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Chapter Twenty-Four

Connection


Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection and the path to the feeling of worthiness. If it doesn't feel vulnerable, the sharing is probably not constructive. – Brene Brown


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There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community. – M. Scott Peck


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Reconciling the past and present is often something of a balancing act.

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This chapter has been something of a whirlwind to write. Man, but it's good to be back.


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December 21st 198 – Saturday – Gratz, Austria – 6:30am

He had, admittedly, had better mornings.

On the other hand… he'd definitely had worse.

He'd been led back out into the living area of the large suite his son was in, and before long, a small army had arrived – Revenant Rubato, he assumed, or at least a tidy chunk of it. No one was talking to him as they covered a long table in paperwork, but they weren't isolating him either, beyond leaving him in the far corner of the room with the boy his son had ordered to watch him.

The punk was eying him carefully, clearly cataloguing him, with a wrinkle in his brow that betrayed worry. His mouth was all set determination, however, and he moved with the grace of a martial artist.

Junior had handed the gun to this one out of everyone in the room, and by all signs, the kid didn't see Junior as a simple ally so much as a friend.

What the hell. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. "How long have you known him?"

The kid's returning look was incredulous.

Jack rolled his eyes. "He handed you the gun," he pointed out. "I figure he knows you better than the blonde." He wasn't sure on why he hadn't given the gun back to the girl sharing his bed, but there was more subtext there than he'd been able to pick up with half his vision lost in stars and carpet grain.

Jesus, but his kids hit hard. And he'd ever seen anyone move that fast.

The kid watching him just rolled his eyes, the sights of the gun never shifting from his center mass.

The main door opened again and another group came in with pastry boxes. Attention shifted, and at first he thought it was just for the food, but… no, that was deference, directed at another blonde. He waved them off, passing his boxes to someone else… and turned to walk towards Jack instead.

The one Skye called boss, then, he decided… though he had to suppress a smile as he realized the 'loot' comment had probably been about the food. He looked to be about Junior's age, same as the one keeping a bead on him, same long hair in a ponytail, but that was where the similarities ended. The first was some range of middle Asian, maybe even straight Chinese descent, while the new one was very white. Gold and white blonde hair, gold-bronze tan, built more like a dancer than a gymnast – or a swordsman, he amended, catching sight of a large sheath across his low back. The boy's features might have been called delicate if not for the crooked white scar twisting across the left side of his face. Memorable.

And the girl had hit some kind of panic switch that went directly to him – which brought Junior backup inside twenty seconds. This was probably his boy's best friend, and if he was in a betting mood, he was also the 'lawyer friend' Jake had seen footage of at the bank.

A face like that? If he wanted to be discreet, he would know how to keep out of camera angle.

"I've got him," the new guy announced, dropping into the empty chair they'd left directly facing Jack's little corner. "Audi gave me the cliff notes."

Audi. He hadn't been sure earlier – they weren't pronouncing it the way he'd expected. Given where he'd found her, he'd initially thought she was a girlfriend – and figured at least Junior was doing well for himself, since she was a pretty little thing… quick on the draw too, which he could appreciate. But… I don't know enough, he decided.

The Asian one was frowning. "He asked me," he argued quietly. "I've never seen him like that and ask anything."

That… sounded like an L5 accent. Old L5. Huh.

The newcomer raised his brows, then shrugged. "You can stay too, but I've got him. Put the gun away; if there's a problem, I'd rather not explain the noise."

Great. Not a bad tactic, but still.

The kid sent him a wry smile. "Gauche, I know, but you're the one who broke in. So. I'm Cat Wilson."

Jack nodded. "Jack Miller."

Cat returned the nod sharply. "You mentioned you haven't been in contact since 184. The few times Odin's been willing to talk about anything before 186, the memories sounded fragmented by trauma; and that was when we still thought he was two years younger than he apparently is. He also responds poorly to being called 'Jack', and not in a 'that's not my name' way. What's that about?"

Jack licked his lips. "Should all be in the file."

"Audi's reading the file – I'm here to read you. What happened?"

He controlled his breathing – it wasn't as though he hadn't told the story a dozen or more times. "I got put away for four years by the Alliance for guerilla warfare and privateering in January 179," he recited. "Got served divorce papers two months later, but I couldn't leave it at that, so when I got out and couldn't find a trace of my wife, I tracked down my brother-in-law, Odin Lowe. At worst we at least needed to talk about custody of our son, and Odin… If Rhea hadn't been with him, he was someone I knew how to track. Found out I had two kids instead of one, and I hadn't been able to find Rhea because she died having the baby." Another deep breath. "The boys didn't know me, and…" How much do they know about O- Damn, the kid likes the name for himself, fine, but how much do they know about Senior?

The blonde's gaze was intrigued, but his mouth slanted in a sharp frown. "Shoo, I take it back, I need you to leave."

He was about offended, or at least confused, before the Asian one rolled his eyes again, but stood. "I'll go check on Audi, then."

"Don't," Cat commanded sharply, not shifting his gaze from Jack. "I know you respect him, but Odin is not nearly as open with his personal life as your boss. Give them space, please."

He – Shoo? Shu? – scowled. "He asked me, Cat."

"Skye and Ensio have almost no firearms training and Audi was an inch away from going into shock," Cat returned, even sharper. "He trusts you because she trusts you and he knows your record, but this is none of your business right now. Go."

Jack watched the way the kid's face fell in a moue of disappointment before he turned and strode away – it looked like they'd both overjudged that relationship, then.

"You were saying?"

He met those odd eyes again – light brown flecked with blue – frustrated. "I don't know what you know."

"I'm not asking you to tell me what I do or don't already know," he countered immediately. "I need an explanation from your own mouth so I can judge how sincere it is." His gaze narrowed. "The older brother – that's the old account manager, Jacob Miller?"

Jack let out another slow breath. "I don't know anything about the accounts – but yes, Jake took over both halves of their inheritance when Senior passed, so it makes sense that his name would have been on the paperwork. You're the one who went with him to the Antwerp bank?"

Cat's expression shifted to something more languid – and all too like his namesake. "I am."

"Nice job with the cameras," he praised. He hadn't seen the film himself, but Jake had been deeply impressed. "It takes skill to play that kind of keep away while looking natural."

"Your point?"

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And he might as well paint his firstborn's boundaries while he was at it. "Jake decided he ought to stay neutral and let Junior make the first move, and he has his own problems to track right now in any case. But he laughed himself downright silly over the Odin Burton identity. Said it's good work, but he looked up every Odin there was in 193, just hoping."

"Mm." The boy looked a little disgruntled, but that was the extent of it. "No help for that, I suppose. That was the only reason it didn't hold water, though?"

"Yeah – I think his exact phrase was 'damn fine Winner-quality work.'" He tipped his head, more than willing to give the point. "If that was you, then I don't know if praise can get any higher. They're the best."

Cat's smile was wry. "I suppose they are. But you were telling me your story?"

There had been no surprise, just resigned annoyance. He knows enough. "I tried to co-parent with Senior. There were… Ethics problems." Psychological problems. "It didn't work. I entrapped him in a court case for custody." I almost lost anyway. "Towards the end it got… mean."

"A freedom fighter but not an assassin, then," Cat mused.

He wanted to laugh in the little shit's face. "That wasn't the issue."

He thought he'd controlled his expression, but the boy was sitting up straighter, seemingly having caught the full context anyhow. "No?"

He backed up to defend himself. "I met the Lowes because we hired Senior to lend my militia a hand. I did jobs with him for almost a year – my issue is that before I showed up, he'd already had my six-year-old sniping people as active backup for over a year, with the emotional parallel of 'this is how you mow the lawn'. He didn't have any concerns over my nearly nonverbal three-year-old that could field strip and reassemble every single gun they owned as fast as an Alliance cadet. My firstborn didn't understand why killing people was any different from playing soccer, and the baby didn't have a clear concept of self."

He let out a shuddering breath. "Senior was killing people before I was born – I got over that. I didn't always like it, but stopping him was like trying to divert a fucking tornado once he set his teeth in. Jake worried me, but his issue was just miseducation – easy enough to fix. Junior, though… he needed more, and Odin wouldn't even acknowledge the possibility."

He'd gotten a real reaction this time, at least – though he hadn't intended to say that much. Cat's eyes were huge, and his breathing matched Jack's. I shouldn't have said that. In some ways, it was easier to say it without the kid in front of him, especially now that he'd seen that he had friends, that he was okay, but Jesus Christ he was a mess again, he couldn't-

Calm washed over him like a soothing wave, a sea of… Aw, fuck. That's why he wanted it direct from me. He basked in the feeling for a long moment, letting his thoughts settle where his emotions already had, taking advantage of the manipulation. Invasive or not, it was much easier to recollect himself, and he'd take it.

After a long moment though, he opened his eyes again and gave the empath a level look. "You should warn people – that was rude."

"I care about Odin too much to bother with courtesy," he returned. "I needed a deep read." He pursed his lips, then added, "That's how he feels most of the time, you know. Calm. Content and smooth, no matter what comes. Normally he keeps me grounded."

Jack licked his lips. "And now?"

Cat's expression was condescending. "Let's just say he's not my anchor today."

"Shit."

They both looked up as the bedroom door opened, but instead of Junior it was just the girl, Audi. Fully dressed now with bold hipster frame glasses perched on her nose, she looked around a moment before spotting them and heading over, laptop in hand. "Morning, Cat."

"It is that," Cat agreed blandly. "Did you speed read, or was it short?"

She shrugged. "Little of both?" Considering Jack for a moment, she took the seat Shu had left behind and turned to the blonde. "What do you think?"

"Genuine, if a little volatile," Cat decided, eyes firmly on Jack again as he spoke. "How did the custody battle play out?"

She grimaced, and Jack closed his eyes, knowing what was coming next. "Not well for this guy, until he made an emotional play and tried to pick up little Odin only to have the older kid casually snap his arm in three places without a sign of contrition. Kinda made the concern for psychological care look really valid, when big Odin had been waving it off before."

"…huh. That's different."

"In the end, I only got Jake," Jack continued. "More or less because of that, yes. I had barely any claim on Junior to begin with, and with how he refused to talk to anyone but his brother, they just decided he was autistic."

"I saw that," she admitted. "I guess… maybe?"

He waved a hand – he really didn't see how it mattered. "It was more complicated than that, but sure. The ruling was the best I could realistically hope for, and either way they needed to be separated." He sighed. "I thought after a few months or maybe a year, when he saw the changes in the boys, Odin would concede the damn point and we'd work the rest of it out. But instead, Senior vanished himself and Junior completely, and I only managed to hold onto Jake for six months before he pulled the wool over my eyes and ran back to the Khushrenadas." Which was just as well, because apparently Barton was already sending kill squads for him. Not that he'd known that until after Amarianna had the boy firmly out of reach.

Silent or not, fucked in the head or not, Odin had still tried to do his best by the boys, even if it meant hiding outside Jack's fucking apartment complex and taking out assassins before he or Jake realized they were there. It just… hadn't been enough. Not anymore than anything Jack had done.

At least Amarianna had been just as concerned about Jake's psyche as he was. She'd promised she would take care of it, and as much as he hated the Alliance, hated OZ, she had done right by his son. She'd also encouraged the fostering with Des Noin, and if nothing else… the Noins were a lot of why Jake had turned out okay. His little monster had grown up into a damn fine young man, and some days that felt like a fucking miracle all on its own.

Audi's voice cut off his reverie. "Back to the Khushrenadas?"

Jack sat up straight again, rolling his eyes. "The Khushrenada widow was one of the few people Odin considered a friend. He was a regular guest at her estate before Rhea and I got married, and that didn't stop until I started the custody battle." The boys had all three played together when they were little, and Jake and Treize had stayed frustratingly close right up until Khushrenada's death.

"…huh. But not since Odin was, like…. Four, right?"

Jack frowned at her, trying to see her point. "Closer to three, I think."

"Don't worry about it," Cat dismissed. "So you never heard from the Odins again after that?"

"No. Jake's said that he and Senior talked a few times before his body turned up in 188 and Junior went missing, but I was out of the loop." He hadn't actually heard about it for months, and even then, only because Jake had gone missing on his chase.

Audi considered him for a long moment, then shrugged, turning back to Cat. "I think he's probably okay, at least on paper." She frowned at him. "Don't sneak up on us again. That could've gone a lot worse."

He nodded agreeably enough – the evidence being what it was, and the implication…

A moment later, she was smiling brightly at him and leaning forward to hold out one hand. "I'm Audi Burton."

"Yeah, apparently he's not just good at dodging hotel and infrared security," Cat announced with a grimace. "He knows we made up the Burtons."

The girl froze for a moment, then huffed out an annoyed breath. "Seriously?"

"Apparently."

She let out a high pitched, whining growl. "Caaaaaaaaaat! Seriously? All that talk about punching believable holes in the story and still? I could've kept the Aurelia identity and be sixteen! I could already have my driver's license!"

"You can maybe pass for fifteen, and only until you open your mouth," the blonde argued immediately, sounding deeply put upon.

Jack couldn't help himself. "I thought she was sixteen."

The girl's face lit up again, even as Cat gave him a suspicious look.

"Until you walked out here, at least," he added. He hadn't been a hundred percent on it, but as smoothly as she moved, it wasn't with a teenager's swagger. And then, as Cat noted, she'd started talking. Even before the whining started, the speech patterns felt young.

She huffed at them both, setting her hands on her hips… then sighed and extended a hand again. "I prefer Audi, anyway. If you're going to be around…" she shrugged a little. "It's all I've got."

Unsure of how else to response to such a clearly loaded statement, he took the handshake. "Nice to meet you, Audi. I'm Jack." He licked his lips as he let go and leaned away again. "How do you know my son?"

"He's my brother, so get used to me," she informed him plainly. "He found me and I kept him, and that's that."

"Okay." That… was honestly more promising on the mental health front than the cover story's dead adoptive family. A foundling.

Audi bit her lip a moment, then glanced back at Cat. "How genuine did you mean?"

