The Chains We Wear

A/n: Hello one and all, my wonderful, wonderful readers. I’m certain you’re all looking at the screen with a gasp on your face going “oh my god, you’re posting chapter 6? Does this mean chapter 7 is done and we can expect it when you finish chapter 8?” …Okay so I’m imagining these reactions.

But in case someone is!…No. Chapter 7 is not completed; perhaps it’s half completed but I still have a bit of work to do on it. So why am I breaking my rule? Well…these last few weeks have been very…hectic, oscillating between very good days and very bad ones. Recently my good and bad days have reached new peaks including a minor car accident and an A on my first college paper. Because I don’t want punish my readers for my horrible mood, I decided to post chapter 6 earlier than planned, to try and offset my bad moods with happy reviews^^

Because if more people call me a truly twisted freak with a smile on their face and big eyes (ex: O.O) or say they cried, as much as I hate the term, emo tears for my bittersweet, tortured Trowa, I’m a happy little author.

Much love to my wonderful reviewers and readers, even those who DON’T write me reviews…meany faces whom I still adore.

Anyway, onto a brief explanation session. I’m glad everyone loved chapter 5 and that some of my more subtle moments in the chapter made people very happy/squeamish in a nice way. Chapter 6 is…well I pretty much dislike it but I can’t find any other way to write it. Mostly, I think it’s a filler chapter that is not my best work (neither is chapter 7 at the moment either). Yet, it still fits into the story as well as I could manage. There is a slight POV change, but it goes back to normal half way through.

As always, reviews and constructive criticism are loved. And perhaps soon I will ask if someone wants to be a guinea pig…hehehe

Enjoy!

Chapter 6: Discovery

Headaches. Lady Une hated headaches with a blind passion. That bothersome throbbing behind the back of her eyes that would course down the length of her neck and settle in her shoulders so that she found herself sore and restless. How she hated them. It seemed worse than the norm today, as well. Usually, when her head began to pound and disrupt her, she would pause in whatever paperwork she was reviewing, or drafting, or signing, Une would push it aside as she rooted through her desk drawers for that bottle of aspirin she would keep and constantly move. She’d wash it down with a small bit of water in her coffee mug before freshening her own coffee. And then if it still persisted, she’d take a moment to stand at one of the full length windows that lined the wall behind her desk and observe the city and the skyline. It was peacefully. It was relaxing.

It wasn’t working today.

Then again, the pressing headache that she had today was not one of her typical ones. This one was quickly turning to a debilitating migraine that was going to render her insane if the pain didn’t ease soon. The two aspirin she had taken were merely floating around in her system worthless, the coffee tasted bitter, and the view from her window was shrouded with dark and ugly gray skies, hopeless buildings, and a sense of chaos among the people. Or perhaps she was merely projecting her own morose feelings upon the objects and sights around her. Everything certainly seemed gray, hopeless, and uncomfortably chaotic to her. Everything seemed bitter. Everything seemed quite worthless.

Somewhere, somewhere, she had screwed up. And one of her operatives had to pay for her mistakes. Trowa Barton had to pay for it.

Kader knew we were onto him. Her manicured nails dug dangerously into the ceramic mug. She didn’t know how he knew but he had. He had known that they were coming for him, snooping for the proof to land him in a prison cell, and had set up his own little operation in retaliation. He had gotten two of his followers and staged an exchange of money and goods for Trowa to overhear and document through “secure” channels. He waited for Une to send a person out to try and nail him so that he could flip the table on her and the Preventors. Fahd Kader had used her to send a message to her using her own operative.

And the message was expertly sent. And received with the proper feeling.

Snarling to herself, she slammed the coffee mug down on her desk and glared at the broken pieces as they skittered and toppled off her desk. When she found the waste of skin who had leaked out her plans to him, or had given her the wrong information though she thought the less likely of the two, she would flay them alive. Lady Une couldn’t stand for liars and turncoats.

She eyed the mess of coffee and ceramic splattered across her desk and carpeted floor. Thankfully, the staining liquid had steered clear of the documents she had been perusing early. Lifting the wastebasket she kept beside the desk she wiped the remains and the split coffee into it as well as she could. There was always a dishtowel or two hiding in the drawer of the table that held her coffee maker and coffee necessities. Thankfully, both were there and clean. Une kicked the drawer closed with her foot before going back to her desk and mopping up the mess she had made. She’d regret spilling coffee all over her fine wood desk eventually. Coffee was a pain to fully clear away.

After grimacing at the mess she made and knowing that it had been an idiotic idea and tossing the towel into a small plastic container she kept next to the coffee maker, Une sank into her fake leather chair. She rubbed her temples while sinking back into it. Leather was expensive and high maintenance. A good leather replica felt just as nice with half the stress. Besides, the fake fabric felt better to her than the real, and without the needless death of cows. It made her slightly squeamish, the thought of how many cows could have been slaughtered to make a real leather officer recliner.

She shook her head. Focus. We have far more pressing matters. Eyeing the papers spread across the desk’s surface, Une selected several and glimpsed over them. She didn’t know why she was doing this; she had read them fully over half a dozen times already. Another time couldn’t hurt, could it? It could make this headache worse. Along with the guilt. Une recognized the handwriting very well. It was cold and clean-cut, clearly done by the hand of Heero Yuy. He may have learned many things, and changed in several ways, with the end of the war. But still, when it came to the details and idiosyncrasies of his job, he worked with a cold and machine like efficiency. The report in her hands was very short, more of a preliminary than anything else. Yet it told her exactly what she needed to know. The mission had begun perfectly. Trowa had performed flawlessly and was hardly noticed as being suspicious. He had managed to retrieve and record information “pertinent” to their case before trying to escape undetected. And that was where everything had fallen apart.

No, it was apart before we even got inside. Fahd knew we were coming and we weren’t aware of that. Someone leaked it to him. Someone set us up and we fell for it. She’d maim whomever it had been, once she found the party. And Lady Une planned on finding them.

She glanced down at the preliminary paper again and frowned. It read like a casualty report, a grisly one at that. It revealed just enough details into the finer points of the failings of the mission that made her stomach twist guiltily. Lady Une set it aside, hoping to spare herself before Heero Yuy’s report depressed her even further. It seemed she was too late.

Beneath it was another set of papers that Heero had brought in with him in the short time he had seen her. She flipped through the several sheets of paper, skimming the computerized conversations that Trowa had managed to capture with the equipment he had. She had read it over once already; it all looked perfectly fine until the last few pages. It all looked as though everything had been going perfectly, up until Fahd had managed to sneak his way backstage and corner Trowa in a dressing room. Une read the words he had spoken hours before with a darkening gaze.

“God damn it all to hell…” she snarled to herself, flinging it back onto the desk and sneering as it slid off the other end. Her flats’ stomps were muffled in her thick carpet while she gathered them back up. She paused looking for a moment towards the door. She could hear conversations continuing outside her office, the typical noises of a busy work place. Thus far, the failure was still a secret known only to those involved. It couldn’t stay secret forever; rumors would naturally begin to seep. But perhaps, she could do some required things before too much was being whispered between the cracks of cubicles.

Une stunned her secretary, a young man whom was, at least emotionally, ten years greener than herself and fresh from some military academy whom she deemed didn’t have enough experience for field work yet, out of his seat. She supposed she shouldn’t have nearly ripped her door off the hinges while opening it. He leapt to his feet and saluted feebly; Une sighed heavily and gave him a weary smile.

“Eric.” she reminded with only slight traces of chastisement. He made a small noise and dropped his hand.

“Sorry, Lady Une. I forgot.” muttered Eric sheepishly. She patted his shoulder slightly.

“It’s alright. You’ll learn that I do not need to be honored in such a way.”

