Change of Plans

He was taught to be human was to be weak. And weakness meant certain failure. So he denied himself, refused to acknowledge that aspect of himself, as per Doctor J's orders. He had seen the base instincts of humanity in person as he fought alongside the colonial rebels. Captured female OZ pilots, even some of their officers, were fed to the rabid dogs that was the colonial militia. Doctor J told him that OZ was worse to the colonists. They were all scum.

So in him grew a great disgust for the desires of the flesh, for that which made men animals. To him, sex was violence, and a particular kind of violence committed upon the weak. An ignoble form, perverted by the powerful. His violence would exhibit none of that. His violence would be exalted, his fight would be with the Alliance, OZ, and Romefeller.

So he trained it out of himself. Through years of physical discipline and meditation, he learned to temper his animal instincts. Until one day, he emerged in full control of himself. He had become more than human. He had become the perfect soldier.

That was a long time ago.

He felt ashamed that he had fallen so far from his training and that what he desired most is what he despised most about the soldiers whom he had grown up with. He gripped the magazine hard with one hand and his cock in the other. His eyes transfixed upon the images of that girl, who had always dwelt within his deepest dreams. She was so incredibly beautiful, flawless in every way.

Lust. It had been so long since he had experienced true lust.

Beyond the differences in status, beyond the crimes of his past, this is what he feared the most. His animal desire for her was growing and had been growing for quite a while. He was losing control. He was supposed to protect her, but how could he protect her from himself?

How could he subject her to that violence from him?

A few hours later

After failing to answer Heero's knocks for about a minute, Heero opened the door to Duo's bedroom only to find the man passed out on his cot, smelling of booze and bourbon from the evening before.

Heero walked into Duo's room and looked down at his partner with mixture of disgust and pity. For he understood the man's secret trauma better than most. Still, he couldn't tolerate it, least of all now.

"Wake up," Heero said.

Duo murmured something indecipherable and rolled over onto his stomach. A was a shift quick to the chest that finally woke him up.

"Jesus Christ, Heero!" Duo said as he coughed violently.

"Come on, get up, we gotta go," Heero said in his usual momentous tone.

It was still an hour before sun rise, but Heero wanted to get Duo familiarized with the streets of the city when they weren't bustling with people. Heero had lived and breathed the streets of Buenos Aires for nearly a year so he didn't need the practice but he wanted his partner to understand what his options were the operation to go bad.

Duo didn't have the temperament to be a student, Heero understood that. But he had to believe that Duo possessed a bare level of competency in all of the skills that they had been trained in. The art of combat and the science of mobile suit operation, maintenance, and repair, was not for those who were completely devoid of intellect. Even the simple act of writing a temporary set of functions to stabilize lower body thrusters on their Gundams after taking damage required an immense amount of problem solving prowess and the ability to work under pressure. And Heero had seen first hand Duo's technical adjustments mid-battle. He was far more capable than his general disposition would suggest. He just wasn't the most disciplined of the Gundam pilots.

Heero did eventually get Duo out of bed, made him gargle some mouthwash before they headed out into the darkness of the early morning city. Their destination was near the port where Lucio Internationale's headquarters was located. The corporation had a small private dockyard attached the main office compound that was separate from the city's main port.

Dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie, Duo jogged around the three mile stretch that was the public perimeter of the compound and mentally noted all possible entrances, exits, and choke points leading to and away from the facility. Heero sat on a park bench upon the pier facing the Rio de la Plata, waiting for the sun to rise.

"I was thinking…" Heero could hear Duo's breathless voice approaching from a distance. "What if we used the docks to get in?"

"They sweep the interior of every ship that enters," Heero said plainly, without averting his gaze from the view of the early morning sky.

"I know, but we can take out the security on a ship much easier than the guards at the main gates. They won't find them for hours, and I'll be long gone before then," Duo explained as he dropped onto the bench beside Heero.

With one quick swipe, Duo grabbed the water bottle on the bench beside Heero and squeezed the contents inside into his mouth.

"This is exactly why Une made us go through the mock battle beforehand," Heero said.

"Oh come on, Heero!" Duo said with an exasperated sigh. "That's not fair, I'm just saying this would be a lot easier if we could eliminate some of the obstacles, non-lethally!"

