Robert Lowell hesitated outside the door to Lady Une's office, listening to the raised voices through the door. He had only been a Preventer for a little over three weeks, barely long enough to complete the qualifying proficiency exams and start getting a feel for the job. Fortunately his previous military training and rank had been enough to get him out of having to go back through basic training or whatever served as it in the quasi-military organization.
He hadn't felt that he could remain at his former job, especially since once the Senator had been arrested for conspiracy to murder and falsifying evidence to hide the murderers, he hadn't actually had a job. The soon to be ex-Mrs. Jameson had thanked him for his service but returned to her family home.
The offer from Lady Une to join the ranks of those fighting to preserve the new peace had been more than welcome. And he had to admit that he was curious about the three Preventers who had actually solved the murder. How could Lady Une get away with them being an obvious wild card unit, exempt from apparently any chain of command? And a homicide unit? Why would Preventers need a homicide unit? Isn't that why Sanck still had a police force?
"...if you can't find someone else to do Yuy's job, why don't you just recall him from L3?" Dorothy Catalonia growled, her voice recognizable even through the door. "I can assure you that putting me in charge of protecting Senator Peacecraft is a really bad idea."
"Are you saying you wouldn't protect her if there was an assassination attempt?" Une responded.
"Of course I would... but having me there is going to piss off the princess."
"I don't care if she's pissed, I care that she's safe." The commander of the Preventers sighed heavily. "And if I could get Yuy back here in time for the summit meeting, I would. I can't. And of the Preventers I can spare and feel confident to handle this job, it would be even more awkward politically to send Merquise to do it. So that leaves me with you. You know the princess, you are familiar with her schedule and needs, you've certainly acted as her bodyguard often enough during the war, whatever your reasons for being at her side were...."
"That's low, Une..."
"That's the truth, Catalonia," Une snapped. "I've known you since you were a child following Treize around like a shadow. I never believed you were with the Princess out of friendship. That doesn't matter. What matters is that now I need you to do this job, and do it well. Zechs and Duo can handle things by themselves for a few days."
"But... we're already in the middle of three homicide investigations."
"Dorothy... I need you to do this. There have been attempts on the lives of three diplomats on other colonies in the last two weeks, and threats against four others here on Earth. All of them will be attending this summit meeting along with Relena. We cannot afford to have any of the attempts succeed, not with the unrest on the colonies right now."
"And you think I can single handedly pull this off...?"
"No. That's why I'm sending you with backup."
"Oh... now that's a really bad idea," Dorothy growled. "Since my odds of it being either Maxwell or Merquise are very low..."
Deciding that he'd eavesdropped too long already, he took a deep breath and knocked on the door. The argument on the other side lowered in intensity, but did not quite stop even when Lady Une called for him to enter. Dorothy Catalonia threw him a glare as he entered, then blinked in surprise. "You're sending me with a rookie for backup?"
"I'm sending a security specialist with you as backup. He has the required experience and skills for this, even if he is a recent addition to Preventers. And unlike most of my agents, so far he hasn't refused to work with any of you three. Try to keep it that way, Catalonia."
"Yeah...whatever." Dorothy stood up. "Fine. Let's get this done so I can get back to work."
"Dorothy..." Lady Une said grimly.
"Save it, Une." Dorothy glanced back over her shoulder. "Coming Lowell?"
He threw Lady Une a look as his new partner stalked out of the room. "Is she always this pleasant to work with?"
"Unless you happen to be either Duo Maxwell or Zechs Merquise... yes," Lady Une sighed. "Thanks for agreeing to take this assignment... and don't let her frighten you off."
"I'm not easily frightened." He smirked at her. "This ought to be an interesting mission." Or not.
He hadn't quite started eating those words by the time they reached the summit the next day, but it was a near thing.
Dorothy had not been exaggerating about the Senator being unhappy with her presence as a bodyguard. Only sheer good manners from a lifetime of polite upbringing and the presence of a relative stranger had kept the initial greeting from degenerating into a cat-fight. To his relief, both women had retreated into a professional mien once they had emerged from the Vice-Minister's mansion. Only a lingering stiffness in the set of both women's mouths indicated that they were gritting their teeth to endure the reluctant moment of togetherness.
