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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 190 2nd March AC 198 Sanc Stephansbourg The Coachman’s Rest Time: 06:15 Quatre It seemed surreal, the sound of the howling wind, the creaking of the old building and the crackling of the fire. They might have taken a step backwards in time, to long ago days where there had been no electricity and houses were lighted by fires, candles and oil lamps. Here, in days long gone, the weather dictated the pace of life; the do’s and don’ts of the day and survival itself was measured by the warmth of your clothing, your stocks of wood and your store of non-perishable foodstuffs. This was the day and age of space travel, where people lived their entire lives in space, never setting foot on a planet’s surface. They were colony bred yet here they were, secluded in a place where there was no electricity, a prerequisite for survival on a colony, and caught in the grip of a blizzard, their only source of heating the flames gradually dying in the hearth. The veneer of modern civilization was revealed to be thin indeed, and listening to the storm and the silence within the building they seemed ages apart from the rest of mankind. Unleashed nature had a way of reminding mankind how small in stature he truly was. “Romefeller.” Heero grated his teeth on the name. He had no love for the organization, whatever face it might show to the world on any given day. He knew Romefeller to be many things and they showed only the best, what he considered to be a false facade, to the world in these post war years. He had thought Romefeller to be gone, disbanded, nothing more than a soon to be forgotten remnant of a bygone era. Duo had opened his eyes. “What does it take to bury Romefeller? How do we escape, once and for all, from their influence? They seem to be at the root of everything happening in the world. They are like a persistent disease.” He knew it had to be an exaggeration, no single organization of mere humans could have that kind of influence in this day and age, but Romefeller seemed to tower over him, threatening, tainting the very air he breathed with its unique stench. Quatre’s response came as a wordless grunt, his attention focused on the dancing flames of the fire and the lingering tendrils of memories of a time when insanity had ruled him. A time when millions had died who had no greater crime than to have their understandably wretched emotions impinge on his empathy. The war had worried them, caused them to fear for life and limb, for loved ones involved in the fighting and they wondered when it would end; how it would end. For them, those wretched thousands who had been cursed with being in his immediate vicinity when under the influence of the Zero system, simply being human and thinking and feeling had meant a sentence of death. Death at his hands; dying in flaming destruction amidst the cold vacuum of space. He was many thousands of times a murderer and there was not a day that went by that he did not remember it. He should have been locked up in a windowless cell and the key thrown away. He should have been spaced for his crimes, doomed to float in the endless cold of space along with the bodies of his many victims… Shuddering Quatre pulled himself together. He had to go beyond the memory of their deaths, beyond the flares of pain and terror and disbelief he had lived as they had died; as he had killed them. As he had felt their living breathing emotions, so had he felt their agonized distraught deaths, all beneath the influence of Zero, already insane with the death of his father and feeding on their overwhelming emotions. He needed to see his psychiatrist again if this kept up and he could not drag himself out of the mire. The sharing of Trowa’s nightmare had awoken it all within him, along with his fear that he could so easily have killed Trowa back then, in Zero. If he let the lingering remnants of that horror fill him then it could happen, he knew. He could kill Trowa all over again. But he had not killed him, not yet. Not then and not now; and not in the future. He would not. He had to have one beautiful thing to cling to in life; and his love for Trowa was that beautiful thing. It would keep him sane and able to make some small restitution for the deaths he had caused. On that long ago day it was the thought he had killed Trowa who had, even then, held something special deep within him he had not recognized, that had broken the control of the system over him. He had blamed Zero and he knew Zero was nothing more than a lifeless, analytical computer system. Now Heero was suggesting Zero was the product of stolen plans and other peoples dreams and was, perhaps, the inferior and warped design of men who had not understood as much of the mysteries of the universe as they had professed to think. The scientists had not given much credence to the powers of the mind beyond the intellectual capacity to operate a mammoth machine and kill where needed and, he suspected, to keep one’s mouth shut and do what one was told. Now Heero raised the spectre of Romefeller. How much influence, if any, had Romefeller had in the development of the Epyon system? Was the Epyon system the forerunner of Zero? Questions he did not particularly want to pursue in search of the answers, but that was the coward’s way and Quatre