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"The Rescue"Written By: Kaeru Shisho Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing
or its characters, nor do I make any monetary profit off this story. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: Drama/Romance Angst Pairings: 1x2, 3x4 Summary: When liberating Duo from a prison camp, Trowa is rescued from brainwashing, and both Quatre and Heero are free to love them. The war may be over but peaceful it is not. A/N: Thanks go to Waterlily for the edits " The Rescue" Chapter 5 "I'm taking Heero out for a walk." "You do that." Wufei lifted his eyes from the wall of technical apparatuses and spun a dial haphazardly. "I won't be in a hurry to come back, unless you hear anything," Quatre added sotto voce, to no positive effect. From the expression on Heero's face, he'd probably overheard him anyway. Quatre smiled and cleared his throat. "We'll bring back dinner." "Nothing Thai. I'm still suffering from yesterdays' chili burn." Quatre straightened his tie and collar in the reflective glass over an old group shot. It was an uncommon moment captured on film: Trowa, Quatre and Duo standing serious faced, while Wufei and Heero shared a joke. If you looked closer, you'd notice that the three in back were sporting red bow ties and the two jokesters, center-front, wore ordinary sober, black ties. They could all use a good practical joke right about now. Trowa popping up in a safe house or some restaurant, then everyone coming back home, would be one nice scenario. There had been no word from Hilde or Duo since the "not an aberration, Chang" signal from, possibly, Duo on the road someplace. Wufei had blown up twice when Heero had diagramed a rescue mission on napkins, once at Heero and the next time at Quatre for encouraging him. "Yuy, forget it. Une would have your license before you got your ass out the door." "I'll be long gone before she hears anything." "No, you won't because I'm calling her right this minute." Wufei had a finger on the interoffice phone button. "He's just worried about Duo." Wufei nearly slapped Quatre silly for stepping in and supporting Heero against his better judgment. "You don't think I'm worried about Hilde, and Duo, both?" "Oh, I didn't mean..." Heero wasn't backing off so easily. "We can't just sit here while they're out there-" "Yes, we can and we will. I'm not letting you jeopardize their mission, their lives, your livelihood-." The argument never came to blows, but it had been close. A natural negotiator, Quatre, had them settle on a number of days, after that even a dozen Preventers agents couldn't keep him from going in. (o) The jailhouse quickly filled with detainees. OZ was conducting sweeps of the entire countryside for anyone they deemed loyal to the former regime or partial to freedom for the colonies, or any enemies of theirs from previous wars. This could be just about anyone. They didn't assign us numbers for identification and didn't call us prisoners or inmates. They called us traitors. "Traitors come to the cell door." "Traitors eat." "Traitors shut up." I got tired of the whole shebang pretty quick. Within days, the huge room became crowded with "traitors." At night when we lay down to sleep, it was impossible to walk across the room to the toilet without stepping on bodies. There was not even space to hang-dry our sodden clothes, so despite the chill, we wore them dirty and damp. We slept next to each other, cramped, a jumble of elbows and knees. We exercised by standing up and sitting down. I wondered constantly about how Hilde was holding up. She'd never been jailed. She'd had to do without and was a tough lady, but prison camp could wear a person down fast. As I had feared, an announcement finally came over the loud-speakers: "Attention all traitors: You now have a chance to confess your crimes against the country. You will be judged on your honesty. You are to write down every detail of your life, jobs, family, and background. Any inaccuracies will be considered an attempt to deceive the liberation government and you will be severely punished. If you lie, you will be executed." Yeah, well, that last part was a given no matter what, I guessed. They brought us outside a few at a time, sat us down at the rows of tables, and handed out pencils and booklets of paper. I pretended to scribble for the benefit of the moles among us, but I couldn't write a word. I couldn't bring myself to reveal my service record, but I was equally afraid of being caught in a lie. What came to my mind was Heero's face staring darkly and promising to tell me something of personal significance after I got back. Right. That was compelling. After him, I pictured our commander, Une. She had once told us that there was no forgiveness in the OZ canon. If