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Chapter Twenty-Eight
Facade
Authority, when first detecting chaos at its heels, will entertain the vilest schemes to save its orderly façade. – Alan Moore
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I don't know what is behind the curtain; only that I need to find out. – Richard Paul Evans
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Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. The circus is in town, and plans are laid. No one ever said dealing with trauma was easy - but sometimes the coping mechanisms get interesting.
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Well. This chapter has officially reached my minimum for how long a story has to be before I'll open it when browsing, at 40k words. This is a solid 66 pages. Honestly, it's mostly the circus scenes – because putting Duo, Odin, and Adam in the same place is a freaking riot to write – but the others take their turns too.
On that note… a random thought. When I first started writing, content warnings were at the very beginning of a fic and not touched on again, or covered in the tags – but that's… not what you see anymore. My general stance on that has always been old school "you get what you get" but I am aware that I deal with some dark themes. Does anyone have an opinion on if each chapter should have content warnings? I mean… I always found it spoilery, personally, and if I'm reading something, I'd rather have the gut punch of something well done… but that's just me.
Beta-read by Emily, because she's a rock star who runs with my nonsense at all hours (i.e. "What attractions are at circuses anyway?" or "I need a prestigious Dutch school name that my American ass can't figure out, please help" or "What _ canon event _?" because she's basically a canon material goddess who keeps me from making irreversible mistakes) and is scary efficient. There might be more hard edits later, but I, once again, have the patience of a ferret. Big thanks to MystRunner too for chattering with me about this on Discord at all hours as I tried to get it into existence. I'm not sure when exactly either of these two sleep, if I'm being perfectly honest.
I keep forgetting how much Quatre and Jake have in common, and it's both endlessly amusing an makes me want to slap a hand to my forehead. The two of them starting to dance around each other ought to be interesting, at minimum because they're frankly on very even footing. Also, for the record? Trowa's Episode Zero events are a tangled mess of ten-year-old angst nonsense that I have to either dismiss, or just say that Midii Une had serious psychological issues (not unlikely, especially if there is some relation between her and Colonel Une. So we're going with a mix of both, trying to keep to the spirit of it while hedging? It helps that my version of Trowa has very limited memories of that time.
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January 14th 199 – Tuesday – Soleil Coalition Fleet
Nearly everyone startled as the door slammed open and Trisha Victroff strode into the room. She does like to make an entrance, Treize noted, amused in spite of himself. Nearly all of the Winner women possessed a flair for dramatics, and he could relate…
…But Theratrice wasn't supposed to be anywhere near the fleet. And while she wasn't above dropping by for a visit unannounced, this was highly contested space – not a pleasure cruise. I'm tired, he decided, shoving back his annoyance at the realization. Glancing at the clock, he suppressed a grimace – he ought to have been in bed two hours ago and he knew better. Head of an army or not, he was still a pilot, not just a general – his troops would suffer if he could not safely be allowed to fly. He had thought…
Think again. He was going to have to assign a direct administrative assistant after all; it was times like these when he genuinely missed Une. He had enough on his hands that he needed assistance in micromanaging it all; there simply weren't enough hours in the day. Even when he did split his work as far as was feasible, it wasn't… Whatever they must work through, the fact was that the numbers didn't add up. He was bleeding intel somewhere because how else could-
"I apologize for the hour," Victroff announced bluntly… and Treize felt the hairs raise on the back of his neck. That… was not like her at all. The Winner matriarch's mouth was set in a hard line, her grey-green eyes hard as steel, and none of her usual silken grace was on display… and neither was Ginelle. If she was here, she should have entered the room by now. Contested space or not, the woman's elder daughter was only eighteen months younger than Mariemaia and had begun shadowing Theratrice every step in September. It had actually caused a few hiccups because it made Victroff more cautious of her own movements than previously, and yet… no little apprentice.
A true emergency? Either she had judged the danger too great for Ginny, or she had left the girl behind for some reason to gain speed. His stomach sank even as his heart leapt. News. Vital news. Unusual that it should route through Victroff, but she had her own sources. "No apologies needed, Madam," he assured her, standing. "How can I be of assistance?"
There was a sour lilt to the woman's grimace. "I need this room cleared of non-essential personnel." Her eyes skimmed the war council and nodded. "I believe the essential parties are already present; no need to delay in order to wake anyone."
That was potentially interesting, as Belle had already excused herself – but they were sisters, and the intricacy of power hierarchy within that family was something he made an effort to steer clear of. He rested a hand on Mu's shoulder when she shifted her weight as if to stand – with the lines Jake had drawn for himself and Relena, Mu was effectively the Princess' direct ambassador – and nodded gratefully as other aides stood and excused themselves. "Good work everyone, and I apologize for keeping you late. Sleep well. You'll receive messages for what time we reconvene tomorrow." They knew him well enough by now to understand that barring a true emergency, there would be a minimum nine hours between now and the expected meeting time.
His decision to drop all but the essential courtesies among his staff was one of the biggest changes he had made since his 'death', and one of things he most appreciated about his life now – grandstanding was reserved for big, public events. At long last, he had been able to choose his own comrades such that he had no need to waste the time and energy manipulating like-minded individuals. It had been necessary before, to build his name and reputation, but frankly, it was past time to reap the advantages of all that work.
Once the door was again sealed and security up, he focused his gaze back on Victroff. "Tricia?" She preferred the nickname, in smaller meetings. If she had overstated her purpose to some degree to gain security, now would be the time to-
Her mouth tightened as she strode forward again, standing beside a vacated seat. "You're going to want to sit down, Treize." Her voice was… cold. Her eyes would be bleak, if not for the burning embers of pure rage in them. "My sister risked her life to learn this, then ran herself ragged getting to a secured relay that could reach me; she dared not trust the usual channels." Tricia's jaw clenched as she gripped the table. "I came as fast as I could."
Even after disposing of her usual grace, Victroff certainly knew how to lead a room. Treize sat, running over names. While many Winner assets were involved in this campaign, relatively few members of the core family were; only one name made sense in that context. Victoria 'Torie' Bishop. Vitorie Winner. "Vitorie is well?" he asked carefully.
Victroff offered him a small, grateful smile. "Rattled, but yes. She took a fool risk, but she knew her limits and kept to them, even if her mother is going to give me dirty looks for the next six months." She let out a deep, controlled breath, and her expression smoothed again. "She went above and beyond. Loraina is furious, and still – I can do naught but thank her for it."
Kilaina Bishop. Loraina 'Laina' Winner. Nine years younger than Tricia, the seventh Winner child had started the navigation heavyweight of Bishop Enterprises in the seventies and had three 'daughters' of her own… two of which had been taken into Regime custody immediately after the Fall. Atia remained there, while Felicia had escaped back to her mother after nearly ten months of captivity. The teenager had been recognized as a valuable hostage due to her sister's proximity, not through identity that linked back to her childhood; Atia had cut all visible ties back to the Bishops when she took her birth name back up upon entering the Winner Corporation on a management level in 194. The eldest a hostage, the youngest in hiding, and the middle child working for the Coalition, Treize mused. Yes… he could see how she might be upset. He only had one daughter that he barely knew, and even the thought-
Leia says she is safe. The bodyguard that had downed Jaynes for paying Marie too much attention the November before last was absolute, and loved their child like a sister. As frustrating as he found Leia's resolve, his love had no doubts that Mariemaia was well-cared for, well-protected, and above all, well-hidden. 'Attention to them now could be dangerous,' she had insisted. 'There are too many players. He will keep her safe at any expense, and when I can be seen in public again, he will contact me. They are deep in the Insurgence. Searching from what you know now will only make them burrow down so hard she won't see sunlight for the next year. Leave it lie.'
If he did not trust Leia more than his own mind, his very soul would cry out from yet another blow… But still, he would persist. It's not forever. Never again. Whatever came next, he would survive, would see and hold them again.
Tricia was pulling printouts from her portfolio now and spread them in a clear array with a single, neat gesture. "Vitorie found a likely communications sabotage site and cloaked herself to take these," she explained.
Treize eyed the images. Good quality, at close range. Hardly any enhancement at all, and that was clearly delineated in secondary photographs to show the model and callsigns in the expected places. "She's practically on top of them," he realized. That was very brazen indeed.
"Less than three hundred meters, for this one," she agreed, tapping one of the frames.
He raised his brows, seeing the issue but not the point. "I would side with her mother on this, Theratrice. That was foolish."
"They came to her; had she moved, they would have seen her," Tricia reminded him. "Perhaps her staging was poorly planned – yet in truth it was perfect. Did you know, your Excellency, that of the space hearts in my family, Vitorie has the greatest universal range? They have many ways of measuring these things within the community, and sensitivity varies wildly – but Vitorie began a career of deep space navigation specifically to escape the static buzz of foreign emotion that hangs ever present around her for over two kilometers in every direction." She shook her head, hair swaying. "She is luckier than many in that her inner radius where she cannot ignore another person is only three meters, but for the outer, she has perhaps the best range of any empath who has submitted to testing. I have documentation from 192, registered and published in the relevant scientific journals from that year as well."
He stared at Theratrice, debating when she would get to the point. He knew he was tired, but it wasn't until he saw Mu start to shake her head that he realized that he was ignoring the obvious. No.
That grimly sour smile from earlier returned as Theratrice leaned forwards, and tapped again on the best photograph. "Two hundred seventy-four point three meters away, Treize. And not a soul inside two thousand."
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Deep Space – Dark Site
"Special delivery," Howard announced cheerfully as he came up the hall, both amused and bemused… not an uncommon mood for the old engineer. Quatre shook his head as he stretched, deciding it was a good enough time for a break anyway… then blinked. Is that…? Pushing back from his console, he let himself float toward the doorway. "Grant?"
Howard snorted out a laugh, feeling brighter but otherwise unchanged. "I'm never going to get used to that. You know how rare that is, even for your type?"
Quatre smiled. "I've heard." That wasn't a new feature of his Talent, though; he'd always been able to pick someone out of a crowd, even after just one meeting. Most people on the forums he'd frequented growing up said it tended to fade away after a few weeks even after forging a strong connection – but he was fairly sure he could identify even the individual nannies and tutors he'd known for more than a few days in his early childhood if they were near him, just by the feel of their heart. For friends, it went without saying.
Some Talents were more ambient and location based, while others were bonded only – Lucrezia's spark of ability was firmly in the second category, which was probably why it was never identified before. He had always fallen solidly in the middle of that scale.
Quirks of his empathy aside though, Grant was a long way from home. "Is something wrong?"
His friend grimaced, scratching his head. "Not exactly, but… no plan survives first contact, right? I know it's only been two and a half weeks, but we've got more variables than expected and they're practically coming in at a full Mach. Felix, Sio, and Ethan have a good handle on the business end, but a few of those 'maybe in April' ideas you tossed around as hopeful thoughts are beating down the door."
Quatre frowned. "Such as?" He'd tossed around a lot of 'maybe' ideas that weren't worth exploring without seeing how the first few steps went.
Grant grinned. "Such as Relena and RLTT independently trying to work out arrangements with Rubato programs." He laughed outright at the look Quatre gave him, shrugging again. "I know. Once Jovi realized it was more than just feelers, we decided we needed you to at least consult, if not run it." Biting his lip and looking around, he added, "I know you've got the whole fortress of solitude thing going on for a reason, but…"
"But three weeks is clearly too long to be out, let alone six," Quatre agreed, mind racing. What factor did I miss? He had assumed he would need to put in a decent amount of work before either of those parties did more than cluck over Rubato; they still had four weeks before the first the agricultural colony would be ready to drop. That said, the 'six weeks' decision had been somewhat arbitrary; mostly, he knew he wouldn't have so much focused time available again any time soon, if ever.
Damn. So much for isolation. Not that Howard needed him half as much as he'd expected, which was a very pleasant surprise, but… Zero was a masterpiece he didn't dare improvise the recreation of. Of the thirty hard drives he had given Heero during the war, his friend had only been able to recover twenty-five, and two of those had been damaged. He'd been mostly sure he could get it done in time for Odin to start rewriting the BIOS on his new gundam, but…
Nothing for it. If it took longer, it was just going to take longer. He'd deal with the distractions, and Zero could always travel with him – it was the construction of the gundams themselves – not to mention the suits they were mass-producing for the Insurgence – that had to be extensively hidden.
And this wasn't the first hitch either.
Before coming out here, he'd thought that Wing Fusion's construction would be fairly straightforward – the shield-wings Odin had been muttering about designing would be the only 'new' feature, and evidently the original Wing had seen years more of extensive testing than any of the other gundams. They had known that integrating specs from Wing Zero would require some rehashing, but on paper, Fusion was the second-most complete design of the four – Deathscythe Hell needed no adjustments. However, the more Howard poured over the blueprints?
Deathscythe Hell, his still nameless gundam, and even significant parts of Chalkydri would have interchangeable parts, and consequently, could be built in stages together. But Dr J's designs were evidently far too alien for that to be a good idea. Even before Quatre had arrived, Howard had separated the projects entirely, going so far as to dedicate an entirely separate forge to Wing, along with a foreman that would focus only on it and related mods. 'It's not going to translate well,' the old engineer had insisted with a grimace. 'We'll get too many hitch-ups, and we're already on a time crunch. If I didn't already know it worked, I'd say the design was crazy – but it does work, and if he can code an AI for those wings the way he promised, they can be applied to other models. The mods might make this big of a change cost effective, even. But we can't have guys working on both styles at once, or it's just going to end in misery.'
Odin was going to have to spend far more time up here than originally estimated. As Grant had already noted, no plan ever made it out the gate fully intact.
"Well, I'll let you two sort yourselves out," Howard decided, scratching the back of his head. "I've got my own workload."
"Thanks for showing me over," Grant returned quickly, holding out a hand to shake, then aborting it for a wave when he remembered how well that didn't work in zero-G. "Don't let me get in your way."
"Thank-you, Howard," Quatre agreed. "I'll let you know what's going on once I've sorted it out."
"Alright, sounds good."
Once he was gone, Quatre raised his brows. "Do we know how we impressed two factions before we finished getting our feet under us?"
Grant sighed, crossing his arms. "Jovi thinks he's sussed it, but it's… jarring."
"Oh?"
"To start with? Apparently Colonel Mitchell is a double agent for Soleil, and Relena has a solid alliance with them."
He considered that, options flitting through his mind and rearranging themselves into a new whole. "Razo blew the whistle, then?" He'd thought it likely – just not that the ripples would reach so far so fast. I think I might like Mitchell more for not being loyal to the Regime, he decided. His decision to avoid the man hadn't been personal – what he'd felt had been good – but… well, it had been the right decision. Double agent or not, even if Treize was friendly, Mitchell would likely have had his hands tied had anyone been able to identify a gundam pilot. And the Insurgence isn't ready for Treize yet. If the man was truly allied with Relena he found that stance a bit more debatable, but the Ladies of the Insurgence were twice shy for very good reasons – Khushrenada had a bite history.
As for Soleil… Well. That was complicated, and he had his own concerns there. At least some of his sisters were involved, and he had been raised to view that sort of endorsement as trust – but his father had also controlled every aspect of his life to oh so carefully cultivate pacifistic innocence, so… He had no idea where to draw the lines. His family had jumped on the Stanton identity hard and fast, even if he didn't recognize anyone mixed up in that yet… but there was a good chance he wouldn't. He'd only ever met nine of his sisters, and two of those were dead.
If the group claiming Stanton was part of the Coalition, and the Coalition was now aware of Stanton's connection to Rubato, then they would already suspect his involvement. That said, they probably wouldn't keep faith without an interview – there were too many easy ways to steal an identity, particularly a disused one such as Robin Stanton. That gave him some wiggle room, particularly as he… wasn't all that interested. Not yet.
Tamelia, Courtney, Camille, Holly, and Datania would have no interest or want to be involved in something like the Coalition beyond hoping the war efforts came out in their favor. Amilie… Maybe. The movement likely appealed to her, but she had both Waylon and Silas to look after and had always vocally despised the idea of nannies. Though… while both his nephews had been infants the last time they spoke, they were technically school age now, if only just. Mm… maybe. He could trust Amilie. And Tricia, of course, if she was involved – but Tricia might have leapt in with everything she had, or she might be ingratiating herself with all involved parties while taking her pound of flesh from each. If he could talk to her on her own, she would give him a full lay of the land and an offer in whatever scheme she was running – it was Tricia and she loved them all equally.
But once he talked to his eldest sister, the spider-silk strings he could trace back to family would become steel cables, and they would all know.
That was the core of the problem – they all knew each other, but he had never even met a third of them, and no one had ever given him an honest answer on why. Over the years, all the implications left in the wake of their absence and the cut down way his father had sheltered him from sight had spiked into resentment. The most that even Tricia had offered as an explanation was 'it was too risky.' At a certain point, he'd begun to suspect…
Well, his mother had been dead of causes no one would disclose – though before his birth had been implied more than once. Artificial wombs made allowances, that way. For all that he had freely taken advantage of the fact that his family sheltered him to the point that no one knew his face or even his exact age, he'd seen the dangers too. After recognizing that, he'd begun pushing back; on some level, he had thought that maybe his father was simply waiting for him to show that much spirit, the way Tricia would gauge him. That he had to prove himself before they could introduce him to the world at large, because it would not be forgiving. After all, the need for a male Winner heir had been impressed on him time and time again.
And yet, his father's attitude when he'd rebelled and refused to conform had been… concerning. When Kilani's shuttle had been destroyed, Zayeed had been upset, but… he'd been upset over the fighting that led to his daughter's shuttle being destroyed. He'd pushed his pacifist rhetoric that had always left the twins rolling their eyes harder than ever and tried to set Quatre back to his lessons – as if he didn't care that Kilani and Jason were gone, that Cherie would never try and steal cookies off his desk again. All he'd been willing to say on the matter was that at least they'd left Waylon with Amilie.
His father… had cared about the boy. The sweet little infant that was almost a carbon copy of Quatre's own baby pictures. Then someone had made a throwaway comment about how technically Waylon was as much Amilie's as he'd been Kilani's anyway, as the twins were identical.
As if Kilani had just been an extra. They'd made jokes about it all his life, winking and talking about how their pregnancy must have been such a surprise, but hey, two for the price of one… And they always had been jokes, but suddenly it had become real. And the more Quatre had pushed back, had tried to just piss him off enough that his father would have to react, take him in hand even if just to spank him for being an unadulterated brat, Zayeed had just… dismissed him. As if, despite everything that had been said about the importance of his birth, despite the role everyone had stressed he would need to play for the rest of his life for the sake of peace… Quatre was replaceable.
So he'd started to wonder if maybe he was.
Zayeed could have run any number of wombs simultaneously, or in succession. For a while, he'd suspected he wasn't the only possible heir; raising them apart from each other would allow for deniability, and might make the secrecy surrounding his life far more logical. And how hard would it be to claim a grandson as his son? Tay and Russ looked more like their dad than Courtney, but some of the little ones were all Winner – and he'd snooped enough to know he had at least one more nephew close to his own age. Possibly as many as three.
Of course, if that had been the truth of the conspiracy he'd grown up surrounded by, they would have produced another 'Quatre' at some point, after Father died if not when he left for Earth. But he hadn't been sure, until then.
One of these days, I'm going to find out what the big secret really is. Hopefully it was less dark than the nightmare he'd shouted into his father's face three weeks after the Piepers' shuttle went down. The fact that the man had just told him to 'stop being ridiculous' and felt self-disgust instead of outright denying it had been the final push for running away and… getting kidnapped by the Maguanacs.
Warmth flooded him at the memory, of Rashid even just last month… and that made any of the heartache worth it. Even if he had been delusional, that seeping terror and desperation had led him to Rashid, to Instructor H and Sandrock and… well, to the rest of his life.
It was going to be a shame to leave Sandrock in the grave, but at the same time… they were making too many changes. Calling his new gundam by the same name, even a variation, would be a farce, and he had no interest in pursuing that. He had changed too much for the old design to suit him anymore – better to acknowledge it, rather than live in denial.
He had to start somewhere, after all.
Grant was nodding, body language relaxing further as Quatre again confirmed he wasn't upset over Razo's choices. "He handled it fairly subtly, with a set group, before telling us the details and backing away entirely into Mitchell's shadow." He shrugged. "Anyway, Jovi says the princess is bound and determined to practice what she preaches, and… you've seen the stories about you."
"They make me uncomfortable," he pointed out.
"It's you," Grant agreed. "But whether or not the truth about Robby ever gets publicized, you're going to have to roll with those factions knowing. They recognized your empathy for what it was too, probably in part because of… right. Did you know Odin's brother is part of the princess' retinue?"
Quatre breathed through that implication, thoughts racing. "I hadn't," he admitted. 'Jacob Miller' wasn't exactly a unique name to search for details on, and when Odin had told him to mind his own business, he'd minded. Still… "Do you know how close they are?" Both his own reservations about the account manager and Jack's internal rat's nest of emotions surrounding the colonel made him wary – but at the same time, it was Relena.
Grant snorted out a laugh, running his tongue over his teeth. "Razo says he is not an ambassador, and he's done snitching to anyone about anything."
"Right." Well, I probably wouldn't have trusted it anyway. Hm.
He wouldn't have expected someone learning about his connection to Cambyses to help Rubato's reputation, but Relena always had beat to her own drum – and she'd been working with another unknown sister to help Cambyses survivors before finding out. That could have jump-started things. In any case, it was a boon he'd happily take, though carefully, with an eye for barbs – agencies as young as Rubato had a lot of vulnerabilities that even well-meaning allies could trample.
RLTT, though? Apparently Delilah was a former RLTT candidate – though the intricacies of that were deeply confusing – and however many suspicions Odin had cast onto the organization… his friend was reacting to a loosely connected string of events from eight years ago. He agreed that the pattern was intriguing and did have ties to Treize – but it also had much stronger connections to Howard, Lu, his sister, and Relena, among many others. As much as Odin's concerns had merit, organizations didn't gain RLTT's level of influence without making unsavory connections. The complete lack of those had been what had stood out so sharply about Odin's inheritance.
The way Jake Miller had cultivated it over the last decade was peculiar. That, and people didn't fiddle with that kind of money without dipping into it or having some other kind of gain, and he hadn't been able to find those tracks. Which meant Colonel Miller was as good at the business investment shell game as he was… and/or had his brother's same flair for digital mischief to use as a smokescreen.
That or he's just as odd as the rest of the family and literally didn't want it. He'd backed off because Odin had asked – but while the personal end was one thing, the business aspect was another entirely. The other man would get over the snooping so long as he didn't wave the details in his face while he went about it.
Hm. The closest point of outside communication was nearly twenty hours away – an extra safety net to keep attention away from the forges and assembly lines. The Taurus line-up would be ready to start production soon, and once that began it would be easy to use the slow circuit moving suits and supplies in and out of range for spurts of net access… but for now he was just going to have to eat the delays. "Let me pack a few things up for homework," he decided. He and Grant could go far enough to get signal and he'd sort out the immediate concerns, catch up on news… and decide if he could still handle this from a distance or not. Howard didn't need as much help as he'd suspected – he'd known the man could handle repairs, but hadn't realized he was involved with the creation of Tallgeese – but the careful dance of supplies in and out, threading through Da Capo sites and regular commerce… that needed an active eye, at least during the early stages. He could probably pass it off in another couple of weeks, but…
I need to finish Zero. He'd made good progress so far, but he still had at least two months left… if he worked without distractions and not to exhaustion. Exhaustion could mean mistakes and… it was Zero. More distractions meant more time, and he'd hoped to integrate it on a core level of the BIOS instead of adding it later…
But it could be added later. He'd wanted to do it the same way as with his initial construction of wing Zero, but… it had functioned just fine in Sandrock. Better than fine.