“Is there something I can do for you, Miss Une?” he asked. It seemed he was looking for a way to redeem himself, needless as it was. I’m humor him for now.

“I have some errands to take care of and a few people I need to see. So please, take messages for me from any calls and apologize for me if it happens to be someone of great importance. You can do that for me, right Eric?”

Eric, nodding so rapidly she was afraid he’d give himself whiplash, smiled at her. “Of course, Lady Une. It’s no problem. I’ll get it done.”

“Thank you, Eric.” she said genuinely, walking away. Slowly, she could feel herself coming back into her typical control. Eric had that sort of effect upon her. For some reason, Une could always calm herself around the eager youth.

“Miss Une,” he called as he retook his seat. She paused to glance back at him over her shoulder. “Is there anything else you’d like me to do?”

She stood still for a moment, head lowered slightly as she thought. It must have been a long while, because Eric made a concerned noise as he craned his neck to look towards her face. She gave him a serious look. “Yes, one more thing. If you happen to see Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Wufei Chang, or Zechs Merquise, tell them I want to see them. The moment I get back.” Une was hardly surprised to see Eric swallow slightly at the dangerous tone that had entered her voice. He could tell, now more than ever, that her mood was not pleased. No matter how she acted.

“Of course ma’am. Would you like them to wait in your office if I see them?”

Une thought about it for a moment. “Yes. Tell them that. And if you don’t see them while I‘m away, page them the moment I come back and make sure they know I want to see them the minute they get it.”

“Yes ma’am.” he called after her as she walked away. Green as he may be in the field, he was a good boy. And a damn fine secretary. Typically, Une had never held much stock in a personal secretary. Even when she had been loyal beneath Treize Khushrenada’s force known as the OZ Federation, she had loathed the idea of having to look after a secretary. They were more trouble than they were worth. They were nosy, lazy, arrogant, ignorant, obstinate and just plain incompetent. At least all the ones that Une had been forced to put up with until they all demanded reassignment because of her “anger issues” and “insane demands.” She wasn’t about to lie; she had put her secretaries through, as they called it, a living hell, but the idiots had deserved every moment of hell Une had sent at them.

But Eric was different. He was young and dedicated, having graduated from the top percent of his graduating class. She would have thought, with his skills and credentials, that he would be offended with the position as her secretary. Yet he had leapt at the position with fervor that she had rarely ever seen in anyone. He had a mind for organization and paperwork and a definitely didn’t mind the hoops Une occasionally had him jump through. In fact, he almost seemed to enjoy it. And she had to admit, she enjoyed his presence better than any other secretary she had possessed. He’s beyond competent. He’s just fucking good at it.

She needed to write herself a note to remind herself to offer him either a position in the field if he wanted one, or a raise. She was hoping he’d want the raise.

Wandering through the rows of desks and cubicles, Une made her way to the elevator with an air of extreme detachment. She passed it by and though she wished to, she didn’t stop. Fought desire to look back at the empty desk. It seemed awkward, to know that the hard back chair was empty. Usually, he stayed nearly as long as she did. How strange it was to not see him hunched over at his desk, a small stack of papers left to be done at this hour of the night. If things had gone as they were supposed to, he would probably be back there. Maybe not tonight but at least tomorrow. He’d be sitting there, mulling over paperwork and probably thankful to be back at it after the week he had had and Lady Une would be back in her office doing her own piles of paperwork and getting ready to thoroughly ream someone who had gotten on her bad side that day.

She wouldn’t be walking to the elevator to go up and see how he was doing.

As the elevator bell dinged softly and admitted her entrance, she mused upon other sorts of rumors that had been drifting through the offices and, inadvertently, to her. Most recently, there was a barrage of whisperings that there was something “going on” between herself and Trowa Barton. She wasn’t about to lie to herself, it was true that she treated Trowa differently than most of the other operatives. Trowa Barton was her newest operative, one not fresh from some sheltered academy but from the field of war. She had an idea of how he worked and how he acted… Yet, in many aspects he was still a mystery to her. She was unaware of how he could operate outside of a military setting; Une had known many officers who had cracked due to the extensive changes between a military and a civilian’s life and obligations. She only had the vaguest of understandings about Trowa’s upbringing and childhood. He had, much like others Une had met, known, and knew, been raised and bred to participate in war. She had no idea how he would react in this new setting. So maybe she was a little lenient with him…

That didn’t stop her from yelling at him when he deserved yelling, or making an example of him when it was a necessary deterrent. There had been the time that Trowa had earned nearly an hour of her wrath for a grave mistake he had made on a crucial document needed in a high profile assignment. He had redeemed himself, however, and gained her praise by staying well into the evening to correct his error. He deserves every way I treat him, good and bad. And he understands that. It’s not as though I coddle him, either. He would probably walk out and never come back if she even bothered to try. Or merely glare at her in that icy way he could. She wasn’t sure which would be worse.

The carriage rose steadily into the dark shaft, swaying and jolting as it normally always did. Not enough to worry one but just enough to remind that it was still suspend by a thin cable. She watched the number display as it increased slowly and surely. The floor level froze before her eyes; it would be dark now, devoid of life. Lonely without the music thumping through the walls and the sounds of shoes slapping against the floor that had been occupying the level for the last week. It was empty and desolate, frozen in the darkness as she rose towards it and then above it. To think, that only a few hours ago, she had stood in the lit room and wished them luck on their mission, assured them of her faith in their skills.

The carriage jolted to a stop, startling her just enough to make her stumble back into the wall behind her. She blinked rapidly as the steel doors parted for her, light pouring into the dimly lit carriage from the blinding hall. Her flat heeled shoes clicked and echoed softly down the white tiled hall. A gentle hum followed along behind her. Sterile colors blended with the nondescript doors that lined either side of her path. It was quiet and seemingly lifeless environment that Lady Une rarely found herself having to traverse, or even wanting to. Still, she stopped at the end of the hall just before the sharp turn it took to the left. There was nothing visibly different between this gray door or any of the others.

Still. Still, her hand quivered as she reached for the door knob. It traveled up her arm and down her spine until her entire body was shaking just barely. Standing stock still before it, she waited for everything in her to settle. It was taking its dear sweet time. Get it together. You’ve done this before at least a hundred times. There is nothing here that is going to be something you haven’t seen before.

…Right?

The opening of the door seemed to have startled the only visible occupant of the white washed and metallic room. He jumped backwards from the desk he had been bent over, dropping the phone he had been cradling to his ear. Panting heavily, he adjusted the round, metal rimmed glasses that adorned his narrow and, in some ways, shallow face. He ran a hand through his scraggly red hair and adjusted the white coat he wore over some sort of outfit that went with light brown slacks and black shoes.

“L-Lady Une. Geez, you must have ESP. I was just about to call you.” He muttered with a pant still to his voice. Smirking slightly, she crossed over to him and set the phone back in its cradle after stooping to pick it up.

“I thought you didn’t believe in ESP, Vince.” she chuckled.

Vince frowned slightly. He pushed his glasses up his nose and snorted. “I’m undecided as to the realistic possibilities concerning the validity of a person possessing the proper brain functioning to utilize extrasensory perception.” She snorted softly. He always chose to sound to like a disgruntled college professor when he was indecisive about something or other. Are all PhDs sarcastic assholes when it comes to being wrong?

“You said you were about to call me?” She reminded. Vince nodded, tugging lightly at the edge of the lab coat right by his neck. Une frowned. He always did that when there was something he thought was going to annoy her when he told her. “…Well?”

“Um well, if there’s something you came up here to discuss with me, we, uh, we could handle that first.”

“Vince, don’t play with me. What is it that you were going to call me about?”

