TB Live Journal

Bridges update

2009-11-15T00:37:25Z

Moooooore. Thanks to everyone who commented previously-- I swear I'll get back to you at some point.

my wank landlord

2009-11-11T12:59:04Z

Don't go on vacation.

Does this seem harsh? Let me expand the thesis. Don't go on vacation. Because when you get back, real life sucks even more than it did before you hated it so much you ran away.

My wank landlord left the following letter for myself and my two housemates, reproduced here in full:

Yesterday was the scheduled safety inspection and you were notified about this through email. [Note: we weren't.] I walked in with the Inspector and both were shocked and disgusted over the total mess our house was in.

[Further note: I had completely cleaned the house only days before following a party I held. The only thing I didn't do was mop, because it's winter and raining and you can't open the windows. So here is where I start to get personally offended by the asshattery.]

We did not look into the middle bedroom, but the front and back rooms were in a shambles.

The inspector gave bad marks for habitation due to the mess. You are required to have the place entirely picked up and cleaned by Nov 25th. If you do not have the time, then you should hire a professional cleaner.

Specifically:

1. No clothes on the floor. Only furniture, and carpets on the floor.

2. The master bath mirror in the tub tile has to be free of scum. If permanent damage occurs to the mirror, the fix will cost approximately 200.00 because the tile will have to be replaced, and we do not have any more of that tile, and new tile would have to be purchased, plus the labour.

3. The tree in the master bedroom has to be removed.

4. We will remove the curtain in front of the sliding door in the family room, because the curtain is not working again and this the third or fourth time that we would have fixed the curtain. It will be up to the three of you do something that will work for you.

If the house is not in a presentable condition on the 25th, then we will begin eviction procedures. If all goes well:

In the future, we will give you 24 hours notice to come in and see that the house is remaining clean. If not, then we will proceed to evict.

We need the emails for the other girls, so that each of you can be notified individually of future visits.

Sincerely,

Your wank landlord

Really? Really? So his list of actionable offences comes down to clothes on the floor, which is not in the lease, a bathroom which is the responsibility of only that particular renter, not all of us, a ficus in a proper planter, and a curtain which was not provided by the landlord and is therefore not his property? And he thinks he can proceed with eviction on these grounds? Really?

Because it's not like the house is actually messy. It's not, because even when I get upset with the state of things, it's not actually a mess. We regularly sweep or hoover, we regularly clean the kitchen, we dust, and we tend the bathrooms. He didn't mention any of those things as problems except for a mirror, and so I really wonder if he gets quite what a complete asshole he sounds like threatening to evict us based on a curtain and a laundry pile.

I have not yet written a letter back detailing just how thoroughly I will trash him in court if he proceeds on this, but I am sharpening my typing fingers. Also, I hereby declare that I will move somewhere else immediately, where I don't have to wake up to this kind of shit stinking up my mailbox.

Don't go away. Coming back is a special form of hell.

Since first posting this I have taken pictures of every room in the house to prove we are not ecoterrorists bent on destroying a perfectly good house, done a radical clean (I clean when I'm angry) and eaten an entire package of McVitie's chocolate digestives for lunch. Aside from the pleasure of having my shoes organised by colour and design, the only real positive is being full of chocolate goodness.

halloween party

2009-11-03T01:20:55Z

In which I go crazy, spend two months uber-decorating my house, and then have to clean it all up in one day.

Bridges update

2009-11-02T22:33:20Z

Ends Chapter 11.

Bridges update

2009-10-30T11:38:22Z

I took time out of my very busy schedule to write this for you, so I'll cry if you don't read it.

Only Bridges To 11/?

2009-10-23T15:59:12Z

Fandom: GW
Pairing: 5x2
Rating: NC17
Notes: Challenge fic. Updates in bold.

A few heads turned as he pushed open the glass door. Duo nodded at the ones he knew, Preventers both older and younger than him. Some of them nodded back; two even smiled. One got up and went for the access-only offices in the back, taking the trip at a run.

Duo fetched up to the front desk, waving his pass at Security. 'It didn't work outside,' he said.

A woman he didn't recognise took it from him, trying it on her own swipe station. 'They demagnetise sometimes,' she said. 'Hold on a moment, sir. I have to call this up.'

'No problem.' Duo tapped his fingers on the counter, then put his back to it, propping himself up on his elbows. Not much mid-day traffic. He should have gotten lunch before he came in. Maybe he could bargain his way into a sandwich. Something with protein.

'Duo!' He had enough time to look before Alicia grabbed him tight into a hug that didn't end for six entire seconds. Then she let him go just long enough to slap him lightly on the cheek. 'You dickhead!' she cussed him, and hugged him again. 'Do you have any idea how scared I've been for you!'

Duo gave her a limp squeeze in return. 'Gotta breathe, honey.'

She let him get a couple of inches away, then, though she wouldn't let go of his wrist. 'Where the sam hell have you been? I had a manhunt on for you after you disappeared out of hospital!'

'You know me,' Duo shrugged. 'Got tired of being in the limelight. I got out of dodge for a while. Waited for the fuss to chill.'

'Get your skinny butt in here while I call the Director.'

'Really kind of hoping we can avoid a big deal here, Alicia.'

'Oh, you really are? Then you really shouldn't have fled against medical orders and you really really shouldn't have assaulted a Preventer on the way out the door.'

'Right,' Duo said. 'Well, hard to argue with that. Speaking of medical things, about the quarantine--'

'I already know.' She guided him by the shoulder-- firmly-- through the access doors and marched him past a crowd of solemn-looking Preventers to her office in the back. She gave him a shove at Wufei's seat. 'You're not contagious. Your tests came back.'

'Uh-huh,' Duo said. He stretched his legs beneath Wufei's desk. 'Anyone heard from the bugger, anyway? Since he transferred?' He found a couple of rubber bands in Wufei's desk drawer, and wrapped them around his thumb.

'Who? Wufei?' Alicia shook off his question. 'The point we have to consider here is that there's no way you could have known you were clean.'

'Listen, let's cut across the question of who was negligent with what. I wanted to tell you-- I've started remembering things.'

'Remembering?' she repeated. She fumbled for a pad and stylus, looking more sharply than ever at him. 'Remembering your kidnapping?'

'Yeah. Faces-- names. I think I know what happened.' He watched her scrawl a hurried header on the pad, gave her just enough time to glance up. 'You're looking for Heero Yuy.'

'Heero Yuy.' She wrote it, but more slowly. 'Tran and McDevitt said you were talking about him. You thought you saw him, that night at the hospital.'

'I think I did see him. I think he was checking on me-- keeping an eye on me. I think he's been behind this all along.'

'But why? He's been underground for two decades. Why surface now?'

'Does the exact political goal matter? They're with someone, against someone else, and the weapon of choice is Plague. I've been injected with two different things. Someone gave me the virus. Someone else gave me the antidote.' He watched her back, sucking his teeth. 'So,' he said, 'you Preventer types do your investigation, find out which it is, write up a nice report. Heero's either a good guy or a bad guy. If he's a good guy, hire him. If he's a baddie, space his ass. I'll pull the lever.'

'You don't mean that,' Alicia said absently. The stylus scratched as she wrote whatever she'd deemed important. 'You think he'd target you?'

'I think if someone told Heero he had to blow up Sol to save the universe, he'd be timing the bomb before he stopped to think too hard about the wisdom of it.' Her pale eyebrows climbed. Duo snapped the rubber bands against his palm. 'Heero's all about impulse,' he added. 'Always was, and if you look at how pie-shaped this adventure's gone, it's got his fingerprints all over it. You don't hand Heero a weapon without expecting he'll use it. So the question goes back to whether he's been armed by the goodies or the baddies. Again, kind of your arena.'

'And what the hell can we even do to stop him?' Alicia propped the tip of the stylus between her teeth, and now her brows went wrinkling together in a deep frown. 'Just Yuy? A rogue op?'

'Not beyond possibility, but I don't think so. This is too big, too messy. This feels like a group effort.'

'It changes our data analysis,' she admitted. 'Damn. Back to the drawing board.' She pulled the bands off his fingers. 'You remember anything else?'

'Getting that much was torture.' He put Wufei's office supplies back where they belonged, closing the drawer gently to avoid the rattle of pens. 'Look, I'm beat. I'm going home. I should have walls by now. I promise I'll go to bed like a good boy.'

'You better.' Alicia stood when he did, to embrace him again. 'I was worried about you, Duo. You scared me to death.'

He felt a little pang, finally. It wasn't that he'd imagined this would be a cakewalk, but he'd trusted these people, spent years with them. Liked them. 'You've always been good to me,' he allowed, throat tight as he separated gingerly from her. 'Things just got-- heavy. I'm no good with heavy.'

'It's shaping up to a long year.' She let him go, then. 'I'll send a couple of men home with you. You look like you need a ride, anyway.'

'Yeah, I'll take that up. Don't think I'd make it that far.' He shuffled on his feet, dug his hands deep in his pockets. 'How's the China situation?'

'China? Oh-- Wufei.' She twirled the stylus-- that and the cautious bend of her eyes told Duo plenty it wasn't truth she was going to tell him. 'I've heard a few tidbits, around. They're making headway clearing out the occupation in the mountains. A lot of ethnic unrest. Having a neutral party in the mix seems to be helping.'

Cleaned up for his benefit or just some understandable caution about entrusting an obviously unstable man with the reality? 'But no specific news,' he said.

'He's probably just busy, Duo. On the road. You know what it's like in this kind of situation. Barely time to sleep, much less make calls home.'

He lifted a shoulder in a jagged shrug. 'Guess it doesn't matter. Well. I'll take that ride, yeah.'

'Sure. I'll make the call.'

'Hey-- you put Pak in jail yet? Pak Chin Ho, the stalker?'

'Holding him pending completion of our investigation. He probably won't get a jail sentence.' She shrugged herself, unspoken sympathy. 'He never actually approached you or threatened you.'

He'd expected it, though. 'Just wondered. I'll put in for a restraining order.'

'Let me know if you need help with that. We've got a little pull at the local courts.'

'Yeah. Okay.' He ducked, to look out at the bullpen behind her window-wall. 'McDevitt here? I, uh, owe an apology.'

She smiled at that. 'Yeah. Go say hi.'

He spotted McDevitt by the coffee cart, flirting labouriously with one of the secretaries. Duo propped himself on the edge of McDevitt's desk, waiting it out-- waiting long enough that he collected the notice of the other Preventer whose eye he wanted. Tran saw him first, left his computer unlocked, and came right to him, a look of-- apparently-- sincere relief bringing his face to life for the first time Duo had ever seen. He felt another pang for that, but pushed it down ruthlessly. He didn't have time for that luxury.

He didn't know yet who he could count on in Preventers. Until he did, they all had to be counted against him-- even the ones he'd liked and trusted. All he'd planned, coming in, was to drop a few leads, to let all the interested parties know where he was. To start the clock. If he was going to make a stand, it was going to be on his terms, not theirs.

So when Tran rushed him on McDevitt's desk, Duo put out his hand, palm up. Tran slowed to a crawl, staring at it.

'I hope I didn't get you in trouble,' Duo said.

'No.' Tran took his hand, then, in a solid grip. 'No. But I'm glad to see you in one piece.'

'Got kind of paranoid, there. Didn't really think it all through.' He squeezed, and let go. 'I'm not really used to all the attention, negative or otherwise. Just-- had to get out for a while. Clear my head.'

'Understandable. You all right, now?'

'Better,' Duo said. 'Clearer. Yeah.'

Tran would have said more, but McDevitt had returned, sullenly dragging his feet getting to them, eyeing Duo. He didn't look nearly as happy to see Duo as his partner did. 'Told 'em you'd be back,' he said. 'Eventually.'

Duo drew a breath. 'McDevitt, about-- I'm sorry.'

McDevitt sighed, then. 'Forget it, man,' he said. He handed Duo the cup in his left hand-- milky tea-- a rather extraordinary gesture of niceness, all things considered, and sprawled in his chair with his own coffee. 'Not saying it was a joyride, but there's no beef.'

'No beef.' Duo wrapped the string on the tea bag around his pointer finger. 'Of all people, I get how bad it is to be drugged and used against your will. I'm sorry for what I did. I shouldn't have done it.'

A little oasis of silence around him broke with a shrug. 'Got me some good sympathy tail,' McDevitt said. 'And a full night's sleep. Coulda been worse.'

'Well. Sorry anyway.' He managed a sip of the tea, before he put it down. 'Hey, Alicia's calling for a car for me. Just wanted to check in with you both.'

'We can drive you,' Tran volunteered. 'Someone should check out your apartment anyway. It's been sitting empty a while now.'

That was a fair call, though Duo was pretty sure it would still be empty. The Nine One Five Six hadn't made their presence known, yet, but he didn't think they'd be coming for him in his home, either. They'd lost their chance to do things quietly.

But he needed a car and a driver, either way, and it almost felt familiar and comforting to be packed in with these two again. A sign of how crazy the times were, probably. Tran drove, and McDevitt took the backseat, leaving Duo the passenger front. He aimed a blower at himself, for the cool air on the sweat on his face. He was numb enough, but stiffness was starting in, and his head felt tight and achy. Brabant had been able to get a new bottle of pills for him, but the pills were supposed to come in combination with bed rest and light activity. He hadn't had much of either, recently.

'Maxwell?'

He looked up from staring dully at the dash. 'Sorry,' he said belatedly. 'What?'

'I asked where you were,' McDevitt said. 'Where you went to.'

'L2,' he said honestly.

'L2?' Tran looked at him sharply. 'How? No-one can pass the border--'

'Please,' Duo dismissed that. 'Scrappers have been running the border since they levied the sanctions. You douse your heat signature in the deactivated minefield by B Area, dodge the sensors coming in under radio silence. You get a good jump and then you cut engines, and you can float right through the border on inertia until you're past the sweep. And any dock opens for a fat wallet.'

'Where'd you get a ship?' McDevitt asked. Not at all a stupid question. Maybe he wasn't quite so undeserving of that promotion after all.

'I know people,' Duo said. 'I've spent a lifetime building up favours just like that one. But no-one else needs to get in trouble for it. Trust me, they weren't happy to be asked.'

'That's not going to hold a lot of water.' Tran turned off the motorway toward Duo's neighbourhood. 'It's illegal to cross the border. You'll have to give up a name.'

'Or what, they'll toss me into a cell for criminal contempt? We all know that's not going to happen. There's bigger problems than one colony hop in this bag.'

Tran sneaked a sideways glance at him. 'You're not worried what'll happen when it's all over?'

Over. Weird. He hadn't once thought that far ahead.

Maybe in the beginning-- before he'd known anything about who was involved and what was really happening. But not since deciding to run to L2. He'd gone into-- just make it through mode. Just survive a few more minutes, whatever those minutes are worth. But he'd so thoroughly stopped thinking of 'over' that it took his breath away, for a second, just to hear the word.

'No,' he managed. He cleared his throat, and fiddled the blower directly toward his eyes. 'Guess I haven't.'

His apartment, as expected, was empty, although construction was completed and the bill was sitting on his kitchen table. The fresh paint was even dry. Duo slid onto his couch as Tran and McDevitt checked the other rooms. They came back immediately. Safe.

'You need anything?' Tran asked him. 'Groceries, errands?'

'You guys don't have to do that. Thanks.' He probably did need everything. He hadn't been in his apartment in-- he wasn't even sure of the time frame. Weeks. He hadn't lived without strict attention to a calendar since the early days on L2, the world before it mattered when his misery was coming. It was putting him adrift. And maybe relating back to that very good question of 'over'. He didn't know when now was. After was just going to have to wait.

'McDevitt, there's a grocery a few streets up from here. Go pick him up a few things. Milk and eggs--'

'Egg whites,' Duo said automatically, then forced a shrug. 'You really don't have to.'

'No problem, man.' McDevitt was already headed back for the door. 'Some frozen stuff? Soup?'

Soup cans. He'd laid out all his soup cans in front of the door, hadn't he. God. Heero must have thought he was an idiot. A child.

'Maybe you should sleep,' Tran said.

'I'm fine. Really.' He rubbed his eyes. 'Thank you both for all the help.'

Tran stood there fingering the butt of his gun and gazing alertly into all the dark corners. He didn't really look all that much like Wufei, really, but that posture, that perfect Preventers stance, that was the same. Ready. Just ready.

'Maybe I will sleep,' Duo said. 'If you don't mind the quiet til McDevitt gets back.'

'Of course.' Tran trailed him to his bedroom, got the light for him when Duo otherwise would have just trusted he knew where all the furniture was. As it turned out, the painters had moved his bed away from the window. He detoured, but his eyes went to the stack of stuff that he'd packed away under his bed, a couple vacuum-packed sleeves of winter clothes from the cruise, a box of old computer pieces, abandoned files for unfinished work plans, a tupperware of--

A tupperware of hair. His braid.

He'd gone into a dead stop. Tran, behind him, asked if he was all right.

'Yeah,' Duo said faintly. 'Yeah, I-- I think I'll just sleep on the couch instead.'

'Maxwell.'

'Yeah.' He turned. Felt like it was staring after him, stalking toward him, making his skin crawl, but he put his back to it. 'Sorry. Just, uh.'

'If you need someone to stay here with you, we can do that.'

'No. Really. Just, uh, settling in. Will take a little while. Don't worry about it.' He felt marginally better with the bedroom door between him and his hair. 'Wasted plenty of departmental resources on me already.'

'Your case is still priority red.'

That was interesting. And whether or not Tran knew it, it smelled like a lie. Priority red would have had them slipping locators into his tea so he couldn't run off the colony without being followed. Priority red would've locked him down at the station, instead of letting him wander on home. Then again, Tran had inserted himself into the protector role so gently Duo hadn't wondered too much at it. He'd expected a Preventer presence and hadn't questioned it being the two who'd been with him the most. Maybe that wasn't much of an accident of fate.

Well, it was what it was. It didn't matter which Preventers were tagging him. They just needed to be there. The Nine One Five Six had someone in Preventers. Duo didn't care who it was. They'd come out of the woodwork when the shit-storm blew.

'There's tea in the cupboard,' Duo said. 'And a kettle over there. Make yourself a mug if you want.' He settled on his couch, dragged the blanket over himself. 'Don't let me sleep through McDevitt.'

'No danger of that,' Tran said dryly.

He almost did anyway. He was deeply out, and awareness was slow returning. Soft conversation nearby was what woke him. There was no imperative to open his eyes right away. He was warm enough, except for his feet where he'd taken his shoes off, and there was nothing twinging his nerves that said something unsafe was happening. He turned his eyes a little deeper into the pillow.

'No,' Tran was saying. 'You can't eat the food you just bought him.'

'Technically it's company dime,' McDevitt answered. 'And since we're all in the same company, I'm as eligible to eat it as he is.'

'Where the hell did you go to school, that they taught you to think like that?' His frigerator opened and closed, Duo knew that sound. Little clinks and clunks of things moving. 'One fizzy.'

The hiss of carbonation followed on that almost before the word was spoken. 'Think they'll send him back on hide-away now?'

'Why would they?'

'Well, if he thinks Heero Yuy is the one who's after him, that's not the guy we already caught, is it? Which means--'

'Means what.'

'Deep shit, I would think.'

Profound. Accurate. Duo smiled to himself. And sat up.

'Oh, hey,' McDevitt said, hiding the soda behind his back. 'You're up.'

'Yeah.' He scrubbed the back of his neck. 'Thanks for the groceries. If you're hungry, eat something.'

'Thanks, man.'

'Maxwell, we're with you for the night,' Tran told him. 'We can stay down in the car if you want us to--'

'No, don't put yourselves out. I've got a cot and a blow-up mattress. If you don't mind the living room.'

'Just until we know how we're going forward,' McDevitt added, around a fresh mouthful of apple. 'Might be back to the motels.'

'Can I offer an opinion on that? It's not really worth the rent.'

'How you think?' Tran asked.

Duo stood. They parted ways for him, to let him to the stove. He filled his kettle from the sink, enough for three cups if they wanted any, and set it to boil. He propped himself against the counter between them. 'You ever play football?'

Tran nodded. McDevitt was packing the apple into his cheeks, but his eyes were narrow. He was listening.

'The point of the game is to get goals, right. Get your ball in the net. But if you spend the game staying on your side of the field, the most you get is stopping the other guy getting a goal. I right about that?'

'What kind of goal are we trying to net?'

'Not entirely sure yet, but we're not doing much by stopping them from getting to me. Obviously they manage just fine when they want it bad enough, and just as obviously they keep trying over and over.'

The two Preventers exchanged looks over his head. Duo let it go. He'd planted the idea he wanted to plant. They'd pass it along to the people who might pass it along to ones who'd act on it, for better or worse. He gave it a week at most before someone moved on him. And if Tran and McDevitt were innocent, and caught in the crossfire, at least he'd warned them it was coming.

He poured himself a mug of tea and dripped in milk from a fresh pint. McDevitt hadn't done a bad job shopping, really; he had bread and butter and ready-made salad packets, vegetables and frozen meals. Pre-cooked meats, presumably to spare him the difficulty. He was glad, though. He didn't have the energy for cooking. He stuck one of the frozens in the microwave, and went back to his couch. McDevitt had brought two of the local bulletins with him. Duo dragged one toward him. It was a Tuesday. He hadn't even known it was a Tuesday.

'Any news?' he asked idly. He blew on his tea to cool it, and sipped.

McDevitt was the one who drifted in after him. 'That fat guy dropped out of the election,' he said. 'Got caught with a high-price hooker.'

'Shapiro? Really?'

'Not just any hooker,' Tran contributed from the kitchen.

'Trannie,' McDevitt finished. He grinned like a cheshire cat. 'And, like, not just a trannie, but a totally obvious trannie. She's like six foot five and she could box heavyweight.'

It felt really good to laugh. He wiped his eyes. 'God, that's great. That's-- really great.'

'Maxwell.' Tran again. 'How much do you remember? About all of it.' The microwave beeped, and he brought in the frozen meal on a plate, handing over a fork and knife as well. 'What do you remember about Heero Yuy?'

Hard not to wonder if that was a prod from the Nine One Five Six. Tran was too low-level to be their point of contact, but that didn't mean there wasn't plenty of sympathy within Preventers to their agenda. And if it did spread all the way to Tran's level, if the field agents knew enough to get themselves stationed inside his apartment with him... On the other hand, even if Tran was just a loyal Preventer, it was his job to ask still. There was a point at which paranoia stopped serving a point and just made him twitchy. Besides which-- it was a good way of fishing for who knew what.

'Heero,' he said. 'I remember him jabbing me with a needle. Or someone with him, I guess. Maybe it wasn't ever actually him. I remember him telling me he was trying to rescue me. I remember not believing him. That about covers it.'

'He was your friend, though,' McDevitt said. 'Once, anyway.'

'Once,' Duo echoed. 'People change. Even Heero.'

'You remember anything about who he was with?' Tran pressed him. He had a little pad out, even, taking notes, raising expectant eyes.

'Yeah,' Duo said. 'Some people with numbers for names. It struck me because during the war, OZ always called us by colony designations. Zero-One. Zero-Two. But it's probably not related, and it probably doesn't mean anything like that.' He leant back on his cushions, to prop up a foot on his coffee table. 'There's a certain personality that needs a label for anything they're doing. It used to piss them off, the Ozzies, that we didn't call ourselves anything. That we refused to admit there was a defined Resistance with cell names and coded greetings and secret tattoos. It took them, what, two hours to start calling us “The Gundam Pilots”? They're the ones who called it “Operation Meteor”, not us. So if Heero's group has a name now, I guess it tells me who I'm dealing with, a little. Doesn't it.'

McDevitt seemed impressed by his reasoning. Tran wrote it down, word for word, if the length of time he spent writing it was any marker. Duo let it go. Someone down the line, good or bad, was going to enjoy his blather.

'Anything else?' Tran said. 'What about your two groups theory?'

'Yeah, I did say that, didn't I. Two groups. One with a name and one without.' He was tiring again. 'Here's what I know. Someone, somewhere, wants to start a war. Because that's the only possible explanation for injecting anyone with the Moreno-Collins virus. If it got out, if people started dying, there's absolutely no question that a majority of colonists would be very quick to blame everyone who's still in government on Earth who used to wear a Federation uniform, right up through the President herself. Now maybe Heero-- maybe Heero thinks, I don't know, maybe he thinks it would be a grand chance for people on Earth and in Space to show a little common humanity. Rally around each other to face off a disaster, united front. Maybe he thinks it would benefit the race. But only a naïve idiot thinks it wouldn't lead to exactly the same circumstances that got us into the last war, because at the end of any disaster there's people who suffered the most and people who didn't really suffer all that much, and they released the Plague in Space for a reason. Both times.'

'But your tests were negative,' McDevitt protested, small young voice suddenly.

And making Duo feel much older than a mere ten years senior. 'Were they,' was all he answered.

Even Tran looked spooked by that.

'I'll get out the cots,' Duo said, and pushed himself to his feet.

**

What Preventers hadn't ripped down for him, he'd had to disconnect to let the contractors in for his walls. Consequently, his apartment had been bug-and-trap free for months. He didn't like being in it without that level of self-assured safety, but he didn't start any new preparations. Whatever was going to happen would happen.

What he did do to prepare consisted of entirely new activities for him. He wrote a will on a cheap internet programme, got it signed by a notary and sent it to his human resources department. He didn't have huge savings, but it was a chunk of change, and it would be harder for Preventers to tie it up if he had it legally willed to charity. He divided it up between his scholarship at the Archives and a community shelter near his neighbourhood. Anything in his apartment would probably be seized by Preventers, if he died during this, and he didn't worry about any of that. He wrote a couple of letters by hand: one to the staff at the Archives, to thank them for his home-away-from-home all those years; one to Relena Peacecraft, apologising for having given her a crappy wedding gift and explaining it was only because he'd been jealous of her, which was a stupid thing to take out on someone and he was sorry for it. He even wrote a letter to Quatre and Trowa, wherever they were. They'd never see it, probably, and it was an exercise, trying to figure out what he really had or wanted to say to boys who'd disappeared forever ago. In the end he just wished them happiness and told them to stay out of trouble. Take it from one who knows. If you've got something out there that's worth it, you hold it hard and you don't ever let it go. Don't ever come back.

Tran and McDevitt stayed with him, sleeping in his apartment, though they gave him space during the day. Alicia called to follow up on Tran's notes. Duo gave her exactly what he'd given Tran, and she complained that she wasn't sure if he wanted her to push him or wanted her to leave him be. Whatever she thought, she left him be.

He had a hundred work emails. He answered a few and replied to the rest that they should forward their enquiries back to the Engineer Corps for reassignment, so they wouldn't be hung up waiting on him. He had no personal calls at all. That made that easier.

He mopped. He cleaned his bathroom. He put clean sheets on the bed, and put his laundry in the bureau. And that pretty much put his life in order. It was as ready as he could get for whatever was coming.

**

'Canasta?' McDevitt suggested.

'You want to play a counting game with a mathematical genius?' Tran wondered.

'It's not really a counting game,' Duo deferred. 'Although that doesn't mean it's not beyond your mental capabilities, Bretty-boy.'

'I'm tired of sitting with my thumb up my ass, guys.'

'That is a conundrum,' Duo deadpanned, but couldn't say he didn't share the sentiment. 'Is there any objection to Ninety-Nine? That's three players.'

His phone rang. Tran made to stand, but Duo waved him down. 'Work hours,' he reminded them, and Tran let him get up, instead. Duo pulled the receiver down on the third ring. 'Probably just--'

Just. He couldn't have said how he knew, then. But he did. It was time.

'Just business,' he finished casually. He put the receiver between shoulder and ear, and took a slow amble toward his window. 'Hello.'

'Duo. Duo, thank God.'

Wufei.

'Duo, are you safe?'

'Yeah,' he said. No cars in the lot below. No-one on the street. 'Long time no see,' he said.

'I swear I didn't know. I swear I didn't know why they were sending me away.'

'No?' He went for the bedroom, to check out that window too. Still nothing. 'Promotion working out?'

'Please believe me. Believe me enough to get out of that apartment, Duo. You need to be somewhere safe.'

'Where's safer than home?' McDevitt was watching him. Tran had cottoned on enough to do a window check of his own, and was speaking quiet code into his own phone. Duo eased down onto his bed. 'As a matter of fact, I think we both know that you calling here is what's going to start it all. How long do I have?'

'No. I swear. I'm not one of--'

'Nine One Five Six? Heero's One. Are you still Five? Maybe there is a reason you've been so content to live here on L1 all this time, waiting for the right circumstances--'

'Duo, you are not safe there. Do you understand? Get out of your apartment. Find a place to hide.'

'Not really an option.'

'I swear--'

'I got that part. You should try telling your subordinates, though.' He let out a breath slowly, and laid the phone down on the duvet next to him. 'Brett, don't aim that thing at me. I'm not running anywhere.'

McDevitt stared at him down the barrel of his Beretta. 'Sorry, man,' he said. 'No-one wants it to go down dirty. But it'll be easier if you come with me quietly.'

'Yeah, I don't doubt that.' He stood slowly. 'Tran?'

Laying face-down on the blow-up mattress in his living room. There were still electrode prongs sticking out of his back, connected by wires to the taser gun abandoned on the floor.

'I had him pegged,' Duo observed, from that cold inner place he had that could look at a sight like that and keep smart-talking. 'Didn't figure it was you. What was the signal?'

'Chang was supposed to be out of the way.'

'Like me.' The Beretta waved him toward the door. Duo stopped for his coat, zipping it up to his chin. He went, McDevitt coming in close behind him into the hall. 'Why'd you wait six days to move?'

'Guess not everyone can move around quite as fast as you can.' McDevitt stopped him at the stairs, checking all directions before letting him down. 'But if Chang's here, the game's up. Where was he calling you from?'

'He didn't mention.' Duo didn't rush, but he didn't obstruct it, either. The gun at his back was no taser, and McDevitt could make him move just as easily if he had holes in a few non-essential areas. 'I'd like to add that this makes me feel less bad about drugging you a few weeks ago. Tran's your partner. He trusts you.'

'Tran doesn't have a mother with a gambling problem.'

Duo risked a peek back. There were streaks of sweat on McDevitt's cheeks. The hand on his gun was white-knuckled. Duo didn't like desperate people. Desperate people didn't ever make just one bad decision. They made strings of them. They escalated.

He faced forward again. 'Where are we going?'

'Get in the car.' McDevitt pressed keys on him. 'Drive where I tell you. You make a turn without me telling you and you can take the trip in the boot.'

'I know better than you how it works, Brett.' He unlocked the Preventers' vehicle with the clicker and got in passenger's side with McDevitt right behind him. He slid over the shift console and into the driver's seat, and keyed the ignition. McDevitt didn't belt in. 'Which way?' Duo asked.

'Head for the motorway.'

'They're really that far away? The Nine One Five Six?' He pulled out of his lot and eased into the street. There was Mrs Jones, on her morning walk to the grocery. She waved at him as he passed. Did a double take at the two look-alikes in the car. Duo didn't wave back. 'So it's just the money? You're not out to spread a Plague.'

'I don't want anyone to die.' Duo took another glance. That seemed true. McDevitt was really sweating it, now. Tapping nervously on the dash, sweeping his stare all the way behind the car, even when it took his attention off Duo.

'How much?'