…I'm fixating. Great. Time to redirect.
Whatever decisions he made, at least, his cover was already solid – the majority of the Da Capo construction sites also lacked the extensive infrastructure necessary to access the outside world, and Cat Wilson was supposed to be bouncing between those, checking in and keeping the process moving along smoothly. Even if someone came looking for him, it would be easy to redirect and say he was at another location, or had just been missed, or switched up the order of visits. In a worst case scenario, he could even have gotten 'lost' for a while, North American boy that he supposedly was, and make his way to somewhere convenient. He'd designed the Wilson identity to be a more obscure member of Rubato – lost in middle management while his friends without significant histories took the obvious positions of power. He just needed enough suggested skill and ability to be considered 'indispensable' for some small part of anything their industry touched, and the net result was easy access while maintaining virtual invisibility.
And… well, as useful as his isolation had been so far, he wasn't too upset about breaking it. "How has Cory been?"
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January 15th 199 – Wednesday – Munich, Germany – Sarracenia
"How is he doing?" Relena asked when the conversation lulled.
Mu grimaced. "I used to think swordsmanship was just a sport the rich thought made them look elegant. Now I'm trying to figure out how he can trash so many training dummies with wooden blades. I don't see how he hasn't wrenched something yet, even in low grav; my joints ache just watching him." She shook her head. "But he's started using full sentences again, so I'd say the forms practice is helping to work off the rage. How's your colonel?"
Relena glanced out the window. "He hasn't stopped running the grounds cross-country since we got the news." They'd already been in bed when the encrypted message came through, and BJ had decided that destroying one last night of peace would make no difference. Instead, he had brewed coffee and woken his analysts to see what information they could glean from intelligence they already had given the new information – such as how many men her brother had actually taken to space.
Jake didn't appreciate being behind the curve, but she was fairly sure that most of his fury was directed at the situation itself and her brother in particular. She would check once he had cooled down enough to do more than shake and run out the door, face a pure rictus.
At least he'd already been dressed for his morning run. If he'd been out there in his pajamas or even one of his suits she probably would have needed to go stand in his path and start shouting, by now. Even so, she was considering it. Though if he was upset enough to dodge her, she'd then have to send Mai after him, which…
He just needs to run it off, she reminded herself. The amount of time involved spoke to his endurance, not a fractured mental state. When she had started to pull her boots on in the third hour, Des had talked her down; apparently this was an old coping mechanism she'd never seen him the right kind of upset to tap, not a new way to break.
"Don't you have over four feet of fresh powder?"
"He makes an admirable if very inefficient snowplow," Relena agreed, smiling tightly.
That startled a laugh out of the other woman, and she let out a low whistle before shaking her head. "We're sure they're not related?"
"Nurture over nature," Relena pointed out with a sigh. Though if Treize's mother was the source of the tactic, she was glad that Jake had settled on sprinting instead of a more focused skill. As impressive as she was sure Treize was with a blade, it was still considered an art form. Jake's talents towards violence relied on pure efficiency – and if he fixated? That would not end well.
"How are you doing?" Mu asked quietly.
She sighed again, looking out at the grounds. "I wish I could say I'm surprised." She never would have guessed her brother would do something so stupid as well as morally reprehensible, but learning that he had? "I haven't decided if I'm in shock and waiting for the other shoe to drop, or if I genuinely just… can't care about him anymore."
Without diving into the moral quandary, the use of dolls was political suicide. Worse, it was a diplomatic nuke. He claimed to care about this empire he built from the ashes of the Fall, but this was just one more proof that he didn't. At best she imagined he thought he could get away with it. But even then, the stakes…
The entire legitimacy of the Peacecraft Regime was built on that singular truth – that dolls would never be used again. The crux of every agreement within the Romefeller factions, with the East, with China all used that as a foundation… and he had broken it.
We can't let anyone find out. That was possibly the worst part of this nightmare. Milliardo had broken the treaty so thoroughly that any suspicion of this treachery would collapse the balance of power on Earth… and it would fracture the Regime itself. In so many ways, the government was already a shambling juxtaposition of peoples who felt they were making the best of a terrible situation… but everyone had lost someone to the Fall. If not to the event itself, then to the chaos and violence and poverty that came on its heels. Treize was furious because her brother had been up there killing colonial citizens with little to no personal losses,again, and that was wretched, but… Worse still was that they were going to have to help him hide it.
And they were going to fail.
BJ didn't have all the information compiled yet, but already she could see hints they had dismissed before. The military's fast response times, particularly with the Italian rebellion and French spaceport. The way Treize's people had been spread out so thinly between bases that their intel had become virtually useless… There had been mass reassignments when the 'army' left for space, spreading thin to cover gaps left behind. How many were told they were being sent to the one well-staffed base of an area, and it was critical that the secret be kept to prevent vulnerability to terror attacks? That it was imperative that the secret be kept? Those he took to space had to have known about the dolls, been party to it… but how many had actually gone? Of those who did go, how many were immediately assigned to indirect duties off the battlefield, or spread across space in outposts to hold a supply line that… was almost entirely for show? How much was he wasting to pull off this insane charade?
And those were only a few of the indirect, local ways for the truth to out. It was a wonder he'd fooled everyone in space for the last six months.
"I," she decided, feeling heat flare in her face even as the rest of her body went cold, "am furious." He had lit the fuse on the Regime… and she would have had no way of knowing until it was too late. Is he stupid enough to think I could salvage that? 'Oh no, sorry everyone, I had no idea… again… Please trust me with your future as I accept power from the sociopathic psychopath that yes, I do share blood ties to, and don't kick a fuss.' First Libra, then the mess with Epyon in Africa against treaty, then this? China had granted her a boon last time, but she doubted they would back her again over an issue literally one hundred times more grave. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me… And three times makes a pattern. If this came out while she was still attached to the Regime, no one would ever trust her again, whether they thought her stupid or conniving. Either would be equally damning.
How long do I have? The reports Sylvia and BJ were getting out of the East were alarming, and there was no way they would take the news as anything but direct provocation; the Regime had gone out of its way to castrate them on the roaring crusade excuse that the East had had dolls. Now that someone had finally pulled back the edge of the curtain – others would do the same. All her careful alliances, the talks and negotiations… she'd had to move so slow to avoid suspicion, but she didn't have time for that anymore. None of them had any damn time, and she still couldn't openly throw her weight around without severe repercussions from the rest of Milliardo's staff. What am I going to do? Her Ministry gave her power, but it also penned her in, and it would drown her if the ship went down, dragging her deep in the undertow, she couldn't… I want…
She caught sight of movement outside and focused on it, trying to regulate her breathing again. I need to get off the phone. It didn't matter that Mu was already witness to worse in her allies, that the woman was a friend despite the damage done by her history of subterfuge – she didn't want to melt down in front of anyone but Jake if she could help it. And he was busy literally running himself ragged instead of helping her fix it, and she didn't want to be mad at him but at the same time-
Something small and bright slammed into Jake's head and she jumped, terror rising in her throat as he stumbled… and a giant dog tackled him.
"Relena?" Mu demanded sharply. "What is it?"
She covered her mouth with one hand as she began to shake, eyes beginning to water. "I… nothing. I…" She choked out a laugh, watching Des pointedly stride out of an earlier channel in the snow and crouch down to ruffle snowy dreadlocks affectionately. "Des Noin just beaned my boyfriend with a tennis ball," she explained, giving up and starting to giggle in earnest. "And had Lorenzo sit on him."
Mu chortled. "That dog outweighs him."
"He does," Relena realized, wiping at her eyes. And Des was just… continuing to squat there, presumably talking. They were too far away to make out any facial expression, but from his body language, a few shifts of his head… she could just see his easygoing smile as he said something both down to earth and utterly scathing.
There was more than one reason why having Des live so close was lovely. She missed Noin, but her father was a treat too.
She pressed her hands to her cheeks, feeling hot and clammy and exhausted and empty… but better than she had just a few moments ago. That, too, was a reality check. "I'm going to go," she decided. "I'll let you know when we're ready to brainstorm, and see where your people are at by then. This…" She sighed. "We need to finish reacting to it before we can plan again." I need to allow myself to react instead of trying to just push through. Maybe Jake had the right of it after all.
"That sounds like a good idea," Mu agreed. "I'll send a missive when he's ready to talk, and wait for yours. Take care."
"You too," Relena agreed before cutting the line… and eyeing the two men out in the snow for another long moment before pulling out her cell phone.
"Pronto," Des greeted cheerfully on the second ring.
"I'm drawing a bath," she announced. "Can you get him up there, or should I send someone to carry him?" He had been sprinting through snowbanks for over four and a half hours – he was going to need the bath, and she desperately wanted one. It was just as well she had already canceled all her appointments for the day; none of them were in any shape to be doing anything of worth.
"Oh, I think we'll manage," came the easy reply. "It might be a few minutes, though."
"It's a big tub," she noted. "Take your time."
The returning huff of a laugh was gruffer than his daughter's, but still pure Noin all the same. "Got it. See you in a few."
"Thank-you." Hanging up, she let out another long sigh… and strode for the bathroom.
oOo
oOo
January 16th 199 – Thursday – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Devil's Den
Amos groaned as his phone's screen woke up, the most current headlines sliding into view. "Crap." Kay was going to be a wreck today.
"Huh?" Nolan came up behind him to look over his shoulder, pausing for a long moment as he absorbed what it meant… and snorted. "Have fun with that."
"You haven't moved out yet," Amos groused, opening the article. 'Mobile Suit Battle near Valladolid!' He had no idea where that was, so maybe it was far away?
"Yeah, but I already hopped programs, so Dad's in charge of my classes," his younger friend pointed out.
Amos made a face. Nolan was loads smarter than him, but that hadn't really mattered until they were directly competing every day. "I thought you liked learning with him," he pointed out. Personally, he just wanted to be done and get on with his actual life, but Nolan loved all the math and physics that Kasey piled on. Their friendship had never really been about liking the same stuff; more that the other was always around, and that they were basically family now that Kay and Melissa were married.
So he didn't mind, exactly; the crap Nolan could spend literal hours pouring over was mind-numbingly dull. But somewhere along the line, always being shown up had gotten exhausting.
At least I passed English proficiency already. Being able to test out of specific subjects was awesome, he liked being able to focus more on one thing at a time… but he was also really sick of not being able to think about anything except school.
"I do like learning from him," Nolan admitted. "He's really cool, and I hope I can eventually understand the stuff he teaches even half as intuitively as he seems to – I can't believe all the math he does just in his head, you know? It all clicks together for him like he's not even trying." His pseudo-brother shrugged. "But a chance to go live with my dad? I'd take a year off for that. And Kay is all over the place anyway, which isn't going to help me get into a university, so…" He shrugged again. "This just works out better."
"I can't imagine leaving," Amos admitted quietly. Leave Amsterdam? Leave the church, leave Kay? Maybe someday he'd want his own place, Tiede talked in his sleep and was a sloppy roommate besides, but… he couldn't picture it, let alone imagine wanting to leave.
Nolan hesitated… then sighed, coming to flop down on the bed next to him. "It's different," he pointed out.
"Duh." He rolled his eyes.
Nolan snorted. "No, like… This is going to sound crappy, but… how much changed for you, after the Fall? Not the last few years, but you know, right after, those first six months?"
Amos frowned. "What?" What kind of a question is that?
"Like, I know Father Espen took on more orphans after the Fall, but you'd already been there for six years. What really changed?"
"The city got scary," he pointed out. They used to go out to parks a few times a week, or to the movies, and since he'd been twelve, he'd been allowed to do a few things out on his own before the battleship fell. After, Father Espen and Isabel had kept them close, and the welcoming church halls had slowly become a prison only made bearable by the fact that outside was worse. If he hadn't had so many new chores with all the new kids coming in, he probably would have gone mad.
Nolan winced. "Yeah it did, but… Amos, seriously… You didn't even change schools. Your life didn't take a turn until Kay started taking you under wing, right?"
He made a face. "I guess." Portions had gotten smaller, but there'd been ways around that, and he'd understood anyways. They'd always had enough, if only just barely.
"I was starting secondary up at Van Eys that January," Nolan admitted. "Honors program. And I loved it. But then Dad's shop fell through, and he couldn't find anywhere that could hire him in a way that would still keep us afloat, so he ended up going abroad. 'Liss already did a lot of stuff around the house even before that, she had ever since Mom died, but it was… really weird, how empty the house got all of a sudden. And then the money started running low, and the gangs… even not gangs, just bullies who knew they could get away with screwing with people, they…" He scrubbed a hand through his hair. "'Liss tried really hard to keep me in school. The first two quarters had already been paid, and it was the only normal thing left. The apartment got colder, the food got crappier, 'Liss hid the fact that she'd dropped out until after she'd been home for a month, and… we had to pawn everything, and we were still cold, and… I didn't realize how much she'd stopped eating until she hugged me after dropping me off at the church. She'd been wearing so many layers that I didn't…" He took a deep breath. "Amos, I was hungry all the time, but I wasn't losing weight.
"And… this was always my neighborhood too, I remember you from Sunday school, but it got a lot more than scary. And suddenly we were homeless, and Melissa wouldn't tell me where she went but I wasn't stupid, and…" He covered his face with both hands, bending over to brace his elbows on his knees. "I mean… do you remember… how I just…" His voice shook. "I cried when Luc came to get me because I didn't know what to do anymore. And I hadn't seen Luc in years, but I knew he was safe, and… he had my mom's ring. He'd seen it in the shop window and he'd known. He said he was going to fix it, but you can't just fix things after they break like that, but I wanted him to, and it got better, but…"
The younger boy choked off a sob, not lifting his head. "We weren't supposed to be like this. 'Liss planned on college. I wanted to study abroad, maybe even try getting into MIT or one of the other big American schools. And instead we're…" He curled in on himself. "I love my family. I love Kay, he made Melissa my sister again instead of everything she thought she had to be to keep me safe, I loved Luc for saving us and finding any way at all for us to get by, he made it stop hurting all the time, but this was never supposed to be us. I just…" He sniffed. "Dad is back, for real, and suddenly I can have my life back, and you keep acting like it's wrong for me to want that."
Amos stared at his friend – his obnoxious, overly smart little brother – frozen.
Nolan let out another wretched little sob, not looking up.
I'm so bad at this. Not sure what else to do, he wrapped his arms around the taller boy, leaning into him. "I'm sorry," he muttered. When Nolan's breath just hitched again, he closed his own eyes against tears. "I'm sorry, I didn't… you're right. I didn't ever think about it." Nolan might remember him from when they were just kids, but to Amos he'd just been yet another kid waiting to get out of Sunday classes. He'd thought the other boy looked familiar when he came to stay with them that first frozen summer, but that was it.
"You didn't have it to lose," Nolan pointed out, voice shaking and arms still tucked in tight, but leaning back into him. "You'd been with the Father since the same age as I was when my mom died, and it's not the same."
"Yeah, probably," he agreed. He'd been six and he thought remembered his dad pretty well… but the details were fuzzy. And so many things about living at the church had been… better, than at home before that. He rarely even thought about it anymore. Swallowing, he repeated, "I really am sorry… I wasn't trying to be a brat."
Nolan scoffed, dropping more of his weight onto him. "You're just like him, you know? You've had it so bad for so long that it just… it's a different world. And it feels petty to bring it up because I'm basically saying I was spoiled, but-" He cut himself off with a wounded sound. "Dad thought I wouldn't want to go. Like I was happy in a gang, not having any private time or space, because he thinks he failed us like it's his fault the world went to utter shit. Like I wouldn't want him anymore, and that's…" Another sob. "He's my dad, and Kay is great and all, but he's not mine. Not like that." He sniffed again, voice turning wistful. "And school…"
Amos cracked a grin at that, shaking his head. "You really like school," he agreed. It had been one more point where he and the brainiac just didn't mesh that he shrugged off, but… Van Eys College. That was a lot. Even the regular program at Van Eys was a big deal, so if he'd gotten put in Honors right from the start? That actually made a lot of little things make sense.
"Everything else is so boring," Nolan protested. "How can you stand it?"
Amos made a face. "I think I'm just dumb."
Nolan scoffed, pulling away to sit up straight and rub his eyes. "You're not. You were in the top twenty percent of our class before we switched to GED."
"I have fifteen months on you and they put us in the same class," he reminded him, rolling his eyes. "And I had to work my butt off to get that high while you coasted."
Nolan scowled. "That's not fair and you know it."
"Life isn't fair," he pointed out. "I got over it a long time ago. Look at Audi."
His friend's shoulders slumped. "Audi makes me feel dumb."
No kidding. "Life's not fair," he repeated. Sighing, he tugged his hair out of its ponytail to rub his nails across his scalp. "She's like Duo. Odin too, I guess, and Cat. Some people are just like that; no reason to get upset about it."
Noland snorted. "And this is part of why you're not dumb. Why haven't you jumped into a Rubato program yet?"
He made another face. "I don't know." He did want to, but…
Nolan's gaze was speculative. "He'll still help you with your homework, you know. You'll just have, like… an actual stopping point."
"…It feels like going away from him," he admitted. As much as he'd started to dread some of his lessons, it was still Kay, still Duo, and he didn't want to give that up. But…
It also really sucked. Because he never felt like he was good enough anymore. Understanding something just meant it was time to start pelting through the next lesson with no room to breathe, and… that made him not want to have school under his brother. Which just made it worse.
Nolan was still watching him. "You've looked at a few though, right? Have at least a couple favorites?"
"There's just one I like," he admitted. He'd probably still be in school for the next two years, but he'd have more time to focus on his apprenticeship at the shop, and still be able to help with Renee and hang out with his friends – more free time than if he'd stuck with the local public.
"Hm." Nolan nodded sharply to himself and reached for his bag to pull out the tablet he'd been using for a school slate since they'd dropped out. "Dad wants to go settle a few things at the apartment today, and if we get you registered now you won't have to do your admission tests for another two weeks anyway. You can come along and help me pick out stuff for my room; they gave him a budget to furnish the place in advance." He waved a hand back at Amos' discarded phone. "Just text 'Liss what we're doing, and avoid… that. He gets way too dramatic, you know?"
Amos grimaced, but gamely opened his text app. "I don't think he can help it," he offered.
"Maybe," Nolan agreed, shrugging. "You didn't marry him though, so I say we just let my sister sort him out. He doesn't really listen to anyone but her anyway."
That was probably unfair… but only in a general way. When Kay was already upset it was true. Message sent, he opened up the article. "Huh. It happened all the way down in Spain."
"And he's gonna brood for daaaays," Nolan returned in a sing-song tone, swaying to music no one else could hear as his screen finished loading. "And I'll avoid him on the traaaaaaiin… Cause he'll get over iiiiiiiit…" He tapped in his passcode and opened a browser. "Come on, let's get this done. We don't want to sleep in Haarlem or he really will get squirrely about everyone getting to the station tomorrow, and I am not missing out on the circus because my brother-in-law has issues."
Amos grinned. "Audi said they're going to be doing poi!"
Nolan blinked, obviously not recognizing the word… then his face lit up. "Poi like fire?"
"Yeah!" Apparently Adam had seen something about it and thought it looked fun.
"Even better," Nolan decided. "So come on, what was the program name?"
oOo
oOo
Munich, Germany – Sarracenia
"So aside from personally inspecting the bases, there's no sure way to know the troop placements," Jake confirmed, looking tired. "Which would show our hand."
"Essentially," BJ agreed. "Unless you can break the new digital security covertly, but I suspect even that is heavily compartmentalized and minimized."
"I could get in, but it wouldn't be subtle, and I would probably leave my fingerprints all over it," Jake agreed, shaking his head. "And in order to do this in the first place… it has to be pigeonholed. I'd blow my cover on the first salvo. It would be pointless."
"I assumed," BJ admitted. But a second opinion never hurt, and Miller was good enough that Nan couldn't track his full capacity.
"He compartmentalized every department, its specific rights and permissions, to an insane level before leaving for space," Jake continued. "We all dismissed it as a control measure, maybe paranoia about what his aides or Romefeller would get up to in his absence, but now…" He sighed, wincing as it turned into a wheeze. "Zechs has always been a conspirator. He crafts and hides aces almost compulsively, and a lot of that skill relies on his ability to misdirect in such an irritating way that you think he's just an asshole, instead of clever." He covered his face with both hands. "Just because he gained enough power that he didn't need to scheme anymore didn't mean he was going to stop. I should never have forgotten that was a core part of his personality."
"Tracking my brother's stupidity is not your job," Relena reminded her colonel pointedly.
"It technically was though," he protested quietly, rubbing has hands down his jaw and looking up.
"Unless he started building this doll army of his before the riot last year, no, it wasn't," Relena refused, voice calm but firm. "You had some personal hold on him before that, but after? He shut us both out after the attack on Brussels, and it only grew worse when Heavyarms reappeared in March. You told me that aside from the personal angle you spun on him, your role as Váli was to compile date from various spies and get it out of the system, not collect it yourself."
Jake grimaced, but shrugged a grudging agreement. "I ran a few personal projects and answered specific inquiries for Treize too, but yes."
Good to know they've discussed as much in detail, BJ decided. Aloud, he said, "Now I'm curious." One of the problems with mining data from Miller was that the man knew so much in so many directions that, without specific questions, a lot of the intel was effectively inaccessible.
The comment earned him an overly charming smirk that spelled trouble. "Aside from corrupting the Regime's digital security from the start? I was all-in for the rescue work immediately post-Fall, but I wasn't above organizing skilled survivors and their loved ones into positions that might see them be advantageous to future causes. When I got swapped into the gundam pilot manhunt, I sabotaged as much as I gathered in the way of leads – and I made sure Treize's people, whether in or out of the Regime, were always at least two hours ahead of Zechs' on any promising physical chase."
His next exhale was a little more forceful than usual, and he checked his nailbeds in an irritable gesture – a dark purple verging on blue. Before BJ could comment though, he continued, rolling his eyes. "Not that it made a difference – if we were ever came close, it wasn't enough to count. But after Une's public beheading, I didn't want to see what happened if Zechs actually got his hands on one of them." He grimaced. "Especially considering what we know now. He has significant injuries from the fight at Libra, long-term enough that I floored him with a move that should've only annoyed him eighteen months afterwards. And Leia…" Jake shook his head, even as he clearly gathered his breath again. "He admitted to the severity when I asked him about it last winter, and I agree with Leia that the bleach situation could only have happened with some kind of heavy painkiller involved. He told me he expected to be 'better' by last spring. He's always been good at hiding things, but after three years?" He let out a more controlled breath, leaning back on the couch. "Whatever he's got going on is permanent, including the treatment."
Relena was frowning. "That doesn't look like nothing."
"It's not, but I'm fine. I'll go talk to Leia once we're settled here."
