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Chapter Thirty
Conspiracy
Beware. Some people will sell you a dream and deliver a nightmare.
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The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect. – Peter A Levine
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The politicians dance, the schemers keep apace, and Quatre is officially annoyed with everyone's nonsense.
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NOTICE:
This site has been actively screwing with me, and I suspect has stopped sending out any kind of notification. If you see this, I'm going to keep cross-posting here for sake of posterity... but Archive of Our Own has very much become my primary place to post and it's where all my editing is done in full - in part because editing on here post-fact is a nightmare. So if you want to reliably know when there's a new chapter, I'd set up an alert over there.
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…I'm really remembering why Jake's theme song has always been 'You're Gonna Go Far Kid' by The Offspring. Just… there's this malicious glee to the man when he's lying to/manipulating someone he despises. You know. Like Zechs.
A little under 25k this time – but done in half the time, so hey. This one is going up exactly four weeks after the last again to Emily for the hard edit!
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January 31st 199 – Friday – Regime Fleet
He wasn't sure whether he should be surprised or not when the line was connected before the second ring. On the one hand… Well. He'd mostly made up his mind already, but he needed to know, to connect a few more facts independently, even if…
How many times could your heart shatter before you stopped being able to put the pieces back together? All this time, and he'd thought… It had just been another fucking game. Again. A game where he hadn't even known half the rules, and-
Jake's voice was tired, "Hey, Zechs." When his image came up on the display a moment later, he looked as bad as Milliardo felt. His normally half-wild hair was stringy and limp, his color wan, and dark circles were under his eyes.
He obviously hadn't slept since the proclamation. "Jake," he acknowledged, suddenly… not sure where to start.
Treize's words played over in his head again. 'You can keep my leftovers if you want. Miller stopped being a reliable agent long before he refused to kill you on Libra.'
The thing was… he could think of three different opportunities off the top of his head where Jake could have done it; done it and gotten away clean. Let alone if he had tailored a scenario, the way he knew the other man had done time and again for Treize's horror of black book operations. He knew exactly what Miller was capable of, and the implication…
Jake sighed. "Are you going to ask, or are we just going to pretend you never doubted me?"
Zechs clenched his jaw, hating the way the question made him feel. Because of course he had doubted, he doubted everyone, but- "You told me he asked you to spy on Libra," he reminded the other man.
"Yeah, and I told you I only ever passed intel on to Lu," Jake affirmed. "Which I do not fucking regret, I don't care what game you and him were playing up there – Lu was on the goddamn frontlines of your and Treize's intergalactic pissing contest!" He took a deep, forceful breath. "You… do you have any idea how close your army of automatons came to overwhelming Peacemillion? How many times? If I hadn't…" He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Fuck, Zechs. I don't know what the fuck you were thinking back then, but-" Another sharp, deep breath. Without opening his eyes, voice flattening, he added, "I assume he told you what else he asked."
He thought about drawing it out – making the other man say it himself, to confirm in his own words, but what would be the point? "Why didn't you?"
The diminutive colonel outright snarled at him. "Oh fuck you."
His teeth creaked from how hard he was clenching his jaw, and it took a moment to work it open. "We were never that close." Not before the Fall. After, maybe, closer than he'd ever let anyone except Noin, and God help him but he'd entrusted this man with his sister, if-
"No, you were just the guy my sister was going to marry," Jake returned snidely. "Not a friend."
"And the Khushrenadas as good as adopted you," he ground back, ignoring the spike of warmth, of guilt, of longing at the memory of Noin, because-
"Yeah, and the Khushrenadas brainwashed me into hating my father really damn well, didn't they? Amarianna cultivated me, Zechs. Or she tried, at least. Maybe if she hadn't died it would've even stuck, but I recognized the collar eventually. The one good thing about my uncle dying was that it meant I didn't have to rely on them anymore, and unlike you, I knew to bail before the situation got too hot." He seemed to curl in on himself, hiding his face for a moment before sitting up straight with steel in his eyes. Tired, deadened, blank steel, but steel all the same. "I am no one's pet, Zechs. Friends are one thing, and family is another. And once upon a time I thought he qualified, but Treize… When someone asks you to kill a friend, it doesn't matter what they used to be to you – they're not your friend anymore. Anything I had with him was over a long time before that, I- Fuck, but you wouldn't even believe half of the shit he tried to get me to do over the years, and it kept getting worse, and-"
Jake groaned, closing his eyes again. "I agreed to play spy on Libra because I thought it was the smart thing to do; there was too much damn power in one place, and I'm glad I did it. I don't pretend to understand what you were up to during those weeks, but without Peacemillion… I don't care that I'm spaceborn, Zechs – I never want to live there. It's miserable. Besides, the Noins are down here, and Jack, and now Relena…" He sighed. "You're a shitty friend, Zechs, but you've never asked me to commit any atrocities. You at least have the decency to keep that shit on your own conscience."
Milliardo ground his teeth, debating, for the thousandth time, whether it would be worth it to explain that he hadn't meant to do it. That he'd thought it was a show, yet another master plan game of Treize's that he was meant to play into, a terror tactic that could be pulled back at the last moment, countered in exactly the right way, to… But no.
After all, what would be the point? The path to hell was paved with good intentions, and it would all sound like weak excuses anyway. In any case, he had thought wrong – better to be a feared spectre than a weak-willed, erratic fool. Media spin would only handle so many angles before losing impact, after all. Better to stick with what worked.
Instead, he offered, "You have terrible standards, then." Because… Jake was his friend. He'd proven it repeatedly – sometimes directly, but always through his actions. Jake had been nearly as integral to the Regime's first steps as Dorothy; he had helped build its foundations, and then there was everything with Relena. The man had always been mercurial, hot and cold, there and gone again so fast you could blink and miss him, but… he had steadied out, these last three years. Even when Jake had been a thorn in his side these last years it had always been to back Relena, and Relena was… everything. She had to be.
He was… so mad at his sister, and yet so very proud at the same time. She had nerve, and passion, and if he had actually been doing what he claimed up here, then her actions would have been the perfect foil to keep the East in line. To buy them time. Somewhere along the line, she had become downright brilliant at manipulating the media.
He just wished she hadn't televised a live response to Treize's announcement before talking to him, because she had also effectively trapped him up here with her declarations of indignant rage. Backing down, suing for any kind of peace after that…
Well. The cold fury burning in Treize's eyes as he talked around his own clear knowledge of the dolls had trapped him just as firmly. This… had to be handled directly. Relena was just going to have to follow through – thankfully, she had done a better job of that than himself, this last year or so.
Jake scoffed. "I didn't use to know any better," he returned sullenly. "My uncle was a piece of work whose only friend was Amarianna, if that tells you anything, and then Treize, and Dave… Fuck, Dave." The sound he made was alarmingly close to a sob. "I… he was here last weekend, and…" He growled. "I can't believe I trusted that Treize was dead without a fucking body, and Dave… he knew. He had to, and some of the things he said… I didn't understand until the announcement, and now he's disconnected his phone, and… Zechs, I… I can't…"
Zechs closed his eyes, allowing his shoulders to slump as that revelation washed back over him too. "All Strike Force personnel cut communication, disconnected all transponders, roughly twenty hours before the broadcast," he admitted. He… still wasn't entirely sure how to read that. Many troops had gone missing in the handful of days leading up to Treize's reveal, presumably loyalists that had been pulled ahead of time, but Mitchell's move… felt different, somehow. That didn't make it ache any less, but at least the brigadier had always been Treize's friend, Jake's, and not his own – more someone he knew by association than experience. He swallowed, feeling the sheer enormity of the situation, before admitting, "I'm glad you're still with me, though."
Jake's eyes narrowed as he drew himself up, shaking his head. "No, actually – you probably didn't bother to notice, but I don't work for you anymore."
"I noticed," he argued mildly, feeling even more tired as he watched his friend spin himself up indignantly. He had honestly been waiting for it, right from the start – Miller had never been someone he could keep forever. It was the other man's very nature, and he'd known it since he'd dropped out of the flight program. Noin used to make jokes about it, said that Jake's wanderlust, his need to create something from the ground up before rearranging his whole life to up and do it again was what made him him. 'I don't know what it would take for him to settle,' she had told him once. 'He's looking for something, but so long as he doesn't know what that is, he'll just keep bouncing from one garden to another, busy as a bee.'
Noin had always found the trait charming for some reason, and he'd learned to dismiss it. Later, after Libra, he'd decided to take advantage of it, offering different projects he could use help on for his budding empire, taking what he could get before his friend wandered again, and just… rolled with it. He had begun to wonder if maybe the man would finally put down roots given how long he stayed by Relena's side, but… well, he hadn't been surprised.
Though… it had been four months now, and for all that Jake had left the Regime, he was still living in Relena's little compound, shadowing her on nearly every public appearance. Which he was grateful for, but… not entirely sure how to interpret.
Jake looked skeptical. "You did?"
"At the end of September," he confirmed. He had briefly worried about what that would mean for the Leia situation, but… while Relena's Munich compound had Regime soldiers working out of it, the property was both private and absurdly secure. So long as the woman was contained there… that was acceptable.
And truly… that had been one of the most reassuring points abut his discussion with Treize yesterday. His old commander, his bloody nemesis… thought his one-time lover was dead. He thought her years dead, and the little girl lost during Dekim's coup, and he had been bitingly acerbic, jaded about the topic, but his eyes had been dead, and… if Jake had been his agent, he would have known about Leia. He would know that the girl was supposedly safe somewhere, hidden, not taken into the world's underbelly like he clearly assumed, from the last reports in the Regime's thrice-damned compromised security database.
Jake warned you about that too, he reminded himself, fighting back a scowl. You just thought he was being paranoid. The man's subordinates had insisted he was being insane, but he should have seen that was just the way of those who cared less about their work. He hadn't really looked into it, just figured it was time to rotate his friend into a new project anyhow, hadn't wanted to risk the strife of the situation running him off entirely, but in hindsight…
It doesn't matter now. He'd moved Jake, and the leak had been developed and missed for years, and it was just one more mistake on the pile of others. In the grand scheme of things, it was hardly a fatal blunder.
He had more than enough of those to contend with already. With Treize… Well. It was a good thing he already had most of his affairs in order on Earth, because now… He might not ever be able to come back. It had been a risk from the start, but Treize knew, and-
"I thought you were going to lose your temper when you found out," Jake admitted, still looking skeptical.
Milliardo scowled. "Like you, I am more than my temper," he reminded the other man testily. He wasn't going to say he'd expected it, because he wasn't trying to piss him off, but did they all have to treat him like such an unreasonable tyrant? In any case, Jake had always favored asking for forgiveness over permission. He still hadn't decided if Relena had been that way from the start or if she'd picked that up from him too, but the two of them made a bloody good pair these days.
Which… was fine. Jake was useful, for all his volatility. As tasteless as Treize's 'leftover' comment had been, Relena had a proven ability to tame dangerous things, and she was going to need every tool he could leave her. The fact that Jake appeared to already have made that move on his own was advantageous, not hurtful.
Miller had never been his. He'd never really been Treize's either, for all that Khushrenada had held his leash in a tight grip for years. No, if anything…
Milliardo hadn't talked to anyone his first few months at the Academy, not in any way but the perfunctory responses required for class, but he had watched, and Jake had always walked in Noin's shadow. The two of them had practically been inseparable – Treize was virtually an afterthought in comparison, and the friendship with Mitchell had come after Miller was excluded from flight school, a partnership born in the absence of one friend and not really solidified until that year they'd gone AWOL together. By the time he met Noin's father, he hadn't been surprised to see the man already treating Jake as his son – it hadn't stopped the longing, the stab of jealousy, but he hadn't been surprised. It just…
'You were the guy my sister was going to marry.' That… summed it up well, for all that dwelling on the idea made him want to retch. The lot of them had rarely described the relationship so clearly, but… yes. The way Jake and Noin had always been gossiping together, competing and joking and plotting entirely asinine pranks had… very much been a quintessential twin troublemaker routine.
…If he had managed to kill Noin three years ago, he suspected Jake really might have assassinated him, without any request at all. The fact that they didn't know was probably his only saving grace. The other man would say things sometimes, about how he was doing something for him because Noin would have wanted it, would have arranged it if she was there, so he was doing so in her stead, but…
Jake had always been dangerous.
He looked disgruntled instead of ready to pick a fight now, as he rolled his eyes. "Touché." He sighed. "All the same, for the record? I joined the Regime because I thought it would help me make a difference post-Fall, but I've moved on."
"I didn't expect any less," he acknowledged, trying to soothe the other man's ruffled feathers. Then, trying to extend an olive branch to show he did care, he asked, "Do you have any idea what you're going to do next?" Noin had told him that Jake became independently wealthy as soon as his uncle died, some kind of inheritance, but he knew the man would never be happy on the sidelines. Maybe, if he could be interested in something that would positively impact Relena-
His words had the opposite of his intended effect, and Jake drew himself up sharply, pointing one finger at the screen. "I don't need to work for my friends," he defended. "I've finally figured out what I want to do with the rest of my life, and it doesn't involve any of my shitty childhood friends."
Milliardo valiantly tried to not clench his jaw this time. "That wasn't what I was trying to imply."
Jake just scowled at him. "Bullshit. I'm not looking for another fucking hook, Zechs. I'm out." He deflated a little, shaking his head. "Turns out, Lu was the only one of us that was ever worth following – I'm just sorry it took me so long to figure that out." He took a deep breath, then glowered directly into the camera. "You were a goddamn fool to ever leave Sanc."
Don't I know it. Not that it was as simple as that, it couldn't have been that simple, but… he understood what the other man was saying. 'You had everything, and you threw it away.'
…And maybe he had. Maybe he had been right, that it wasn't tenable, and it wouldn't have lasted – Relena had only held the kingdom for a few months before Romefeller lay siege to it, before he had to defend it, but… That didn't mean he hadn't chosen to throw it all away.
It hurt. It hurt so much he lost his mind over it, sometimes. But that didn't make it any less true.
He took a deep breath, staring back at the other man to try to get his own solemnity across. He wasn't going to apologize to Jake, and Noin wasn't here anymore. She had forgiven him for leaving her at Sanc, and that was between the two of them, no one else. As for the rest… Well, that was still none of Miller's fucking business. All the same, he wasn't trying to pick a fight. "I'm not allowed to ask my friends what they want to do with their lives?"