"The only outliers I've gotten are suspicion and bursts of anger, and they match up. He had a pretty decent lid on the last until I shoved – and he's aware enough to have called me out on it."

"It wasn't subtle," Jack pointed out.

"You're a volcano, I didn't have time for subtle. It would have been worse for us both to deal with the fallout than fix what I'd set off in the first place."

…Shit. He hadn't realized that the pouring his heart out was prompted with more than verbal barbs. He'd just meant the soothing was obvious.

"…If I say it's important, will you tell me what you got angry about?" She was biting one lip. "Might help, if I'm right."

He'd already said it once, so why the fuck not. "Senior turning toddlers into contract killers," he explained flatly.

"I think his phrasing was something about the kids not understanding the difference between shooting someone and kicking a ball," Cat added. "Which is more detail than Odin's ever given me, to be honest."

Audi grimaced, nodding a little. "It's… accurate. But he likes to talk about the waffle iron or the beach more than the jobs," she agreed.

Jack groaned. He'd actually managed to forget about the fucking utili-tool waffle iron. It had started as a joke, and the… of course that was something Odin kept, Jake had been obsessed with it.

"But… the angriest I've ever seen Odin was when I asked what was so different about how he and I lived, compared to how he grew up. I mean, I just meant how we went where we wanted, no strings, but he snarled about how he was not an assassin. That people were too remarkable for someone to ever have the right to take a life over something 'as pointless as money.'"

They were all silent for a long moment. Maybe Cat was processing – Jack was mostly trying to think of ways he might have misunderstood the statement out of context before getting his hopes up.

Then, "You've seen Odin angry?"

The question on its own might have had him bracing again, but the bewildered tone had him snapping his head up instead.

She made a face. "I mean, his version of angry? I think he might've been almost as mad this morning, but he didn't want to talk about it so I don't know. Is he okay in there?"

Cat sighed, relaxing… only it was more like his strings had been cut. "I wouldn't call that anger, no. And he should be out soon."

She frowned. "He was upset."

"That's a better word for it." And he scowled pointedly back at Jack. "What?"

How do you even ask this? "…You sounded confused."

The boy just rolled his eyes. "It's just phrasing. I'm not sure Odin knows how to lose his temper."

"He gets crazy frustrated sometimes," Audi added. "And he kinda sorta yelled once, but he was asking for help? And even then, he just started shutting down afterwards instead of following up."

Cat frowned at her. "I've never heard him yell."

She made a face. "Dude, it was literally three words, and then I thought he was going to cry, so I started hollering so he'd focus on me instead of turtling up in his head."

Cat closed his eyes, groaning. "You can't use turtle as a verb."

"He turtles, Cat," she protested. "Get over it."

"I know, but that's not a real word, you can't just-"

"If you know what I meant, then it works, and I'm saying it."

…He'd definitely gained a preteen in this bargain. Oh well. He'd missed out with both boys, so he figured he was overdue.

In any case… one of the few good things about his brother-in-law was how levelheaded he'd been. It wasn't outside the realm of possibility for Junior to have inherited Senior's temperament; it was just that Jake had just gotten so much of both his and Rhea's anger issues that he'd been planning for that again.

Something he hadn't even realized was clenched shuddered into shaking relief. He hadn't cared if it was going to be all the shit with Jake all over again, he was here, but… Thank God.

"Jack?" Cat's voice was concerned.

His best friend is a space heart that trusts him for an anchor. He adopted a kid. A kid Jack had managed to scare senseless, who had pulled a gun on him, but didn't want to shoot him. Holy shit.

This was legitimately turning into one of the best damn days of his life.

"Cat?"

"…Maybe just get him a donut or something, I… he's fine. I need to go outside for a minute."

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Munich, Germany – Sarracenia

"It was suits no one was able to register, and it was in the hot zone," BJ determined grimly. "Until someone gives me evidence otherwise, we're calling it the Brussels gang."

"Are we honestly calling them that?" Lindsay protested, tone mild.

"Until they deliver a manifesto or the PR team swings something jaunty, sure." He met Relena's eyes. "No one knows at this point if this was the intended result or not, but there's no way to hold back the panic – over twenty thousand people were incinerated when the fusion reactor blew, and that's without touching the commercial or economic end. There's hardly any evidence left to collect. I'm surprised the news didn't print with sunrise."

Lin frowned. "People have to be talking already, the satellite feeds are either public or close enough that what's on them is an open secret."

"The satellites records haven't been reliable for a while," Jake mused, moving away from one of the desktops. "They've become the favored playground of every kid who thinks he can hack and their pet dog, let alone our regular constellation of rebels. They're so heavily canvased that people are spoofing other people's spoofs, apparently."

"Well… shit."

Jake nodded. "I knew it was happening, but not that it was this bad. I haven't tried to access them directly in a while."

"I can't see any other intent," Hayden decided. "It was a small group of suits that went in – but even with a large contingent, they couldn't have thought they could hold onto the spaceport. Even if that was only the tip of the iceberg and they just wanted to launch something big into space, I don't see how they would've justified it. If it was kidnapping or theft or something gone wrong with the primed reactor, there were much smarter ways to go about it. Their op might not have gone according to plan, but what could have been the point, besides what they accomplished?" He shook his head. "If it was someone else, who knows, but if it was Brussels… they're too smart for that."

"And I'd rather plan for smart unknowns than dismissing chaotic idiots," BJ agreed. "If we're wrong, then all we'll have wasted is effort." He sighed. "And I'm not complaining, but the response time from the military is interesting too – I would've thought they were still tied up with the Italian situation."

"It was a spaceport actively sending a care package to the main army," Jake pointed out.

BJ nodded to the point. It still felt off, but it was valid.

"Other than composing a response for the inevitable questions, there's nothing I can do right now," the princess decided, mouth firm. "Let me know when we know more."

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Gratz, Austria – 6:40am

Cold air hit Odin when he opened the door – the door to the balcony had been left cracked, and with the blinds open, he could see Quatre leaning against the railing.

The other man looked relaxed, but only if you didn't know him. As it was, this wasn't so much an invitation as a demand.

…His cane was in pieces across the room, and Quatre had probably already been waiting a while, so he didn't bother fetching it. But he did pull on his coat before limping out.

The icy winter breeze carried away the smoke his friend blew out before he could catch more than a whiff of it – he'd been considerate enough to position himself on the most downwind aspect of the deck. "How are you?"

"I can't run," he admitted. "Probably not for a week." He'd done some damage in his panic, probably while lunging off the bed. The hot water hadn't helped nearly as much as he had hoped it would. His morning stretches would make up some of the difference, but he'd have to skip his usual conditioning routines for a few days to keep from aggravating the injury.

He couldn't see enough of Quatre's face to tell exactly what he did with it beyond noticing a brief change in his expression before he nodded, the motion full of the same forced idleness as the rest of his posture. "What are you planning to do?"

"…I don't know." He'd stopped feeling powerless, useless, but while he felt steady again, he was also a little… blank. "I'm going to have to find out."

He'd been… aware, on some level, that he was running away from this. But there hadn't been any reason to deal with it. He hadn't felt ready – though if he was honest, the only thing he'd done over the last four years that he felt truly ready for, that he'd wanted without being pushed forward, was Lucrezia.

He'd wanted more of that. The… idle control of it. The ability to choose. The ability to turn away from a daunting task without consequences…

…But there were consequences.

"If he had been hostile, Audi would be dead."

Quatre scoffed. "Don't dodge the issue."

"I can't blind myself to connections I'm not emotionally ready for," he decided. "That was stupid." He rested his elbows on the railing, still a good meter away from his friend, and settled his weight on his good leg. "I knew I came from somewhere, and I ignored the possibility of other relatives because it made what my father did worse."

Another puff of smoke. "I don't actually know what he did, you realize."

Suddenly, he wanted to laugh. Where do I start?

He could remember J's analytical gaze, that day Odin had died. 'You have good eyes.' He'd been so empty, walking because he couldn't figure out what else to do, when J had said that. Said it and recruited him.

The despair, the pure loss and nothing that had clouded Marie's eyes that first time he saw her struck him again… and he didn't think he could ever hate his father, but resentment was something else entirely. As much as he'd loved Odin, he'd also spent the last ten years nursing the bitter hurt of their last few months together.

What did he do? When he looked at all of it from an adult's perspective, from knowing what it was to care about someone who depended on you? After shouldering all the responsibilities and wishes and demands flung his way during the war?

He hadn't wanted to admit it, but he knew exactly what Odin had done wrong.

"He made me."

It felt as though he'd torn the words out of his chest, the way it ached. But that was the truth of it.

"I didn't… I didn't know. And then he said he was leaving. He took everything but one set of papers and a few weapons, and just… sent me off to stage a distraction. Said I should have a good life. To go… be normal."

Quatre was quiet for a moment. Then, "And he expected you to listen?"

He felt his mouth stretch into a smile, though he wasn't able to hold onto it. "Maybe. I didn't plan to. I'd already worked out his exit strategy, and how I'd get back to him."

"That sounds about right. So what happened then?"

The cold felt good, whipping across his face. He leaned into it, closing his eyes. "Wrong exit strategy. He killed himself."

Quatre was silent for another long moment before cursing something unintelligible and stubbing out his cigarette. Then he moved closer before settling back into his slouch so they were elbow to elbow.

"It took me a long time to realize that," Odin admitted. "Just… like this, I guess. I didn't want to. So I ignored it. I watched him die – bullet to the liver, but he usually wore body armor. He spent his last minutes trying to tell me how to not end up the same as him. 'Do what your heart tells you, so you won't regret it later.'"

He opened his eyes again, but didn't really see. "I'm pretty sure I'm the regret he couldn't live with anymore."

Quatre let out a long, slow breath. "That's… terrible."

…It really had been, hadn't it? "Yeah."

"…How do the Millers make it worse?"

"…I'm not sure," he admitted. "But either he didn't want me near them… or he did. And I screwed up, either way."

His friend considered that. "You think he was shielding them from you?"

He closed his eyes again. "If there were other options, why would you tell a child that you've brought him to a partially constructed colony that's about to undergo a violent revolution specifically for the purpose of abandoning him?"

"…Odin, you don't do that even if there aren't options." The empath's words shook.

He slumped. "Yeah." It wasn't something he could imagine doing to a stranger's child, let alone one he'd bonded with like Marie – let alone one he'd raised from infancy, as he knew Odin had him. "I think it was the other way."

"What?"

"If I'd done what he said, blended in, social services would have checked my prints within a few days. I was obfuscating my trail hard until this last week, and even then it would have taken significant work to track me here. Jack wanted to find me. He would have, if I'd given him the chance before now." Standing up straight, he braced himself. "Who is he? To me?"

Quatre let out a sigh, standing upright as well before leaning a hip back against the rail. "Biologically? Your father. Apparently Odin was your maternal uncle."

Well. He felt like that should mean something important, but he just… couldn't care. "He always said he wasn't my dad," he mused. "But he was – so I stopped caring."

"Technically Senior adopted you when your mom died, so it's a moot point." He hesitated, then continued. "The other Miller is your older brother, and that's where it starts to get messy."

"Starts?"

Quatre scoffed, but otherwise ignored him. "I haven't even begun trying to untangle it, but emotionally, he's a major landmine for Jack. They clearly have a relationship, but… Odin, that man thinks your first meeting went really well and was so bright with hope that I had leave and smoke half a pack."

He considered. "That's… not so bad." He was confused.

"Not for you, no, but it's damning all the same. He expected it to hurt."

Odin thought back, debating. "I didn't hit him that hard."

Quatre groaned. "And he agrees with you! Odin, he came here expecting something bad, and he came anyway, and that's how he feels about Jake Miller."

…He still wasn't understanding. He knew what it was to want to avoid pain. But if you knew it was worth the prize, then what did pain matter? Especially if hope was involved.

Maybe that was his problem – he'd gotten so wrapped up in avoiding thoughts about why Odin had left him that he'd forgotten to hope for what good could come of it. If Odin had meant for him to be found… shouldn't he give it a chance? He'd already screwed up by waiting ten years, and despite how many ways he'd found to ruin his life, he'd made himself too, over and over. He wasn't the damaged child his father had given up on; he knew his own worth, now.

What could it hurt, to try, and see what happened? He'd wondered the same about Moira before, and that…

I need to call Moira. Later today, when he'd thought about what he wanted to say a little longer.

"…I don't even know what to do with that," Quatre announced, exasperated. "You just did the exact same thing."

Odin leaned back to consider the crowded ashtray at the other end of the railing dubiously. "Where's Cor?" He didn't usually comment on his friend's nicotine use, but that seemed… excessive.

"Oh fuck you," Quatre groused half-heartedly, dropping his elbows onto the railing. "Between Audi's initial terror and your blast of self-loathing, this morning was a rollercoaster before I got back to the hotel. I didn't even realize I had that kind of range – the damn donut shop was almost fifteen kilometers away."

Huh. "Thanks for sending Skye."

Quatre shrugged. "Go over the emergency protocols with her again – she could have called everyone with a single word." He shot him a sideways glance. "So could you."

That was… valid. "By the time I considered it, Skye was already there," he admitted. "But you're right." He could have said the right words while tackling Jack. He just… "I wasn't thinking right."

"If you're not hungover, then you're still altered," Quatre pointed out dryly. "I'm not sure which, but you're not… right."

…Five hours should have been enough time to metabolize everything, but he would admit to not feeling like himself either. "I'm not doing that again," he decided.

Quatre rolled his eyes. "Barring the home invasion, it would have been fine."

"This isn't home, and only so many precautions can be set on a public building." He barred his windows and the balconies, and breaking glass would have woken him – Jack hadn't broken anything. He'd come in by the main way somehow, which was feasible enough from the hotel security standpoint with a little skill, but not their alarm net. "How did he do it?"

"I have no idea, the equipment looks perfect. Since I'm assuming it was done digitally, I figured I'd let you sort it out." He sighed. "I'm still leaving in five days."

"…Yes." Why point that out?

Quatre raised both brows, shooting him a dubious look. "I'm not going to be around to help."

