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The Chains We Wear	By : LadyYeinKhan Category: Gundam Wing/AC > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 13123 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing/AC, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 16
- 17
- 18
*You can follow me for fic updates and other information at ahsimwithsake.tumblr.com*

A/n: Life has been a kick in the ass recently. A kick in the ass with sharp stiletto heels. I’m not going to go into the details, except to say that I hate my life, I hate my job, I hate my friends and right now I think I am one of the worst people on the planet.

And somehow I managed to write this during all that.

It’s mostly thanks to a friend of mine who agreed to act somewhat like an editor. Basically, he gives me deadlines to complete a certain number of pages (or a chapter) and if I fail to meet those deadlines, I have to owe 1000 yen (or about 15 dollars American).

The idea of a deadline, and a penalty, got me to produce, which is exactly what I wanted. I owe him so many dinners right now.

I now present to you the fruits of my labor and my moodiness. Warnings for this chapter include swearing and violence.

As always, please read and review. Getting a new review really makes me day. Especially now.

I remain, as always, your humble story teller.

Chapter 17:

The next forty-eight hours were absolutely critical. Not that Trowa had squandered his time; in fact he had made a number of phone calls, and hacked a number of systems, in the thirty-plus hours between leaving the apartment Thursday morning and climbing into the truck Friday night. More, perhaps, than he should have. But Heero and Duo were still running split shifts, so Trowa had felt fairly safe. After all, Heero couldn’t be nearly as observant when heading a two-man run operation of ten Preventors half by himself.

And Duo was never that observant in the first place.

Trowa, however, knew better than to leave anything—especially success—to chance. So by the time he, buckled and blindfolded as usual, felt Nizar drive over the rumble strip that marked the entrance of the parking garage, he had already made and dismissed no less than three plans and finally settled on the fourth. He was just finishing making a few necessary adjustments to it when Nizar parked. Nizar’s hand closed around his elbow, guiding him, as usual, out of the car. When Trowa stepped onto the concrete, he was quite confident that every possibility and eventuality had been considered and accounted for. Even the more mundane hazards like traffic and hours of operation.

He started his internal mission clock at the elevator.

Approximately seven minutes in—three minutes longer than expected, but acceptable—the elevator stopped at the top floor. Nizar pocketed the blindfold and led him down the bright hallway. Trowa adjusted his stride a fraction, falling back just enough for a quick and safe sweep of the hall. Everything lined up with the building plans. There were vents on ceiling and floor but nothing wide enough for a body. At the far end of the hall, there was a stairwell. As far as Trowa could tell, there were no seams in the paint surrounding its door. He had roughly a 20% chance, then, that opening it would set off an alarm.

A little risky, but still better than the 5% chance that the elevator did not have a high-end camera.

Trowa rolled his eyes briefly over the ceiling. Cameras were hanging at intervals of approximately twenty feet. Only one, a third down the hall, was pointed directly at Fahd’s door. There was a second one much closer to the door, but it was set at a bad angle. As long as Trowa kept the bodies against the wall, it wouldn’t be a problem.

At eight minutes, Nizar stopped outside of the penthouse. At eight minutes and four seconds, Trowa stopped beside him. A jolt of fear thrust his stomach into his throat not half a second later, and it took him almost five seconds to shove it back down.

On some level, Trowa had expected that sort of reaction; he still wanted to kick himself. It shouldn’t matter that Fahd had regressed Wednesday night. It shouldn’t matter that Fahd had brought some of his more brutal tendencies back to the bedroom and stained an expensive-looking set of sheets with Trowa’s blood with them. It shouldn’t matter to Trowa that he had felt, for one brief and agonizing moment, mind-numbing fear.

Except that it did.

Trowa tried to remind himself that he had expected some unpleasantness Wednesday night and had talked himself into being prepared. He tried to remind himself that it was inevitable. Almost natural. The first meeting, the first conversation, really—because Trowa simply didn’t count a handful of text messages saying “not tonight” and “tonight” as actual conversation—between the hirer of a now dead hit-man and the friend/roommate of the still-living victim? Trowa would have been stupid not to assume Fahd was going to take some frustration on him. And while he was many things, Trowa was not yet that stupid.

Except Trowa should have expected to black out and hadn’t. He should have expected to wake up disoriented and weak and hadn’t. He should have expected that getting to the door under his own power would have been half impossible. And hadn’t. Instead, Trowa had let himself be fooled, by momentary and shallow kindness, into thinking that a snide comment and a bruise or two was the worse Fahd would do.

He had forgotten Fahd didn’t actually care.

That did not stop the fear, of course, from fluttering in his stomach as he stood outside Fahd’s door. In the hands of an expert, however, fear could be an excellent tool.And now that he was aware of it, Trowa could control it. At a key moment, he could recoil just enough, or let just enough terror flicker through his eyes, to nudge Fahd into the right position.If he was observant and careful.