He understood Duo's idea more than he was willing to admit. The temptation to use force, even non-lethal force was inherently more attractive than trying spend hours surveying the compound on a hot summer day, trying to find the tiniest of cracks in the corporate defenses. It was what he had been trained to do. Non-lethal tactics, although a portion of the Operation Meteor curriculum, was not what any of the pilots focused on. Theirs was a war, and a desperate one. They weren't exactly living in desperate times anymore thanks in large part to Relena, hence Heero's reluctance to violate her peace.

Something in the distance caught Heero's eye. It was subtle but noticeable. Heero pulled out a pair of binoculars from his bag and aimed it towards the direction of the ocean.

"What is it?" Duo asked.

Heero handed the binoculars to Duo. Duo looked in the direction that Heero was previously looking in. There was a ship in the distance with Lucio logo painted on it starboard bow.

"So what? I see hundreds of these ships a day," Duo said.

"Look closer," Heero said.

Duo focused his eyes to see if he could pick out something unusual. It looked completely normal to him at first. There were no unusual markings or any out of the ordinary activities on the decks. But then he did notice that the ship seemed to dip a little more than normal when it dropped from the crest of a wave.

"It's carrying a lot of weight..." Duo said.

"It's overcapacity," Heero added.

"You don't think…" Duo's words trailed off.

"I'm calling Hope," Heero said.

Relena was the type of person that could sleep only five hours a night and feel ready to go the next morning. Despite knowing that it wasn't good for her long term health and that she was defeating her energy levels on a day to day basis, her schedule demanded every second of everyday. And even if she was dead tired, as she was the morning after going clubbing with Dorothy, her internal alarm wouldn't allow her to go back to sleep once her eyes had opened; a product of her type A personality and years of diplomatic work commitments.

It was the first time she had awoken in her bed in Vustgaarde in nearly three days. But a lot had happened in that brief 72 hour span. And while returning to the bed she had grown used to was a definite comfort, she was already start to miss the warmth of his body beside her.

But she had no time to dwell on that at the moment. She had to trust in him and in their fledgling relationship, whatever it was. He would be fine, he had survived the worst the war could throw at him time and again. This was not the one that was going to end him, she hoped.

The warm water of her shower brought her back to life. She wanted to stay in it for a while longer but she knew she didn't have the time to spare. After a quick five minute rinse, she jumped out and toweled off her hair and fired up her blow dryer. She picked out a particularly severe outfit for school that morning, a beige shirt, navy blue jeans, a black blazer, and a pair of knee high boots. She wore her hair down. This was her get shit done staple. Feeling particularly inadequate about her body after her confrontation with Tatyana the day before, she needed to feel in control again.

She made herself a simple little breakfast of jam on toast and ate it as she scurried around her townhouse grabbing things she needed for the day. In her office she had a little electronic safe with a retina scan and fingerprint lock, that she kept old documents in. It reminded her of the security protocols at her Palace and how Heero and programmed them just a couple of days ago. It seemed to her that every little detail, things that had no significance in her mind before, were suddenly imbued with special meaning.

But she didn't have the time for sentimentality that day. She rarely had the time for it at all, but despite her little weekend getaway, and more likely because of it, her life was only becoming more hectic. She had to read a few chapters ahead for her classes, knowing that she likely wouldn't have time for them later in the semester. Cindy had left her a million and a half messages on her phone and in her email, about various little things from representatives she had meetings with, to more interview requests from other publications. Relena had still yet to go over the documents that Egert had dropped onto her on Saturday. In addition to that, she had her meeting with the terraformation project lead later in the week, not to mention dinner with her mother in Brussels in the evening.

It occurred to her that she might still be stocked by the paparazzi. She peaked out of her window and saw a few suspicious people hanging out on her street. They weren't being very discreet. She picked up get phone and dialed Pagan for a ride to school.

Preventers Argentine Station

"I don't know how I'm supposed to justify this to Luis and Roman when I don't really believe it myself," Hope said while she stared at the blurry images on her screen.

Her temporary office was a windowless storage closet in the back of the factory. It was cramped, hot, and wreaked of mildew. Hope had been provided with a wobbly steel desk and a workstation that allowed her to connect her laptop to Preventer's local network. She had to request a holo-projector so that she could have a meeting with Une. This kind of thing would just be available to her back at The Valknut.