…He was missing something. "Yes."

The other man was starting to look annoyed now. "So how do you want to handle this? He found you. He's cagey enough about the brother that, combined with what we gleaned already about the investments alone? Jake Miller sets off so many alarm bells it makes me want to shiver. This is serious."

Of course it was serious, but he was still confused. "I'll figure it out." Cat looked even more exasperated. "What?"

"Are you sure you're up for this?"

…There was an urge to be annoyed as what he was saying sunk in, but he got enough of where it was coming from to just roll his eyes. "Cat. I avoided the situation because I'm willing to acknowledge I have issues, not because I can't handle them." He was willing to acknowledge he could be slow on the emotional front, but he wasn't lacking. It was one of the things he and Leia had gone over. Given his… Actually, that might help. "I passed a psyche eval."

"…What?"

Again, the urge to get annoyed was there, but Quatre's face was funny enough that he let it pass. He'd more than earned the skepticism anyway. "Audi's mom put me through my paces during my leg rehab. Given…" He grimaced. "It's me, and Audi is everything to her." They'd gone over everything – she'd insisted.

It was one of the reasons why he'd started to worry when his thoughts wanted to shy away from the details whenever they'd been hinted at since. The facts couldn't change, but his perspective had, the longer he had time to process it. She had warned him about that, but he honestly hadn't believed her. Quantifying everything he'd done, stupid and otherwise, had been daunting enough, but made the same kind of sense as post-mission reports – if you didn't analyze for mistakes, you couldn't prevent them. But they weren't supposed to change after the fact.

…There had been a lot of mistakes. Well, if he followed what Leia said, not so much 'mistakes' as 'bad ideas'. She had really harped on that – mistakes were in tasks, not life. Life was too grey to treat like math.

Hiding from his past had been a bad idea, and he'd known it at the time – he'd just thought it was one he could get away with. He'd been wrong. Time to figure out the next step, then.

So long as there was breath, there was the next step. The problem came when you refused to look for it.

"Audi's mom is a psychologist?"

"No, but she remembers her psychiatry rotation and she's thorough. Audi wouldn't have been safe from outsiders if she tried to stay, but her mom didn't want her to go with me if I wasn't stable." If I was still suicidal. Not that he had any idea of what Leia would have done if the two of them hadn't talked it out to her satisfaction, but in the end they hadn't had to discuss her lack of options.

Quatre was giving him a bewildered look. "She never… Where is this woman now?"

The familiar pang of worry, of grief he hoped was wrong, came as suddenly as always, and he saw Quatre flinch. "I don't know." Gone without a trace. Marie said she had said Zechs was coming, but he doubted that was literal. And he could find nothing digitally.

Physical methods might show something, but they would leave trails that those who took her might follow. Leia had made him promise he wouldn't do anything that might lead her enemies back to Marie, and he hadn't hesitated to swear. Even if he tried to be circuitous, it would be too easy to have her colleagues, her apartment, her colony's records watched closely enough that her captors would be able to tell someone was looking. Even if he had someone like Cliff or Ardith do the footwork, that could still leave a trail. Searching for clues was an ambush they couldn't afford to spring.

Marie was the key to the Barton Foundation. Even if he didn't care about her, giving that access to the Regime wasn't an option – and because he did care, he would deal anyone who threatened to take her choices from her.

Quatre looked calmer now, but was also eyeing him like he was a puzzle again. "Huh."

He waited.

"Okay." His friend finally relaxed, standing up straight again with his back to the morning air. "Sorry. I hadn't realized you were that self-aware."

"Aware doesn't mean consolidated," Odin pointed out. "Or reconciled. Or even comfortable." I know why he's worried. "But I'm not incompetent."

He raised both hands in surrender. "I never meant to imply that."

"I know. It's fine." He sighed. "I need to stretch." The cold wasn't doing him any favors, and… Well. He had new options to explore, didn't he?

"Right. I'll just-"

"Take a shower and find Cor," Odin told him. "And leave your coat here to air out."

Quatre made a rude noise at him. "Cor filters out everything."

"You are my friend," Odin reminded him. "And you take on too much." He leaned close enough that the acrid smoke on the other man's breath tickled his nose. "I do not need a babysitter." Turning away quickly, he made a point of not watching his reaction to the statement. "Audi has it covered."

He let himself smile at the surprised laugh behind him as he limped back inside. Good enough. The rest would sort itself out.

oOo


oOo

Gratz, Austria

Jack turned his head as the bedroom door opened again… and got his first decent look at his youngest in almost fifteen years. Even as a baby it had been easy to see he'd taken after the Miller side more than Lowe, though really, it was more the Tagaki blood – Jack had gotten those same cheekbones from his mom, and despite how blue the boy's eyes were, he had much more of a Japanese brow and tilt to them than Jack could claim. He was as pale as the Lowes though, and his unruly mop of hair was nearly as gold as Rhea's had been, brighter than Jake's. That was something of a surprise – it had been almost as dark as Jack's when he was younger. There wasn't an ounce of baby fat left on his face, and like Cat, he was on the pretty side – the fair coloring with distinctly Asian eyes and cheekbones in an otherwise western face gave him an exotic cast.

Given the liberal smattering of love bites on his neck, he probably wasn't unaware of it. He'd spent the night with the little sister, not a lover, but at least some of those marks were fresh. The boy had been out with someone and not brought her – him? – home.

He supposed that was one more thing he didn't have to concern himself with. As happy as he was now with Relena, Jake's intimacy issues had worried both him and Des for years. Teenage boys were not supposed to get nauseated or have panic attacks when touched.

On the other hand, it was impossible to miss the heavy limp and custom cane he was using as he made his way over to the sitting area Audi had urged him towards. The Burton story had said something about a car accident, but he had his doubts… and those two scars on his right bicep looked like bullet creases.

Junior had thought some kind of organization had sent Jack, then assumed he was here after a bounty. Any hopes he'd been harboring that the boy had gone as truly civilian as his cover story suggested had died pretty damn quick.

That was fine – they hadn't exactly been big hopes.

Audi stood, biting at her lip. "Odin?"

"I'm fine," he reassured her, making his way over before dropping to the floor where the coffee table had been situated between the couch and two armchairs, earlier. "Just need to stretch."

She eyed him dubiously for a long moment before deciding. "You should've gotten in the tub last night."

"Probably." He shrugged, then pointedly met Jack's gaze. "I overdid it earlier."

Ah. "Sorry for the rude awakening." He should've thought about it more, but he hadn't expected that kind of reaction. Some embarrassed shuffling and shouting, maybe, enough to put him off his guard, but not a major threat response.

Junior looked faintly amused. "No you're not."

Jack blinked. "What?"

"You're not sorry for 'the rude awakening,'" came the dryly amused response as the boy began to exercise. "I think you enjoyed that part."

…Accurate, but not helpful. "I'm sorry I legitimately upset you," he reiterated, glancing back to Audi. "Both of you. That wasn't the goal."

Junior continued eying him for another long moment before nodding, looking contemplative. "Alright. I can accept that." He leaned into a move, looking away, before adding, "I want to know how you bypassed the infrared sensors. Hotel security is always a joke, but most don't know to look for the alarm net, let alone how to evade it."

He could understand that. "I can show you later," he offered.

Junior nodded agreeably, breaths lengthening as he… tried to do a very simple motion.

"That's not fine," Audi decided, her expression gaining a mulish cast.

"Hn." Another long, controlled breath. "It will be."

"Odin-"

"Maybe not today, but it will be," he admitted, giving her an exasperated look. "I overextended last night, and then I pulled something earlier. It's fine. It was like this in July, when you were with Moira; I just won't be running anywhere for a few days."

An old injury, then, and clearly one he knew how to compensate for, given Jack's own bruised ribs and pride. Remarkably, there was no pain in the shoulder his son been so pointedly threatening to shred earlier – surprised or not, it seemed that Junior was very precise.

Audi wasn't willing to let it go yet, though. "You're moving like Grójec," she argued. "You told me it hasn't been as bad as that since the surgeries."

"We're not talking about Grójec right now," he told her, tone mild.

"You already sicced Shutao on him, and he already knew the Burtons were a cover-up," Audi retorted. "I can talk about Grójec."

"It's not that simple, so stop." He relaxed and gave her a clearly annoyed look. "You're making this harder, go spar with Yasa."

"He has to finish his forms before he'll do anything interactive," she complained.

"So do your conditioning and then spar. I can't today. Ask Luke what he needs help with or go pick up bad habits with Skye; call Amos if you want. So long as you stay inside, it's fine, but I need a minute here." He rolled his eyes, offering up a smirk to soften the blow of his words. "At least an hour – if I'm still having issues, you can swoop in then."

She huffed at him, but smiled too… and ruffled his hair as she passed him to go examine the donut table again. "Fine."

He watched her go with a fond smile for a moment, before meeting Jack's eyes again and restarting his stretch. "So I guess I really am a junior – twice over."

"Double junior," Jack agreed, watching him. "Your uncle thought your mom was making a point, covering both sides, but who knows."

"Father," he corrected. "I don't care about the biology. He raised me, so he gets the title." He made a face, relaxing for a moment before leaning further into it. "Double junior sounds like a cheeseburger, and my father is too dead to be bothered, so he can be Senior. I prefer Odin."

Well, there was another big difference. Jake started spitting acid over even a hint of the subject of Odin – of Senior. "Okay."

"How long have you been trying to track me down?"

Very direct, too. He could appreciate that. "A week or so after I found out you were alive." Jake had been pathologically afraid that even making an attempt would cause the kid to vanish into the wind again, but that had been paranoia and trauma, not reality. "That was some fancy footwork last month. I thought I had you a few times, until I got my hands on enough camera surveillance footage to realize it was someone else using your papers – is that tall redhead you had in Russia part of Rubato?"

Junior's expression was distinctly amused again. "I'm not answering that. I don't know you well enough."

Jack resisted the urge to lick his lips. Very direct but not… dismissive. He could work with that. "That's fixable," he pointed out, ignoring the way his heart felt like it was fluttering like a trapped bird.

The boy's look was dryly exasperated this time. "Obviously." Shaking his head a little, he shifted his position and started a new exercise. "I helped found Rubato, but it's not really my work. Cat and the others run it and Audi likes to help, but I only step in when asked for something specific." Frowning, he backed off on the motion and took another slow breath. "Planning isn't really… my thing."

"…That's relatable," he admitted after a long moment.

That got him a flashed grin – wow, now that looks like Jake – before adding. "I'm working on it, but old habits die hard." He glanced towards where Audi was taking her time picking another donut out of the pile. "It's more important, the more people you have with you."

That's not a bad point, Jack decided, considering the girl… and the crowd around her, playfully bantering or seriously talking about… something or other. He'd always been something of a lone wolf himself, and until recently Jake had too, with a few pointed exceptions. But given everything he'd seen this morning?

His younger son had a genuinely extensive social network. That was… maybe probably doing illegal things with him, but also very good legal things in the same vein that Jake swung with RLTT – only more democratic. Revenant Rubato was making a good name for itself. It was downright surreal, but he was about ninety percent sure the interactions he'd seen this morning were candid.

So… I'm not trusted to know about whatever Grójec is or about Rubato's back dealings and I've been relegated to 'not-father', but I'm not getting kicked out, violently or otherwise. He'd expected to have to fight for this level of acceptance. Relena had made him fight for this level of acceptance, even, though a lot of that was her implicit trust in Jake coloring their early interactions.

"I'm curious about the bad habits comment," he admitted, focusing back on Audi.

Odin groaned, leaning into another stretch. "Skye likes to throw knives, and it's stupid but she won't let it go."

He debated. "It can be useful in a pinch?" he argued. "But mostly stupid, yeah. If you get the distance or the rotation wrong there's no point, and you're out a weapon. That takes more training than it's worth." He'd used some shuriken before when he wanted to avoid the noise of gunfire and still have a ranged option, but wrist motions were different enough that training for one didn't necessarily help for the other.

His boy hummed an agreement without looking up, nodding. "She's good at judging distance, but there's no point. She packs enough heat that her knife is a last resort, which means she should be slashing, not giving it up. If she wants to carry more knives, she'll have to give up one of her guns to have enough room to stash them, and that's dumb. Skye can carry so many because he's only just learning firearms." He sighed, deepening his movement further. "And male clothing gives more opportunity anyway."

More of a rant than he'd expected, but apparently this was something of a sore spot. Also… that was a lot of information willingly given. Nothing he couldn't have guessed, given how quickly the girl had drawn a gun earlier, but still. "Cat mentioned the lack of training," he noted agreeably.

"Most of Rubato hasn't had the time or background." He was still leaning, not looking up.

Hm. "But Shutao has, then?"

He caught the difference in enunciation that Cat and Marie had lacked to catch the distinctly Cantonese x; the shift into an L5 accent long enough to say the word with a different flair. "Xutao isn't part of Rubato, he-" Odin cut himself off abruptly, sitting up slightly and frowning at nothing. "Shit."

"Too much?" Jack suggested, watching skeptically.

"Too easy," Odin countered, relaxing and leaning back on his hands. "I'm not used to this."

"…I don't follow," he admitted after a moment. The stretching? But it looked like he was struggling with it. The information? He hadn't exactly given much away.

"Don't worry about it." He started climbing to his feet. "I'll finish this after I get some coffee. Ask about something else."

He blinked. "Really?" He'd honestly expected to get shut down, if Junior had made a slip of some kind.

"I don't know how to handle this conversation," Odin announced bluntly as he picked up his cane. "Unless you want me to stare at you until Audi comes back, you should probably direct it. I'll tell you if a topic is off-limits."

With that, he started to move towards the breakfast table, and Jack stood up to follow. As jarring as that whole statement was… he didn't really get it, but he was more than willing to go along. "In mid November, when I saw the redhead in Russia using your name, you had four other legitimate looking trails. Where were you really?"

The side-eye he got for the question was highly amused. "What day, exactly?"

He thought back to his conversation with Des, after the long sleepless night chasing ghosts. "November fourteenth."

