Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Deadly Beautiful ❯ Knights of Cydonia ( Chapter 55 )

A/N: Chapter title is that of a song by Muse. Check it (and them) out if you never have.

 

Disclaimer: Fifty-fifth verse, same as the first. Gundam Wing is not mine and I'm making no profit from this.

 

 

Deadly Beautiful - Chapter 55

 

by danse

 

~*~

 

It was nearly the hottest time of the year but the promise of another day of withering temperatures was lightened somewhat by a thin breeze. It wasn't quite ambitious enough to be called 'cool' but it stirred the hairs on the back of Quatre's neck in a tantalizing way and he shut his eyes to enjoy it properly. A giggle from his left interrupted his moment of pleasure and he peeked his eyes open again to see Iria smother her smile by biting into a danish. He resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at her and turned his attention to their father, who sat across from them in stately repose with his sunglasses perched on his head and an iced coffee in front of him. He was watching people strolling by on the street.

 

“Sorry,” she whispered, that impish grin still lingering. “You had the silliest little smile on your face, you know.”

 

“Iria, darling, don't torment your brother,” said the head of Winner Enterprises. “I should think that he'll be getting enough of that from all the other girls now that he's back. And you will be, too, if God is just.” His lips twitched upwards and for a second he looked just like her.

 

Quatre decided that particular subject needed no further pursuit. “This is a lovely breakfast, Father, but I'm surprised you're not at the office this morning. Haven't you got a lot of work to do?”

 

His father shrugged one shoulder. “It's nice to get away now and then, especially to spend some rare quality time with my lovely children. As well as you two.” He grinned. “In all honesty, though, I'm so glad you've come back. The company is going through a tough time right now and so am I; it's very reassuring to me to have all my children nearby and able to help out. It's about time you learned the ropes, anyway.”

 

Quatre looked down at the table. Of course, he thought. Iria was right. We're here to save the company, aren't we? But it was hard to escape being the dutiful son now that he'd been coaxed and cajoled back into the fold. “What kind of tough time?” he asked, dragging his gaze back up to his father.

 

Mr. Winner pushed his coffee away and leaned over the table towards his children, clasping his hands on the smooth tabletop. “It's been about two weeks in the making, now. Four of my senior board members have forsaken me and their years of loyalty to the company and sold out their shares to a third party right under my nose. This group has nearly amassed a controlling share and now we're being threatened with a hostile takeover. It's all getting very expensive and ugly.”

 

Quatre stared. “Who the hell is doing this?”

 

Mr. Winner rubbed at his face with both hands. For the first time in Quatre's memory, he really looked old. “It's an automotive outfit, but I've done a little digging and it turns out that it's merely a subsidiary of a larger conglomerate.”

 

“Something American?” Iria piped up.

 

He shook his head. “It's originally based out of France, although it has branched out into the UK and Germany. The name is Romefeller; I don't suppose you've heard of it.”

 

Quatre abruptly inhaled a mouthful of juice and started choking.

 

“What's wrong? Are you okay?” his father said.

 

Iria leaped out of her chair and moved to assist him, but he managed to hold up a hand to stop her as he struggled to draw breath. His other hand gripped the edge of the cafe table hard enough that it looked like he might leave finger marks in its polished top. He wheezed and coughed for a minute or two until he could breathe enough to wipe the tears from his eyes. “I'm fine, I'm fine,” he croaked, chuckling a little from the embarrassment. Other patrons were staring. “It just went down the wrong way, that's all. Really, Iria, I'm okay.”

 

His father and sister settled in their chairs again, shooting him worried looks, but didn't say anything. Quatre composed himself, looked at his juice and then thought better of it. “Romefeller, you say.” He turned his attention back to his father.

 

“Have you heard of them, Quatre?” he asked.

 

“Um. The name is vaguely familiar. Maybe I heard it on TV or something,” he said, glancing down at his glass. “Do you have a plan?” he said a bit desperately.

 

The Winner patriarch pulled his sunglasses off of his head and squinted at them in the light. “So far, I'm just buying time,” he said, grabbing a napkin to clean the lenses. “I've checked with the lawyers and accountants and they're all working on the problem and looking into the dirty details, but I'm not sure we have legal recourse at this point to pull the rug out from under them. Ours isn't the first company that they've tried this with, and it probably won't be the last. The rest of the board is starting to suggest that we should capitulate. It could be that the only option is to merely settle for the highest sum possible and start over.”

