Recast Steel: Succession

by Niko Nightwind

If history is an endless waltz of war, peace, and revolution, here comes the final part. That said, Marie doesn't agree with the theory - life is more of an improvised rubato, and that's only when people bother to listen. The finale of Recast Steel.

2. Prerequisites

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Chapter Two

Prerequisites

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Trust is a process – though not a linear one. Sometimes, all you need to offer is a hand, but others…. Well, breaking things might help.

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…Right. So this is late as hell. In my defense, it was a hell of a summer. Deaths in the family, cancer diagnoses of varying severity NOT related to those… and let's not touch on the absolute cluster that is having a really unreliable coworker. It got messy. But now… Funerals, and treatments, firing and finally finding some equilibrium… here we go.

For sake of reference (and if you don't remember my rant from forever ago on the subject), I have Sally cast a little older than in canon, since it just… didn't make sense. She was born in 173, meaning she turns twenty-six this coming summer, while Jake and Lucrezia are twenty-two going on twenty-three in the fall, Zechs has just turned twenty-three, Relena turns nineteen this chapter, and Odin will be twenty in August. Quatre turned nineteen off screen last chapter, Cathy might attempt to tell Adam he's nineteen in June to who knows what effect, and Duo decided to claim the day he arrived in Amsterdam as his birthday with the year 179, so whatever he actually is, he says he'll be twenty in September.

…Yes, I actually have birthdays for literally the entire cast, including minor characters you don't really see on screen, such as the extraneous members of the Winners, the Devils, and Revenant Rubato. No, I'm not sure whether this keeps me sane or makes me a confirmed crazy person. In my defense, I didn't commit to that level of insanity until I had to chart out all the Winners, because with the bizarre age gaps, it became necessary – Quatre has two sisters that are less than a year older than him. That family has issues.

Thanks again to Emily for playing beta!

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April 6th 199 – Monday – Merano, Italy

Fuck. She forced herself to take a calm, even breath, despite… Fuck!

This… might be it. They could manage for a while, rob Peter to pay Paul and scramble for a better solution in the meantime, but… This was probably the beginning of the end.

Who the fuck am I kidding? The 'end' had started a while ago – it just hadn't been overtly direct.

Still, she kept her expression thoughtful, body language confident.

She… really didn't have any time where she could be herself these days. Not completely. Whether or not she had an audience, they were so tightly packed that she couldn't be sure, and… It was important. Hope and faith, whether real or entirely counterfeit, was too deeply intertwined with survival to skimp on. She'd found out the interesting way just how fucking awful things got when people crossed that line, and they couldn't always be brought back.

How the fuck am I going to do this?

"Borchia?" Drea's tone was hushed – not quite afraid, not yet, but desolate all the same, and…

Damn it all, these people needed another last-ditch miracle pulled out of thin air, and so far, she'd been able to deliver. They weren't… They were just people. At least she had wanted to fight, even if she'd gotten in over her head almost right from the start. This little enclave was made up of bystanders trying to eke on through, whether by hook or crook.

Right then. She drew herself up, setting her shoulders. "I'm going to need some paper," she decided. Shelve the horror – logistics first. Without free control of the plant, they'd have to get by on what power cells they could scrounge, or what pipeline they might be able to tap and steal…

She closed her eyes. What I will be able to steal. Reese had been at the plant when it was taken, and without him… No one left in her faction had enough know-how to fix a bad outlet in a house, let alone divert something complicated. Which was going to get really fucking complicated, because she couldn't be in more than one place at a time.

I really, really fucking miss you, Duo. He could do this shit in his sleep – that, or even better, he would've found a way to get everyone out by now. So often these days, thinking about him felt the same as invoking a prayer.

She was going to have to tell him that – the look he'd give her would be fucking gold.

She allowed herself a longer moment of respite while Drea and the others shuffled around, the murmuring of Italian soothing by now even if she couldn't fucking understand a lick of it. It was fine – she could pull off being in deep thought. Fuck it, she was in deep thought. She needed a visual to try and see how much leeway they had before hitting critical. Maybe…

She took another deep breath, shoving the urge to cry down deep. They… there wasn't going to be any way to take the plant back. She only had two people with any decent fighting ability left, and the way it was set up… there was no way. Not without explosives, and even then, probably not – she had almost no way to shape a homemade charge.

And, of course, they had hostages. Reese… Reese was dead. Too high up on the fuckers' shit list, too much of a threat, and too male besides; Milo's guys usually only bothered with female prisoners, and even then, only the pretty ones. So… Shanelle and Karin at least? Maybe another six or seven ladies, depending on their captors' mood or if anyone had managed to hide. It was a big facility, after all.

Fuck, but she hoped there had been enough warning to hide Susan and Michael. The less said about how Milo handled kids, the better.

She couldn't think about that. Not right now.

Not that she could raze the building even if she could confirm all her people were dead, since that would just fuck over literally everyone – she hadn't reached that level of pyrrhic nihilism. Not just yet, at least.

…If I can't secure at least some electricity in the next week… And fuck, more than 'some' – a majority of the food they had been carefully rationing out for the last few months was frozen. That alone… She had far less than a week. Fuck!

I'm going to get some fucking paper, and I'm going to figure it out, she reminded herself. She'd worked her way through of the last three crises without talking her way through it – circling the drain or not, she'd do it again. Duo wouldn't have given up. The darkest moment was always before the dawn, right?

"Borchia?"

"I'm thinking," she reassured Drea, not really wanting to deal with that plaintively questioning tone just yet. The older woman meant well, but… Fuck, but being a symbol sucked. The General had warned her before she'd started to help her build the role up in 196, but every time she thought she had a handle on it, she found more teeth.

"Yes, but, ah…"

A smattering of Italian effectively fell on the floor between them – whoever claimed immersion was the best teacher of foreign language was full of shit. She fought the urge to wrap her hands around her head – that never looked good – and cut the other woman off. Not gently, but not harshly either. "Drea, unless it will help me sneak back into the plant and sabotage the code or something, it can wait." Fuck, but half those words probably weren't in the other woman's limited English. She tried to start over, opening her eyes again and staring at the ceiling. "I need-"

Drea made a frustrated noise, and shoved something into her hand. Something she almost immediately dropped, because it vibrated.

Her gaze snapped down, and she realized that yes, it was a phone – Connie's, by the case. Sia had been carrying it since… well, since, and…

Holy shit, but the blind hope that the thing might actually work again had panned out. Well, it had always worked, she'd encouraged Sia to keep it powered up just in case, but it hadn't communicated, which was the whole fucking point of a goddamn cellphone, and…

The screen said she had three missed calls in the last five minutes. And one text from the same number, just now – the vibration she'd felt.

'Anybody home?'

Connie, Reese, and Nadine had said these things were encrypted out the wazoo – some kind of work Yuy had done after the lockdown began that she honestly hadn't cared enough about to listen to. But that meant this probably wasn't a trap? Anyone calling this line was supposed to be a friendly. One of Sally's.

Besides, if Milo was able to get the communications networks up, why would he bother with her?

She tapped the callback prompt.

"Hilde?"

She let out a breath that was only a little gutted. It… no one had used her name since Nadine died. She hadn't discouraged it – leaning into the fucking 'boss' title seemed to help people hold on a little better. "Who is this?" she demanded.

"It's Adam. I'll pass the line to Po if you want, but I can reach you in ten minutes." His tone hardened into what she associated with his battle persona – far more subtle than Duo's, but there all the same. "Ready to crack this place open like an egg?"

Adam, you beautiful motherfucker! She wanted to scream with joy, and maybe cry.

Don't fucking cry! Cavalry or not, she still… There was a lot. Hold it together. "I'm going to need your help with a couple of things first," she announced, tone smooth. "Tell me you brought a team." Adam was worth a team all on his own, but what she needed was a fucking army.

Ideally, an army with assault rifles.

"I do, with anything else you want on tap," he reassured. "Full drop. Border stands for now, but we've got the air." A pause. "Heading your way now. Any advice on approach?"

…Fuck. Yeah, that was absolutely a thing. "Get under cover and wait for me to send someone to lead you in," she ordered. "This phone can track you?"

"And more," he returned agreeably. "How do you think I knew it was you?"

She really hadn't thought too much about how the Insurgence agents that broke through the cordon had insisted on keying in her biometrics – it had made too much sense, given the odds they were facing. Still, she closed her eyes again, locking down on the grief. This… was the last surviving phone, after all – and Reese had been the last surviving infiltrator. Two of the people she'd originally been with when the lockdown started were left, but they weren't much better than her deputized civilians.

"I'll take it," she decided, feeling lighter but also… blank. Distressingly blank, despite the good news. Guess it hasn't hit yet. "Do me a favor and set up the tracker in reverse, then hunker down until I have someone reach you. See you soon."

"Got it." He hesitated, but she could hear his intake of breath, like he wasn't done, before he added, "It's good to hear your voice. I was worried."

She snorted. "Yeah, well, you took your fucking time."

"Not my call – I'd have been here before Christmas if I'd been able to find an in I knew I could land. How many of Po's made it to you? This was the only line I could connect."

She set her teeth, a hole opening in her gut. "Three."

Silence for a long moment, then a rough exhalation. "Fuck."

She wanted to ask, but she also… really didn't. "Set up that tracker," she repeated, looking around and debating who to hand the phone off to for this. She could think about the cost of the last half a year later. "I'll see you when you get here."

oOo

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oOo

Munich, Germany – Sarracenia

'Are you in the middle of something right now?'

Jake hesitated… But this was one of those easy ways to reach back, wasn't it?

A year ago, he probably wouldn't have responded at all, and left it at the excuse that he could say he hadn't seen it until much later – with the added security blanket that he could change his mind and become 'available' at any point in time. But that latter was just another way to lie to himself, because he'd proven he wouldn't.

Six months ago, he'd decided he needed to respond, and had mostly stuck with it. He still lied when he felt overwhelmed – which was more or less any time Jack initiated contact – and usually put him off until he could mentally prepare himself for the interaction. That, or said he could only text.

But Jack wouldn't have phrased it like that if he didn't want to actually talk, and while he'd go along with whatever Jake was willing to give him… They'd actually been pretty great over text lately, once they got going. It had gotten a lot easier over the last three months – the looming specter of expectation on their interactions had lost most of its edge. It wasn't gone, exactly, but… well, he actually couldn't remember the last time they'd fucked it all up. Which…

Damn. They'd had a few near misses since, but… neither of them had flipped out on the other since August. That was… pretty cool. Especially considering the fact that he'd talked with Jack more times in the last nine months than the previous nine years put together.

