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Chapter Twenty-Seven

Catching the Thread


Looking back, my life seems like one long obstacle race, with me as the chief obstacle. – Jack Paar


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I don't stalk. I investigate.


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If you keep tugging at threads, eventually someone's plans will unravel. It just might not be exactly... well... results may vary.

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Alright! We're starting off immediately after the last chapter ended – originally this scene was part of the last chapter, but Odin hanging up on Jack was just too good of an ending to not pursue. Otherwise, I hope you guys enjoy it. 43 page monster this time, pushing over 26k words.

This is only partially beta-read, mostly because I have the patience of a ferret and really wanted to kick off August.

Edit: updated Emily's beta read version, because she's amazing and found a bunch of hiccups.

Edit: Couple minor things I sorted in the last two chapters that I might honestly be the only one who noticed, but hey, continuity. The circus is now currently located much further north in Germany, not near Stuttgart. Also, when Jack and Odin were on the phone last chapter, Jack did recognize that Odin had previously mentioned the names Moira and Kasey, though not in any detail.


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January 4th 199 – Saturday – Tivoli, Italy

"I've always made a point to spend time with them ahead of an offer," Jake pointed out, wryly frustrated. "A vetting process, if you will – but I can't afford it right now."

"Even if you had the time, you're losing your anonymity," Des agreed. "You've been seen with Relena enough now that some already recognize you on sight, and that's only going to get worse."

He grimaced. "Yeah."

Des debated… but there was no point in holding back. "You're probably never going to get that again. The same thing that protects you from the deep cover ops you want distance from blocks you on this."

The kid sighed. "I know."

"On the bright side, most of your personal reconnaissance was habit and hobby. Maybe you needed that when RLTT was still young, but that level of scrutinization hasn't been necessary in years. You learned all the tricks people play, and you can recognize them from a distance. You've grown and don't need to do all the grunt work personally in order to trust your decisions." He shrugged. "And as you continue to move forward you're going to interact with your candidates directly, which shores up most of the gaps you've had missteps in."

Jake made a face. "It… feels like a loss," he admitted.

"You enjoy playing with people," Des agreed. "And this is a change, but as you already pointed out, you're only changing your venue, not your games." He huffed out a laugh. "Jake, you're not going to have time to play a new candidate on top of the politics and scheming."

Jake huffed right back at him. "I already don't have time," he agreed, smirking as he shook his head. "It's a good thing you wanted to have a job again, old man."

"I'm still calling it temporary," Des reminded him. "Part of the transition has to be you recognizing what of Relena's work you need to leave to her court and guard. It's good that you don't want to invest so far that you have nothing left that's wholly yours, but it's a different balancing act to learn."

"I maintain that delegation is the worst part of growing up," Jake groused. "But… thanks. I appreciate it."

"So long as you do," Des returned, shrugging agreeably and glancing out the window. "I'm here."

…Jack looked incredibly stressed. He was still on the phone, pacing, body language closing off. Damn. He'd looked happy earlier, and Des had been under the impression that he'd gone outside to call Junior. He'd been excitable and furtive enough for it, at any rate, and Des had taken that as his cue to play distraction, but…

Well, that goal hadn't changed. "Have you settled on a design yet?" Whatever was going on out there, letting Jake focus on it wouldn't help.

The young man visibly brightened. "I think so, but I thought I'd sit on it for a few more days to be sure."

Aw, that's just cute. "Can I see?"

"Mm… not until I'm sure I won't alter it again," Jake denied. "I don't want to second-guess it."

His lips twitched. "What exactly are we calling the back and forth jewelry sketches, exactly?"

"Creative process," Jake returned immediately. "I'll show you before I send it off to fabrication."

Des smiled. "It's adorable how you're obsessing over this."

Jake rolled his eyes. "Thanks."

"You can just say you don't want my opinion, you know," he added teasingly. "My feelings won't be hurt."

Jake hesitated, grimacing, then shook his head. "It's not that," he insisted. "I just… want it to be all me, you know? I mean… I know the details aren't important, but… it's forever, Des. I want to make it just so. Relena won't care about any of the variations if she even notices all the little details in the first place, but I want to know I went all out on every aspect of that ring every time I see it, because that's just… right." He bit his lip. "I've had so few permanent things in my life. It's a symbol, and with something she's always going to display, I just… want it to be perfect." He rolled his eyes. "It's ridiculous, but I'm allowed that, aren't I?"

"You are," he reassured. It really was adorable, but that little speech showed how self-conscious the boy was feeling on the subject, so he'd stop teasing – at least for now. In any case, it was hardly the first time Jake had designed a piece of jewelry, and he'd been obsessively preoccupied each of those times too, even when it was just a trinket for someone he wasn't sure he'd ever talk to again.

Sometimes, kids who grew up without any kind of symbolism became fixated on it – and Jake was a relatively healthy example of that. He didn't attach importance to everything or get upset over something he put weight in disappearing or breaking, but he was happier when he could line his world up with a few tangibles. Des had noticed it years ago – he just hadn't realized that Jake had acknowledged the fact too, especially not to the extent that he would actively lean into it when he knew it was… for lack of a better word, safe.

"I'll show you when I finalize it," Jake repeated. "The turnaround on something like this is at least four weeks, probably closer to six. More than enough time for the anticipation to build."

He considered that. "In time for Valentine's, huh?"

Jake made a face. "I'm not doing that."

"Oh, good." Proposing on a holiday like that was a bit of a trap; he would've needed to try talking him out of it. Women didn't like to share their special days with every single other woman in existence.

Jake sighed suddenly, shoulders slumping as he turned slightly more away from the solarium windows. "Is he okay?"

Ah. So it was a willing distraction. It had been worth a shot, at least; and it meant something, that Jake had gone along with it. His visible, if uncomfortable, concern about Jack's distress and this active wariness of making it worse was even better.

Maybe they'll be able to have delicate conversations unsupervised by this time next year.

In response to the question though, Des shrugged, glancing back that way without being too obvious. "I've been debating," he admitted. With the summer vents shut, this part of the house was almost entirely soundproof – Jack could have been screaming and they wouldn't have heard him.

…He looked like he might have at least screamed a few obscenities recently. Not actual screaming, probably but… Well, probably. Hmm.

"Have you talked to Relena yet today?" he suggested. "You could go upstairs and get caught up on the day's shenanigans." Giving him a pointed look, he added, "In one of the rooms facing the front, of course."

"Wow," Jake drawled, looking amused in spite of himself. "You just couldn't help yourself, could you?"

As much as Jake liked his privacy, he'd been a spy too long to have much respect for anyone else's. "Maybe just get out of the house for a minute and go pick up an early dinner," he decided, smiling when that had the kid rolling his eyes… but also heading for the door, so win-win.

"Any requests?' he called back, deactivating the current that fed the entryway.

"Slow service," Des called back, smirking. "But good enough food to warrant it."

Jake snorted but didn't protest, setting the timer to re-engage in fifteen seconds and locking the door after himself.

Des watched the way he'd gone for a while, waiting for the amber indicator to flash back on. Jake was… mostly a good kid. And he was his more than Jack's, however unfair that was. The boy was trying though, and hadn't shown any signs that he intended to stop, which… Well. Maybe he could be Jack's too, given some more time.

The ready light flicked back on and Des sighed, turning to walk back into the solarium and consider if talking to the other man would be helpful or not. From what had been said so far, Des had thought the man's relationship with Junior was less likely to devolve into this. Maybe he's talking to someone else. At the same time though, his body language earlier… probably not. It had also been a rather long phone call for Jack to be having with someone who wasn't already in this house – which sounded cynical, but didn't make it not true. Jack hadn't bothered with much of a social circle in years.

After another long minute, he shrugged and moved to the back door. He'd be obvious about opening it, and if his friend didn't want an eavesdropper, he would gesture him back. Otherwise, at least he could offer silent support.

"No, that's not comforting either," Jack announced, giving Des a hunted look as he paced away from him, but making no motions for him to leave. "That's not how that works, I can't… No." He paused, listening, before letting out a heavy sigh. "Yes, thank-you." Glancing back at Des again, he closed his eyes. "I'm going to call you back. No, I'm not, I just need to sort myself out for a minute. I wasn't expecting that, and-" He grunted. "Yes, I promise. I know better. Okay. Thanks. Bye." Ending the call, Jack immediately covered his face with it and both his hands, looking exhausted. "Fuck."

Des considered that for a moment before offering, "Promises sound good?"

"That was Audi," Jack informed him, still concealing his face. "I called her after Odin hung up on me."

…That was still better than things had gone with Jake for most of the time he'd known them. David had rarely ever been willing to play mediator. "It could be worse," he suggested. "Did you lose your temper, then?"

Jack groaned, dropping his hands and pocketing the phone before turning away to walk in the direction of the bench swing. "A little," he admitted. "But he didn't mind."

Des blinked, considering that and watching for a moment before shaking his head and heading to the weatherproof box he kept by the door to pull out a blanket. Jack was wearing his coat, but he hadn't bothered to grab his own. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

He waited until the other man had sat down on the bench and he'd tucked himself next in to him, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders in an improvised cocoon. When Jack was still quiet, though, he settled on, "Enlightening."

His friend snorted out a laugh before groaning again, tipping his head back. "I'm thinking."

"Do it out loud." Despite how these two acted, he was hardly omniscient.

Jack rolled his eyes, still not looking his way. "Do you know why Jake always puts such a shine on Senior's memory? He acts like he thinks the man could do no wrong."

Can you call it Stockholm syndrome when they raised you? Aloud, he admitted, "I think it's mostly reactive. He only pushes that angle around you."

Jack sighed, slumping a little. "Great."

"He's getting more honest about it in general," he added. "I think it's mostly Relena's influence, but he does acknowledge the screwed up parts of his childhood. The subject comes up more often now too. Sometimes he even starts the conversation." Eyeing his friend's slouch, he asked, "Why are we talking about this?"

Jack grimaced. "Junior's view is… darker."

"Mm." He considered for a moment. "That's probably healthy."

"Jake called me last summer, not too long before Lyle was born. I… he never calls, you know? And it started out okay, but… it's me, and I put my foot in my mouth."

Des hummed. "It's been known to happen."

Jack rolled his eyes again, but there was a hint of a smile on his face now. "Yeah. I wasn't even trying to push, but I set him off and he blamed me for how Senior disappeared with Junior. Blamed Senior's depression on me, said I'd gone out of my way to break all three of them, and that I was lucky Junior was dead because it meant I didn't have to face what living with Senior's depression did to the baby."

"…Wow. He was in rare form that day, wasn't he?"

"It would've hurt more if there'd been an ounce of sense to it," Jack admitted tiredly. "Or if it was new. God knows he's said worse, and he'd called me not five minutes before that to try and have a normal conversation. There was no real bite. He sounded like he was about to cry when he told me not to call back and hung up."

Hm. "He always does ride the edge a bit, that time of year."

"He still called me. I'll take it." He let out another long sigh. "Senior's the only one at fault for what he did to Junior. But… I was hoping Jake was overplaying the depression angle."

Oh, that's promising. "He did commit suicide," he reminded the other man. Suicide by raging nemesis or whatever Dekim had seen himself as, some crazed avenger, but it had still been a conscious decision to die.

"Yeah." Staring into the middle distance for a long time, he finally said, "I can't decide if he actively went out of his way to fuck the kid up or if he was just that far gone, but… it runs deep. The way Odin talks about Senior, he obviously loved and looked up to him, but… I'm reading between the lines, but he practically said he'd be happy to piss on his grave too."

His estimation of the boy rose slightly. "That's probably healthy," he repeated.

Jack groaned, dropping his face back in his hands. "It's probably not that visceral, but… there's a resentment there that his brother doesn't have, and… I have no idea what to do with it." He let out a humorless chuckle. "After all these years, I finally have someone who both knew my brother-in-law and recognizes he was just another fucked up human being, and I have no idea what to do with it."

Des frowned. "That's an interesting hang-up."

"It really is." Pressing his fingers against his eyes, he admitted, "It's probably at least half because I'm still processing. Junior just… casually mentions this shit the man did like it's just another Wednesday, and I can't decide if he's downplaying it as a coping mechanism or if it's just the tip of the fucking iceberg. I can't wrap my head around it."

Des held in his first flippant response. Might be both. Jack had only been in contact with the boy for a couple of weeks – it was a little soon for him to be sharing his darkest secrets.

"It's an entirely different kind of minefield than with Jake," Jack continued. "He's downright friendly about it, but…" He took another deep breath. "It's probably a good thing the boys aren't talking yet; hearing even half of this shit would slice his brother to ribbons. I'm going to have to come up with a way to soften the blows."

"Him being alive at all softens it plenty," Des argued.

"Him not realizing he has a name before turning seventeen is a hell of a knife," Jack countered.

Des tucked his hands into his armpits, trying to think that through.

"O-" Jack licked his lips. "Senior died over ten years ago, Des. I have no idea what he's been doing since, but that's still eight years that it didn't occur to him to wonder about his own name. I don't know if that's because of what Senior did or the company he was keeping in the meantime – and I can't decide which is worse."

Might be both. It was a sobering thought this time, especially since Jack still didn't know the boy too well just yet. Leaving that aside though… Before now, his friend had been trying to insist the boy was non-volatile. "What set him off?"

Jack frowned, turning to look at him for the first time since they sat. "What? Nothing. I blew my top at one point, but he just made jokes about my metaphors and turned it into new conversation."

"You said he hung up on you," he reminded him, nonplussed. "I came out here because you were angry pacing while talking to his sister. I'm glad he's more mellow than his brother, don't get me wrong, but it's important to know triggers, and-"

Jack cut him off with a pathetically hysterical little laugh, eyes a bit wild. "Triggers!"

Des narrowed his eyes at him. "What?"

Jack curled back in on himself, the laughter sliding uncomfortably closer to sobs. "I didn't set him off, Des. He sounded happy when he hung up, and that's half the damn issue. I called Audi because I knew she was in a different country and I thought she might know who the fuck was trying to shoot him."

His stomach dropped. "Excuse me?"

"He got off the phone because someone opened up a barrage of automatic gunfire, and if anything, his attitude was 'Oh, finally!'"

"…Well, fuck." Jack had said before that he thought Rubato was some kind of front, but with all the business they were doing now he'd hoped it wasn't-

"Audi says they're drug dealers," Jack continued.

Des shot him a sideways look. "Rubato?"

Jack's look was entirely incredulous. "No! The people shooting at him. She says he went down to Savona last week to help out some friends and somehow it devolved into him actively trying to piss off multiple heroin cartels."

Des stared at him. "Why?"

"You know, she really wasn't clear on that point. There was something about him thinking it was funny, but she wasn't trying to explain so much as calm me down."

Des just kept staring. "How did she do that?"

Jack looked a little dead in the eyes. "Apparently," he announced, voice bone dry, "I shouldn't worry because Odin's actually really good at this kind of thing."

He choked out a laugh, eyes starting to water. "Oh God."

"Clearly," Jack continued, "my son has been the one teaching her how to comfort people."