With that in mind, he followed Nizar into the apartment. Trowa kept his shoulders slightly rounded and hesitated, briefly but obviously, as he crossed the threshold. One of the guards made a soft sound in his throat as he passed. Trowa glanced back at him. The guard had done the same Wednesday night, growling with such ferocity that it was quite clear to Trowa that, given the chance, he would gleefully savage Trowa for the loss of his partner. Tonight, though, there was a familiar lift in the noise. It took Trowa a moment to recognize it. He was laughing, enjoying Trowa’s small displays of fear.

Trowa grit his teeth, knowing that the second the door closed behind him, the bastard was going to lean back and blissfully imagine everything he could do to him. With disgusting detail.He was going to catch him completely unaware. Trowa bit his tongue against a grim smile. Good.

Trowa caught, as he stepped into the apartment with his tongue firmly between his teeth, subtle movement on his other side. He glanced over his shoulder.The other guard, new to him since Wednesday, stared at the carpet with surprising intensity. Shorter and paler than his new partner, he shifted, head raising and tilting just enough to suggest he was glancing back at him. Trowa felt a momentary flash of guilt. And then the door shut, and guilt was dangerous.

He had been momentarily distracted. So Trowa risked a second’s pause to acclimate himself and reestablish his mission clock. Eight minutes and eleven seconds. Nizar was two steps ahead of him. At three, he might get suspicious. Trowa hurried forward carefully to his usual place just behind his shoulder.

It took approximately twenty-three seconds to move from the front door to the dinette in the kitchen. Nizar was hurrying today, which roughly halved that time. Trowa assumed, then, that there was at least one standard weapon (most likely a handgun) and a handful of makeshift ones and focused his attention on the angles. Between the front door and the living room was the trickiest, if Fahd and Nizar did not stay at the dinette. And Trowa doubted they would. If, however, they kept to the coffee table—or the leather armchairs circling it, as the very farthest—then Trowa could go from bedroom to door without incident. As long as he was quiet.

Trowa had been practicing since Sunday, and was almost surprised at how quickly he fell back into the familiar habits. Sweeping his thumb over the tense strap of his duffle bag, Trowa walked into the living room.

He stopped and almost lost track of his mission clock entirely. Trowa clung to the numbers. Nine minutes and four, seven, eleven seconds and he was not at the dinette. Fahd was not at the dinette; he was in the living room, pacing, which was not actually that unusual, especially recently.  Fahd was not, however, following his usual circuit: a tight circle just in front of the coffee table. Instead, he walked a long, wandering line that skirted most of the furniture. Every few steps, Fahd would nod, careful of the phone wedged between his shoulder and ear, and rifle through the papers he had in hand.

Fahd rounded the arm chair nearest, placing Trowa directly in his line of sight, and stopped suddenly. Trowa stiffened. But Fahd simply shook his head and muttered unintelligibly into the phone. After a few seconds, he nodded, shifting the top sheet to the bottom before continuing his circuit.

Fahd was completely focused, for the moment and Trowa was not sure how long that moment would last. He knew, though, that when it ended, Fahd would have at least ten to twenty seconds to stare directly into the hallway every circuit. If he doesn’t just stay rooted to the spot. Trowa could only think of one way to ensure Fahd neither paced nor stood. Sex, however, was not an option. Sex would ruin everything.

He was going to have to be extremely careful, and he would be. Trowa just hoped this wasn’t a sign of a series of upcoming complications.

Nizar had left him to join Fahd almost six seconds before. Now he was following in Fahd’s wake, his mouth pulled back into a curiously unhappy sneer. Trowa watched them carefully. Nizar must have expected something different. Perhaps he had expected Fahd to be waiting for him, waiting to drop the phone and papers in his lap and abandon the chore for his usual pleasures. And the fact that Fahd had not did not sit well with the man. Nizar tried, with increasingly obvious frustration, to take the phone from him, and was rebuffed, with increasingly obvious irritation, by Fahd. Fahd actually smacked Nizar’s hand with the papers.

Black fury rolled across Nizar’s face. Trowa, who had never seen them actually do it, couldn’t be sure how long an argument between them would last. So he analyzed the living room as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Weaponry was not his main concern when it came to the living room. Trowa already knew the numbers and shapes of the furniture and assumed that something lethal was hiding under the couch. What worried him was visibility. The interior designer of this top-floor penthouse apartment had obviously had a taste for glass. It was everywhere. The dinette, the coffee table, some cabinets, and several other very large and essential pieces of furniture were glass and stainless-steel. Many of the decorative pieces were of spun or blown glass, glittering in a variety of colors. And the windows, where they were, were expansive. The living room was worst of all. Pristine panels of thick plate glass composed two of the room’s walls, ending with the far wall of the attached kitchen and the hallway behind him. In the day, the glass walls provided tons of natural light that probably played attractively with the room’s colors and furniture; at night, they provided an excellent view of the city in twilight and the later colors of evening.

And of the comings and goings of the room’s occupants themselves.

Trowa’s preliminary research had informed him that Fahd’s building was not, in fact, the tallest in the area. There were two taller ones, only one of which was close enough for good visibility. It was only a floor taller and just this side of the zoning codes of being too close. Perfect for spying. Luckily, it was on the east side of the building, and the glass living room was opened to the west.