That looked like bronchitis to BJ, but they did have a professional in house for that sort of thing, so he didn't see a need to kick the hornet's nest. Better to stay on task then send him to the doctor. "You think he'd pin the blame for his injuries on Yuy?"
"He's always been a vindictive shithead fixated on revenge, even in his softer moments," Jake confirmed, tossing him a grateful look. "The surviving footage from the last quarter of the battle is spotty, but he wasn't having any issues with mobility before the chips were down with Epyon, Wing Zero, and Sandrock chasing Libra into atmo, where we lost everything but macroscale visuals. Maybe he was wounded earlier and the Zero system let him compensate, but it makes more sense that the problem happened in those last minutes. Though that…" The younger man shook his head again, leaning back into the couch cushions. "I've seen plenty of renditions of the math with the specs that kept getting reposted online every time the Regime took them down, but even then, I haven't seen someone fully make sense of it.
"We know that Wing Zero had to have been the one to make the difference, because Epyon and Sandrock just didn't have the firepower to break down what was left of the battleship enough to count – but the only way to connect the dots is to say that the suit's supposed specs were undercut." Another controlled, slightly wheezy breath. "It… shouldn't have been possible. At least not with the timing for when we saw the blast shred the ship down enough to clear extinction status. But since I'm positive Howard is the one who keeps relisting all the battle tech specs for everything happening in that corner of space in December of 195, and he was the one keeping the gundams up and running… I don't know." He closed his eyes. "Howard is one of the best – possibly the best, now that the Mad Five are dead – and he watched Zechs put that gundam through its paces before Romefeller started its attack on Sanc, then helped Yuy practically run it into the ground, pedal to the metal, for a month. There's no way Howard didn't know exactly what it was capable of."
"Heero's always had a way of defying all expectations," Relena noted, looking a little wistful.
"Lu was pushing the five of those boys hard enough that she couldn't always wake them," Jake returned, tone flat. "She felt guilty as hell about it, broke down a little one of the few times we were able to have a real conversation, but she ran them ragged despite knowing exactly how fine the line gets on sleep hygiene and battle fatigue. I don't think anyone appreciates just how close she must have come to losing one of them on that schedule. And then where would we be?" He sighed, and it turned into a fit of coughing before he sat up straight again. "Shit. She clearly judged it right; they barely held the line before the army arrived, and without all five gundams we would have lost the initial battle at Libra – but that doesn't make what happened good. Aside from that though, if you add up all the raw battle data on Yuy's time in Wing Zero – which, by the way, is still timestamped? Even without getting into the 'when the fuck did this kid sleep' question, I'm stunned Howard was able to keep that suit in fighting shape."
The raw data was more or less gibberish to BJ, but he'd seen enough amateurs and experts both compile it any number of ways and come to the same conclusion; he wasn't going to question it. Jake's confidence that Howard Oclaire was the source was good to know – speculation ran heavily in that direction already, but Jake knew the man well enough to have claimed him as a candidate for RLTT.
Relena still looked thoughtful, even as she sat down next to her boyfriend and ran a hand over his back. "He seemed okay when he found me on Libra. If anything, he was… better, than before."
BJ focused on her. "Better how?"
"Mm, 'emotional' isn't the right word," she hedged. "Because he wasn't. But he… Heero was always remote. Closed-off, but focused. Intense. I never saw him smile. But on Libra he was…" She paused. "More open, I suppose. I could tell he was annoyed a few times – outright exasperated in an almost amused way, more than once. And when he was getting me out and I realized he wasn't coming with, I-" She cut herself off with a short laugh. "He teased me. Once we got back to Peacemillion and Sally and Howard were off prepping the evacuation shuttle, I realized he was about to get back in his gundam, and I… I didn't want him to go. I had a good enough grip on him that I thought he'd have to make a scene and the others would notice and come talk him into coming with us. But then he got this look and moved like… for a second I thought he was going to kiss me, enough that I hesitated and tried to lean in – and he shoved me into the shuttle." She laughed more, blushing. "It was so stupid, we were in sealed spacesuits, I felt like a fool, but there he was, hanging back with this smug look on his face… and then he was gone." The princess shook her head. "Expressive. That's the word I wanted. Noin said he was better in Sanc than he'd been in Antarctica, but he was much more expressive on Libra than he'd been at the palace."
Jake looked amused. "Caught you on wishful thinking, did he?"
Relena rolled her eyes. "You've had crushes too, you know."
He shrugged, still smirking. "Lu thankfully never did anything to floor me before I got over it. You short out my brain easily enough that I don't want to imagine a temporary variation."
"You can't imagine it because you have no perspective," Relena informed him bluntly. "I had my first kiss at thirteen, and you were twenty-two."
"I'm redirecting this conversation before I have to leave the room," BJ announced pointedly. As informative as he found their easy dynamic, he didn't need intimate details. "In any case, it's good to have more confirmation that Yuy broke conditioning before the Fall." The pilot was someone they wanted on the field again, especially knowing that dolls were back.
Relena frowned. "Conditioning?"
BJ grimaced. "The Barton Foundation shoved nearly a petabyte of Dekim's personal network data at the Regime before locking the metaphorical door on us, after his coup attempt. A lot of it's dross, technical babble and inventories and specs on useless nonsense, he fancied himself far more of a mastermind than he truly was, but…" He grimaced. "If you dig, there are some truly nasty surprises buried in there. Let's just say there was a reason Yuy was riding the edge when he fell to Earth."
Jake frowned. "Is this something I should read?"
"Only if you want nightmares for the rest of your life," BJ negated. "I started reading without realizing what it was, then kept going because I was waiting for the punch line, or at least the light at the end of the goddamn tunnel – but no. It's a fucking run-on sentence of horror that cuts off the morning of Operation M's launch with no explanation." He closed his eyes, resisting the urge to rub his nose. "If I didn't know there were already copies elsewhere that I can't track, I'd be tempted to destroy it outright." He'd been hoping for some kind of insight when he'd realized there was something about Yuy's training there, but…
Relena's expression was bleak. "It's that bad?"
Given that she'd seen him fight to keep records of the worst of Romefeller's crimes against humanity, he knew she understood just how severely it had rattled him. "Everyone involved is dead, with the exception of Yuy," he defended. "There's no one left to prosecute – but if he's aware that records were kept in the first place, I doubt he wants them shared."
Jake's mouth firmed up, his eyes growing distant. "The cliff notes, then."
"I've got a solid year's worth of very explicit details on how bad, often, and thoroughly they hurt that kid," he explained. "The writing style is similar to complex medical procedure reports." Including how 'the candidate' fought back and what they used as countermeasures. "It reads like a science experiment focused on human misery – and Dekim regularly added suggestions that got implemented, the sadistic fuck. He was involved. The only bright point was that they assiduously avoided permanent damage, though it came damn close a few times." That, and they hadn't tried anything sexual – though not out of compassion. Apparently the logic had come down that no significant gains were expected from that flavor of violence, while such acts 'carried a high risk of undesirable side effects.'
Thank God for small favors. The fact that they had considered it…
Relena stood back up and paced a few steps away before crossing her arms, looking outside. "Sally said he showed signs of a lot of old trauma," she admitted.
"That's not a bad blanket description," he admitted. The records from that particular hospital stay had been destroyed when Maxwell sprung him, and Dr Po had claimed to remember no discreet facts without reference material. Later on, Colonel Une had never bothered with personal data beyond mug shots on her captured pilots – and the most updated, lunar copies had been lost. From Dekim's records though, he could guess.
"Remalene works fast and hard, and sometimes it even heals tissue in a stronger matrix than is native," he explained. "When that happens, depending on the scale, it can be visible on imaging." Especially when the injury is particularly vicious. They'd used the kid as a guinea pig to prove that, repeatedly. More than anything, that was why he wanted to destroy the data. "Some parts of that year revolved around progressing that theory, increasing his strength by methodically breaking him and flooding his system with the drug." He licked his lips, remembering the reports of bent steel bars. "Given some of his stunts during the war, they might have even succeeded."
It wasn't a branch of science he wanted to support. After all, finding a balance between that sort of body modification, the extreme pain tolerance that came from forcing a teenager through it with no chemical assistance but Remalene, and the wavy line defining just what a person was capable of if they had no self-preservation or care for the physical toll on their body? It was impossible. But there was enough positive data involved that if more unscrupulous scientists had knowledge of what had been done to 'the candidate,' the twisted experiment might be used as a foundation to further that line of human enhancement.
Never mind that it was inhumane and should have killed the boy; Remalene was a restricted drug for good reason. Even without considering the trauma leading up to its use, the drug could kill or cause permanent damage if used improperly – and the team brutalizing Yuy had bypassed nearly every guideline.
"And the other parts?" Jake asked quietly.
"All of it was systematic torture designed to break his spirit," BJ countered, ready to be done with the topic. "The most mind-boggling thing to me is that in spite of everything? They failed. At best they made him more malleable, more receptive to orders – but frankly, that wore off halfway through the war. They started with an intelligent, obscenely talented kid with a stubbornly independent streak a mile wide – and from what I can tell, he was more or less back to that after five months away."
"Then what did you mean about him starting to break conditioning on Libra?" Relena asked quietly, not looking back.
"He was a kindly rogue by the end of August, if not before," BJ clarified. "But despite being a largely functional agent, all reports say he was a dissociative mess with the emotive capacity of a rock." He shrugged. "Historically speaking, the emotional recovery of a victim takes at least three times longer than physical or mental – presuming any of it is recoverable at all. So the fact that he made noticeable strides inside eight months is encouraging. Now that he's had three years to cool down, hopefully he'll be less of a loose cannon."
"Provided he's on the board at all," Jake cut in. "The last time anyone had something solid on him was November of 196. He's a ghost now, and we've already had two gundam pilots announce that they're out."
BJ tipped his head. "Maybe."
"He saved the world," Jake remined him, tone sharpening. "However he pulled it off, we literally owe him the planet. If he wants to retire, I will respect that decision and get in the way of anyone who wants to repeal it."
The spymaster rolled his eyes. "That's not…" He puffed out a breath. Better to come from the other direction. "Never mind. We can't confirm human troop placements, but I did get to the bottom of how Zechs has managed to fool everyone for this long."
Relena ended her silent vigil of the window at that, turning back around and visibly gathering herself. "How?" Her gaze was solemn, but determined as ever.
"The same way he got the Mercurius and Vayeate suits running without qualified pilots," he returned grimly.
Jake groaned. "Of course. If he had enough raw data from a pilot flying or even using a sim… that was a stable AI. The more data he had, the more realistic it would be, but… He could program a doll to fly by the patterns of any pilot he had the specs for."
"And he has a lot of data," BJ agreed. "Any Regime pilot who has spent time in a simulator or on the field since the Fall at least, if not more. Some of them might even be flying like him." Which was a daunting thought. The Lightning Count might not be as fast as Yuy, but he'd bloody well earned his moniker.
Relena's eyes narrowed. "Does he have dolls flying like Heero and Trowa, then?"
"He shouldn't," Jake negated immediately, getting up and starting to pace. "I'm not sure if those clones were in the information we managed to take with us off Libra during the evacuation or not, but they couldn't translate. There were attempts in the early prototype stage, but Vayeate and Mercurius were too different from other models to get a functional clone from there into a Taurus or Leo." He wheezed, then shook his head before continuing. "They had marginally better results with Trowa's data, but not enough to cut it, and Heero was pointedly working under duress when he flew Mercurius – they didn't give him weaponry, and he was only grudgingly defensive."
"I've been looking into it," BJ added. "Exhaustively. There is no battle footage or census data of anything that looks even remotely like Yuy within the Regime ranks. It was true at a glance, but I even dove down the rabbit hole of the forums that all the geekiest mech heads frequent, looking for holes." He'd expected to have to pose as another enthusiast and postulate a few questions to get the community going in a direction he could farm data from, but most of the work had already been done months ago. He'd reinvigorated it anyway, but what he'd found even before that? "People have clocked Yuy from footage and Oclaire's released stats over and over again, along with every other major player and more than a handful of aces that worked for any side during the war – and his reaction speed is unique. Even if Zechs did have viable data to use from him he probably wouldn't, because someone might think it was a doll. Unless we count Zero system use, Zechs comes the closest, and it's still by a recognizable margin. Maxwell's up next after that, and then it's a wide gap before anyone else comes close." He shrugged a little. "Anyone who's been datamined like this, at least. If they didn't fight publicly enough in the war to get video footage saved, or have their records outed like the gundam pilots, they're not on the chart. Treize isn't even acknowledged by the online community."
Jake rolled his eyes, crossing his arms. "They do think he's dead."
"They've clocked a lot of dead guys," BJ negated. "I had to go looking up names, since I was out for a while before the war started and didn't see the point in tracking dead aces when I came back." And a few of those had been bombshells – Trant Clark had been a piece of work. "You would not believe the number of memes there are about 'Har, I'm idiot Dermail!' and how bad he was at piloting." Note to self: if you die a in particularly ignoramus way in a popular field of media, the internet will never let it go. "Treize rarely engaged in MS battle during the war, and even clips of him at Libra are few and far between. Who even knows how many others fall into that box. The community is practically rabid, but their data pool is from a short timeframe."
The hint of a smile on the princess' face had a vindictive edge. "Augustin Dermail was an idiot."
"A powerful idiot, but yes," BJ agreed, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Not that he disagreed, but… Well, the man had tried to make her life miserable; Relena probably deserved a little satisfaction from seeing him shamed. "Either way: no, your brother either doesn't have or cannot openly use a clone of Yuy's piloting capacity." He pointed at Jake. "They might have Trowa's data from before Une awarded him with Vayeate. I'm not sure when the data farming on this scale began, but it stands to reason that the wave of OZ recruits after the opening of the space campaign were subject to it. And if they have that, we can assume they have a clone of Schbeiker too." Shrugging his shoulders, he admitted, "But I can't track it. Trowa was high end talent-wise and definitely one of the best pilots that Une had easy access to during OZ's big space rush, but frankly? Either he was holding back, or he doesn't hold a candle to the other four with gundams. Though given the level of subterfuge he regularly ran during the war, I could see it being the former – he was late enough to the party at Peacemillion that even Oclaire's releases on Heavyarms' stats don't give us much to work with."
Relena frowned, focusing on him. "Why not compare it with what we have of Heavyarms from the last year?"
BJ barked out a short laugh. Jake abruptly spun back to face him at the tell. "Yeah. About that."
"You don't think it's him," Jake realized, eyes narrowed.
"I've got an entire commune of shut-in mech heads with proof that there are three regular pilots in that gundam," BJ confirmed. "While we're on the topic: how sure are we that Relena's Chinese engineer friend was telling the truth and Wufei is absolutely not here in Europe?"
Relena made a thoughtful noise. "Technically, I have only his word," she admitted. "But I believe he was genuine."
"Three," Jake repeated flatly.
"At least four, actually," BJ corrected. "One of them is probably Trowa, especially if he was underselling himself in OZ – the reaction speed on that profile is on par with Maxwell if not higher, and it's the one we've seen in action the most. But the one that has almost identical tactics and patterns to Wufei has been more active over the last couple months, while the third is terrifying but in control less often – possibly because they take the most damage. I'm not sure if it's because that pilot is less experienced or if they're that much more reckless. But they're definitely swapping. There are very discreet changes between consistent, wholly different patterns. The Insurgence is officially min/maxing with a pilot pool on their most powerful weapon."
Relena's smile was serene. "He has been known to lend it out before."
"Every ace I've ever met has been absurdly possessive of their suit," Jake protested, eyes wide. "Even Lu. I always thought it was a bit much, but… four?"
"Possibly more," BJ hedged. "Not all the fights are long enough to track unique calling cards, and the primary one is versatile while still economical enough with all motion that it would be easy to pin a less remarkable pilot under the same mantle for some of the shorter skirmishes. But yes, at least three regulars and one stand-out, for sure."
A grin stretched its way across Jake's face. "Four." He shook his head a little disbelievingly. "That's…" He let out a snicker. "If Lao didn't send us on a goose chase, the second profile is probably Xutao Chang. He's a known agent in the Insurgence and was the prime choice for Shenlong before Wufei came on scene."
He'd seen the name come up before, but Jake clearly had other sources. "I didn't realize he was a pilot," he admitted. The martial artist had given the Regime a rather significant amount of grief over the last three years, though.
"I swiped copies of a dozen databanks off A0206 after Operation M started," the colonel explained. "Nothing truly sensitive, but enough to connect a few dots when you combine it with census data from newer colonies nearby and some of the things Master O mentioned in casual conversation during captivity." He looked up, clearly thinking. "I have a hard drive with that in… Lux. Two in space too, but the Lux copy will be easiest to get to. I'll have it to you within a few days."
BJ resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Please. Along with anything else you can think of."
"I'll try, but a lot of it will be redundant and you'll be sorting for a long time," Jake warned.
"I'm going to keep focusing on you personally, but I'd like the hard data fallback all the same," he reiterated.
"What about the fourth?" Relena asked. "A stand-out, you said?"
"We've only seen him fly once, at least since the Fall," BJ admitted. "When your brother took Epyon down to Sudan last July."
"Him?" Jake dug, eyes narrowing. "You were very careful to not ascribe gender to the others."
"The world is predominantly female these days, and I wouldn't be surprised if number three was Schbeiker," BJ agreed. "But unless we've got a dark horse who's just as unbelievably fast? That was Heero Yuy."
oOo
oOo
January 18th 199 – Saturday – Krefeld, Germany
"It's just…" Duo hissed out a breath.
Adam shrugged, eyeing the area around them and making a face before leading his friend back toward the tools. "The Rubato guys are already pawing through it, and I said I'd take a look too," he pointed out. "Just let it go. Propaganda games were never your play anyway."
"Like they were yours," Duo scoffed.
"Not directly, but I knew how to play into them." At least, he was mostly sure that was what he'd done; Odin was the only one of his friends who actively acknowledged how much of his talk about the war was guesswork. "I can use them to my advantage, or work to shift them," he decided. "And Mark and Ardith actively made careers out of it." Mark through legitimate means, while Ardith had walked on the other side of the street – which meant he knew exactly how to hit to make someone hurt, all without ever touching them. That combined with his own skill to get in just about anywhere, impersonate and otherwise manipulate a situation… it should be interesting. Ardith was fun.
The other man gusted out a massive sigh. "Right. That's good. I just…" He made an aggravated noise. "I hate this."
Adam debated if it was worth asking what 'this' was. Probably not. He genuinely wasn't sure what Duo was referring to at this point, but… he also didn't particularly care. And since Duo was good at picking up on that, saying something sympathetic would just irritate the man.
He liked Duo. He did. And he'd brought the whole family minus the sketchy father-in-law to visit, which showed how much Duo liked and trusted him too. Melissa was hilarious, and Cathy's reaction to Karina had been just as great as he'd expected; and Duo had already had to outright steal Renee back from a member of the circus intent on showing the toddler something more than once. She'd wailed louder with every step he took her further away from horses, and he hadn't bothered holding in his laughter. Duo's little girl desperately wanted a pony now, and his glares at anyone who brought it up were only encouraging the antics of Adam's family antics.
But however much he liked the man, his friendship with Odin was… easier. Duo was… intent on making up rules they had to follow – and then flouting them. Personally, he thought that was part of the other man's charm – he'd always been all over the place – but the balancing act was visibly wearing on Odin. Which was bound to get interesting sooner or later, because as far as he could tell, Duo had yet to even notice the friction, let alone how deep it ran.
Adam wasn't entirely certain how, though. Odin was… not exactly subtle.
He blinked. And there's Leah again. Unattended again, which… wasn't the best idea. As much as they'd been taking Duo's toddler around, she was never alone. As fascinated as Renee was by the horses, Leah mostly thought the lions were beautiful – and she could practically fit through the bars. They were mostly tame, but still. Not to mention the dangers if she tried fiddling with any equipment. "Leah," he called in a warning tone.
She jumped hard – proof she'd snuck off intentionally instead of getting distracted – and he sighed as she turned an impish smile his way. "Hi!" the little girl chirped.
"Where is your mother?" he asked pointedly, meeting her eyes.
She shrugged and swayed, trying for nonchalant. "I don't know."
"You have two minutes to find her," he announced. "Before I pick up the phone." More like ninety seconds, really, but two minutes sounded better.
The five year old shrieked and pelted back towards the carnival area, where Anne was probably freaking out… No, I don't care. Sighing, he pulled out his phone and flipped through the recently dialed numbers.
Anne picked up almost immediately. "Tell me you've seen her."
"She's probably on her way back, but I'm in the main theater," he confirmed.
The woman sighed. "So much for funnel cake. She's certainly not getting any now."
"She's allowed anywhere," he reminded her. "You both are. She just can't be alone."
"I know, and thank you, I- There she is. Thank-you." The line disconnected.
He blinked, then smirked down at his phone before putting it away. Better than Odin, but… You'd think they were actually related, he mused, grinning.
Duo, meanwhile, was frowning. "I thought she was one of the circus kids."
"We don't have any circus kids," Adam denied, heading for a barrel he could see a rake sticking out of. "I'm the baby." Though not for long, if Cathy's guess about Henrietta and Tulio was right.
He liked to think he wouldn't have done even half the dangerous shit he had around the circus if there'd been children in the troupe. Maybe he would have – but he wouldn't now, so it was better to think of it that way.
Duo looked incredulous. "But she's allowed backstage?"
Adam shrugged, grabbing the rake… Then a shovel, because that was probably a better idea. "You're backstage."
"You know me," Duo protested.
Mostly? Probably not half as well as Duo thought, but enough that it counted just as well as the other man had meant it. "And?"
His friend blinked. "So… how do you know them?"
He technically didn't. "Odin brought them," he explained. "Their house doesn't close for another week, but they came ahead to handle the paperwork and he put them up in a Rubato condo in Duisburg." And given how stir-crazy the little girl was, she was bored. Anne is probably busier than she'd meant to be, he realized; which explained a lot of the last day of interactions rather well. "Doesn't one of your kids babysit?" The quintet or Henrietta would probably volunteer even without anyone asking, but they had a show to put on in three hours and the transition from space had been hard on the acrobats – though he could guarantee they'd be delighted to play with little Leah after the show. "Never mind." Duo's boys were here to have fun too, and he could help arrange a little R&R for Mrs. Moore once the performance was done with.
Marie might be a good bet, though. She'd even traveled with the child before, as a bonus.
Duo was side-eyeing him. "Odin."
This. This was the wall Duo and Odin kept hitting at different angles, glancing off each other, and he still wasn't sure why. "Yes."
"Odin is friends with a random little girl and her mom."
"It's… not that random," Adam noted, feeling at a loss.
"It's Heero," Duo hissed.
"…And?" People were people, weren't they? You made connections, and people had other people, and… It just happened.
"So how does he know them?" Duo argued, looking aggravated.
"How do you know a bunch of people in Amsterdam?" he protested. This wasn't a hard concept.
"How do I-" The other man cut himself off, exasperated. "That's a dumb question!"
"Yeah it is," he agreed, moving around him to walk back to where he'd seen the mess. That was the point. "I don't get it." Why is he making a big deal out of it?
"You don't-" Duo cut himself off with a groan this time, stalking after him. "It's Heero, he doesn't…"
He stopped when Duo trailed off, looking back over his shoulder. "He doesn't what?" He felt like maybe they were getting somewhere, but at the same time? What am I missing?