'How much what.'

'Money. How deep in the hole is your mother.'

McDevitt looked at him. 'Ninety-five large. I could only get her twenty. She's got a shark who comes to her house and-- they're beating up an old woman with a problem. They say they'll do worse than that if she doesn't pay by end of the month.'

'Did you tell anyone? Tran or Wufei or someone who could help you? Don't you sign something? Promise to disclose so you can't be blackmailed like this?'

'She's my mom,' McDevitt said flatly. 'Maybe you could turn your back, but I couldn't.'

'Jesus, Brett.'

'Stop fucking calling me Brett. You don't know me.' McDevitt pointed across his face. 'Get on the M2. Take the ramp. I'm doing what I have to do.'

Duo rubbed his mouth. He nosed up the ramp and got on the motorway, just as ordered, and gunned the gas until they were up to speed with traffic. Just one more car headed for something on the other side. 'Yeah,' he said. 'I guess that's been going around, lately.'

McDevitt partioned out directions a street at a time, but Duo had an idea where they were headed when they turned in toward the docks on the far side of the colony. The satellites were mostly residential, but some were in pretty deep disrepair, like the one where he'd seen Solo's crew don the white suits disguise. They would make a good hiding place. Already had, actually, and the Nine One Five Six had proved pretty adept at moving low to the ground.

He was right about the satellites. McDevitt directed him into the queue for the three o'clock ferry. Sat fidgeting with his gun, maybe afraid to holster it, afraid Duo would run. They got by the ID check on the strength of McDevitt's badge, never mind it was Duo in the driver's seat, and it had to look odd. McDevitt paid the fee, passing the cash to Duo who passed it out the window to the teller-- and he inched the car up the ramp and locked them in five vehicles deep on all sides.

'Just sit calm,' McDevitt said then, while nervously clutching his gun to his lap. 'Keep it calm.'

'I'm calm.' He put the shift into park and cut the engine. 'Tran's probably got a BOLO on the plates by now. Someone at the docks is going to review the entries. Maybe before we make it to the satellites. They'll be ready for us at port.'

'Maybe,' McDevitt said. His knuckles were white.

'You planning to Bonnie and Clyde it? You don't have enough bullets for a shoot-out.'

'Shut up, man.'

'You shut up. I'm trying to help you keep your skin intact. The hell are you planning to do it if they stop us at Singer?'

'I don't know yet!'

'Well start thinking. Tran's going to tell everyone what you did, Brett. They'll have an armed and dangerous out on you. You won't be able to talk it down.'

'So what am I supposed to do?'

'Think it through,' Duo said flatly. 'Don't go in without a plan. They teach you that at Academy? When we get to the docks they'll be searching cars for sure. They'll have the plates. We need to not be in this car when they find it.'

'I can't trust a word outta--'

'You can trust me to be smart enough to not want to be shot accidentally while they take you out. When the ferry starts moving we need to get out of the can and find a place to hide. We can sneak off at port in the crowd of pedestrians. You need to ditch the jacket, too. It's too visible.'

Mistrustful or not, McDevitt obeyed him in that much, sliding out of his coat one arm at a time and bundling it into the back. 'What do we do once we're out?'

'We're not walking. We get a cab.'

'The cabbie'll recognise us.'

'You should have thought it through then. Of course the cabbie'll finger us. But we'll still be ahead of the search. We get a cab and drive wherever you're supposed to meet the Nine One Five Six--'

'And what? Maxwell?'

'Your mother worth a few million lives?' Duo flexed his hands on the wheel. The horn blasted, muted for them inside the car. They were sealing up the ferry. The big doors were closing in his rearview mirror. 'You know what they're trying to do. I told you myself.'

'Maybe you got it wrong.'

'Maybe I can breathe in Space. You know what they're doing, Brett.'

'Just get out of the car.' McDevitt's voice shook. 'Go. Now.'

He went. McDevitt followed after him, sliding into the few inches of space between cars. The titanium plates of the ferry's broad parker thrummed under his soles. No sense of it in the whale's belly, but Duo's body knew the feel of it. They were out into the Big Black. They had maybe a half hour before they hit port destination. 'Keep your face turned away from the cameras,' he told McDevitt. 'Head down. Like that. Put your fucking gun away. I'm not going anywhere. You pop off a civilian and they'll never let you out the cell block, Brett.'

'Stop calling me Brett.' McDevitt hugged close to him nonetheless, dogging him so close they could almost trip on each other. 'Why do you keep doing that.'

'They teach you anything at that Academy?' Duo spotted a covered exit toward the Promenade with johns and a bar. He aimed McDevitt at it and picked his path through the parked vehicles. 'I'm establishing a bond. I'm trying to make you feel so close to me you won't kill me.'

'I'm not out to hurt anyone.'

'You're past the point where you can control that. You knocked out your partner. You kidnapped me. As scared as you are right now you still don't know half how bad it's going to get when you hand me over to the Nine One Five Six. Do you know what they're doing, Brett, what they want to do to the colonies?'

'Shut up,' McDevitt grated at his back.

'You've seen me, all these months. You think I've been faking? They broke my back. They beat me up. They put needles in me, again and again, and you give me back to them they'll just do it again. They want to infect me with Plague. They want me to infect the general population. They want me to kill thousands and thousands of people, Brett.'

'Shut up, Maxwell.'

'You're too young to have seen anyone die of Plague. I lost everyone I'd ever known to it. You know what it looks like? You learn that at school, at least? It starts with a cough. Just a cough. Then a fever, then chills. You see things that aren't there. Every single kid who died went out without knowing their own name. There's no dignity in it. It's filthy and it strips you of everything human. But it smells, that's what stays with you the longest. It smells. Sweet. Like a flower. They start to smell sweet, just before they die. I threw up, on Earth, the first time I was near a garden. It smelled just like that.'

'I told you to shut your mouth.' McDevitt shoved him through the hatch into a metal-lined corridor. A jump-suited mechanic spared them a glance, but went back to his magazine when Duo only kept walking. They passed the first loo, the women's, and were headed then toward the water hole up the stairs or a cramped walk-about for foot passengers. Mid-day, there were only a few, most involved in their own business, paying no mind to two men choosing to walk oddly close to each other.

'You ever kill anyone?' Duo asked.

'Damn it.' McDevitt took him by the arm, wrenching him along into the shadow of the stairs. 'I told you to shut up.'

'There's a moral choice here, Brett. You can make it or it can make you, but you don't get to be ignorant and happy when you hold something this big in your hands. You do what they want you to do and you might wipe out Space before you're finished. Now maybe you're all right with that and that's something you believe in enough to shoulder, but if you let it happen because you were too cowardly to think about the consequences, you're worse than any traitor.'

McDevitt stared at him. Pale-faced, not a little lost. Young. God, he was young. Twenty-six and scared for his mom and too stupid to know how bad it was still going to get. They must have just taken him up. Maybe since Duo had jumped for L2 and lost them for a little while. McDevitt didn't know enough what they were doing to comprehend the scope of a real disaster--

And maybe too stupid to be solely at fault. Someone on Heero's side had gone looking for someone just like Brett McDevitt. A vulnerable kid who wouldn't know to ask for help until it was past saving. It wasn't solely McDevitt's fault he made the perfect patsy. It didn't help anything, but there it was, anyway.

He said, 'There's still time, Brett. We go to the concierge and ask for the radio. You tell them everything. You'll get discharged and you may sit in jail for a while. It won't be good. But it's better than the alternative.'

McDevitt swallowed hard enough that Duo heard it. Wiped his face, twice, with a hand that trembled. And then shook his head, a single jerky negative that Duo wholly expected to see.

'Okay,' Duo said. 'Okay.' He leant his head back against the wall, let the ferry's deep vibrations dig into his tense muscles. 'When we dock, we'll go out with the peds. Just leave the car.'

random Gundam drabble thing

2009-10-23T01:04:04Z

Kind of a random AU thing...
Fandom: GW
Rating: NC17

'Exactly how many people do you sleep with at any one time?'

Duo ignores that. Duo's good at ignoring him, but it doesn't detract from the business Duo is not ignoring, which is blowing him with the kind of skill that comes from lots and lots of practise.

'Yuy?' he says. 'Of course Yuy. Stupid question. The tall one-- Barton? The pretty soft one, Winner?'

Fingers rolling his balls, a tickling little pressure. Warm sloppy tongue on his tip, long licks. Gentle kisses, close-lipped, before they open over him, let him in. He curls his hand in Duo's hair, holds him there, urges him down.

'Which is the other one? The Mandarin. Chang. He looks as though you wound him up and left him unsatisfied.'

'God,' Duo mutters, his first sound in fifteen minutes. He tosses his long braid over his shoulder and redoubles his effort. It's perfunctory now-- no less dedicated, but the heat from the beginning is gone. He's not touching himself anymore, just balanced on his knees, one hand gripping the trailing edge of the duvet.

'Or maybe you just prefer it anonymous. You should hear the rumours. I suppose you do hear them. There's even supposed to be video--' He can't stop himself from one last jab, but the burn in his groin is tightening to a peak. He's going to come. Duo feels it, too, or at least is overly familiar with the signs. Duo sucks hard, opens his throat, lets him in deeper than he's ever-- even just the fact of it is enough. He comes, like a bullet leaving a pistol, that hard. He yells out something flattering, oh fuck, you're amazing, yes-- releases an aching fist with a few long hairs still wrapped around his fingers.

Duo is standing, tucking his shirt back into his trousers, wiping his mouth on his arm. 'We done?' he asks.

'You can't pretend to enjoy yourself, just a little?'

Duo rolls his eyes. 'We're done,' he says again, and zips his fly. 'Am I free to go?'

He eases his pants over his thighs, pulls his trousers up by his belt. 'You were free to come, too.'

Duo tips an imaginary hat. 'Thanks for the privilege, Highness. As ever, your loyal Preventer awaits his next summons.'

'You're wasting yourself. I'd promote you.'

'To royal fuck-toy? Why pay for what you're getting courtesy?' Duo buttons his shirt, twitches his collar straight. 'Don't take it personal, but I prefer to maintain the illusion that all of this is under protest.'

He has a rusty laugh in him, for that. Duo has his moments. 'As you like. Go on back, then. They'll escort you to Barracks.'

Duo slows his march to the door. Then, on the turn of a heel, a hesitation, he turns back. This is different. He never turns back. Zechs sits up slowly, props himself on his elbows. A little warning thrill squirms through his gut, but he doesn't heed it. Curiosity is stronger. The grim set of Duo's face is stronger.

'If we'd won the war,' Duo says, 'I'd have killed you and loved it.'

Zechs nods slowly, twice. He understands. 'But you didn't. And the world we've made between us isn't really so bad.'

'That's the hell of it.' Duo's mouth twists. 'See you next time.'

Rx

2009-10-14T01:42:55Z

Fandom: House
Pairing: None
Rating: Gen
Notes: Takes place in an imaginary House series in which the ridiculousness of seasons 4 and 5 never happened. Actually, it references the period in which Chase was moonlighting in NICU while still working at Diagnostics, so Season 2.

There’s gingerbread on the table when Chase finishes his night-shift in NICU and heads downstairs for Diagnostics. It’s unseasonable for gingerbread, but his stomach is aching and he’s been working on light-headed for two hours, so when House gives a distracted wave for permission, Chase eats two helpings.

There’s troughs and waves, in Diagnostics, troughs and waves in every case. They’re in a trough right now, waiting for their patient to respond to interferon, House is smug at having solved the case– Chase has been here longest, though, and knows House will solve the case at least three more times before they actually know what’s wrong with the man who walked in with a broken leg. Maybe it’s faith, but he’s never been anything but confident that House will get to the right answer. Meanwhile, troughs and waves, and he has time to finish his case notes from the Levitt baby’s cardiac surgery.

**

The cramps are the first signal, but it’s not until there’s a black place when he tries to stand and he wakes up on the floor with Cameron mopping blood off his head that he really knows it’s more than missing dinner the night before. Foreman gives him four stitches where his temple met the edge of the table going down, and draws blood to test.

House is the one who thinks to have the gingerbread tested.

**

They’re too late for an emetic. They give him GoLYTELY to flush his entire gastrointestinal tract, and Cameron plays mother to him while he struggles to drink all of the noxious fluid, eight ounces every ten minutes. She even waits during the first two rounds of the resulting diarrhea, until their patient– the other patient, not him– suddenly stops clotting, and then it’s a nurse, Ronald, who checks in every half hour.

Cameron again, some time after noon, to tell him a pesticide went into the gingerbread with the sugar. They slept together, and he wonders if she’s thinking about that, while she wears that face of pity and concern. But it’s the face she shows to all her patients, especially the men, and slept together never meant anything more than getting off. He’d called her Allison, just once, after that, figuring that seeing her naked might warrant a first-name relationship. She’d been more than clear he was mistaken. She starts him on atropine, and he asks after their patient. House has solved the case again. Chase smiles when she says that, and thinks, if he’s lucky, he might be back at work in time to see what happens next.

**

Foreman tracks the gingerbread to an old patient. House’s old patient. Chase thinks it’s funny, or it might be later, when he’s not sore all inside from the evacuant and still fighting nausea, that it went down the way it did. He’s a faithful servant after all, testing all of House’s food for poison, taking all the blows meant for his feudal lord. House doesn’t apologise, of course, but Chase doesn’t expect him to. Their patient goes home at last, the third diagnosis being the charm– a good record for House. Cameron brings Chase the case files he’d been collating before the gingerbread to keep him busy. If he doesn’t develop new symptoms during the night, they’ll discharge him in the morning, and he’ll be nothing but a new anecdote for House to parade about at parties. The intern who almost died on the job.

**

He feels it coming in time to call a nurse, almost four in the morning. There’s no-one from his team still around, that early, and he gets Feldman, one of the physician’s assistants. He has time to start describing the symptoms before the seizure starts, and then when he wakes up, it’s bright out his window, and he hurts all over.

Foreman answers the page and comes to recount last night’s proceedings. They know which pesticide it is, now, and started treating for it while he was unconscious. Foreman’s patient-face is on now, too, the mild expression he thinks is reassuringly objective, but truly makes him look disinterested. He tells Chase that he'll be able to go home, for real, in forty-eight hours, that while he was out they-- he means House, though he doesn't say House-- solved their other case, as well, and from his expression he means that House is intolerable and that Chase needs to get better fast to help take the heat. Chase says thank you, which seems to surprise Foreman, and after that Foreman edges out the door before anything more personal can be said.

He sleeps a lot, and doesn't really feel better for it, but his American insurance only gives him three days in hospital, and so he's packed and hobbling for the door ready or not. All he wants is a few days off at home, a really big pot of tea and a really fluffy pillow. He naps in his car before he attempts to roll out, and sips most of a soda down for the caffeine. He puts his key in the ignition, snaps on his safety belt, and pulls out of his parking spot.

He blacks out with his foot on the brake. In the middle of the intersection in the garage, the nose of his car already pointed downward on the ramp. He swims out of it and sees the van coming, but his body doesn’t obey as fast as his brain recognises the danger. He gets the impact on the side, and his airbag explodes in his face, everything skids sideways.

He’s on a gurney, they’ve bagged him but he still can’t breathe. Cameron’s hand is on his shoulder, he can feel it, but his neck is encased in plastic and he has a moment of panic about his legs, can’t feel those at all. But only because there’s equipment on them, the crash cart. He wiggles his toes with laborious concentration, and discovers he’s missing a shoe.

Troughs and waves. They put him to sleep in the ER, and he’s getting used to the dark.

**

House has solved the case. He knows, though House still hasn’t come to see him, because Wilson does.

Wilson’s patient-face is just like his regular face, and somehow– it– it hurts more to look at the sincerity of Wilson’s eyes than it does to listen to the rise and fall of his solemn voice. He knows how to deliver bad news to a patient, but Wilson is good at it.

It’s pancreatic cancer. The irony of it is, Chase thinks while Wilson starts to talk about treatment, that in a place lousy with doctors, not one of them put together the signs to come to the right answer. It wasn’t the poisoned gingerbread that had started it all, it was the poisoned gingerbread that had inflamed symptoms he’d barely even noticed and might not have attributed to a disease until he was too far gone to treat. The pain he’d put down to stress, working hundred hour weeks in a place where half the people he touched died preventable deaths. The weight loss he’d thought was too many skipped meals, the bout of ‘flu from Christmas, no appetite– and he’d mistaken that, too, thinking it was about his father, about– about anything but being sick, when he should have put it together, should have at least wondered if Mum’s alcoholism could be chronic pancreatitis, hereditary pancreatitis. Bet that House figured it all out, bet that House never missed a trick.

Maybe the irony is that House did exactly what House always did, diagnose until he finally found the disease that fit all the symptoms, all without ever having to actually see his patient. And though he wants to, he doesn’t resent that. There will be people to attend him if he is dying, people like Cameron and Wilson, nurses in shifts to take care of whatever needs he’s got, but he’s not leaving any family, he’s got no obligations but the steady climb of debt that will, ultimately, decide on treatment for him. Maybe the irony is that he’s all but lived at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital for the past three years, and now that he’s finally not working here, he might not ever leave.

Wilson’s speech has gone to numbers and alphabets now, in depth he might not have given someone not a doctor themselves. Even so, Chase struggles to decode it all, gets lost in fits and catching on in starts without any logic. T1 or T2, Wilson says, N0 and M0; and Chase translates that to Stage One and feels hope. Wilson says that Stage One is the best prognosis, that they are incredibly lucky– they are, Wilson says– to catch it in Stage One, that he’s got a good fifteen percent– and he loses the thread at that, trying to equate fifteen percent with good chances. Wilson says they’ll schedule a Whipple’s to remove the tumor, see where that leaves them. Chase signs the papers Wilson gives him. And finally Wilson asks if he’d like someone to sit with him, and Chase says no, in lieu of saying that he’s used to being alone, and there’s no point in changing the one constant in his life this close to death.

**

Troughs and waves. He’s gone under total anaesthesia before, to fix a shoulder broken during a game of football gone violent, when he was only ten. He’d been fearful of the doctors, all of them stern and unrelenting like his father, but a nurse had stroked his cheek while he counted down to blackout, and though he’d never known her name, he’d missed her.

There’s no such gentle touch given while they prep him for the surgery, though nurses he knows do press his chilled hands in brief gestures of sympathy. It’s Wilson operating, perhaps because they know each other, perhaps simply as the chief of oncology. Wilson can make a smile shine from behind a surgical mask, and he does today, bright and determined, reminding Chase how long the procedure will last, what he’ll feel like when waking. Chase listens closely– not that he doesn’t already know, but mindful that no-one, not even House, can control everything that happens in the OR, and Wilson’s well-meaning monologue might be the last thing he listens to. Chase takes some comfort from it, to impose meaning on something potential like complications under the knife. He smiles at the intern who puts the mask on him and instructs him to breathe deeply.

The wave overtakes him, and then he’s sinking, losing his feet and his legs, then his chest. There’s a little point of sensation in his lungs for just a little longer than anywhere else, and he lets his eyes close without fighting. House claimed he’d seen things, didn’t he, in those hours of unconsciousness after the shooting? But Chase doesn’t see anything, just feels the cold swallowing him up, like walking into the ocean at Noosa, and stepping off the sandbar.

**

Waking up this time is like waking up all the other times since the gingerbread. A startlement, first, then an awareness of exterior pains that register amidst the confusion of sound and sight and smell.

And Ronald the nurse, who turns from watching his vitals to say that everything went very well, and welcome back.

**

Cuddy lets him know that the term of his internship is his to finish. It’s meant as a courtesy only, but Chase, with three of the four years almost done, knows the truth– that House refused to hire anyone new while Chase was out on medical leave. Not for any sentiment, and Chase thinks that every time with a smile. Not for any sentiment. House just hates change.

He’s recovering well from the surgery, and Wilson finds three good clinical trials for Chase to join for his chemotherapy. It’s still likely that he’ll die. But not that month, not that year even. And though he claimed, once, that if he had terminal cancer, he’d stay at home and watch telly til he died, that’s not what he chooses to do now.

The nurses all crowd around when he walks past the front desk, and so do the doctors he’s worked with and the surgical interns and Debra from NICU, who brings him a card with tiny palm-prints of babies. When he makes it to Diagnostics, Foreman embraces him and Cameron even looks happy while she brings him a milky tea. He tells them willingly about his diet and Foreman debates the trials with him until, twenty-four minutes late, House bangs open the door with a reverberation of glass, walks past him with no more than a glance, and throws a new case folder onto the table.

The other two don’t like House’s manners, but Chase doesn’t mind it. It’s the last home he’s going to have, this office in this hospital where he ended up, and he’s found...

He’s found he doesn’t want it to change, either.

whoospie update

2009-10-12T15:15:18Z

Okay, I broke the rules and edited the second half of Chapter 10 of Bridges. Sorry, but I hope this elucidates a little more.

people hating people

2009-10-12T14:16:41Z

It is really fucking freezing here today. So when I wander downstairs to put the heater on, what do I find? My housemate who complains about the cold on a summer day is sitting outside and has all our doors and windows open. There is actual frost and she has the doors and windows open.

Me: I can't believe you off all people are okay with this.
Her: Oh, I'm not, but I can never figure out when to turn the heat on.
Me: This is not a whether to turn the heat on situation. This is a close the doors and windows before all else situation.
Her: Oh, do you want me to close them?

You know, I don't even know what to say to things like that. Yes, I want you to close them. I want you not to open them at all. If you have to wear your winter coat and a hat and gloves to sit outside, I want you not to wake up and decide for the entire house that today is a grand day to open up to the weather. I want you to use your brain. I do not think this is a tough request to meet.

Next conversation we have:

Me: Are you going anywhere today?
Her: No, I don't think so.
Me: Well, I said last night I need to go to the store. Could we switch our cars out of the drive today?
Her: Oh. Well, I guess so.

You guess? You parked fucking behind me. Ergo, you need to move your car. I gave you twelve hours notice and it's hardly the break of dawn as we have this conversation. Move your god-damn car.

Her reason why she doesn't want to go out and move it?

It's too cold.

Bridges update

2009-10-08T01:29:12Z

A much larger update to make up for the shorter one before. Ends Chapter 10.

Bridges

2009-10-06T01:06:20Z

More. I'm really struggling with this part. Sorry for the delays. I'd rather it be good going up than so-so and needed re-doing.

Dear Whoopi Goldberg, et al:

2009-10-02T01:08:03Z

Dear Whoopi,

I am a thirteen year old rape victim who watches 'The View'. Boy, am I glad I was watching this week, because if I had missed your discussion of Roman Polanski's recent arrest, I never would have known I wasn't "rape-raped". How embarrassing this could have been for me! If I hadn't ever realised I wasn't "rape-raped", I might have been brave enough to go to the police and identify the forty-year-old man who gave me drugs and alcohol and took nude photographs of me. I might even have been strong enough to face intense public scrutiny and immense humiliation by testifying about my "rape"-- how this forty-year-old, powerful and wealthy man drugged me, licked me, penetrated me, and sodomised me, all as I begged him to stop and take me home. I might even have expected this man to face jail time like anyone who pleads guilty to a crime! But, thank God, I saw your show in time to prevent all that. Your articulate explanation of "rape" versus "rape-rape" really opened my eyes. So instead of standing up for my rights as an American citizen and a human being, instead of demanding justice for myself and justice for my "rapist", I will just hope for a civil settlement to mark me forever as a sex toy, bought and paid for by a man who will get away with it. Oh, and don't worry-- your remarks have helped me to realise, too, that my silly dreams of being supported by feminists like you should rightfully be replaced with a sober contemplation of the absolute ignorance and disregard I will face for daring to speak up about my "rape". I know better now! I think I will probably just keep it quiet, instead-- and if any of my friends are ever "raped", I'll be sure to have them watch 'The View' as well. Girls should know the difference between forcible penetration and sodomy and "rape-rape" before they try to expose the forty-year-old men who also make Oscar-winning movies!

Thanks again,
Lucky Thirteen

P.S.: Could you please send an autographed photo? I am starting high school this year and my mom says there may be boys who want to date me and maybe even want to have sex with me even though I'm not ready yet. Having your picture in my locker will really help remind me of the facts. Please make it out "I know it's not 'rape-rape'".

The following are the names of every Hollywood moral idiot who has signed a petition for Polanski's sentence to be vacated. Some of them make really great movies. Some of them even have thirteen year old daughters. If you find that as sick as I do, you can follow my lead: boycott the fuckers.

Isabelle Adjani
Faith Akin
Stephane Allagnon
Woody Allen
Pedro Almodovar
Wes Anderson
Jean-Jacques Annaud
Alexandre Arcady
Fanny Ardant
Asia Argento
Antoine Aronin
Darren Aronofsky
Olivier Assayas
Alexander Astruc
Gabriel Auer
Paul Auster
Luc Barnier
Christophe Barratier
Morgane Beauverger
Xavier Beauvois
Liria Begejia
Gilles Behat
Jean-Jacques Beineix
Candice Belaisch-Goldschmit
Marco Bellochio
Monica Bellucci
Yamina Benguigui
Djamel Bennecib
Guiseppe Bertolucci
Partick Bouchiety
Paul Boujenah
Jacques Bral
Patrick Braoude
Pascal Bruckner
Andre Buytaers
Christian Carion
Henning Carlsen
Jean-Michel Carre
Mathieu Celary
Patrice Cherau
Elie Chouraqui
Souleymane Cisse
Jessika Cohen
Philippe Corbe
Alain Corneau
Jerome Cornuau
Miguel Courtois
Dominique Crevecoeur
Alfonso Cuaron
Luc et Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Jeal-Paul Dayan
Jonathan Demme
Katarina De Meulder
Alexandre Desplat
Rosalinde et Michel Deville
Arielle Dombasle
Georges Dybman
Jacques Fansten
Joel Farges
Gianluca Farinelli
Nathalie Faucheux
Etienne Faure
Michel Ferry
Corinne Figuet
Pierre Forciniti
Scott Foundas
Stephen Frears
Thierry Fremaux
Sam Gabarski
Rene Gainville
Louis Garrel
Tony Gatlif
Albert Gauvin
Costa Gavras
Jean-Marc Chanassia
Terry Gilliam
Christian Gion
Johanna Gozlan
Marc Guidoni
Taylor Hackford
Buck Henry
David Heyman
Laurent Heynemann
Robert Hossein
Jean-Loup Hubert
Isabelle Huppert
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Gilles Jacob
Just Jaeckin
Alain Jessua
Pierre Jolivet
Kent Jones
Neil Jordan
Roger Kahane
Thierry Kamami
Nelly Kaplan
Ladislas Kijno
Harmony Korinne
Jan Kounen
Milan Kundera
Diane Kurys
Emir Kusturica
Gaelle Lancien
John Landis
Claude Lanzmann
Andre Larquie
Vinciane Lecocq
Patrice Leconte
Claude Lelouch
Gerar Lenne
Bernard-Henri Levy
David Lynch
Michael Mann
Francois Margolin
Jean-Pierre Marois
Tonie Marshall
Mario Martone
Nicolas Mauvernay
Sam Mendes
Camille Meyer
Radu Mihaileanu
Claude Miller
Patrick Mimouni
Yann Moix
Mario Monicelli
Jeanne Moreau
Marie Nieves Perez Neel
Mike Nichols
Sandra Nicolier
Michel Ocelot
Alexander Payne
Richard Pena
Michele Placido
Philipe Radault
Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Raphael Rebibo
Yasmina Reza
Jacques Richard
Laurence Roulet
Salman Rushdie
Walter Salles
Jean-Paul Salome
Marc Sandberg
Carine Sarna
Ysabelle Saura del Pan
Jerry Schatzberg
Julian Schnabel
Barbet Schroeder
Ettore Scola
Martin Scorsese
William Shawcross
Charlotte Silvera
Abderrahmane Sissako
Olivier Soares Barbosa
Steven Soderbergh
Paolo Sorrentino
Guillaume Stirn
Tilda Swinton
Nil Symchowicz
Jean-Charles Tacchella
Radovan Tadic
Danis Tanovic
Bertrand Tavernier
Cecile Telerman
Alain Terzian
Pascal Thomas
Daniele Thompson
Giuseppe Tornatore
Serge Toubiana
Nadine Trintignant
Tom Tykwer
Alexandre Tylski
Bertrant Van Effenterre
Eugenia Varela Navarro
Diane von Furstenberg
Scott Foundas
Margaret Walker
Wim Wenders
Wong Kar Wai
Elsa Zylberstein

First Knight

2009-09-30T02:33:10Z

Fandom: Lioness Quartet
Pairing: Alex/Thom, Alex/Roger (You sort of have to squint here, but I promise it's in there.)
Rating: G
Notes: This is totally not as awesome as it was in my head. I struggled from word one on this. But I am tired of working on it.

He was walking the gardens alone, grateful for the air, the privacy, the fresh scent of the rain. The ball inside raged on like an all-consuming plague of shrill laughter and sawing music, shoes beating the floor in frenetic dancing. His head was hot, his throat dry. He hadn't slept in nights, and wouldn't sleep for several more.

The sound of a footstep in gravel whirled him about, just as he noticed the approaching light. In his haste, he looked directly at the flaring orange torch his intruder carried. Momentarily blinded, he stared, frozen in place.

'Roger?' he whispered.

The flame on copper hair dipped low. A purple gaze met him, eye to eye.

'Interesting,' Master Lord Thom said.

**

Alex had known well before Roger did that Roger was very doomed.

He'd stood by the door when summoned to Roger's quarters that night, offering nothing as his knight-master ranted furiously about Trebond's interference in his plans. Such grand plans, such painstaking plans, all undone by that damned boy who refused to die. Only as time inched near to the combat did Roger finally turn to Alex-- a fury of instructions, demands; and finally threats, when Alex only avoided his glare. Roger's power was already on the wane, before a single blow was struck. Alex saw which way the wind was blowing. He knew.

Oh, but Roger. Roger couldn't even conceive of losing. Planning, planning, new plans as the old ones crumbled. Roger's ego had always been equal parts armour and vulnerability. Roger had been wrong so many times he'd forgotten what right looked like.

'Ever the doubter,' Roger had said, the last thing Roger said to him. He took Alex by the neck, staring down into his eyes. 'This is anything but the end.'

Alex hadn't believed him.

**

Master Lord Thom sought him out, the week after Roger's death.

Alex had quietly requested, and been quietly granted, a border patrol that would keep him out of the palace until the scandal blew over. He was no fool, nor was Duke Gareth; he would eventually be questioned. His closeness to Roger would not be overlooked. But for now, for the moment, he would be allowed to escape it. He was to go with Raoul and with Geoffrey, newly knighted yet still loyal. It was to last a month. He was not yet sure if he would really return. Tirragen had been long enough without its lord, and if he just stayed quiet, their Majesties might, in time, forget he'd ever been involved.

It was not to be. Master Lord Thom sought him out.

'Ah,' Thom said, distracted, always distracted. 'I need your help. You're not to go on patrol.'

'What?' Alex said dumbly. He was already packed-- in fact he carried his saddlebags on his shoulder even as they stood in the hall, passed by servants who carefully did not look. The weak sunlight from the carved arches at his back barely fed the shriveled grass under his boots. Thom's copper hair was pale today, pale like his scholar's skin, the white hand that beckoned imperiously.