He bit his bottom lip, trying to not… laugh or cry, the boundary was a little fuzzy. "He's that bad, huh?"

"He has absolutely no concept of social norms." Sighing again and sitting up straighter, he admitted, "From what I've seen, I have to assume she's right – and it is a relief to know he's not doing something counter to his brother. I'd probably need to have an opinion if he was doing something anti-Regime. I can live with him waging some kind of war on drugs – hell, I could probably deal with him dealing drugs, though I really hope he's not that stupid. But in the end of the day, it only takes one bullet, Des."

Well, he was familiar with the feeling for that last comment, at least. Lulu had always waited to tell him about the dangerous shit she'd been up to until after she'd come back from it, and he'd never been able to decide if that was better or worse than foreknowledge. The one exception had been those handful of calls and messages she'd sent from Peacemillion, but then… well, everyone had been sitting under the knife, by then.

He didn't have anything helpful to say on the subject, however, so he tried dissecting the rest. "Liguria, Savona?" he asked, frowning.

"I hadn't tried looking it up yet," Jack admitted. "But probably? When I was talking to Odin, he said he was just south of the Italian cordon." He made a face. "Up until the shooting started, he was entirely done with it; he's there as some kind of favor to a friend. He made a point of leaving Audi up at that main complex Rubato works out of in northwest Poland, and sounded like he wanted to be back there yesterday."

So he makes a point of not bringing the girl into dangerous situations. That was another point in Junior's favor. "He expected trouble, then?"

"I think so."

Des debated for a moment, but… well, he'd already been trying to figure out a way to ask Jack to look after the coupe. "I want to say Savona is maybe a six hour drive from here."

"That's nice when you own a car," Jack returned tiredly.

"We decided we were only taking one to Munich, and as much as I love the Ruzzi, I'm not putting a baby seat in it." He shifted his weight, trying not to shiver; the sun hadn't gone down yet, but it was still cold. "There's problems with storing it – and even if I pay for your parking, it would still cost less than stashing it somewhere that bothers with any kind of regular maintenance."

Jack turned a skeptical look on him. "You're serious."

Des shrugged. "It's a project car."

"It's a finished project car, and it's a hardtop Ruzzi," Jack protested.

"And if she doesn't get driven at least once a week, she starts having problems," Des lied.

"It hasn't done that in years."

"I don't want to store it," he repeated. Cars went to seed that way, and he had spent the better part of a decade working on the Ruzzi, after giving up his bikes for good. The accident that had damaged his knee hadn't made him stop riding, but he'd acknowledged that it was probably time to stop testing his aging reflexes after Sylvia had gotten sick. He'd been ready to give up his tinkering entirely, but then Lucrezia had started turning up with the totaled classic listings…

There were a lot of good memories tied up in that car. Practically none of it was original anymore because they'd picked an absolute wreck to start with, but he was convinced that all those hours in the garage had been half of what made Lulu fall so deeply in love with mobile suits. And as much as he sometimes wished she could have chosen a different career, his little girl loved those monsters.

He wasn't selling it. The two of them used to happily bicker about who it belonged to more, especially after she'd brought home those altered schematics on a break from academy and gotten the hardtop functional again. He'd always made it clear that it was his baby now that she'd left him for boarding school and that she didn't spend enough time with her to have any real claim anyway… But after she'd moved to Tanzania permanently, he'd planned on getting it drop-shipped to Africa for her twenty-first birthday. Some birthdays were more important than others, and he figured by then she'd have assumed he'd never budge and he could actually surprise her. But…

Lucrezia had turned nineteen in 195. She'd been running herself ragged in Sanc between security and politics with how Relena had just opened the country's borders to any and all refugees – so they'd talked, but she'd begged off on any kind of celebration. She hadn't wanted him traveling through contested areas, and had wanted to put a visit off until Sanc was more established in any case. New Year's at the latest, she'd said.

Then the Fall had happened, and here they were past New Year's Day more than three years later. She and Jake were both twenty-two now… and he could only hope he'd see her before twenty-three. Before Lyle turned one.

In any case, he'd take it to Sarracenia if he had to, but he'd rather his friend make some use of the old girl. "You live in Switzerland and there are two different secure garages in walking distance of your apartment."

Jack made an exasperated noise, but tellingly stopped arguing the broader points. "And you're fine with me driving it into some kind of Italian drug war?"

Des smirked. "I'm pretty sure she'd already survived at least one before I got my hands on her."

"You know what I mean. How are you going to feel if it gets damaged?"

He leveled his own exasperated look at the other man. "Project. Car." Obviously he hoped it didn't, but even if the car got entirely trashed, Lu would appreciate the story. Maybe they'd even work on it together again. A car was meant to be driven, and it was just depressing to have it sit in a garage forever.

Though, given the conversation he'd walked in on… "You didn't promise to not go, did you?"

Jack stared at him for another long moment before shaking his head. "No, just that I wouldn't call him back until either he got ahold of me, or after noon tomorrow. Not that I would have anyway, with him going into a firefight, but she's just a kid." He leaned back. "I did promise Odin I wouldn't track him again, but he already said roughly where he was, and Audi told me more. If I get close and tell him as much, I don't think he'll keep me at arms' length." He shrugged a little uncomfortably. "And if he needs a hand, it's within my scope of ethics."

He… had nothing helpful to add to that. He didn't really disagree with the notion, but he was also glad that his own talents didn't run along the lines that would make him have to consider that set of options. Instead he shrugged and stood, tucking the blanket tighter around his shoulders. "Come on, let's go inside. I sent Jake out for food, so we've got some time to get your ducks in a row if you're leaving early."

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January 5th 199 – Sunday – Dortmund, Germany

It's far from the smallest single-person apartment I've seen, Duo decided. But it probably fits into the 'barely economical' category around here. It was clean, but only in the way that it obviously had to be, to remain a functional space at all. There were enough decorations and bric-a-brac for it to not feel sterile or prison-esque, but they were bland. Lyddia Sharpman might be a very boring woman with plain taste, or maybe she had no spare money to spend on making her home feel like her space… But this felt like a prop space meant to deter attention.

After all, the Bianchis had tracked the buyer of the last of their Gamora's Tears back to this woman in what Heero said looked like an attempt to be sure they weren't double-crossed. There was a chance she was a middle man who sold it on… but so far, she did match the profile Adam had pulled out of the Regime's database for the bomber. The fact that there was no obvious evidence of wealth to reflect selling the dangerous compound also suggested she had kept it… though there were always things to trade for.

That said, if this was his bomber? She was smart enough to not cook at home.

After checking that everything he'd disturbed in his search was back in place, he slipped out, debating his next move.

He'd come into Germany alone, on the off chance that the crossing went sour – but the alliance between the democratic zone and the two most northeastern states of Germany had left the border just as open as rumor claimed. With that reassurance, he supposed he could send back for the others if this stretched out, or even for Cat's guys in Rubato… but he would rather not. Melissa had finally quit the militia – or rather, cycled into on-call status only – but she still had her hands full with the shop. And while any of the Devils would back him if he asked… Well, the only one outside his family who knew his history was Shov, and he didn't want to involve them in business outside the network if he could help it.

My family. Even just two years ago that would have been a strange idea – he wouldn't have been able to separate the concept from having crew or the church. Now though, he had a sister, a niece, a wife, a father and brother-in-law, and whatever they wanted to call it, Amos was basically his kid. The Devils as a whole were important too, but… somehow, the simple act of marrying Melissa had opened up a whole new category of need and hierarchy. He didn't mind, it was incredible, but… it was a little disconcerting to realize that crossing that line had made everything different. If anyone had asked him beforehand he would have said it was just a ceremony and paperwork, that he'd already been fully committed, and yet…

It was a good change. An expansion. And in one more month, it'll be a full year. He still needed to come up with something special for the anniversary. Then Nolan would be fifteen at the end of February, so he needed to think about that too.

Both boys had started openly looking into the Rubato education programs too, and while he could have taken that as a personal failure… He was as stressed by trying to teach them everything as he remembered being when he was the student. So maybe that wasn't a bad idea. He'd yanked them out of public school because of the danger element, not because he'd desperately wanted to educate them personally, and all three of them had very different learning styles, not to mention goals.

And so much stress had just vanished when Melissa quit the militia last month, almost as much again as it had since Will finished the worst of his physical therapy, that… it might be really nice, to bring it down another notch. Amos was near constantly overwhelmed with how he tried to run things, and Nolan… The homeschooling had put of a lot of strain on their relationship, even as they'd gotten closer too. He hated doing the authoritarian thing with the kids anyway. Maybe they could keep the extra closeness and shove the more controlling dynamic he'd had to pick up out the window. He'd felt almost like he was turning into G the last three months, trying to keep them all on track, and that was just… bleagh.

If I can't figure out what I need to in a couple days, I'll bother Adam again, he decided, heading to a public café with good wifi that he'd scouted out earlier. He'd trailed his mark to work this morning, and was reasonably sure she'd be there for a few more hours at least – enough time to do some digital digging of his own on her before he went back to the physical. She had no reason to think someone was on her trail right now – with any luck, a few days of surveillance would lead him to her lab.

oOo


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Vado Ligure, Italy

"Pronto," Odin muttered as he connected the line, not checking his screen.

"Are people still spraying lead in your general vicinity?" Jack asked, tone dry.

He blinked, grinning even as he filed away the annoyance of Marie changing his ringtones again – that was a trusted tune. He supposed that at least in this case it was less general mischief and more that she was trying to make a point. "That's an accurate description of their aim," he decided, feeling light. "You'd think they would bother to practice if they wanted to carry big guns."

"If they're not doing it for a living, they might not realize how perishable of a skill it is," Jack pointed out.

He considered that, but decided he didn't care. "Maybe." As established as the Bianchi cartel clearly was? The more he uncovered, the more it looked like they'd been stupid enough to sample their products – both drugs and weapons. At least, that was the best explanation he had come up with for their incompetence so far.

He wasn't… complaining, exactly. Their passingly vague attempt at encrypting their computers had meant he could finish his part faster – and it looked like Duo had even been right, to seek this lead. Or Adam had, technically. Being done meant he could head back to Szczecin – Lucrezia would still beat him there, but she would be there, and that…

It was hard to describe. He had thought six weeks was uncomfortable, had meant it when he said he didn't want to separate for that long again, but it had only been ten days since he had last seen her and still it was so… acute. It ached like a wound.

He also still wasn't sure what he thought about her telling him he was better than suicidal ideation, better than the depression that had killed Odin, but it… wasn't a bad feeling, despite being uncomfortable. He'd known she wouldn't want him to ever see that frame of mind again – the idea of Marie ever following in his footsteps set off something alarmingly close to panic in the back of his mind. He could relate that to other people, now. And Lucrezia cared about him at least as much as he did her – or at least as much as he could understand, considering the way it kept changing, broadening in ways he hadn't even realized existed but found himself craving endlessly. He'd recognized the startled… something in her as a mirror to his own feelings enough times now to understand that she had as much control over what was happening as he did. But he could also see that she wanted it just as much, and that… was good. Equal.

Is that the difference? Maybe not, because he'd made the decision to never try to kill himself again long before, and the emotions were something else with Marie, but at the same time… This was just more. His own health, the spark of joy in Moira's eyes had been enough to get him firmly on the path; then Marie had cemented it, made it less about finding one more step, less of studiously not thinking about goals beyond the next handful of months. But with Marie it had been… guided. He'd had a rubric to follow – alongside experiences to not repeat. With Lucrezia, there was no map. No overarching goal beyond that want and the…

…He didn't have the word for what time with Lucrezia did to his thought processing. It transformed him – and not just in the moment, but leaving permanent changes in its wake. Marie would probably call it love again, but that was too… broad. He didn't doubt that it was right – he'd discovered all sorts of ways that word could apply – but it wasn't specific enough. The feelings just… settled something.

Was that what Odin was missing? His father had had at least some of what he felt for Marie, if not more, but it hadn't stopped the crippling regret. If anything, those feelings might have been what had finally pushed him over the edge.

'Do what your heart tells you, so you won't regret it later.'

If the regret had come from not following that wisdom… if he'd already known that what he'd done to his son was wrong, even as he dug in deeper and finished it…

Whatever he felt about it, he still did it. And I won't. He had refused to think on it too deeply before Jack, but he had drawn lines he wouldn't cross even before finding Marie. After, he'd just had more reason to define them better. Which meant…

I am better than Odin.

Maybe it wasn't strictly what Lucrezia had meant, but the way he'd chased his own death… he'd been following his father's example. Over and over again, despite every failure, he'd been trying to follow Odin and… He was better than that, now.

The fact that he'd apparently had a better example available just made it worse. Even if he was better than Odin, he… wasn't sure that was a bar anyone should be impressed by.

"You didn't actually answer me," Jack announced, sounding aggrieved but in a… mostly companionable way. Their voices were similar enough that he could catch the mirror in how he'd said more than a few things to Adam, this past week.

Odin smirked. "I wrapped up what I was in the middle of," he confirmed. Whether or not there was any shooting from here was up to the Rubato vets and the team Lucrezia had sent to back them for the mop-up. He was more than ready to leave. "Are you still helping your friend pack?"

"Well, he's moving to Germany and asked if I'd drive his car up. He'd been planning to ship it, but apparently the fact that I don't own a car means he wants to loan me his spare indefinitely."

Odin smiled. "He sounds like a good friend." With how Quatre had stressed Jack's very poor expectations, he'd wondered if the man had any.

"It's overly generous – but he's a very good friend, so I'm mostly trying to not feel too weird about it," Jack agreed. "He really meant that he thought me taking care of the car until he moves back to Italy was less hassle somehow, which… I understand on a logical level? But I've been drooling over this thing for years and I'm a little freaked out."

This was probably the part where he was supposed to ask after the make or model, but he didn't see the point – unless he got a look at the engine, he wouldn't know what it was capable of, let alone the reputation and perceptions surrounding its brand. Asking would just show his ignorance – though it was probably past time he learned the basics. Quatre had picked up a handful of vehicles that fit the profile of the business they were doing through Rubato, but he hadn't bothered testing them beyond basic handling.

Or remembered their configuration names, it seemed. Sloppy. He could recognize each and had memorized all the plates and VINs, but forgotten to consider the 'normal' identifiers. That was bound to stand out in casual conversation.

Context told him enough to let him sidestep it, though. "It's that nice, huh?"

"Very nice," Jack confirmed. "Want to see it? I'm in Genoa right now."

Odin frowned. Jack had said he'd been in Rome, and the only land route out of Italy was to the east. Which meant… He felt his lips twitch. "That's at least five added hours of driving to reach Gorizia."

"Closer to six," Jack agreed. "Remember the part where you hung up on me to get into a firefight? I do make a point to keep my aim sharp, for the record. Not that I'm packing – I flew down and people get twitchy when they realize someone with my record can still get a conceal carry – but I do private armed security for a living, and I keep my time at the range versatile. I stand between proficient and expert on just about any kind of artillery you could hand me – including the fucking Kalashnikovs I heard yesterday."