However he couldn't deny that Dorothy certainly knew her job, and had obviously been doing it for far longer than the eleven months that Preventers had been in existence. And however much she might have minded his presence on this mission with her, she was not allowing it to interfere with the job at hand.
With an efficiency that was almost startling, she had bundled Relena Peacecraft, two aides and all of their assembled briefcases and satchels into the secure gate to the jet that would take them to Geneva for the Summit; leaving him with the duty of checking in with the previous team that had been guarding the plane, as well as checking out the plane itself. His belief that she had left that task to him on purpose was bolstered by the looks the two agents gave him as they left.
"Good luck, man. You'll need it, stuck with the Wicked Witch for three days." The taller of the two agents threw him a commiserating look. "What'd you do, draw the short stick or something?"
"Wicked Witch?" He raised one eyebrow at the man, ignoring the jibe that he'd gotten this duty out of sheer bad luck.
"Yeah... one of the spook squad," The agent shook his head. "Watch your back. It's a damn sure bet that she won't."
"Spook squad?" He felt like a damned parrot, but this was the first time anyone had offered any information on the three agents. Despite his belief that Catalonia had free rein in this job because she'd know Lady Une since she was a child... that didn't negate the fact that Lady Une seemed confident enough in her abilities to force her to take the assignment against her will. He just hoped like hell that that wasn't going to be a mistake.
"Yeah. They wander around HQ at all hours of the day and night. Une just lets them do whatever, though I heard she kicked Maxwell out of the field for a while after his last partner complained. Man... I sure wouldn't be partnered with him. None of those Gundam Pilots are exactly stable, you know? At least the others are all paired with each other. He put four partners in the hospital before the Lady got smart and refused to pair him up with anyone."
"He obviously has partners now." Lowell shook his head, trying to reconcile the few times he'd met Duo Maxwell with images of the Gundams from the war.
"Yeah, and they're all as psycho as he is." The other agent suddenly seemed to realize that maybe this wasn't the best time to be giving him this information. "Oh- hell, sorry man. Good luck on the mission, and all. At least the Peacecraft chick is hot, right?"
Lowell gritted his teeth and tried to hide the disgust he felt as the other two agents sidled away cautiously. From their expressions he had not succeeded. These are the people Une left guarding the Senator's plane? His only hope was that they were more professional at doing their job then they were when it came to gossiping about coworkers. With a sigh, he double-checked the plane far more carefully than he had originally intended to. If this was the level of recruits she'd been getting so far, no wonder Lady Une was so desperate for new Preventers. And he was beginning to see why she let the few that appear to get the job done... do it any way they wanted to.
Finishing with the security checks, he signaled for Dorothy to herd the three diplomats onto the plane. He caught her watching him thoughtfully, but neither of them spoke as they settled into their seats near the rear of the plane. Relena and her two aides immediately pulled papers out of briefcases and began discussing the agenda of the Summit meeting.
Dorothy pulled out a small laptop from her own case, and booted it up. He found himself with very little to do for the next few hours other than musing on his odd associate... and her equally odd partners. Gundam Pilot hmm? Wonder which one? He couldn't help wondering how that had happened, to have an ex-Gundam Pilot partnered with a former Prince, who was also a high ranking officer in Oz and the figurehead leader of White Fang, and a woman that had no military rank, but apparently had extensive training... and had taken over the position of second in command of White Fang without even blinking. Spook Squad indeed.
Dorothy spent most of the flight talking silently to Epyon and reviewing the files on the security for the Summit meeting. It didn't take long to figure out why Une hadn't given her the files until right before they left to pick up Relena and her staff.
Great. Chang and Winner were coordinating the security for the summit, as well as doing bodyguard duty for the Diplomats arriving from the colonies. At least she could trust them to know what the hell they were doing. But did it have to be Winner? She frowned down at Epyon's screen. Wonder if that's why Lady Une didn't even consider sending Duo. But they're at least supposed to be his friends.... And if they made it back from the Colonies in time for the Summit, why the hell couldn't Yuy?
Looking up from her laptop with a scowl, she found Lowell watching her curiously.