…That last fight had been the last time he had tried calling his father.

Fuck it. He tapped the call button. He'd gotten comfortable enough that it was time to push again.

If I fuck it up, I've got a brand new record to hold myself up against for the next wave.

The line connected, and his father's somewhat stilted voice came through. "Jake, hey!"

Simultaneously, a female voice came through, only slightly muffled. "-still suck!"

Jake blinked, not… entirely sure what to do with that. "Hey," he returned.

There was a low rumble that was probably another voice too quiet to make out, and Jack sighed before muttering, "I'm sorry, she… Would you believe me if I said I forgot how loud she was being?"

Jake felt his lips twitch. "Probably not," he decided.

Jack groaned. "It's been like this for a while," he defended. "She's repetitive, I've been tuning it out." Another soft huff. "Your brother has the patience of a saint."

Jake considered that, hearing more – the words were muffled, but the indignance was coming through loud and clear. Something loosened up in his chest. Maybe… He could do this, couldn't he? "I'm not sure 'saint' is the word," he argued. Given the source? "I remember screaming myself hoarse at Senior more than once, and all he'd do was stare at me."

"…Yeah, he had practice on that with your mom," Jack decided.

Jake snorted. "What, you never tried?"

His father snorted back. "If the only problem with my temper was that I got loud, our history would be very different."

The feminine voice came through again. "Still not the point!"

Jake winced, even as he grinned at the unintentional peanut gallery hitting the issue on the head. "Yeah, point." Jack got fucking mean, both verbally and physically, but he went for precision instead of volume.

Jack huffed out a short laugh. "And anyway it's… Not the same, exactly. He's got Senior's patience, or near enough, but it's less… passive?"

Jake raised his brows. "It's been going long enough that you lost track, and he's acting like it's a normal conversation?"

"Eh, more that he's tricking her into making fun of herself with each response and quietly gloating about it."

He guffawed. "What, like Des?"

"Almost? It's-" Jack cut himself off as a thoroughly outraged shriek ripped through the line, followed deep laughter as the cadence of the female voice changed to something much closer to sputtering. "Ah, I guess he's done."

Jake smirked. "Oh?" He'd been assuming this was the little sister, given the context and lack of explanation on Jack's part, but he was missing nearly all the details.

"He launched out of the pool like some kind of trained dolphin and tossed her in fully clothed."

He felt a broad grin stretch its way across his lips; water in an enclosed space did explain some of the odd acoustics he was picking up. "That was Audi, right?" At his father's affirmative hum, he asked, "What is she on his case for anyway?"

Jack let out a deeply beleaguered sigh. "We," he announced, in a slow, determined sort of tone, "have been doing research."

He raised his brows again, feeling his lips begin to twitch. By tone alone, this promised to be interesting. "Research."

"Research," Jack confirmed. "Audi is upset that she was not included in said research, despite being…" He let out another sigh, this one sounding painful. "In Canada."

There was another shriek, this one more of a joyous cackle, and an excess of water noises. "Canada."

"Either Adam is obsessed with North America, or he is genuinely determined to find a large number of things he's left there. He seems to go often." Another sigh. "I can't decide if your brother thinks it's a fool's errand and is idly watching the process as a means of entertainment or if he's actively making shit up for his amnesiac friend to find that never existed for the self-same purpose."

"I only get to do one?"

Jake snorted out a laugh, bending over with the force of it. Ah, shit. He'd been warned that the kid turned out funny – had had examples listed, and there'd been a touch of it in that phone call in January – but it still felt like it came out of nowhere.

A lot of that, maybe, was just that the kid himself felt like he came out of nowhere? As happy as he was about everything he was learning about his baby brother so far… it still felt like a dream, most of the time. Ethereal. He'd finally stopped feeling like he was going to wake up and realize it was all a lie, but it wasn't really solid yet either.

Audi's voice came through the line next. "Seriously, Adam has lost more crap than most people ever knew existed. He'd be this bad even without the memory issue."

"Canada," Jack repeated.

"Don't be boring," the girl pouted, a giggle hiding in her tone. "It was an adventure! I made a snowman!"

"I'm still not ready to talk about the snowman," Jack returned flatly.

That sounded promising. Still, they hadn't gotten at all close to an answer to his question. "Research?" he prompted, casting his voice somewhat loudly. He wasn't sure whether or not they could hear him half as well as he could them, but it was worth a shot.

There as another overly dramatic groan, and a lot of sloshing noises. "I still can't believe you didn't tell me! You suck!"

Odin's tone was all idle curiosity. "How long can you hold your breath?"

She squawked again, and the water sounds increased.

"I'm going downstairs," Jack announced, sounding exasperated. A moment later, he added, "You're back off speakerphone."

On the one hand, he wanted to ask why he'd tried to have the conversation in the same room to start with – but on the other, he recognized the view into his brother's life for the gift it was. Grinning again, he decided to tease. "I'm a little curious about the snowman."

"I am not discussing the fucking snowman."

He couldn't help but bust up laughing again, even as he wondered what had been so offensive about it. "Okay," he decided after a minute. "What are we talking about?" Of course, if it had just been to get that peek into his brother's mischief, he would be content – but that wasn't how Jack worked.

His father sighed. "We hit the end of the research stage and are now on a fairly tight timeline. Some of the issues are deeply specific and you're something of an expert – I mentioned you might be able to help, and he asked if I would check."

That sounded ominous, but he was also fairly sure Jack would go about the subject differently if he was talking about something dangerous. Probably. "I'm listening."

"I know you have a favorite jeweler in L3, but do you have connections with any closer to home that do custom work? That can meet a three and a half week timeline?"

His breath caught. "What?"

"Nothing as intricate as what you recently had done," Jack added quickly. "He says she likes bold, clean lines, and the few styles he's lingered on are straightforward, if unusual." He sighed again. "He's not fixated on an exact design so much as finding the right stone."

Jake's mind spun. "Holy shit."

"Yeah." He hesitated, then, "I may have suggested that if we bring you, we could walk into the right backroom to find the exact gem he wants and get a rush order on fabricating the rest. He doesn't care about the cost, but neither of us really know where to start. Your mom liked traditional solitaires – I just spent a couple hours agonizing over the local stock in a mall." He sighed again. "If that's not doable we can sort something else out later, he's not against meeting you somewhere neutral, but-"

"It's very doable," Jake interrupted, running through options. He'd been in the middle of another response in his ongoing conversation with Rubato when his phone buzzed, but once he wrapped that up, he could make a few calls.

"Are you still hiding from…?"

Technically yes, but he was mostly sure Zechs wouldn't follow through on it at this point? And he could get around that besides. "Only a little, and I can be subtle," Jake reassured him. He glanced back at his laptop and the nearly completed email. "Send me what details you have?" From the way he'd phrased it, he gathered they weren't talking about a diamond. "It'll help me narrow it down."

"Yeah, sure."

He shook his head again, then let out another short laugh. "You did say he was serious about her, huh?" And Jack felt sure that Junior committed just as hard as the two of them, so…

Po was both accomplished and intelligent, not to mention a beauty, and Lu had said she was sharp as a whip too. A six year age gap when the younger partner was still a teenager was a little aggressive, but, well… doctors usually married younger than themselves, and Junior had been forced to grow up on a very different timescale than most people; that did things to your maturity. In any case, if it worked, a six year difference wouldn't even make anyone blink in a few years – probably not even as soon as Junior turned twenty in four months.

Relena had good things to say about Po too – not much, they'd only met twice, but good things all the same. Warm and no-nonsense at the same time. She'd been on his list of people he'd like to meet even before they confirmed Junior was attached to her Insurgence.

"As much as you and Lena," Jack confirmed. "Though not as simple? There's been mention of a jealous ex-boyfriend, and Audi said something that made me think that that's… an active issue?"

Jake blinked. "Yeah?"

Jack made an affirmative noise. "Odin's entirely dismissive of it, but I think that might only be superficial? He's an 'all in' type with everything either way, it's just how his brain works, but he cut off something his sister was trying to say about the ex being a real tyrant with a line about 'she shouldn't have to define herself by him.'"

Yeah… that did sound like there was some kind of issue. Huh. "So he likes that she's independent, huh?"

"Eh…more like he's determined to go the extra mile so she knows she can depend on him? I asked if she liked her space then, and he laughed as he told me no." He sighed again. "I'm mostly sure that wasn't a reference to how randy the two of them get. He followed it up with a lecture about how defining yourself by another person was endless, not a one and done, and that you can't just claim people without continuing to put the work in."

He thought about that for a moment, and winced. That… didn't exactly bode well for reunions. "Ouch."

"Eh, yes and no? He's also really big on how nothing is really 'over' until you're dead, and is surprisingly forgiving with his friends' fuckups despite the harsh ideology. I mean… I think it explains why he's giving me such a chance? But also why he throws Senior under the bus at minimal provocation – if you're dead, you can't work on the problem."

That twist made both his head and his heart hurt. "I'm going to have to think about it," he admitted. On the one hand it was hopeful?

But it also hurt.

It would probably make more sense if he gave his emotions time to settle? Time to change the subject. "He's absolute on the timeline you mentioned?"

Jack made an exasperated noise. "Barring an emergency at the last minute, yes. His venue is a public event that lines up with an inside joke, and if anything, he doesn't want to wait that long. He was ready to find something off the shelf until he realized how many color variations there were in her favorite gemstone, went down the rabbit hole on the quality involved in that, and decided it was the crux of the issue. Apparently tanzanites are soft, but there's some kind of treatment that can be done?"

He didn't remember what color tanzanite was, but he knew the answer to this question. "Yeah, it's an add-on nano-coating that I would have recommended anyway; it adds luster and shine as well as strength." Aquamarines, after all, were naturally prone to scratches – but they suited Relena's eyes and she loved them. The primary stone in her ring was nearly colorless but had just enough tint to be perfect… and he grinned, realizing he maybe he had another point of commonality with his brother. Pulling his phone away from his head, he typed out a search for the stone – the first few images were blue, ranging between what he'd consider sapphire to something close to a winter sky. Huh. "White gold?" he suggested, bringing the phone back to his face. It could work with other metal colors too, he was sure, but the first pieces on his search were silvery.

"Cobalt chrome if he can get it, platinum possibly with a rhodium coating if he can't, followed by white gold and rhodium if there's problems there," Jack recited agreeably.