 

Iria touched his hand and frowned. “Father, you're not a young man anymore. Do you really think you can start over from nothing again?”

 

“It's hardly starting from nothing, Iria,” he said. “The family still has a fortune and I have a great number of business contacts at my disposal.”

 

“Father, why can't you just take this as an opportunity to retire?” Quatre asked. “You're at a respectable age to do it and you can certainly afford to, and I'm sure Mother would appreciate it.” Mr. Winner's fifth wife had gone to school with Quatre's oldest sister, Nadia, and he knew that most of the family referred to her as 'Mother' with some scorn. He'd left home just after the wedding.

 

“What would I do with myself then?” he said. “No, your mother would probably get sick of me if I wasn't off at work all day, making her more money to spend. Besides, my children and grandchildren need something to inherit besides houses and bank accounts.” He smiled again. “We'll work out something, and I'll hold out for as long as I can for a better answer. In the meantime, you two need to learn all about the business.”

 

Quatre leaned back in his chair and stared up at the sky. This family breakfast had left him with a lot to digest besides pastries and tangerine juice.

 

***

 

Wufei weaved through the lunchtime crowd, holding his tray high to avoid hitting someone in the face with it. The teapot on top rattled alarmingly as he dodged a little girl abruptly pushing back her chair into his path and he bit back a curse; sometimes he just had to wonder how he got himself into these situations and in the name of what, exactly.

 

Seeing that the target of his attentions was playing with her PDA, he slowed down to a nearly silent prowl and slipped up behind her, praying for a glimpse of anything at all. Unfortunately, the sun was glinting off of the screen from his angle, and then she realized he was there and straightened, slipping the device back into her purse. He felt a familiar tic emerge in his jaw and fought it back.

 

“Votre thé, madame,” he said, setting the table with the tea things.

 

“Merci,” Une said distractedly, her body language dismissing him as soon as he'd poured her first cup.

 

He had a half-formed idea of lingering around the table for a few minutes, in the hope that her rare spacey mood—What could she so be preoccupied with, he thought—would mean that she'd give away some clue he could use in his investigation, but just then his pager vibrated loudly enough that she noticed and Wufei was forced to run back to the safety of the kitchen with a hand clapped against his hip, muttering the whole way.

 

When he'd slipped out the back door of the café and was leaning safely against a dirty brick wall in the alley, he checked the screen of his pager. Scrolling across it were the words, “Happy birthday Chang - From O”.

 

Wufei swore loudly in his own language and then kept up the tirade for a few moments longer at less volume, just because the syllables felt so good coming off of his tongue after days and days of speaking only French.

 

He clenched his pager in one hand as he slumped against the wall. He'd call O later, after his shift was over.

 

***

 

Duo's survival instincts were starting to go soft; after he startled awake and tipped off of the couch onto the floor, it took him several seconds to figure out where he was, and a few more after that to realize that not only was someone hammering on the door but it had also been what woke him up in the first place. He glared across the carpet at the door.

 

“Are you alive in there or what?” Her voice was muffled but she clearly thought that volume would help her get the point across. “I left my key downstairs.” She paused. Duo continued to stare at the door from his position on the floor: belly-down and propped up on his elbows. “I come bearing pizza,” she said eventually, sounding like she was rolling her eyes at the same time.

 

Duo hauled himself up to go unlock the door.

 

“It figures that nothing but the promise of food would get you to let in a caring friend,” Hilde said as he took the pizza box and left her in the doorway. “Do I at least get a tip?”

 

Duo snorted. “I'd let a Jehovah's Witness in if they had pepperoni and breadsticks with them. They really should have thought of that, you know; it's a good marketing scheme. 'Find God and get $5 off at Ray's Pizza,'” he intoned, raising his free hand to mime a marquee in the air.

 

Hilde came to join him on the couch after grabbing two Cokes out of the fridge. She looked tired but she was smiling a little, which was something he hadn't seen in a while. “You sound more like yourself,” she said as she handed him a can.