A grin stretched its way across his face. They had been Kalashnikovs. "Was that a guess, or could you actually tell?"

"The rate of fire was too slow and the sound too sharp for an M16, and as much as your brother loves Daewoo, anything made by Colt has gotten a lot less common since the Fall. I might mistake an AR with an M16, but not an AK. I'm less familiar with the smaller brands – but Audi said they were Italian drug dealers and you just confirmed they valued big and flashy over precision, so that puts us back at AKs."

Odin laughed, thrilled. He'd noticed Jack had the body fluidity and situational awareness to suit a history of training, but hadn't expected much to come of it after confirming that he wasn't currently attached to any military. Though the comment about a record was interesting too – Marie had said the man's absence from his childhood hadn't been his fault, but having a record implied… interesting things. Jack had an L1 accent, for all that it was largely smoothed out; probably from spending so long on Earth in primarily German-speaking countries.

"I hadn't realized they could be distinguishable," he admitted. The Alliance had favored AKs on average while OZ soldiers often kept the lighter models… but he hadn't bothered to try differentiating them.

"My life is very dull," Jack returned dryly. "Most of my free hours go to maintenance.

My boss actually gives me shit for how much time I put in at the range, since it's on the company's dime. On the other hand, we live in a society where the criminal elements often have extensive military training – and with how our contracts make us high-gain targets, there's a reason we have paid training time."

He hadn't bothered to find out what the man's job was before now either, but that was good to know. Still… "I gave you a general area of Italy, and you showed up less than twenty-four hours later."

"Someone was shooting at my son, and Audi said you were pissing off heroin dealers in Savona. I figured coming any closer then Genoa without announcing myself would be rude, but… Look, I don't care why you thought this was a good idea, but I can lend a hand, if you want."

He… wasn't sure what to do with that.

"…Odin?"

He'd hesitated too long. "Sorry," he adlibbed, trying to place his emotions beyond… confusion. This was a sentiment he might expect from Marie, but she also knew better than to act on it… and he barely knew Jack. Maybe that was the primary source of this disconnect, but at the same time, the more he thought about it? "That's just… a first."

"…What is?"

"I show up and help people," he explained. Getting Duo out of his holding cell during the war came to mind, even if that… hadn't started as altruistically as it ended. "Not the other way around." He frowned. Quatre had gotten him clear of Wing Zero's crash site without a request for help, but Quatre had already been there – he didn't think it was the same thing, when you were sharing a battlefield. Then Quatre had constantly helped him after that without question, but they'd both needed each other; it had gone both ways.

"…I thought you had good friends." Jack's voice was growing more terse.

This wasn't coming across right. "They'd have to know where I was," he pointed out. "Or what I was doing. And I…" He shrugged, not sure how else to phrase it. "Have a reputation." A relevant fact occurred to him. "I've only had a phone for nine months," he added. "And for most of that, less than five people had my number." Looking back… "Moira is the first person I ever gave any way to find me, and that was only in 197." His lips twitched almost against his will, but it felt more like a grimace than a smile. "A week before I turned eighteen."

He blinked, a realization striking him, and he felt a more natural smile slip in place. I went drinking with Lucrezia on my last birthday. That felt… incredibly appropriate. He'd have to mention it to her. Her little brother was born that night too. She'd probably get a kick out of that.

Jack sighed. "Aa. I guess that makes sense."

"I've been getting better about it," he added. "But the group thing is… new. I've mostly been following Cat and Audi's cues." Lucrezia's too.

"And Adam's?"

"Adam is worse than I am at the group thing, he just tries it more often because he gets a kick out of screwing with people," he decided. "And until last August, I hadn't heard from him for," he thought a moment, "thirty-two months."

"…That's a long time."

"I lost contact with everyone but Cat after Libra," he agreed. "But I didn't have any friends before 195, and we…" Everything from that year, first being able to play with Duo, then Trowa's steady companionship… Realizing the game could keep going with Duo, trying to help again after it had gone well with Duo only to be imprisoned… and then everything with Quatre and Zero, Sanc and Relena, then Peacemillion…

He'd started off the war determined to outrun and avoid everyone until he hit his end, but the longer that kept not happening, the more he'd realized the people he found along the way were the only things worth anything.

He'd met Lucrezia four times that year. He'd walked away the second time instead of taking her up on an offer of alliance, but even if he didn't count that, the only person he had teamed up with more often was Duo. He'd spent more time with Trowa and Quatre though, followed by Lucrezia – as often as he'd come across Duo, they'd always been brief encounters. So Trowa and Quatre… then maybe an equal amount of time with Relena as Lucrezia, if he added it all together – especially if he didn't count the sleep-hazed delirium stage of the battles before the Fall as time spent with anyone.

In hindsight, clinically… it hadn't taken much time at all, to form those bonds. And yet there was such a pull to what they'd done together that he'd been willing to follow someone he'd thought was Wufei out of Jerusalem, when he'd only known Wufei from New Edwards and Peacemillion.

Feelings might be the only thing worth following, but at the same time? They were insane.

"The friends I made during the war are important to me," he decided, unsure if he had spoken again quickly enough to not be awkward, or if Jack had just given him the time. "I was… lost, before then."

"…Damn." Jack sighed again. "No friends until you were fifteen?"

…Mm. "I thought my mentor after Odin was my friend," he admitted. "But I didn't… have a firm understanding of the concept." Those first five years hadn't been bad, and he'd had choice, something Odin had never even introduced as an idea, but at the same time…

'You have good eyes.'

He had picked Marie up off that cold sidewalk in Lithuania because she had looked as hopelessly lost as he had felt, when J said that to him. Because even though he hadn't understood the emotions at the time, he hadn't wanted someone like J to find her. His father had loved him, but that didn't change the fact that he had raised him almost perfectly for someone to shape into a weapon. To make him into a thing, instead of a person. Whatever Odin had felt, he'd still purposefully left him alone for… that to happen.

'Why didn't you run?' Lucrezia had asked. He still didn't know. Looking back, it should have been the obvious choice, but he was starting to think that maybe…

Odin had left, when he decided he couldn't stand to live with his mistakes anymore.

And he didn't want to be like his father.

…How many months into the retraining was it, before I lost sight of that? J had said it would fix him, would make the collapse on L3-X18999 stop hurting – but how had that made any sense? Instead of feeling numb, hollow and endlessly falling, the retraining had just made him want to die. It hadn't even made him into a more reliable soldier, despite them framing it that way, it had just…

Adam had looked at him the other day like he thought he might be willing to torture someone – and the memory of having his arm calmly, methodically broken in three places then set and Remalene started before being told 'quieter, next time' had nearly overwhelmed him.

…He didn't even remember what he had done. He hadn't fought back that time, which meant… it had been later? He'd held onto his sense of… not exactly self, but something in the earlier stages. He'd never not fought back when he'd still had the presence of mind to mouth off, even as he knew he was making it worse… But by the time J had given him the alternate plans for Meteor, his ability to reason through multiple choice questions had been shaky at best, let alone any other kind of logic.

Had the broken arm even been a punishment? Or had it been some other point the Foundation was trying to prove?

Was there a point to any of it? Even if it was a deeply flawed theory that was wrong, not just ethically but a blatantly incorrect way to achieve whatever J had been trying to turn him into, he had started in it thinking that J had believed it would work. But what if that hadn't been the point at all?

I should have run.

"I can't think of a way to take that statement as anything but ominous," Jack finally said.

A breathy, short bark of a laugh that was almost a gasp instead escaped his chest. "Yeah. It…" He laughed again, more real this time. "195 was a good year." Everything had changed, and for the better.

There was an obvious hesitation on the line before Jack, voice even more tense than before, asked, "The war was a good year?"

…However true it was, he'd clearly said the wrong thing. Oh well. Jack had proven almost as good at rolling with punches as he himself was, at least. "I'm done talking about that," he decided. "Have you had lunch yet? I'm in Vado Ligure – I think that's less than an hour from Genoa."

oOo


oOo

Paris, France

"Longer trip this time?"

"At least a couple days," Shel agreed. Her tip should be good, but embezzlement cases always had a ridiculous amount of legwork. "Probably on the dry side, lots of time in record rooms or at a desk, but there's always the chance that we're going to piss off someone important. I'll need your eyes sharp for trouble."

Josey shrugged. "So long as it's not as hairy as Dijon, I'm game."

Shel groaned. "I would have to be kidnapped for something to be that bad, and even then, I might prefer it," she agreed. Karter had been right, thank God, and she hadn't been near any dangerous radiation at ground zero on the French spaceport, but that didn't make the experience not the very top of her list of worst experiences.

"Hear, hear," Josey muttered, leaning back on her hands. "I did want to ask, though: I didn't recognize the source. Usually you don't pack up this quick for a lead from an unknown."

"He's not an unknown," Shel replied, grabbing her make-up kit and checking its contents. "It's just been a while. I figured he died in the Fall, but it's the right email, and the same word games and banter." She grinned over at the other woman. "I'm glad. A couple of his leads really made the difference in my early career, got me off the ground… and we've met in person a few times too." She winked. "It doesn't hurt that he's easy on the eyes too. Got enough charisma to make you nervous, but that's half the fun."

Josey laughed. "Does mystery man have a name?"

"I'm sure he does," Shel answered pertly, zipping her tote and slinging it over one shoulder. "But since he's given me three, I make a point to not use any of them."

Josey just laughed more… and Rachelle decided enough was enough, tossing her tote in the suitcase. "Let's drive. If we piss off some nobleman, I want a quick getaway."

oOo


oOo

Vado Ligure, Italy

"I will eat pig and eggs every chance I get," Yasa announced pointedly, smiling around another bite. "Eggs are the perfect food for everything, and pork has everything the body needs in a pinch that can be hard to get."

Jack stared at the kid, fairly sure he was going to regret asking. But… "Define 'hard to get.'"

Yasa smirked. "Robby Stanton's not so much an original as he gets credit for. My dad kept the two of us alive through the evacuation and a good nine months after we got dropped in Algeria, before Cambyses came. He got us through the Ghetto too, but we were always looking for an out; he practically sold his soul to get us as far south as anyone went, closer to the mountains. But after he died, I didn't care about being careful anymore, so I stole everything I could carry and booked it." He shrugged, taking another overly lascivious bite of bacon. "I'm not sure if I actually outran them or if they didn't care – I was a runt, and it would've taken a couple days to notice the theft, the way I did it. But I don't know if I would've made it those four months on my own if I hadn't been able to ration all the spam I stole to keep my salt levels stable." He made a face. "I mean, I was still almost starving when Rashid found me, but I would've been delirious before then, if not for that." Giving Jack an aggravated look, he asked, "Do you have any idea how hard it is to get the meat off a hedgehog?"

"The gypsies wrapped them in clay to roast by the fire, then the spines peel off with the wrapping," Damien pointed out cheerfully, not looking up from his waffles.

"I didn't know that," Yasa whined, gesturing at the man with a fork. "Before the Fall, I used to hunt different kinds of deer, or birds. I'd trapped a few rabbits to prove I could. It's different, okay?"

"The hunting experience is probably why you survived at all," Cliff – the redhead he'd seen packing Junior's ID in Russia, he'd quickly recognized – noted. "The statistical data coming out says they kept boys as young as nine, but most didn't make it."

"My dad is why I made it," Yasa corrected pointedly… but not angrily, or even morosely, still gesturing with a greasy fork. "I am cartoonishly small and it didn't matter how good I was at ambush kills, too much of Cambyses politics was brute force. If I hadn't run, I would've ended up someone's piece of ass."

Damien snorted into his coffee, while the other two Rubato men did some degree of wince or grimace… and didn't disagree. Xutao pointedly continued acting as if he was alone at the table, staring directly into empty space and chewing mechanically.

Odin chose that moment to drop back into his chair, phone tucked away again. "I'm glad you made it, but maybe lower your voice."

"I don't turn thirteen for another month," Yasa announced, pointedly not following the suggestion. "The government automatically pardoned everyone involved with Cambyses that got taken before turning fifteen. Also, no one nearby has reacted to anything I've said for the past five minutes, which I checked before starting on anything touchy, so my noise level is fine." He grinned. "You talking to my boss lady?"

Odin rolled his eyes, picking his sandwich back up. "Not about you. Is there any reason you're pushing for shock value?"

"All these Johnny Come Latelys were pussyfooting around," the kid immediately announced. "I decided I'd rather bite the bullet."

Damien started giggling into his coffee outright, while Vaska dropped his face in one hand, apparently taking after Xutao's example and mentally vacating the premises. Cliff was the one to sigh and meet Odin's eyes. "Razo gave Jovi a list of people who knew about the Stanton connection because of him," he admitted. "Jake and Jack Miller are both on it."

He'd wondered about how to bring that up – so that was one hurdle crossed. He met his son's eyes and pointedly shrugged. "I wouldn't care even if you had been there for that," he stated quietly. "And your brother told me enough of the full background the Regime has on Stanton's crew that I don't have any problems with your friends. I stay out of Jake's politics, but he's firmly in the princess' camp for opinion, and I'm inclined to agree on this one."

Odin eyed him for a long moment, then shrugged back. "I haven't been to north Africa since the eighties," he confirmed.

He'd known, but he still felt something relax at the admission. "Your brother got himself just enough puzzle pieces to get the idea in his head, and decided it would be wrong to not warn me, even though I hadn't told him we'd made contact yet," he returned. "Wanted me to be aware of all the good in Stanton's people, so I wouldn't jump to conclusions – that was on Christmas. I told him it didn't line up, but also said you needed space, and he agreed to respect that."

Yasa frowned. "You have a brother?"

Another shrug. "Apparently my childhood was traumatic enough to forget about him."

The brat snorted out a laugh, even as he nodded agreeably and took another bite. "I was there for the 'I stopped killing for money before hitting double digits' talk."

It was nice to have that confirmed, even if the delivery was… lacking. "That started after I lost the custody battle," he pointed out. Jake had already been chest deep, but he'd caught up to Senior before they'd looped Junior in, despite the toddler already being a half competent gunman.

Odin hummed. "When was that?"

Jack rolled his shoulders, trying not to curl in on himself. "The court case lasted eight months, but it ended two days after you turned five. The next time I heard anything about you, you'd been missing long enough to be legally declared dead." Jake had effectively stalled out the paperwork and refused to ever file it, but that hadn't made the assumption vanish.

His son visibly considered that for another long moment before smiling faintly nodding to himself. "Four years, then, maybe less. That's… good." He blinked at Jack's expression. "Better than I had assumed," he clarified. "I still can't account for it, but four and a half, definitely less than five years where I don't know what I'm responsible for is… quantifiable."

There were good implications there, but also? "And the other six to ten months?" He wasn't sure he would get an answer, but given the kid's general patterns so far-

"194 was… bad. I try to not think about the parts I do remember."

Well fuck. So much for blaming it all on Senior.

Yasa finally put down his fork. "Dude."

His son grunted, pulling out a billfold and dropping cash on the table before standing, picking the remainder of his sandwich back up to take with him. "I'm out." Then he hesitated, looking back towards Jack's plate. "You're done, right?"

