Scene XI: Worth a Thousand Words
"It's all ending; we've got to stop pretending who we are."
--No Doubt, Don't Speak
Her press secretary was running late this morning, and Relena was not in the mood for anybody to be running late. There were press reports and questions coming in from the networks asking about her address to the nation yesterday, and it was too much work for her to handle alone. The press secretary was supposed to be handling these things. The press secretary was supposed to be the one to fill out the sheets and soothe the angry reporters and make sure that they had as little contact as possible with the real Queen Relena.
The press secretary was now two hours and three minutes late, and Relena was contemplating firing him.
She stared moodily out the window at the blue, blue sky, speckled with clouds at the farthest point of the horizon. No sky had the right to be that blue. Especially not when the weather ought to have been stormy with blowing wind and torrenting rain.
Quatre's confession had sent even more questions and demands for explanations her way, and it was too much to deal with at once. Whoever she had thought would be the first to confess, it was not the blond, blue-eyed cherub with idealistic visions of a peaceful world and torn innocence. She had thought it would be perhaps Duo, or Trowa. Or even Heero. Never Quatre.
Secretly, she had hoped it would be Heero. It had been a year...a year and a half, and not a word. Not a sign. He could be dead, for all she knew.
It was a possibility she did not like to think about, because it was so real. As long as she didn't think about him, as long as she remembered the Heero she used to know, he was still alive.
She would have thought that even Heero would rise up from wherever he was laying low to confess all he had done during the war before she would see Quatre do it in front of the entire world.
Relena had watched the showing of the press conference from beginning to end, clenching her fists as question after question was fired at the former Sandrock pilot about his recently released stance on the crisis, as he calmly made his way through the crowd of reporters. Cringing as she envisioned what the media would do his honest answers. Except she had not expected the answer he gave. The only answer.
My name is Quatre Raberba Winner, and I am a Gundam pilot.
There had been a stunned silence.
At his words, she had felt something break. That was it, she knew. It was all over, and at the same time it had begun. With those words, they were at war.
It was not a war of Gundams and weapons now, but a war of words. The silence had erupted into chaos just as suddenly as it had fallen, and all of a sudden it had been a storm. Most of the questions had not even been questions, but blatant accusations, something she knew that reporters, no matter how angry, had been trained never to utter. Seasoned professionals had crowded around the blond boy in the neat gray suit, shaking their cameras and fists in his face, demanding why.
She hadn't been able to hear his responses.
The press conference had cut back to a shot of the newsroom, and she was both pleased and uneasy at the same time to see the white faces of the news anchors. For a moment, she could tell they were at a loss for words. But, like the reporters at the conference, only for a moment.
Why did the media have to be so damned opinionated?
She sighed, turning back from the window. It was their job, and she should not be one to blame people for their jobs. If every news program could contain moments of blessed silence like the one that day, there would be no need for news anchors.
It had been a good thing that it had been Quatre at the first, because at least he, like her, was used to the snapping cameras and the hordes of questions and the crowds. He had kept his poise well, from what she had seen of the rest of the conference. She had, through various channels, requested a copy of the entire conference sent to her as soon as possible from L4, and then sat down and watched the entire thing. Most of it consisted of Quatre's quiet voice being drowned under a bombardment of questions and Quatre's slight form swallowed by the lights and the shifting sea of frenzied movement. But on the whole, he had handled his end of it well. She supposed he had been preparing his reaction for days before the conference.
She would have.
Those of his answers which had been released to the public had already been analyzed to death on most of the holovid programs, and she was sure there were more of them to follow. It was a game, really, all a game of words to see who could talk the fastest and the loudest and the longest, and that side would win.
That was no shock. War was a game, after all...one long, bloody game.
She supposed Dorothy Catalonia would smile and agree with her.
Riffling through the papers on her desk absently, she wondered for a moment what had happened to Duke Dermail's granddaughter. She should by all means move in the same circles as Relena, but she hadn't been at any of the formal balls or parties or political debates that she would have thought that the heiress to the Dermail duchy should have attended, and inquires about Lady Dorothy Catalonia had simply invited shrugged shoulders and shaking heads.
If she had really cared that much, she could have done a search for Dorothy, as she had for Heero. And she was willing to bet that Dorothy would have been much easier to find. But she didn't care that much. She had hardly known Dorothy, and she had been the enemy.
The comm screen beeped and she glanced over with a sigh, pressed the connection switch. The face of an aide flickered onto the screen. She couldn't remember his name.
"My lady, Mr. Gorniak is requesting to see you."
"Send him in," she said, resisting the urge to punch through the screen. It was about time. He was - she glanced at the clock - two hours and thirty-five minutes late.
The door swung open and Gorniak entered, a swarthy, elegantly dressed man breathing hard and sweating. Obviously, he had been running. She did not bother to sit as he hurried up to her desk.
"My lady, I-"
"You're late," she said pointedly.
"My lady, I have a reason."
"Oh?" she said frostily, flatly. "And what is that?"