"Not if you're just fishing for something. You're not even half as subtle as Treize, and now that he's not dead, I'm less inclined to overlook it, thanks."
Milliardo held back a groan. As defensive as that sounded… Might as well go all in. "You've never wanted to commit to anything for longer than a few months, and now you're telling me you have the rest of your life planned out? Why wouldn't I be curious?"
"First of all, fuck you," Jake snapped back, though he was rolling his eyes, so despite the language, he was softening. "I've committed to plenty of things for longer than a few months – they're called people."
Milliardo grimaced. "That wasn't what I meant," he defended.
"Yeah, well, it's what you said, so maybe own it," Jake snapped back. "Maybe I've had a lot of shitty friends, but the good ones, family, both born and found, that's the one thing I've always held on to. My crappy long-term commitment issues apply to work, not relationships."
It seemed like he was waiting for an affirmation, so Milliardo gave it. "That's true," he agreed. He'd never meant to question that, honestly, but apparently he'd hit a sore spot.
Jake let out a deep breath, shoulders relaxing. "And even with… with everything, you know… That's better than it's ever been, honestly. My dad and I are finally patching shit up. I've finally got Des as a next-door neighbor, which is this little secret desire I've had for years that I never even told anyone about, I get to see my godson every day – it's not this dangle and pull away, tantalizing magic trick that always got pulled with Mariemaia. It's real, and it's good, and…" A broad, bright smile broke out across his face. "Zechs… Junior is alive. He made it somehow, no thanks to me, and I don't really know him yet, but… I finally got my miracle. I get to have my brother back."
Zechs blinked, processing that. So much of Jake's personality hinged on the loss of his brother, the endless rage and grief, that… that was hard to conceptualize. On the one hand, he could relate; he remembered those first breathless moments after his 'death' when he'd realized he could have Relena back, even if they were strangers, that he could have his kingdom back and he could take her home… But at the same time, he had always known Relena was alive and well. He'd checked on her over the years, and oh so often that little hidden truth had been all that kept him from going mad. Jake… had genuinely thought his brother was dead. It would be…
It would be like getting Noin back. Not quite the same, he supposed, but… Well. Even Jake had given up and started using past tense.
"Speechless, huh?"
He huffed out a breathless sort of laugh, shaking his head. "That's incredible, Jake." That was a brilliant sort of happiness that he would wish for anyone, but his friend especially.
"It really is," Jake agreed, expression blissful. "And that's… Family is the most important thing, Zechs. I'm not going to let anything come ahead of that. I've lost so much already – now that I've got a second chance, I'm not going to squander it."
'Not like you have,' came the hidden message in his tone.
He took a moment to work saliva back into his mouth before assuring his friend, "That's excellent." He'd… never really known the other man to be happy. Giddy in a moment, maybe, and content when near Lu… when near Relena too, over the last few years, in a way he'd never been with anyone else. But this… this was different.
Noin had always said he was looking for something. He supposed that… the other man had finally found it.
It was wrong, cruel, even, that it hurt to realize that truth. Jake had found a way to be happy – and he… hadn't.
Jealousy is the ugliest of sins, he reminded himself, trying to shake it off. "I'm glad, Jake," he affirmed, squashing the childish feeling of injustice down.
"I never really thought I'd get here," Jake admitted, seemingly on the exact same page as him. "But… yeah. Fuck those guys – I'm not letting anyone wreck this, you know?"
Milliardo sighed, smiling wanly. "Crass, but I respect the sentiment," he agreed. He hesitated… but, no, it did need to be said, even if it got the other man pissy with him again. "Whatever you're doing next… Do I need to retake custody of Leia?" He hadn't heard a peep about her since Jake and Relena locked the woman down in Munich, which had been the entire point, but he could adapt if need be.
Jake sighed, looking worn down again. "No, I've got her," he returned tiredly. "She's been a model houseguest, even, but she only has access to a small portion of the grounds – and with everything from the last few days, I'm glad I've had her under such tight media restrictions. For the most part she can live a normal life here, but she only talks to a handful of people, and… she doesn't know. I'm going to have to see how long I can keep it that way. The way she talks about Treize…" His next sigh sounded absolutely gutted. "It was easy, before. Now… it's going to be a lot harder, but I've got it." He made a face. "I'm just glad I went by the book and never told Dave she was here. If he…" His expression twisted further. "If Treize knew, do you think he'd have come for her? I mean… fuck, Zechs. I never would've suspected Dave."
The confirmation of the theory he had developed was soothing, and he allowed a wry smile to twist his mouth. "I'm not sure." The Treize he had spoken with yesterday was colder than he remembered, even at the man's worst – after three years of silence, it was distressingly difficult to predict anything about his one-time friend. "You're going to stay at the Munich compound, though?"
There was a flicker of something in Jake's eyes – Guilt? Apprehension? That was alarming right up until the other man gave a sheepish smile, reaching up to run a hand through his hair, making it splay wildly. "I'm not going anywhere," he confirmed. "Lena and I keep separate work spaces now, and… this is home, Zechs. I'm not…" He grimaced. "Ugh, why is this so hard? I'm not… moving on to do something new with my life, it's more just… It was always part-time, before. I've actually been doing this for over ten years, now, I just didn't use to talk to anyone about it besides the Noins and Dave. The difference is that I'm not going to treat it like a hobby anymore. I tried practically every other thing I possibly could, and this is what I love doing, so… I'm going to focus on what works from here on, you know?"
He considered just agreeing, but that felt slippery and he wasn't in the mood. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Jake groaned dramatically. "I started a public works fund in 188 with the money my uncle left me and kept it all hush hush to protect it from my reputation," he explained, speaking quickly. "So I could walk both sides of the fence at the same time; maybe help clean up or at least mitigate some of the messes I came across over the years. You know… economic stopgaps, charities… a bunch of different humanitarian projects."
He hadn't ever considered the idea, but… given all the help Relena credited to him with her projects over the last two years, he supposed the skillset had to have come from somewhere, and this was as decent an explanation as any. The knowledge answered a few questions that he now realized had been at the edge of his mind but not important enough to acknowledge, and it… felt good, to close the loop on that. Maybe he hadn't expected it, but… it also fit the man, when he stopped to think about it. It maybe even explained how he balanced all his contradictions. Nodding a little to himself, he met his friend's eyes through the screen, and, just to make sure they were on the same page, he asked, "Like RLTT?"
Jake's expression froze, his eyes gaining a hunted look. "…Uh. Yeah."
Milliardo leaned back, narrowing his eyes. "Jake?"
That apprehensive guilt came flooding back into the other man's face as he worried at his lower lip. "Just, you know… exactly like the Rhea Lowe Tomorrow Today Fund?" He winced, side-eyeing the camera. "Which is… named after my mother?"
Milliardo stared at him, stunned. Of all possibilities, he'd never…
Apparently his silence was making the man nervous, because he began rambling. "It was always something I could do on the side, or assign myself to work on physically at the same time, but after Relena took the reins on her candidacy, it's… Well, it's become a full-time job, even with my candidate carrying most of the weight. Relena's projects were bigger than anything I'd ever tried before. Now, with the Lotus Trust running on top of the rest? I mean, between the Ministry and now gathering support against Treize, Relena more or less shoved most of the intricate detail work of her RLTT projects back on me just to keep from getting overwhelmed, so it's… more than enough to be a career at this point." He sighed. "I told her not to worry about it, I've got it, but Zechs, I'm worried about her. Lena is incredible, but she's shouldering a hell of a workload. I don't know how much attention you've been paying to the changes she's made in the Foreign Affairs Ministry, it's fantastic, but the amount of work is grueling. She can only delegate so far."
Milliardo found his voice. "You are RLTT?" he demanded.
Jake blew out another sigh, ruffling a hand through his hair again. "What else can you do with blood money, Zechs? The amount my uncle left behind… it was insane, and all of it dirty as hell. You and Treize always acted like the only way forward was to take over, become the guy with the bigger stick, but Lu and I thought maybe there were other ways. I didn't really have anything to lose, so I made RLTT, and Des coached me through a lot of the early financial stuff before I got my feet under me and… it works. It works better than anything else I've ever tried, so… That's just who I am, I guess. I don't want to keep my life so compartmentalized anymore – Relena's shown me that I can really take it anywhere I want, and that's what I'm going to do."
…He was having trouble reconciling the enormity of that statement, but he could do that later, while his friend wasn't watching him for a reaction. On the one hand, he greatly respected RLTT; he had before his sister's candidacy, but especially since. On the other… Jake has always been secretive, he reminded himself. He had always had some kind of secondary scheme running, even if it was revenge on a teacher for a dirty remark back at Lake Victoria. The fact that he could hide something so big was daunting, but at the same time… knowing all his spare energy had been going to RLTT instead of any other number of conspiracies was a relief.
It also went a long way to explaining how interwoven he had become with Relena, and… that compound had come from somewhere. His records had listed it as private and otherwise waived it off as being an RLTT thing, but- "You own the Munich compound," he realized.
"I do," Jake agreed calmly, though he was watching him as if waiting for an explosion. "Relena wanted her own space, and after the attack on Brussels… I wasn't interested in going partway on any kind of security." He shrugged. "We'll have to sort out a lot of things when she gets around to reclaiming Sanc as more than a point on the map, but for now, this is her home." He rubbed a hand over his face. "A lot of the Foreign Affairs staff have apartments in one of our outbuildings too, and it's,,, getting busy, but so long as she's happy, Lena is welcome here. I designed the space for her use anyway, and…" He sighed again. "Relena will always be welcome wherever I am. My world only spins on her command, if that makes any sense."
The look in his eyes when he talked about Relena was the same as when he used to follow after Noin, longing even as she left him behind. Though the context… He didn't care to think about it. Relena would be nineteen in just two more months, which… technically meant she was now older than Noin had been when the gundams fell to Earth.
The idea was… discomfiting. Jake had insisted, time and again, that Relena was very much like Noin, for all that he couldn't see the similarities himself, and with that devotion in the other man's eyes, in his voice…
Jake was always Noin's, not mine, he reminded himself. And if Jake had transferred that devotion from a dead woman to his own sister… that was a good thing. It meant Relena would have more support, more resources at her disposal than he could offer her. It was good.
Conclusion made, he very firmly shut a mental door on the topic and resolved to not question it.
"I need to go," he decided. "We'll speak again another time."
"Sure."
oOo
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Munich, Germany – Sarracenia
Jake took a moment after Zechs hung up to manually check that the line was disconnected; that the video feed's firewall restriction was rescinded, nothing malicious left behind in the isolated bubble of security he had set up for the call. He didn't think Zechs would try to insert a trojan into his system, but you didn't maintain a secure system by being sloppy. After all, he'd never thought the man would resort to using dolls again either. Better to be safe than sorry.
That done, he leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head, mentally shaking off the changes he'd made to his perception – the internal part of the lies. It hadn't been hard to summon up real anger for Treize, there was always some lingering resentment if he thought about the right incident, but twisting it into a story that he could believe in the heat of the moment, full of disgust and rage and helpless despair – that took a bit of mental dexterity. Though… Des is probably right, he resolved. I am going to have to talk to him about A0206. He was settled over any of the rest, he'd been exaggerating to sell the role, but… that kept sticking. It had worked out, but that manipulation had been a good chunk of why he avoided his foster brother so much during the war, only answering the phone after Treize had gotten himself put on house arrest in October.
He turned his head to smile at BJ when his door opened, feeling tired but pleased. "I told you he'd buy it," he pointed out, resisting the urge to yawn. He'd stayed up all night in part to help sell the right mood, and he'd been able to get good work done while he waited for the call, but all the same? He'd be happy for a nap.
It was too bad Relena was out of the house today – she was too busy to take a nap herself, but if she'd been working from home, she wouldn't have minded him using her lap as a pillow. That would have been nice.
The spymaster gave him a level look, crossing his arms. "I'm not comfortable with how good you are at that," he admitted quietly.
Jake rolled his eyes. "Don't be dramatic – I told him what he wanted to hear mixed with enough reality to cover my bases. It wasn't hard, especially with Treize prepping him – he more or less paved the way, it was so easy. All I had to do was make him feel guilty and remind him we had loved ones in common. He filled the rest of the gaps himself."
BJ raised his brows. "And all the lines about Relena and RLTT?"
He shrugged. "It'll make things smoother if we still have to work with him after Lena and I go public. Just warming him up a bit."
BJ considered that for a moment before nodding thoughtfully. "All the past tense about Miss Noin was a nice touch," he decided.
Jake nodded. "I'm not sure I could've pushed it that hard if I didn't have a proof of life," he admitted. At least, not without having to lock myself in a dark room to scream for a while afterwards. Before, he'd settled on believing in the chance just to keep himself from doing something monumentally stupid, but it was… much easier to play that card these days. "I was ready to twist the knife harder if need be," he added, "but he didn't take the bait and we covered what I needed, so." He shrugged.
BJ blinked. "What did you have in mind?"
"Something about how Des would have told me if he'd ever gotten a proof of life, and leave it hanging; imply that that was why he had another baby." He rolled his eyes. "But Zechs has always treated Des like he has as much agency as a piece of furniture, so, you know, he didn't ask anything about him. Ugh. The asshole has the empathic capacity of a preschooler – if it's not immediately about him, it's not real." Making a face, he admitted, "I probably need to ask Leia to move to a set of rooms I could lock down at will, though. I don't think he'll ever be back here to find that lie, but Dorothy's old set of rooms is literally the least secure place to put her, when it comes to anyone else's privacy. I figured before I could always claim she was staying in the guesthouse, but since the Noins moved in, that won't work anymore." He wasn't going to stop Leia from having the run of the compound, but he needed an intact cover all the same.
BJ nodded thoughtfully, looking out the window. "He handled the RLTT news well – I was surprised you brought it up so soon after he admitted to suspecting you of duplicity."