"What?"
"I thought perhaps we should go over the security arrangements," Lowell said neutrally. "So that I know what you expect me to do as your partner."
"You aren't taking charge of this operation?"
"You are the senior officer here...as well as the one most familiar with Senator Peacecraft's needs."
"Well..." She blinked at him. "That was...diplomatic. What happened to you thinking I was a bitch?"
He had the grace to wince a little at that. "I suppose I deserve that. And I owe you an apology as well. I'm afraid that I was behaving...less than professionally that day. I let the situation become personal."
She shrugged. "Everyone thinks I'm a bitch. I don't take it personally anymore. And considering that I all but accused you of murder... you were probably within your rights to call me that anyway."
"I still would like to apologize. Especially since we need to work together on this mission," he sighed. "And the fact remains, that I was being something of a bastard myself at the time."
Dorothy studied him for a moment, not sure how to deal with the fact that he trying to make peace.
"Apology accepted," She finally murmured. "So now... this is what I need you to do. Winner and Chang are in charge of the security, which means that Winner's private army will be handling most of the arrangements...."
Duo twisted restlessly, unable to get comfortable. It felt weird to try and sleep without someone else in the bed. He couldn't help wondering if Dorothy and Zechs felt that way too. Finally throwing off the confining sheets, he wandered out into the main office to find Zechs frowning at his computer screen. The blond glanced up as Duo dropped heavily onto the couch behind him.
"Another nightmare?" Zechs asked worriedly, turning the chair to face him.
"Nah... can't get to sleep." Duo shrugged. "Didn't mean to interrupt you-just thought I'd see if company helped."
"Ah..." Zechs sighed. "I was just trying to set up search parameters for the Sabrello case. See if any similar M.O.'s showed up."
"Any luck?"
"Not so far... I have realized that we've gotten far too dependent on Epyon and Dorothy running all the database searches for us."
"Eh... yeah well... she'll be back in three days...probably pissed as hell and looking for something to lose herself in."
"You have no idea," Zechs rubbed his eyes wearily.
"Oh? Enlighten me, then. Since you obviously know something you aren't telling me."
"I took a break and hacked the security files for the Summit, just so I could see what she was having to deal with."
"And?"
"And the security is being run by Winner and Chang."
"Fuck." Duo sighed. "Is Une deliberately trying to drive us all out of Preventers? Or is this just some twisted idea of revenge?"
"I think she is actually trusting Dorothy to be professional and handle this."
"Dorothy handling it is not the problem." Duo shrugged. "Rashid and the rest of the Maganac's handling Dorothy's presence in the same city as their precious Quatre is quite a different story."
"Chang will be there. Surely he'll be able to keep things under control?"
"Dorothy's a woman, and the one who stuck three feet of steel into his lover's stomach. What do you think?"
"I think we'll be handling major fallout and damage control when she gets back to us."
Duo just nodded wearily. "Why couldn't Une just chill out a little and let me go instead? It's been a month. I haven't put either of you in the hospital yet, and I obviously haven't managed to get myself killed in the last eighteen years either."
"I don't think it's because she doesn't trust you...."
"Then what is it?" Duo sighed again. "For that matter, why the hell didn't she just pull Yuy back for this job when Donatello got sick? It's not like he and Trowa would have even been in the same country as me...."
"I don't know... but something about the recent rioting has her worried." Zechs shrugged. "L3 was hit the worst, and they're still trying to account for all the damage and the missing people. I can understand why she wouldn't want to pull Yuy and Barton out just yet."
"Yeah, well...." Duo sat up on his elbows. "Guess that just leaves us to deal with the fallout when the Summit is over."
"Yeah," Zechs hesitated, then confessed the last part. "And she's not...exactly alone."
"Oh?"
"She has Robert Lowell as backup..."
"Lowell? The former-Chief-of-Security-for-Senator-Jameson Lowell?"
"That would be the one."
"Oh... that's going to put her in a good mood." Duo rolled his eyes. "He called her a bitch when she practically asked him to confess to murdering a child. He's not going to watch her back...he's going to shove her in front of the firing squad."
"Lady Une swears he's professional enough to do his job. She seemed to be fairly impressed with his references and credentials."