Jake raised his brows. Visual over expense, nice. The cobalt was technically the cheapest option, and the lightest – but it was tricky to work with. He'd dismissed it as an option from Relena's design immediately. But if the style wasn't too complex? "I might know someone for the cobalt." Arielle might be willing try it just for the prestige – she was proud that way. If it pushed her limits, it would help her showcase more for the future – and lucky him, she was working out of her European shop for the next two months.

She might be from L3 and primarily ran her business there, but Romefeller liked fancy work, and part of the agreement for Relena's commission had been that the ring's maker would be subtly 'leaked.' It was hard to beat the depth of the aristocracy's pockets, and some time on the customer end benefitted her business too.

Arielle had manipulated gundanium with internal circuitry into a beautiful pendant for him before – if a stylish feminine ring could be made from cobalt, she'd be the smith to pull it off. She was also willing to take exorbitant bribes for rush orders. He usually didn't bother, but it was a service she offered every time. "How's his calendar?"

Jack huffed out a laugh. "For this? Wide open. But apparently she's busy and he doesn't expect to see her for another week, and sooner is better."

He violently crushed the impulse that had him wondering just what the Insurgence was busy with when they'd been so damn quiet for the past couple months – while he was curious, he really didn't care in the face of this. Sally Po had proven she had both morals and an agenda he didn't disagree with – for now, that was enough. "Send me all the details you can about what he wants, and I'll get back to you with a time." He hesitated, but you know… better to not assume. "How's your schedule?"

Jack's laugh was brighter this time, and it made something in his own chest loosen. "Wide open for at least another ten days, but we'll probably have reports back that need follow-up after that. There's some flexibility even there, though."

Jake licked his lips. Might as well. "You should come visit once he's off to see her again. Lena missed you last time, and since work is keeping her busy on her birthday proper, we were thinking about having a belated get together."

"…What day?"

"It's… not set in stone yet."

"Her birthday is tomorrow."

He opted not to make a joke about his fiancée being into delayed gratification. "I didn't forget, she just asked to put off any celebrations until she finished wrapping up her latest set of negotiations. It's not as though I'm doing nothing tomorrow." He rolled his eyes. "You can come for no reason too, but I'm asking early enough that I can still move the party around; the timing of her work varies dramatically right now."

I'm trying to figure out how to make this feel normal, he didn't say. To remind you that I know you don't need an invite, and you can come as you please. Getting any more direct than this would just make it feel more awkward.

"Ah… okay." His father took an audible breath. "I can probably make any date you set this month."

Jake licked his lips again. "Cool, I'll let you know." He had to start somewhere, and arranging this now, when Junior very much was not invited, ought to help too. After all, he'd decided to try to pick up the pieces of their shitty history before his brother's resurrection act.

That said, he was also done. "I need to go – I've got something I need to wrap up before I can start bothering jewelers." All the back and forth with the Rubato rep that had approached RLTT directly had been going swimmingly, but interweaving Relena and Nadiya's programs through the Revenants' work was ceaselessly time-consuming. At this rate, if Relena couldn't take the time back to focus on the upcoming amplifier tour, he was going to have to hire and assign someone for it. He'd planned to handle it himself with a cameo here and there from Relena to keep the diplomatic end smooth, but the breadth of the work itself…

If it turned out that it truly was just Stanton managing all of Revenant Rubato, he might be forced to cry. Or ask for lessons. He'd thought he was good at this shit before now, prepared for the new scale he was raising the Tomorrow Today Fund to, but… Hell, even if Stanton does have a long line of sub-managers, the sheer speed and scale he dances through is daunting. And that was only what the younger man was letting him see.

There's always a bigger fish, he reminded himself. He'd known that, but he hadn't expected it to be quite so much bigger.

But on the bright side, he was still mostly sure that he was dealing directly with the infamous Cambyses martyr that was best friends with his brother and the Dutchman, and at least on paper? He thought they could all see eye to eye. It could be far worse – Stanton could belong to the East's camp, or Zechs'. And he was pretty sure that, despite how he was becoming more and more positive he wasn't Stanton's equal? He didn't think the younger man viewed their correspondence in a poor light? If he could just cultivate that relationship long enough, he was fairly sure Stanton's reported distrust of him as a person wouldn't fuck the whole thing up when he made RLTT public.

The odds of that not going up in flames also went up the closer he was able to grow to his brother – which was win-win in general. If he played his cards right, he might be able to navigate the lot of this without anyone getting pissed at him.

"Okay, take care – I'll send you an email."

"With pictures," Jake added. "It doesn't have to be exact, just ideas, but especially for the cobalt, I need as much as you can give me." After all, if it pushed the limits too far, they were going to have to backpedal back to a different metal; better to not lose the time if they were already facing an impossibility.

"You got it. It's not going to be organized, but it shouldn't take me too long. I'll be in touch."

"Thanks." He closed his eyes, centering himself, trying to decide… but honestly, it wasn't as hard as last time. "Bye, Dad."

oOo

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oOo

Szczecin, Poland

"Done," Cat agreed. "Next window is in two hours."

"How wide of a radius do you need?" asked a female voice from seemingly nowhere.

"Three kilometers for a hostility net to be safe, but theoretically I can hit inside zero point two."

Nick kept his mouth shut. He'd come in intending to tease the younger man about avoiding him since he hadn't even come out to say hello, but this… was something else.

A different woman's voice came through, this time definitely through a speaker he couldn't identify – this one younger, and imminently more exhausted. "I gave you the territory lines already, so just tell me where."

Cat paced around the massive holographic display of what looked like a city for a moment before muttering something foreign that changed the scale of the projection dramatically and stepping into it to eye the height of the buildings critically. "Primary," he announced, shifting something in his hand before starting to draw a ring – color followed his fingertips, then filled in when he closed the loop. Taking another three steps further in, he announced, "Secondary," before repeating the process. Muttering another foreign word of some kind, the scale dramatically sized down, and he looked around critically for a moment before nodding and taking two more steps, crouched, and drew a third. "Tertiary. Quaternary further out for domestic essentials, as discussed."

"Second wave in at the same time, with their own gear," a third female voice added, this one more husky than the others. "Do we have a preferred landing, or is the original site ideal?"

Cat turned to offer him a lazily pleased sort of smile and held up one finger of his off hand in a 'wait' gesture.

"Might be worth coming in swinging," a male voice suggested. "Fuel cells are a hot enough ticket that no one else will have air support. We're only going to get one chance at surprise."

He was mostly sure, but he still signed a question – the room was dark aside from the lit projections, and the sound quality incredible. 'Alone?'

Cat nodded.

"That's doable," the third woman announced, her tone a match for Cat's smile. "Do we have schematics for that plant, or just memory?"

"I forwarded them to Three for modifications," Cat announced. "You have the originals in your folder." He shook his head, then added, "I'm signing out. Ring me if need be."

Nick blinked, opening his mouth to protest even as there were murmurs of acknowledgement, but the speakers went offline before he could speak. "If you're busy," he started.

"Too many cooks spoil the pot," Cat returned, shaking his head. "I'm only in for logistics – Sally will let me know if I'm needed before the next wave." He made a fist with his right hand followed by a tossing gesture, and the diagram filling the room faded out, the lights rising. "Sorry I couldn't leave it earlier." He sighed, looking… careworn. "It's complicated."

Sally? He… hadn't considered the idea that all his concerns of the last two months might have such a simple answer. "Sally Po?" The Insurgence was…

Well, with Mitchell gone rogue and the situation in space? Po's Insurgence were practically angels.

Maybe of the Old Testament variety, but still angels.

Cat's smile was more content this time; a simpler kind of happy. "She's an old friend." Shrugging, he headed towards Nick and the open door. "And I might be willing to team up with an enemy to right this particular wrong. The more we learn, the more guilty I feel that it took so long for us to muster for this."

"That was a town," Nick noted, feeling… less sure about this as what they were referencing really sunk in.

"Merano," Cat agreed, stepping around him to reach the door. "Or what's left of it, anyway. Six months of segregation have done it no favors, and from first survey, the rural areas in the cordon are worse." He let out a slow sigh, expression grimly familiar from before. "Cambyses' only saving grace was that they were thoroughly organized. Without that backbone of structure?" He grimaced. "The stories I've heard coming out of America are better."

Nick felt like he could hardly breathe. Like something inside him was beginning to vibrate.

Italy. He was talking about northern Italy.

"The Insurgence broke through the Italian quarantine?" he breathed.

"As of this morning." Cat made a sawing gesture, reaching back to shut the door behind them with the opposite hand. "After a fashion," he amended. "They're in – we're trying to get a handle on just what's left to work with before ending the siege. You haven't missed any news – the border is still secure."

That… that was huge. "And Rubato is involved?' he confirmed, trying to wrap his mind around it – even as his brain shied away from the comparison to the Sahara.

"Only peripherally," Cat returned, leading him back down the hall. "Mostly just Adam and me – and honestly, Adam might as well be Insurgence at this point anyway, he…" He cut himself off with an exasperated noise. "Adam is only part of Rubato because Odin and I want him to stop running solo as often, not because he listens to anyone. That hasn't changed – he makes up his own rules, and changes them by the hour."

Nick considered that. "Who is Adam, again?" He kept losing track of the plethora of alternate names.

Cat made a dismissive gesture. "A friend of mine from before." His mouth settled into an unhappy line. "Mostly. He wasn't with us in Africa."

That looked interesting. "Mostly," he repeated.

Cat gave him a considering look, clearly hesitating… then the grimace deepened. "I don't know if we were ever friends," he admitted. "I wanted to be, almost desperately, looking back, but… He didn't really know what to do with it. Then…"

Sounds almost like a bad break-up? "Major rejection?" he suggested.

Cat barked out a sharp, vicious laugh. "I killed him, Nick. I completely lost my mind and, unprovoked, I-" He jerked his head to one side in a sharp dismissal. "He was trying to stop me from doing something I could never have come back from, because he was awkward and he didn't feel the way I did but he knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did it. So he got in my way and I called his bluff, because why would he start caring now, and… and it wasn't a bluff." He stopped walking and dropped his weight back against the wall, covering his eyes with both hands.

Nick debated, but eventually opted for the obvious. "He doesn't sound dead."