“Well, I’m sure it’s not nearly as important as to why you actually came to see me… Why did you come to see me?”

She shook her head, hands firmly on her hips. “Wounded operative, Vince. They always come here first. I haven’t seen him, or gotten a good idea of just how extensive his injuries are so I came up to see him.” Vince rubbed slightly at his nose. Though it was short, quick glance, he made it towards a door behind him that was only partially closed. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“You’re rubbing your nose.”

“So?”

“You always rub your nose when something’s not as it’s supposed to and you’re scared shitless that I’m going to flip out.”

“I do not.”

“Yes, Vince, you do. You always do.”

“No, I do not.” he muttered, scratching lightly at the tip of his nose. Une, taking only three steps to cut the distance between them greatly, grabbed his wrist lightly.

“You’re doing it right now, Vince.” sighed Lady Une. He stared slightly at the hand she caught in her wrist. Sighing, he pulled from her grip and stepped back slightly, rubbing the back of his head.

“…It’s not something necessarily bad it’s just…well…odd.”

“Odd? In what way?”

“Lady Une, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” he muttered. Eyebrow arched, she watched him as he made his way towards the slightly opened door for a moment before following after him.

She knew it was a little awkward, really, to have a floor in this building of hers dedicated only to the medical needs of her operatives. She wasn’t part of any sort of military or government faction, received no funding from corporations of government agents in return for services and loyalty. So it seemed to make little sense that she would pay the astronomical bills required to maintain her own little infirmary in the confines of Preventors’ headquarters. Of course, Lady Une had good reason for every idiosyncrasy that came with her organization.

Hospitals were too much of a liability. Hospitals asked too many questions, followed too many rules and were too focused on keeping themselves safe from the eyes of the law to understand the need for secrecy and confidentiality in the face of exposure. Sure, she would send an operative to the nearby hospital facilities for a small something or other, a minor wound in the course of duty of a small mission or an illness, if the need arose. But for these such occurrences, serious wounds or assaults during the course of a highly covert, classified operation, Lady Une felt much more secure about her organization’s, her own, and her operatives’ safety with the idea that they could be treated from within by a physician she could trust.

Like Vince, a prime example. Lady Une had met Vince Seranto in the field when the war still plagued both the earth and the colonies in silent space. He had been recruited from a private civilian practice to treating casualties coming off the front line. He was quite skillful at his chosen profession, even if his personality left something to be desired at certain times. Une had made sure to keep in contact with him after the war, and when she conceived of the idea of the Preventors and realized that having a small medical staff on hand was probably a good idea, he had been the first one she had looked up and called. If she could trust him with wounded soldiers bleeding in the grass, she could sure as hell entrust him with her operatives in need of medical attention after a mission.

And as long as he remained as tight lipped and instrumental as he did, she would have no reason to not to put up with his little quirks.

Vince, holding the door opened for her, swept a hand out in admittance. She stepped through the doorway quietly and listened only barely to the soft latch as he closed it behind him. With a quick glance around the room, she realized that she never really came back here all that often. Everything seemed quite new and strange to her. The sterile colors were beginning to feel quite redundant to her, but they seemed to mix disturbingly well with the metallic instruments and machines that she couldn’t even begin to comprehend their usage. Some seemed more sinister than the others, specifically the sharper looking needles that were merely resting in a tray a short step or two away from her. The shudder was easy to bite back as she noticed that one of them wasn’t aligned properly with the others. There were still traces of a liquid left within its casing as well. She wondered what had been inside it for a moment; it was before noticing something that truly made her curious. A black cloth draped over the lens of the camera that had been mounted high up on one wall, for security purposes.

“That’s illegal, Vince.” she alerted him. Vince, turning towards her, arched an eyebrow with genuine curiosity written across his face. Lady Une gestured to the covered camera. “I could have you arrested for that.”

He adjusted his glasses. “As if you would. No one else would take this job, or do it nearly as well as I do. Besides, I was going to take it off.”

“Before or after I threatened you with incarceration?”

“After I was finished with my examination of the patient.” he answered. Now it was her turn to look curious. “Standard procedure, to give him a full examination to discover the main and minor problem areas. And, for the privacy and confidentiality of the patient in question, if that involves being disrobed, I toss that cloth over the camera until I’m done.”

“Well, that may not be a good idea if someone thinks that you might be using these blackout moments to violate the doctor/patient relationship.”

“Don’t even joke like that, Lady Une.” He muttered darkly. “I would never risk my license to practice for something so foolish as sexual relations with a wounded, unconscious, or comatose patient.”

She held her hands submissively. “I know, I know, I’m just letting you know what an outside party could possibly think.”

“What outside party? The crazy dude you have watching the cameras 24/7? He’s the reason that I use the stupid cloth; I don’t trust the creepy weirdo you decided to put in charge of the camera wall.”

“I already took that into account, and researched his background, again, as you requested. So stop taking hits at members of security, Vince.”

“I will when he stops weirding me out whenever I go down the hall to get a snack around lunchtime.”

“I’ll mention it to him.” sighed Une. Shifting the weight on her legs, she frowned at him slightly. “Now, I can assume that you’ve finished the examination before I arrived, seeing as you were about to call me when I opened the door.”

“Well, yes.”

“Then why isn’t it off now? You said it was used only for during the examination. I see no sign that you’re still examining, so that should be off, now, before I get myself in trouble for it.” Une asked while moving towards the chair that was strategically placed beneath it. She had barely even gotten her foot onto the seat when Vince’s hand clamped around her wrist and pulled her back.

“…It has to do with the odd thing I was going to call you about.” he managed quietly, rubbing his nose
again. Une, turning towards him and stepping from the chair, looked at him. They had managed to get off track so easily. I need to know just what the hell he’s talking about.

“…Think it’s time you actually showed me this odd thing?” she asked. After rubbing his nose for a few seconds, Vince nodded with a sigh and walked across the room shortly. She followed alongside him after his prompting head nod. Looking as though he wasn’t entirely sure if he should pull back the pale curtain or not, he shook his head and tugged it aside with a soft clicking.

No matter how innocent the scene may seem to an outsider, it still seemed most disturbing to her. There was no IV, no melancholy dripping of some saline solution that was seeping into his bloodstream. No lone heart monitor beeping the moments down to either solace or revival. Thankfully. He was simply laying in the bed as though he were just asleep. His breathing was deep and even, lips that still had the faintest traces of lipstick on them were parted slightly. Une watched his chest rise and fall while examining his face more closely. It was completely relaxed, free from the usual tension that she saw there. Although outwardly, Trowa had never really shown any sort of sign of aggravation or frustration, she had always felt that there was something very taunt in his face. She had always thought that there was some sort of stress that he kept to himself throughout the week. Now she was certain of it. She had never seen his face so calm. The only thing that made her pulse jumped slightly was the faint traces of dried blood upon his lips and the dark bruise that was forming along his cheek and across his neck.

“I had to cut most of the clothes off of him. They were soaked and practically sticking to his skin when he got here.” He started with a brief gesture to the chair. She crossed to the cloth-covered chair to pick through the torn and cut pieces. They were wet and stiffened with cold. The shoes she had remembered Trowa to be wearing before he had left were sitting upon the seat; the heels were scuffed badly. A black coat hung draped over the back of the chair, one she didn’t recognize very well. “I think he slipped in those…shoes, probably on ice. That’s probably the cause of that sprain he has on his right ankle. It’s not bad, per say, but it’s not pretty. There’s a nice gash in the back of his head, too, not stitches worthy but enough to give him one hell of a concussion, I’ll bet… He was probably lying on ice for awhile. There’s a good set of scratches all over him and he’s beginning to develop a nice fever. I‘m hoping it‘s just a cold, maybe flu and not pneumonia. He wasn‘t hypothermic, at least. Just cold.”

