Title: The Forgotten

Author: Caer

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Yaoi, violence, angst, language

Pairings: 2x4

Status: Work in progress (part 10)

Disclaimer: This is simply fanfiction. I don't own this anime and I'm not making any money. It's just for fun.

Slowly winding this story to the end. It's been a fun romp. I'm glad that so many of you stayed with me and kept reading. I apologize if you had to go back and re-read just to get caught up. I did too. ^_^ I do love this pairing. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be fun to either give this fic another chapter, or to just start a fresh 2x4. I don't think I'll ever stop writing Gundam Wing in some form or another, but neither am I an avid writer like some out there. Plus I have a Naruto fic and a PSOH fic that I'd like to explore soon. But I promised myself that I would finish up all but one of my loose ends before doing that. BTW, I was diagnosed with Cancer and I got married, so between planning and chemo I have just been to swamped/depressed/busy to write, so I apologize.

Forgotten 11

Relena Dorlian's contingent numbered about fifty people, including her aides and bodyguards. They were now all working on the event that she hoped would bring numbers of representatives from L2. The guards were seeing to security while her assistants were making sure the hall was organized and the food was being prepared. Pargan was working directly with Randolph Winner to his dismay. He had looked sour all morning and Relena took some comfort in that. She only hoped that they could expose this man for the monster he was.

"Miss Relena," one of her assistants yelled from across the hall. "Should we leave these Mobile units here in the hall? The people on L2 present little threat without projectile weapons, or beam technology. Is it too intimidating?"

Relena considered for a moment. She smiled.

"Leave them where they are, Grace. These people are street tough. MS Units might be complimentary enough to acknowledge that and yet still give them a sense of humility. However, leave them empty, as a sign of good faith."

The girl nodded and returned to business as usual.

"Miss Relena?" Randolph Winner approached. "It appears that some of your... guests have arrived early. Shall we search them?"

She looked toward the door to see a tall man with long black hair. He smiled at her, in what seemed almost a leer. However a slight bow of his head was enough to set her at some ease. She approached the man, her guards flanking her.

"My name is Relena Dorlian. I'm a representative of the Earth Sphere United Nations. I would like to welcome you to the SSIP hall. I hope that we can work together to find a way to bring L2 back as a legitimate member of ESUN."

She held her hand out and let him take it. The guards around her stiffened but remained still.

"I am Bossa. I have heard a little of you, but it does not do you justice, Freulein," he kissed her hand.

She smiled disarmingly and kept a hold of his hand. Boy would she love to have Quatre here. It would make it much easier to glean the intentions of these people. She switched to speaking German.

"I apologize in advance. We would like to search you for weapons, but we will not make you remove them. Will that be all right?"

Bossa's eyes widened in surprise. He rarely heard his own language except among his close friends and family.

"That depends? Will you be conducting the search?" He replied and grinned.

Relena blushed and looked up to see a somewhat perturbed Heero standing at the door behind the exuberant German. With him, were the two boys she had seen yesterday. Immediately, she was walking toward them excitedly, using his presence as an excuse to get out of the awkward but somewhat charming situation with Bossa.

"Heero! It's good to see you again." She turned to Winner while the boys warily let themselves be patted down.

"Mr. Winner, I met Trowa, Heero and Wufei yesterday when I was visiting the biodomes. They have done an incredible job of keeping up the gardens with such limited supplies."

Winner smiled and shook Trowa Barton's hand. "Truly, they are to be commended. I have been trying to get help to that biodome, but they have so far refused. Perhaps we can build a relationship of mutual support."

Trowa shook his hand. His face was devoid of expression. However Relena could almost feel the tension from where she was standing. She quickly stepped in.

"Well, we're almost done with preparations. You gentlemen are welcome to have a seat. I hope there are more than just you four."

"I have already heard that others are coming Freulein. Heero and Wufei spent some time convincing them to come. You will have your work cut out for you, convincing them of your help."

A shudder shook the ground and Relena looked around, alarmed. She noticed that though the other's stiffened, they simply rode out the shock waves with caution. Even Mr. Winner seemed unphased.

"What in the world was that?"

"Tremors." Heero replied blandly.