Open to the west-viewing glass living room, however, was another apartment-sky rise approximately the same height. The eastern wall of the uppermost apartment of that building had quite a bit of glass, and was close enough for an observant occupant to watch, with relative certainty, the goings-on in this one.

Worse, that apartment was occupied.

Its current occupants, however—a young, obviously successful (considering the apartment’s monthly rent) couple—were not at home. Or they were sleeping. Possibly having sex. Either way, the most concerning apartment was dark. Trowa thought, however, that he saw a faint distant glow within it. But he couldn’t be sure. The reflections were quite bad.

Trowa shifted to his left, just enough to move the questionable area out of reflected light. And at that same moment, Nizar decided to snap something particularly furious while gesturing violently at Trowa. Tripping would have been less suspicious than the way Trowa snapped his body straight and still.

Fahd followed the path of Nizar’s fingers, finally landing on Trowa. He looked utterly surprised to see him, as if he had forgotten about the text message he had sent that morning. Then, in the span of seconds, confusion gave way to memory, which melted quickly into a fury that Fahd quashed only with the greatest of efforts.

In his distraction, Nizar managed to sneak both the phone and papers away. He carried them to the kitchen, where he continued the phone conversation at the counter, spreading the papers over the smooth surface without a backwards glance. Fahd sneered at his back before looking at Trowa.

“You look tired.”

Trowa shrugged a shoulder, careful to keep the movement small but smooth, turning his head just enough to seem mildly uncomfortable. He did not want to invite, but he did not want to push Fahd away. Not just yet.

Fahd accepted the gesture, lips quirking into a small smile as he folded his arms. “Well you can go take a nap.”

Trowa let a frown pull at his mouth. “I never said I was tired.”

“A shrug’s the same as a nod when it comes to you. Long week?”

Tempted as he was, Trowa didn’t rise to the bait. Fahd had given him very few indications that he was aware of Trowa’s being aware, and he would like to keep it that way. Trowa couldn’t be absolutely sure, of course, but instinct told him he had managed to slip through the cracks. That, in all his scrambling to stay that one tiny step ahead of the police and the Preventors, Fahd had forgotten that Trowa might manage to connect him to the attack and care enough to be furious.

Which suited Trowa just fine.

“Long enough,” he answered.

“Go take a nap, then. Unless you’re still not sleeping.”

Of course he wasn’t sleeping, and at the word Trowa felt prickles of want.He was quickly forgetting what sleep, whether it was full of terrors or utterly empty, was like.He hadn’t slept all week, unless unconsciousness counted as sleep; but there had been far too much to think about, far too much to do for sleep. He wanted it, though. Nightmare-laced or wrapped in a tight human cage, Trowa wanted it with a sick, heavy selfishness that told him to stop and think very hard about how he was setting himself up to never sleep again.

Fahd must’ve noticed Trowa’s sudden urge to kick himself. He must’ve seen it on Trowa’s face or read it in his tightened body, because he approached him with an amused but slightly concerned expression. In three strides, Fahd was an arm-length away. He reached out to cup Trowa’s chin, and Trowa recoiled with a force that was only partly faked.

Trowa expected anger and was not surprised. The momentary rage, however, that rolled across Fahd’s face was not directed at him. As he pulled back, Fahd glared at his fingers as though they and they alone were entirely to blame for Trowa’s reaction.

When he spoke, Fahd’s voice was carefully flat. “There are few things I have left to do, but I should be there in an hour or so. Sleep, if you can. I won’t wake you.”

Fahd didn’t wait. He headed for the kitchen, stopping only once to run a hand agitatedly through his hair. Trowa watched Fahd argue with Nizar quietly. Once Fahd started trying to wrap his hand around the phone, he turned and left.

Less than fifteen minutes into the mission and Trowa was heading to the bedroom. Alone. With an hour—possibly more if Nizar decided to be difficult—in which to work. He had been given time, nearly a full ten minutes. And instead of deciding how many more miles, or how many hacked systems, that time gave him, Trowa stopped and wondered after that look of loathing.

Then, as he turned his head as if the movement would somehow make the reaction clear to him, Trowa saw the locked door. The one between the living room and the bedroom. The one he had opened and barely escaped Wednesday night. Trowa stared at the door. Nizar’s desk, for he had found several of Nizar’s ties and one of his jackets lying around in it, was directly across from the door, angled so that he would have a decent peripheral view of it. Had Nizar noticed they’d been moved, the files with each of their names? Had he slipped them, heavy with detailed itineraries and daily schedules, into a drawer?

Or were they in the briefcase now? Were they nestled between the emails that, in excellent English and moderate French, asked after dead or missing mercenaries and requested the audio discs that landed a dead doctor in a prison cell?

Crushing his curiosity, Trowa hurried to the bedroom. He closed the door behind him softly only because it was absolutely necessary that he remain alone. Trowa set his duffle bag on the desk chair and unpacked the essentials. He threw the gun on the bed while his laptop was booting up.