The smile was nothing like Jake this time, a sly smirk with darkly pleased creases at the corners of his eyes giving him a distinctly demonic cast. "Chicago."

Jack froze. "What?"

"You heard me." His tone matched his face, smooth and smug and enigmatically entertained.

He hurried to catch up – despite the cane, he was still moving fairly fast. "Why?"

"I left some stuff there during the war. I wanted it back."

…Aw hell. "You picked up Senior's squirrel shit," he realized.

The boy looked incredulous this time. "His what?"

"You don't trust safety deposit boxes, do you?" He continued. "You just squirrel god knows what anywhere you can think of that seems convenient at the time."

"I have plenty of safety deposit boxes," he defended, but his eyes were bright with amusement. "But-"

"Banks have cameras," Jack finished with him in chorus, then groaned. "God damn it."

"Yeah," Audi announced, talking with her mouth full as she came closer. "The first time he had me crawl under someone's porch to get an ammo tin he'd duct taped under there years before, I wanted to cry. It's weird, right?"

"I thought I told you to go away," Odin complained, though the corner of his mouth was ticked up in a smirk.

"You totally came to me, so get over it. Your hands are half full anyway, I thought I'd help. Coffee or danish?"

"Coffee, please."

She fluttered a hand at him. "Get a donut or something, I'll make you a cup and bring it back." He made an irritated noise at her… and turned to peruse the pastry selection. Audi just made a chipper sound back at him and bounced over to the coffee pot.

…Yeah. Definitely siblings.

"Woah, hey, what are you doing up?" someone asked, focusing on his son. American accent again, Jack thought, covering a frown. There was… an oddly high number of those here, all things considered. This one looked a little older than Odin, obviously muscular, with black hair and blue-green eyes; fair and tall enough, with the right kind of nose to be of Russian descent. "I thought you were sleeping in?"

"Plans change," Odin returned idly, still staring at the food. "What's your excuse?"

"Sleeping more than four hours a go gives me nightmares, I avoid it. Don't need much anyway."

What? That was a jarringly awful statement said casually as hell… and no one around them was reacting to it at all.

The twenty-something, meanwhile, was leaning over the opposite side of the table to squint at Odin, before pointing at one of the simpler donuts. "These ones are the blandest, I think."

"I like custard," Odin dismissed. "Or cinnamon sounds good. Nothing berry, it clashes with coffee."

The other kid's face grew suspicious. "Look at me for a second, would you?"

Making another irritated noise, Odin did so. "What?"

Jack watched as the suspicion melted into something closer to glee. "Holy shit."

"Damien-"

"I figured you were hungover! But you're not, you're still drunk!"

Disbelief warred with the urge to laugh… and maybe cry a little too, because if he was? He'd barely had time to inhale between the kid opening his eyes and slamming an elbow into his ribs, let alone once he'd closed the distance. If he was seriously-

"Someone hit him for me," Odin demanded, sounding aggrieved as he grabbed a donut and jammed it in his mouth.

Hilariously, several hands immediately moved to obey – but Damien darted away from them all, cackling delightedly. "Hot damn. No wonder you called for a ride! If you're still like this, how the hell were you still walking when we dropped off your girl?"

"The usual way," Odin snarked back, chewing. "It wasn't hard."

"I'll bet-"

"Damien, I swear to God I will put chili flakes in your underwear and only let you drink decaf for a month if you do not get the hell out of my staging center!" an older man roared, slamming his hands down on the table. "We've been over this!"

"I'll just-"

"If I have to take away everyone else's caffeine to get you they'll find a way to placate me, and you won't know where to watch."

"Come on," Odin groused, starting to hobble back to the couches.

"Is he right?" Jack found himself asking, keeping pace. Still, he noted that the older one who was yelling now had an American accent too, though with more of a northeastern twang.

"I wasn't that compromised last night, but yeah, it's not gone yet." He took another overly aggressive bite of his donut. "It's irritating to compensate for."

He nodded in understanding, watching him…. and walking next to him now, he could see the details of a truly impressive hickey under his right ear that looked like it had to hurt, bruises overlaid in varying stages of healing suggesting it was a… favorite spot. Given what Damien had just said… "Had to say goodbye to your girl last night?"

"New topic," Odin decided immediately.

Stable girlfriend then, not a hook-up. Probably, at least, and not exactly a big deal either way. I've probably pushed my luck enough, though. The kid had been easygoing and far more gregarious than he had any right so far, but trust did need to be earned properly, over time.

As quickly as Odin had dismissed their familial connection, he clearly had no issue making friends… and the kid had already shown several examples where he had converted friends into family. With only two days before his next shift, he'd do a lot better to lay some foundations instead of trying to run an interrogation.

"What kind of music do you like?"

oOo


oOo

Munich, Germany – Sarracenia

"Minister Darlian-Peacecraft, thank you again for fitting me into your schedule! I know it's early there, and I really appreciate it."

"I'm glad we could make it work," Relena returned. "Your email said your concerns were time-sensitive?" She smiled. "Usually that's my line."

"Well I have deadlines, but the time-sensitive aspect is less about my work and more about what I was hoping you could tell me," the engineer admitted. "I tried other routes, but I couldn't get straight answers from anyone… and I remembered how thoroughly invested you are with your projects on a personal level. I wasn't sure if you still personally ran the hydroponics complexes, but if you didn't I knew you'd know who to send me to next." He grimaced apologetically. "I desperately need the statistical data from your successes there, as well as the supply and demand problems they're both helping with and still not making the cut for.

"The Regime offices shut me down outright when I tried to request census information, but… even that… Miss Darlian, I remember the research and paperwork you brought to the table for the hydroponics work, but I don't have copies, and they'd be out of date now even if I did. If this isn't still in your wheelhouse, could you at least get me in touch with whoever crunched those numbers the first time? I'm authorized to offer them a considerable consulting fee."

Relena blinked, processing all of that. She hadn't talked to Dane Robbins of Hideki Robotics since September, and beyond their first meeting their correspondence had mostly been through email, but this level of deference seemed… concerning. He'd always been very down to earth.

"I'm sorry the Regime offices have been inhospitable," she began slowly. "I wasn't aware of this until now – but I don't see why you couldn't ask over email?' She frowned. "Forgive me, it's early, I could have phrased that better – Dane, are you well?" Was he just… tired? Hideki was based out of L1, but Dane belonged to the primary L3 office, and they kept to Central European time, which meant it was seven in the morning for him too.

The man sighed gustily, visibly relaxing. "Right, you never did stand on formality. Minister-"

"I honestly still like Miss Darlian," she admitted, hoping to put him more at ease. "My name is also fine; we've worked together long enough that I use yours."

"Relena," he amended with a sigh, beginning to truly look more relaxed… and more tired. "I'm sorry. I have a job list extending beyond the horizon, and it's good work, but I've been stretched thin. As for the email…" He winced. "I'm on thin ice with a couple NDAs, but I'm asking you, a prior client, not… a Regime official. Public records are one thing, but I couldn't get those, and I… really don't want to run this next project blind. In some ways, my life really will be easier if you can direct me to whoever you had crunching numbers instead of helping me personally. I can skate this, but only just." He rolled his eyes, spreading his hands in a helpless gesture. "Sorry about the preamble – I babble when I get nervous."

Now I'm well and truly intrigued, she thought, raising her brows at him skeptically. "You're baiting this really hard."

Dane's smile was broad. "Relena, you'd like my new client. I don't pay much mind to any of Earth's politics, but I know how you feel about your projects, like I said. So – can I have access to either your statistics, or the email of the person who crafted them for the hydroponics work?"

She considered for a moment before doing it, only feeling a little bad – in the end of the day, it was technically true, and the Regime… well. She could, on both a personal and professional level, appreciate someone wanting a degree of separation from the government. Besides – Dane Robbins had specifically been a recommendation of Jake in the first place, based on earlier RLTT projects. "I can do both. The consultant is kept on retainer by RLTT, and he can probably get whatever you need. He's not a member of my personal staff anymore, but we're close. I can forward his email to you."

"I would deeply appreciate that, thank you. You have no idea how much that helps."

Oh, I'm pretty sure I will. If it truly wasn't any of her business then Jake would keep it to himself, but now she was curious… and given what Dane had already let drop, she doubted she'd be left in the dark.

oOo


oOo

Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew – 11:00am

"So you don't know?"

"I haven't been on Earth since mid November, and before that I was in North America, remember? I'll be back within the week, but right now I'm too far removed. What does Odin say?"

Melissa's husband scoffed. "He says he's too busy to talk right now, and Skye is answering Cat's phone again."

Adam made a dismissive noise. "Then they're busy, so what? Tap Howard. It's not direct, but he's still a solid line to the Insurgence, and their intel should be good."

Duo groaned, and Melissa settled in the doorframe with her arms crossed to watch his shoulders slump further. "Howard is out of range, and probably will be for the next month."

A pause. "Oh, right. I forgot."

"You really aren't going to be involved in that, then?"

"I've been busy," Adam returned waspishly. "It's a mess up here, and a circus is not an easy thing to move through the space lanes. Once I have them settled back on Earth maybe I will, but it's really not my problem right now. You don't even care, so why are you trying to make it my problem?"

Duo's groan was more frustrated that growly this time. "A spaceport just got taken off the map, man."

"Which is one more reason to get my family's circus out of space. You'd think they would have learned from the war, but…" He sighed, obviously calming himself. "No, it was a good idea last year, but the shipping lanes are too much of a logistical nightmare up here to make up for the inflated prices they can push with a community that thinks a housecat is exotic. I have more resources on Earth now too, so hopefully I can steer them clear of trouble." Another sigh. "I'll come visit when I can, alright? I haven't forgotten, I just had to prioritize."

"That's… yeah, okay, you're totally right, I'm sorry. Cathy and everyone else is okay?"

Another sigh. "Yeah, everyone is fine, just stressed. We came way too close to having to put the elephant down, though, and that… it shouldn't have happened. I got Edwin to agree to at least never bring Winnie to space again, which, given how young she still is, means they're effectively Earthbound from here on." He snorted. "Or maybe I get to elephant-sit at some future date if it looks ideal again, but either way that's… one problem handled."

That… was an incongruous image, given what she had seen of Adam. But at the same time… it was his family's circus? Though Duo had said it was more complicated than that, so who knew.

"Okay, well, good luck getting everything sorted out, and I'll see you when I see you," Duo decided, sitting back and rubbing a hand over his face.

"Thanks. Take care of yourself."

Melissa came fully into the room when the line went dead and sat down next to her husband. "You know I'm fine with it, if you wanted to talk to the Insurgence," she reminded him. "You can share information without getting involved in the action."

He glowered at her, but she didn't expect any different – they'd had this fight more than once since July. "If they aren't intimidated by the Dutchman crap, they'll take it as an invitation and be a presence here. I don't want that."

"You really think Odin and the rest of Rubato wouldn't protect that boundary?"

"Heero and Quatre are deeply enough in bed with the Insurgence that they wouldn't have the leverage to insist, if they even cared in the first place." He rolled his eyes. "They don't see the point. The democratic zone has become its own culture, though, even across the country borders and it's… It's a balance, 'Liss. Even discounting my worries about getting recognized, I think maintaining that separation is important. We're neutral here, in all the ways that matter. If we start breaking the sanctity of that on one front, the rest will start to crumble too."

She understood the argument, but while she thought it was a nice idea, there were also major problems. "I'd rather have Insurgence neighbors than bombers, or people who take MS to a spaceport loaded full of every day folk."

"I'm still expanding the information network, and we're too close to Brussels for someone to try MS."

She gave him a look. Because honestly, the people in Dijon had probably thought that too.

He rolled his eyes. "There's also nothing strategic worth trying to take, here."

Better logic, but not exactly comforting. "How important was my father's office building?" she asked, pointedly.

"A lot more than it looked like, but the Insurgence isn't any further along tracking either bomber than we are, so that doesn't count." He rubbed his face again, covering his eyes. "Heero said he'd update me if there was news on that front."

She gave him another skeptical look. "So if we're too boring to have to worry about MS, why are you fixating on the French spaceport?"

"Because if it wasn't an accident, then it's a major move by a heavyweight."

"Outside our democratic zone, though," she reminded him.

"Damn it, 'Liss, we don't live in a vacuum!"

"Which is why your friends are frustrated that you want to be safe but you only want their help if you tie their hands first," she argued. "They're trying, but like Adam said, they're also busy, and it's not fair to both cut them out and demand their attention at the same time."

He threw up his hands. "What, and you want the revolution to run right through our streets? We're finally getting somewhere with the bullshit in this town, and you want to bring war right back into the open?"

"First of all, that was shitty," she reprimanded, pointing at him. "But honestly? I think it's just a matter of time anyways. We've got the barely tamed the Romefeller West version of the Regime wrapping us to the north and west, and the rest of the Regime to the east and south. As insular as we've gotten, we're a long way from isolated." She set her crossed arms on the table and leaned forward, looking out the green plastic of the front window they'd replaced. "If it's going to happen anyway, it'd go better if it was on our terms, wouldn't it?"

Her husband let out a long sigh… and slumped forward, stretching his arms out. "I don't think it's inevitable. Relena's come a long way towards handling northeastern Romefeller – if that faction consolidates, solidifies… we might be able to stay out entirely."

She thought about that for a long moment. Maybe, but… "That seems like a reach."

"She's pulled off crazier, and it's worth reaching for," he protested tiredly. When she glanced back at him she saw he was staring out the same green window. "We've still got time."

Melissa focused back on the window too, thinking through all the facts about why she didn't believe him. "Your friends," she began again, slowly. "Are building four gundams. And they already have one. Exactly what about that situation makes you think there won't be civil war between the Regime and Romefeller as well as the Insurgence? The army is gone to space and instead of getting dirty, everyone is building up an arms race. We might not be getting the full picture, but they are deeply worried about something, and I don't see how it can be just the Regime. Even if they're worried about Treize taking a stab back at Earth after all is said and done in the colonies, I can't think of another reason why Cat would be building up fortifications on the scale they've implied, why Odin is stockpiling and traveling and… It doesn't make sense otherwise, Duo."