“If any of this is really supposed to strike me as odd, you’re going to have to try again. I was the one who gave him the assignment, so I obviously knew about what he was wearing when he was out in the field, trying to complete it.” She said while looking over the shirt. It didn’t look like it had been cut off of his body; there were stray threads everywhere, and the line of rip was far too sporadic. It looks like someone ripped it off of him. Or at least ripped it opened.

Vince shook his head. “You’re right, I assumed you knew about that, and I knew you’d kick me if I called you down here for something you already know.” Une felt a small smile form before disappearing while she investigated the remaining clothes. “No, what I could you about was what I learned after I managed to get the clothes off of him, but I felt it was prudent to treat him first before calling you.”

“Alright, and what would that be?” asked Une, having her attention snatched by him once again. She tossed the cloth back onto the pile with a strange feeling in her stomach that she choose, for the moment, to ignore and followed him to the bed as he indicated. He had a hand dangling expertly over the edge of the sheet that covered Trowa’s sleeping form. The shadow limb didn’t seem to bother him very much. “Vince…”

“I’m only taking it down a bit. That’s really all you need to see to get the point anyway. Um,” he paused and glanced over at her, rubbing his nose. “you might want to sit down for this.” She withheld a snort. She had worked in wars on bloody battlefields. There was little that could force her to need a chair.

“Just show me whatever the hell this is.”

“Okay…don’t say I didn’t warn you.” With the final warning, he slid the sheet down Trowa’s chest slowly. He shivered slightly from the departing warmth.

The breath rushed from her lungs. Lady Une could hardly breathe, let alone spare a bit of oxygen to gasp softly. Her mouth, thankfully, remained closed, although the only reason she could even begin to grasp for the why was that her entire body had gone into a tensed sort of numbness. The sound of blood pounding through her veins and her pulse thumping against her temple drowned out nearly everything. Her mind struggled to piece together what she knew and what she was seeing in front of her. When it finally began to settle, and when she finally began to accept it as a truth, her knees locked to keep her from needing that chair Vince had offered but she’d refused. Everything seemed to spin for a moment.

“Miss Une?” Vince asked. His voice cut through the noise; she jumped only slightly at it. “Are you alright?…You look a bit sick.” She shook her head at the comforting hand he offered to her.

“No.” It amazed her that her voice was as steady as it was. “I’m alright. Just--”

“Shocked.”
“…I suppose that’s the proper word…” Although fucking startled out of my god damned mind seems to fit the bill as well.

“Take it I was right in assuming that you didn’t know about it either…”

“You’re damn right about that.” She muttered. Running a hand through her hair, she glanced from him to Trowa and back again. Her mind turned over a dozen of things, one repeating over and over to the point of insanity. “How…how’d he hide it? I mean, with his physical…”

It was another standard of her operatives, the physical. Every single one of her operatives, upon completing the interview, reading and agreeing to the contract with personal signature, and several tests and background checks, was required to submit and pass, to a certain degree, a standard medical physical conducted by one of their staff. Usually, it was Vince. He would have to write out a report on the operative in question, listing any reasons why the said person could, or could not, be permitted to join the Preventors. The physical was mandatory; no one was exempt from it.

Not to mention, every time any injury or illness took hold of one of them, another physical was held for precaution’s sake. There was no way he could have managed to avoid at least the preliminary. How the hell did it slip past?! It couldn’t have! This sure as hell couldn’t have! But Une definitely didn’t recall reading anything about…this in his initial health report when she had received it.

She paused, turning the notion over in her head. When had she received Trowa Barton’s health check?

“You’ve got me, Lady Une.” Vince said with a slight shrug. He scratched his nose as he started to look at the ceiling, a sign that he was trying to recall something. “…I’ve seen so many of these operatives of yours for physicals, I don’t even really remember seeing him.” Could he have managed to slip past?… “But then again, I’m not the only one who does this. Might have been Erica, or Samu who did his, but they sure as hell would have mentioned something about… I mean, Erica can’t keep a secret for her life.”

Une hardly hear him as his rambling began. She looked down at Trowa’s face, a slight look of something uncomfortable drifting across his expression. Analyses, what she knew of him personally, began to loop tauntingly about her brain. Trowa was a private person, someone who kept personal things, and most importantly it seemed, his secrets, very close at hand. He was also a former Gundam pilot, an expertly trained combat specialist, assassin, and, how could she have forgotten, hacker. A soft frown crossed her own lips. For a moment, Une tried to place herself in his mindset: a secret that she wanted to keep, perhaps because there was the underlying fear of judgment? Prejudice? Even cruelty? A physical that was, legally, impossible to get out of if the position of Preventor was longed for. And extensive knowledge on how to quietly break into a simple computer system and locate a highly protected file, poised for alteration. If I were in his position, would I really do anything else other than make sure, by any means necessary and available to me, that my secret remained just that? A secret? Even at the expense of losing my job, or even getting arrested?

Trowa was good. He didn’t plan on getting arrested. He hadn’t planned on possibly being caught. Une was fairly certain he had hadn’t planned on being assaulted, either.

“--So I really have no idea how this could have slipped past us. Then again, I have no idea if I even saw him, I mean--”

“Said that.” she muttered. Vince stuttered into silence. She spent another moment or so looking down at him, trying to piece together just how he could have slid this past everyone. How he managed to achieve it, how he got into the system without any help. No help… Arms slipping across her chest, she tapped out the pace of her thoughts as a new thought began to form. It was far from a pleasant one.

How dare they keep her out of the loop. Trowa, former pilot he may be, was still her operative. Hell is about to be raised…

“…Does anyone else know?” she asked finally with a steady tone. Vince shook his head. A soft noise passed through Trowa’s lips; he was shivering. Vince, discreetly casting his gaze to the side, tugged the sheet back across his chest. She could still see faint outlines of the small mounds.

“No. It’s only me on the floor since the lucky jerks got out of pulling the graveyard shift. And I covered up the camera right away after he was set down, so there should be no camera proof. The only other person who might know is the guy who carried him in, but the coat was wrapped tightly around him so that’s just speculation.”

Guy? “Which guy?”

“Shit, Lady Une, you know I’m bad with names. Um…well, he had brown hair, braided down his back-”

“Duo.” she supplied. With a final nod, mostly to herself, she managed to pull herself away from his bedside. Vince nipped at her heels as she made faster-than-normal strides to the door.

“Wh-where are you going?”

“I need to go see those operatives that were working with him. Now.” She answered shortly. Only pausing for a moment, Une tossed a glance over her shoulder that stilled him. “No one else comes in here, is that understood? I don’t want this being leaked around, at all.”

“D-done. No one comes in. Except you?”

She nodded. “Call me the moment he’s conscious enough to talk and understand a conversation.”

“I had to give him a slight sedation, so that might be a while.” Vince admitted. She stared at him. “He woke up, just a bit, while I was trying to get the clothing off. Actually, I don’t really count it as ‘waking.’ It was more like he was having a very shallow depth dream… Anyway, he started to struggle with me, so I just decided to play it safe for both of us and give him a mild enough sedative to calm him down.”

“He didn’t hurt you did he?” she asked. The threat of an epidemic of STDs, as preposterous as it sounded, revolved around her brain. Vince shook his head.

“Not a scratch. He wasn’t fighting that hard, and he fell pretty fast to the sedative. Anyway, it’s really not a big deal. Considering what he’s been through in the last few hours, I don’t blame him all that much for fighting me when I tried to take off his clothes.”

So he says… “Keep an eye on him, and let me know if anything changes and when he wakes up. Call me the minute he starts to.” She requested. Vince nodded, turning back from her when she opened and closed the door as quietly as she could manage.