*-----*-----*

When he got his hands on him, Nizar was going to kill Quatre Raberba Winner. He was going to put a bullet in every joint the boy had, so that in the end, the brat would only be able to tremble helplessly as Nizar strangled him. He was going to squeeze to life out of the little bastard; he was going to crush the skinny, white throat with his bare hands. And when the brat’s disgusting face was just a touch of blue, when his eyes were just starting to roll backwards towards death, Nizar was going to ease off and give him just a taste of air before squeezing again.

Nizar was going to kill him slowly and enjoy it. It was the least the brat deserved.

Fahd disagreed, of course, but Fahd didn’t understand. He quite honestly couldn’t, because Nizar had been very clear and firm with him: the individual is not as important as the event. The fact that Hamid had been killed was not nearly as important as the fact that Hamid had been killed by his target and his body had been captured by the police. That was crucial. That needed their immediate and absolute attention.

Fahd had risen to the occasion expertly. In the too-short span of a few days, Fahd had managed to keep them a few small steps ahead of the police. Which, considering the monumental task of erasing a man’s entire existence, was no small feat. The mentor in Nizar applauded Fahd’s efficiency and dedication, his willingness to endure the late nights, the early mornings, the little food, and the thousands of phone calls that came with ensuring a dead man left no trace in any part of their organization for the police to find and cling to.

The leader in him wanted to smash the phone against Fahd’s head.

Getting too attached had always been Nizar’s problem, one that nearly earned him a dishonorable discharge in his military career. In his “retirement,” in the earliest days of the organization, he had tried to be extraordinarily careful. Never get too close. Show little concern, no affection. Reward cold and efficiently, scold ruthlessly. It had been quite effective. Respect for him—and him for them—had been astoundingly high while affection had been crushed to near nonexistence.

Hamid, however, had been something of an exception. It was not affection, but rather an enormous sense of pride that flooded Nizar when it came to the man. Nizar had recruited him himself, shortly after Hamid’s graduation from the academy. His performance there had been abysmal; he could expect nothing else than a long, grueling career of clinging to the lowest rungs of the military. But Nizar had seen in him a certain dedication, a certain thirst that, with a little cultivating, could lead to an excellent soldier. And he had not been disappointed.

The problem with the academy was the style of direction, of command. Hamid hadn’t needed a reference book of rules and regulations, and the threat of punishment if he so much as glanced in the wrong direction; he needed a goal and the freedom to achieve it on his own terms. He needed space for imagination and creativity. And when he got it, Hamid had operated with such astonishing precision and focus that in three short years, he had risen to the top of the assassin branch.

Hamid’s success rate, weapon or bare-handed, was almost impossibly high. Nizar could count the man’s failures on one hand. Hamid was, quite honestly, the best. And a scrawny, tender-hearted, political staffer had put six bullets in his head.

Nizar dropped the papers, including the carefully rewritten profiles of their “staffers,” down on the coffee table before he shredded them.

Fahd, who was leaning against the counter, tilted his head at him. Nizar waved the glance away. Fahd frowned before turning towards the phone at his ear and making a quick note of something on one of the papers on the counter.

Fahd was relatively supportive of his fury; Nizar liked to consider it repayment for most of the whims he had endured. He wished, though, that Fahd would let him handle some of the phone calls. Nizar needed the distraction. Fahd was under the impression, though, that Nizar could not be trusted with the phone. That Nizar would ignore duty and call for a small strike team to take out the little bastard and his house.

In his defense, Nizar had only considered it.

Killing Winner now would be, at the very least, a logistical nightmare. At worst, it was practically impossible. The Preventers were irritatingly efficient when it came to protecting their own. Within twelve hours, they had snatched up their high-profile informant and placed him in the protective custody of two highly-skilled Preventers: his roommates.

There were, of course, ways to reach him. Under the protective order, someone had to be with Winner at all times, which meant that Yuy and Maxwell’s shifts had to be changed. Under normal circumstances, this would have meant absolutely nothing to Nizar; those two pilots in particular were extremely lethal, together or alone. At this moment in time, however, Yuy and Maxwell were heading a round-the-clock, top-priority operation. They were too deep to hand it off to anyone else, and they were too attached to Winner to trust him with anyone else.So they split the work. Duo usually took the morning shift, Heero the evening.

They were starting to feel the strain, though, according to their insider who, having been brought over from the failed sting, saw them both quite regularly. There were all the usual signs of stress and sleep deprivation: headaches, forgetfulness, irritation. Maxwell in particular was becoming more forgetful than was usual, and Wednesday night Yuy had yelled at someone.

Unfortunately, Nizar would have to wait another week at least before the stress and sleep deprivation started to seriously affect Maxwell’s reaction times. Yuy’s, a minimum of two.

Equally unfortunate, he had no idea what sort of defenses they had. Nizar expected, however, that they were efficient, thorough, and lethal. Especially if Yuy had set them up.

And there was still the small matter of Winner’s six bullets. Little though Nizar wanted to admit it, that number was too high, and in too small of an area, to be simple “luck.”

But Nizar wanted that bastard. He wanted his head, and he was going to get it. He just wasn’t sure when or how.