He sighed. "Yeah. I'm not sure it's the western sphere, though. Some of the things Heero said… I think it might be the middle eastern Romefeller, or China."

"And you didn't clarify, why?"

"You have met Heero, haven't you?"

"Even if that ever stopped you, there's still Cat, or Adam, or Hilde." She frowned. "Why did you call Adam instead of Hilde, anyway?"

Duo made a sound unfortunately similar to a deflating balloon. "Her phone is disconnected, and all anyone will tell me is that she can't be reached right now. At first I wasn't asking because I figured it was some kind of undercover stint, but now… I don't know. I thought maybe she was going to the black site with Howard to work on the gundams, but he never mentioned her, if she was. Now I'm starting to worry, but if I ask… I don't know. She's probably just undercover."

Melissa turned to give him a dubious look… but he wouldn't look back at her. Ooookay. This wasn't exactly a new pattern for him, and while it wasn't healthy, she could understand it… and it wasn't that unhealthy. Hilde was crap at communicating in general and also could be genuinely busy. She also couldn't imagine that her husband's fellow ex-gundam pilots would decide to not tell him if the woman was confirmed as dead, so… maybe the limbo was better.

Also, knowing Duo… he might be refusing to ask less because he was worried, and more because he knew himself well enough to realize he'd try to do something about it, if he didn't like the situation. Hilde mattered to him on a level that most wives might find a little threatening. They would be stupid wives that didn't know her husband, but it was difficult to explain the dynamics of most of Duo's close friendships.

Most wives would probably feel threatened by Karina too, which she found hilarious, but from an outsider's perspective it probably made sense. She'd gotten some pointed comments and pitying looks over the last year that had left her rolling her eyes. Please. As tough as Kasey managed to come off to most people, the reality was that the man was incredibly emotionally vulnerable.

Putting on a sympathetic smile, she reached out and took his hand. "Hey. We'll be okay. You know that, right?"

He gusted out another breath, closing his eyes and squeezing back. "Yeah. I know."

She scooted a little closer and rested her head on his shoulder. "I love you, you know." Every part of you. Even the messy parts. They both had so much baggage it was less that they'd resolved their issues, and more that they'd found a way to interlock the pieces into a working train, some days.

Maybe that's what trauma recovery really was, though. Rebuilding enough to find an easier way forward, one day at a time.

Duo cracked a smile as he finally turned his head to peek back at her, eyes warm. "I do." He squeezed her hand and dropped a kiss on her brow. "I love you too."

oOo


oOo

L'viv, Ukraine – 2:00pm

Two down, three more to go, Lucrezia mused to herself, settling back in the chair she'd claimed with her sandwich for a late lunch. The locals hadn't been doing too bad for themselves, especially considering the stronger hold some of the darker elements of western Romefeller still had here, but there was still plenty of work to be done to prepare for the coming campaigns. Unlike the democratic zones and a decent chunk of Germany, the martial law had fallen heavy here, with a maintained curfew that wasn't an easy laugh to break. She still had other stockpiles to see to, meetings to make with local resistance leaders, and she wanted a good look at the nearby base, seeing as it was surprisingly well-staffed… but it was time for a break.

She tucked her earpiece in and waited for it to engage before tapping out Odin's number; she had it saved, but she didn't want to risk forgetting it by using the shortcut too often. There was an hour difference in time zones, but seeing as it was two, he'd probably had lunch by now – even if he wasn't with the Rubato boys today, Audi's stomach tended to keep him predictable on that front.

It only rang twice before he picked up. "Servus."

She grinned. He always greeted her in the local dialect. It was an old habit, she supposed, but one she generally appreciated. She knew where he was today, but the immediate offer of information was soothing – even if that one was hardly unique to Gratz. "Pryvit!" she returned in kind. "Did you sleep well?"

He scoffed in an amused but also annoyed way and said… something. It almost sounded German, but definitely wasn't, and her knowledge of Slavic languages didn't stretch far beyond basic Russian and Ukrainian. It wasn't a short comment either, but a good handful of sentences. She tried to pick out words, but while it was familiar… she didn't trust herself. Whatever it was, her beau was clearly fluent.

He sounded happy, exasperated, grudgingly amused, and… annoyed. Mostly the first two, though. Hm. He always sounded some degree of happy when she called, but from the rest, she guessed he'd had a rough morning.

Once he finished his thought, she decided to ask, "Was that Bavarian?" She'd put money on some kind of High German dialect given how many Latin sounds had been mixed in, but she was hardly an expert.

He hesitated, then, in English, "Probably."

"I don't speak Bavarian," she admitted.

"I'm not sure if that's what it's called," Odin hedged. "It's local, I heard it yesterday and I know it, but I heard three others yesterday too."

"Are you fluent in those too?" she asked curiously.

"Mm… I understood, but I'm not sure if they would have understood me, for two of them. This one is good and I'm at least conversational in the second, but I have to practically sound out anything I want to read."

Huh. "That's useful," she decided. I could have had him helping more this far east than I had thought. "How's your Ukrainian?"

"Good, verbally. I can't read it at all, though."

"Not good with Cyrillic?" she empathized.

"I'm passable with Russian Cyrillic, but slow," he admitted. "For literacy, I'm mostly stuck with the Roman alphabet and kanji, though I can sound out Korean."

"Anyone can sound out Korean," she joked. "You just have no idea what you're saying."

He made an amused noise. "I could tell you, if you wanted to try."

She snickered. "Only if you had me reading out parts of a dirty card game; might make for an interesting date night." His low laugh set heat curling in her belly, and she grinned, thinking. "How's your Mandarin?"

"Comprehension is fine, but the last time I tried to talk back it came out too Cantonese to be helpful."

She blinked. "How many dialects do you know?"

"Hn. I usually only miss a phrase here or there? I'm not sure. I haven't been to China in a while, and most of L5 standardized."

She felt a dawning epiphany start to rise that she really needed to head off at the pass. "How many languages do you understand?"

Odin started to laugh, low and pleased, but not sultry at all this time. "I don't even know their names. How am I supposed to know?"

"Give me an estimate, lover," she teased. "Just pitch me something in the general ballpark."

"Audi's mom ran out of names before we confirmed thirty, last year," he noted. "Do they even all have names?"

"That's rude, they definitely have names," she informed him primly, mind racing. He travels literally everywhere, constantly. "What don't you know?"

"Now I have to prove a negative?"

She snorted a laugh. "Odin."

He laughed too. Then, "Honestly?"

"Please."

"I haven't heard anything new since 187."

She closed her eyes. Suddenly, a couple things from the worst days on Peacemillion made a lot more sense. She remembered that trip to Ireland too, last August, and the utterly incomprehensible iterations of Gaelic everywhere. She'd thought- "What about Gaelic?"

"Written Gaelic makes no sense at all," he immediately defended. "Welsh too. Why did they bother with the Roman alphabet when they don't want to follow any of its rules?"

She started to giggle helplessly, because he wasn't wrong, but this was just insane. Then again… Heero. In a nutshell. Doesn't it figure?

Then something else occurred to her, and she grinned. I wonder… "How about this?" she asked in Swahili, wracking her brain for proper grammar – she hadn't tried speaking it since she left Lake Victoria. "My friends and I learned this in school, and after I became a teacher it helped me keep an eye on troublemakers."

There was silence for a long moment… then a delighted little laugh. "What is that?"

"Swahili. I lived in Tanzania for eight years, you know." She felt a little smug. "So, I know something you don't huh?"

He laughed again. "You say that like it's new. Hn." A pause. "I guess Odin didn't take me around central Africa." The sigh that came next was… tired.

She waited a long moment, but he didn't go anywhere with the mood change. "Odin?"

oOo


oOo

Graz, Austria

Odin glanced in through the sliding door towards the others, then moved back out of their line of sight. "I've had an unusual morning," he admitted.

"Oh?" He could hear the concern start to creep into her voice again. "You didn't sleep well, did you? We really don't have to do it again."

I wish she wasn't so focused on that. He hadn't really taken the time to examine his feelings on the club beyond it being such an alien experience that he didn't know what to do with it. "I think I'd like to, actually," he decided. "Just with different parameters. I'm not drinking, next time."

"It didn't settle too well?"

"It settled too well," he countered. "I slept hard and woke up with a stranger glaring at me."

"What?"

"I didn't realize it could take almost eight hours to metabolize out of my system," he added, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes. "If I do that again, I'm not sleeping anywhere with such light security." At one of their bases, or in pure isolation and secrecy like at the cottage he'd taken Lucrezia to for her birthday was probably fine. Maybe even if there was someone else taking a shift of watch at a safehouse.

But in different circumstances, he and Marie would have died this morning, and that wasn't an outcome he could accept.

A single shot or two after he knew he'd left no trail at all for over a week, like right before he and Lu had gone to South America was also within an acceptable range; that had been enough to loosen up his overtaxed leg and give him a better starting point for the next day while only fuzzing his emotions slightly, not altering his gait or aim. He'd checked. Unfortunately, when his leg hit a certain point of overextension, leaving it alone made recovery last longer – and the medications Leia had secured for him were both far more difficult to adapt around at minimal doses and of the same efficacy as a drink or two.

As irritating as the prescriptions were, however, they at least metabolized very predictably. He'd thought to try the increased level of alcohol last night to see if it could compensate for the difference, but it had not been as efficient as the medication this time, and the side effects had lingered far longer. His data set was thrown by Jack's arrival, but even without this morning's events he'd known his leg was going to be uncooperative today.

He wanted to run. If nothing else, to shake off the frustration and excess energy from this morning. But while he could, it would mean weeks with the cane instead of a day or two, and possibly new permanent damage.

The surgeries weren't a cure. He was never going to fully recover – Leia had been very clear about that. In some ways, the tendons in his knee were more fragile than they had been before the reconstruction – they just functioned better on average than they had before treatment. So long as he took care of himself and properly compensated, he could do everything he had before Libra.

He just wished compensating didn't feel like whittling away at what made him him, some days. But the fact remained that actions had consequences, and learning to cope, to find a balancing act, was simple reality.

Lucrezia made a frustrated noise that was close enough to how she sounded for other kinds of frustration that she had his attention again immediately. "Odin, what happened? Is Audi-"

Warmth spread through his chest and he smiled, even as he cut her off. "Audi's fine," he reassured her, leaning back to glance through the glass again and see for himself. "She's busy talking his ears off right now." Now that they'd laid down some ground rules about secrets, he didn't have a problem with it.

He… actually thought he might like Jack. That realization hurt the same way admitting why Odin had left did, because he'd been there this whole time, but… he was willing to see where it went. He didn't have any firm opinions on the man one way or the other yet, but it wasn't as though he had a deadline on making a decision. Giving the man one of Marie's phones would be a decent start, though maybe with some altered protocols built in. Talk to him on it regularly, get him used to it.

Maybe he'd forget to ditch it if he tried to sneak up again, and give them a proximity warning. He wasn't going to count on it, but the idea made him feel more settled.

"Ooooookay," Lucrezia drawled, clearly not impressed. "Who is this stranger you didn't kill for scaring the shit out of you this morning?"

"I don't kill people for scaring me," he argued. The idea that she'd think that was… upsetting.

She sighed. "I… you're right, you've never done that. Sorry. Xu is there with you, right?"

"He is." He shrugged, debating… but no, this bothered him. "Why would you think that?"

Lucrezia sighed again, groaning. "Because Xu has done it, and Wufei almost skewered Sally for a surprise wake-up call once. I've worked really hard to make sure Hilde didn't ever get that jumpy, and… I'm sorry, that's never been you. It just slipped out."

He relaxed at the explanation… but also frowned. "On Peacemillion?" He was mostly sure he'd been the one to introduce Wufei to Sally and Lucrezia, but Sally had recently mentioned something about what they'd done in China, so maybe-

"It's the main reason he was usually late to suit up," she admitted wryly. "No one was going to open his door again, so if he didn't answer the com we just blared the alarms."

…He remembered that, actually. He hadn't cared enough to ask why, but he remembered thinking Peacemillion's crew got obnoxiously trigger happy with the sirens every time there was a call to combat. Those weeks between recruiting Wufei and Earth's army arriving at Libra were something of a haze – time had skipped almost as badly then as it had during the worst of the retraining.

…Emotions really sucked sometimes. "I never did anything like that, those weeks?" His chest was somehow both sinking and clenching tight. He didn't think so, but his memory…

He was really starting to hate his memory. Quatre said it was a trauma response of some kind and that backed what Leia had suggested, but if he couldn't remember what triggered the problem-

"Odin, no," she returned emphatically. "I meant it, I was being thoughtless."

That wasn't helping. "I don't remember much of that month," he admitted, chest getting tighter.

"You don't remember because you didn't sleep – only catnapped long enough for Howard's boys to clean up your suit before you were out to fight again, and after the first week, you stopped talking. After week two, you turned into a little robot that fought, ate whatever we put in front of you, and passed out cold on whatever flat surface was nearby when Sally or I said the word 'sleep.' You woke up the moment anyone said 'Heero.' We started using euphemisms for you because one time we were two rooms away and I mentioned you and suddenly you were there, staring at me like the living dead." She sighed. "It was wrong of us to put you boys through that, but we didn't have any other options: if you weren't willing, I'm not sure we would have survived. Quatre was almost as bad as you and couldn't be woken sometimes, and Duo was riding the line of a psychotic break – if it had taken just three more days for the World Nation's army to arrive and give you some relief, I think he might have gone all Tyler Durden on us."

He settled, absorbing that. "Tyler Durden?"

Lucrezia snorted. "That one is definitely a date night, I prefer the movie over the book."

He relaxed more, thinking back to the people he'd talked to on Peacemillion after Wufei had arrive but before the beginning of the end. "I think I remember being stared at." Then, well, "More than usual," he amended.

"You were something of a sight. Also, when I said you stopped talking, I meant anything comprehensible, not that you didn't try here or there. Given what you said earlier, it was probably a mashup of God only knows how many languages, but at the time, it was concerning. Duo wasn't the only one we were worried about, but you at least didn't pick any fights with inanimate objects."