"Tell that to Seely. He wasn't able to keep her safe, was he?"
"I would imagine he wasn't expecting to have to protect her from her own relatives." Zechs shrugged. "I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, here. Do you mind?"
"Yeah. Sorry," Duo sighed. "I just wish one of us was there with her. I hate to think of her being that alone in a hostile environment."
"She has Epyon... and Treize followed too. So at least we'll know if things do blow up."
"Does she know that he's with her?"
"Yes." Zechs smiled slightly. "And I suspect that Solo went with them too. I haven't seen him since Treize left."
"Oh, man. He's going to corrupt Solo, isn't he?"
"Corrupt him?" Zechs raised one eyebrow at his partner. "What do you mean by that?"
"A street rat with no social skills, hanging out with a rich ex-general? It's a truly frightening thought." Duo shuddered.
"What, as frightening as the thought of you hanging out with a former Prince?"
"Oh... well. There is that, huh?"
"There is that."
Dorothy nodded to Lowell as Relena shut the door to the suite and locked it. One of the Maganac's was standing guard at the end of each corridor, and full checks had been run on all the other guests on each floor.
"Okay... the Senator is down for the night, and Winner's watchdogs are on duty. We're free, more or less, until the reception tomorrow morning," Dorothy sighed, and leaned against the wall. "I'm going to grab dinner, and go to bed. Relena likes to arrive at these things early, so we need to be ready to go by 7 a.m."
"Fine," He nodded back, and headed for his room. They were flanking Relena's suite, with her aides across the hall. "Good night."
"Night." She pushed herself away from the wall and headed for her own room. Maybe I'll just do room service. I'm too tired to deal with more glares from Winner's army tonight. Unlocking her door, she stared at the lonely bed for a long minute. God, I miss the guys. How can I have gotten so used to them being there so fast?
Shaking her head ruefully, she locked the door behind her and headed for the desk where she'd left Epyon. It had penetrated the hotel's security system with ease, and had been monitoring the hotel while they were at the reception and opening banquet.
"Everything quiet?"
quiet
"Good."
message
"What?"
message Epyon sent images of Zechs and Duo, sitting in front of Zechs' computer in their office. Dorothy smiled in spite of her exhaustion.
"Play the message." She pulled out the chair and dropped into it as she watched the email open. They had sent a vid message, and Duo appeared on the screen in front of her.
"Heya, babe. Traumatized the rest of the Summit yet?" He grinned at her, then winced as Zechs growled something off screen. "Okay, okay. Jeeze. Gotta make this short so Mr. Impatient gets his turn. Anyway... since you aren't here, just wanted to wish you a good night. Sleep well."
"You too, Duo..." She reached out to touch the screen for a moment.
"Dorothy..." Zechs replaced Duo on the screen for a moment. "Hope you are doing okay, even with Winner and his harem there. Give them hell for us, will you? Sleep well." There was a pause, and then his voice lowered slightly. "It feels wrong with you four so far away... stay safe."
Dorothy sat staring at the screen for a long moment after the image faded, not sure whether the message had made her feel better or worse. Wait... four of us? Despite the fact that she knew better, she couldn't help glancing around the room anyway. Four of us, huh? Guess that means I'm not sleeping alone tonight after all.
The thought provided a much needed balm against the day's stresses. Despite her words to Lowell that she didn't care if people thought she was a bitch... it still hurt deep inside. Ah... screw dinner. Maybe I'll just go to bed.
Smiling faintly to herself, she gathered up the sweats and t-shirt she'd grown used to sleeping in and changed quickly in the bathroom. Idiot... they could be watching you in here just as easily as out there. Well... I doubt Treize would, seeing as how we were raised almost as family. That would be kind of...weird. Don't know about Solo though... gah. It's not like I'm going to ever know... and Zechs probably won't tell me, even if he knows.
Finishing up in the bathroom, she turned down the lights and headed for the large bed. She tossed restlessly in the dark room for a long minute, then sighed. "What the hell. Goodnight Treize. Night Solo." Silence was the only answer, but she felt oddly comforted anyway. "Sleep well, guys. Or... whatever you do..."