He was just starting to wonder—wonder of course, not actually plan—how effective a sniper would be when Fahd dropped onto the couch, swearing.

“The bastards called the academy.”

The academy kept records of the careers of all their graduates, even those who continued on into the “private sector” instead of the national military. Nizar was quite sure they had not yet purged those records of their names yet.

“Damn it.”

“Essa cut them off. Cited some old regulation about the personal information about graduates in the private sector being classified—”

“They’ll get a warrant.”

“And it will take hours because of jurisdictions and politicalbureaucracy.  Plenty of time for Essa to clean the slate and wipe his fingers.”

Nizar nodded a bit. Fahd pinched the bridge of his nose. “Anything else?”

“The bitch wants more money.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Remembering all those names and dates and things is going to be hard, she says,” Fahd sneered. “Their first meeting, their first date, his favorite food, what he wanted to call his first-born son. It’s too much, she says, and she’d hate it if something just accidentally slipped.”

“If she likes having her mother and sister alive, then something won’t.”

Fahd frowned. “I was hoping not to go there.”

“Money talks, death doesn’t. Where’s her number?”

“I thought you had it,” he said, nudging the pile of papers on the coffee table with his foot.

Nizar swept up the papers, thumbing through them for the “fiancé’s” contact information. He growled after a minute of fruitless searching. Sighing, Fahd pushed himself off the couch and headed back to the kitchen. He flipped through the papers on the counter.

Nizar was just about to start a second, slower read-through when he felt it: a small tingling on the back of his neck, like someone was watching him. It came with the very strange but very real idea that he had heard something: a floor board creaking, or a foot landing, almost silently. Nizar glanced over his shoulder. The doorway was empty, as were the shadows on either side of it. For a moment, he thought he saw a darker blot down in the left corner, one that could have been the shadow of a crouching body. Nizar stepped towards the door. Then Fahd swore, he blinked, and the blot was gone.

“Are you sure it’s not in that pile?”

Nizar turned back to his papers. He thumbed through them slowly, resisting the urge to glance behind him quite well. His attention, though, lingered on those small, not-quite sounds and that one not-quite a shadow. He had flipped through five or six pages without reading a word when he heard a click.

And he had heard a click. A distinctive, metal-on-metal ring as a latch slid into place. Someone had closed a door, mostly likely the front door. It was the closest. Someone had opened and then closed the front door. Carefully. Someone did not want to be heard.

Nizar stuffed the papers under his arm. He was just about to bolt into the hallway, under the pretense of looking for the number in the mess of files and papers he kept in his room, when Fahd shouted.

“Found it!”

With the greatest reluctance, Nizar turned away from the still and silent doorway. He tossed the papers on the coffee table. “Great. Get the phone.”

Fahd carried it from the counter, staring down at the number pad as he dialed the woman’s phone number. He stopped a few feet away from Nizar. Arms folded lightly, he listened to the first, and then second ring. On the third Fahd’s slightly-tilted head straightened. His mouth dropped open a fraction. The line clicked. Nizar turned, catching out of the corner of his eye Fahd’s thumbing hurrying to disconnect the call.

Barton did not waste bullets. While Nizar was pulling his gun from his holster, he fired two shots. Nizar crumpled to his knees. As he swayed from the white hot pain licking up his legs, Barton fired a third. Nizar, rather than feeling it, heard the gun spin from his hand. He fell forward, catching himself momentarily on his wounded hand, which quickly collapsed under his weight.

The fourth bullet Barton aimed at his head.

Nizar could not see Fahd, and he could not get far enough past the horrific pain to turn any part of himself towards him. He could tell, though, by the silence that Fahd was surprised. Whether it was useful, calculative surprise, or dangerous mind-numbing shock, though, he did not know.

Barton spoke first, and Nizar, despite himself, shivered at the flat sound. “I could kill him before you.”

Nizar risked a glance. Barton was not looking at him. His gun absolutely steady and leveled with Nizar’s skull, Barton stared straight ahead, at Fahd. His face was completely expressionless, and the one green eye Nizar could see radiated cold determination. Lethal and efficient.

“Could you,” Fahd answered slowly. His voice was just soft enough to betray his fear.

Barton’s mouth twitched. The corners lifted a small fraction, suddenly making him look bitter and slightly demented.

“I don’t want to kill people,” he said, his voice still even and cold despite the small, twisted smile.

For several seconds, Fahd said nothing. Then he shifted. Barton’s eye narrowed, but he said nothing. As the seconds wore on, the feeling that Nizar was missing a crucial conversation grew heavier, until the air was thick with silent words and accusations.

“I didn’t,” Fahd finally said.

“You tried.”

They were silent again. After a few short seconds, Barton’s mouth twitched. He shifted, his gun hand rotating ever so slightly as his finger began to squeeze the trigger.

“What do you want,” Fahd asked, and if he could, Nizar would kick him for sounding so obviously frightened.

“Confess.”

A few seconds, and then there was a rustling. When he answered, Fahd’s voice was lighter, so Nizar knew that he was smiling faintly. He probably had his arms open, just enough to seem defenseless.

