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"Alternative Directions: Options "Written By: Karina Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the lovely
boys and their girls in the series. Wish I did. Please don't sue me.
I haven't even got a brass razoo to give you. Rating: Deffinately PG in Australia, at the moment,
but probably safer to say R for later chapters. Not sure about international
ratings Warnings: It will be 6x2, even though it does
not start out that way. After all, Zechs and Duo never met in Gundam
Wing and only spoke briefly over a com line in Endless Waltz. I've
tried to keep them in character as I saw them in the series. A bit
of language creeping in under stressful conditions. Pairings: eventual 6x2, past 2xH, 2+H,6x9, 1+R
Summary: Directions is set post Endless Waltz
and roughly 2 years have passed. Zechs and Noin are on Mars and Duo,
after spending some time with Hilde in a relationship leaves L2 to
join Preventers. Hilde was not happy about his decision. I guess enough
said. Here t'is, and I hope you like it. This is also AU for the standard
setting, as well as the series and Endless Waltz. Spoilers: Gundam Wing Series and Endless Waltz Many thanks to Dulin for volunteering to beta this. //... // thoughts
"Alternative Directions: Options"
Chapter 115 2nd March AC 198 Sanc En route Time: 01:20 Quatre The car shuddered under the onslaught of a particularly violent gust of wind. They had come around the face of a hill and into a exposed stretch of road where there were no trees to block the flow of wind and the ferocity of the blizzard threatened to drive the vehicle from the road. The driver muttered darkly to himself eyes flicking constantly from the windscreen and the view of the white out he was forced to drive through to the GPS system that made this night drive possible. In the rear of the vehicle Quatre stared out of the window into the darkness and idly ran a finger over the fogged glass. // We can not continue in this. We will need to find a place where we may shelter. This blizzard is getting worse and it has not been safe to continue for some time now but we dare not stop on the road side. To do so would be to die of exposure. The car heater even now is not enough and if we stopped … // He sighed softly, frowning at the darkness and the ice crystals that seemed to form on the glass as he watched. The temperature had fallen dangerously in the last half hour and there was no sign as yet that the storm was beginning to ease. //If Sally or Heero do not make the decision soon then I will take it upon myself to do so. It does no one any good, not Relena and Marie or the Earth Sphere itself if we have an accident.// It did not help that as yet he had no idea what it was that they were fleeing. No explanation had been forthcoming beyond a mention of a vague threat and the instruction to take the Vice Foreign Minister to a safe house. No doubt the situation would be clarified in the near future but that did not assist him now in judging the severity of the situation and the level of actions to be taken in response. //Does this have anything to do with what is happening on Mars? I do not see how though. They would not want Relena endangered and her brother certainly can not do anything to stop what is happening there, so why is there this alert now? It makes no sense and I have heard nothing of any active terrorist cells who are anywhere near prepared to take violent action at this time. These things take time and planning and there were no whispers of there being that kind of trouble in the near future.// Just what had happened back at the palace? It had been less than a minute after their departure that he had chanced to glance back at just the right moment and he had seen the explosion light up the night. The fireball had been clear in the night, lighting up the palace grounds in an eerie mix of fire, light and snow. The sound of the detonation seconds later led him to believe that the palace may have been hit by a missile of some kind. There were distinctly different kinds of explosions, the sound of the detonation and the colour and size of the fire ball often gave one clues as to the type of device used. He was certain that the security at the palace was sufficient to ensure that no one could have smuggled a bomb into the palace grounds, let alone into the palace itself and that certainty left him with the belief that perhaps a rocket launcher may have been the means of delivering the explosive device. // There had been a viable threat received by Lady Une else the order to evacuate the Princess would never have been given. She does not panic easily and she has faith in her people. Security is intense around Relena and I would defy anyone to succeed at smuggling explosives into the palace and past Heero. If that explosion was caused by a missile payload, whether from a rocket launcher or perhaps an air born vehicle … No, the pilot would have to be insane to try flying in this weather. Regardless of the means of delivery the fact remains that there was an explosion at the palace and Une must have received advance notice of the attack and that would have to mean that we have a terrorist group active.