd gone to search for a public telephone, or an internet café. He'd been hesitating at a crossroads, when the man had beckoned him over and Quatre Winner had had manners and respect for his elders too deeply ingrained in him to forgo respect to an adult.

Too polite, too naïve, too damned stupid.

He shivered again, convulsively, remembering. Unwashed skin and stale clothing and smoke and foul breath. Grunting and swearing and the coarse voice saying exactly what he planned to do to him.

No one, ever, had treated him like that. There had only ever been Trowa.

Quatre took a deep breath, clutching the filthy blanket around him and moving to look out the window.. Just because he couldn't sense Trowa didn't necessarily mean he was in trouble. The empathy didn't really transfer over distance and he was sure he'd have known if anything really bad had happened. He was just far away, then. No need to worry.

The worst thing was not remembering. There had been shooting, and a memory of loss and swift, sudden grief and then – he'd been in that cell, and he'd somehow managed to overpower the guard and seize the gun and escape.

He wished Kyle hadn't gone out. It would probably be wiser just to leave; Trowa or Duo would be furious at him for staying even this long. A sitting target, except he didn't think he'd be any safer out there in the shadows.

In the gathering darkness, he didn't notice Kyle at first; hugging a paper bag to his narrow chest. So close to home, when the men moved out of the shadows, surrounding him. The boy dropped his package and was trying to dodge around them it when the shot ran out.

Think, Quatre.

Not safe to go down; definitely not safe to stay there. Kyle would tell them where he lived, if they hadn't killed him, and they'd probably search the building anyway. If he could make it to the roof, he might be able to get across to a neighbouring building. Perhaps.

They caught him before he'd gone up three flights; six men, moving with trained, practised precision, and dressed in uniforms that stirred something deep in his memory. Back to the wall, he had the knife out, and cut two of them before someone moved in on his left side, and he felt the needle slid under his skin.

(oooooooo)

The drug – drugs – whatever they'd given him – had worn off when he regained consciousness. No more fuzziness, no more scattered, unreliable memories. He knew exactly what he'd done. Exactly what they'd wanted him to.

Someone had taken care of his injuries; he was clean and dressed in fresh clothing. Restrained of course; his right wrist manacled to the arm of his chair which seemed to be the only furniture in the room, a room wrapped in semi-darkness apart from the giant TV screen on the wall facing him.

The fifteen year old Heero Yuy glared out of the monitor, dressed in the green tank top he'd worn during the war; dark, tousled hair falling over his eyes, framing that focused, severe stare which had only ever softened, at the start, when he'd been looking at Duo.

Those two….they'd almost driven him insane before they'd finally got together…Duo, a whirling kaleidoscope of fears and dreams and darkness hidden behind that beaming smile, and Heero who'd tried so very hard, at the start, to slam down on his feelings for Pilot 02.

'Quatre Raberba Winner.' The voice came from behind him, somewhere to his left. Not a surprise; he'd known, ever since he'd seen the familiar uniforms, what this was about and to whom he would be taken. 'Pilot 04. We never have met formally, have we? I'm happy to see you live up to your reputation. We meant for you to escape; I imagine you've worked that out by now? Oh, yes, you did exactly as we planned, apart from a few small details. Very clever, jumping through that window. We actually lost track of you for a couple of hours. My men were most impressed.'

'You broke the terms of our agreement.' Quatre spoke with clinical precision. One could almost imagine he was sitting in a WEI boardroom. 'You said that Miss Carrick and my men wouldn't be hurt.'

'A deplorable necessity, I fear. Their well being was always dependent on your behaviour; I fear you guaranteed their deaths when you pulled that ridiculous suicide stunt. Tell me, what did you say to Heero Yuy?'

'Nothing.'

'Don't insult my intelligence, please.' Heero's image on the screen flickered once and faded, to be replaced by a towering edifice of gleaming glass and steel. 'You know this building?'

'Of course. It's the new WEI Centre for Research and Development.'

'Was,' The same building appeared on the screen, in flames and surrounded by fire-fighters, and then a brief montage of explosions in three other locations, all buildings owned by WEI.

Quatre swallowed. 'How many people died?'

'None, this time. We issued a warning in time for a full evacuation to take place. But, as you see, it is not wise to try any foolish tricks. I have contacts in every Winner enterprise in the universe. What you see on the screen is a warning; next time there will be fatalities. Now, for the last time. What did you tell Yuy?'