"…I think I'm sorry I missed that."

"It was hilarious but also terrifying," she assured him. "You have no idea how relieved we were that it was another five hours before we had to wake any of you up again."

She had a point.

"Odin?"

"Hm?"

"Who broke into your room this morning and why are you letting him get cozy with the baby?"

He grinned, holding back a snort. They had gotten off topic, hadn't they? "I said it was an unusual morning," he pointed out. "But he says he's my father."

There was silence on the other end of the line for a long moment. Then, "Is he?"

He leaned back against the wall again, dropping his head to the brickwork. "There is a definite resemblance," he admitted.

"…Huh."

"Yeah," he agreed. That summed it up pretty well.

"And he… snuck past Quatre's security so he could glare at you when you woke up."

"I'm getting the impression that my planning skills might be genetic," he agreed. "Good strategy, just bad execution." When she groaned, he added, "He doesn't know me. That could have been a strong entrance, if I was actually the civilian I'm claiming."

"That's a bad idea no matter the setting," she argued.

"I have a lot of bad ideas," he pointed out. "That's usually not the part people remember."

Lucrezia let out a surprised laugh. "That's stunningly self-aware of you."

"I regret nothing," he reminded her. "I refuse. But me being able to pull something off doesn't make it a good idea, just a successful one."

As content as he was now, he genuinely did not wish his life on anyone else. It…

No, he wasn't going to think about that. He knew where that path went, he'd been there, and it only led to regret. He was aware of the problems, and refusing to actively sink into the emotions of it wouldn't prevent him from practical applications of what surviving it meant.

No one should have to endure J's retraining, or the problems he'd had because of what it had done to him. No one should have to face the unsolvable dilemmas Odin's upbringing had given him. No one should have to design their life around an injury that would never fully fade.

But he also had no idea who he would be at this point without all of that – and despite the years where he hadn't wanted to be, he was glad he was here now. Four out of six populated continents had survived the Fall, and his actions were key to why they even had that much – he was proud of that. If everything he had lived through had been necessary to get them all here, then he could accept that, even if he wasn't sure he truly believed it.

But just because it had happened didn't mean it should have. And it should never happen again. No one should have so few options that they made the same choices he had.

As much as none of it had been his idea, that was one of the reasons he liked Rubato's public work. He wanted what they were doing, even if he hadn't been able to conceptualize how it could be possible before the others began to lay it out. He was willing to fight for that, just as much as he was Lucrezia's revolution. For Relena's succession. People should have more choices than he had been given. Than I believed I had, he corrected, holding back a grimace.

He'd had choices the whole time – but because no one had told him, they'd been taken from him anyway. He still didn't know how to feel about that.

"Point," Lucrezia decided after a moment. "But all the same… biodad, huh? What about Odin?"

The hurt from that was raw, even burning, but at least he knew where to direct it. "I still haven't gotten all the details," he admitted. "But…" Marie had given him a few highlights, but he'd decided he wanted to get a clear view of Jack before clouding it with reports written by other people. What she'd said, though… "Odin effectively stole me." Even if Jack hadn't known about him as an infant, Marie had been clear that that hadn't been the man's fault, and he'd apparently been eager to correct that once he had known.

Odin hadn't allowed it. Odin had raised him alongside a brother when he was young, and hadn't let him know about it. He had a brother, likely with all of the same talents Odin had taught him, and they were so far apart he couldn't even begin to know if he could stretch the distance.

Quatre said the brother had been a Special, though at least he had deserted four years before Operation M began. Marie said his brother had lived with Treize. That he had been in and out of Treize's house when he was too young to remember too, and he had no idea what to do with that information.

He had a brother… and he couldn't chance going near him. Not with everything barely in balance between Rubato, the Insurgence, the Regime, and the East, and the new gundam construction Quatre was leaving to oversee the genesis of on the twenty-sixth. He had things he wanted to understand and he couldn't have them because his father had… had…

He actually didn't know what Odin had done let alone why, but it had been a series of really big fucking mistakes.

"…Holy shit," Lucrezia breathed. "That's terrible."

"Yeah." That was one point where he wasn't confused on his feelings.

"And… biodad? What do you think?"

Considering how Quatre hadn't made any mistakes with the infrared net? "He's really good at programming and I don't trust him as far as I can throw him."

She snorted. "That's not how that metaphor works."

He debated that. "I could get him a couple meters, though."

Her laughter settled something in him, easing tension away. "Not too tall, huh?"

"I did mention there was a significant resemblance."

She laughed again. "Okay, but seriously… what's the plan?"

He wanted to make another joke about his planning skills, make her laugh again, but it was a legitimate concern. "Befriend him to some degree, keep tabs on him." Even without the tentative emotional connections the older man was trying to forge, he couldn't risk not tracking him now. "Corral his curiosity to where it's safe for him to look, and see what happens from there." Jack was both intelligent and capable enough to be problematic, but wasn't an overt threat in his own right.

"And Audi likes him?"

"Audi likes everyone," he countered. "And I don't mind getting to know him, but I can't trust him, so this might get… difficult."

"Mm, that's fair. What story do we want to go with for me?"

"I have no idea." Jack had dug for that information fast, but he'd also been content to leave it alone when asked, which was… good.

The problem was, the secret of Lucrezia's identity wasn't just about her. Sally might technically lead the Insurgence, but Lucrezia was the heart of it, the strategy, and a decent portion of why the Regime found the Insurgence so difficult to counter was because they had a hard time predicting them. Lucrezia had been trained by Treize, knew all of Zechs' habits and secrets, and had taught a good portion of the Regime's elite MS pilots personally. While their advantages wouldn't disappear outright if General Lee realized who his counterpart was, knowing her background would take away a significant edge.

Also, given how vindictive Zechs could be, realizing the rebellion was being led by his ex might spur a dangerous level of obsessive zealotry. It was less likely with him away in space, but if he decided to come down hard without care to what it would cost him… It wouldn't be good. Even if the action wasn't the tipping point that brought Romefeller East into Europe, both the strategic losses and sheer collateral weren't something they were willing to chance. Not so long as they had other viable avenues.

"I still think the fifteen girlfriends theory would be hilarious," Lucrezia mused.

"I'm not that good of a liar." On paper was one thing, but he doubted he could pull that off believably with someone he regularly interacted with.

"That's the beauty of it, though," she protested. "Just lie badly and come up with a new name every time you get questioned on it, like you can't be bothered to keep track."

…The implication in that suggestion was daunting. "People actually do that?"

"I've met a few," she confirmed, a smile in her voice. "I never saw the appeal, but it's not uncommon. From what you said, I'd assumed your first was the type."

…He could see the point. Given what he knew of her, Dasha very likely didn't remember his name, and… he didn't have a problem with that. It was unthinkable to him now, but his relationship with Lucrezia was very different. Hm.

"It would also be the easiest way to explain away the travel," she continued. "You're not meeting up with someone for reasons you refuse to share – you're having a little fun on the side while you go about being Mr. Quality Assurance." She snorted out a laugh. "Wow, I… I can't say that with a straight face and I wasn't even trying for the innuendo. But you get what I mean, right? Traveling businessmen… they're known to get that kind of reputation anyway. Your Rubato cover is rich and can afford to dote on someone who strikes his fancy for a night before moving on, and that transience even appeals to some women, especially with how scarce men have gotten. A single night of fantasy with no commitment, then back to your normal life. It's… a thing."

Fantasy, huh? Dasha had practically tried to molest him in public, and beyond a few shopping trips and getting takeout, had effectively locked him in a claustrophobic apartment for three days. He'd been aware that he was living through some mix of a sexual fantasy and being locked in a dungeon – she'd point blank said they were fulfilling a dream of hers once or twice when she'd gotten more… creative. He hadn't really had any particular goals in that vein to follow himself, but he'd had a long enough lead on Alekseev that he hadn't had a strong desire to leave either. At the time, his stay with Dasha been the most fulfilling thing he'd done since Libra, chasing adrenaline and sating his body when he couldn't fly anymore, couldn't run, couldn't do anything physical that pressed his limits in a way that got him something more than more pain.

Five minutes with Lucrezia in the same way eclipsed all three days in Russia, and she… It was very different with Lucrezia, so much more in ways he still couldn't make sense of beyond knowing it had to be the emotional connection. Follow your emotions. By now, he couldn't see the point of putting in the effort for as little gain as a night with a stranger might get him, but he could acknowledge that that was a matter of perspective. If he didn't have what he did now, he wouldn't realize it could be that way.

He hadn't sought out sex again before Lucrezia in part because he had Marie to look after, but mostly because going out of his way to find the right situation hadn't been a priority – if not for Dasha's initiative, he doubted he would have investigated the idea of intimacy at all until Lucrezia caught his attention. But if he'd had more drive for it… he could see the picture she was trying to lay out. 'A little fun on the side.' It was feasible that 'Odin Burton' would care more about seeking a thrill than any number of other concerns.

"I'm not making up anything that isn't related to you," he decided. He didn't want to have to keep track of that many lies, and he didn't want to invest in this to the point that he had to change his day to day habits or attitude. What she had initially proposed would be an irritating amount of work, and he didn't think he could give off the impression that he cared so much about sex that he sought it out at every opportunity. The lack of self-discipline he'd need to show to make that story believable was… No. He wasn't doing that.

He also didn't want to change his behavior based on if Jack was present. It sounded exhausting, and he still wasn't entirely sure if he could even pull off a mild version of this deception. Besides that, a game that helped protect Lucrezia was one thing, but going so far with it also felt… wrong.

"Mm, opportunistic instead of consistent, then, just to cover when we're together," Lucrezia agreed. "That's probably a better match all around anyway. Harder to track or disprove, too."

Odin nodded a little to himself, debating other potential issues. "I've lost count of how many comments or stares I've gotten for my neck this morning." Alex had raised a brow and noted that 'someone's a little possessive'. "Is that going to be a problem with this?"

He doubted it had anything to do with Lucrezia feeling possessive; she knew she had him. As far as he could tell, she just liked to bite.

"Mm, no. The marks will likely have enough time to fade between each date anyway, and even if they don't, you're hot enough that the kind of girl we're talking about would just treat it like a guidepost," Lucrezia decided. "It shows your preferences."

…He had nothing helpful to say to that. "Aa."

"…So you did like the club, then?" she asked after a moment. "We can find one with less flashing lights, next time."

He'd liked how much she liked it – the rest he could take or leave. Her expression, how languid and pliable she'd been… that was very much worth pursuing. "The lights were fine," he decided. Disconcerting at first, but the surreal spell they cast over the entire establishment, including anyone who might try paying attention to them, had its appeal. Despite the press and beat of the crowd, they'd still been very… alone, somehow. The contrast had a… flavor to it that he could appreciate.

"Well, if it does get overwhelming," she continued, "We could always find a dark alcove or back hallway."

Her tone was leading, darkening into something more husky than usual, and he smirked. "Yeah?"

"I'm having some skirts made, sturdy enough to handle the weight of a few holsters without pulling; maybe some different conceal carry options too. I could wear one next time we go somewhere like that. They're going to be on the short side."

Odin felt his smile stretch wider as he closed his eyes again, leaning against the wall and sinking into the sound of her voice. He didn't need to go back inside just yet. The suggestion in her tone immediately gave him a bright flash of an idea, and he liked the image. "That could be interesting."

oOo


oOo

December 22nd 198 – Munich, Germany – Sarracenia – Noon

"Mind your manners," Dave told him, visibly relaxing as they got out of the car. "Beyond that, anything goes, really. They don't stand on ceremony unless there's a camera rolling."

That was about all the warning he got before a feminine blonde blur launched itself at the Brigadier. "Dave!"

His commander laughed as he caught her, spinning with flamboyant flair. "Hey! Missed me that much, huh?"

"I haven't seen you since July!" the woman protested, settling gracefully back on her feet after two rounds but still holding on his hands… Razo's breath caught. Holy shit, that's the princess.

"I called," Dave protested.

"Barely!"

"Hmm." He made a show of thinking, and she crossed her arms, clearly… amused but waiting to see what he'd come up with. "I sent Cassidy?"

"And I do like Cassidy, but that's neither here nor there." Sighing, she leaned forward for a more normal hug, dropping her weight against David as he wrapped his arms around her. "Stop being such a stranger. I know you're busy, but… I'm not the only one who's been missing you."

"For the record," announced a dark-haired man with a major's insignia, "I am not one of these people."

"Aw, I love you too, Lin."

"Razo, hey!" Cassidy exclaimed, practically bouncing down the walkway to the car. He… looked really good, actually – David had clearly been right, about the Strike Force wearing him thin. "It's good to see you!"

"Good to see you too," Razo agreed, happy enough to be pulled into the shorter blonde's bearhug. He considered if it was rude for a moment, before deciding he didn't care – it was true. "You look happier."

Cassidy's smile was wry, but he shrugged easily enough. "I am. Not that we weren't doing good work, but… I missed this too. I guess it's more my speed." He rolled his eyes. "Even half the paperwork is intrigue, not to mention the people we interact with. Less action, but just as heavy training for it, and when it does go sideways…" He shrugged again. "Everything is high stakes, but I guess I like the variety – and Lin's not wrong, I'll take Miller over Mitchell any day."

"You remember that I retired, right?" Colonel Miller announced dryly, even as he was in the middle of his own embrace with David.

"Still here, sir, and much as I respect Sobrie, we all know who's calling the shots when fur starts flying," Cassidy returned dryly, smirking and trying to bat at Razo's bun to annoy him, grinning more broadly when he was blocked. "You haven't cut that off yet, huh?"

"Hasn't been a problem yet, so no."

"You look like a girl."

Razo smirked, standing straight. "Say that with a straight face and I'll think about believing you."

"Mm, he's got a point, Kansas. Almost a blonde Gaston," a woman with a major's insignia mused. This is Marakesh, then. She was striking, with shaggy brown hair cropped close and spiky, pale grey-green eyes, and cappuccino skin set in an otherwise Asian face.