Winner might have been many things, but a coward was not one of them. He could not doubt that Romefeller was more than they had assumed them to be at the culmination of the war. He had seen enough evidence since the end of the war to convince him they had underestimated the organization and dismissed it falsely as an old boy’s society, an outdated assortment of feudal families with too much money and a thirst for influence. He had run across aspects of the organization in his business dealings and it had given rise to the ringing of more than a few alarm bells. Treize Khushrenada had certainly been a part of Romefeller, yet it had been his own contemporaries within the organization who had arrested and imprisoned him. It had not just been the older generation who had turned on their brilliant young general when he had brought them the victory they sought. Certainly it had been the older representatives at the heart of the split in Romefeller. Khushrenada had been arrested and imprisoned, Oz had split and the Romefeller Oz had gone about their own bout of conquest. Why was a question he had never found a satisfactory answer too. Why, when they had already ousted the Alliance under the command of Khushrenada? Heero was suggesting something particularly shadowy and potentially sinister, and it was suggestively grandiose enough to lead him to suspect Romefeller’s intent. Would the people who had schemed and instigated war to rule a planet and a civilization branching out into space consider anything less than a grand scheme of conquest? He had learned that conquest could come about in more forms than inciting rebellions. Might the war of three years past be only a staging post on their road to conquest? Was he reading too much into it? Relena had been drawn into the mess, used to further the control Romefeller exerted in the world; used to gain them position and prestige, and what had set her free of their manipulating fingers? Her brother holding the world to ransom and Khushrenada breaking out of his prison had broken Romefeller's hold on the young girl, all of which had happened after Epyon entered the equation. Quatre did not consider himself to be jumping at shadows or cowardly for admitting to himself that he was afraid of the implications. He was tired, his head hurt and his heart ached. He wanted to curl up with his lover in a huge bed and pull the blankets over his head and forget that the world, with all of its intrigue and backstabbing factions, existed. That was what he wanted to do, hide from it all, but those voices, the voices of his dead, screamed in his subconscious and their anguish and terror at death approaching them, swift as it had been, was imprinted in his memory. He could not forget. He could not ignore the potential for disaster. He owed the dead, owed the living, for what he had done and now, forewarned of possible trouble, he could not step aside. What needed to be done? One thing stood out clearly to him, not an easy thing to accomplish but surely it was possible if they put their heads down and worked hard. They needed to face Romefeller again and this time they had to make a big enough impression to bury the group for all time. They. He being a part of the group, Heero he knew would be in on the investigation and potentially Trowa and Duo and Wu Fei too. They who had been the Gundam pilots had vision enough to see a potential danger and they would not be alone in this battle. He had resources and, he supposed, Preventers would be a part of the investigation. He could not see Une allowing anyone to disrupt Treize Khushrenada’s peace, and they would need the resources of such a large organization, though the investigation would need to be carried out with care. Romefeller were, after all, a part of the politics of the Earth Sphere and it was politicians who held the purse strings of Preventers. “We need to determine what it might be exactly that Romefeller are aiming to achieve and what means they have at their disposal to accomplish those goals. What you are suggesting… With what we have already found out about Romefeller…” He did not want to acknowledge it but what else could he do? “They are genetically altering the human species,” Heero whispered. Quatre shuddered. It was a horrible thought but, knowing what he did, he could not deny it. He himself was one of the modifications, if what they had learned thus far of Romefeller’s agenda was accurate. There was the potential for his DNA structure to have been adjusted in ways he could not begin to fathom. Without doubt he was an empath, a psi active individual, and he knew Romefeller had had a hand in his conception. “If they are breeding for psychic ability it would be a long, painfully slow and rather haphazard means of gaining extraordinarily gifted individuals. It would have to take generations of lives, Heero, even with modern techniques, and they would not have any real idea of what they were doing; what they might get from their manipulations of the human gene Nome.” “How long have Romefeller existed, Quatre? Genetic sciences have been around for a few hundred years and there had been a map of the human genetic blue print since the late 20th Century. There has been a ban on manipulating the genetics of humans since the atrocities under Hitler, but how long would such a ban have actually stopped people from looking