'It doesn't matter. He didn't believe me anyway. He thought I was talking nonsense.'

'Excellent.' A harsh bark of laughter. 'Such irony, after all the trouble you went to. So your little escapade counted for nothing, then. How long is it since you talked to him anyway? Six years? I believe you tried to shoot him, the last time you spoke to him. Hardly the best choice for a confidante, was he? And all for nothing. Rather a shame, actually to kill such a pretty young lady. And your two devoted bodyguards. But then, with so many deaths on your conscience three more hardly register, hmmm? Although perhaps now you realise how very serious this is.'

'You killed three people to convince me this isn't a game?' So indignant; so very naiive. As if three people, or three hundred, counted in the grand scheme of things.

'Well, that's what you thought it was, at the start. You thought you were so clever, didn't you, with that silly little masquerade of yours? So very noble. It's always been one of your greatest failings, of course; that desire to protect your friends. Hardly the most desirable quality in a Gundam pilot, but one which is going to prove very useful to me.'

'They have nothing to do with any of this!' Ah, there it was, the flare of emotion he'd been expecting. He'd was trying so very hard to appear composed, as if this were no more than a business meeting, with himself in charge.

'On the contrary, they have everything to do with it. Oh, yes, I have plans for all of you. Plans that should have been implemented seven years ago. No, we made mistakes last time; foolish mistakes. I was betrayed by a few senile old men and rebellious children.'

The burning buildings on the screen vanished and were replaced by Heero.

'01. The boy known as Heero Yuy. Not his real name, of course; an abomination that dishonours a dead hero.'

'You claim to admire the real Heero Yuy,' Winner snapped, 'and he would despise what you're planning to do.'

'I admired his aims, yes; to free the Colonies from the tyranny of Earth, but not his means. For all his vaunted ideals, what did they achieve? An assassin's bullet for himself and years of further subjugation for the Colonies. No, we shall have peace, but not until a new world has been created.

'Heero. He should have been the ultimate weapon, you know; that's what he was designed for, but there were flaws apparent even from the start. If J had carried out the boy's retraining to my exact specifications, a great deal of trouble could have been avoided.' The voice sniffed, disdainfully. 'We were supposed to be creating the perfect soldier, without conscience, utterly lacking in compassion.'

'You were trying to create a monster, and you failed.'

'No matter. Science has advanced considerably in the past seven years; even the dullest blade can be honed to sharpness, given time and the proper….. encouragement. Oh yes, I have very particular plans for Heero Yuy. A staunch supporter of the ESUN; isn't he? A former star agent of the Preventers force. The trusted friend of Relena Peacecraft herself. Imagine the consequences if he were to become so very disenchanted with the ESUN policies toward the Colonies that he assassinated her in the first move for colonial independence.'

'If you think Heero would ever do something like that, you're mad!'

'What makes you think he will have a choice? Only give my scientists and their clever new drugs a month with Heero Yuy, and he will kill Relena Peacecraft and laugh while he does it. And this time, there will be no Maxwell to distract him.'

And Duo appeared on the screen, wearing his black outfit and a smile that split his face but didn't go anywhere near his eyes.

'Maxwell? The brat should never have been allowed near a Gundam! G was an idiot, accepting that guttersnipe as a pilot. He was useful enough in the preliminary trials, yes; three boys had already failed to master the Deathscythe and we didn't need more families asking inconvenient questions.' A snort.

'They should have been flattered their sons had been chosen as Gundam Pilots! No, Maxwell was … convenient, at the start. He didn't even exist officially; who would notice if he vanished? One less piece of refuse to be swept from the streets of L2, nothing more.'

'Duo was a brilliant pilot!'

Barton snorted. 'Oh, he had some small talent, perhaps, on the rare occasions when he wasn't being captured or distracting 01 from his duty. Vermin have a strong instinct for survival, after all; have they not? He should have died in that OZ base; he would have, if 01 had followed orders rather than having allowed himself to be seduced by that little L2 whore. A mistake on our part, certainly. Another flaw to be erased from the plan this time.'

'You can't blame Duo for any of that. Heero was never the…thing you tried to create! He understands remorse and guilt and atonement better than anyone I've ever met, despite what you tried to do to him; you failed because he was stronger than your training or conditioning or whatever you want to call it.'