Her angry footsteps echoed after her as she stomped down the fluorescent hall. The gentle humming of the lights silenced in the wake of her oncoming fury. The metal carriage of the elevator resonated with the furious taping as it dropped like a stone through the dark shaft. It seemed as though it could not wait to be rid of it’s enraged charge. It ringed warningly to the operatives mingling and moving about the floor before she stormed out the elevator and up the aisle of desks. One would think that Lady Une would be surprised that operatives were shrinking their way back to their desks or pressing themselves back against walls and desk edges in an attempt to clear a path, or merge with said material and become invisible. She wasn’t. The eyes that peered around cautiously from the wall corners and over shoulders didn’t seem to bother her. She half expected operatives to begin playing “duck and cover” beneath their desks. They all were wise enough to know the meaning of this aura that thundered from her: someone had pissed off Lady Une in the worst sort of way, and there would be Hell to pay. Quite soon.

And when I get my hands on them… They would be wise to hide beneath their desks.

Eric noticed her mood perhaps even faster than the others on the floor. He leapt to his feet and back pedaled slightly towards the wall. Before she even passed him a look, he was stammering into explanations.

“I-I m-managed to find them, and th-they’re waiting in your o-office.” He started, accompanied with several throat clearings to try and control himself.

“Good.” She snapped. She hoped he realized that she was not directed her anger towards him. “Continue to take messages for me and phone calls. I need to talk to them, now. I’m not to be disturbed, understood?”

“Yes ma’am.” Eric squeaked. Thanking him shortly, Une stormed to her door, completely aware that she was alerting whomever was on the other side, all of them better damn well be there, that she was about to make an uproarious entrance. And they damn well better not be sitting down.

“Lady Une?” Sighing heavily, she removed her hand from the doorknob and turned to Eric’s squeaking call. He was looking down slightly; in his hands was a small pile of clothes. She would recognize that cloth from anywhere. It was standard fair in Preventor’s uniforms. “I-I know that you’re going to be um…busy, and I don’t mean to interrupt you before hand, but while you were gone, a member of maintenance came by and dropped these off.” Une took them when he offered and glanced over them. “He said that he found them in the men’s showers upstairs. There’s no nametag,” There wouldn’t be, would there? For security measures, name tags were never disclosed on her agents. “but he thought it imperative to give these to you, so that nothing happened to them and they could be returned.”

“Thank you, Eric.” she said, calmly as able. “I think I know just whose these are.” With another turn, she went back towards the door, looking discreetly through the clothing. Oh yes, Une had a very good idea whose these belonged to. Trowa was the only one using that floor, and she had a sneaking suspicion that he had used the showers as a place to change into that outfit. He certainly hadn’t had the time to retrieve them.

Or to apparently hide the black corset that was wrapped relatively discreetly in the rolled up and wrinkled shirt. This was becoming more and more disturbing by the minute…

The four men waiting in her office jumped, some more noticeably than others, when she threw her door open with a flourish and shut it with a shuddering slam. Not a glance was spared at the four while Une made her way behind her desk. She could almost taste their apprehension. They had looked like they had been in deep discussion when she had entered; they still stood close together, sort of huddling in front of her desk. Slamming the bundle of clothes onto the surface snapped the four into attention. Leaning over, with nails digging grooves into the wood, her words came out in a low and very dangerous hiss. True mark that she was about to have a very visible explosion.

“How long? How long did you know and plan on keeping me in the dark?” She snarled without pause.

“Lady Une--” Zechs began. Her snarl and heated glared cut across his response.

“I don’t care if he’s your comrade, if he was a pilot and fought along side you. He is now one of my operatives! He’s a Preventor, damn it!--”

“Une.” Heero tried.

“How dare you keep this from me! How dare you assist him in altering records, you do realize that is illegal, don’t you?!”

“Miss Une--”

“I don’t even care what the hell you lied about, but you lied to me! And you helped him commit a felony!”

“Une!”

“Chang, don’t you dare try to interrupt me!” Une snarled. Wufei, leaning over himself, snarled straight back. A soft snarl, but a snarl nonetheless.

“We didn’t know either.” he hissed. She blinked, the words hanging loosely in the air. Had she heard correctly?

“…What?”

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

It throbbed. It pounded and throbbed all throughout his entire being. The tiniest noise sent a bolt of pain resonating from his brain through his skull and down his spine to spread to every single conceivable piece of skin and nerve in his entire body. Even the smallest movement, a twitch of the finger or a slight leg muscle spasm, sent knives of white fire spreading along his skin and through his blood. Paralyzed him before settling, then paralyzed him once again when he drew a ragged and quivering breath. He was in agony; he hadn’t felt this horrible for ages. It was a dreadful barrage of feeling, painful enough to drive him to the brink of sanity yet mild just enough to stay off the peacefulness of comatose.

Wh…What the hell happened?…

Slowly, it began to subsided. If, and only if, he remained perfectly still with only the slightest amount of breath flowing to and from his lungs, stabbing him with only the ferocity of numerous tiny, hot little needles, he could feel past the threshold of pain and experience the world around him. His sight was gone for the moment, eyelids too heavy to bring open, but there were other strange feelings and sensations surrounding him. He fought off the taunting urge to twitch his sore and taut muscles. Focused as best as he could he felt the semi-familiar sensation of a cold sort of cloth beneath his aching back and across the length of his body. Another cold thing was beneath his head. Sheets…and a pillow perhaps? He risked a movement with his head and, despite the nauseating pain and white flashes, he felt it sink gently beneath his burning cheek. Yes. Pillow. What had pillows? It’s a bed…bed. I know beds… Alright…wh…where could I be lying in a bed? A bedroom…a hotel room… No those places didn’t account for the strong scents that were trying to overload his sinuses. It had the distinct scent of cleaning liquid, this room, and something else. Almost like that particular smell that wafted about the waiting room of a doctor’s office. A sterile sort of smell.

A sterile sort of smell, much like a doctor’s office. Sheets, and a pillow. A bed in someplace like a doctor’s office…

The word “hospital” sprang to mind. Gasping, Trowa shot up from the bed he had been lying on. And instantly regretted the action.

A wretched wave of nausea washed over him. Trowa could practically feel what little color he had draining from his face while the vertigo attacked. Dropping back onto the bed, a stab of pain went up through the back of his skull and flared down his neck. He hissed. The light bore into his unshielded eyes and he had the distinct impression that his retinas were being burned from his brain. He covered his eyes with his palms and felt the skin quiver badly. A harsh chill settled over him. His breath came out in shaky gasps while his chest rose and fell rapidly beneath that cold sheet bunched about his lower body. He was freezing, why was he freezing? Why did such a thin sheet feel like a dusting of frost?

Trowa wasn’t wearing any clothes.

The yelp that he hadn’t fully realized had escaped him must have startled someone, because, as he yanked the sheet up over himself to maintain some semblance of modesty and discretion, Trowa heard the distinct sound of a coffee mug smashing on tile flooring. A face Trowa hardly recognized poked its head into the room from a far door while he was looking about wildly, the beginnings of a panic attack prickling through his practiced calm. The eyebrows were raised high into the lean face, disappearing beneath the mess of red hair.

“So that was you. You‘re awake, good. I was starting to get a little worried, that sedative wasn‘t all that strong.” He said, perhaps mostly to himself, wring a dirty and brownish colored towel in his hands slightly. It dribbled coffee. Tossing it aside, onto a pile of what looked like shredded cloth, he took a couple steps towards him. They were slow and careful, but that didn’t stop Trowa from, inadvertently, pushing himself back towards the head board. Bringing the sheet with him, of course. The other slowed but didn’t retreat. What the hell is going on? Why am I here? And where are my clothes?!