 

For a second, inhaling the delicious, just-opened-the-box pizza aroma took precidence over answering her. Double pepperoni and black olives on half—he'd trained her well. “Pizza is scientifically proven to be a mood-booster.”

 

She grabbed a slice for herself and settled back into the couch cushions. “Still sleeping a lot?”

 

He chewed his food quietly for as long as he thought he could get away with not speaking. Obviously they were going to have this awkward conversation about his feelings and the hole his life was in and he was out of escape routes. Entrapment by pizza; she really had learned a thing or two. Half a slice later, he said, “Well, there's not much on TV in the afternoons.”

 

Surprisingly, she laughed. “You're telling me. I only went for pizza because I've discovered that four hours of CSI is my limit.”

 

“It's only been two days,” he said magnanimously. “You can't be sick of daytime TV already. I mean, you haven't even explored the depths of the morning talk show circuit or the Food Network yet.”

 

Hilde giggled around a mouthful of pizza. “Oh, teach me, Wise One. I clearly have much yet to learn.”

 

He noticed he was relaxing properly for the first time in a couple of days. “How is unemployment treating you, anyway?” he asked, hoping he wasn't breaching a sore topic.

 

She wiped her hands on a napkin. “I went down to the library yesterday to type up my resume and spend some quality time on job searching sites. I've applied for like five positions so far, so we'll see how things go. At least I have qualifications and experience now, however made-up some of it might be.”

 

He shrugged. “I don't think there's anything you can't handle. Even if you didn't finish high school or anything, you've probably got a better head on your shoulders than some people with college degrees.” A thought suddenly struck him. “Should you still be in high school?”

 

She took on a haughty look. “Please, Duo. I have several pieces of ID that clearly state my age to be 22.”

 

A smirk fought its way onto his face. “Are any of them actually real?”

 

Her smirk matched his. “They look as real as real ones do.”

 

“G's got some talented forgers.”

 

“I called it part of my severance package.”

 

“Look, Hilde, I'm really sorr--”

 

She held up a hand in front of him. He clammed up.

 

“You have nothing to apologize for,” she said quietly, “so I hope you're not beating yourself up over this. None of it is your fault. Besides, I came out ahead, didn't I? I have savings, my own place, work experience... and I don't feel nervous when I go out alone at night anymore. Knowing I can beat the shit out of anyone who tries anything on the street is a nice perk.”

 

Duo frowned. “Going out alone made you feel uneasy? How the hell did you manage all those years when you were... you know....”

 

“When I was a hooker, you mean?” She wore a ghost of a smile. “Barely. You'll note that I can run in heels pretty fast. That took practice.”

 

He also remembered the bruises she used to sport. Hilde really didn't bruise all that easily. He looked down at his hands, feeling the silence press in. How had they managed to run into so many awkward subjects so easily? His appetite was dwindling fast.

 

He was a little startled when she reached for more pizza. “So,” she said, as if the past five minutes hadn't happened, “how is unemployment treating you?”

 

He let his head sag back into the couch. “It's done wonders for my social life.”

 

“Always with the sarcasm. Speaking of your social life, have you heard anything from anyone lately?”

 

Duo rolled his head listlessly to an angle where he could see her. “Like who? You're, like, my only friend. Certainly the best one.” In retrospect, it was a little embarrassing to say that out loud, but the blush and the pleased look that suddenly rushed across Hilde's face at the admission made him feel a little better.

 

“I-I meant. The other guys. You know,” she stammered, reaching for her drink to buy herself time to recover. Sometimes he really loved her.

 

“Oh, them.” As if he hadn't known immediately who she meant. “No, I haven't heard a word. Everyone's... gone their separate ways.” Man, she had the right idea. He was thirsty all of a sudden.

 

“Don't you have any way of contacting them?”

 

He tilted his head a little to the side. “Well....”

 

“So you do.”

 

“Kind of....” Quatre's contact number was around somewhere, at least. He was pretty sure. Maybe in his cell phone?

 

“Then why are you waiting around for someone to get ahold of you?” she said in a damnably reasonable tone. “If you want contact... with anyone...”—and wasn't that some suspicious emphasis, he realized—“then start things off yourself. It's just that simple.” She started on her third slice of pizza, apparently oblivious to his confusion.