"I blew him up and left him for dead in a battlefield in space," Cat growled, hunching in on himself. "Odin chased me down, beat some sense into me, then effectively took me by the scruff of my neck and dragged me around after him for three weeks until I got my back up about it enough that he figured I wasn't likely to step in front of a train." He dragged his hands down his cheeks and fisted them under his chin, curling in on himself further. "I ended up chasing after his wake again only a week later and stayed that way until Sanc fell. When I went back to my sisters after that they just wanted to brush everything under the rug – and while I was uncomfortable with the idea, I didn't feel like I really had any other options." Sighing, he dropped his hands and stood up straight again. "When Odin and a couple other friends turned up again, and I went with them because it was an absolute nightmare and they needed me… and then all of a sudden, there's Adam." He dropped back against the wall again and met Nick's eyes. "Same soul, same everything, but no memory."

Nick considered that, only briefly stumbling over the soul comment – he'd come across empaths online referring to people-centric emotions that way. Obviously there were a lot of missing details, but he the gist of it. "Second chance, huh?"

"Maybe if not for the guilt," the younger man groused, looking down and away. "And we… I was too exhausted, too spent on literally every level to move on it even if we'd had time. He didn't…" Cat swallowed. "It was his second chance. Not mine." Another sigh. "Which… has been proven since, and…"

He waited until it was cleared Cat had no intention of explaining further before pointing out the obvious again. "He's still not dead, though."

Cat swallowed, closing his eyes. "I recognize everyone I've ever met. He was different after, but close enough to not second guess. Now?" He shook his head. "It was just an echo, maybe because everyone kept telling him what he ought to remember or be, but… He's someone else."

Nick fought down the urge to stare incredulously. Clearly this was an upsetting topic, but… "So he went through something crazy traumatic, and instead of chalking it up to new life experiences, you decided he got replaced."

"Don't be asinine." It came out in a hiss, a flash back to their days in the desert.

But this wasn't the desert. "Don't be a little bitch," he snapped back. "If he didn't want anything to do with you, he wouldn't have come back the first time, let alone since. Does he know you're having, like, imposter syndrome over this?"

Cat guffawed. "That's not the term-"

"Whatever it's called then, are you shitting me?" This was stupid. "The fuck are you going to do when Cory starts calming down enough that he thinks with his heart again instead of fuzzing out?"

Cat froze. "What?"

Nick rolled his eyes. "Anyone can tell that Cory is a vaguely functioning ball of trauma being led along until he relaxes enough to remember how to deal with life again, but I've talked about it with Jovi too. That kid has the emotional capacity of a thimble most days. I know you've got your crazy mutant powers or whatever, but seriously, once he starts a full recovery are you going to turn around and think he's suddenly not your kid anymore?"

He seriously doubted it, but the point had to be made.

"Of course not-"

"But given how fucked up he is now, won't he feel like a totally different person in three years?"

His friend made a deeply exasperated noise. "Maybe, but the core-"

Nick cut him off again. "Or will you only still recognize him because you got to see the process where he changed?"

Cat's brain visibly stuttered over that, for all that a moment later he was shaking his head in denial. "There's a core, like a fingerprint under everything-"

"Fuck off, just how long did you look for that before you noped out?" He scoffed. "You've got a thing about guilt."

Cat made an inarticulate rage sort of sound, throwing up his hands. "I literally murdered him."

"Dead man is still walking, and I bet if he held it against you it would've come up by now. Seriously, how hard did you try?"

Tellingly, his one-time commander scowled at him before whipping away to stride down the hall.

Nick darted after him – almost wanting to skip, just to be an ass about it. "You're welcome!" he called.

"I'll think about it," the younger man tossed back tersely. "But I don't see why you're so smug."

"You're still refusing professional help," Nick returned blithely, realizing he did feel proud of himself. Therapy wasn't supposed to be comfortable. "I'm just helping out."

He couldn't see Cat's face, but he could just about hear him roll his eyes. "I forgot how much of an asshole you are."

"No you didn't," Nick denied cheerfully. "You just don't like being painted in a corner. It passes." When Cat didn't bother deigning that with a response, he asked, "When do I get to meet Adam, anyway?"

Cat scoffed, slowing down and glancing back. "Not this week – Italy, remember?"

Right. He sighed, crossing his arms behind his head. "I come for a visit, and everyone's busy," he whined half-heartedly.

He did see Cat roll his eyes this time. "You were the one kicking Skye out the door."

"Yeah, but I thought he'd take me," he complained, even as he grinned.

"Utah is very much gun territory, it always has been and I doubt the apocalypse changed that. It would have been a bad idea. You've never even touched a gun."

"I'm Welsh," he agreed, nodding along. He'd understood the logic at the time and had even told Skye to rush for it, but that didn't make him not annoyed at having missed one of his closer friends.

Cat made a peculiar noise. "What does that even mean?"

"That I'm British but still have standards." He grinned at Cat's even more frustrated groan. "Where are you from, again?"

"Not Britain, clearly."

Nick snorted out a laugh at that, taking a couple quick steps to walk side by side. "Whatever. How much time do we have before you need to lock yourself back in your imaginarium?"

Cat choked out a laugh, eyes lighting up. "My what?"

"You seriously have some kind of full VR room and instead of gaming you're using it to plot out…" Nick frowned. "How was that logistics? You looked like you were picking spots at random, but…" He'd seen that look before – whatever it looked like, it had been anything but arbitrary.

Cat gave an elegant little shrug. "Statistics, mostly. Hilde had a clear enough picture of population density and structural damage that I could supplement our satellite glimpses to plot trajectory for accurate supply drops with minimal collateral. They're still going to need to check my math and account for weather – our time and geographical windows are both tight. At least one of those sites won't be viable. But it's a good starting point."

Nick frowned. He was mostly sure that had been some kind of explanation, but at the same time? "Try that again."

His friend flashed him a bright, mischievous sort of grin – gone almost as soon as it came – and made one of his more grandiose gestures as he explained, "I sketched out the best possible landing algorithms."

Nick narrowed his eyes. "See, I'm pretty confident you need a computer to run those." There was a big industry in that shit – you needed a spaceport to get enough push to reach the black, but not to come back down safely.

Cat nodded thoughtfully. "But you'd have to write up a program for all the specific parameters that I haven't had time to collate into machine language yet, in order to use one." Another elegant wave. "This was faster."

"…You're that good at math," he deadpanned.

"They're going to need to rehash my calculus – I was adlibbing averages. But in essence? Yes."

Nick stared at him, remembering what Jovi had said about Cat having joined the war effort despite being way too fucking young. He'd known Robby was some kind of brilliant, but this? "Just how bad were you trying to piss off your dad?"

A sharp laugh cracked out of him, almost seeming to shock the blonde even as the amusement settled deep into his skin in a pleased way – and not for the first time, he truly looked like his namesake. Arrogant, amused, and vindictive. "My father was a pacifist of the utmost tier," he sneered. "And followed Zachary Peacecraft's example to his grave despite every warning sign." The sneer deepened into a grimace. "Despite having every opportunity to find an alternate route. He always cared more about the absolution of his ideals than finding a way to make them reality."

Huh. That sounded like it ran deep. "That bad, huh?"

Cat rolled his eyes. "He abandoned most of his children and maintained an iron fist of control over the rest. The only one of us that evaded both options founded a syndicate."

Nick snorted, thinking about how well that glove fit Rubato – even where it also didn't. "So you do have a role model. I can't decide if that's worse or reassuring."

Cat's smile was downright beatific this time. "That's not an uncommon reaction. Tricia inspires or desolates by turn." His expression turned contemplative. "We have a few differences of ideology, but… I could do worse." He shook his head. "She would call Rubato a proof that I was coming into my own and be proud."

Huh. "You haven't talked to her since…?"

"I'm nearly positive she's running with Soleil," he negated. "Though whether she's with them or working them over is debatable. Until Sally is ready to forge that connection one way or another, my sisters can wait." He cast a narrow-eyed gaze over at him. "Don't mention any of this to Inez."

Nick rolled his eyes, shoving his hands in his pockets, because wow. "I have literally talked to your sister twice," he pointed out. "Ever. Why would I start now?"

"She's only probably my sister, and Rubato's cover has enough holes in it that she might come sniffing now that you've spent your spring break with us." He shook his head. "I don't know Inez. I was inside Zayeed's sphere of influence, and she must be one of the ones he abandoned. Just because I know Tricia loves all of us doesn't mean I have any idea how most of them think. Just because I'm mostly sure we won't directly clash doesn't mean I'm eager to find out." He scoffed, smirk returning. "At least not until I'm too fortified to be brushed aside if they're not pleased."

Zayeed? Huh. At least the Arabic-sounding name might go a long way towards explaining how Robby had been so damn comfortable in the dunes, even if it sounded absurd while looking at the man's decidedly French physicality. In any case, it wasn't as if he'd considered the option even before Jovi had first brought it up. "I'm not going to tell Inez anything," he promised.

Cat's smile was grateful this time, and they emerged from the bizarrely long hallway into a stairwell leading up. "Thank you." Starting to walk up, he added, "And I doubt they'll need me again in the 'imaginarium.'" He rolled his eyes. "The ladies of the Insurgence are more than capable. Mark, Ardith, and I will probably need to start sorting through some of the information release soon, though."

Nick blinked. "Yeah?"

"It is a literal nightmare in there," Cat reminded him, staying several steps ahead. "One the Regime purposefully cultivated for terrible reasons. It's going to backfire in their faces spectacularly – and we want to make the biggest impact possible." He looked over his shoulder to smirk back at him. "Jovi has a meeting with Relena tomorrow. I think she's going to want a piece of this pie too."

Oh shit. That… Ugh. He couldn't decide if that feeling in his chest was excitement or just anticipation, but… Fuck it. "Can I hear her answer?"

Cat stopped and turned back to face him fully, resting one hand on the stair rail. "You're allowed into any part of this you want," he reminded him, voice quiet. "You're allowed to duck out whenever you want. Nick, so long as you don't sell us out to the Regime, I'm okay with you changing your mind every other day on the subject – I just don't think you would be." His shrug was anything but elegant this time – mostly uncomfortable, maybe a little sheepish. "We can do plenty of things not related to this too." Then the smirk came back. "But if you want to be nosey, I'm not here to hold you back. I don't do that anymore – you set your own limits now." Body language lightening, he turned and continued up the steps again. "Just try not to regret it, whatever you decide."

oOo

---

oOo

Provo, Utah – The United States

"It'll take a little time to organize, but I can get anyone who wants to leave out. I have the influence to find homes and livelihoods in agricultural settings, factory work, space, martial, or probably anything in between." He sighed. "I can't guarantee it'll be perfect, but I can work out a fresh start and a basic support network."

The older man hesitated. "Even though…?"

Skye grimaced, shrugging. "It's been over three years since the Fall – I knew coming here was a long shot. Just because I couldn't find any answers doesn't mean I should let the effort go to waste."