'You're so defensive of him?' the voice rasped. 'Actually, I failed because Heero's training was never fully completed. It left him weak, far too receptive to that pestilent brat, Maxwell. He was nothing but trouble, right from the beginning, when he prevented 01 from killing the Peacecraft girl. Nothing but trouble,' he repeated.

'I blame Maxwell for taking the scientists to their deaths on Libra when they could still have been useful to me, for helping to thwart my attack on Relena in Sanque, at the first anniversary of the war ending. What, you hadn't worked out that I was responsible? I'm disappointed in you, Quatre.'

'The Preventers carried out an investigation into that attack. It was found that they were L3 separatists, acting alone.'

'Convenient, no? It was what they wanted to believe. Of course I was behind it! The ESUN was still so new, so fragile; there were still so many disaffected groups out there. It seemed an ideal chance to seize power; kill Relena Peacecraft and remove the figurehead for the whole peace movement. In the wake of her death, anything would have been possible. I underestimated the five of you; Maxwell in particular. The attack was carried out by my most capable lieutenant. He led the attack and he was shot by Maxwell. Oh, yes, I have some very particular plans for your friend Duo Maxwell, he deserves to suffer for all the trouble he's caused me.'

Duo's screen image faded out and was replaced by Trowa Barton. A tall, too-thin boy, most of his face veiled by that wing of dark hair, and who looked out at the world with that flat, wary stare.

'That mercenary from L3. Nanashi.'

'Don't call him that!' Quatre snapped. It was one of the things that had always saddened him most about Trowa's past, that he'd been abused by men who hadn't even granted him the dignity of a name.

'It's true, though. What other name has he but the one he stole from my dead son? Unless you choose to believe the Bloom girl's absurd fantasy of him being her lost brother?'

'It wasn't Trowa's fault that your son died!'

'Of course it was!' Dekim Barton snapped. 'He was so very clever about it; I doubt that fool S ever even suspected. He wanted that Gundam for himself from the very start, and my poor, foolish son indulged him far too much. '

'That's not how it happened! Trowa didn't have any part in that. If you truly believed he'd killed your son, you'd never have let him be a pilot.'

'I had no choice! Heavyarms needed a pilot; Nanashi would do until we found a more suitable replacement and then I could choose a fitting death for him. I want him to suffer, you see; to suffer the way I did. I want him to lose everything and know he's responsible.'

Barton's voice hardened. Maxwell had been a regrettable inconvenience, to be eliminated, and Yuy was a weapon who could be exploited. But with Pilot 03 it was personal.

'He is no one. A mercenary with some talent for mechanics and flying. A plaything for my son when he was bored. Nothing more than that. I promise you, his only value at the moment is that you care for him. Such a poor taste you have in your bed partners,' Barton mused. 'Did it never bother you that 03 had served a troupe of mercenaries until we found him? It must have been a novelty for him, to serve my son exclusively.'

'Don't you dare say that about him.'

'I can well imagine that you prefer not to think about it. Such a pretty boy, wasn't he? But you do have a taste for rough trade, don't you? Something you share with my son.'

Barton's voice dripped contempt.

'He was a disappointment to me in so many ways, my Trowa. But at the end, he remembered who he was, what was due to his name and his heritage; he tried to warn me what they were planning and they killed him like a dog. My son! My plans thwarted by those fools of scientists, traitors….There's only the girl, now, to carry on my line; Treize Khushrenada's daughter, supposedly. The gods must be laughing, surely. She's just old enough to be a useful figurehead for rebellion, don't you think?'

'She's still a child! How can you involve her in something like this?'

'She has been brought up to know her family obligations. I was too lenient with my own children, and I've paid for it. Mariemaia has been raised…less indulgently. Who knows; perhaps she even is Treize's daughter. There is a certain likeness, although my Leia was … somewhat indiscriminate in her favours. She had that in common with her brother. Perhaps it's fortunate that Trowa favoured boys, or the colonies would be littered with his bastards.'

The picture on the screen changed again.

'Chang. He such had potential, that one. A lifetime of study and discipline, allied to that burning need for revenge.'

'Justice.' Quatre corrected quietly, before he could help himself. 'He fought for justice.'

'A pretty concept to cover up all that hatred, that fury. He would have been perfect; the sole survivor of a massacred clan; the grieving husband of a wife who was killed so young and so tragically.' Barton sneered. 'Who better to represent the colonies, to unite them finally, than Treize Khushrenada's killer? A young man who even worked as a Preventer before becoming disillusioned enough to resign? He would have been perfect, except for taking up with that traitor, Peacecraft.'