"He was sold on my loyalty before he picked up the phone," Jake argued. "I felt it out, it was clear as day, and decided it was better to drop now than later – let him feel like he's in on the secret, and bind me tighter to Lena in his mental framework." A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth as he leaned back further, closing his eyes for a long moment. "I think he picked up on the fact that I'm in love with Lena too, but he chickened out rather than taking the bait." It was too bad – that one would have been fun. But he'd laid enough groundwork down that even if the man got upset over the news later, he'd feel like he'd seen it coming too, and that was enough to work with. So long as Zechs felt like a co-conspirator, like he'd been clever enough to be in on a secret ahead of the pack, he would err on the side of illusory control over outrage.
BJ nodded some more before crossing his arms and pivoting back to face him. "You never talk about your brother," he noted. "All you've said to me was that your uncle had him, and that he was 'lost.'"
…That wasn't right. Frowning, Jake sat up fully, spinning his chair to face the other man head-on. "That's… grossly inaccurate," he denied, speaking slowly as he tried to find where the misstep had happened. They had discussed Junior before.
His spymaster looked exasperated. "Yet here I was under the impression he was dead."
Jake stared at him incredulously. "What exactly do you think Jack is up to?" They'd never discussed his father in any great detail and BJ had been too busy with all the prep for Treize's announcement for Jake to bother just yet with the frankly old – dead – news of the bomber, but…
BJ wasn't present for the Christmas conversation, he realized. Not by any kind of intent, just… it hadn't been about any kind of business. And they'd discussed Rubato at length about any number of venues, but… he hadn't been trying to make it personal.
Shit. In all fairness, he… had thought the other man already knew.
BJ's eyes had narrowed. "I was under the impression that you would rather I leave your father out of business," he noted dryly. "He's civilian, isn't he?"
I am in such deep shit. He resisted the urge to laugh. "Yeah, but a couple days before Christmas, he broke into my brother's room and has since been more or less adopted by the Revenants," he admitted.
"…The Revenants," BJ repeated. "As in Revenant Rubato."
Don't laugh. Jake gusted out a deep breath, dropping back into his chair again. "Yeah. So far as we can tell, Stanton and my brother ran together for at least the end of the war and 196, before getting separated in 197 because Cambyses got hold of Stanton. The Revenant rep Relena met last week as good as said that the first thing Robby did after getting out of Africa was hunt down Odin – that Revenant Rubato was something the two of them came up with, then roped the rest into." When the other man only stared at him, he added, "It's why we were already so interested in Rubato back in November – Junior walked into an HTD office a couple days before Halloween."
BJ looked deeply unimpressed, but only stared at him for a few moments longer before releasing a long breath. "I thought the interest was the similarity to RLTT," he admitted.
"I mean, that's definitely a factor," Jake acknowledged. "Though Jack is firmly of the opinion that Robby Stanton, Cat Wilson, whatever you want to call him, is the group's mastermind. Odin seems to be the heart of a lot of their goals, but otherwise does odd jobs and is hip deep in engineering for Neut and Da Capo." His breath hitched as he thought back to last week. "I've only talked to him once, but I think Jack's right." Grimacing, he added, "Actually, you should probably sit down, there's a lot to unpack. Apparently the Dutchman asked a favor last month that culminated in the upper echelon of Revenant Rubato teaming up with an Insurgence squad and taking our chemical bomber off the playing field."
BJ gave him a hard stare, even as he took him up on the offer and settled into Des's favorite chair. "You learned this when, exactly?"
The problem with transitioning power was that he was used to being the only one who needed to know every piece on the board at all times. "It's been a really busy week," he defended.
"Miller."
"Five and half days." He winced. "We've all been working our asses off, and none of it was actionable news. I thought it could wait until this first crux of the reveal was done." Which, technically, was literally right now, so that had gone according to plan?
Also, he really had thought that BJ knew his brother was a Revenant. They'd talked about the group's motives, their outreach and suspected scope of influence in seemingly endless detail.
The man had a definite talent for judging stares. "Our conversations about Rubato's financials?"
"They were reasonably substantial before November, but." He shrugged. "My net worth is only half of what my uncle left behind."
"…I did think you were being rather cavalier about their prospective scope," BJ decided after a long moment. "I thought it was lack of appropriate perspective."
Jake shook his head. "Depending on how fully Junior is backing them, their pockets are just… deep." He took a deep breath. "And… the more I look at the intricacies of the businesses? Maybe it's just that they're crowd-sourcing, we don't know the skill set of any of Stanton's men that he took out of the desert, but… they're managing it better than I know how, on a scale I have a hard time conceiving." His father truly seemed to believe it was all Cat's doing, but that… considering everything else they'd already pinned on the man, that was a stretch. Maybe Cat Wilson, Stanton, whatever he wanted to go by was at the core of it, but Rubato's range of enterprises was truly massive, and he had a hard time believing one man could juggle all of it. Jack had never ventured far enough into the white collar field to have perspective for just how much work that implied – and besides, the ranks of Rubato were hardly thin.
Then again, he was mostly sure his recent RLTT email conferencing with a Rubato rep was only with one person, and so far… Hm.
"So there's two of you," BJ announced, looking entirely put out.
Rude. "I think that's only if we're counting Odin and Cat as the same entity," he hedged. "Apparently my brother has a tendency to tell everyone to fuck off so he can wander wherever his feet take him."
That last was… very much like Odin. Like Senior, he reminded himself. Except apparently a good chunk of Junior's free time went to either math or the fairer sex, neither of which their uncle had ever touched.
BJ considered that for a long moment before asking, "And von Koll?"
Jake grimaced. "Is apparently also a close war buddy of both Stanton and my brother."
"…Great," the other man decided, voice flat even as his eyes glittered. "The Insurgence?"
"We're not sure how strong the connection is there," he admitted. "It's strong enough that Xutao Chang is a familiar, friendly face at Rubato meet-ups, but…" He blew out a breath. "We have literally no idea."
"…You funded Treize's rebellion and Relena's expansive RLTT projects at the same time."
"…Yeah." Cassidy had said it outright last Saturday, and the implications were not lost on him. But there was also nothing to say that the relationship was anything more than cautiously traded favors, so…
Nothing actionable. There was a reason he'd been putting this off.
BJ let out another long breath, then steepled his fingers. "Alright, one thing at a time. Let's have everything we know about the chemical bomber first."
oOo
oOo
February 1st 199 – Saturday – Space, between the Dark Site and Earth
"This isn't about independence. The colonies have been virtually independent since the Fall – maybe it wasn't absolute, but it's a better deal than they have ever seen so far, and it was only the beginning. The colonies as a whole have been devoted to peaceful progression from the start – this is yet another minority group of radicals going to extreme measures.
"I can accept that Treize did not feel safe admitting his survival in the wake of the Fall. I can even accept him choosing to maintain that secrecy, for all that I disagree with it. But he could have chosen any number of constructive, diplomatic, avenues – he didn't. No, instead he decided to build another army so he could pick another fight with my brother, for what? Status quo? Men are dying up there for someone's ego once again! And that is not acceptable!"
Quatre considered the righteous fury radiating from every line of Relena's body, wishing once again that he could catch emotion through an electronic line. Not that it would have applied anyway, this broadcast was days old… but he would have appreciated the extrasensory perception. On its own, he would never doubt anything about the princess' indignant speech. Knowing what he did, however… it was incredibly intriguing.
Audi was obviously confused. "I thought you said they were allies?" Uncertainty rose, alongside something more subtle that he would have to concentrate to pin down. "Do you think they, like… broke up?"
Quatre found himself smiling as he listened to Relena's call to arms – commendations for the Regime soldiers in space, defending their once ruined home from yet another monster in men's clothing, and something far more Relena too. A call for like-minded individuals to join a new committee she was founding, in order to pool resources and assemble a list of accords for how to prevent the situations that had led them to this place in history yet again. Separate from her Ministry, but still with the weight of Foreign Affairs standing behind it, he mused. A drawing board of sorts for new laws, changes to budgets in order to gain better intelligence on both the foreign and domestic scale, and…
He raised his brows. 'Determine the changes needed to craft a more rigorous, decisive justice system.' There were prettier phases surrounding that particular bombshell, and it would be easy to interpret it under the outright rage in her eyes throughout her speech, but that was a hidden gem. The wildly variable flaws and inaccuracies in the justice system of both the Alliance and Romefeller had been something the two of them discussed in depth on two separate evenings while in Sanc, and consequently he knew that phrase meant exactly what it said.
If she both did it right and got this new group off the ground, it would give her legal power to indict her brother. Or exonerate those who had fought against White Fang. The charges laid against himself and the other pilots in particular during the Regime's inception had been listed as 'classified,' – which might have been funny if not for how worried he had been that Heero was going to succumb to his wounds. Later, they had simply been listed as 'enemies of the state.' He'd seen something about 'sedition' once too, before he'd decided there was no more point in looking at the records. After all, no one seemed to care how baseless and illegal some of the Regime's proclamations were.
At least the Alliance bothered with the title 'terrorist.' Though to be fair, they had thrown that charge around with little care for suitability. Despite the original Operation M plans, the five of them had not been terrorists – they had pursued military targets. Though technically Wufei had qualified after he bombed the dorms at Lake Victoria – the fresh graduates might have legally been soldiers, but that building had housed far more than one year of students. And of course, his own actions with Wing Zero…
But no. No, that… He hadn't really believed his sisters before, when they told him that whatever he had intended with Wing Zero next, he hadn't done anything truly damning. He had chosen to grudgingly agree and wave it off, ask to not talk about it, chosen to not look into it before Libra – then after, he'd had bigger problems. It had been hanging over his head, his own personal sword of Damocles even after Cambyses, but…
Odin had pulled him aside while they were both at the dark site and thanked him. And of course he'd meant it for the horror of those fourteen months after Libra fell, but he'd also talked about Wing Zero's fall – there had been no crash, he'd corrected that assumption – and… an incidental.
~~oOo~~
"And L1-Z00736."
Quatre blinked, mind still reeling over… It's fine, he decided, detaching himself from Howard's sedate optimism a few rooms down. He didn't anchor on his friend, because he had asked, but Odin's emotions were strong enough that he could pick up hints without fully experiencing them, standing close like this. What he caught matched his friend's words, his slightly awkward but genuinely contrite features, but there was a lingering uncertainty too. Not directed at me, though. It would be stronger, otherwise, so… "I don't understand," he admitted. He tried to not think about the three sites he had vaporized with Wing Zero's twin buster, but he knew them all by name. L1-Z00736 had been the last – the largest too, as he tested the gundam's capabilities in an exponential curve, and…
His breath caught in his throat. He… was more willing to think about the direct violence he had committed in the Sahara, he realized. There, he had had to sort it out day by day, piece by piece, and every time, even with his mind twisted beyond recognition, he had known his actions were the best available option. The least cruel necessity.
The lives of the people on the tiny colony had not been necessary. He didn't know anything about them, they hadn't even updated their census data since 189, which made absolutely no sense – it would have hurt them more than any tax evasion might have gained. Not for the first time, he wondered if it had been some kind of militia cell, operating on goods stolen from the Alliance's embargo, and-
It had been a miniscule colony, only just barely large enough to have standard colonial gravity, strictly urban only – more of a holding station, a warehouse, than a living space. But even such tiny island could have hundreds if not thousands of residents, and what if it had been some kind of safe zone, and-
Odin shattered his thoughts with an uncomfortable shrug and a wave of dread, of… Quatre fought not to recoil as he realized it was fear. Maybe something closer to revulsion than terror, but definitely still fear, and emotion he had never caught from his friend. Dread, revulsion, fear… sorrow.
And then… nothing. Smooth as glass.
Quatre gritted his teeth. That was dissociation, of an absolute variety bordering on what Cory did. And as glad as he was for the wave to have vanished before it could fully crash over him, it was also deeply unsettling.
Odin, meanwhile, had either missed his friend's revelations or chosen to ignore them. "L1-Z00736 was a Barton foothold in that sector," he explained. "I don't know how you realized that, or if your choice was incidental – I know you weren't…" He trailed off, looking more uncomfortable, before simply saying, "Thank -you."
He felt like his lungs were going to explode. A Barton base? Not that anything else Odin had said made sense so far, but hearing that it had not been a civilian settlement… I should be the one thanking him. The relief was entirely priceless. He could consider that later, though. "Thank you for telling me," he returned slowly, watching the other man's reaction carefully. "But I still don't understand."
Odin's mouth twisted. "We built Wing there," he explained. "The final stages of it, at least. I did most of my training there, and it was home in between missions. But then… the retraining. That was there too." He paused, taking a deliberately slow and even breath, before adding, "I think… I think the retrieval team was dead before I stole Wing, looking back, and… it was a skeleton crew even before the retraining. J kept a minimal, insular staff even when he still had other candidates, and the others washed out before 193. But after…" He looked to the side, thinking, even as that echoing, empty dissonance echoed around Quatre's soul. "They might have all abandoned the base anyway, after J and I launched our version of Operation Meteor," he decided. "But… if anyone was still there. I'm glad that they're not. Thank-you."
Even if he hadn't been able feel that deeply buried crush of that dread, something close to panic – barely there, an echo of an echo, and only detectable because he'd accidentally broken his word and anchored on the other man again as an instinctive response to that dissonance – he recognized that same word Odin had used before. "Retraining?"
Another slow breath, too calm to be a sigh. "That was what J called it."
…Okay. "What were they retraining?"
"Me."
He quashed his irritation at the asinine response, recognizing that it probably wasn't intentional. Take a different tack. "Why?"
Odin considered that for a long moment, seconds stretching on for nearly half a minute before he settled on, "Dekim thought I was too emotional."
"…Too emotional," he repeated. To his credit, his voice only held a fraction of the incredulity he felt.
Odin's lips pursed as he considered his response. "J said it was to keep me from breaking down again. A sort of… desensitization. A blunting of emotive responses. To… make 'a perfect soldier.'"
The idea that someone had made Heero the way he had been during the war intentionally was deeply upsetting, and he tugged a bit of his friend's bizarre serenity into himself to still his own response. Keeping his voice even, he asked, "You recognize how wrong that is, right?"