Jack resisted the urge to freeze at the realization that he'd meant… "Basically," he agreed, shoving a last two bites in his mouth and standing as well. He'd more or less figured Junior was going to blow him off at this point, but-

"Good. You're driving."

oOo


oOo

Szczecin, Poland

"And then this part…" Audi's hands shook as she gathered herself. "It doesn't matter what I do! Nothing works!"

Lucrezia considered the girl for a moment, then glanced over at the layout of equipment, before nodding. "Okay."

Audi took in a deep breath to continue, then blinked. "Okay?"

"It's okay," she reassured her.

Audi frowned, and shook her head, clenching her fists. "Odin would've-"

"Odin would have walked away long before now," Lu interrupted, debating if gathering the girl up in her arms would be comforting or cloying. "And I know you love matching him, but he is a terrible standard. You're going to give yourself a complex." She eyed the pile of boxes and shrugged. "He wasn't kidding about getting top of the line – Dramatis is the most precise tech you can find for simulators – but it's also notoriously horrifying to set up and install. The fact that you've only had one rage-quit so far actually puts you above average."

"…Really?"

"I had the phone number for my favorite tech in customer service memorized by the time I was done with my last DPS rig," she confirmed. Though to be fair, at least half of that had been having to undo what her 'assistants' had done to help. On top of that, installing the zero-G room at Lake Victoria had been her first experience with building a simulation set from scratch. Maintaining a budget wasn't the only reason she had gone with used Prism units and whatever other hodgepodge for training pilots post-Fall.

Training for gundams, though… OZ had kept an exclusive contract with Dramatis Personae Software for a reason. The fact that Odin hadn't ever used their tech before was a little unnerving, considering the stunts he pulled in real life. The man had such an intuitive grasp on piloting that it was a little difficult to conceptualize.

Audi's shoulders relaxed a little as she nodded, then turned to survey the mess of boxes again, crossing her arms. "Okay, so… where do we start, then?"

Mm, we're nipping that in the bud. "I am going to put a mask on, like I've got a cold," she announced. "Then we're going to go get our nails done." She usually didn't bother with the mask, but normally she made a point to not spend time in public under bright lights where someone might stare at her.

The girl side-eyed her. "What?"

"You've been at this for two days, and we don't have a firm deadline." She nodded to resolutely. "Pedicures. We're going to find the most luxurious place in this town that will do two pedicures on short notice, and I will be your older stepsister, and you can rant about your stupid school project while you get pampered and I do a refresher reading the manual. It'll be cathartic. And then we'll eat something, and come at this with fresh eyes."

Audi bit her lip. "That's… a thing?"

You spend too much time with men, sweetheart. "I find it very relaxing," she agreed. "We might as well see if it helps you unwind too."

She clearly thought about that for a moment, then nodded, looking more sure of herself. "Okay."

"Go ahead and start looking places up, calling around to see who still has an opening this afternoon," Lu urged her. "I'm just going to grab the inventory and make sure I know just what we've got." If she had a solid point of reference, she could figure the rest out – it might still get obscenely complicated, but she knew DPS enough that it shouldn't get unbearably frustrating.

"Right!" Whipping out her phone, she bit her lip, obviously thinking of how to phrase her search. "Okay, so…"

"Start with 'best pedicures' and the local post code," Lucrezia suggested. "And stop keeping that in your concealed holster. People start thinking too much if they realize a woman can hide things despite cute clothes, and you want to be either underestimated or forgettable, if not both."

"We're not in public," Audi whined without looking up from her screen.

"It's a bad habit," Lu returned in a sing-song tone. In a more normal voice, she added, "If you don't incorporate what you want others to see in your normal routine, you'll slip up eventually."

"Odin doesn't," she grumbled.

"Odin has a startling incomprehension of any kind of shortcut, despite how many social complexities he avoids or outright refuses to acknowledge." It had taken her months to realize he never even used nicknames, but once she'd gotten a handle on his perspective… well, the view was stunning. "For anything physical, he's just more present than the rest of us at any given moment – no habits, no autopilot. That man is fully focused on every little thing he does as he does it, no holds barred." She shook her head. "And I can do that, hell, I've taught a couple hundred kids how to do it, helped them refine it, but most of us can't keep it up for a full hour at a time, let alone every moment of our lives." She huffed out a laugh. "That's just him. Cultivate your body mechanics until they're both precise and second nature, so you can key in and out of that frame of mind when you need to." In her experience, the ability to call it up on a moment's notice was far more important than being able to keep the thought processing for any solid length of time. Both was preferable, of course, but the former was what saved your life on a battlefield.

The latter was what won fights.

Audi narrowed her eyes. "You're talking about flow."

Ah. "I've heard it called that," she admitted. She hadn't been entirely sure Odin was aware he was doing it once she put the pieces together, and it seemed rude to ask.

Audi apparently caught her thought and shook her head. "That's the word I found online when I tried to research it, after I started picking it up. He, like… thinks it's part of growing up, or something." She snickered. "He acted like I was making a joke when I said most people can't do it, and told me not to believe everything I read on the internet."

Lucrezia started giggling too. Yeah, that sounds about right. "In his defense, most people do learn it," she admitted. "It's just… extremely specific. It'll only happen with a task or hobby they've committed tens of thousands of hours to, and even then, they can't control it. They might drop in immediately, or spend hours trying and never getting there." She shrugged. "It takes most people long enough to learn that they just don't try."

"That's dumb."

"Different folks have different priorities," she returned dismissively. "Different talents. Best to just leave them to it." She waved a hand at her, spotting the pile of papers that probably had what she needed on top of one of the larger boxes. "Find us a salon, mm?"

oOo


oOo

Deep Space, L2 Territory

"Oh come on," Torie whined. "That's just dirty."

The communications hub was just… gone. She'd personally found or gotten reports on eight heavily vandalized centers after the first, and a few that had been sabotaged with more normal means… but this one was the first that was straight up missing.

That was dangerous. There wasn't any obvious debris, enough that initially she'd doubted her own navigation, but after confirming it… She couldn't decide if this was worse. The hub itself was dark, not running for one reason or another, but if it was dark and moved without being destroyed… Anyone could run into it.

She'd chucked the joyriding vandals theory out the window after the third incident – maybe she just had exceptionally stupid saboteurs, but each site was too far flung from the others, too strategically placed, to be anything else. Surgical strikes on the communications network with really blunt methods? And now…

Well, maybe they're on to something, she admitted wryly. I can't repair what I can't find. She could appreciate the ingenuity of that, if not the results.

"So if chasing you is going to keep on in this direction," she mused, "I need to try something different."

Of course she'd thought of trying something less reactionary already… but that was dangerous. She was barely even a scout, and was not looking for a fight. Her ship's shielding was solid enough that she could pretend she wasn't there and no one would be able to see her so long as she was content to stay in one spot, but that was all she had going for her. She'd forwarded the suggestion along to the Coalition – but they were more focused on aggressively cornering the Regime now, instead of the background build-up that had characterized the first part of the campaign.

All the same… she had been close when this hub went dark, and had gotten here only three hours later. There was nothing physical to track in space so long as you ran a clean ship – the traces from the latest fusion reactors dispersed into something indistinguishable from the surrounding cosmic radiation fast enough that other short-range sensors were more reliable. In spite of her speed, they were either already out of her range or had a different way to dodge her scanners. But to have taken an entire hub, they'd have to either be towing it through back channels because it was illegal as fuck to move one, or they were in a big ship, taking it for disposal.

There were only a couple of directions that it would make sense for them to go. Or to have come from. Hmm.

Laina would tell her it was stupid. Her superiors in the Coalition would never push for this kind of risk… but they wouldn't penalize her, whether she got results or came back empty-handed. And for once, this felt… tangible. A chance.

…Doing this would see her following the advice she'd given Priya two weeks ago. And as much as she'd been going out of her way to soothe her baby sister, her babyest baby sister… it still made sense.

She didn't want to feel the way Priya had, grasping for missed chances. I'm close. If they were trying to stay hidden instead of camouflaged in regular traffic, she might even be able to move twice or three times as fast – she could check the closest two resource depots and the smuggler dock favorites before they arrived. She was good enough to hack her way into any dock networks and, if they'd been there before this hub, she might have a shortlist of suspects to cast a wider net over…

If I can get a hint of them, from either before or after this site, I can guess the next hit. There were too many possible hubs to go from here to pick a direction with any hope of accuracy, but with just one more data point, or better yet two…

Her heartrate picked up – and she realized she'd already made her decision.

Fortune favors the bold, right?

oOo


oOo

Near Brescia, Italy

"What?"

Jack tried to swallow his grin and mostly failed. "It's popular."

Odin gave him a baffled look. "So a lot of people think it's good?"

His grin widened. "I suppose," he admitted. That definition wasn't wrong, exactly, but… "I just wouldn't have pegged you for a pop fan."

His son's eyes narrowed. "You're telling me that music has discrimination issues."

He did bark out a laugh at that, focusing back on the road as he thought it over… then shrugged. "Doesn't everything?"

"Hn."

They were silent for a long minute as Odin apparently considered that… before hitting the next song on the top forties playlist on the car audio.

Jack grinned again. "Not deterred, huh?"

"Why should I care?" he asked, relaxing back into his seat. "I don't know enough to have a general opinion. Even then, clothes demand more conformity than this – why should I bother with appearances?" He tipped his head to one side – the exact same way Senior and Jake did, it was a little eerie – then added, "I wouldn't want to listen to any of these in a club, but the emotions are… nice." A pause. "Though maybe not with this one."

He could respect that; he'd heard this song before, and wasn't crazy about it himself. "It's on the whiny side," he agreed. "Feel free to skip ahead."

"Maybe."

Fair enough. One of the things he was finding he respected most about his youngest was how… evenhanded he liked to be. And insofar as conversation went? "Not a fan of clothes shopping?"

"Hn. More that I haven't done it," Odin admitted. "I'm usually either given clothes or just along for the ride – and no one's complained, so I figure it's working." He reached forward and skipped to the next song before deciding, "That's not accurate – the visible layer, yes. But I choose my own base, and I picked my coat out after Audi needed a new one and we realized the fur lining was ideal. I'd been doing fine with the one Moira found for me before that, but even in summer it wasn't well-suited for Europe."

Jack blinked. "Where was Moira?" He'd already said he hadn't been to North Africa, so-

He caught the boy's bemused look from the corner of his eye. "Israel."

Oh. Oh. He'd left from that first meeting… to go see his foster-mom. Wow. That… clicked a lot of things together neatly. And also backed-up the theory of Junior being more emotionally stable than his brother – especially at this same age.

Junior had been faced with something completely unexpected… and gone home to talk to his mom about it. And… she apparently wanted to meet Jack, now. Just… wow.

The mostly faded hickey at the base of his throat that definitely hadn't been there in Graz also told a story, though he wasn't sure if that was in a 'I can find fun anywhere' or 'I took my girlfriend home to meet Mom' vein.

"We first made it to Jerusalem in early 197," Junior explained, reaching forward and skipping another song. "We'd been free of any Regime tail for at least a month before that, but I think Cat was hoping the democratic zone would be more hospitable. He found Sam, and Moira insisted on taking us in." He grimaced. "He disappeared two weeks later. Israel might have been safer from the Regime, but… Cambyses." He shrugged uncomfortably.

Jack took a moment to digest that before responding, poking at the obvious holes and debating what he could suss out himself. Junior had stated the Regime issues already, though he'd hoped the problem was exaggerated. Still… "You weren't part of the decision to go south?"

"No." Another overly articulated shrug. "I probably would have agreed. We had a hard enough time getting out of Greece after the last time the Regime's watchdog sniffed me out, but… no."

That… sounded far too much like some of the shit he had done as a teenager, complete with the ways he tried to talk around the worst of it when Rhea asked for the story later. "Sam's a doctor?" he guessed.

"Aa." Odin's shoulders relaxed a little. "Cat tried to extort him into treating me, but he laughed it off and helped us hide anyway – then his wife more or less adopted me. They told people I was an exchange student that had been in a bad car wreck – deaths in the previous host family. With how we were passing me as Japanese at the time, we let the implication hang that I couldn't go home anymore. That I was so reclusive out of grief." He huffed a soft laugh. "Which wasn't wrong – I hoped Cat had just cut the dead weight and run, but I knew him too well to believe it. I thought he was dead."

If Cat had been in the same class of skill as his son before Cambyses, he had no doubts that they could have handled one of the now infamously horrifying Cambyses recruitment ambushes, had they been together. Obviously, they hadn't. And given that Robby Stanton had apparently refused to leave behind over a hundred men and boys in Cambyses, he understood how Odin had believed his friend wouldn't abandon him.

The way he'd phrased it, though? "Dead weight, huh?"

"Mm. Sam was the first doctor I saw for my leg. The year before that… Hn. He didn't think I'd walk without a cane again, let alone run. He's happy I proved him wrong, but it was… bad."

Jack… tried really hard to stay focused on the road. "Bad," he repeated tonelessly.

"Bad," Odin agreed. "And… I had a reputation, even with Cat. My pride… I took too long to let it go. I hated how… Hn." He shook his head. "By the time Cat found Sam, I'd been unresponsive for three days. Apparently I was awake and talking by the time he went missing, but… I don't really remember more than a few vague images of him before that, let alone conversation. By the time I could track the hours again, no one had seen him in two days."

That's… Jack gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. "That's a fucking coma."

"Mm," his son hummed agreeably. "Not as bad as my first, though."

…Fuck. He needed a minute. "Want to drive?"

Odin stretched, all liquid motion. "Sure."

"Great." He didn't bother with finding an exit, just pulled over onto the shoulder and put Des's hot little convertible in park. He… did not trust himself behind the wheel at the moment. By the time he'd unbuckled and opened up the door, Junior had done the same, and while he went around the back, his son walked around the front.

By the time he was buckled back in, Odin was adjusting the seat and mirrors. "Is there anything I should know about the handling?"

Jack swallowed, taking a calming breath. Everything was currently fine. In the face of that, the rest was too. "Don't underestimate her," he warned. "I've never driven one of these new, but the way she's tricked out, I think she might be higher end than factory-fresh. I don't know cars, but I've driven bikes that are less responsive."

Odin hummed appreciatively. "Ever pilot a suit?"

"No." When Dan had started tucking him in with the rest of the orphans in his crew, mobile suits had still just been a construction tool; the Alliance hadn't started weaponizing them until the seventies. He'd asked Rhea to marry him before Dan had floated the idea of suits, and he'd declined before the man could finish asking – being caught near one would have been a death sentence in those days. It hadn't been hard to convince his father's old friend that he was too valuable behind the scenes to risk on frontline combat.

He'd only been a year or so shy of graduating the ACET track early when his mom died, and Dan had told him to focus on that – and even if he hadn't been the son of an old war buddy, that was just how the militia handled kids… but there had been expectations in place too, for after graduation. After all, Dan had already shown up at their apartment the year before that, asking Mrs. Miller to kindly keep her son out of militia business – that the next time they caught him snooping in their network, they'd send a virus to brick her computer instead of making a house call.

