Whisper a Dream

[Author's Note: Please forgive Duo's implied colorful language -- I read one fic where he swore half the time (with good reason, though) and now I can't get rid of the image of him cursing in every other sentence. ;) | "Pestilence" is borrowed from ep 48; Duo refering to the five scientists. It was such a great line, I couldn't resist. ^_^ | Haven't a clue about how tempermental weather is on the colonies, but I figured if they're man-engineered, conditions would be mild. ^_^ ]

Duo glared out at the blindingly bright morning before struggling to move the hangar door an inch farther to close it completely. During the night a vicious snowstorm had struck, burying the surrounding countryside and leaving the gundams stranded until the torrent of frozen rain lightened up. It was as if OZ now had the power to control the weather. Duo grumbled a few curses and retrieved his blanket from a nearby console. He wrapped it cloak-like around his shoulders and then paced back and forth. More swearing escaped in puffs of breath left hanging in the air in his wake.
Quatre sat at the comm monitor, huddled in a nest of two heavy blankets, his head down; he appeared to be asleep. Trowa, however, seemed unfazed by the cold as he tended to minor repairs on LunaAria.
Farther inside the complex a feverish Alexa rested in the medical room.
Duo kicked at a shard of metal lying on the floor. "Snow! Stuck here because of snow!" He uttered a loud, exaggerated sigh. "This is why living on the colonies is better! Never have to worry about freak weather conditions!" He kicked the shard again, hard enough to send it clattering across the floor.
"Shh!" Trowa hushed him. The tall boy scowled then glanced pointedly at Quatre.
"Eh, sorry," Duo grinned sheepishly. He held his ineffectual cloak tighter about him and paced in the opposite direction, muttering to himself again. A moment later a curse rang out as he tripped over something painful -- that blasted piece of metal got him back for kicking it around. Trowa frowned but went back to his work without another care for the braided pilot's antics.
Quatre stirred, murmuring unintelligibly. A brief scowl marred his features and then he was still again. Duo meandered back over sporting a sneer of anger at his own clumsiness, the metal shard now placed where Deathscythe could crush it the next time the gundam moved. The braided boy leaned against the wall next to the comm monitor, thoughtfully watching Quatre's peaceful face and wondering how the other boy could actually fall asleep with the cold permeating everything. It was enough to distract him from fidgeting; he was actually motionless for more than five minutes.
Then Quatre stirred again, his head falling to one side listlessly. His lips moved to silent words. And then his eyes opened wide.
"Have a nice nap?" Duo chuckled, covering up his concern.
Quatre sat up straight and blinked at him, the blankets slipping from his shoulders. He then lurched to his feet. "Alexa!" Duo only watched, confused, as the blond boy dashed out of the hangar and headed toward the medical room.
"I'm not even gonna ask," the braided pilot sighed. He folded his arms behind his head...and casually started for the door.