He felt a glimmer of Odin's usual steel, his impenetrable resolve, and pointedly suppressed the relieved sigh that wanted to escape. "Yes. Even if that had been all it was, I… yes. No one…" On anyone else, it probably would have been a full body shudder – on Odin, it looked closer to a flinch. "I think it was a lie. If all they wanted was… They kept making it worse. If the goal was really what J said, to make me stop reacting to missions gone wrong, to have less emotional trauma, there was no reason to…" His face twitched in some kind of aborted expression, before he added, "If that was the goal, why did it keep getting worse, even after I stopped pushing back and did what they wanted? I think…" He stared off into the middle distance for a solid ten seconds before deciding, "It felt goal-oriented, but… I think they just wanted to hurt me."
Quatre sucked in a breath and pulled harder at his friend's dissociation, shrugging it around himself like a coat, joining him in very pointedly not looking back towards the increasingly volatile ball of emotions resting somewhere deep in Odin's mind. He'd missed it before today, but… he didn't think it was new. Just… growing larger, maybe, more obvious. Or maybe just less repressed. Still, some kind of neutral response was called for, an acknowledgement, so… "I hadn't realized," he admitted.
"Even if no one was there at all, I'm glad the colony is gone," Odin decided. "The more I think about it… J might have killed them all before he talked me down. That last time I saw him… I think he knew how close I was to giving up entirely. Or… J killed at least some of them, and I left, so maybe they evacuated, rather than risk me coming back. But… maybe they were there. Retaliation was the very first thing they…" Odin paused to swallow, that knot of emotions growing more chaotic, even as it stayed deep. "I would like to think they stayed there," he decided. "The medical team…" His breathing hitched. "I'm not sure they would have stopped. Not after a year of… me. People… don't do things like that for an entire year then pretend it never happened. If they didn't die…"
Quatre reached out and clasped Odin's shoulders in both hands, leaning down to meet his eyes. "They're gone," he assured his friend, pushing away the niggling doubt, refusing to acknowledge the fact that he didn't know any of the details – the fact that the man known as Heero Yuy was this upset was answer enough to the severity of the issue. If need be, they could go over it in more detail to try and be sure Odin's personal boogeymen were well and truly dead, but for the moment, he would rather ease his friend's mind. Odin was effectively immune to empathic influence, that deep well of his emotions as immovable as an ocean, but talking him down wasn't any different from resettling one of his guys from the Sahara – using a push was just a shortcut. "They're gone, you're here, and you were the one to teach me that so long as you survive, anything else can be sorted out," he reminded him. "And I, for one, am really glad you're here."
"Thank-you," Odin repeated, and though his voice sounded hollow, his eyes smoldered, and something sharply sweet interlaced with the rest of his emotions, so hot that Quatre reflexively dropped the connection. "For everything."
~~oOo~~
On the bright side, his sisters hadn't just been placating him in order to prevent another meltdown – his first two targets after his father's death had apparently been confirmed unoccupied, as even while losing his mind, he had apparently needed to work up his nerve. Then L1-Z00736 had been a military installation that Odin was viscerally relieved to see taken off the map. That, looking back, he was fairly sure the man had been working himself up to even talking about for months.
So he thanks me, and I find myself even more grateful for him. It was an odd cycle, if admittedly not a bad one.
"We cannot allow the war to repeat itself," Relena insisted on the screen. Not when we have only just begun to find our footing again."
Thematic, he mused, not smiling again. And in line with what we want. He wasn't sure Lucrezia's notion of a stalemate truly could force the East into idleness, but he was more than happy to aim for it.
Still, given his knowledge of the clandestine alliance between Relena and Soleil, this was… an odd approach. Did Treize renege on his end of a deal? Possible, he supposed, especially given the source… but if Soleil was something Tricia was supporting, which seemed likely, it didn't match up. No, this felt more like a misdirect, Treize playing at a foil or catspaw, which… he didn't see the gain for Treize, but that only meant he was missing pieces of the picture. If Relena and Treize were truly allied, then this… was some kind of power grab.
Which meant that this little committee she was proposing was likely already solidly built, and this was just a way to make it public. That boded well.
"I don't understand," Audi announced, moving pointedly into his field of view and crossing her arms. "You're smiling – I thought we were interested in Soleil, not wanting to see them torn down."
Quatre shook his head, trying not to laugh. "We are," he agreed. "And I suspect they're on good terms. Relena has gotten remarkably good at…" He did let out a chuckle then, recognizing the depth of the play. "This is bullshit."
Audi gave him a disbelieving look. "What?"
He could be a long way off the mark here, but he didn't think he was. "She just trapped her brother in a conflict in space while she openly consolidates power that would otherwise undermine him." He laughed again, delighted. "This is beautiful bullshit."
oOo
oOo
February 3rd 199 – Monday – Gulf of Valencia
"No further sign of pursuit," Auda announced, sounding pleased. "We appear to be in the clear."
"Keep the radio chatter to a minimum until we make the rendezvous," Lucrezia ordered. Just because they had this kind of smash and run tactic down to an art didn't mean they could afford to stop being careful. Coming this far west honestly had her nerves rattled – they had no base of operations here. The area was too heavily populated, and it had never been worth the risk of an extended run – at least, not with mobile suits.
Rubato had opened up an entire world of possibilities though, especially with Quatre's careful reorganization of two different shipping companies. Covert flights for personnel were easily accomplished now, and even at this moment they had a veritable fleet of shipping containers waiting to haul their suits from a hot zone to a location where they could discreetly make their way back to one of the established MS bases – Blue Nile, today. It allowed her to further push out the rumors that they had the same level of stealth tech as L2's gundam, even if it was only bait and switch tactics.
Though they technically did have Deathscythe's stealth tech now – it just… wasn't applicable. Not to group tactics, at least. Chalkydri would have it, and the parameters for its use were in the sims she was working on a few hours every other if not every day, but… it was a miracle that the tech had ever been applicable to Peacemillion – Howard said Professor G must have crafted an AI for it, and that comparatively it was slipshod work, but still better than nothing. The jammers were an ambush fighter's delight, but would only be useful for the lone wolf tactics the gundam pilots had been known for, and even then… the level of constant attention and recalibration required on a sliding scale of increased insanity for greater movement… Its utility was significantly limited.
Of course, no one outside their circle knew that, which left plenty of room to take advantage.
On the other hand, she hadn't particularly wanted to pick a fight in Spain, because the Regime was supposed to be strong here and she did not want to give the East ideas. As horrifying as the situation in northern Italy had become, the Regime's fast response had been a hell of a deterrent – a great big 'Are you sure you want to fuck with me?' to Eastern Romefeller. A proof that, despite how the majority of the army was away, Europe was not ripe for the plucking. Maintaining that impression, that balance of power, was also why she had backed off on major incursions while Zechs was in space – if the Regime looked too weak, too conflicted, that could spark something new.
Libramentum, however, had not gotten the fucking memo. And Treize was going to make her blood boil – he must have known his announcement would cause mass desertions, planned or otherwise, tipping the power balance back in the East's favor, and yet…
What was the point of that little show? Because even a grieving Treize, convinced that Leia and Mariemaia were dead, would not stoop so low as the seeming villain on the screen last week. She'd seen him when Leia had killed off her birth identity 194, and while he'd been a wreck until they'd confirmed it was only a cover, he hadn't lashed out. Despite what everyone wanted to think of the man, the 'villain' persona he played up for this or that coup just wasn't in line with his personality. Even if he had gone entirely off the deep end for some reason, this… wasn't the way he would do it. She was sure of that.
As much as she hated herself when she looked back, Milliardo's descent into madness had not been without warning signs. Quite a few of them. Or outside his style of retaliation. He had always been fixated on revenge as an ultimatum, never planning for what came after, and she'd been a damned fool to think he could ever let it go once he got what he wanted. Instead, he'd just found a new cause to seek vengeance for and-
Enough. She forced herself to take a deep breath, closing her eyes, trusting her proximity sensors to tell her if she was too far off course for a precious few seconds… and missed Odin. It wasn't as though he would have anything helpful to say, but just being near him had a way of mellowing out her nerves. It's just another week or so. He hadn't set an exact timeline for his trip to the dark site, but he'd promised to be back before Valentine's Day, and that wasn't so far off.
In the meantime, she got to pick fights with stupid people who were so fixated on their own goals that they didn't bother with the global picture. It was a waste of resources and fuck, but she'd lost two pilots on this fucking fight that… was entirely pointless.
Not pointless, she reminded herself, gritting her teeth. The balance of power was literally staving off invasion; it was important. But that didn't make it sting any less that she had come to the defense of Regime troops against another rebel cell that should have known better.
Fuck, but there are going to be waves of consequences from this. The precedent was dangerous, and she had lost people, and if she had to do it again… both sides of the three-way she'd just thrown in on were going to know that was a possibility, now, which would make any future options far more difficult. But she'd done it because it was the best she had on a list of shitty options, so… that was that, she supposed.
Though… much like the Valladolid base last month… the numbers were off when it came to the Regime troops. Libramentum still would have had a better chance of victory than the Regime, but… it would have been close. Or maybe the Regime would have pulled ahead anyway, and…
It didn't make any fucking sense.
A window popped up on her screen, showing the data for an incoming encrypted message. There's our pickup. Time to get everyone back in formation and home safe, before she could properly grieve their losses.
oOo
oOo
February 4th 199 – Tuesday – Deep Space – Dark Site
"This," Howard declared, grinning broadly, "is some mad science shit."
The corner of Odin's mouth quirked up, though he didn't look away from the simulations they had been running as he pointed out, "J was one of the Mad Five."
Howard shook his head, watching the kid. "He wouldn't have pursued it far enough to get somewhere if he hadn't found a pilot capable of using it," he argued. "Maybe he would have been able to run a separate joint system that was AI-run just for the conversion to flight mode and left the rest of the suit in the more stable set, but… it would have been janky." And J always had liked his polish. The rest of them had declared Wing Zero a monster and gone off in different directions to make specialists, but J… he had looked at that beast and said it wasn't monster enough. The design for Wing was utterly insane, but to be sure, it was a thing of beauty. Bit of a nightmare too, but… well, that always had been J's style.
And it really was official – it had only been on sims, but even Lucrezia could barely handle the Wing gundam as J had originally built it. She was still by far the better pilot, but she didn't have the almost machine-like reflexes to turn a suit using this tech into more than a very expensive coffin. Maybe she could get there with enough practice, she'd shown some improvement before giving it a bad job, but… well, there wasn't much point. Conversely, Odin could do things on that system that made him doubt the simulations were accurate. He lacked Lu or Duo's ability to multi-task across a battlefield, their sheer technique, but the more he saw the kid work in his element, the more he realized the reason Odin wasn't on that same tier was because all his focus was tuned onto a different venue and he couldn't switch gears. He had been absolutely wasted on any other system – which, considering how the war had panned out was a little intimidating.
He'd only had access to J's masterwork, the unique instrumentation he'd been training on for years, for the first six weeks of the war. After that, the little berserker had just been winging it – pun fully intended. Hell. It was exciting, if not a little bit terrifying too. "Did you ever get a real chance to open Wing up before you blasted her?"
"…Technically, yes," Odin returned quietly. "And… maybe a little, in Siberia?" He frowned. "But I didn't, really."
Howard raised his brows. "Why not?"
"It… was too convenient."
"…Convenient how?" he demanded, entirely confused.
Odin pursed his lips, rolling one shoulder awkwardly. "The same as J's order to self-destruct, when Une threatened the colonies."
What the everloving fuck. "Really."
The kid sighed, leaning forward on his hands and staring into the projector. "Six and a half weeks on my own wasn't long enough to get my head on straight after the retraining," he offered as a complete non-explanation. "I hadn't flown Wing for over a year when the Operation began, and at first I was just finding my feet again, then testing its capabilities. Then…" He shrugged. "The more time goes by, the less sense I can make of my choices at the time. But I was relieved when J gave that order, so…" He shrugged again. "I wanted to see what I could pull off, but I also wanted to get proven wrong." He turned and gave Howard one of his little ghoul smiles. "No one was up to the task."
Howard considered that for a moment before deciding he just needed to say it. "What the fuck did he do to you?" He'd wondered before, but-
Odin barked out a startled, dark laugh. "He made me."
Howard's heart twisted. "Kid-"
Odin cut him off with a gesture to the display. "He gave me this. Whatever else there was… we had this. More than five good years." He grimaced. "It doesn't make up for the last one, but… if I'm giving my father that much leeway, I might as well let J have it too." He sighed, still not looking away from the display. "I've been getting questions lately – maybe you know the answer. I never really thought about it before, but… how much of an engineering apprenticeship did I get through, those five and a half years before J… turned sour?"
He hadn't been sure before this visit, but the last six days of work had been clear enough. "You're a little overspecialized, but you finished it, kid." He waved a hand at the projection. "This wing-shield of yours is proof enough – it's an original design." There was more to it than that, but that was just minutia.
Odin slumped a little with his next sigh, looking both relieved and inexplicably sad. "So he left me with alternative career options."
"…Possibly on accident, but yeah, I'd say so. You'd have to play a bit of catch-up to do something in a field other than MS, but that's what fellowships are for." He considered, then added, "And given what I've caught about Neut, you could probably teach yourself whatever you needed by working with them to go fully domestic." The kid wasn't on Howard's tier, but… he probably could be, given another decade of work.
Odin let out a wry smile. "It's more than my father did." Shaking his head, he started to interact with the display, tapping a few keys before swiping through a different set of folders, bringing up a different design entirely. "I wanted to get your opinion on something."
Howard took a step closer, trying to decide just what he was looking at. "Oh?"
The kid's smile was more serene this time as he finally turned his head to meet his eyes again. "I've been thinking of other applications."
oOo
oOo
February 5th 199 – Wednesday – Paris, France
"I'm not dropping anything," Shel protested, rolling her eyes as she dug her shoes out from under the bed. "You already said this one wasn't hot – I'll only put it on the backburner for a week or two." She made a face. "I'd rather not, but if you're so bothered by the delay, I can pitch you another name – I can't promise my flair, but I think you'd be happy enough with Oakley's work."
Arthur, or whatever his name really was, sighed into the microphone on his end of the line. "No… I don't want to do that."