'I need your help,' Thom repeated, enunciating carefully, impatiently. 'I've already spoken to the Prince. You're to stay.'

'But—' Alex glanced behind him. The open gates of the stables, just behind him, wafted the clean smell of horses, hay, escape.

'Come on, then,' Thom said. He snapped his fingers at Alex. 'Stop these silly delays. Put those bags away and meet me in Roger's rooms.'

**

There was no funeral, of course. In death, though, Roger became far more popular a subject of conversation than he'd ever been, alive.

The royal family were absorbed with the revelations, and the Queen's health, the Prince's many close calls. His friends, though, the men who'd been his friends once, moped over it all until he was heartily sick of them. Even the servants gossiped openly, whispering the wildest of stories to each other as they walked the halls behind their betters. If they weren't talking about Roger, they were talking about Alan. Alanna.

And what a shock that had been. Most who dared to gossip spoke with approval or disgust that the King refused to strip her of her shield. Those who had known him-- her-- familiarly, they spoke with wonder, and recounted endlessly her long list of talents with a new awe.

It was as well he was in the habit of keeping his counsel, because it kept him from declaring them all blind asses to their faces. But they were. Her secret didn't change anything. In fact, it seemed hardly to have been a secret at all, given how many had known and conspired to keep it silent.

But not Alex. Alex had already been topfull of secrets.

**

Master Lord Thom had been appointed the task of clearing Roger's quarters of malignant magic.

'Assuming there's any benign,' Thom added cheerfully. He was already buried nearsightedly to the nose in a dusty tome pulled from the shelves in Roger's private workroom. Half-hearted piles had begun forming already. Books, scrolls-- Thom would want those for study. Roger's notes and journals. For study and for burning. Talismans and experiments, for destruction. The water fountain and the dolls, Thom told him, had already been removed. Thom would deal with them most carefully of all.

'Why do you need me?' Alex asked him. He went in no further than the workroom door. He had never been invited further.

'You were his squire.' Thom looked up at him, never to see him. He left the book where it lay and picked up another. 'Presumably, you're the key to at least a few of his multitude of mysteries.'

'Am I,' Alex answered.

That made Thom see him. He had a singularly piercing gaze. Alex stood his ground a full minute before he shifted on his feet, uneasy.

'So it's like that,' Thom mused. He turned back to his manuscript. 'Very well. You may go for today.'

He bristled at the off-hand dismissal even as he was swiftly grateful for escape. He wavered on his feet. He turned away.

'You have no Gift?'

Alex looked back. 'No,' he said. 'Never in my family.'

'Interesting,' Thom replied absently, and said nothing more.

**

'You what?' Gary yelped.

Alex was just leading his horse back to the stableyard. His friends occupied a corner by a trough, where their conversation had no doubt begun quietly. Jonathan was red as a cooked beet, hushing Gary uselessly.

Gary waved Alex closer. 'Did you know they were--'

'Gary!' Jon hissed.

'He was in love with Alan. Alanna!'

'I knew,' Alex said.

Both gaped at him. Alex stroked his mare's dappled nose.

'You knew?' Gary repeated. 'You knew she was--'

'No. I knew Jonathan and he were.'

Gary spluttered. Jonathan was white, then. Ghostly in his shock.

Then, as Alex led his mare beneath the wooden eaves, Jonathan called out, 'Alex. Did you tell him?'

'No,' Alex said. 'I never told anyone.'

He knew Jonathan didn't believe him.

**

'And you never observed him using any of these implements?'

Alex hadn't even looked at them in an hour. Master Lord Thom was relentlessly thorough in his questions. They'd gone through nearly all of Roger's possessions. This final pile seemed to be of significance. Thom repeated himself several times.

'No,' Alex said shortly. 'Never.'

'He never conducted spells before you? Never invited you to watch?'

'No. I'm un-Gifted. What would have been the point?'

'To show off,' Thom shrugged. 'To impress you. To influence you with a display of his power. To frighten you into silence. Do I need to continue or will you pretend to understand me?'

Alex was quite sure he did not like Thom. 'Is there any question of his guilt? Or are you establishing my complicity?'

'At least we're speaking candidly now.' Thom propped his bearded chin on his hand. 'It would be easier on you to say he forced you. In whatever way.'

'I suppose it would,' Alex said flatly. 'Be easier.'

'And no detriment to your honour. Your reputation. The Prince would believe you, the King. For the price of a little pride, you could even become a trusted right hand to the throne.'

That was probably quite true. If it had ever been Alex's way. Not even Roger had ever asked him to play a part. Only to do as he naturally did-- nothing.

'Do you know why Roger chose you as his squire?'

Alex also did not like how casually Thom said his name. As if he'd known the man his sister had destroyed before all the court. Almost-- fondly.

'It would have been inappropriate of me to ask,' Alex murmured.

'I mean do you know why Roger chose you, an un-Gifted boy, as his squire. Why a man known throughout the world for his sorcery would select--'

'I understand the question. I don't know.'

'No?'

'No.'

'Interesting,' Thom said, for the third and last time.

**

The idea formed slowly. Schemes had always been Roger's gambit; Alex's needs were simpler, briefer. But there was no Roger anymore. There were no needs to satisfy except his own. He was free. For the first time in years, he was beholden only to himself.

But after the first heady rush, its grip on him began to strangle. Freedom was a lack of direction. Purpose. He had spent those years of captivity biding his time for something that had never happened. A betrayal he was never called upon to enact. Roger was dead. Which meant Alex-- had no meaning any more.

Alex heard Master Lord Thom had finally destroyed the dolls Roger had made of so many Court figures. Gary told him so, over wine in the Great Hall. Alex drank there every night, at the edge of the Hall. Jonathon watched him from the head table. So did Sir Myles, who seemed likely to be making guesses; Roger had always been doubly careful of Myles. Delia sent him private messages he never read, asked him for dances he never provided, and watched him, trying to catch his eyes.

So did Thom.

'I think it's odd, you know,' Gary told him once. 'How he's so different from her. I suppose it's natural, but for them to look so alike and be nothing alike, it's just odd. I mean, d'you realise, if she hadn't made the switch, it might have been Thom who'd have been amongst us all this time. Can you imagine?'

'Yes,' Alex replied, and then, 'No. No. You know, I really can't.'

**

'He was the first great enemy for us both.'

The gardens were absolutely no form of escape anymore. Even in the hedge maze, Thom found him. Even without magic. He appeared bearing just a simple torch, not even coloured with his Gift. He sat on the bench in the centre of the maze, his knee brushing Alex's.

'Do you ever just say “hello”?' Alex asked.

'Why?' Thom shrugged him off. 'I'm explaining, and I never do that, either. So listen to me. I'm telling you it wasn't just Alanna he was targeting. In some ways she was never the most important target.'

Alex knew in very great detail just how many times Roger had tried, unsuccessfully, to end the lives of those who stood against him. Alan. Alanna. 'You?' he said, letting Thom's silence prompt him.

'I've always been able to See. Alanna only Sees sometimes, but I've always had it more than her. We were six the first time I saw Roger. I had a dream. The next time we were nine. We were riding. I hated it anyway, but I was dazzled by the sun on the mountains, and I saw Roger. I panicked and fell from my pony. I broke my arm. Alanna bound it up, with sticks and strips of her skirt. She took a hiding from Coram for it, but she wouldn't tell him why I'd fallen. She was always like that.' Thom rolled his torch between his palms, letting the flame dip toward the coral gravel at their feet. The tawny light on his face cast deep shadows over his eyes and mouth. 'It was her idea for us to switch. We told the village healing woman. Maude. Maude tried to See in the fire. I don't know if she did, but I know that I did, that day. I saw Roger. I knew that we would be successful, Alanna and I, that I would go to the City of the Gods and that I would be what I am now, a Master, and that I would accomplish the greatest thing ever even attempted by any Master before or after me.'

'Why are you telling me this?'

'Do you know what she wants me to do?'

'Alanna?'

'Delia,' Thom said.

No. Yes. Alex was terrified, numb. Yes, he knew.

'The thing is,' Thom said, 'I already know that I can do it. In a way, I already have done it. I Saw it.'

'Then why are you telling me this.'

'Because I want to know why it wasn't you begging after me to do it.' Thom raised his torch, and stood. 'You know where to find me when you have an answer.'

**

He was very drunk. He knew exactly how drunk, because it hurt exactly that much; his head throbbed hotly, his stomach rebelled, and he couldn't breathe. Gary swam in his sight, a brown blur with an echoing voice asking if he ought to slow down.

'I don't know,' Alex mumbled. His tongue was a block of wood, refusing to bend for speech. 'I don't know why I did it.'

'You're awfully determined at it, nonetheless,' Gary observed wearily. 'Up now. On your feet. I'll walk you back to your rooms.'

He managed not to be sick, with Gary's hand wrapped around his arm, stumbling over himself from the Great Hall. He thought he felt eyes on him. He twisted to look back, but Gary kept him going. It took all his concentration to make it up the stairs.

'You're going to get more attention than you want, carrying on like this,' Gary told him. 'Your door is locked. Have you got the key?'

'Not locked,' Alex managed. 'Just jiggle it-- sticks.'

Gary obeyed. They were inside then. Alex crawled the length of his low leather settee, pressing his hot face to a cool cushion. Gary lit a candle somewhere over his head.

'Alex. Drink this.'

Water. Alex grimaced, turned away. Gary sighed, and set the tumbler on the rug. 'I don't know why I did it,' Alex told the cushion. 'I thought I knew. I didn't.'

'That's all right.' Gary patted his shoulder. 'Try to remember to drink the water. I'll send a maid in with some stale bread and hot tea in the morning.'

'Thom.'

'Thom? Thom what?'

'Thom.' Alex breathed from his nose, squeezed his eyes shut against a crazy swirl of nausea. 'Send Thom.'

'Master Lord Thom? Alanna's Thom? I think you'd have better luck from Duke Baird. More sympathy, certainly.'

'Thom! Find Thom.'

There was black nothingness, for a long while. He might have slept. It might have been worse than that. But when he cracked his eyes against the candlelight, it wasn't Gary crouched at his side. Purple eyes.

'Hold still,' Thom murmured. He had long, cool fingers, tender on Alex's neck. They spread something sweet through him. It pushed back the darkness in his head, the hurt. Alex stared at him.

Thom gathered the folds of his nightshirt about his skinny knees, tucking the linen beneath his palms.

'I don't know why I did it,' Alex said.

'That's a lie.'

'No. No, not a lie...'

'Lie to me again,' Thom said, 'and I will never speak to you again. Now tell me the truth.'

Alex stared at him. 'He promised me-- that it would matter. That I would matter. I would-- be-- something.'

Thom nodded slowly. He touched Alex's cheek, his chin. 'Wash your face,' he said, 'and shave. You'll feel better for it. And then you'll come with me, I think. We have something more to talk about.'

**

The catacombs were dark and dripping with damp. Alex shivered even in his thick tunic, but Thom, though pale, always pale, was immune to the cold.

It was the first time he'd seen the tomb. King Roald, ever generous, or perhaps just fearing further scandal, had refused to burn a royal cousin. But it was cold, uncarved marble, without even a name to distinguish the bones within.

Alex fingered the hilt of his sword, wishing it had more comfort to give. His head still spun, but Thom's magic had rid him of the pain and the nausea. 'Why did you want me here?'

'Curiosity,' Thom replied. 'To which I am radically prone. You have me very curious, Sir Alexander. And the more questions I have, the fewer of them you answer.'

'I didn't ask you to take an interest,' Alex said gruffly.

'No, you didn't. And that's the most interesting thing about you.' Thom faced him, arms crossed over his chest. 'Are you still pretending not to know why Roger chose you as his squire?'

'Why he--' They were standing mere inches from the dead on all sides. The thin air left a coat of dank on his tongue with every inhale, slicking his insides with mould and rot. He wanted to go to bed. He wanted to get drunk again. He wanted to be far, far away. 'He chose me because I was the best swordsman. He told me he admired my skill.'

'You were better than him?'

'I was better. Better than anyone at Court.'

'The best un-Gifted squire.'

'Yes, damn it.'

'If it frustrates you all you need to do is stop pretending and tell me the truth.'

'I have!'

Thom casually seated himself on the edge of the tomb, raising a small puff of dust. In his thin nightshirt he looked like a ghost, perched there, aflame only in his copper hair. 'Imagine he had chosen a Gifted student. The best of the Gifted. Perhaps even someone whose talent could surpass his, as your swordsmanship did.'

'So?'

Thom sighed sharply. 'Don't be deliberately tiresome. I'll leave you down here.'

Alex stared into the dark, wishing it could swallow him. 'All right. All right. A Gifted student.'

'What would he have done with such a student? A student who might one day be stronger. A student who might be strong enough to turn on him. Destroy him. An Alanna. A Jonathon. A me.'

He breathed, all he was capable of. 'A you.'

'He would have suspected me. He would have mistrusted me. And when his paranoia reached the right pitch, I would have had an innocent little accident. A Gifted student would have been a very dead student. Wouldn't he have.'

'If you say so.'

'I do, Sir Alexander. If nothing else, I'm rarely wrong, but I think we can acknowledge, between us, that there's significant evidence I'm right.' Thom brushed his hands of dust, and wrapped his long fingers over his knees. 'And yet, here I am. Stronger than him. Better than him. Targeted for eight long years by him. And yet, here I am, poised to do him the greatest favour one man can even conceive of doing for another. And I'm still forced to wonder exactly why you haven't asked me to do it.'

'Why.'

'He left Delia, with all her many charms-- for those who want them. And he left you, with yours.' Thom's eyes were hooded, dark, gleaming only when the lamp Alex held caught them in the light. 'But I think he at least expected you to ask, Alex.'

'You-- said you-- Saw. You Saw yourself do it.'

'It can be done. I can do it.'

'Raise him.'

'He's not really dead,' Thom explained, patient now, quiet. 'No-one can raise the dead. It's an Immutable. Not even the Gods can alter the Immutables. But he's not really dead.'

'Not—' Too much to take in. Alex struggled with it, blind, numb. 'Not really dead? A spell?'

'It really was brilliant. I'll give him that much. It's called Sorcerer's Sleep. Only even attempted a half dozen times in all of history. And never successful. It's not enough to be powerful in your own right. You need an equal. You need another. Someone just as strong-- or stronger-- who happens to want to bring you back. I appreciate the irony. He's been jealous of me all these years, wanted me dead all this time, but I may be the sole living mage able and willing to do it. Do you think he knew it would be me?'

'What do you want from me?'

'All I've asked for is the truth.'

This isn't the end, Roger had told him. And I will need you now more than ever. Serve me this one last time.

Alex swallowed with difficulty. 'Why would you do it.'

'I didn't say I would.'

'Why toy with me!' he demanded violently. He flung the lamp away from him furiously; it dashed on the stone walls with a tinny clatter, and where it fell it went out. They were plunged into darkness; Alex crouched, wiping the chilly sweat from his temples. He closed his eyes into his palm.

A tiny spark became a faintly lavender glow. From the centre of it, Thom said, 'Do you believe in destiny?'

'No,' Alex whispered soundlessly.

Thom curled a fist over his light, and then it was gone. 'I did warn you about the lying.'

The footsteps echoed for a long time, even after Thom was too far gone to be heard. Alex pressed his hands over his ears. Eventually, alone and sightless, he crept along the uneven ground to the wall. He pressed his cheek to the cold, to cool the fever in his head. But the stone beneath his skin was smooth.

He slept propped up by Roger's tomb, and his dreams were wild and angry, and when he woke, nothing was any different. Nothing at all.

**

'Jon?' Alex said.

The Prince started from his dreamy quiet. His stallion, Darkness, nudged him aside, reaching eagerly for the apple Alex extended for it. Jon slowly resumed his long, gentle strokes with the wire brush that smoothed the horse's coat to an ebony gleam. They were well matched, horse and rider, youthful, powerful, darkly radiant. Jon's eyes were like sapphire, hard chips in a cautiously still face.

'I wanted to say,' Alex began, before his throat closed. Darkness lipped his empty palm, searching for more treats. Alex patted his nose.

'Gary said you weren't feeling well,' Jon said.

'He said I was turning into a drunk. He's been vocal on that point.'

Jon nodded once. 'He's worried. We all are.'

'I'm-- done with it.' Alone in the stables, it was easier to say. Even to manage something like a smile, a hunched shoulder. 'I... just... needed time, I think.'

'It was hard for us all.'

'I admired him.' Darkness ignored him now. Alex played his silky mane between two fingers. 'And I was flattered by his-- attention. That he would choose me. I didn't have the Gift, I wasn't the noblest. He could have had you, or Gary. Raoul. My family's only barely in the Book of Gold. He was the Duke. I was... proud. To be chosen. And proud that he confided in me, trusted me. Wanted me.'

Some of the tense set of Jonathon's shoulders began to ease. 'I can understand that.'

'He... and I...' But that, it seemed, he couldn't say. It wouldn't pass his frozen lips. His hand shook on Darkness' broad neck. 'I didn't-- know why. Not at first. I swear that.'

Jonathon sighed. He covered Alex's hand. 'I understand,' he repeated. 'Why you were afraid to come to me or my father. I can't say we would have believed you. I didn't believe Alan, either.'

'Alanna.'

'Alanna,' Jonathon corrected, and grinned suddenly. 'I suppose I have to get used to the truth being out.'

'The truth,' Alex said. 'Yes. The truth.'

'You still have my friendship,' Jonathon said firmly. He clasped Alex's shoulder firmly. 'And I'm glad you came to me now. I hope it eases you to have this in the open. If nothing else, the Court was in danger of running out of wine.' His smile lit his eyes, warming them at last. 'It's over, Alex.'

Alex felt a sinking in his stomach that had nothing to do with relief.

He didn't believe Jon.

Chiasma update

2009-09-15T03:08:31Z

Very last Chiasma update ever. The End. Really.

Salude

2009-09-13T05:06:49Z

Fandom: GW
Pairing: 6+2
Rating: G
Relevant Quote: "True happiness is to understand our duty to God and man; to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence on the future; not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is abundantly sufficient." ~Seneca

When Duo starts at Preventers, he's reminded rather strongly of his brief stint in a Federation-sponsored school. There's a certain stern earnestness permeating the very walls. People walk with their shoulders back and their chins up. No-one jokes. They frown when Duo smiles. He gets the notion he's supposed to comport himself with Purpose and Solemnity. It's rather cowing, actually.

He spends his first month reminding himself to keep his head down, keep as small as possible. He spends his next month hating it. He lays in bed each morning, awake an hour before his alarm, staring up at the ceiling and walking himself through all the reasons he has for getting up.

Nothing left on L2.

Nothing left anywhere.

He always hits snooze. He gets up before it goes off again. He irons his shirt, ties his tie, laces his shoes. He parks in his parking slot on the fourth level of the garage, takes the lift every morning with the balding man whose name he never knows, shows his badge to the guard who never seems to remember him either. He walks all the way to the end of the East Wing and climbs the stairs two storeys to his office. It's all window walls, and everything feels too open, too claustrophobic. His cubicle faces out. No-one would dare look in, though. They all walk briskly by, stare strictly straight ahead.

Since no-one's ever watching, he plays Solitaire all day and lets his paperwork pile up in his inbox.

**

'Do you always have to be chewing?' Merquise asks him.

Duo swallows immediately, pure reflex, like curling his hands away from the ruler he's sure is about to rap his knuckles. 'It's just gum,' he says.

They're watching the new batch of recruits run the training field. They'd made Duo test on it, when he'd hired on. It was a ridiculous contraption, all mud pits and wall climbs and jump pits. Considering they'd hired him to pilot mobile suits, he hadn't much seen the point of going commando for hijinks. Lucy Noin had reported him for saying so.

'And you always have to be chewing gum?'

'It helps me think.'

'Smacking and popping bubbles helps you think?'

His face feels hot. 'It's just gum.'

Merquise turns back to the field. Duo carefully unwraps a new piece, and closes his lips around it.

**

There are endless meetings. They schedule them months in advance, and he learns to set up computer alerts, or he forgets. He's never asked to contribute-- though they seem to expect he volunteer himself. There are dozens of committees. There's a committee for the morning breakfast platter in the common room, even. That's the one Duo joins. He has to buy coffee twice a month. Out of pocket.

He goes to a weekly one on Tuesday morning, arriving later than everyone even though he's still five minutes early. All the seats in the front are taken. He sits in the back, where he can prop his feet up. Wufei is one of the ones in the front. He frowns back at Duo. Duo puts his feet down.

His supervisor calls them to order and stands at the podium, though there's only twenty of them in the room, and sets her notes before her. 'Please follow along with your agendas,' she instructed. 'We'll begin with Item One, Policy Changes Regarding Inter-Agency Agreements That Cross Fiscal Years.'

Duo doesn't hear a word after that. He counts the cracks between ceiling tiles. He already knows he'll count to one thousand eight hundred seventy four before the meeting will end, precisely an hour after it began.

He only notices the interruption because of the deadly silence that plunges like a suit falling into a gravity well. Merquise has just come in. Fourteen minutes late.

'Forgive me,' Merquise tells the room. 'I was delayed.'

Duo's supervisor glowers. 'Please be seated, Agent Wind.'

Merquise eases into the seat beside Duo. Duo eyes him from the corner of his eyes. Merquise is all smooth expression. There aren't even any lines on his face. He's a literal blank slate. A statue.

His tile count is gone. It's disconcerting, having to start over. He'll be off time. It flusters him so much he actually reads his printed agenda.

'I brought you something,' Merquise murmurs.

Duo glances up. 'What?'

Merquise takes a small silver packet from his coat pocket, extends it exactly halfway between their chairs. 'Gum,' he says.

So it is. Duo blinks at it. It's not a mirage, he's pretty sure. It feels solid when he takes it in cringing fingers.

'It's cinnamon,' he notes.

'I smelled it on your breath,' Merquise answers, eyes on the presentation up front.

There are multiple reasons in that statement to freak, ever so slightly. Like when Merquise was smelling him. Or why. Or if his breath smells that strongly. He slumps a little lower, and turns his head just enough to cup a hand over his mouth. He doesn't think it smells.

'Item Ten,' his supervisor says.

'I thought you didn't like it when I chew gum.'

'I don't believe I said anything of the sort.'

Wufei turns around again. Duo glares back. He'd been careful to whisper.

'Is there a problem, Agent Shadow?'

'No,' Duo says meekly.

'Please step into the hall for any personal conversations.'

If he sinks any lower, he'll melt through the floor. It's a tempting idea. 'Sorry, Ma'am.'

When the meeting ends, Merquise is on his feet and out the door so fast Duo can't even complain about being blamed for him talking, too.

**

They send out a new file plan over lunch. Duo saves it to his desktop and promptly forgets it exists.

He has a mission that runs all weekend. There are lists and lists of rules he must obey; he never remembers those, either. The lectures he gets afterward are inevitable, and it's inevitable he'll disappoint someone before he so much as launches. This time they're off to rescue the terrified staff of a research facility overtaken by a sect of White Fang who still turn up, armed to the teeth. He falls asleep in his suit while they're laying in wait to ambush the baddies. He earns actual demerits. On his permanent file. At ten, he gets Probation. It sounds so very dire he doesn't even ask what Probation entails.

But he saves a dozen lives. For whatever it's worth. Somehow, he thinks it's not worth as much to Preventers as it ought to be. But he's smart enough not to say that.

He hits snooze twice, that Monday.

**

He's losing at Minesweeper and drinking his third ginger ale of the morning. He has one hundred and twelve emails waiting for him, and three weeks' of forms that have sat ignored and unfiled. A letter from his supervisor sits atop the pile. She's concerned with his performance. She thinks he has commitment issues.

She's probably right. He feels adrift. Powered down, inert in Space.

The rap on his window wall scares the piss out of him. It's even scarier to see Merquise standing there, breaching his glass fort.

'What?' Duo asks.

Merquise nods to the right. To the door. Duo stares at him, honestly not comprehending. Merquise nods again. Numbly, he stands. He walks the corridor between the cubicles, exits his office into the hallway outside.

Merquise meets him there. He says, 'I see you're hard at work.'

Duo flushes. He rubs one hot ear. 'I'm... on break.'

'Of course,' Merquise says.

Duo waits. More does not seem to be forthcoming. 'So...'

'I would like to take you to lunch. I'll buy you a drink.'

'It's eleven twenty,' Duo says.

'If you'd rather wait for the end of the work day--'

'Uh, no. No. Uh--' They are, quite possibly, the only people who have ever stood still in Preventers. If anyone would look at him, they would have been gathering looks. 'I didn't think you liked me.'

'Why,' Merquise says.

Good question. 'History?'

Merquise doesn't have to say it's lame. Duo surrenders before it's even out of his mouth.

'Sure,' he sighs. 'Let me get my coat.'

**

The bar they go to is nearly forty minutes away from Preventers, and with that and the return trip, Duo's lunch break is more than gone, even if they don't take the time to eat. They'll probably throw him into the brig. He worries about it, chews his thumbnail to the quick, starts to object a dozen times-- before it occurs to him to wonder why he cares so much. There was a time when he didn't. He doesn't know how he changed so much, so fast.

The bar they go to is not only far away, it barely qualifies as a dive. Duo has paid his dues in places that barely qualify as toilets, but part of being salaried is supposed to be higher quality eats. His shoes stick to the floor. He's inclined to let the floor have them, and just run for it.

They sit in a booth on greasy plastic seats. Their waitress brings waters without straws, and Merquise orders them beers without asking Duo what he wants. He's allowed to decide on his own food, at least, and orders a chef salad. It seems safer than anything they might have to cook here.

'So,' Duo says.

Merquise folds his hands on the edge of their table. 'Thank you for coming.'

'Sure. Yeah.'

'You've been with Preventers for several months now.'

'Five. Six, almost. Close.'

'It strikes me that you've entered Preventers rather late in the game. I was unaware you were even interested in joining.'

'I wasn't,' Duo says. 'Une blackmailed me.'

Merquise makes a perfect white arch of his left eyebrow. 'Blackmail?'

'She interceded with the police on L2. She made a deal on my behalf.'

The right eyebrow joins the left.

'I stalked a guy,' Duo says. He wants his water, but the glass doesn't look clean. He rubs the rim with his cuff. 'I beat him up. And I hit his car.'

'With what.'

'A pipe. He was in it when I did it. He got a pretty good look at my face.'

Their beers arrive. In bottles, thankfully. Duo sips his. It's good, to his taste, dark and smoky. He's mildly surprised.

'Why did you stalk him?' Merquise asks, and drinks from his own bottle, swallow after swallow. There's a little less than half left when he puts it down, very precisely, on the coaster.

'He killed my friend.'

No more eyebrows to raise. Merquise's face is utterly still, instead. 'A murder.'

'No. I don't know. No.' It's him who can't look, now. He looks at his hands instead, curled around his bottle. 'He was her boyfriend. He was drink driving. They had an accident, she died.' He sips his beer again, wipes his mouth.

Merquise doesn't do the sorries game. Duo's grateful. It's not like anyone here knew Hilde. It's not like any of them actually care.

'Can I ask you something?' Duo says instead. 'Why we're here.'

'To eat,' Merquise says.

Duo doesn't know if that's a joke. 'I mean, I guess, why did you ask me.'

'It's been my intention to ask you for some time. Five months. Six, almost.'

'It's been your intention to take me out for a beer lunch for six months?'

'Something like that.'

The waitress brings their food. Duo's salad is about as he imagined, limp and browning. He douses it liberally with oil and vinegar. Merquise's bangers and mash are about as appetizing as something picked up in the park. Duo opens the plastic on his fork and knife. He rubs the serrated edge of the knife against his thumb.

'Something like that,' he echoes. 'So-- like a date?'

He doubts it, for a frozen second, when Merquise levels icy eyes at him. But maybe Merquise just always looks like that. He always has, whenever Duo's looked at him.

'Like a date,' Merquise agrees softly, and cuts his bangers into perfect eighths and eats them piece by piece.

'It's at least possible I'm not gay.'

He gets another glacial gaze. He shuts up, then.

They eat the rest of their meals in silence. Merquise says exactly three more words, to get them a second round of drinks. As dates go, it kind of sucks.

**

He microwaves a frozen lasagna and eats it only half defrosted, that night. His apartment is still nothing more than a blow-up mattress and the boxes he moved in with. He watches the news on his laptop, surfs for free porn and finds himself thinking about Merquise.

Merquise is very tall. And well-groomed.

He shuts off the laptop and goes to bed early.

**

He goes another week, another mission, another payday. The new recruits are done with training and are getting assigned with mentors to transition into their permanent posts. Duo acquires a boy half his age who doubles his workload. It takes intense juggling to figure out a way to keep his usual schedule of computer games in tact. He sets the boy to working his backlog of forms. The boy is so eager to help he doesn't seem to realise he's being duped. Duo doesn't have the heart to tell him.

The rap on the window makes him hit his head on the cupboard overhanging his desk. The recruit stares in shock and outrage into the hallway.

Merquise nods at the door.

Duo makes it there on one try, this time. He puts his hands in his pockets. 'Hi,' he tries.

Merquise ignores the niceties. 'I would like to take you to dinner today.'

That's a little surprising, given how it went when they tried lunch. Then again, maybe that's how Merquise spends all his meals.

And what the hell. It's not like he's doing anything else.

'Meet you in your office after work?' Duo says.

Merquise inclines his head. He turns on his heel and leaves.

The recruit is wide-eyed and suspicious, when he gets back. He says, 'Was that Agent Wind, sir?'

'Secret consult,' Duo answers. 'You didn't see anything.'

The boy gives him a startled blink, and goes back to penciling in supply orders.

**

Merquise's cubicle, Duo observes, is exactly the same as Duo's, except it looks like it was hit by a tornado.

'Not what I expected,' Duo says.

Merquise picks up his jacket from atop a pile of wrinkled faxes. 'Would you like to drive?'

'Sure. I'm low, though. I'll have to stop to fill up.'

'I meant, would you like to drive my car.'

'The Jag? Fuck yeah, I'd like to drive.'

Merquise puts the keys in his hand. By lifting Duo's palm with one hand and covering him with the other. His hands are very warm.

'Thanks,' Duo manages, suddenly dry-mouthed.

It's an amazing car. The paint is powder blue and the leather seats are creamy white. It purrs like a puma under his hand, it takes every curve with the precision of the finest mobile suit. It has seat warmers. Driving with a toasty butt is a new and drastically improved experience. Duo blows through three stop signs and tears up the country roads like a bat out of hell.

It's the first time since arriving on Earth that he even remotely enjoys himself.

Merquise lets it all go without a word, although he rolls his window up when the wind whips him into a shaggy white-topped afro. He fingers it tame as Duo drives wherever impulse takes him, in no particular rush to give up the excitement. But good manners do eventually reassert themselves, and out of consideration for being a guest in another man's car he reluctantly limits himself to a mere half hour of total road freedom. He pulls over by a scenic lake, and pats the steering wheel with regret as he parks.

'Done?' Merquise asks.

'Yeah.' He takes the keys out of the ignition, just to make sure, and dangles them out. 'Thanks. That was pretty great.'

'I don't think I've ever seen you grin like that.'

'Was I?' That embarrasses him, faintly. But only a little. Merquise must have known what he was offering. 'We can, uh, go to dinner now.'