It wasn't glamorous but it was functional enough to allow her to operate. Truthfully, she rather enjoyed the rough nature of the assignment. It made her feel legitimate. Hope came from the Swiss gentry. Her family lineage could be traced back to the Swiss mercenaries of the late middle ages and have been involved in military affairs in some form or another for centuries. Her brothers had been soldiers as had her father and uncles before her. They had served in Alliance military. Hope, for her part was placed into the service of OZ despite her brothers being on the opposite side. Honour and duty bound her brothers to the Alliance but they and their father knew that Treize alone was better than all of the Alliance generals. They wanted her to be safe, they wanted her to be on the winning side. And with some pleading and appeal to Treize's sense of chivalry, the mighty general acquiesced to the request of the de Vries men.

She hid it well, her shame, knowing that her father and brothers had begged for her life. She knew that she was no soldier, not yet, and perhaps, in this new world, never. But she couldn't shake the feeling that she had a tradition to uphold, a lineage to live up to. This was as close as she could get these days.

"Do you really trust them that much? I know that they are Gundam pilots but still…" Hope said as she looked up from her screen at Une.

The blurry image of Katerina Une sat in a virtual chair opposite her. The holo-projectors that had been provided to her was a couple of generations older, low in resolution, and generally in need of several firmware updates. Despite this, Hope was glad to have the company and advice of her mentor in that moment.

"It's not the mobile suits that made them special," Une said as she closed her eyes and shook her head. "I lost count of how many mobile suit carriers those boys managed to destroy from underneath our noses in the early months of the war. We were OZ! The masters of the Earth and Space. And they… they just didn't give a shit. They just handled their business and moved on to the next mission, leaving a trail of efficient and merciless destruction in their wake. So when they tell me there are mobile suits aboard that ship. I believe them."

The flimsy door of the storage closet swung violently, crashing against the adjacent wall, and created a loud bang announcing the arrival of Luis into the office. He looked down at Hope sitting at her desk and Une, in her holographic form, directly across from her. Neither of them flinched at the violent arrival of the South American station chief.

"Yes?" Une asked.

"This is my station Une, don't pretend like you own it," Luis said in a ruthless but surprisingly subdued voice.

"I'm sorry for the intrusion," Roman said as he entered the room shortly after Luis.

"You work for me," Luis said as he turned his attention towards Roman. "Not her, you don't ever apologize for my actions."

"Alright boys, calm down," Une said. "What can I help you with?"

"When you pitched this operation to me last week, you told me it was a simple surveillance mission," Luis said as if readying himself to breathe fire. "Non-lethal, plausible deniability. Now, there's two operatives with no known histories working without oversight in our territory, fucking around with one of the most influential corporations in the world!?"

"Your point Luis," Une said.

"You're playing with fire," Luis said as he slammed his hands down on Hope's fragile desk as he leaned into to Une. "You're going to make a mess and you're going to make me clean it up."

"First of all, Luis," Une began calmly. "We're the oversight. So calm the fuck down. Secondly, this isn't about you, this isn't about your command, this is about world security. So please, for once in your life, check your ego."

There was an unmistakable rage in his eyes, one that was only exasperated by her dismissive tone. But he held his tongue and backed off. Perhaps out of respect for his superior or perhaps he sensed that he was being toyed with, for indeed he was. To look at the man it would be a surprise that the gracefully greying 6'2 giant would be cowed by the young brunette. But despite all of his frustrations with the operation in Brussels, despite all of his experiences, he knew that it was in his own interest to fear Une. Luis was a OZ pilot in a former life. He was a capable soldier, fearless and strong, and a decent shot. He had taken part in the final battle between the Earth Sphere and the White Fang, by which time he was a grizzled veteran. But long before that, he had personally been evaluated by Lady Une, an experience that he never forgot.

"You're expanding the scope of the mission, and you know it," Luis said in a more calm manner.

"The situation on the ground has changed, the timeline has moved up. We are all but certain that Lucio is now working with the remnants of the Barton Foundation, " Une said.

"All on the word of these two unknowns," Luis said dismissively.