A swell of self-satisfaction rose in her gut, and she grinned as she sat down on the edge of her bed to do up her laces. "I won't be long," she reminded him. "And I'll try looking at it a bit, but this is the kind a of lead I can't ignore." It was hot – and she had an in she could make use of in Brussels to boot. Maybe she was wrong, but her intuition told her there was something not being said about the sudden defection of Brigadier Mitchell and the entirety of the Strike Force. Plenty of people had either vanished or handed in their papers with the new broadcast from space – and the Soleil Coalition, what a name! Ugh, if only she wasn't too far away to do much with that kind of story! – but the brigadier's disappearance struck a different note.
Maybe. Every investigation entailed some confusion, and the difference in tone for what the Regime let out as general information might be incidental.
But. But, but. She smelled a story.
"I'll give you a call sometime in the next week and let you know," she told the man. "In case you change your mind." Currently Arthur's leads were fun, even besides being the kind of story she wanted the world to know about, but he'd as good as said he had a thread of interest he was working his way through, a bigger story he wanted lead-up for. She'd been willing to play along before, and she still was – but she was allowed to have other priorities as much as he could always talk to a different investigative reporter. Depending on how this goes, I might end up on too focused of a scope for the next few months to play his game. Which would be a shame… but she'd give him references, if the Mitchell story turned out that good.
"Alright, take care of yourself," he decided. "Best of luck."
"Thank-you!" she crooned. "I'll be in touch!"
oOo
oOo
February 7th 199 – Friday – Berlin, Germany – The Berlin House
"Ta-da! This is why."
Quatre smiled, appreciating Audi's enthusiasm as much as the space. The sun had only just set, and while a hint of twilight remained, the city lights through the far wall were bright. Then she flipped a light switch, and the shadows at the far end of the room resolved into possibly the most elegant piano he had ever seen.
His heart melted. "Oh," he breathed, taking an unconscious step forward.
The girl preened. "Right? And the acoustics in here are awesome. Do you play?"
Ah. "Not really." He'd learned the basics, but his father had avoided him less when he focused on string instruments, and as such he had effectively abandoned the instrument before turning six. But every time one of his sisters came to visit, they would make their way to the music room, sit down, and reverently play, almost like a ritual.
It had always been one of his favorite things about their visits. Each of them had had a different favorite piece, and sometimes they would even play together, grinning and nudging each other playfully as they set to work on different keys. His father always left when the piano started to sound – and on at least five different occasions, he thought Tricia or Datania had used it as a way to chase the man off after a disagreement.
His mother, apparently, had been quite the pianist. Sometimes he had watched his sisters play and wondered what she must have been like, to both inspire so much love and yet leave everyone so unwilling to talk about her.
Audi wilted a little, looking back at the gorgeous behemoth with something like longing. "Oh. I'm okay, but not…" She waved a hand at the instrument. "Not that, you know?"
"That belongs in a concert hall," he noted mildly. "Not a house." Not that it wasn't pure art, but… it also seemed a waste. He had always thought his family's treasured piano was enormous, but it was perhaps half the size of this one.
He wasn't sure how much longer they might have continued staring if Cory hadn't broken the mood by moving for the kitchen. Audi visibly startled, shaking her head and following him. "Right," she muttered. "We might need to pick up groceries. I told Jack we were coming but not, like… any detail."
…Right. He stared after the two of them for a moment, because it had been mentioned, but at the same time… Detaching himself from Cory's quiescent static, he tentatively reached out for anyone else nearby.
…He couldn't decide if it was logical or eerie, the way that the man focused the same as Odin. He had been such a contrast the last time, always a few sparks short of a wildfire, a breathtaking miasma of too much, but right now? If he hadn't known better, or if he'd only been half paying attention, he might have mistaken that soul for his closest friend. There was an absolute, thrumming sort of concentration there; a smooth, methodical shifting of gears, like a well-oiled machine.
Considering the acoustics Audi had been bragging about a moment ago and the complete nonreaction to their presence, he assumed the soundproofing in this home was exceptional. "You said there was an office, right?"
Audi popped her head back around the corner to frown at him. "Yeah, but Odin doesn't do that, so he told Jack he could take it over. That's his space."
It was adorable that she was already so defensive of the older man, if not also a little alarming. Though honestly, he felt fairly safe filing her reaction under common courtesy. "I'm looking for him," he explained wryly. "Do you remember which door it was?"
She blinked, then frowned… before settling on a vague gesture. "One of those three?" she guessed.
He wanted to pick at her for that, but she had said she'd only been here twice – and as she'd already pointed out, neither she or Odin would have seen much use for an office. In point of fact, she had insisted they come here for the night primarily because she wanted to try out the pool, and had managed to get Cory excited enough about the idea that he had caved.
The first door he tried was some kind of lounge, and if not for the fact that there was a massive piano outside it, he might have thought it a room for the arts – it reminded him of the spaces his sisters preferred for instrument practice. Shutting the door, he considered the spacing of the doors and selected the next most likely option.
Jack looked up at the sound – not quite startled, but concentration definitely broken. "Oh. Hello." A thread of anxiety twisted through him, but it was nearly hidden in the amiable calm that was nudging into something like excitement as the man stood, tugging off a pair of glasses and setting them aside. "I hadn't realized anyone was here."
"I suspect this room is soundproofed, if not all of them," Quatre pointed out. "Since it's meant to be a work space."
Jack nodded thoughtfully, tapping something on his keyboard to dim his screens and stepping around the encircling desk. "I hadn't thought about it, but that makes sense," he agreed. "I don't know who had this place built originally, but the way it's divided up, combined with the drawing someone either never found or forgot to paint over under the laundry sink? They raised kids here. Or at least, they visited often and intended to have both adult and child spaces arranged. Despite the setting, this is very much a home, not a penthouse." He shook his head. "A carefully hidden one."
Quatre considered what he'd been told, then nodded. "It's not designed for parties, or to be shown off to strangers," he agreed.
Jack nodded back, gesturing to Quatre to lead the way as he headed for the door. "It's impressive, but personal and private," he continued, easily stepping ahead instead at Quatre's wave back without any rise of suspicion or concern. "Which matches for the family front – the highborn have always hidden their children." He shook his head, jamming both hands into his pockets as he walked out into the main and, as was clearly by design, the piano caught both of their attention again. "Whoever they were, they clearly loved music."
Given the view of the beautiful instrument set against the cityscape behind it, the thought he couldn't shake was that his sisters would adore this place – and he'd hardly even seen the first floor.
"Jack!" Audi called, leaning around the curve of wall that led to the kitchen again. "Did you have plans for these tortellini?"
A thrum of amusement, and pleased contentment with an edge of satisfaction. "You said you were showing up sometime tonight with friends," he reminded her. "Does that count?"
"Yes!" the girl cheered, darting back around the corner and obviously beginning to bang around for pots and pans.
Easy, informal food that could stretch a long way and was also not quite standard fare. It was a thoughtful compromise on what could, technically, have turned out awkward in a number of ways. "Did she tell you how many people?" Quatre asked curiously.
Amused exasperation, this time. "Nope." Heading for the kitchen, he admitted, "But I figured it would freeze well enough if I had too much."
Quatre smiled. "You could have asked her," he pointed out.
"That would have risked her overthinking it and reconsidering if she should come," Jack argued mildly, switching into Japanese. "This is supposed to be her home, but she's courteous enough to feel like an interloper if the tone is wrong."
Quatre considered that – and considered acting as though he hadn't understood the linguistic shift. But from what Odin and Duo had already said, he imagined there would be little point to that subterfuge. Even if he held it and convinced the man now – debatable – one of the others would blow it within the month. At some point while he'd been away, evidently everyone had decided to be casually not careful about this man, even while keeping him at arm's length. It left him feeling flat-footed, even as he appreciated the initiative that… well, it had Odin written all over it, even if he'd only done a fraction of the work.
His people were adept at reading a situation, and did good work. He just wasn't used to not being involved.
"I suppose that's a kind thought," he returned in French, watching for the man's reaction. "What languages do you speak?"
Jack grimaced. "Not so many as you," he returned in English. "Japanese came first, with English on its heels close enough as makes no difference, and I picked up enough Italian to be called fluent before turning twenty, though I've gotten much better at it since moving to Earth." He snorted, opening the fridge to begin pulling out ingredients. "My best friend is Italian, and he says my version of the language when we met was 'rude' at best. I'm not sure if he meant my grammar or word choice, and considering the people I learned it from, it could go either way. The L3 buccaneers were… an interesting bunch." Amusement rose again as he shook his head, chuffing out a short laugh. "I picked up German and Swiss after coming to Earth – my employers were based in Switzerland but Alliance-bred, and preferred English enough that I had time to learn. I'm fluent in both now, but have a bad habit of mixing them."
"And the French?"
Uncertainty, and something not quite shame, but still a close cousin of embarrassment. "I can usually read it, at least well enough to get by – it's close to Italian. As for understanding, I can do the basics, but anything more complicated is hit or miss." He shrugged, going to open what turned out to be a pantry. "I know pleasantries and how to ask for directions, but after that I'm left to sounding out translation responses off my phone. I didn't really live in that part of the country."
"French sounds weird," Audi commiserated, bringing over a large pot of water and turning on the stove.
Jack hummed out an agreement, setting a couple of tall bottles on the counter. "Pretty, though," he acknowledged. "Can you pull out the biggest skillet?" When the girl chirped out an agreement and moved to do so, Jack pulled out a cutting board and continued with, "I also picked up some conversational Cantonese and Spanish when I was younger, but suspect I've forgotten most of it."
He stopped talking after that, clearly finished, as he started pulling apart a bulb of garlic. Considering the array of ingredients he'd laid out… it looked like he was making some kind of white wine sauce. Quatre's stomach growled, and he caught another pleased riff of amusement from the man before Audi declared, "Still better than me. I think I've mostly got the hang of German now, but that's just three."
"I've had a bit more time to work on it," Jack teased gently. "English, German, and…?"
"Italian," the girl returned easily. "Cor speaks it first, but we're working on his English. Cat?"
He supposed he'd walked himself into this one. He could lie, but again – what would be the point? "English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Italian, Japanese, German and Cantonese." He knew a little Russian too, but not nearly enough to count, and going into the specifics of dialects didn't seem worthwhile to explain.
Jack nodded, feeling impressed. "Not bad at all," he complimented.
Audi groaned, hiding her face in her hands. "I'm never going to catch up."
Amusement still, but also a spark of interest, attention. "To him or Odin?"
Quatre scoffed, rolling his eyes. "One of these things is possible," he pointed out wryly. "Odin was very excited to tell me about how he'd recently heard a language he didn't understand, last week. We've clocked him for over forty now, but I doubt we've found them all. He maintains that English is his primary, but I'm not convinced he thinks in it."
"I maintain that he thinks in JavaScript," Audi intoned with a sage nod. "Or maybe Python."
"You've never seen him tired and stressed enough to lose track of his words," Quatre informed her grimly, resting a hip against the counter to watch Jack dice garlic with easy practice, debating if he ought to take off his coat and settle in properly. He'd half wanted to announce they weren't staying at all once Audi confirmed the older man would be there, but they'd probably passed the point of no return. "The first time he did it, I thought he was seizing or having a stroke, but now I'm mostly sure it was a pigeon mashup of who knows what."
Audi narrowed her eyes. "You thought he was what?"
Quatre grimaced, shifting his weight. "The first year after he hurt his leg was hard," he explained. "He got fevers that made him delirious more than once." He sighed. "Turned out it was just a nightmare, but it was terrifying and he didn't try to explain." He had woken up with the other man's gun close enough to his face to give him a jump-scare the next morning, which would have been enough of an explanation even without the utter self-loathing radiating from his friend, but…
Honestly, he was still having a hard time conceptualizing the fact that Odin had apologized for 196. He… honestly hadn't blamed the man or even resented it – he'd been too caught up in holding himself together long enough to see them both survive. But… looking back, it was a surreal to realize they had lived like that for an entire year. And…
Well. If he had ever needed a linear, clear example of how Odin was different from Heero? That conversation, the difference between then and now, met the mark.
Interestingly, Jack's emotional response wasn't startled or even upset – just resigned determination. Which meant-
"He's mentioned some of that," Jack admitted, seemingly focused on his knife work. "It sounds like the two of you had it pretty bad."
"That's one way to put it," Quatre agreed mildly. Thankfully, the Regime had shifted priorities by the time Odin ventured back out of Israel, and between that, his own changed features, his friend's returned mobility, and access to money, the situation was far better. There were still significant hazards, but they were frankly more anonymous now than they had been during the war, and that was very acceptable. They had far more resources now, and fallback options – not to mention the wisdom to know when it was time to resort to them. And in another six to twelve months, we might not be fugitives, he reminded himself. Possibly even sooner, depending on exactly what game Relena and Treize were playing, but he had his own plans in motion. The quiet public opinion campaign Mark and Ardith were helping him run had a fluid timeline, but frankly it was already going better than he might have hoped – in large part due to Relena, once again. Relena, and the History for Tomorrow Database, and the… Stantons.
He was beginning to truly appreciate that his sisters were everywhere. So long as he wanted to remain independent, that was going to become increasingly annoying.
"I don't suppose I have any right to say it," Jack ventured after a moment, still not looking up. "What with giving him up for dead years ago. But thank-you for looking after him."
Quatre shook his head. "We looked after each other," he negated.
"Respectfully, he was very clear on the point that you saved him. Repeatedly." Jack's tone was mild, but his emotions fiercely, absolutely loyal – which, before this moment, Quatre had never categorized as an emotion. The older man sighed, setting down the knife and looking up to meet his eyes. "Even leaving aside the physical end, the Sronas clearly mean the world to him and mark a hell of a paradigm shift, and he never would have stayed with them if not for your choices. From what Anne says, that… was incredibly important. So thank-you."
When did he meet Anne? He wanted to snap that Heero would have died if he had not found Dr Srona, which… proved the point, he supposed. All the same, he felt somewhat cornered – if he didn't know better, he might think they had both planned to ambush him with gratitude like this, one after the other.
All the same, it was Heero. "He would have gotten there eventually, with or without the Sronas," he informed the man quietly. "It's his way."
