Quatre's Mansion
I was having a hard time with Dorothy Catalonia. Harder than I thought I would. It's not that she was mean or anything, it's just . . . "are you okay?"
"I am just as okay as you are," she said as she continued to read a book out in the open living room space. "Just as okay. As you. Are. Mister Quatre."
I could read people. I always had a way of reading people. Not only that, I could feel their pain emotionally too. I knew Dorothy had some of that ability, but I didn't know 'til now-
"Too much," she answered. "So stop. Just stop, and yes, I'll have some tea."
That was how she had managed to run that mobile doll system so well. Revenge of the Lost may have brought them together, not just because of a small conversation after all. "Do you have a preference?"
"I'm sure it'll be okay," she said instead. "This was just a far-fetched accident. It will be fine."
Even Dorothy knew to be worried. Instead of the tea, she knew exactly what Quatre was dreading. Emotional people like them, they were okay, but it was rare to find too many with the same kind of emotional reading they experienced.
"I don't have a clue, Mister Quatre," Dorothy answered.
"We should really speak our thoughts out loud and not just answer before anything is even spoken," Quatre insisted. "We could create a deeper hole or assume something that wasn't exactly right." When Heero and Relena had been there, he hadn't had to warm up as close to Dorothy Catalonia. "Okay, I'll go first. Just to make sure we understand each other."
Dorothy gave a slight, polite nod. That's all it was though, she thought it was dumb. "Proceed."
"First of all." Where did they leave off at? "Are you okay?"
"I am worried about Miss Relena," she said. "She should be on Earth, safe and sound, but I don't trust that everything will work out as it should. RTL is still after her. I feel close to Miss Relena, she moves my heart. I don't know what I would do if something happened to her. On the other side, I am worried about . . . oh yes, you probably want to save that for question two."
Yeah. "When I asked if you have a preference, I meant tea," Quatre said.
"But that wasn't what you were feeling out for. Tea is fine though," Dorothy insisted.
"You're right, it's not what I was feeling out. What I wanted to ask wouldn't be right to ask straight toward you," Quatre insisted. "But, you answered it anyway. So, I better ask." He adjusted himself in his chair. "People like us are rare, so I worry about what this child might be like."
"I'm sure it will be okay," she repeated. "I highly doubt Revenge of the Lost planned on some kind of specific outcome for this. They were simply looking for someone you interacted with that would work. Have you realized that besides me, the only other obvious choice would be Trowa Barton's sister?" She smiled sweetly. "Yes you did, right just now, just before I finished." She gave it a minute. "You may speak now."
"I didn't even realize that!" Now Quatre could react. "Trowa's sister. That would have been a disaster." Her smirk. "That's not fair, I'm sure I could have learned." No, wait. "I'm breaking my own rule again. Sorry."
"I was going to say from the way you reacted, you were more worried about having to join a circus, then having a child with Trowa's sister." A thin smile. "Then afterwards it occurred to you that having a child with Trowa's sister might not lead to good things."
Yeah. It was sad to have to admit that. "Anyhow, Miss Dorothy."
"-we won't know what aspects of us will be passed down into it," Dorothy answered. "Worrying won't do us any good. We just have to remember. If it's raised well, it will be fine."
"It will be." It wasn't all just biology; it was nurturing that was also a part of what made a person become who they needed to be. They'd be great nurturers because they each had kind hearts, no matter how they were raised. She's right. It doesn't matter that there's no science to say how this child will turn out. We'll raise it the best we can.
"You're welcome, Mister Quatre," Dorothy finished. "Sorry. You wanted to say what?"
Quatre smiled. "This is all really new to me. I never actually concentrated on anything like this before. It's got nothing to do with war, and everything to do with life. New life. I'm sure we'll all be just fine. Thank you, Miss Dorothy."
"Your welcome, Mister Quatre."
Quatre answered his phone though as it started to beep. He read the text.
"That confidence just dropped significantly," Dorothy said to him. "What?"
"Wufei. The woman who was supposed to be carrying his . . . " Quatre held the phone close to his heart. "They just blew her whole colony up in front of her and Wufei!" Dorothy didn't say anything at first while Quatre felt immense pain in his heart. Wufei! My old friend, I am so sorry. It's all just to make him hurt again, by watching someone completely innocent be hurt by the same crime. "RTL, trying to make up for their mistake."
"Is it?" Dorothy's voice was softened. "Perhaps we need to rethink this. How did Chang Wufei's mother die?"
Quatre didn't know. "His whole colony went out that way. I guess, there is a good chance that might be the way she went." Sad.
"This Mei-Lin should have been placed on the colony right after Wufei left then, if they wanted her to go like his mother. Perhaps RTL is changing its goals? They think revenge conquers war, that revenge is beautiful and justified. Revenge is not justified. It is still just a war, a war in the heart that can't be won."
Quatre expected nothing less coming from Dorothy. "He feels responsible for what happened. He is going to be taking care of her, even if she has no connection to him. He'll do so until we beat RTL. It's the only honorable thing he can do."
"Justice. Some sense of justice." Dorothy went back to looking at a book. "Is searching for justice or revenge any different from each other? Couldn't revenge be seen as justice, and vice versa? Perhaps, in the end, they just want to bring him down to their level. Maybe it's always been more about us, the victims in these cases, then anything else."
Hm? "More about the victims?" Quatre asked.
"If their goal is just to make the former gundam pilots hurt, and their original plan was destroyed with not everyone being pregnant, perhaps they still plan on making everyone suffer. In a different way," she noted. "Mister Quatre. What would set you off? What would make you reach for the need of justice you once felt, that made you pilot the Gundam Sandrock?"