"They are known to me," Une said.

"If you think that Lucio is harbouring mobile suits within their private facilities, then go get a subpoena," Luis shot back. "This isn't Europe, the Preventers don't have free reign here. There are other forces at work."

"Tell me about them," Une said.

"Nice try. Not unless you're willing to provide me with the necessary resources I need, the resources I've needed for years," Luis said. "Our currency is our discretion, if we get anything done here it is because our contacts trust us. I'm not going violate that on your behalf. It was already a big deal that I could even get you those safe houses."

Hope knew enough to stay out of Une and Luis' little spat. It was obvious to her that these two had some sort of history that predated the Preventers. It was a rare sight to see anyone speak to Une like that. Although, it may have been the fact that she wasn't really there that gave the man his apparent confidence. She received a notification on her phone while the two of them were going back and forth. It was a message from Duo.

Alexander Peacecraft Library, Vustgaarde University

The main library of Vustgaarde University was a conversion of a 17th century Neo-Gothic cathedral that had been heavily damaged during the early wars of the After Colony era. The original church structure stood roughly 95 meters tall 130 meters long with twin spires that housed some six bells that have since been removed. Because of the height of the main chapel, two floors had been added during the renovation process to make use of its verticality. The building received an expansion during the mid-160's that doubled tripled the size of the library, creating space for specialized research facilities, a state-of-the-art climate controlled archive for the storage and cataloguing of rare historical documents, and small theatrical performances and lectures.

That addition was a donation from the Peacecraft Royal Family and named after King Alexander II of Sanc, Relena's great great grandfather. The first time that Relena had encountered the library on her tour of the Vustgaarde campus the spring before the start of the school year, she found the experience of seeing her family name in brushed steel letters mounted next to the entrance rather jarring. It was the first time she had truly encountered her forgotten heritage. And though she immediately felt the sense of legacy emanating from the building, she also felt incredibly distant from it all. She had no memory of Queen Katrina or King Marticus, her blood relations and yet she was effectively the only living embodiment of their dynasty.

As much as she could, she tried to avoid the places on campus that bore the Peacecraft name. And there were several of those. But this was the only place on that particular day where people were minding their own business and were polite enough to leave her alone. The paparazzi weren't allowed on campus but there were plenty of students who wanted to get a picture with her after her big interview over the weekend.

Scattered raindrops dotted the concrete steps that led up to the building's entrance. Relena had been sitting on them, watching the students shuffle in and out, while she was on the phone with Cindy planning out the rest of her month. She was only half paying attention. Her day had gotten off to a decently good start but even as she kept herself busy with the duties and commitments of her everyday life, she couldn't help but think about Heero.

"The interview requests keep coming in," Cindy said. "The Colonist, New Horizons, Vanity Fair—"

"No, no more interviews!" Relena said emphatically. "I said I'd do one and that's it!"

"If you say so, it feels like a missed opportunity to me, strike while the iron is hot they say," Cindy said in a slightly passive aggressive tone.

"I'm glad you and Augusta are on the same page for once," Relena said sarcastically.

"It is nice, isn't it?" Cindy said, choosing to ignore Relena's sarcasm. "Oh, and by the way, Felicity from the terraformation project sent a bouquet of flowers for promoting the project during the interview."

"That's nice of them," Relena said. "Be sure to send a thank you note."

"Okay, what do you want it to say?" Cindy asked.

"Ummm, something about the Foreign Ministry appreciates your continued efforts, something like that," Relena said absently.

"The Foreign Ministry? Come on Relena, it's Felicity… Isn't that a tad too formal?" Cindy asked.

"Right right, just thank her for the basket and all her hard work."

"You okay? You seem distracted," Cindy asked.

"Yeah, I'm totally, totally fine," Relena said rather unconvincingly. "I'm sorry, I just have a lot on my mind right now."

"Do you want me to push some of your meetings?" Cindy asked.

"No, no, I'll be fine," Relena insisted. "I need the distraction anyways."

"Alright…" Cindy said cautiously. "Don't forget, you have dinner with your mother in the city tonight."