Jack nodded firmly. "Again, th-"
"He is my closest friend," Quatre interrupted, not interested in another repetition. "He saw me through the worst time in my life, he pulled me out of literal insanity, and then he helped me rebuild myself." As terrible as Cambyses had been, he had never been alone there. Without those memories of the three weeks after Trowa had- Without that blueprint of how to circle back and start again, he would have seen his people into Brigadier Mitchell's care and slit his own throat rather than look for a third option.
Then again, I never would have made it to Cambyses in the first place without that. The logic became rather circular early on. "He is the only reason I know it is even possible to move beyond tragedy," Quatre explained, grinding his teeth. "Of course I was going to see him through his own time of need."
Respect, only mildly tinged with concern, accompanied another firm nod from Jack. "I'm glad to hear it."
"Mm, if you guys have the food sorted, I'll go make my bed," Audi announced, clearly deciding to stay out of the more serious discussion. "Jack, you picked one of the suites, right? I figured I'd claim the other one."
"Furthest from the stairs," the man agreed, focusing back on processing more garlic.
"Cool." Directing those pale eyes on him, Audi asked, "Are you crashing in the master suite, or is it mine for the night while you take my room? The cleaning people will be through here again before Odin makes it back, so there's no good reason not to use it."
If they were talking about anyone else he would protest that logic – but while he doubted Odin would want anyone other than he, Audi, or Lu in declared personal space like that, sharing what he had within his personal circle was something that made the man happy on an instinctive level.
It was one of the things that had startled him most about realizing he'd both claimed a home and then had Jack Miller move in. It felt… premature.
"Whatever you want to do," he returned easily, letting his focus drift as he watched Jack's hands. I'm tired, he realized, debating shaking off his exhaustion, or just… letting it go. For all that he still couldn't make up his mind about the younger Miller, the elder had proven he was reliable enough to trust that far, or he wouldn't have been willing to come here in the first place.
"Mm, I haven't had my own room in a long time," Audi decided. "You and Cor take the master."
Let it go. "Alright." If Odin was serious about bringing the man into their circle, he had to start somewhere. Sighing, he stood up straight again and did the older man the courtesy of keeping his motions slow and deliberate as he shrugged out of his jacket. He'd noticed Jack clock his sabre in December, but his favored rig for the sword's conceal carry was exotic enough that it tended to startle. The man was observant enough to recognize this as a sign of trust – particularly because he was also observant enough to notice the spare clips stored in a kidney position and recognize the lack of visible gun for the extra intel it was.
Curiosity, and that respect stayed firm, but no apprehension – that was nice. "There's a coat closet over by the front door, if you want," Jack noted.
"I'll take it upstairs when I settle my bag," Quatre decided, draping the garment over a barstool for now and leaning back against the counter. "Did you want help with anything?"
"Nah, I've got it," the man returned easily. "This is something I've been making as a regular thing for over five years – my only hesitation is remembering the portions to make so much more at once." He shrugged, another riff of amusement paired with a thread of embarrassment. Embarrassment and wonder? An odd combination. "That, and just… I hadn't realized how much better it would be with fresh cream and such instead of milk, you know?" Gesturing back towards the fridge, he admitted, "That paper up there, I hadn't realized it was for anyone but me until someone rang the bell with a cart full of groceries. I'd been brainstorming, not…" He made a face, shaking his head. "I'm only here for a couple more days, so I've been trying to come up with ways to use up the perishables." A spark of something that would be hope, if it wasn't so chagrined. "Odin said there was a Rubato property nearby? Maybe you could take some of it back there. I was going to freeze the meat, but… I don't know." He was starting to look flushed. "It was an expensive mistake, and the idea of food going to waste has been tearing at me."
Quatre blinked. "I can," he agreed. "But why don't we go over it? Odin expects to be back by the eleventh or twelfth."
Jack perked up. "Yeah?"
He shrugged. "It's only an estimate, but yes." If he'd held to the original plan, he would have left the dark site sometime today; but he wouldn't be able to communicate for two or three days yet. Considering Charlie's quick gossip about various packages addressed to Odin that had arrived at the complex in Berlin's suburbia that served for Rubato's local headquarters that were from, ah, questionable businesses, he assumed his friend meant to at least stop through here, if not celebrate the romantic holiday here as well.
He looked back to the piano, wondering. Does Lucrezia play? The property was certainly lovely even if no one could appreciate the instrument, but at the same time, it felt almost like a wound, to see it sitting there and know no one could do it any justice.
Jack sighed. "I'll miss him, but I knew I probably would anyway," he acknowledged. "Thanks; I appreciate the update."
Quatre watched him cook for a long moment. He was still skeptical of the wisdom of this connection, but in the end of the day it was Odin's choice, and… he didn't have any particular grievance. "How is that going?" he asked curiously.
"The job?" At Quatre's nod, Jack nodded back more thoughtfully. "Good. I got caught up on the design changes that got popular after I left space fast enough – nothing too significant, really, which I was worried about at first. Since then, we made a few last minute tweaks that should help – Kikuchi was pretty excited about them, at least." Longing, nostalgia, and… something more intricate, but inexplicably sad even as it settled into contentment. "I spent enough time breaking into colonies when I was young, then more mundane work with Kikuchi while I served my time, then the last decade enforcing security in a corporate setting… it feels full circle, to come back to try and build something I couldn't break into." There was a wry twist to his mouth. "Or at least, something I wouldn't have. Nothing you need access to can be perfectly secure, but the trick is covering the gaps you need such that if anyone is stupid enough to try it, they walk into a less obvious trap you have absolute control of."
Sighing, he dropped butter into the skillet Audi had gotten out and turned on a second burner. "I'm looking forward to see it all come together," he continued, a building excitement matching his words. "It's nice to be a major part of something again, and it's… more wholesome than I really expected to ever get, too." There was a hint of apprehension now, both in his heart and across his face, even as he hurriedly attempted to bury it. "I really like it," he reaffirmed. "I just… didn't realize how well-suited I was until I got started, you know?"
Quatre decided to toss him a line. "Rolf was genuinely excited to tell me he'd hired you." Apparently, Jack had even turned out to be the best option on Andre Kikuchi's list – never mind that all but six of the men on said list had actually been deceased. As the man had just outlined, he was uniquely qualified for the position – for a while there, he'd thought they were going to have to make Odin design the security for the agricolonies. Which, while it would have worked, would not have been ideal. The couple points of white hat work Odin had done for the Insurgence didn't mean he had… any organizational ability. And even aside from that, they still would have needed to find someone to manage said security on an ongoing basis. While they shouldn't be a major target for theft or sabotage, the agricolonies were going to be both home and livelihood to thousands of people, not to mention the goods they would produce. Not protecting them would be criminally negligent.
And… maybe it was a further interview for the senior Miller. Depending on how he handled this comparatively minor level of security, on how his relationship with Odin continued to develop? They could bring him in closer. Odin was interested in doing so, and frankly, if not for the younger Miller and his connections, they might have simply done so and isolated the man if his reaction was less than favorable.
Though he doubted that would be the case – Jack was a born and bred L1 militia man, third generation. The only colonial rebel cell the militias had ever disavowed was White Fang. Though maybe that's because Dekim's original version of Operation Meteor was never implemented and therefore isn't common knowledge.
No, from everything said by the guys who had interacted with the man while Quatre was gone, the only possible point of contention was Jake Miller – a point that Jack was at least refreshingly open about. And since Quatre was still unsure about how interacting with that one would end, he figured the more time they stalled with Jack, the more attached the man would presumably grow to his younger son, and the further the scales would tip in their favor if the situation turned ugly. And given how attached Odin and Audi already seemed to be, he was inclined to stack the deck as heavily in their favor as possible.
Which, he supposed, meant making his own attachments. He slid into the barstool he'd settled his jacket onto and settled his elbows on the counter. "You said you make this all the time?"
"For the last five years or so," Jack agreed, smiling without looking up. "The friend I mentioned insists the jarred stuff is for kids who can't cook for themselves, and, well." He shrugged. "I like this more, and when you boil it down, it's cheaper too. It just doesn't reheat as well."
"No?"
"It's not bad, but it gets oily," Jack explained. "Since it doesn't have the preservatives to keep it from separating out." He shrugged. "It's fine if you package sauce and noodles separate, but I usually just did sandwiches when I was prepping a lunchbox instead, maybe a piece of fruit." He grimaced. "I was listing fruits to go and look for, maybe figure which one had the best price, and suddenly I have all of them. And not in single person amounts either, I-" He made a somewhat strangled sound.
Quatre grinned, feeling the embarrassed remorse clearly. "The guys won't complain," he replied placatingly. "Whatever we don't eat for breakfast, we can take over; you should know where the Berlin property is anyway."
Relief edged the embarrassment now. "I wasn't sure if not knowing was intentional," he admitted quietly.
Ah. "No, Odin is just bad at explaining things and there hasn't been a reason for you to go there yet. That said, you do work for Da Capo now, and that means you might need quick access to Rubato resources – at minimum, you should have the address and number of each office listed out in your phone." Not all the properties and safehouses, of course, and nowhere that Insurgence personnel should be filing though, but the business fronts would be common courtesy. "Given your role, you probably won't ever need them," he continued, "but it's better to be prepared." He hesitated a moment – a fraction of a moment, really, more of an internal thought process than something that could be noticed – before adding, "And it's nice to have somewhere to go when you don't want to be alone." Skye had been quick to say that four years in prison had a lot more in common with Cambyses than he would have originally thought – Raphael had then nodded and point out that some of the nastier characters Jack had faced in his militia career might make up yet more of the difference.
Yet more evidence for the pile, he supposed. All of his people – his minions, Skye would insist – liked Jack. Well, Dmitriy mostly wanted to poke at him and see what happened, and Jovi was treating all their interactions like his own personal sitcom, but that was baseline behavior that made for acceptance too.
More relief, alongside something overly complicated that would take more time to pick apart than was worth the effort. "I didn't want to overstep," Jack admitted.
Ah. "The only reason your phone hasn't been blowing up is because Rolf said to give you time to settle in, and Audi keeps remotely deleting your number off everyone's phone to enforce it," Quatre noted wryly. "Skye has a paper copy he keeps using to put it back in to the shared database, and at this point it's become a bizarre game of digital keep away devolving into odd collateral, since Skye doesn't know enough programming to find the lines of code she put in and has started to instead see what else he can trick the program into deleting."
Jack blinked, and there was a bright spark of amusement followed by… epiphany? "That goes a long way to explain the text from someone my phone had pre-labeled as 'Angel' asking who I was."
It was Quatre's turn to blink and then laugh, shaking his head. "Angel is one of mine," he agreed. "Though not in business. He wrapped up what was left of his secondary schooling quickly and dove right into an online university program. He keeps odd hours."
Jack snorted. "Yeah he does. It's good to know just who I've been helping with their homework, though."
Another laugh escaped him. "Really?"
Jack rolled his eyes, smiling back as he added a few ingredients to his pan. "I had, conveniently, just finished the book he was assigned to analyze when he first poked at me." He shrugged. "Then the next one was on Odin's reading list too, so…" He shrugged again. "It's been something to do with my downtime."
Quatre found himself raising his brows. "Kikuchi said you dove through a two week worklist in five days."
"After I took five days to get my head back in the game," Jack pointed out, sounding vaguely annoyed – though his emotions showed it as internalized, not directed. "I didn't want to risk falling behind. Then I had to wait on the next step, to see what anyone else thought, and for testing." He gave Quatre an incredulous look. "I've barely had the job for two weeks."
Quatre found himself smirking, delighted in spite of himself. "That was actually the point I was trying to make. No one expected you to find your feet this fast."
Ooh, now he was annoyed with him. "You have a launch date set for Monday."
Quatre felt his smirk spread into a full grin. "And we anticipated the need to retrofit – we knew we'd filled the position late enough that we likely needed to either push back our timing or make changes in situ. You negated any need for those plans." He shrugged. "Well, there might inevitably be something in need of retrofit, but we have no current expectations for such."
Jack narrowed his eyes at him, prickly ire wafting his way. "If I'm going to do something, I do it."
Quatre laughed. "Understood." A familial trait, once again. He'd be a bit less concerned about the younger Miller at this point if that drive appeared somewhat less ingrained – but so far, all his attempts to look deeper into the other young man's history was coming back pleasantly murky in all the worst ways. Shaking his head, he admitted, "I suppose I'm just remembering something my sister likes so say about the missing generation – that the survivors fall into three categories. The lucky, the wallflowers, and the indomitable. I suspected before, but I suppose I know now which group you belong to."
He got an eyeroll and a scoff for that, though the irritation faded out. "Young people think they can define everything that came before," he groused in a good-natured tone, starting to stir. "Nothing is so simple as that."
Quatre laughed again, just seeing Tricia's eyebrow rise to that comment. "She has five years on you," he corrected. Theratrice would be fifty on Tuesday, not that anyone would ever guess it by her face – whatever flaws their parents had passed on, at least the genetics were good on that front. Or we're all bio-engineered that way. They weren't, that was illegal and not actually funny anyway, but… well. His father certainly hadn't looked sixty-two when he died. He supposed he at least had that to look forward to.
Surprise, confusion… suspicion. "I thought… Inez Stanton?"
"I've never met the Stantons," he admitted freely. If Jack wanted to carry tales on that front, it would only aid his goals, and in the meantime it might be a decent gauge on what he was passing along. "I listed the Robin Stanton identity as something of a red herring, though I'm honestly surprised it worked so well as it did." If he had died, he'd wanted his family to have a clue to follow for closure; and Robin had matched both his chosen name in the desert and had, he was mostly sure, been an inactive placeholder instead of a maintained narrative.
Jack was frowning now. "But… they claimed you. So…"
"Oh, they didn't start making noise until after Razo told Inez about my Plan B exit." Plan A, really, but it had required Mitchell's intervention to get off the ground, so… Plan C? "I'm not entirely sure what their goal is, but my guess is political, especially if they do manage to prove I didn't die." He shrugged. "Though Razo says she looks like me, so maybe we are related. It's hard to say. I'm not particularly inclined to find out what they want, to be honest."
"…You don't know?"
His smile, he knew, was more than a little mean. "My father had many children." He offered the man a lackadaisical shrug. "I was raised apart. A few of the eldest made a point of getting to know me, but as for the rest?" He raised his hands, angling them up and away. "I'm afraid he found me something of an embarrassment."