“Where are my clothes…” he managed. He couldn’t believe how badly his voice was shaking, how high it had risen while he had spoken. He sounded sick, hoarse, shaken with cold, perhaps even fever. He sounded vulnerable.

Vulnerable was not how he wanted to sound while he was naked.

“Calm down, alright? You’ve been through quite a bit and you really need to lay back and calm down.” the other said in, what he probably assumed was, a soothing voice. Trowa felt his pulse spike slightly. It was thundering in his ears; it made him feel even more ill.

“Where are my clothes?” Trowa asked again. It was stronger this time. Not by much.

Ignoring the repeated question, he took a step towards him while adjusting the glasses perched precariously on the tip of his nose. Trowa forced himself to not slid back any further, impossible as that was. “I’m Vince. Vince Seranto, by the way. Do you re-”

“Vince Seranto,” Trowa interrupted, sheet held tight against his chest as he snarled. “Answer me, where are my clothes?”

“W-Well the thing about that is…” he started. Vince scratched slightly at his nose and glanced about. Towards that chair covered in torn fabric to be precise. “I had to cut them off of you while you were unconscious so that I could examine you.”

If he hadn’t been having a panic attack before, Trowa was certainly having one now. He did what so he could do what to me?

“You what?…”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay, but it was the only to--”

“The only way to what?” Trowa demanded. He was not liking the way that his voice was rising in octaves, but there was little he could do to quell it. “What the hell did you do to me? What the hell sort of reason could you possibly have to cut my clo--”

He wasn’t sure exactly what triggered it; perhaps the red of the cloth that was draping over the chairs seat, or the scuffed up high heels that were piled on top of them. The oxygen rushed from his lungs at the onslaught of memories. A cold rush of air and the splitting pain of his head slapping onto black ice. Someone’s strong arm crushing his larynx and esophagus to the point of suffocation. Cold, hard fingers tearing open clothing and probing, kneading. A smile that was cruel and mocking, with foul words that dripped across him through the waves of nausea and coming darkness he had fallen to. He pressed trembling fingers to equally trembling lips as they played across his eyes, taunting him, mocking. Mocking him along side with another set of memories that he could only vaguely make sense of. A voice, that from somewhere he knew, calling his name, fading in and out of focus as he had been drifting between plains. Hands that wrapped about his back and arm, lifting him and shaking him painfully. Curses, orders. Someone wounding something tightly about him and the ground falling away from beneath him. No…No it can’t be… It just can’t be!

He wasn’t aware of just how badly his entire body was quaking until Vince settled his hands on his shoulders to still him. Trowa nearly broke his nose from the hand he lashed out with in quick alarm. Vince, having been expecting it, ducked and pushed him down onto the bed easily. Never did his hands slip any lower than his shoulders. He knew!

“Easy now, I’m not going to do anything to you.” he assure. Trowa squirmed slightly, trying to break the hold and failing. “Will you stop that? You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Let me go…let me go, I want to get up.” He said. Trowa did his best to keep his voice from rising any higher than it already had. His heart was ramming against his chest; it hurt.

“I can’t do that. Now just lie still and let me examine you.”

Trowa bit back a frightened snarl. “I thought you already did that.”

“Humor me, alright?” Vince suggested with an annoyed smile plastered on his face. Humoring him was the last thing of Trowa’s mind. He wanted out of the bed, out of this room, preferably with some sort of clothing on, and out of this building. Now. He struggled and squirmed against him and instantly began to hate himself for it; weakness had replaced his typical strength. Trowa couldn’t break Vince’s light hold over his shoulders. His lungs burned for oxygen to replace that which he was losing and he had the strong desire to lie back and cough to clear himself. Vertigo loomed along the sides of his vision and dimmed it with black streaks that gradually spread across his gaze. Soon enough, Trowa found himself lying still on the suddenly sweat drenched sheets with his chest heaving painfully from pants. Vince’s hands pulled from him after a moment or so, being sure that Trowa wasn’t going to spring up and make a dash for the door. He didn’t think he could do it if his skin was on fire. “Thank you. It’s really in your best interest to just stay there for now.”

Trowa glared at him at his back while he crossed the room. If he could actually breathe, he would snarl something most unpleasant to him.

“Now,” he started. Crossing back to the bed, he spun a mercury thermometer between his fore and middle fingers. “open.” The man had to be kidding. At a time like this, he expected Trowa’s compliance? The fact I’m still in this bed is only because I can’t seem to get up. “Please don’t make me force open your jaw. Come on, we’re both reasonable adults here. Well, one reasonable adult and one, hopefully, reasonable emancipated minor.” Emancipated minor? Two steps forward, one step back, jackass. “Now will you please open so I don’t have to add a dislocated jaw onto my medical report?” Snorting to himself, he opened his mouth just enough to be both defiant and obedient. “Now was that so hard?”

If only he could lift his head and upper body. If only.

Sliding the thermometer into Trowa’s mouth, Vince set it under his tongue and forced his jaw close with a slight tap that made him seriously considering biting him. “Now just keep that under there for about five minutes. And don’t move, and certainly, don’t get up. I’ll be right back.” he glared after him, finding that he absolutely hated that white washed door that closed behind Vince’s form.

Trowa lay his head back onto the pillow and winced at the stab that went through his spine, once again. He was hoping that they would begin to dilute; luck was not with him. Closing his eyes seemed to dull the aching, but did nothing for his mind. Feral eyes smiled down at him from the darkness, whispering lewd things in a multitude of voices.

He seriously needed to reminded himself that shooting up from bed was not going to help his probably concussion-caused migraine. At least he had managed to catch himself just enough to keep from smacking back into the pillow when he crumpled, again. The gently humming lights above him hurt his eyes; the darkness laughed mockingly at him. Which did he rather face. Turning roughly onto his side, with a pain knifing its way along, he curled his legs towards his chest and covered the side of his face with the pillow.

Well…this is mildly better…

Pillow pressed firmly over his head and a thermometer just resting beneath his tongue, although also being savagely bitten when pain decided to spike, he took a better survey of his surroundings. He could never remember if he had ever been in this specific place before… Truthfully, Trowa had never really ever been in a hospital before. Or a doctor’s office for that matter. This was, really, the first time he had been given a chance to investigate. He could honestly say that he hated it. The room had an alien feel to it that worried him. White washed walls, white washed ceiling. White sheeted bed with a white mattress and white pillows and a sheer whitish blue screen that could be wrapped around. Metallic tables and metallic trays. Metal instruments that glinted and gleamed under the uncovered lights. The only thing that wasn’t completely metallic was the chair that sat in the corner. The one covered with the scuffed shoes and the remains of the clothes that Vince had cut off of his unconscious body however many hours ago.

I hate this place… I need to get out of here…

As lovely as the idea seemed, there were a couple of underlying problems that he couldn’t seem to get around. Besides the fact that if he lifted himself up even just a bit he felt as though he was going to lose everything in and around his stomach, he had nothing to cover himself with. There was also the fact that there, on the wall, was what seemed to be a mounted camera that had been covered with black cloth. He wondered how sheer it was. It’s probably just sheer enough… And of course, if he had had clothes and wasn’t remotely worried about the possibility of a camera documenting him, there was still that Vince who was probably still standing in the next room. Trowa could hear him talking softly to himself. Or on the phone. He pushed the pillow down over his head further and searched for something, anything.