into how to modify genetics over and beyond acceptable medical research? ” Quatre scowled, resisting the urge to moan. He really did not want to think about the implications, but he had to acknowledge that Heero had a point. Just how long had Romefeller existed? Hitler and his atrocities had birthed within the old European sector and Romefeller was a conglomerate of old European bloodlines; the surviving aristocracy and royalty of a bygone era. History recorded the horrors of that time and the ban had been in effect and adhered to since the latter half of the twentieth century, old calendar. Multiple checks and balances had been put in place to ensure there were no repeats and it had taken generations for the effects of those experiments to fade from the politics of the day. Now that was something he needed to remember and factor into his thinking. The politics of the day. There were always people who thought they knew better than others; always those who were determined to find a better way and that the mistakes of others could be used to greater effect by those who surely knew better. “My genetics were manipulated; I was actually a prototype for space exploration. My use was not, in the end, what I was designed for.” Heero stirred, pulling his eiderdown more firmly around his feet, resting his chin on his knees and glowering into the fire. His emotions were still a maelstrom, but there was now a developing order as he gained control of himself that was not so distressing to the empath. It was becoming easier to sit near Heero and, despite his exhaustion Quatre was finding it easier to barrier his mind. “What do they want, Quatre? What is it they want from manipulating the genes of an individual? Is it only a select few experiments, or is this only the forerunner to something larger, something more frightening? Do they intend to hold the Earth Sphere to ransom? Do they intend to hold dominion over everyone?” How was he meant to answer such a question as that, with all of the implications it implied? At the present time, Quatre decided, they could speculate but they needed to keep an open mind. They were both exhausted and when they rested they would need to go back over the ground they had already covered and they would see the glaring holes in their suppositions and they would see them for what they were; the warped reasoning of overtired minds. “Is it really that simple?” Heero murmured, blue eyes narrowing against a flare in the fire. “I would expect complexity from Romefeller; layers that would need peeling back to get to the core of their true intentions. They are much more, I think, than I gave them credit for being.” Quatre rubbed at an aching muscle in his neck, thinking longingly of the bed and acknowledging that, as tired as he was, he would not sleep if he gave in now. He needed a little longer before he surrendered to the exhaustion pulling at him. If he gave it a little longer, kept his mind occupied for a longer time, then he would escape the nightmares; the memory of what he had shared with Trowa. He was not willing to give in to sleep; when he did he wanted it to be restful. “I think it fairly safe to say that nothing is simple when it comes to Romefeller. Romefeller means politics. The old European families have lived and breathed politics for generations and they are masters at playing the game.” “When you think you have broken the back of the organization; that they are finished… and in a mere three years they are back in the political limelight. Three years, Quatre. It has only taken three years and they are back, winning seats in the House of Representatives and gaining influence everywhere.” “They say a year is a long time in politics,” Quatre breathed. “It makes one realize they are more than an old boy’s club and so much more than an antiquated cluster of old families clinging to old fashioned ideas of power and prestige.” Quatre rubbed at his chin, his fingernails grating on a fine growth of bristles. “In our future dealings it will pay for us not to underestimate Romefeller. We have before, and as you say, it has not taken them long to rise from the ashes. Relena’s grandfather headed a faction who gave her political power, but it did not last long and he has not lost prestige in the interim. He is a political survivor and we can not afford to think he is the only one with the cunning to survive. There is only one thing I am sure of and that is that we can not afford to get it wrong this time.” “Relena’s grandfather, Marquis Wayridge, is Romefeller through and through.” Heero murmured, eyes darkening as he recalled his last meeting with the old man. “He made it quite plain he has no intentions of losing his position in the Council. He expects Relena to listen to him and do as he ‘suggests’ and beneath his guiding influence she will rise to the top. The very top.” “There was faction fighting occurring within Romefeller and it saw them fall during the war, but we can not rely on the resurgence of such infighting to help should they gain a high political standing a second time. If we are glimpsing something within Romefeller that has the potential to dominate everyone on Earth, and in space, then I don’t think we can avoid taking a hand in the matter. We will somehow have to find the means to go up against them and still maintain the peace. We can’t afford another war. No