// What exactly had caused the explosion? So much hinged on the means of delivery and the payload. Had a bomb been somehow smuggled into the palace, which he personally could not see or had it been a missile? If a device had been smuggled into the palace then they had to have a mole or moles in the security staff, not just in the domestic staff of the palace. Or was he seeing entirely too much into the situation? It well might have been a coincidence that the two events occurred so close to each other and the cause might well be far less threatening to peace than he surmised. It might have been a far more innocent occurrence that resulted in the explosion, something as simple as a gas explosion for instance. He would have to reserve judgment for now but act on the worst case scenario and treat it as terrorist activity. How many people had been hurt? Had people died? // I am not a pessimist by nature but I am not a great believer in coincidence either, especially not in such a situation as this. I wish we could at least get some type of reception on the car radio as I know there would be news bulletins on the explosion. We are under orders not to even use the Preventer bands so there will be no information received from that source on what is going on until Lady Une decides to enlighten us. If it is not an emergency we have to stay clear of those bands but at least we might hear something about the explosion if we could receive a civil transmission. I hate not knowing all of the relevant information. If we did not need to remain off the air I would feel better. // “Snowbird to Snow Hawk.” Quatre snapped his attention back to the interior of the car and reached for the radio control. The message was mixed with interference and was barely understandable which testified to the severity of the storm as the other car was only a few metres from them in this white out. “Reading you Snowbird.” “Satellite Weather forecast update suggests that this blizzard will remain until at least mid day and may gather more strength before it eases off. The GPS says that there is a village a few kilometres ahead of our current position. We will need to shelter there from the storm until we can move again. Marie is freezing and we are not much better off.” Sally's voice filled the car, broken by interference and faint against the static crackle but he could make out her message and he breathed a sigh of relief. They had sense enough to not chance more exposure to this weather than they needed to. “Acknowledged, Snowbird.” //At least one of them saw the sense in stopping before we are involved in an accident. From my memory of the map of this area this road deteriorates just past that village as it winds up into the mountains. I did not like the idea of driving in these conditions on that exposed stretch. // He peered over the seat, looking ahead through the windshield of the car and shook his head in disgust. He could not even see the tail lights of the forward vehicle. It was sheer idiocy to try to continue and he only hoped that this village was close by. Were it not for the advanced equipment carried in the Preventer vehicles they would have long ago had to pull off the road and wait out the storm, which in itself was a death sentence in this type of weather. The global positioning system placed their position accurately and the vehicles on board radar system showed clearly where the forward vehicle was in relation to the car he rode in as well as keeping them on the narrow clear stretch that was the road. Without the electronic aids this flight through the night would have been impossible. He leaned over the seat back to get a good view of the GPS screen and noted the cluster of dots that marked the village that now would be their goal. //The village is little more than a kilometre from where we are now.// He studied the screen that showed a map of this section of Sanc and a topographical overlay marking the road and the contours of the hills and two moving dots which were the vehicles slowly inching their way through the storm. // I hope that this village has a hotel and a roaring fire.// Sanc's main industry was tourism and the draw card of a country that looked largely as it had over six hundred years in the past appeared to be considerable. During the occupation of Sanc the Alliance military had kept an iron hand on the country and during that time its industry had been almost non existent. The exception to the industrial ban had been farming and production of textiles, all other industries and the supplying of the extensive military presence had been imported. The Alliance leadership had seemed to have no trust in the Sancian survivors at all. In the outlying areas the farming communities had been encouraged and the repairing of the destruction caused through the invasion had been left up to the survivors who had repaired the damages in the traditional Sancian style, which now was a boon as the people of the ultra modern Earth Sphere found it fashionable to explore a more traditional and primitive life style. Quatre smirked slightly at that thought. Traditional and primitive life style indeed. He had seen enough of Sanc to know that most of the villages and the one major city boasted every modern convenience imaginable. The evidence of this modern Sanc was simply not in plain sight where the tourists could see it. Friendly as the Sancians were they had learned to be shy of outsiders during the Occupation and they kept their private lives hidden from prying eyes, presenting to the world a quiet backwater traditional lifestyle that everyone seemed to think was the norm in Sanc. Making a note of the name of the village they were