The jacket. There was a jacket hanging over the back of the chair that held the ripped and shredded clothing. Darkly colored, he assumed it was most likely black and woven from a thick cloth that made it appropriate for the winter’s bite. The end of it was crumpled about on the tile floor; it had to be just about ankle length. His eyes narrowed as he scrutinized it. Trowa knew this coat, from somewhere. He recognized the style, the look of it. Obviously, it wasn’t his. So where had he seen it before?…

Heero’s. It was Heero Yuy’s jacket. Trowa remembered, nearly perfectly, how it had nearly been snapped shut in the sliding door when he had jumped out to go to the club. It seemed so insignificant then. It was his coat hanging over the chair. It had to have been wrapped about himself when he had been brought into this place. It had been Heero’s hands that picked him up and shook him. No, no. No, that had been Duo… Duo had shaken him so badly. He had been the one cursing. Heero must have taken him from him and wrapped his own coat around Trowa’s probably near-frozen, unconscious body. It was Heero’s coat that was used to try and warm him. Was it Heero who carried him, who had felt him?

Trowa’s body tightened in upon itself. His fingers dug themselves into his scalp while his teeth ground into the glass beneath his tongue and between his teeth. It wasn’t suppose to be this way… He wasn’t supposed to be lying here like this. They weren’t supposed to know. Th-they’re not supposed to know!!

“What are you doing? Is it too bright in here for you?” Vince called. The lights dimmed slightly; Trowa let his hand relax about the pillow. “Sorry about that, you should have told me earlier.” He didn’t even manage to get a disgruntled growl, weak as though it would have sounded, in before Vince pried the pillow off his head. Leaning over, he extracted the thermometer from his yielding mouth and studied. “102...too be expected, I suppose. At least it’s not any higher.” He muttered mostly to himself. 102? He couldn’t remember the last time he had ever had even a remote temperature. Vince didn’t allow him to dwell on it for long. Being as gentle as he obviously assumed he could be, he turned Trowa back onto his back. There was no way he was near easy enough on his body; Trowa bite into his tongue to stop a hiss of pain. “Look over here.” The penlight shining directly into his eye rendered a more audible protest from him. “Yeah, I know but just follow it okay?” He could barely see it. “Hmm…concussion, well that was obvious. You smacked your head against ice, hard enough to bleed. I’d be more surprised if you didn’t have one.” He didn’t move as Vince, pulling up a stool from someplace outside his vision, sat down and started to make some sort of notation. Trowa didn’t begin to really focus on his returned presence again until dropped the clipboard with a clatter. It gave him another series of headaches. Someone was knocking on some far door. “Damn it…well at least this time I wasn’t holding a coffee cup.” Rising, he walked through the door a second time, not bothering to close it along behind him. It gave Trowa a semi-decent vantage point of just who was seeking entrance.

As if this night could not get any worse… Lady Une. She did not look happy. That makes two of us…

“How is he?” she asked without pause, walking past him. Vince, grumbling something along the lines of “sure just come on in, I‘m not busy. Just taking care of your agent” in an affronted tone, closed the door behind her and followed along beside her.

“Well he’s conscious.” Vince answered. She paused slightly, glancing over her shoulder at him. “What?”

“And?”

“And he has a concussion, which is obvious considering the fact that he smacked his head on ice hard enough to have bled, and he also has a 102 degree fever, also obvious considering how long he was outside in the cold.”

“I see…”

“That and I think he’s damn close to having a panic attack. Other than that, he‘s just peachy.”

Une stopped suddenly; Trowa wondered if she could see him watching the two. Whether or not she could, he wasn’t able to tell as she turned to Vince. With a step closer her voice drop to a confidential level. He could barely hear her now but, for a moment, he thought she asked something about him. The word “alone” drifted in and out of his brain. Vince rubbing the bridge of his noise. He looked between her and him for a moment before nodding lightly. Lady Une gave him a minute smile with a muttered thanks before stepping into the room. Vince shut the door behind her.

The silence that descended upon the room was absolutely. Even his own heartbeat couldn’t pierce its solidarity. Lady Une’s hazel-colored gaze fell and fixed upon him; he wished now perhaps more than ever that he had something to cover him better. At the very least a thin pair of those hospital pajamas Duo had complained about that one time he had been kept over a night for observation after breaking several bones. He fought the raging impulse to tug the sheet further up his body; any higher and it would be bunched beneath his chin. Trowa didn’t need to look anymore vulnerable than he already was assured he did.

She said nothing, perhaps that was the worst part of her presence. Her narrow eyes merely fixated upon him and searched him thoroughly. Trowa supposed he’d feel at least a little better if she said something, anything. Perhaps even scream at him from failing in his assigned mission. Then again, what she could say, the line of questioning and discussion that could be opened by her was not a place he wished to go. But this silence was unnerving him. Just say something, already…Please… Anything to take away from that piercing gaze of hers. Directed at him. At his naked, exposed body.

“…You look cold.” Lady Une observed finally. He wasn’t completely sure what she meant by that but, considering that he was laying naked in a foreign bed with a sheet over him, yes he was quite cold. Still. Lady Une didn’t wait for his affirmation or denial; she walked in quick, long strides to the chair and pulled the coat from its back. She even turned her back on him after handing it to him, allowing him at least the illusion of some privacy. Hugging the coat around his body tightly, he sat back against the headpiece, sheet and coat pooled about his lap. It was as good as he was going to get. “Better?” she called over her shoulder.

Trowa nodded vaguely. “Yes…” She turned about.

“Good.” she said. Sliding most of her weight on her left leg, she crossed her arms across her chest and stared down at him. He supposed that, judging by her stance, any attempt to ask her to sit would fall on deaf ears. He tugged the cloth closer to him and tightened his own arms. “The others will be very glad to hear that you’re awake now.” He swallowed. “They’re all quite worried about you.”

“Are they?” Trowa returned shakily. At least his voice wasn’t rising octaves, yet.

“Oh yes, they are. Actually, they wanted to come down here to see you but I dissuaded them from it for the time being.”

“O-oh…” he said softly. Une’s eyes, though narrowed, seemed softer for a moment. Just a moment.

“…You left your uniform in the men’s showers.” Shit. He had forgotten that. His corset had been wrapped in that shirt so haphazardly. “It’s sitting downstairs in my office. I’ll return it to you when you’re released.”

“Tha-” His thought drifted. Downstairs? As in downstairs of the building? Of course…there’s a medical lab on one of the uppermost level of the headquarters. Heero would never risk discovery of anything mission related by taking a wounded person to a public hospital. Besides…he hates hospital…he’d never even walk into one…let alone take me. The thought was hardly comforting. Trowa couldn’t help from wonder just how many people had seen them come in, Trowa’s limp body in tow? Taking the “back” way they had left by would have taken a good deal longer, an obvious liability in Heero‘s analytical mind. How many people saw?…How many people fucking know… “…Thank you…”

Une nodded slightly. The silence set in. Trowa, if he looked up through the strands of hair that fell into his face on occasion, could see the look of hesitancy in her eyes and especially in her stance. She already knew. He knew that she already knew… And she know must know that he had lied. To everyone.

“…You found the c-corset.” The word struggled from his tongue and fell flatly. “I obviously couldn’t conceal that well enough in such a sparse amount of clothing…”

“You tried to.”

“…I expected to have more time to retrieve them…” he admitted.

“I assumed that… Trowa.” there was a strange tone in her voice. It was soft, but with underlying condemnation. His eyes drifted down slightly; this feeling of dread frightened him. “How long have you been wearing a corset?”

The wince was small. “L-Lady Une…” He began. His control was slipping further and further from his reach. It frightened him. “I really don’t think that-”

“Trowa.” Une cut across him. There was that tone in her voice, the one that entailed a well deserved lecture was in order. “You lied to me, and judging by the expressions on their faces when I was in my office, I’m only one of the people you did that to on an impressive list. You lied to me, to your friends, and you lied on an application for a militaristic position in a law enforcement agency. I would be well within my legal rights to have you arrested for that, Trowa. And even though I can, vaguely, understand why you may have done it, if the wrong person finds out, I could be forced to press charges against you, and I don’t want to do that. Tell me the truth, Trowa. I think that I at least deserve that.”