Ten-year-old him had been petrified, standing just out of sight as his mom very seriously listened, thanked Dan for his time and wished him luck, said she'd take her boy in hand… Then start laughing once she'd heard the man start down the steps of the front walk. Despite what she'd told the man, she hadn't tanned his hide at all; she'd been proud. 'Oh, Jack, darling… It's good. Do as he says for now, but in a few more years he's still going to remember this, and you'll do great things, I'm sure.'

Etsuko Tagaki Miller had always supported the L1 militia, even after Jace Miller died fighting the Alliance and left her to raise their three-year-old alone. 'You can't ever expect life to be fair – it's not, and it never will be. If you have it good, someone else has it worse; and when they rise, you'll gain new burdens. You just have to work with what you have, for as long as you have it.'

His kid… had had a lot of lows. Not exactly a surprise, even though it kept flooring him. He was only nineteen – plenty of time left for the high points.

It was fine.

"Hn. I…"

Jack blinked at the hesitation in his son's voice, focusing back on the here and now. Odin was hesitating with one hand on the shifter, looking uncomfortable. Their eyes met briefly, before Odin flicked his gaze back to the dashboard. "Sorry."

Hell no. "No," Jack negated immediately.

Junior grimaced. "I wasn't trying to… do that."

"You didn't," Jack returned. "I'd rather know – I just don't want to be in control of machinery that could cause a lethal accident while I'm thinking about it." He frowned. "Should you be driving?"

Odin rolled his eyes and turned on his blinker, shifting into first. "I'm fine."

He believed him… but he also figured it was time to move back into shallower waters. "Let me try a different genre," he decided, pulling out his phone to fine-tune the radio. "I think I've been taking too narrow of a field on this."

oOo


oOo

January 6th 199 – Monday – Dortmund, Germany

"It's nice," Melissa decided. "We've barely heard any details so far, but already it's the talk of the town – everyone's saying it's the militia all over again, but more domestic."

"If they follow through on their mission statement with any real success, that's not a bad description," Duo agreed, glancing through his camera set.

"It could change the entire face of the network," his wife agreed. "The news has been out for a whole four hours and I've already had three widows come by the shop to ask my opinion about it, Kay."

Duo blinked. "Remind them that it took a while to build up the militia from its announcement into something functional – RLTT or not, logistics take time to work out."

"Duh." She giggled. "How distracted are you?"

He grinned. "Very." Not that he needed to be – Sharpman apparently had Monday mornings off and hadn't left her apartment yet. "Sorry. I'll be distracted by you instead?"

"Only if it's not a problem. I assume you would have said something if you had a new lead."

"It's fine," he assured her, keeping his eyes on the screens to make sure the woman didn't leave, but otherwise focusing on his conversation. "I'm still surprised RLTT has a new candidate – I didn't think they were done with the princess just yet."

"She's due for a press conference this afternoon. I can't imagine it won't get brought up. But all said and done, she probably has enough on her plate with running the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the projects she already started – I don't see how she would have the time for something like this."

"That's a good point," he admitted. Wasn't I already thinking about how much I've had on my plate? It must look like nothing, compared to her. "If it goes even half as well as the militia, it'll take a lot of pressure off us."

A statement had been released this morning on multiple news sites by the R.L. Tomorrow Today Fund, announcing one Nadiya Navolynski as a candidate spearheading the new Lotus Trust. And, much like when the inception of the militia was announced, the mere idea that someone might be able to bring that need to fruition was breathtaking.

Childcare. He'd lost track of just how many parents he had just in the Devils' pre-riot sector of Amsterdam that struggled on that front. Part of the network he'd set up allowed them to take shifts on each other's kids, but that was… a terrifying amount of trust. As proud as he was of the network, he would never leave Renee with anyone but a Devil, even one of the widows on his watch. There was too much vulnerability, too much temptation; if not from the woman herself, then from anyone who noticed whose baby she was looking after and saw a chance for leverage or revenge. Just because the direct threat of the Slingers was gone didn't mean that people wouldn't target a baby just because she was easy prey. And while maybe he had more enemies than the average mom in town… opportunity was opportunity. Desperate people did shitty things, and everyone's definition of 'desperate' was different enough that it was hard to predict unless you knew them really damn well.

No, he understood people refusing to trust that; despite the militia, there was a reason all the city's gangs still patrolled heavily. A lot of moms ended up working nights with a neighbor or older kid listening in; or locked up tight and left the kids home alone. A lot of them kept their oldest or second oldest home to look after little ones – a big buzz of excitement had stirred up when Rubato's independent school programs came out, because suddenly these big brothers and sisters could catch back up with their peers. After the newer announcements for Rubato-sourced job opportunities, there had been a lot of excitement again, but also wistfulness. A new career that more than paid the bills sounded great on paper, but with kids… it could get complicated.

So Rubato had opened brand new venues… and RLTT had responded by solving problems Quatre hadn't considered yet. It even slotted neatly into that yin to yang, male to female dynamic the Rubato reps were blatantly flirting with but also ignoring in half their interviews. That could be interesting, even if Relena was on her way out with the Tomorrow Today Fund.

The Lotus Trust was barely begun, but the initial statements had been pointed – the thrust of the new organization was standardized practice and policy as well as funding for childcare on both macro and micro scale, from infancy through fifteen. Free childcare for qualifying families and low-cost otherwise, subsidized by RLTT. The phrase 'investing in the future' had been thrown around a lot. Lotus would offer rules and structure for crafting daycare on a local level – and a lot of the widows that he knew were leery of anyone else near their children would be happy to look after more than their own, if it meant they could look after their own instead of burning the candle at both ends. With a regimented job and pay involved, a lot of the little things that built up desperation would vanish too, and it could get comfortable… and in the end of the day, even the somewhat desperate were happier with stable routine than pushing the bounds that might make the Dutchman come down on you. And the longer it worked without major incidents, the more people would trust it and the more normal it would become…

It was a little insane to think of just how much stress that could take off his network. They would still need it, but… there would be a lot less scraping the bottom of the barrel.

That said, if he hadn't seen the rise of the militia he probably wouldn't believe it could be done, not on the scale they were talking. How much of that was Tomorrow Today, and how much was Relena? "Any idea what RLTT's average success rate is?" he asked curiously. Melissa had already said she'd been doing some reading that morning.

"Mm, I think they were all successful, depending on how you want to define it… though a lot of them were fairly small scale operations. Most focused on colonial low-income communities, but it ranges in just about every direction – Relena's the thirteenth candidate, and that was the first time they went so big." She made a considering noise. "Technically Peacemillion was considered a flop, with how it vanished as soon as construction finished – there was a lot of criticism about it – but I'd say it definitely lived up to its mission statement of providing universal asylum during colonial disputes."

Duo blinked. "Peacemillion was an RLTT project?"

"It was," his wife confirmed. "Your friend Howard was the candidate." She hummed. "I thought you knew. Isn't your lighter some kind of keepsake from the construction?"

"It's from the same stock of titanium," he agreed, thinking… and pulling the thing out. Howard said he still smoked back when Peacemillion was being built, and left the assumption there – personally, Duo carried it because you never knew when having immediate access to fire was useful. 'The best way to predict the future is to invent it. – Alan Kay' The fanciful bird design on the opposite side was probably meant to be a phoenix, given the fire motif.

…He could see how that might be a theme of RLTT.

Movement on one of his cameras caught his attention – Sharpman was going somewhere, though whether it would be mundane business or otherwise, who knew. "I've got to go. Love you."

"Love you. Let me know when you're safe."

"Always," he agreed. "Bye."

oOo


oOo

Baden, Switzerland

"Oh good, you're not dead," Des announced cheerfully as he picked up. "Hi."

Jack rolled his eyes. "I texted."

"And 'We're driving home' tells me so much," his friend returned. "Especially when you don't follow it up – who does 'we' entail? And didn't you have work today?"

"I called out yesterday, as soon as I decided to head toward Junior," he admitted. "Said I was having travel problems getting back out of Italy." He had been ready to drop literally everything if his son had needed him – and when he didn't, it wasn't like he could take back the claim. And then the boy had slid into the car without any hesitation beyond the time it had taken to flip off someone who had been calling after him.

Apparently there had been too many of them to all eat together without drawing attention, so Odin and Adam had split everyone between two groups – and that had been an acceptable way to tell Adam he was leaving.

Given that the other young man had laughed before spinning around to talk to someone else, he supposed it was.

"And the drug war?"

Jack sighed. "I have no idea. Junior said his part was done before I got there, but there was a group of guys hanging around to do something when we left. Maybe I'll find out later, after it's all resolved." He licked his lips. "He…"

"He what?" Des prompted, tone sobering.

I think he's doing what I used to. He'd caught enough to understand that the 'favor' was something to do with decryption after the group of them shook enough trees to find the people they were looking for. The wording had been vague, but… How many times did I run exactly that sort of op? Shake the tree, get the goodies, then bring in the heavy-hitters for clean-up. He still had no idea why Odin was fucking with heroin dealers, if it was purely because two of his war buddies had asked or if he agreed with the motives, but… The bits of the op that he had caught felt familiar, and it set his teeth on edge even as his footing got steadier.

Jake joined OZ and got up to who knows what while hidden behind their supposed legitimacy, and Junior… knows guerilla warfare really well. He was starting to think it was a small miracle the brothers had never run directly against each other in the last ten years.

He rubbed his face. "Remember the tip of the iceberg worry? I think his survival is even more mind-blowing than previously believed."

If you were part of a guerilla campaign of any kind before 196, it was against the Alliance – or OZ. And he hadn't missed the way Cat and Audi had both stuttered over the concept of Treize, or familial connections with OZ of any kind. He'd hoped it was just the general awe people had over Treize, or the wariness that OZ had very much earned after Operation Daybreak, but combined with what he'd seen since? He wasn't stupid.

He had also made the decision to not tell Jake about that, however – which meant he wasn't telling Des either. At least not until it was both confirmed and… not dangerous.

He had such a shit relationship with Jake already – he wasn't going to start breaking trust with Junior. Background and superficial details were one thing, but… Junior had let his wounds go fully septic rather than risk the Regime catching up to him. And fuck all, but Jack had had to make that kind of choice before, he understood it

And he knew that Jake wouldn't.

Jake had always had a massive support network. He'd never needed his father – and maybe Junior didn't either, he seemed to have his shit together now, but… The idea of someone coming and helping him just because they could was foreign to the boy. Even Jack had never had it that bad.

He'd stay in limbo between them if he could; he didn't want to choose. But in the end of the day, Jake already had plenty of people in his corner. Meanwhile, all the border customs officers they'd met on their little road trip thought he was traveling with a twenty-year-old named Rowan Deloe.

And Jake… Jake had Des. It fucking hurt to think about it that way, but… his firstborn's preference for Des might never change, even if the two of them got to be on great terms someday. He'd known for a long time that the best he could ever hope for was to stand as his friend's equal. He'd accepted it, gotten comfortable, but it still…

He could be the person who always showed up, for Junior. He wanted more, but… his youngest was already showing signs that he'd at least let him have that. And he'd seemed as tentatively interested in the idea as Jack had been in pressing it forward.

The kid had just… gotten in the car. Jack hadn't had to gather the nerve to invite him – he'd been working on it, even with the expectation of rejection – and…

He had a son who was willing to spend time with him. Odin had been amused by Jack's obviously contrived appearance, not upset. And that… it was such a little thing, but… it was like night and day.

He wasn't giving up on Jake. It felt like it, but he wasn't, he just… was maybe getting more invested in Junior than Jake. And that… was fine. It wasn't like he was going anywhere, or cutting communication with his firstborn. He was just… changing his focus a bit. It hurt, felt like a betrayal, but it wasn't, he just…

This one needs me more. And even if 'need' wasn't the right word, it felt…

"I don't think anyone has ever made him their top priority." Not in a positive way, at least. Anyone that incited a flee on sight response was at the top of someone's shit list. "Some of it's incidental; the way he said it is like everyone just expects him to handle himself with no questions asked, but… Des, he didn't understand why I'd been worried. It was new."

"…Well, shit."

"I'm not sure it's accurate," he amended. "Even he wasn't once he got over the confusion, but that's how he thinks."

Des let out a heavy sigh. "I hear you."

"Did Jake do that?" he demanded.

"…Probably until he was fifteen," Des confirmed, sounding tired. "And even then, the only one he ever expected was David – he was startled whenever Lu or Treize covered for him, for all that he was happy as a cat with cream over it. He's started to actively work on it since Relena kicked him off his high horse in September, though." The man hesitated, then let out another sigh. "It's actually what started a lot of his trying to be better with you."

Jack closed his eyes. He'd noticed, of course, even if he hadn't known why, but… Well, it's a good thing, isn't it? "I think Junior's actively working on it," he decided. "Mostly because of Rubato, maybe, but… he's reaching back when I try something, even when it's really obvious he has no idea what to do."

"That's good," Des agreed. A soft snort of laughter came through the line. "You did say he was happily proud of being awkward."

Jack snorted. "And I stand by that." Shaking his head, he added, "He's half in love with your car, by the way."

"She is a beauty," the other man returned happily.

"He couldn't care less until I had him drive a while," Jack reiterated. "But after we stopped for the night in Eschenau, he popped the hood and was crawling all over it for over an hour. What the hell is so special about 'Banasiewicz suspension?'"

"…Ah. He focused on that, did he?"

"He was really happy about it, I think the Neut engineers might be getting another schematic sent their way," Jack agreed, hand tightening on the phone at his friend's tone. He didn't sound upset, exactly, just… disheartened. Resigned. "Des?"

"That's Lulu's work," Des admitted quietly. "Top tier, but a few steps past overboard for something like the Ruzzi. It's a good part of why she rides so smooth – you usually only see that level of engineering in suits."

Damn. He'd been planning to not mention Junior's far too casual attitude about MS. "Ah." He floundered for a moment, then shrugged it off. "Well, colonial-minded engineer, right?"

"He is that," Des agreed, though his tone was… careful.

Right. He was… absolutely going to hide behind that excuse right up until he couldn't.

"He's not nearby, is he?"

Jack sighed. "No. We stopped in Austria last night, then slept in and drove the rest of the way today." He'd offered to drop Junior at the airport in Zurich, but the boy had waved it off and followed him up to his apartment instead. "He poked around my yarn collection long enough that I couldn't tell if he was interested or judging me, then wandered out the front door with a wave."

Des snorted. "How big is the pile now?"

"I am not answering that question, because it is a trap," Jack returned with a grin, eying the haphazard stack of boxes. It wasn't too bad, honestly, but he definitely needed to finish a few more projects for his favorite charities before picking up anything else. "Did the two of you manage to wrap everything up before Jake headed home?"

"We finished and got everything locked down yesterday," Des agreed. "I'm actually up in Poland for the next few days to iron out a few details with his latest project before I head back to Munich myself." He sighed. "Is your boss going to give you a hard time?"