 

She really just didn't get it. It was so much more complicated than she made it out to be. Then again, he hadn't exactly been forthcoming with details of what had happened when Heero had gone to Russia to rescue his ass. In fact, she didn't even know Heero had any connection to that fiasco at all, because he'd basically told her nothing about it.

 

And he didn't plan to.

 

She jarred him back to the present by turning on the TV. “So, let's start my daytime programming education,” she said brightly. “Who knows when I'm going to get offered an interview, anyway. Ooh, is that a MacGuyver rerun?”

 

She was quickly distracted by the TV and cracking mullet jokes like they'd been doing this all day. He spent a moment staring at her in disbelief and then abruptly gave up, getting up with a sigh to grab more drinks from the kitchen.

 

***

 

The faint scrape of wood sliding against wood as he pushed up the windowpane was one of the last detectable sounds Heero would make for quite some time as he broke into Liechtenstein's royal palace. As soon as he'd made a space big enough to squeeze through, he slithered his way in, first working one leg over the sill and bending in half to fit his torso through, propping his elbow on the frame to steady the hand supporting the sliding pane as he went, so that the window wouldn't come crashing down on his ribs. It was a feat of balance and flexibility to slowly pull his other leg into the room without making a noise and he let out a slow breath of relief when he had both feet firmly planted in the thick carpet.

 

After gently sliding the window shut again, he looked around, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light. He was in a disused room on the second floor of the north wing (he could feel the prick and scratch of thorns in his clothes from climbing a rose trellis up to this level) and he was surrounded in the dark by ghostly, dusty lumps of draped furniture. His night vision sharpened enough to see that the corner of a cloth had slipped to reveal part of a settee that was probably from the turn of the century, at least; the back was mostly ornately carved hardwood—mahogany, perhaps—with a distinctly uncomfortable-looking, striped cushion tacked onto it. It could be years yet before anyone cared enough to dust off the contents of this room and many others, let alone rearrange and use them again. Heero squinted around in the dark and made out the vague shape of the door against the lighter wallpaper. His footsteps were completely absorbed by the expensive carpet and the layer of dust on it.

 

Once he was in the hallway, he had a much better idea of his bearings. From examining and counting the windows from outside in the evenings, he knew that the princess' room lay a short way to his left down the hallway; her protector Noin's bedroom was to the right. As dim as it was in here in the middle of the night, with the only light sources being distant streetlights and a waning moon, Heero's black form was still too visible for his taste against the cream-coloured wallpaper to his back, so he relied on silence to keep his cover as he moved.

 

It took him an agonizing few moments to work out which of two closed doors led into the room he wanted, but by working out his distance from the end of the hallway, he shortly settled on the right one. The ivory doorknob was smooth under his hand and he imagined that if he weren't wearing gloves it would feel pleasantly cool on his palm as well, because he was finding himself starting to sweat a little. It had to be the still air and his long sleeves, he thought. It was summer, after all. He turned the knob incrementally, praying that the mechanism was well-oiled. To his enormous satisfaction, the door opened with only the faintest of clicks. That's only the kind of quality workmanship you'd expect to find in a palace, he thought as he slipped into Relena's bedroom.

 

She'd left the drapes open and it was lighter inside. He could see everything in surprising detail, although the night still washed out the colours. The furniture was carved and gilt and large and the walls were bare except for some framed paintings; it wouldn't have looked at all like a teenage girl's room except for the clothing strewn everywhere and the makeup and accessories that covered the bureau. There was a teddy bear on the floor in front of her nightstand that looked like it had started out the night on the bed. These touches almost helped it seem like she'd settled in here, despite the austerity she'd had to work with.

 

The target herself was fast asleep in a pile of pillows and sheets, crowded on one side of her enormous bed. He picked his way through the mess on the floor, hoping not to step on anything that would hurt or make noise, and ended up beside the bed, level with her knees. Her face was half-obscured by her arm and her hair shone a little in the light coming through the window. She looked peaceful. He froze when she suddenly wrinkled her nose and shifted halfway onto her back but she didn't wake; her mouth was slack with dreams.

 

This was it. Heero reached for the knife strapped to his thigh. The blade caught much more of the moonlight than her hair did and it shone a wicked silver in the dark. He examined it briefly. Handschuhe, he thought, unbidden. He looked at her and tightened his grip on the knife, trying to take the last step forward. Handschuhe, he thought again, and then, Oh, fuck.