His parents, his sisters and their families… either they had died, or they had left and resettled elsewhere. The house had been stripped of all essentials, and no one knew anything – but it had been a week and… well, he could search the wasteland that had once been the greater Salt Lake Area for years and never get a straight answer one way or another. Anything that might have served as a lead had long since dried up.

He couldn't decide if it was better or worse, to have tried and failed. Though at least whatever had happened, he could tell that coming last fall, as soon as he had the ability, wouldn't have been any more successful? It wasn't exactly closure, but…

Maybe they'd made it out of the desert into more fertile territory in the first rush to leave the urban areas behind. Everyone had enough horror stories about the early days after Libra that it made a certain amount of sense – there was never enough water here to support the population. They would have known that. His own family could have stripped their houses of anything valuable as easily as looters come after. Just because his first thought had been that they would go to the church didn't mean it would have been the smart move – and everything here was so fractured that he couldn't say if they hadn't gone the church way, even. The names the of congregations were already fading out of memory – part or all of his particular stake could have made the migration together. He would probably never know.

They could also be three years dead of exposure, here or literally anywhere in an eight hundred mile radius. As tightly knit as most of the modern world was, everything over here had… gotten big, for lack of a better word.

"Is the government coming back?" a woman asked tentatively. "I mean, are you… scouting? Maybe?"

That hurt on an entirely different level. No one thinks about the Americas at all anymore, do they? "I have nothing to do with any government," he denied. "And war is brewing again besides."

"So nothing's changed," another woman sneered, the bite in her words failing to completely hide the misery lurking in her eyes.

Skye grimaced, trying to figure out how to explain without diving down a rabbit hole, and was grateful when Damien stepped in. "No one is truly recovered from Libra's Fall yet," he announced. "And the conflicts that caused it were merely paused, not ended. But in Europe, Relena Darlian-Peacecraft and many others are erecting new laws, businesses and humanitarian efforts that are changing things." He paused, eyeing the group – Of elders? Leaders? – before announcing, "We're part of one of the newer groups that've been trying to make waves, outside the politics arena. There's a lot more space in between for that than there used to be, and it's beginning to make a difference."

Either he'd been practicing, or maybe they really should let Damien help Bern write his speeches. That wasn't half bad.

"Repopulation of the Pacific has already begun," Vaska chipped in, looking everyone over. "I don't know how long that will take. But if anything, I suspect South America would come after that."

That went over like a lead balloon, but Cliff spoke over their protests. "Oceania and South America were utterly decimated before what was left got fully evacuated. They became graveyards, while you all suffered and grew wild enough to defend what was left. Repopulation is just that – they don't want to come here because they don't want to clash with any of you. The current Regime is already fighting on more than one front while struggling to keep their own people stable – they don't have the resources to even consider picking a fight here. They're not coming."

"But there's more space in between now," Damien reiterated, making a placating gesture. "A whole continent is one thing – but relocating a couple of towns?" He shrugged. "This seems like a good place to start."

…Why does Mark bitch so much about Damien's shenanigans, again? Seriously, what the fuck. He was smooth today.

"Think about it," he added. "You've carved out a place for yourselves here, and if you want to stick to it, fine. But if anyone wants an out, we'll carve a path. Half the point of Revenant Rubato is about giving people options – too many people never get a decent set." He bit back the urge to sigh, before adding, "Especially after the Fall. We…" Oh, to hell with it. "This wasn't the only place to descend into a post-apocalyptic hellscape. All of us here? We were lucky to find someone who pulled us out." He stood up straighter, trying to project confidence. "The way I see it, the only way forward from there is to return the favor to the universe and help someone else. Pay it forward."

It still hurt… but maybe some good could come out of this trip anyway.

oOo

---

oOo

Merano, Italy

Sometimes Hilde felt like she was only a passenger along for the ride, and her body just knew what to do. Smooth action and reaction, one motion gliding into another… it had excited her, when she first entered basic with OZ and realized she was good at it in a way no one around her was. It had been heady right up until she met the cocky shit that Duo had been on their first meeting, at the reminder that there was always a bigger fish, even as the creeping reminder that her family had told her to never trust the Earthborn had found new anchors in her superiors. The humbling after that, when she saw what lengths he would go to… the realization that recognition was a trap. It had still hurt to play the dumb bitch and get herself kicked out of the program, but nothing like the wound when she'd realized just who she'd unwittingly tied herself to before Duo opened her eyes.

She hadn't quite trusted her instincts for a while after that. She'd needed to take a step back. But she didn't regret going to Libra – even if she hadn't been the only spy, what she had done was critical – reckless, but critical. The General didn't often speak of her foster brother, but he hadn't known jack shit about Libra's weaknesses, too focused on playing the defensive, his actions all preventative. Which, well, point – because if he hadn't been running that game then Peacemillion and the gundams would have been destroyed weeks before she made her move. Trying to compare their actions was apples to oranges. Apparently it had been far from his first spy gig too, for all that her boss wouldn't give her details.

This though?

Slamming through the door of the control room of the plant, she let off four quick, precise bursts of fire at the last defenders, pivoting to further clear the room only to find it empty.

Sometimes she thought she'd been born for this.

She waited a moment, watching for any telltale twitching, before barking, "Clear!" and tugging off the helmet of her body armor – and fuck but had she missed the security of one of these suits! It slowed her down, but the ability to be a wall for the kind of close-passage push they'd just done while Adam's team came in the south entrance and Giselle's through the roof? Pure fucking gold. The still cautious way the others moved in from behind her to check the bodies made something deep in her gut uncoil a little further – another affirmation that she wasn't the only one holding the line, even if she'd proven herself capable of it.

God, but it felt good to have competent people at her back again. Not that the locals hadn't tried, but…

She still couldn't decide if the last six months had been some kind of personal hell, or a way to prove herself.

She wished she knew whether she wanted to preen or never do it again. Small groups was fine, or all soldiers was fine, but civilians? She wanted to crow and bask and rub it in everyone's faces and she also wanted to break down sobbing and hide in a dark room for, like… a month.

Well. A week, maybe.

Later, though.

"South wing is… mostly clear," Adam announced through her earpiece, sounding frustrated.

"Backup?" Hilde demanded, already turning to gesture.

"No, not…" He made a frustrated noise and called out something in Italian, the tone almost crooning. "Not unless they used kids. I didn't see much of her – long, straight hair, maybe seven?" Another grumble. "A small seven, or a very nimble five – she's behind a grate. I can't tell if she's long gone or still listening."

No one ever talked about how relief could hit as hard as a sucker punch. Susan. "You found Susan?"

"Did they ever use kids to ambush?"

"Who the fuck uses kids to spring ambushes?" she snapped.

Another frustrated noise. "Susan?" he called in that same gentle tone. Another string of almost sing-song Italian, though she heard 'borchia' tangled somewhere in it.

"Tell her you've got pink gummy bears," Hilde added, slinging her rifle back over her shoulder and striding over to the security panel.

Adam's confusion was audible. "I… don't?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's a safe code, dumbass. Only mention pink ones." Other colors meant entirely different things.

Susan was in truth a very small eight, and clever enough to sniff out most adults' well-meaning cons.

He hummed out an appreciative sort of note before the line went fully silent again – which was good, because as glad as she was to hear at least one of the kids had weathered the siege, she had shit to do. "Nita, man the security desk and make sure we don't have any stragglers – I'm securing the mainframe." It was debatable if they'd had enough time to truly break past her firewalls, because it looked like Reese had at least had time to get those up, but…

Fuck. Reese. It still really wasn't time to cry, damn it.

All the same, he'd been a beautiful, masterful piece of work because no – despite holding the plant for a solid eight hours, despite shooting nearly everyone who had been on campus when the raid struck? Her adversaries hadn't been able to access the mainframe. He'd bought them time. It was hard to say how much time it would have been without today's rescue, but he… He'd died for it. He might've had time to run for it, but instead he'd-

Fuck it. She wasn't the only fucking pillar of hope left standing anymore, and the only people in the room with her were the newly arrived Insurgence agents. She could cry a little.

She wasn't sure how long it took to finish regathering herself, glad that no one had made any comment but just let her have a minute, before Nita snorted. "What are you supposed to be now, a tree?"

"I can be whatever I like," Adam returned smugly. "Including a hostage means of conveyance."

Hilde blinked, wiping at her face one more time and turning as Nita scoffed. Adam stood in one of the control room's entrances with little Michael on his shoulders, Susan clamped onto his side in a way that could not be in any way comfortable for either of them, but with no sign of letting go all the same… and she couldn't help but laugh at the sight. "You're okay!" she cried, crouching down and flinging out her arms… and laughed harder as both orphans launched off her friend hard enough that he almost fell. They tumbled into her arms in a way she normally found overwhelming, but fuck it, she couldn't get any worse right now anyway. Instead she just closed her eyes and held on as they clutched at her… "I was so worried…"

Fuck. She didn't normally like kids, was rarely even the person who looked after their needs, but the lives of these two had been her responsibility for more than two months now and she'd been studiously not thinking about their fate. They'd been at the plant because it was the most fortified, defensible place she'd had, and the fact that it had fallen anyway? "You clever, crafty girl," she cooed into Susan's pin straight… utterly filthy hair. Michael was only four, so whatever had happened, Susan deserved the credit. Where have you been?

As if he could hear her thoughts, Adam let out a soft chuckle. "I caught her peeking out an air vent at me. Scouting. We had to go back three junctions for the boy."

Hilde laughed again, ruffling the girl's hair. "Smart."

She grumbled into her shoulder. "I heard… Had to see. I'm quiet."

And since Michael was practically the definition of quiet in a normal sense, she took that to mean that Susan had been worried about the clatter he might make in the vent, not that he'd chatter. Which… fair. "Smart to not test the weight limits of the ducts," she praised, affirming the child's logic. After all, it wouldn't have mattered if none of the adults haunting their home turned prison could fit into the vents; they weren't exactly bulletproof. "Even while they held, they might have been bowing, or made noisier just from the added weight."

"The only thing off was your timing," Adam added, squatting down to be on the same level. "You can't count on no one thinking to look in the vent – I always look."

"He's weird like that," Hilde informed them conspiratorially, despite agreeing.

"I've used them too many times to discount them," he corrected.

Susan twisted to look at him with a distinctly judgmental face. "You're too big," she argued.

His returning smile was sly. "They're not always as small as here, and I wasn't always this big."