Caught in a blind dream, Alexa was curled up on the bunk, trembling violently. She felt cold, and alone, and there was nothing but endless darkness around her. Somewhere in the darkness there was an anger, battling other anger. And she was floating away from it. Fear was with her, as well, fear for someone...Fear for someone who was important to them.....Quatre...
Then that thing that had felt like it was taking over her thoughts reared up, grasping with a hateful touch, enclosing someone -- no, Quatre! -- within its merciless grip. It will kill him...
She woke with a gasp, and fear seized her again as pure darkness greeted her. But then the door eased open an inch, allowing light in from the hallway. She forced the panic out of her breathing. A voice whispered from the other side, "Alexa..? Are you awake?"
Her brain wouldn't focus enough for her to form a reply. What was that thing, so cruel and controlling...The realization hit her that she would never find out...Her breathing came in sharp gasps now, involuntarily. The door was bumped open wide and Quatre appeared before her, falling to one knee to be on level with her gaze; the unfocused look in her eyes alarmed him. "Alexa? Alexa!" He reached for her shoulder but her hand shot up and caught his fingers in a crushing grip. Now she seemed to be staring at something just to the left of him. He looked over his shoulder at the doorway and saw nothing. And then Duo strolled into view -- the braided pilot paused and raised an eyebrow. Then he whirled around and retreated a few steps, whistling all the way.
Quatre winced and tugged his hand free as he turned back to the bunk. "Alexa, can't you hear me??"
She blinked and finally focused on him. He drew away from the intensity in her eyes. "Qua...tre..." She slowly sat up, putting a hand to her left temple.
He slumped to the floor, bowing his head. "I had a nightmare about something I couldn't even identify...But it also seemed like you were there, and you were afraid, and I could not comfort you..." He glanced up at her. She made no reply, but she was very, very pale. He moved to stand. "Hm, Alexa-?"
She closed her eyes and hugged her arms around her, shaking her head mutely. He was about to question her again when a curse came from the hallway. He looked over just as Trowa entered the room.
"We have to move -- I just received a transmission that OZ is headed this way." The tall boy glanced at Alexa with, what for him would be, slight concern for her condition.
The girl clenched her jaw and slid off the bunk, willing her legs to remain steady. "Then let's get going. I know a place where even they won't find us, snowstorm or no snowstorm."
Trowa glanced at Quatre; the blond-haired boy frowned and immediately followed at Alexa's heels as she stalked toward the main hangar. "Are you feeling well enough to pilot?" he asked warily.
"It's not like I can hitch a ride and leave LunaAria for them to find," she snorted. She walked faster and stiffly in an attempt to ignore the pang in her side.
He had to jog to keep up with her. "But there must be some other way--"
She cut him off with a sharp glare, barking, "Quatre!" in a tone that threw his protestations into frozen silence. He dropped back a few steps, flustered.
Trowa passed by him a moment later and shot a mildly curious glance at him. "C'mon, there's little time."
"Uh...of course..." Quatre stammered. He set aside his worry and ran the rest of the way to where Sandrock waited.
Duo had managed to get the hangar door open without slicing it to ribbons, which was a surprise. He and Deathscythe waited outside, while Alexa was typing furiously at the comm monitor. "Go! I'll follow in a minute!" she yelled to the two boys when they arrived.
"What are you doing?" Quatre called before he started toward his gundam.
"Leaving OZ a present. Now go!"
One minute later the four mobile suits stood on the runway, looking northward while Duo gave a report. "They'll be here within an hour. We'd better make ourselves scarce real fast so they can't trail us!"
"Just follow me," Alexa gritted out. "The wind and snow are half on our side now, they'll cover our tracks."
"All righty!" Duo crowed, "Lead on, kiddo!"
"Bundle up, guys. It's going to get a lot colder."

The three boys soon found that she hadn't been kidding. They made their way through several more snow squalls, moving farther into the Siberian wilderness. An hour after they had left the hangar LunaAria began to slow down.
Duo shivered. "Well, OZ definitely won't follow us through that mess!"
"If any of them escape the place exploding in their faces," Alexa put in darkly.
"Heh-heh, you're my kind of girl, Alexa Reaves!"
Quatre and Trowa remained silent. LunaAria finally came to a stop beside a small cliff -- the edge just barely cleared the gundam's helmet.
Deathscythe looked around. "Where to now?" Duo inquired in a confused tone.
In response the Russian gundam pushed its hands against a certain part of the cliff wall and a portion of the rock slid inward, revealing a well-lit ramp leading downward.
"Clever," Trowa offered as he followed after Alexa.
"This used to be a research facility before the Alliance took over everything. Now it's just another abandoned hideout." There was a bitterness in her voice that was practically tangible. The boys all picked it up, weighing it each in their own way, but Trowa was the one to ask, "What type of research?"
There was a long pause before she answered. "Potential cures for terminal illnesses."
Quatre silently caught his breath. Her words only had impact on him, for he had left that part out when he was telling the other two about her, not wanting to make them worry about what they couldn't help; she may even have directed her reply at him to make him realize her chance for hope had disappeared a while ago. Deep inside he added a spark of hate to kindle the drive to continue destroying OZ.
The tunnel widened into a large storage area with a line of walkways against one wall at cockpit height. Alexa hopped out first and dashed over to a set of lockers, pulling out three heavy pale gray coats. She returned to the gundams and handed one to each of the boys as they stepped out of their suits.
"Whew! Thanks! I'll never get used to these extreme climates!" Duo proclaimed as he tucked his braid into the hood. "I'll be darned if I can figure out how anyone can live in these places!"
"We're used to it," Alexa mused as she accepted a mere nod from Trowa. She turned to Quatre and had to press the coat back into his hands, since he was trying to offer it to her.
"Y-you take it," he protested through chattering teeth. "You're still wounded, a-after all."
"And I'm used to this weather -- whereas you certainly aren't." She chuckled and danced around him, putting the coat over him while he could do no more than shiver. "Come on, angel, before your friends get lost in here." She trailed after Duo and Trowa, and Quatre drifted behind. He stopped at the lockers and fumbled with a handle. There was a pile of coats inside. He smiled faintly and took out another, and then hurried after Alexa.

