Quatre let his fingers slam down on the keys during a climatic moment of the song. He’d been surprised that the people at the hotel had let him use the piano in the enormous lobby at all. It was obviously because he was a gundam pilot, and of course they were treated as first class citizens everywhere they went. But Quatre had also noticed how the girl behind the desk had been very shy and blushing through the entire conversation. Quatre had shrugged it off; some things were beyond him to understand.

The piano itself was fun, since the boys and Cassandra were staying in a five star hotel the lobby was decked out with any extravagance thought off. Therefore the piano, of course, wasn’t just stationary like any other piano, but gracefully suspended on top of it’s own pedestal which was floating in a picturesque little lake flanked by a large fountain emptying into it. Quatre had to jump a few feet just to get to the instrument without getting wet, and he hadn’t wanted to provide any entertainment for anyone. Although people certainly seemed to like his manifestation of a bunch of very annoying knotted emotions.

Trowa had come downstairs to watch or make fun of his friend, whichever availed first. The tall boy was at the moment settling to blink at his Arabian counterpart. "What’s the name of the song?"

"Nocturne No. 9, by Chopin," Quatre answered as he got into a slower part. "Very long piece of music if you play all of the movements. It’s nice because some parts are tame, but others are very angry. Chopin was one to put as many notes in a single beat as he possibly could."

"Information and a show," Trowa nodded. "Very nice."

"You’ve graduated to making fun of me already?"

"No, I know you’re not interested in doing anything except blow off steam. My question is what is it over?"

"Huh?" Quatre’s piano was floating towards the other side of the lake.

Trowa started walking to keep up. "What in the world could you of all people possibly be stressed over? You shouldn’t let Heero see because then you won’t live long enough to tell."

"Oh," Quatre sighed. "You know about the treaty, don’t you?"

"Yes…what about it?"

"Well, we’ve got over ten thousand people coming to watch MIND declare war on the Earth Sphere. There is no possible way we can stop them."

Trowa arched a light brown eyebrow. "Well…I have some ideas."

"Do they involve us retaliating?"

"Some of them."

"Then forget it," Quatre’s hands hit a climatic part again and the lobby filled with haunting sound. "The delegates will turn on us just as quickly as they would MIND if they thought for even an instant that we were interested in a war too. We’ve got to stop them peacefully. That is if we stop them at all, we could just see how the whole thing plays out."

"That’s not the normal Quatre talking."

"No, it’s the ‘running out of options quickly’ Quatre talking. I don’t want to have to be the one that breaks Relena’s heart by telling her this. You’re welcome to enlist Heero though."

"Okay," Trowa jumped up onto the ledge of the pool. "Now I know you’re emotionally unstable. I don’t think I’ve ever heard sarcasm out of your mouth. You aren’t going to go ZERO on me, are you?"

"Um…I’ll get back to you."

"Fine then. Here’s a perfectly peaceful plan to tide you over then," Trowa looked annoyed at the fact that Quatre’s piano was moving away from him. He blinked, sighed, and saw no other option apparently except to jump into the pristine water and slosh over. He hopped onto Quatre’s platform at sat down, ignoring his wet jeans from the knees down. "We don’t want to join their telekinetic armada, but what’s to say that they have to know that. We can create a decoy and spoil their plans from the inside. It’s worked before."

"Which is why they’d probably be expecting something just like it. I appreciate the effort Trowa, but you really should try me when I’m in a better mood."

Trowa let his face slip into a masking blank stare. "You were never this stressed during the war."

"Oh it was much easier then. We were trying to get peace, not maintain it. Everything was in a nice black and white perspective. If we won there would be peace, if we lost there wouldn’t be. So don’t lose, I told myself. Now I think I’m going to blame politics."

"Politics are annoying. I still like the direct approach we used in the old days."

"Let me guess, would that be the cliché ‘shoot first and ask questions later’?"

"If the method has been proven to work on multiple occasions it’s the most efficient."