He hated that feeling, like he was out of the loop and everyone just expected him to know – but he didn't, and it made him just want to walk off and leave everyone to their assumptions because fuck that.
But it was Duo. And Duo had been the very first person to be honest with him, who had been so happy just to see him even after he'd admitted to having no idea who either of them were, and-
Movement at the edge of his vision had him turning, and he grinned, raising the hand with the rake in greeting. "I was wondering where you'd gone."
"Audi flew him in to Düsseldorf, and this place is still a decent walk from the station if he took the train from there," Odin explained.
Adam nodded. Driving probably had been the easier route. Shifting to hold both rake and shovel in his left hand, he held out his right. "Jack, right? With the convertible? I'm Adam."
The forty-something quickened his pace for the last few steps to meet his grip and shake. "The car is only a loan," he pointed out. "But yes. I think I saw you too, but, uh…"
But your son was busy giving me the bird? Adam grinned broadly so the man knew he'd caught the rest before letting go. "Yeah. If someone had offered to let me drive a Ruzzi, I'd have run off too." Something ached in his chest, but not in an entirely bad way. "I miss my bike," he decided. Maybe it was time to replace it. With all this Rubato business, maybe he'd even get it legally; he was mostly sure the old one was stolen. Though… Odin was standing right there. "Do you know what happened to it?"
"You threw it at a couple of Romefeller flunkies that were following us."
He blinked. "I threw it?" It had to have weighed at least two hundred kilos.
Odin shrugged. "Got it airborne in the right direction and used it as a springboard," he corrected.
Hm. He did remember at least a part of that, then.
The noise Duo made managed to be both amused and annoyed. "I hadn't heard about that one." He held out his own hand. "Jack, was it?"
Jack took the new shake just as firmly. "You got it."
"Kasey," Duo returned, pulling away and tipping his head at Odin in a silent question.
Odin tucked his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. "Biodad."
Th ex-pilot probably would have had a less dramatic reaction to a sucker punch. "What?!" His eyes huge, he glanced back at Jack before focusing back on their friend. "How?"
"…I think your wife should explain that."
Adam guffawed and moved off to the bear scat he'd noticed earlier, getting out of the way.
"Oh fuck you, that's not…" His groan was pure aggravation. "Hell. And here I thought you spawned out of the freaking ether. Maybe off the dark side of the moon."
An amused huff. "I hadn't been to the moon until I went to break you out."
"Shyeah, real bang-up job that was. I should've guessed." Duo's L2 accent was growing stronger by the second.
"I could've planned it better, but I'm mostly going to blame that on Adam."
"If I don't remember, it doesn't count!" Adam called back.
Duo snorted out a laugh. "Oh, that's convenient!"
"I thought so," he agreed, turning back around to check body language… and note that Jack had followed his cue to pace a few steps back. Smart. Not that they seemed volatile so far, but still.
"Apparently I'm not even spaceborn."
"No…" Duo sounded aghast, even as he laughed some more. "Oh man…" He snorted. "Your… guy must be rolling in the grave."
"He can do a lot more than roll," Odin returned in a darker tone, shoulders tightening. "He-" He cut himself off, pursing his lips. "They… Did anyone see him die? Or am I going to get surprised at some point?"
Duo reeled back. "You don't…? Ah…" Burying a hand in his hair, he admitted, "I didn't literally see him go, but I saw him a few minutes beforehand and had full view of the aftermath. He was at ground zero, and I barely made it out." He gripped his ponytail hard, tone deepening with resolution. "Definitely dead."
Odin's shoulders relaxed again, head tipping back up. "Good."
Watching Duo's eyes narrow, Adam felt something settle. So I'm not the only one getting those vibes. Good to know. "My birth certificate says Brazil," he offered, trying to right the mood again.
Duo groaned. "You too? What the hell, guys!"
Having worked his way around from behind his son, Jack sidled up to Adam and quietly asked, "Memory loss?" He sounded hesitant, but… Also firm.
Not unlike Odin, really.
"I had a bad TBI," he admitted easily. The truth of his injury was harmless enough and hardly a secret; the exact timing and mechanism was what had to be kept under wraps. All the same, while they didn't trust the man yet, Odin was actively working on it, so he didn't have a problem clarifying a bit more. "Everything physical came back fine, but the only memories that I have much of a grip on are tied to emotions – and from what I've picked up, I didn't bother much with those before meeting this lot."
"I can't tell if you just lost your inhibitions or had a definitive personality change," Odin added, starting to walk their way.
That debate had come up before, though not with present company; he hadn't realized Odin knew that much about the more obscure reports on traumatic brain injuries. Maybe he did his own research after waking up from one. Siberia definitely counted. "I'm not sure there's a difference," he pointed out. No one had really known him that well before the amnesia; Odin came closest, so that was as clear as they were going to get. "Anyway, aren't emotions the only thing worth following?"
"Stop quoting me at me. It was only funny the first time."
He blinked. "Wait, really?"
"Why do you think I laughed so hard when Melissa called me to ID you?"
Adam snickered, thinking back. Probably the death line. It had felt familiar.
"Kay, there you are!" a heavily accented voice cried out. "I look everywhere! They went ahead!"
Adam felt more than saw the others turn with him as he looked back on the prettier, less terrifying of Duo's wives. Even kitted out for winter with most of her perfect hourglass hidden away, the little blonde could take your breath away. Somehow, the broken English was more cute than anything.
The man in question sighed. "Sorry, I lost track of time," he called back. Taking a step in her direction, he looked back over his shoulder to the rest of them. "I'll catch you guys later."
"After the show," Adam reminded him. As much as he liked having everyone in his space for once, he needed to run through the new routines with Jojo and Sveta at least twice more to make sure their timing was all in sync. He could improvise, and they could too, but the ladies would be far more comfortable if he didn't push the envelope so hard. Batons and ribbons and the rest weren't new, but the fire aspect added a few complications – psychological ones, if nothing else. He still had a little more time before he was supposed to meet up with them, but not much.
"Yeah, sure." Duo trotted over to Karina and grabbed her hand, talking a mile a minute in Dutch as he pulled her out of the theater… They practically skipped. It was endearing. Usually he mentally listed Melissa as the cute, svelte one and Karina as the cool bombshell, but that moment there? They could've passed for any of the overexcited teenagers come to see the circus. And while Duo might put on an act, he knew them well enough by now to realize that Rina really was just excited enough to bounce.
They were silent for a long beat before Jack let out a low whistle. "That's the wife?"
"Sister," Odin corrected.
…He was going to be forever grateful that Odin, for once, spoke first. Literally for the rest of his life.
Jack shook his head, grinning. "A sister like that is a whole different kind of stress, then."
"Not since the Devils' Get established themselves as a power bloc in Amsterdam," Odin denied. "This trip aside they don't really leave the their quarter, and everyone there knows better."
Sister. Adam blinked, trying to think it through. Opened his mouth once, closed it… Then tried again. "But the ring!" he protested.
Odin shrugged. "She was widowed last year, in the riot." He focused on him, tipping his head to one side… before suddenly his eyes glinted with amusement. "You thought-"
"He acts like that kid is his," Adam protested, feeling himself flush. Oh, Cathy is never going to let me live this down.
"Renee was only six months old; Kasey stepped up. Though with some of the things Melissa's said, I think that even before Luc died the four of them were raising the baby equally. They're… close-knit." A slow smirk stretched its way across his face.
Yeah… Odin had personally labeled Melissa as Duo's wife during that embarrassing phone call where he'd been half convinced the sweeter, far more deadly Mrs. Von Koll was going to take him apart like kindling. Whatever she claimed about needing to have the drop on him to have a chance, 'Liss moved like Duo and was twice as vicious. Duo still believed in chivalry and warning shots – wounding warning shots, maybe, but he gave you the chance to back off. If Melissa wanted you down, you'd never see it coming.
He resolutely turned away from them and tried to focus on cleaning up the shit he hadn't gotten himself into. Forget Cathy, Odin is never going to let me live this down. Though at least Odin didn't gossip like his sister.
…He was going to have to bribe Cathy. Blackmail didn't work on her, she… Ugh. He did not want this getting back to Duo. The women would probably have a good laugh and move on, but Duo would be more embarrassed than he was.
"You really thought that was a thing." Odin's tone was… marveling.
The urge to spin around and smack him with the shovel was tempting. Except it was Odin, and he would dodge, and then he'd feel worse because the other man would give him that look. The same look he as when Mariemaia did something exasperating.
He jammed the blade down in the dirt to free his hands, not looking back. "It was Mrs. and Mrs. von Koll, and when I tried to ask, they talked around it," he defended.
"He's very Catholic," Odin pointed out. "They tithe."
He had no idea what that meant. "Can we never talk about this again?" he tried.
His friend made thoughtful noise. "You don't let me have that option."
"I will if we can change the subject now." There had to be more ghosts in Odin's past that he could pay forward with that promise.
"Ah… Brazil?" Jack tried. "You don't really look it, so… is the circus a multi-generational thing?"
That's kind of him. Odin had probably shrugged an agreement of some kind, but even if they'd gotten far better at it over the last few years, neither of them were decent at conversation. "It is," Adam agreed. "Though apparently Brazil is… well, was, diverse on that front." Who knew what it would be like when people started going back. "Cathy and I are the fifth." The fifth direct generation of performers, at least – this circus wasn't so old as that. Apparently grandpa Bloom had worked with Edwin's mother for long enough that their sons had started the current iteration together. Cathy would manage the troupe after Edwin so long as they could keep the business running, and whoever she roped into giving her children would be incorporated, so it would probably keep going.
He liked to be able to come home. And he enjoyed playing through the acts from time to time. But he also knew he would never be satisfied only performing daredevil stunts, even in a world of peace. So as much as he enjoyed the sanctuary of the circus, that was Cathy's legacy, not his.
"Modern day gypsies, huh?"
"I guess." He looked back over his shoulder to meet the man's eyes before shrugging. "For all I know, we are gypsies – I never asked." Maybe he should, Cathy would know, but… what did genetics mean, anyway? And those ones weren't the most trackable even if he did care. He smirked as an idea occurred to him and he walked the rest of the way over to the scat. "Though if I'm a modern gypsy, Odin's just as bad." Focusing on his friend, he asked, "What's the longest you ever lived anywhere?"
"Hn. Four years, three months."
Adam startled, spinning back around fully. "Really?" That was a lot longer than he'd expected.
Odin looked… subdued. Jack looked as startled as Adam was.
He considered that, looking at the tent around him. The circus moved, but when he was away for too long, he did miss this. Location didn't matter, but the trappings of the tents, the trailers, the scent of the place… That was home. "Do you ever want to go back?" He'd been surprised, the first time that impulse struck him.
"No."
Jack's brows were climbing, and Adam didn't blame him. That was a very fast, concise answer on what should've been a nostalgic topic. Huh. "Okay."
Odin rolled his eyes, shifting his weight into a more casual stance. "It's just a place. And I thought about going back for my stuff in August, but it's gone." He grimaced, meeting his eyes. "Same thing that got you in 195."
Oh. One of the sites Quatre had taken down… all of which had been Operation M facilities. The colony he and Heero had stopped the insane empath from shooting down would have been the first target with heavy civilian casualties, a major escalation, but… He lived at an Operation M facility that long? When did he even join the program? He had enough memory to know he'd never technically been part of Heavyarms' program, just a useful mechanic that had been willing to take a dangerous long-shot on a secret program known for disappearing people, but…
Why did I think that was a good idea? Had there been some kind of ulterior motive, or had he just not cared?
"It's… good," Odin decided. "I didn't want to go back; I just figured I should. But if I'd been able to get the last passport Odin gave me, I probably would've put off checking out the History for Tomorrow Database even longer to do research, and Rubato is on a harsh enough timeline as it is."
Jack's expression was decidedly sketched out. "You had your real passport and didn't know your name or date of birth."
"He handed it to me and told me to disappear into the refugee population and 'go be a normal kid,'" Odin returned darkly. "The fact that he didn't want me anymore didn't leave me inclined to listen, so I did the exact opposite." He grimaced. "And I didn't start thinking it might not be another fake until recently. I never even opened it."
Aaaand now the older man looked like he'd been gut-punched. Good going. "Huh," Adam drawled. "And I thought the whole changeling child soldier bit left me with abandonment issues."
A spark glinted in Odin's eyes. "I thought it didn't count if you didn't remember it."
He snickered. "Artistic license," he parried. "And I remember a bit. There's… a timeline." He waved one hand in a so-so gesture. "Ish." Shrugging, he admitted, "I think everyone I knew as a kid is dead, though."
"My father killed himself to get away from me."
Ow. He considered that for a moment… before pointing out, "You do have a spare."
Odin sputtered out a laugh so hard he choked, doubling over.
Adam grinned and tipped his head at said stunned father with a 'what can you do?' gesture before starting to rake up the shit on the ground. Maybe the idea was helpful, maybe not, but either way it was funny, damn it.
Given the fact that it took Odin almost fifteen seconds to stand up straight and talk again, he honestly felt pretty proud of himself.
"That's not how that works," his friend protested, eyes still bright.
"Since when are you an expert?" Adam argued happily.
"You literally make up your life philosophies on the fly," Odin argued. "Except when you're stealing mine."
"Is it copyright infringement if I didn't know I was doing it?"
"Copy-" Odin cut himself off to start laughing again.
Ooh, that had been easier than he'd expected. Maybe because he'd already been laughing that hard, but also maybe because Odin was constantly playing with and trying to figure out slang in any of the languages he spoke, and blatant misuse of it was funny. Half of Rubato was convinced the pilot was trawling the internet for obscure turns of phrase, but they'd never traveled so much as he and Odin did – and the other pilot never stopped listening to everything around him. If he was looking up phrases, it was only to doublecheck the meanings of what he'd picked up.
And he'd bet that at least a third of the 'juvenile' wording that annoyed Quatre was actually lifted from Noin, given some of the back and forth he'd heard last week. Honestly, that might be half the reason Odin kept pointedly using it – at least, besides the clear amusement in his eyes when Cat gave him a level look. Of course, when it was Lu saying it, she-
Ack.
He tried to redirect his thought back away from the Lady General, but from the feel of his neck, not fast enough. Not helpful. Was it any wonder he'd gotten the wrong idea about Duo? At least he and his one wife had a decent concept of public domain.
…That probably wasn't the right phrase, but he was done thinking about it.
"What?"
Aaaand back to Odin being more observant than anyone appreciated.
"Nope!" He turned his back on them again, trying to see if he'd missed any bear scat.
"You're blushing."
He didn't have to sound so smug about it. But then… well. Maybe he did. That-
No, damn it! His neck was even hotter now, and maybe this was why he'd worn a turtleneck all through the war like a damn uniform, because it was very inconvenient. The interior of the tent was hot enough that he was only in light workout clothes; also he was about to go play with fire and there were multiple reasons why excess clothing was a bad idea.
Actually, this seemed like a perfect time to make his excuses.
"Adam?"
Now Odin was starting to sound genuinely concerned, which was counter to the point of getting him to laugh in the first place. Rolling his eyes, he leaned the handle of the rake against his shoulder and pulled the shovel back out of the ground to use as a dustbin. "It's fine."
"Did-"
"I don't have any problems," he insisted. He'd been startled, but if he hadn't recognized Noin he would have laughed it off entirely. Or maybe paid more attention, honestly, because… Hm.
The whole incident would be a lot easier to put out of his mind if she'd tried to act like nothing had happened the next day, or shown even a hint of embarrassment – instead of pointedly smirking at him while she drank her coffee.
His friend sighed audibly as he moved back into his line of sight. "I have no idea what we're talking about."
"Great!" He lifted the scat with his left hand and braced the handle against his forearm before picking the rake back up in his left and swiveling away – there was a conveniently placed waste barrel just a few yards off. Which made sense – after all, Tatiana had obviously been practicing out here recently.
Odin made an annoyed sound, "Why-"
"I'm just going to finish cleaning up and go meet with the girls for practice," he announced pointedly, willing the other man to take a hint. "Cathy should be out of the shower soon and you can poke at her, or just go join everyone in the concessions. I think Leah might be looking for you, she keeps running off on her mom."
There was a flash in his peripheral as Odin tried to take the rake, but… what happened next was honestly as much of a stumble on a stone that should have been graded out as it was startled reflex. He lost his balance for a moment, regained it, and normally, that would be it. Most people might not have even noticed the compensatory shifts in his core, and anyone who knew him would probably dismiss it as clowning around.
But Odin was close, and while the angle wasn't as good as something he'd carry concealed, the edges of the damn shovel were freshly sharpened… and it was literally covered in filth. So he jerked it back sharply to avoid making contact, because Odin didn't need a new scar across his gut.
Unfortunately, while that quick twist of the wrist moved the tool in time… bear shit was relatively liquid.
…There's no way he's going to believe that was an accident.
Odin blinked a few times, expression darkening as he looked down at the… spray.
Jack either groaned or was choking down a laugh; he didn't turn around to check.
Letting out a slow breath, flexing his hands out to either side to shake off splatter, Odin raised his head back up to glower at him. "This is payback for the mace, isn't it?"
Ah. "If it was, I'd have gotten your face," he denied cheerfully. He'd almost forgotten he was still annoyed about that, actually.
Almost.
"You can use my shower," he offered. It would be annoying to clean afterwards and his sister would give him hell over the mess, but he hadn't actually done it on purpose, so he wouldn't make him hose off first. "Just ditch your clothes outside. Did you leave your duffel in the car or somewhere else?"
Odin grimaced, gingerly pulling his arms back into his shirt before pulling it over his head, turning it inside out to clean off his hands. His undershirt looked clean enough… but as careful as he'd been, he still had scat on the underside of his jaw from the process. Grunting, he balled the material up to scrub at his neck – but evidently felt the fact that he was only making it worse and stopped. "I thought your sister was in the shower," he pointed out, starting on his pants.
She was probably out by now… but Lu had made some bawdy jokes that were also serious about a smokescreen. Jack was an impressive tracker that they did not need barking up the general's tree… and Odin was a terrible liar. He was more focused on getting to know the man so he could be vetted than keeping up a charade – so Adam might as well help out.
And anyway, Cathy would die laughing when she heard.
He shrugged, taking the last two steps to drop what was left on his shovel into the barrel. "It's not like she hasn't seen it before."
Odin paused in the middle of lowering his zipper, eyes growing bright. "I forgot about that."
Oh, perfect. Adam scoffed and made as if to swipe at him with the shovel – because if they were playing that game, how else was a brother supposed to react?
…And a fresh line of droplets splattered over the other man's tank top.
Oops. But hey, it was in character, right?
The noise Odin made was pure aggravation, yet his body language was still relaxed enough that it honestly looked like he was stretching to scratch his lower back… right up until a sharp tug pulled a hidden holster loose. Holding it out to Jack, he asked, "Do you mind?"
The older man took the thing with a shrug, looking bemused as he slid the gun out with deft ease. "Huh. Daewoo."
"Always wanted one," Odin admitted dryly, redoing the button on his jeans and crouching down to start unlacing his boots. "I forget how many times I asked. Odin always got me Tauris instead; I'm not sure why. It was one of the first things I got myself after he died."
Jack's shoulders drooped, but all he said was, "Ah."
Odin glanced up at the tone, appeared to consider asking… then obviously let it go. "My favorite holdout is still a Tauri," he added, standing up and opening his pants again as he toed off his boots, paring down to the thick compression leggings he wore underneath – showing the ankle holster with the aforementioned little gun. "But the Daewoo is…" He paused as he stepped out of his jeans entirely, clearly debating his wording.
"It's a better daily driver," Jack finished, sounding resigned.
Odin's face relaxed into a barely there smile as he undid the straps on his calf. "Yes." After taking a moment to remove a brace of tools wrapped around the opposite leg and detach a combat knife from one boot, he stood back up and held it all out. "Can I get you to grab my duffel from the car?"
Jack didn't hesitate. "Keys?"
After they'd scavenged the keys and everything else he'd had tucked in his pockets and sent Jack on his way, Odin gave him a level look. "Do that again and I'm rubbing your face in it."
Adam bit back the urge to dare him to try – he knew damn well how that would end, and not in his favor. Instead, he rolled his eyes. "It was an accident."
Pulling his undershirt up over his head, Odin pointed out, "I wasn't trying to get you maced either."
"You dodged behind me," he protested.
"Yasa was that way," Odin reminded him. "And my back was already to her. I didn't think you'd still be there." Dropping the shirt, he touched the back of his head and let out another purposefully slow, controlled exhale. "It's in my hair."
"I don't see it," Adam noted, eyeing the dark mop. The other man had opted to dye it all to match his roots instead of touching up the bleach last week. "Why was Yasa a factor?"
Odin's look was incredulous. "Are you joking?"
He frowned. "No?"
The look deepened. "He's twelve."
That seemed… absurdly arbitrary. Especially considering the source. "He's trained," he argued.
"Which is why he's not in the general population," Odin returned, crouching down to gather up the pile of soiled cloth. "He's both talented and disgruntled enough that Rashid decided putting him in school might keep him busy for three months before he started vigilante work."
Okay… "What's wrong with vigilante work?" Most of his hobbies fell under that category.
Standing up, Odin glowered at him. "He's twelve," he repeated. "And it's safer to have a support network." Shaking his head, he turned to head towards the living area of camp.
…And there was that wretched feeling again, that hollowness, that he was missing something as he watched the other man walk away. No! It was a shock to be getting it from Odin, but that also meant he didn't have to let it go. Running to catch up, he demanded. "What am I not getting?"
Odin didn't look back. "I don't know."
"Bullshit!" Adam snapped. Maybe he didn't know in full, but he had something – he wouldn't be this annoyed if he didn't. "Take a guess."
"Hn." He didn't stop walking or look back, but he did slow down. "Audi's trained."
Adam frowned. "Not to Yasa's level."
"It doesn't matter, I trained her," his friend ground out. "And now I have to actively stop her from finding trouble." He grunted again. "She wants to be like me."
"There are worse things."
Odin stopped abruptly and spun to face him, glare in full force. "I am not my father."
Adam stared at him, bewildered. "What does that have to do with anything?"
For a long moment, Odin looked just as lost, even if he was mad… then he shook his head, shoulders drooping. "I don't…" He sighed. "Do you remember being recruited? Why you decided to go?"
"I don't think I was recruited," he admitted. "I was a mechanic on the engineering team and saw the original pilot get shot as a way of stopping the Operation. I was a loose end we tied up when I offered to take his place." His memory of that was fairly vivid.
Odin frowned. "How did you go from a mercenary band member to upper tier mechanic?"
He shrugged. "I have no idea."
The frown deepened. "You said they all died, though?"
He remembered… Seeing the light fade out of the man's eyes. And it didn't… It had been cold? He…
That had been it. He'd been the last.
Trying to get more than that was like grabbing at smoke, but… Nothing had really mattered, after that.
That meant they'd all died, right? Probably? "I think so."
Odin's mouth firmed into a solid line. "How did you make it out, if everyone else died?"
The cross. He could picture it perfectly, solid metal, heavy, nicer than anything he'd ever even touched, even if it was on a cheap cord… and her smile. He'd never… no one smiled like that, did they? 'Now God will watch over you.' Only it was twisted, he hadn't…
The memory was gone as suddenly as it had come, but the aftertaste of revulsion was left behind. "I cheated." He wasn't sure how, but… he'd known that. 'You're not human.'