Hilde narrowed her eyes at him, suddenly rethinking this comment from before. Though… She switched to Japanese. "How young did you start this lifestyle?" He'd really expected a child he thought as young as five to attack him?

His smile was… careless. "The mercenaries who found me as a baby thought I should earn my keep," he admitted in the same language.

…Wow. Just when she didn't think her faith in humanity could get any lower. Now that they were going to be leaving the war zone, she needed to figure out who the hell the kids went to, but that wasn't inspiring her with any confidence. "That's fucked up," she informed him, switching back to English. Her Japanese wasn't bad, but it was shit for cussing. You had to get creative if you wanted the same oomph, and she just wasn't in the mood.

Adam just shrugged, nodding thoughtfully. "I think that's the main reason Odin wanted rubato. He gets hung up on that kind of thing."

For a second, she thought maybe her brain was playing tricks with the Italian she'd spent the last six months trying to learn, but… "Odin stole what?" she tried.

Adam cackled. "Right? Apparently it also has something to do with music, but I still can't believe they named it that." He raised his eyebrows, lifting both hands dramatically. "Ghost thieves!"

She scowled, unimpressed. "Did you just make fucking jazz hands at me? What are you even talking about?"

His grin was entirely unrepentant. "I don't think we should let Cat name things."

She blinked. "Cat?"

"Exactly."

Hilde narrowed her eyes at him, letting go of the kids and making a point of ruffling Michael's hair as she disentangled enough to stand again. "Now you're just fucking with me because you can," she decided.

The asshole practically purred. "Always."

She scoffed, spinning away from him to go back to the desk. "Do something useful or get out," she ordered. "I need to work up a damage report before we decide on our next move."

oOo

---

oOo

Amsterdam, Netherlands – Hell's Crossing

"It's not that structured," Katrien corrected, shaking her head. "We don't have the space for a full schedule to be fair, and the only exception is for those who live on premises. The Crossing is a facility of transitions, not a sanctuary. We have two reserved slots, two lottery, and three walk-in for each of the six two-hour slots." Karina existed outside that rubric, but it wasn't the same. Even if Kasey wouldn't completely lose his shit over Rina and Renee being unprotected for most of the day, nearly all the pre-K Lotus Trust programs were home-based. "If we run into problems with the walk-in situation being abused in the next few weeks, we'll re-address it." Probably to add various age restrictions to open it up more – maybe segregate by age a bit more and open up more opportunities for grade schoolers? "We're still working out the details on what the community needs," she explained. "So we're open to suggestions, but we're going to need to take the time to prove each point before adapting."

"Oh." Desi Staffan looked hesitant for a moment before pasting on another smile – clearly overwhelmed, but not upset. "Do you have time to walk me through the sign-up for those?"

"Absolutely." Katrien gestured for the other woman to sit down and pulled up the right window. "Do you have your license number handy? We can check on everything else too. Do you still have time to bake bread with this new gig, or is that going the way of the dinosaur?"

Desi blinked, clearly startled. "I hadn't planned to stop, I…" She shook her head in a bemused way, then rattled off the string of numbers Katrien had asked for from memory – a good sign. "I made an agreement, winter before last," she continued.

"Agreements can be changed," Katrien soothed. "We've been checking in on everyone. I just told Kasey I'd touch base with everyone who took up the Lotus mantle so he might have time to sleep sometime this month."

Desi let out a soft chuckle. "He does tend to overwork himself," she agreed. "I remember…" She grimaced. "I wanted to thank him again, actually. For before, when… Well. And for all this too, of course. Even as everything changes, I… just knowing that-"

She cut herself off when Katrien reached a hand across her desk to clasp the other woman's hands in one of her own. "As much as things change, that isn't," she promised, meeting her eyes. "We're adapting, not moving on. If anyone hassles you again, we want to hear about it – the only difference is that it might be someone in khaki come to help instead of a Devil. All these new rules are just a way to expand and add more safety, not a breakdown of the system."

"Right, of course, I know that. I just…" Desi sighed and visibly gathered herself before giving Katrien a truly stunning smile. "If anything, being able to be home instead of at three different jobs…. I might be able to do more. I didn't want to bring it up until I was sure, what with having more little ones in the house than my boys, but… Well, it was something I was already thinking about."

"Give it a handful of weeks first, then come talk to me if you want to change something," Katrien reassured. "Or sooner, if it turns out the kids need more of your time than the baking allows. Either way is fine – just let us know so we can redistribute, okay?"

The world had changed again, dramatically, the last few months.

In hindsight it had been a long time coming, between the birth of Kasey's network after the riot and Relena's continued work to raise the poverty line. They'd been heading in this direction. But then Revenant Rubato had come in with a bang, and with a couple of the founders from that group being old friends of Kay's from before the war and…

It wasn't quite there yet, but… suddenly the Devil's Quarter was only an inch away from not being a slum.

They had the widest scale Neut network to date, and were serving as a proof of concept before other areas could implement the colonial-style power grids. The vast majority of both the vagrants and young people at loose ends had cleared out following new Rubato job opportunities elsewhere, and what was left was slowly becoming… more of a professional community. There were still plenty of normal businesses and families, so many of those still broken or wounded like the widow in front of her, but at the same time… it was remarkable.

The word was gentrification, apparently.

It had been a shock, in a lot of ways – when Adelheid called the meeting together to address the fact that the Den was about to come down around their ears… That they were going to have to cut their losses and leave. She'd known the Den was in shit shape, but she hadn't really thought about it in so long that the older woman's announcement had hit like a blow to the gut. She didn't want to leave, but… The building they'd been calling 'The Devil's Den' since Luc found it had been one of the smallest leftover buildings from a large boarding school, once upon a time. Still far too large for what they had ever needed, but at a price they were able to afford so long as they took excess measures to secure it… They had fought to make it work, but it had worked.

She hadn't cared that it was basically a bloody hole in the ground – it was hers. She'd bled for it, they all had, to keep this one piece of safety, and to have it threatened? She'd been holding back tears as the sheer scale of the problem sunk in.

Then Kay had stepped up and brought up an option none of them had ever imagined.

They were going to lose the Den because it wasn't fit for living in. But the Quarter needed more low-income housing, and the lower tier Rubato education programs had already brought in a wealth of opportunity. More centralized learning centers were in demand for those who had minimal tech access on all educational levels, from primary on. They needed spaces for the primarily online schools to center on for testing and events, for things like sports and crafts; they needed adult classrooms to get people ready to send out to the Da Capo agricultural colonies, to the WendSyn factories and to train more entry-level Neut technicians… And the only reason they hadn't pushed already was because Kasey was a friend of theirs and had told them not to. Because he had been afraid of what it would mean, what it would do to their city, but at the same time?

Rubato wanted more inroads through all of the Democratic Zone, and they had brought only good. And because of whatever pre-Fall relationship Kay had with some of their bigwigs, apparently they were willing to compromise on practically anything.

It made a girl wonder just what the fuck Kay had even done during the war. Given the Sweeper background, at this point? She was inclined to think something gundam, which made an alarming amount of sense even as it didn't answer anything, because seriously, why did he think he had to be this paranoid… but at the same time, the paranoia had always protected them so… whatever.

Rubato had bought the entire old campus that the Den had made up maybe an eighth of and gone to town returning it to its former glory – Kay and Melissa's shop had been subcontracted in for a lot of it, since it was the first part of the Neut network that they'd since expanded through the rest of the Quarter, and he understood that level of engineering. The sub-basement levels they'd long blocked off had interconnected with the rest of it, construction had gone at a downright insane pace. Everyone that had still wanted to stay had gotten new apartments connected to a set of common rooms on an entirely different block. There were classrooms and workshops and a cafeteria, a field, two playgrounds and three gardens, and now that they had officially opened their doors for business last week…

Katrien had been in the middle of transferring to a higher administrative position in Lotus when Adelheid first called the meeting – it hadn't been too big of a jump to get a nod to the RLTT program through the new 'Crossroads' that the Den had become. Part of the deal with Rubato had been that it would be Devils running the center, or if they chose to step down, making the arrangements – their territory, their control. The neighborhood might be getting better, but it wasn't safe. And as many people as they would help with all this, there would always be those who tried to take advantage or otherwise abuse it. So Laura, Mik, and Marien were now in charge of Hell's Crossing – a sort of way station to take a path back out of the Devil's Quarter. And Katrien did a chunk of that too, but…

It was too good of an opportunity to pass, and Kay hadn't disagreed – though he had made a face when he realized she still talked to Relena every couple of months. If the Crossing was all about the betterment of their neighborhood, of their city, then it only made sense to have an administrative center for Lotus there too. Not a daycare by any means, but childcare was critical for the rest of any of it to get somewhere. And they had those extra playgrounds and gardens… why not let the ladies running Lotus programs tour through and let the kids play too?

She wasn't going to pretend that Karina quitting her waitress job to become one of those Lotus moms looking after three more kids besides Renee didn't play an important part in him caving to the request. But honestly? That only helped sell the point of just how important Lotus was. And it wasn't like Kay could really be that annoyed that she'd told the princess the no frills version of the kidnapper incident – they had been and honestly still were thrilled at how he'd handled it. The colonel she'd saved – was he still a colonel? – had literally cackled and called it 'fucking appropriate.' Kay needed to work a little on his faith in humanity, seriously.

Anyway, it wasn't like she was trying to invite them to dinner or anything – they'd met up the once a few months after the riot so she could meet the man she'd helped save, and he was funny, and sweet, but it wasn't that tight of a friendship. Or even if it was, she knew better than to bring people home with her, especially famous ones.

It had been nice to see how quietly thrilled Relena was when she and the Lotus candidate answered her call about integrating an office into the Crossing, though. The princess was all about details, and didn't forget the little things.

And step by step, day by day… the world was getting a little brighter.

oOo

---

oOo

Merano, Italy

"Here."

Hilde grimaced at the intrusion, waving a hand to say something dismissive – then startled as cold glass was pressed into it instead. "The fuck?" It-

Schnapps. Calisto's, even, and peach.

Adam crossed his arms as he leaned against the table she'd been using as a desk. "Sally said that was your favorite."

She just stared at the bottle, emotions warring. "You brought me a drink?" she asked incredulously. "Where did you even have it?" And how is it still cold?

"I brought it on me, and I shoved it behind one of the coolant tanks once we cleared this place earlier," he explained. "We didn't…" He shifted, looking uncomfortable. "I was hoping there might be something worth celebrating – and you're alive, so here we are." His face fell, but he only looked away for a moment before meeting her eyes again. "The Regime told everyone that the situation in here was stable, then successfully kept the information under lock and key. Once Relena stopped publicly protesting it, a lot of assumptions got made, and we've found too much disinformation in their network now to trust the trapdoor built into their system. No one knew."