She looked to Winner for an explanation. As a gentle rumbling echo traveled along the walls and away toward other parts of the colony.

"The hydraulics of the colony are very old. They haven't been maintenance d for years. We have managed to update some of the parts, however a full replacement is beyond our budget at the moment."

"Is it dangerous?"

"It has always happened here on occasion. Every once in a while, a building gets knocked down because of it. I few tunnels have collapsed. But it's rare." Wufei said as the trembling faded.

"I had it inspected six months ago." Winner added. "The engineers concluded that as long as we replaced some of the hydraulics and lubricated the gears it should last another ten years before we have to upgrade the whole system."

"It usually doesn't last very long," Heero said quietly to her. "You shouldn't worry about it."

Relena felt herself leaning slightly toward the boy, entranced by his quiet sense of power and security. He just made things feel safer. To her unified joy and dismay, she could feel herself developing a crush on the boy. Not only was he easy on the eyes, but the quiet strength he possessed was impossible to resist. She smiled gratefully at him.

"Well then, if you gentlemen would like to be seated, we have drinks and appetizers. We can start discussing our plans while we wait for others to arrive."

Relena was subsequently pleased and shocked at the various characters who began to trickle in. Some seemed to be honest to goodness community while others seemed simply to be glorified gang leaders. Many of them arrived, with their "pets." There seemed to be a healthy sex slave trade on this colony. Relena realized a lot of work would need to be done here. Whatever treaty they forged would need to start very loose. The restrictions other nations and colonies had would have to be overlooked for a time. This colony had been on it's own for so long that an entire counter culture had been created. An entire nation had sprung from crooks and thieves and murderers and who knows what else. Sixty years ago, this colony was a prison and nothing else. When the wars had started, the guards who worked there had simply opened up the gates and left.

The most prominent leaders seemed to be the first man who had come in with Heero. Bossa Dues berg seemed to run about an 8th of the colony whether it was his own community or whether it was by protecting other smaller groups.

There was a group of five who seemed to run another portion of the colony. Two of them had "pets" along with them, very pretty and complete with collars and everything. This group seemed to be more mafia-like in their setup. Bossa seemed to have little admiration for them, but he knew how to talk with them. He would be a valuable diplomat, as many colonies would look down at their practices. He could work with them, even if he found it distasteful. He respected them and they respected him because of that. The hardest part would be convincing the other colony representatives that the people here had value and that they weren't nothing but criminals and rapists. Between Bossa's suaveness and Duo's charm, they might pull it off as representatives of their colony. The more she thought about this, it could work. The "pet" situation could be dealt with later.

Most everyone was at least tolerating each other. In fact the only one who looked like a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs was Winner. He was checking his watch and tapping his foot. Did he know something was up? Or was he just feeling the guilt of what he had done and was now nervous about getting caught. After all, there were a lot of leaders here. If any of them had seen or found Quatre, that would definitely be a red flag in Relena's "investigation" of Quatre's death.

She only hoped that Duo and Quatre were doing okay.

Not far from the conference, Duo and Quatre had used Quatre's card to infiltrate the main ship and were now headed down the hall for Winner's office. A few people passed them on the way, but they were dressed in uniforms that Relena had gotten them, so they merely looked like her subordinates Quatre kept his hat low so that the people he had worked with wouldn't recognize him. So far, they had done alright, though they would have to be careful as they got toward Winner's office since it would be far more suspicious to be accessing his private offices than random halls in the ship.

When they arrived, they waited for a few people to pass before going to the keypad. Quatre punched in his number and was denied. He cursed.

Duo was looking out. "What is it?"

"He must have changed the code."

"Well crap man. I brought some explosives, but here?"

"No," Quatre shook his head. He uses a few. I know most. Give me a second. Then we'll go to plan B.

Duo "psst" at Quatre and they stood up, and pretended to be ringing for Winner. A few people passed and smiled and then Quatre went back to typing in codes.

After the fourth code and a lot of pretending not to be breaking in, the door clicked. Quatre stared at the console.

"What's wrong?"

Quatre shook his head and smiled nervously. "The delay seemed long." He seemed to dismiss it. "One way or another, we've breached the passage. Come on."