Deserved it? She deserved it? Deserved to know what he had tried to hide throughout the entirety of his life? He wanted nothing more than to scream at her that she deserved nothing from him. There was nothing in the world that she could do to him that would make him tell her anything. They were his secrets! His and his alone! It was his past, his pain, his abnormality! How dare she even think that he would tell her anything! Trowa wanted to shriek it at her, scream his frustration and his anger and his fear until his throat bled raw.

He couldn‘t. His head lowered, shoulders sank under a tremendous weight that pressed continuously against him. There was a stinging validity to her words. It tore and ate within him, applied an unspeakable pressure within his chest that threatened to crush him and the remaining resistance he bore. He had lied, to them all. I meant for them never to find out…not to hurt them… Whether he wished it or not, it seemed that hurting them was what he did.

It had done nothing for him, but cause grief and stress on all. Damn it.

“Trowa, are you--” She started. Without raising either his head or voice, he broke across her beginnings of another lecture. His voice sounded defeated, the weakness resonating in his ears. She must have noticed.

“…About 15...around the time that Operation Meteor began…” he answered.

“…That’s quite a bit of time…” Une said. Trowa merely shrugged. It had been a longer time that Trowa had gone without it. “I’m surprised, with the level of activity that you maintained during the war, that you didn’t have any noticeable medical problems.”

“…It was easy to overcome with proper motivation…” The proper motivation having been the fact that his body had already started to, for lack of a better term, develop. At the age of 15, he could no longer merely wear loose clothing or such on his chest without a noticeable bulge that would hardly be inconspicuous in a boy of his age and physical build. Those god damned mercenaries…

“And you didn’t tell anyone?”

“…It is...was, only my business.”

Une sighed heavily. She seemed to almost deflate. Knees going from under her, she saved herself by sinking down on that stool still at his bedside that Vince had never moved. “Damn it Trowa…” Lady Une muttered, brushing stray strands of hair from her face. “…How the hell did you keep it a secret this long?” Judging by the tone, he assumed that it had been rhetorical.

Trowa had always thought he had done fairly well, throughout his life, keeping his abnormality a secret of one. There had only been a rare group of few that ever, ever knew of it. Most, or some at least, had been an act of an accident. Instances like Catherine walking in on him while he was changing. Innocent. Others…had not been so… He had done a decent job of keeping it a secret, keeping others at a distance to stave off suspicion. At least he had thought so. And now this…and everyone knows. A few hours, one night, and it’s all ruined… Everything’s destroyed.

“Trowa, how in the world did you do it?…How did you slip it past the medical examiner?” she asked.

Ah, that. Even he was amazed by how easily he had managed to slip his disfiguration past the system The opportunity had come shortly after he arrived for his appointment and sat down to wait for the doctor he was to see, a young woman who seemed rather flustered and just a bit dotty, to begin her examination. Trowa had known she was going to ask him to undress at one point and dawn on of those open backed paper gowns; there would be no covering then. He had been sitting, on the verge of a nervous sweat while thinking of some legitimate way to escape the on-coming discovery, when she had burst in in an emotional outburst. Some sort of family emergency that she couldn’t avoid, he remembered her saying. She told him just before running out that she would see him the next available time, perhaps sometime the next day. Trowa had been the last patient for her to see on her shift. She was in such a fluster that she didn’t notice the paperwork she had left behind. It listed his name, and an identification number. And what looked like a password; she didn’t seem to have a steel trap for a memory. It had been far easier than he had ever expected. Staying late wasn’t uncommon for a new operative; no one noticed him working late on a computer. He had hacked the database so easily, it had been near child’s play. No had ever suspected that she had never gotten around to actually examining him and filing the report in the database. Really, Trowa gave them no reason to; he had filled out the report as accurately as he was able…merely omitting a few choices items.

It had been perfect. Foolproof. Until tonight…

“How?…It…was quite easily actually…” he answered her. She apparently began to think the same thing, if her expression as he finished his explanation of the act was any sort of proper judge. Laughing with only the slight hint of sardonic, she shook her head at him.

“You are something else, Trowa Barton.” He shrugged merely at the statement. As a new silence began settled fully over them, he felt his mind begin to wander in directions he preferred it not. His hands clenched and unclenched in the folds of the sheets in his lap. They were pale, vein that pumped his blood to his shaking fingers prominent throughout the skin. Where…where does it go from here, he wondered, watching the quiver that ran up through his fingertips and hands. Everything was ruined, his secret was exposed. Everyone knows…everyone that I wanted to keep away from it. What happens now?…What will they do about…what now?

An unearthly screech shattered the train of thought he had put himself upon; he couldn’t hold back the wince as it shot through his skull and nearly blinded him from a reverberating agony. The metal endings of the stool’s legs had scratched abnormally loud across the floor when Une had stood and knocked it back with her legs a bit. She was nodding to herself while she walked across towards the door. Trowa felt a tension spread through him and swallowed.

“Trowa Barton, I want you to stay here, under Vince’s care so don’t give me a hard time, for the next 12 hours, and don’t give me that look or any lip because you get absolutely no say in the matter.” She snapped in a sort of voice that only a fool would not obey. Trowa snapped his mouth shut on cue. “You’ll be under his care for the next 12 hours for observation and examination, is that clear?”

“…Yes ma’am…” he answered quietly.

“Tomorrow, when and only when Vince says that you are in no medical danger, you will be released and allowed to go home. And I suggest that you then take at least one day, I would strongly recommend two, for recovery. Is that clear?”

“Yes Lady Une…”

“When you return for work, you will be placed on immediate desk duty until such time as I say otherwise, is that clear?”

Trowa blinked, unable to respond. He was still being permitted to return to work? He wasn’t fired? She
still expects me to work here?

“Do you understand that, Trowa Barton?” she repeated. Trowa nodded, muttering it. “Good. At a later date, we will discuss this in more detail, privately. Hopefully, I can prevent this from being seen by the review board… What you lied about is not…detrimental to the Preventors. You lied about personal matters that didn’t involve your name, address, social security, or past that would mean that you were unfit for the position, or even entitled to being arrested. But I’m confining you to your desk until otherwise told. Is that clear?”

“Yes Lady Une, I understand…” he answered.

“Good…now get some rest Trowa. I trust that, when they get the chance, they’re going to come see you to see how you are, and I doubt you want to be exhausted then.” Une ordered. She was far more softer spoken this time. Although, she didn’t wait for any sort of response from him before leaving and shutting the door lightly behind her. Trowa could hear the soft conversation that she and Vince shared before her retreating footsteps sounded and faded away with distance.

…They would come. To see him. Trowa swallowed, feeling a new wave of sickness wash over him. He slid down into the bed and curled onto his side. They were going to come to see him… he knew the questions they would ask, what they would demand of him. Explanations… Reasons… Excuses… Dragging his knees to his chest, he curled as completely into the warm coat about him as he could. His chest hurt from the tight pressure he exerted on himself but he didn’t bother to lessen it. With the side of his face buried into the pillow, Trowa tucked his head to his chest. A scent wafted from the depth of the woven cloth; it was gentle. Soothing. Human. He breathed it deeply and felt a sense of relief slip over him, if only for a moment. Somehow it calmed his mind enough that he wanted to, needed to, sleep.

Perhaps then he could forget, at least for a little while, about what was to happen… Maybe for once, sleep would bring promise instead of nightmare.

…Maybe I’ll just die…

A/n: ^^