He resisted the urge to preen as, while the suspicion didn't fully fade, the strongest emotion coming from Jack was incredulity. "I barely knowyou, and that seems absurd."
While he did believe in his accomplishments on their own merit, having outgrown the need to kowtow to Zayeed's principles, it was still nice to hear that opinion from… Well, not his father's generation – from Tricia and Courtney's? He had, he thought… three unknown sisters between them? Four? "Thank-you." Looking back to the piano, he sighed, musing, "That is beautiful."
"Audi says she plays a little," Jack offered. "She got shifty when I asked her what, though."
"I think I remember Frère Jacques," Quatre returned dryly. "Give me some sheet music and an hour to tinker without an audience and I might remember enough to play something half decent, but Audi is probably a better bet. Her lessons were more recent."
"Not much for music?"
"I love music," Quatre denied, shaking his head. "I just prefer to have my fingers on all the keys at once." Though he supposed if he tried to pick piano up again now, he at least had the reach for it.
His want of his father's attention hadn't been the only reason he'd quit. The fact that he hadn't been able to reach both the highest and the lowest notes at the same time was deeply frustrating – not to mention the aghast realization that certain pieces were only playable by two players in tandem. Tay had been the only one close to his size that he might have had a chance of convincing, and the older boy had been more than a little in love with his cello.
They both looked up instinctively at a loud bang, followed by laughter, despite all the balcony doors being shut. "Well, those rooms aren't soundproofed."
Jack nodded. "If this was meant to be a family home, they shouldn't be," he agreed.
Quatre nodded, standing up. "I'm going to check on them," he decided, grabbing his jacket and moving to fetch his bag from where he'd dropped it by the door – Audi could tell him which room was Odin's. "We'll be back down in five or so."
Jack snorted. "Call if you get lost."
Quatre grinned. "I'm man enough to not need directions," he quipped back, and darted up the steps to the sound of the other man's laughter.
oOo
oOo
February 9th 199 – Sunday – Munich, Germany – Sarracenia
Relena groaned as he pulled her back off the couch, though her smile belied her protests. "I'm tired," she whined.
"You need this," Jake soothed, sweeping her into an easy waltz, trying to get a little life back into her. "Come on. I know you've been going nonstop, but you have to balance it out a little." He spun her once in a move that decidedly did not match the music they had playing and set her to giggling a little, grinning broadly as he drew her far closer than the dance dictated, his next step similarly too aggressive.
"Jake!"
"Don't fall into the trap of seeing all motion as stress," he murmured into her ear, enjoying the way her breath hitched. Not that he was going to follow-through with that invitation until after she'd had dinner, if she was even still interested by that point. She'd skipped supper last night while she was lobbying out west, and that just wasn't on. It was good for the image they were trying to sell right now, but if she'd meant that, she could've had Mai fetch her something later. No, she had genuinely gotten busy enough to forget, then pushed off any attempts to rectify the matter.
"I'm not falling into any kind of trap," she groused, slumped enough to nuzzle her face into the top of his shoulder even as she sluggishly followed his steps. "I'm intentionally burning the candle at both ends in full view."
"Which is great," he soothed. "We need that. But not here. You're home tonight, and that," he smirked again as she shuddered at his sweeping caress of her upper thigh, "means so much better than mere sleep, love."
Her groan was, concerningly, more exhaustion than frustration. "But sleep would be so nice," she argued.
Worse than I thought. Still, the reasoning was the same. "That would be why you're already in your pajamas," he reminded her, pulling her close enough to rest the whole of her weight against him, even as he kept them circling. The fact that she did so without resistance was a little troubling, even if it was entirely adorable. "Lena."
"Mm."
He laughed a little helplessly. "Lena. You can't go to bed before seven."
"Phbt. Wanna bet?"
He laughed harder – she wasn't truly that tired. "Lena."
She groaned, pulling up out of her slump and taking the next few steps of the dance properly – and the smile that settled over her features at the familiar motions were reminder enough of why he'd insisted on this. "I've missed you," she confided.
He nodded agreeably – he hadn't been crazy about working in different directions this last week either. "I'll be tagging along tomorrow," he reminded her. The plan involved Relena being visibly overworked and increasingly overwrought, and he'd had enough to do with the Lotus Trust that it had made sense to focus on different areas and let the fervor build. But they needed to push the same for another ten to twelve days – she needed to visibly find her footing and ramp it up again long enough to both be highly productive and not look weak when she lost hold of it. That meant pacing herself a bit better – though also, pointedly, not healthily. It was… an odd sort of helter-skelter balance.
She sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. "I hate the show of it," she grumbled.
He hummed consolingly. "You are good at it, though," he reassured her. "No one watching can tell."
"Treize is probably laughing."
"That's because you're good at it, not because he has any idea you hate it," he assured her. "Despite his reputation, he's not into schadenfreude; he likes outfoxing people. It's different."
"The Revenants are probably confused."
"They'll figure it out." He shrugged. "Or maybe they'll ask when they decide they finally want to play ball."
Relena sighed. Then, in an accusatory tone, "I'm awake again."
Smiling, he tugged her flush against him and adding a little rumba before pushing her back into a foxtrot with more of the same. Laughing a little breathlessly, she flushed, letting him lead even though it definitely did not match the music… Oh well. She didn't seem to mind.
"You've never danced with me before," she whined. "Not real dancing – I'm not counting that club nonsense."
"I was both your bodyguard and actively having a difficult time keeping my hands to myself," Jake pointed out. "It wouldn't have been appropriate. The parties you attended, full of aristocrats, were not the ideal time for either an oops or a revelation."
"So you'll dance with me at the next one?"
The next gala was in four days, on the thirteenth. "Once or twice," he negotiated. "We don't want to tip our hand too fast."
"Three."
"We're only getting away with three if you dance with far more men than I'm going to be happy about," he protested dryly.
"Now you're just handing me ammunition," she returned, eyes sparkling. "How many will incite jealousy, exactly?"
He laughed, spinning her out, then bringing her back in for a dip. "Stop looking for ways to blow our cover ahead of schedule."
Relena groaned, dropping her head back and going half limp. "How can you sound sultry when saying things like that?" she protested.
"Talent," he deadpanned, drawing her back up and wrapping his arms around her fully instead of continuing the impromptu dance. "We're almost there," he reminded her.
"You keep saying that, then not giving any details," she complained, even as she relaxed against him.
"You're saying that because you're impatient and have no appreciation for surprises," he returned happily. "Stop fishing." He was mostly sure she hadn't realized he'd already bought a ring, and he meant to do this right – notably after this particular charade was over with and they could both unwind for a spell. He had no desire to taint a moment that ought to become a treasured memory with this much stress.
"Dancing could be a good lead-up," she argued tiredly, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck. "It doesn't have to be some kind of announcement moment. Honestly, that sounds tacky."
He hummed as if he was considering it, suppressing a grin. That depends entirely on the type of announcement. All the same, he was trying to not give her ideas. "Do you have any preference for where you want to go, after?" He had a few options laid out, but nothing finalized.
Relena frowned, pushing away to meet his eyes. "I thought we were staying here?"
He gave her a mischievous smile. "What good is an impromptu vacation if we stay at home and work more?"
"It's not supposed to a vacation," she replied, giving him a patronizing look, though she couldn't quite hide the glimmer of amusement lighting up her eyes. "Not publicly."
Smirking, he leaned in for a kiss that… got a little more involved than he'd planned, admittedly, but he was only breathing a little hard when he pulled back, closing his eyes and dropping his forehead against hers. "On the contrary," he replied, "a little R&R would be expected. We might as well take advantage."
She made an irritated noise. "Wasteful," she protested.
"Self-care is not a waste," he reminded her, running his hands up and down her back, starting to sway a little to the music again, just to see if she'd join him. "We're running a marathon, with no end in sight – we should take the opportunities as they come."
Laughing under her breath, she took a smooth step forward to press a thigh between his, even as she began swaying with him again. "I don't need a break," she informed him, arching her back as his hands tightened on her hips, where they had… dropped to at some point. "We are staging a public meltdown," she reminded him. "I'm not actually going to have one."
The easiest way to pull this off is to push your limits until you force it to happen. He'd already said as much, though, and they were heading in that direction – not that it would be real by her standard even if it was in the moment, the scene the equivalent of having a long cry after a bad day, not truly a response to endless overwork. But… I've made better arguments, he decided. He could ask her if she felt the same after it was said and done. "The aftermath needs to be just as believable as the rest," he reminded her instead. "And whether or not you need a vacation, you deserve one."
Taking a deep breath, he shifted his grip on her left hip and strode forward, leading her into another round of foxtrot, caressing her back with his left hand as she giggled and pulled away just enough to follow his lead. "We might not get another chance until your birthday, if then," he reminded her. "Everyone is ready to handle the aftermath; consider it a proof that the system you've built works, and if they have mishaps, then we know what mistakes need correcting. We won't be entirely out of reach; just not easily accessible." He spun her with flourish on the next turn, grinning at her giggle. "Five whole days," he reminded her, speeding up a little and bringing them around the next turn. "Just the two of us and the Guard, on the down low. Any preferences, or do I have free reign?"
Relena's returning sigh was put upon, but her smile belied the exasperation. "As you please, then. Surprise me."
oOo
oOo
February 10th 199 – Monday – Prague, Czech Republic
'I've had a few ideas.'
Lucrezia bit her lip, debating how to respond to that. The thing was, with Odin… that statement could be literal, or all innuendo. 'Yeah?'
The response was fairly fast – the service in his current part of space wasn't quite stable enough for a phone call, but texts were coming through clear enough. 'Visuals required. Can you do Berlin on the twelfth?'
Lucrezia frowned. She was off flight rotation starting today, ending on the fifteenth. Barring an emergency, of course, but Xu had Heavyarms in hand in the meantime. 'Aren't you coming down closer?' She hadn't reconfirmed it now that he had a connection again, but the plan had been to meet here.
'I'll see you tomorrow night.' Came the confirmation.
Then, 'But we could go to Berlin, then?'
She grinned, biting at her lip again. He had said the fancy penthouse was his now, and getting away did appeal – only for a day or two, and she would likely still field paperwork for logistics during anyway… But she could think of worse places for Valentine's Day.
All the same, she felt the need to tease. 'Why Berlin? Did you have something special in mind?' If he hadn't point blank asked her about the holiday she might suspect he wasn't aware of the connotations, but as it was? She suspected he was going to the same lengths as he had for her birthday.
'There's something I want to see.'
'Oh? Do I need to see it?'
There was a longer break before his response came through.
'I probably have a mirror.'
She felt herself flush at that, and couldn't help but squirm as the heat spread. Visuals required, huh? Ooh, but that… He did like setting a scene. Though, if it was specific to the property in Berlin… 'Been having ideas about something in particular, huh?'
'I keep thinking about it,' he agreed. 'Reality will be better. I want to see it.'
…She could probably light a fire off her skin, and he was thousands of miles away. I'm actually starting to breathe hard, she realized, wanting to laugh at herself. Damn. It wasn't even… He'd barely said anything, she just knew him, and… Ooh, that man. This was going to be a good reserve shift, which, after the last couple of weeks? Mm. Odin maintained that he lacked creativity, but she was building a case against that.
'Looking forward to it,' she sent back, grinning like a loon – then jumped when someone knocked on her door. Laughing at herself, she stood, pocketing her phone as she went to open it… and smile at her unexpected guest. "Quatre," she greeted happily. "Hello."
The look he gave her was only slightly chagrined. "He's back in cell range, hm?"
She knew herself well enough to realize her returning smile was more predatorily satisfied than sheepish – she only slightly regretted that. He was, after all, poking at her when she was on reserve.
All the same, she doubted this was a social call, and her responsibilities were never fully off her shoulders these days. "Do I need to clear my mind?"
His eyes sparked with amusement even as he shook his head. "I'm anchored elsewhere," he negated. "It's fine; I'm only getting hints." He shook his head. "If it was anyone else, I probably would have missed it entirely, but Odin's… loud. He leaks through."
Lucrezia chuckled, giving him a dubious look as she leaned back against the doorframe. "I thought he was quiet," she countered.
Her friend made one of his inane hand gestures that the Maguanacs teased him for. "Only when he's calm," he decided. "Or maybe it's that he's always loud, but usually he's loudly calm?" He rolled his eyes. "Even when doing frankly insane things, he's always been level-headed."
She felt her smirk stretching wider. "But not when it comes to me," she interpreted.
He rolled his eyes. "Decidedly not," he agreed, taking a step back into the hall and gesturing for her to walk with him. "Come with me to see Sally?"
"Sure." Checking that her key was in her pocket, she shut the door to her room and let him lead the way. "What's up?"
"Don't be impatient," he admonished, though it was with a grimace that boded poorly. "But… busy. I won't need to head out to the dark site again for a while, at least. I brought new ghosts for my suit back with me, though hopefully Odin's bringing fresher ones for the mods. I'm thinking about holing up in Szczecin with a simulator for the next week or so."
Lucrezia accepted the subject change, nodding. "Does it have a name yet?"
Quatre grimaced. "No. I feel like we're closer, but it's still off."
She gave him a knowing smile. "Don't procrastinate too long, or Howard will decide for you. You might even find yourself with an illustrious name like 'Camouflage.'"
He rolled his eyes. "Instructor H had already named his design before I met him," he repeated – for what he felt was the hundredth time, judging by his tone.
"Sand. Rock," Lucrezia drawled out, grinning at the way Quatre tipped his head back in annoyance. "I suppose H was colonial," she mused in a conversational tone. "But still, I would have been more impressed if he chose a landscape feature space didn't have plenty of. Like 'Ocean.'"
"Please stop."
"Or 'Lagoon.' Maybe even 'Hurricane.' Ooh, 'Typhoon.'"
Quatre spun around to loom over her. "This may surprise you," he informed her in a dry tone, eyes boring down, "but you are not helping."
Lucrezia smiled up at him, reaching up to tap one finger thoughtfully against her lips. "Does that work on anyone?"
He visibly deflated, shifting away from her and shoving his hands in his pockets. "Not recently," he admitted.
"Mm. Wrong audience," she suggested, patting his arm consolingly as they started walking again. "Not bad, otherwise." She considered. "Try it with your shoulders back more, and do something with your mouth. Whether it's a smirk or a sneer, so long as it's arrogant, it ought to help."