Duo watched him walk in in front of him. He found his eyes wondering down to the tight red uniform pants.

"I'd like to breach your passage." He breathed.

"OW! Fuck me!" He said a minute later. "What'd you hit me for?"

"Shhhh."

And the door slid shut behind them.

At the conference, Relena was having a hard time keeping the peace between the different factions. Even with Bossa and Wufei's help, it was hard to convince these people that it was in their best interest to except help.

"We've done okay on our own!" Said one of the leaders. "Why should we except a bunch of crap rules when we can make our own food already.

"That is barely!" Bossa said with passion. "Do you recall that seventy of your people died last year after one of the buildings collapsed? We are barely able to feed the people, and many of them don't get enough, even our own. Without the supply from SSIP, we would not have not been able to upgrade the lights for our biodomes. Our colony is dying."

As if to prove his point, the whole colony rumbled again. Everyone seemed a little cowed. Bossa drove it home to Relena's delight.

"You hear that? That is from parts that haven't been replaced in over seventy-five years. Do you know how to fix it? Do you? We need this help. We need to make our people people again. We can't do that unless we become a formal colony again."

Everyone was silent. Relena was waiting for the right time to speak, when a beep interrupted the conference. Winner stirred and pulled out a phone. Talking quietly on it, he nodded. Relena and Bossa exchanged glances. He rose.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm afraid I must excuse myself. I have a situation I must attend to. I will leave you in the capable hands of Miss Relena."

"Excuse me, Mr. Winner, perhaps you can explain the water situation on this colony?" Bossa tried. Relena found no viable reason to keep him there.

"I'm afraid this is an emergency that must be attended to. I'm sure Miss Relena can apprise you of the situation, which is a dire one. Excuse me."

He left the conference hall, still on his phone. Relena and Bossa were left standing, staring at each other. Relena made a decision to go on without him. There was nothing either of them could do for now. She just hoped Quatre and Duo had gotten what they need.

In Winner's office, Quatre was not having luck.

"This is stupid. Why can't I remember the name of the man?"

"Um, gee, Quatre, maybe it's because you were DYING." Duo said, while he played with some kind of magnetic toy.

"I'm searching his email and I just can't remember. It was a Russian name I know."

"Well if ya ask me..."

"Found it! It was Tsuberov. I'm loading his email now. Now for a drive."

Quatre sifted through the drawers and found a key drive. He began to download the information as he scanned it.

"I don't know if this is enough, but it should be enough to indict him. I hope." Quatre sighed.

"What you mean murdering his own son isn't enough?"

The door slid open and Quatre and Duo spun toward it. Winner stood there, with a gun.

"I suppose it depends on if anyone finds out, Mr. Shinigami. Yes I know you. You've stolen enough of our wares. We do have cameras you know. But I suppose you don't. I know who you are."

"Father please," Quatre moved protectively in front of the braided youth. "Please leave him out of this. I'll do anything you want, but let him go."

"Quatre, no. I can handle it."

"No!" Quatre turned and took his hand. "I would never forgive myself if something happened to you. Please, just go."

"Typical of my son," Winner snorted. "I can always get at you later, boy. Quatre, come with me, we need to have a talk. I'm sure you can guess what will happen if you try to run."

Quatre swallowed and nodded. He turned. "Duo, don't try to follow me. Just run."

Quatre turned and followed his father out the door.

Duo sighed shakily. He had seen guns before, but had never been this close to one... especially the wrong end of one. They did horrible damage. He looked down in his hands, where Quatre had left the key drive. His choice was clear. He could follow Quatre or he could go find that Relena girl and give her the information.

"Tough choice," he whispered. He pocketed the key drive and started after his lover.

Quatre had gone to the right so he started there. He knew Winner would probably head for the incinerator. After all, even Duo knew that you could trace a bullet with the right technology. If Winner was going to kill Quatre, he would want no body.

However, it seemed Winner had thought of Duo's following as well. In the next corridor, Duo stopped cold. Alex and Mueller were there. One with a club and the other with brass knuckles.

Duo crouched and got ready to fight.

H'okay, so we're getting close to the end now. Let me know what you think!