Jake grimaced. Probably. "I doubt it," he told Des. "I've literally never called out before, and a couple of the kids I work with make a habit of it." It would either be fine, or… well, it wouldn't be, and he'd figure it out.

"Mm." Des clearly saw through the lie, but also knew better than to point it out. "Well, I'm sorry the weekend got cut short, but this way you got time with both of them? And you still have tomorrow off, right? Having a longer weekend will give you time to decompress a bit."

Jack frowned, confused at the conciliatory tone. "I… guess?"

There was a long pause on the line. Then, "You're… not stressed out?"

He blinked, turning that over a few times. True, some of the absolute shit he'd learned was still sorting itself out, but… "I feel pretty great, actually."

"Yeah?"

He grinned as that sunk in, flopping down on his bed. "I spent two days bantering with one son and my best friend, and got an awesome little muscle car. Then my other son invited me out to lunch with his friends before making a point of ditching them to go on a thirteen-hour road trip with me just because I was nearby and he could. He likes just about any kind of music that evokes strong emotions, and I caught him either speaking or eavesdropping on conversations in four different languages. He's working his way through some kind of classic literature reading list in English, though, because it bothers him that Audi did better than him on the reading and writing portion of the practice GED test they took to try and prep her for the exam. He lets the various women in his life pick out his clothes, and has a weakness for limoncello."

Des's laugh was bright this time, excited. "You two went drinking?"

"More of a nightcap," Jack corrected. "His leg was stiff when we got out of the car, and he spent the whole time in the bar testing its limits with subtle little stretches."

"Some self-medication, then," Des mused, sounding thoughtful. "Alcohol is one of most effective muscle relaxers, by strength of volume."

"Yeah, I asked him about that. He says he has meds, but apparently the side effects are annoying – he only takes them when he thinks abstaining will see him using a cane for a couple days."

"That's… relatable," Des decided. "I'm surprised he trusted you enough to let loose this soon, though."

"Eh, I don't know," Jack hedged. "He cut himself off after two drinks, and if he was buzzed at all, he's as good at hiding it as you are. He arranged the hotel room before we went out, then after he'd settled the bar tab said he'd meet me in the morning and disappeared. I have no idea where he spent the night."

"So he'll run around with you, but doesn't want to be vulnerable enough to sleep in the same space."

"That's about my take on it," Jack agreed. That, or he'd seen someone he wanted to go home with. There had been no new hickeys this morning, but he hadn't entirely ruled out the booty call option – Odin had been utterly relaxed in a happily sated way when he strolled up to the car, and he really didn't know the kid well enough yet to say what caused that mood.

"Well… I'm still leery, but I'm happy for you," Des decided.

I'm still leery. I just have enough on the line that I'm gunning for it anyway. "Thanks." Sitting back up, he bit the inside of his cheek. "I'm going to go. The laundromat is only open for a few more hours, and I have a bunch of errands to take care of too." He was headed up north to see the circus in less than two weeks; with so much time out and about, his chore list would pile up if he wasn't careful.

"Alright. I'll send you the address for the complex I arranged parking with. Errands are one thing, but overnight is something else."

"Thanks. I'll catch you later."

"Take care."

Jack eyed the phone for a long moment, then considered his messy apartment. Laundry, a general clean and vacuuming, a grocery run… the bathroom needed a good scrub. If he got through the chores today he could probably finish the blanket he'd been working on before he went back to work. And Audi might appreciate a picture of it before he dropped it off at the hospital. He had a handful of finished hats and other cold weather accessories he might as well drop off with Rhonda while he was at it; it was cold enough outside that she was probably running out of things to give away. Some of those might be worth a picture too; they'd come out pretty good. Might make a good segue for Audi to ask for something, if she wants. It would be a good middle ground to start from if he wanted to toss some kind of knit at Odin without anyone deciding it was weird.

All of those were fairly mindless tasks though… and he had a couple of unused credits on his audiobook subscription. Why not? He sent out a quick text before starting to sort out the clothes.

'What were the next couple of books on your reading list?'

oOo


oOo

January 7th 199 – Tuesday – Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew

"Oh no, of course not. As I said yesterday, the Tomorrow Today Fund has supported multiple candidates on numerous occasions. But it's a very exciting time, isn't it?" the princess demurred, eyes sparkling as she sat forward. "First with the Pacific Reclamation, and I must say Revenant Rubato is a breath of fresh air. RLTT's new foray into childcare is a direct response to the Revenants in order to help support the new industry they are bringing to the table – though of course, it can and will apply to the rest of our workforce as well. If anything, it's overdue." Another brilliant smile. "I'm afraid I've been monopolizing the Fund's attention, these last two years."

That's an interesting way of putting it, Will decided, grinning as he shucked his coat and hung it on his usual hook. Melissa looked like she was in the middle of something intricate, not even waving to him when he'd come in a minute ago, but he was content to wait. With how she'd set up the boys' portable screen on the counter in the corner, she was clearly listening to the news.

"You're not upset that another candidate was chosen for this Lotus Trust?"

Relena let out a short but delicate laugh, the sound bright. "Miss Evanhue, I am not a mother. I have never even babysat. How on earth would I know what children need every day to feel safe and loved by their caretakers? Or what kind of support parents need? My education was in politics and economics, and my life experience has seen me either preventing or cleaning up after disasters. Of course I could take advisors and learn, but this is about our future – it deserves a personal touch.

"My focus up until now has been on getting us somewhere stable; to see more of humanity survive the near-extinction event of the Fall. But we have finally reached a point where we can do more than survive – we can pave the way for future generations. My only regret is that it has taken this long. So no, I am anything but upset – I am greatly looking forward to working with Nadiya. She is an admirable woman who has overcome great adversity, and I think she's going to show us all a thing or two that will help us grow as a civilization."

The reporter's brows were raised. "You know her personally?"

"We had lunch yesterday," Relena confirmed. "A great deal of my resources were introduced to me by RLTT, and are therefore at her disposal as well." Her smile was more mysterious this time. "I often have the pleasure of speaking with former RLTT candidates and project managers – two of us working in tandem ought to accomplish great things, don't you think?"

The other woman looked a bit flustered, but smiled all the same. She didn't have a line prepared for that, Will guessed. "That is a thrilling idea," she agreed. "Especially if Revenant Rubato is also going to be working with you. Can we expect any upcoming news from that quarter?"

Somehow, Relena's smile was admonishing this time. "We'll see. As impressed as I've been with the Revenants so far, we are still very new to each other, and they are a much younger organization that RLTT. Their ideas are brilliant and I want to see them succeed – but I also want to see that they can follow-through on their proposals before getting too cozy. With Nadiya, that is less of an issue – I am very familiar with RLTT and its standards. The proprietor goes so far as to screen for personality type and moral codes in his candidates. It's the difference between trusting a coworker you know had to pass an extensive interview versus a passing stranger on the street. I do hope we will become friends, but the process of getting to know each other is rather more involved."

"…His candidates?" the reporter repeated, blinking. "Minister Darlian-Peacecraft, do you know the head of the Tomorrow Today Fund?"

Relena smiled again. "No comment."

"Ooh, that slip was planned," Melissa protested, leaning out from under the engine she'd been working on.

"Maybe," he returned. Probably. "RLTT has held onto its secrecy right from the start."

"Yeah, but even though Rubato is brand new, RLTT has only been around for ten years," his daughter pointed out as she slid entirely out from under the car. "That's not so established that it's unlikely to ever change." Standing up straight, she stretched, watching the quick wrap-up of the interview. "What's up? If you were here to lend me a hand, I figured you would have started or said as much by now." She grinned. "Or did the princess just distract you?"

It was a bit of a running joke – while Melissa had no problems focusing while a screen was on nearby, Will… couldn't. He shook his head. "If you need help catching up on something, I can help," he told her. "But… no."

She frowned. "What's up?"

It was frustrating, to somehow be proud and happy and upset all at the same time. "I got a job offer."

Melissa's eyes lit up, excited, but then she visibly hesitated. "For…?"

"No," he refused immediately. He'd taken the position in Berlin with the understanding that he would be passing information on to Treize's faction because it had been a well-paying job he could do. He had followed through on it to the best of his ability because he believed that was how you should commit, paying back what favors had been done for you, and because Treize was a far better option than Milliardo Peacecraft.

But… it had still just been a job. And as his son-in-law had put it, it had gotten blown up. The favor of employment had been more than paid off, and for all that Treize had held true even with the information about Duo, never wavering… that wasn't what his life was about. The contract was over. And he had better opportunities now.

"No, I'm done with that," he reiterated. "I made that clear when I finished my PT, actually, and got a positive response." He'd only been a paper pusher that was forwarding along useful information anyway – hardly a loss. If anything, he had gotten much more out of the arrangement than Treize had. "The offer is actually from Rubato. I need to go through a bit of training, but… I'm basically going to be doing what I have with your brother and Amos, but more structured. A bigger group."

Her eyes sparked again, and a genuine smile followed this time. "That's great! You're going to be a teacher!"

"That's not the title, but… basically," he agreed. "Teaching an actual class requires more certification than helping a handful of kids through the online modules. I might work my way up to that, but-"

"But you've liked teaching the boys," Melissa finished for him, throwing her arms around him. "That's great, Dad! I'm really happy for you!"

He hugged her back tightly, rocking back and forth a bit the way that had always made her giggle when she was a little girl, and now was just habit. "Thanks."

Pulling away after a long moment, she asked, "When do you start?"

"Two weeks, give or take a couple details," he admitted, gearing himself up for the next part. "It's… in Haarlem."

She frowned. "Not here?"

"It's not far," he pointed out immediately. It really was an easy commuter distance from the Den, technically, but at the same time? "Just… Well. I think they're trying to avoid stepping on anyone's toes."

Melissa was still frowning. With a glance towards the closed garage door, she announced, "Duo doesn't mind you here, Dad. We've talked about it. I know things were a little rough for a while, but now that you're better-"

"It's not just about your husband," he interrupted. "Or even Rubato, or what I used to do." Though that was…. definitely an unspoken part of the issue. He knew for a fact that Heero Yuy and a handful of others from Duo's past had been in and out of town, and they'd all been careful to neatly avoid him. He'd hoped that pointedly never attempting to move the information along would make them less nervous, but he wasn't surprised that it hadn't. "For all that we made it work with Amos and Nolan, school structure works better if you don't have a relationship beforehand, and they said they almost always move you to at least a slightly different neighborhood for this." 'Close enough to relate, but far enough to not have dirt on each other – we prefer a neutral setting.' "And even if I had a car, they… sweetheart, this is the Devil's quarter. Having me move into my own apartment close to campus will ease a lot of people's minds." The move had been a specific condition of employment. "And it's still only fifteen or twenty minutes by train."

Her mouth twisted. "Nolan-"

"Is going to sit his ACET graduation exams by the end of March and is already looking at intermediary programs for university," he gently cut off. It had been taxing on everyone, but Duo had gotten a lot of information through to the boys fast – and Nolan had taken to it much better than Amos. "He might also be moving out soon. If I do this, he automatically gets a decent scholarship for anything through Rubato as well as placement priority, and probably more advantages besides as the program grows." And I'll be able to pay for it. Nolan was sharp enough to earn himself a full ride somewhere if he applied himself, and his boy would try for that no matter what… but knowing that he wouldn't have to would also make a difference.

William Mehile had long since learned to live with the shame of just how utterly he had failed his children. The cost his daughter had paid for his inadequacies was monstrous, but with how it had resolved months before he found out… she had made it clear that she did not want to discuss it. And she was happy now – first with the Devils, and now with Duo.

…He had been trying to provide for them. He never imagined that Mrs. Haufman, who had been renting to them for over a decade, would kick the kids out when they fell behind on payments. And Melissa…

Luc had been the one to tell him, after. And Luc had been the one to reassure him that even he hadn't thought Melissa would resort to the red-light district before leaning on him and Shov. Maybe it had been misplaced pride, or maybe she felt the connection was too distant after Melinda and Renee's deaths and the six intervening years… or maybe the boys were overestimating themselves, and by the time she resorted to selling herself, they wouldn't have been able to support her and Nolan. He… hadn't been there, and he was never going to know all of it. Melissa and Doushovel wouldn't talk about it, and Luc was gone.

In the end of the day, whatever had happened, Melissa had found her way back out and was happy with her retired gundam pilot – and all the lengths she had gone to had spared her brother from the worst of what came after the Fall. So with his daughter grown and happily married, head of her own successful business, maybe he wasn't too late to still provide something for his son.

Melissa closed her eyes, clenching her hands. "I don't want you to go," she whispered.

Will sighed and pulled her into another hug. "It's not far," he repeated. "I can be here in half an hour, any time at all – the trains run all day. I'm not leaving, this time."

"Why can't you teach here?" she demanded, voice choked with tears. "Parents here would like the Devil association, and-"

"'Liss," he soothed, rubbing her back. He'd already explained, and she knew the unspoken reasons too. Whether he was still in or not, the Treize association was problematic in general… and while Duo was allowing the Rubato programs into his territory, he wasn't letting anyone truly part of Rubato proper stay for longer than forty-eight hours. And Will understood why all too well. The politics of it were messy, but he understood. He didn't even disagree with what his son-in-law was trying to do.

"We're only safe when everyone is together," Melissa protested, gripping at the back of his sweater. "We learned that the hard way, you can't-" She cut herself off this time, a sob wracking her as he rubbed circles on her back. "Daddy…"

"I love you," he told her, holding on tight. "And you've done so well for yourself, built something amazing and weathered the storm, came out even better for it. But sweetheart… you're not supposed to take care of me. Not for a long time yet, at least." She choked out another sob, and he held her tighter. "I'm glad that you have," he continued, trying to not cry himself. "I'm sorry that you needed to, for everything you've had to do, but Melissa, darling… I'm supposed to be taking care of you." She'd carried that weight for him so often even before the Fall, looking after Nolan and keeping their business from falling through after Melinda died, kicking him out of his depression before it completely wrecked their lives…

His daughter had done so much for him. Enough that the idea that she might not need to is this upsetting? It made him feel like the scum of the earth.

"This isn't like last time," he reminded her, closing his own eyes against tears and trying to focus on the what-if scenarios he had made himself run through. "If… if the shop hadn't gone under with the Fall, and instead you brought home a fiancé as good with machines as your man? Sweet girl, I would have given you the deed and moved out. That's all this is. Haarlem isn't far, it's just not an easy walk – but if it came down to it, I could walk it in five or six hours." He'd checked. It should never come to that, but he'd checked anyways. "Last time was a desperate gamble, and sweetheart I am so sorry at what we lost for it, I am, for what you-" He cut himself off raggedly and hugged her tighter, swallowing against tears to continue. "It's not the same," he repeated. "The job is a sure thing, it pays well, and the apartment is even subsidized as part of the package." They'd offered him a bigger one, but unless Nolan… Well, he hadn't asked yet. He'd needed to talk to his oldest first. A studio was more than enough, if Nolan was going to stay in Amsterdam. "It's not the same," he soothed. "It's okay…"

It still took a while, standing there and crying, before either of them really began to believe it.

oOo


oOo

January 8th 199 – Wednesday – Szczecin, Poland

Odin practically growled when she tried to slide away, the arm he'd draped over her tugging her back flush against his chest, burying his face in what was left of her sleeping braid. "It's too early," he protested, voice rough with sleep.