Hmm.
"What's your fear?"
My. Fear. What would make me swear justice against RTL? I already want justice for all the things they've done so far. But, personally. What would make me go after them, the same way I went after Oz in the war? The same way I fought the colonies to continue fighting Oz. All that mattered was taking down Oz. What event could trigger him to feel that way again? "Justice isn't revenge."
"Could it be to them?" She pointed out. "Take out the word 'justice'. What would make you feel revenge? What would make the great Quatre Raberba Winner." She coughed slightly. "Take revenge?"
That small cough between her words. He knew it. Mostly likely, it was just a cold that she caught, not used to the viruses of the colonies. Nothing severe, but. "I never had a chance to know my mother. I never even knew I was actually born, and not a test tube baby until recently." So. "Now, you're having mine, the same way I was really born. Naturally. You're in space too, and - and you shouldn't be!" He could feel himself starting to crack. "You should be on Earth. It's the safest place for this, especially you! You aren't from the colonies, Earth is where you should be." His hands scrunched against his seat. "If anything happens to you, because of them . . ."
Dorothy glanced over from her book.
"If anything happens to a child. My child. My family that I never got to know, just because they want me to feel that same kind of pain father had . . ." No. "All of us pilots, we swore it. No more killing. We did everything we could to keep it that way. No more senseless killing."
"Then, that must be their ultimate goal now," Dorothy said softly. "Bringing every one of you back to the brink. Back to the brink where you could take lives again."
"To the brink . . ." They were trying to turn them against their own selves.
"Oh." Dorothy didn't look well. "Staying here is secure, especially during the quarantine. It's almost over though, and it will be time to return to Earth. If RTL wants you to continue to feel that uneasiness, if their plan is to keep me here? There will be something nasty waiting on Earth, or something else to hold me in the colonies." She glanced toward him. "Are you going to confess it already? You've gone a week with not a word about it. You know that I can sense you are hiding things. I've let you get away with it, but a week is more than long enough. Don't you think?"
She was right. "A crime family is after you," Quatre revealed. "A well-known one from Earth. I'm sorry, Dorothy. Here, I have supreme security to keep you safe. The Winner family has everything it needs here, even though I need you on Earth. It will be risky either way. We just have to find a way to stop RTL and prove your innocence."
"Then they are already winning," Dorothy said out of the blue. Quatre didn't understand. "Their goal is to make you seek justice against them, or revenge against them. In order to let me be free to leave this place at all, you have to prove my innocence. You have to fight RTL already."
"Oh. I see." Yeah. "I don't care if they think they are winning then. I don't care if what they ever really wanted, was just to make me seek some sort of revenge against them. The only thing I do care about, is keeping you safe. Whether they win or not. My family is my top priority." Quatre smiled. "If they think they won, that'd be great in fact. Then I would have to worry less about what they were planning. Somehow, I don't think it's that simple."
"That is a very worthy answer of you, Mister Quatre," Dorothy said. She looked thoughtfully at the book. "Still. If anything happens, just try to think of us as a figment of a possible future. A future not set. A future that wouldn't even be worthy to fight. If something happens, you gain a new future. The future you had before RTL messed within our lives."
"I don't understand why you're saying that," Quatre said. "A future not set?"
"If it is about hurting me, or us," she said thoughtfully. "Then be cold to it. If something happens, it happens. Don't change the path you believe, or they do win. They win, and you'll never escape the despair within your heart again."
"But, I can't just stop caring!" That wouldn't happen. "I can't just see you, and-and, and see it, and just let it go. If you die, it will be because of them, not because it wasn't the right path. It wasn't because it was some other destiny and I should be okay with it!"
Dorothy seemed startled by his words. "If we die, and you don't accept it that way, they win."
"Then they win because my heart could never just shut off like that!" Quatre knew it. "I know wars solve nothing, but I also know that someone is in charge of that whole process. If we can find them, we can put an end to this madness. That's the priority. Not whether they feel like they won."
"I see." She seemed to accept it. "I will do my best to survive through this all. At the very least, this child must survive, to keep hope alive within you. Although you seem positive about caving, it is best not to tempt it. RTL clearly plays psychologically. Although dangerous, I will return to Earth."
" . . . thank you."
"I would have been taking care of myself anyway, I'm surely not looking to have my life shortened to nothing," Dorothy said, her mood changing slightly. "It still doesn't seem right though. Catherine Bloom would have been the better choice. I know you hate the drama and the sound of it. But just imagine? That would have been a lot better of a choice than me." Thinking.
Quatre was too. Dorothy wasn't being cruel, she was being realistic. They could get to Catherine, the same way they could get to everyone else. Why wasn't she considered an option? "To get Catherine involved, it would have hurt Trowa even more." If RTL was all about revenge, why wouldn't they be using that hurt against him? It couldn't be just about her innocence. Relena Dorlain believed in nothing but peace, and they had no problem hurting her.
Maybe Dorothy was onto something.
"The family after you," Quatre said, "is part of Duo's family."
"Lovely. Getting killed by Mister Duo Maxwell's family. Not the most enchanting way to go," she figured. "It is better than the uneasiness of waiting in the colonies for you though. Isn't it?"
"Yes," Quatre admitted. "We can stay with the Maguanacs at first. If I think we're being tracked or in danger, I could move you out of the way. Heero and Trowa are very good at identities too. I'm sure they could help." It was a better idea to be somewhere that he could see or predict the enemy.
"Then to live the restless life of fate up here, where you can't pretend that you can do anything," Dorothy said, understanding without his finishing words. "Mister Quatre, it is time for me to return back to Mother Earth."
"I couldn't agree more, Miss Dorothy."