"The only thing the Regime did was set up automatic turrets to mow down anyone who approached the border," she pointed out dully. Which at first, hadn't been too bad, but as shortages started and resource wars began… She stared dully down at the bottle. This… was the kind of thing she'd demand Xu would get her if he lost one of their bets – or she'd find him that ginger hard cider piss he liked, when it was her turn. Sally had teased both of them for their fruity tastes while the General looked on, eyes laughing but mouth firmly shut about how she also liked sweet shit mixed with her whiskey. And maybe they'd all started drinking younger than was really recommended, but some days… Who the fuck cared?

It was… weird, though. "I haven't had a drink since November," she realized. Not just of schnapps, but… anything.

"You're not on watch tonight," Adam reminded her. "We have a full perimeter with fresh eyes." He glanced back at the desk and it's scatter of papers, and she saw a muscle tick in his jaw. "You've been in here for hours. Did you want any help?"

Honestly, she'd been done with anything useful for hours too – she just couldn't figure out how to flip her brain around. "I didn't-" She cut herself off, grimacing. "I don't need help. It's just that…" Gesturing around her closet of an office, she admitted, "This is the only place out here that's not a stage."

He tipped his head to one side. "Yeah?"

"If there's a safe perimeter tonight, I don't want to deal with the crowd," she explained. "My head's all fucked up anyway; I feel like I'm going to slip. If I'm in here, they just… respect it. Assume I'm doing important shit. Let me breathe."

He grinned. "Performance anxiety?"

She kicked him. Surprisingly, he didn't even try to dodge – just grinned harder. "Fuck you."

"It's good to have a backstage," he mused, shoulders relaxing as he watched her. "Speaking as a regular performer, I can say that having a break between reps makes a difference."

She rolled her eyes, wiping her now damp hands off on her pants before starting to twist the cap off. "Says the guy who's done deep cover shit," she groused. Even that wasn't the same as the last six months had been here, but it was closer than anything else she could think of.

"Yeah, but I don't remember that," he pointed out. "And from what I've been told, that wasn't a position of power either. I don't think I probably had to fake much of anything to make it work." He tipped his head again, looking thoughtful. "You're different."

"I'm fucking exhausted," she grumbled, cracking the seal and raising the bottle to her lips for a tiny sip, trying to remember- Yep. The overpowering sweet, then the bite. Practically candy, but more real, warmer, despite the crisply cold liquid on her tongue. She took a longer gulp, and a pleasant weight settled in her chest.

"It's more than that."

She took a third swig. "Of course it, is, I'm awesome like that." Shaking her head, she offered him the bottle.

He shrugged, taking it to sniff at curiously before shrugging and giving it a try. "Huh."

Hilde rolled her eyes. "Really? That's all you've got, 'huh?'"

"It tastes like something Odin might have," he decided. "But mellower."

She rolled her eyes again, reaching out to take the bottle back. Mellower, whatever. "Fuck Odin. You've been going around with him, then?"

He dodged and took a longer pull before letting her have it back. Drawing a hand across his mouth, he admitted, "Sometimes. He's got his own house now – fancy, with a rec area built like a penthouse. The pool looks like something out of a magazine. He doesn't care if I crash there and raid his pantry."

She considered that, fiddling with the cap. "What kind of magazine?"

He shrugged. "Something sexy? It practically looks like it belongs on a movie set, and is still good for exercise despite it." He eyed her for a moment, then made a grabby gesture for her to hand the bottle back.

Hilde rolled her eyes and let him have it. "Think he'd be pissed if I came with you?"

He snorted out a laugh. "Wouldn't that make it more fun?" he countered. Then he shook his head. "But no, so long as you don't step on his toes. There's a couple rules about it, but they're easy."

She considered that, then considered the bottle for a moment when he held it out. One more sip, maybe. Then she'd need to hold off until she knew how hard it was going to hit, at least. "What's the catch?"

His grin was sly this time, and gleeful. "Your boss lives there too."

"Aw, shit." She groaned, then took her last swallow. "That's still a thing?"

"If they haven't fucked on every surface, it's damn close," he agreed. Then he shrugged. "But there's a weekly cleaning service – so statistically, it's still safer than anywhere else they've been." He gave her an annoyed but still amused sort of glower. "Anywhere that they've been."

"Seriously?"

"I wish I could see Zechs' face when he finds out his ex transformed his old rival into her own personal sex god," he mused, staring into the middle distance. "It might make catching them out worth it."

The laugh that bubbled out of her was almost hysterical, because holy shit, that… "You're right," she wheezed, just… She started laughing harder, and might have dropped the bottle if Adam hadn't snatched it back when she began to bobble it. Their dictator always looked like he had such a massive stick up his ass, but if he-

She howled, just seeing it, and Adam's deeply satisfied smirk as he set the schnapps aside didn't diminish it – even if he was exaggerating or making half of this up, it was still hilarious. Heero Yuy – sex god. Ugh. What the fuck ever, she decided. She was totally going to see the sexy swimming pool. She deserved a fucking vacation after this, and Odin was batshit enough about security even without the General being involved that it ought to count as a safe haven.

Wiping at her eyes, she shook her head, leaning back against her desk before looking Adam's way again. "Thank-you," she decided. "I think I needed that." Just to let go a bit – maybe not completely, they weren't done yet, but…

"You're welcome," he returned, smiling softly. "You look a little better." He glanced back over the papers behind them before raising his brows. "Do you think you can sleep?"

She considered that. Ten minutes ago it would have been a definite no, but… "I think I should eat first." Leaving this room no longer felt quite so wretched – because truly it was almost over. "Come with me?"

"I could eat," he agreed, standing up straight and stretching… and maybe it was just the alcohol hitting her system, but that… wasn't an unappealing image.

Mm. "Do you think anything is still warm?" she wondered. There'd been plans for something of a feast, given everything the Insurgence had brought with them and the sudden loss for any need to ration, but she hadn't paid much attention beyond telling people to have fun with it.

"I know one way to find out," he decided, and opened the door.

oOo

---

oOo

April 7th 199 – Tuesday – Munich, Germany – Sarracenia

Relena gave the man a long, slow blink. "Would you repeat that, please?"

Jovi made a little placating gesture with both hands. "Hypothetically, of course."

She gave him a gimlet eye, even as the corner of her mouth took on an amused curl. "Feel free to rephrase – but hypothetically. Of course."

He grinned earnestly, then continued to protest in an entirely disingenuous way. "It's not that unusual a question."

"And yet it is also rather specific," Relena pointed out, eyes shimmering as she smiled more fully.

"It doesn't need to be specific," Jovi hedged, leaning back on his couch and stretching his arms across the back of it. "I could talk about relocating several southwest American towns instead."

Relena let out a short chuckle that rode the line between disbelieving and enthralled. "That is also an oddly specific example," she argued.

Lin, watching the back-and-forth, resisted the urge to groan. If he didn't know for a fact that the princess was completely and utterly taken, he might think they were flirting.

Then again, Jovi's behavior towards everyone tended to come off as flirtatious. He had a way of honing in a person that made them feel like every ounce of his attention was theirs to command; if he wasn't so sincerely genial about it, he'd set off alarm bells everywhere he went. The man was sly as a damn fox – but instead of noticing it, people just wanted to pick him up and pack him around like a housecat.

The thing was, that even when you knew that? You still just… kinda wanted to pet him and see what he did anyway. It was the damndest thing. No wonder Cassidy hadn't been surprised when Rubato selected him as a spokesperson. He just… had this effortless, laid back charisma that Jake came close to imitating on his better days.

And for better or worse, he also seemed to have Relena's same sense of humor when it came to political machinations: closet adrenaline junkie. Of a bizarrely genteel variety.

"I could be more vague," Jovi agreed, grinning. "But I thought you might prefer I not waste your time."

Lin resisted the urge to scoff himself – as if this little dance had anything to do with a time crunch.

Relena gave him a more wryly amused look. "Pick a topic, please, and we'll go from there."

"Mm." He tipped his head from side to side for a moment, then shrugged. "The American end carries less weight," he decided. "Your insight would be appreciated, but we could also resolve it internally without fuss." Drawing his arms back in, he crossed his legs and assumed a more serious posture before repeating himself. "How would you respond to proof of foul play in northern Italy?"

Relena raised one brow as she rested one hand on her knee and leaned back. "I suppose it would depend on the exact details," she mused.

"Of course."

"But it is no secret that I stood against the 'quarantine' in the first place," she reminded him. "Let alone its continuation." Her mouth twisted in an almost artful way as she tipped her head down and to the right, an angry sort of concession. "I continued to push against the action behind closed doors after the hush orders on the event started, and was firmly told my concerns were being met but that the how was none of my business. I have had no way to confirm or disprove those claims in the time since."

Jovi looked to one side in a near mirror of her body language, nodding thoughtfully for a moment before focusing his eyes on her again. "Could you prove that?"

Relena's gaze sharpened. "By way of hard evidence? No. But by way of public opinion?" Her smile was just the slightest bit vicious. "I don't like to use that venue as currency without a goal in mind, it's fickle and its use often makes future attempts weaker. But if other evidence came to light?" She showed her teeth this time. "I would be more than happy to build momentum for that crusade." Both brows raised this time. "Where I could take it would depend what material I had to work with."

Jovi had a satisfied lilt to his mouth now, eyes blazing bright. "But you would have an interest?" he confirmed.

"I don't care to answer leading questions without actual information, Mr. Lluvia."

The man appeared to consider that for a long moment before nodding decisively. "Mm, fair." He leaned back a bit, tucking his hands in the crook of each elbow so both were out of sight. "I'm limited, though," he admitted. "Rubato is not truly involved. More… Standing witness, let's say."

"Standing for whom?"

Jovi's smile was a slow thing, as he obviously took pleasure in what he considered the right question. "An occasional friend of ours," he admitted. "I believe you are aware of our… last Italian handoff? In Liguria."

The corners of Relena's mouth crept up. "With the Bianchi cartel?"

He grinned outright. "Ah, see, I wasn't sure how much of that tale you heard."

The princess' laugh was throaty as she shook her head, resettling her weight and crossing her ankles. "That was decently subtle – but still awkward," she admonished.

Still grinning broadly, he shrugged in a sheepish sort of way. "I had to start somewhere."

"Direct questions do work."