'I meant--' Merquise takes the keys. His eyes are level on Duo's face. 'You've had the look of a prisoner, since you arrived.'

Back to that. The last of his exhilaration about the drive fades off. 'I could have gone to jail. I made a choice about it.'

'I understand that.'

'Yeah, well, repeat it back to me in the morning. Sometimes it's not so easy to remember.' He forces himself to smile, and can't hold it on. 'Sorry.'

'I meant--' Merquise releases a pent-up breath. 'I understand that, because I feel much the same way in my own situation.'

That's right. Merquise had been playing dead, after the Battle of Libra. Then there'd been the Barton Rebellion, and he'd reappeared to help save the day. But he'd traipsed off to Mars, hadn't he? Duo thinks he recalls hearing that from someone. 'Didn't work out?' he asks, vague enough to leave it open.

'Not in the way I expected,' Merquise says, and nothing more.

It's getting dark out. They're sitting in a dark car as it goes to night, and suddenly Duo just doesn't know what he's doing there anyway. Going to dinner, except they're not at dinner, are they, and even if they were it wouldn't make a lick more sense. They have nothing in common except the uniform they're wearing, and the admissions they've made about not wanting to wear it. That's not a relationship. That's not even a casual conversation over a beer.

'I'm sorry,' he says then, 'but I think maybe I should just put this out there. Why are we doing this? What's the end-goal? If this is a set-up for sex--'

'Would you object to that?'

'Jesus,' he says, because, well, no, faced with the idea, but still, Jesus. 'On what grounds? Not knowing who the hell you are? What you want from me? Or maybe just because this whole dance has been off and I'm not even sure--'

'What.'

'What exactly you see in me.'

They stare out the wind screen, after that. Merquise doesn't come up with any answers. It wasn't exactly a rhetorical question, but Duo can't even bring himself to be curious about it. It's a moot point. Whatever it was, he's probably ruined it now anyway. He's good at that. Preventers is good at that. You're supposed to give up all external things, when you commit yourselves to The Peace. Servants of the law don't have love lives. They don't have friends. They don't have reasons. Just rules.

He sits there thinking maybe he should have chosen the jail time.

Merquise sighs, then. 'Let's switch. I'll drive you home.'

They vacate the car. Duo walks around the back, Merquise the front. They resettle. Duo puts on his safety belt. Merquise turns the car on, and takes him home.

**

He joins the Recreation Committee and the Donated Sick Leave Committee, and gives his first report in the Tuesday meeting. His supervisor congratulates him on taking an interest at last, and he gets his first merit when he turns in all the paperwork the recruit did. The recruit moves on, to a cubicle on the other side of the building, five storeys up. Duo still sees him in the mornings in the parking garage, but after a week of sober nods, the kid starts to ignore him. Duo lets it drop.

He unpacks his boxes and makes a start at arranging his apartment. He puts pictures on the walls, retiles the bathroom, recaulks all the sinks. Buys sheets for his mattress.

He gets high marks on his next three team evaluations. He gets an offer to lead his own team. It's a good step. He does well, and knows he does well, and everyone else knows he does well, too, and now sometimes when they pass each other in the hall, his fellow Preventers will pause to incline their heads.

He stops chewing gum at work. His desk drawer is full of half-empty gum packets. Cinnamon. He takes up peppermints instead.

He cries himself to sleep one night, for the first time since he was a baby. It's not that he's sad. It's just-- he's not anything, anymore. He doesn't feel anything and he hates it. He doesn't even really feel that.

**

He's answering his email when the rap at the window startles him out of a deep thought. Merquise nods at the door.

He drags his feet a little, and Merquise is waiting for him when he gets to the hall. There's a woman at the water fountain. She moves on the very second she's done drinking, striding off with hard clacks of her boots.

Merquise says, 'Please take a walk with me.'

'I have reports,' Duo replies, but his stomach turns over, just like that. He presses a hand to it. 'All right.'

They walk the mile-long track that circles the building. It's cool, just on the edge of winter, and he shivers sometimes in his shirtsleeves, but it's not cold enough for his coat. Merquise looks as cold as marble, pacing next to him, and about as remote as art. They don't talk, for almost half of the trail.

Then Merquise says, 'I wanted to apologise for any discomfort I may have caused you, through my attentions.'

'No,' Duo says, not quite sure what he's answering. 'It's fine.'

'I would not have singled you out, had I realised earlier.'

'I said it's fine. It is.'

An impossibly faint frown makes a tiny crease at the sides of Merquise's mouth. Then it's gone. Duo wonders if he imagined it.

'You've been all right?' he asks.

'Yes,' Merquise says.

'I've been thinking,' Duo offers. 'That maybe it's not so bad here. I'm getting used to it. Joining the drone army. I guess it's like anything else. You fit in once you stop fighting.'

Merquise blows out a big breath, and stops him with an outstretched arm. They face each other on the path, out there under the clouds and weak sunlight. Merquise's hand grips his shoulder, tight, and then the other hand grips his chin.

'What I saw in you was someone who wouldn't give in to it,' Merquise says. 'What I admired was someone strong enough to see it for what it is, and loathe it as I do.'

He's a little shocked. A lot shocked, and so Merquise gets away with manhandling him, because it's a big concept to absorb. 'We do good work.'

'We did good works when we had passion for it. We did good works when our agents weren't pressganged into service. We did good works when what we did was preserve, not enforce.'

There's no epiphany of agreement. He knows already. He just doesn't know what to do about it. Nothing on the outside is going to change. No miracle window will open. There are no dreams, no opportunities to chase, not anymore.

He says, 'I thought maybe you wanted to date me. Stupid.'

Merquise blinks perfect eyelashes down at him. His hand loosens on Duo's jaw. 'I thought you didn't want that.'

'I want--' He wants to not be doing this now. He wants to go home and sleep off the rest of the day. He wants to go for a drive like that again, except without ever having to come back.

'I want something that doesn't have a single damn thing to do with Preventers,' he says. 'That's what I want. Think you can manage that?'

Merquise nods. Once. His lips are softer than Duo thinks they will be, ever so slightly parted and warm. Just a light, chaste press. It makes Duo's heart beat faster.

'I would like to take you out for dinner,' Merquise tells Duo.

'Yes,' Duo says. 'But all things being equal, I'd like to pick the venue this time.'

This time, the crinkle by Merquise's mouth might just be a smile.

Ships meme

2009-09-10T21:48:49Z

It's not like I don't have stuff I desperately need to do (weeding and lawn work, figuring out how to use GPS, finish the work I brought home from the office sometime before dawn) but THERE'S A MEME! HOW COULD I NOT DROP EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY TO DO THE MEME??

Shipping Meme
(from downjune)

Six ships you're into right now:

1. Wufei/Duo (GW). I like the power dynamic.

2. Trowa/Duo (GW). Umm... ditto.

3. Gwen/Jack (TW). Ummmmm... ditto again.

4. Methos/Duncan (HL). Come on. Do I even have to explain that?

5. Garak/Julian (DS9). Because men that sexy can't NOT throw down. It's against the law.

6. Remus/Sirius (HP). I admit, I still have a soft spot for them. So doomed. It's like Romeo and Juliet with wands.

Three ships you liked, but don’t like/aren't a rabid fangirl for anymore:

7. House/Chase (H). Still sexy, but the show is such crap now.

8. Thom/Alex (LR). I would like to read more of it, but it's too much bother to seek it out. I can't stand combing through FF.net.

9. Remus/Snape (HP). The books killed it for me.

Four ships you never liked:

10. Quatre/Dorothy (GW). In very, very set circumstances I think it works with the plot. But I don't like it. Nuh-uh.

11. Jack/Ianto (TW). Especially given what happens in Children of Earth, what's the point? I believe Ianto falling for Jack, but Jack falling for that limp towel? Sorry.

12. Remus/Tonks (HP). It wasn't even Remus suddenly being less queer or turning into a cradle robber or even getting her pregnant. Oh, wait, yes it was.

13. Julian/Ezri (DS9). There is so much wrong in that it needs its own post. (See also: Odo/Kira.)

Two ships you're curious about, but don’t actually ship:

14. Methos/Amy Thomas (HL). I read the fics, but it would never occur to me write any.

15. Harry/Viktor Krum (HP). Yes, you read that right. It just tickles my funny bone. And I can imagine Viktor laying Harry out on a bear skin rug before a roaring fire and rocking his world.

Why do you dislike #11 so much?

Jack/Ianto: Because it was so out of character for Jack to carry on a relationship. A flirtation is one thing, but he's the king of failure to commit. And despite the fact that everyone on that show was rabidly omni-sexual, it was usually in the context of daredevilism or shock value. Ianto had a committed, desperately heterosexual relationship that was completely thrown to the wayside after they decided to pair him with Jack. I guess I felt it wasn't in character for Ianto to just hop into bed. And I don't think it was in character for Jack to not to drop him like a hot potato at the first sign of neediness.

Who is someone you know that ships #14?

Methos/Amy Thomas: Paula Stiles, aka Snowleopard, who defined the ship for me.

What would be your ideal scenario for couple #3?

Jack/Gwen: Jack should have made his move after Carys, the girl who got taken over by the sex alien. It was a stupid episode except for the establishing of Gwen's good side. Ideally, Jack would have moved in then. Then again, I do like a lot how their relationship played out on screen. Okay, ideally Jack would have moved in before freaking Owen, who was so second tier. I think Gwen only did Owen because she knew she could dump him the second she got tired of it.

Which is your favorite moment for couple #1?

Wufei/Duo: The Lunar prison, of course. The way Wufei utterly ignores Duo the entire time, and how Duo is so self-possessed right until the point where he thinks he's dying, and he finally turns to Wufei, who lies there pretending to meditate. No-one is that calm, Wufei. You were a jerk. It was perfect.

How long have you been following couple #6?

Remus/Sirius: Since I read Book 3. I loved Remus from his very first appearance. By the end of the book, I loved them both. And it was the first time I ever read something and then went straight to the internet for more because I had to have it. Soooo much of the fic is crap, but when it's really well written and really digs into their characters, it's gold.

What's the story with #8? What made you stop liking them/caring?

Thom/Alex: I was fairly young when I first read Lioness Rampant and even then I knew Thom and Roger and Alex were gaying it up together. It was like the missing piece of the puzzle, why Alex went so far into Roger's clutches, why Thom would be alone in rooms with Roger. The power-play dynamic with all three of them was really awesome, and who can resist a love triangle? It was dark and sadistic and they were all three great characters and I'm kind of talking myself into reading the books again as I write this, actually. Maybe this pairing will move back up to a presently-shipped position shortly.

You have the power to make one ship non existent. Choose from #10 or #12.

Remus/Tonks, Quatre/Dorothy: Ohhhhhh. Talk about the devil and the deep blue sea. Remus/Tonks, because it's the more offensively canon.

Which ship do you prefer #2 or #4?

Trowa/Duo, Methos/Duncan: I guess I would say Trowa/Duo, because consummation (and consummation, and consummation) is more likely for them than with Methos and Duncan. But the long, drawn-out, itchy relationship Methos and Duncan have is its own special delight, and they're hotter. Okay, Methos/Duncan.

What interests you about #15?

Harry/Viktor Krum: I think the idea that it would be very innocent sexual awakening. Viktor Krum is everything Harry wants to be, athletically the star, effortlessly winning the girls, popular without being infamous the way Harry is, and most of all in command of himself. I think it would be a sweet kind of encounter, and Harry needs some sweet in his life.

Why did you stop liking #7?

House/Chase: I guess I just read enough of it. And the show changed so radically I stopped liking it. The pairing still has all the elements I like, but the source is pretty much dead to me.

Did your waning interest in #9 kill your interest in the books?

Remus/Snape: No, the books killed my waning interest in the pairing.

What’s a song that reminds you of #5?

Garak/Julian: The title is geekily associative, but the theme is right-- but Alanis Morissette's 'Not the Doctor' from Jagged Little Pill.

I don't want to be the sweeper of the eggshells that you walk upon
I don't want to be your other half I believe that 1 and 1 make 2
I don't want to be your food or the light from the fridge
On your face at midnight
Hey what are you hungry for
I don't want to be the glue that holds your pieces together
I don't want to be your idol
See this pedestal is high and I'm afraid of heights
I don't want to be lived through

I think it's a fair expression of the arc they take as characters. They have that breathless meeting where they're playing each other, really, very selfishly getting their own satisfactions out of each other, but then The Wire and Distant Voices really makes them confront what they want from each other and whether those needs can be met. They really become equals after that.

If you could have any of these two pairings double-date, who would it be?

Julian/Ezri and Remus/Tonks, because maybe having to see what's wrong with the other pairing would make them realise how incompatible and wrong they are too. And then they'd all break up and the universe won't implode with squick.

Have #2 kissed yet?

Trowa/Duo: In my head? Yuh. In canon... alas.

Did #4 have a happy ending? If the show hasn't ended yet, do you think a happy ending is likely?

Methos/Duncan: Well, going by the show, they didn't hate each other, and Duncan displayed a glimmer of understanding (egotiscally attributing his own influence to Methos being a reasonably non-homicidal human being, of course) about their relationship, so I'll call that happy on the Methos scale. If you go by the films, and I don't recommend that anyone do so, then no.

What would make you start shipping #14?

Methos/Amy Thomas: I'd have to really delve into the HL community again, and it's been several years. I suppose when I get tired of Gundam again that's where I'll be heading anyway, so it could happen.

If only one could happen, which would you prefer, #2 or #6?

Trowa/Duo, Remus/Sirius: Remus/Sirius, because Duo rocks with Wufei too and I could live with that.

You have the power to decide the fate of #10. What happens to them?

Quatre/Dorothy: Dorothy goes away. You know what it is, I think she reminds me too much of Ann Coulter. It's the hair and that black dress Dorothy was wearing at some point. I don't remember hating her when I first saw the show. I think it's the association that happened afterward. Well, sorry, Doro. What's done is done, I fear.

Which do you dislike the most?

Quatre/Dorothy. I think it has the least foundation in canon. Not that they have no interaction, but that the interaction they have doesn't lead me to imagining them really feeling anything for each other a year after the war.

Which of these ships do you love the most?

Garak/Julian. They're just so perfect for each other. And come on! Even the actors thought so! They actually wrote a play together about their characters dreaming of talking together after the show ended.

Only Bridges To 10/?

2009-09-10T02:12:49Z

Fandom: GW
Pairing: 5x2
Rating: Rish
Notes: Challenge fic. Updates in bold.

Duo ran a finger around the pudding tin to scrape up the last of the goop, licking it off before he discarded the cup to his tray. The food wasn't bad, though he doubted he'd've got the same quality if he'd come in wearing his Sweeper disguise. His schoolboy uniform was getting him some actual care. Even the Fangers who'd brought him in had been nicer than predicted.

The doctor treating him, though, was starting to get suspicious. Duo's tests were in no way normal, not even accounting for the gene treatment. Then there was the fact that Duo had been faking amnesia about his 'attackers' despite the total lack of head trauma. That was proving to be the sticking point.

'Son,' the doctor said again, 'you're not in any trouble here. I just want to know your name so we can call your parents.'

Well, the amnesia was a little more global, then. Duo had even pulled out his infrequent and least tested fake-out: the puckered brow, the quivering lip, the shameful blush. 'I wish I remembered,' he mumbled, poking his pudding disconsolately.

The Fanger in the corner was frowning at him. Duo avoided his eyes. So far, he hadn't been left alone to so much as piss. That was just peachy, though. He wanted at least one gun between himself and Solo, once they figured out where he was holed up.

The doctor broke protocol, then. She tucked her white coat around her and sat on the side of his gurney, putting her hand in a matronly sort of way on his knee. 'I want to talk to you about the bruises on your hips.'

He wasn't sure if he should act embarrassed or pretend he didn't know what she meant. Heero had left a little evidence of his southern sojourn. Given how Duo had arranged to be found, rape wasn't an illogical conclusion.

His ambivalence lost him the opportunity to play it. 'Son,' she repeated. 'I know it's difficult to talk about. Pretending it didn't happen won't spare you in the long run.'

Well, in for a penny. 'Don't know what happened,' he said, stuck out his lip, and slumped back in his bed. 'Don't remember anything.'

She sighed. 'Take these,' she said shortly, and handed him a little packet of pills. 'They'll take care of any VD you might have contracted.' She stood. 'And think about what I said. The important thing is that your parents will be worried about you. They just want to know you're all right.'

Stubborn silence chased her out the door. Duo ate his apple.

'Good appetite,' the Fanger said.

Duo shrugged. 'Eat what's put in front of you. Mannerly.'

The Fanger was glowering. Maybe he recognised Duo, or thought he did. Duo commenced ignoring him.

They left him largely alone for the rest of the day, except for sending in a nurse with a new bag of fluids and an offer of a shower. That Duo did take; he didn't know when he'd get another, and rolling around in the bath with Heero hadn't really contributed to his overall cleanliness. He felt better for the exercise, and managed a nap, sleeping right through a shift change and the arrival of a new Fanger to guard him.

By the time they got to breakfast of Day Two, they'd given up persuading him to reveal his identity and just put out a picture of him on the news.

Worth a twitch. There would be people who'd know him. Some might call in with the truth. But that would just have to motivate Solo's crew to be faster. If they were watching. They sure as fuck had better be.

No storming of the hospital by Heero's people. If the Nine One Five Six were lurking in the halls trying to lock down the situation, he didn't see it. Maybe they'd figured he'd make as much noise breaking out as he had breaking in.

No luck for them.

Took them til dinner on Day Three. A nurse came in his room to change his IV again. New nurse, Duo noticed. Noticed, too, that he looked right at the Fanger, not the sideways uneasy glances of the rest of the staff. The nurse removed the old bag, hung the new one. Squeezed to get it dripping.

'You know,' Duo said, 'I would have gone with you for the asking. Don't put me in the trunk this time. I get car sick.'

The Fanger moved in. Ass, Duo started to tell him; but then the Fangers had never been much of an obstacle to actual crime. The muffled pop of a gun with a silencer led directly to a sick thud, and the nurse bent over Duo again, squeezing the bag. Fuzzy numbness spread in a flood from his arm over his chest, lapped up over his chin. Drowned him. He closed his eyes.

Asses all.

**

He knew it was a dream. Nothing felt right. Floaty, easy. But it was a good dream.

He was on Peacemillion. Back even before Operation Meteor-- or, anyway, before he'd known it was Operation M they were training him up for. It was a good place to grow up. They were good to him, Howard and Micaela and Joce, Kimmey and Gold Digger. The Doc.

He'd sort of figured always he was smart, but Doc was the one who'd first challenged him to make something of it. Don't tell me what you think until you can tell me why you think it, that'd been a favourite of his, and they'd had epic arguments, screaming obscenities at each other debating this or that, and then Doc would break of a sudden, mild as a momma bird, and say, 'Good enough for today, Demon.' Always just that. Good enough for today. Hard as it had been on J and O, Duo had wished sometimes that old Doc had made it out of Libra, too.

But Doc hadn't, so when he was there suddenly talking to Duo, that was how Duo knew he was dreaming. The ugly little gnome was sticking that pointed nose of his into Duo's workbook, 'mm-hm'ing and clucking and muttering. Duo said, I got it right, and Doc said not this bit, not here, see, and Duo said no you see. I buried J myself. He's been dead and gone since the last time I was on this colony, which you'd know if you ever listened to me.

Pfft, Doc said. Death. Haven't you figured out a way around that yet?

Round it? Looking forward to it.

That's the bit you get wrong, every time.

Am not, Duo said, but he laughed, Doc laughed too, and in the dream he did what he'd never done before, reached out and he was small like the child he'd been in the beginning, fresh out of the orphanage and on top of the world because he hated all of it, and Doc did what he wouldn't never have done, either, and hugged him back.

And then Duo woke up, rolled over, and puked off the side of the cot.

'Jesus,' someone said. They went to pull him up, but he wasn't done. 'Every damn time,' the voice went on, disgusted. 'Since when you have such a tetchy stomach, anyway?'

'Since I keep getting drugged to the vents,' Duo managed. His throat burned with acid, and he was dizzy. He closed his eyes against the cool metal bar of the cot, breathing through his nose. 'The fuck did you give me?'

'Just relax. It's not going to kill you.'

'Wouldn't want to cut the fun short.' His heart was beating too fast. His chest felt like the inside of a drum. 'God,' he said.

'Not quite, Kiddo.'

Solo.

Well. At least his instincts were still good.

'Since I'm just lying here,' Duo said, 'how about you finally tell me what exactly you want with me.'

'Kiddo, quit making a scene. Just relax.'

'You stuck me with fucking Plague! You fucking relax!' The dizziness was not going away. He thought he might throw up again, and wrapped his head in his arms. 'What did you give me?'

'It gonna make you feel better to know the name?'

'Yes, God damn it. What is it?'

'Triazolam. So chill the fuck out.'

Triazolam. He was actually shocked, somehow, even though he'd been living with the effects for months. If they'd given him that every time he'd been in their bailiwick, no shit he had amnesia. Spoke plenty for the size of the dose they were giving him, too, if it had knocked him clear out every time they'd injected him. There were plenty of drugs that kept people quiet. They'd wanted him to forget his own name.

Which sort of suggested Doctor Roge had been on his side, after all. Figured he'd be the innocent one, not Hudson. The irony was too rich, sometimes.

'Who do you work for?' he asked the inside of his elbow.

'Why bother, Duo? You won't remember it.'

'Humour me.'

Solo was standing there over him, over the weak smell of his sick on a cot in a room that could be any damn room in the universe. They called that holding all the cards, in poker.

'You've been real brave,' Solo said finally. 'I'll give you that. More nuts and guts than anyone I've got on my side.'

'You would know.'

Solo heaved a sigh. 'Get up. Come on.' He hauled Duo up by the arm, not ungently, deftly walked him around the stream of vomit to dry concrete. Didn't let him go, but that was all to Duo's benefit. He was barely keeping on his jellied legs. His eyes went black every couple steps.

And he'd probably done it all once before. Twice-- hell, maybe all three times. Not unreasonable, or at least not irrational. Keep him docile. Let him have his little demands. He'd forget it all, compliments of a syringe full of moggies. He'd be lucky to remember how to walk, if they jabbed him again like this.

'You need me to carry you?'

'I will-- bite you--' Except that, yes, there came a warm arm around him, tugging him up to a warm hip. 'Don't you dare. Solo, fuck it, don't--'

'Don't be a baby. I'm bigger'n you and I'll pick you up if I feel like it.'

'No-- no, you--' He fudged it up, or wriggled right, or something, and the hand going for his knees only caught one leg, and they tipped over off-balance. Solo tried to catch them on the wall, cursing him, Duo fell the rest of the way flat on his rump. Solo tripped over him and landed on the concrete with a slow, inevitable slide.

Duo stared at him. Solo stared back.

And then, unbelievably, Solo burst out laughing.

'Jesus,' Duo said. 'You're really him.'

'Aw, Kid.' Solo tugged at him. Tugged him down, wrapped his arm around his shoulders, rubbed his hair. 'It's okay.'

It was a little like the feeling of being back with Heero. Good in a dreamy sort of way-- a never-thought-it-would-happen way-- wary, too. Heero and Solo had that in common, too-- neither of them were there to look out for Duo's well-being. End of story.

Then, too, Solo wasn't the rangy-limbed, edge-of-teenaged hero he'd been in Duo's childhood. Heero was like Duo. A boy, forever, altered and now unalterable. Not Solo.

There were lines in his face-- wrinkles of ageing skin. Silver threads muddying his thick blond hair. A thickness in his shoulders and waist that even natural slimness couldn't fight. Solo had grown up.

Duo couldn't stop staring at the changes. A little like the feeling with Heero-- trying to take in the reality, impose it fresh over the idealised memory. But it was weirdly-- repulsive. Duo had got used to the idea that some people would always be the same. His people, his kind. Solo was his kind. Solo was what Duo would have been, if they'd never needed a kid to pilot a Gundam.

'I gave you that to drink it,' Solo said, breaking his reverie. 'I'll take it away if you don't.'

Duo flexed his fingers around the bottle. He put the water to his lips, and swallowed; he forgot about it the second it touched the table again. The rusty little kitchen Solo had taken him to was an eminently forgettable kind of space, just like the rest of the old apartment. Not quite as bland as Heero's place had been, but on L2, downscale was a little more usual than upscale. 'You still haven't really explained. You said-- I mean, you said you already told me once. I don't remember it. Tell me again.'

Solo coolly flicked his hair from his eyes. 'You won't remember it now.'

'Only if you jab me again. And I remembered you told me that much, didn't I?' Duo hunched over the rickety plastic table. He was cold, and the kitchen spun around him still. 'You've short-circuited my entire fucking life. I'm not owed a repeat, even?'

'Cry me a river,' Solo retorted. He took Duo's bottle anyway, drank it for himself.

That twigged something. Solo drinking his water. But it was too fleeting, and he didn't feel good enough yet, was still fighting a fuzzy head. 'You've never even seen a river,' Duo said. 'You owe me.'

'I taught you better than that. There's no pockets for debt in our world.'

Duo took his water back. 'Then it's total coincidence I'm here and not some other Plague survivor from the Stars.'

His mention of the old gang drew silence down over them like fire suppressant. Thick and air-sucking. Solo's mouth was a hard, thin slash.

Then, 'As far as I know, you'n me's the only two made it out,' Solo said.

Not a shock. A little, ancient ache. He'd never known for sure. He'd never been able to find out. He hadn't looked too hard.

Hadn't gone back even to see if Solo had made it. He'd been six. Six and scared.

'Just tell me,' Duo said finally. 'We're already sitting pretty. And I already had it from the Nine One Five Six.'

They glared at each other over a mile-long stare. 'Oh, I just bet,' Solo said. 'How was the reunion?'

'You're on par. Why me?'

'Give it up, Kid. It's really not anything you need to know.'

'You think no? Or you think maybe I'll slip you like I slipped the Nine One Five Six and spend the next ten years running you both on a merry chase?'

Solo's mouth went tight. 'What do you know about them?'

'What do you care what I know? You don't care if I know my ass from my elbow, as long as you can stick me with your needles and shove me back into the world.'

'We saved your fuckin' life, idiot. Don't make me regret it.'

That, Duo heard. 'Saved it? Not the way I remember it.'

'That's—'

'Matter of fact, what I do remember is one of your big boys holding me and you shooting me up with Plague.'

Solo yanked the bottle out of his hand, throwing it at the mouldy sink behind him. 'Plague. Kiddo, you got it back-asswards. I here to fucking rescue you.'

Okay. Okay.

All right. Maybe that was true. Maybe he believed it, but then he'd believed it out of Heero's mouth, too. Then again, it didn't stun him the way it might've, a week ago. A week ago Heero hadn't been a manipulative bastard who fucked him practically in public and let Zechs fucking Merquise beat the crap out of him. A week ago Heero hadn't touched him like it was the last good breath he'd ever get, and cried over him in that bathroom. Yeah. It made too much sense, in all the worst ways. It was too believable.

Yeah. He drew his own good breath, deep deep breath. 'So I'm not carrying the virus.'

'Not exactly. Fuck.' Solo planted his fists on the table. 'Jesus. This would be better with beer. You drink?'

'Whiskey,' Duo said. 'What do you mean, not exactly? There's infected and not infected.'

The plastic cabinet over the sink yielded bottles. Cheap paper glasses. Solo poured for him, both of them, full glasses that nearly emptied the bottle. Duo wet his lips with it. It tasted like medicine, like novacaine. He put it down with a grimace.

'The vaccine is controlled,' Solo said. 'Same today as it ever was.' He drank the alcohol, no difficulty. He set an empty cup back to the table, crumpling it in his fist. 'We don't have people on the inside.'

'So what-- not the vaccine?'

'An agonist.'

'Agonist.' It wasn't a word he knew. 'So what is that? It's a cure?'

'It slows it down. Suppresses it.'

Duo grappled with the science of it, but didn't fundamentally know enough to follow that. 'So I'm not contagious?'

'We hope,' Solo said flatly.

That cast his colony-hopping jaunt in a rather more irresponsible light. 'But you were in suits,' he said, useless protest. 'You suited up to inject me.'

'You do remember, huh. We weren't in suits because of you. Work suits. To look like we were cleaners at the warehouse.'

'Cleaners.' Duo rubbed his eyes. 'White suits. Yeah. Jesus. Okay. You got me away from the Nine One Five Six. You took me to a warehouse. You suited up-- so you could run right after? Why run? I'd seen you. I knew who you were.'

'Weren't running from you.'

Merquise shoving that picture in his face, right before slapping him silly. Frustration threatened, right on the tip of his tongue. He held it back, drowned it with whiskey. 'I can't do it like this. Go back to the beginning. Go back to the very beginning.'

'Kid.'

'I have a fucking name.' He drained his cup. It burned his tongue, but he drained it, and closed his eyes after. 'I have your name.'

'Yeah,' Solo told the darkness under his lids. 'I know. I know you have a name.'

'It was an apology,' Duo said. Put it out there into the darkness and the stars. 'Mostly. Maybe. They're scarce, around these parts.'

'Duo. Duo Maxwell. Yeah.' Solo sighed. Duo heard him. 'It was a nice gesture, Duo.'

'Nice. Fuck you, nice.' Duo shook his head, and put his his chin down on his hands. The whiskey was slow to hit, but his head was hot and swimming already, so it didn't matter much. 'Tell me the truth. All of it.'

He felt Solo's hand on his hair. 'All right.'

It was heavy enough to earn them a new bottle. Duo's glass was refilled; Solo had another the same size, before he worked it up to start. Duo waited impatiently, forcing himself to breathe evenly.

'What do you know about the virus?' Solo began finally.

'What you know,' Duo said wearily. 'The Feddies made bio-weapons. The virus got out, there was never enough vaccine. Killed off a third of L2.'

'That all you know?'

'All anyone knows that's not classified--' Except that wasn't quite true, was it. Hudson's files-- Casey Pope's files on all the kids she's injected with the sandwich programme. 'They were deliberately releasing it,' Duo said slowly. 'Through the social workers. They started with the homeless.'

'Specially the kids.'

'Yeah. And there were some--' He was about to go the distance, reveal there was a natural immunity, and he had it. He stopped himself short just before it left his tongue. And then didn't know if maybe he'd said it before, anyway. If this was the second, third time they'd had this discussion, how could he know?

Except that-- he hadn't know, not before. Not before the first and second kidnappings. He hadn't met Hudson until after the second one, when he'd gone into protective custody on the other side of the colony. By the time Solo had him during his third go, the time with the white suits, and both Merquise and Solo giving him some kind of jab, he'd known about Casey Pope; but no-one had asked him questions, then.

He'd outright told the Nine One Five Six-- whether or not they took it for true. And it didn't necessarily follow that Solo had ways of knowing what the Nine One Five Six knew, but if Solo didn't know it yet, and he really was the good guy, possibly he ought to hear it.

Unless he was really a bad guy.

Solo was going on without him, anyway. 'Shoulda known better,' Solo was saying, blunt but not sorry for it. There was no sorry anywhere in his flat level gaze. 'Knew it was suspicious, suddenly they're handing out food. But I did it anyway. I got us all infected. Knew exactly how it was going down, when I saw those needles. But we were hungry. So I decided for all of us, and that's how it went. We got a few more meals and they died anyway.'