“Where would you like me to start?”

If he could convince him, if he could lead him with well-placed, well-practiced charm, Fahd could get control of a situation that had very quickly tumbled out of his hands. Barton, however, would not let him. He stared at that soft, disarming smile and into those even softer, almost repentant eyes, and was unmoved.

“Not to me.”

It took Nizar nearly ten seconds to understand exactly what Barton meant, which was three seconds slower than Fahd. Fahd had already walked around Nizar’s prone body. He was practically shoulder-to-shoulder with Barton, and showing no signs of stopping, when Nizar forced himself up with his good hand.

“Don’t you dare,” Nizar barked at Fahd’s back, trembling from the pain and his fury.    He wouldn’t. Fahd wouldn’t dare, not after all these years. Not after all the work and sacrifices. And yet Fahd refused to stop. He was next to Barton, who tensed but did not turn his head, and then past him. He was seven feet from the door. Then he was only five, and refusing to take advantage of Barton’s focus. Fahd was at the door—

“I’m not worth it!”

Just as he hoped, Fahd stopped with his hand on the door frame. His head dipped forward and, after a few seconds, his fingers dug into the wood. Trembling and slightly light-headed, Nizar breathed a shaky sigh. He wouldn’t. He knew Fahd wouldn’t. Fahd had collected and kept every scrap of cloth, every tattered book, every bit of trash he could. He wouldn’t idly throw away Ilham’s rebellion. Certainly not for Nizar.

Barton seemed to sense that. When Fahd had stopped, he had waited a second or two before sliding his eyes slowly to the side. When it was clear that Fahd was not going to move again, the corner of Barton’s mouth dipped inwards. His jaw moved slowly as he chewed at it.

Finally, Fahd laid his head back and sighed. As he turned, Nizar began to ease himself back down onto his side. He caught Fahd’s eyes and nearly fell, realizing he had been the world’s biggest fool.

Fahd, young as he had been, devoted as he had been, had taken Ilham’s death extremely hard, and the day of the young man’s meager funeral had marked fifteen years since Nizar had seen any of his children. And so he had reached out, reached past that fragile barrier and had set his hand on Fahd’s shoulder with the grieving warmth of a father. He had encouraged a deeper attachment than mentor and student, nurtured it, and Fahd he had shown signs of rage and loathing towards his father, Nizar nurtured that too.

He had told himself it was for the cause. That when it was strong, the rebellion would need a new leader, a new face, and that the face of the strong, healthy heir was perfect. Poetic even. He had told himself, as he drew Fahd closer and the boy—then the teenager, and then the man—came to rely on and trust him, that it was necessary. That Ilham would have approved. Nizar had told himself that it was the only way to get both the rebellion and the country exactly where he wanted them.

Family had nothing to do with it.

And because it had nothing to do with it, Nizar had forgotten the lengths he had gone to for Fahd’s affection. He had, perhaps from the moment Fahd proved himself fully committed with his first flimsy plotting of his father’s murder, let the affection slink to the back of his mind. And there it had waited patiently for the proper to snatch back Nizar’s attention.

For Fahd stared at him with a brutal mix of emotions Nizar had seen only once. But he was no longer that bitter, scared seven-year-old. Now he was a man, bitter over the fact that he was being forced to choose between equally precious people and terrified that either choice was the wrong one.

Wrong or not, though, Fahd made it. With a swallow, he turned away from Nizar and left the living room.

Nizar dropped his head to the carpet. He was such a fool.

Barton didn’t move when Fahd left. He didn’t turn his head when he dropped the keys twice or when he opened the door. When there was too long of a pause, though, between the opening and closing of the front door, Barton shifted and rotated the gun some again.

Fahd was obviously stopped in the doorway. He was probably gripping the handle as he thought or second-guessed, or swayed from the sight of his two very dead body guards. Whichever it was, though, it did not keep him long. The front door closed.

Barton didn’t fire.

It made sense, of course, to wait. One should never waste their advantage, after all, and Barton had no way of knowing with absolute certain that Fahd had gone. The likelihood that he was waiting outside the door, or even somehow managing a counterattack, was high enough for caution. So, since turning Fahd over to the Preventers seemed to be Barton’s ultimate goal, killing Nizar before he had relative certainty Fahd was in route was counter-productive.

Ten minutes, though, was the average most people under high duress waited before making a decision. Those ten minutes passed, but there was no brief but brutal sensation of a bullet ripping through his school. Barton must not have been aware of the soundproofing and, as an extra precaution, was waiting for distance to muffle the gunshot.

At fifteen minutes, though, Barton still hadn’t fired. Then, just before twenty, he let out a mildly shaky sigh and lowered the gun.

Nizar was too confused, and far too lightheaded, to say anything as Barton ran a hand agitatedly through his hair. Without a glance at him, Barton turned and hurried for the hall. Nizar shifted and noticed then the duffle bag poking out from around the corner.

Why had he never made a point of taking his bag? Nizar would’ve noticed the weight difference.