aiming for he settled back in his seat and pulled his palm top computer to hand and brought up what information he could find on the village. He needed a list of facilities they could expect to find in the small township and an estimate of the population and perhaps he could then estimate the level of threat to Relena's security their stay in the village would cause. Only one Inn was mentioned in the guide, a small building listed as a traditional coaching Inn and he arched an eyebrow to find that it was listed as being a four star facility. The Coachman's Rest sounded considerably larger than he had expected to find this far from New Port City but he hoped it was having a quiet night as they would need a number of their rooms for an unknown period of time. No doubt they would create a stir when Relena would be recognized by the locals and that would be unfortunate but it was unavoidable and they would have to deal with it as best they could. Hopefully they could keep her presence quiet and low key and they could hope that the blizzard would cut down the chances of a crowd gathering at this unexpected chance to gawk at their Princess once the word of her presence circulated. “ETA?” he queried the driver. “In this, maybe ten minutes.” the man glared out at the driving snow. “If we are lucky.” Quatre sighed and nodded, settling back once again in his seat and shutting down the palm top computer. At the best of times radio reception in these hills was notoriously sketchy, despite modern transmitters recently having been installed for civilian convenience so they had not even the distraction of music to amuse them, just the seemingly never ending white on white of the blizzard and the moving dots on the screens that enabled them to move through here at all. He breathed a small sigh of relief as the car came slowly around the side of the hill and the wind lessened with the shelter now offered, the snowfall easing in the more sheltered area and enabled him to glimpse the red tail lights of the forward car. That glimpse drew another sigh in recognition that just that view of the red lights in the night provided him with a more secure feeling. It had seemed that there had only been he and the driver and his companion agent locked in this not so warm box on wheels that provided poor shelter from the storm, but that red glow in the night assured him that they were not alone and that they were not lost in the snow, which was, of course, not possible with the GPS system. Regardless, he was relieved to see the other vehicle ahead. //As if one could get lost on Earth in this day and age. The Global Positioning Systems make getting lost impossible. It is so beautiful here on Earth, and for all of the creature comforts provided by civilization it is still such a wild planet. In comparison the colonies are controlled, regimented. Every system on the Colonies is carefully balanced but the Earth … here it is still wild and at the mercy of mother nature. I have lived here for many months, off and on and I think that what still frightens me a little is the sheer size of the planet. It is so much more than the colonies ever will be. // He was a colony child, bred, born and raised within the sealed environment of a man made world orbiting the greater planet. He had been pampered, educated and trained in a metal shell of a world that was only a poor and tiny imitation of this great ball of rock and water spinning endlessly through space. There were millions of people in each of the colonies, all crammed together. They lived in each others pockets, even the rich who had a larger share of the overall colony to call their own. Millions of people living together, breathing the same recycled air, drinking the same recycled water, eating the same carefully nurtured and often recycled food stuffs. There were no open vistas there, no great mountain ranges, no raging oceans. You could walk the entire colony in far less than a day and that was taking one's time and stopping to admire the often not so admirable scenery. //It is such a beautiful place this planet and they don't seem to recognize its beauty. Even now, when it might have been destroyed and lost forever they do not seem to understand what it is that they have. How can they say that the cities are beautiful when they have this to look at? If they want to look at cities and be a part of cities they may as well live on a colony and leave the Earth to grow in beauty.// He had been to New York and he had seen the metropolis there. Manhattan Island had reminded him of the colonies. It seemed to be the one place on Earth that really brought to his mind the colony environment that he had been raised into. Millions of people lived on that one tiny island that was slightly smaller than the overall area of most of the colonies spinning through space. The sheer size of the island, tiny and overcrowded with buildings that reached to touch the sky, seeming to enclose the people much as the colony shell did, had brought back to him the days when he had known nothing other than that sealed reality. At least in Manhattan if he looked overhead he had not found himself gazing at the other side of the colony hanging above him. At least when he had looked up there had been a stretch of sky. If anything Sanc was the antithesis of Manhattan. New Port city claimed no buildings over six stories high, the strict building code forbidding skyscrapers and enforcing a style to