they knew my background, they would have already executed me, without hesitation. That meant that they hadn't studied all the ID cards yet. Of course, my face-forward shot didn't show my tell-tale braid, nor much semblance to my teenage terrorist image. It carefully looked like nobody, so it might take time to find me out. Hilde, too. Ironically, if I had been caught on L2, where I was rarely assigned missions, the neighborhood informants would have promptly exposed me. In Drain, I had the singular advantage of anonymity, although I did not know how long that would last. I suspected three things: first, OZ had no qualms about executing anyone they deemed guilty; second, they gave no honor to their enemies, so in their minds, promises made to prisoners were meaningless; and third, I had never heard of OZ showing mercy to those they could not brainwash. I wrote that I'd been a scrap yard worker exempted from the draft. The following day, we were given another chance to write about our crimes against the state, the country, and the universe as a whole. They repeated this tactic several times, trying to find discrepancies in our confessions. During the first week, they held public trials and executions in the town's village square. Never once did I see hide nor hair of any Trowa Barton. This had become a dead end. I'm a scrapper. I'm a scrapper, I insisted unvaryingly in my tablet. I was a high-stakes gambler at a roulette table, the little white ball going round and round. In a room so crowded, you couldn't move two feet in any direction without touching someone, yet I felt utterly alone. My secrets settled in my stomach, as indigestible as a rock. After a week of this mild torture, they started releasing the women and children. When Hilde got out, I felt our chances of survival had increased significantly. She walked out of the prison gate and went directly to the nearest market. With the money she'd sewn into the lining of her pants, she bought food, medicine, a blanket, toiletries, and then came right back to the prison. She brought me the supply package that kept me from succumbing to illness. "You must have scoured the village for all these." I wondered at the assortment of painkillers, aspirin, ointments, and antibiotics. The compressed ration packs and water-purification tablets looked like manna from heaven. "My uncle will help," she promised in the brief exchange, the only one allowed. This was a code phrase which meant I shouldn't try anything heroic, that she'd bring help soon. I knew it could be a long, arduous, and dangerous trip for her alone back to find a safe house, possibly try for that safe house, once lost in the fog, and from there to bring help. But I had hope. I had to have hope, because I wanted to get back to Heero and find out what the hell he wanted to say. The look in his eyes had been, well, full, deep, and my imagination had been going overtime filling in the rest. I couldn't help myself! Geez, I was a gay man stuck in hell - in a prison filled with men all day and night. My dream world occupied by Heero Yuy and moi was the only place in town where I could be me. I couldn't conceive of him not being into me, eventually. If I had, I would have given up waiting and just died trying to escape the place in a wild firefight. That was a real temptation, believe you me. I was a realist, though. I didn't go overboard on the positive or the negative thinking. My getting out was going take time. Word was that the new regime policed by OZ was issuing drastic curfews and travel restrictions that even limited movement between neighboring districts. The simple act of going from one province to another would now require permits from several offices. If Hilde was unable to locate that safe house, again, then she'd have to continue back the way we'd come, and if she was going to do it within my limited lifetime, she'd have to take the main road and find transportation. I imagined her irritation building at having to first bribe herself through a labyrinth of bureaucracy before queuing for hours to buy a ticket on an overcrowded bus. At least she had activity to occupy her brain! I had nothing. (o) They showed me pictures of two men, who they identified as Dekim Barton and his son Trowa. I didn't resemble either man. My name was not Trowa Barton. I was Trenton Breem, but it seemed as foreign to me as their faces, more so even. I tried to reason that one out and couldn't. I was Trenton Breem. Okay, so one name was as good as another. Today, I was informed that I'm nearly ready. Preparations were underway for my final test. I look forward to the opportunity to rid this world of our enemies. I count the days until my orders arrive. -Trowa/ Commander Trenton Breem, OZ Chapter 6 Nearly two agonizing weeks had passed before a