"Yes, but you have a tendency to deflect when it comes to him; and the few times we've met, I've found Miller to be worse."

Her expression was, for lack of a better word, satisfied. "He does tend to be that way, with strangers," she admitted. "Particularly when trying to be honest."

Jovi let out a short laugh. "I rest my case."

Relena laughed with him, shaking her head. "His history of espionage comes with a few habits that are difficult to break," she confided. "It has been…" She paused thoughtfully before settling on, "Something of a process." Smiling again, she finished with, "Unless explicitly stated otherwise, you can assume he has told me any significant information." The smile took on a more political edge as she added, "And vice versa."

The Revenant paused to consider that, eyeing her thoughtfully. "As integral as you make him seem, I've still seen remarkably little of him."

"He likes to stay in the background – old habits, again. And a significant amount of RLTT's infrastructure has fallen on his shoulders while I manage Accords business." She grimaced. "The heat amplifier tour ran us ragged last year, and even with my exit from the Regime, our workload has more than tripled since then. With the expected thirty percent increase in we have coming in on top of last year's quota…" She sighed. "Jake is one of the few members of my staff that has been with me since before my candidacy, and even when he was part of my Guard, he handled as much paperwork as I did. Between the summer tour with the Chinese and mediating the changes the Accords are demanding in the Militia contracts, let alone the rest? It's a wonder we have time to sleep."

Jovi looked her over thoughtfully. "But you are sleeping properly again," he noted.

"We all are," she agreed. "Though I may need to hire more staff again soon."

He nodded, still looking pensive. "You do look much better," he agreed. Then he grinned. "Also – congratulations! And happy birthday too, while I'm at it."

"Thank you." Relena took a moment to gaze down at her ring before giving Jovi a mischievous grin. "I really needed that vacation. It helped put things in perspective."

"Yeah?"

"Truly." She huffed out an exasperated sigh. "Now if only my brother would get over himself, my personal life might be perfect."

Their guest barked out a laugh. "He's not too impressed, huh?"

"At the moment, he is not invited," she agreed, face longsuffering. "Though beyond that, I'm currently struggling to find time for a birthday party, let alone a wedding." She made a dismissive gesture. "We were discussing Italy?"

"I think I was almost discussing Italy," he argued cheerfully. "Since it's more like a 'friend of a friend' situation."

Relena's lips twitched in a suppressed laugh. "No Rubato involvement at all, mm?"

"Revenant Rubato is an organization of like-minded individuals working to make a difference," Jovi explained pointedly, grin turning ever so slightly sharp. "But we do not police our members' hobbies. What a man chooses to do in his personal time is no business of mine."

Relena did let out a small chuckle at that, reaching back out to pick up her teacup. "I have heard a few secondhand stories," she admitted. "Though, while we are on the subject? If you believe he would be receptive to it, please offer my thanks to Adam for his assistance with the Ieper evacuation." She sighed, eyes downcast. "The loss of life there if he hadn't… Hannover was bad enough. Ieper would have made that incident look small."

"Mm, I'll feel it out," Jovi decided. "He can be difficult to pin down." He paused then, giving Relena a contemplative look for a solid two seconds before his chin lifted slightly and he sunk his weight further back into the couch cushions, coming to some kind of decision. "You got hit at Charleroi, didn't you?"

Relena raised her brows, and finished a delicate sip before answering. "Peripherally. I prefer to take my meals out of public view when possible, since so much of my life outside this house is open for critique. My Guard and I were across the street in a closed office building. Why?"

There was something slyly delighted about their guest's expression now. "Well, this is the first time we've met face to face since your resignation."

She nodded. "Mm. It has only been six weeks. Was email insufficient?"

"Generally, no," he dismissed with a small shrug, utterly focused on her face. "But while Sharpman was certainly a madwoman, we had no interest in giving the Regime her notes." His grin sharpened at Relena's abrupt stilling of all motion. "I wouldn't exactly call them easy to decipher, but there were a few… insights that we didn't want to chance someone trying to cover up."

…Holy shit. Not that they knew more than they said, of course, it had already been implied, but… They're starting to trust us? Or at least not not trust them, maybe. Rubato had been outright standoffish about politics before now.

But then, they were up front about not trusting the Regime at all, and Jovi knows we're aware of the Insurgence connection and haven't said anything. And Relena had resigned – after throwing a very public hissy fit over the Regime's poor handling of its citizens. We're actually making progress, he realized. He'd known Jake was chipping away from the RLTT angle and Jack was working on the familial front – but while he liked Jovi, he'd made no secret about being cagey as hell.

Relena's gaze was laser sharp now. "What kind of insights?"

"I don't believe in spoon feeding," Jovi returned evenly. "The point in sharing information with allies is to open perspective and see if different conclusions can be drawn." Shifting to plant both feet on the floor again, he reached across his chest to dip a hand into an inside breast pocket of his blazer and withdraw a small data drive. He began extending it across the table to Relena then hesitated, glancing at Lin, before settling it on the coffee table. "Photographs and transcriptions." He gave a small shrug as he settled back in his seat. "We've been able to draw a few conclusions, but your resources are not the same as ours. I'm curious to see if we reach the same end or if you find a new one entirely. Ours…" His face tightened. "I will never validate what she did. But the narrative that she fancied herself to be combating, lucidly or otherwise, does concern me. Ieper and Charleroi were connected."

Mai spoke up then. "A museum and an office building?"

Jovi's grin was darker than his usual fair. "A covert meeting in the museum's bowels and a business being paid by a shell of a shell company fathered by the Regime."

Now that was interesting. So far as he knew, no one had been able to find any sane motive behind the Ieper bombing.

Relena, leaned forward to set her cup back down and pick up the drive, considering it. "Do you still have the originals?"

"Paper is not easy to remove physical evidence of handling from," Jovi pointed out. "Digital keeps everyone safer."

"I would not prosecute for the removal of a serial bomber," Relena returned evenly.

"You are not in control of our government," he reminded her, his easy smile coming back as he relaxed into the cushions. "The Regime has proven themselves eager to find loopholes whenever convenient. I would no sooner risk a friend of mine than I would put the weight of any oversights you did not know to account for on your shoulders." His grin widened. "I have many friends, and while I believe more of them may be mutual than we have discussed, the current climate is…" He grimaced. "Delicate. Let's not take unreasonable risks if we do not have to."

Loopholes. Lin let his own grimace show as he remembered the shitshow with the forcible re-enlistment of Cambyses vets that was still an ongoing scandal. He shuddered to think about what else might have been shoved under the rug during the Regime's database reorganization in the wake of Zechs' plan for doll usage.

The secret of the dolls was still kept, at least. They had been worried it might out before Relena finished disentangling from the Regime, but now that they were firmly out… How much longer do we have before the peace breaks? At a certain point, they were going to need to 'discover' and reveal the news themselves, especially since Relena and the other Accorded Nations reps had been assembling a task force dedicated to rooting out corruption. But for now?

It truly was a delicate balance. Theoretically, the longer Relena's Accords had to solidify, the better they would be prepared for the fallout, especially if RLTT was public and in the clear as well. But if they didn't spill the beans themselves, the timing and spin anyone else might put on it could be disastrous.

"And where does Italy fall on that scale of risk?" Relena asked.

"Inexcusable brutality will not be left to fester when something can be done about it, regardless of personal risk," Jovi replied, in a tone that made Lin's blood run cold. The man's face was sterner than he had ever seen it, and right then… Lin felt like this was a true glimpse of the soldier who had survived the Sahara's cruelty.

Relena stilled. "It is bad, then?"

The granite in Jovi's eyes did not soften, even as he leaned forward and settled his elbows on his knees. "The good people we are currently evacuating from northern Utah have been through hell – anarchy and gang warfare, cults, executions, and cold pioneer hardship, for over three years now. If I could only save one group? Them or those who have spent the last six months trapped inside the Regime's modern ghetto? I would not hesitate to leave my own countrymen to their own devices. There is no contest." A sneer pulled at one side of his mouth. "At least Cambyses had standards." Sighing, he closed his eyes for a moment, body losing some of its tension. "Fortunately, I do not have to choose." Opening his eyes again, he offered Relena a tired smile. "I have friends to help carry the load."

Relena watched him steadily for a long moment, hands folded in her lap. "I suppose," she decided eventually. "That any current 'proof' of this situation that you might share is constrained by the involvement of some of those friends."

"Technically accurate," Jovi agreed.

"I could build a case based on your hearsay, and be ready to move quickly when something goes public," she mused. "Altering as need be." Her eyes narrowed, growing cold. "Because if you are being honest with me, then I absolutely feel the same way. It cannot stand. And if it was preventable, then someone needs to answer to it."

Jovi raised his brows. "General Noe Lee and Assistant Undersecretary Kindra Dorchet," he suggested.

Relena blinked, then frowned. "I don't know Dorchet."

Jovi's wide, closed mouth smile was frankly intimidating. "Sharpman did."

Lin caught Mai tipping her head to one side in a considering way, and resisted the urge to raise his own eyebrows. That… sounded interesting.

"Hm." Relena debated for a moment, before giving a little shrug. "I'll have to look into her, then. But Lee, I would need very little provocation to publicly crucify, if that answers your concerns."

"I'm pretty sure you've told him that to his face once," Mai mused thoughtfully.

"I think twice, actually," Relena corrected, looking up and to one side as if trying to remember. "Or something equivalent, at any rate."

Of course, there was no way that Lee, Zechs' leading general, wasn't entirely complicit in the doll scheme. If anything, this could serve as an excellent prelude to future attacks against his character for that reveal as well – two birds with one stone.

"That's good to know," Jovi decided, looking darkly pleased. "But I had another thought."

"Oh?"

"What sort of court-admissible evidence would you find helpful in this endeavor?" At their silent stares, his grin widened. Spreading his hands, he added, "Just because our friends who helped with the Bianchis are on the case doesn't mean I can't add someone else to the mix. Journalists take stupid risks going into warzones all the time, you know?"

Lin wasn't able to suppress his own grin this time, and Mai wasn't bothering either. That… could be very interesting.

"Prisbrey does like to play with fire, doesn't she?" Relena decided after a moment.

"It's one possibility," Jovi agreed. "But…" He tipped his head to one side, then the other. "Let's have a hypothetical conversation, then, about what might work best for you, and I'll see if anything happening actually matches up."

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Prerequisites

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Thoughts? This chapter and the next one are kinda meant to flow together, and hopefully I'll have the next one up in a few weeks. Adam and Nick kinda just ran off with this chapter.