…That was a really shitty thing to say. The voice was male, older, and upset… but he couldn't help but wonder what he'd done, for someone to say that to him. Whoever it was had said that, and then…
Well, he remembered that when the rest was a fogbank, so that implied strong emotions? But all he felt from the memory was… resigned affirmation?
'Nanashi, can't you look a little sad?'
On second thought, didn't really care what emotions had been attached – they were all shitty anyway. Even that girl's smile, he knew now that the depth of it had been what confused him. He'd seen it in plenty of others since, that she had genuinely cared… but he also felt sick at the idea, because… because she…
Nothing. He had no fucking idea why, but… she had saved him, somehow. And it had been wrong.
But it had also been… a way out. And that twisted something in his chest almost as hard.
Odin sighed, standing fully up straight again as he met his eyes. "I literally can't track how many things I did that could have killed me before 193, and I had a support network. It was… a really negligent support network, but J…" He shook his head as if to clear it. "I didn't think about it like that, and I wouldn't have cared even if someone framed it that way; I was doing what I thought was right, and I figured I was the only one who cared about what happened to me anyway. J didn't send me on any missions that I didn't fully endorse until 194. No one could have talked me out of it. If they tried to stop me, I would have just gone around them.
"But how many trained soldiers did we kill? Even before the war, I… don't have a number. I bombed a set of barracks in 194. It all went sideways, and even the civilian collateral count… There's too many ways to pare the fault, so I just settled on the highest number. But I can't let myself think about that, it doesn't help anything, so I just…"
And it clicked. "You want them to be better than you," he realized.
"I want them to have choices," Odin temporized, for all that he nodded. "I can't stop them from picking fights, I won't take that away either, but… They should know someone is looking out for them. That people will care if they're hurt, that they're not both the first and last line, that someone will finish the job if they want to back off, who won't-" He cut himself off, shaking his head. "It makes a difference. I always thought it was me or nothing – and then there were four others with the same orders. That it was me or the colony – and it was a relief to just be done. Except when I woke up, I had to find a new coping mechanism."
Adam snorted. "Is that what we're calling it?"
Odin smirked. "I don't think it was in my list of explanations already."
"I still prefer 'existential crisis.'"
"That's because you're good at those."
He snorted out a laugh. Ooh, ouch. Not wrong, though.
Smirking, Odin shoved the bundle of clothes into Adam's arms, and he reflexively grabbed it before he thought about it. "Hey!"
"I'm not kicking your ass for covering me in shit," Odin remined him, turning to walk away again. "Give me at least five minutes to tell Cathy I'm an old conquest of hers before you let Jack follow."
He snickered at the reminder of the ploy. All the same though… "Not the other way around?"
Odin snorted, not looking back as he called, "Have you met your sister?"
He started laughing outright.
oOo
oOo
Paris, France
"It sounds like you enjoyed yourself," Ardith decided, not bothering to hide his grin.
"I did," Rachelle returned in much the same tone. "Even when the stories you source me aren't the juiciest, they're always satisfying." She took a long drink from her water glass. "I'm glad you came out of retirement."
Retirement. He bit back the urge to laugh. It wouldn't be one of his more pleasant varieties, and he tried to keep his claws sheathed with pretty ladies – especially useful pretty ladies like the reporter. He liked her besides; she'd always given him enough sass to keep him coming back to her even when he had better opportunities to spread gossip… and Shel had always made it worth the time spent. And she'd been steadily rising in the world in any case – at this point, she probably was the best option they had for the initial waves of directed media spin. The fact that he enjoyed her company and it would serve to benefit her career too only made the deal sweeter.
"It's been a rough couple of years," he acknowledged. For all that he hadn't been an American citizen, he'd been in the states when the evacuations began, and the papers he'd had on him said he'd been born in Ohio… and there had been no clear route out of the refugee camp the Regime had dropped him in. Colder or not, the Sahara had still been a desert – and he'd always been a city boy besides. There wasn't much call for his skillset in rural communities, after all. He'd hopped a couple camps, then realized he was going in the wrong direction, and the communities were small enough to get suspicious if you moved too fast…
And then Cambyses had come.
On the bright side, the ability to smile, lie convincingly, and manipulate idiots had been equally useful in the desert as in a con. Then along came Robby, who saw right through him and was thrilled, and…
Well. They were all out now, and Cat, frankly, was far more fun than Robby. And not only because they were no longer riding the edge of death, though that was a significant bonus. With the resources they had available to them, it might have been boring, if it weren't for this grand scheme of theirs to twist public opinion. Not all leverage was direct, after all. And given the long-term goal in ousting at least the current iteration of the Regime, it was best to prepare the ground.
Laying out all the groundwork was going to take more time than he'd ever bothered with before. But at the same time? Quatre's scheme was on a scale he never would have imagined, and the rush was better than ever.
"That's all you're going to give me?" she pouted, trying for coy.
"For now," he agreed. Depending on how the next few tipoffs and stories went, how the government and public reacted, he didn't doubt he would hand her enough clues to sort out just where he'd been missing – but they had to get there first, and it could still flop. They had other avenues to pursue, if it did… But he did like Shel. Quatre was sorting more direct means of controlling the media, shares and jobs and bribes, but... Well, that was Cat's game, not his.
"Hm." She rested her chin in one hand, giving him a lazy smile. "You've never taken me to dinner without a new tip to tantalize me with before," she reminded him.
He smirked. "I wasn't about to start," he assured her. "Food first, though." He had a few different options for direction on the intel they could leak… but he wanted a better feel for her interest before settling on which one. The embezzling scheme on the nonprofit organization he'd pointed her towards had been a good way to test the waters, but if they wanted this done right, the footwork would get more delicate
And there was no reason to destroy the ambiance of dinner with a lovely lady. He'd gone without the company of the fairer sex for long enough – better to appreciate the finer things in life.
She gave him a tolerantly amused look… and picked up her menu.
oOo
oOo
Krefeld, Germany
The little girl giggled and squealed in that way only small children could, bright and infectious. "Again, again!"
"Ma?"
Jack licked his lips, eyeing the young woman standing near him. "Him doing this doesn't worry you?"
Leah shrieked again. "Shuv!"
"Less than when her father used to do it," Anne decided, watching Odin toss her daughter in the air again with a tolerant expression. "Though it's been a few years."
Yeah, because usually parents stopped throwing kids up in the air to catch them when they were toddlers, if they ever did it at all. Leah looked about six and was getting enough airtime to stop his damn heart. But Anne was the kid's mom, so…
"For the sake of clarity," the woman continued, "this isn't… spontaneous. See how she's holding her legs the same way with each fall?" She shook her head. "I do trust him, but this game started off with a mattress to land on. My parents have this big, vaulted ceiling in their bedroom, and… well. They built up to this."
…What? That was a bizarrely intimate sort of detail, and… he'd caught the woman's name from hearing the others talk, not an actual introduction. And while maybe he should just bite the bullet and ask…
No one was offering last names. They didn't seem to be hiding them either, exactly, Adam had mentioned Kasey's, but… He didn't know the rules here. And for the moment, at least, he was having a really hard time not focusing on the small child sometimes getting close on two meters up.
Odin was evidently strong as well as fast. And also implicitly trusted with small children.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm working on it," Jack returned, watching as Odin laughed and spun the girl around him once before setting her on her feet – where she immediately stumbled – to wipe sweat from his brow. He felt something akin to relief at seeing some sign of exertion, but he was too aware of just how long and hard of a workout that must have been for that to truly level out his thoughts.
The dark-eyed twenty-something let out a soft chuckle, stepping slightly more into his field of view and offering him a gentle smile. "You get used to him. Mostly. You're his father, right?"
Then there was that. Adam had been overly casual about throwing the word around and Odin didn't seem to mind, but the friendship between those two was just as antagonistic as it was friendly, in a brotherly 'how much can I annoy you before you try to hit me' way. Peers, and close, but… not as solid of a bond as he'd seen with Cat? Or at least, it had an entirely different flavor to it. "That's not the word he uses," Jack temporized.
"No, but he refers to my mother as his 'not-Mom' on the rare occasion that he doesn't just call her by name." There was a smile layered into the other woman's voice. "I've known more than a few polyglots, but never one so fixated on the connotative meaning of a word over the denotative."
It clicked, and something loosened up in his chest. He turned to meet Anne's eyes fully. "Moira? She's…?"
"My mom," Anne confirmed again, looking bemused. Gesturing back towards the others, she added, "Leah's the only grandchild so far, so my folks like to spoil her rotten." Her smile turned indulgent. "Odin helps."
He glanced back to consider the rapid-fire conversation in something very foreign between his son and the girl as Odin shook his head and corrected her stance on a stretch he was leading her through. On the bright side, these two seem very normal. That boded well. Adam had made absolutely zero effort to mask his threat level for all that he'd been playful, and he didn't have a good read on Kasey yet… though based on what he'd overheard earlier, the three of them were at least war buddies. And Adam clearly saw both Odin and Kasey as peers, so… That was interesting? But at the same time, Junior had already made it clear that his wartime friendships were something he was particularly invested in, so it wasn't surprising.
All the same, he could do with a dose of 'normal'. And while he didn't think he'd ever heard the language his son was currently using – it was half or more in the throat, oddly – he'd been given enough clues to make a guess. "Is that Hebrew?"
Anne nodded. "I found a school for her that will run primarily in English as we ease her into more German, but I haven't had the time to look for a decent day school yet," she explained, looking a little run-down. "I wasn't impressed with the one being run through the closest synagogue and… she's five. I can put off her religious studies for a couple of months until my mom has a chance to settle in and put feelers out. But Odin's fluent, and it's a point of familiarity for her when he's around without being overwhelming all the time when there's still everything else, so he's holding her to it for me." She smiled again. "She wants his attention enough that she'll jump through hoops for it, and it's… good. Healthy." She smirked. "I told him that once I found a Hebrew school, I could keep her lessons for him, so he'd be literate. You should've seen the look on his face. I can't decide if he thinks I'm being ridiculous or if he's actually going to go learn the written part of the language just to stick it to me. He can be tricky to read."
He smiled, even as something ached. He'd never had Jake long enough to relate to working through those kinds of logistics. I'm here now, he reminded himself.
A burst of French caught his attention as a group of ladies strode into view – performers from the show, given their exodus from the living part of camp, freshly cleaned up and out to socialize. One cupped her hands around her mouth to call out something he couldn't quite make out, but the body language was clearly teasing… and Odin rolled his eyes before saying something back that…
That was not French. Or… Maybe a dialect out of Africa?
The woman was chattering something back now, before another interrupted her in… something with Russian roots, maybe, and some happy bickering ensued between the women as the latter broke into a fast jog to outrace the others and Odin said something else that was… maybe the Russian-ish one?
"What was that?" she protested in English, giggling as she darted around him to avoid the first.
Odin stood his ground and let it happen, though there was a hint of a smile on his face. "Nothing helpful," he decided.
"I could almost understand it," she agreed, squawking as her friend pinched her, slapping at the other woman's hands. "Come on, Eila, I didn't-" She squeaked again, then stomped hard into her friend's personal space, making 'Eila' howl with laughter before darting back towards the others. "Try again?"
Odin repeated it… and she made a face. "Maybe it's another dialect? I was hoping for an accent, but yours is…"
He snorted. "I can't mellow it unless I'm surrounded by one to mimic." He shrugged. "I still sound off, though, even in my primaries – just less so." He shrugged. "And I might just have it wrong. It's… a problem."
"Oh?"
"His Dutch makes sense maybe a quarter of the time," a new voice agreed. "The German he mixes in is easy enough to pick out, but I have no idea what else he's using."
Jack barely managed to contain a visible jump at the Kasey's sudden appearance. When the fuck did he get here? He'd thought he could see all the approaches on their position, but…
Odin tipped his head to one side in his friend's direction, utterly relaxed. "Norwegian, maybe."
What?
Kasey was on the same page. "Why Norwegian?"
Odin shrugged. "I can hear everything when I go to further north, but the last time I tried talking back the woman rolled her eyes, switched languages, and told me I was 'awful short for a Nordmenn.'"
Kasey snorted, rubbing a hand along his jaw. "You are short."
Odin smirked. "Hasn't stopped me yet."
And now he wondered if Junior knew Finnish. Unfortunately, his own knowledge of the language was limited to endearments and the cutesy talk Rhea had used with Jake as an infant, not anything approaching conversational. Though considering the fact that Jake knew even less then he did, he suspected Senior stopped speaking it altogether after his sister died.
"Odin!"
They all looked in the direction of the voice… in time to see Eila get launched quite high in the air with the assistance of someone else in the group.
Leah, unsurprisingly, gasped and started tugging at his son's hand, squeaking excitedly.
"You need a net for that," Anne immediately interjected.
"I would need to know how to do it first, but yes."
The performer standing with them smiled. "You're strong, Odin, but you've got no technique. Want to fix that?"
"I'm not a professional," he pointed out. Leah squeaked again, practically vibrating, and he smiled. "But sure." He snorted, shaking his head. "If she thinks I can do it, Audi will ask next. I've boosted her up for a handhold enough times, but we haven't done anything aerial."
"Yeah, about that," Kasey cut in dubiously. "When exactly did you start collecting little girls to throw around?"
"About the same time you became an uncle."
The tall blonde made a disgruntled noise. "Don't throw Renee like that."
Junior's expression was irritated. Amused in a sardonic way too, but definitely irritated. "Even if you hadn't gone out of your way to never allow a scenario where I might touch your niece, I wouldn't. Leah has been in gymnastics since she was three; she has enough core control that Henrietta asked if she wants to try playing on a low slackline." He shook his head. "I wouldn't throw anyone like that without knowing they could control the way they came back down." Rolling his eyes, he leaned down over said little girl and murmured something foreign before the two of them started off in the direction of the acrobats. The woman they'd been chattering with hesitated a moment, then darted after them.
Before Jack could decide if he should follow her example or deal with the awkward stranger pissing his kid off, Anne snorted. "Wow. I wasn't sure he could even get annoyed. I thought you were friends."
Kasey sighed, covering his face with his hands before dragging them down. "I honestly have no idea what we are, it's just… something. He was really different, before."
"He's really different now from when I met him, and that was a little over a year ago," Anne informed him. "Audi and my mom were the only ones he smiled for, back then." She shook her head. "I can't imagine what he was like in 195. How much have you changed in the past three years?"
Kasey made a face. "Not that much. But enough, I guess." He sighed. "How did you meet him anyway?"
The little Jewish woman looked wholly unimpressed. "You haven't talked to him at all, have you?"
"I have! But he doesn't really…" He blew out a deep breath. "He doesn't volunteer anything, and whatever else is new, that isn't."
"Have you asked?"
Kasey drew himself up, looking offended… then froze. And started muttering some frankly vile suggestions in Japanese that were… anatomically impossible.
Anne rolled her eyes. "I think you're a shitty friend, but he still cares, so maybe work on that."
The cursing became more creative… but the young man also spun on one heel, long ponytail flying out behind him, to stride after the others.
Jack's new friend rolled her eyes again, crossing her arms before turning to give him a wry smile. "Let's give that a few minutes, huh?"
He didn't disagree with that point… but there had been enough emotional savvy in that whole interaction to leave an impression, along with a few hints for her style of humor. So in lieu of arguing, he demanded, "Tell me how to impress your mother."
She laughed, delighted. "Oh, you're just as direct! How is that genetic?"
He'd had that thought about a handful of subjects himself. "My relationship with my other son's foster mom was utter shit," he explained. Amarianna had been a manipulative bitch in general, but, it hadn't taken long after she died for him to realize the woman had been a tempering influence on Jake. To get a second chance, especially with what he'd picked up so far? "I am willing to do practically anything to win this woman's approval," he admitted.
Anne laughed softly, shaking her head. "You're doing fine; just respect his boundaries." She shrugged a little. "And it's not… like that either. Mom claimed him and he doesn't dispute it. He comes to her for advice, and wants her safe – it's why we're moving to Germany, after all. But they're not… Well. It's not as quite the relationship that I think has been implied. It's just the closest he has to the real thing; we've been trying to get him to acknowledge it enough that he'll lean into it more." She smirked. "If you're worried, Audi's opinion probably matters the most, along with…" She frowned. "Well. Cat, I suppose. A few others. He values my mom and… treats her like sanctuary? There's a certain comfort he finds with her, but he's only just begun to acknowledge it."
She… hadn't been about to say Cat. She'd recovered fairly well, made it look like thoughtful deliberation instead of an aborted topic, but he'd seen it. Hm. He thought of how the timing for faded bruises on Junior's neck on the road trip matched up decently well with the Israel visit… and of the newest, most livid lovebite his son had behind his right ear, again, that he was starting to wonder if it ever got a chance to heal. Of the deeper, gentler smile he'd caught that first visit, directed to someone on the phone – a smile he hadn't seen since.
That was… a thought. But it was also a subject Junior had declared off limits, so… Respect his boundaries. If it was what he suspected he would find out eventually, and if it wasn't… well, he would still find out eventually. In any case, he did not want to fuck this up.
Especially with what the next handful of weeks were going to look like. Hopefully only a handful of weeks. Otherwise… Well, he'd figure it out.
"I think I'm doing pretty good with Audi," he announced, tucking his hands into his pockets. "Haven't had much chance yet, with Cat." The empath had only been around intermittently during that first visit, usually not interacting with Jack directly, and he hadn't heard anything about him since.
"He's in deep space doing logistics for Da Capo," Anne explained. "I'm not sure when he's due back."
"Ah, that makes sense." He'd made a new exception for his 'no news' policy for anything related to Rubato, despite how noninvolved Junior claimed to be. Da Capo was awe-inspiring as a concept, let alone all the work involved in it. Maybe… Mm. He still didn't want to go to space. Not long-term, at least. Especially since Junior hadn't shown any inclination to leave Earth.
Abrupt motion in his peripheral brought his attention back to the boys – where Kasey was visibly reeling back from Odin. His son, for his part, looked… Done. Very done. Then Kasey was shaking his head, leaning back in and gesturing wildly, for all that the rest of his body language was conciliatory. His son dropped his head back, and must have said something because Kasey was reacting again, shaking his head and burying his hands in his hair… then abruptly laughing. Not just a chuckle either, a deep, genuine, infectious laugh, and when Junior shifted his weight, Jack could see that he was smirking.
"Oh, that's promising," Anne murmured. "I was starting to worry."
He hadn't been able to make heads or tails out of anything to do with the Dutch man yet. "Yeah?"
Anne hummed. "Your son has maybe five or six people that he would do anything for without a thought – and Kay is the first he ever drew that line for. They're very different men on nearly every point beyond the strength of their convictions, but at the same time they… they mesh in a way that you don't usually see outside of romance."
"Oh good, I was wondering about that," he admitted. Once Odin had cleaned up, they'd wandered the carnival for a few hours with Audi and the von Kolls, and… the dynamic was odd. He also completely understood how Adam had gotten mixed up about the wives thing, because the interactions within the family were misleading as hell. Obvious to see the differences if you knew, but… there weren't so much lines as varied shades of reflection.
Anne let out a snort. "I'm mostly sure it never went that way?" Another snorting laugh. "They'd probably be less of a mess if they had been together, instead of sliding into each other's space like they'd been doing it their whole lives, then both being confused by how the other reacts after the moment's passed." Shrugging, she finished with, "And Kay missed… a lot. Odin was holding himself together by the barest of threads when they met, but from how he acts, I don't think Kasey knows that."
Jack grimaced as he digested that, watching the two interact. They looked more comfortable now, at least – still combative, but playful instead of sharp. "He's that oblivious?"
She snickered. "Probably? But… no. Mom says Odin basically had no idea how to interact with people when he first got to Jerusalem, except maybe through physical action. I think he just didn't." Her voice turned thoughtful, and warm. "He's a good kid, but he's still figuring out how to people, if that makes any sense. Audi's done more on that front than the rest of us put together, but it's a process He's not even anti-social, which is the real surprise – we'd all assumed, but he likes people, he's just… off. Which is a big part of…" She gestured back to the bantering young men.
A few more pieces clicked into place. Given the rough history Junior had outlined on their road trip… Three years, maybe four since he got his first friend… who he's apparently been off on the wrong foot with. "You're saying he has the emotional intelligence of a kindergartener," he clarified.
The noise Anne made was irate. "No, definitely not. The range is there, just…" She hummed. "His… It's learned, not developmental. I don't know if it's from the first Odin or some kind of trauma, maybe both, but…" Her next hum was more positive, as if she'd had an epiphany. "He has the emotional education of a grade schooler, maybe. Or he did in 195; he's catching up fast."
That makes more sense than anything I've come up with so far, he decided. More importantly though? Gesturing to show he was going to start walking after the rest, he asked, "How long have you been in psych work?"
"Hah!" She skipped a step as she caught up, shoving her hands into her pockets. "I got pregnant right as I finished my degree, and none of my focus on veterans was going to lead to a job I was comfortable with when Leah was so young, especially since we didn't want to leave the Berlin area until Matthew finished his schooling. So I went with my second area of interest, and ended up a school counselor. It worked after Matthew got the job offer in New York too, so I kept up my licensure while working part-time." She sighed. "When the Fall happened, at least there was no question about where we'd go. My husband is from the States, but he was already an orphan when we met in university, and our long-term plans were always to live closer to my parents, though we weren't sure if it would see them move, or us." She smirked. "Turns out it's both."
Jack nodded companionably, raising his brows. "Kid and veteran focus, huh?"
Anne grinned. "And now you see why I have a job with Rubato. Aside from family connections – I'm actually perfectly qualified. A lot of these kids…" She shook her head. "Did you know that over seventy percent of the Cambyses survivors are under twenty?"
"I hadn't, but I believe it." It probably boiled down to statistics – they called him part of 'the missing generation,' but the sex disparity wasn't a factor with teenagers. Even though Cambyses had taken men of any age, they had started from a mixed population… and there would have been more boys than men in the refugee camps.
Most of the surviving men had already been in someone's army, after all.
"It's sad, but… well, Rubato's talk about the future isn't just rhetoric. If we don't figure some of this out, I have no idea what things are going to look like by the time Leah's sixteen. I want to help fix it." She made a face. "Matthew took a job in England not long after the Fall, but the company crumbled under the weight of the economy – it's why we didn't meet Odin or Cat the first time around. We ended up back in my parents' house for the second time in as many years before he found something local and we got our condo…" She trailed off, sighing again. "We like Germany, though. And we'll have a yard here, and our house is walking distance from my parents… the schools are good, even if I wasn't thrilled with the temple. I just hope we don't end up needing to move again now that Leah's starting first grade. She hasn't cared so far, but now that she's in a true class I'm hoping she'll make some long-term friends."
"Uprooting all the time can be hard," he agreed. "Though… as much as I worried, I don't think that was actually a problem with my boys." He grimaced. "Not that I got to raise them, and not that they don't have problems, but…"
Anne let out another short laugh. "But it's not that problem," she agreed. "At least with Odin; every child is different, though. All you can do is try." She shook her head. "He's doing well with Audi, at any rate. Whatever he's been through, he's determined to not pass it on."