one can. What you have said suggests we may be seeing the first gambit by another faction of Romefeller rising to political prominence. Perhaps it is a faction that has been lying low for some time. It may be that they have been hiding from those who were at the forefront of the last war and now feel it is safe to act.” “We are ‘supposing’ and ‘assuming’ a great deal.” Quatre sighed softly. “Yes, we are.” The fire crackled in the hearth as they considered if they really wished to go down this road. Their lives had been much simpler since the wars ended and they were each content with the pleasures to be found in peacetime, though those pleasures varied from individual to individual. One thing each had in common was the wish not to fight once more. There were no Gundams now, no Leo’s, Aries or Taurus. The few mobile suits that remained in existence were construction suits, modified to build where once they had existed to destroy. Neither young man wished to see the return of the days of kill or be killed, of the strong ruling the weak with blood as the price paid for dominance. “Une.” Quatre’s grin was feral. “After working so closely with Treize Khushrenada, Preventer Earth would be well aware of the dangers Romefeller would represent to the peace. Or perhaps I should rephrase that. She would be aware of the multiple factions within the organization which might have an interest in manipulating the current political climate for their own gain.” Heero grunted softly. “She did not know about the geneticists; there was no doubting her reaction…She was horrified at what that operation revealed a few months ago. There is a standing order out for all Preventers to report anything which might indicate another laboratory complex exists.” “I wonder if Treize Khushrenada knew what was happening in Romefeller? Did he know about the genetic laboratories? The Romefeller politicians now gaining power in the House of Representatives, and throughout Old Europe, are standing on a platform of peace. However, like other politicians, they have their own ideas of how best to maintain the peace, and how to promote growth and development throughout the Earth Sphere.” Heero snorted, rubbing his cheek against his knees. “Every man in the street has ideas of how to do that, not just politicians.” “But the man in the street can not be bothered to push himself forward and place himself in a position whereby he can do something about his ideas,” Quatre returned. “That is the difference between the man in the street and a politician, Heero. The get up and go and the drive to actually act and influence events around one; that is where the course of history is set.” “I don’t want to fight another war,” Heero whispered. “I’m tired, Quatre. I’m tired of fighting to make sure some idiot with grand designs does not disrupt what we fought for. I’m tired of expecting, and waiting, for someone to make a move that I have to deal with to keep the peace. I’m tired of wondering if it was all worth while.” “Attaining peace is one thing, maintaining it is entirely different. It is harder and requires more effort. It is a never ending cycle we can not afford to slacken from.” Quatre sighed. “WE are not the men in the street who bitch and whine about the state of the world, and loudly decry that someone should do something about it. WE act, as best we can, when we see someone doing something that will have a detrimental effect on the peace; something that might disrupt what we have gained. Too few people are willing to act and those who do have strong feelings for what they think the world should be.” “And not everyone agrees with how they see the greater picture at the end of the day.” Quatre nodded, cheek pillowed against his knees, eyes closed. Everyone had their own idea of peace and how best to keep it. Everyone thought that their way was right and rarely did two people agree on exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. It led to a diverse world, but a world that could easily fall into ruin if a few people did not dedicate themselves to working for some form of status quo. It was the status quo, that point of balance, which was the peace after all. “History speaks of so much of what is the human condition, to those who are willing to listen. We keep making the same moves; making the same mistakes. Over and over again, generation after generation we tend to do the same things; but I think there is enough evidence to show that slowly, we are learning. This peace we are enjoying now has the potential to last; to really give mankind an opportunity to see what could be, if we band together and work for the greater good. If we can agree on the greater good. There will be minor skirmishes, there has to be, but that is why Preventers is there, to make sure those flash points don’t become forest fires. Looking at historical references I have to wonder if we do not need those incidents of altercation simply to produce advancement. We need to learn to advance without aggression, finding another trigger for the creativity of mankind.” “I’m not a student of history or a philosopher, Quatre, I’m a soldier. I fight when I am instructed to.” Heero’s dead pan delivery drew a sigh from Quatre. He was well aware of the limitations Heero saw in himself, but he needed to get across to Heero that he really was no different from any other human