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"Friends "Written By: Karina
Series: Friends Pairings: 2+6 Ratings: M 15+ [In Australia] Rated in the event of bad language and violence. Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing or the characters. That’s the way it is. Warnings: Not a death fic despite how it starts.
Aussie spelling and unbetaed. Summary: When Milliardo Peacecraft is abducted
and left to die a solitary death Duo Maxwell decides to take a hand
in the proceedings.
Chapter 27
“When are you free this evening?” He recognized the neutral tone as one of caution. She was wary, uncertain of the topic to be aired, but knowing it would be of importance. He only ever contacted her at work over matters concerning the safety of the Peace. That she was not putting off his visit assured him she had no idea what he wished to speak to her about. He had little doubt she would put off their meeting if she suspected why he wanted the interview. “Any time this evening would be acceptable. I am finishing up at the office and will be leaving shortly.” Again a silence during which he could almost hear the wheels of her mind turning over and he offered nothing in the way of explanation. “I have a little more to do before… Three hours? My office.” His secretary was waiting for him, folders stacked neatly on her desk. The errant thought why there was so much paper work involved in this age of computers and electronic gadgetry teased at him and he dismissed it as irrelevant to the moment. Une had given him a time schedule and it could not have worked out better had he planned it. He could complete a few phone calls while he waited. “Acceptable.” He snapped the phone closed, ending the call and nodded to his secretary. “Thank you, Sandra. We are done for the day.” Her bright eyes swept over the files he had asked for to be waiting for him, but she merely nodded. “Yes, Mr. Winner.” “I will be taking a week off, starting now. Anything that can not wait on my return and can be dealt with by others; be so kind as to forward it to the appropriate Manager. Unless the sky falls in, I want the week undisturbed.” He had shocked her. When he had time to think about it he would probably shock himself. It was not his practise to engage in spur of the moment fancies. Business always came first, but not this time. This time he must trust those who worked for him and take the time to settle matters best kept far removed from the mundane world. He was aware of her watching him as he swept into his office. He did not hear her begin to move until he engaged in placing the files he carried in their appropriate places. He felt a stab of guilt thinking of the arrangements she would need to make to give him that free seven day term and as he sealed the filing unit with his fingerprint he decided an apology was appropriate. Gathering his jacket he swept from his office and paused at her desk. “When you finish sorting out the mess I have just left you, take the rest of the week off. Have a nice break.” A sucked in breath saw him on his way to the elevator and her “Thank you, Mr. Winner.” was cut short as the elevator doors sealed him away from the world. “Well, they wanted me to take a break. No doubt they will be wary of suggesting I have a vacation in future.” He ignored the elevator music, his thoughts drifting to the task ahead. His car would be waiting for him by the time he reached the ground floor and his driver would think him balmy when he was given instructions, but he had a little less than three hours to formulate the questions he needed to put to Lady Une. Certain enquiries needed to be made before then and those calls were best made on the move. “Drive around the city. Just keep us moving until further notice.” “Sir.” One good thing about being Quatre Winner was no one asked you questions, they simply obeyed. Settling back against the plush upholstery he made the first of his calls as the car merged into traffic and the heavy snowfall. First he required answers from his Security Chief and then his Personnel Manager would be hearing from him. He needed questions answered concerning the resignation of certain people over the last two years. By the conclusion of his third telephone call he needed to sit back and stare at the city lights. His suppositions appeared not to be so far fetched as he had initially thought. He was making an intuitive leap and he had been careful not to give away to his people what drove his questions. The men he had spoken to were veterans of the war and had been in their positions for upwards of five years. They were not fools; he did not suffer fools lightly and he never assigned them to prominent positions in his organization. There was one more person he needed to talk to. This one Quatre trusted implicitly and had his fingers in many pies, including the seedy underground networks of the ESUN. During the war it had been necessary to deal with the black market to acquire suitable parts to repair mobile suits and Quatre doubted he would have severed his contacts with the advent of peace. Taking a deep breath he dialled a number and on the third ring the call was picked up. “Ahmed? I need to speak with Rashid.” Keeping his attention on the clock and the imminent meeting with Une, he instructed his driver take him to Preventer Headquarters. He needed to conclude this conversation speedily and give himself a few minutes think time. He needed to be sure of the facts he gathered and fit them into the picture he was building. He needed to consider his options before he faced Une and demanded as many answers as he could garner from her. Before she kicked him out of the building. Later he would need to have a few words with Marquise. “I should have realized before.” He should have recognized it after the Mariemaia incident, but Marquise and Noin had vanished. In the aftermath he had not thought to analyse what he had sensed. He should have realized after the Libra incident, but he supposed having a metre or so of steel driven through him was excuse enough to forget. His eyes drifted toward the mountain peaks hidden from his present view by the night. Duo was out there and Trowa. They were the ones who meant the most to him. Duo, his best friend and Trowa was much more. He was friends with Heero and Wu Fei, but they were not as close to him as the other two. They kept the distance, not he and he admitted it hurt him, but he had to make allowances for their natures. //Now I will need to concern myself with another and he will not be easy to deal with.