He sighed. "Still not helping," he noted pointedly.
She laughed, turning her mind to something that might genuinely give him a push. "Where is your family from, originally? I mean, I know the Winners are one of the L4 founders, but…"
He rolled his eyes. "But white men don't have names like Zayeed or Raberba?"
"I was going to say 'speak Arabic,' but sure." As she understood it, the Winners had been speaking a version of Arabic as an automatic aside for generations. She considered for a moment before demanding, "Please tell me you weren't named for your colony." She couldn't decide if it would be asinine and sad, or supremely, gloriously arrogant – which might make up the deficit.
"I was named after my mother."
"…Was she named after the colony?"
Quatre sighed. "Quite possibly." He rolled his eyes again. "I swear, you and Odin deserve each other. I used to think the two of you were reserved, but these days it's all sass."
"Mm." She… Well. "I was really depressed when we met," she admitted quietly.
Quatre hesitated mid-step, freezing and turning to look at her. "You were?"
She sighed, crossing her arms and resettling her weight. Nobody was in this hall right now anyway, and it wasn't like it was a secret. "I was a teacher, Quatre. Zechs… The few times we talked about a someday together, I was on the fence as to whether I'd keep teaching or become a full-time homemaker. I was never…" She grimaced. A lot had changed, and these days? "I don't regret joining the fight, and I don't regret deciding to stay. Depending on how things go… I could continue as a commander, happily, under Relena." She swallowed again. "I could go back to teaching. I could do both. I am good at what I do, and I love to fly." She was less sure about keeping house now, but… maybe? Though that… would look very different with Odin that she had imagined with Zechs. Not in a bad way, at all, but it also didn't quite mesh, and-
Stop counting chickens. She'd spent quite enough time building castles in the sky – even if she'd found a far better man, she could recognize it as a bad habit. For all that she'd realized she loved him and he'd more or less said it back, and he'd… effectively asked her to move in with him, except he didn't live anywhere either, exactly, so-
Stop. "What few of my personal students didn't die, graduated," she continued. "And I decided to step up. But it wasn't… It's different. The things I hated about the Alliance and OZ, the entire system, I've removed from our command structure." She cut a hand through the air for emphasis. "I love what I do, now. But I didn't, back then. I was just… waiting for Zechs. And then we retired, and… I thought that was it."
Quatre sighed, leaning back against the wall. "But it wasn't."
"But it wasn't," she agreed tiredly. "I thought about going back to Lake Victoria, but… Well, I hated OZ as an organization more than ever." And some of her best students had turned out to be fucking little sociopaths too, which… hurt. She apparently had something of a blind spot for those warning signs. "I didn't want to go home." She loved her father, but she had needed something to do, and their career interests had never aligned. "Everyone else I cared about was tied up in the war effort." She hadn't wanted to admit that…
It had hurt, when Zechs left. She'd tried to dress it up in nobility, to see the bigger picture, but… she had waited years for him. And he had said…
Quatre's breath hitched, and she resolved to ignore it. If he'd decided to drop his anchor, she wasn't going to be rude enough to point it out. And she would never apologize for her feelings. Never again. So she took the time to really think about it, in a way she hadn't since shoving it all in a box of hate and angst after Libra's Fall, and…
"I wasn't enough for him," she decided. "I… gave up everything, but… he didn't want to give up anything at all for me, you know?" She grimaced. "I suppose it was for the best that he left. He was trying for a clean break. I just… didn't let him have it." She could never regret her actions afterwards, finding and protecting Relena, boarding and managing Peacemillion. But in oh so many ways, she'd been doing what she thought he might appreciate, as if she could win him back, and God, but wasn't that infuriating to look back on? It was so fucking sad, because she'd just…
"I was floundering." That was… probably the best explanation she could really give. She'd put a brave face on it, made herself believe she had found the best path each time, committed everything into each task, but… she had been lost. Lost, and in such deep denial she could hardly tell which way was up.
Quatre took a deep, calming sort of breath. "I knew there was a sadness to you, back then," he admitted. "But I never guessed it ran so deep."
Huffing out a soft laugh, she resettled her hands on her hips and tossed him a smirk. "I'm good like that." It was a long time ago, at this point; she practically felt like a different woman. And that was a good thing, she liked to think.
He rolled his eyes, shifting his weight fully back up onto both feet. "It suits you," he agreed warmly. "I didn't realize it back then because I didn't have the perspective, but… looking back, you were something of a specter."
"Mm… I suppose I was," she agreed. Then, wondering if she was overstepping… "You too."
He tipped his head her way in a conciliatory gesture. "In my defense, I've only just learned I didn't commit any atrocities in Wing Zero. But even so…" He sighed. "Learning that you cannot trust your own mind is… indescribable."
Lucrezia blinked, running that over in her mind again. "Not to be rude," she began slowly, "but… you didn't?"
"Well, I think Trowa counts, but that's… different." He sighed. "No. Two counts of gross property damage and, apparently, the base where they built Wing gundam." Letting out a depressive sort of chuckle, he added, "Only through luck, mind you – at least, I think? I don't really remember why I chose that colony, but…" He clicked his tongue softly. "Has Odin ever mentioned something called 'the retraining' to you?" Her stomach dropped, her face growing cold, and Quatre immediately grimaced again. "He has."
She took a deep breath, smoothing out her thoughts. "Not often," she confirmed. "And not directly."
Quatre scoffed. "If that isn't a warning sign-"
"Mmhm," she agreed, reaching up to run her hands through her hair. She hadn't pulled it back today. Sighing, she debated what details he wouldn't mind shared – this was Quatre after all. "I know it's what made him suicidal, and that it made him forget how to recognize a lot of facial expressions." She felt her mouth twist, even as she kept her breathing normal, counting it out. Steady. "Caused a few other psych issues that he thinks he's over." Tugging her hair over one shoulder, she began to comb her fingers through it methodically. "Significant physical trauma was implied. With repetition." Not working. Closing her eyes, she fisted both hands and tugged hard, grounding herself. Contrary to what most people thought, it didn't really hurt when she did this – not so long as she'd done it right, anyway. The pressure, though… it created a feedback loop of self-imposed control. "He had exact start and end dates – late March of 194 to what I think was Operation M's launch," she continued, remembering his faraway tone. "So it lasted just over a year."
Quatre took another calm, deep breath. "I'm going to need to remember this," he mumbled.
She frowned, darting a glance his way. "The details?" They didn't seem that difficult, especially for him.
"What you're doing right now," he explained. "It's… Odin just blanks out, but this. I can do and still get somewhere."
"Oh." She would have thought he'd have this kind of training already. After another few beats of silence, she felt stable enough to ask, "Why did you bring this up, exactly?"
There was a long pause. "That colony I blew up," Quatre admitted after a long moment. "That's where it happened."
"…Oh." She wasn't sure how to feel about that. Complicated. That conversation about the beatings and the detonators, the ninety-three suicide attempts had been hard enough, but having more… evidence?
She wasn't sure what to do with it. He hadn't brought it up since, so…
"He thinks," Quatre continued, "that they might have still been there."
Lucrezia blinked a few times, turning that over in her mind, but… Yeah, no. "Not an atrocity," she agreed.
"Thank-you." Another smooth, deep breath. Then, "He's not sure, though."
"Mm."
"…I'm thinking about… checking."
"…That they were there?"
"Hm." He tipped his head one way then the other in a so-so gesture. "Finding out. Finding them. Either way it went."
She debated the pros and cons of that. "I'm not against this idea," she decided. Not really sure where to start either, but… Well, Quatre was the genius. If it was feasible, she'd trust that to him. "Let me know how it goes?"
"Yes."
"Good." She closed her eyes, and taking in as deep a breath as she could, holding it for a count of four… then expelled it all, letting the emotions drain down and out. She could look at that again later, maybe, but for now… Moving on. "Good," she repeated, wiping her hands on her pants before reaching up to tug her hair up into a ponytail. When she looked over toward Quatre, he was blinking rapidly, looking a little lightheaded. "You okay?"
"I… am," he confirmed, sounding a little surprised. "Wow."
She couldn't help it; she rumbled out a low laugh. "I give lessons, you know."
He blinked a few more times. "On that?"
Reaching into her pocket for an elastic, she gave him a condescending look. "Teenage. Fighter pilots." He gave her a grin, conceding the point with a thoughtful nod, and once her hair was tied off, she stretched her neck first to one side, then the other, rebalancing her priorities as she started walking back in the direction of Sally's office. Though… "I think I owe you a drink." More like a case, really – but one of these things was socially acceptable, and the other a potential problem.
She expected another nod, maybe, or a kindly refusal, but found herself side-eyeing him as he grimaced instead. "I will have one," he decided, "if you will. After this meeting."
"Oh, that bodes well," she mused darkly, watching him for another reaction.
His expression hardened – which with Quatre, was frankly worse than a more dramatic response. "Yes."
"Hm." When she got nothing else, she threw her mind back to a previous topic. "So why do the Winners speak Arabic?"
His shoulders relaxed. "Berber descent," he admitted. "Though we're a motley mix, anymore. My father's line was the last Winner Branch, and my mother's side was French-Gaelic – their name disappeared with her."
"No traceable family lines down here?" she asked curiously.
Quatre shook his head. "Everyone left for space together, down to the last cousin," he explained. "For all the Winner Foundation families. Apparently it was something of the point behind going in the first place." He shrugged a little. "There were eleven families at the start; now we're down to two." Making a face he added, "It's… problematic."
"Hm." That sounded like a conversation on its own, but he didn't elaborate, so she focused back on the point she'd been trying to make before their descent into madness. "You might like something in your historical roots, for a name."
"I thought about something in Arabic," he admitted. "But I don't want to listen to everyone butcher the pronunciation."
"Not Arabic, then; or at least, not directly enough to be an issue. I started looking up angels when I saw the rough design for the wings Odin is cooking up. Even if that doesn't get anywhere… I mean, why not?"
"Mm. Mythology, huh?"
She narrowed her eyes at him, debating if he was having a rare thoughtless moment or actively trying to be offensive. "I might not be a very good Catholic," she reminded him. "But I am technically Catholic, you know." She hadn't really taken the time to examine religion in the last five years, which… probably said plenty about her stance on the subject. But she was christened, and… There were traditions she still observed. Mostly.
He had the grace to look sheepish. "Right. Sorry."
…The problem was that he wasn't entirely wrong. "Just… mind your terminology, please." If nothing else, it was polite to not call someone's religion 'mythology.'
Crap, but now she was going to have to actually think about this. "Does Sally know we're coming, or are you surprising her too?"
"I made an appointment," he admitted, seemingly happy for the subject change. "I was hoping you would be available, but I needed to talk to her either way."
She considered that, and what else he'd said… and decided to leave it lie. They were almost there anyway.
Sally's smile was bright when they came in. "Quatre, excellent! You said you have an answer for me?"
Lucrezia scoffed, shooting her best friend a look as she dropped into a chair. "Hello to you too."
Sally scoffed right back at her. "I saw you twenty minutes ago," she protested. "We've played two games of cribbage this morning. Not that I mind having you back in my office, but you left because your boyfriend's call failed and you were looking for a better signal."
Solid points. Still, Lucrezia smiled, leaning her face onto one hand so she could offer the other woman an obvious pout. "A lady likes to be acknowledged," she insisted.
Sally laughed, shifting her shoulders to take on a more haughty air. "Well then – it is good to see you again," she declared. "Always a pleasure." Her eyes sparkled. "Quatre's presence is just a delight, is all."
The man in question let out a put-upon sigh, leaning one hip against the desk instead of sitting down. "You're not going to be saying that in another minute," he informed them soberly.
Sally's gaze sharpened. "You do have an answer."
Quatre grimaced. "There is only one way that the numbers make sense. The general public has no way of telling, but you've been hitting bases, subtly as well as directly and…" He made a face, one hand making a complicated motion that Lucrezia was starting to think might be sign language. "The finer details are speculation, but I think Relena and Soleil might know. It could be unrelated, but it also might go a long way to explaining their new dog and pony show." He hummed. "Though I might be missing too many facts to make a different conclusion, there."
Lucrezia frowned. Numbers? "The erratic troop placements?" she asked, guessing at the topic.
"Not erratic," Quatre confirmed grimly. "Thorough. If anything, aggressively thorough."
"So he took a smaller force to space than he claimed," Sally mused, frowning. "But that still seems wrong – Soleil has been hammering him for a while now, and while I suppose he could be lying about the casualty reports-"
"He is," Quatre cut in. "It's the only way this works." He sighed. "And this is the only theory that matches up with the statistics at all, for all that I would still like to have an independent proof. There's just… no other way. He didn't take the army with him. At the very least, he didn't take anything close to the numbers we can independently confirm are there from third party footage and news outlets." Grimacing, he admitted, "I suppose he could have been dropping troops back to Earth in piecemeal, subtly filling the ranks here back in, but… I think we would have noticed, and it still doesn't match. The armies are a long way from Earth at this point, and the Sweepers have a fairly tight net of surveillance on the planet right now even if the satellite imaging network is effectively worthless." He took a step away from the desk, then gripped the edge and leaned forward, angled so he could look first at Sally, then Lucrezia. "I checked the population demographics, the census data of the last five years, the recruitment reports… he has more fighters than he does people. By a long margin."
"…Shit." Sally's voice was more disgusted than anything, acid dripping from her words as her face twisted up into a rictus. That… was genuine fury.
Quatre's next breath shuddered as he took it in. "Agreed." Lifting one hand from the desk, he made another gesture – the same one from before, maybe, or just similar, maybe. "That. Exactly."
Lucrezia mostly felt… hollow. "You're saying that he's done it again." Her voice sounded almost entirely toneless, to her ears. "Dolls. Despite everything. He's gone and done it again."
There was a smoldering anger in Quatre's oddly dual-tone eyes when he met her gaze that she felt quite sure wasn't borrowed from Sally. "I'm not entirely convinced he ever stopped."
oOo
oOo
Conspiracy
oOo
And we're off! Any thoughts? I tried to squeeze Dorothy in here but she dodged me, so I suppose that's next chapter.