Cassidy gave her a skeptical look. "No. Down, girl. Behave."

Her returning smirk was positively wicked. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"And I'm going to head this argument off at the pass with introductions," Lin announced, pointedly stepping between the two before holding out a hand to shake. "Hi, I'm Lin Sobrie. You know Kansas already, and this is Mailin Marakesh – encourage her at your own risk."

"Oh please."

"You have earned that warning label, thank you," Lin returned without breaking eye contact with Razo.

He grinned and shook the major's hand. "Razo Charel." Flicking his eyes back to Marakesh, he admitted. "For the record, I'm not really… in the right headspace for that kind of game." He'd heard enough stories including from Mitchell about this woman, but he'd never been one for casual, and she wasn't his type besides. And anyway… just no. Even more than two years later, Elyse still haunted his dreams.

He'd planned to propose once they reached Giza, on that fateful trip south. A trip to Cairo, and he'd planned to spin the trip down to the pyramids as a spur of the moment tourist trap, because you couldn't go to Egypt and not see the pyramids, right? It had been a hell of a thing making sure he kept the ring hidden through the flight and hotel, and then, well…

And then. It didn't bear thinking about.

Marakesh straightened up, smiling cheerfully. "That's cool. We do have a few nights out on the town planned while you're here, though, if you want to see some regular humanity. I know some of the best spots."

That didn't sound too bad. "I'll keep it in mind."

"Partying aside," Miller announced, coming closer and holding out his own hand to shake, "I know we met in passing once or twice, but I was something of a disaster at the time. I'm Jake Miller."

Razo took the hand, taking in the very civilian trousers and shirt. "Not colonel, huh?"

"Zechs never made me sign a contract, so it was easy enough to quit," he admitted. "Not that anyone seems to have noticed anyway. Technically the title is still mine, but I'd rather people just use Jake."

"Then I'm just Razo," he decided easily, as if he'd been planning on doing anything differently. For all that he'd complained about this man's drama, he really didn't know him, and Dave did claim him as his best friend.

Dave's best friend that he'd made it clear he wouldn't be keeping the truth of Robby's survival from anymore than he'd keep it from the Soleil Coalition. Not that he saw any reason why Treize and his factions in space should care at all about his friend, but… there was nothing for it, now. Jovi had sent him a package like he promised, a phone that was apparently somehow entirely secure, and they had spoken since, though only over the basics. Robby would know by now that his survival wasn't so secret as anticipated. Jovi had been quick to assure him that it was already a planned for possibility and agreed that it just was what it was, but…

He still felt a little bad about it. He didn't see how he could've done it differently, though, and no one was upset so… that was just life sometimes. Nobody could live in a vacuum, and with every new connection, new doors opened too.

In any case, Dave had said neither faction was likely to want to talk much about it, and even if they did, the press had painted Robby Stanton as a hero. And a lot of that push had actually been prompted by Princess Relena's faction, so… all's well that ends well, he supposed.

"Hello!" the princess greeted cheerfully, stepping around the others and offering her own hand. "I also prefer just my first name, without titles."

Razo took her hand and reflexively dropped a kiss on it. "I will do my best to remember that."

Her smile was bright as she pulled away… and into a casual embrace with Miller before she interlaced her fingers with the man and started leading him back towards the door of the manor house. "Come on, the rest of the introductions can happen inside; it's freezing out here."

Huh. He hadn't expected that little detail, but it did make a few things Dave had said make more sense. It also explained the crazier bits he'd seen or heard about the colonel – love did that to a man. "Sounds good to me," he decided, and followed the crowd.

oOo


oOo

Graz, Austria

"You're sure?"

Odin shrugged. "It's not a big deal. I can register your number to it, if that's easier."

"I'd get dinged with an early cancellation fee with my service provider, so let's not," Jack negated, shaking his head. Not to mention the fact that I'm almost positive this thing is riddled with trackers and spyware, and Jake will kill me if I try bringing it into his house.

Not that he didn't mean to carry it all the time otherwise – he had no reason to care about a tracker, and other than when he was near Jake and all his political intrigues, he had no reason to give a damn about being spied on either. If it helped earn him a little more trust, he was all for using it as his regular daily – but that was a perk, not his main motivation.

For all that he'd kept leaving the room to have some privacy to talk, Junior spent a pretty chunk of time on the phone. Even when he wasn't out of the room, he was texting on it often enough. Part of that seemed to be Audi's influence – she texted him about everything under the sun when she was only a room away – but… that showed a lot of promise.

Jake would barely ever talk to him. Odin was awkward to the point of being rude as often as not, but he was amiable… and it was such a stark difference that it made him want to cry. Jake might acknowledge him as his father, and their relationship was getting better by leaps and bounds lately, but… he wasn't convinced the toxic edges would ever fully fade away. He hoped, and he'd never stop trying, but…

Despite Junior's point blank refusal to acknowledge kinship, Jack already had a better relationship with him that he did with Jake. And it had been less than two days. That hurt as much as it made him feel like he was glowing… But he wasn't letting go of it for anything.

And on the technological front… he didn't mind admitting that he was drooling a little over the phone itself, something Audi had pulled out of a case filled with identical devices. The thing was top of the line, practically a laptop in the palm of his hand – the same that most of Rubato seemed to carry, though he'd noticed a few variations. He would definitely be using this as his primary – he had a decent wireless keyboard and monitor he could link it to at home, even.

Junior definitely threw money around as easily as Senior had, which was a little stomach-churning… but at the same time, he lacked the self-imposed isolation that had defined Senior's life. It'd become clear pretty quickly that as close-knit as the rest of the Rubato boys seemed to be, Odin only knew a handful of them well, and Cat was the only one he treated as a true equal, but… Even as Junior kept details to himself, he was so much more open than Jack had ever seen Jake or Senior be with anyone but their closest circle.

"What?"

He blinked, focusing back on his kid. "Huh?"

"There's an issue, what?"

This thing costs more than a month of my salary. Maybe more than two. He wasn't sure how to explain. "This is really expensive."

Jake would have rolled his eyes or waved it off – Odin tipped his head to the same side as his brother – the same as Senior always had – as he considered that, eying the phone. "I think Cat said it was less so in bulk, but you're not wrong. Audi always keeps at least five on her for when we make new friends, though, and there's not much point to building your own network unless you use it."

So it was just as careless as it appeared, then… which was another point in their favor. Also, it sounded more like Audi and Cat's project than Junior's. "You guys built your own network?"

Odin settled back on his heels, body relaxing. "I set Audi on the project of making an emergency responder phone coded from the ground up when it was still just the two of us, to keep her busy. The first versions were serviceable, but then we found Cat again and he had the idea for Rubato, so we needed something more extensive. I've corrected the coding when she paints herself into a corner and helped her implement the larger scale physical tweaks, but…" He smiled, broad and bright and so much like Jake again – he was clearly proud of the girl. "This is her capstone achievement, I suppose." His eyes lit up with amusement. "She doesn't need nearly so high-end of a device to pull everything off, but she likes to show off."

Gesturing once more to the phone he added, "We have a few cheaper models somewhere, if that's better. Kasey refused to use one of the nice ones and wouldn't tell us until there were issues, so we keep a few that are less flashy now too."

"Oh, I'm keeping it," Jack retorted, grinning as he pocketed it. "It's very nice. I'm just going to feel weird about it too."

Amusement flashed through his eyes again, and he smirked, shifting his weight. "I could steal one for you instead?"

He guffawed. "Just like that, huh?"

"I didn't know about anything Odin left me until two months ago," Junior reminded him dryly, tucking his hands into his pockets. "I'm used to figuring things out. The first year I had Audi, I was siphoning funds off an old OZ slush fund that looked like it had been forgotten about. While I was…" He cut himself off, shaking his head. "I learned how to take care of myself quickly enough, after Odin died. Then the people I was working with found it useful, and it became as much of a challenge as a habit." A more relaxed smile slid onto his face. "I've been doing more white hat work, this last year."

He was still learning the details of the boy's face, but that smile was less common – he'd seen it a few times when he glanced out to where Odin was pacing the balcony on phone calls, and in response to texts… Maybe the girlfriend? It felt specific, but it was hard to say for sure. Best to just leave it lie. "Something of a system breaker, huh?"

"Hn. Less breaking, more infiltrating." He pursed his lips and gave Jack a penetrating stare. "I don't touch the Regime networks."

Jack blinked. "I'm not going to go tattling," he protested.

His son's gaze only grew heavier. "You need to understand this. It took me a long time to get clear of the Regime, and if that changes, I'm going to have to run again." His mouth tightened. "I don't want to, Audi would hate it, but I wouldn't have any choice." He took a deep breath, his shoulders settling into a more relaxed, more powerful set, even as his gaze grew colder, expression entirely blank. "You found me because I was actively trying to make a paper trail – no one catches me when I go to ground."

Jack's chest was caught in a vice. That look… That was Odin incarnate, Jake at his deadliest, and he had no doubt that Junior could be just as dangerous as them if he felt the need. At the same time, what he was actually saying

You have no idea just how true those words are, he mused, remembering the litany of things Jake had tried, the leads he had chased, the stories David and Des relayed of the grief at every fruitless attempt… There were good reasons why he'd given up the boy for dead years ago. Jake had never stopped hoping, never stopped tearing himself to shreds over it every damn August, and more than once he'd wished the boy would just let it go, but…

But Jake had been right, even if he hadn't believed it by the time the point was proven. Junior was alive. And his oldest could hold onto that vindication, even while Jack found himself disgusted that he'd had the nerve to give up.

He was never giving this up. Not again.

"I understand," he promised, letting go of the last hope that the 'bounty' question had been about something minor Jake could get forgiven, or that could be discreetly scrubbed out of the Regime's system.

"That also means no photography," Odin added, though his posture was already beginning to relax.

Jack licked his lips. "Do these potential bounty hunters have your picture?"

"They shouldn't. I went out of my way to destroy any records I could find, and from what I can tell, some allies did the same as a favor. I still get recognized sometimes, though – can't do anything about human memory."

He… was going to regret asking this. "How does that usually go?"

Odin tipped his head, ghoulish smirk making another appearance. "It's been a while since they were stupid enough to do anything but run."

…Aaaaaand I'm going to leave that conversation there. "Okay, got it." He let out a deep breath, checking the time. "I should probably get going, if I want to catch my flight." He'd splurged to make the timeline, once he realized the kind of break he was catching on finding Junior. He was just lucky that it had lined up with his weekend – he was getting to be lower and lower on management's priority list.

If they cut his hours again, he was probably going to have to go job hunting, which… well, that'd be just what he needed, to have to scramble and maybe uproot just when his life was finally taking a turn for the better.

Odin shrugged again, gesturing back towards the building behind them. "Audi's getting our stuff right now – we're heading to Israel, so we might as well take you to the port."

Jack blinked. "Israel?"

Junior's gaze narrowed. "Don't try to track me." A pause, then, "Please."

He licked his lips again. "Okay." Junior's overly direct approach was… so much simpler than trying to decipher Jake's mixed messages. It was an easy enough request to follow. "What's in Israel?"

A handful of different micro expressions twitched across the boy's face, too fast to read, before his expression settled on pleasantly bland. "I'm not telling you." He frowned. "Not for now, at least."

They'd hit this wall enough times at this point that he'd gotten fairly comfortable with it – and again, he appreciated the clear boundaries over Jake's fits of pique. "Okay." He looked back to the hotel. "Do you think she needs help?"

"If she does, she's trying to bring too much," was Junior's wry response. He turned to head towards the parking garage. "We'll meet her at the car."

oOo


oOo

Munich, Germany – Sarracenia – Evening

"Actually, I didn't come here today with any intention of speaking about the educational programs. I said it before, that the educational needs of the population fell sorely behind after the Fall, and I stand by it; but time is the true test there. It's going to be a while before we can see the proof.

"The thing is, the gaps we've faced in education after Libra's Fall is only part of the affliction we've been facing over the last three years. We've been trying, but it's still endemic – the food and housing scarcity, the job shortages… shortages of everything. The baseline poverty level of our empire is staggering. We've been doing our best to compensate, in no small part due to the efforts of Relena Darlian-Peacecraft and her projects with RLTT, but it's time to face the facts – while she's put a good dent in it, she's one person, and there's a whole lot of us. Why should she have to do it alone? The Regime did its best to save the Americas post-Fall, and that's an amazing thing… but no one was prepared. We didn't turn away any survivors, but we got packed to the gills… and the Regime also knew, even at the time, that it didn't have the resources to feed Europe's population before the influx of refugees. It's a good part of why so many Americans were sent to North Africa with basic supplies and told with the weather changes and modern tech, it should be possible to carve out a place for themselves – and we all know how well that turned out."

"So you're pinning Cambyses on the Regime?" the reporter asked curiously.

"Absolutely not, Cambyses arose out of a mire of complex contributing factors, not least of which were that some people were legitimately crazy enough to start a cult with violent, forceful indoctrination practices. Could it have been prevented? Maybe – but also maybe not. The people who research this kind of thing are saying now that the reason Cambyses gained so much momentum was the lack of communication between refugee camps. To solve a problem, you first need to know that there's a problem. That came far too late. Then you have to have the resources to allocate to said problem, and that… Let's face it, the Regime didn't have the resources at its inception to keep Europe comfortably fed – getting the American refugees off one continent and dropping them on a slightly less hostile one was stretching the limit already. Maybe they were a little slow on the uptake, but you know what? They still got there before anyone else was willing to do more than quarantine the Sahara. You can make all the comments you like about 'too little, too late,' but the fact stands that they did resolve the crisis.

"Right, I'm sorry, that was a bit of a tangent…" The man laughed, ruffling a hand through his hair. "Let me get back off my soapbox… I'm not here to add to the Cambyses debate."

"But Revenant Rubato does have a clear stance on the topic," the reporter pointed out, tone leading.

"The proof is in the pudding, there, ma'am." His look was reproachful. "People are people, no matter where you go – sometimes they've just had to see more than anyone is comfortable with. For the most part, the Cambyses men and boys that we're welcoming back to society are war veterans and POWs rolled into one – they weren't there because they wanted to be."