message came from "38" at a safe house nowhere near the one lost in Drain, but one many miles closer to where the pair had begun their mission. It was encoded with the highest level of emergency. Heero had intercepted the message and ran to notify Wufei, who was sleeping on a cot in the office nearby. He in turn took the information directly to Commander Une and within an hour, he was on a transport, leading a small force to pick her up. This was in an area which hadn't seen enemy action for many months and a transport ship could land and get out quickly. "We should have gone in like this weeks ago and blasted our way into all the possible camps to look for Trowa and not had to go through all this now," Heero growled. "I know." Quatre was worried that Hilde's message didn't include the "02" code, and knew that most of Heero's anger was covering for the same worry. All he could do was commiserate now, or was it? "Heero, I'm worried that we will get back only Hilde. But I'm hoping she will bring us news about Duo and Trowa. Let's say she knows where Duo is-" "She'd better!" "And maybe he's with Trowa and for some reason she couldn't extract them both. That means she'll need help. We need to develop plans of our own so we can act immediately after we learn something." "Yes." Heero's eye glowed with secret joy. "Execute an operation independent of Preventers. They are too cautious." Quatre agreed with a nod. "I want to contact the Maguanac Corps. They work autonomously without the limits of political policies and crippling rules." Quatre punched his open palm to expend some exasperation. "I'm totally annoyed with Une's actions. We've given her time and she has failed to convince me she values ... prioritizes her agent's needs high enough." "I want action too." Heero stared at the map then poked at it. "Here's where they are picking up Hilde. We know they reached this far, so she travelled backwards. There's a public bus route along the road, but that doesn't help us know where she came from." He raked his hair in frustration. "I hate waiting." "I don't like it either, and since I don't know how long it will take Rashid to prepare or even what I should tell them to plan for, I'll give them what we know- those coordinates to start with- and fine tune them once we get her story." Heero smiled fiercely. "It's a start in the right direction." Late the next night, Wufei called in to report to Heero what he'd learned. It would be another day until he would be back at the Preventer's building, but he wanted him to know everything Hilde had learned. "Duo is still in the prison." He paused, letting the fact sink in that she was free while Duo was still incarcerated. "Women are often freed and he's alive, which implies," Heero reckoned, "they hadn't identified either agent as enemy combatants." That was good. "That's correct," Wufei said. "Duo was okay when last she'd seen him," Wufei went on. "She told the prison authorities that she had a rich uncle willing to pay for her husband's release." "Bribe? That's why she was released," Heero said. "It seems likely to me as well. She was allowed to meet with him twice and brought him a few medications and rations. Heero, he has a better chance to survive this than most of the other men there." "Thank Hilde for me," Heero said gratefully, a little of Quatre's politeness rubbing off. "I did." Wufei was quiet. Heero ran over the facts again in his mind before remembering to ask, "How is she?" "Unharmed. Angry that they were unprepared. She's reporting that the Resistance and OZ are both drawing lines in the sand, cutting off parts of the country. It's worse than Preventers knows, or at least, what we agents know." "That's wrong in so many ways," Heero said. "I don't trust anyone but ourselves." "I was hoping you could think of something. Howard might come through, I don't know. They do seem bribable." "As long as they believe he's a nobody," Heero said, "they will accept a bribe, possibly, but if they suspect he's valuable, who knows?" He looked to Quatre who just walked in. "Quatre's here." He briefed his friend. "It's Wufei. Hilde is okay. Duo is in an unchartered prison." Quatre compressed his lips, as Heero turned back to the vid-call, "Any other news?" "No sign of Trowa," Wufei said next. "Duo passed that information on to her the last time they spoke." Heero shook his head in answer to Quatre's unvoiced entreaty. If Quatre was disappointed, he didn't show it, painting on an expression of grim determination instead. "Just tell him that we are mustering the Maguanac Corps." "Heard that!" Wufei shouted over background noise of a ship's engine. "Wait for me. I'm in." "Can I speak to Hilde?" Heero asked. "She's sleeping now. It was hard on her." Wufei's voice had gone hoarse for a second, but was back to