Duo curled his hands, one over the other. 'Can't say I would've decided any different,' he answered truthfully. 'The devil you know or the devil you don't.'

'Yeah.' There was something tight, though, that went just a little slack in Solo's face. Solo looked away, for no more than a second. His knuckles on the whiskey went white, before he flattened his palms to the table.

That, Duo believed. For a second, anyway, before the doubts came in again. But it looked real.

'But you made it?' he asked, to fill in the little dip of quiet.

'Yeah.' Solo looked at him again, with a heavy breath. He emptied his glass, tipped it straight back for the last gulp, and filled it again. He spun the empty bottle on the tabletop, prodding it along with a thumb. 'Thought back then you'd brought us the cure. Thought I'd had enough of it to live. But the others all died; the ones who were left by then. I woke up when the Corpse Cops came to load us up for the incinerator. Kept screaming for them not to burn 'em. Maybe they was like me, just asleep while they cured.'

'But they took care of you, the cops?'

'Like hell they did. One of the bastards wanted to shoot me right there. Maybe they thought I knew something-- maybe they just hated colonials, like the rest of those Feddie pigs.' Solo spat casually for the memory. 'I pulled it together to run. Went down a sewer hole, and they gave up. Stayed down there a couple days more, to be sure they were gone.'

Duo knew exactly that sewer. One of the side lines, not big enough for a grown man-- tight fit for someone Solo's size, then. In that condition. Still not-- okay, still not a detail that couldn't be made up with whole cloth, if you wanted to pretend to be a no-name who'd really died of Plague. If you had reason to pretend. Duo hadn't heard a reason yet, but he could sit this out, collect his evidence, decide when he had all the facts.

'What then?' he asked.

'What's to tell? Figured I was the only one left. Didn't realise you'd made it too, til I saw you on the news during the war. Gundam Pilot. You looked almost the same-- knew you right off. Thought it was somethin' else. Raining down the thunder of God on the fuckers keepin' us locked in this hell. Thought-- hell, maybe I could do something to contribute, too. So I found a cause and I signed up.'

'A cause, on L2? White Fang?'

'Nothing personal,' Solo said. 'We didn't start out cross-hairs.'

'Wait. Just wait.' White Fang-- meant Zechs Merquise. Who, in what could still be coincidence, given the flash-fire nature of politics on L2, just happened to be back on colony as a member of this Nine One Five Six. He'd generally ignored the Fanger angle, before, but now it seemed a little more suspicious. Of course, the Fangers had a dozen factions these days, none of whom claimed Merquise as their leader, any more, but could it mean something that was all related?

Solo waited him out this time, but Duo didn't let it lag. He didn't know how much time he had, and one way or another he wanted his answers. 'The Nine One Five Six,' he said, putting his thoughts to voice. 'What do you think they want?'

Solo cocked his head, with that glint to his eye that said Duo was walking a ledge. 'If I had to guess, I'd say they wanted a weapon.'

That much of his theories jived, yes. A walking bio-weapon. And they'd said they had a source in Preventers-- granted half the colonial branch had been fresh out of the Fangers, after the war, and some of them might still be loyal to Merquise. And the rest might be willing to follow Heero Yuy, come to that. It worked. And it even followed, didn't it, that if the Nine One Five Six had access to the virus and they were in the market for a Plague rat, someone in Preventers-- who knew Duo didn't age, who knew Duo's criminal background, who knew Duo was into the Archives, the war records-- who knew he'd run into Hudson, who knew what had been in Hudson's files before they'd been wrapped up tighter than Une's mental history, who knew there'd been an immunity experiment-- someone in Preventers might have looked at Duo and seen a prime candidate.

'And you?' Duo prodded then. 'What do you want?'

'It matter what I want? I'm the one who has you, now.'

'I told them about you. Your name. Enough for them to find you. You can bet they'll be looking.' Solo's nostrils flared; Duo gave him plenty of time to think that through. 'Tell me what you want out of this.'

'Not another war,' Solo said flatly. 'Not more sanctions. Not thousands of deaths that'll hit the same vulnerable people, the trash that no-one here or on Earth will lift a finger to save until after it starts knocking on doors up-town. What I don't want is a repeat of the same damn history.'

'Then why not just come to me? Why not just say your speech and trust that I'd feel the same? I fought that war already, too. I might've helped without the tri-fucking-azolam or a broken damn spine.'

'We did,' Solo said.

That brought him up short. 'What?'

Solo's mouth widened in something a little too grim to be a smile. 'We did. I told you, Kiddo. We had this same damn conversation once already. But I give you marks for consistency.'

His own mouth was too dry to snap something back, even if he'd had the brain power to come up with it. 'I agreed?' he managed.

'Yeah.'

'And? Fuck, Solo. What happened?'

'And we drugged you and we put you back out there and hoped we'd be able to take care of the Nine One Five Six before they got to you again.'

'Why drug me?' He was only so credulous. He'd almost swallowed it, right to that point. 'Why would you need to? If I believed you? If I was baiting Heero I wouldn't need to be drugged-- would've been easier if not--'

'Kid, shut the fuck up and let me tell you the story.' Solo scrubbed his chin, fingernails rasping in his stubble. 'You didn't want to remember, you said.'

'If that's true, then something big must've changed my damn mind, because all I've wanted these past months is to fucking understand what's happened to me! What the hell wouldn't I want to remember? I don't believe you. I don't believe I'd do this to myself! My back--'

'We didn't hit you. Thank your friend Yuy, next time you see him.'

'My hair!'

'I didn't cut your fucking hair.'

'Oh, I did that to myself, I suppose?'

Solo stared him down, until a cold pit opened up in his gut. 'You got nothing left to cut, if we go through this again.'

'Why? Why would I do this?'

'Kid.'

'No. Why?'

They had one more staring contest. Duo won it. Solo got up, left, even. Duo flexed fingers gone numb from clenching so hard. He was past even thinking true or not true; now he just needed to know. Sort it later. Someday. Or hell, maybe--

Solo was back, with a folder. Acid-free folder, Duo noted that automatically, years of research at the Archives noted those things without thinking. Solo put the folder down in front of him, opened it for him, and turned a stapled document to face him.

'What is this?' Duo didn't touch it, not yet. Memorandum of Understanding. Dated 186. Federation letterhead, Matchette's office-- another Matchette link? 'Where did you get this?' he demanded, turning it over. But there was no archival stamp. Someone's private collection? Could there be a second collection, outside Hudson's? 'Did Hudson--'

'Same place the Nine One Five Six got the virus. Same place we got the agonist.'

'And where is that?'

'Do you want to know that or you want to know about the hair, Kid?

Duo stopped him taking away the folder, pulling it close. Memorandum of Understanding. Had all the official marks, wet signatures on the seventh page of the lengthy text. Real paper, as official as it got. Memorandum of Understanding, Federal Office to independent colonial agency, transfer of funds to the order of a cool one and a half million-- to the private business of E. Maxwell, henceforward CEO of the Maxwell House Orphanage, fronted out of the empty Holy Spirit Catholic Church complex.

Maxwell House Orphanage. For the care of twenty-two minor children currently in the custody of the Federation, to be monitored for the duration of a classified medical study.

Signed by Eduard Maxwell and Helena Rivera.

The ground dropped out from under him so quick he swayed in his chair, ears ringing. He gripped the Memorandum hard enough to crumple the pages. 'They knew?'

'That they were watching the kids in the immunity experiment for the Feddies. They knew.'

'And they-- let them do that to us? They let it happen--'

'Kid. Duo.' Solo sighed heavily, standing over him, to take the document away, to squeeze his shoulder. 'You don't have to take everything so personal.'

'Who'd I learn that from, huh?' He knocked Solo's hand away, but he wasn't angry. Just-- cold. 'Who told me to fight 'em til I died? Who told me if I went out to take the sons of bitches with me? I fucking believed the sons of bitches. They lied about everything.'

'You don't know that. All you really know is they took money to look after you. The money probably kept that place floating. I taught you how to keep an open hand and a knife, too.'

'No. No, you don't know-- they kept us there at the church while Matchette designed a better virus off our tests. They kept us there while L2 was dying, for what, money? For fucking money?' He laid the Memorandum down, carefully, closed the folder after it. 'They knew what Matchette was doing and they didn't do a damn thing to stop it.'

'So what if they took the money? They love you any less for it? They treat you like purse strings or like a kid who needed a home?'

'They even put us in the Feddie schools to test us. Could we catch it? Did the rich kids catch it from us?'

'Kid.' The hard command made him glare. Solo met him eye for eye, arms crossed over his chest. 'You're leaping without looking. Again.'

'So I did cut it off.' Yeah. Yeah, that was right-- because if he'd had a knife in front of him, just now, he would've done it again. The back of his neck crawled, just thinking about it. Father Maxwell-- Sister Helen. Telling him to be a good boy, go with the nice people. Good things are out there for good people. We all just have to care about each other.

He'd believed them, too. What a fool he was. He really would believe anyone, anything. He'd believed Father was a priest because he'd seen a collar. He'd believed Matchette had fired on Maxwell House because of the rebel cell, until he'd found proof it all came back to Plague. He'd believed Heero cared enough about him to want to save him, and all Heero really wanted was a stooge. He'd begun to believe Solo, hadn't he, injecting him with an agonist, whatever that was. All of them probably vaccinated, controlled or not, if they had all this access, all this traffic with L2's ancient history. Letting him run around the whole colonial system, all of Space, a walking infection, and him believing all along, just believing somewhere in him that no-one could be that vicious anymore, no-one could want that many innocent people to die--

And all along, all along, since he was six years old, he'd been living that exact same story. Eduardo Maxwell and Helena Rivera. The biggest dupe in the universe.

He registered his teeth in his thumbnail when he tasted blood. He rubbed it away on his hospital gown. 'Where'd you get that?' he said finally. 'Matchette's papers were mostly shredded.'

'Not everything.'

'Central Command copies? The Council? All of that was classified after the war.'

'Classified's just a fancy way of saying filed in a locked room.'

'You were White Fang. The Federation was practically dead by then. Romafeller burnt so much paper it made newsprint, even then.'

'White Fang wasn't all colonial. Why you makin' me spell it out?'

'I want the details. Who did you get and what did they bring you?'

'You saw the name on that document. Who you think brought it in?'

'Matchette?' Duo pulled in a sharp breath. 'Matchette turned coat?'

Solo tucked the folder under his arm. 'He was trying. Not for our Space trash, but to take down Khushrenada. We weren't too picky about the reasons why. Didn't matter. All came to a head at Libra. Matchette died of a fucking heart attack, year later. We were slow getting to him to clean it up. His office was empty by the time we got there. We figured it was someone from OZ, but too late is too late. There wasn't an OZ by then. Was hardly a White Fang.'

'You said the Nine One Five Six-- they got the virus--'

'Matchette had stores of it. Jumbled up. Took years of sorting, to figure out what was what.'

'No, I mean-- if you and the Nine One Five Six both had access-- which of you used to be the other one?'

Solo twigged to his meaning, his mouth twitching down. 'They split from us,' he said. 'Merquise split from us. Early in 196. We were moving on L2. He didn't want to focus that tightly. Said we needed a broader view. Earth, he meant. Fuck Earth. I don't give a shit about Earth.'

'So, what? Two decades later, what is there to show for it? You watched them, they watched you?'

'No. They did whatever the hell they wanted. No-one cared. But when they were making their move on this, we stepped up.'

'You and who?' he pressed.

'No-one you know. No-one you'd know about.'

'And how'd you know to move? How'd you get out in front of it?'

'Merquise.'

Wasn't that worth a pause. He'd never guessed. Working both sides? With which agenda? What did he really want?

'That answer all your questions?' Solo asked.

'Not by half.' Duo chewed his thumbnail again, ignoring the twinge of abused flesh. 'One more. What's the plan, now?'

'Now?' Solo repeated. He pointed to Duo with the folder. 'Now, we put you back out there.'

Sawing out holes in his walls to stash the laptop and his papers. Plaster over it, hide it. Lifetime of hiding, he knew the way of it better than anyone, and he'd had considerable need to employ it. Sawed out his walls, and then set the decoys, moving his bed to a new spot, hanging pictures in new places, tripping the obvious gives with wires and pellets. Inconveniences, barely more than that, but enough of them could work a guy up to a good rage, and angry people made mistakes. Angry people made noise, and noise got you caught. He laid his traps, and last of all he set out all his empty soup cans, the oldest trick in the book, so that they'd crash and clatter if the door opened into them. Wouldn't scare off anyone really dedicated, but it might make them hesitate, might make them trip and fall if he were really lucky, and that was just enough time to run. Or fire a gun. He slept right on top of his Glock, finger curled around the trigger.

He woke up twisted on his side, his arms stretched over his head. He didn't know why. It hurt, he was sore, he was tired of being sore, he was groggy from the pain. He reached for his pills, before he realised what had waked him.

Knocking. Knocking, waiting for him. He didn't know anyone who would knock.

Wufei? You need to listen to me now. He's here. I can't do anything to stop him. Find the video. There will be video. That's the best I can do.

His cans went clatter-bang. The door was open. Someone was inside.

Listen to me, Wufei, he said, I'll try to--

Footsteps, unerring, right to his bedroom. A dark shadow coming to him. A hand pushing back a hat, taking it off. Dark hair. Light eyes. A face he'd stopped believing he'd ever see again.

Trust me, Duo. That's all I'm asking.

Dazed. He'd taken his pills too, stupid, because it made him pliant, made him loopy, and he went when he might have fought it more, stone sober. Heero helped him up, Heero put him on his feet, Heero walked him right out his door and down the steps to the street below. There was a car waiting. Wait, Duo said, wait, please, but his feet moved on anyway, with Heero's hand on his arm, and Heero tucked him into the passenger seat. Heero got into the car. Turned on the heat for him, asked him if he was all right. Sure, whatever-- why are you-- why are you--

We need you, Duo, Heero said. I need you. Something only you can do.

There was a warehouse. Heero hit him in the face as he fought, and Zechs Merquise held him down as they stripped him like a child, stripped him naked and pushed a needle deep into his muscle, and infected him. No, Duo said over and over, No, I'll fucking murder you for this. I'll fucking murder you. I trusted you and you betrayed me, you traitor. Traitor.

There was a warehouse, and he was infected, he was crawling away-- creeping in the dark between cold dead machines, stay very quiet, afraid to breathe aloud or they would find him. Gunshot. A lot of gunshot, behind him, ahead of him, all around him, he just had to make it outside, there were options outside-- maybe someone who could help him, get him to Preventers--

I found him! someone shouted, Duo flinched away, tried to run. They grabbed him by the ankle, dragged him out from under cover, all hell was breaking loose. Gunshot. Bodies. The one who'd found him was dead.

Then it was Heero again, with a bloody streak down that cold marble face, dragging him out with cold marble hands. Stripping his bloody clothes off him, to put in a garbage bag. Burn it, Heero told Merquise, who looked Duo in the eye, Duo sitting there naked and shivering, and Merquise nodded heavily and did as he was told. I'm sorry, Heero said, and then Heero was gone, too, running off, gunshot chasing him off into the darkness.

Kid. Jesus, what did they do to you.

No. Couldn't be.

Kid. Just trust me. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you like they did.

No more needles. Fuck you, no more needles.

We have to, Kiddo. This one'll save you. Save us all. Just trust me.

When's this hell going to be over?

Solo showed him the papers. Father Maxwell, Sister Helen. It was supposed to be something better than the rest of L2. It was supposed to be-- sacred. Good. He hadn't had them, but he'd had the memory, at least, and that memory had kept him on the straight and narrow when he might have fallen off the edge, otherwise, might have lived a mean and wretched little life on a colony where mean and wretched was just the usual. That memory had got him off of L2, had got him into a Gundam, had made him walk up to Chang Wufei and say, Hey, remember me? I was thinking-- I was thinking that I'd like to do some good, if you know a place, and Wufei had looked him in the eye and believed him and that had brought him to what he had now, and he was-- terrified of losing that. But as soon as he saw the words on that page, Memorandum of Understanding-- They'd been the wall between him and the worst he was capable of. They'd been the hand on his shoulder holding him back from revenge, keeping him on the path of justice. They'd been the angels on his shoulder telling him he knew wrong from right, and it was up to him to keep J and O alive, because it was the right thing to do. They'd been a comfort in the worst of dark nights, when he'd been alone and in despair, and because of them he'd got up every morning and chosen to live one more day, even on L2, even in jail, even in war, because it was his to choose. They'd been a grace in a life without a lot of grace, and they'd been the measure he'd held himself to, when he knew he was slipping. He'd always wanted them to be proud of what he'd made himself, of what he'd made himself because of them.

And they'd been nothing more than collaborators, scam artists taking money from the Feddies to watch children die.

Kid, Solo said, I'm sorry.

Fuck sorry. He was cold inside, frozen over. Give me a knife.

Kid.

Give me a fucking knife.

He cut his hair off, sawed off the braid he'd worn because a woman who wasn't really Sister Helen had braided it, because a man who wasn't Father Maxwell had smiled at him and said if he was that attached to it, it was his to keep. He sliced right through the only thing left connecting him to a past that wasn't really his anymore, and he dropped it to the ground at his feet, he turned his back on it, and when he turned around, there was Solo, grave and troubled and watching him for the next move.

Do what you have to do, Duo told him. And then leave me alone. I don't want to remember this tomorrow. I don't want to remember them, or you, or Heero fucking Yuy. Do what you need to do and leave me the hell alone, forever.

Duo sketched a diagram of wires, linking the circuit as he imagined it in his mind's eye. He folded the plate he was drawing on, matched the plans inside to the drawing on the outer. It might work. You just couldn't trust field agents not to mess it up. Even Wufei complained he couldn't figure out Duo's gizmos without using the instructions-- ignoring the whole mess of why Duo bothered to write instructions in the first place. You just couldn't trust field agents to read 'em. But if he eliminated the middle man, if he packed it so all they had to do was flip the lip-- the wires just had to touch--

He needed hardware. He searched his kitchen doodad drawer, but he didn't have the right gauge. It was going to take some playing. If he hustled, he could make it to the store before they closed. He stuffed his plate-sketch into his pocket, pulled on his jacket. Last second, he turned back, for the gun he kept under the couch cushions. It was late enough he risked running into some brave pack of teenagers looking to shake up trouble. He'd have better luck averting it if he went carrying.

As it was, he didn't even need it. The streets were all but empty. He even whistled a little as he walked, finding himself in a good mood for once. It had been all work and no play, lately. Wufei was due for a vacation soon. Duo was thinking of suggesting they go somewhere, even just uptown, rent a little room and soak in hot tubs for a weekend. Of course it would all depend on whether Wufei forgave him for forgetting to show up to their last date. He'd been sidetracked, though Wufei would never believe it really had been to help Mrs Jones find her lost cat.

He had just a few minutes extra. He detoured fast toward Yang's off-license. A fizzy would get him through the evening better than caffeine; he was always more creative with sugar, and he'd need all he could get if he wanted to knock this project out by morning. The lady at the counter was the old grandmother, not the daughter who spoke English. Duo just nodded peaceably at her suspicious, bat-eyed glare, and grabbed a lemon off the counter near the door. He moved toward the old woman, fishing in his pocket for his coins.

A hand landed on his shoulder. He shook it off, turning to look, dropping his own fingers to the gun at his hip--

Hey, Kiddo, the man said to him. Blond hair, to the up-turned collar, blue eyes over a nose gone crooked from an old break, mouth twisted up to the left in something not quite a smile--

Solo? Duo whispered.

Just listen to me now. I need you to trust me without asking any questions yet. I need you to come outside with me. You need to hurry. They're coming.

He got his wind back. No. No, who was this, just some man, What do you mean trust you, I don't know you--

Kiddo, we gotta move this thing. Come on. Just trust me.

Like hell, Duo said, but he was shaking, and then it-couldn't-be-Solo dared to touch him again, curved a palm right on his cheek. Duo snapped. He went blank and frightened and furious, and his first swing was dead accurate, bending the man over his fist. But he'd reckoned without the big one moving in behind him, a second and a third man, a fourth hustling them out past old lady Yang who was calling the cops on the phone at the counter. Duo was no match for that many of them, and they picked up him by the arms and dragged him out, with the not-Solo coming up the rear, meeting his stare eye for eye.

No, Duo yelled at him, no, I don't fucking believe you. I don't believe you.

Kid, the man said, Kid, stop fighting for once in your damn life, he said. I never meant to leave you. I'm sorry, but I'm here now, and I'm telling you, you need to listen to me.

Impossible. Like a dream. A nightmare. Arms around him, the man holding him, and Duo stood there shaking, letting him, just maybe possibly starting to think it could be real--

Solo, one of the others called sharply. Right before a bullet punctured the shop sign next to him. Everyone went scrambling for cover, Solo tried to pull him down behind a postbox. Who is it? Duo demanded, dazed, fumbling his gun. Blue eyes, blond hair, could it really be?

They ain't here to help, Solo said, and looked at him with the old grin, the devil-comin-give-'em-hell grin, and that was the moment Duo was sure. And on the strength of nothing more than that he did something too damn stupid to be noble even. He pushed Solo out of the way and took the hit meant for him.

He went numb from neck to waist. He fumbled his gun, as someone came bending over him. He fired, spattering himself with blood. A body tumbled next to him. Kid, Solo was shouting, and there were more shots fired, a quick spatter with that peculiar muffled echo that meant silencers. No-one used silencers in a neighbourhood like this, where kills were bragging rights. Was it some kind of hit squad? After Solo? Solo was still calling for him, trying to drag him to his feet, but Duo couldn't stand. Pain like a shockwave from his centre, concussively just there, exploding. He couldn't stand, and Solo dropped him to run. Go, Duo told him. Get out of here. Just go.

They kicked him in the back. He tried to get away, tried to roll or curl or crawl, but he took a cleat right to the spine and it flattened him to the pavement. He heard sirens. He just had to make it until the sirens. Solo, get out of here. Go.

Stop, a voice ordered, and they rolled him over finally, toeing the gun away from his nerveless hand. We need him alive.

Zechs Merquise. Crouching down over him. Grabbed him by the armpits, dragged him to the kerb. Into a car. Passed him to someone inside-- someone-- Heero. Heero Yuy, who hauled him onto the floor of it. Merquise got in the front, and they were moving before the doors even closed.

Why, Duo said, tried to say. God, it hurt. He couldn't feel anything but the hurt. Was he dying? Hurt enough to be dying, and he didn't want to die like this-- he didn't even know why he was dying for these people, Heero, he at least had to know why--

Crash. Crash into the car. Everything jerked sideways, he breathed in carmat and Heero grabbed him by the jacket to hold him still. Another hit, and they jumped the kerb, smashed into something. Weapons and cursing and doors opening-- No-body move, no-body god-damn move-- Solo pulled him out again, out into the night and hustled him into another van. They sped away, tearing around corners.

Kid? Kid, you gonna make it? You can make it.

We got you now, Kid. You're safe.

Duo, do you remember?

'When I count down to one, Duo, you're going to wake up. Three. Two. One.'

Duo opened his eyes.

Roger Brabant handed him a mug of orange-smelling tea. There was nothing on his face to read; Duo didn't try. He sipped the hot tea, warming his fingers, his cheek.

'You get it all?' he asked briefly.

'Back to the beginning.' Brabant reached for the microphone on the coffee table. He turned it off, and popped the disc. Handed that to Duo, too, but Duo shook his head.

'Keep it,' Duo told him. 'Somewhere safe. Somewhere no-one will look. I'll want that later.'

Brabant only nodded. He turned the disc around and around, staring down at it. 'What will you do?' he asked softly, soberly. 'Now that you know?'

Duo sat up slowly, taking care of the aches of long travel, of laying still so long on the stiff couch. 'What do you think I should do?'

'Run,' O said bluntly. He turned from the window, his dark scowl maybe just a milimetre deeper than it had been before Brabant had hypnotised Duo an hour ago.

'I tried it.' The tea was clearing his head. Duo sipped it steadily. 'I've got no-where to run to, now.'

'What about Earth?' Brabant tried. 'Relena Peacecraft--'

'I'm still carrying Plague. I don't know how long the suppressant is good for, but--'

'What about a quarantine.'

Duo rubbed at the back of his neck, where his braid had used to be. 'I don't disagree,' he said, getting it out past a throat that was sore, suddenly, too tight for words. 'But I don't think, either, that the Nine One Five Six are going to be too keen on letting me stay packed away. They want a new Plague. They want me to spread it.'

'You could turn yourself in--'

'To who? The CDC? The police? Preventers have three times the authority they do, and it only takes one bad Preventer to walk me right back out of a jail cell. And we still don't know who the bad Preventers are.'

Brabant sat back on his chair, let his head fall back. O went back to watching out the window. Duo finished his tea, and carefully set the mug on the carpet between his feet.

'I'm here to be bait,' he said finally. 'As far as I can see, the best way to handle this is to be seen. Let the Nine One Five Six and White Fang have their shoot out, and hope the right side wins.'

'You still don't know which is the right side,' Brabant said. 'Which of them is lying to you.'

'No. But I know that hiding in your apartment isn't going to solve the problem for me.' He peeled off the letter he'd tacked to his own shirt, on L2. He didn't need it now. All he'd written then-- Get to RB-- he'd waked in an hourly-rental bunkhouse on Inner Ring and without a single memory to his name-- not even his name, for a long confused day there. Just the letter, and a pissed-off O sitting on a couch scowling at him. He hadn't even remembered how he'd got to L2, at first. Hadn't remembered who RB was, til they were nearly back to L1.

But now he had it all back. And none of the choices were good ones. But he was still going to choose. As long as he was breathing, he would fucking choose for himself. Til the end.

'What do you need me to do?' Brabant asked him.

'Burn down my apartment, maybe. Or at least the braid under the bed.' Brabant stuttered something, and Duo shrugged him off jaggedly. 'Nothing. You've done enough. Stay out of sight. Don't get pulled in.'

'I could help you, Duo.'

'I might almost think you care, Doctor Roge.'

'I almost might, if you'd let me.' Brabant shook his head, but the protest was over. 'You know where to find me if you need it. I'd wish you luck, if I had any idea what you were going to do.'

'Either way, I'll take it.'

Chiasma 16/16

2009-09-09T01:13:59Z

Fandom: GW
Pairing: 5x2
Rating: Rish
Notes: Challenge fic. Updates in bold.

He waited out the last customers with their coffee and dessert, sitting unobtrusively at the edge of the bar. His water, untouched over hours, had gone lukewarm in his hand. He had an angle on the kitchen door, and watched through the peephole window as the staff inside scrubbed down the stoves, the cutting tables, the sinks, and finally the floor. A young man emerged to hoover the carpet in the dining room. The guests made their way to the door, fulsomely good-byed by the droopy-eyed concierge. Only then, when she could no longer avoid him, did she come out to face him.

'I thought I was going to have to have you dragged out of here again,' Wufei said. 'You look good tonight.'

Tom flushed. It made her look even better. 'I smell like bolognese,' she mumbled, tugging at the sagging neck of her stained smock. 'I know I said we would talk, but you didn't have to hang around the restaurant all night.'

'I didn't mind. And the bolognese was good, too.'

'Thanks.' They met a mutual silence. When she would have spoken, though, Wufei interrupted quickly.

'Come somewhere with me,' he said. 'I know it's late. It won't take very long.'

'Go where? Wufei...' She glanced behind her, but the kitchen lights were already off and there was no rescue forthcoming from the staff. 'I should change at least. Or shower...'

'You're fine as you are. Truly.'

She heaved a deep sigh. 'All right. Let me get my keys.'

He drove, one of the Preventers cars that would soon be, Cloudwalker had promised, officially dedicated to his use as branch director. Wufei had never owned a car, and had to split most of his concentration toward driving as smoothly as possible for his passenger. For her part, Tom was quiet, her face turned a little to look out the window. She glanced back at him frequently, but asked no questions.

The night guard at the Sukhon Peace Heroes Centre let them in at the sight of his badge, and Wufei parked along the kerb before the main building. They stopped to sign the register in the lobby; Tom appended her name to his guest slot, now regarding him with equal parts caution and curiosity. In response, Wufei played it mum. He had wanted her with him for two reasons, two reasons he was more and more sure were very good ones. He guided her to the lift, and they stood together as they climbed storey after storey. They emerged to a floor lined with large, dark glass walls. Offices. Wufei walked her past four to a corner, a right turn, and then they stopped there at the only door still displaying a light within.

'This is it,' Wufei said, perhaps unnecessarily. 'It won't be very long, I think.'

'Wufei, should I really be here?'

He took her hand, squeezing it gently. 'Yes.' He raised a knuckle to the door, and knocked.

'Come,' came the distracted call, and together they entered. The man hunched over his desk inside did not immediately greet them, buried in a thick sheaf of notes and writing steadily with a scratching pen. But when he chanced to look up, he went frozen.

'Representative,' Wufei said softly.

Keawe rose slowly, gripping the edge of his desk tensely. 'Agent Scarab. Or Captain Chang, I suppose.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Didn't figure you'd be darkening my door quite so soon.' Keawe's eyes flicked to Tom. 'I don't believe I've met the lady.'

'Hilde Schbeiker,' Wufei introduced her, and let her go to take Keawe's outstretched hand for a brief press. 'I hope you don't mind the assumption. I thought we might both be on our best behaviour before an impartial witness.'

Keawe released an abrupt, surprised laugh. 'You still have a way with words, Captain.' He shook Tom's hand with more strength. 'The pleasure's all mine, Miss Schbeiker. I had the privilege of eating at your restaurant a few times. You make the meanest pork tenderloin I've ever tasted, including my tutu's, not that I'd say it to her face.'

'Family recipe,' Tom said, a ghost of a smile lifting her lips. 'You should try the Caribbean pork rice and beans, next time.'

'I will. I will, that.'

She was not shy of him. Wufei was proud. When she stepped back to Wufei's side, her head was high. If anything, it was Keawe who was shy of them, lacking his usual swagger of confidence. His wariness kept him behind the desk, but it wasn't a position of power. It made him seem smaller, unarmoured.

But confrontation and challenge was not the point, not tonight. Wufei took his turn to step forward, and laid a small disc on the papers between them. 'I've brought something I'd like you to see, Mr Keawe,' he said.

Keawe picked up the disc, turning it between two brown fingers. 'Am I supposed to guess?'

'It's a short video, sir. Only twenty minutes, not quite. If you would, I would like you to watch it now.'

Hard eyes glared into his. Wufei met them without artifice. Keawe blew out a breath through his nose, and nodded sharply. 'Sit,' he said, waving at the couch nearby. He turned his back, inserting the disc to the large flat screen. It came to life at his touch, loading slowly. Wufei and Tom took the couch. Keawe eased back into his chair, thumbing up the volume with the remote clicker. The video file opened, and began to play.

'—met cameras on,' said Wufei on the video, a second before his image resolved into focus, tilting crazily and then resettling slightly askew. 'Let's get some forensic proof of what's happening here.'

Tom realised first what it was. She gripped his hand hard, a sharp punctuation to the frown she turned on him. Wufei shook his head, and squeezed her fingers.

The camera was moving, careening out of the van. It swept left across parkland, then right to a wooded copse, and headed in that direction. The heavy thud of footsteps and accelerated breaths were the only noise, as the time stamp in the lower corner trickled past two minutes, three, four. Keawe drilled his fingers on the arm of his chair.