Barton dug in the duffle bag for a moment before standing. He slung it over his shoulder, turned, and walked back towards Nizar. The blood loss and lingering agony of two shot knee caps were finally making it difficult for Nizar to see, so he a felt a momentary pang of fear when Barton stopped a few feet away and raised his hand.

A black cell phone bounced shortly near his head and hit Nizar on the nose.

“Hospitals ask questions,” Barton said with the old, warmer crispness in his voice. For a moment, his face stretched with mild concern, anxiety, and a touch of fear. And then it smoothed. The coldness crept back into his eyes, and Barton turned and left.

After several minutes of silence, Nizar glared at the phone next to his head.

Of course, hospitals asked questions. It was in their nature, which always made them risky places. Nizar wasn’t stupid enough to call an ambulance, normally. But with his head floating several feet of his body, riding blood loss and pain, and the small sliver of sense he had clinging to his mistakes, Nizar admitted he had considered it.

Barton had dropped the phone the right side of his head. It was only slightly difficult to reach over and take it with his left.

Nizar turned the unfamiliar black phone over in his fingers, careful not to drop it. He wasn’t sure if he could pick it up again if he did. Nizar flipped it open with his thumb and frowned at the slowly spinning numbers. There were several people he could call, but untangling their numbers was proving increasingly difficult. Finally he latched onto one. Nizar dialed it carefully with his thumb, hoping as he did so that this was Barton’s phone and not one he had swiped.

Nizar would like to find him one day and return his bullets.

The line clicked and after a moment there was a concerned sounding “Sir?”

“If you do not get to me before the police do, alive or dead I will see you hanged.”

*-----*-----*

Une didn’t think she was happier to have hired former Gundam pilots than as she was at this very moment.

“I assure you, Ms. Une,” said Fahd Kader, wearing a suit without its jacket or tie and a tired but vaguely amused smile, “there is really no need for guns.”

Three of the five operatives she had brought with her down to the parking garage had already lowered their guns. Two of them were taking a cue from Leon, who had lowered his gun in confusion almost upon leaving the elevator. As the senior-most operative in the room, he could take command in the event that Une could not, and seeing Kader in her parking lot had struck Une speechless.

Duo, however, knew when to break the chain of command.   He held his gun steady, aimed to kill, and, because Eric would not lower his gun without her say so, safely scanned the garage for any and all reinforcements.

“I promise you, I’m alone—”

“Step away from the truck,” Duo commanded as he scanned dark corner for movement. Fahd took five steps away from the large pick-up truck.

“—and unarmed.”

Duo flicked his eyes to him and sneered. “Keep your hands where we can see them, then.”

Fahd’s smile stretched into a bitter sort of grimace as he raised his hands. “You do have some very good operatives.”

“Better than good,” Une said. “Some of them anyway.”

The three lowered guns snapped up.

“Perimeter looks empty,” Duo said slowly. “I can do a quick sweep.”

Duo was the best shot at present, and in the top five overall. She was not going to lose him to a knife in the dark.

“Take Williams with you,” she said. Duo had already taken two steps back when Fahd sighed.

“I promise, there is no one else within twenty miles.”

Une glanced back at Duo who had already pulled the skinny, confused Preventer out of the line. “Take Williams.”

“You really are quite thorough, even when it’s pointless.”

Une frowned at him. “Are you unaware of your terrorist status?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Or the fact that five police operations, including this one, three colonies, and half a dozen countries have been scrambling for your arrest?”

“I have heard a thing or two, and of course, there was the small matter of your well-organized but unfortunately botched sting.”

“And you expect me to believe that there is not one assassin hiding in my parking lot?”

“He is not hiding.”

Fahd had not been looking at her when he said it. He had been to her right, where four of her operatives, Duo included, were still gathered in a loose knot.

Then several things happened in horribly quick succession. Someone in that group of four screamed in unintelligible rage, Eric shoved her backwards hard, and the ceiling over their heads let out a splintering crack as bits of plaster and cement fell.

Williams was the closest and caught Une beneath the arms before she hit the concrete. He pulled her back from the mess of flailing limbs. Duo had his arms around Leon’s neck, trying to hold him until the one of the other two caught his gun. Leon sacrificed the gun to slip an arm through their grip. He drove his elbow into Duo’s stomach with enough force to knock him flat. He turned and ran. Eric chased after him.

Leaner of the two, Eric caught up with him before Leon broke fifty feet. He caught him around the waist. They crashed to the concrete. Leon wriggled out. He stumbled up and aimed a kick at his head that Eric dodged. He rolled to his feet and, with the controlled brutality that only years of Krav Maga could give, thrust his elbow into his eye before throwing Leon across his shoulder and into the nearest car. Leon grunted painfully as he hit the hood. Groaning, he slid down the dented metal and fell onto the floor.

“Now there are no assassins in your parking garage,” Fahd said after a moment, sounding, and looking with his hands still by his head, incredibly bored. “He was a terrible one, though. I used him mostly for information, and he could barely do that well. I should’ve shot him months ago.”

Une stared at the motionless lump.

“Money is an excellent motivator for weak men,” Fahd said with a shrug. “Shall we move onto the arresting and the reading of my rights? That is the protocol for the Preventers, or do you have different procedures?”