"I'd noticed that," he agreed, though that wasn't all he'd picked up. With all her talk of her travels since the Fall and the timeline Odin had given him? She said she'd missed Odin and Cat on their first run through. Not Odin, Cat, and Audi. Junior had been vague before, but he'd assumed Audi was included when they first met Moira…
But he did say she adopted him, and that she would have Cat too if he hadn't disappeared, he realized, feeling more confident. No mention of the girl. So he'd adopted her after getting nursed back to health and fostered. Which… was probably a good thing, and made a lot of little things make sense. That's less than two years, then.
He felt another stirring of hope. With that timeline, his own chances really weren't that bad.
They were close enough that he could hear a stray word or two of the boys' chatter now, enough to recognize that Kasey could do more than curse in Japanese… though no one else was reacting to their conversation. Do none of them speak it? It was amusing to realize both his sons might have that habit with their close friends, especially living down on Earth where the language was verging on extinct. It was a very competitive language in the colonies, the L1 engineering industries had seen to that, but down here… Well, the loss of Japan in the Fall had been the final nail in the coffin.
They had always intended to raise Jake to be bilingual, since L1 tended to use both English and Japanese interchangeably. They'd talked about adding others, but it had always been pushed off to 'later' – Rhea might have used snippets of Finnish, but she hadn't been trying to teach it. When Jack had been taken away, Jake hadn't favored one language over the other; when he'd found them again, his son had been fluent in at least five. Junior, though…
Junior had never said a word to him until last month. Jake claimed the boy started talking at the normal time, but even Odin hadn't been able to quote anything the boy had said directly to him in the last six months, when Jack showed up. He had heard the boy talk to Jake a few times during those sixteen months before Odin had vanished with him, but so softly it was near inaudible. He'd never even been able to make out enough of the sounds to tell which language he'd used.
And Odin hadn't seen anything disquieting about that. Then again, according to Jake's story about the crayons and bank numbers, Odin had apparently left a five-year-old as the regular caretaker of his toddler brother often enough that the boys didn't blink at being left alone for over five hours. He didn't care that they'd been safely inside the Khushrenada estate – that was negligent and painted a hell of a backdrop on their daily lives. Because if that was normal, if the kindergartener automatically cleaning up after the toddler without thought or complaint was completely normal, what the fuck else was?
Jake didn't seem to realize just how bright of a light that little story shone on his childhood; how much it had helped Jack realize about his son's psyche. Because a seven-year-old helping with the four-year-old as much as Jake had was a dutiful son being a good brother. But if Junior had been two, then Jake had been five, and that young, and the degree of involvement that had been implied? It had to have started at four or maybe even three. Which meant Odin had effectively turned Jake into a co-parent when he was only a toddler himself.
It was no fucking wonder that Jake had been so bizarrely possessive of his brother. There were a multitude of reasons why preschoolers shouldn't be in charge of babies, but people usually focused on the physical problems. Given that they'd survived those, that still left the psychological concerns – and he'd focused too hard on the obvious what the fuck flags he'd gotten from Junior instead of recognizing the breadth of Jake's anxiety. It was no wonder the boy had been so terrified of losing control; that strict regulation of his environment had probably kept them alive more than once. Given the things Odin had done with them, the places they'd been… When Odin said he didn't trust anyone with the boys, Jack had assumed he meant it in the broad sense, not literally. But if he took it at face value? And the more Jake talked, the more proof came up that Amarianna was probably the only exception?
Either Odin had left an extremely young child to watch an infant very often, or he had taken them on jobs and the fact that Junior was extraordinarily quiet might be the only reason either of his sons made it to four years old. He'd run himself in circles about it for days after that conversation on Christmas, and he still couldn't decide which was worse. Rhea had described being left with this or that watcher as a child, friendly neighbors of the month, professional sitters or nannies, or sometimes at play areas with heavy security. He'd just assumed…
But Rhea had been almost three when her brother found their mother dead and taken her in. And while Odin had visited when Jake was tiny before everything had gone to hell, he hadn't… Well. The more stories Jake brought up from that part of his childhood, the more he realized how badly his brother-in-law had lost his fucking mind. That, and just how many wrong assumptions he'd made trying to palate the situation, which had only gotten himself in deeper and deeper.
Either way, the psychological fallout of Junior's early years was fucking heavy on both boys… but looking at them both as adults, Jake seemed to have taken the brunt of it. It was much easier to appreciate his firstborn's rage about being taken away after realizing Jake had always viewed Junior as his child. That wouldn't have made separating them any less necessary, but if he had understood that before… He could relate. Maybe they could have had an actual conversation about it and gotten somewhere instead of… the last fifteen years.
I can work on it now, he reminded himself again. Jake was mellowing, and as much as Des suggested it was Relena's doing, he favored the knowledge of Junior's survival. In reality he was sure it was both, but… Everything was easier knowing the kid was alive. He's alive, mentally stable, raising a sane kid, and has multiple friendships on the same tier as Jake and David. The friends might be dangerous as fuck, but… well, so be it. Given Jake's unconditional fascination for competence in any field, it wasn't surprising that the same focus would translate out in Junior. Even if he didn't remember his early formative years, they'd still happened, whether or not he had access to the memories themselves.
Kasey had dropped an arm around Junior's shoulders now, and while Junior wasn't leaning into it, he wasn't pulling away. It mostly read as awkward – but the kind of awkward you tried to muddle through, not avoid.
"-both been trying to get through to me about that today," Kasey murmured, his left hand coming up to rub at the back of his head in a sheepish gesture. "Sorry."
Odin shook his head, though there was an ever so slight twist of amusement to his mouth. "I was trying to respect your rules."
"Yeah, well, try less hard. I can be as bad at noticing things as you are at explaining them."
Junior's eyes lit up, and his lips twitched into a smirk. "That's pretty bad."
Kasey groaned, pulling away with a little laugh. "Don't I know it!" Waving at the girl who had been talking about languages with Odin earlier, he called, "Hey, Polina! Eileia! I want to learn too!"
Another of the women, a blonde with whiskey amber eyes smirked, looking him up and down. "Feeling left behind, are we?"
He rolled his eyes. "Low blow, Chanel."
"But not wrong," Odin noted, still smirking.
Kasey snorted. "Yeah, what else is new, it's you." He laced his fingers together and stretched his arms out in front of him, cracking his neck. "If I let a little thing like pride drop me, I'd be long dead. What do I do first?"
Odin shook his head, starting to tug off his long-sleeved thermal shirt. "Warm up. I know you're not a novice, but the parkour and maneuvers you're used to might not translate."
"I still want to see the net," Anne announced pointedly.
Polina waved a hand at her. "The Blooms are already on it; they're getting the mats set up instead. It's better footing for beginners; no reason to have you start at a height anyway."
"Keep going!" Eila – Eileia? – catcalled, letting out a whistle even as she started to laugh.
Odin snorted and threw his balled up shirt at her. "No."
"You invited that," the one man in the group of performers pointed out dryly.
"I'm already sweating," Odin argued, catching the shirt as it was tossed back and using it to wipe at his neck. "I'd rather have full range of motion."
"Oh, so that's your excuse for being half naked during the war?" Kasey teased in Japanese, leaning into the deep lunge he'd dropped into.
Odin smirked. "It's just skin. With how much you covered up, it was obvious you were hiding something."
"Yeah, I was. Like body armor. And all the gear in my pockets."
Odin tipped his head thoughtfully. "Pockets are nice," he acknowledged.
Kasey laughed. "I could never figure out where the hell you kept your gun, even. I just left it off as you being you until I saw your sister pull her phone out of nowhere."
The sound his son made was irritated. "She needs to stop doing that." He frowned. "Have you never had a good conceal carry holster?"
"…That's it? Seriously?"
"…I'll get you one." His frown deepened. "Melissa too."
"'Liss doesn't carry regularly."
"Better late than never."
Kasey stood long enough to swap sides, gliding back into the same lunging stretch with a grace that frankly slithered – he did a decent job covering it up with most of his movements, but Jack was getting a glimpse of just how the brat had snuck up on him. "Not much call for guns in the Quarter," he pointed out. "Too loud."
"'Not much' isn't 'never,'" Odin returned. "The only time Audi has ever needed hers was when she was helping you."
"I didn't ask her to do that!"
"You don't ask me either, and I still show up."
Kasey flinched at that, his face in a damn rictus… before relaxing bonelessly into something close to forward split, shaking his head. "Yeah. You do, don't you?"
More tension eased out of Junior's shoulders. "You could ask, instead of leaving it to guesswork."
"I don't usually know until I know."
"And yet it's Adam or your wife calling me for your gigs."
"I memorized your number after Rotterdam," Kasey protested.
Odin let out a disbelieving chuff of a laugh, turning away. "Okay."
Kasey's eyes grew wide, face shifting into deep unease. "What?"
Odin acted like he hadn't heard him, moving towards the others. "Koen, can you show me how you did that?"
Jack felt just as stuck as Kasey looked, staring after Junior with a lost expression. Then the kid cursed again and rolled to his feet in yet another uncharacteristic moment of absolute grace… to dart after his friend with literally none whatsoever.
"How much of that did you understand?" Anne asked.
Jack shook his head. "Hearing and understanding are separate points," he countered. He was going to have to digest it, and the details were… either over his head without context, or things he was going to refuse to contemplate in depth because lack of context.
But outside of that? Apparently Junior had inherited Senior's exact brand of passive aggressive moue alongside his temperament. The backbeat of that conversation was really fucking familiar.
"Hey!" His son's baby sister – who was, hilariously, taller than both of them – bounced up to him, looking excited. "Are we doing acrobatics?"
Jack blinked, looking first the way she'd come – apparently she'd outpaced the von Koll women on their way over, but the boys were nowhere to be seen – then towards the group, and shrugged. "Odin is, at least."
"What did I say?"
"Don't worry about it," Odin dismissed, not shifting his focus from the one male performer present – Koen? – who was shifting his weight from one stance to another, murmuring too low for Jack to pick out the words.
Audi blinked a few times, then narrowed her eyes. "What did he do?"
Ah, so she knew this dance too. He considered… but it was Audi, so what the hell. "How often does Kasey call your brother?"
The look she gave him was bewildered. "Never?"
"Ah." He grimaced, looking back to Anne, shrugging. "Better late than never?"
"I'm going to fucking worry about it, come on! At least let me know what I'm bent up about!"
Audi frowned. "That's Japanese, right?"
Odin made a placating gesture and turned away from Koen to glower at Kasey. "No. Get over it."
"You can't just-"
"I can," Odin cut in, switching back into the language. His voice quiet but rock hard, eyes flat. "I know what I think. I know what I want; what I will do. Your opinion won't change that. So think what you like." The corner of his mouth twitched as a tired sort of humor glinted in his eyes. "I'll still show up." He shook his head and turned away again. "Even when I don't rank as a last resort."
…Well, that's an effective last word. Kasey was pale, staring at his back… and Jack was mostly caught on the sincere, absolutionist devotion loaded into that statement, despite the general pissiness otherwise. It felt like a defining moment.
Jake defined himself by that concept too. So apparently Senior had had a few good things to pass on.
Audi raised one brow, considering Kasey. "I think he broke him."
The brunette Mrs. von Koll huffed out a laugh, handing Renee back to her blonde counterpart. "He mends." Shaking her head, eyeing her husband, she asked, "Any idea what it was about?"
"He's a shitty friend," Anne announced nonchalantly, crossing her arms.
Melissa looked nonplussed. "Odin finally got annoyed with his pedestal, then?"
Anne's brows crinkled with a hidden smile. "I was thinking more like 'double standard,' but yes."
Melissa shook her head. "It was overdue." She started towards him. "Kay?"
Her husband covered his face with his hands and garbled out something that was probably Dutch, looking miserable.
Whatever she was saying in response, Melissa didn't look all that sympathetic.
"Ooookay," Audi decided. "I'm going to ask Laura what I should focus on."
Sidestepping the whole issue. Smart. That was probably the higher road, here. "I'll come with you."
oOo
oOo
Benghazi, Libya
Relena sighed as the door shut she finally entered the private space again. It was just the town car, but it was enough.
Four days ago, she had been excited for the little pomp and ceremony they'd just wrapped up. And that hadn't gone away, exactly – it was exciting to officially reopen part of the Sahara, especially with all the changes. The more western regions would take another handful of weeks, but the terraforming through Egypt and Libya was done, and it truly was stunning. Then the game with Sylvia was as amusing as it was invigorating, especially since they were finally getting somewhere on the personal front, but at the same time…
The expiration date on their government was looming, and it washed the color out of literally everything. She was exhausted, and they'd barely even begun the dance that would see her through the next six weeks.
Jake made a needy, almost wounded noise, pulling her close. "Hey, it was good," he soothed, combing his fingers through her hair. "We're good."
She knew that, and she hated the fact that him telling her made her want to shake more, but damn it all, they were balancing on the edge of a cliff. Instead of answering, she tucked her head against his chest, closing her eyes.
It hasn't as soothing as she would like, however, given the faint but noticeable wheeze and rattle in his chest. She grimaced.
Jake either felt it or just knew the path her thoughts would take next, because his shoulders drooped. "Tch. I'm fine." He rubbed his hands up and down her arms a few times before gripping her hands in his again, running his thumbs over her knuckles. "It's hardly even bronchitis, not pneumonia, and I'll be over it before the big moves start. You're fixating."
She was, but she didn't really want to acknowledge that point. It was easier to think about the cough he'd given himself being a bloody moron in the snow than the bigger threat. "What if he doesn't believe you?"
"Then we'll figure something else out," he reminded her. "But if you really think I can't con your brother by now, I'm going to be hurt." He coughed, the sound closer to a clearing of his throat than sickness, and pressed the side of his face to the top of her head.
"That's not the point and you know it," she returned grumpily, slumping into him a little more. It didn't matter whether it was believable or not – she fully trusted that Jake could spin that. The problem was that Milliardo could still just decide something in spite of logic or proof, and the stakes-
Jake sighed, slouching a little more himself – his chest shuddered as a cough tries to rise and he suppressed it, breathing evenly in spite of the spasm. "The absolute worst case scenario," he reminded her, "is that I go play with David for a month or two. And I'm pretty sure I could spin out my RLTT status before it came to that, even. I'd be out of the house for a couple of weeks at most." He interlaced her fingers with his. "But I've literally been playing mind games with your brother for the last thirteen years and he's never caught on. I'm confident I could swing this if I had to do it solo, so it's…" He ran out of air and slumped a little more into her. "You don't need to worry so much."
Relena closed her eyes. He knew what he was doing, and she trusted that. The plan her lover and Treize had cooked up was frankly brilliant, the details had been ironed out, and she hadn't disagreed on any point. It… it was just wearing, and truthfully, it wouldn't even begin for another twelve days. "I didn't expect this to be so stressful," she admitted quietly.
His hum vibrated more in his chest than it should. Tightening his arms around her for a moment, he agreed, "It's a step up from what you're used to; the more emotions involved, the higher the stress." He hesitated, then, "It's going to get worse. Better for a bit once we settle my position with Zechs, but…"
But until the dolls are public knowledge, it won't end. Truly… parts of it would likely never end. But those particular points of deception were acceptable; she didn't know Treize well enough on a personal level at this point to find the roles they were casting any particular hardship. There were plenty of avenues to grow into years down the line that would be near the truth in any case. Treize would have the harder part by miles – but it was also something he had already done before, and he knew the track of it. He hadn't been thrilled, but… it would work. They needed the breathing room.
Just a few months. If I can have just two more months… She could do a lot with that. Jake thought they might have as many as four, especially if Treize could pull off the pressure he had planned – but they needed to plan for less than one. If the secret got out too soon it would blow up in their faces just as much as her brother's, and they needed the distance yesterday. But there were too many moving pieces in play, and they were important, thousands of lives were on the line as well as the political tap dance she needed to execute over the next six weeks. It could only be rushed so far, or the entire plan would crumble.
She grimaced again. "How did you do this, with me?" She had less than two weeks before she could start moving big moves, and she already wanted to crumble. Jake was right that it was the emotions involved that made it so hard, the intrigue was simple compared to some of the risks she had taken right after coming back to the Regime, but that… only made Jake's year of rogue agency in deep cover while they had fallen in love more desolate to think about.
Another soft cough. "It's… a marathon," he offered. "You pace yourself. Find breathers where you can."
"Can you show me?"
He coughed again. "I could… but it's… not a good fit for this."
She made a rude noise. "Six weeks isn't long-term enough?" she groused.
"Technically, it's four," he reminded her. "And it'll be far easier to capitalize on your visible stress than teach you to hide it and mimic all the signs of being overwhelmed we need as your fulcrum. Better to misdirect what you're feeling into what you need to show externally – it'll feel genuine. The best lies start internally."
Technically, it's eight, and then the rest of my life, she wanted to snap back… But he was also right, and that wasn't helpful.
"The first rest comes after we settle Zechs," he reminded her. "And I've got that, Lena. With Dave and Tate's moves, he'll probably be sold even before I start my web. Trust me."
"I do," she acknowledged quietly.
"I know," he returned, coughing a little as he squeezed her again. "I know it's still hard. Just… coast with me. I've got it."
"I don't want you to move out," she whispered. The idea of not waking up to him trailing fingers over her skin with a look like he still couldn't believe she was real every morning, of not falling asleep beside him… It hurt. She knew she was being absurd, he'd been sharing her bed for less than three months and it was honestly such a small part of what they had, of what they would still have if they had to play through some farce, but the very idea made her want to cry.
His chest rattled as he sighed again, running a hand over her hair. "I'm not moving out."
"You don't know that."
"Rule number one is to not dwell on your worst case scenarios beyond establishing them. It's going to be fine."
She opened her eyes back up and pulled away slightly to narrow them at him. They'd talked about this, she knew exactly how fatalistically morose-
He grinned, wide and boyish. "Hush, I'm trying to make a point here."
She couldn't help her laugh as her mouth fell open. "You hypocritical-" He cut her off with a press of his lips, and she laughed more, shoving at him. "Stop, you're sick-"
"Didn't stop you this morning," he reminded her cheerfully, even as he hid his face in her neck and coughed a few times.
Or this afternoon, she mentally added, shaking her head as she rubbed his back. Honestly, if she was going to get it, at this point she would; but she was on so many immune boosters that she doubted it would be a problem. In all likelihood, it was a weaker, opportunistic bug – Des had had to find someone to carry him upstairs on Wednesday, and he hadn't stopped shaking for nearly fifteen minutes even after he'd gotten in the tub. He had worn himself too thin, was all; she was probably fine.
Still, there was a reason he he'd stayed back in the car for this public appearance. He wasn't well.
Before she could dive back into her ruminations, Jake announced, "We got emails from Rubato while you were out. Not one of their deflections either; an actual response."
She blinked at that, sitting up. "To RLTT or me?"
His smile was smugly pleased. "Both. Yours is fairly short, Lluvia finally agreeing to a meet and greet. Mine is long, intricate, and full of feelers – I'm about ninety percent certain it's their leader. It looks like something I'd write if I wanted an alliance but only wanted to maintain digital contact."
Relena smirked. "You're making a friend, hm?" He looked genuinely excited.
He made a face. "If my dad's right about their internal structure and it really is Stanton, it'll be better to stay digital."
She pursed her lips, a little startled at the retraction. "I thought you were interested."
He blinked, then wheezed out a short laugh. "Lena, Stanton is an empath. He will probably never want to meet me in person."
She stared at him. "What?"
He wheezed some more, trying and failing to not laugh. "Shit. Uh… Maybe it's not as bad anymore? My head's… calmer. But space heart community's practically had an APB out on me for the last decade. Despite largely being isolationists they're a fairly tight-knit bunch online, and have some extensively illegal backdoors into travel databases. There are parts of space I've been politely asked to never return to." He took a few quick breaths, closing his eyes and letting out a small series of coughs that was almost like he was trying to clear his throat before he settled his breathing again and noted. "Though it's been… almost four years since I had someone announce one of their callsigns and ask me to get outside a certain radius. I'd say I was doing better or they'd calmed down, but I've also mostly been on Earth, so…" He grimaced. "Physically, they're a major minority and far flung, so it's impossible for me to track."
She just stared at him, trying to piece that together with… Jake. Before she could put that to words, though, Lin beat her to it. "Someone walks up to you and just… says some code phrase, and you'll actually just walk away?"
"I mean, sometimes I've asked if I can stay put while someone else moves, but that's asking a favor."
Lin didn't look at all convinced. "You."
"It doesn't happen very often," Jake defended. "From what I've found on their forums, they only support that kind of action for a handful of people at a time. If I'm being warned off like that, it's because someone really sensitive is nearby."
"That's… stunningly considerate of you," Lin decided.
"Fuck you," Jake returned cheerfully, rolling his eyes. "I also don't want to actually get blacklisted from anywhere. I'm mostly sure they could pull it off, and I'm not sure I'd appreciate the method." He grimaced. "Or barfed on. The last space heart I met but… right in my face. And Dave's. I have no idea how her stomach had that much in it, it just…" He shuddered. "I'm self-aware enough to acknowledge how bad that must have been on the other side, and I wasn't even… It was a normal day for me. Live and let live, okay?"
Well… that was an interesting complication she'd never thought of.
"This… seems like both a security issue and a more serious problem than you're implying," Lin decided.
"Not on Earth," Jake argued. "Also, most of them have shitty range and I try to keep to myself."
Relena's heart sank. Junior's best friend was a really strong empath… and Jack had said he was already wary of Jake. Because of this? "Jake…"
His shoulders drooped. "It's fine – that said, if I can befriend him at a distance, Stanton is probably of a type that could tolerate me. He handled Cambyses." He scrubbed a hand through his hair. "But… he also might not want to, and that's… fine." He shrugged, coughed a little, and pointedly leaned back into the bench seat. "Anyway, I might… not be as bad anymore. Last run-in was when I was sixteen and… this year changed a lot. I was already thinking that maybe next year I might ask to be reconsidered; they have an organized appeal process, it's… yeah. Even at the time, they were apologetic, and said I was still young like they hoped I'd grow out of it, so that's… a thing."
Lin had descended rather deeply into his flattest poker face. Relena felt like he'd been working on that – maybe practicing with Cassidy. "Appeal process."
Jake glowered. "I thought I dropped enough hints already about just how organized and influential they are. At least at the core community; a lot of people only flit in and out. Luckily, they're a small enough group that they're still reasonable human beings instead of an actual bureaucracy. They just… take it seriously." He slumped again, closing his eyes. "I can respect that. And anyway, I'm good at online relationships, it's how I handle most of my candidates."
"You sneak yourself into their essential staff and spy on your candidates," Lin pointed out flatly.
"Yeah, but most of the time that's not a personal relationship. Relena and Howard are the exceptions, not the rule."
"And Delilah."
Jake's mouth twisted as he mulled it over. "That was mostly Helena," he decided. "I had good online rapport with Delilah but I decided to befriend Helena in person. But I still kept myself and Ray very discreetly separate. Her friendly benefactor she talked out dreams with, versus her shut-in coworker that got her a meeting with the cute analyst." He smiled, closing his eyes again and leaning more on Relena. "I like being open with them, though. They were always brilliant, but they're fun too."