architecture that fitted in with the olde world charm that was synonymous with the country. The strict enforcing of the building code allowed the sun to shine on the city and everyone who lived there was graced with views of the mountains and foothills to the south and the sea to the north. Sanc was recovering from the horrors of the invasion and the repression of the occupation, and the destruction caused in the second assault not so many years ago, but it still was a far cry from the fairytale kingdom that it had been when King Stephan Peacecraft had ruled. The people had rebuilt the city and the surrounding villages in the traditional Northern European style, with their steep pitched roofs that did not allow too much snow to settle in their long winter, their cheerful colours and decoration and presented to the world a fairytale country for their cameras. It was undeniably a picture postcard kind of place but if you took the time and looked at the people with more than a little care then you could see the effects that two invasions and years of repressive occupation had left. The people of Sanc were tired. //I can understand that exhaustion only too well. I am tired too. The war … I look back at that time and I wonder that I did those things and I ask myself how I can live, how am I going to live with what I have done. Why me? Stupid, stupid thoughts. // He snorted softly to himself, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He was tired. He must have been more tired than he had thought because he had promised himself repeatedly that he would not do this again. Every now and then he dropped his guard and he reverted back to asking the question why he had done what he had. Why had he abandoned the privileged life he had lived in the colony. Why had he turned his back on his father's plans for him and his good intentions and gone his own way in a crazy rush toward death and destruction. There were so many things he could say to himself that would salve his conscience and that would give him excuses and reasons for each and every action that he had taken leading up to the war and during the conflict. There were many excuses and reasons for what he had done, but the answers he came up with never seemed enough to still the questions he kept asking himself. He had undertaken professional counseling both privately and under government sanction as price for his current freedom and though his therapists had seemed satisfied with him and his mental outlook he still found those moments when everything just seemed wrong. // I suppose I will become accustomed to it. Accept it as being unavoidable and move on. It's just that where ever I look, be it here on Earth or in the colonies when I am there that I will see something that gives rise to a question I do not want to face. I might have looked at that something for days on end and it has never disturbed me but suddenly it seems to have more meaning than it had before and it makes me think of times I wish I could forget. I know what it was that I thought at the time I made the decision to take a hand in defence of the colonies but now, when I look back and when I ask myself why I agreed to pilot Sandrock I think of my reasons and I wince. They seem so inadequate now. Why did I get involved in the war? Why did I make the decisions that I did? It seems dreamlike that I would place myself in such a position when it goes against everything that I was taught. Why did I place myself in the role of a Terrorist? Allah, I was a terrorist. I was not a soldier. It was not a jihad. I was not a Soldier of God working for the glory of God. I was not a soldier at all. Not in the true sense of the word. I look back now and I remember what I have done and I can not escape from the truth. No one was right and no one was wrong in the war. People do terrible things in wars, even those who mean well. Especially those who mean well. Ah, I am doing it again. I have to stop this. I need Trowa here to distract me. To make me think of other and far more pleasant things.// That was the one really good thing to have come out of the war for him on a purely personal level. Trowa. He did not care that Trowa did not know his name but used another. A name was just a name, after all, and he had not fallen in love with a name. Out of the horror that was war it was Trowa that had come to mean everything to him, to give him meaning for surviving. It was Trowa's smile, that small, secret curve of his lips that so few ever knew that made his heart swell with pleasure, not the so called peace that he had to fight harder to maintain every day that passed. It was Trowa and their wish for a future together that gave meaning to what was in their past and gave them the heart and courage to face what they fought for on a daily basis to maintain. It seemed to him with growing certainty that that elusive thing called true peace was never going to come, despite the lives that had been sacrificed to gain this time when there was no war. // No war, at least for now. // he amended. //True peace. The only time I feel at peace is when I feel his arms around me and I can soak in his presence. Just what is true peace? It is different for everybody. No two people see it in the same way. // For him on a personal level peace was the chance to stare into emerald green eyes, to taste warm skin and bathe in the unique scent that was his soul mate. Peace was the chance to soak in the flavour