normal when he added. "I'm sending the coordinates of the prison. One we hadn't known about." "Of course we didn't." Heero didn't mask the nastiness in his tone. He ended the call pissed and blaming Commander Une and the agents responsible for gathering intelligence. "Damn! We have to do everything ourselves!" But then he felt strong arms draw him into an embrace. A firm chest pressed to his, arms wrapped around his neck, soft hair brushed his cheek. He was aware that Quatre's personal scent and his shampoo combined to create a pleasant blend and that his body gave off a generous supply of warmth. Overall, it was a comforting gesture, which he returned in his own way. I'll have to do this for Duo when I next see him, he thought. (o) Without Hilde's supplies, I would have died. Many other inmates were in worse condition. At the peak of incarceration, OZ kept more than a thousand men in the prison, packing people into all four building until there was no space left to walk. We were kept like diseased beasts waiting for slaughter, unworthy of the least measure of compassion. We lay on bare concrete. The reek from the clogged toilet was unbearable. Lice were everywhere and with having to hide my hair, my braid, at all times, the itching became intolerable. I chewed my nails to the nub to keep from clawing my skin to shreds. In here, a simple infection could lead to gangrene or an agonizing death, and I didn't want to unnecessarily use up the supplies Hilde brought me. Once, they let us outside for ten minutes to bathe and wash our clothes at the large cement cistern in the middle of the prison yard. It was such a relief to cleanse the grime from my skin that I sometimes forgot what a pitiful sight we were-dozens of pale, withered men in their boxer shorts frantically soaping themselves and scooping water with their hands under the scrutiny of armed guards. I longed to unbraid my hair and scour to my heart's content, but I couldn't reveal that most telltale identifier. Heero had warned me. Wufei had lectured me on numerous occasions that my hair would be my undoing. I wore it coiled and pinned with sticks. As I scrubbed at my scalp, I freed more of the shorter hairs, which flopped over the coil and covered it more with time. Before dressing, I applied ointment on my sores and bites, and then rinsed the sweat from one garment, no more lest I give myself a chill before the cloth dried. Prison was the cruelest of man's inventions. Within the walls, the days stood still. We played games and made up trivia quizzes. We invented dozens of little devices to ease our suffering-the best of which was a candle stove made from an empty tin of baby food powder. Mostly, we filled the empty hours with words. We talked, knowing well that there were moles among us. We could not help ourselves. We talked because infinity didn't span centuries, it lay within each second. I shared my dreams for the future, the fine food I would eat with my family and friends, the vacations we might take, and the cottage I'd like to build by the sea. I didn't say how it would be inhabited by someone other than my wife. I kept a part of my dreams concealed carefully. It wasn't so hard; I hadn't even told Heero how I felt about him. In my mind, I had sealed off my past. I never talked about my childhood. I did not give a single hint of military knowledge. So I became the ardent listener, casting myself as a silent character in the lives of the other inmates and losing myself in their past dramas. This trick I learned from a very good friend of mine, Trowa Barton. God, I hoped he'd fared better than me, but I didn't let my thoughts drift down that dark road. Reality returned every evening after dinner. The loudspeakers came on and called out the names of those who would face judgment. A stage had been rigged right outside the prison for the public trials and denouncements of traitors-a ghoulish entertainment. When it was over, someone would strike the first match. The tiny flare of the flame brought us out from the darkness. We stirred as if the light were a confirmation of our existence. Each man fussed over his own baby food can, makeshift stove to boil some water for coffee or tea. It helped to be busy. It helped to have some caffeine and sugar in the blood to brace the spirit. In the flickering candlelight of hundreds of baby food stoves, the names of those who had just vanished from our midst were never spoken. One by one, my cellmates were called away by the loudspeakers, each leaving behind a few items of clothing, candles, and a baby food stove. These bits and pieces were all that was left of them. Those of us who remained dared not use their belongings for fear of inheriting the same bad luck. Next to the toilet, a pile of goods collected like bones. I remembered how, in