// Une was waiting for him, standing behind her desk, her back to the window and the view of the snow shrouded city. He could read the tension in her, but she was always tense. It might not be his desire to speak with her; tension came part and parcel with her job description and she could not know why he was here. “Quatre. What do you need?” Even better, she was skipping the pleasantries. It was late and her desk was clear of folders, her computer screen dark. She would want to go home to Mariemaia. The girl was now a teenager and a very different person to the six year old puppet she had been. They had all grown older, wiser. “Tell me about Black Opal.” Une sucked in a breath and with it he felt her emotional freeze. She had not expected that and he smiled, cold and determined, convinced he was right. Une considered him, sorting her thoughts, getting over the initial surprise. She would want to know where he had heard the name, who he had spoken to and what he thought he was doing interfering in matters of no concern to him. “Black Opal? Where did you hear that reference?” Did he want to play her game? He needed enough to work with and she was tired, she might make mistakes, but he already had what he wanted. Her unspoken reaction told him a great deal. “Tell me about the black ops unit. Tell me about Black Opal.” Oh yes, her emotions were betraying her. The sudden spear of fear squashed quickly under a rising surge of anger. Confusion factored into the mix of emotional states and a tired resignation she refused to acknowledge. “I will not insult either of us by suggesting I have no idea what you are talking about. The information is classified and even you do not have sufficient security clearance to learn more than you think you know.” Yes, exactly what he expected from her. Quatre smiled, aware of the tightening in her emotions as he did so. He was on a psychic high this night and he doubted anyone could have hidden anything from him. Such periods of clarity rarely happened and usually did so when he least wished it. But not this time. This time he was more than happy to feel every flicker of emotion in her. “Does Miss Relena know her brother is a member of the black ops unit?” “That information is classified, Winner. I repeat; you do not have the security clearance to know more than you think you know.” Her emotions flared, anger clear and sharp, but at the core he sensed unease and he knew Relena Peacecraft-Darlain had no idea her brother was involved, let alone, if his supposition was correct, he was the star operative of the unit. She was probably still naïve enough to believe there was no such unit defusing particularly dangerous hotspots throughout the ESUN. “Is Relena a psychic, like her brother?” Oh, the hard cold clench in Une was unmistakable. Quatre was careful not to reveal his awareness of her. He had not revealed to just anyone his Space Heart, his empathy, which was as much a curse as it was a blessing. If she had known he wondered if he would be the head of Winner Enterprises now or a part of something infinitely darker. She stood rigidly straight and outwardly emotionless, it was such a pity he had a ringside seat to the emotions beneath that unfeeling facade. He had his answer, though she had spoken neither confirmation nor denial. //So Marquise is a psychic. I thought as much. That’s why Duo is safe from the Shadow persona. The Shadow is a manifestation of his ability and senses a similar extra sensory ability in Duo. One that does not represent a threat.// “I have no idea what you are talking about and I suggest you leave. I have work to do.” //You do now, if you are intending to reveal I have spoken to you. Sorry Une, but this was the only option open to me short of trying to get to Marquise when they bring him back. You will make certain that does not happen. It is nothing I will not be able to deal with given a little time.// He would need to revise his security procedures and ensure key elements in Winner Enterprises were protected. They might threaten to ruin him for his knowledge, afraid he might reveal all. Too many people depended on his company for their livelihoods for him to permit anyone to bring him down. //I’ve tipped my hand by coming here to speak with you, but I had no real choice. I have sufficient resources to ensure I do not become a target for the group, but a little insurance never hurt.// He smiled, dredging up his best Zero influenced chill and knew when her emotions reacted he had succeeded. Slowly, in carefully controlled movements, he leaned forward setting his hands on her desk and held her eyes. “I am aware and I am warned. If you must inform them I suggest you advise they keep their paws off what belongs to me. I can bring them down as easily as they could bring ruin to me, but if I bring them down there will be nothing left for them to pick up, not even table scraps. I will not be threatened; I will not tolerate assassination attempts and if any of those I consider near and dear to me have any trouble because of this, I will retaliate in kind.” “Stay out of it, Quatre.” Her voice betrayed her exhaustion, her wish this conversation had never taken place. “You don’t belong in this.” “Whether I do or not depends on what happens after you speak to Them, does it not?” Une hissed a shallow breath, glaring at him. “And if I say nothing?” “We both know you will, that is how you were trained.” “You are meddling in things best left untouched.” He laughed, cold and mirthless. “Tell them to keep out of everything Winner. I will be auditing my books, Une and if I learn any Winner funds have been channelled into the Unit I will be forced to take action. That would be regrettable, don’t you think? It may even involve going public on the existence of the unit and the government representatives sanctioning its existence.” At the angry flare in her emotions he lifted a hand, fingers spread. “I said might. I am a business man and I am at heart a pacifist.” He ignored her unladylike snort. “At heart, I am a pacifist, Une. I just have a different method of demonstrating it. Remember, there are no Gundams now.” He caught the flare in her emotions, a complex twisting of emotional upheaval and it told him far more than words could have. He was pushing her tolerance, but he needed to know enough to give him guidelines to effectively search out the details. “No, there are no Gundams.” She snapped at him. “Winner Corporation spans the entire Earth Sphere and many colonies and areas of Earth are dependent on it for their current life styles. Should we have trouble many people will suffer. The last thing I want is for there to be unrest and war. Surely we have progressed past the point where blowing each other up solves anything.” “Well, in that at least we can agree.” Satisfied Quatre inclined his head. “I hope we understand each other. I trust those who control the Unit will also understand.” “You have made yourself quite plain, Mr. Winner.” “I hope so, Preventer Earth.” He needed to breathe the icy air and try to purge himself of her emotions. He needed to breathe and consider all he had learned, not from her words, which had offered him very little, but from her reactions, which had offered him so much more than he had suspected he would learn. What had not been said was much more important. He would need to alert his security and have Rashid pay him a visit. He needed to maintain a certain level of alertness now he had tipped his hand. He knew the barest details, nothing vital except for his knowledge of the identity of the Black Opal and the knowledge the government had begun the construction of mobile suits. //She could not hide it on an emotional level. I will have to have this looked into and I will have to see what I can do about Duo. Someone tried to kill Marquise and if that someone was from the operations team, then it is possible Duo may become a target after spending time with him. We are all targets.//
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