Considering that she'd been trying to not wake him up, she snickered. Twisting in his grip, she kissed at the corner of his right brow, the easiest part of his face to reach. "I have to pee," she protested, wriggling away. "I'll be right back."

He grunted and stopped trying to pin her in place, so she made good her escape, grinning like a loon the whole while. The complex Quatre had bought to serve as Rubato's headquarters had originally been a hotel of some kind, and while they had gutted parts of it, the nicer suites had been left intact – and Odin, naturally, had picked one with an enormous ensuite soaking tub.

That had been… a real experience, last night. She didn't think she could ever look at a bathroom the same way again. They hadn't gotten up to too much while focused on getting the simulation chambers built, but once they'd wrapped-up? Mm.

She climbed back into bed facing her lover this time, twining her legs with his as he brought the blankets back up to their shoulders and slid a sleep-warm hand under her top to settle on the small of her back and pull her closer, his left arm settling under her neck. It only took a few more moments for his breathing to lengthen into a deeper rhythm again, sound asleep.

It shouldn't have surprised her, how cuddly he could be, especially given how tactile he was otherwise – but it had, at first. She loved it, the possessive need of it called out the same in her, but she hadn't expected it. He'd always been so closed off during the war, and of course they had all changed since, but…

Well, he was still standoffish about some things. He'd only covered the barebones of his trip out of Italy, saying he was 'still working on the biodad thing', but she'd gathered that at least part of it had been emotionally heavy. Honestly, she didn't see how it could be anything else, even with whatever pretty lies Odin was using as a cover for the rest of his life. She had asked before, and he had shrugged it off, telling her not to worry; that he was handling it. And he was hardly the type to tell her every detail of his day, so it wasn't worrying. Just…

Well, it was a lot for him to process, she was sure. If he wasn't ready to share yet, that was fine. They'd get there.

Instead of going right back to sleep, though, she took advantage of the moment's peace to study him. She'd read somewhere that people looked more relaxed when asleep… but Odin didn't, really. At least, not compared to how he was with her when awake – maybe it would be a bigger difference to someone else. Most of the time he distracted her before she could focus on all the fine details of him, though… and he was nice to look at. Mm.

If she hadn't seen it done herself, she wouldn't guess that his ear piercings were only a month old – though he had paid extra for the topical enhancement. 'Not quite Remalene, and none of the dangers of it, but close', the sales clerk had claimed. Apparently they used the same treatment on tools for surgeries – and she thought she remembered hearing something about the tools being specialized, that time that two slugs had slipped under the bottom edge of Jake's vest and he'd had to be operated on. At least war tends to advance medical tech, she mused. His roots were starting to come in, though only just barely. He probably had another week before he needed to touch it up.

Does he really need to keep that up? The Regime didn't have any pictures of him, and with his true identity being used, he didn't need to shift his appearance enough to claim Audi as a blood relative. I should ask. Maybe make a joke about being done with blondes. Odin never asked for any details about her and Zechs' relationship, but… Well, the longer she was with him, the more she realized that what she'd had with the other man hadn't really been love; she'd just been too young and inexperienced to recognize that. And with Odin… well, she'd run out of doubts. It was still going somewhere, but they'd come far enough for her to acknowledge it, at least to herself.

Smiling, briefly pressing her thighs together as she geared herself up, she quietly announced, "I think I love you." Maybe she'd say it again soon when he was awake to hear it, but-

She gasped as the hand on her back flexed and those ocean-dark eyes opened. "I do," he grumbled out. Pulling back the arm he had underneath her, he cupped her face. "I thought you knew."

She bit back a hysterical little laugh, heart in her throat, even as she settled one hand on his cheek too. "I thought you were asleep."

"I'm not now," he pointed out… then frowned. "You didn't… I was supposed to be?"

She did laugh then, leaning forward those last few inches and kissing him. "Only sorta," she reassured him. "I was practicing for later."

"Mm." He pulled her in for a second kiss before asking, "Have you done that before?"

"No," she admitted. "I've thought about it. But this was the first time I said it." She hesitated, thinking about what he'd immediately said back, and smiled, heart hammering double-time. She'd thought it, yes, but… well, maybe he didn't realize? "Saying it out loud is usually a big deal," she explained. "At least at first."

"Hn." He eyed her for a long moment, then smiled, looking mischievous. "I'll pick a good time, then."

She laughed, swatting at his shoulder. "Hey!" She'd said it, and he'd as good as, but he was just going to leave it there?

He closed his eyes, though he was still smirking. "It's early," he pointed out again. "Go back to sleep."

oOo


oOo

Munich, Germany – Sarracenia

"Good morning, BJ!" Relena called cheerfully.

"Relena," he acknowledged dryly. He didn't see the colonel, but the princess was aware of everything her lover kept secrets about – and since he knew the younger man was in the innermost sanctum of Sarracenia right now, it wouldn't be long before he made his presence known. Might as well get started. "How long have you been waiting to drop hints about your boyfriend on live television?"

Her returning smile was nearly incandescent. "Almost three months."

Right about when the relationship deepened, then. Before Miller's little recruitment ambush was staged, he'd wager, but not by long. After the courting dance that the Guard say started in September. He'd seen how they were before that too, both personally and by report from his people – the closest of friends with a lingering sexual tension that both blithely ignored.

Back at the beginning, he had hoped the relationship could be dissolved or left behind. Though once they had brought Leia home from space and Miller and Mitchell resolved their little spat, he'd fully given up on the idea. By the time Miller approached him, he'd recognized that no matter his personal opinion, the man was a permanent fixture in his future queen's life. He'd harbored some hope that Jake might serve a more functional role than personal – no one could deny that Miller was exceedingly useful – but…

He could read the signs; they were only subtle in public venues. The story of all the damn flowers might have passed him by until two weeks ago – he'd honestly thought it had been one of the Major's pranks – but he'd seen the other baubles. Most importantly, he'd seen Relena's perfectly radiant smile when she looked at the man – and he'd understood that, barring tragedy, Miller was Sanc's next prince-consort.

Depending on just how well the next year or two went, however, Relena would have as little time to manage her personal kingdom as she did now. The alliance with Noventa's faction had not yet finalized, but at this rate? They were looking at an empire of accorded nations, and even the 'good' parts of Romefeller were still too traditional to ever allow the leader of a conglomerate so large fall to a general election. The Soleil Coalition was largely aristocratic in its political stance as well, for all that they agreed with Relena's meritocratic values. At this stage, the most Relena would be able to gain for 'equality' in this theoretical government was a relatively permissible oligarchy not dissimilar from pre-Imperial Rome.

He sincerely doubted it would come out as even-handed as that, however; the inception of this new system was nearly identical to that of Romefeller. But Romefeller did work well, at the beginning. As it stood, too much of Romefeller had survived the Fall for anything else to rise – but at the same time, enough of the old institution had crashed to pave the way for significant reform. Unlike the original, this had the chance to be a true republic, especially if the Democratic zones both survived the coming storm.

And however much Miller unnerved him, he'd seen in these last two and a half months just how much of an education the Khushrenadas had pushed on him, for politics as much as direct danger. He was a knife at Relena's disposal, both as a teacher and an ace. Even before this particular revelation, he'd recognized the boons that came with the spook and his history of terror.

With RLTT, though, if he could confirm a few facts… If I ask directly, will he finally answer? He'd implied… Well. Osbourne had stated it well the other day, in just how many problems there were with Miller's records. With both Millers' records.

Jake's history before Amarianna Khushrenada née Catalonia took custody of him in 185 was utterly barren, the paperwork alternately missing or so redacted it might as well have been blank – even confirming the directly paternal connection to Jack Miller shed little light, seeing as Jack had spent four of those missing nine years doing EVA hard labor. And those records were spotty as hell too, though he couldn't tell if it was from general negligence or purposeful erasure. Jack had had no marks for poor behavior, which might be how he'd been released a full year earlier than his sentence originally dictated – but there were no records on it, which could just as easily punt it back in the direction of bribery or blackmail. He couldn't even get a clear answer on where the elder Miller had served his sentence.

He could guess, though. The Alliance had run the criminal courts at the time, but incarceration had always been handled by the locals – and the colonies in general operated on a 'waste not, want not' policy. They isolated criminals they didn't like in remote mining operations that no one wanted to visit – but others got punted around the system in the mobile version of a prison camp to do the crappiest sort of maintenance that colony exteriors needed. And given Jack's history with two of the most powerful L1 militias, that was the most likely option – even without their direct influence, the man had already had many of the skills valued for EVA repair. Not to mention the inclination to do a good job the first time.

Colonists came in two breeds, in BJ's experience: those who were just regular people living in an unusual place, and those who had a deep understanding of just how critically important their technology was for survival. The latter cared deeply about anyone who put their lives on the line to protect that, and the situation that had seen the Jack Miller incarcerated would have impressed the wardens even if he hadn't been active with the resistance movement.

So while his inability to confirm bothered him, it probably wasn't relevant. Additionally, archives from the eighties in general… The gaps really might not have anything to do with sabotage.

Those gaps, at least. Otherwise? He had a record of divorce filed in absentia for the elder Miller, but no details attached – and no original marriage certificate to be found. Jake's childhood records had been replaced by OZ medical summaries – the same treatment most of their elite took for granted. If those details were trustworthy, though, Jake would have been two when his father went to jail, six when Jack was released, and seven when the sealed L1 court case began – and those records literally didn't exist now, more than a decade later. The verdict awarding custody of one Jacob Miller to Jack Miller was public record, but the rest of the case had been purged as irrelevant detritus since. The now colonel would have been eight when temporary custody was signed over to Khushrenada five months later… but BJ had found the same mixed history that Osbourne had commented on, and could read between the lines just as easily.

A man who had fought so ardently as Jack had, who still regularly fought with his son for some degree of involvement in his life, would not have given up custody inside six months of winning the war. That signature must have been given under severe duress or outright trickery – both of which were in Khushrenada's regular toolbox.

And Jake told Osbourne he was overly familiar with the Khushrenada manor by the time he was five. So as frustrating as the details were surrounding Jack, he wasn't the source of his son's… tenacity. He'd barely had anything to do with raising the boy at all. Who the hell did he go to court against? He had heard a few stray comments made about an uncle, but nothing solid.

And if Jake truly is the origin of the Rhea Lowe Tomorrow Today Fund, where the hell did the money originate?

Enough funds had inexplicably vanished from the accounts of Khushrenada and Miller's enemies over the years that he had assumed the wealth the man occasionally flaunted was siphoned from there. That and he'd personally seen the insane work schedule the man pursued – there was some validity to his claim to Delilah the other day – but nothing that could extend into RLTT's strata. Maybe it would start to make sense if he was a favored bastard of one of the wealthier Romefeller lines, or even the Bartons, but that clashed with too many other details to give the concept much weight.

Also? Jake had been persistently insisting that if BJ didn't uncover the facts himself, they wouldn't be believed – and Relena hadn't refuted him.

The beloved bastard theory was a little too easy to believe.

He offered Relena a wry grin, shaking his head. She's known for three months. That answer had been very prompt and straightforward, delivered with a great deal of joyful excitement. She had been looking forward to this conversation, and yet here he was, still in the woods.

At a certain point… As much as it was literally his job to question and doubt? He had to trust her judgement, or else this was all for nothing. He could guide, he could advise; but in the end of the day, everything he was building now rode on trusting her.

The door to the bathroom opened and Jake stepped back out, again in one of those neatly pressed suits that he knew hid far more than made sense, even with the deceptively transparent shoulder rig. He looked relaxed and content… but he often did, and BJ still hadn't seen enough of him to be able to tell the difference. To know if he ever would be able to tell the difference, given the fact that the man had apparently shared all his teachers with Treize.

"BJ, hey," he greeted with an easy smile, making his way over to them. "What's up?"

Why not? There'd been all too many teasing comments about asking the right questions, after all. "Who is Rhea Lowe?"

"My mother," he answered immediately. There was no hesitation or artifice, just the same easy smile and body language, relating easy facts…

Except it didn't explain anything. The name meant nothing, related back to nothing that could explain the rest. But at the same time, Miller was answering, so, "How does she relate to the Tomorrow Today Fund?"

BJ caught a momentary expression of grief on the colonel's face, another of wistfulness, there and gone in a flash, before the man offered a more obvious shrug of discomfort and a chagrinned smile. "Before she died, she told me I ought to always do two things: take care of my brother, and make the world a better place." He grimaced. "After I failed miserably at the first, I decided to put everything I had to the latter. On one end, I had what Treize thought would help… and then there were other methods. It felt right to put her name on the less violent options, especially with how we lost Junior." Reaching the back of the couch Relena was seated on, he took the hand she offered him, squeezing it and running his thumb over her knuckles a few times before adding, "I… needed the reminder. To ground me, afterwards, and to… hope, I guess. Before that, I… guess I never really questioned what I'd been told. Then suddenly my uncle was dead, my brother missing in the middle of the most contested part of space, and by the time I cooled down enough to really doubt, Amarianna was dead too." His mouth twisted into another wry grimace. "I'm never going to know for sure if she was grooming me to be Treize's second or if that was just happy coincidence, but I bucked the saddle hard once I noticed some of the strings."

He could see how that might make sense with the rest of the fact, but it still didn't explain. The uncle comment was probably the clue, but so long as Miller was being this open? "When did you meet the Khushrenada widow?"

"I have no idea," he admitted freely. "Jack says she was a friend of my uncle's before he came into the picture, and she told me a few stories about my mom over the years, so they knew each other at least peripherally. I'm mostly sure that I hadn't been to Earth until after I turned two, but…" He shrugged again. "Rhea liked to travel and rarely did it legally. My dad says there are a few gaps where it might have happened."

Young enough that she was a normal fixture in your life, BJ summed up. That still opened a lot more questions than it answered, though. "What was your uncle's name?" he tried instead.

"Odin Lowe."

…That still meant literally nothing. It was just a name, with no connection to anything of relevance. He grit his teeth, biting back a groan, resisting to urge to shake the other man just to get some goddamn-

"I don't know which title he was the most active under when your career in espionage started," Jake continued. "And he used so many different names year to year that it's difficult to really understand the scope of everything he did. But some of his highest profile hits were taken under the pseudonym John Doe – including the Heero Yuy assassination."

BJ just… stared.