Relena let out an exasperated sigh. "How could I forget…"

The downtown core of Buenos Aires was by the late morning, crowded with pedestrians and the everyday activities of commerce which ground traffic to a standstill. Hope had her windows rolled down as she took in the sights, sounds, and smells of the unfamiliar city in her brief moment of respite. Work, even the moments of inaction and preparation was ceaselessly stressful. She wanted the operation to go well but it seemed that no matter how much planning was involved, no matter how many contingencies she tried to account for, reality was always one step ahead of her.

Through the bustling crowds, Hope managed to catch a glimpse of Duo and Heero coming out of a coffee shop down the street from where she was. It wasn't particularly difficult to spot the young American with braided hair and his sullen looking Japanese friend. She got out of her car and made her way through the crowd towards them.

"Got your message," Hope said as they came to a halt in front of each other.

"Come on, keep moving," Heero said he began to walk.

Immediately, Heero and Duo began to wade their way through the thick of the crowd with Hope scurrying behind them, trying not to get lost.

"Are we being watched?" Hope asked as she looked around.

"Not sure," Duo said. "But better safe than sorry."

"The bosses aren't happy with your report," Hope said. "They're fighting about how to proceed."

"There's a mobile suit in there, I'm sure of it," Duo said as he took a zip of his iced coffee.

"How do you know? I mean really, how can you know that? It could be anything in that boat," Hope asked.

"Just the little things. You learn them through experience. The way it moves, the way it lunges forward and crashes too deep below the water line, the way the ship rocks from side to side as if there were one solid weight inside," Duo explained. "Despite the amount of weight the ship is carrying, there are no visible guards on deck. They are definitely trying to hide something."

"And you agree with him?" Hope looked at Heero.

Heero simply nodded.

"Jesus, we need back up," Hope whispered.

"There's no time," Heero interjected. "They already know we're here. Or least they know someone is watching them."

"What? How do you know?" Hope asked.

"They've had a daily increase in security since we've arrived, they're expecting something. Someone is tipping them off," Heero said.

"You don't mean to say…" Hope's voice trailed off as the weight of the assertion dawned on is her.

"I don't know," Heero said. "But I can't trust anyone in that office."

"So what are we going to do?" Hope asked.

"We're going tonight," Duo said.

"What?! Are you crazy? Without support?" Hope exclaimed.

"You're going to have to be our support," Duo said as he put his hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, we trust you."

"You two are still injured. You need a proper support staff, not just one person," Hope said.

"If we don't do this now, we'll lose them. Lucio isn't going to hold something as dangerous and illegal like a mobile suit for long, we need to act," Heero said.

"This is not how we do things," Hope pushed back. "This was supposed to be a simple surveillance mission."

"The situation has changed," Heero said.

"You don't get to make that call," Hope said. "I'm in charge of this operation. You have a problem with that take it up with Une."

"Alright then, you want to be in control, you want to make decisions? Fine, how long do we wait? A day? Two? A week?" Heero asked. "If you wait, I guarantee that mobile suit won't be there when we get in. We can either chase them forever or try and get ahead of them."

Hope said nothing for a few moments as she considered her options. Her indecision was clear and in that moment she knew that despite her rank, despite her family connections, that she wasn't a leader and barely a warrior. Heero had had enough of the girl's cowardice and wandered off into a corner store leaving Hope and Duo standing in the middle of a pedestrian street surrounded by the crowds.

"Where's he going?" Hope asked.

"Don't worry about him, he's got some personal stuff to deal with," Duo said.

"He's quite the piece of work isn't he?"

"He's not so bad once you get to know him," Duo said.

"I'm surprised he's got anything personal going on," Hope commented.

"Oh, you'd be very surprised," Duo remarked.

"What's that mean?" Hope asked.

"Nevermind," Duo said.

"You guys are all so secretive," Hope said.

"Well you know, there was a war, Gundam technology was a secret, our missions were a secret, it was a whole thing," Duo said dismissively.

"Yeah, no big deal, right?" Hope said staring off into the distance, with a hint of a smirk upon the corners of her lips while mimicking Duo's tone.

Without the uniform and in the sunlight Hope actually looked like a real person. It was as though the relaxed dress code allowed her to smile and loosen up in a manner that was untenable given the decorum of The Valknut. Being a government functionary masked her natural playfulness, Duo thought. He had always hated the military and the institutions that styled one's individuality.