Wufei disappeared; to be replaced by Milliardo Peacecraft as he had been during the war, resplendent in his OZ uniform with all that pale hair spilling from underneath his mask.

'The Lightning Count in all his glory!' Batron said contemptuously. 'He betrayed his family's ideals; he betrayed Treize; at the end he even betrayed White Fang. He could have ended it all; he had the means to destroy Earth in his grasp and at the last moment his courage failed him. Hardly a surprise, was it? Given his record.'

'He realised what a terrible thing he was doing! He saved the Earth.'

'Terrible? Not at all. The only way to truly liberate the Colonies is to annihilate the Earth. We knew that when we planned the original Operation Meteor; it was true then and it is equally true now. We were so close, you know that? Merquise deserves to die, of course; Chang may be useful at some point. Perhaps. He is still a war hero, after all.'

The picture changed again, and Quatre saw a picture of himself, looking even younger than fifteen, with his hopeful smile, carefully brushed hair, and those silly pastel colours his sisters had chosen for him.

'04. Quatre Raberba Winner. The first pilot we specifically selected; I daresay you knew that? Oh, yes; you had so much potential. L4 has always been the richest, the most powerful of the Colonies. As soon as you were born, we began to consider you. Who better to lead the colonies to freedom than the son of the most illustrious family on L4? The only son of a famous pacifist family, so disillusioned with the tyranny of Earth that he would take up arms to defend his people?

'I had such hopes for you, Quatre, and what did you do but run off to the circus with that mercenary? I knew he would only cause problems, but I presumed you would see sense after the war. He'd managed to inveigle himself into your affections by then, hadn't he? The same way he ingratiated himself with my Trowa. Yes, he's always been a bad influence on you, just the same as Maxwell on Yuy. I had such high hopes for my Gundam Pilots, you know. They were all chosen so carefully to take their places as leaders of the Colonies once the Earth was in ruins. I learned from my mistakes, you see. This time my plans will succeed.'

Quatre bit his lip hard. 'This is all unnecessary. I don't agree with all the ESUN policies, but there are peaceful solutions to our problems.'

'Be quiet! High time you realised just how serious this is. Perhaps you will realise quite how much when we have your pet acrobat in keeping. You did contact him, didn't you? During your little escape attempt? Interesting, to see how well that particular drug worked; you did believe you were back fighting the war, didn't you? You refused to call him earlier, remember? Even after some persuasion…Oh, we could have forced you, but we didn't want to harm you too badly, but my men thought it would be informative, to see how the drugs worked on your system.'

'You wasted your time then,' Quatre said, trying to sound calm, trying to sound like he believed it.. 'If you set up that little performance just as way to get Trowa to come here. He won't come. Not after the way I've treated him.'

Barton laughed.

'I think you underestimate his attachment to you. He's on his way here right now. One of my men just called to say he's already arrived at the shuttle port outside Florence. Oh, he'll doubtless be using a false identity, but a tip off to the Security forces should take care of that nicely. Your sisters still believe he's responsible for your disappearance you know. The Earthside Preventers force may have released him, but the Winner family has somewhat more influence here. Yes, they'll keep him safely locked up until I'm ready to deal with him. I have very special plans for him, as you may guess. My son's killer deserves to suffer a great deal.'

'He has nothing to do with any of this!' Quatre took a deep breath. 'Leave him out of it. I'll do anything you want.'

'My dear Quatre, you'll do it anyway. I have my own intentions for you, and I need your acrobat as surety for your good behaviour. You and Mariemaia will make very pretty figureheads for my rebellion, especially when it's discovered that your lovely fiancée was killed by ESUN agents. All sorts of plans,' he repeated, gloatingly smooth. 'That fool H flatly refused to explore the possibilities for your little gift. Some ridiculous scruples about ethics.'

'I can't control it; I've never been able to.'

'Let me worry about that, Quatre. There's been all manner of research conducted over the past seven years, all sorts of new drugs developed. I have a team of scientists ready to .. refine your talent, and from there it will be only a small step from reading people's emotions to influencing them.'

'No!'

Barton's mouth stretched into a travesty of a smile.

'You can't possibly still think you have a choice in any of this?'