A wry smirk twisted the younger man's mouth. "He was also known as 'the Broker' among Romefeller, 'the American' in L1 and L3, and… more monikers and dead end identities than I can put a number to or even definitively recognize." He snorted, gripping Relena's hand more tightly. "Also, nearly every job the Broker ever facilitated to this or that talent was actually himself, and… I've only ever been able to track the source on maybe a quarter of his cashflow during my lifetime. He was active for thirty years before Dekim put a bullet in his gut, and…" A grimace. "He did just about any kind of dirty work for anyone who managed to contact him, and wasn't above counterbidding opposing sides or directly playing double agent. I know of at least two successful heists he was hired on to assist with, but…" He shrugged. "Odin was a firm believer in leaving no trail, and his version of a little black book was nonsensical reminders that were also in cipher… and I can't decide if he burned or buried the old ones before deciding to kill himself. Everything else, he memorized. The portfolio he had in his effects when he died covered less than a year, and I can only glean so much from how money moved through his remaining accounts before that. He pared down the complexity significantly from what he taught me after disappearing with Junior in 184, but he also changed the patterns of it dramatically enough that I've never been able to recreate his pathways of money laundering with anything approaching accuracy."

That… "That's insane," BJ breathed, his entire worldview rattling. Doe had been something of a terrifying joke that wasn't actually funny for years, a faceless boogeyman that supposedly could break any security… and the Broker too? Let alone…

"It is," Jake agreed. "Even without getting into the single dad angle, it's nuts. I get my work ethic and ability to multi-task from him, but even I can't figure out how he managed it."

That connotation sounded heavy. "Single dad?"

"He raised my mom starting when she was two until she moved in with Jack at nineteen," Jake explained. "Then after my father's conviction, we went back to Earth to what was supposed to be the best hospital for high-risk obstetrics." He sighed. "I don't really know the details on what went wrong beyond the fact that they almost lost my brother along with my mom, but… Well, she didn't live long after, and my uncle's idea of childrearing apparently shifted from pampering his little girl to… making us like him."

Jake visibly shook himself before continuing, loosening his grip on Relena and instead running his thumb over her knuckles again. "Anyway, by the time he died, I'd been away long enough to realize just how screwed up some of what we'd done was, and it wasn't like I was wanting for anything. It was blood money, and…" Another grimace. "I didn't fully understand, back then, but… I knew enough. My uncle purposefully walked into a trap Dekim Barton laid for him, Junior got lost in the chaos of the coup that last job was helping Dekim kick off, and I spent the following year chasing any hint of a trail he left while finding all sorts of shitty situations that none of Treize's rhetoric about battle could solve. So I rearranged the accounts with intelligent investing to gain passive returns and created RLTT to try covering other options."

…Miller had been right. He wouldn't have believed this possibility without collecting as much evidence as he already had. Even now, he needed to sit and assimilate the knowledge before it made sense on a visceral level. The idea that the Broker had… Well, no, it was bigger than that. "I'm not going to find anything on Odin Lowe if I try digging, am I?"

"He convinced Demetri Catalonia to not pursue him after deserting OZ in 175, and I'm mostly sure it wasn't because he was Amarianna's friend," Jake admitted. "He collected leverage the same as Demetri did. He's a ghost in every system I've ever tried to look him up through. I've found a few IDs with his photograph attached, before he started using a program to shift facial features to be close enough to claim but not definitively identify him, but it's… shaky."

And wasn't that a thought? "Did this friendship predate Aaron Khushrenada's inexplicably young heart attack?"

Jake made a face. "We're honestly not sure, and Treize and I agreed to not look too deeply into it years ago." He gave another uncomfortable shrug. "He did have a known heart condition and fifty-four isn't an unheard of age for an attack… but I also know how to mimic one using an injection of certain drugs. So."

And it's known that Amarianna Catalonia loudly protested her marriage to a man twenty-eight years her senior to no avail, BJ mused. Luthor Catalonia simply hadn't cared about his daughter's opinion on the matter – his friend had needed a bride, and tying the Khushrenada line to his family was an advantage he wasn't willing to pass on.

That said, all reports on the Khushrenada couple's marriage had been amiable, if lukewarm. While he could see the possibility of assassination there… it was plausible in either direction.

Meanwhile… Jake Miller was the original proprietor of the Tomorrow Today Fund, and that knowledge had caused a massive frame shift in his perception of the colonel. As terrifying of a spook as the man had been under his own name… he had secretly been leading waves of humanitarian efforts for the last decade. And all of RLTT's actions post-Fall?

Well. Miller as prince-consort was a far less daunting idea than it had been three days ago.

oOo


oOo

January 11th 199 – Saturday – Dortmund, Germany

Duo forced himself to sit still, afterwards, and wait out the adrenaline. He'd known how he wanted this to end, had planned it in detail, but…

It was so much easier to kill when the other person started the fight. Or at least fought back. He had launched his share of ambushes, both during the war and since arriving in Amsterdam, but…

Maybe it was sexist, but he hated killing women. He wasn't the biggest fan of killing in general, but women… he didn't know why it was different. It wasn't like he thought they couldn't be dangerous, his wife could kick his ass at least seventy percent of the time, but… Something deep inside hurt when he saw a terrified woman. It didn't matter that he'd spent a week making absolutely sure he had the right person, or that she had killed thousands with her bombs already and likely planned more. The look on Sharpman's face when she realized she couldn't get away, the panic

That was going to haunt his nightmares for a while – right alongside the faces of the girls and women he'd saved. The animal part of his brain didn't really care about context.

So he waited until the adrenaline rode down, until his breathing hitched… then settled into a normal rhythm again… and it worked to make sure his target was fully dead too. Suffocation might be cleaner from the evidence angle, but it took a lot longer than most other types of violence. During the war, making a mess hadn't mattered because no one had cared – and in Amsterdam, so long as he was within his quarter, cops didn't question the gangs' violence. Here, though, he had needed to be careful – no exposed hair or skin, dressed in layers and two masks.

He was mostly sure she hadn't so much as scratched him; but he'd check, and soak her hands in bleach either way. And unless she'd managed to break her nose while struggling, Lyddia had died bloodlessly too. Little to no DNA to consider all around.

…I'm not going to check, he decided, looking down at the white plastic of the trash bag he'd lifted from the woman's apartment. The duct tape securing it around her head had been hers too, pilfered after the first time he'd caught her visiting this place. Removing either would just make more evidence to worry over and give his dream reel extra visuals. No thanks.

He needed to decide what to do with the body. Though honestly… the temptation to just leave her here in this little rat's nest of a lab was tempting. Less work, and though it might be a while before the body was discovered, the room itself would be proof enough for why she'd been killed.

Checking the clock, he sighed, looking down at the body again. She hadn't breathed audibly for twenty minutes now, and he hadn't found a pulse when he'd checked ten minutes ago. He checked again, just to be thorough… then shook his head, standing. Enough. Just because he had confirmed the woman had no attachments that would come looking for her until she missed work didn't mean he should continue wasting time.

He had wanted to know why she was bombing the places she'd picked almost as much as he'd wanted to stop her… and apparently she was the neurotically note-taking type, so he was in luck.

oOo


oOo

Deep Space, L2 Territory

Vitorie jolted awake again, heart pounding – and gusted out a deep sigh as she opened her eyes to almost complete darkness. Right. She didn't remember the dream… so maybe it had been a sound that woke her? Hopefully, she reached out with her Talent… But no. Still alone. She didn't have Rhett's ambient range – thank God – but when she was younger and still interested in testing the limits of her gift, they'd realized she could stretch further than her nephew even when they were both actively trying to find someone. It had been a while since she'd actively pushed like this, so maybe she was rusty… but she was confident that she had at least two kilometers of dead space around her for now. "Not a proximity alarm, then."

That confirmed, she debated for a moment before unzipping her sleep sack and going through a couple yoga poses. Whether it had been a dream or something else, she wasn't going to sleep again any time soon with her heart pounding like this. Might as well get something to eat and check my systems. Though… Ugh. So long as she was running dark, the kitchen was too. No hot food for me. "Good thing I like jerky," she mumbled, digging through her snack cabinet. She could see well enough. Maybe she couldn't read by her night-time lights, but this was her space, and she didn't need to. Checking her water tables, she tapped out the command to refill her cockpit water before drifting over to the bathroom, jamming the meat stick into her mouth as she went. Ooh, jalapeño. She'd thought she'd already eaten all of those…

Business taken care of, she made her way back to the cockpit. In deep stealth mode like this, she technically couldn't send or receive transmissions – but if the coast was clear, she could open the window for a few minutes to get news. She'd hit three different docks and pawed through the network of the largest depot in the area before settling on this hub as the most likely target of her miscreants. She was mostly sure she'd flagged the right ship that had literally run off with one of the things, but apparently she'd gone in the wrong direction to pursue them directly without giving up all other leads. But since they had headed toward an L3 port without refueling, they had limited options for end destinations – and it was easy enough to pass the tip along to someone who could beat the thief there while she pursued the suddenly promising lead of a critical hub out at the very edge of L2 territory.

And either this was a dead end and she was wasting time, or she had gotten here first, because the hub's cheery lights were all green. She'd slunk a ways back and gone as dark as she could without effecting critical functions, and settled in to wait. That had been… almost forty hours ago. So maybe I'm an idiot, she mused with a smirk, taking another bite of her snack. With any given problem, nine times out of ten someone is being an idiot. Maybe it's my turn. In which case, oh well; she would've always wondered if she didn't try, at least this once. I'll get Priya to laugh, if I totally flop it, she decided, pulling up her water tube and taking three long swallows before grabbing her cockpit seat by the headrest and maneuvering into a position where she could strap in. It would make the sweet baby feel better, if she had someone she could commiserate with.

Watch, whoever I sent after the big ship will get all the credit, she mused with a grin. Oh woe is me, no one sees me for the wonder I am… She snickered. Okay, maybe I'm sleep deprived, but also maybe I've been watching too many old kids movies. The songs were catchy though, even the dumb ones, and-

Torie coughed, glad she hadn't taken another bite of preserved beef and jalapeño as a shock of cold fell over her. That… those were proximity alarms lit up on her console. Not the dangerous kind, just friendly reminders to keep an eye out for neighbors, but-

"Activate voice control only," she commanded, letting her snack float and doing up her buckles. Stupid! You haven't actively used your Talent for more than a couple yard radius in how long, and you thought you could just trust it? Maybe Anelisa had a point about practice being worth it, even if Torie'd always pushed back that it was easy to say that when your space heart was so weak it only traveled a few feet. "Lights out." She waited a moment, twisting in her seat to be sure it truly was pitch black in the cabin before ordering, "Windshield up."

The shielding over the Dermiglass of her cockpit minimized, giving her a direct visual. Most of the time this was a useless feature, lighting in space was minimal, but the hub she'd been standing watch over was in range. And besides, anything in space was supposed to have running lights on top of the standard short-wave equipment – because in a pinch, line of sight was still…

They were only three or four hundred meters away. That… Shit! That was practically spitting distance in a ship of any size, they were on top of her. Big mechs, armed to the teeth, minimally lit but definitely Leo models, three of them, and…

And they don't see you, she reminded herself, getting her breathing back under control by sheer force of will. If the initial chirp notifying her of a nearby friendly had been what woke her, then they'd missed her entirely, and had no reason to notice now that she was running even lower power output. Get a grip. They're just…

…Just beating on the hub, which looked like it was already nonfunctional – same as the first she had found. Not using any of the fancy beam weapons that she could clearly see were equipped. Maybe… "Confirm recording," she whispered. There was no reason to whisper, there was no sound in space, but… the colors did look like those of the Regime troops. It was hard to tell without her own lighting up, but so long as the ship was recording, she could scan it back later, probably even zero in on the unit flags with some post-processing…

The computer chirped an affirmative – which, good, it should have been recording continuously for the last forty hours already – and… tried to settle in to watch the show. Why, though? Back to the top of her protests against this from the start – there were easier ways by interacting with the hub properly. Or, hell, they had all that beam weaponry on them – why didn't they shoot the damn thing, or slice it in two? Instead it was like watching a trio of kids play with a hacky sack. It was bizarre, and…

She wanted to cry. Doing this was supposed to get her answers, and instead she was this close to getting herself killed just to confirm her first dumb guess. Her heart was going so fast it hurt, she could barely breathe, and it had all been pointless. She was going to die out here, all alone with only a stupidly vague message sent to her superior three days ago about what direction she was headed in. I'm never going to see my mom again, or my sisters, or be able to poke at Dayton enough to try to figure why his empathy had come so late when the rest of us were just been born this way. I'm never going to figure it out, and-

She froze. Maybe she'd overestimated her abilities after just barely dusting them off, but… she had always had visual range. She and Rhett had both always been able to tag onto someone they could physically see the location of, even when they were inside a building. She'd outstripped the empath juggernaut for nonvisual reach – the only thing any of them had every outperformed him on, since Tay's Talent was too different to really compare apples to apples – and it was not time to give up just yet. If they see me, I can still run faster, she reminded herself. Probably. Even without pre-booting the system, which she couldn't do without them noticing, she could probably outrun them. There's a reason suits are usually moved in carriers. The pilots needed rest too, and even in zero-G, cockpits were a shitty place to sleep. They would run out of fuel faster too – so where was their carrier?

She licked her lips. Come on, dummy, she reminded herself. You've got an edge on them – use it already. Focusing on the nearest suit, she reached

…And found nothing.

Letting out a long, slow breath, she frowned, narrowing her eyes. Some kind of new tech? If something could block an empath's touch… oh, but she wanted it. Something that could block an empath out could be used to shield one in too, and that could change lives. How? Stretching again, pushing as hard as she could, she held her breath…

There! Hardly a blip, but recognizably another soul in the darkness. Grinning, she focused on a second suit, intent on trying again…

Except… it didn't waver.

Frowning, she focused on her own heartbeat and internal rhythms to the exclusion of everything else, and purposefully lost the spark she'd found. Focusing on that second suit again, she stretched

It was easier this time, to find it… but… It was identical. Impossible. She couldn't explain why every soul felt different, or even recognize one when compared to another most of the time, but they did all feel different from each other. What…? She focused on the third…

And realized, as that same tiny flicker grew ever so slightly stronger… That it wasn't coming from the suits at all. She'd felt tiny sparks like this before – it was out at the very edge of her range, so far she was shaking from grabbing at it, far enough that she wasn't getting any emotions at all, nothing but the flitter of person at the very edge of perception.

It's the pilot for the carrier. No soul was identical, not even twins. Maybe he or she was the only one awake, or maybe she was just that close to her limit, but…

No! Shoving down the rising horror, she reached again towards the Leos. Again and again and again.

Nothing changed.

This isn't new tech. She was shaking from more than adrenaline or fear, now. She wanted to cry, but she wanted to scream too, because God damn it all, they had buried this fucking boogeyman and yet… She wanted to laugh hysterically too. Because as much as the world was supposed to be changed… why had she expected any better?

"Dolls," she whispered, voice hoarse. "He's using dolls again."

oOo


oOo


Catching the Thread


oOo


Aaaaaand now you know why everyone's been so confused about Regime troop movements. Anyone figure it out ahead of time?

I really love hearing from you guys, it keeps the creative juices flowing, and considering the size of this… Well, hopefully one month wasn't too bad of a wait. Let's see if I can keep it up, mm?


On a separate note, I've been having some issues with crappy people. I'm not taking away anonymous posting, and I did report the issue, seemingly with good results... but for the record, I always dual-post over on Archive of Our Own.