She smiled and wrapped one arm back around him as he coughed some more, though it was mostly inaudible. She'd noticed that. He could really use more friends that are peers, she decided, not for the first time. Too often he was running a ploy, some layer or another of secrecy, or the power dynamic was vast – though often not in the direction the other person realized, which made it more complicated. As much as he enjoyed the trickster end of it – and as good as he was at it – a lot of his mental state going to hell in a handbasket probably had to do with lacking a stable anchor or sanctuary to come back to. Between the Fall and coming clean with her David probably came the closest to giving him that, and he was only one man. Then Jake decided to disagree with him and lost even that.
"They are fun," she agreed, pulling more of his weight onto her and tucking her head on top of his. She enjoyed having more peers around too. Maybe even Sylvia would stop being such a brat and make the cut at some point – Relena liked her mind, her work, but the other woman's attitude was still insufferable. Better since Delilah had swept in, but not great. It ought to get better the more she learns to trust us, though.
Almost as if he could hear her thoughts, Jake rumbled out an amused sound and announced, "I think Noventa's decided I'm Romefeller."
Relena smirked. "You cultivated that."
He leaned more, dropping so he was more in her lap than resting against her chest, then turned to curl with his face half against her belly. "I'm effectively buying my way into the noble class," he reminded her. "They'll swallow it easier if the subliminal clues read 'we're the same' instead of screaming 'New Money.'"
She understood that, but that didn't make her point not true. "Are you going to correct her?"
"Mm, not unless she asks. She's not a bad test for seeing what conclusions will get drawn. I want to see what she comes up with."
Relena suppressed a laugh. That… was bound to be interesting, at least. "Go to sleep," she suggested instead. He hadn't opened his eyes for the last minute or so anyway, and was practically boneless. It would be at least an hour before they reached the airport.
"Mm…"
oOo
oOo
January 19th 199 – Sunday – Düsseldorf, Germany
Jack shook his head, smiling a little in spite of himself as he turned off the water, listening to the youngsters roughhouse nearby. This wasn't a bottom of the line hostel – both of the men's' communal bathrooms had plenty of stalls; each even had a walled off antechamber to keep your things dry. But there was also an open area with multiple shower heads, and for some reason a couple of teenagers had decided that was the way to do things this morning. It didn't take him long to dry off and dress – though he did have to step around a few puddles since the kids were literally chasing each other around the damn bathroom. He wasn't sure if he'd ever been that carefree; at the very least, not since he hit double digits. As much as it threw him, though, he supposed it was nice to see.
He'd ended up in a double room without a roommate, and he went back there to sort his dirty clothes and toiletries, considering for a minute before tucking everything back in his locker and resetting it. He didn't know if Odin had any plans or was sleeping in. Better to find out first. His flight wasn't until three, so… Well, he was determined to make the most of it, but if his son was done being social, he'd find a nice coffee house or something and get back to listings. The last thing he wanted to do was overstay his welcome. They'd stayed out at the circus until almost nine, though Anne and her daughter – the Moores – had gone earlier. Almost immediately after they'd reached the hostel, though, Odin had gotten a phone call and had gestured him through getting settled him in, handing him a key and walking around pointing while talking in something completely incomprehensible. There was enough sing-song tonality to whatever it was that he couldn't be sure, but… he'd seemed annoyed. And since he hadn't come back… Well, he was mostly sure Odin had slept somewhere in the same building, but had decided to hold off testing the theory until he'd gotten through his morning ablutions.
The facility's signage was easy enough even if he hadn't had Odin's abbreviated tour, and it didn't take him long to find the large semi-communal kitchen… and find Odin and Kasey. Both were sweat soaked, Odin once again in the skin-tight compression leggings and tank he apparently wore instead of underwear that left very little to the imagination, while his friend wore something more reasonably modest… that only partially hid muscle to match Odin's, damp as it was. Kasey's frankly ridiculous amount of hair was pulled up in a bun, and the two of them were leaning against the counter drinking water, leaning into each other's space, like…
Well, like Kasey leaned into anyone in his immediately family, but that didn't make it not odd. Odin was similarly ignoring standard propriety, close enough that they could probably feel each other's breath, as relaxed and sated as he'd been that morning after they'd grabbed drinks. The same as last night, after they started putting away the mats. It was a little daunting, but Jack was beginning to think that might just be his post-workout face. It looked like they were talking quietly – or at least, that Kasey was talking, and Junior was reacting.
That's definitely better than last night. They hadn't bickered any more, but after talking with his wife and stepping out for a solid half hour, Kasey had followed along after Junior like a ghost; not being ignored, but not instigating much interaction either. It had only just barely flown under the radar of awkward. Whatever they'd been up to this morning, it looked like they'd finished working it out. There was something almost zen about the two of them standing there; it was a shame to break it up.
They'd already noticed him though, and Junior visibly perked up a bit, though he didn't make any attempt to move into a less socially awkward position. Truly comfortable, then, not caught out. "Good morning," he offered in German. They were in Germany anyway, and he was mostly sure…?
"Guten morgen," his son parroted back.
"Goedemorgen," Kasey returned, looking exhausted, then groaned, switching into German as well. "I need coffee."
There was a machine sitting in the corner. "I can start a pot," he offered, heading that way.
The young man made a face. "I should probably shower first."
"You've said that five times," Odin pointed out, an undercurrent of amusement in his tone. "Over the last twenty minutes."
"Fuck you, not all of us are morning people."
Junior's lips twitched. "I'm not an any time person," he argued. "I'm just awake."
Those indigo eyes narrowed as Kasey evidently thought that over, then shrugged. "Point. Not all of us can just flip a switch, though."
"Mm. Sounds annoying."
"Tell me about it…"
Well, whether or not Kasey was staying, he could use some coffee – and given that the kid hadn't shifted his weight so far, he might even drink it. "I'll take that as a maybe," Jack decided, opening the cupboard to look for filters.
"Thanks."
There was a moment of comfortable silence, then, "It's like a sponge," Odin announced, apropos of nothing.
"What?"
"On your face. Isn't that annoying?"
Wow. Manners. He'd almost forgotten his son didn't have any.
Kasey let out a put upon sigh, muttering what were probably a few choice phrases in Dutch since Jack could almost understand, before admitting, "It's kinda weird, yeah. I'm trying it out."
"…Okay."
"I can't decide if wearing it or shaving twice a day itches more."
"Hn."
"'Liss likes it."
"Hn."
Kasey rolled his eyes. "Shut up, you have no idea."
"You have a sponge on your face."
"You have a bird's nest on top of your head, why don't you shave that off?"
"You're telling me to cut my hair."
Kasey barked out a laugh, reaching up to run a hand over his close-cropped but nearly full-face beard, grimacing. "Point. I don't know, why'd you drop the blonde?"
There was the briefest hesitation in Junior's body language before he shrugged, a hint of a smirk at one corner of his mouth. "Felt like it."
Kasey eyed him for a moment… then laughed again. "Uh huh."
Odin grinned back at him, full and bright, before turning to help Jack dig through the cupboards. "What are you looking for?"
Having found the filters and beans first off – he'd mostly been keeping his hands busy while watching the interplay – he decided, "Sugar." Not that he needed that yet, at any rate, so he set about measuring the grounds. "Full or half pot?"
"Fill it," Kasey decided, standing up straight to start opening cupboards himself. "Who keeps a waffle iron and hides the cereal?"
Odin snickered, and Jack rolled his eyes. Not that it was actually relevant, but, "You never met my brother-in-law."
Kasey narrowed his eyes. "What?"
Odin slid around him, pulling the thing out of the cupboard. "I'm going to make eggs."
The other teenager looked like he was thinking hard about that, watching Junior plug it in and find a bowl, opening the fridge… Before apparently admitting defeat. "Make me some too?"
"Aa."
"Not acknowledging the eldritch horror?" Jack asked under his breath in Japanese.
Kasey snorted, throwing his head back to down the rest of his water before replying in the same language. "Why bother? Might as well enjoy it."
He'd heard it last night, but the North American accent was even clearer this morning. Though given half the things they'd implied, he figured L2 was more likely than the western States. Don't think about it. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," he agreed out loud. Odin glanced his way, holding up the egg he was about to crack in question, and he shook his head. He usually didn't eat first thing, and… while it wasn't a bad way to eat scrambled eggs, he'd rather do them over easy.
Adam positively swanned in then, a couple of large plastic bags slung over one shoulder and the opposite arm and a big plastic-wrapped bowl in hand. "Good morning!"
Kasey frowned. "Where have you been?"
"I'm making pancakes," the other man announced instead of answering.
"You disappeared last night," Kasey continued, crossing his arms, watching the other man as he settled his stuff on one of the tables. "I thought you were coming back."
"I got distracted," the acrobat returned brightly… and ah, yes, yes he had.
Kasey laughed, apparently also seeing the marks on his friend's neck. "Is that what we're calling it?"
Adam made a rude sound. "You're hanging out with him and you want to give me shit?"
"He didn't ditch me for it," Kasey returned, still laughing. "What the hell, man?"
"She was prettier than you."
More laughter, even as Kasey shook his head. "Not cool, at least text me or something. I stayed up late enough that Rina took my spot and I was back in the twin."
Back to that family having zero boundaries, Jack mused, turning to watch as the coffee began to drip.
"This is hardly the worst thing I've ever done to you."
"I thought it didn't count if you don't remember it," Odin pointed out, sounding quietly amused.
"I don't, I just know, it's different."
Odin snorted.
"You-!" Kasey cut himself off with an overly dramatic groan. "This isn't a me thing, it's a common decency thing, come on!"
"Stop looking at me, then."
"Adam-"
"I've never been caught out in public with my head up a girl's skirt."
Kasey made a bewildered, wounded sound, but anything he might have said was cut off by Odin's immediate, "You should get out more."
The next sound out of Kasey was just as eldritch as the damn eggs, though significantly more pitiful.
Jack opted to continue staring at the coffee pot. Maybe he hadn't been expecting it, but he'd definitely heard worse.
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"She's- What the fuck, just why?"
There was a sizzle as, in his peripheral vision, Jack saw him pour the whipped eggs into the iron. "This is a thing friends talk about?"
"Def-"
"No!" Kasey shrilled.
"Hn. Do we have any cocoa?"
"I brought milk and that fake syrup Audi likes," Adam agreed, sounding proud of himself as the bags started rustling. "And a bunch of other groceries. She gave me a list."
Kasey groaned. "The fuck is wrong with you guys?"
"Everything," Adam returned sunnily. "Toast?"
"Why is this a big deal?" Odin sounded honestly confused.
"I saw you," Adam immediately argued.
"I caught that, but there was another couple on the dance floor that were literally-"
"Stop talking."
Jack covered his eyes, getting a whole new dimension on his son's comment about a song not being 'something I'd listen to in a club.'
"I didn't know them, that's not-"
"Why were you even there?"
"I was looking for you!"
Odin snorted. "I'm with Kasey, then, you should text."
"I am not a part of this conversation, I'm just…"
"Waiting for coffee," Jack suggested.
"Coffee," Kasey agreed.
"You couldn't have seen anything anyway," Odin concluded. "We were dressed."
"Obviously not fully and that's not the point, I could-"
"As fully as we walked in wearing," Odin argued, sounding deeply amused as he shifted the iron around to drop eggs on a plate and shove them down the counter towards them. "Unless you count holsters."
"No," Adam breathed.
"I'm not doing that with a gun to my head. I have limits."
Adam started laughing hard, while Kasey groaned again. "What the fuck."
Odin's returning hum was all too satisfied. "I know."
Jack risked a glance his way and choked back a laugh of his own. Shit. He wasn't sure he'd really needed to know Junior had inherited Rhea's eyes that far. It was bright enough in here that the boy was probably next to blind.
"So what, if she'd needed to shoot someone, she was planned to just…?"
"Tactics," Odin agreed dreamily.
Jack felt his shoulders start shaking with the laugh he was holding down. God damn it. Apparently… Well, apparently that's a thing. He'd already figured out the kid's taste for danger; he just hadn't known it ran this deep.
"I fucking hate all of you."
He really did start laughing then, shoving off the counter to help put the groceries away. He was going to need that milk, after all. Though he felt like he'd missed something, because that was a lot of food even without getting into the giant bowl of batter.
The von Kolls make five plus the baby, then the rest of us make eight… maybe the Moores are coming? Anne hadn't mentioned it, but she'd been trying to get Leah home for her usual bedtime. Even then, though, this was just absurd.
One of the boys from the shower slid into the room on socked feet, two more on his heels. "Odin! Audi promised pancakes?"
Ah. He watched as Odin gestured to Adam, effectively diverting all attention. The man in question started directing them to grab this or that and follow him into the more commercial end of the kitchen, talking over his shoulder-
"Hey, English, huh?" one of them complained. "What even is that?"
That whole conversation was in Japanese, he realized. He'd stopped paying attention at some point, apparently, but… Adam was fluent too. No real accent to speak of, not that that meant anything – Odin's Japanese had Senior's accent, which was understandable but still a bit of a mindfuck, since he was pretty sure it was the Finnish influence. He'd never heard anyone but his brother-in-law with pronunciation quite like that, but Finnish was far more dead than Japanese, so who knew.
"I know I said we should talk more, but I also don't need those details," Kasey was muttering under his breath.
"I'm still figuring this out," Odin defended. "The rules keep changing."
Kasey huffed out another sigh. "This one, I think the rules are different for each friend. Just… please, no physical detail beyond generalities. 'Liss… It can be a hard topic."
"Aa. Mm. Sorry."
"It's fine. I mean, now I also know some questions not to ask too, so just… we're learning."
"If you ask, I can't draw an easy line. Not yet, at least."
"Yeah, that's fair, fine. But not in front of 'Liss either way – just tell me to ask you later or something and we can figure out if I'm stepping in it or not that way. I don't want to get lost in the middle again, but, like… You and Adam are the only ones who get to make jokes about getting blown up; I'm never going to say shit like that. I'm the only one who can make jokes about running out of air. Don't think I'm gonna, but it's… a boundary thing. Unless she says something first, don't bring up sex in front of my wife."
Jack closed his eyes, feeling cold. That… shit. Shit.
"…Aa. I didn't know."
"It's fine, you do now, and it's not like it's secret. I mean, she's going to laugh when I tell her about all this, it's not… There isn't a problem. She probably wouldn't be bothered because she's awesome like that, but sometimes… I don't want her put on the spot. What you do is your business, and whatever if you want to talk about that with some people, just… she and I keep that private, is all."
"No, I understand, I… don't like to get startled that way either. I won't."
"Don't lock it all down again either," Kasey admonished. "Don't assume, I don't-"
"I'll ask," Odin agreed.
"Good. I'd rather be embarrassed than…" He sighed. "I am sorry." He hesitated, then, "Should I ask what to not bring up?"
"No."
"Okay then." Another hesitation. "Shit, he can hear us, can't he?"
Jack winced, lifting his shoulders apprehensively and turning to meet their eyes. "It's my first language," he admitted.
Kasey snorted at that, then shook his head. "Yeah, well, don't correct my grammar, it's my third. Everything I said goes for you too."
"Not a problem," Jack assured him. He'd been celibate for twenty years anyway, but since Odin seemed just as open about intimacy as Cassie, he might as well keep a lookout for landmines.
"Great. I don't know how much you're going to be around, but it was nice meeting you." Setting his empty plate back down on the counter, he announced, "I'm going get cleaned up."
Jack watched him go, then shook himself and checked the coffee pot. Good enough. Grabbing a mug off the rack, he considered for a long moment before setting it back down. At some point during all that his son had plated his eggs and unplugged the iron, but hadn't touched them yet. "Sorry for eavesdropping," he offered.
Junior shrugged, stealing Kasey's fork and picking up his food. "It's fine."
He nodded back and poured his coffee, hesitating again before doctoring it. That last line had been in English, so he could take a hint there, but… Nothing ventured. "Explosions, huh?"
Junior shrugged again. "I'm here. I don't really want to do it again, but it's not something that… makes me blink? He's got a point about Adam, though. Not the topic, but explosives set him off, a bit."
Traumatic brain injury, Jack remembered. No fucking wonder. "That's fair," he decided out loud.
"Hn." He picked at his eggs for a long moment before admitting, "I'm still figuring mine out, but nothing from the war, I don't think. I remember once, after Libra, when I thought Kasey… But he's alive, so. No." He chewed for another long moment before deciding. "It's not consistent enough to worry about that angle. Reminders are… unpleasant, but it's… nonspecific." He shrugged. "It can't happen again, so not thinking about it mostly works."
His chest tightened up. "But you remember, right?" Given the breaks he'd had in his psyche as a young child, that coping mechanism coming back would be a lot more alarming.
"Mm, usually like I watched it happen on a screen," Junior agreed. "It's… easier. Parts of it are foggy, but that was more…" He made a face. "I needed to stop caring, so I stopped paying attention. More not knowing in the first place than forgetting."
Jack made himself let out a slow, normal breath instead of a sigh. "Aa." Reflexively brining his mug to his mouth, he grimaced at the bitter smell and before going back to cupping it in both hands. "Any plans for the day?"
"Mm. I need a shower, but otherwise no. I have a project I need to work on, but I figured that could wait until after your flight."
So… he'd misread last night, then. That was good.
"What?"
"I thought you were annoyed with me," he admitted.
Odin blinked a few times in confusion, then rolled his eyes. "Cat," he intoned, all the peevish energy back. "By the time I got him back off the phone, I thought you'd be asleep. Sorry." He took another bite. "I'd had enough last night even before we left, and then Cat, and Kasey was there, and…" He slumped. "It's fine. Just a lot."
Jack considered that. "You were overwhelmed?" he clarified.
Odin stopped chewing, tipping his head to one side and stabbing the air once with his fork as he nodded. "That's a good word."
He bit his lip. It was probably pushing, but… "Anything I can help with?"
His son made a face, scraping what was left of his breakfast into a pile and raising his plate to his mouth. "Probably not. It looks like I'm going to have to go back to space for a while."
Jack blinked. The way he'd said that… "And that's a problem?"
Shoveling the last bite down and swallowing, Odin added, "Communications are bad there right now, and Da Capo is almost entirely out of the loop anyway. Cat had to travel for days before he could call, and I'm surprised we got so good a connection. It's at least five days one way, and in the dark while you're there. I was hoping to put it off."
And you're glued to your phone, Jack mused. Glued to the sister who is glued to her phone, and to all your hair-raisingly dangerous friends. Maybe even glued to a girlfriend who was determined to not let her marks on him fade – that, or addicted to women in general, and presumably neither would be at a construction site. "That sucks," he agreed out loud. "When do you leave?"
"I'm still putting it off," Odin returned, shaking his head. "Another week, maybe two. It's not as bad as Cat thinks, and it will work out better if I round out a few designs first."
He fought to keep down a surprised reaction. Engineering work with Neut had been implied, but Da Capo was colonies, another tier entirely. "Designs, huh?"
Odin shrugged, picking up Kasey's plate and heading for the sink. "I've done it before, just not on this scale."
"The lot of you are going to wake the whole house," a blonde man Jack vaguely recognized complained as he shuffled into the room, looking exhausted. "I smell coffee."
Odin had turned away to do the dishes and Jack's stomach was turning anyway, so he held out his mug for… "Skye, right? Milk's in the fridge."
"Mm, yes and thanks," he mumbled, proceeding to tip his head back and drink it straight.
Jack winced. He'd seen the can – those grounds were bottom line, and without anything to round it out? "That's gross."
Skye grunted, taking another swig. "Two years without sugar or dairy changes your taste buds. Not all of us are trying to go back to before." Wiping at his mouth with one sleeve, he added, "Coffee was rare but rationed all the way from the top, so still accessible. It was practically a form of currency between the camps, sometimes." He sighed. "Everybody talks about how chocolate's half gone with the Americas, but coffee and sweeteners took a hit too, you know? Just not half as bad; the industries were more spread out."
Oh, so we're being entirely open about Cambyses now? Okay. "I lost access to sweeteners for four years," Jack countered, shaking his head. Coffee was a standard thing everywhere, even in prison, but at the same time? "I stuck with tea." It hadn't been much more than hot water, honestly, but it had still made a difference in the morning.
There was a reason he'd put the little bit of time and allowance the wardens would allow toward knitting. Outside the pretty business centers of colonies, space was cold. EV time was miserably hot, but as soon as you were out, the sweat set you shivering. Ugly as his early attempts at mittens had been, they'd made him popular enough that he'd rarely had to remind someone that the needles made for an effective shiv.
"Mm, didn't really have tea," Skye mused. "At least, not in our camp." He frowned. "Or… maybe?" He raised his voice. "MJ! Did Roshan ever give us a tea ration?"
"Roshan stole half our coffee back most months, and you think I sourced tea?" the most vocal of the teenagers crowding Adam shouted back.
"Well, there you go," Skye decided, nursing his cup. Then he frowned. "Where's Cor? I thought he was bunking with you lot."
"He crashed with Audi and the devil boys," a boy who couldn't be older than fifteen explained. "I'm not sure they're up yet."
Jack blinked. "Devils?" What did they do to deserve a nickname like that? The two that Audi kept running yesterday off with had seemed pretty quiet.
"The Amsterdam crowd," Skye explained dismissively.
"You're on second run for flapjacks," MJ announced pointedly. "You snooze, you loose, there's only so much room on the griddle."
"That's fine, I'll just take some of the batter and-" He cut himself off, frowning. "The fuck happened to my waffle iron?"
"I'll have it clean in a minute," Odin assured him, checking the temperature of the hotplates before detaching them.
Jack frowned. "Your waffle iron?" He'd thought it was something the facility owned. Though, now that he thought about it, it was a bit small? The building had six stories of suites, bunk rooms, and public spaces, and the kitchen was large enough to accommodate while still being small enough to encourage patrons to go out for food instead, but-
"It's my hostel, and I bought that in particular anyway," Skye groused. "I want waffles." Raising his voice again, he asked, "Are Tristan and Rolf up yet?"
"Why should I know? This is supposed to be a vacation anyway, leave off."
Skye rolled his eyes, grumbling into his mug. "Brats."
He supposed that explained why Adam had brought enough food to feed a small army – that was exactly what he was doing. "I didn't realize there were so many of you here," he admitted. And he'd known that Rubato spanned across some decent real estate, but… well, after what he'd seen so far he'd assumed it was all on the higher end.
"It's the circus," Skye pointed out. "Tristan runs this lot's schooling like an episode of the magic school bus anyway, and it was as good an excuse as any."
"He's got enough curls to pull off a Miss Frizzle," another man decided as he walked in, making a beeline for the coffee. This one was a stranger, Jack thought, and looked to be around thirty.
"I don't know if it can be Frizzle unless it's orange."
Jack caught the newcomer's sharp grin a moment before the man began pouring. "Don't be racist."
Skye choked, half dropping his mug onto a table so he could lean forward and cough. "Oh, fuck you," he spat back once he could breathe again. "Why don't I add sexism and ask where he's keeping the boobs?"
A rich, booming laugh sounded from the doorway, and Jack turned to see a tall black twenty-something that definitely did have some impressive curls leaning against the frame. "Give me a couple hours," he decided with a faint American inner city accent. "I'm charming enough – if I run into town I could probably find some volunteers."