Relena arrived at Bon-Bon around 8pm. She was late and she knew it, but more importantly her mother knew it too. Despite all of her best efforts, Relena had overbooked her day. The readings that she had to do for class took a little longer than she had anticipated, her attempts to schedule work meetings were a far bigger mess than she had realized, and on top of all of that, she was consistently distracted by Heero's absence and the uneasiness in which she left her conversation with Tatyana the day before.

The patrons of the restaurant were polite enough to pretend to not be looking at her when she walked in. But it was hardly credible for them to not have noticed the audible increase in ambient noise when the door of the restaurant was opened for her, letting in the sounds of swarming paparazzi. She could feel their invisible gazes upon her as the maître d'hôtel greeted her and led her over to her table. Relena walked with confidence, or as much as she could muster when it came to her mother, her 5 inch stilettos clicking defiantly against the wooden floor. She had her hair straightened, wore a black halter sheath dress, and a gold necklace with matching earrings. Gone was the white-pink church blazer; this wasn't Paris and it wasn't Sunday. Brussels was her town and she meant to stand her ground here.

Her brisk approach to the table where her mother was seated was slowed when Relena noticed the second person at the table. Dorothy. Still, Relena recovered quickly, forced a smile and greeted them both warmly.

"Mother, Dorothy," Relena said as the head waiter pulled out a chair for her.

"You're late," Mareen said as Relena sat down.

"It's Brussels, mother. Everyone's a little late for dinner," Relena remarked.

"It's a wonder anyone here can effectively govern if they don't even have the basic skill of timekeeping," Mareen said.

"We're doing just fine," Relena said dismissively, defending her chosen job and her professional tribe. "Dorothy, how nice to see you again. I wasn't expecting your company this evening."

"Well, after you left me in your mother's house without even so much as a goodbye," Dorothy said, "I thought it rude if I didn't at least try to repay her hospitality."

"Tell me, how have you repaid her hospitality?" Relena asked as she leaned her chin against her knuckles.

"She's been tremendously helpful," Mareen cut in. "Don't be rude, Relena."

This was so like her but it was to be expected, Relena surmised. Dorothy was of aristocratic stock, the House of Dermail from which she descended was one of the most important families in the previous age and no doubt that old world charm still held sway in certain parts. Certainly, at the very least, the blonde's good manners and wit must've impressed Mareen.

"Well, I'm glad to see you two getting along," Relena said as she forced a smile. "Although, I must admit I feel that two versus one is a little bit unfair."

"Then how about some back up?" A familiar voice came from behind her.

Relena turned to look and found herself staring at Colin Dubois looking rather handsome in a black dinner jacket with matching bow tie. He flashed Relena a warm smile. He was followed by two older people, presumably his parents.

"Henry, Rosalyn, Colin, how wonderful to see you again," Mareen greeted them warmly.

She got up and shook each of their hands, a rare occurrence for Mareen. Relena felt her phone ring in her purse but just as she was about to check it, her mother introduced to the Dubois.

"This is my daughter, Relena," Mareen said.

"Oh yes, we know who she is," Rosalyn commented with a chuckle.

"Relena," her mother said as she glanced at her expectantly. "This is Colin Dubois. He's one of the key architects to the city's plan to repurpose the houses."

"We've met," Relena said through her teeth as she shifted her razor sharp gaze towards Dorothy.

He got her voicemail. She was probably busy. Or maybe she just missed the call. Maybe she didn't recognize the number and ignored it. It didn't matter, he was too embarrassed to try again. He had to focus and he had already let this take his mind off of the task at hand.

Heero cracked the burner phone against the wall behind and tossed the obliterated device into the garbage. Enough of this, Heero thought as he tried to focus his mind. He was frustrated with by his own lack of resolve. There was a time when even the thought of calling Relena before a mission would have disgusted him. There was no time for such weakness now.

He made his way back to where Duo and Hope.

"Are we good?" Duo asked, somewhat cautiously.

"Yeah," Heero said simply, masking his frustration. "Are you in?"

Hope thought about it for a moment. "Yeah, I'm in."

"Good," Heero said in his usual stoic voice. "Meet us at the safe house at 9pm tonight."