Fate’s Daughter

The security monitor went black.

There was only complete darkness within the room. The one indication that someone was still there, besides the various pings and beeps of the computer, was the soft breathing that resounded in the small space of the hospitals main security room.

Noin felt her entire world had taken an immense plunge after what she had just been a witness to. She slammed her fist down on the console, making the various other screens flicker on and fuzz up.

“Damnit! Why?!”

Exasperation was one of the many emotions running through her head. With the disguise of the older man and the impassive quality that seemed to be ingrained into Heero’s psyche, she hadn’t been able to determine why the young soldier, who started out so aggressively, had then shifted, and went off with hardly a word. It had obviously been the shooter, that much had been recognizable. It just wasn’t adding up somehow.

She leaned back in the chair with an explosive sigh. Not only did it not make sense, she thought to herself ironically, it was downright out of character for the ‘Perfect Soldier.’ Heero could be as impetuous as Duo sometimes, al, he’d shoot anyone who uttered it. Get that cold internal flame of his burning enough, and he was a walking time bomb. Speaking of Duo…she caught herself before she finished the thought.

Thoughts of Duo brought up thought of Hilde. They had found her body two days ago…in an alley. She must have gone out shopping because they had found what was left of it scattered around. The crime scene had looked like a hit and run. That was what was in the police report now, anyway. Open and shut. Noin knew though. Someone had gotten to Duo the only effective way they knew how. The lieutenant shook her head. Enough of that, mourning was for later. Now they had a bigger problem.

The only thing this entire encounter had told Noin was that the dark man was a fast, and extremely intelligent, talker. Nevermind that he held the other pilots hostage. If Heero thought Relena was dead, she didn’t even think the life of his other comrades would stop him from exacting his revenge on the perpetrator.

She reached down and unhooked the walkie talkie on her belt.

“You guys still with me?” The static changed and then left as the person on the other end answered.

“Read you loud and clear Noin. What the heck was all that about?” Noin groaned. They didn’t have a clue as to the shift in the yound soldier either. This was going to be a long investigation.

“You’ve got me Sally, although the plan seemed to be going well, Heero just decided to leave,” a stray and traitorous thought skittered through her head. “Could he be in on it with the dark man?” There was silence on the other end and she knew her words had caused a major argument over the young man’s motives. She waited patiently until the answer came.

“Judging from my experience with the Yui boy, he doesn’t like to involve himself with other people. Specifically if he feels he has a personal vendetta to be carried out.”

“He may have changed, Zechs.” Again there was silence over the other end, giving Noin time to think about other things.

They were lucky to have gotten Milliardo back. Lady Une had given them the message of his disappearance a day before he had staggered into the hospital bellowing for Noin and Sally. Catherine, by this time, had been sent to Une on Earth to gather all the information they had on the strange occurrences happening lately, anything that could possibly get them closer to the truth. Noin had never seen anything that had wrenched her heart more then seeing Zechs beg to see if his sister was all right, especially considering in what shape he had been in. They had managed to bandage him up and find out the entire story.

He had been alone working on some report or another for Une when he’d been jumped, drugged and carried off. He was ashamed of himself for getting captured by, later on, what he considered as inept soldiers, considering the ease of his escape. He had witnessed a conversation between them and, what he said, was a young woman about where they were to take him, a small half colony dubbed 199. And that was all he recovered before he escaped. He heard of the shooting and the kidnapping in the news and had rushed as fast as he could to his sister.

“Noin?” The lieutenant snapped out of her daze. There was a hesitant breath.

“Yes, Ms. Relena?”

“What do we do now?”

Noin thought hard. Their plan had been to capture the man after Heero had gotten him stationary enough, preferably not dead. But they had all watched the scene, and even though they couldn’t understand it, they had sensed that interfering wouldn’t have helped. Noin knew of only one way to go now.