She was about to add something more biting, something that would drive the point home, but his face was more solemn than she had seen it since Quatre had confessed, and something about his stance warned her that there was something wrong.
"My lady, I think you should come with me."
She didn't ask, just followed him out of the office and down the corridor, passing bustling aides and various other personnel carrying stacks of datacards and hard copy files high in their arms, half-bowing at her as they passed. She nodded absently back, her attention focused wholly on the little man who was leading the way in front of her, wondering what could be so serious as to make him hours late for work. Gorniak was never late.
The room they entered was down a side corridor, a small room with three rows of seats and a large screen at the far end of the wall. It was a simplified version of one of the briefing rooms aboard the Peacemillion, and she had had it built after she had moved into the palace to serve as a multipurpose small meeting hall or a room for various press conference showings. Gorniak flicked on the dim overhead lights at the back end of the room and motioned her to sit down.
"No," she said, standing. "Tell me what this is."
With a sigh, he moved to the screen controls on the stand by the door, The screen flickered to life, a bright fuzzy blue. "I was late this morning because I was watching the morning news, Lady Relena."
She blinked. "What?"
"I thought so," he said. "You don't know about it. You'd be the last to know, at this rate. No offense, my lady, but everyone's afraid of telling you."
"Telling me what?" Relena blew out a breath. "Gorniak, if you don't stop talking in riddles and just give me the facts, I-"
"You don't watch the morning news, do you, my lady?" he said.
She frowned. "No. I get all the news I need as soon as I go to the office. And as soon as I meet with you. Which I was planning to do, but you were late this morning."
"Ah."
It was hard not to take two steps over to him, take him by the collar, shake him, and demand answers. It was what Heero would have done, but she was not Heero.
"I recorded this this morning," he said, and the screen flickered again and an enlarged version of a news anchor's head appeared. "It's the World Nation news channel."
"Good morning," the man said. He was dressed in a blue suit and there were tight lines around his eyes, no matter how brightly he was smiling. "We have some breaking news this morning that surpasses the news of Mr. Quatre Raberba Winner's secret identity during the war. It is nowhere near as shocking," he amended, as a picture of Wing Zero's head appeared in a little box over his shoulder, "but every bit just as important."
Relena frowned. A nagging suspicion crept into the corner of her mind, and she sat down heavily in one of the chairs. If this was what she thought it was, the Preventers were going to be getting some calls from her this morning, and they were going to be doing a lot of explaining.
But it couldn't be.
Right?
"Reporting live from outside the Tokyo News building, here's correspondent Cecilia Barloni."
"Good morning," the young blond woman said, with a smile on her face that did not match the serious tone of her voice. "This morning, Tokyo News released a very important piece of information that may change our perspective on the Gundam crisis, either for better or for worse. As you know, Tokyo News international staff member Muhammad Ali Banks was the man who first broke this story to the world. Now, it appears there is more to his story than we realized."
She stared directly into the camera, then continued solemnly. "As of seven o' clock AM this morning, we now have the identities, names, and faces of the five Gundam pilots."
Relena blinked.
My name is Quatre Raberba Winner...
"I thought you would like to see this, Lady Relena," Gorniak said behind her. She ignored him, attention focused entirely on the screen. She was not shocked, just...unwillingly accepting. Accepting the inevitable.
There was a hollow feeling creeping up the inside of her stomach, and she suddenly felt like throwing up.
"We have their identities on file and feel that this is something the public should know. Back to you, Andrew."
"Thank you," the male news anchor said. He was not smiling now. "The news we are about to release to you is of the gravest importance. It will hopefully be printed worldwide in the daily newspapers also, if for some reason someone you know has missed this broadcast." He ruffled the papers in front of him and cleared his throat. "And now, here are the faces and names of the five boys who shook the world in the most serious armed conflict we have ever known."
The screen blinked, and a picture appeared. An Asian boy, hair bound in a tight ponytail at the nape of his neck, glancing fiercely away from the camera as if in protest of the picture, but it was impossible not to make out his features.
"This is Chang Wufei," the anchor's voice cut through the silence in a voiceover. Stats rolled at the bottom of the page. "He was fifteen at the time of the war, from Colony L5, which was destroyed during the war. He piloted the Gundam 05. Of Chinese origin, from the remnants of the Long clan which governed the colony. As of this time, he is currently at large."
Relena swallowed.
There was a beep and a picture of Quatre, which had obviously been taken at the disastrous press conference, appeared. It was in monochrome, black and white. Just like a prison photo.
"We already know this young man," the voice said. "Quatre Raberba Winner, head of the Winner Group. He piloted the Gundam 04."
Another beep. Trowa Barton was looking into the camera, green eyes serene. If she had not known him so well, she would have sworn he was smiling.
"This is the pilot of Gundam 03, Trowa Barton. He was also fifteen at the time of the war, from Colony L3, of French origin. He is believed to be part of a circus troupe touring Europe and Asia. At this time there are no warrants out for his arrest, but it is advised for you to be on the alert."