my impassioned youth, my heart had swelled with pride at the sight of my Deathscythe standing at the ready; the feel of the other brave pilots fighting at my side, covering my back, driving away the "bad guys" in an attempt to free our colonies from the oppressor. I'd met Hilde at a gathering of OZ cadets. I could easily have been convinced to join them, be a part of that resistance, fight their interpretation of injustice, strike back at their enemies. I might have been on the other side of this. Do the ends truly justify the means? And if so, to what ends had we arrived? OZ was winning this new war, and they were barbaric! This was ridiculously vindictive. This was just so damned senseless. Déjà vu... What was it that Wufei had once said? Insanity is doing the same thing in the same way and expecting a different outcome. I'd thought that was funny at the time I first heard it, but now I knew it wasn't true either. That was more an act of stupidity or futility than insanity. Peace only comes when reason rules. Now that had some meat on it. Wufei'd said that too. Some ancient Chinese saying. My time eventually came. Dawn brought smoky clouds. A drizzle haunted the long afternoon, fading at twilight. The loudspeakers screeched to life and began calling out names. Eric Martin. I heard it as clearly as I had heard it in my nightmares and yet it didn't register as my name for a few seconds. Hilde had gotten us the papers and chosen the name for me. At least she'd made it simple for me to say, seeing as my French sucked royally. I dressed in the same clothes I'd worn in, cinching up the waist with a belt I'd made from a torn t-shirt. I'd lost weight. Everything else I left behind. My toothbrush, ragged clothes, food, even my precious baby food stove. I was barefoot because they'd torn up my boots after a metal detector discovered the blades sewn into the linings. I had thought I would be terrified and do something dishonorable...or cry. But when they came for me, I wasn't afraid. I'd moved beyond fear. Transcended it. There was only an overwhelming sadness that I would never see Heero again and that he'd never know how he inhabited my last thoughts on earth. A numbing emptiness calmed my limbs. No shaking. I didn't think of whether or not the execution bullet would be painful or whether death, in its ultimate mercy, would come quickly. I did not think about my other friends or where my soul would go. The sky was dark, starless, the air scented with deep heavy earth from the earlier rain. I felt a piercing love for my dearest one. It didn't occur to me to say a prayer. (o) I rarely dreamed. I had nightmares for years after the war. Everyone did. But pleasant re-enactments of past events or wish fulfillments I never had. So, at first I didn't recognize this one. I was sleeping and it was dark. complete darkness and I was coiled like a snail on my cot. My eyes screwed shut and feelings, thoughts damped against the pain of my current reality. I might have taken that position to protect something inside. A dot of light appeared in the darkness. I thought of a past time when I'd been floating in the void of space and seen a dot light that. Later on I'd been told it was a Sweeper ship that had detected the wreckage and found me and returned me to the circus. Duo had told me that. The rush of joy jolted me. A memory had returned! A name! Was that point of light a ship? Duo? No. A cramp of pain darkened the images. No. I wasn't in space. No. Trowa. I imagined I heard a voice calling. That might have been the end of my dream, except that through my eyelids I could sense more light and I had to look, despite the pain-penalty I knew I could count on afterwards. The light had grown brighter and larger giving the impression of having moved closer. And then I heard it again, a name, the same name. Trowa. I couldn't take my eyes off the light. There was no heat, only light and it grew until out of the center came a figure. I recognized the man and tried to put a name to him. Not Duo. Trowa. Trowa, Trowa, Trowa. I wanted to return a name of my own. A word. Anything, but a terrible pain twisted in my gut and I folded again into myself and the dark. Interminable time passed and so did the worst of the pain. Trowa. The light was still there. The man. I felt a serenity surround me like sinking into honey happiness. Trowa...answer! "Quatre!" I must have shouted out, probably repeatedly. I awoke sitting up, my throat raw, my face wet. I'd cried. I never cried any more. I never cried because I never felt. I didn't need the punishing pain to remind me I still harbored a shred of feelings. My humanity still lurked inside. Somewhere deep. Protected from the dark, but touched by light. - Commander Trenton Breem
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