"I hadn't planned to spend the week living off coffee, but, hey, whatever works!" Duo collapsed on the end of a couch in what used to be a lounge room, hanging his arms over the back of the seat. The steaming cup on the rickety table in front of him protested the sudden movement by spilling some of its contents on the floor. Duo cared not.
Quatre sat opposite him in an overstuffed armchair, his hands cupped around an identical mug simply for the warmth. He didn't feel much like eating, drinking, or talking. Trowa stood at the counter next to the coffee pot, thoughtfully stirring the contents of his cup. Clinkclink. Clinkclink. Clinkclink.
Duo jerked upright. "Could ya stop doing that for two seconds?!"
Trowa paused in mid-clink and looked at him with his unchanging indifferent gaze. "Sorry." He set aside the spoon and raised the mug to his lips. And took a long, drawn-out sip. Duo sighed in exasperation then sprawled against the couch again. A faint smile ghosted onto Quatre's face. Trowa glanced at him and an amused line formed behind the cover of the cup.
With his head tilted back, Duo pretty much addressed the wall when he asked, "So, where did Alexa disappear to, anyway?"
Quatre replied to his coffee, "She said she was going to try to 'eavesdrop' on that base we started out attempting to destroy."
Duo yawned. "I guess that plan is a bust at this point, huh? OZ'll be tripling their security in this part of the world if we make another move."
Trowa crossed his arms, keeping his mug in one hand. "But we can't afford to abandon this mission, not with the amount of arsenals stored at that base."
Alexa's voice drifted in from the hall. "Then we need to think of another option soon." The three looked to where she was poised leaning against the doorframe. There was a weariness in her face that, at first glance, seemed to say they could wait until morning to discuss the matter further. Quatre, however, noticed something else; but he quelled any fearful thoughts.
Duo rose, stretching and yawning again. "Well, I'm for catching some Z's right now. The O's can wait till later." He winked and gave them all a lop-sided grin then ducked past Alexa to swagger down the hall to one of the four rooms where a woolen-blanket-covered cot was calling his name.
Quatre looked for council in the bottom of his coffee, but it offered nothing reassuring. He gulped down the remaining contents, then glared at the despondent cup and set it down on the table. "I...I think I'll turn in, too," he mumbled. He hugged his coat close about him and scuttled out the door, flashing the briefest glance at Alexa, who only looked at him warily from the corner of her eyes before shifting her attention to the wall. And then shifted it to Trowa when she felt his gaze fall on her after Quatre had left.
After a moment he spoke quietly, "I'll keep watch. You'll probably want to get some more rest."
Slight amusement traced a path across her visage. "There's no need to be on guard. No one else knows of this base -- they all believe it was destroyed two years ago."
"Then perhaps we can both rest easy." Trowa placed his mug in the sink then slipped his hands into his pockets and waited for Alexa to leave first.
She regarded him with an earnest stare. "You don't trust me, do you?"
"I haven't decided yet," he replied, equally honest. "But if Quatre trusts you, maybe I shouldn't have doubts."
"And wouldn't you worry that he is too trusting?" She saw the reply in his eyes; of course the thought had crossed his mind -- Quatre trusted him, after all.
Then his gaze returned to indifference. "It's better than not trusting at all." His tone was completely blank, but some part of him was saying, excluding myself, Quatre seems to trust the right people.
The amused expression came back to her face. "At least you have faith in him, then." She inclined her head, as if to affirm something to herself. "That's all you need. Don't trouble yourself over me." She met his gaze with a sad smile, and found a challenge on his visage. Her smile faded.
"Why did you bring this up?"
"I've only just met you and Duo, yet I've brought you to a secret base that I was ordered to not compromise the security of under any circumstances...so trust is a bit of an issue with me."
"And Quatre..?"
"I'm merely concerned for his safety."
"Hm...that makes two of us."
She smiled broadly but was disappointed when the same indifference as before greeted her. "The gentle kindness won you over, too, hmm?" She folded her arms and leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes.
"Innocence has no place in war," he replied simply.
Alexa chuckled. "We can't exactly stop him from fighting. Who knows? Maybe he will prove us both wrong -- he could be the best fighter among us." She gave that annoying little amused smile again.
Trowa fought back a scowl. Just what was her motivation with all this? They all had missions, and there was no stopping any of them -- even if a certain pilot should be spared the nightmare of war, lest his compassion be killed off in the process; seeing as none of the rest of them truly cared about the mass destruction anymore. The one thing he could guess about Alexa lead him to assume she fit under 'the rest of'.
"Are you through now?" he inquired quietly.
"Do you trust me yet?" She issued her own challenge. Their eyes met, but he offered no answer. "Have it your way, then," she said softly, hurt that she couldn't get a few more words out of him yet accepting what she read to be his answer: trust, yes, but only for Quatre's sake. In turn she shot him a reassuring look as if to say she wouldn't betray them tonight. Then, at last, she turned and disappeared down the corridor.