of his lover and watch a sunset together. Those times were rare and at this time of transition when he prepared to leave the Winner Corporation he felt on edge, especially with Trowa so far from him. Why could his personal preference not be accepted by his family? That too had to be considered in the definition of true peace. Religious acceptance between religions. Personal acceptance of others religion. Not just religion either. Sexual acceptance between genders, be they heterosexual or homosexual or lesbian or bisexual seemed to be a touchy subject. So much might be tolerated on one colony, accepted openly on another and outlawed on a third. In itself that mix of tolerance and intolerance might become a cause for war be it on a personal or family level as in his case or on a more public forum if people with level heads ever fell to the zealots. It was not just sex that made the world turn. People seemed to fight over the drop of a hat. Did man really need an excuse to find contention with his fellow man? //Allah! I have to stop this. I have to concentrate on the matters at hand. // Had it not been for the war and his decision to participate in it as more than a bystander the truth was that he would never have met Trowa. He would most likely never have left the L4 cluster, perhaps not even left the sanctuary of the premier estate of his father on the primary colony. He would not have met Trowa and come to love him. That was the one recurring truth that made all of the nightmares bearable. Those muscled arms closing around him, that quiet voice whispering to him in the darkness and forcing down the screams of his victims. So many victims. So many had died by his hand. Zero had torn his soul apart and it was his Trowa who had stitched it back together again. //Come back to Earth. I need you.// It was selfish of him to cling to his emerald eyed lover as he did, but when Trowa was near him everything seemed so manageable. Despite the disapproval, indeed the horror of his family at his association with one they found very unsuitable for the Winner Heir. Despite the constraints imposed on him by running a multi billion credit company; despite the horrors that had come and gone with the war … it was those muscled arms closing around him that made everything so much better. Within the shelter of strong arms it seemed almost as though a physical wall came into being. An invisible but indestructible wall of protection would surrounded them and they could look at life from its shelter and be safe. // I want him back with me. Ah, I sound so pathetic. Listen to yourself, Quatre. I run a company that spans the entire Earth Sphere and I do not flinch but the truth is that it is only because I know that he is waiting for me that I get through every day. I wish he was here now, with me. I would not mind at all being caught in a blizzard if he was here. Ah, yes. I can just picture it now. His hair would be almost auburn in the light of the fire blazing to warm us. His skin would be kissed by the flickering light to a warm golden hue and his eyes … ah, his eyes would be smouldering with his passion. He has enough fire in those eyes to match any burning flame and just his eyes would be enough to keep me warm. His skin would be soft under my fingers and his muscles rock hard as I run my hands over his arms. He would be naked and pressed against me as …Wow, Quatre, that's enough of that!// He knew he was grinning in a silly smitten way but he did not care. He felt warmer just thinking about his soul mate. //Soon enough he will be back on Earth with me and just for the occasion I'll have to find a blizzard for us to enjoy. Maybe a secluded log cabin, a roaring fire and a very nice wine. Mmm. His skin would taste divine bathed in a nice red … Damn. I really have to stop that.// Of course he did not have to stop his day dreams. It was so much more pleasant day dreaming about Trowa than it was dreaming about the past horrors of war, but this was hardly the appropriate place for such daydreams. He glared out of the misted window at the storm and sighed, his hard stare softening with the dawning smile. He had news for Trowa. When next he saw his lover he had a great deal to tell him and he was uncertain how his partner would react to that news. His lover had accepted so much about his life that he considered could not be changed, which was good, Quatre admitted, but now there was the chance to learn more than they had ever dreamed. Foremost to be considered would be how would Trowa like to have a name all of his own? How would Trowa react to knowing who he was? No, not who he was but who he had been born? He had to be careful here to keep things clearly in perspective. Trowa might not take the news of his past well. For instance, his name. How would he take to a name he had not borrowed or stolen from someone else? A name that had been given to him within the hour of his birth by no less than his true parents? He would not make the mistake of leaping to the conclusion that Trowa would jump for joy at this revelation. He certainly knew that he personally was nothing but confused by the information Heero had shared with him. How would Trowa react to the information contained within the computers in the boot of the cars? //How … how will he react to knowing about the information in my files? I am not what I thought I was and I … It bothers me. I know that this is not really the time or place to think about that but I can't not think about it. Romefeller. I thought them a bunch of politically hungry old men and women who thought themselves above everyone else. They are … more. Romefeller found out so much that even Heero did not learn when he searched for information on himself. I always thought Heero was unbeatable with a computer but … How do they know all of this? Is it accurate? If what is contained on those hard drives is accurate then what else do they know that we should know?