The beep. The braid was the first thing she saw; it was impossible not to notice it. She had forgotten how impossibly long it had been. It was thrown casually over his shoulder and he was winking at the camera, smiling his cocky grin.
"Pilot of the 02 Gundam, Duo Maxwell. From Colony L2, of American origin. Fifteen years old during the war. His whereabouts have been tracked to exclusive boarding school Cliffside Heights in the United States, the site of yesterday's riot which killed four students and injured nine."
Relena closed her eyes for a moment.
Duo...I'm sorry.
"And finally," the anchor said, over the noise of the beep as the photo slid into place. She drew in a breath. If she reached out one hand, she could almost touch...
"Pilot of the 01 Gundam, also known as Wing Zero, is Heero Yuy. Fifteen during the war, he hails from colony L1 and is of Japanese origin. His current whereabouts are unknown."
Cobalt blue eyes stared into the camera, meeting her own in a gaze of wills, and she could almost hear the wheels turning in his head. Plotting some strategy or other, even while he dutifully followed procedure and sat obediently for the picture. She wondered in a corner of her mind how much it had taken to convince him that a picture was really necessary.
And then Heero was gone, replaced by the bland face of the news anchor. "Again, those were the names and identities of the five Gundam pilots, taken from authentic files and photos saved from the beginning of the war by the Preventers. It is strongly encouraged for anyone who might have news of the whereabouts of any of the four pilots currently at large to contact the World Nation Criminal Justice Headquarters at once. Details can be found on the internet or by calling this number."
A number appeared at the bottom of the screen, and the anchor rustled his papers again. "Totals from yesterday's riot at Cliffside Heights, USA, are four dead, nine injured. Totals from yesterday's riot at Tiananmen Square, China, are two hundred thirty-seven dead, four hundred fifty-three injured, seven missing. Totals from yesterday's riot on L3 are seventeen dead, twenty-eight injured. We will keep you updated as the news progresses. Apparently, Preventers forces have been contacted and forbidden use of life-threatening force as a result of these deaths and injuries."
The anchor opened his mouth, and then the screen went dark. "That was all I taped, my lady," Gorniak said. "I was late for work, after all."
She drew in a shuddering breath and blew it out, conscious of the dark room and the flickering screen. "I-this was a worldwide broadcast?"
"I believe so. That anchor is one of the most prominent of the World Nation news staff."
"To hell with him," Relena hissed, in a sudden show of temper. Gorniak said nothing. She took another deep breath. "I'm sorry. I just-I-"
"I understand," the press secretary said as she sagged in her chair, holding her head.
"What are we going to do?"
"It depends on your stance on the issue, my lady. There are-"
"My stance on the issue is clear," she snapped. "You know that. Everyone knows that. Or have you forgotten my speech on national camera the other day?"
"I know that, I was just-"
"What? Trying to put words in my mouth?" She sprang up from the chair, stalked down the stairs and back up. "Everyone does it, and I'm sick of it!"
"Yes, my lady," Gorniak said evenly. He was watching her, she knew, like everyone watched her. Trying to lure her out. Trying to find her weak spot, and when they did, it would be all over.
But they had already found her weak spot, so what was the use in trying?
"Don't 'yes my lady' me! Well, are you just going to stand there?"
"No, my lady," he said. But he didn't budge, just watched her. She stopped her pacing halfway and threw up her hands. Sat down slowly on the carpeted floor.
Held her breath and counted to ten.
She was the queen. She could handle it. She could handle anything.
"What do we need to do?" she said evenly. "Give me all the courses of action I can take for the press. Make sure a copy of my speech is in the national paper by tomorrow so the whole nation knows my stance on the matter. There should be no confusion."
"Yes, my lady," Gorniak said. He turned off the viewscreen with a snap and there was a whir as he withdrew the datadisk from the drive. "I have some papers you might like to see also. Press statements and the like."
"I support the pilots, you know," she said at last, still sitting. She didn't have the strength to stand. She had to call Une. Or Sally. Or Milliard. Had to find out exactly how bad things were. "I've always supported them, from the beginning. Even when I didn't realize it. I think it must be my curse."
"What seems a curse may become a blessing, my lady."
Relena laughed. Tried to, at least. It didn't come out too well. "You know, my mother used to tell me that. Mrs. Darlian, that is; my adopted mother. I tried to believe her, until the war. Then I stopped believing."
There was a silence, and then footsteps as he stepped out from behind the controls and opened the door. "Shall we go, my lady?"
Glancing at the screen, she thought she could still see the afterimages of their faces. They were proud people, the pilots. Perhaps prouder than she, and she owed them so much. It was the least she could do...even as the puppet queen of a puppet kingdom.
The least she could do.
Wufei. Quatre. Trowa. Duo.
Heero.
"Yes," she said softly, reaching out one hand slightly to the dark screen. "I'm coming."
Go to Relena story Kimi ni Todoke
END SAINAN NO KEKKA ACT III
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