 

He couldn't do it.

 

***

 

Noin startled to full awareness before her brain even had a chance to process that she was awake. Her eyes were still closed, though, and she listened carefully for noises around her even as she was calming her breathing and slowly moving her hand farther under her pillow for her gun. At the creak from her right, she opened her eyes and had the gun pointing at the source of the noise before she'd focussed enough to see what the source was. It turned out to be the outline of a person, standing by the door.

 

“If you even twitch, I swear I will fill you with bullets,” she said calmly.

 

“Fair enough.” The voice caught her a little off-guard—she recognized it.

 

Noin sat up slowly, her aim never wavering. “Karl?”

 

“That's how you know me, yes.” So smooth, cool as a cucumber, in fact... and speaking perfect English? She shot a glance at her alarm clock and saw that it was well after three in the morning. Curiouser and curiouser, she thought. She didn't like this at all, and she was feeling more agitated every second. Her trigger finger itched.

 

She huffed, squinted her eyes, and turned on the bedside table lamp. Karl flinched away noticeably and as she focussed on him through watery eyes, blinking away pain and the purple afterimages of turning the light on, she saw that he was dressed from head to toe in black. And wearing a thigh holster. With an impressively long knife in it. She brought her other hand up to support the butt of her gun, debating the pros and cons of shooting him dead where he stood. “What the fuck are you doing, Karl? And who sent you to do it?” Maybe narrowing her eyes some more could be seen as a threatening action instead of a reaction to the bright light.

 

He raised his hands slowly. “I'm unarmed.” He saw her pointed look at the knife and amended, “That's my only weapon. Shall I give it to you? You can have it. Here.” Keeping his eyes trained on her and her gun, he very slowly reached one hand down to the buckles on the holster and unclipped them with a soft snap. The knife dropped heavily to the floor and he kicked it toward her as he raised both hands in the air again.

 

She had no control whatsoever over the situation she was in but if he was going to pretend that she did, she decided she wouldn't argue the point. “On your knees, both hands on your head, head on the floor. Now.” He obeyed promptly and she got up and patted him down thoroughly with one hand, the other pressing the gun to the back of his skull. She didn't know how safe she was supposed to feel upon finding that he really wasn't carrying any other weapons, because really, he probably didn't need any to take control of most situations, even if she was the one with the gun. But he'd also woken her up instead of killing her in her bed, which he'd no doubt had time to accomplish, the stealthy bastard, so this was probably supposed to be winning some of her trust. She backed off, her finger still riding the edge of the trigger, and told him to get up, slowly.

 

When he was on his feet again and they were staring at each other in silence, she debated in her head what to do next and then waved him toward the chair in the corner. She sat on the edge of her bed, still refusing to lower her gun. It annoyed her that he didn't look nervous, just slightly cautious. “Answer my questions,” she snapped. “You're clearly not the German-speaking gardener I hired and did a background check on, so who are you?”

 

“Those were well-fabricated credentials,” he said. “My name... well, I go by the name Heero Yuy, and I was contracted to assassinate Relena Friedenskraft. They gave me a startling amount of intelligence on her whereabouts and history and schedule, and I used my Karl Gehlen identity to get closer to the target. I was set to kill her tonight.”

 

Noin's stomach churned. “And?” Her voice may have been on the verge of cracking at the end of the word.

 

Karl—Heero—looked down at the floor for a second before he met her eyes again. “I couldn't do it. I can't do it. I don't want to do it. It's a stupid idea.”

 

“Should I thank you for your thoughtfulness?” She really wanted to shoot him. What was stopping her?

 

An alarmingly wry grin ghosted across his face. “You're still letting me talk; that's thanks enough.”

 

“I might change my mind. Who sent you?”

 

“A man called J. He has a lot more operatives, and he'll probably send more people after me to finish the job that I haven't. And there are other people after the princess, too. She's in unbelievable danger.”

 

“Danger from your people,” Noin said, glaring. This was bad. This was so very bad.

 

He actually rolled his eyes. “Yes, we've covered that. This was my third—and may I mention, last—attempt to kill her. My employer sent me to do it to keep her out of the hands of other, certainly more threatening groups, though.”