"And the other part?"

"Well, there's a reason they're being so heavily screened and put through counseling before being released into the general population, isn't there? Not everyone in that desert was a Robby Stanton. Maybe instead of trying to lay blame on the government, people ought to consider what it is doing for them." Another pause. "Moving on – I really am not here to discuss Cambyses.

"The educational programs are meant to pave the way for the future, but there's a lot of work to be done right now too, and you don't need to be royalty or have government-issued permission to contribute. The princess certainly helped pave the way, but my friends and I have been thinking on this for a while, and had some basic plans – and then we hit a major windfall that allowed us to expand everything a hundredfold. We broke it down into three parts, but the core question is this: if Earth is hurting and can't keep up, then why not take the colonial approach?

"Princess Relena got the ball rolling, once again, with her hydroponics complexes across Europe – but why stop there? I know I've heard rumors about more groundbreaking operations, but while those complexes have gotten people through the last year, it's still only the barebones – a bandage slapped over a growing abscess, especially since there is such a premium need for more land. The terraforming of the Sahara taking place now is a much more adequate long-term solution, but it's still narrow-minded."

The reporter frowned prettily, almost a pout. "How do you mean?"

"The hydroponics complexes are miniature, constrained versions of agricultural colonies. Every urban colony needs a minimum of three full-fledged agricultural colonies in its cluster to support it – more, if they want a comfortable diet instead of a simply sustainable one. And what is a colony but an island in the middle of nowhere?

"So we thought, why not build more of those? No one's gotten back to me on the math of how many we can comfortably settle in the Atlantic without disturbing the coastlines, but then there's Greenland, the poles, Canada, South America… North America has enough survivors despite all the odds to make it a riskier prospect, but let's face it, space is hostile. Our initial projections show we can make Earth-stable agricultural colonies able to handle Antarctic weather with minimal alterations. Given what we've observed of storm patterns in any of these now uninhabitable areas of the planet, it's likely we would have periods of lost communication and limited mobility for the people running these farms, but never for longer than three weeks at the absolute worst. And indoors? It would be just like living on the colonies."

Jake felt his breath catch, thoughts spinning, and the reporter was clearly just as thrown by the revelation. "The…" She swallowed and visibly composed herself. "You're saying that Revenant Rubato has the funding for that kind of project?"

"We've already started; just waiting on some of the legal permissions, and for the prototypes to go through testing."

Relena tugged on his arm excitedly, but he couldn't split his attention any further right now. He'd suspected, after his conversation with Robbins, but-

"You mean the land permissions," the reporter asked breathlessly, beginning to look concerned. "Or, well, water?" She frowned again. "I'm not too familiar on the topic, but the domains for international bodies of water-"

"Are tricky, yes."

"But if you're already building and can't get permissions-"

"Then we'll put them in space instead. We're already doing that anyway, actually."

"…Excuse me, you're what?"

The man's laugh was bright and pleased, charismatic in all the right ways for a camera to pick up. "I went about this a little backward – I asked for this interview in order to present three new companies founded by Revenant Rubato, all based on the principle of bringing colonial tech back to where its needed most sorely. Neut, which you may have heard rumors about, is primarily an engineering firm, while WendSyn will focus on production. And the real masterpiece, of course, is Da Capo – a new space-based construction firm that is handling the bulk of what I've already discussed, in conjunction with some heavy contracting with Hideki Robotics and a handful of other silent partners while we finish getting our feet under us."

Braden Bernard Blue, head spokesperson of Revenant Rubato, continued on about the details… but Jake found he couldn't quite focus on it – he'd re-watch later. He'd made those jokes to Dave about starting his own colony cluster that weren't entirely jokes, sure, but… It ached. Because they were right, and what good had sitting on it all this time done?

But he had been short-sighted too, hadn't he? He'd split his attention down so many different streams, diversified so heavily that he just… hadn't given this possibility any real consideration. Not that he really could have invested so heavily as Junior seemed to be, with the other commitments he had, and his own work was nothing to scoff at, but…

He felt proud and insignificant and hopeful and yet he ached in a way he wasn't sure he could even begin to describe. The only people who had ever been able to make him feel this way were Lu and Relena… maybe Treize, on occasion. Somehow three steps ahead and to the side, out of reach and so much better than he had imagined at his best.

It felt fitting, that Junior should be in that category too. This… the windfall comment had undoubtedly been about Junior's inheritance but this was… as fast as anything he'd ever done. Either the idea was old and plotted out, or he had slammed his way into it as soon as he had the chance, with no hesitation whatsoever. No doubts.

"See, no, that right there, that's the problem," Blue announced, the emphatic note in his tone drawing Jake's attention back. "It's not balanced. Our society is completely out of balance, and just look where it's led us. If we want something to change, we need to change, and as we foster those shifts in our economic structure, we can start to break down the barriers that have shackled us for centuries.

"I'm talking about paradigms – we outgrew the need for them a long time ago. Tradition has failed us. It's time to build some new traditions, ones based on who we are, what we need – something that future generations will be proud to carry the legacy of, instead of looking back like we are today and asking 'What the crap were they thinking?'"

"So you agree that the gender disparity is part of the problem."

Blue laughed. "You really like putting words in my mouth, don't you? I'll repeat that I think people are people, ma'am. If gender plays a role, I'm sure we're going to figure it out, seeing as you outnumber us what now, five to one? And maybe that's a good thing – RLTT and the Pacific Reclamation are both being fronted by women of the highest caliber, while Rubato is late to the game. Nueva Terra is another great example of an awesome female-led company that's changing the world.

"We're not here to compete – just to add a new dimension to the solution. If technology can give us technological monsters like Libra, there's no reason why it can't give us easier solutions to non-military applications. We estimate that one of the smallest Neut energy cells can keep a car running for over two years – or it could keep an entire housing complex on stable electricity for the same amount of time. If fertile soil is precious, why should we waste it on fibrous plants when we can manufacture synthetics for cloth? The most expensive things about colonial style factories are the components to make them entirely robotic, and people down here need jobs – whether we can bring everything down where its got the easiest commute or we spread ourselves further across space, we have so much need for this kind of expansion.

"We at Revenant Rubato do not care about the fighting. I'm in this to see us rise anew out of the tragedy of the last few years." His smile was more of a smirk and a little self-deprecating this time, but still very much designed for an audience. "It's in the name, you know? Rise again, and adapt as needed."

And Da Capo is 'to start again,' Jake mused, remembering Treize's music lessons that he had watched but refused to ever participate in. From the beginning. Repeat. It was fitting… and whoever was naming things in Rubato liked to use music as a theme, apparently.

"I suppose I can stop bothering you about what Dane said, hm?" Relena mused, taking one of his hands and rubbing her thumb over his palm.

Jake let out a breath of laughter. "After this, I'm not sure why he was so fussed about NDAs; they point blank said Hideki was involved."

"I would guess standard forms, and not communicating well between departments," Relena guessed. "He also implied he'd overrun a few deadlines – they might have just gotten impatient."

He shrugged, conceding the point, and looked around the room. The interview looked to be dying down… and Dave was hovering over Razo, who looked emotional.

His stomach sank. Dave had given him a significant look when covering the Robby Stanton situation, and he'd understood the implication, but without further proof… there had been no need to worry about it just yet. "Razo?"

Braden Blue had just as perfectly realistic a backstory as Junior and every other listed member of Revenant Rubato that wasn't openly ex-Cambyses.

"I need to move," Razo announced abruptly, standing up and looking out towards the grounds. "Can I just… walk around the grounds a bit?"

"Yeah, I'll show you the way," Cassidy volunteered, standing as well. "You can be on your own outside if you want, but it's easy to get turned around in here."

"Great." He held up his phone before pocketing it again roughly. "I can call to get an escort back in."

Dave walked over as the two left the room, and Relena took a firmer grip on his hand. "You okay?"

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes or tug his hand back to himself. "Does it matter? It is what it is." If Junior had survived Cambyses, then he had still survived, and under Stanton's wing too, which was arguably one of the best scenarios in that hellscape. It was still better than anything he'd believed in October.

His best friend eyed him for a long moment before sitting and humming out a breath. "You're taking this better than I expected."

"He's alive, Dave," he ground out, squeezing Relena's hand… probably harder than he should. He forced himself to relax. "He's alive and he's involved in extreme humanitarian efforts that I'm embarrassed I never considered before." He took a deep breath and forced his heartbeat to stay in time. "The rest is just… window dressing." It was downright shitty, but you know… beggars and choosers.

Dave shrugged a little conceding the point as he bought a hand up to his mouth, clearly thinking. "We could be off target, too, you know. I'm not keen on prying at Razo for anything he doesn't volunteer himself – he's caught in a hard enough limbo – but the pieces don't all slot into a neat puzzle. Unless she's a red herring of some sort in the paperwork, the little sister doesn't make sense – Cambyses didn't let girls survive. And I don't have any hard numbers on how many Stanton took with him when he ran, just that they were the ones who either distrusted the Regime or trusted Stanton to the exclusion of everything else."

His friend shook his head. "That had to have been an insane run south – if not for the space heart theory and the fact that I know it happened, I wouldn't think it was even possible. They would've had to sidle past five different encampments undetected before they reached the Ramlat Rabyanah… and Cambyses had been staying out of the sand sea because it was unstable and impossible to navigate in the first place."

"I know you're trying to be helpful," Jake acknowledged. "But could you maybe… not?" He sighed. "I'm… actually okay with this. If it turns out we're making assumptions, then great, but… sure, Junior might be a Cambyses survivor. Despite what you seem to think, I really don't care so long as he's alive and not, like… murdering people for kicks. Which wouldn't be the case, if he was one of Stanton's. So can we just… leave it there?"

Dave nodded sharply. "Absolutely. Good plan."

"Great." He pulled away from Relena to rub both hands over his face, breathing deep… and couldn't help the smile that came on him so hard his cheeks hurt. "Did you hear all that, though? Whatever he's been through… he's on board with that." He gestured back in the direction of the big media room screen they'd pulled the ShareView file up on. "That's really fucking awesome, isn't it?"

Relena let out a delighted giggle, and Dave's face was like a kid on Christmas morning. "It's pretty damn cool, yeah," he agreed.

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oOo

Zurich, Switzerland – Airport

Jack huffed out a laugh as he tried to pick up his phone… and realized it was the wrong one. That's going to take some getting used to. He fumbled for a moment, apologizing absentmindedly as people jostled past him in the terminal, before tapping the connect. "Des, hey."

"Where are you?" The other man's voice was terse, though not harsh.

He rolled his eyes. "Almost home, mom, my plane just landed in Zurich. I apologized for missing the dead-drop already, didn't I? I got distracted."

Des let out an explosively relieved breath. "You did, and it's fine, though I'd still like to know what you were doing at some point. How often do you set that kind of thing up, anyway?"

"Pretty much every time I decide to do something stupid." He winced. Or go to visit Jake.

The other man snorted out a laugh. "So, what, weekly? It should be routine, then, to cancel the dire 'if you don't hear from me in the next two hours, send help' emails."

"I was a little busy." Xu had still been holding a gun on him when the timer would have gone off. He'd been mostly sure by that point that he wouldn't need a rescue, but pulling out his phone or trying to explain why he needed to hadn't seemed prudent either.

Luckily, it hadn't been too much longer after that before Cat left him and Audi to their own devices. Just because he'd spent most of his life without anything resembling backup didn't mean he was going to shun it entirely.

Even if realistically two hours was…. a really long time in that sort of scenario. Des might think of it as a rescue call, but most of the time when he primed that kind of email to his best friend, his thought process was closer to 'please check hospitals and morgues.' This had hardly been the first scare he'd given the other man over the years, but he was pretty sure Des had no idea that if those two hours ever elapsed, another email with what would have been his last known whereabouts and intentions would come through.

Or maybe he did suspect, and was simply kind enough to not acknowledge the morbidity of the fact. It could be hard to tell sometimes, with Des; he'd be easy and calm as a lagoon, and then a shark of a comment would leap out of those still waters to try and eat your goddamn face.

"Anyway, what's up?" He frowned, trying to remember. "You aren't in Germany yet, are you?" Christmas fell on a Wednesday this year and he'd known ahead of time he wouldn't be getting it off, but Des was retired and affluent enough to do whatever he wanted.

"No, our flight's tomorrow, at least in theory." He sighed. "Sorry. You said you were out of country but not where, and I was worried about a lockdown, with this spaceport business."

Jack frowned. "A lockdown?" He supposed that was always a worry, and he'd seen the news, for all that he hadn't focused on the story beyond a vague 'oh shit'. "That was two days ago, why would they lock down now? Did they get a lead on who did it?"

There was silence on the line for a long moment… and Jack stopped walking. "Des?"

"Jack, it's been two days since the French spaceport incident. The Iberian port was bombed less than an hour ago."

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Connection


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Thoughts? I really love hearing from you guys, even if it's cursory - easier to stay on track too, keeps my mind returning to this faster (though I'm on something of a roll at the moment).

There's so much in this chapter that I've been waiting to write practically since the beginning of the series – especially since Jack is… far more pitiable than I originally realized? And not stupid, despite how some of his interactions with Jake make him look. Jake sees him as abrasive, but I'm not sure how much of that is just prejudicial resentment, versus them actually not getting along. Meanwhile, Heero/Odin is… well, this relationship is bound to be interesting, if nothing else. He and Jack really are a lot alike. Their interactions in this and what I've got between them in the back of my head are just…. wow. A lot of it I might not show firsthand just because Jack's version of retelling it to Des or Jake just makes it funnier, and telling something twice is poor form. I guess we'll see – also we'll have to see how long this bizarre little bubble lasts before something breaks – Lu really ought to ask more specific questions, but she's respectful of boundaries, and Heero is just as bad about names as his brother.

Incoming gundams, more bombs, and wtf is going on with the armies! Sedition is actually pretty close to being done now, with the final part of the series, Succession, coming up fast.