Quatre blinked again. "If I wasn’t completely off balance right now I’d never think you were growing a sense of humor behind everyone’s back."

"I have no sense of humor I’m aware of."

"Okay, just checking…"

***

Heero turned his laptop around for everyone in the room to see. It was counting down numbers rapidly. "This is how long we have until Moiya will call us regarding our decision. We have until then to come up with a plan."

"30 hours? Yeash, we’ll definitely have something by then," Duo laughed as he pulled up a chair, straddling it backwards and leaning on the top of it. "You sure you aren’t having any fun with this, Heero?"

"Positive," Heero made a sour face at his counterpart. "This isn’t a game, you didn’t think so when you got off that plane."

"Let’s not bring that up, buddy. Hey, do I personally attack you to prove a point? I don’t think so."

"I don’t have much of a personal life to attack."

"Convenient for you, isn’t it?"

"Very."

Heero, Duo, Wufei and Cassandra were sitting in the hotel room discussing their options. For once the pilots were in a situation that even they couldn’t find a loophole in, no matter what they did to combat MIND it could not involve retaliating. The politics were dreadfully annoying and dreadfully clear: if you want to make enemies of all of the bureaucrats, just get involved in a war, no matter who started it or what side you’re on. Certain people in the room didn’t care at all about some stuffy politicians, but unfortunately they had long lineages or self named girlfriends that did. So the boys were boxed into a corner.

"Why don’t you just join us?" Cassandra proposed with a grin. "MIND is very nice and you get to have lots of fun."

"Little onna, you ran away, remember?"

"Only because the same old food was getting boring."

Wufei gave his sister a small shove. Duo blinked at the warrior’s warped form of showing affection. "Did certain people bother you too much?"

"Who? Li? Nah, she was too busy with the whole ‘filing the pilot’s data’ thing."

Heero held a hand up. "Who’s Li?"

"My other sister. Her name is Liana. She insists on going as Li though to make people think she’s a boy."

"And why in the name of all sanity would she want to do that?" Duo questioned with a cocked eyebrow.

"Think about my culture, Maxwell. Uppity onnas don’t last very long, my sister is one of the few and loudest women to ever gain respect as a pilot. Besides for Nataku of course."

"Li worked a lot with Chang Meilan before she died, she still brings flowers to the grave every week," Cassandra chimed in, "which someone hasn’t done in years."

Wufei’s usually pale face got distinctly red in such an odd fashion that Duo had to look away for a moment. His onyx eyes narrowed and Duo wondered for a second if Cassandra was in real danger. "Little onna, I never, ever want you to insult Nataku’s memory like that to my face again. This is the last warning, next time I’ll make sure you-"

Cassandra, faced with such an emotional outburst from her brother, just laughed and stuck out her tongue. She was, however, smart enough to run to the other side of the room while doing so. "Oh brother, you know that I only tease you because it’s easy to take years off of your life that way. Stop getting so mad and maybe I won’t have a reason anymore."

Wufei turned away muttering a lot of less than nice words under his breath in his native tongue. Heero had never seen him take such lenience on someone who insulted them. This ‘brother, sister’ bond was something open to further investigation.

"Is your sister older than you?"

"By two years. She’s nineteen right now."

"Is she on our side?"

"You expect me to know that? Liana is on whatever side she feels like. Kind of like me except her sense of justice is so off base that-…never mind."

Duo nodded. "Why don’t we call her? Her and the rest of the old crowd, Noin, Sally Po, Zechs if we can even figure out where that crazy old idiot is. Let’s just discuss it with them, after all, Moiya was right when he said that no rational person will believe us anyway."

"And the old crowd is rational?"

"Nah, they’re pilots, who’s rational in that line of work. They’ll give us some interesting advice."

"Okay," Heero shut the laptop with a sharp noise. "As long we go see one person of my choice."

"Who?"

"Mariemaia Kushrenada. I just want to see what she thinks of this."

"She’ll find it very amusing," Wufei snorted. "I certainly do."