The older Rubato member – Skye said something about Tristan and Rolf? – scoffed even as he smiled, opening the fridge. "Tasteless, but sure."
Tristan made a farting noise. "I meant to come help teach my cute students some science, asshole." He raised a hand with one finger pointed up almost before he finished the insult. "Wait, that came out wrong, normal science, not… Don't say it."
Probably Rolf snorted out a laugh, pulling out the milk and shutting the door. "This is me not saying it," he agreed. "I still vote for a new age, more diversely cast Magical School Bus."
Tristan shrugged, walking in and going to inspect the fridge contents himself. "That's sweet, but I'm herding them through their classes, not teaching, remember?"
"We love you Sir Frizzle!" called the youngest of Adam's ducklings.
"Nelson, I will whoop your ass in DDR until you cry if you call me that and do not save me your first pancake!"
The boy cackled.
Jack smiled. That… was cute. And for all that he was now sure these kids were all out of Cambyses, they were much more kids than Cor or Yasa, which he greatly appreciated.
Grinning to himself, Tristan pulled some kind of container out of the fridge and turned his attention on Jack, inspecting him for a moment before shaking his head. "Man, they did not lie – you are an older, less white Odin."
He chuckled, pacing forward a few steps to hold out one hand. "Aa. It's Jack, though. Tristan, right?"
"Yeah, but Tris is fine," he agreed, drawing out the s into more of a z sound as he accepted the handshake, then pulled out a chair for himself. Skye and Jack followed suit, while Probably Rolf returned to the fridge. "I'm the resident cat herder." He looked around the room again. "Is Cor still hiding behind Audi's skirts this morning?"
"Audi hasn't worn a skirt in months," Odin noted, sounding confused.
"Metaphorical skirts, my man," Tris corrected. "Holding on to her apron strings, walking in her shadow. Letting her make all the decisions so he can avoid them."
Junior visibly perked up at the slew of metaphors, even as he set the clean waffle plates in the drying rack and grabbed two mugs. "Aa. Then yes. Though I think they're sleeping in – they had some kind of game on when I walked by their room at three."
"Hmph." Tris's gaze was shrewd. "And just when did you sleep?"
"Caught a couple hours on the rec room couch with Kasey," he admitted. Then he shrugged. "Sorta. People kept walking by." He pulled the coffee pot back off the drip and began pouring. "Yesterday?"
"That man is not your personal teddy bear."
Jack snorted out another laugh that Skye matched.
He could hear the smile in Odin's voice even as he argued, "The braid makes a good pillow, though."
"Uh huh. So you proceed to sleep with a married man in a public venue, then decide to run yourself into the ground in the exercise hall instead of catching some shut-eye," Tris translated.
Skye howled, and Jack shook, feeling tears spark at the corners of his eyes as he struggled to breathe.
"Needed to work off some energy," Odin agreed in a very self-satisfied tone as he dropped into the seat next to Jack, setting a mug in front of each of them and reaching for the sugar.
"You are a walking nightmare," Tris groused. "You're not even tired, are you?"
"Not really."
"The boons of the college student," Probably Rolf intoned as he sat down next to Tris with an identical container – cottage cheese – and milk before dropping two spoons on the table between them. "You can just do things like that."
"I've never attended school as anything other than a cover," Odin protested mildly… still pouring sugar, what the fuck.
Probably Rolf shrugged, cracking the seal and beginning to stir. "I more meant the age – sixteen to… twenty-four, maybe, your body's just different."
"I was starting a gap year when Libra came down, and I cannot do that shit," Tris argued, eyeing Odin. "Who the hell taught you that was acceptable?"
Junior had a barely there smirk as he set the cannister back down and picked up a stirring stick. "Cathy."
His look was entirely disgruntled. "Adam's Cathy?"
"I'd never had coffee before she handed me hers," Junior agreed.
"…Yeah, you're still doing it wrong."
"I've tried it other ways. If I have a choice, sweet is best." He shrugged a little, lifting it to his mouth and testing the flavor, humming contentedly. "I don't think going without for a few years makes it any less enjoyable."
Probably Rolf shook his head, smiling wryly. "Cat says the same thing, more or less. Said Cambyses was the first time he'd had coffee in over a year, even."
Odin nodded agreeably. "You have to brew it; that's time, supplies, and scent, if not a trail outright. When we managed something other than water, it was what we decided we could steal out of someone's kitchen." He nodded towards Jack, his next words showing he'd been listening while he washed up. "Tea, a lot of the time. Small, lightweight, easily misplaced in a pantry – not missed quickly. Bread, saltines, peanut butter, jam when we could find an extra, unopened jar. Canned meat, cold cuts, fruits and cheeses, leftovers in general. Eggs, when we found chickens; not out of fridges though, unless they were already hardboiled. Over the counter medications…". He shook his head. "Sugar wasn't worth it. Cat somehow turned up with honey every time my fever spiked, but we'd ration it afterwards."
A stone settled in Jack's gut. "Just out of houses?"
Odin shrugged, taking a longer pull of coffee. "We tried shopping in convenience stores or renting cheap rooms, but I kept getting caught taking money out of accounts. And even when we had cash, too many people recognized Cat. No one had my picture, but my leg could only take a fifth of my weight before buckling on good days – barely enough to hobble short distances. Most of the time I'd just lean on his shoulder, we were the same height back then, but he had to carry me whenever anyone found us." He grimaced. "And on bad days. The more I think back on 196, the more I realize just how much of it I wasn't… present." Turning a speculative eye on Skye, he admitted, "I want to thank him for that, not to mention… Mm. But I haven't figured out how to do it without making him feel worse."
"I just go for it," Skye admitted. "The more constipated he looks, the better a job you did. Rinse and repeat."
Odin's mouth twitched into a smirk even as he shook his head. "He's tied into my emotions when we're together, and a lot of it touches on…" His mouth twisted. "I think it's going to hurt."
"Then tell him to stop anchoring on you," Probably Rolf suggested. "Bring Cory along and switch into that Arabic dialect you two like for privacy. And anyway, the kid can be two rooms down before Cat stops being able to use him as an empathic blindfold."
Jack blinked, the concept startling him. "That's possible?"
The other man made a helpless gesture. "Apparently?" Smiling, he set down his spoon and held out his hand. "I'm Raph."
"Aa." Taking the handshake, he offered a sheepish grin and admitted, "I thought it was Rolf."
Raph laughed, his whole face lighting up as he gave his own sheepish shrug. "Well, technically, yes, but mostly because angels stand out more than wolves. We couldn't all keep our names the same. But you're in the know, so let's go with Raphael; I don't hear it enough anymore."
"I always think turtles more than angels," Skye mused as he leaned back, a shit-eating grin stretching across his face.
"That's because you're a Mormon heathen child."
Tris laughed, taking another bite of cheese before meeting his eyes. "You looking forward to getting back out of the madhouse?"
Jack fought back a wince as he remembered his duffel of essentials, his empty little apartment that… well, he'd never really been that attached to, at least. "Not really."
"Mm, but you've got to get to work tomorrow, yeah?"
"…Not really. Wednesday."
Odin frowned. "Audi said she was maxing out your free time." There was a questioned buried in that, his son's gaze assessing as he considered if it had been a lie for distance or-
Stop jumping ahead. "That was accurate when she got the tickets," he explained. "My shifts got rescheduled." And cut. Again.
It… was time, he guessed. He really hadn't thought it would be this bad after taking just one day to himself, but… it had been a while coming, so he wasn't exactly surprised either. He'd barely been making enough to handle his needs before now – he couldn't afford the part-time hours he'd just been shunted into.
Junior's expression cleared as he considered what had been said aloud, and he looked thoughtful for a long moment before smiling. "Want to change your flight?"
…That really shouldn't hit like a sucker punch, but damn. He was really glad the empath friend wasn't there, because he was suddenly trying to not cry. "If you don't mind the company."
His son gave him a disbelieving look and pointedly gestured around the room.
…Point. But still.
Raphael was giving him a considering look. "What is it you do, again?"
"Private armed security."
"But you code too, don't you? They tried to show me what you did to break the security net before, but it was over my head." He made a face. "I made our first website, but I'm only a hobbyist. Now that we're established, I hired people to remake and maintain it, but Cat still acts like I'm some kind of hacker some days."
"I keep up to date," Jack admitted, talking slowly as he tried to feel out if this guy was doing what it felt like. "But I haven't made a career of it since 191." There had been a few programming jobs before he realized Jake had no intention of leaving Earth in a permanent way, and odd jobs here and there, but after settling in Switzerland, he'd found it easier to make a living in security. With the communication isolation the Alliance had pushed between Earth and the colonies and his record, his options were limited. It was the main reason his boss was able to yank him around the way he'd been doing since… well, honestly, since day one. The bullshit had just been more worth the gain, back then.
Odin was flipping through something on his phone. "What time do you need to be back on Wednesday? I was going to head back toward Berlin."
…He'd been looking at a few jobs in Berlin. Not the best, but doable. It was a lot easier to get a German work visa after being a Swiss resident for eight years, especially after the Regime took over. He'd already decided the well was too damn dry in the Zurich area and he had to move anyway, and while Munich was still a fair distance away, Berlin was practically the halfway point between there and Newport; he didn't see Relena not going back to Sanc eventually. Junior was all over the place, but the primary hub for Rubato seemed to be in northeast Poland. The main hurdle, after the visa, was usually the felon bit. A lot of people claimed they didn't care, but that tended to not hold water once they had to sign legal paperwork sponsoring him.
Odin was frowning at him. "Jack?"
He licked his lips. "Did you know that if your boss can put enough pressure on you in a way that looks legitimate so you have to quit, that means they didn't fire you and they don't have to pay unemployment?"
Junior blinked. "What?"
"It's easier to pull off when you're not a citizen either," he added, closing his eyes and rubbing his face. "I… Let me get on the net, I had a few listings saved, if I can say I'll be in the area for an interview in the next few days, I can just… cash out the PTO I never got to use and not go back." He'd opted for a month-to-month on his last lease renewal anyway, so he wouldn't have to worry about rent in two places or paying a penalty – the cash out could go to a new studio. It was going to be annoying to find furniture again, but he could get everything he really cared about into two or three boxes freight; it would be cheaper and faster than getting a truck to move his cheap secondhand shit that honestly might not handle getting hauled down the stairs again anyway.
The car. Damn, but he hoped Des hadn't done something like pay the garage for a year up front. He knew his friend would just wave it off, but… his more pessimistic estimates had still been March, for this going to shit.
When he looked back up, Junior was still staring at him. "Do you like your job?"
"I'd like to not get deported," he returned bluntly. Technically he had just enough hours now to avoid that, but it also wasn't enough pay to live on, in part because his contract wasn't subject to the same wage increases as anyone else in the company and inflation post-Fall had been nasty. "Anything else is manageable."
He jumped when Raph clapped his hands. "Well, I feel considerably better about my plan to poach you. Give me your CV."
Yeah, he'd been getting that vibe, and these ex-Cambyses kids were realistically his best bet for someone who genuinely didn't care about hiring an ex-con, but just because he hadn't been headhunted since before Jake was born didn't mean he'd forgotten there were hooks. "You didn't even know what I was good at until three minutes ago."
"I don't have your current records," Raphael argued pleasantly. "But even if you haven't talked in years, Dan Tanaka still thinks well of you. And did you know Andre Kikuchi works for Hideki these days?"
Damn it all, but walking away from Dan had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done. He didn't regret it, wouldn't have done it differently, but he tried really hard to not think about his… crew boss? Unofficial uncle? Never quite foster father, the relationship had been too transactional even while it was warm, 'superior officer to favored protégé' maybe, too 'a favor for a favor' even after he'd outgrown that, but… he'd assumed the old revolutionary was dead by now. He had to be pushing seventy.
Still, there was a reason he'd walked away from the militia. "I don't do that anymore." If he'd been able to make that call sooner… He ruthlessly squashed the thought; he wasn't drunk enough for that sort of what-if game.
"Neither does Tanaka, actually – he runs an L1 orphanage that caters to kids that want to get into one of the technical schools. All the same, he said you were one of his brightest."
Jack opted to watch Junior's face instead of Raph's. "People say things like that." Dan may or may not have meant it, but it was nice of him to say – especially since Jack had ghosted him a solid fourteen years ago. There hadn't been any bad blood to it, the man had understood, but that didn't change the facts.
Junior looked mildly confused, with a faint furrow in his brow, but interested. Not involved, Jack decided. Which matched up, and he'd figured his dirty laundry was coming out sometime soon, but that didn't make it pleasant.
"I don't fight anymore," he reiterated. "Private security, playing guard dog on public assets, is one thing. Helping one of my sons out of a bind is another. I won't just walk away from something in front of me. But I have two sons, and I won't be caught in a situation where I hurt either. I don't know what the lot of you do or don't have under your skirts, but I've seen enough glimpses of violence so far to be wary." He took a deep breath. "I'm not adverse," he clarified. "I don't need to know, I know I'm not… I don't do politics. I know a hundred things happen behind the scenes for every pretty feat. But if whatever you have in mind winds back into violence, the answer is no. I'll mop floors somewhere first." He would hate it, but if he could just get the sponsorship and hours in any way he could keep looking, and Des would spot him where cash flow fell short. If he hadn't already known Zurich was fast turning into a dead end, he'd have kicked his pride down a few notches last week and talked to his friend about it already.
Junior was… really hard to read. In general, really, but it felt insurmountable right now. The kid had so much of his damn face that you'd think it would be easier, but he supposed he wasn't ever watching his own face, was he?
Raph made an exasperated noise. "I wasn't- Ugh. I maintain that we're not doing that, but I actually agree with you. If we were doing something seditious, it would be unethical to put you in the middle of it. You don't need to be an ass about it."
Jack turned away from Junior to give Raphael a dubious look. "Italy."
"…I feel like I anything I say will sound like PR talk."
He turned back as Odin chuffed out a soft laugh. "That wasn't Rubato," he explained. "Kasey asked a favor and it got… involved. Then once we found the dealers Adam terrorized last October and confirmed they had been selling Gamora's Tears, we couldn't just walk away. No one wants more of that on the market. Xu and all the guys Adam took to lunch were there when you arrived so we could hand it off."
Hm. He had no idea what 'Gamora's Tears' were, but it sounded proprietary. Another drug? If he was blasé about heroin but not whatever that was, it was probably gnarly. And Xu… Odin had been very pointed before about how Xutao wasn't part of Rubato, and little Yasa was clearly a part of that bargain. Did they arrange that lunch gathering so I'd only see Rubato and the members of Xutao's group that I'd already met? Because the L5 kid was, hands, down, serious business. Serious business that deferred to Odin, but… distinct, somehow. Friendly, but not friends? Nothing like what he'd seen in the past twenty-four hours, at least, let alone with Cat.
Xutao's group is an ally that does do something political, he decided. And they probably 'ask favors' the same as Kasey apparently does. Audi had mentioned something about 'Grójec' in line with Xu too, which if he'd gotten the pronunciation right was probably a town in Poland – and an earlier favor or point of involvement between his son and this group. Which was… not ideal, considering Jake's position in the Regime, but not necessarily bad either.
Well, technically it was more about Relena's position with the Regime, since Jake had quit in September and was instead playing billionaire house husband now, but Relena's business was Jake's now, and therefore family's, even if he was determined to stay on the farthest outer edge of it. There should be some flexibility there in any case, when time came to mix worlds, but for now it was probably best to keep a narrower scope. Des would tell him if that needed to change.
All the same, if he was going to mix in with Rubato, he was serious about only being on the legitimate side of business. "What did you do with the heroin?" he asked pointedly. It was done in such a way that it looked like a prop, but he was pretty sure the framed photos in Cathy Bloom's trailer of her brother and Junior lounging on a drug throne, each with a fedora covering their face, were legit. She'd laughed too hard about it.
Odin gave an aggrieved sigh. "You would not believe how annoying that was to give back."
"…What?"
"I heard she wanted to bang you," Skye offered.
An expression of pure revulsion crossed his son's face. "No."
"No she didn't, or no you wouldn't?"
"No."
Raph stepped back in. "They gave back the first group's, and handed everything off wholesale on the second," he clarified. "We don't deal directly with the Regime, so we used other connections. It's less that Rubato was involved and more than we don't ignore distress calls – Adam is technically part of the group, even if he only remembers when he finds it convenient."
"That's not new," Odin confirmed. "He's just gotten better at asking instead of dropping it in your lap without warning."
"Asking or telling?" Raph sounded wryly amused.
"…Telling," Odin admitted. "It's still an improvement."
Raph sighed. "Great." Meeting Jack's eyes again, he admitted, "I didn't start off trying to research you, for the record."
That was a tall tale. "Oh?"
He rolled his eyes. "I was talking to Kikuchi about problems we're going to face with the terrestrial agricolonies, non-traditional tasks we're going to need to address, and he brought you up. He gave Tanaka as a reference, and here I am full circle."
Jack sat still as that information settled over him. It… Andre had offered him a job, after – said the last three years of his sentence could count as an apprenticeship. It would've been nicer end of colony repair work too, not the remote shit; the kind you could support a family on. He'd thought about it in a vague 'maybe after I find Rhea' way, but… That had been a long time ago. He'd thought about it again once he had custody of Jake as a 'maybe once things settle,' but…
"You sought me out from a reference I last saw sixteen years ago. Who was my warden." The militia was a small world once you were in it, and they tried to take care of their own even when shit like Jack's case happened, but…
"I mean, you weren't the only lead, he gave me a list as long as my arm. But yes." Raph hesitated, then, "He also said you were 'a goddamn hero who didn't deserve what he got.'"
Jack smiled grimly, picking up the milk. Andre had retired out of the militia proper after marrying, and had always been free with his opinions. "My wife disagreed."
There was silence for a long moment as Raphael clearly didn't know what to say to that, before Odin sighed and stood. "I'm going to go shower," he announced. "Jack, I'm canceling your flight – if you want help moving, I'd rather take the train. Whatever you decide is fine." He focused on Rolf. "Figure out what he needs whether or not he wants to work for you, and either handle it or tell me what I need to cover."
Jack's stomach clenched. "I can figure it out," he argued. Charity from Des was one thing, they'd been good friends for eight years and the other man had made it clear he'd show up on his doorstep if Jack tried to avoid him, but he barely even knew Junior. "I've handled worse."
Odin nodded sagely, taking another sip of coffee. "I've slept under hedges in the snow," he divulged. "That doesn't mean I want to do it again."
He grimaced, fighting back the image that wanted to accompany those words. "That's a low blow."
His son shrugged. "It gets the point across."
He made himself take a calming breath. "You barely know me."
"I'd never talked to Audi before I decided to pull her off a street corner and get her somewhere safe." His head tipped to one side. "I thought that would be the police station, but…" He shrugged again. "Life is about choices. I know what it feels like to not have any." He gave a sad, wry smile. "Or feel like you don't, at least. And… I like giving people more options. I think being happy is about little things adding up, weaving together, not…" He made a face and waved a hand. "Regrets are useless, but it's easier to remember that when you live by your emotions. Why shouldn't I help you?"
Jack's gut twisted a little more. "Because it could breed resentment," he suggested.
Odin looked genuinely confused. "Over what?" When Jack didn't immediately answer, he rolled his eyes. "It's just money. Even if I didn't have it, I could steal more."
"Please tell me you've stopped doing that," Raph grumbled, covering his face with both hands.
Junior ignored him. "Decide what you want, and we'll work the rest out." He made a face, then took a last swig of his coffee before setting the empty cup back on the table. "You can't always be with me, you need something of your own, but otherwise? This is only hard if you decide it needs to be." He looked back at Raph. "Legitimate work only."
"Stop saying that like we do illegitimate things," the other man hissed.
A flicker of delight flashed across Junior's face, there and gone again before the darkly amused smirk was back in place. "Rolf doesn't do illegal things," he told Jack. "So you should be fine."
The other man groaned. "Why are you like this?"
Junior's eyes danced again… and then he was gone.
Tris sighed, standing up with his empty carton of cheese. "I'm going to go see how the pancakes are going. If you want privacy, though, you might want to move to another room; the kids are going to invade the tables in a minute."
"Mm, I'm going to go pretend I have something to do too!" Skye announced cheerfully. "Like… I don't know, something on the internet." He nodded decisively, downing the rest of his shitty coffee. "Research. Important internet research."
"Get," Raph growled, half standing and shoving the table.
The younger man squawked theatrically and got.
Raphael sighed and rubbed at one temple for a moment before sitting up straight and giving Jack a frank look. "How about we pretend none of that happened, and I go with my plan from when I thought I had to tempt you away from a stable gig you were in love with?"
Jack glowered at him for a long moment… then let it go. He still wasn't convinced that these kids weren't all lying out their asses, but it was worth checking out. "Sure. Let's start there."
"Do you have any idea how many potential structural, let alone security problems are going to come up when we bring agricolonies down to Earth?"
oOo
oOo
Prague, Czech Republic
"I appreciate this," Sally repeated. "I know you're already busy and dealing with a slew of interruptions, but I'm ready to pull my hair out over it."
"It's fine," Quatre dismissed. "It's not my top priority, but you're right that it's strange. Part of it has to be that the satellite footage has become entirely unreliable, but the numbers are unusual even so." He made a thoughtful noise. "This is the second distinct attack from Libramentum in Spain; it could be an intentional misdirection, or they might genuinely have wanted that base off the map. They might be based there."
"It's possible," Sally agreed, feeling her shoulders slump. The Regime had lost the Valladolid base, been shelled out entirely, though they were claiming minimal loss of life. Which was surprising, given the footage that had come out – Libramentum had been more vicious than Lucrezia usually directed, clearly as if they were trying to maximize casualties, which sent a message of their own.
Not that it was a new message, considering what they'd tried in Brussels last year. It still made her uncomfortable, all the same. Are they not aware of the threat of the East, or do they just not care? If the Regime lost too many troops while the army was away, Monteith might well decide they were ripe for the taking. It was a shitty balancing act, holding the line and pushing it without pushing too far, but the logic was sound.
That said, despite losing the base… it had been too well staffed. The public wouldn't know that, but her people had been finding base after base along the eastern border that were filled to bursting, and unless the Regime had had some kind of advance warning to shuffle the troops… It didn't quite make sense. True, what they'd found along the border was far from the full estimate of the troops left behind, but… that still only left the other half for everywhere else. Maybe the numbers weren't as correct as they had assumed, but even so, it was lopsided as hell.
Valladolid should have been rolled over without effort. The Regime had still lost it, but… it shouldn't have been a real fight at all. And even if the Regime had had some kind of advance warning, Valladolid hadn't truly been worth protecting. It was a tertiary stronghold at best – why drain manpower from more important bases? Especially if you didn't have enough manpower to turn back the threat anyway?
"I'll look into it," Quatre repeated, sounding distracted. "Just send me all the data you can – bases evaluated, battles since the army left, census from the regions. Maybe something will out."
"Already on its way," she reassured him.
"Good. I'm going to get back to work. I'll send you an email once I have something worth sharing."
"Thanks again. Take care out there."
He laughed. "It's boring out here, Sally. Less so now, but all the same – you take care of yourself. I'll be back soon."
oOo
oOo
Facade
oOo
Thoughts? Lot of banter in this one, but there's a lot to unpack emotionally too… and there's at least hints of some plot too.