Then the first shot rang out. The other two jumped. Wufei, who had lived it, let his eyes drop to his hand on Tom's. There was a fresh, fading cut on her thumb. He traced it gently.

'Ma'am, try to get to me!' Ortega shouted. 'I've got you covered. Try to get to me!'

'My father's been shot,' a woman's voice sobbed back. 'He's bleeding. He's been shot.'

Nearly a full round of ammo discharged, somewhere to the left. Ortega's helmet camera swung to follow the sound. A black-edged figure ducked behind a tree, then jumped backward-- or seemed to. A cloud of rapidly expelled blood sprayed behind it, and the body fell. The camera dropped to the gun Ortega had held, leaving no doubt of the origin of the bullet that had just saved lives. When it lifted, it picked shadows moving rapidly through the trees. 'I've got two gunmen in range,' Ortega said. 'Approaching with caution. One is masked, the other looks white or Hispanic, he's young--' He fired rapidly. One after the other, those bodies fell, too.

'Oh, God, oh God,' the woman's voice moaned. Her terrified face swam to centre view. 'Oh God, help us.' Frightened faces, the woman, middle-aged, crying over her elderly father. Ortega gathered them with firm, kind commands, agreed to help them search for the rest of their clan. They crept slowly to the edge of the tree line. Two men, then a third, civilians. 'I'm a Preventer,' Ortega told each of them. 'I'm here to help you. We're going to get you to safety, all right? Just follow me, folks.'

And then the fatal confrontation. Shots from behind. The camera whirled away from shock and fear, following the upswing of a rifle that discharged heavy rounds behind them into the woods. Running-- fleeing. The backs of the family, the unprotected hillside where they were suddenly, unavoidably, targeted. The camera went to knee-height. Ortega fired again and again and again to that phone booth, to the sneering, twisted snarls of the boys inside it. There was Wufei again, recognisable only by the red armband he had worn to denote his rank, firing on the booth from the opposite hilltop. Then a sickening impact. The camera sprawled back, splashed with scarlet. Fizzling blue light streaked past the lense. Smoke. Screams.

'No,' Wufei whispered. 'Ortega. Do you-- Ortega-- no.' Through the smears of red there appeared his face, wild-eyed, starkly white. Then the camera tumbled away, rolled into the grass.

'His name was DeAngelo Ortega,' Wufei said then. 'I thought you needed to know who he was.'

'Captain.' Keawe turned off the screen, but he lingered on the remote. 'I don't--'

'He was born on your satellite. Prince George's. He lived only four blocks from you, actually. You probably went to the same school. You would have liked him. He was as honest as they come.'

'I don't know what you want from me.'

'No? Watch it again.'

'Captain.' Keawe swung about to face him. 'I'm sorry for your agent. Is that what you want me to say? That it was a tragedy?'

'I know better than you what it was. I was there.' Wufei stood. Tom joined him, sneaking her hand into his again. 'And I'll be here,' Wufei added. 'For a long time. Where I will keep trying to get through to you. Someday, you might let me. But I will keep trying for as long as it takes.'

Muscles in Keawe's face jumped as he clenched his jaw. He stared down at the remote in his fist. He made to put it down, and didn't.

'Keep the disc,' Wufei said. 'I hope you will think about it. My office is just up the road, if you ever want to talk.'

'Captain—'

'Wufei.'

Keawe's eyes came to his face again. Troubled, Wufei was very glad to see. It wasn't quite reason for hope, not yet. But it was a start.

'Good night, Bren,' Wufei told him, and walked Tom to the door and out.

They made it to the lift before Tom let out a squawk and smacked him in the arm. 'I almost bit off my tongue in there!' she hissed at him, as they began the ride downward. 'A little warning!'

He grinned at her as he rubbed his arm. 'If I learnt anything from Duo, it's that no-one lets you do anything if you tell them exactly what it entails beforehand.'

'Oh, yes, please take after all of Duo's most frustrating qualities.' She smacked him again, now only half-heartedly. 'I think I'm glad most of that was over my head.'

'I'll tell you about it, later. There's time.' Now he hesitated. 'You heard I--'

'Staying,' she said. 'I heard.'

'And?' He ducked her fist, catching it as it passed. He tugged her close, and lowered his head to kiss her. Her fingers laced through his hair. She licked her lips when he let her go. The lift dinged as it deposited them on the ground floor.

'At least give me time to try,' he said. 'I'm not asking-- expecting you to marry me. I'm not asking for anything. Just a chance.'

Her little teeth made indents in her lip as she stared down at her feet. 'Is that really what you want? To stay here? It's not going to get any easier here.'

'I hope it will. I hope I can be part of making that happen. I think there is so much good spirit here, wanting it to be better.' He didn't have the eloquence to say it the way he wanted, the glimmer of it he saw possible. But with her hand in his, he felt anchored.

'But I'm going to be here,' he finished. 'So maybe-- it would be good if we could-- let me take you to breakfast. Do you work in the morning? Let me take you to dinner. Somewhere where you don't have to cook it. You can ask me anything under the sun.'

Her smile twitched wider. She covered it, her chin to her shoulder, her eyes slanting sideways up to his, clear and blue as the sky on Earth. 'You're asking me out?'

'I'm trying,' he pointed out. 'Are you agreeing?'

'Yes. No--' She straightened his tie, and leant her head on his chest. 'Tomorrow. I'm working in five hours. But... tomorrow.'

He pressed his lips to her hair. 'Good,' he whispered. 'I'll be here.'

**

I have an office. Well, Cloudwalker's office. But it's the first time I've ever had more than a desk and a nameplate. All the space is deafening. Tom thinks a few more lamps, a plant or two. I don't believe her quite yet, but for once I've been smart enough not to say so.

Official transfer of command was almost two weeks ago, but it's still uphill here. I'm crafting an outreach plan with Parliament, to introduce myself and Preventers to the colony. I want every citizen to know they can come to us. I want every citizen to know we serve them first.

It's not perfect yet. I think it's better than it was.

Cloudwalker tells me the new Council session began with a bang. Une announced her retirement the very first day-- met by barely concealed glee. None of them know yet that Quatre's name has already been handed up. Cloudwalker tells me he advised Quatre to wear either a vest or a cup, when it comes out. I think he ought to invest in both. But then, knowing Quatre as I've come to recently, I'm sure he has a few tricks up his sleeve. I'm sure it will be quite the show. I almost wish I could be there.

We have new sonograms. I'm attaching two for you. I don't know if I can actually, accurately predict how this must make you feel. I know that I wish I could have told you in person. I know that my most sincere wish is that some day will you join us here, to meet my child and show her everything you have shown me. Nothing would make me happier than for her to know you.

Enclosed as well is a package for Ledvina-- a sort of gift for the Bookies and for Diesel, too. I spoke to a local library and they've agreed to donate duplicates from their electronic library. There's a limited number of pads, for now at least, but it should be enough to flesh out your collection there. I threw in a few choice titles. Gupta and his lot will like the Horatio Hornblower. I even put one in for Mariemaia-- Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse. It's about the complexity of experience. I think it's something she would enjoy, if she forgives the imposition of my assumption. But I think you might enjoy the Joseph Conrad. It's a short story called 'The Secret Sharer'. You've been mine, after all, and like Leggatt you've kept your own secrets and in some sense your doing so has enabled me to grow without you, now that you're gone. I want to tell you I will do my best to make good of what you've given me. And I want you to know that I won't forget. You have my promise.

I hope you don't mind my letters. I never wrote to you before. It just feels different now. I suppose I'm not quite ready to just leave you there, after all. I think of you often. Always with fondness, and a deep appreciation for everything you have done for me. I hope I can begin repaying you even at this distance.

They are cleaning out the church. We are, rather, Preventers, and the congregation from St Mary's street. A memorial to two tragedies, bringing the bereaved together. Pastor Isaacs wants to get a good coat of sealant on the walls, and get new supports on the walls. There are plans to open a new shelter nearby. They're going to name it something inspirational, some kind of youth rescue, but informally I've heard some of them call it Maxwell House. I hope you'll be glad to know that, Duo.

'You're smiling,' she said.

Duo lowered the pages, folding them over each other carefully. 'Nothing,' he answered. 'Nothing important.' He left his perch on the arm of the couch, to stand over her little desk. 'Did you move finally?'

'Ten minutes ago.'

'You should've said.' He dropped into a crouch, contemplating the chess board. 'You could at least have told me I'm in check.'

'You were enjoying your letter.'

Duo glanced up. Her gaze was as cool as ever, remote walls of glass. Her hands were clenched to fists in her lap, white-knuckled from the force of her grip.

He moved his rook to take the bishop threatening his king. 'Would you like to read it?' he asked casually.

'It is private correspondence.'

'Which I'm now offering to share with you.'

'Why?' she said coldly. 'What interest could I possibly have in what someone I barely know wrote to you?'

'Friends talk about what's going on in each other's lives.'

He'd shocked her. Her face went blank, just for a second, before she was in control again. 'We're not friends,' she told him frostily, cutting off each word so precisely her teeth clicked.

'No? Who else do you see every day, voluntarily? I sleep on your couch more often than my bunk.'

She slammed her hand on the edge of the desk, rattling the board and the pieces. Then she was whirling away from him, standing rigid, staring furiously at the wall. 'Our agreement has never extended to personal liberties. And you take far too much upon yourself. I'm the daughter of the greatest man to ever--'

'And I'm a no-body who eats with his fingers, yeah.' Duo shrugged at her back. 'Things're changing everywhere. Even here. If you think you can remember how it feels, maybe we could give it a shot.' He smoothed Wufei's letter against his knee, and let out the sudden laugh that bubbled up in him. 'You know,' he said, 'change is pretty exciting, when you think about it. An adventure, after a way. You remember what adventure feels like, Mariemaia?'

She stared at him as if he were mad. He probably was. But he wasn't the least bit scared.

'Come on,' he said. 'What do you really have to lose?'

potterfic

2009-09-04T00:11:34Z

So, it turns out that 3/4 of the internet is comprised of Potterfic. And that it's far, far too difficult to search for Potterfic that you read in 2001.

I seem to recall that it was a good fic. Or at least funny. It was kind of crackfic, and Barty Crouch Jr was a flamer in pink daisy dukes who oozed all over Severus Snape who was frantically trying to brew a tricky potion for Voldemort under pain of death, and it turns out Voldemort needs it to cure a cold.

The same author also wrote something less cracker about Harry returning to the Dursleys' after the war. Draco was a flamer in pink daisy dukes who oozed all over him. I like fanon Draco ever so much more than real Draco. Real Draco is whiny. Fanon Draco is witty.

Anyway, the point of all this is that I wish I could find old fics written back in the day, but alas. I have not the patience. Nor do I remember the author's name, except that it might have been two words, and it makes me think of Ali Baba.

Such is life.

Chiasma update

2009-09-02T00:28:14Z

Short update. Ends the chapter.

Chiasma update

2009-08-29T14:02:04Z

Moreage.

(Belated) Year In Writing Meme

2009-08-26T01:32:54Z

I usually do this in December, but I missed it in 2008 and I kept meaning to do it. So why not.

Year In Review
With the year now being January 2008 to December 2008.

Fics alpha by title.

Gundam Wing
Age Inappropriate: 13,141 words
Asylum: 22,849 words (WIP)
Brand New Day: 6,564 words (WIP)
Chiasma: 35,825 words (WIP)
Code of Conduct: 42,866 words (WIP)
History Play: 1,835 words
Properties of ZERO: 13,023 (WIP)
Six Seconds To Gone: 14,260 words (WIP)
Stay, Stupid: 12,794 words
The Year Without Trowa: 31,871
2.7 Kelvin: 13,768 (WIP)

9 drabbles: 11,013 words

Total for Gundam Wing: 219,809 words

At an average of 250 words a page, that's about 880 pages.

Harry Potter
1 drabble: 874 words

At 250 words a page, that's about 3 pages.

Lionness Rampant
We: 6,270 words (complete)

House
1 drabble: 1,284

At 250 words a page, that's about 4 pages.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
1 drabble: 1,289 words

At 250 words a page, that's about 5 pages.

Torchwood
1 drabble: 223 words

At 250 words a page, that is not a page.

Total words written for 2008: 229,749 or 918 pages

The Breakdown:

Fandoms: 6
Stories: 12
Drabbles: 13

Completed Stories: 5
Works In Progress: 7

From My Past Year Of Writing, My Favourite Was...

Favourite Story:: ????
...I absolutely cannot choose, because I worked on such wonderful stuff this year. I loved working on the final chapter of The Year Without Trowa because it really did take a year to write it, and living with something that long is so worth it. For the same reason I love Chiasma, and it's dark and intriguing and I am enjoying the challenge format. I loved We because Lionness Rampant was my childhood favourite series. I will always love Properties of Zero, because my attitude toward it has evolved and still evolves the longer it lingers, because it's a summertime fic, because it has Treize and that's always awesome for me.

Best Story: Chiasma
...because, challenge format aside, I think it's one of my most creative and possibly one of the most mature fics I've done. It's a narrative challenge and a character piece and I have some fun OCs as well, and it's my best attempt at delving into L2 culture and history.

Most Underappreciated By The Universe: the Torchwood drabble
...which is not an entirely fair thing to say, as it's from a show that is confined to BBC America for all but two or three of my lj readers. But you gotta give love to John Barrowman.

Most Fun: Age Inappropriate
...because despite the seriousness of the subject matter, it's really a comedy piece. It had wit and slapstick and silly-hot sex scenes, and Quatre married to Noin. And a gay bar on L4.

Most Disappointing: that Star Trek drabble
...I mean, read the thing. Well, don't, but if you had, you would understand.

Most Sexy: Brand New Day
...because it's about two young people who are experiencing first love together and it's vast and frightening and extremely immediate, but it's still ultimately tender.

Hardest to Write: 2.7 Kelvin
...because once we stopped working on it as frequently as in the beginning, it's always been the one that's hardest for me to get back into and to sustain long enough to write a chapter.

Most Unintentionally Telling: Chiasma

Best Written: Chiasma

Worst Written: I'm going to say Six Seconds to Gone, because I can never manage to replicate what I did stylistically in the prologue. I love the prologue. But I think it gets messier after that.

And finally, as before, you may choose any of my stories and ask me what happens after the end of it, and I shall be happy to answer.

Tally-ho, 2009!

Chiasma 15/16

2009-08-25T01:17:16Z

Fandom: GW
Pairing: 5x2
Rating: M15ish
Notes: Challenge fic. Updates in bold.

'More water?' Bourque asked him.

'No,' Wufei demurred. He sawed his knife against stubborn fibres of the smoked brisket, detaching chunks of the over-salted beef to mix with the liquidy mash beside it. He was undecided if he was being served the best on offer, or if he'd been given second-rate food as a test of some sort. Certainly Bourque's apartment-like suite held considerable, if patchwork, comforts. And a bottle of whiskey had joined them on the table, a very good bottle, which argued Bourque had access to finer sources than their dinner allowed. But he made no protests, and he ate what he was given.

His host was a plain man, as Duo had said, with plain appetites. His short-shorn hair was inky black and his olive skin was sallow, so far from the sun, and otherwise unremarkable. But Wufei was in no doubt that Bourque was intelligent, and calculating. And the plasters on the right-hand knuckles were just a little too easily on display. Wufei was now sure that Bourque was responsible for Duo's condition. He had not said anything about that, either. They ate almost entirely in silence.

When their plates were empty, they were collected by the young private who had waited on them sullenly. He rolled a covered cart with their trays to the door, refreshed their glasses a final time, and left them. Bourque sat back in his plastic chair, linking his hands over his belly. He said, 'I hear you met our Peerless. Piece of work, isn't he. Like talking to a conceited brick wall.'

Innocuous enough, but letting Wufei know he had his ear to every detail. Wufei gave him no ground. He only nodded, and sipped his water.

'Do you feel you have sufficient data for your report? You conducted no formal interviews. Maxwell said you wanted to talk to people.'

'It is sufficient,' Wufei said.

Bourque smoothed his thick moustache. 'May I enquire if your review is positive?'

'I'll be sure to CC a copy to you, when I submit it.'

A flicker of hate slipped through the man's hard gaze. He buried it by reaching for the whiskey. He uncorked the bottle and poured himself two fingerlenths in the small snifter that sat at his left. He filled Wufei's, as well, a splash that left a copper-coloured sheen on the plastic. He toasted without a word, and drank it down with one swallow.

Wufei didn't drink right away. He swirled the alcohol in the glass, gazing down at the slow eddy of it. He said, 'Tell me, Lieutenant. How did you come to be stationed here?'

'I fought in nineteen separate engagements in the AFR sector.' Bourque's chest puffed; but then he reached for the bottle again. 'They wanted staff with discipline.'

OZ. Or Federation, perhaps; he was old enough to have missed the formation of the Specials, the unit that had eventually overthrown its own mother-organisation. Preventers had subsumed many different sects. Not always agreeably.

'The warden is still ill?' Wufei asked politely.

'Waiting it out for retirement,' Bourque said, 'sir.'

That was the lead-in he'd wanted. He leant back, too, arranging himself into a casual slouch, the drink cradled between his hands, still untouched. 'It is within my purview to suggest likely promotions, based on observed merit. You've been stationed here for fourteen years without a single reprimand. How is that you've never reached First Lieutenant even? It's practically an automatic promotion.'

Bourque smiled tightly, a grimace that flattened his lips. 'Out of sight, out of mind.'

'An injustice,' Wufei pronounced blandly. 'And I note that many of the staff are in similar situations.'

Bourque was starting to get suspicious of him. The dark eyes narrowed. He drank the rest of his second glass.

Wufei took the first sip of his. It was raw and tasted of iodine; he barely wet his lips with it. He said, 'Such a dismal post. I can hardly wait to leave it. I can't imagine how oppressive it must feel, to have been trapped so long here.'

'I have no complaints, sir.'

'No, of course not.' Wufei waved him off. 'Merely an observation.'

Their staring match was brief. Bourque poured himself a third glass.

'Too much neglect,' Wufei said finally. 'I think it's time to rectify this situation. A posting Earth-side would do you good. Fresh air. A little reality again, after the darkness and isolation here.'

'Sir, I--'

'In fact, I think I know exactly the place. A friend of mine is Commander there. She runs a tight ship. A man who understands discipline would be just the right fit.' He inclined his glass. 'I'll pass your name to Commander Po. She has an eye for character. She'll know exactly how to use your unique talents.' He smiled. 'An equitable solution, I think. We all benefit.'

Bourque swallowed thickly, his jaw clenched so tightly that muscles jumped in each cheek. 'Thank you, sir,' he grated, and poured again.

'Sally?' Duo repeated, as Wufei told him. 'Sally and Bourque?' He whistled. 'That's got explosive potential.'

'I'm rather proud of it, myself.'

'The first time he cusses her out she'll throw him in the brig.' Duo's eyes widened. 'Oh,' he said. 'Oh, you sly dog.'

'It gets him out of here without disruption or scandal, and it might provide him with a little needed perspective, as well.' He rolled his spare shirt and pushed it to the bottom of his bag. Duo offered him his socks, also balled, and he added those next. 'Did I do all right?'

'Yeah,' Duo said. 'Not half bad. I never would have thought of that in a million years. Promoting the fucker out of here.' He shook his head, with a soft exhale of laughter. 'He'll hate it, you know. Even without Sally on his ass. He's had his own little pond to swim in, here.'

'Sometimes bureaucracies do a little good.' He slipped in his trousers, his tie, and his bag of toiletries, and pulled the duffel closed. 'Do you think Ledvina would be a competent replacement? He seems earnest enough.'

'Lech? Yeah.' Duo nodded slowly. 'Yeah, he might do. He's tough, but he's a good guy. He'd do it right.'

'I'll be recommending other changes. Maybe with new staff, they can be implemented easily.' There was nothing more to pack. He was due to launch back to his ship; he and Jaya would have a quiet return to Near-Space, to the out-lying MO stations. He did not relish it. He questioned himself constantly, in fact. He felt as though his meter for right and wrong had broken, and he no longer knew for certain if he was part of the problem, or the solution.

'Sounds good,' Duo said. 'I knew you'd catch all the slack around here.'

'Duo, I...'

'Don't start that again.' Duo stood from his cot, sliding his hands into his pockets. 'I hate the G-word. We've already done the teary bit, anyway.'

'You have no sense of occasion.'

Duo's eyes crinkled in a warm smile. 'Things'll be okay,' he said. 'You know that.'

But they could be better. He would always have that hanging on him. Right and wrong, masquerading as the same thing. A prison for guiltless criminals. A prison waiting for himself, in Brussels, though it would be a gilded cage.

'You're frowning. Your face is gonna stick that way.' Duo leaned to him, and Wufei closed his eyes at the touch of Duo's lips, gentle on Wufei's flesh. It lingered only for the space of a breath. 'Go on home, Wufei,' Duo said.

He nodded through the awful tightness of his throat. 'Thank you. For everything you did for us. For me.'

'I'm glad I could help.'

He pushed his door open. Ledvina waited for him outside, looking up as he emerged. 'I'm ready,' Wufei told him, shouldering his bag. He gestured Ledvina to walk before him, and followed him out into the compound one final time. When he turned back over his shoulder, he saw Duo, leaning in the doorway with his arms hugged to his chest. Duo lifted a hand for him, a small, forlorn-seeming gesture. But it was Duo who disappeared first, ducking away and striding off between the buildings. Duo didn't look back.

Wufei found his breath was shaky. He faced forward. It was enough to do, putting one foot in front of the other. It kept the thinking at bay.

**

'We've had a hit on the grade of bio-plastique we used in the neuro-implant,' Quatre said. 'A large-quantity order put in by a front-company. We're tracking the shipment to see where it goes.'

'So Keawe made his move.'

'I don't think there's any worry about Keawe making any moves.' Quatre finished writing his note, and set his pad of paper aside. 'Can you get back up to L2 and check into a few names for us?'

'Of course.'

'Oh, I meant to clarify with you. One of those ridiculous miscommunications-- apparently you put in a requisition for pool cues and balls? The quartermaster thought it was a mistake, but no-one could reach you while you were on MO3. It got kicked all the way up the chain.'

'It's not a mistake. And a rack.'

'Excuse me?'

'Pool cues, balls, and a rack.'

Quatre's eyebrows rose. 'All right,' was all he said, though. 'I'll make sure it goes through. Are you feeling poorly? You've barely said two unsolicited words.'

He passed it off as tiredness with a vague shrug. 'I'll check in on the rebuilding on L2 while I'm there. Has Parliament dispensed any of the funds yet?'

'They're dragging on the question of how to enforce compliance measures. I think there's been patchy distribution.'

He was distracted by the noise of a door opening and shutting, and turned to look out the transparent glass wall behind him that faced the hall. 'What's going on in Une's office?' he asked. Yet another group was entering, cramming through the door past a pair trying to leave. He recognised some of the faces, but the majority had been civilians, some in regional costume that suggested they were attached to Brussels' many embassies. His assistant Jaya was still hovering out there, too, though he had repeatedly told her she could go where she pleased until he called for her. 'Is this all to do with Section VI?'

'Not Section VI, no.' Quatre's computer beeped again; he'd been receiving instant-sends at least as frequently as Une was guests. He typed a quick answer and fell back in his chair with a sigh. 'This isn't widely known, or even informally announced. She's retiring.'

Wufei was shocked. 'Retiring? She's the face of Preventers-- from the very origins.'

'Yes, and a controversial face she's been. Two decades of political scandals, the Justice hearings back in 205, and now the protest riots. It's enough to exhaust anyone.'

He could hardly wrap his mind around it. Une was more than their representative, she was, essentially, their creator. Untold numbers of decisions made by her had informed the very brand of Preventers, from their utilitarian uniforms, their weapons policy, their recruitment standards, their new Academy. In the process, Une had largely divorced herself from her own identity as the feared Colonel of OZ. Une was in a select league of people who had radically affected the course of history. And she was not yet fifty.

'I suppose it makes sense,' he mused. 'I thought, in our last encounters, that she was acting strange.'

Quatre quirked his lips in a smirk. 'Strange? Strange for Une, or strange for anyone?'

'Letting the Council take the lead.' That didn't quite describe it, but he didn't know how else to say it. 'She's been almost-- nice,' he added. 'I thought it was all some sort of subversive code.'

'Maybe not a code, but probably quite intentional, knowing our Lady.' Another beep. Quatre glanced at his screen, but let it pass unanswered. 'If you ask me, it's an ambush. I think she's lulling the louder blow-hards into false security. Let them air themselves out, then slap them with a gift-wrapped succession that passes all of them over.'

'Can she do that? Choose a successor, I mean.'

'She can make a recommendation. Under the re-organisation it's a Presidential appointment, though once confirmed it's a life appointment.'

'Problematic, if we get stuck with one of those blow-hards.'

'Extremely problematic. It's high on my list for changes, when we re-Charter in three years.'

'Who will she nominate? Do you know?' There were plenty of possibilities. Duo, he thought dully, probably knew them all better than Wufei did. He would have delighted in the speculation. Any of the Council, of course. There were field agents who had long and distinguished careers, of course, and regional heads who, like Cloudwalker, were of lower rank but who had the managerial background to run a top-heavy, unwieldy organisation like Preventers.

Quatre answered a particularly insistent beep, his fingers flying over the keyboard in a lengthy response. 'Me,' he said.

Ah. So yet another piece was falling into place. The last echoes of the riots were slow to settle, even on Earth where there had been considerably less damage. A nasty, public confirmation hearing in that environment could be a match to gasoline. Unless Une picked a man who could be counted on to follow her footsteps, a man who'd just finished orchestrating a black op that could determine the balance of power in Space for decades to come.

'Then it is related,' he murmured, dropping his eyes to the files piled on his lap. 'L2. Bringing Duo in-- the implant. Your chance to move in. Prove yourself.'

'It wasn't so Machiavellian.' Quatre clenched his fists. 'Preventers are in danger, Wufei. In danger of being uprooted, swept into General Services Administration, put entirely under Defence Committee and Foreign Affairs. That's if we're not disbanded. It's been threatened. And if it gets ugly enough, they might have the votes. As it is, DCFA just saw us make a good win. We saved lives, we did it quietly, and when the times comes if we don't bungle it getting Keawe dealt with, we may even be able to get our Charter renewed with a majority.'

'And what about the lives we did lose? What about the promises and the deals and the--'

'You think that hasn't been part of it from the very beginning? Une lasted twenty years fighting the dirtiest battles you can imagine with people who were happy to have our services for exactly as long as it was their shop in danger.'

'And you admire that? This is the choice you make, to play exactly the same games she has?'

'Yes. Because the Sphere still needs Preventers. We proved that, during the riots. What you did in the colonies couldn't have been done without our resources, our training, our dedication. Without us, there's no wall to stop the chaos. Look.' He put out a hand to stop Wufei shaking his head. 'Think what you want about my motivation. And think what you want about me as a person, but at least do it with your eyes open.'

'You think I'm so blind I see nothing?' Wufei demanded. 'So trusting I never question?'

'I wouldn't have you up for my post if I thought you were. But if you think you'll never have to play the game, Wufei, you're up for a lot of frustration.'

He was already hot in the head, feeling a spike in adrenaline and blood pressure both. He made himself stay silent for the length of unscrewing the cap of his thermos, taking five swallows of his tea. Quatre's phone rang, and clicked to voicemail when he ignored it.

'Do you need time off?' Quatre asked him finally. 'In all honesty. I understand-- that what you went through with Duo had to hurt. If you need the time, I'll find a way for you.'

'No.' He played with the cap. 'I'm capable of meeting my obligations. You don't have to cover me.'

'I'm not Une,' Quatre said. 'I think Preventers would be a little better if we helped each other a little more.'

Just when he found himself resenting his old friend, Quatre reminded him of those easier days when they truly had been friends, before this distance, before this mission. Quatre had always cared about things like that. And it was gratifying to hear him say the words, even if that newly cynical side of himself wondered how Quatre could even expect to carry through. Events wouldn't wait on Wufei catching up on his sleep.

'I'll let you know how it goes on L2,' he said. He levered to his feet. 'And I suppose I'll start apartment hunting.'

'I'm happy to help, if you want it.'

'I'll take you up on it.' He managed a smile. 'Good-bye.'

'Wufei... I've been proud of you, these past months. Not just professionally. All your choices have been honourable.'

He wasn't even sure it mattered. They were choices made in a vacuum. But he nodded, and he left.

**

Cloudwalker met them at the port with a car. Amused, Wufei said, 'We could well have taken a cab.'

'The way you disappear at the drop of a hat? At least in a company car I can keep track of you.' Cloudwalker shook Jaya's tiny hand gruffly, and tossed her large suitcase into the boot as if it weighed nothing.

'Something up?' Wufei asked.

'Nothing urgent, but we've got a lot of good news and one piece of seriously bad news.' Cloudwalker loaded Wufei's now slightly fraying travel duffel, and they boarded the car, the two men in front, Jaya in back busily readying her notepad to annotate every comment they made. 'Which do you want first?'

'Good,' Wufei decided. 'It gives me time to brace myself.'

Cloudwalker made a noise of dour agreement. 'The good news is that we've got gang activity under control finally. We don't have a total body count, but current estimate is triple digits. Some of the smaller affiliations might have been totally wiped out.'

'Triple digits is good news?'

'It is when you consider there's that fewer gang bangers left for the cartels to draw on, next time. And add in that there doesn't seem to have been any material gain from the rioting, and I'd say letting the enemy thin themselves out isn't a bad day's haul.'

Wufei grudgingly agreed. It didn't make it less of a tragedy-- but it wasn't an edge he'd hand back, either. 'What else?'

'This might soothe your conscience. We have a whistle-blower in the Police Bureau. We know which officers killed the Nines on St Mary's. And we know which officers tried to help along the killing during the riots. We've got enough to go in and clean house. It may not change the Least in the long-run, but maybe it'll take one more peg out of play.'

'If you tell me you've uprooted all the foreign spies, I'll go home on the next flight out,' Wufei said.

'Don't buy your ticket just yet. We have intel about a sleeper cell of Jordanians. One of their outliers turned up dead in the confusion of the protests. His apartment was loaded with high-end cocaine. And cash. We're trying to trace it, but Forensics is backed up a year, and everything is a Priority Red these days. But, on the upside, it's more than we had before Maxwell waved his magic wand.'

It was a dull twinge. Duo's name, that was all it was. Wufei did his best to ignore it. He'd learnt to live with it once before, after all. The day would come when it didn't hurt to hear. 'There was bad news?' he said.

'Keawe's demanding a public apology for bringing mobile suits on colony without consulting Parliament. He's been on every talk-show that'll have him, and there's none that won't, after the protests. Things had actually calmed down, before he started flogging that horse. There's enough suspicion and anti-government feeling left over from Section VI to keep it alive.'

'Like hell we'd consult Parliament,' Wufei said.

'The common man doesn't know we don't have to.'

Maybe Quatre could add an education campaign to his list. 'Is this apology notion being endorsed at all?'

'Two major outlets and one print mag. The wingnuts on the right and the left. The CFP is rattling around, but they make even less sense than usual.'

'The CFP?' Jaya asked, from behind.