Everyone single one of her operatives had dropped or lost their gun in the struggle, but none of them landed anywhere near her. Which was a shame, because Une wanted nothing more right now than to shot Fahd in the head.

“Maybe no one’s told you, but I don’t like being toyed with.”

“I am merely trying to assist—”

“With your own arrest?”

“I am, as the phrase goes, coming in quietly.”

“Alone?”

Fahd sneered. “We have already established that.”

“Of your own volition?”

“Of course not,” he said. “Unfortunately, Trowa could not bring me in himself, as he is currently a bit indisposed.”

Duo had been slowly getting to his feet, leaning on Williams as he caught his breath. At Fahd’s mention of Trowa, he nearly pulled Williams over as he stumbled.

“What?”

“Arrest him,” Une ordered, staring hard at Fahd. He returned it unflinching, even going so far as to bring his hands down and hold them out in front of him, smile vaguely.

“What do you—Une, what does—”

“Arrest him, Maxwell,” she barked, turning on her heel and storming back to the elevator. “Get him into a cell, and then my office.” Une slammed her fist into the call button. As the elevator dinged, she spat over her shoulder. “Toss that in a cell, too.”

Une was well aware that she was leaving two good Preventers, and two of her best, extremely vulnerable as she rode lone elevator. But she always had irritating inclination that Fahd wasn’t trying to mislead them. He had come alone and unarmed, in a marked and easily traceable pickup truck, to her territory. He had, in an act of good faith, revealed the rat in her organization. Fahd had even suggest she take her time coming down when he called her office, to gather her forces or at the very least comb her hair as it was past nine o’clock and she probably did not look her best. Une had only done the first.

No, Fahd was not trying to trick her. He was, for whatever reason, turning himself in. And that reason somehow involved Trowa Barton.

She pinched her temples. She hadn’t gotten around to imagining what finally arresting Fahd Kader would be like, but it was certainly not this.

The elevator opened up onto a lit but empty floor. Duo and the others had been the only Preventers allowed to stay tonight; she had just been about to dismiss Eric when Fahd called. She had wanted no mistakes this time as they neared the zero hour of the new operation. The operation that was unnecessary.

Somehow thanks to Trowa Barton.

Une crossed the floor in seconds. Her door rattled on its hinges as she slammed it shut.

It was still early enough in the evening for the city’s night skyline to provide just enough light to see. Une ripped open one of her desk drawers and pulled out a thin ledger. Every Preventer had to provide contact information, and Une kept her best and most useful operatives’ numbers close at hand.

Trowa Barton’s wasn’t there.

Finding it in the large computer database wasn’t difficult, nor was her computer particularly slow. But with all of the surprises that had occurred in the last half hour, with all of the questions that continued to come without answers, with all of her anger rising, Une wanted to hurl the suddenly ancient machine across her office. If she did that, however, it would take even longer to find.

The five minutes felt more like hour, but soon enough she had his numbers. Une leaned over her the desk as she waited for him to answer, digging her nails into the wall as she glared at the black letters scrawled across the computer screen.

After six rings, it cut to voice mail. Une swore at the mechanical woman droning in her ear. She redialed.

The third time, a male’s voice answered.

“We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed—”

“Damn you Barton!”

The house phone rang five times before connecting. Une restrained herself with the greatest of difficulty.

“Where is he?”

Heero’s answers were soft and clipped, a sign of both exhaustion and irritation. She had probably woken him up. “If he’s not in the building, I don’t know.”

“Barton, not Maxwell. Where is Trowa Barton?”

“He’s not here,” Heero answered after a moment’s pause, now sounding wide awake.

“He’s not picking up his phone. He turned the damn thing off, and I need to find him now.”

Heero didn’t speak for several seconds. When he did, there was a strange, uncomfortable shake in his voice. “I don’t know where he is.”

A small jolt of panic shot through her. “Did he come home tonight?”

“He doesn’t on Fridays,” Heero said slowly. Une got the impression that he felt and fed from the panic running through her, because after a moment she heard a dull thunk through the phone and then the distant sound of voices.

Une was still waiting for him to pick up, her fingers digging sharp grooves into her desk as she was forced to listen to the rising but muffled panic on the other line, when the door opened. Une looked up. Duo stood the doorway. The bright lights of the city behind her played strange tricks with his face, making him look inexplicably frightened. He walked forward, only one arm swinging lightly with his steps. The other was frozen at his side with clasped tightly in his fingers.

On the phone she heard Heero swear.

“But it’s not possible. It’s not,” Quatre said.

Duo stopped in front of her desk.

“I’ll kill him.”

“There’s got to be some mistake.”

Duo dropped a Preventer badge on Une’s desk.

A/n: Did I ever mention that I like cruel cliff hangers?

I am now hiding behind a wall in preparation for people throwing things at me.

As always read and review. I await your comments (and my next deadline). Until then I remain faithfully yours.

~*~LadyYeinKhan~*~

*You can follow me for updates and random information at ahsimwithsake.tumblr.com*
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The Chains We Wear