// “Agent Heart? Sir? Are you alright?” //Allah! Did I miss something vital?// Quatre snapped back to reality, eyes widening. “Yes? Sorry, I was thinking.” “We are entering the village, Sir. Agent Water requests that you arrange for rooms before they debark the Princess and Lady Kushrenada.” “Ah. Yes.” Heero would remain with Sally at the car, the driver of his own vehicle and the remaining agent likewise remaining outside to offer protection to their charges. He was the logical one to arrange for accommodation and to run a quick security check of the facilities before they permitted the Vice Foreign Minister and the daughter of the former World Sovereign to leave the protection of the vehicle. Poor protection from the cold that the vehicle was it was still preferable to keep them secured within than moving them to an unsecured building. Peering into the storm Quatre got his first view of the village. No lights brightened the streets nor were any lights visible in any of the houses or shops that they passed. The utter lack of lighting suggested that this village might be in a blackout brought on by the inclement weather and Quatre pulled his coat tighter about him as the car stopped before the edifice of the country inn. The building was dark, the sign of the Coachman's Rest creaking madly in the wind and briefly illuminated in the headlights of the car. Quatre found himself wondering if the sign of the Victorian style Coachman with his feet propped up on a stool and mug of foaming ale in one hand would last the night. His driver and the second agent were out of the car and heading for the lead vehicle, planting themselves at bonnet and boot and peering into the wind driven snow as he exited the car and stamped up the steps to the door. //If I do manage to get Trowa into a cabin in a blizzard I certainly will have to have a lot of wood stacked inside, because I am not facing this again!// It took considerable effort to maintain his position before the door, the wind howling around him threatening to blow him from the door and across the veranda. The building was dark and silent accept for the incessant creaking of the sign and he began pounding on the door, wondering how long it would be before someone responded. He felt frozen, blood and marrow freezing despite the heavy coat he wore. The thick wool seemed to offer no protection at all from the elements and he felt the snow freezing to his face, beading his eyebrows and thickening on his lashes as his body heat melted the snow only to have it freeze as ice. In an effort to gain some respite he turned his back to the driving snow angling under the pitched roof of the portico, trying to offer himself some form of protection and began to slam his fist incessantly against the door. Someone had to wake and answer the door soon because if they did not he would break into the building without a second thought. He had thought that it had been cold in the car and that had been positively tropical compared to this. Relena and Mariemaia were still in their vehicle and he wanted them in proper shelter as quickly as possible. How could anyone sleep through the noise that he was making? If they did not open the door he was going to open it for them and be damned if he was going to offer to pay for any damages caused in that opening. A light flickered beyond the door, the dancing golden glow of a candle and he huffed a breath of relief. After a moment the light brightened and he knew someone was approaching the door though he could see nothing beyond a vague suggestion of a shape in the thick glass panel. The wind seemed to pick up around him, howling and whistling through the streets with renewed fury, pitting its might against the buildings of man with every intention of winning a war man did not even know he was contesting. Nature ruled on Earth, not man and it was a lesson that Quatre was now only too well aware of. There was no natural weather on the satellites known as the colonies and he had not had occasion before on Earth to be in the heart of a blizzard. It frightened him, the ferocity of this storm, sheltered colony child that he was, but it also thrilled some deep part of him that responded to the challenge by demanding that he survive. The door blew inward, smacking to a stop at the length of a security chain and impacting on the person on the other side. He heard the muffled curse and fingers fumbled at the chain and then he found himself staring into a bushy bearded face and twinkling brown eyes. For an instant he thought he was looking at the face of the mythic Santa Clause. “Get your self into the Inn, boy. Wicked night to be out and about. What might you be doing wandering about in a blizzard? Are you daft?” The door opened wider and a wind gust gave him an assist into the inn, causing him to stumble on numb feet and the door slammed shut behind him, sealing him within a surprisingly warm room.
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