 

“Like who?”

 

“OZ, for one.”

 

“Excuse me?” A small, detached part of her brain, one that wasn't currently thinking through a red haze, noted that her voice had slipped into an almost polite calm. Her words practically chilled her own throat as she said them.

 

Heero had noticed the danger, too, and had leaned back into the chair a little as if to put more distance between them. “Are you familiar with them?” he asked.

 

“Passingly,” was all she could bring herself to say.

 

“Then are you also passingly aware of how many problems you have right now?” Apparently his attitude couldn't be dampered by the threat of imminent death. It had probably lost its charm somewhere along the way.

 

“You shouldn't lip off people who are pointing guns at you,” she chided. “Why are you telling me all of this? Why shouldn't I eliminate my most pressing problem right now?”

 

He sat up a little; finally, he was going to help her decide if he should just die or not. “OZ wants her, that's for sure. If they wanted to kill her, they would have already done it and then I wouldn't have to do it. They want her alive. No one's told me anything specific about it but I'm sure she ties into their military plans. The history of the throne in this country... they want to use her as a pawn, I'm sure of it. And that can't be allowed to happen, because it might grant them a big advantage.” He paused. “But killing her is, pardon my phrasing, a waste of a resource. If she stays alive and out of their hands, it'll strike a bigger blow against them.”

 

“So you propose that one side use her as a pawn instead of the other, then. And we're not even sure who's on the good side, except that it isn't OZ.”

 

He crossed his arms. “I'm prepared to be on 'the good side'. And I know others who will help. I never said this was going to be easy. OZ is a military machine, and a big one at that. Right now it's a guerilla war, and any advantage the smaller team can get is in our best interests.”

 

That was when Noin realized exactly who she was speaking to. “You've been fighting against OZ for a while, then.” She watched him nod as she thought through her position. This boy (and was he ever young-looking) thought that OZ was the bad guy, because they wanted to keep the princess alive and use her for their goals. World unity or world domination, depending which side you looked at it from. She was supposed to protect Relena at the same time as she was still supposed to be loyal to OZ. Did OZ know what she was up to and was she another pawn? Had her decision to help Zechs been an unexpected good fortune for them? Was this why Zechs had asked her to help, to protect her from OZ? To protect her from this boy and White Fang, if that was who he worked for? Did Zechs even have a clue what was going on with his sister, as loyal and as favoured as he was to the organization? Did Treize know who Zechs really was? Noin's head spun with possibilities. Heero was still watching her steadily and her gun was still trained on him just as steadily.

 

Was her first loyalty to OZ or to the girl sleeping down the hall? Where did Zechs want it to be?

 

Did it matter?

 

She cleared her throat. “So, what are you proposing?”

 

Heero's smile was in his eyes and nowhere else. “I want to help you protect her. It's crucial that she stay alive and away from OZ.”

 

She raised an eyebrow. “Because the addition of a skinny, teenaged boy to her personal security is going to be such an improvement,” she mocked.

 

“You underestimate my abilities,” he said calmly. His words and tone weren't even arrogant, just confident. He really thought he was hot stuff.

 

“Whatever your abilities, you're still only one man.”

 

“I said there were others. They're as good as me. They'll help. And then we'll be a force to be reckoned with.” There it was, finally: a glint of the cockiness of the untested young talent.

 

Noin sighed. If she'd ever really had the upper hand, she would have asked how she was supposed to be able to trust his intentions, but things being what they were, she was already being forced to trust him. She'd been fighting a losing battle since she woke up and she'd just lost it completely. She lowered her gun, clicking the safety on before tossing it on the mattress beside her. She stood up and extended her right hand to him.

 

His grip was as firm as hers as they shook hands. “Well, Mr. Yuy, you'd better call the cavalry. Now get out of my house.”

 

He left through her door and she didn't ask how he was going to get out from there. She also didn't sleep for the rest of the night.

 

***

 

Relena woke early the next morning to streams of sunlight hitting her face. She stretched, peered at the clock, and hugged the teddy bear in her arms a little tighter before rolling over and going back to sleep.

 

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A/N: School's starting again for me on Monday (my last year! my last year!) but I have a lighter courseload than usual so we'll see how things go. The next chapter is already bothering me so I'll probably get to work on it soon. :D