Death snuck down the hall past two closed doors and then a few moments later passed by the open door of the lounge, noting with amusement that Trowa had chosen to sleep on the couch, with only the coat draped over him for extra warmth. The shadow continued on its way with the flip of a long chestnut braid. His destination was a small computer room he had noticed earlier.
Three montiors decorated a wooden counter top and shelves lined with medical diaries took up two walls. Violet eyes skimmed the titles but nothing caught his interest; he completely missed the leather bound volume lying on the floor below the third monitor, its cover engraved with the letters A. Reaves.
He glanced at the door, then casually switched on the first terminal and in no time at all was browsing through the files. "Potential cures, huh?" he choked out in a whisper, staring numbly at the data that came up. Even quieter, he murmured, "More like the means to spread those illnesses..." He clicked on an unmarked file, then smirked in the darkness at the profile that came up. "Well, this particular Pestilence has outdone himself! Didn't even get along with the rest of 'em..." Also contained in the file was information on gundanium... "Weelllll now..." He smirked and clicked another unnamed file. "Huh?" It wouldn't open. Nor would the three others, marked only as 'SW', 'TF', and 'AR2'. The smirk returned to his visage. "Hmph. Those guys never were careless about information." He switched off the monitor and sat back, mulling over various thoughts.
On impulse he turned to the second monitor just to see if they all had the same database. Triumph lit his eyes when a new set of folders came up. The files in the first one seemed to be encoded, as they were a jumble of accented characters. His eyes widened at the second folder; it had information on him, and all the details about Deathscythe -- including its weak points?! "Why that...Man, I hope I can find this guy and set him straight, for Shinigami is invincible!!"
The third folder yielded a "file type unknown" error message. The fourth was in a completely foreign language. A fifth listed symbols that reminded him of the pictures on a take-out Chinese food container. The very last file, standing alone, held the access log. And it revealed that he was the first person to open the files since... "Before Operation Meteor??" Duo stared at the date, confounded. So Alexa didn't even know this was here...She could have had the knowledge to control the other five gundams (providing she could translate all the files) and she didn't even know it...He swallowed hard as he eyed the folder holding Deathscythe's doom. He flicked the power switch then stared into the darkness.
He couldn't let anyone see this information, yet he couldn't exactly destroy the place, either. After much debating, he decided to just rig the door so it would never open again, and afterward have to remember to keep a close watch on Alexa...just in case...He rose and took two lock picks from somewhere on his person and got to work jamming the door. When that was done, the shadow snuck back down the hall to pretend to be asleep. After that, an occasional quiet snore gave away that he didn't need to pretend.

Alexa stared through the darkness at the wall of her room. So Trowa had communicated his doubts, and she had noticed Duo was cautious, too, although he hid it very well. Perhaps they both grudgingly trusted her for Quatre's sake. Both seemed concerned for their more frail comrade. Which was well enough. She hadn't expected to have any allies in this fight.
Either fight, she reminded herself as a pang in her abdomen caused her to curl up in a ball. She clenched her teeth, refusing to give in. Just a little while longer, please. I still have more missions to carry out. It isn't over yet. There is more yet to do... Her thoughts trailed off as sleep mercifully overtook the pain. Yet a dream rose up shortly afterward. Anger and explosions, then the silent drifts of space. Next an image of a young woman with honey-colored hair appeared, weeping for the loss of a kindness among the stars. The image disappeared, replaced by a void. Chilling laughter issued from it...and then the thing ripped through her mind again. But it relented when something new reared up before it, shaped vaguely like a six-armed shadow.
The confusion of visions gradually threw her into consciousness. Finally it was as though she was first watching the strange shadow, then staring at the wall again. She fumbled for a light and searched for paper to write down a note that would hopefully be of some use. She ignored the fact that a red mark was seeping into the bandage around her right knee. Time...Time has always been against me... She turned the light out but did not return to sleep.

Chapter Five, "Quatre Vs Alexa"

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(c) 2000-2004 Autumn Loweck. This work may not be copied, distributed, or reprinted without the author's permission. Characters of Alexa and mech LunaAria are property of Autumn Loweck (aka Shiri) and may not be "borrowed" or mentioned in other works without notifying the author first. Characters of Quatre R. Winner, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, and the OZ organization belong to the creators of the GundamWing series, Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, Bandai, and whoever else in Japan involved in this most cool anime.