being where it mattered most. “Heero, why do you fight?” “In the war, to bring peace. Now it is to uphold the peace we have.” “Why do you think it was that Treize Khushrenada and Zechs Marquise fought in the war?” “To dominate the Earth and Colony’s.” Heero sighed, dropping his head to his knees, pressing his eyes into his knees before straightening his spine, though he remained with his head bowed. He knew what was coming; it had been in his thoughts for some time now. He was a little older and a little wiser than he had been when he was fifteen. “They would not have considered what they did as dominating anyone, merely opposing those who had dominated the Earth Sphere for so long.” Heero sighed into his knees, stirring to lift his head sufficiently to rest his chin on his knees and consider the fire. It was, as Quatre had said, all in a person’s individual view and whether or not they determined to impose their view on others. “I get the message, Quatre. Why we do something is all in your viewpoint.” “And it is the victor of these conflicts who writes history in their own favour. That is the way it has always been,” Quatre murmured. “If you emerge from an altercation standing on top of the pile of bodies, you can generally write what you want to about the loser. It tends to be only a few mangy old scholars who care to examine the historical facts and that tends to happen generally in a generation or three from the actual confrontation. I’ll wager you anything you want to bet that Khushrenada was a history buff. He would have known his history inside and out, back to front.” “Probably,” Heero sighed. “I don’t think I will take you up on the bet.” “He would have studied history avidly, because we can learn so much from the past. I’ve talked to a great many people since the war, trying to understand,” Trying to atone, he silently added, “and I believe that he was working for peace, in his own way, and following a design he grafted carefully after studying the past and the political structure of the time. What he decided on was not what the Doctors who backed us wanted, if they had any real idea of exactly what the man was aiming for. But regardless of that I have to ask myself, was it wrong? Was he wrong? Was what Treize Khushrenada wanted for the world any worse than what we wanted; what They wanted?” Heero glowered into the fire, frowning as he considered Quatre’s direction. He was tired and he really had no wish to have this discussion now. He wanted to close his eyes and think of nothing, not what a dead man had wanted to shape the world into being. At one point they had been discussing Romefeller and the potential there to create a breed of humans with psychic talents. How had they gotten on to the aims and ideals of a man who had shaken the world and stepped into history as some sort of saviour when he had been viewed at one stage as a villain? Quatre really needed to shut up and go to sleep. “It was not Treize Khushrenada who devised Operation Meteor, and you know how sane Dekim Barton proved to be. It was not Treize Khushrenada and Romefeller, but the Barton Foundation who financed the development and construction of the Gundams. Why? Why did the Barton foundation finance a world wrecking project? Trowa told me that the original Trowa Barton told him Operation Meteor was devised so that the Barton Family could rule.” “Hnnn.” “Did you know that at one time Dekim Barton was a member of Romefeller?” Quatre pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to keep his eyes open. “He was right in with Duke Dermail’s faction about twenty five years ago. I have often wondered if it all did not come about because of something that happened in those days, when the two men were supposedly the best of friends.” His limbs felt heavy and his eyes kept closing, but his mind, treacherous thing that it was, kept running around in circles, in a spiral that worked deeper and deeper into the past, seeking something there that would lead to the present and potentially into the future. He ached to sleep, his body ached to rest, and he knew he must be muddling facts and figures he was so tired, but how could he relax and find restful sleep when his thoughts simply would not keep still? Heero was hunched over, his head resting on raised knees, the eiderdown tucked tightly around him. Quatre could not see his friends face, turned as it was toward the fire and angled away from him. A fold of the eiderdown had slipped over the hunched shoulders and was drooping down over Heero’s head, effectively screening the little of his face that was visible. It was really good of Heero to tolerate him as he recovered from his experience in sharing his lover’s premonition, and that was exactly what it was he was sure. A premonition, not simply a nightmare. In these circumstances he needed the company of someone who was not known for being an avalanche of emotion. His empathy, run ragged by the events of the day and night, was luxuriating in what he could best describe as being a quiet well of strength in Heero. His friend had settled, or simply buried his confusion and distress, his stress and his questions beneath his exhaustion and was allowing that need for peace to envelope him. What Quatre was sensing from Heero now was a deep well of controlled power and a growing relaxation he was sure he should recognize; perhaps some