“Zechs? I want you to take your sister back to Earth. And don’t argue Miss Relena,” she said sharply cutting off the argument before it began. “This is the best, you should be dead with those wounds, and I will not take anymore chances with you. Sally I want you to schedule her funeral. It would be prudent to let everyone know that she’s still not around, just in case tall dark and ugly wants to finish off his mistake.” Noin got up and left the security room.

“And what do you plan to do Noin?” She grinned heartlessly as she stepped out into the night.

“I’m going hunting for a murderer.”

---

Destiny passed a wet plate over to her prisoner. He gave her a look of disgust but took it anyway and began to dry it off vigorously. Grinning, she watched until his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“What are you staring at, woman?” He muttered sullenly. Instead of the reaction he hoped for, anger, he got the opposite, laughter, making him think that this girl was a few prawns short of a rice bowel.

“Someone who takes immense pleasure in doing work he absolutely hates, just to make others feel sorry for him.” She snickered again at his horrified expression. “And when they take sympathy and try to make him better, he delights in showing his gratitude by yelling at them about injustice.” By now the young man was red with serpressed anger, to Destiny’s delight, because yelling at her would just prove what she had said!

Wufei stared at his captor with a mixture of hostility and bemusement. Granted, the girl was intelligent, and capable, but it surprised how simple she could be. She seemed to take great amusement in any little quirk she happened to find in life. In all appearances, however, she seemed as much the prisoner as any of the Gundam pilots. He knew it by the way the guards looked at her with barely concealed hostility. That was another thing. All of the work here seemed on edge, as if expecting punishment at any time. Harsh punishment. He looked over at the door.

Standing there, as if someone had rammed something up his ass to hold his back straight, a paranoid guard looked on over the simple task of Destiny’s dish washing. Those guys were all over the place. In black uniforms they shuffled around as if asking to be whipped. Wufei knew better than to underestimate them, though. Paranoid people tended to be a good shot when their life was on the line. He felt a poke in his shoulder and flinched, automatically grabbing a dish from the girls hand, the chain on his wrist rattling. They worked together for a little while in silence. When she spoke again it wasn’t to him and there was a small sense of hostility in her voice.

“Don’t just stand there, Sara, what do you want?” Wufei jerked out of his day dream. He felt small prickles of fear down his back, raising his hackles high. It was her, their other baby-sitter. He started paying more attention to drying the dish in his hand while trying really hard to convince himself he wasn’t frightened.

While Destiny could be sickenly nice sometimes,(it was no worse then Quatre, or maybe that braided baka, Maxwell), she was definately a cut above Sara. That girl must have been born cruel! Sara, had she had any animals, would have tortured them. She didn’t have any, so she settled on the recently acquired prisoners. Destiny had said that Sara was her sister. Wufei had the personal opinion that she had been spawned from the deepest hell which had kicked her out for being too damn mean.

“Just came to check up on you.” He could hear the smugness in her voice from the door, which just covered the squeakiness that was the bain of her existance. Wufei snickerd mentally at that, all while keeping a carefully guarded expression. “Oh right, and that dad’s back. He’s calling for you.” He saw Destiny wince out of the corner of his eye. Whether it was because her father wanted her, or because she would have to leave Wufei in Sara’s hands, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he really didn’t want her to go and it was frustrating to be dependent on the woman. It stung his pride. He watched her as she physically braced herself by placing her hands on the sinks rim and taking a deep breath. Her knuckles were white and he thought he saw her sway a bit before she straightened up. She spoke to the guard.

“Take the prisoner back to his cell-”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, dear sister. I’ll take care of him.” Destiny looked like she wanted to argue but to Wufei’s horror she just shrugged her shoulders. Then she turned a full force glare on the other girl.

“If you touch him I don’t care what Majour-” Wufei automatically stored the name. “-says. I will kick the crap out of you.” The other girl glared back but muttered something under her breath that seemed to be an agreement. Then with a last look at the prisoner, Destiny left to face her father, abandoning Wufei with a girl who was demented and a guard who didn’t care.

He braced himself for the worst.