'The Charterers First Party,' Wufei explained shortly. The CFP were terminal claimants of racial wounds, forever lamenting that the largely white Charterers of the Colony Project had been so overrun with middle-class and poor minorities. Once in a while they managed to seat a Representative at Parliament, but they were, as Cloudwalker said, largely disorganised and under-funded. Why they flattered Bren Keawe's claims about anything really was nonsense, at that. He was hardly their usual sort of frontman.

'We've been going “no comment” all the route, but it's getting a lot of coverage,' Cloudwalker went on. 'A lot of misinformation and a lot less vindication than when we were saving their asses.'

'That's always the way.' They left the port tunnel for a surface street and merged into traffic headed down-town. 'Is Keawe still claiming he was poisoned?'

'Oh, yes. And demanding the assassin be hunted down. Another conspiracy he claims Preventers are covering up.'

'It's a wonder we have time to eat.' He rolled his stiff shoulders. 'You have put out that you arrested the Resistance pair who murdered Senator Milchect?'

'I held a press conference, but I'm not as persuasive as Keawe.'

Reluctantly, Wufei said, 'I'll do what I can to take some of the heat off you. I should be able to get interviews with the networks. That will drag it further up the command chain. It was mostly my doing anyway, all the things that have them riled up.'

'Sacrificial lamb is a good look on you.'

'Ha,' Wufei said sourly.

And that was how he spent his next several days. A few calls became a flood, when his first interview stole prime-time ratings. Never comfortable with the camera, he nonetheless agreed to full hour segments, call-in sessions, and even authorised a rush de-classification of the newly released Riot Review Pre-Report, which drew conciliatory focus to the lives lost within Preventers' ranks. He made a point of speaking of them, determined to keep a human face on Preventers in the public imagination. Some of the interviews were hostile, others more respectful, but time after time he had to account for his decision to bring mobile suits onto L2. He began to question his own logic, after repeating it by rote again and again. In the end, he was only left to say, 'The fact remains. We saved lives that would have been lost. If a mobile suit is the difference between colonial lives and colonial body counts, then I can no more hesitate to use it than I would any weapon in a war.'

That quote went down brilliantly.

They had a new hotel, not the one he and Duo had occupied so long. He slept odd hours, to accommodate the necessary frenzy of activity at Preventers HQ, and for once the budget accommodated separate rooms for he and Jaya, so they didn't disturb each other coming or going. He checked his messages every night, at whatever hour he got in, though mail was all routed to HQ and he confined most of his phone traffic to a mobile devoted to press contacts. He got all the local papers, though, and now he read them with a dedication he'd never had before. He was starting to figure it out, he thought. He knew which op-eds were the ones that would stir up the most trouble, knew which sectors reported favourably of Preventers, could even guess the most likely candidates to be the 'anonymous sources' from the administration. And he knew that Keawe was climbing the polls despite his efforts, but that he was winning the independents and the lowest class, the people whose lives had been most in danger when the gangs had started their killing sprees in the city.

He wished Duo was with him. He thought Duo would appreciate it.

He crashed in bed every night exhausted, a condition he told himself to get used to. There was so much paperwork. So many calls to make. So much research. And he was still writing his report on his tour of the prisons, and he was still writing his report on the riots from before that, and on Quatre's advice he was rewriting his resumé to include his recent experiences and theoretically advanced skill set. Yet when he grew too fuzzy after hours of intensive concentration, he found himself laying back, staring at the ceiling, and fidgeting with the hotel phone, fingering the number he itched to dial.

He had meant to visit her. If it was possible. They had left it open, certainly, and he had said he would, though there hadn't been time between the clean-up after the protests and leaving for Earth to pick up Duo. And that had become an eight-week trek through Space. Surely by now she would think-- he hadn't meant it. He was not sure he could say he had. He had liked her-- but after Duo... Duo who had called him neutered and tried at every opportunity to push him at Tom.

He had concocted that story for Duo, about going to meet her at the restaurant, sweeping in to kiss her. He thought of it more seriously now. Stopping in, maybe early in the morning so that if she was too busy she wouldn't have time to spend telling him to go away. He could see if she'd been refunded the damage, at least. If she wasn't too angry at him, they could talk. And he did want to be sure she was well.

He'd been on L2 a week when he finally made the call. His heart pounded crazily as he pressed the numbers in, and just before he let it ring he suffered a moment of pure panic. He jabbed the button, held his breath, and put the phone to his ear.

Four rings, an eternity. Just when he would have hung up, a sleepy voice answered. The sound of her triggered an involuntary shiver over his scalp, a flash of heat up his chest. 'Hello?' she murmured. 'Who is it?'

He wet his lips. 'Wufei. Agent-- Captain Chang.'

A long silence after made him doubt the wisdom of calling after all. It was not so terribly late, only a little past midnight. Or was it her reluctance to speak to him at all, given his long absence?

What she finally said surprised him. 'I was going to mail you in the morning,' she whispered. 'I saw you on the news.'

'I don't know how long I'm on colony.' He winced as it left his tongue. It was not a good argument for her tolerance. 'I hoped I could-- drop by, see you.'

'I don't--' She sighed softly. He heard a rustle of fabric, the click of what might be a lamp coming on. He imagined her propped in her bed, hair a silky muss, the blankets held tightly to her cheek.

'Duo's gone,' he said. 'I took him back-- there. He—'

'Wufei.' She sighed again, barely a breath. 'Come over now.'

'It wasn't my intention to disturb you.'

'Just come. There's something I need to tell you, anyway.'

He had to walk the streets awhile before he found a cab, but the ride was short enough, the driver too weary to speak to him. Wufei was let out at the kerb, and had barely mounted the steps when she opened the door for him. She had dressed, slim dark jeans with holes at the knee, a thick worn jumper that covered her small hands and her pale neck. Her eyes slid away from his, as he passed her to the stairs. He watched her lock up behind him, and let her climb before him.

There was, he noted, a new-looking window on the second storey, and the door had seemed new, too. But he didn't remember enough of the arrangement of her home to tell if looters had made it inside. He hoped not. The air of private sanctuary that had welcomed him before seemed too fragile to bear that thought.

He stopped at the edge of the den where they had eaten together, the night after Keawe's attack on Duo. She went in further than he, picking up a golden cushion to wrap in her arms, tucking her bare feet beneath her as she sat on the futon.

'Your restaurant?' he asked her.

'They smashed up the front room pretty well,' she answered. She picked at the cushion's beaded hem. 'Insurance covered some. I put in for the Rescue Package. Too early to know yet. I had some savings. Enough to reopen, for a while at least.'

He knew nothing of economic things like that, accounts and plans and book-keeping. His salary went to rent and food, and Preventers took care of the rest. He thought it answered for the tense new lines of worry on her face.

'I'm sorry for the loss,' he said inanely.

Her jagged shrug was his reply. He ventured closer, to the edge of the rug under the futon that ran like a border wall blocking him out. 'Are you still angry at me for having you dragged out during the protests?'

'Not more than before, anyway.' She flicked a finger at the open space on the couch. 'You can sit.'

He did, easing down gingerly. 'You seem angry with me.'

She looked away. 'No, Wufei.' She hugged her pillow closer. 'You said Duo went back? But he was all right?'

'Walking without a crutch. He mixes words when he's angry, but he mostly seems angry with me, too. He... he says he'll be all right, there.'

'I guess I never thought how bad he could have made it. What he did all those years ago, I mean. It could have looked like the Section VI riots. Riots and shootings. Kind of a manual of restraint, he was then, if you think about it.'

Keawe had disregarded too many of Duo's lessons. Like character. Duo had known in excruciating detail what he risked. Keawe just wanted to be a hero. Duo had wanted to save lives. Keawe was only too willing to throw them away. 'I suppose so,' he said. 'When you compare it.'

Her chin came to rest on a tassel of ribbon. She played it through her fingers. 'You know that he was in love with you, don't you? I didn't realise. He'd never said, before. I didn't-- wasn't trying to-- make trouble between you two.'

His throat went closed. He couldn't think of good words, anyway. In the end all he came up with was, 'I think we both knew how the other felt. And-- what was going to come of it. I knew.'

'He said he thought you were better than Ben. My ex.'

'Your ex-husband.'

'Policeman. Duo never gave him a chance.' Tom chewed her lip; then she waved it off. 'Never mind. I-- I wanted--'

'You said you had something to tell me. To mail me?'

'Yes.' He saw her swallow. She reached down to the little table at their feet, and came back with an envelope. She extended it to him.

It held a letter, tri-folded around printed photographs. He opened it, holding the pictures up to the lamplight. 'What are these--'

'I don't want anything from you,' she said abruptly. 'I just thought it was right to tell you. But I've got the restaurant, and if it closes, I'll find something else. I'm not asking for anything.'

He looked between the pictures and her drawn face, distracted by her words, not comprehending. The pictures were an odd sienna-hued swirl with a pixellated bump in the centre, words printed, computer-printed, on the side. Her name, acronyms he didn't know, a date from a few weeks ago, labels--

'This is a sonogram,' he said. Thought he said. It plunged into numb deafness. He went numb all over in a single crushing wave.

'Fourteen weeks,' she said. Her eyes met his at last, defiant. 'I meant to tell you before you left, the last time. I lost my nerve.'

Fourteen weeks. He stared at the sonogram. That was a head, a body. A baby. His baby. Three pictures. The last showed an arm, he thought it was an arm, curled to an impossibly small chest. 'How?' he managed. 'We only-- the first time?'

'It happens when you don't use a damn condom.' She went dry, her hand to her mouth. 'I was on the pill. I still should have made you wear--'

He couldn't read the letter. The words blurred senselessly. 'I'll help you,' he got that out, an automatic gesture dredged up somewhere from thinking, disastrously, there would be money needed, and money he had, that she would not, not with the damage to the restaurant... 'I can-- can help at least.'

'If you feel like you have to. I'll make it alone.'

He didn't have a check book. Handing her cash-- would be too insulting. But he couldn't think what else to do.

'You have time to think about it. And, I think-- I think at some point we need to talk about-- signing some papers. I've talked to a lawyer. We should have it in writing. For both of us. Visits, if you want them. Formal custody. Or if you don't want...'

She was brushing him off. Or giving him an opening to do it himself. He swallowed, he folded the pictures into the letter again. 'I do. Want to-- to-- my job, though. I don't know-- I don't know how often I could-- we should be together. To raise the child.'

'Your job is going to be your job whether you're on L2 or Earth. But my whole life is here. I'm not giving that up. Any more than you'll give up your job.' She stood, startling him. 'You're not obligated, Wufei. We just-- made a mistake.'

He stood, too, though he wavered whether to approach her. Touch her. 'How could I not be obligated?'

'You should go.' She hugged herself, her little shoulder hunching under his palm, her cheek pale up close. 'No-- please. It's a huge surprise for you. And you should be able to think about it without me staring at you. So take your time, okay? We'll talk again. Really.'

He had crushed the edge of the letter in his fist. He smoothed it. His hands trembled. 'I'll call you tomorrow. Today. Later today.'

'It's okay, Wufei.'

He made it no further than her front steps. His legs went out from under him, and he sat there on the edge of the street. He held the sonograms, staring down at them. The ruler scale on the bottom edge showed not even four inches. The length of a finger. Barely half than the weight of one.

He had given up on the idea of children so very long ago. Without his clan, there had seemed no point. Then, of course, with Duo it had hardly been a thing to think of. His job-- Preventers had kept him so busy, there'd been no real relationships to speak of, and the occasional connections had always fizzled. It had just-- been something that other people did, not him.

Her bedroom light on the third storey went out. He heard the window slide shut.

He pushed to his feet, and he left.

A child. He had sudden wild imaginings. A little girl-- a sweet little girl who would-- or a boy, a boy like he'd been raised to believe he must produce, for his ageing, fading family line. He'd been the treasured heir, his father dead before he'd been born, his mother banished away to marry some elderly cousin where she couldn't corrupt the line. All dust now, anyway. He'd never thought-- never thought it would matter again, a child to carry on the Long Clan...

Tom was right, though. He couldn't be a present father, not as Captain Chang, Preventers Councilman. He was set to leave L2 in just days; he had no idea where he'd be asked to go next. And once he was invested into the Council, he'd be spending whole months at a time on Earth. Ask Quatre how flexibly that life could expand to include a family. Wufei had been the only setback to his own relationships, but Quatre hadn't even been on a date in a decade.

And Tom. Was she even glad? Or did she only see the pitfalls waiting? If she'd used all her savings on the restaurant, if it was a struggle to build up her business again, could she really support a child alone? She would of course have money, Wufei would send her money, and he hadn't sensed-- what little he'd managed to absorb of her reaction-- he didn't think she would turn away his support, his contribution. And he could visit, or have the child come to him on Earth. He could certainly find child care in Brussels--

His heart was already sinking. Why drag a child on that long journey, knowing he'd be working long hours, maybe even unable to take weekend breaks? Even if he had the child in his own home, how often might he be unexpectedly called away?

It was all pressing in. Too many shocks. Too much with Duo and no time to process it, this promotion he hadn't sought and was beginning to loathe before he even got it, this truly life-altering announcement from Tom. A child. It was supposed to change everything. But he had no more room for new change.

He slumped to the kerb where he stood, trying vainly to centre himself beyond the hysteria of shaken nerves. He could not even be happy. It was so great a thing, a time he should be celebrating, even in these accidental circumstances... he could not even be happy.

He couldn't go back to the hotel. It was still night-- he knew he wouldn't sleep. He couldn't bear the thought of people, of Jaya and her endless fluttering. He wanted nothing as much as a place to go where he could hide and think-- not-think. He needed quiet and-- time. There was little enough of either on L2, this damn mess of a colony where even the green zones had been corrupted with death. Another change he hadn't been able to prevent.

What was it Duo had said? Yes. Preventers were better at putting fires out than they were stopping them before they started. Duo ought to know. He'd been running circles around them for a decade now. Did Duo ever not know what to do? Did he ever falter, even for a moment?

There's a place I want to see, Duo said. I just needed to see it again, to be sure it's still here.

He didn't know the way, not on foot, but he found it on one of the bus maps. It took more than an hour to walk there. He was tiring, by then, but the exhaustion did what he needed and served to occupy the mind, calm the body. When he reached the fence, he felt along it for a hole, and slid carefully through to avoid snagging his uniform on the wire.

The grounds were absolutely silent. Even the hushed night noises of a colony didn't penetrate the little enclosure. He went so far as to venture to the shattered double-width doorway, where rusted hinges still hung. There was nothing left inside to identify the space as a church, if there had ever been. Duo had never spoken of it in specifics. For the first time, Wufei wished he'd asked. Had it been a good place? A peaceful place? It had turned out a man who had, at least, an unflinching faith in what he believed right and wrong to be, who would go to extraordinary lengths on behalf of that justice. They must have been good people, here. They must have made L2 a brighter place, a better place, if the Federation had been so determined to eliminate their very existence.

The dusty concrete foundation had once been laid with wooden floors, though only the edges still showed burnt pine boards. He wandered the little compound through doorless arches, with the dark solar-panel sky above the gaping ceilings making everything more ghostly, more alien. The function of most rooms had been too thoroughly erased to reconstruct by imagination. The only one he was sure of, aside from the nave built centre to the rest, was the room where the orphans had slept. Bunks had been built right into the walls, and some still remained, slats crumbling aslant to the floor. Duo had slept on one of those. It must have been a cramped and filthy sort of home, even then, all those unwanted children. That Lonny had obviously never risen above the squalor of an impoverished childhood. Wufei saw no signs of plumbing, not a single sink or spigot or even a pipe. Duo had, too casually, told a story once of fighting at his Federation school when the children mocked him for smelling badly. But he must have been like a jewel discovered in the trash bin, in a place like this. A brilliant mind that deserved grooming, a good heart. They had loved him and nourished him and he'd grown into a man who would not forget them for it.

At that age, Wufei had been sleeping on silks and learning to host banquets and bow just the right degree to the honoured elders he would one day be. He had known he was a prince above his peers, but the Dao demanded he empty his mind and weaken his will. To be a prince was to be an orphan amongst men.

He wondered which of them had been happier.

Maybe that was what Duo so desperately believed had to be preserved about this place. Not its tragic end or the lives lost in its walls. The lives lived in them. From the outside it was so hard to see the good-- on all of L2 it was like that. He had seen the dirt and the blood and the need and the rage-- but the good, that required more work. It was harder to see the Toms, who had been there unquestioning when he had needed a kind touch. The Cloudwalkers, who knew it was hard and knew they wouldn't ever win and kept plugging away anyhow. The Duos, who looked into the worst and said the good was still worth it. Even the Bren Keawes, whose rise to the top had corrupted what had probably once been a genuine yearning to save a place and a people they loved.

His child would be a part of that. But he wouldn't.

How could he leave, knowing that?

**

'Did you hear me, Chang?'

Jaya set a third cup of tea at his left hand. Wufei formed his fingers about it and lifted it to his lips; he barely tasted it. 'I'm sorry, Maquinna,' he murmured. 'What did you say?'

'I said we got in a request for you to join a panel at the Migration Policy Institute on Thursday.'

'Migration Policy? Why?'

Maquinna consulted the print he held, squinting down at it. '”Aligning Temporary Immigration Visas with L2 Labour Market Needs: The Case For Downsizing the Provisional Visa.”'

'I don't know the first thing about immigration.' Wufei rolled his head, cracking his neck from both sides. 'Fine. To whatever that is. It can be my last stop before I head back to Earth.'

'I'll get the flight scheduled, sir,' Jaya said, and stepped away with her mobile to her ear. Wufei tried not to make a face at her back.

'New legislative season starts soon,' Cloudwalker said. 'You'll be busy in Brussels.'

'Mm.' Wufei wrapped the thread of his tea bag around the tip of his finger. 'I think you sound a little jealous.'

'A little. Mostly I'm annoyed you're acting like it's such a burden.'

Now Wufei did grimace. 'You have to admit it's been a busy year so far.' He set his tea aside. 'Do you have any family?' he asked abruptly.

'Family?' Cloudwalker went stiff, or seemed to, before he grabbed for his own mobile on the table, pressing buttons with determination. 'What kind of family.'

'Children,' Wufei said, almost getting it out without a stutter. 'I mean do you have children.'

Jaya made a discreet exit; because of their conversation or because of hers, he didn't know, but he would buy her a vineyard if she stayed discreet when the time came to spread gossip about his odd behaviour. Cloudwalker eased back in his chair, creak by creak. Out the window, it lights were going off, grid by grid. It was night on the colony.

'Yes,' Cloudwalker said finally. 'A daughter.'

'A daughter.' Wufei put his elbows on the table, leant toward the other man. 'How old is she? Rather-- how old were you when she was born? You were already a Preventer?'

'I was seventeen.' Cloudwalker exhaled heavily. 'I wasn't a Preventer. Went into it that year. Wanted to support my girl.'

'And it...' It was too personal. Their not-quite friendship was not close enough to permit this. 'You didn't live with her?' he managed. 'But it worked out?'

'I see her on holidays. Most years. I guess it worked out.'

'And the mother? Are you close? You speak still?'

'What is this about?'

He couldn't yet say it. Couldn't yet even imagine a grown daughter, as Cloudwalker's would now be. A strained relationship-- almost no relationship at all. All he could imagine was that it would be unbearable. No-- worse. That it would be so entirely bearable that in time he would answer that question too with no more than resignation, just like Cloudwalker. A father in biology only. Sending money. Carrying an out-of-date photograph, perhaps, a folded sonogram in a wallet flap, until the image was stronger than the memory.

'I need to--' He was at risk of biting through his tongue, his lip. 'I need to ask you something.'

'Is this why you've been off your nut in here? You've had your head back on Earth all day.'

'Not nearly so far away.' Oh, this was hard. He'd had no idea.

'Chang. Whatever it is, spit it out.'

What would Duo have done, if it were him?

Ha. Easy, that answer. The right thing. Duo did the right thing, no matter how pigheaded, risky, idiotically diabolical it was. Hadn't Wufei just reaffirmed that for himself, at that ruined church? It said everything there was to say about Duo. He would let go if that was what it took. He would have found a way to stay.

Would have found a way to stay, if that was right.

Could it really be that easy? Was it really all down to that? Just-- do it?

Wufei suspected he knew what Duo would say.

And then-- he could breathe, then. He felt almost-- light. Right.

He said, 'Have you given Quatre Winner any names for your replacement, yet?'

Cloudwalker blinked. 'A few,' he said cautiously. 'My deputy is really too junior. There's no-one really placed to just step-in, and the salary isn't high enough to keep the best outsiders from heading to L1 or L4 instead. No-one I'm really comfortable with.'

'Then I'd like to offer you my resumé.'

Cloudwalker's shock was almost comical, but Wufei met with a vast new calm. 'You?' Cloudwalker repeated blankly. ''You're already my superior!'

'It's hardly official yet. And I can think of a candidate for Division Head who'd be far more suited to it. You.'

'Me?'

'You want it,' Wufei said simply. 'And you understand it better. The politicking and the big picture both. I may never come to that easily, and that should be enough, alone, to disqualify me. But I've come to understand this colony, haven't I? I had good teachers. Arguably the best teachers. And I could do far more here than I ever could on the Council.'

'And I could?' Cloudwalker was agitated, enough to spring to his feet to pace. 'If Winner meant to offer it to me, he would have. No-one's ever jumped that many steps in one promotion.'

'Not recently,' Wufei admitted readily. 'But every man and woman on the Council now started off as a volunteer in the early days. Any protest about ranks is almost ridiculous, when you think about it. We used to believe in merit.'

'Merit, hell.' He tugged at a thin whip of bone laced into his dark hair. 'The Council. I didn't figure I'd ever make it that high. I don't-- I don't have any experience--'

'Neither did I, until the riots here. And I may have made the ultimate decisions, but you were responsible for as much of the tactical as I was. A fact Quatre has already realised, by offering you the Coordinator position.'

'If Winner had meant to--'

'His offer had as much to do with his history with me as his assessment of L2's situation. He won't hesitate. Unless you have doubts about my fitness to replace you?'

'No,' Cloudwalker denied, distractedly waving a hand at him. 'No, my people responded well to you during the crisis. You've got the clues about what's happening on the streets, you're as up to date as you can be about our situation-- you're as prepped as I could ask. It's just--'

'What?'

Cloudwalker stared at him. 'I want to hear it from Winner,' he said. 'Before we-- you-- make any kind of maneouvres here.'

'I'll call him. Today. Now.'

'Now.' Cloudwalker scrubbed his face with his big hands. 'Now, sure. Damn.' He laughed hoarsely. 'I think I'm glad that in five minutes I'm going to have the authority to tell you to slow the hell down for once.'

'I'll even listen,' Wufei promised. 'To your face, at least.'

It took four hours to talk Quatre around.

Three, really. The last was spent privately on the phone with Cloudwalker, conducting an impromptu interview. The last five minutes, Cloudwalker gave the office back to Wufei, for a few final words with his friend.

'Are you sure?' Quatre asked him. 'I'm troubled by this, Wufei. I just can't tell if you're-- sure.'

'I am,' Wufei told him quietly. 'At last. I only took on this notion of a Council appointment... I felt... I thought I owed it to him.' It was harder to say than he'd thought, and he swallowed against a tightened throat. 'The burden of it terrified me. I would never have been comfortable with it. And eventually it would have impacted my ability to perform my duties.'

Quatre set his chin on his hand. 'He didn't talk you out of it?'

'I never told him. Maybe he would have. It would have been right.'

'But L2? You'd be happier there? It's hardly a natural fit.'

'There are good reasons for ensuring continuity of command here. Cloudwalker and I are the only ones truly familiar with the action plan we worked out to deal with the gangs and the cartels, the foreign agents. This last week I've certainly become a known face to the local stakeholders. I've been on every broadcast. I'm accountable to the locals, and they're responding positively. Or they're willing to interact, at least. There's a level of trust.'

'But you'd rather be on L2 than in Brussels? Or-- I don't know-- wouldn't you rather keep the Space Coordinator post? It would keep you out of the Council but it's higher than just a branch head. Wufei, this would be an actual demotion.'

'Only technically. I was only temporarily invested as Coordinator. And field agent to branch head is unusual enough not to be shameful.'

'I suppose I'm persuaded, then. Cloudwalker's certainly qualified. You're overqualified. And since you're at least the same people I was already going to stack posts with, I barely have to change the paperwork.' Quatre rubbed his eyes, then fell back in his chair. 'Just tell me one thing. You'd be happier on L2?'

Wufei gazed at his hands. He was cold, in Cloudwalker's chilly office. His skin was pale, his fingers dry. He pressed both palms together. 'There is... something I should tell you.'

A moment later, Quatre's whoop of incredulous delight rang out so loudly that Cloudwalker poked his head back in. Flushed, Wufei grinned weakly at him.

2.7 Kelvin 9/?

2009-08-21T20:28:40Z

And you thought the day would never come.

Fandom: GW
Pairing: 6x2
Rating: Hard R?
Notes: Sorry for the long delay. For anyone who needs a refresher-- Zechs and Duo finally arrived at the halfway point to Mars, an abandoned mining station called Zebra Tango. Duo's condition has worsened and in desperation Zechs agreed to secretly administer bacteriophages in hopes of effecting a cure. Sally and Trowa are doing what they can to help, but everyone is cautious with the interference of Horatio Noventa, who represents the new regime on Earth and who personally disbanded Preventers. Meanwhile Zechs is dealing with symptoms of his own infection.

Back to the show...

Sally was the one who set off the alarm. Duo was missing.

They split off to search, each with a hand-torch and a quickly assembled belt-pack of emergency medical supplies. Barton and Sally both went deep into the station, and Zechs did as they did, at first. But within minutes he started to question his instinct. Where would Duo even have the strength to go? The station was a maze, and in his state Duo would be easily confused. Even if he'd wandered, he would never have made it far. Uneasily, Zechs abandoned his path up the corridors, and turned back to the clinic. He stopped there long enough to stare longingly at the bed Duo was supposed to be laying on, sheet still rumpled from the weight of his body.

The airlock was close, though.

It was a good guess. Zechs slowed his steps when he saw Duo there. Standing, unbelievably, though the claw-like hold he had in the curved titanium cross-bars on the lock suggested the desperate strength it required. Zechs steeled himself, and crossed the distance between them. Motion-sensitive lights cast brief golden circles on the corridor, going out as he passed out of range. The one over the airlock flickered in and out, as if Duo were only a ghost, too insubstantial to assure the light sensor.

“Duo,” he said softly. He reached for Duo's shoulder, touching with just the tips of his fingers. Duo barely reacted. Zechs squeezed his shoulder carefully. “Duo, come back to the clinic.”

Duo was shivering; the thin cotton of his gown was no protection from the cold of space that seeped through the station. His lank hair straggled about his shoulders, a lock of it caught at the corner of his mouth. Zechs freed it gently, gathering the loose strands back into the braid.

“Come back with me,” he repeated. “It will be all right.” He tugged Duo's fingers from their frantic grip on the crossbar. “I'll help you.”

“It's got to be a phase of the disease,” Sally said later. “He was clearly unaware of his surroundings.” She took a syringe from their supplies and prepped three vaccutainer tubes. “I'll draw some blood for tests. Maybe we can pinpoint the change. A hormonal increase, maybe.”

Zechs exchanged a concerned glance with Barton. So far Sally had not noticed the bacteriophage implant Barton had slipped into Duo during Sally's last sleeping shift, but that would all end if she had reason to examine Duo closely. The other doctor smoothly interrupted her attempt to sit at Duo's bedside, holding a cautionary hand in the space between them. “I'm not sure he can handle the bloodloss,” he said.

That seemed to work. Sally chewed her thumbnail a moment.

“We'll keep him on fluids,” Barton said. “And we'll watch him in shifts. We know the ultimate path of the disease, Sally. Let's hope we never have to have more detail than this.”

“Can't argue with that optimism.” She rolled her shoulders tiredly. “All right, I guess I don't see that it will impact the development of the 'phages. Back to work it is, then.” She rose from her stool and walked back toward the computer consoles. A quick tap of her fingers on the keyboard lit the screens, and she settled in her chair with a slump.

The bacteriophage implant left a small red scar no thicker than the edge of a fingernail, and a little bump no longer than a knuckle. Zechs rubbed the inside of Duo's elbow where the implant nestled, wondering and worrying if it was doing its work well. Had Duo's sudden wanderings been part of it? Was it a sign he was getting better, that he was capable of getting up at all?

“Stop touching it,” Barton muttered at him. “Sally will notice.”

Zechs forced his hands into his lap. “When is it effective?”

“It can take up to forty-eight hours.” Barton lifted a fresh banana bag of IV fluids from a cooler and hung it from the stand over Duo's bed. “And that assumes it works at all.”

That was not comforting. “He walked on his own.”

“Sally showed you the research. The host goes looking for a place to blow up where it can infect the greatest area.” Barton touched Duo's wrist for his pulse, and then tenderly curled his fingers around Duo's hand. Zechs looked away. “It's not a good sign.”

“But the 'phages will work. Soon.”

“Maybe. I don't know.”

“Then when do we know? When do we-- make a new decision.”

“We should be making that decision now.” Barton leant toward him under the guise of straightening Duo's IV lines. Duo's head rolled to follow his progress, but then his eyes closed and stayed closed. “I'd like to remind you of the reactor on station.”

“You said it was a slim possibility it could even work.”

Sally glanced back at them. Zechs ducked his head, aware that being seen speaking to Barton was enough to constitute odd behaviour. A moment later, she faced forward again.

“I said it could be as dangerous as the spores,” Barton murmured, only loud enough to carry to Zechs' ears, and no louder. “The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced it's the only chance either of you have.”

“And if it kills him?”

Barton didn't say. Probably he hadn't let himself think it even, not yet. Zechs did. Duo was dead no matter what they did for him. It was too late.

The sudden deafening beeping from the direction of the computer console made him jump, his heart pounding furiously. “What is that?” he demanded.

“It's Noventa.” Barton left Duo immediately, striding long-leggedly to Sally's side. “Why's he hailing?”

Sally made the alert disappear by grabbing up a hand-held comm unit. She held it to her mouth, and said, “Zebra Tango responding. What's the problem?”

“This is Commander Noventa,” a tinny voice replied. “I would like to request your presence, Dr Po, for a conference on board my ship.”

Zechs stood. “I don't think you should agree,” he said, sotto voce.

Sally looked back at him again. “I'm not entirely sure I have a choice, Zechs.” She depressed the vocal again. “Could I ask what the conference is about?” she said. “I'll be better prepared if I have a moment to collect myself.”

“No need, Doctor. You can come as you are.”

“Cover-up,” Trowa said.

“Conspiracy,” Zechs corrected. “And they want to start picking us off one by one to join them.”

“You don't know that,” Sally returned. “And the fact of the matter is that they've got the bigger guns right now.” She tugged at her braid. The move was so similar to Duo's habitual gesture that, for a moment, Zechs felt the sting deep in his chest. She put the comm to her mouth again. “Roger that,” she said. “I'll be there as soon as I clean up here.”

“Much appreciated, Doctor.”

Barton shook his head. “Bad idea, Sal.”

Sally stood. “I'll see what he has to say. If they do want one of us on their side, Noventa might be willing to make some concessions to us-- give us a little breathing room. Or it could just be Lena Matwari, ready to pronounce whatever doom she's manipulated out of our data, and she wants an audience.”