relaxation technique Wu Fei had taught him, though Heero certainly had had his own methods of focusing before Wu Fei had made his presence felt in their lives. He was aware, on some level of consciousness, that he should recognize what it was Heero was doing, the method that led to the quieting of thoughts and emotions, but his thinking was becoming fuzzy and with that fuzziness he had hopes he neared that state where he could sleep. Just a little longer. “Barton’s family had been members of the Romefeller for upwards of four hundred years. They were a family of merchants who made good and married into a noble family in Germany. As Trowa understood it, the Barton’s had the money and the other family had the name and standing in elite circles that were very desirable at the time, so the marriage suited both sides. It was a deal, a political arrangement between the two families and advantageous to them both; though knowing the old aristocracy you can be sure some of them would throw up their less than sterling bloodlines to the Barton’s periodically.” “Hnnn.” “As I understand it they were on the losing side of a factional dispute within Romefeller some fifty years ago.” Quatre stifled a yawn. “They split from the central organization soon after and left Earth for the colonies, determined to build their own power base and show Romefeller what real power was.” Heero shifted slightly, rolling his head to rest his forehead against his knees with a wordless grunt of what Quatre took to be acknowledgement. The fire burned lower in the grate and he wondered if he should not throw more wood on the fire, but that would necessitate effort and he was actually quite warm at the moment. “They kept their fingers… uhhhmmm… sorry… kept their hands on the political pulse of the time and certainly kept an association with a number of Romefeller families. I have to wonder just how many different factions there are in Romefeller, and if they have factions within factions. The old European families were hot beds of intrigue and I wonder how much of that remains to this day? They seem most critical of their own organization and I suppose it is possibly that which has protected the Earth Sphere from them for so long. They fight so much amongst themselves that they are less of a threat than they might be to the political structure of the Earth Sphere. If they ever stopped infighting I think the freedom of the World Nations would be at much more serious risk.” Quatre’s eyelids drooped, opened and then drooped again, closing against the flickering light as he soaked in the very pleasant heat. Heero, he suspected, was as comfortable as he and seemed to be absorbed in his own inner thoughts. Certainly the turmoil in Heero had subsided and maybe he was just too tired to think of anything any more. Quatre sighed softly. He was tired. Finally it seemed as though his thoughts were slowing down and he could feel sleep drawing near. Soon he could rest and he was fairly sure he would escape the nightmares which were the usual aftermath he could expect from an incident as vivid as his lover’s premonition. It was really nice of Heero to let him rattle on until he ground to a halt. “It worries me though, this talk about Psi. Especially the thought that someone might have discovered the genetics to manipulate and produce psi in an individual. If… uhhmmph… sorry. I guess I’m getting tired. If it was possible to breed for select psi talents and you could be assured the psychic was your ally… Heero that is a frightening scenario. If you could gain some talented psychics who really knew their stuff, then it would be a huge advantage in the game of politics.” “Hmm?” “I can.. uughhhmm… can, and have done so… ahm… What were we talking about?” Quatre blinked in the firelight. Had he dropped off? No, he was still awake and he had thought of something important… hadn’t he? What had they been talking about? Oh yes, Psi advantage and politics. Romefeller. “I’ve used my empathy to my own advantage in meetings and business dealings with others. Being able to sense what another person is feeling gives you insight into what they might be thinking. A politician could use that to advantage.” After a moment he realized his companion had not commented. “Heero? You awake?” “Hnn.” “Good. My… empathy enables me to… to… ahm… The fire’s dying down. Should I put more wood on it?” Blue eyes drooped to close once again and Quatre rubbed his cheek against his knees. The wind was a constant sound, strangely soothing where before it had disturbed him. “Heero?” “Hnn?” “Are you awake?” “Hnn.” Quatre curled in on himself slowly. “That’s good.” “Mmmm” “It’s late… actually I guess it’s early. We need to talk...about this psi business and… uuhhhmmmm… what it could mean to the Earth Sphere.” “Hnn” The fire crackled and snapped. He listened to the sounds in the night, picking out the even breathing of his friend from the sounds of the fire and the constant wind and smiled into his knees. Shifting position seemed to take an inordinate amount of time and a great expenditure of energy, but he managed to curl up before the fire, tucking the eiderdown close. He rested his head on his hands, pressing his back close to the warmth that was Heero ensconced in his own bundle of bedding. “It’s okay. It can wait… until later.” t.b.c.
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