Duo flapped a hand, trying to grab at the nearby rail of his gurney. Zechs quieted him. “Do you want one of us with you?”

“Let's not treat this with paranoia.” She gathered charts and print-outs from the console, shuffling them into order. “I'll say the minimum I have to and I'll be back as soon as I can. Don't storm the airlock if I don't make it back in an hour. At this point, I'd even say the longer they drone on, the better it is for us. It means they haven't made any decisions about us yet.”

Barton was chewing his lower lip. Zechs, too, felt a guilty twinge. Would she really disagree with them? Would she really fight them if they were just trying to help Duo?

“Sit tight,” she added, and disappeared into the corridors. The brisk slap of her rubber shoes faded quickly away.

“Fuck,” Barton said. He kicked half-heartedly at Sally's chair before slouching into it. “If Noventa's smart, he's called her there to tell her he's going to blow up the station and all of us on it. The common man hears 'infection' and grabs the nearest torch and pitchfork.”

“We're not infectious.”

“Yet. Sally tells him we don't have a cure yet, and he'll hear the toc tic toc.” Barton moodily savaged his lip between his teeth. “What do you think?”

He had to press Duo's wrist gently to the bed. Wide dilated eyes skipped over his and settled closed. Zechs sighed out a lungsful of poisonous-tasting air. “I think he's going to try and turn it to his advantage. He'd be an idiot not too. Whether he destroys the data or not, the threat would be enough to frighten his political enemies.”

“And Sally might just trade on that if she thinks she can negotiate something for us.” Barton tapped his knee with drumming fingers. “You know why he's got her in there, and not either of us. Because she's a woman. He's working her.”

Some bitter side of himself that had always looked with a curled lip on women like Sally and Lucretia Noin and Lady Une agreed. Women could be respected officers, competent warriors, strategists and even commanders, but too often their gender overrode otherwise neutral characteristics. Yet his more reasonable intellect insisted that Sally was one of the most stable persons-- female or male-- he had ever known; and that Noventa could have no effect on anyone in one short conference. It was merely a ploy, seeking any small advantage. Trying to pick the one out of the group who hadn't yet succumbed to a naturally suspicious personality flaw.

“I'm going for a while,” Zechs said abruptly. “I need to think. Clear my head.”

“You fall down out there and I don't find you this time--”

“We'll both live,” he retorted, and told himself he hadn't just instinctively added 'for now', in his own head. “I've been cooped up here too long. I need to walk it off.”

“Hey.” He looked back over his shoulder. Barton had drawn his stool to the gurney, though he had his files and a hand-held computer pad tucked to Duo's side.

“What?” Zechs asked.

“He would have broken up with you, on Mars. He never stays. He doesn't know how.”

“I was under the impression you broke up with him.”

“Before he could do it to me.”

“Maybe,” Zechs said, “what he really wants is someone strong enough to follow when he runs.”

Barton's jaw clenched. He turned his head down to his files, and didn't say anything else.

**

Eight, six, eight, six, eight, counter six--

He scrubbed his fingers dry on his shirt.

Eight. Six. Eight. Counter-- no. He wiped his hand again, both hands, and switched the length of pipe he held to his left.

Quarte. Semi-circular search to seconde, semi-circular to quarte. Again.

He tripped on his own bare feet, fetched up to the wall, unable to catch his breath.

He couldn't do it anymore. Couldn't remember it anymore. It would be there one moment, the routine he'd practised at least every week since earliest childhood, but then his arm would start to move and he lost all control of it. Every thrust was as clumsy as if he were a first-year student. His parries were too weak to withstand a live opponent. Too weak even for imaginary solo practise.

He began again. Duo had been able, been active until that last week on the ship, even with the dramatic loss of weight and muscle. Zechs could fight his own deterioration by exercise, by forcing himself to eat as Duo had refused to. Duo was the stubborn one, but Zechs owed his life again and again to the fact of his will. He could execute any maneouvre. Win any war. Rescue anyone-- if he just had the will.

But he failed.

He dented the wall with his fist, and the rattle of the pipe hitting the floor echoed in his ears like thunder. He couldn't save Duo. He couldn't save anything. And this insane idea-- using the reactor to irradiate Duo-- how could he agree? He couldn't even conceive what it would do to the human body. To Duo's fragile human body. Barton was obviously brave enough to risk it. Perhaps Duo would have been as well, if the choice were his. OZ had believed the Gundams to be elaborate suicide pilots, after all, and it had been a near enough thing, so many times. He had never been able to let go like that; to throw himself into certain death with no catch of his breath, like Heero Yuy, to abandon himself to the blackness of Space like Barton, to risk everything for the thrill of sheer possibility, like Duo. It required that kind of abandon to fate, this plan with the reactor. An insane abandon-- an insane amount of courage.

He didn't have it.

He scrubbed his sweaty hair back from his face and neck, and leant into the cool wall. This, at least, was familiar ground. He'd spent his life loathing himself for one thing or another. He bent his will to that and succeeded beyond all high expectation. He hardly knew how to twitch without berating himself to death for it. He held himself to impossible standards and relished his every miscarriage.

At least it amused his lovers. Duo dismissed him in these moods. Treize had been fascinated by them. Treize, of course, Treize had loved himself unabashedly. Say that for the man.

"How do you manage it?” Treize had asked him once. “Hating yourself so utterly while giving the impression that you believe yourself the only perfect human."

They had been in bed. He'd bit Treize's smirking lip, hard enough to sting, and said, "I just pretend I'm you."

He missed Treize. He wished he didn't. So much of their relationship had been ugly, had twisted and soiled the good. He had never expected Treize to die. Treize, he was sure, had done exactly what he meant to do, died exactly as he'd meant to die-- at the hands of a boy who couldn't possibly comprehend it all. Not that Zechs did. No, there was so much about Treize he'd never understood, and he'd never tried, in his lifetime or after. He'd never even mourned Treize.

He regretted that.

Become an adult, a Preventer, perhaps even a good man. Or a better man than he'd been. But if he'd figured it out, let himself... he wouldn't feel so crippled, facing what he did now. Knowing he might have to-- figure out how to mourn Duo.

He couldn't even imagine a future with Duo. Barton's words-- just jealous words, he knew that intellectually. Perhaps, though, not far off the mark. He knew Duo had been uncomfortable with the strength of his feelings. Hadn't truly believed him, at least at first. But they would have had time on Mars, among people, their peers, their fellow Preventers, and in that time Duo would have seen that Zechs did feel exactly as he promised to, and that his feelings were strong enough to wait out Duo's insecurity. Beyond Mars-- it was like meeting a blank wall that imagination couldn't pass.

But a future without Duo was even more impossible to imagine.

He hated paradox. He hated uncertainty. He hated the mess of such painfully human relationships. He'd managed to admit to love; that was always easy. Romantic. Ideal. The tarnish was inevitable. The emotional bloodletting.

No. No, he refused to mourn Duo. He would not. He would do whatever was in his power to forestall that inevitability. Even if it meant killing them both in that oven in the reactor. He would do it.

Because he couldn't imagine being alone again. Not again.

When he woke the next morning to find Barton bent over Duo, he sat up quickly, heart hammering. “Progress?” he husked.

Barton met his eyes. His bleak expression said it all. The tiny shake of his head destroyed the last breath of hope.

Duo didn't wake. He had passed into a coma.

**

“I can put her under,” Barton whispered.

“Put her under?” Zechs repeated, not comprehending.

Barton touched a tray of syringes, rolling them tensely with a tiny click of plastic. “She'd sleep through it. We need uninterrupted time to work on the reactor, this could be the only way to get it.”

Barton had been arguing him into it for almost an hour. Sally slumped before the computers, trying in her own way to force a cure out of the data. Zechs had paced himself sick.

Duo was not waking up. Neither of the doctors would say it, but he knew. Duo would never wake up, now, not without a miracle. Or a nuclear reactor.

“Merquise,” Barton hissed.

He was prone to act. He longed to act-- to be able to just damn do something. But this?

He could not overcome this hesitation. His self-berating, his own fear of cowardice had laid bare any pretensions to a 'conservative approach', as Treize had once more kindly called it. But Treize had never hesitated over anything. How many years had Zechs wasted on wishes for that same confidence? If Treize were here, in fact, he had no doubt that Treize would have weighed the risks and the benefits and would have come up with a plan at the first sign Duo was ill.

Then again, Treize had never allowed love to blind him. Assuming he was capable of love of all.

But Zechs was. And it could make him weak, as it had with Treize. Or inspire strength. Couldn't be strong for Duo? Hadn't he been doing so already? He'd kept Duo strong, got him all the way here. But they had made it to Zebra Tango by pretending they didn't know Duo was fatally ill-- by pretending it wasn't their own friends and colleagues responsible for poisoning him. Both of them. He had denied the urgency he felt because he worried it was clouding his objective judgment.

“Merquise, we need to decide this.”

“Give me time to think.”

“What time?”

Sally stirred, glancing at them over her shoulder. Barton ducked his head to Duo; Zechs resumed his pacing.

The scrape of her chair made him start. “I'm going to shower,” she said. “And make up the rest of that soup. The two of you should consider it. None of us can think on empty stomachs.”

“Later, Sal,” Barton said.

“Not too much later, Trowa.” She gazed at them both. Zechs felt the weight of her eyes. But then she turned, and the curtain fell with a soft sigh as she left.

Perhaps it was his objective judgment that had clouded the one clear reality he knew. Duo would die if they didn't do something. Perhaps the bacteriophages would work, given time. Perhaps they even had the time. But Zechs himself was already infected. Barton and Sally were at risk as well. Noventa wouldn't be patient forever-- whatever his political leanings, he had a moral obligation to contain a deadly outbreak, and he would.

“Merquise--”

“What do we have to do to bring the reactor online?” he asked heavily.

Barton nodded tightly, his eyes intensifying in the dim light in his excitement. “I've been looking at it. I won't lie to you-- it's iffy, but I think it will fire. There were activations codes to hack. I got those last night.”

Ah. Zechs noted that 'last night' and wondered just how long Barton would have waited to do this on his own. Which little syringe on that tray there might have been prepared for Zechs, anticipating drastic measures?

But really, why did Barton wait on his agreement at all-- unless he needed the validation? Perhaps it was a doctor's unwillingness to endanger a patient. Or a lover's fear of losing someone forever. With that, Zechs could sympathise. The paralytic fear stymied all action, and yet he was terrified not to act.

All pointless questions, in a way. The fact was that Barton had come to him, and now the decision was his. He would not have had it otherwise.

"And once activated,” he said. “How long?"

"The manuals say twenty-five minutes. I'm hoping for something close to that. I don't think the reactor's been maintained at all."

More than likely, it hadn't been looked at since it was deactivated. The Alliance had never liked to budget for useless scrap heaps, and without Deep Space travel, that was all Zebra Tango was. "Say forty minutes at the outside,” Zechs guessed. “I've been there to look at it. We need both an in-point and an exit that can be utilised even once the reactor is out-putting. If he vaporises in the chamber..."

Barton was chalky pale. But said, “It's all computerised. I can override automatic locks manually. As long as we can get in and get him out again, we can--”

“And how do we judge how long to keep him inside? Can you even read the metres accurately? You said exposing him--”

"He wouldn't want to go down without a fight."

So there would be no control, essentially. Only that radical notion of what Duo wanted. What they thought Duo wanted. The last insane, suicidal grasp at a cure that might kill. The tightness in his chest achieved an outlet; and he regretted even as it left his lips. "Maybe he would-- rather die than live a half-life. You didn't see him, in the last week before we boarded here. Maybe he would rather die than live crippled by disease. We have to at least... consider the idea.”

"I know he wants to fight,” Barton said harshly. “You should too. Look at the way he's lived his entire life and at least respect him enough not to give up."

“It's not a question of surrender.” It was what Sally had told him-- that the damage might be permanent. And in his heart, Zechs didn't believe Duo would want to be saved just to live like this, a shell of himself, worse than disabled. Mindless. It was an affront to the fabric of the universe, a Duo Maxwell who couldn't speak out against injustices, a Duo Maxwell who couldn't argue for the truth, even if it was just his own truth; who couldn't exercise that unbending will to so much as decide for himself. Would it be better, would he think it was better, to die, than to live like that? Was Zechs wrong to gamble with something Duo might see as sacrosanct?

"We should make the most of our time," he tried, and had to clear his throat. "Get it activated."

Barton's shoulders fell slack in relief. "I'll get it started."

Duo lay limp and unmoving as a corpse, with only the heat of his fever to prove he was alive. Barton readied him, removing the IVs and the bacteriophage implant, Zechs wrapping him in extra blankets to protect him from the cold of the station's innards. The gurney, thankfully, was mobile; Zechs pushed it from the wall as Barton prepared a pile of supplies. Fresh IV solutions, morphine. Quite a lot of morphine, but Zechs stayed mum. They were to the point where contingencies had to be considered. Barton's hands were shaking, and there was a newly grim set to his jaw. Zechs imagined he looked much the same.

“Let's go,” he said.

“Ready,” Barton confirmed, stepping to the end of the gurney to help in steering. But almost as soon as he touched the rail he froze. “Do you hear that?”

“Sally,” Zechs guessed, dropping automatically into a whisper. Futile. She hardly had any other stops to make, and her footsteps were coming closer. “Can you distract her?”

“She'll notice her patient has disappeared.” Barton wiped sweat from his upper lip. “Fuck. What do we do?”

Zechs' heart was hammering his chest. He touched perspiration of his own; his temples and the back of his neck were soaked, and it was difficult to breathe, suddenly. He could not force himself into calm. Was this how Duo had felt? Trapped and unable to think beyond the rapidly dawning waste of his remaining options.

“We try to convince her,” he said. “And if we don't-- be ready.”

Barton gripped the gurney rail with both fists. He stared down at Duo's body. “Yes.”

And then she was there. She turned the corner, her wet hair dripping down her scrubs as she bowed her head over the tray of soup bowls she carried. “I'm back,” she called ahead to them. “We've got a cup of tomato and two of potato and leek--” And then Sally's head came up. She stopped where she stood, precisely in their path to the corridor beyond. “What are you doing?”

Barton turned to face her, squaring his shoulders. “We were doing nothing,” he told her flatly, pleadingly. “We were letting him die.”

It was only seconds for Sally to comprehend what she saw, at least enough to leap to stop it. She dropped her tray on the table and strode quickly toward them, locking her hands beside Barton's on the foot rail of Duo's gurney, squaring her body before it. "We weren't doing nothing,” she said. Calmly, reasonably-- warily. “We're doing something as smartly as we can. Which is to get the right 'phage to attack the right disease."

"They sent the right fucking 'phage, didn't they? This was a set-up from the beginning."

"We don't know anything for sure.” She stopped her younger colleague with a hand to his chest when Barton tried to push her aside. “We're scientists, Trowa. It's our job to conduct our own observations. And we're doctors, more importantly. Risky treatments harm more patients than they help."

"Neither of them have anything to lose, and very little time. We can't screw around making observations forever."

“Sally,” Zechs interrupted. Her eyes flicked to his face. “It's not a choice we've made lightly. And you should know-- we've tried the 'phages already.”

“What?” Her face went slack in shock. “How?”

“Implant,” Barton said shortly. “And it didn't damn work.” He studied her, eyes narrowed. "What are you hiding?" he demanded. "Are you operating with more information than I am, Sally? Or a different agenda?"

"You suspect me now?" Her blue eyes blazed. Through clenched teeth, she said, "I forgive that only because I know how much you care about Duo, but don't you dare suggest I'm part of the conspiracy, Barton."

"No-one suspects you," Zechs soothed, looking between the two doctors from lowered lashes. To have come so close-- he wasn't sure if he was relieved or ashamed. Barton scrubbed at the stubble on his cheek, breathing raggedly. "Look at him, Sally. Days? Even that? What is there left to slow down for?"

"I'm a doctor,” Sally said. “I'm that boy's doctor. If he were well enough to make an informed decision I would help him do that, but you know as well as I do we make tough decisions for our patients because we know more than they do. And what I know is that if I slip up or rush ahead of myself, I can kill him. I'm not willing to do that, and you should damn well be ashamed that you are."

"He's out of time. You know that."

"When I give up I'll inform you. Meanwhile, you back off and let me do my job."

Barton was humming with humiliation and fury. Duo lay, the centre of all the drama, still as cordwood. "I'm not some green intern going off half-cocked, damn it,” Barton snapped. “My treatment plan was sound."

"Unless it's not the right 'phage for the strain, in which case all you've done is waste time and resources and given Zechs-- yes, I just bet you talked him into this, assuming he didn't talk you into it-- giving him false hope. And that is green. And frankly, it's cruel, too."

"No-one is under any illusions here." Barton switched tracks, imploring her. "I've been looking at the fungal load in his blood hourly. If he was going to respond, it would have registered already."

“If you placed the right--”

“It's the only one we've got!”

Zechs ended the argument by lifting Duo from the gurney into his arms. Both doctors jumped toward him, but Zechs skittered back. "This is not your choice to make," he said loudly, over their protests. “I am going to do this.”

Sally clung to his arm, but not to stop him-- she was supporting Duo's head, keeping his breathing passages open, touching the pulse in his throat. “Do what? Where are you taking him? Your ship? You won't make it anywhere else before--”

“There's a reactor on station. Barton and I agree it's time to try something drastic.”

He was plenty close to see the wash of horror that went over her. "You'll kill him, Zechs!"

"He's already dead."

“Not like--” She covered her mouth, overcome. “Even if he were to die of the infection, Zechs, it's nothing compared to how awful his death of radiation poisoning would be. He could die of gamma burns. Even if he survived the exposure, his life would depend on intensive medical care that we just can't give him here. His bone marrow would be destroyed-- he would need a transplant. His gastric and intestinal tissue would be severely damaged. He could die of infection or even internal bleeding. He'll die delirious-- he'll go into a coma and even then he'll be in pain as his circulation shuts down completely. He could last a week, and it would be a horrible horrible week, Zechs. Don't do this.”

He wavered. It was impossible not to, envisioning Duo suffering like that.

“I left the Alliance because they were willing to use biological weapons,” she said. She pleaded with him. “I've seen the damage. I've held men and women in my arms as they died from something another human being justified in his heart.”

He stepped back, away from her. “I am not inflicting some terrible punishment on him. Those men out there already did that. Preventers did it to us. I'm going to save him. If I can. And if I can't, at least...”

“We'll have tried,” Barton finished. “So either help us or look the other way, Sally.”

They made it two yards, on that gauntlet.

Then-- “No,” Sally said. “I can't let you do that.” There was a sound of hard plastic and glass overturning to the floor in a hurried shove, and then a sound Zechs would have known anywhere. The cocking of a gun.

His arms were tiring. Nor did his stomach appreciate the tension; he was nauseated, sweat cooling on his forehead. He might not have the strength to take Duo all that long way into the station. But it would be all the harder if he had to do it wounded.

He turned back with a deep breath. "I have nothing to lose, Sally,” he said heavily. “Neither of us do. You won't shoot us."

"Put Duo down. I will fire."

And then Barton was between them. Holding a gun identical to Sally's, aimed not a chest-point, as hers was, but at her forehead. Now, though, his hands were rock-solid. "It doesn't have to be this way."

"If Duo dies, that will be very sad. But that's vastly different from being the man who ends his life."

Barton said, "I think I can live with it."

"Well I can't. I took an oath as a doctor, and I owe him as a friend. So either put him down, or this will get ugly."

Duo was frighteningly light in his arms. Yet he was weakening.

Sally's gun wavered between the two men. "Put him down, Zechs."

He shook his head in mute denial. He hugged Duo closer to his chest, and bent to kiss the crown of his head. “I can't. I won't.”

"Which of us are you going to shoot, Sally?" Barton demanded. He waved Zechs back. “Move. We need to get him to the reactor.”

Zechs began to move. His back tingled, so broad and unprotected a target, even with Barton between him and the weapon that aimed at him. But Sally's voice chased him like her footsteps. "If I have to,” she called, “I'll fire at both of you. And you better believe that you won't get far even if you shoot me first. Any sign of fighting on station and Noventa will board with a dozen armed men. They will stop you."

They made it to the first turn past the crew quarters into the main corridors. There were fewer lights here, and the dark walls and short ceilings gave everything a nightmarish claustrophobia. Zechs said to the still air ahead of him, "You'd kill two men to stop a potentially life-saving treatment on a dying man?"

"Yet one more sign that you're not operating at full capacity, Zechs."

“Zechs,” Barton said, “Make a break for it.”

He made it one step. And then the retort of a gun had him sprinting for the cover of an off-branching hallway. He didn't look back until he was past the corner, safe behind the wall. He slid to a crouch, cradling Duo over his knees. The sound of a scuffle behind him went on, grunts and fleshy impacts-- and then, the heavy thump of a body falling to the floor. Panting breaths limped toward him, and he held Duo close, preparing to run.

Barton appeared at the head of the hall. Sweat streaked his face and the front of his scrubs, but the dark splotch leaking down his leg was blood, from a gunshot just beneath his knee. He gripped the wall to keep himself upright, as Zechs rose with Duo.

Trowa pressed two bloody fingers to Duo's neck for his pulse. He turned flat eyes up to Zechs. “She was probably right about one thing,” he said. “If Noventa's men are monitoring us at all, they'll have noticed the reactor powering up. One of us will have to stay back to slow them down. We need time.”

Zechs twisted once to look back as they moved on. The motion-sensor lights had already gone out, and all he could see was a dark form sprawled there behind them. He didn't ask if she was still alive, but his throat was tight.

"Do you want to stop and see to that?" he asked.

Barton shook his head sharply. "I'll bandage it while you and Duo are in the unit."

“Can you block the airlock at all?”

“Much as I'd love to, they probably would blow us out of Space for that.” Barton relied on the wall for balance, but propelled himself along at considerable speed, forcing Zechs to hurry to keep up. “When we get there, I'll find you that way in. We'll put him in there. We'll need to be on the outside, past the shielding, or we'll be exposed as well. One of us will be, getting him out. Even when it's turned off there will be residual radiation.”

“I'll do it,” Zechs said. “Don't argue with me. You've got an open wound. I'm not a scientist, but that's too much danger.”

“We'll see.”

“How will it work?”

“Doses of total body irradiation in controlled conditions are usually at 10 to 12 Grays, but that's with aggressive medical care. And that's when it's fractioned. Sally was-- Sally was right, this could make him almost as sick as he is now.” Barton grimaced deeply, but pushed himself onward. “The best we can do is aim for something below fatal. And wait.”

And then they were there. Barton found the light panel, throwing the bay into sharp relief. Without the darkness, it took on a monstrous implacability. All the graphic warnings pasted to the doors loomed larger than they had when he'd been here only-- only thirty hours ago. He hadn't truly imagined it then. Could he live with himself, if Duo died in there? Died alone, a frail beating heart that had so far refused to give up even as the body around it withered hour by hour. Could he say with certainty that if it were him, he would want another to make that decision for him, if the hope were so slim?

Not questions with which he was comfortable. Not questions he thought he could bear. He never analysed himself past the point where it began to sting; he wasn't that brave, wasn't that strong. But he was well past that point now. Point of no return.

And that was when he made the decision to enter the chamber with Duo.

If they died together, so be it. There was a certain fairness in accepting the same fate he consigned Duo to. And a certain clemency in-- a suicide committed under these conditions. A suicide and a murder.

Barton propped himself on the control console, fingers flying in whatever sequence he had read in his research. A low thrum of waking machinery did begin around them. And a window he had not known was a window was suddenly awakened to brightness, displaying the very chamber Zechs had imagined-- concrete, steel, snaking pipes, and, in the centre of the chamber, the almost rocket-shaped core itself.

“The containment chamber,” Barton told him shortly. “That's the reactor in there. It's the final barrier to radioactive release. When you're inside the chamber, you need to open the repair release on the reactor vessel. That will release the radiation from the core. There might be steam. Emergency systems will condense any steam that escapes, so he'll be safe from scalds. But it could create fallout-- irradiated water.” He put his palm on a crank, and pushed it up to the highest lock. “I think-- I think it needs twenty minutes at this level of exposure.”

“All right,” Zechs said, the most he could speak just then. “All right.”

“We'll have to count it. None of the clocks loaded on their own and I couldn't reset them.”

“All right.” His arms ached. He was dizzy. If only Duo could give him some sign. Some sign. The waiting was hell.

“It's up,” Barton said finally, shattering the quiet hum. “We're go.”

“Get that door open.”

Barton punched a button. Clamps released, though red lights lit all over the console. “Go,” Barton said. “And then get back here.”

It was time. It was happening.

“Go,” Barton repeated.

He had to bend under the low lintel, and he was only inches through when the door slid shut behind him. It was much louder inside the chamber. Pumps, compressors, and electric equipment all contributed to the noise. None of it was as deafening as the silence in his own head.

There was a short ladder up the side of the reactor to the second level. He climbed it backward, clinging with his elbows as he pushed himself up step by step, holding Duo close. He got the release open in the same way, operating the lever latch between his shoulder and cheek. It was large enough for a man of his bulk, if only just. By squirming and forcing it, he got Duo through first, unable to cushion him against a slight fall over the lip of the hatch, then scrambled in after him. He unwrapped the blankets, so that they wouldn't block the radiation. He cupped Duo's drawn face, and turned to the reactor core.

One final deep breath. He opened the repair release.

There was a single loud clack. He felt nothing. He didn't look down into the dark of the core. He didn't want to see it. He simply turned his back on it, dropping to the concrete at Duo's side.

He was scared. He could admit that much, holding Duo's thin hand in both of his. It was doom he felt hovering around him, as if the radiation that was now flowing out to surround them could be a taste on his tongue. They were trapped here together, in this little chamber no larger than one of their suites on the ship. Their ship. Even given what it had done to them, he couldn't regret the time they'd had there, together.

“Ti takAya valnUyashaya,” he whispered. “Ti takAya Iskrennaya. Ti--”

Duo shuddered. He rolled his head, his free hand falling beside his head, fingers curled to a fist.

Was it working? “It's all right, Duo,” he said. He brushed Duo's hair back, kissed the hand that he held; until Duo pulled it away. Awake at last, but he wouldn't settle. His wasted legs began to move restlessly, as the air around them became muggy and warm. The escaping steam. A flashing light began from the other side of the window; he looked, but couldn't see Barton, couldn't see anything. If Barton could see them, he would know Zechs wasn't coming back.

“Duo, shh,” he whispered. “Lie still. Not much longer.” He was counting the seconds. One-hallelujah, two-hallelujah, three. Fourteen minutes more.

Maybe Duo could feel it. He pushed Zechs away with strength he hadn't had since before they'd docked at Zebra, shoving at him when Zechs tried to gather him close. His eyes were open wide, dilated to black, and his breathing was deeper, ragged. He shook like a leaf in a headwind.

Ten minutes. The flashing light took on an urgent frenetic pulse. Zechs heard the steam escaping, now.

Duo moaned. Zechs held his arms as tightly as he could, but Duo fought him with sudden strength. He kicked, he thrashed, even as bruises bloomed on his skin from Zechs' grip. His voice rattled in his throat.

Zechs knew, then. He knew what was coming. "Don't,” he begged. “Don't leave me. Duo, no."

Duo wrenched free one final time. He clawed with both hands at the back of his head. At the spore blister.

It was a fine mist. Faintly moist. It smelled-- dusty. Fecund, almost rotten. Zechs breathed in just as it exploded into a cloud around them both. It made him cough. He hacked, strangled, trying to smother it in his arm, until he could breathe again.

All movement ceased. Duo lay utterly still now. His eyes were closed. Zechs felt his neck. His fingers were numb, but he didn't think he could feel anything. He didn't think-- didn't think Duo was--

“I'm sorry,” he choked. “Duo. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.” His eyes burned. Hot tears spilled over his face, roughly swiped away as he bent his head to Duo's still chest. “I'm sorry,” he repeated mindlessly. “I failed you.”

The light stopped flashing. Even it was dead.

He wished he was. He would be, soon. All he had to do was stay in here. If he stayed in here long enough, he would die, too. He was ready. He'd been ready his whole life.

One minute. One-hallelujah. Two-hallelujah.

One minute past the time limit.

Two.

He felt Duo's chest move. He wasn't sure of it, at first. He didn't comprehend it at first. How could it mean anything, now?

Three.

Duo's head moved. His chin fell back. And his hand, locked in Zechs', curled over his fingers.

**

He made it to his knees, creaking and wobbly. He saw a slit of white beneath Duo's lashes. He felt weak, dangerously so, and could only pull Duo along with him back to the hatch, to the ladder. He kicked the hatch wide, sliding his legs out to tug Duo after him.

“Hand him out now! Quickly!”

Man's voice-- not Barton. Zechs risked his balance for a quick look. A man-- three men, suited against the radiation, all with out-stretched arms. Noventa's men. Noventa himself, right there at the ladder, nearest to him.

It took both of them to get Duo down the ladder, and Zechs watched with his heart in his throat as they hurried Duo away, out the chamber and off into the bowels of the station. One of the suited soldiers remained behind, gesturing for him to come down as well. “Come on, Agent Merquise,” he said. “We need to get you to the clinic.”

A tremor raced up his spine. Over? He didn't know. He felt-- too light. Lifting his hand to grasp the man's arm felt like-- swimming. As if he were a ghost already.

Barton wasn't outside anymore. More of Noventa's men, arguing over the controls. They stopped as one, as Zechs was hurried past. They stared after him as he went.

A woman he didn't know was in the clinic now, grey hair wound in a tight chignon and a pinched face expressive of distaste. Her white coat identified her as a doctor. It must have been that Lena Matwari, the woman both Barton and Sally had condemned as an opportunist. Something in him wearily protested to see her taking over territory that had in some way belonged to him, but he said nothing.

“The showers,” Matwari told his guard. “He needs to be washed of any fallout. Hurry.”

And so he was hustled off again, two of Noventa's men bringing him to that row of crew quarters they'd powered up a week ago. The door to their usual one was open, crowded with armed men. He heard a raised voice inside-- Barton.

They pushed him into the quarters beside that room, flipping on the harsh lights overhead, pushing him into the little bath suite. One reached into the shower and set it running. “Someone find soap,” he snapped, as he unhooked a little hand-held console from his belt. He ran it over Zechs' body as he was forcibly stripped by the other men. “Keep your suits on, everyone. Let's not take chances.”

“I can do it myself,” Zechs interrupted, still with that feeling of being far underwater. He resisted the shove that tried to push him under the shower flow. “I can--”

“I'll help.” It was Sally. She wore a square of gauze on her temple that had a dark spot of blood on it, and there were walls up in her eyes now. But Noventa's men deferred to her, and she produced an old-fashioned bar of soap and a scratchy flannel. “Wash everything, even your hair,” she told him. “There was steam in the chamber, and your skin will be the most affected. Get off as much as you can.”

“Duo,” Zechs said. Her gloved hands urged him under the spray, and he went. He soaped the flannel slowly, until his mind waked to what he was meant to do. “Duo. Is he--”

“He's alive,” Sally said. “That's all I can say right now. I'm going back to him. Do you understand me? Wash everything, twice. Three times. And then they'll take you back to your ship.”

“The ship? Why?”

“Under guard,” she said. “Noventa's moved to take Zebra Tango under control. We don't have choices any more.”